The main issue is I’d like Adalyn to be able to wear them without leaking overnight but the leg elastic is so loose that abundant wetness isn’t being kept in the diaper any longer. So I got my cloth diaper repair kits from the diaper manufacturer and have been meaning to gradually repair them but I’ve been super intimidated about how to thread the new elastic through the already-sewn-closed holes. The last thing I have time for is disassembling and reassembling 24 diapers. So I’ve been brainstorming…

Yesterday I finally figured out how to make this repair easily, after trying a few other bloggers trick for the repair. Here is how I did it:

The post Easy 5 Min Cloth Diaper Elastic Repair Trick appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

This week our only car, the 1991 Isuzu Amigo, yeah the one I just spent $300 on a new top for started squealing whenever the clutch was engaged (it is a manual transmission). I first noticed it this weekend at the ballet while we were driving along together over the weekend.

I commented about the sound and how it didn’t seem like a good or normal thing N said it was the cold temperatures causing it and was done with it. The sound and also the fact that the clutch has been sticking and loosing pressure has been going on since the weekend.

Today when we got all bundled up in our 3 layers and were headed out to hit a few stores we immediately noticed that our sidewalks and streets were iced over as we practically slipped to our death on them which meant the drive was going to be crazy.

N scraped the car windows and we were all set to leave the house when the car would not go in to gear. It was like the clutch was not engaging despite N’s forceful attempts at engaging it. The clutch would not work and the car is still squealing away.

I am pretty sure the transmission is shot now. When the clutch was still engaging but the squealing started we thought it was a transmission fluid issue. Just today N pulled the car repair book and read that the fluid access area was under the car. This of course discouraged him about adding transmission fluid which it clearly needed.

Before heading out to the attempted shopping trip he called several lube and oil places to see who works on manual transmissions. If we could pay someone to add the fluid that would be great. Problem is only one place would do it, for $130.00 and it would take several hours. That would make N late for work so that idea was out of the question I guess…

Now the car wont go in to gear and we are trying to figure out our transportation situation. How will N get to and from work through the holiday week? N got a ride from a coworker and went in an hour early today. Will we be able to get the car to a mechanic to fix the issue before the holidays or after? The car is being towed to a local transmission shop for free today thanks to our Chevron Travel club membership.

N will get to drive a station vehicle home from work tonight to ensure he is able to get to and from work the rest of the week. We know the repair work will take several days and that it will probably not even start until after Christmas since no mechanic is going to be fixing a car on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

I am still wondering if it will be an easy (inexpensive) fix or will it break the budget?

All I know is that it was our only transportation and I thought we were trying to be proactive in maintaining it so it would be there for us and get us around. Now we are in a predicament and it is all our fault for not acting sooner to fix the issue once we noticed it.

Although, I am beginning to calm down and to be less angry about the issue. Must be my hormones making me a raving lunatic huh?

Oh and it is not snowing, we have freezing rain here and will continue to the rest of the day. If it snowed I might feel a bit better…

The post Still no snow and crappy car trouble… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

As some of you already know, our car died last week and we had planned to work on removing the alternator this weekend. I have never worked on a car before but we didn’t let that stop us.We had our little manual for the job, it showed photos and directions for getting the tasks accomplished so we bundled up. Headed out to the freezing garage to shuffle boxes and make room for the car, we didn’t want to work on the car in the snow. Once we made room for the car we put it in neutral and used another car to push it into the garage.

We spent about 1 1/2 hours trying to get the damn car on the jacks so we could get under it.. Nothing we tried raised the car high enough to slide the jacks under and eventually we gave up on raising the car.

We got the battery out of the car and were starting to loosen the pulleys for the belts that we needed to remove that were almost impossible to reach. We spent forever trying to loosen a stinking nut so we could remove the belts. We were trying so hard that when the wrench finally moved an inch or two our knuckles slammed into another part of the car scraping them all up and even slicing!

We look like we put out hands in the garbage disposal or something! Those nuts were freaking stuck on good, we were so determined to get it off that we actually stripped the nut more than we loosened it. That took about 3 hours.

In the end, about 4pm we still had made no progress, our backs hurt from trying to maneuver ourselves into workable positions, our toes we cold and our hands were bleeding. I threw down the wrench remarked at how much we didn’t get done and that we were out of time now (we had to do a secret shop that evening).

I went inside, slammed the front door real good and then sat on the floor in the kitchen defeated.. My kitties came to check on me and to smell the blood oozing from my hands, the dog even tried to paw me with hopes I would snap out of it. I was mad and very irritated. Working on cars sucks, how do they expect you to be able to see what you are working on and to get your hands in there to do the work when it’s all jammed in there like that? N reminded me that in Japan (Nissan is a Japanese car company) they usually have smaller hands and maybe getting to certain areas in the car was no problem for them.

That didn’t lessen my anger and I proceeded to get ready for our mystery shopping when N came in and said the car was running. What do you mean it’s running? How is that possible?

He said he just reconnected some hoses and tightened the things we loosened.. then he tried the car just for curiosity and it started! So, technically we fixed the car, it wasn’t the alternator we fixed but banging our knuckles on stuff and jiggling things around seemed to do the trick.. Nice huh?

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