The Weather Station

Today is the day that The Weather Station arrives.

My brother really wanted to get Greg something special for his birthday (he’s hit the big 30 now, BTW), and asked me for my thoughts. I said that though we had a small, $20 weather station…that Greg would love, love LOVE a new, larger weather station with more capabilities….

My brother balked at this. It didn’t appeal to his idea of a manly gift. He wanted to buy Greg a knife, a gun, or some other instrument of death and protection…and that’s just not Greg. So he said he’d think about it while he was out and get Greg something later on. I said that was fine with me.

So he stayed with us…and began to notice just how big weather is in our house. Every morning while making coffee Greg would check the current temperature and announce the low of the night before. He’ll then turn on The Weather Channel and let us know what the high of the day will be so we can dress appropriately. In the evening, he walks by the weather station and see just how hot it got that day and what the temperature is currently…and before bed he watches the Weather Channel again to see how tomorrow is going to go.

And on and on and on…I’ve become used to it, and actually appreciate it because I do dress according to Greg’s weather observations…my brother has never experienced anything like it before, and a few days before he left sighed and admitted that it would be, by far, the best gift he could get Greg.

So he showed Greg a good website that sold a myriad of weather stations….and told him to pick one.

Greg almost died, and spent the next 3 hours solidly researching the most appropriate weather station for our house/location/needs. He chose the one that is pictured here…1 major post, that will communicate wirelessly with the main station inside the house, which will tell us all sorts of helpful information about what’s going on outside. This, in turn, will connect with a laptop which will be dedicated solely to weather-related activities…which will be connected to the internet and will feed information constantly to the Weather Underground site, who will give us our own website so people can check our weather (I’ll attach it to this blog once it’s up).

Oh, we’ll also have a webcam trained on our backyard so if one is really worried that it may not be raining like the website is telling them…well, they can check the webcam.

So there you have it. My brother purchased Greg what is clearly the Best Birthday Gift Ever. Greg’s leaving work early today so he can be there when the package arrives.

And I have a feeling I’m going to be mighty sick of the weather in about 3 weeks.

Of Fall

My apologies for the delay in getting anything posted to the web lately. My whole family was in town for a while, and then we went on vacation, and then I had a large meeting at work last week…and things were just too busy and I find that much of my humor is sucked out of me during large meetings.

But here I am, back and breathing again . . . and in all that rush and jumble, I was able to see Fall spread over the high Colorado mountains like Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors. When we first began the camping trip the bulk of the color was on ridges above us a few hundred feet. Day by day that ribbon of gold and red crept down the slope, progressing with each cold night, and by the 3rd and 4th day we were surrounded in a place that one could only describe as magical.

We’ve been going to Silverjack since I was 2. It was the place that first convinced me that magic existed; and this year, in all the frustration I’ve had with what I do and where I’m at….it reminded me that not only does magic exist…but sometimes it can completely overwhelm you with beauty and wonder.

The Garage Sale

So, I’m sure at this point many of you are wondering how the garage sale went. Well, it went fairly well, for a while, then it went not-so-well at all. Here’s the sequence of events:

Friday Afternoon: I call my mom to verify that she and C (my sister) are coming up for the night to help me finish tagging everything that’s piled high in the living room. Mom says that they’ll come up that night, but she has other stuff to wrap up, so it will be a little later in the evening. I conclude that I will be finishing the tagging myself.

I then go out and hang up about 30 bright pink ‘garage sale’ signs I have made around town.

Friday Evening: I tag a bunch of items, bring up a few more things from the basement. Mom and C show up around 8:00 pm, when I’m ready to sit down and veg for a while. I order pizza, we all eat and watch TV. Mom falls asleep on the sofa, C starts drifting off to sleep in the chair – I send everyone to bed and clean up the kitchen.

Saturday Morning: Up at 5:30, shower and dress, wake C and mom up at 6 – we have coffee and begin to take everything outside. 6:45am first customer shows up.

Saturday Morning: 7:00 C leaves. She has paperwork to fill out back at my parents’ house and can’t stay. Fine with me, mom and I wave goodbye, refill our coffee and prepare to have a nice chatty morning on the driveway. Customers are scouting out the place and I’ve already made around $20.

Saturday Morning 7:30: Phone call from C, her car has overheated on the freeway and apparently exploded. Smoke billowing from engine compartment, oil covering everything. She is not happy. Mom calls a tow truck.

Saturday Morning 7:45: Call C to find out exit number so tow truck can come get her. Get head bitten off as she yells hysterically that she’s handling the situation. Promptly get call from Greg who is boarding a plane in California asking why the hell C is calling him for help with the car and can I please take care of this? Garage sale customers are coming and going, I’m up to around $30.

Saturday Morning 8:00: Mom leaves to go pick up C off the freeway and take her back to their house (1 ½ hours away) so she can fill out the paperwork, and then, much like MacArthur swearing to his troops he’ll return….my mother says much the same thing. I go and get a book.

Saturday Morning 8:15-10: Meet many lovely people all-too-willing to purchase my stuff. Having a pretty good haul, even met a nice lady who does housekeeping – may hire her to do my house. Get scattered phone calls from Mom and C….tow truck will be coming in a while, C at home safe and sound, paperwork filled out.

Saturday Morning 10:00: A Frederick Community Services truck pulls up to my front yard and a lady in uniform steps out holding one of my signs like a dead fish. She announces that she has pulled down all but one of my garage sale signs from around town, as it is apparently unlawful to hang signs on public property. . . BUT I can go back around and ask property owners if I can re-establish my signs on their lawns. I decline, she takes my signs and drive off.

Saturday Morning 10:15: Business slumps dramatically. The sun has warmed things up a bit, I continue to sit out with the stuff, fall asleep in my chair.

Saturday 12:00: Get a phone call from Greg, he’s wondering why he just saw my mother on the side of the freeway on his way home from the airport. I call mom – she’s waiting for the tow truck.

Saturday 12:30: Greg gets home, sees the stuff in the driveway, promptly reclaims 5 items and I am given a long speech about how big stereo speakers never depreciate in value. Mom calls, tow truck is there, she will meet us for lunch.

Saturday 1:00: Greg and I break down the garage sale and head off to a Chinese restaurant where mom meets us a half hour later. We celebrate the success of selling off junk and the fact that Greg is home. My total takings for the day is about $117….for 3 hours of work and a nap I guess I can’t complain.

Conclusion: All in all, it was something of a success. I feel really good about it anyways, and I’m still getting craigslist users asking me if I still have this or that item for sale. Regardless of the rather sad sign situation…I have a cleaner basement and a less-cluttered home. I can live with that. C’s car is in the shop having been safely towed….looks like she blew a timing belt and aside from an elevation in blood pressure, she’s fine too. Next weekend I’m sitting back and drinking some beer.

Unhinged

"All living beings have actions (Karma) as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge. It is Karma that differentiates beings into low and high states."

I suppose this might be true. I was driving home yesterday, and somehow severely ticked off a woman behind me driving a Mercedes. I'm not positive why she was so ticked, but I think when our lane was ending, and myself and another driver merged over - she had been trying to accelerate and cut us off.

Anyways, her reaction was pretty surprising, given that I wasn't even sure of the crime. She was screaming in her car, flipping me off repeatedly with one and and then another, just off the scale as far as reactions go. Thinking I didn't necessarily want to get shot that day...I stayed in my lane, and waved cheerfully as she zipped by, screaming obscenities like a crazy person.

Whatever, I went back to singing to my music and tra-la-la-ing down the freeway.

Until about 5 miles up the road, I see some traffic doing not-normal things, people are slowing down and a car is quickly manuevering to the side of the road. It was her. Crazy Woman. She'd blown a tire....badly. Bits and pieces of it were flying down the road in her wake.

Perhaps the rage was just too much and the universe could no longer contain that energy, perhaps whatever energy you expend you also attract.

Or perhaps life is full of strange coincidences and it was just her day for a flat tire.

I felt badly, but was too scared of her to go see if she needed help.

The garage sale part deux

Greg has been gone on his trip, but of course we're still communicating by phone and IM. And apparently he's found my ad on Craigslist for the garage sale.

Ring, ring.

ME: 'Hello?'

Greg: "Hey babe, it's me. Guess what? I was searching on craigslist for 'coleman' and found an ad that said they had a garage sale with some camping gear for sale, and I got all excited until I started reading and found out it's MY camping gear!!! haha! It's a pretty good ad, I'm reading it now....(Uh oh, I think to myself) You're selling the area RUG??? I really like that rug, why are you selling it?"

ME: "Well, I don't like it that much and it doesn't match with the living room and that's why I figured I'd just sell it off"

Greg: "I don't know why you would sell it though, we just bought it, I mean...YOU LISTED THE TV?!?!?"

ME: "Yeah, but you agreed to that!"

Greg: "Well I did, but I thought we'd sell it seperately, in a little while. I can't believe you're selling that - what else is going to be sold that I need to know about???"

ME: "Oh, not much...just a few odds and ends, the post is a really good description overall, you know."

Greg: "Well, make sure you get a good price for the rug and TV, I'm really attached to those things, and I really like them and would rather they didn't go anywhere."

ME: "OK"

And then we chatted about other things...but he's been monitoring the cragslist postings ever since - I just know it. I can't wait for Saturday, I sure hope a lot of people show up early...he might just catch the first flight home to make sure the selling doesn't get out of hand. :)

The Garage Sale

This weekend, I plan on having a garage sale. We have way too much stuff in general, and as I paw through various rooms in the house, I'm astounded at how much we've accumulated over the past 4 years. Greg is gone this week on a business trip, and that is part of the scheduling for the garage sale (though he is aware it's happening). He has this strange attachment to every little household item we own.

I'd already gone through the kitchen (MY territory, he really doesn't do much work in there) before he left, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as he went through the various items that were in the 'to go' box. A ladle was rescued, a serving spoon saved, much conversation was had about various bowls until I re-directed his energy and sent him upstairs to clean out his closet instead.

He disappeared for about 4 hours and came back out with a large garbage bag full of clothes that no longer fit him - he's a bit thinner now than he was when we were first married, but still has the larger clothes in his closet. Really, up until a few days ago - his closet spaced dwarfed mine by far. A few clothes turned up in the laundry hamper that I've not seen in a while, and there was an emotional conversation when he wanted to know if I had saved my matching Hawaiian shirt we bought for our honeymoon (no, was the answer - though I did offer to save it for a uqilt someday).

He left on Sunday with a lighter heart and fewer things in his possession, and now I've been tackling the rest of the rooms, chucking more things that we've acquired and just don't use.

It's funny how attached we become to things, and how much those things can get in the way of simplicity.

Our Camping Weekend

We just purchased a pop-up camper this weekend. It was a heck of a deal, because the guy who was trying to sell it lived about 3 hours out of town…and we got it for about $2200 below NADA. So – off we went to buy it, and we finagled it to where we could pick it up Friday to have an inaugural camping trip over Labor Day weekend.

We went to our favorite camping spot way out of town (there was a LOT of driving last week), and set up camp. Because it’s relatively unknown, we had no problems with space, it was us and 4 other campers (yes, it’s a great spot). But one of these campers didn’t fully understand Camping Ethics. They ran their generator for hours at a time, placing it far away from their spot, but very close to ours with the help of an insanely long extension cord. Greg and I let it slide. They turned it off for 2 hours, and then ran it for another 4…we took a deep breath and decided to go for a quick 4-wheeling trip.

When we returned, they had turned on a baseball game on their car stereo and were blasting it into the forest. Loud, deep, sports-sounding voices and crowds screaming. Far too much noise for any sort of camping ‘peak’ experience.

I was frustrated, and paced around camp thinking whether or not it would be worth going over and asking these people to turn down their noise. Greg and I went over to the truck we had borrowed from my dad to pull the camper (no, we don’t have one of those yet) and looked to see what he had by way of obnoxious CDs that I could use as ammunition. Good ole dad never lets us down in the obnoxious CD category. He travels a lot and had a wide assortment of middle-eastern music as well as a few ‘Learn to Speak Hindi’ CDs.

Greg looked them over critically, and then looked at me.

“I’m going to go over there, and ask them to turn it down. If they don’t, today we’re learning Hindi.

We’re ALL learning Hindi.”

And with that he marched down to their campsite. I watched the gestures, and heard a “SURE! Not a problem, really sorry!” And I suppose I was a bit disappointed, because really, revenge is so much sweeter…initially. But I really didn’t want to learn Hindi, I just wanted silence. And my manly husband grabbed the bull by the horns and dealt directly with the problem rather than indirectly.

Which caused me to look at myself and my actions and realize that I’m getting way too ‘city-fied’ for my own good. And it also made me look at Greg in a whole new light.

And laugh each time I think of the line “We’re ALL learning Hindi”.