the flashing lights may be trying to tell you something

just before Thanksgiving, we may or may not have gotten over to the farmhouse for donuts-love that place in part for the ambiance! check out their decor, how could you not love it?!

classy donut joint!

 and that put me in the mood to pull out some of my own decorations to get into the season. no tree, though. i did a live tree a few years ago and that was the extent of my tree adventures..i'll just enjoy them in public, in the movies and at other peoples' homes!

then we just went for a walk on the beach, down toward the 'tree house'. i don't recall if that makes the mile or 1 1/2 mark. either way, it's right by the fiesta house. i'm pretty sure these are not the official names, so if you're looking to book a vacation rental, don't go by my recommendations! anyhoo, a day or two later, there was a little news report on baynews 9, and they were talking about the tree house!! i saw it, and thought, surely there is not another tree house in the area! sure enough, it was 'ours' and they showed views of the inside, as the owners were talking about how the city is making them remove it. it's been there for over a year, and apparently there is something about permits, etc... they have taken it to several courts and now are trying to get a ruling from the u.s. supreme court apparently...crazy.

another random story: i'd been having some garage door difficulty. at some point it began giving me issues not closing from the car remote once i'd backed the car out. so i'd been backing the car out, going back in, and then i had to hold the wall remote button until the door was all the way down, and go out the front door. as you can imagine, it was rather inconvenient. the problem was i couldn't find the manual (i probably put it in the drawer that i blocked off as i was trying to hide some of the furniture that furnished this rental home). annoying enough that i got the stair steps out to try to read the buttons on the opener-machine part that's attached to the ceiling. i tried to reset, replacing the battery, yelling at it...and all it kept doing when i pushed that little button was: "BRRPT," pretended to come down about .0045 cm, and back up, then the light would flicker at me in a very laughing-manner. RUDE.

 well, i finally got fed up enough and remembered to google the name of the opener, and look for trouble-shooting FAQs. well, it just so happens that the flashing of the lights was it's way of talking. like the movies when someone comes out of a coma and they communicate by blinking. pretty sophisticated (stranger things, season 1, anyone?) apparently one up, four down means that the sensors are not aligned. so i got to the business of removing the lug-nut, facing the sensor out and back in to align it by looking for the green light. no green light..oh, because the idiots who rented before me must have thought it would look better if they painted over it. dummies. so after scraping the paint off, and trying to stay out of the laser line of fire, they were aligned and i tightened the lug-nut back in place...moment of truth- it worked, and i no longer have to plan an additional 10 minutes to play american ninja in order to leave my house! now if the miniature dinosaur lizards, who dwell in this area and think the garage is a rec-center, will stay off the sensor and not make it move, we'll be good; at least now i know how to fix it! (chamberlain garage door openers-improving non-verbal communication observation skills one faulty sensor at a time)

i also got crazy and chopped down some branches from the jungle of a backyard, and while i was at it, i decided it would be a good time to saw down a couple of the bamboo trees to thin them out a little. so the first one was easy, as the top had started to die and was shriveled over. so i was over-confident and decided to go for one of the giants. the key was the angle of the cut, as well as trying to get it untangled at the top without letting it get out of control and crash into the lanai. well, about a third of the way through the cut, i was thinking i probably should not have attempted this without help. i was legitimately getting worried, perhaps sweating a little. but when you're already that far along, there's no going back, or it would snap later when i wasn't out there, for sure wreaking havoc...so i kept at it, and when it was almost completely severed, still standing straight, i threw the saw off to the side and tried to push the tree in the direction i wanted it to fall...and it got tangled in the tree branches from a tree on the other side of the fence. at that point, i had to keep pushing and pulling trying to brace it and keep it from falling on the lanai, because it's merely a frame with screens. yikes. not gonna' lie, i was a little nervous, and when it finally came untangled, the top portion smacked the frame on the way down, but it was a minor smack-age.

they left a jungle out there-all we need is a panda to eat the bamboo and i'd have one less thing to worry about!

i then had to saw those pieces and now i have a little stack of bamboo (plus some that my dad and mom helped me with back in may). trying to decide what to do with them-i may just bundle them up and put them out on a yard-waste day. or i could make a raft in preparation for the next big hurricane. or i could make some bamboo furniture or rain sticks and sell it at the farmer's market...so many options, so little time!

next up- a quick little trip to the keys for work. over-nighter, which is keeping me from the Christmas get-together in miami...sad day, but i am looking forward to a good training!

may your weekends be long!
julie

last update before irma...i think.

quick update because i still can. it is was early-ish saturday morning, and we are continuing to get updates on irma. over the past 24 hours, irma continues to move west and as it moved into cuba, it may have weakened for a minute, who knows. that said, it will probably swing up the west coast, if it heads along the current projection, the eye may pass over our area, but by that time the strength will have dwindled a bit. still enough to cause a lot of damage, but much less threatening.

i've been stocking up and preparing for the worst (Kamp-WILD, survival instincts, thanks Hank Harmon!) and i pulled out all of the emergency candles, batteries from every nook and cranny, and the list goes on. i filled ziploc gallon baggies and froze them, filled the tub, for necessary flushing (in the guest bathroom), filled a couple of lined trash cans with water in case that gets shut down (for necessary pot-washing..not 'pot-pot', 'pots-and-pans-pot'.) and after doing all that water-prep, looked out at the pool and thought, 'for the love...i HATE YOU, IRMA!'

that said, i do have a few more last things to do, and then we will settle in over at shea's for the impending doom..(there was talk at one point of going over to the school, but it is actually in a lower zone than we are, so, you do what you do-we'll be more comfortable there anyhoo).where i'm pretty sure there will be some pirate shenanigans (you think i'm joking...if you know us, you realize it's no joke). i purchased the disposable doggie pads, so the boys are taken care of; the only issue will be chaco, and his incessant need to let me know that there is lightning, thunder and random sounds outside. fun.

it's great that miami misses the eye of the storm, but still looking at high winds and surf-this is a relief, because i have several friends/former classmates in that area...they keys still look to receive a beating...one thing that makes me sad is that there are still so many turtle nests, and we will probably lose all of them with this storm. #heartbreaking 

we're hoping to get out to casperson shortly after the storm...maybe the storm will bring up some nice shark teeth...#priorities

i'm a little leery of the towering bamboo trees in my backyard..hopefully they will hold true to the ancient chinese adages and bend in the wind...not snap! yikes. by the time irma hits our area, she's predicted to be around 100-135 mph winds-which equate to between an f-1/f-2 tornado, so we'll be hiding from the wind.

i'd include pics, but i just want to get this posted and finish up some last stuffs.

-ju