A Cold Day in Hell

Holy Jesus, it’s been cold outside. Having lived in Oklahoma for 11 years, I’ve had my fair share of snow and ice. But I also moved to Texas for a reason and that was to get away from the cold weather… yet here it is.

So, here’s something interesting: I haven’t been into the office all week. Due to an emergency home issue (more to come on that) and bad weather, I’ve spent the week working from home. During this week, I’ve learned a few things:

1. I chose the wrong line of work. Apparently, I should’ve become a plumber because they are allowed to charge an ungodly amount of money for an hour or two of work. I had to work from home on Monday to wait for a plumber to come out, dig around in my front yard, fix a pipe and then rob me. (And by “rob,” I mean I wrote him a check for what he quoted me. I'm feeling a little dramatic, leave me alone.) Luckily, Greg and I save a small portion of each paycheck to our home account (or as Greg calls it, “Home Acquisitions account” – he’s such an accountant) so we can buy décor, make improvements, etc. so it wasn’t a huge deal, BUT I was just hoping to spend that money on décor for my mantle or my guest bedroom re-do, not a broken pipe. So is the life of a homeowner, though.

The aftermath: Thanks overpriced plumber. Really nice.

2. You can and will gain 4 pounds if you lay around and eat an entire plate of cake balls over the course of only a few days. Whoa. Get it together girl.

3. Our smoke detector is alive, evil and wants to ruin our sleep (and as a result, our LIVES). Anyone in Dallas, knows all about the rolling blackouts we had on Wednesday. So, starting at 7 a.m. (when we were still soundly sleeping, working from home that day and all), we realized we lost power. A minute later, every alarm in our house went off. Pretty sure, you’ve probably never seen two people running around so confused. I’ve honestly never heard my husband mutter so many cuss words in a row. Being somewhat new homeowners, we were clueless about what to do. So after about 10 minutes of expletives, pure confusion, and running around like we had somewhere to be, we came up with a plan. After ripping out all the batteries (didn’t work), trying to unplug (didn’t work either) and one call to the Frisco Fire Department, we thought we had it under control. Until about 2 a.m. on Thursday morning when the alarm went off again and continued to do so about every hour until 7 a.m. that morning. Two calls to the fire department later, I think we’ve got it solved. I think about our smoke detectors much like Kevin Mcalister thought about the furnace in his basement in Home Alone. Alive and terrifying.

4. Chickfila is worth the risk. After being stuck in my house for literally 3.5 days, I had to get out. Against Greg’s better judgment, we ventured out (after digging out garage door out of the snow so it would open) to enjoy some chicken-y, waffle-fried goodness. Roads were very icy but we made it safely home and boy, was it worth the risk!

5. The bitch is back. That’s right, the crafty bitch that dwells somewhere inside of me is hoping to make a return over the weekend. With all of this down time I’ve had at home, I made a list of things I’m hoping to tackle. More to come on that soon!

And here's a look at our front yard and my car covered in snow. Poor girl.

Hope all of you are staying warm and safe…