RIP Remote Control

This winter just seems to go on forever and has caused me more than one problem. With it, every little problem seems to be that much bigger. The latest house malfunction is one I've been expecting for a long time but I was hoping I'd make it to spring and deal with it then. Back in about 1852 my Dad bought a garage door opener. Maybe not that long ago but it is definitely headed toward the antique time of life. When I bought the house in 2006 (was it really that long ago!?!) I realized the remote for the opener was on its last legs. The button on the remote was taped on it looking pretty sad. When I checked with a garage door place they said this remote was SO old it couldn't be replaced. This style just wasn't made anymore. I kept it taped and babied it figured some day the opener itself would die and then I'd replace it all.

About a month ago the button started needed extra prodding to get it to signal the opener. I really hoped it would survive till spring but about a week ago the remote died. I took it apart and cleaned it, check the circuit board, changed the battery, did everything I could think of but - that puppy is dead. The opener works fine but  leaping out of the car to run in the house, go into the garage, open the door and then back into the car to drive into the garage while it's -30F wind chill is not a fun thing to do! I can't used the side door of the garage because its so piled up with snow that has settled and really frozen in place so its thru the front door of the house, stomping off the snow before walking across the carpet and dealing with it.

Guess its time for a new opener but I didn't want to make someone install it in the middle of a deep freeze! Now that it looks like were heading toward above freezing weather for a while I can go opener shopping. At least it will be cheaper than paying for 7 years of water in in month!

What all this extra running in and out to go anywhere means is I plan my trips carefully because ti just not convenient (man I'm spoiled! my last house didn't even have a garage!) Back to the story. Because I don't go out at the drop of a hat, I've been doing more around the house. This morning I decided to play with some fabric I bought on a shop hop. It's 5 Christmas fat quarters and I wanted to do something quick so I made a pillow case top to cover one of the couch pillows.

Time to play the ever fun game - What did Jill do Wrong?

 

 

I was going for an interwoven ribbon look. Check out the lower right. Everything is in the right place based on my striped order but - because I didn't put the right ribbon going downward on the left and the gold print on the right, the interwoven part of the lower right doesn't look interwove. If I decide to fix this it means ripping out the lower half or the right half of everything so I can switch the order of one of the sets of red/gold ribbons.

 

It took me a while to notice this but now that I've seen it I have a feeling this will bug me forever unless I fix it. Guess I have some hand work to do - rip-rip-rip.