It's good to have itty bitty hands!

Yeah. So. There I was in the blistering heat, sweat rolling down my cheeks like the Mississippi River.....

Lemme back up a stroke or two. Or four.

For a few weeks now, Ben has mentioned that he's wanted to replace the windshield wiper blades on the car as well as fix our headlights. (The driver's side was out.) And for the last few weeks, we've simply forgotten to make the trip to Advanced Auto to pick up the materials to do the job.

Yesterday morning, as I was dropping Ben off at the tower, his co-worker, Stephen mentioned that our headlight was out. I replied, "I know, I know. We're just too lazy to fix it." I shouldn't have said it like that I'm sure, but it got me thinking.

Why can't *I* buy the replacement parts and see if one of the maintenance men at the campground could give me a hand. So, off I went. I first went to Wal-Mart across town (my least favorite place to go but I discovered that 8 o'clock in the morning on a weekday ain't so bad!) because we also were out of CampaChem and Wallyworld is the only place we can buy it. Naturally, they were out of it but they did have windshield wiper blades. I noticed that Rain-X made their own brand and I thought I'd try them. Later, I discovered that they were the most expensive ones at $8.97 a piece.

After I was done at Wallfart, I mosied on over to Advanced Auto. Like the smart girl that I am often known to be, I looked in the book for the item number I needed for my Saturn. I decided to buy those bright, bright white lights---not the ones that have a blue hue to them but the ones that are like 110+ brightness paper. *wink*

I paid for my merchandise and out the door I went. When I got to the campground, I asked Andy (a maintenance guy) if he'd help me install them. He said, "Sure! Lemme finish a few things and I'll be right over."

That was at 9am.

10am came and went. 11am came and went. Next thing I know, it's almost 1pm! I figured that he wasn't going to show up. Well, I reallllllllly wanted to surprise Ben with this so I figured that I'd give it a try. I mean, how hard could it be?

I dug out the owner's manual from the glove box and set to finding the section on headlights. Turns out that on the passenger's side, it's simple as pie to get out and replace and put back into the slot. The driver's side, however, is an entirely different can of wax!

From the vague directions in my owner's manual, it said that the fan module had to be removed before replacing the headlight. Hmm... Ok. Then it said in order to do this one must use a flat screwdriver to press down on the release and then pull the module out of the way. Hmmm...

I got my flat screwdriver. I pressed. I pressed and I pressed. Nothing. The thing wasn't budging. I was getting a little frustrated because 1) despite the fact that it wasn't "hot" outside, the sun was at it's azimuth in the sky and therefore beating down on me causing me to sweatperspire like nobody's business; 2) because obviously a MAN had to design the engine of the car. I mean, would a WOMAN have put a stupid fan module RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE HEADLIGHT REPLACEMENT AREA??? I think not! Well, after 20 mins of messin' with the thing as I'm rapidly melting like a crayon on a hot sidewalk, I decide on another tactic.

I decided to try to wiggle the headlight out of place by putting my small hands in between the front of the fan module and the back of the the headlight assembly. It took a little bit of skill, but in 5min I had it out. It took me a little bit longer to put the new one back into its little slot, however.

Butttttttt... I DID IT!!!

I was more than thrilled! Next, it was time to try the wipers. Ahem. Yeah. Ever seen the back of a wiper blade container? The directions are not only vague, but they give you 4 different options depending on the type of mounting you have. Yeah.

Well, I wasn't successful at applying the directions to my mission but I didn't give up. I decided to carefully inspect the mechanism and from there, I eventually got the sucker off! I also remembered the cardinal rule in auto mechanics:

Since I got the first one off by some bit of luck, I decided to try the other side right away instead of putting the new blade on the side that I had just removed. It took a little more work since I was at a funny angle but I managed to wriggle it off as well. Putting them on was quite a bit easier to figure out despite--again---not being able to use the directions on the packaging.

VOILA!!!! In just over an hour, my car had brandnew headlights and new windshield washer blade assemblies. I was tickled pink that I did these both all by myself without a lick of help. I was estatic for the remainder of the day.

Ben? Well, he was over the moon that I took it upon myself to tackle what could have been a daunting task. He even mentioned how appreciative he was that now *HE* doesn't have to take that time away from another project to do the one that I did for him.

So, next time you're in need of changing out your wipers or headlights, gimme a call! I won't charge much.

(I also do serpentine belts... )

Until next time...peace, love & HEALTH!!!