Setting Priorities

Today I feel both disappointed with myself, and satisfied with myself.

I'm disappointed because I did not help with the ballet studio's Winter Open House and Rummage Sale.  During The Nutcracker performances, I'd made plans to help out (despite my own misgivings of planning & organizing a rummage sale 10 days after Christmas.)  But then, as evidenced by yesterday, life caught up with me.

That, and I needed to reassemble my dryer vent.

So the dryer vent is one of the banes of my existence.
THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH IT!
(1)  The inadequate roof vent is clogged with 10-year-old matted lint.
(2)  And we don't own a ladder tall enough to reach the lowest eave.
(3)  The conduit from the floor to the roof is about 20 feet.
(4)  It slopes the last 9 feet.
(5)  The interior conduit is, I believe, repurposed rectangular downspout.
       Because that fits within the framing.
       As opposed to making the framing fit round conduit.
(6)  So. Not. Code.  (Wait!  The county has no codes!  Ha-ha!)
(7)  I need to fit a 12.5 sq.in. round peg into a 6 sq.in. rectangle hole.
(8)  That's off-center.


A few visuals:


This is the vent opening, and the repurposed downspout.

This is my dear, sweet, up-to-code, UL certified dryer.

Quite the mis-match, eh?

I bought an arsenal of things that might make a connection that can easily be removed & cleaned, that would be less likely to catch lint.

And I ended up using what I had removed.  It had been cobbled together by the last tech to work on my dryer.

I don't work by the hour or by the job, so I was able to take time to securely reassemble the parts and to use vent tape to smooth it all out.  After I had to cut the connector piece in order to make a truer 90-degree bend, the round conduit fitting was more of a 3.5 than 4 inch diameter.  Luckily, I had a true duct connector (both ends crimped, a pair of tightening belts included,) which created the transition I needed.  It made the unit stick out an extra 3-4 inches, but Carley was able to figure out a way to get back there and gather up the slack on the flexible conduit so it could be back in its original position.

So I'll see how it holds up, and how soon I'll need to clean the conduits.

Someone said that charity begins at home.  I believe the intent was that charity is first modeled in the home.  Mrs. March took it a step further when she entreated her girls Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy to concentrate their efforts at care and helpfulness with each other first.  Or as my husband reminds me, you can't pour from an empty bucket.

I truly missed spending time with my fellow ballet-moms.  I consider them friends, not co-members.  But I do need to take care of myself and my family first, so I can give more of myself when I do have the time.