Current packing stage: 1.5; A Few Small Chores

[rebeccmeister]

Unsurprisingly, this has been a weekend of a few small chores. Just a few.

One of the floodlights out back burned out, so I figured I should replace it. When I went to remove it from the socket to see what kind it was, the front glass cover came clean off in my hand. This seems like an Arizona kind of problem. I replaced the halogen bulb with an LED one, and was interested to note that the local Ace Hardware doesn't seem to carry any CFL's anymore. I don't know about you but I'm content to transition away from those.

I managed to get out of bed before 8 am this morning. I'm still not sure why I've been so tired in the mornings, but at least I've had a chance to try and sleep that off. After some breakfast, I thought it might be a good idea to work on deconstructing the raised bed out back, before it started to get too hot. Even so, I sweated buckets and gave myself a bad thumb blister/tear in less than 5 minutes. I should have put on bike gloves right away.

Now the wood pallets are out by one of the giant trashcans, and the soil is in a big pile:



I think there's about one full yard of soil there. I've advertised it to friends via social media, but if there aren't any takers I'll probably post it to Craigslist. We might also wind up having to break down the pallet wood even further. It was just the other day that I was making all those trips up to Singh Meadows to buy all that soil and then pedal it home, bag by bag.

Let's see, packing stage 1.5. Bookshelves are pretty much all packed - only cookbooks left. Next on my agenda is organizing and then packing up all the canning jars. They're currently a jumbled mess, spread across 6 or 8 boxes and stacked in cupboards, too. After that, I'll tackle the small tchotchkes, and then maybe I'll also start making inroads on kitchen stuff - at least the stuff that I hardly ever use: pizzelle-makers, stand mixer, angel food cake pan, etc.

Comments

[rainswolf]

It is interesting how CFLs were all the rage for awhile, now they're disappearing.

Perhaps companies are excited about how much they can charge for LED. I'm skeptical that LED lights really last SO much longer as to be worth the extra cost, but it would be an interesting scientific experiment to see how long they actually last.

[rebeccmeister]

LEDs should absolutely last longer than CFLs based on the technology they use. I suspect the thing that caused CFLs to get phased out is the fact that they're filled with mercury. So they need to be disposed of as hazardous waste - i.e. taken somewhere for disposal - which is an extra hassle. Plus they've never managed to really replicate the color and light that incandescent bulbs produce.

[bluepapercup]

The harshness of the CFL light kept me from ever switching. We have LED ones in most of the House now, all as warm temped as possible. In five years we’ve only had one bulb fail, and it was a discount one.

[coinneachf]

I replaced all my incandescents (those silly giant bathroom globes, you know) and CFLs with LEDs three years ago. I've had one LED fail in that time. Meanwhile the CFLs that my complex uses in the outdoor lights go pop pretty regularly.

[rebeccmeister]

Ahh, so nice to have some data to substantiate things. What is it that causes LED lights to fail, anyway?

[coinneachf]

I suspect it's the controller. LEDs tend to run hot; the actual diodes themselves are extremely reliable.