A Relaxing Holiday Weekend

I’m just now sitting to write about the holiday weekend, because it was busy, but relaxing.

When we ordered our new dryer, we all assumed that the 220 plug was hot and ready to work. It wasn’t. You may remember last week I mentioned that the people who put our air conditioning unit in, used the 220 wire that at the time was not being used to give it power.

So I went to the store and bought 50 feet of wire and a breaker so we could get it up and working. On Saturday my brother-in-law and father-in-law came to help me get it set up. When my brother-in-law opened the breaker box, he noticed that despite it being big enough to hold 16 breakers, whoever wired the house only used a 12 breaker bus bar.

At my house, every breaker slot is in use, so there was no where to add a breaker. This meant we 1) had to find a 16 breaker bus bar, 2) add some sort of sub box off the one we have, or 3) send back the electric dryer and swap it for a gas dryer (which only needs a 110v plug instead of a 220v).

I made some calls to the people we bought it from and found out that there was no restocking charge and they’d have someone come out and pick up the old one. Once it was returned, they could refund the money back on the card we used and then we could buy the gas dryer. Either way, it was going to cost a couple hundred bucks to get us a dryer that worked.

Naturally, we noticed that when they removed the gas line from the old dryer, it had cracked near the connector. Thankfully, that was an easy fix and we’ll anxiously await the new dryer. In the meantime, I will continue to do what I did Saturday….

…sit in the laundromat to dry our clothes!

Sunday was pretty low key and we were outside in the yard. I grilled up some chicken and we threw it on salads. Sam worked Sunday night, so it was just me and the kids watching Disney channel at night.

On Memorial Day, I woke up and opened my Facebook and started to get angry. This happens every year, but it is a pet peeve of mine. Perhaps it is because my dad served in the army and I have many friends who also served in the Armed Forces, but nothing grinds my gears more than when someone says, “Happy Memorial Day!”

Those people obviously don’t understand what the holiday is about.

Anyway, the kids played outside and I worked a bit outside. My lawn hadn’t been mowed in a while because of the rain we’d been having. I had to raise the deck on my mower and will no doubt have to go back out again to cut it. It was cut, but it already looks like it hasn’t been mowed in 2 weeks.

We got a call from one of my daughter’s preschool friend’s mom. They were heading up to a park near us and wanted to know if we wanted to go. My daughter was excited to see her friend, so we went.

We’d never been to this park before. It had a playground for the kids, but it also had these boat/kayak launches. The park is right on a lake. They have a wooden deck area where people can fish from, too.

My daughter’s friend’s brother brought a fishing pole with him and he was having trouble casting it. It was an open face reel, and he was only like 6 or 7. So I was out on the wooden deck teaching him how to cast it. He didn’t have any live bait, so he was using lures. We didn’t catch anything, but he loved it. I asked my kids if they would like to fish with me and they both gave a resounding NO. LOL

My wife, my daughter’s friend’s mom, and all the kids were up under a pavilion. They had brought goldfish crackers and juice for all the kids. The food must have caught the eye of a winged friend. There was this chicken that kept jumping up on the table! I was by the lake and my wife sent the kids to come get me when the chicken started trying to eat my daughter’s dress!

When I got there, the chicken was still there. My wife said to “get rid of it.” I asked her how I was supposed to do that. She said, “I think you just pick it up and take it somewhere.” Now, I’ve never held a chicken before. I had no idea if this thing was going to peck at me. I had no idea if it was going to squawk when I picked it up. I also had no idea where I was supposed to take it!

This thing was a pretty big chicken. I walked up behind the thing and was able to grab it with both hands. I picked it up and it started trying to move its feet, I walked quickly to a wooded area that was on the other side of the park. I set the thing down and walked away. I turned around and that dumb thing was following me!

It stopped a couple times to peck at grass or whatever, but eventually the thing came back. I picked it up again and carried it a lot further than I had the first time. It started to follow again, but got distracted. As we were packing up to leave there was some girl who was holding the dumb thing like a cat or something!

As we walked to our cars, lo and behold, that chicken was right by our car! I had to shoo the thing away just to get in the car. What a crazy bird!

When we got home we grilled up some hot dogs and my wife started a fire in the firepit. It was our first one of the year. The kids sat out and relaxed with us – anxious to make smores!

When we made up the smores, they each took a bite and asked if they could just eat the chocolate (Which they did!). My wife and I even got the chance to make one.

It was a perfect night. It wasn’t too hot and cool enough where the fire kept us warm. It was so nice to just sit by the fire. The kids didn’t sit long, but I expected that. My wife and I enjoyed just relaxing there. We were all exhausted by the end of the night. We let the kids stay up much later than usual and we went inside earlier than we wanted, but we also were all asleep very quickly.

This is toward the end of the night. I hope we get to have more bonfires this summer.

I hope that you enjoyed your holiday weekend, too.

Something’s Missing

With the nice weather I’ve had a chance to spend a lot of time outside. We’ve either walked around the neighborhood or played the with kids in the yard. The last couple times we’ve walked, I couldn’t help but think that something was missing.

I hear the usual sounds on our walks:

Singing birds
Barking dogs
Kids at recess
Woodpeckers knocking on trees
Motorcycles
Lawn mowers

These are sounds I have heard all my life in the spring and summer. The thing that was missing goes to show the progress of technology I suppose.

Growing up, weekends were spent mostly outside. I recall vividly that Saturday afternoons, my dad would pull out a big bucket, huge sponge, and the garden hose and wash the car.

It was also the day that he’d pull out the lawnmower and cut the grass. All the yardwork was done on the weekends.

Toward the end of the day, dinner was prepared on the grill. Burgers, hot dogs, or grilled chicken would be typical weekend menu items.

These things all still happen today, but in most cases, something is missing – Music.

When dad washed the car – we’d listen to Casey Kasem and American Top 40. When dad mowed the lawn or did work out in the yard, the radio would be sitting on the cement by the garage blaring music. The music would continue as dad flipped burgers on the grill. Sometimes it was music, sometimes it was a Detroit Tiger game. The radio was always on and the sounds from it interspersed with the other sounds I mentioned earlier.

There was a guy outside on our walk yesterday who was waxing his freshly washed car with no music whatsoever. The guy we saw grilling was just standing there staring off into space. He took a second to say hello as we passed, but then went right back to staring. Then there was the guy shoveling some dirt and working in the yard. He had ear buds in, so there was music, but only he could hear it.

I guess one of the things I loved about music being everywhere as we grew up was the discovery of new music. Everyone’s radios were tuned to whatever they wanted to hear. The sounds of pop music, oldies music, rock music, country music and more all screamed from the speakers of boom boxes, car speakers, and cabinet speakers from a stereo system. As I’d pass a house, it was often possible to hear a song I had never heard before. This would lead to a trip to the local record store to find it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to hear the songs of the birds and children playing, but that sound from a distant speaker is one I miss. To be fair, I still get my fair share of music on walks, because my daughter is often singing “The Wheels on the Bus” or “Mary Had a Little Lamb” at the top of her lungs. Come to think of it, that may be the only music I need …

Like A Good Neighbor …

Sam and I are truly blessed to have fantastic neighbors. We love our neighborhood. We all really watch out for each other, and help each other when we can. Granted, I don’t know all of our neighbors by name, but I talk to many of them on my afternoon walks with Ella.

When I first moved in with Sam, our neighbor two doors down was cutting the yard (almost an acre) for her. It wasn’t long after that he came down on his lawnmower and showed me how to use it. He told me I could use it whenever I wanted to. To return the favor, when I used it, I often mowed his grass and the grass of the neighbor in between us. Recently, when he mower was down for repairs, he used my mower and cut his lawn, my lawn and the lawns of two other neighbors! That’s the kind of neighbors we have!

I write all that, to tell you about something cool that happened to me this morning.

Three years ago, Sam bought me a zero turn mower. I absolutely love it. One of the things I love to do is mow the grass. I always do my neighbor next door’s grass when I can because all they have is a push mower and their yard is about as big as ours. Anyway, Sam sent me this picture of Ella watching the baseball players at the school behind our house this week.

You can tell that the yard was in need of mowing (and that I had to get out with the weed whacker!). When I got home this morning, I told Sam I was going to cut the grass. I purposely waited until it was 8am to do it. I didn’t want to be out at 7:30am waking up the neighbors, even though they wake us up when they mow at 3 in the afternoon (the life of a midnight shift worker!).

I got out and got about a third of the yard done, and all of a sudden the blades stopped engaging. I looked around to be sure that the belt hadn’t broken, but didn’t see it. The grass was very long, so I thought maybe the wet grass was caught up in the belt or something. I pulled it up into the driveway and began pulling clumps of grass out from where the belts are. It was obvious that I had never done this before, because there was a LOAD of grass packed in there.

The belt/pulley system of these mowers is a little daunting:

As I was digging the clumps out, I saw that the belt had come off the pulley. I was able to get it back on and the blades began to work. I was able to finish the rest of the lawn. Now, had I not been able to figure it out (which is always possible), I wouldn’t have been able to share what Paul Harvey would call “the rest of the story”…

As I was making my final couple passes in the front yard, I noticed a car driving by slowly. The driver was a little Asian woman, who looked like she was lost or looking for a house number. As I did my final pass, she had parked her car and was standing at the end of my driveway. It was quite a sight. She was in pajamas and a robe and wearing her face mask. She had her index finger up in the air as if she were saying to me, “Hold up for one minute.”

My first thought was that I had woke her up. I had even mentioned to Sam that I knew it was early and joked that the neighbors would be yelling at me for mowing the grass so early. I drove the mower to the driveway and shut it off. She began to speak to me in broken English. She said “I heard working.” I thought, “Here it comes, She’s mad that I woke her up.”

She began to point down the street and said, “Do my yard?” I asked if she wanted to borrow the mower or if she wanted me to come down and cut it. She said, “You cut. I pay you.” I shook my head and said that I would be glad to cut her grass and she didn’t need to pay me anything. She shook her head and told me that she is always busy working and that she was unable to do it. I told her I was going to put some more gas in the mower and I’d be right down. She gave me her address (it was about 4 doors down) and I met her down there.

As I pulled up, she was in the front yard picking up some sticks, and I went to work. Her front yard was not that big. If it took me more than 6 minutes to cut it, I’d be surprised. As I finished, she ran up to me and I asked how to get to the back yard. She told me the back yard was fine and grabbed my hand and shook it, saying “thank you so much!” over and over. While shaking my hand, she was stuffing money in it. I again told her that she did not need to pay me, but she insisted. She went as far as to say to me, very matter of factly, “When you cut your grass – you come and cut mine.”

I was just happy to be a good neighbor, but it looks like my “lawn care business” has its first client!

“Hot” Summer Night Perfection

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Here in Michigan, Summer is never long enough. This year, I am guessing it will feel even shorter. I say that because we had a whole lot of rain that lasted well into May and June. Many friends have said that they were late opening their pools or planting gardens because of the rain. Finally, though, summer is here and it is time to enjoy!

I have many things that I love about summertime: beach days, golfing, walks through the neighborhood, swimming in a pool, picnics, mowing the grass, and just generally being outside enjoying nature. One of my favorite things about summer, is sitting around a bonfire with family and friends.

Usually, by this point in the year, we would have about 10 fires under our belt by now. However, because of the rain and such, we’ve only had two. We had our first on the 4th of July when we were all out in the backyard watching the fireworks. We had our second one last night. It was Sam and I, my aunt, my sons, and some of the neighborhood kids. It was the perfect night.

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It was cool last night, but not chilly. It wasn’t so chilly that we needed sweatshirts or anything like that. We had the tiki torches full of insect repellent fuel and burned some some citronella candles to keep the mosquitoes at bay (the one downside of being outside). We live in a society where we are always on the go, and relaxing around a bonfire helps us to forget that and actually enjoy life.

Before we were married, when I moved in with Sam, the firepit was the first home project I tackled. It was actually a very easy and inexpensive. I think we bought all the supplies (rock, bricks, the ring, etc…) for about $200. That price will go up depending on what kind of pit you want and how big you want it. You certainly can spend about $500-$600 on a big one, or one that runs on propane. No matter what the cost, it is worth every penny!

My first experience with bonfires was back when my parents had a pop up camper and we’d go camping. They usually got a camp site that had a stainless steel fire pit. When you are camping, you’re out in the great outdoors! The stars are a bit brighter, the crickets are a bit louder, and the sounds of the crackling fire cut through the silence of a dark summer night. My folks would spray my brother and I down with Deep Woods Off or some other brand of insect spray and we’d just sit around the fire telling stories.

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Even though our fire pit is smack dab in the middle of our back yard, and the sounds of the city can still be heard, it is just as relaxing as if you were in the woods camping. There is something “comfortable” about sitting around a campfire. Gazing up at the stars (or moon, which was awesome last night), storytelling, or just simply sitting and enjoying the peace of it all. Time is no longer a factor – it’s amazing!

The kids love the bonfires because they mean s’mores! I used to feel the same way as a kid! I always found it a challenge to get that marshmallow roasted perfectly. This rarely happened, and I got used to eating burnt ones! Gooey marshmallows on a graham cracker with chocolate – how can you go wrong!? Recently, I tried them with Reese’s Peanut Butter cups – that’s a game changer!! Wow!! Yum!

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Bonfires are special. I really don’t know how to explain it. It’s quality time with those you care about. It’s quality conversation. It’s actually laughing out loud with friends instead of texting “LOL.” It’s meaningful. It’s making memories. It’s a great summer night activity that continues into early fall and gets better with hoodie sweatshirts!

Light the tiki torches … I’m already looking forward to the next bonfire ….

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