How I wasted my time today

Today’s big projects were to finish this google analytics course I’ve been working on that had to be completed by Wednesday and put a new thermostat on my heater. I did in fact finish the course (and I had a lot of units left to cover!) and take the test. Which I passed! First test I’ve taken since I don’t know when. I’m totally counting this as job search-related, since I’m building skills which could lead to a job, blah, blah, blah.

I did not get the thermostat installed. I have this wall heater, and its thermostat had stopped working right at the end of last winter. Of course didn’t bother to fix it all summer long. According to the packaging of the new one I bought, installation should take 15 minutes. My rule of thumb for me and house projects is to double the estimated time it should take. I had to up that estimate the minute I had the cover off the old thermostat. Who knew there were so many wires in a thermostat? And then I got more confused by the fact they, in theory, have standard labels with names like white and red, but those don’t necessarily correspond to the color of the actual wire? Based on my internet search, everyone in the world knew this. I didn’t manage to crack the code of which wire is which, so the old thermostat is still there. In the meantime I cleaned it off, thinking maybe the inch of dust on top of the mercury switch (it’s an old heater) might be throwing things off. We’ll see…