So far, I’m not sure I like this new decade. The gremlins have been loosed upon the world:) This week has been fraught with tiny disasters. The hot water tank was the biggest “surprise,” and we spent a week chasing those gremlins down. It started with the breaker tripping and just got worse from there. On close inspection, the tank wasn’t looking that great.  There were signs of wear and tear, and moisture around the heating element (think water + electricity:)…So, given its age, we decided to replace it.  Well, when we pulled it out, we definitely “found the problem.”  The entire back seam was split open.  Ever heard the phrase “bursting at the seams?” yeah, well.. I guess it’s a thing:) So then we tracked down a replacement and were hooking it up.  so far so good.  Plumbing 101, more or less.  Simple solder-job.. ie heat the pipes up so the “solder-glue” can bond together. Well.. just inside the top of the tank… there is a tiny safety valve.  it’s plastic. There is a very distinct order of operations.. which, in hind-sight.. makes perfect sense.  However.. heat+plastic=melty problem. fun times! 🙂 

Good news…the tank is now replaced and… I think there’s hot water– and no leaks! Yay!

Then there have been book-gremlins! Yikes! Amazon glitched some things up. And that caused some ripple effects. In some ways, a relaunch is harder than a fresh release. I had to get sites like Bookbub and Goodreads to un-publish the old versions of the series– and that took a lot of back and forth.

I still need to update the website (shhh– don’t go poking around just yet:)… but at least now, I can sit down and focus on my “day job.” Right after I spend a while in a nice hot shower!

Oh… and I had a coffee-flavored jelly bean. It wasn’t a catastrophe… it was just.. weird!

Have you had 2021 gremlins? Share your gremlin stories in the comments:)