Two Love Stories...One Nissan & Then a Personal One

Prologue:
Several weeks ago are you kidding me, months ago - it's been at least since last December, a person in my life who will forever remain nameless, backed out of our garage and completely demolished the driver side ~non-collapsible~ (pooh!) mirror on my nearly brand-new Nissan Altima. Said person tried to order a new mirror, but ultimately failed. I sat by, bided my time...and finally decided enough was enough already!
I went to my very best www friend in the whole wide world - that would be google - and bought myself a mirror for exactly $52.34.
Now my only obstacle was having it installed. Thought I could do it myself until I talked to a colleague who told me he'd googled directions, tried to follow them and ultimately ruined his car door trying to install his mirror. That scared me. A LOT!
Again, I turned to my best www friend and was directed to the Nissan Club Forum. There was a post claiming Nissan had made the installment of mirrors a breeze that anyone could do! Hard to believe.

I posed my question:
Hi all - I read here that all you have to do is "pop off" the little panel on the inside of the driver door and the innards of the driver rear-view mirror is easily handy to replace the mirror. Is this true? And if so, in what way do I "pop off" the black piece without breaking it? IF this is true, CONGRATS to Nissan for making an easy fix!
annbb

I got my answer:

"Welcome to the club. Yup, it's really that simple. The black panel is held by one push-in-the-hole clip and 2 tabs on the bottom. If you pull the top of the triangle out, it'll pull the clip out and then the bottom will feed out as you yank. It's always scary the first time because you don't want to break anything... "

(And they were oh so very correct - look at that beauteous new mirror on the right!)

The before story...

Stella is so disgusted with the damage done to the mirror -
she can't even look at it!

Stella has now turned away in total disgust.

The story continued yesterday:

Look! I've followed instructions and was able to easily remove the panel without a screwdriver or pliers in sight! Whoa...this is easy. YOU GO NISSAN so far.

Here's the panel they said would easily come off and then go back on without much chance of breaking. Dang! They were not lying! I think I'm beginning to love my car!

The tools required for the fix.
Don't ask me what I did with any one of them.
BUT...how can any human being live without a socket wrench set?
And how can socket sets be so cheap?

Voila! The mirror!
Completely installed by moi!
Nissan, you have made something consumer impossible, possible!
That is just wonderful!
EVERYBODY NEEDS TO BUY A NISSAN NOW!!!*
They're making simple repairs just that...simple!
*OK, just because I'm able to install a mirror on my Nissan,
everyone should buy a Nissan??

Uh oh...ummmm...let's see.....something's missing...
Possibly that might be the red cover that was
"safely stored away" in a place that wouldn't be forgotten by moi?
O dear...Where in God's name did I put it??
That just isn't a good look!

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

A BIG April Fool's Day P.S. to my beloved hubby: Happy Anniversary! 32 years...wow! How the hell did we do that??? It seems like just yesterday we were prancing down the aisle! Guess what, GB? I'd do it all again in a heartbeat! xoxoyourabb

Give a Guy a Chainsaw...

Before...

After...

Hubby and son spent the good part of a recent weekend ~redesigning~ our front yard. What started with the removal of one bush that was ugly and in front of the bay window ended with the subsequent removal the crab tree and all the over-grown monster bushing lining our front steps. As soon as we get the stumps removed, we'll figure out what to plant next. That's a new female holly bush and the smaller one to the left is the male holly. (I want holly berries and you must have both a female and male for that to happen.)

Be careful what you wish for when 

you give your guy(s) a chain saw! 

Could get ugly...

~~~

xoabb

expect changed landscapes!

~

That's My World Tuesday!

Come join us!

First photo:  4/23/09

Second photo: 6/15/09

Hey! That's TWO Miracles in One Day!

It was a touching scene. A family bonding time. The five of us, mom, dad, three kids, all together for the better part of the day. In the basement. Cleaning it. O the words said to each other...O the words said to each other that can't be repeated. And we lived through it, the five of us, without carnage or death to any one of us. And today, we all still like and are even still talking to each other! Now that's a miracle!

The other miracle? WE HAVE A CLEAN BASEMENT! It took well, I'm too embarassed to say how many years a year, but, by golly, WE HAVE A CLEAN BASEMENT! Here, I'll show you:

Isn't that just beautiful???

So, #6 of my 2007 New Years Resolutions which I reiterated this NY'sE, It's a bye bye to you:

6. I will clean out my basement. Actually my husband and I have to do this as we're close to having our house declared a booby-trap hazard. How did it get so out of control??? Didn't happen,dammit! It did happen! Yippee!

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Ahhhhhhhh....

We've spent the last two days purging our garage and shed. After lots of vacuuming, cleaning, and organizing, along with five trips to the dump, four trips to Goodwill and three trips to various folk's home with their stuff we somehow had, we have a garage and shed that's positively gleaming! Now on to the basement. (sigh)

The above photo has nothing to do with anything. It's from my mom and gorgeous, at least to me.  As she wrote:  "It's hard to get the tomatoes and cukes picked when there's so much needing to be photographed. One drop of dew looked like amber, and how about the brilliant cut diamonds to the side?"  Since I've lost the majority of my photos, every so often I'll be stealing I'll be borrowing photos from my photography-minded family.  Yep, shameless family exploitation at it's best! Oh, I'm sure they won't mind!

~~~

xoabb