Jill the repairman....I mean woman

Another story that some of you might have read... but not all of you! This one happened right before Christmas.

I was thinking that my pants were starting to be baggy and hang a little lower because my last 10 pounds of Zachary is finally starting to go away (5 more to go). But then I realized I was just trying to fit into my new role as appliance repair man.My dryer stopped working last week, after 5 1/2 years of diligent service (you realize this is like a dryer lasting another family 12 years). It would spin, and clothes would dry after about 3 hours, but there was no heat. Everyone said I should just buy a new one, and be glad that we got as much use out of it as we did. However, it is Christmas, and there are a lot of things I would like to buy right now, and a dryer is not on the list. So I strung a labyrinth of ropes in the basement, and hung the clothes on the line last week on laundry day. This was 9 people's clothes, and it took up a lot of space. So I put on my repairman pants and got to work.I have no idea how anything works, other than you push a button and it performs its intended function. So then while Mark was at work on Thursday, I took the dryer apart to see what was going on.I took the dryer front off, and started it up. I watched the ignitor glow, then the flame started, but then went away after 10 seconds and stayed off. Then I turned to my trusty laptop, and googled my problem. I narrowed it down to 2 parts that could be faulty.So I called a repair shop and found out it would be $300, $100 parts and $200 labor, to fix it. Then I looked online, and realized I could buy the parts for $30. So I did. As the pile at the bottom of the laundry chute was up to my shoulders by this time, and I was desperate, I paid an additional $40 to have them overnighted. The parts came Friday afternoon, and Mark was willing to install them, but I wanted to finish what I had started. So he watched in awe as I dismantled the dryer in about 15 seconds, unplugged and unscrewed the old flame sensor, installed the new flame sensor and tested the dryer. As luck would have it, that was not the part that was the problem. So then Mark loaned me his muscles to unscrew 2 very tight screws on the gas valve coil cover. We installed the 2 new coils, tested, and VOILA! We had a functional dryer.Today is laundry day again, and I'm doing a little happy dance each time I pull out a batch of nice warm clothes from the dryer.