Let's talk fire alarms...

Today, I am wondering about fire alarms and just how the infernal things work. Everytime I make a pizza or bake Chris's bread I set the oven on 425 degrees. This is a hot oven, but normal for baking things like this. The fire alarm joins in with the beeper that tells me the oven is at the proper temperature. Now my Mother's first rule of cooking is that the fire alarm is not the signal that the food is done, but mine goes off when it is supposed to go in...

On Wed. I was baking and of course, the fire alarm is going off. It would not stop so I took it down and took it outside on the porch banister. That night when Chris came home he brought it in and said it wouldn't do much good for us out there. He knows how it works, so it was no surprise to him to find it out there. I put it back up and didn't think anything more about it.

On Thursday, I was boiling water to drink and make Kool-aid. Our city water has more nasty in it than a well in a village in the middle of a cholera outbreak in the 1300's. I was pouring the hot water into a pitcher to cool, and the pitcher started to overflow. I grabbed a kitchen towel and threw it on the counter to stop the water from running down on the laminate floor. Well, the edge of the towel fell across the stove and I didn't see it and it caught fire. I had turned around to grab some paper towels for the water too, and when I turned back around I grabbed the water pitcher and poured it on the fire. And the entire time the fire alarm remained completely SILENT. Not a peep...hmmmm. Now how does that work??

Exercise - a dirty 7 letter word

Ok, I admit it, I HATE to sweat. And like I told Chris the other day while we were walking on the trail, if there is a bear chasing me, I might think about running, but playing dead sounds a lot easier... Walking the rail-trail, and riding bikes there too, is about all the exercise I want. When it comes to exercise equipment, I have about as much luck with it as I have with lawn mowers - see my previous blog. Besides, I used to take excuses for gym class from my Mom, and was raised that "bodily exercise profiteth little" ( 1 Tim. 4:8). I always wore dresses, and couldn't participate in a lot of the things that they were doing in gym class.

One day, Chris and I went to visit his parents. I had been there a few times before, so it wasn't my first visit. Good thing too... We talked with them a while and were discussing buying a treadmill. They had one, and wanted us to walk on theirs to see what we thought. Chris walks on it a few minutes and gets off and tells me to try it out. So I did. I had never been on a treadmill before, and I am so clumbsy that my nickname in my family is either "klutz" or "grace". Chris fastened the little shut off clip to my shirt and they started it up and I stepped off the sides and on the machine. Then they started talking to me. And that was all she wrote... The next thing I know I am flying off the thing backwards, hitting the wall and lying in a heap in the corner behind the machine, and my toe is throbbing! Chris and his dad are cracking up laughing and his Mom is shrilly telling them to get me up! No one knows for sure what exactly happened, but there were tread burns on my toe and it apparently got caught under the edge of the tread and twisted. All the guys could say is that they were sorry noone caught it on tape for America's Funniest Videos. Some help they were.

We did go on to buy a treadmill, and I used it for several weeks. One of the many times I have went on a diet and exercised and GAINED weight... So, so much for that! I'm not overweight; I'm under tall...

Meeting your true love

Well, today, I will tell you how I met my fiance' Chris, my most precious treasure! It was Jan. 2002, and I was recovering from a rather nasty relationship, but still had a lot of hope that my prince was out there. I was working for a food place in the mall and going to school to be a medical assistant. My manager and I were really good friends, and she put a starter profile of me on a dating website. She waited till I came to work and told me about it and then asked me to come over and complete the profile. I wasn't too keen on it to begin with, but I figured what the heck. I had nothing to fear on the internet, I had already met all the freaks and weird-o's in person. So that Fri, she and I went out to dinner and then went back to her house and got on-line and started answering questions. She knows me pretty well, so I didn't have too much to do. I didn't have a picture either, so that step was eliminated too. After we finished the profile, she told me to go ahead and go on the search part of the site and see what was out there. Still not too keen on it, she finally talked me into it. She had met her boyfriend on the same site, so she was convincing.

The first photo I saw was Chris and I said "Hey, he's cute!" She told me to say "hi" to him. I wasn't sure I wanted to because I was raised that men make the first move. But I went ahead and said "hi" and sure enough, he was on-line. We instant-messaged for about 90 minutes that evening and at the end he gave me his phone number and told me I could call him if I wanted. Two nights later I did. We talked for 2 hours. And 2 hours the next night and the next night....

So he asked me if I wanted to meet. He said if I did that I should set up the place and the time and he would meet me there so I would be comfortable. So I said OK, and we decided on dinner and a movie. We would meet at Ryan's on Monday after work for dinner and then go to the mall for a movie after. This was my territory, so I felt safe.

Monday night came, and I went to meet Chris. As I was driving down the road to Ryan's I realized that they are not open on Monday's. I had a nervous laugh thinking he might think I was blowing him off by picking a place that isn't open on Mondays. But I pulled in the lot and saw his car and pulled up and the rest as they say is history. We had dinner at Applebee's and went to see "The Mothman Prophecies" and then sat and talked for about 2 hours in the parking lot. We have been inseparable ever since. It was 8 years this past Jan, and we are getting married this Sept at the beach! Every day with him has been a blessing, and I am looking forward to the rest of my life with him.

Time to mow the grass

Well, it's time to mow the grass! And for the entire summer we will be a slave to it's constant need to be cut. I have an interesting history with lawn mowers. It all started in my early 20's when I was charged with mowing my grandmothers quite sizable lawn. It was a push mower and it had ran out of gas. So I jumped in my old 1963 Ford truck and promptly backed over the push mower, flipped it over and finished it off...It was all downhill from there. I was still living with my parents, so I "helped" them with mowing the acre they lived on. I bent the blades and then the shaft on their pushmower twice in the span of a month. I ran over the property line marker - two different times...and burned up an electric weedeater cutting down some iris leaves. The replacement mower didn't last long either when I bent the shaft on it...Then I got my own mower with a grass catcher. It was the one that is guaranteed to start with one pull - NEVER! That thing is still hanging on by a thread. I think it's because it's a Honda. And not because I have had any more luck in taking care of it. I have done a good job of beating it up. And I am NOT trying to - I am actually trying to take care of them!

Then I met Chris...and I had never used a riding mower before. He was mowing grass at the bottom of the property when his brother-in-law came over to see a Subaru he had for sale. So as they talked and walked, Chris asked me to take the lawn mower up the drive. I told him that I had never driven a riding mower before and he was well aware of my mower history, but was equally confident that I could take it where it needed to go. So off I went. Up the driveway, around the curve and right into the back of the Subaru and up onto the bumper. That's where they found me when they got to the porch. A good laugh was had by all. I learned to use that mower and even without supervision. But we had some accidents along the way. I ran over some stumps and bent the blades, then I broke the mandrel that holds the blades up under the deck not once, but TWICE. Chris decided that I don't need a mower, I need a brush-hog! There have been so many various repairs on these mowers that I can't remember all of them. But you would think at some point I would no longer be "allowed" to mow the grass. And I do enjoy mowing grass (and shovelling snow). This past fall we got a brand new shiny red riding mower, and a few weeks ago he got it out and mowed the lawn. It drives totally differently from the last one we had, so I have no idea how to operate it. And something tells me I may never know.

A little about me

You may be wondering about a couple of things, so I will try to answer at least two of the basics early on.
1. How did I come up with my name? Well, of course, my first name is Heidi, but the hobbie part comes from the fact that I really love vintage things - Hollie Hobbie, and the fact that I love to make crafts. If you can think of a type of craft, I have probably tried it. I love to sew, crochet, paint, cross-stitch, quilt, do embroidery, work with felt, and create ideas in my head for all kinds of crafts. I dabble in writing, photography, drawing, cooking, baking and gardening. I have special interests in food for patients with celiac sprue and chronic kidney disease. In other words, I have so many hobbies that the name just seemed right. I also started selling items on Etsy (heidihobbie@etsy.com) and needed a name, so "heidihobbie" it is. The lower case letters just mean that I don't want special attention and I like things low-key.

2. Do I make up this stuff I write about? Absolutely not. It has been my experience that truth really is stranger than fiction, and I have had a LOT of experience. All the aspects of my life have made me the person I am today and given me the confidence to be satisfied with myself and what I have and how I live. And a great sense of humor always helps in any situation. My favorite mantra is: "If you can laugh at it, you can live with it" and that goes for people too not just situations. Humor can diffuse the most tense situations, at least the ones I have been in, and it can really relieve stress. So go ahead and have a big ol' belly laugh at least once a day! Can't hurt and it just might help....

How did you spend Earth Day?

So, how did you spend Earth Day? Well, I spent it at the DMV...I should say I wasted it - at least 40 minutes of it. That is how long it took me to get my driver's license renewed. I had to go to the information desk and be told to go to the driver's desk. There I turned in my proof of residency and my old license. I took the eye exam, and had a seat with a number...Then after about 15 minutes I saw another person who took my driver's license, proof of residency and $13. Then I had a seat with another slip of paper. After about 20 more minutes yet another person called my name and took my photo. Five minutes later I had my new license and 5 years of being stuck with a photo that looks like someone stuck their hand up under that little blue curtain and goosed me.

While I waited, I had time to reflect on the first time I went to take my driver's test. It was another spring over 2 decades ago. I had gotten my permit and driven with my Mom and Dad, practiced parallel parking and was ready to go. Mom took me to the DMV at the State Police station on Meadowbrook Road, and I was assigned a state trooper that was at LEAST 6' 10". He folded himself accordion-style into the front passenger seat of the 1980 Toyota Corolla, his knees touching his chin. We left the lot and drove around and came back to do the parallel parking part. Now keep in mind I had practiced this at the Fairmont State Police Station, so I wasn't used to this particular spot. I gave it the first try, and hit the barrel at the back of the car and knocked it over. The trooper got out of the car to set the barrel back up. Just as he got behind the car, I let my foot off of the brake. I forgot the car was still in reverse, and looked in the rearview mirror just in time to see him doing a Dukes of Hazzard jump out of the way. Needless to say, I failed that one!

OK! I'm ready to do this. A new adventure. I like adventure. I like a lot of things, and I like to learn new things everyday. So this means that today is taken care of. Now just to come up with topics to talk about. Shouldn't be too hard. My mom and I were in the waiting room the other day and were keeping the receptionist entertained. We were talking about how when I was little, Mom always told me not to wipe things off my hands with spit because spit stinks. Then, if she saw something on my face, she would lick her thumb and use her spit to wipe off my face...hmmm! Did her spit not stink, or did my face stink after she was done??

I also remember that my Mom, Grandma and I were walking down the street to the store one time and saw our preacher and his wife coming down the street toward us. Mom knows he will want to shake each of our hands when they get to us. Mom leans down and whispers in my ear that she just saw him picking his nose. She really didn't, but she wanted to see me try and not shake his hand. I was only about 6 years old and was raised to have alot of respect for myself and others. I avoided shaking his hand for as long as I could, but eventually had to. After they walked away, Mom had a big laugh when she told me that she really didn't see him picking his nose...and people wonder why I am twisted???