Off the Wall

Back in 2006 (I think that was the year) I had the unfortunate experience of forgetting to set the parking brake AND put our Pathfinder in gear when I got home from work. This happened not once but three times in a matter of months. Did I mention that our driveway at the time was a hill? The first time the Pathfinder rolled down the driveway and into our fence. The second time didn't do much damage to the pathfinder, but it did push the fence over. The third time the Pathfinder rolled down the driveway, over the now downed fence and into a tree. Daniel discovered the tree incident and was not very happy. He didn't let me live down the Pathfinder mishaps for YEARS.

As of two weeks ago, he can no longer give me a hard time about my "record" with cars (on a side note I have never had a wreck)...

On Daniel's first day to go back to work (after a 3-week paternity leave), I was woken up by Daniel anxiously asking if he could take my car for the day. Something about his car going off our driveway and being stuck on the retaining wall.

In my half-asleep state I told him he could take the car and that I didn't think I would manage to go anywhere with a 3-year-old and infant on my first day home alone.

Several hours later when both boys were up and fed, I looked out the window to see what Daniel meant by his car was stuck on the retaining wall. From the house, it didn't look great, but it was kind of hard to tell through all of the trees.

Later that day Daniel called and asked me to take pictures of the vehicle to see what kind of damage there was and how stuck it actually was. This would give him time to think about the best way to get it off the wall, and allow him to stop at Lowe's on the way home to pick up the materials he needed to get it unstuck.

While Isaac napped, Jack and I ventured down to the back driveway and onto the path below the retaining wall. As I got closer, I asked Jack to stay back. From what I could tell, the car had knocked off a section of curb on the retaining wall and the car was lodged on the wall. 

Daniel was lucky that it didn't go over completely. Especially when he later told me that he had not yet buckled up... 

Had the car gone over, there is a good chance it would have flipped backward onto its roof. As it was, it was perched rather precariously and I'm thankful Daniel was able to climb out unharmed.

So how does one drive off a driveway? Well over the weekend we had had a crowd of 16 people in our house to celebrate the arrival of baby Isaac and Mothers' Day. During this time, Daniel had spent some time replacing the rotors and pads brakes of his car. Every time he finishes a brake job, he immediately gets in, pumps the brakes enough to set the new pads against the rotors, and then drives the car to make sure everything is fine. 

When he finished this brake job it was 10:30 at night, and he needed to close up the garage so guests downstairs could go to bed. He had planned on test driving the car (and pumping the brakes enough to set the pads against the rotors) sometime in the next several days before going back to work the following week.

Several days came and went, and besides being tired, Daniel was distracted with numerous other things (taking Jack to the ER in the middle of the night, dealing with an A/C unit that stopped working while the house was full of people, etc.) Suffice it to say he got distracted and never took that important drive. 

Early the next Tuesday morning Daniel was in a hurry when he left to go back to work, and had forgotten about the recently completed brake job on his car (that he had yet to pump the brakes for or driven). 

He backed out of the garage towards the wall like he normally does, and the brake pedal went to the floor when he tried to stop backing up. He had time to pump it a second full pump before the car rolled into the curb at the top of the wall, broke out a huge chunk of the curb, then rolled over/through where the curb had been. (If anyone is wondering, it takes about 3 pumps to set the pads against the rotors.)

Daniel has worked on cars since high school and he has never made this kind of mistake – chalk it up to 3 weeks of sleep deprivation with a newborn and a lot of distractions. At 6am Tuesday morning, he was exhausted and not thinking about the brakes as he backed out of the garage and onto the turn around spot that is on top of a retaining wall.

Thankfully the car didn't go over all the way over, and the wall held. That night Daniel came home and went straight to work on getting his car unstuck. First he secured the front of the car to a tree to ensure it couldn't go any further backwards, and if the wall collapsed the car couldn't fall far. He then leveled a spot on the side of the hill under the car and built a foundation out of plywood and concrete blocks to support his air-over-hydraulic-ram that he would use to jack up the rear end of the car.  

Once the foundation was in place, he ran the air hoses for the ram and placed the control for the ram where he could reach it without being under the car while it was being lifted. He inserted wooden blocks as cribbing under the car as it was raised higher, so that if it fell for any reason it would only have a short distance to fall before landing on the wood.

 

After the back end of the car was a couple of feet above the retaining wall (and about 8 or 9 feet above the ground below where the foundation was), Daniel put long 4x4s underneath the rocker panels on each side of the car that extended all the way from the front tires to underneath the rear wheels. The 4x4s would serve as makeshift ramps to pull the car back over the top of the curb and onto the top of the wall where it belonged.

Using a come-a-long (basically a winch that you crank with your hand), he was able to use the hand crank to pull the car slowly off of the wall and back onto the driveway. It took him until 10 that night to get the car unstuck. Amazingly the car was driveable and only has a little bit of cosmetic damage to one plastic panel. It was an exciting first day back to work to say the least.

So my first day flying solo with the boys lasted until 10pm that night. I got to experience the full deal – an entire day, plus evening activities including dinner and bedtime flying solo. We don't like to do things the easy way around here!
 

Constipated Elephant

Monday evening I noticed that the water pressure at our house seemed a bit off. It was so low that I thought it might have been turned off. Funny thing is, we never actually lost water.

After dinner I was cleaning up and noticed that the water pressure had returned to normal but now the pipes were making a weird groaning sound – like when there is air in them. I mentioned the problem to Daniel and we both agreed that it was most likely air that just need to be flushed out.

Tuesday, the sounds were getting worse so Daniel called the water company and learned that there had been some type of water problem in Scottsboro that led to us having the low water pressure and now the air the pipes. They assured us that the noises would dissipate in a couple of days.

It is now Thursday and the sounds are worse than ever. Every time we turn on the water, the pipes sound like a constipated elephant {Daniel's words}. We are getting a bit concerned as it is getting louder. I also think I heard the noise at least twice in the middle of the night when no water should have been running {though it is possible that the ice maker in the fridge was working and caused the sounds}. I just hope that one of our pipes doesn't break. That would be an absolute disaster.

*Update: Daniel went under the house and played with the pressure valves while I stood in the hall bathroom and turned the water on and off. And on and off. And on and off. You get the picture. We think the problem is fixed. No more constipated elephants in the household...

Sunday Date

After church we decided to run some errands in Huntsville. First stop was Target for me to pick up some maternity stuff. I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in Target's maternity section for clothes. Talk about frumpy stuff. I have decided that I am sticking with shirts that can double as things I would wear in real life and while I am pregnant... it's amazing what you can find in today's styles in the junior section that will fit over a pregnant belly. I think my saving grace {besides tums} will be the bra extenders I picked up {$6.99 for a six pack}. 

Anyways, after Tar-jay, we stopped at Phil Sandoval's for lunch. They offered outdoor seating and it was cool enough {in the shade} to enjoy eating outside. Daniel tried the Lunch Chicken Quessadilla and I had the Lunch Taco Salad. Both were great. We really enjoyed the fresh chips and salsa before the meal as well. We will definitely be back.

After lunch we went over to the Dollar Theater to see a matinee.

When we finally made it home {around 4PM}, Sophie greeted us outside {in case you don't know she is an INDOOR dog}. We were kind of scratching our heads as to how she got out. Daniel checked the house to make sure there was no foul play and discovered that we had left our back door wide open after eating breakfast on the porch. Oops. Thankfully we live in a very safe area. We are also thankful that Sophie didn't decide to run away {we don't have a fence}. Our electric bill may not make us as thankful. The funny thing is that on our way to Huntsville, Daniel asked me if we had locked the back door and I told him that he was being paranoid...

Rear Ended Again...

We attempted to go to a swap meet today - this ended up being a bust. Not much there by the time we arrived. We found an antique shop to peruse and Daniel ogled some long guns, but nothing worth buying.

On the way home, we were sitting at a stop light (on Independence) when all of a sudden the car shuddered and I looked at Daniel thinking he had stalled the car while at a dead stop. He looked at me and said "I can't believe it - we just got rear ended!" Seriously?!?!?

We turned around to see a man in his conversion van giving us an apologetic look. Daniel got out to check the damage. The guys got out and said something like, "Sorry, I was taking my shoe off and my van just rolled forward."

This is the second time in three days that Daniel has been rear ended while sitting at a stop light. Both times by people not paying attention. Thankfully our steel bike rack took the hit instead of our bumper (both times).

When driving, if you have the need to 1) reach down into your floorboard to pick up a dropped item or 2) take off your shoes or 3) anything else that requires you to not pay attention while sitting stopped at a stop light, PLEASE take the time to put your vehicle in PARK.

Ever had one of these mornings?

Didn't sleep that well last night. Was in a rush to leave for work and locked the front door before I realized it was cooler than I had expected and that I needed a jacket. Went back inside for said jacket.

Proceeded to make it to the car before I realized that I had left my coffee on the counter. Since you can't sleep poorly and then not have a large cup of coffee to start the day, I went back inside for said coffee.

Proceeded to the car a second time. Sat down, stuck keys in the ignition and had the feeling I was missing something. Checked my purse and saw that I didn't have my phone with me. Went back in (for a third time) for said phone.

I hope my day does not turn into a continuous string of forgetfulness...

Foot through Vent

So today is a two-for-one in the world of notes for me.

We at the Moore house seem to have bad luck at least a couple of times of year, or maybe we are just plain klutzy. Maybe neither... sometimes things just happen.

We are on Day 2 of some major projects - almost done with tiling the master bathroom and almost done with the basement floor. It has been a heck of a lot of work. To be honest, things just seem to go wrong when we do too much and get tired.

Tonight we were almost finished with our tiling for the evening and Daniel asked me to hand him something. I walked toward him, not paying attention to the floor, and managed to stick my foot through an uncovered vent. I must have placed my foot "just so" because I found myself falling forward with my leg all the way up to my knee hanging through the vent and my arm hitting a bucket of water.

Thankfully it didn't hurt me too bad, mostly just scraped me up. Thanks to the medicine I am taking for my blood clot (back in October), I also experienced some pretty big bruises.

Note to self, don't work when you are getting tired. Too bad you can't just stop tiling when you feel tired... there is always stuff to be cleaned.

Keys Locked In Car

Yes, I know we just had an incident where we accidently locked ourselves OUT of the house. Thankfully it wasn't awfully cold that day and it was a somewhat easy fix. You would have thought we had learned our lesson and had extra keys for everything put in different places. Well, you would be wrong.

Since it has been so cold this week, Daniel has been really sweet and gone outside to start the car before we leave. Yesterday, after doing this, he shut the car door too soon after starting the ignition and the doors automatically locked with the keys inside.

It is a good thing we had not locked the house yet and didn't have to sit outside freezing while we figured out what to do... Daniel had me call AAA while he tried to figure a way to get into the car. He really thought we had a spare key somewhere, but was unable to find it. AAA had a high call volume, so I was on hold while Daniel searched the house.

Some time last year, Daniel installed a clicker for our car and he was pretty sure we had a spare one somewhere. He found the spare and went outside to try to unlock the doors. Evidently it was not the right clicker since it would not unlock the doors immediately. However, after pushing multiple buttons, all of a sudden the car unlocked itself and the car alarm went off.

I was still on hold at this point, so we didn't have to use AAA after all. This is the second time we have been able to "break" into our house/car... amazing how simple both of these experiences were... it seems like this stuff should be harder.

On a side note: We now have multiple copies of house and car keys and they are all in different places in case we lock ourselves our of our house or car...

Locked Out

Since Daniel and I started driving one car we normally only carry one set of keys between us. Every day as we are walking out the door we always ask each other if we have the keys. Once we have confirmation that one of us has the keys we turn the lock and shut the door behind us.

For some reason this morning, as we were headed out, neither of us asked this important question. I pulled the door shut and we looked at each other with the realization that I had just locked us out of the house and car.

In a futile attempt, Daniel went around back hoping there was a key in our secret hiding spot, knowing that it wasn't there.

Then we discussed our options:
1) Call AAA and have them come unlock the car. Then we would have access to the garage door opener and could get in the house.

2) Call a locksmith and have them come and break the door knob off of our front door.

3) Break one of the paneled windows out of the garage door and crawl through it.

4) Try to use a credit card to break in through the front door.

After discussing we agreed that we would try the credit card first and if that didn't work we would call AAA.

I dug through my purse and found a flexible discount card to Office Max that I don't use... Daniel jimmied the lock in less than a minute. Two thoughts ran through my head: I was glad that it was so easy to get to our keys and head on to work. But it was also a little unnerving that it was that simple to get into the house. When we are home we always throw the dead bolt but for some reason we never do when we leave during the day. I think we will start using the dead bolt more.

Moral of the story: Use the dead bolt AND keep extra keys somewhere.

Special Request - chainsaw accident

This note is for a friend that wanted to know more about Daniel's redneck accident. I was going to just link to the original post about Daniel's chainsaw accident, but I just searched for it and it basically just gives an update that we were at the hospital and asked for prayers.

So here is the whole story (for those of you who have yet to hear it or read about it)... let's just say that accidents and trips to the hospital occur more than we would like them to.

On March 4, 2007, Daniel and I were working on one of our many house renovation projects. This particular project had us outside building a fence. After several hours of digging holes for fence posts, we were ready to cut down the split rails to the right length.

Daniel was using a chainsaw for this process since the posts were large, cumbersome and old. I held the posts in place (a human clamp of sorts) while Daniel trimmed the posts. They had to be cut to taper at the ends to fit in the holes of the vertical posts.

We were on the last post and Daniel was having to force the saw because the wood was really old and hard. Also the blade was probably starting to dull after an afternoon of cutting posts. At the last moment, Daniel was putting a lot of pressure on the saw and the wood broke and the saw jerked out of the wood and into Daniel's leg.

We both looked down and saw shredded blue jeans and blood. I was pretty freaked out while Daniel remained calm and collected. Daniel immediately dropped the saw and clamped his hands around his leg. I ran inside to grab wallets, insurance cards, towels, cell phones and was soon back outside helping Daniel into our car. I sped us to the ER - we figured that was the fastest (and cheapest) thing to do.

We got to the ER and soon Daniel was being wheeled into in an ER room for examination. Initially they thought the would be able to stitch up the gash in the ER and let us go home. But after xrays and several different opinions, the doctor's found that the saw had gone down to the bone and they decided surgery to close the wound would be the most prudent thing to do. There was fear of infection in the bone.

The most interesting thing about this particular ER visit were all the people working in the ER that dropped by our room to see the "chainsaw" victim.

Daniel got 21 stitches in his leg to form an upside down V shape on the inside of his calf. He was very lucky that the chainsaw did not hit any muscles, tendons or bone. He was in the hospital for the weekend and on crutches for 2 weeks while he recovered.

Now we say that Daniel is a real redneck because he has a chainsaw story to tell...

My first wipe out...

This morning on the way to catch the bus, I took my first real spill. I have come close in the past - mountain biking, there have been numerous times I have banged handle bars, pedals, knees and elbows on trees as I rode by. There have even been some almost-spills. But this is the first, entire body and bike laying on the ground kind of spill.

It happened as I was reaching my bus stop. I could see the bus ahead getting ready to make the turn to where the bus stop was. I was pedaling furiously hoping to make it. I was also hoping the normal group would be there so it would give me a chance to make it.

As I rounded the corned, I realized there were no people. So I decided to try to get off of the sidewalk and cut through the dirt and mulch, hoping the bus driver would see me. Of course, I had skinny tires on my bike, not my big knobby ones for mountain biking.

So instead of making a smooth transition, I immediately found myself and the bike in a heap on the ground. I have some bruises and road rash (I guess you would call it mulch rash since I was not on the road).

I was laying there as the bus driver turned the corner. He passed the stop so I just laid there not sure of what to do. Then I saw him stop. So I jumped up, grabbed my bike and hopped on the bus.

After riding into town and regaining my composure. I went up to the front of the bus to wait for my stop. I was the last one off, so I made small talk with the bus driver. I asked him if he had seen me fall. He apologized to me and told me that he had seen me fall and that his first reaction was to laugh! I told him it was ok, b/c I probably would have laughed as well.

My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

To tell the truth, this statement is a lie or at the very least an exaggeration. It definitely could have been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but instead a would-be bad experience wasn't that bad.

It is 10:20 p.m., I just got home and here is my story...

Tonight is not a teaching night for me. However, one of the heads of the departments that I teach for asked me to come down to Rock Hill, SC to discuss creating some online courses for students. Over dinner, we discussed the needs and how I could be of use. Things went really well and while I am going to take a break from actually teaching for the summer, I am going to develop the online courses and then pick up teaching again later. So that is good news.

The trouble started when I got in my car to come home. I called Daniel to let him know that I was on my way and tell him about dinner. While stopped at a light, I noticed the car start to sputter. I turned it off to try to conserve energy (dumb idea). The car would not turn back on.

Since I was on the phone with Daniel already, he suggested that I get out of the car and move to a safe place and call AAA. This is where my unpleasant experience started to get better (at least considering the circumstances).

AAA was extremely helpful. While I waited, a cop pulled up and also offered assistance. He called another cop and they helped to push my car out of the road to a Hardee's parking lot.

AAA called back to say that the tow truck was on its way. I was thankful to be at Hardee's and not in the middle of the road as it was getting dark.

I bought myself a milkshake and contemplated what to do while I waited for the tow truck (it was supposed to take 60 minutes for the tow truck to show up). In a record 15 minutes, the tow truck was there.

AAA called me a third time to verify that I was ok. Can I just say how incredibly impressed I am with AAA??? There customer service was amazing (if breaking down can be amazing).

The tow truck driver was extremely nice and talkative. It was actually an enjoyable ride back to Charlotte considering the circumstance.

While all of this was going on, Daniel had to ride his bicycle to a not so good part of town after dark to buy an alternator and a new battery. Now he is in the garage fixing these things. So really, it was him and not me that had the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

All I can say is that I am very thankful for AAA and they have amazing customer service.

Why we are not backpacking this weekend.

I don't know what it is, but there are times that Daniel and I seem to have terrible luck. This weekend is one of those times.

In the past year, there have been several occasions when we have tried to make plans to go backpacking with some of our friends and for various reasons, the trips have not worked out for us.

The first time we were going to go, Daniel cut his leg open with a chainsaw.

The second time we tried to go, Daniel cut his thumb on a table saw.

Tonight, the reason we are not going backpacking (thankfully has nothing to do with flesh wounds), but as we were leaving downtown, our car overheated. We then realized there was a crack in the top of the radiator and it was half empty - we finally were able to pour some water into it after waiting for close to an hour for the car to cool down.

So now, instead of enjoying awesome weather and backpacking (which we have not been able to do in well over a year), we are at home and Daniel is in the garage replacing a radiator. Not exactly the way we wanted to spend our weekend...

First Test

Tonight, traffic was bad so I was running behind for my Digital Photography class. I walked in 5 minutes late with my test saved on to my flashdrive. I quickly went over some information about upcoming projects and quizzes while printing copies of the tests.

I handed out the tests and was looking over my student's photoblogs when one of my students asked me if I had meant to hand out the tests with all of the answers highlighted?

I had accidentally printed off the KEY so that they all had the answers. So I had to take the tests back up. Reprint the student version of the test and hand them out again...

oops

Relaxing Weekend

It is finally starting to feel like fall! Daniel and I took advantage of some down time while his hand is healing. Friday we grabbed dinner and then ended up at our favorite bookstore at the mall. While there, Daniel read an article that said "The difference between a laceration and amputation is the height the table saw blade is adjusted to." Boy are we both incredibly thankful that the height of the blade was no higher and that he only had a laceration!

Saturday we slept in late and then drove up to Lake Norman where we drove through a subdivision he designed the roads for. The road was finished and they are starting work on the lots - that was neat to see, especially for Daniel to see his work in real life.

Afterwards we drove on the Lake Norman State Park where we did a 4 mile hike. We were curious to see the water levels of the lake since we have been in a drought for several months. The water was definitely down - about 6 feet. At one place we came to what would have been an island, but the water was so low that we could actually walk across the sand bar out to the "island."

Saturday night Daniel had to do some work at the office, so after we ate pizza together I was on my own for the evening.

Sunday, we slept in again. All of this sleeping late has been a real treat. We went to late service and then spent a lazy afternoon watching a movie and not doing a whole lot. It was nice to have the opportunity to do nothing but relax.

Trip To The ER Part II

Daniel's bandaged thumb.

 

We had our second trip to the ER today when Daniel cut his right thumb on a saw blade.

I was out running some errands and received a call from Daniel at 2:45 saying I need to get home as fast as I could. 15 minutes later, the house was locked up and we were on our way to the ER.

The ER was pretty busy - we had to wait almost an hour before we were actually called in. We spent a total of 4 hours at the hospital - a lovely October day wasted waiting on people to see us.

Daniel is doing fine - he had three stitches put in his right thumb. He is worried about how to do the following things with his left hand:

1) Shave
2) Take care of business
3) Brush his teeth
4) Use a keyboard and mouse
5) Write

Locked in the Bathroom...

Today I changed out the old door handles for all of our doors and while I was in the bathroom, I shut the door (dumb idea). The problem with this was that I had already inserted the latch part of the door, but not the handle. Thankfully I was able to use a screw driver to jimmy open the lock...

On a bright note, all of the baseboard and shoe molding in the guest bedroom is installed and the door casing around our coat closet is in as well... this means that we can start installing baseboard in the living, dining and kitchen areas soon!

A note for my sister...

Angela, here is my daily note, since you are having withdrawals!!!

This morning I got up and was hurrying to get ready for my morning workout. Daniel had not left yet and he took one look at me and said, "Is the tag on your shorts supposed to be on the outside?"

Evidently I had my workout shorts on inside out and was about ready to run out the door like that!

Intruder In the Night

Last night I woke up to a noise and noticed that Daniel was awake so I asked him what he was doing.

"I think I heard something," was his reply. So I asked him what he had heard.

"Two things: I think I heard someone laughing and I heard water running and then being turned off." At this point he also let me know he was looking for his handgun and flash light.

Great. We live in a safe neighborhood and it is not a good feeling to wake up and be afraid. I did some quick thinking and remembered that I had set the dishwasher to the delayed cycle so that it would run in the middle of the night while we were asleep. It had woken me up an hour before Daniel woke up so I told him that the running water was probably the end of the dishwasher cycle and that he probably dreamed that someone was laughing.

We both lay awake and still for the next 30 minutes listening in the dark. There were no more noises and we both agreed that the dishwasher must have been the "intruder." After a little while Daniel decided to get up and investigate just to be sure.

I don't know if you have ever heard a handgun being cocked in the dark, but it is a LOUD noise. He made his way through the house and turned on all of the lights. After he was sure it was just us in the house, we finally went back to sleep.

So there was no intruder... just a noisy dishwasher. I will probably refrain from running it on delay in the middle of the night in the future.

What's That Burning Smell?

Today Daniel was working on some finishing touches to drywall in our guest bedroom. At one point he yelled asking me what had fallen and I said nothing and that I had not heard any noise. So he continued working.

About an hour later, he stopped and we ate lunch and he took a break to read outside. When he came back in he asked me, "What is that burning smell?" Up until that point I had not noticed anything so I said that I wasn't sure. He went back to the guest bedroom and didn't notice anything amiss and turned off our air purifier machine since that was the only thing on in the room - thinking that there must be something wrong with the motor.

He had finished the drywall sanding, so I went in to vacuum up all of the dust. As I worked around the room, I noticed that the burning smell was still strong. I had to move a lamp that was in my way and when I moved it I noticed a piece of wood had fallen into the top of the lamp and was burning - not a fire (yet) but there was a significant area of black charred into the wood.

I called Daniel into the room and we agreed that the loud noise he had heard was the wood falling from the top of the closet into the lamp but it went undiscovered. Thankfully I found it because it would have eventually started a fire, which would have been a HUGE disaster!

Raccoon cont.

Daniel just found this post on someone's blog that is pretty funny about a raccoon living in someone's chimney. It could be bad if the raccoon we heard last night is using our chimney as a home...

We saw him on the roof by the chimney a couple of weeks ago and then last week I was mowing the yard in the evening b/c of the heat and I saw the darned thing scampering through our fence row...