Happy Birthday to YOU!

Among the myriad improvements over the past month, we have had the doorbell installed. This took several trips to hardware and lighting stores (who knew that lighting stores carried door bells??), conversations with the electrician about wireless versions and the need for transformers, and a bad stretch where we were told we needed to obtain "a diode."

Now, you try walking into Radio Shack and asking for a diode. There are only about 6,042,998 different types of diodes. But, that's what the electrician told us we needed. Turns out there was a diode in the packaging along with the doorbell. He just threw that bit away. Luckily, we found it (since he's thrown away other invaluable parts to things like, oh, light fixtures).

The doorbell got installed. The little button you push on the outside of the house got installed. It's all good.

Except...the factory default of this fancy thing is for it to play Happy Birthday when you ring it. And not just any Happy Birthday. These are big, resonant bell tones chiming out a very LOUD Happy Birthday.

While initially hilarious, this soon became annoying. Accomplishment for last weekend: we now hear We Wish You a Merry Christmas when someone rings the bell.

And we do! Wish you a Merry Christmas, that is. Take care, all.