At 3:30 in the morning this morning, the smoke detector in my bedroom started chirping. At 6:00, I finally crawled up on the dresser, took it down, put it in my bathroom, and shut the door, but I could still hear it.

Around 10:00 this morning, everything in the house shut down except the laundry room light, which is probably connected to the garage wiring. Mom said, “Oh no! I’m going to have to call an electrician!” I asked her where the power panel is and fortunately, it’s in the laundry room so I had enough light to see it. I started pushing every button that was labeled “Light” and everything in the house turned back on again… except for Mom’s computer. I tried to get it back on, but it wouldn’t start. I looked at what the cords were plugged into, and there was no surge protector. Mom has had her computer go out several times when there was no one here to help, and I’m guessing that’s why. So, she had to make an appointment for someone from Geek Squad to come and fix it on Tuesday.

Once that was all fixed, I had light enough to try to figure out how to get into the smoke detector. It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped to be able to figure it out. I kept shooting pictures of it from different angles and sending them to Mark, but by the time he was about to respond, I finally figured out how to open it. Then I couldn’t figure out how to get the battery out.

So I started writing to Mark about that, but before he had a chance to answer, I wiggled it and figured out how to get it out.

Mom took me to Ace Hardware and the manager helped me find the right battery and a surge protector cord. When we got back home, I got the computer cords all plugged into the surge protector so that hopefully, after the computer is fixed, it won’t go out again.

However, I had trouble figuring out how to get the new battery into the smoke detector. I tried several ways and couldn’t get it angled back in so that it would lay flat. With much effort, I finally got it in, but when I tapped on the tester, nothing happened. I wrote to Mark again and he said it should make a beep when I press on the tester. I finally figured out that I had to hold the tester down for a couple of seconds before it would beep. Then I climbed back up on the dresser and put it back up on the ceiling! Mom said she was glad I was here and Mark said he was proud of me for fixing it all by myself!

Mom has another project I may try to work on soon. The screen door on her front door doesn’t have the arm to bring it back in when it’s opened. I asked Mom what happened and she said she had taken it off to fix it and then couldn’t get it back on again. I’m proud of her for at least trying to fix it herself at 94 years of age!

Some other things need work. In my bedroom, there is a light switch by the door that turns the bedside light on the opposite side of the room off and on, but I skinned my knuckle trying to grope my way to bed last night after I turned the light off. There’s a light switch right by the bedside light, but that turns on the light in the laundry room outside the bedroom door. Weird, huh? Why would an electrician set it up that way? It would be nice to get that fixed, but I’m not the one to do it!

Also, the little soap door in Mom’s dishwasher doesn’t open up to let the soap out. Mom was asking if she should get a new dishwasher, but I said it might be cheaper to have it repaired. I would think that would be a fairly easy fix, but again, I’m not the one to do it.

Mom is creating a list of things that maybe Mark can help with when he comes up this spring!