Success, Of Sorts, I Think

I like tools. I like learning how to use them. I don't like going into something knowing I could cause damage.

For about three weeks now, I've been holding my breath while I wash our dishes. There was a nasty, gassy, nauseating smell coming from the faucet, and I could NOT figure out what it was. I asked friends, I looked on-line...nobody knew. Finally I phoned the man who does service calls on our water softener. I had figured out the problem was just with the cold water, just in the kitchen sink. When I told him that, right away he said, "You need to change the carbon filter under the sink."

Noooooo!

I was really intimidated. The only other time that filter was changed, a friend had to remove the whole case, take it to his workshop and put it in a vice to get it open! Then another friend helped me close it again - well, he just did it for me, but he said if I mounted the filter on the wall of the cupboard, I'd be able to get enough force going to do it myself the next time. He was going to do that for me, too (yes, I have great friends!), but ran out of time that night.

So the answer to the weeks-long mystery nastiness was a simple filter change, but in order to make that happen I had to buy mounting screws, also buy drill bits (our first set disappeared after a hammock installation), figure out how to use the drill, attach the bracket to the filter top then screw the other side of the bracket into the inside of the cupboard without drilling into the dishwasher next to it, then hope to have enough traction to open the filter.

So it took me another week to get myself to start in on this. It sounds like a small thing to do, but it was overwhelming me with the number of things I didn't know how to do or thought I probably couldn't do or could damage.

It's done! Almost. The filter is on the wall, and two of the screws are completely in. The other two are mostly in, but the drill was big enough I couldn't get the angle right. We did it twice, as trying to get the first four screws in stripped them. By the second four, I'd figured out what I was doing wrong. "We" was myself and daughter#2, which was a good thing, because she had had shop in high school and showed me how to improve my drilling technique. Couldn't have done it without her.

In the end, there was enough traction to open the filter. I can breathe again while I'm washing dishes. Whew! And next time the filter needs changing...I can just change the filter. Easy.

(I still like my drill, and I still wonder if the points of the screws are embedded in that dishwasher wall!)