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One of the delights of getting older (she said sarcastically) is discovering new ways in which your body can break down on you.

My current experience is a prime example. Over the past couple of weeks, my jaw had been so tightly clenched that it was giving me headaches and an earache on the side that was the most affected. It took a massage and a trip to the chiropractor to set it right.

Apparently, all the clenching and grinding of my teeth caused the filling in one of my back molars to come loose and then come out. Now that I think back, I can say with reasonable assurance that it happened on Friday night while I was eating pizza with my nephew.

I didn't really start to notice that there was a problem until the next morning, when I discovered that heat, cold and sweets made it really twinge. At first I thought I'd cracked my tooth, but a look in the mirror revealed the actual problem.

Of course, there's nothing you can really do about something like that over a weekend. I called my dentist's office and left a message, so I'm hoping I can get an appointment on Monday to get fixed back up.  They'd listed an emergency number on the voicemail greeting, but I wouldn't call this an emergency. It's inconvenient and I'm getting tired of chewing everything on the other side, but I'll survive just fine until they can squeeze me in for a new filling.

If you need me, I'll be over here half-enjoying a meal of something soft and lukewarm.

Today I had the alarm company come out because the keypad that we use 99% of the time to turn the alarm on and off was getting really difficult to press. Our system dates back to when the company was still Brinks. Now it's ADT and I understand the company was just acquired by another alarm company, so we'll see where that all ends up.

The upshot of my conversation with the service guy is that our system is ancient (we had it put in around 1997) and there are no replacement keypads to be had. Because we had another rarely-used keypad in a different part of the house, he recommended that we just swap them. He also offered to clean out the bad one as much as possible to make it more functional.

That all worked out pretty well and now we have an almost-new keypad in the kitchen (seriously, it still has the plastic film over the display after all these years) and a better-than-it-was version upstairs. Best of all, the service call was free.

Once that remedy exhausts itself, it'll be time to have a new alarm system installed.

Because we've lived in this house for almost 21 years, I'm finding more and more things like that keypad that either need to be fixed now or will soon.

The hot water heater is a shining example. I'm pretty sure we bought it a year or two before the alarm system, which makes it super old for a hot water heater. I'm sure it's part of the reason all our faucet aerators are choked with tiny mineral pebbles. Yet, it still heats the water and sends it to the sinks and shower in a reasonable amount of time, so I'm not going to get ahead of myself.

Then there's the washing machine. I've been threatening to replace it for years because it not only deposits clumps of lint randomly all over our clean clothes, but it's now rusting inside, which means it will leave rust spots on light-colored clothing unless you remove the loads immediately after the last spin cycle concludes.

I'm not completely neglectful of our home maintenance. We just had the guttering on the back of the house replaced and the downspouts relocated to where they won't send water directly into the garage and basement every time it rains. That's been a problem for years and I'm almost looking forward to our next rainstorm to see if it did the trick.

My first priority in the next six years or so is to get the house paid off. Without a mortgage payment, I'll be able to afford lots of different home repairs and improvements. In the meantime, the to-do list can just keep growing.

Yesterday was the twelfth anniversary of my starting this blog. The fact that I couldn't be arsed to write a post that day probably tells you everything you need to know about my current dedication to blogging.

I'm not shutting down the blog any time in the foreseeable future, but it's clear that my personal blogging era has come and gone. I'm also probably through with blogging conferences, but I won't say that for sure because they're still a great reason to go see my bloggy friends.

Even if I only post once in a great while, the fact remains that blogging has had an enormous impact on my life. It's introduced me to people all over the world who are wonderful and fascinating and nice. It's taken me to places I would never have visited otherwise. It's the reason I'm part of many of the social media groups where I spend most of my time now.

So here's to Average Jane, the blog and the social media persona that has served me so well. Let's see if my 13th year holds some interesting new luck.

Photo credit: dpotera