Farm Flashback - Beverly Hillbillies

I live in the city now - and I absolutely love living in the city., but I was raised in the country - on a small family farm.  While most of my childhood friends had chores like folding clothes, feeding the dog or taking out the trash, my brother and I were working in the garden, putting up fences, chopping wood, or feeding the cows/goats.  Maybe this is why I enjoy my DIY projects around my house.

We often used our golf cart on our chores.  Now, this is not your country club golf cart - it had a 'bed' in the back instead of seats.  And it did have a top - but my dad actually chopped a tree down and it fell on the golf car - so it is now a convertible.  It looks close to below - only ours was never that clean...

My grandmother lives next to us, so we often visited her and helped her with the upkeep of her house and property too.  One day, my brother, father and I were up at her house - I do not recall the reason for the visit other than at the end of it, we loaded up an old rusted chair to take back to our house (so we could take it to the dump - yes, out in the country you have to go to the dump - trash is not picked up at the end of your driveway).

Now the chair is on the back of the golfcart and since we are all big people - my dad decided that I would drive and my brother would ride in the front - he would ride on the back in the chair - like the Grandma of the Beverly Hillbillies...

Now it is a short drive around the hay field from my Grandma's to our house.  I took off driving like normal.  Now my father tells a different story - of me driving Nascar style around the curves, hitting every bump. Then again - as a young teenager, that was probably my normal style.

We were about half-way home and I took a curve and hit a bump at the same time.  Now, the next part seemed to happen in both slow motion and warp speed - as so many disasters seem to happen.  My father and the chair slid to the side, hit the edge and then flipped off the back.  The entire ball of metal chair and father somersaulted in the air - his hands holding the chair arms in a death grip.

Luckily, he landed right on his head - probably the hardest part of his body.  Unfortunately, it was right in a bed of ants.  My brother and I immediately stopped and ran to him - and he slowly unfolded like an accordion, finally releasing the chair.

We tried to help him up - but he said he needed a minute and that he would walk the rest of the way home. We drove off home with the chair on the back, but leaving him laying on the ground.  Needless to say - he doesn't ride Beverly Hillbilly style anymore...

Anybody Home?

Last week, I went with my family down to the redneck riviera - I mean Panama City Beach for vacation.  My brother and I drove down the day after my parents for scheduling reasons.  We always us our family friend's condo - Big Ed (that is his nickname, not the condos).  We have been doing this for several years now.

That said, you would think that I would know where this place is.  Or maybe my brother would.  Now, to his credit - he did say he thought it was on the top floor.  However, when talking with my dad, I thought he said condo E1704.  So my brother and I arrive.  We manage to get all of our bags, food, etc in our arms and troop up to the 17th floor.

I burst into the condo Kramer style and look around.  The door was unlocked - and I immediately notice that Big Ed must have remodeled - the floor and furniture was different than I remembered.  Then, I notice the shoes.  I come from a family of big people - and big people have big feet.  There were tiny shoes in the hallway and I knew that this wasn't the right condo.  I heard someone coming out and tried to get out quickly - but as I mentioned - we are big people - I couldn't have shoved Will out of the door if I had tried.  Not to mention negotiating a narrow hallway with multiple bags in hand is difficult.

So like a deer in headlights I was frozen in my spot as the man walked out of his room.  Had I been in the country, he probably would have been carrying a shotgun instead of his ice cream bowl.  I immediately try to push Will out the door while apologizing with Sorry, wrong room!  What was probably only 5 seconds felt like hours.  The guy was nice enough - and he now probably locks his doors.

Well, what goes around comes around.  2 days later, I go up early for a conference call and leave the door unlocked so that the rest of the family can come in without disturbing me.  Low and behold - just after my call an older couple blows into our condo just like I did to poor E1704.  A very confused conversion ensues, as they are not sure why the rental office would give them a key to a place that was already rented.  After a moment, I look at the key - it was for the place next door.  And you don't need a key to unlock a door that isn't locked.  They too apologized and turned to leave, blaming the confusion on their age.

I said no worries - I did it same thing earlier and I don't think it has anything to do with age!

Please be seated.

I was getting the mail last night and the gentleman that was cutting my neighbor's yard greeted me (we have a very friendly neighborhood) and I greeted him back.  He then proceeded to tell me that he used to take care of my yard and that it would get a ton of leaves.  Now, I know he is just looking for me to hire him-but, God blessed me with an able body and I plan on maintaining my yard myself.  Thank you, I will save money and do it myself. 

On the same note, I find that often DIY project can save money - as with the windows treatments I did.  So lets move to my favorite part of the house - my screened in back porch.  It is a small area, but one that I wanted to highly utilize - but didn't want to break the bank in making it that way.

So, I started looking at outdoor furniture.  Oh boy that stuff is expensive - or huge - or really small or really uncomfortable looking or boring.  Nothing seemed to fit my porch - I mean, how hard is it too find a rectangular table and chairs?  Finally, at Ikea I found a table I liked.  It seemed pretty sturdy and it was white - I have an issue with clashing wood colors my porch is 90% natural wood already.  So I got it - worse comes to worse - I could always paint it a color I wanted or return it - right?

Now, I have my table.  Great - so buying piece by piece has the potential to be cheaper - but a much bigger hassle.  I found a rug randomly online that I LOVED - so of course, I bought it.  It is a Turkish print with blues, greens, yellows and some purple.  I liked how bright it was.  Okay - table and rug check...


All that is missing now were the chairs - which are crazy expense (I am STILL trying to find something I like for my dining room).  Randomly, my parents have 4 straight back small chairs that they are getting rid of - did I mention that they were old and faded?


Not a problem for me - I just sanded them down and spray painted them in the back yard.  They look perfect with the rug and table!  I got creative and blew all of the dust from the sanding away with my new blower - quick and easy (very opposite from the sanding).


One lesson learned: when sanding - wear a dust mask or something over your nose - just trust me on that.

Below are the before of the chairs and the after with my porch - and all for under $100!

I think I saw that on Shark Week once...

A short break from home related adventures - to my Peru adventures!

When I first read the proposed agenda for my recent Peru trip, the last day of activities included "Swimming with the Seals". 

My first thoughts - umm, I don't think so.  I have seen Shark Week before, and as we all know, seals are a shark's favorite food.  So, in no way am I planning on joining the seals as a swimming buffet for sharks.  (As much as I would love to have my own TV show- making a guest appearance on Shark Week - as the meal - is NOT one of them.)

So then I re-read the agenda as we finalize it and realize that it is "Swimming with the SEA LIONS" - which I don't remember any guest appearances by them on Shark Week - so we are good.

Fast forward.  Peru - last scheduled day on our agenda.  I have pictured a Disney or Cancun like bay area where, in a controlled environment, where I would be in the same area as A (read 1, one) sea lion.

Below is what I see 2 hours into our boat ride:

Yup - that is right - an island with 8,000 sea lions!  I don't know how to begin to describe everything - but one predominate feeling - fear over the temperature of the water.  For those of you that failed geography - Peru is bordered by the Pacific Ocean - and in September, they are just coming out of winter.  I asked one of the shipmates the temperature of the water - "oh, not freezing, maybe 16-18 degrees".

Oh, not freezing - great.  But, how often are you in Peru by an island of 8,000 sea lions?  So we squeeze into wet suits.  (For anyone who has not had the pleasure of visiting Peru - I look like a giant compared to them.  I specifically ask for "grande" size wet suit - they laughed and gave me an XL.)

The water will knock the breathe out of you.  Once I went numb - or into shock - not sure what happened - I slowly swam out to the sea lions.  They were wild - and swam away if you made quick movements.  The "life guard" (I am unsure of what qualified this guy for the title) - had me float and then pushed me into the masses of sea lions.

This encounter is probably the most incredible thing I have ever done.  As I floated there - they stared back at me - barking, nudging my feet, swimming under me - jumping right by me.... it was amazing and overwhelming. 

This was my favorite adventure in Peru - maybe of my life... well, at least top 10!

The Lockout

I absolutely love my job - what I do, the culture, co-workers, everything - especially the fact that I work from home on Fridays.  I actually find that I am quite productive in my work and can usually squeeze in a few chores in between meetings/tasks.

Rewind to a few Friday's ago.  It is Friday morning.  I have about 20 minutes before my next call.  My goal is to prep for the day - which includes removing any distractions from my immediate work area.  Today the only thing that needs to be cleaned up are my breakfast dishes and my new blower.  I took the dishes to the kitchen and then take the blower to the back porch. 

I set the blower down and turn to go back in the house.  I open the door - expect that it doesn't open.  My back door, in addition to a deadbolt, has a self-locking door knob.  Great.  I try again just to make sure I am not having a blonde moment.  Yup, I am officially locked out of my house.

Now, as I was just planning on dropping off the blower and going inside - I don't have my phone, purse, keys of any sort.  So I quickly run the options... bedroom window - locked; fencedoor so I can go to the front door (even though I know the front door is locked) - oh wait - that is right - I have padlocked my fence so people can't get into my backyard.  So I am locked out of my house, locked into my backyard.

Quite embarrassing.  I can't call anyone as I don't have my phone.  What good would it do anyway - no one has keys.  So then I start to think about what window I want to break to get into my house and wondering how soon Mr. Tommy would be able to fix it for me...

I look over into my neighbor's yard and he returning from an errand.  I say good good morning and ask if he still has the spare key to my house.  He is unsure - but will check.

We will just fast forward to me getting out of the locked fenced backyard and around to the front of my house.  He comes over - and praise God - he has a spare key.  Another blessing - unlike some people who work from home - I actually change into real clothes to work instead of working in my PJs.

So I get back into my house without any broken windows or doors and some minor embarrassment in time for my next call.  Needless to say - the self-locking door has to go - deadbolts, traditional locks, and a good alarm will do for me.

Toliet Humor

Okay, so I am not really a homemaker - I report to a job on a regular enough basis to get a paycheck to semi-afford my house that I am trying to make my home.  And maybe I just have (mis)adventures throughout my life and not just related to my homeownership.

Currently, I am a project manager deploying a great program a ABC Corp*.  My client's project manager, Katy, is amazing to work with - we get a ton of work done, but we also have fun.  We are going live next week, so things are a bit tense (this is me playing down the true stress of the situation).

Katy has been on the verge of a mental break this week as she is a project team of one.  Her hair is disheveled by early afternoon.  She is living on diet cokes and 5 hour energies (I am worried at this point).  I don't even recall what she came into my office for - but as she turned to walk away, something caught my eye.

I call her back in and ask her to spin around.  Her eyes pop open wide and she twirls.  Yes, she had toilet paper tail hanging out of her pants - just barely visible from underneath her jacket, but definitely there.  I tug at it and one sheet rips off and I return it to her.

This situation could now go one of two ways - total melt down or a hilarious outburst.  Katy opted for hysterical laugher - which is good for me as melt downs are never good on a project.  Well, I think the laugher ended in tears, but it was a nice break from the stress.

Hours later, as I am getting ready to leave - I am trying to make Katy go home as she has been working too much.  As an economist, I employ the law of diminishing marginal return to my work life - and my teams work life.  After a certain point, your productive starts to drop - regardless of the effort you put in.

As I am encouraging her to go home and let us start fresh tomorrow, I remind her that she hasn't had any breaks and has been working nearly 12 hours now.  I causally ask if she has even taken any restroom breaks today.  She quickly responds -- oh at least 2.  My calm reply - "I have only seen evidence of 1."

Unfortunately, she was drinking water during my reply - which triggered another bout of laughter, spraying her water out of her nose.  Perfect ending for her day.

I am going to get her a roll of nice toilet paper as a Go Live gift.

*Names have been changed.

Death of a Snake

Yup - that is right -the ever so fierce snake just didn't cut it in my backyard.  While I almost had another heart attack in finding the snake - I was very pleased to find him dead.  Some other animal - I am going to go with bird or squirrel - bit the snake's head off - thank you friendly, non-slithery backyard friends.

Now I just hope that he didn't have a family...