Kwaree Blog

Installing a New Kitchen Faucet and an Under Sink Water Filter

I have always wanted an under sink water filter. I’m not sure why, especially since we have a whole house filter. I guess it’s because the whole house filter is all the way down in the basement and I keep thinking the water gets all screwed up traveling through the pipes. I like the idea of having a filter close to the tap.

I decided that I had the capabilities to install an under sink water filter myself. I mean, I do have the brains and the patience. It’s not really a hard job, just one that you have to psych yourself into doing because you have to clean out under the sink. You know…all those bottles of who knows what and cans of what the heck it this. Throw in a few old sponges and there you have it – the area below a kitchen sink.

There was one little issue that was in the way of me installing a water filter. The faucet we had installed on the kitchen sink was a bit out dated. It was one of those “one handle” ones that sits right in the middle. Some people prefer that style, but I always liked the two handle ones. In this case, the two handles are preferred because the water filter only runs on the cold line. I like knowing that when I turn on the cold water, only the cold water is running. So, I basically needed a water filter and a new kitchen faucet. Not a problem, I’m really cheap when it comes to kitchen faucets and the filter setup was only $34. It even came with the insert.

Off to Lowe’s I went. When I got there, I strolled down the filter aisle and picked out a “Whirlpool Drop in Filtration System – WHKF-DUF.” This is the $34 jobber I just told you about. I knew what to expect because I already picked it out online. I put the filter in the cart and went over to the next aisle that had all the faucets. There they were, all lined up on the wall. I knew I wanted the chrome Peerless for around $44, but I was forced to get the $68 model because we have a four hole sink. That means that we have that extra little sprayer. You know, the one that you can wrap a rubber band around and sit back in its holder. When someone comes by to turn on the sink, they get sprayed. Yeah, that one.

I picked up the model I needed and put it in my cart. Or what I thought was my cart.

Here’s a funny little story. When I rolled my cart into the faucet aisle, I saw a nice family standing there trying to pick out a kitchen faucet. I noticed that they were kind of just randomly picking things out and didn’t know why. There are differentiating factors in faucets such as the one handle or two that I spoke of above. Also, there is the height of the faucet end. Our old faucet was low, so when I tried to get a large pot filled with water, I had to angle it such a way. Anyway, I broke the ice by saying, “Boy, I feel like I’m part of the family.” They laughed and I laughed. The father just looked at me. There were three of them…the mother, the father and the daughter. Okay, on with the story. I told them about the height issue and why and they were just amazed. As far as I was concerned, they thought I was the cat’s meow. I left the aisle to go out to the garden center.

When I got out to the garden center, I picked out two trees and put them into the cart. I stood back and looked at the faucet. Then, I wondered where the filter was. For the first time in my life, I grabbed the wrong cart. I think it was the faucet aisle family’s cart that I had taken. I left the cart outside in the garden area (because I already had the trees in it) and walked back into the faucet aisle. There it was, my cart with the filter in it. I felt bad for the poor family that had to walk away with no cart, carrying the faucet in their hands. They probably thought I was just fluffing them up earlier so I could steal their cart.

Okay, story time is over. Here are some pictures of the kitchen faucet and under sink water filter installation.

Everything works great and the installation took me about an hour and a half.

I have always wondered why there is such a big price difference between faucets, and doorknobs for that matter. Either I have never used a really high quality faucet or doorknob or I am just missing something. Every time I go shopping for either, I always get the cheapest available and find that they work just great. Maybe I am missing something. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

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Valentine’s Day At Foxwoods And MGM Grand

If you weren’t aware, yesterday was the day of love. It was the day that souls join, people buy each other chocolate and roses and tell each other how much they love one another. If you are “with” someone, it was the day to remind yourself how much they mean to you. If you aren’t with anyone, it was the day to get up and remind yourself to find someone. My friends, yesterday was the day of action and whether we like it or not, it comes every year. Oh, one more very important thing…yesterday was my mom’s birthday. Hi mom.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had made a reservation at Firebox Restaurant in Hartford, only to cancel it. We decided to go back to Shrine at MGM Grand instead.

I was really excited to go back to Shrine. The food is awesome and the atmosphere is even better. We had a really great time the last time we went.

On the way down to the restaurant, I kept thinking that we were going to have the place to ourselves. For some reason, I figured that everyone in the world was going to be sitting on the couch, cuddling under the blankets, watching a good movie. I thought we were the only ones who would really brave this St. Valentine’s day on the outside. Well, I was wrong.

We made a right off of the main road and turned into the entrance of MGM Grand at Foxwoods. I read the sign above us while driving into the parking garage. It said, “Levels 1-4 Full. Level 5 Open.” “That’s not good,” I thought. I told Laura that something must be going on, but in the back of my mind, I knew there must be some mistake.

We drove up to the first level of the parking garage. Full. We drove up to the second level. Full. We drove up to the third level. Full. We drove up to the fourth level and found about five open spots, but I wanted to see if there was anything better on the fifth level. There was nothing up there, so we went back down to the fourth level. The five open spots turned into three open spots and I took one of them. I guess something really was going on, but what?

We got out of the car and started walking into the casino. I took Laura’s hand in mine. After all, it was Valentine’s day. We walked quickly through the doors and into the elevator.

Upon exiting the elevator and entering the casino, we were greeted by crowds of…say…”interesting” looking people. We knew there had to be some sort of concert or show going on, but we had yet to figure out which one. Laura guessed it was Motley Crue, because there were so many people wearing black concert t-shirts. She remembered seeing something about that band somewhere along the lines.

We started walking towards the restaurant. I kept looking at people’s t-shirts to see if I could find some sort of clue as to what was going on. Finally, I saw two t-shirts that said, “Kid Rock.” “Oh, it’s Kid Rock tonight, sweet doll,” I said. Laura agreed because she had just seen one of those shirts too.

Have you ever seen Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? If so, have you ever noticed the area where everyone meets and drinks? It’s like a big mixture of all types of beings from all over the universe. That’s kind of what it was like last night at this casino. There were all types of people from all over the place. I mean, some of these people aren’t out in normal daylight. The only place you would find them is in a casino, tucked deep into the night. We saw truckers and bikers to ballerinas and trapeze artists. There were people with one head, two heads and three heads. People who couldn’t walk, people who walk too much and everyone in between. It was an interesting experience. One thing is for sure, Foxwoods really needs to update their anti-smoking rules…or make one altogether. The amount of smoke you inhale just by being in that place is terrifying.

We made it to the restaurant just in time for our 8:30PM reservation. We were promptly shown to our seats. We noticed that the restaurant was chock full of people. I mean, this place was jammed. We didn’t mind because with the frame of mind we were in, the more the merrier. The restaurant was really loud because there was a DJ doing his thing downstairs at the nightclub. People were talking, yelling and laughing while drinking their scorpion bowls…those big, huge scorpion bowls.

Our waitress came over to say hello after about five minutes of us being seated. Not bad, considering all the people she was taking care of. She said hello the first time and by the second time, we ordered every last thing, just to make things easier on her. We even ordered two glasses of plum wine because that is one of our favorites.

As our drinks and food arrived, I held my glass up and in the spirit of St. Valentine himself, I made a toast. I said…well that’s private, but it was well worth saying because we both smiled when I was through. We took a drink and began to eat some of the best food we had in some time.

When we were finished eating and fully satisfied, we left the restaurant. We thought it would be fun to take a walk over to Foxwoods to see what was going on over there. I mentioned earlier that I had never been to Foxwoods, so I was really curious as to what it looked like.

There is a long hallway that connects MGM Grand and Foxwoods, so you don’t need to walk outside. In this long hallway, there are two of those long, flat, moving floor things that you would normally find in an airport. You know, they are like flattened escalators that you stand on and they carry you along. When we arrived at the flat escalators, we instinctually stepped onto one of them. Now, the trick is to walk on these escalators, so you can really get some speed while heading down a long hallway, like the one we were in. You can maintain probably twice the speed you would if you were simply walking on regular ground. Well, last night, no one knew that you were supposed to walk on these things. Everyone in front of us just got on and stood there.

About half way down the hallway, Laura turned to me and said, “This is like a bad dream.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “Take a look at the carpet over there. Look how slow we are moving.” I didn’t know what she was talking about because I thought we were moving along at a nice speed. I was looking at the flat escalator that was moving in the opposite direction of the one we were moving in, so it looked like we were moving twice as fast as we really were. I looked up and past that escalator to the carpet and started laughing. We were going sooooo slow. It was like we were drunk or something. People were casually walking right past us on the carpet as we were stuck on this thing. There were people on crutches, babies crawling, old men staggering along…all moving much faster than we were. It was hysterical.

When we finally got off that thing, we buzzed right along. I forgot my camera in the car, so I wasn’t able to take any photos, but I will tell you that Foxwoods is much more interesting than I thought. I was like Disney World in the inside. There were all sorts of little shops with storefronts designed and painted with different styles of architecture and color. It was really cool…and big. Foxwoods is big and long. There is a shuttle, if that gives you any indication of how big it is. Much bigger than I was prepared for.

When we were finished with our Foxwoods tour, we decided to head back over to MGM Grand for a little midnight gambling. We walked and walked and walked. We walked right past that moving floor thing and made it back to the other casino. When we got there, we broke a $20 bill and walked over to a slot machine. I said, “Pumpkin, go ahead and make your bet.” Laura sat down and put a $5 bill in the machine. On the first pull, she didn’t win anything. On the second pull, she won $1.30. She instantly looked up at me and said, “You want to go?” I started laughing when I realized she was serious. She wanted to walk out a winner, so I said, “Heck yeah. Let’s get out of here while we are on top.” We walked over to the payment machine and cashed out. You should have seen us running through the casino floor like we had just won the lottery. It was great.

We left the casino and walked back to the car. We hopped in, I started it up and took Laura back on the open road. But before we left the casino property, I did manage to get a few pictures of the outside. I know it’s disappointing, but this is the best I could do because of my forgetfulness. For that, I am sorry.

Well folks, there you have it. Our Valentine’s day 2009. See ya next year.

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How To Mulch A Flower Bed – Benefits Of Mulch

Do you remember back when I transplanted those shrubs from the front yard to the side of the driveway? Well, everything is going well, except for the fact that the soil I planted everything in is extremely fertile for weeds. I had a little forest growing within a few weeks.

I finally got my butt out there about a week ago and weeded the whole garden. Weeds will only stay down for a short time unless you do something about them. Also, in the garden, I noticed some small plum shrubs getting very dry leaves. That was caused by the very dry soil.

The problem is that every time I tried to water the shrubs when the ground was dry, the water would run right off the dirt. It was very frustrating. This stopped the shrub roots from receiving the much needed water. Also, the soil that the water did soak into dried very quickly from the hot sun.

There really was only one thing to do…mulch. Yesterday, I went out and bought about a yard of mulch just for this occasion. This morning, I did what I had to do.

First, let me explain the benefits of mulching a flower bed.

- Mulch keeps down weeds – prevents germination of many weed seeds
- Mulch keeps the soil moist in between rainy periods and hidden from the hot sun
- Mulch looks really good and accents your garden areas
- Mulch breaks down to add organics to your soil
- Mulch moderates the soil temperature
- Mulch protects the soil from the impact of raindrops that cause hardening
- Mulch encourages the growth of earth worms and other beneficial organisms
- Mulch keeps your plants clean by inhibiting soil splatter when it rains
- Mulch helps the rain water soak into the ground slowly so it doesn’t run off

With all these benefits of mulching, I was very eager to get started. Here are some photos of the process…

Garden before shot - no mulch

This is the before shot of the area I mulched. As you can see, I started digging the beginning of it when I remembered the I had to get the camera. Sometimes I am so excited to get going that I forget one of the reasons I am doing it…PICTURES!!!

Garden dug out and ready for mulch

With a pointed shovel, I edged the entire garden area. I put the shovel about half way into the soil and then just slid it under the grass to peel it up like a carpet. I then put the grass and extra soil into the wheelbarrow to dump on a rocky area that needs soil and grass. I am hoping if I spread it out, it will grow.

I dug the area to be mulched so it’s about four inches below the dirt the grass is growing in. That makes edging later on a heck of a lot easier.

Bags of mulch ready for use

I spread the bags of mulch out where I thought I would need them. When I got to each bag, I ran a knife up the side of each one. This made it a lot easier to pour where I needed the mulch. For this project, I used 27 cubic feet of mulch. I was about 15 cubic feet short.

The mulched garden area

This is the mulched garden area. As I mentioned above, I was about a half yard short of mulch. I like to put it about three inches thick. I had to spread it thin because there just wasn’t enough. I think I am going to wait until Spring to finish. It is a lot easier when all the plants aren’t in the way.

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Thundercloud Purple Leaf Plum & Bradford Pear Buds

I went outside yesterday to take a few photos of some buds on some trees. I grabbed a few good ones of our Thundercloud Purple Leaf Plum and the Bradford Pear.

I have to say, this blog has been very handy for me to look at when I start wondering when things are going to bloom. Every Spring I think the same thing…when is this going to grow, when is that going to bud? I asked those questions last year, so I thought ahead. Last year, I began documenting (with photos), right here on this blog, when things start changing. Now, all I have to do is look at the archives on my blog to find out. Pretty cool…

Anyway, here are the photos I took yesterday:

This photo is our Thundercloud Purple Leaf Plum. That’s a pretty cool tree, but the Japanese Beetles LOVE it. Beware. I hope to get some nice growth on it this year.

This is the Bradford Pear that we have in the front yard. It grows kind of slow, from what I have seen.

I will be taking more photos as the season goes on.

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