In the "My Alarm Clock is Broken" category...
So, I'm sleeping the other morning and I hear this "waking the dead" kind of noise. No idea what it is, but it's bothering me from the remainder of my slumber. By the time I realize something has woken me up, the noise disappears and I am free to go back to sleep, except there it is again. I turn over and notice that Jill is sleeping with her face towards mine. That spells instant problem because she is a notorious mouth breather and I've now realized that she is inflicting some kind of bodily harm on my eardrums. I go to nudge the top of her head and she shrieks out, "I'M NOT SNORING! IT'S A WOODPECKER OUTSIDE AND IT'S KEPT ME UP FOR THE PAST HALF HOUR!"
I walk over to our bathroom window, which is still open despite scorching heat (More on that later), and try to look out for our friendly neighborhood woodpecker. Of course, I can't see anything. Even if I had my contacts in, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have seen anything. All of a sudden, I hear this jackhammer type noise and it sounds like it's coming from the part of the wall I'm leaning against. I do what every problem solver might do in this situation, I pound the wall. The noise goes away, and I'm left to wonder at this point whether or not this woodpecker is living in the walls of our home, or maybe the attic, or who knows where.
Did I mention that the clock reads 6:27 am at this point?
A few days go by and there is no further performances from Woody. But with the Memorial Day Weekend in full swing, he has been out with avengence. Every morning, between 6:27 and 6:47, he has come back to our home. I mentioned this to my dad and he suggested getting the hose and squirting him if I can see him from outside. While I wasn't able to do this, I did notice that he is on top of our roof pecking at our gutter (which is made of aluminum, not wood). This pecking of the gutter is making a noise that is reverberating throughout our house. I think he's either mentally challenged, or this is some rudimentary form of beak sharpening. My way to combat this over the past several mornings has been to go over and hit the wall/window and Woody flies away to another locale for the matinee performance.
Good to know that he'll continue to come around because if the power goes out, I'm not going to have to worry about the alarm clock. Woody's got me covered.
Heh, heh, heh-heh-heh.....That's all folks!
Step 1: When we wake up in the morning, we wait until 8 or 9 (basically until the sun begins to hit the front of the house) and we shut all of the windows and doors. We leave the blinds closed so that the sunlight is blocked from coming in. We have those faux wood blinds from Lowe's that are white so they let in a good amount of light even if they are closed.
Step 2: Once the indoor and outdoor temperatures begin to equalize, or once the sun stops hitting the front of the house we open everything back up. This worked until the overnight temperatures crept into the 60s. Once this happened, our house wouldn't cool off fast enough. The air is cooler outside, but there is no breeze to bring it inside, so we're stuck with the same stagnant air we've had all day. At this point, we move on to Step 3.
Step 3: We take our large box fan and stick it in the side window. It's perfect here, because it's not visible from the road, or neighbors behind us. This will ensure that we won't get the "Redneck Warning Notice" or "RWN" as I like to call it, from our Home Owner's Association.
As a side note, are the Home Owner's Associations becoming like the mafia or is it just me? We just a slap on the wrist when we moved into the neighborhood because of the red mulch in our front yard. Not because it looked sloppy; because it was red. Their logic was because if they allow red mulch, then they have to allow blue mulch, green mulch, etc. Are you kidding me with this? No one makes blue or green mulch. It was the most capricious argument I had ever heard of. I'm all for the HOA, because I don't want to live in a neighborhood with people parking on their front lawn, or putting a couch on their front porch, etc., but come on. We had to get approval every time we wanted to plant a daisy by our mailbox. (Fortunately, this ridiculous approval process has since gone away.)
Now that I took that tangent way out into left field, I'll go back to my clean air fantasy. Last night, as an example, the temperature dropped 8 degrees in our house from the time we put in the fan, until the time we woke up the next morning. We could have spent a bundle and used our A/C. However, the fans - Which use almost nothing in electricity by comparison - did the job and gave us a cool night. Best of all, our air is as clear as the suburbs will allow. Once May turns into June, the humidity will hit and there will be no amount of fans that can cool off our home then, so we have to enjoy this while it lasts.
Cool Cash!
I really hate heating and air conditioning. Mainly because all of the nasty particles that are in your house get sucked into your vents. Then, no matter how good your air filters are, you end up breathing that junk back into your lungs. People wonder why they are sick or have stuffy noses. So each spring and fall, I relish the opportunity to turn off my heating and cooling system and open up the doors and windows. The past twelve months have seemed much warmer than in years past. I don't think I was able to turn off the A/C until deep into October and now here we are approaching 90 degrees on a daily basis and it's not even June yet. In order to stem the tide for a few more weeks, what we have done is employed use of my trusty box fan. Here is how it works - Step 1: When we wake up in the morning, we wait until 8 or 9 (basically until the sun begins to hit the front of the house) and we shut all of the windows and doors. We leave the blinds closed so that the sunlight is blocked from coming in. We have those faux wood blinds from Lowe's that are white so they let in a good amount of light even if they are closed.
Step 2: Once the indoor and outdoor temperatures begin to equalize, or once the sun stops hitting the front of the house we open everything back up. This worked until the overnight temperatures crept into the 60s. Once this happened, our house wouldn't cool off fast enough. The air is cooler outside, but there is no breeze to bring it inside, so we're stuck with the same stagnant air we've had all day. At this point, we move on to Step 3.
Step 3: We take our large box fan and stick it in the side window. It's perfect here, because it's not visible from the road, or neighbors behind us. This will ensure that we won't get the "Redneck Warning Notice" or "RWN" as I like to call it, from our Home Owner's Association.
As a side note, are the Home Owner's Associations becoming like the mafia or is it just me? We just a slap on the wrist when we moved into the neighborhood because of the red mulch in our front yard. Not because it looked sloppy; because it was red. Their logic was because if they allow red mulch, then they have to allow blue mulch, green mulch, etc. Are you kidding me with this? No one makes blue or green mulch. It was the most capricious argument I had ever heard of. I'm all for the HOA, because I don't want to live in a neighborhood with people parking on their front lawn, or putting a couch on their front porch, etc., but come on. We had to get approval every time we wanted to plant a daisy by our mailbox. (Fortunately, this ridiculous approval process has since gone away.)
Now that I took that tangent way out into left field, I'll go back to my clean air fantasy. Last night, as an example, the temperature dropped 8 degrees in our house from the time we put in the fan, until the time we woke up the next morning. We could have spent a bundle and used our A/C. However, the fans - Which use almost nothing in electricity by comparison - did the job and gave us a cool night. Best of all, our air is as clear as the suburbs will allow. Once May turns into June, the humidity will hit and there will be no amount of fans that can cool off our home then, so we have to enjoy this while it lasts.
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