Homemade Winnie the Pooh ears :)

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Fixed my Dell Vostro 2510 laptop LCD screen

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/replace-damaged-lcd-screen-dell-vostro-1500-laptop/So, I dropped my laptop and it landed screen down and spread open and my LCD screen cracked. I forgot to take a picture of the broken screen. Here's how I replaced the screen for my Dell 2510. I followed the instructions for a Dell Vostro 1500 which was only a little different.

Tools that I used: one eyeglass screwdriver and a pair of tweezers (I dropped one of the screws in a hard to reach place).

My broken screen

I pulled off the little sticky black circles (6 total) that were covering the screws in the plastic frame or bezel.

Here's the screw behind the sticky black circle.

The top circles are actually rubber pads.

The sticky tape holding the rubber pads in place kept getting stuck to the screw.

I used the flat head of the screwdriver to pry off the sticky tape to reuse.

Picture of the sticky tape circle on my finger. I tried to keep it as circular as possible.

I stuck the tape onto the rubber pad that I picked off.

After all six screws were removed, it was easy to pull off the bezel.

Here's a photo of the bezel completely pulled off.

There were three more screws take off near the bottom of the screen at the corners and near the middle. The two screws in the corner attach the metal frame to the lid of the lap top and one in the middle that held the inverter connector in place.

Inverter connector screw.

Once the metal frame could be separated from the laptop lid, there were six more screws that needed to be removed. These six screws held the LCD screen to the metal frame. I removed the screws before I unplugged the inverter and the LCD cable connecter, but I should have unplugged the two cables first before unscrewing the LCD screen from the frame.I ended up putting the screws back in before I unplugged the cables.

The following pictures are of the LCD cable connector.

A close-up of the LCD cable connector.

The connector was held in place by some tape. I peeled the tape back slowly

I peeled it off only the LCD screen parts and left it stuck to the cable side so that I could reuse it on the new screen.

The LCD cable connector pulled straight out. I didn't have to pinch any flaps or tilt it.

Underside of the LCD cable connector.

The cable connector was also stuck to the LCD screen near the bottom of the screen.

I slowly peeled the sticky part of the cable off of the screen.

The inverter connector was at the bottom of the screen near the middle.

I pulled the pink and white wires out of the inverter.

I pulled out the old screen and screwed the new screen into the metal frame. Then I screwed the frame and inverter back in place.

  

 I removed the plastic from the new screen.

I plugged the LCD cable connector to the new screen.

I stuck the tape to the new screen.

I plugged the inverter cable back in. The new screen had a pink wire and a black wire instead of a pink and white.

I snapped the bezel back in place.

I put back all the screws in the frame and the black covers.

My new working LCD screen :)

Rewiring Thermostat to Furnace

Currently, the wiring from our furnace to our thermostat only has two wires, red and white. These two wires let our heat and fan to be on or both to be off. I want to add a third wire so that the heat and fan can be on, the fan only can be on or both are off. I got some new wire with three wires so that I can run a wire from G on the furnace to G on the thermostat. I hope that works! Below is a good website that lists the colors of wires and what they do. We don't have AC so that's less wiring for me!

I'm still looking for a good video about how to pull the new wire using the old wire.

http://www.dr-fix-it.com/ttt/10005.html

Terminal Designation	Wire Color	Function Description
Rh	Red	24 Volt Hot for Heating
Rc	Red	24 Volt Hot for Cooling
Y1	Yellow	First Stage Cooling
Y2	Blue	Second Stage Cooling
G	Green Grey *	Energizes Indoor Fan
W1	White	Energizes First Stage Heat
W2	Black	Energizes Second Stage Heat
O	Orange	Heat Pump Reversing Valve Energized In Cooling
B	Brown	Heat Pump Reversing Valve Energized In Heating
C	Brown**	24 Volt Neutral (Common) leg

Corner toilet

Where did the owner of this house find a corner toilet?

Testing email to blog with a photo from Berkeley Bowl

Sent from my Samsung Epic™ 4G

New Mommyhood Blog

Check out my new blog about the things I never could have imagined about pregnancy, post partum, breastfeeding and mommyhood at muchmorethanmorningsickness.blogspot.com.

Handmade Baby Crib Bumper

I couldn't find a crib bumper I liked that was less than $40 and was ready to settle for the Ikea crib bumper for $12.99. It's cheap and simple. We went all the way to the east bay, over the bridge to get one, but they were all out even though their computer system said that they still had it in stock.


Here are a couple on Amazon that I was also considering:

white breathable bumper for $20

and this white cotton bumper by carter's.

I ended up making a bumper for baby out of an Alexander Henry print from Jo-Ann's Fabrics. The print is called kleo and this woman on etsy is selling it and she has a lot of other pretty prints.

Baby Chokes While Breastfeeding :(

The first time that baby choked while breastfeeding, I thought I had drowned my baby. Her little cough was so sad. I immediately sat her up and started patting her back. She seemed to get over it quickly and wanted to go back to feeding. I asked our pediatrician about how to prevent the choking. He said that she probably choked during a milk let down. At the time, I didn't know when my let down was occuring. Now I can tell. I feel a tingling near the tip of my nipple when I let down. The doctor said that I could press my finger just above baby's latch to slow down the milk. Seemed to help. Now she delatches by herself during a let down. The first time she did, the milk sprayed all over her face. :)

Bottle Drying Racks

  I love the grass bottle drying rack by Boon, Inc.

When my husband was home on paternity leave, he fed baby at the 6 am feed so that I could sleep after the 3 am feed until the 9 am feed so we only needed a small bottle drying rack to dry one bottle and my pump bottles and valves. At first, we got this small bottle drying rack at Babies R Us for $3.99.

It was ok, but when you're tired, you don't really want to bother with arranging the bottles and valves carefully on each little stem. I guess the larger bottle drying rack version 

would have worked better with the basket in the middle in which to throw the little pump pieces, but my cousin got us the grass bottle drying rack before we had a chance to try the larger one and I'm happy she did. Not only is it super cute, I can just throw bottle supplies anywhere on the rack which is convenient in the middle of the night :)

Mother's thumb

After I had baby (and a little toward the end of pregnancy), my hands were swollen in the morning and it hurt to use my thumb to do simple things like pull up my pants. I thought the thumb pain was just due to the swelling and would go away when the swelling went away. I tried icing both wrists with an ice cube wrapped in an Ace Bandage at the base of the thumb several times a day which helped alleviate, but not take away the pain. Fifteen weeks after baby was born, I was back to pre baby weight, with no swelling, but my thumbs still hurt. At my post partum appointment, my OB/GYN recommended an orthopedic surgeon that I could see if the pain persisted. I finally made an appointment and went yesterday. He told me that I had de Quervain’s tendinitis, a common ailment for new moms which causes the tunnels holding the thumb tendons to swell and cause pain. My tunnels were so swollen that I had bumps at the base of both thumbs. He also said that eighty percent of mom's who suffer from this had girls.

The treatment was just a couple of cortisone shots to the tunnel through which the thumb tendons run. The shots were super painful even after a topical anesthetic and a little freezing of the area. The surgeon stuck the needle into the tunnel and squirted. Instantly, the swollen bumps at the base of both my thumbs went away. The pain did not go away instantly, but today is the first day that I have had no pain in my thumbs! They are a little sore, but I can definitely tell that they are on the way to recovery! I don't know why I didn't do this earlier. Dr said that chances of pain coming back were slim and is very unlikely in subsequent pregnancies. I'll write again in six months to see if the cortisone shots stuck.

Back to Blogging

I'm back to blogging after some time off to have a baby. Here we are in the Peruvian baby sling that I bought at the market in Aguas Calientes, Peru. It's actually just a square piece of cloth, but the Peruvian women use it to carry everything from babies to groceries to goods for sale.