I made it down to the little house in the woods in record time this weekend. The skies were crystal clear and it was smooth sailing. My beloved orange juicy mobile purred at 80 mph and everything was right with the world.
As soon as I got to our little house, I flipped on the radio, applied 36 gallons of bug spray and started collecting wood for a bonfire. We have a "pond" that holds water for as long the water table stays up. It's been pretty full for the past 2-3 months but has slowly been receding. During the time it had water in it some sizable branches fell so now that it's practically empty I decided to retrieve them. I did pretty good and managed not to slip and fall in the mud. But I got frustrated because I wasn't strong enough to pull the logs up to the fire pit.
I sprayed on a couple more gallons of bug spray, popped open a beer and went on a quest for fallen branches - one of my favorite things to do by the way. I got some small stuff, but I wasn't willing to venture into the woods because I didn't want to end up being Jo Jo the living chigger bite.
Manchild came to my rescue and drug up some big stuff AND he brought me more beer! Yea!!! Before you could say boo-yeah, I had a nice fire burning. We enjoyed the fire, the tunes and the cold beer for a while then we noticed some ominous lightning starting to flash.
A few branches & beers later, the lightning was starting to become a showoff so we figured we had better take a peek at the weather radar to see what was in store. You see, when you stay at a little house in the woods which you must get to via a dirt road, and you drive a low slung sports car, it's a good idea not to get caught in the rain. Because you might not be able to drive that sports car down the muddy road. For days. Nosirree!
Sure enough, the gay-dar (that's what Manchild calls it) showed a big scary line of storms headed right for us! We jumped in our cars, speedy quick and peeled out to park a mile away on a rock road where we store our 4-wheeler for occasions just like the one we were in.
The ride back to the little house was a real adventure, let me tell ya. The wind was gusting like crazy and bolts of lightning were zapping all over the place and to be honest, we were both a little scared. (does anyone smell burning bacon???) We made it back to the house without getting killed which is always a good thing. After that, we spent the rest of the night sitting on the front porch watching the light show. When the skies lit up we watched the trees whipping back and forth and listened for breaking branches. At one point I heard the wind stop suddenly and shift directions and when the sky lit up that time, everything was a strange greenish yellow color.
The next morning I went for a walk to see if the fallen branches landed where I thought they had. My ears weren't as keen as I had thought they were. I was about 50 feet off. But there were branches blocking the driveway and the pond got some more firewood. Looking outside the day after the storm it looked just as calm and clear as it did on the day I drove down 24 hours earlier.
Mother nature is so amazing. So is lightning. I'm not sure, but I bet if you look closely you just might see some singed hairs on the top of my head. Manchild doesn't have hair per se. He's got prickles but I bet some of those prickles are singed, too. And we had fun making that 4-wheeler do 50 down a dirt road!
I think my house is pretty nice. It's not too old and it's in pretty good shape. Sort of, but there's a developing trend and I'm not liking it one bitty bit.
First I noticed that when it rained, the gutter on my back patio dripped. It wasn't too offensive until, instead of mildly dripping, a torrent of water poured forth from the corner. I tried putting some putty stuff in it which was about as effective as putting a band-aid on a 10 inch gash.
Next I tripped over a ripple in the carpet in my den. I guess that it had stretched over time and my vigorous vacuuming pulled it up into the carpet version of the grand tetons. Even though I know the ripple is there, I always trip over it. Being wobbly on my feet to begin with doesn't help matters any. I'm sure that one of these days I'm going to catapult through my patio window.
The next thing to go wrong was the thermostat. One day it worked, the next day it didn't. I figured that it would be an easy fix. Match red wires with red wires, black ones with black ones, blues ones and so on. Only, the new thermostat had some different wires than the old one and I sort of accidentally hooked the thing up incorrectly and shorted out the A/C system. Lesson learned...don't do electrical stuff on my own.
I know that faucets become leaky over time. Those post thingys in the on and off handles have areas that wear out and need replacing. Since I know I stink at electrical repairs, I figured I had better stay away from plumbing issues, too. Water can do some serious damage. They got replaced but they're already leaking again.
My garage door does this crazy shake rattle and roll act so now sometimes it opens and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, someone has to help lift it some to get past the "shimmy zone" and then it will work properly. Mr. Man has worked on it countless times and it always reverts to it's crummy state.
I think that nearly every rubberized sealing product in this house is starting to degrade all at once. The shower seals are all peeling away from the bottom of the doors, the storm door seals are coming off, the weather stripping on the doors are coming off - I mean, come on!!!
I have a wonderful, huge refrigerator and for some reason the ice maker started freezing up. I'm sure there's an easy fix but I sure as heck-fire don't know what it is.
My microwave started freaking out a while back and the other day it finally sputtered and died. That shouldn't be too hard to replace it, but even though I have a brand spankin' new bionic back, I know lifting a heavy ass appliance is a bad idea.
My house knows that my money tree shed all of it's leaves a good while back and they have NOT grown back, so I can't afford to have a handy man spend a week here fixing everything. Mr. Wonderful works 10 hours a day so by the time he gets home, the last thing he wants to do is work on stuff. Most weekends, he's doing work on the little house in the woods so the house in the wicked city is up to me. I'll admit that I've asked him to help me but it hasn't gotten me very far. I'm not sure why. I've tried being nice, bitchy, crying, yelling and so far, the broken stuff is still broken. I'm too embarrased to ask my Dad for help because I don't want him to think badly of Mr. Man. So instead, I'm telling all of yall. Bitching out loud as I like to call it.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do. These things have got to get fixed. I'm not going to hurt myself any more by trying to do it all myself. Do any of you have any ideas?
