Signs of Autumn

Fall is around the corner. This afternoon, from my backyard, I could hear the marching band practicing. The slightly cooler nights are amazing. And football schedules and training camps and fantasy drafts all gearing up for the season to start!! I love me some football (NFL, really).
Today was even my first day to wear jeans - all day. I've mostly been in skirts this summer. The heat and the humidity just makes it gross to wear jeans all day. But with the days starting and ending cooler, it was a great day to bust out my jeans. The new jeans that I got at the outlet last weekend and fit so well!!

Graceful

The other day I went for a bike ride at a local park. I have been re-learning how to ride a bike. You know the saying about if you used to know something and then come across it again - it's just like riding a bike... well, bike riding was NOT like that for me. I had to do practice laps in my driveway (no training wheels involved, but it was still pretty sad-looking).

So, when I took my bike out to the park, it was a great victory. To actually ride my bike in public!! I don't have a bike rack, but I have a Jeep - so I was just going to throw it in the back. Well, it took me 5 times of hoisting it up to get it to fit easily. Then I got it out pretty smoothly at the park, thankfully! I rode for about 40 minutes. It was amazing - feeling the wind and the speed (well, as much speed as I would dare), riding over creeks and under trees - there were very few people there. I felt free!! Then I loaded my bike back up, feeling exhilarated!

That afternoon, I was doing some housework. I had the vacuum out and was moving something so to be able to vacuum under it. And I walked around it and the cord got stuck between my toe - somehow - and it made me lurch forward into the door frame of the closet. I hit the frame so hard with my right arm that I scraped it up and could see the bruise forming almost immediately. And my left shoulder hit too. This bruise I could feel, but not see...yet.

So now, a few days later, I have this huge green and yellow bruise just above my right wrist. Not from biking or even lifting my bike into my car. No. It's from vacuuming. Well, not really even that. It's from walking AROUND the vacuum.

Amazing Resolution

So, the week before our trip to the mountains was a doozy. Nothing
horribly major. But lots of little things making it stressful and
chaotic.

But as each bad thing hit, they seemed to work out...

The mice: when I called our pest control company, the girl said that
she'd contact my technician - and that he could probably make it out
either that day or the next. Within the hour, he called me from his
cell and said he was on his way!! So an hour and a half after I
called, I had traps already in place. Amazing!!
(and no charge, either - it fell into the between treatments
maintenance)

The car: The guys at the local repair shop couldn't fix the AC, but
they didn't charge me to do all the testing to figure out that they
couldn't fix it! Then when the windows broke - something that happens
all the time with my car (at least twice on each of the 4 windows). I
took it back to the local shop to have them fix it. But the part they
needed wasn't available. Good and bad news - the manufacturer realizes
there's a problem with the part - and has designed a new version. But
it's back ordered. So once it's in, maybe my recurring problems will be
gone! In the meantime, since the windows just fall down and stay down
on their own, the repair guy took both my back doors apart and clamped
the windows - so now they aren't going ANYWHERE!! And again, no charge.

The other amazing thing that happened concerning the car is with who
lives around me. I asked my neighbor to take me up to the shop (the
not fixed AC time) and told him what was going on. He said "no way.
I'm taking care of this" and he called his friend - who happens to be
the head of the service department at the dealership that we have to
go to now - one of the last surviving in the area. So he gave that guy
the heads up that we were coming. - when we took it up there, our
OTHER neighbor was there. (2 guys that used to work together live on
either side of us - we bought our car from one of them.) He talked to
us and told the service lady to take good care of us. Then he said
that he'd bring us back up the next morning - Saturday - since he was
coming to work anyway. It's about 20 miles from our house, so that
saved us a trip and helped out so much.

It was amazing to get to know our neighbors and learn that we really
do have great & very helpful neighbors!!

The week before all these little things went wrong, I had been
thinking about how easy it is for me to trust God in the really big
stuff, but the little things that happen day to day, I have a problem
with not getting totally stressed and trying to control everything. So
the NEXT week - that is when all this stuff happened that I couldn't
do anything about. I had to just sit there and see how God was going
to work through everything. And with each little thing, I could see
His care and protection over me.

Even though it was rough, it was nice to have a week where I was
reminded that God is in control over everything!

Fire!!

I came back from the kitchen after filling my water bottle and my co-
worker calmly tells me that smoke is pouring out of the ceiling in the
department next to us. Ok. So it's nothing to worry about, right?

Well, within the next 10 minutes, the managers were running around
saying "grab your things - we are evacuating the building!" So I went
from not that worried to kind of freaking out a little. I guess the
quick change in attitude of the people around me gave me an
adrenaline burst. Although I didn't need it to just walk our of the
building.

We were all congregating in the parking lot (there's about 40 of us at
my office) when the cop and the fire chief arrived. Then we heard the
sirens. The first fire truck pulled in. It was really exciting.
Something you just don't get to see that often in life - and truly
hope NOT to see. Then fire truck number two pulled in, parked and
started prepping the ladder. Then with fire truck three's arrival, the
action really started. Guys got there gear on. Two guys went up the
ladder with axes.
Most of us (the employees) were taking pictures and watching the
action! The firemen had gotten there so fast!! Even though I was
watching firemen at work, I felt safe because of how quickly they had
arrived!!

After about an hour, we were given the all clear. It was an AC fan
motor that sparked and was smoking. Smoke. So the rest of the day we
got that awesome smoke smell. My throat got all scratchy. Not
expecting THAT at work.

Definitely not a boring day at work!!!

Last morning in mtns

Goodbye to the view!!

Outlet shopping

We went shopping this morning in Sevierville and stopped in for lunch
at my favorite restaurant!! The Chop House! It is so good! Yum!!!

Mountain views

What a week...

August has started with a BANG. It has been spectacular. So many things have happened/gone wrong all in this week. At least if something major is going to happen, I'd like to spread it out a little. But no such luck.

It started on the way back home from Nashville this weekend. About an hour from home, my AC went out in my car. At first, I thought it was just my imagination - just the afternoon sun warming the car. But then I felt the the hot air blowing out of the vents. I had to mentally encourage myself - counting each mile. The dog panted, and I took ice packs out of the cooler that I had (thankfully) on the seat beside me and put them on my lap. By the time the dog and I got home, I was sweating bullets and she was panting constantly. It was so much cooler outside in the summer heat than it had been in the car.

My husband got a crack in his windshield - this weekend - on his road trip that he took. A rock hit it on the interstate, but the crack didn't show up until Sunday night. By Monday, it had expanded across the driver's side.

Monday morning, my husband's garage door started acting weird. It will open, but then when it gets all the way down and you think that it's closed, it goes back up. Oh, and when it get to the bottom, it makes this really loud grinding noise right before it goes up. So the temporary solution is to stomp on it when it gets down to the bottom. So that will have to be fixed.

Tuesday morning, the dog went into my closet and went crazy underneath the shelves. I looked around to see what was making her sniff and get really excited. I opened the drawer and was horrified. There was mouse poo in there. Many little poos. Then I saw poo on this shelf, and that shelf. I freaked out.

And remembered something that had happened last Thursday. I was bringing a bag up from downstairs for my trip and something ran down the stairs past me. A fleeting thought was that it was a mouse, but I thought - nah, that's crazy. So I convinced myself that it was a roach (like that was any better). Oh and when it ran past me, I screamed so loud and so much - like a little baby!!

So I knew that we had a mouse in the house - or mice. So I called the bug guy. He's been with us for a while - knows us and is really nice. He met me at the house about an hour after I called. And he set glue traps out - everywhere. There was more poo than I thought there had been. He said that the mouse is super happy where he is. So now my closet smells like peanut butter mouse glue traps. Yea.

And after I went back to work, I touched the computer mouse - it somehow had green ink all over it and I got covered. Not a good mouse day.

Wednesday, I took my car to the local repair shop for them to fix the air conditioning. But after they tested it, they couldn't fix it. The main computer in the car that runs everything is faulty and has to be replaced by the dealership. (which our local dealership service centers have gone out of business because of bankruptcy). The dealer has to replace the computer because they are the only ones that can program it. Nice. So we have to drive a ways to get to someone that can maybe fix it.

So as I drove home after picking up the unfixed car, my back window fell down. I tried to roll it up, but got the oh-so-familiar grinding noise. My car has had ridiculous problems with the windows falling down and not staying up. I took it back and the repair guy said that it was the regulator that had broken. So I have to get that fixed now too. I have it rigged up so that it stays for now with a cardboard "wedge" and duct tape.

Oh, also on Wednesday, we did a mouse trap check. We had one on one of the traps in my closet. Yuck! Ewwww! Gross! So with tongs and a garbage bag, we retrieved and disposed of the trap. It was not pretty, nor fun in any way. Guess that it's a good thing though.