Let Us Ramble, Shall We?

Have you ever had something kind of nag at you? It's not anything world changing or really even all that significant in the grand scheme of things, but you're just not content with the situation?

And is that vague enough for you?

Let's take a trip back to Spring of 2007. Sometime in April 2007, if my memory serves me well, and there's a really, REALLY good chance that it doesn't, our shower head developed an annoying quirk.

(Admit it -- you really didn't see the shower head thing coming, now did you? I'll bet you thought this story was going to be about something significant, even though I already warned you that it wasn't!)

Back to the shower head and its annoying new habit. It started out with a little trickle of water around the threads where it screwed onto the pipe. Nothing much, just a little trickle. A little trickle, a little annoying, nothing more.

Since I'm the handy ma'am around Diane's Place I was the one who'd installed the shower head in the first place so I knew I'd be the one who would have to fix the trickle. Eventually. When it bugged me enough that I couldn't stand it anymore. But for the moment it was just a trickle.

Warning, rabbit chase commencing: I dearly love my hubby and he has many gifts and talents, but anything related to home repairs and upkeep or electronics is beyond the realm of his understanding, much like my understanding of nuclear physics and where that one lone sock from the laundry always goes to hide.

Rabbit chased, back to the topic at hand.

I do most simple home repairs and maintenance, including replacing our simple shower head with a combination stationary/hand held shower head some 8 or 9 years earlier. Clearly the shower head had given us the best years of its life and served us well, and my first diagnosis was that more than likely over the years of use the shower head had just gotten loose and needed to be tightened back up or needed the Teflon tape reapplied.

I was wrong.

Over the course of a week the trickle progressed from a, well, trickle, to a stream of water shooting at a 90 degree angle up toward the ceiling. Not only did that reduce the water pressure from the shower head to practically nil, it also had an irritating habit of splashing down right in my eyes whenever I faced the shower head to rinse my face and my front.

The day of reckoning had come and I dragged out my tool box and set about either fixing the problem or tearing it up for real. In my experience there's always a 50/50 chance of success or failure under those circumstances.

It didn't take long to isolate the problem. As soon as I grasped the collar of the shower head where it threaded onto the shower arm, it fell off in my hand, leaving just the threaded collar on the shower arm. The plastic had broken all the way around the collar and there was no way to repair it.

Houston, we have a problem.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't generally keep a spare shower head laying around just in case the old one should, oh, I don't know --- break off the pipe and fall off in my hand!

So now I faced a dilemma. Well, probably not a dilemma to most other people. My husband and I are both disabled and it's very difficult for us to get in and out of the bathtub, especially to take a real live, honest to Pete bath, so 99.99% of the time we shower instead of taking a bath.

Fortunately my hubby and I had just showered right before I operated on the shower head, but in another day or two we'd more than likely need to bathe again. I mean, really.

My hubby had already arranged to ride to Jonesboro with his Mom and step Dad that afternoon, and unbeknownst to me, he took a check from our checkbook with him. I don't remember now where I was or what I was doing, but I didn't go with them for some reason.

Apparently hubby was feeling a little anxious about not being able to take a shower until I could get to town and buy a new shower head to install so he decided to do some shopping on his own.

He brought in a new shower head and I installed it with no problems. It didn't even leak the first time I tried it out, which is a little unusual. Most of the time they leak a little and have to be tightened a little more or have more Teflon tape to make the fit water tight.

But.....and here's where that thing I mentioned in the very first paragraph comes in. Remember way back at the beginning of this when I asked if you'd ever had something nag at you? Something that wasn't all that important, really, but just didn't work for you?

Well, hallelujah, I'm finally getting around to that whole point! I'll bet you're thinking, "It's about dang time!"

Our old shower head, the one that broke off the shower arm, had a water saver button on it. You could leave the water on at the temperature setting you liked and turn a button, and the water would slow to a little trickle.

I liked that because when I shaved my legs in the shower I could turn the water down and have enough water to clean my razor between swipes, but I didn't use up all my hot water, so I had enough hot water after shaving my legs to finish my shower at a comfortable water temperature. Just flip the button back to full flow and resume your shower as usual at the temperature you'd left it set on.

Our new shower head has 6 settings on it, from a fine mist to a massaging spray to a pulsing jet and so on.

But....it doesn't have a water saver button, and I miss that so much! All those settings are all well and good, but I would trade most of them for a water saver button.

As I said way back at the top of this post, if you can remember way back there, this shower head is only a little over a year old. I've thought about buying a new shower head with a water saver button and replacing the one we have now, but I just can't seem to bring myself to do it.

As much as I hate using all my hot water to shave in the shower and then finishing my shower with cold water, I just can't seem to make myself spend the money and replace the old shower head with a new model that has a water saving button, especially when the shower head is still working great.

Adding to the angst is the fact that if I factor in all the hot water I've wasted over the last year or so, the cost of a new shower head with a water saver button would be offset by the money saved on hot water.

Then there's also the fact that if I actually buy a new shower head, I'll also have to install a new shower head.

We're just never happy, are we?On a somewhat related note, and I'm not quite sure why I feel compelled to share this here, I desperately need to shave my legs. Or maybe I should say, I need to bush hog them.

I mean, I really need to shave my legs. As in, if I go too much longer without shaving it'll look like I've got on furry chaps made out of that fun fur stuff they use for crafts and for upholstering '73 model Chevy vans.

I'm not really sure why I've waited so long to shave my legs. I guess I could claim that the reason I've procrastinated so long is because of the shower head not having a water saving button on it so I put off shaving to avoid having to finish my shower in cold water.

However, since the actual temperature here on Monday was 1o3F a cold shower is a reason to celebrate, not an excuse not to shower or shave.

Must put "bush hog legs" on the to-do list.My daughter JESSICA@JESSICA'S WORLD posted this button on her blog and asked her readers to please take the button and pass it on to their readers with this explanation:

"This is how this award originated: Crystal at Memoirs Of A Mommy created this award in honor of the donor that saved Noah's Life. Noah is her son and he had a heart transplant when he was under one month old. He just turned one earlier this month!! Her hopes are that in passing this award around, we are creating more awareness of the importance of organ donation. If you are reading this PLEASE take it to your blog and keep it going!"

I'm passing this on in the spirit in which it was originally offered. If you'd like to keep this going, feel free to take it and award it to any or all of your readers as you choose.I think I've bored everyone quite enough with my ramblings today. That's if you're still here after that revolting and perhaps alarming bit about my hairy legs.

Here's wishing everyone a great Wednesday and remainder of your week. May God bless you by meeting all your needs, and may you have enough to share.