Friday, April 27, 2018

Around the house

My refrigerator is making some weird noises. That's bad, right?
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When Frank is out of town, I watch too much Fixer Upper and The Middle and This Is Us.
He's been traveling quite a bit lately and I am actually almost out of tv to watch. I may have to branch out to some different shows...or maybe start reading again! Recommendations welcome.
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We are having plumbing woes at our house...things that really do require some attention. Our hot water heater is probably in need of replacement. It sounds like there are a bunch of rocks tumbling around in there. About a year ago we had a plumber come to flush it but it didn't fix anything, it actually got worse after that. It is most likely due to our hard water and will need to be replaced sooner than later. The plumber actually recommended replacement when he came but we are trying to eek out as much life as possible.  Looks like our time is about up..as you might imagine, this makes me sad.
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The fact that our hot water heater is dying due to hard water and the fact that our dishwasher is also not faring well, most likely for the same reason, is leading to me to think that we should probably get a water softener. Neither Frank nor I am excited about this idea. First soft water feels awful...all slippery (Frank would say slimy). I have been told that you get used to this but we have our doubts. Also, I haven't looked into it but it sounds expensive as well.  And how does that work with the drinking water? Do I also have to buy a water purifier if I get a water softener? And then I will have to become one of those people buying pallets of salt at Costco?...
Obviously these are things I have to investigate.
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We used to laugh when we would go visit Frank's parents because they had a guest room for us but we had no where to put our stuff when we visited. The closet and dresser were full of his mom's stuff.
My daughter-in-law and the grandkids are coming this week and will stay at our house part of the time and Carter will be home from college this week as well. As I look around to prepare for their arrival I came to the uncomfortable conclusion that I have also started to fill the closets and dressers in the guest room. Maybe this is just what happens when the kids move out. I hope to deal with it soon, although I'm not exactly sure what I mean by that. None of the things in the closets or dressers are things I want to get rid of necessarily. I just don't want them in my closet!
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I recently got a new job. Why is this fact included in an "around the house" post? Well, because I will be around the house more! YAY!  I will miss the people I work with, I did make some fun friends at my current job. But my new job is a few less hours per week and is closer to my home so I will get to spend some time in my favorite place-home. I'm thrilled. Hopefully I will like the job as well.
 :-)
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Also, on a positive note, the tulips have bloomed. I love them so much. So. much.



Monday, April 16, 2018

Jeeping. The latest.

One might get sick of reading about Jeeping in the coming days, I  may even get sick of writing about it. However, Jeeping, for me, involves a lot of mental and emotional energy (is trauma too strong of a word?) and so blogging about it will most likely continue. To my grandchildren who may read this someday out of boredom or curiosity, I apologize.

Did we go to Moab two weeks in a row? Why yes, we did.  Here were the reasons:
-It snowed up here where we live and that made us want to go south.
-Frank's jeep got lifted this week so he, of course, really wanted to try it out.
-Frank doesn't really need a reason to want to go to Moab. I think he would do it every single weekend if he could.


We went on a new trail that we had never tried before. This time around (vs the last time we owned a jeep) I am trying to put my foot down and say I refuse to do anything crazy. I do not like the feeling of "I might die doing this stupid thing".  It is not in my nature. I don't get it at all, to be honest.

However
(You knew that was coming didn't you?)
Frank picked this trail and said it was mostly a medium trail-yellow- with nothing really dangerous. It was only considered hard in parts-red- because of rocky terrain.  We ventured on.

An example of "rocky terrain". This kind of stuff isn't scary to me unless it's too steep.

I kept to my stated intention of getting out of the car if I had any doubt of the scariness of the terrain. I got out about 4-5 times on this trail. I took a few pictures and a couple of videos, although neither the videos nor pictures do justice to how scary it looks from inside the car. 
That is disappointing to me.
Take this for example. Inside the car it looks very steep and rocky, like driving off a mini cliff. In this picture...no big deal.


This is me trying to get a picture from inside the jeep of how scary it looks. Even I admit that this picture doesn't look that bad. But seriously, those are big rocks and we are going to drive over them.


Here is a little video that shows my feelings and Frank's feelings all in one short clip. I was trying to keep my commentary to a minimum since all I ever say is how scared I am. Ha!  But as you will see, I let some noise slip out...



It was beautiful. A perfect day, weather-wise. I do love the gorgeous Red rocks of southern Utah as well. I can never capture the beauty of the place (how surprising...using my iPhone only and sometimes through a window) but it really is quite spectacular.




About halfway though our drive, Frank heard a noise he did not like. Since he just got the lift done this week, he was keeping a close eye on things and making sure it was all installed and performing well.  Turns out, this sound was the sound of part of the jeep's guts coming loose (Yes, guts...something underneath...that's all that matters to me). He found that a bolt had come loose, so loose that the nut was missing and it was almost out completely.  During his investigation he found another bolt that was also loose but the nut was still intact.  As we have done with the past Jeep, he jimmy rigged a fix with duct tape. Yes duct tape held our vehicle together as we finished a difficult four wheeling adventure and drove the 3 hour drive back home afterwards. Ridiculous.


Shortly after "repairing" the jeep, we arrived at a cool arch called Uranium Arch...apparently named after the mines that existed around Moab back in the day.
For me the upside of 4 wheeling is that you get to see things that you would likely never see in any other circumstance. Most of these beautiful places are only available to people with serious 4 wheel capable vehicles or to serious hikers. We don't really fall into the serious hiker category though we hope someday to be less pathetic than we now are.




Arches are so cool in person and kind of hard to capture with an iPhone. You'll just have to trust me.
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We have a book that we use to map the trails. It gives info on what kind of terrain you will find and obstacles that you will experience. We knew this trail had an optional hill called "Wipeout Hill".
I told Frank that we would definitely not be taking that side trip.
We got to a point in the road where there was a fork and it wasn't clear which way to go, so Frank just starts going left. I tell him to stop while I read the book...turns out if we had continued to the left for a few more feet we would have gone down, you guessed it, Wipeout Hill.
OY!
We turned around but as we were about to drive away we see a couple investigating the hill and then getting into their jeep and heading that way. So we got out to watch.
I was so stressed watching them go down it that I couldn't even bring myself to take pictures. I wasn't in any danger whatsoever but I was beside myself.
At one point the jeep went up on the two front wheels and nearly tipped.
Frank immediately turned to me and said,"You did not just see that."
The jeep did make it safely to the bottom where they stopped and looked back up at the hill for quite a few minutes. I'm sure they were thinking back to that moment when they almost went end over end.

Then a group of vehicles arrived that were all going down the hill.
Turned out they were being trained to take tourists down this way...so they had a guy showing them where to put their tires and how to steer as they went down.
I wish now that I had a decent picture of this monstrous hill but I was at this point pretty sure I was about to have a full on panic attack just watching.
I ended up leaving the area to do some deep breathing and questioning of my life decisions. 
Frank watched the first guy go down and said he did fine.
I made him vow to never talk about that hill to me again. 
A vow he has already broken numerous times (accidentally of course) 
Here is a picture I stole off the internet showing the beginning of that hill. It gets worse after this part:


Below is the only picture I managed to get. You can't even tell it's a hill really except you can see the guy at the top waiting, and the guy headed down.


Anyway, after my little breakdown we kept going and the road was less stressful for the rest of the ride.

We had a lovely little lunch with a nice view, as usual.


I also got out of the car for this part


The book described this part as "uncomfortably tippy" and "scary looking".
I agree.


I took the above picture as I hiked over the scary, tippy hill while Frank waited at the bottom.

So that was the latest adventure in Jeeping from the Hills.
I am happy to say that this coming weekend, we are not going 4 wheeling because we are doing an escape room!  I'm actually excited about this idea and I will not be in danger at any point.

Monday, April 9, 2018

This happened...again

Well, this happened over here at the Hill home:





Yes, Frank got himself another jeep. He missed his old one, oh, probably from the minute he sold it. Not long ago, he started looking on KSL and talking about jeeps so I knew it was only a matter of time. At first he only looked at white jeeps, like he was trying to get his old one back. But he did eventually branch out and when he found a great deal on this dark grey one, he pulled the trigger.
It isn't as tricked out as his old white jeep so he is having to do some work to get this one ready for serious 4 wheeling. (heaven help me)

This weekend, the first weekend he has had the jeep, we went to Moab. I know, what a shocker.
I did tell Frank that I don't want to go all crazy like he did last time. If he wants to do serious rock crawling, he needs to make some guy friends!

We did a couple of fairly easy trails this weekend along with a bit of hiking.  I got out of the jeep at one point and Frank laughed at my new plan...when in doubt, get out!  I took pictures though, so I was useful. And, honestly we didn't do any trails that were too scary.
It was a really nice weekend.

I got out at this hill. It wasn't that bad but it's been awhile so I was nervous. ha!

First stop was Dellenbaugh Tunnel. It's actually an arch that is low to the ground apparently.
You can't tell from the picture but that is tall enough that we could walk through it.
There was a walkway along the left side and all on the right side was TONS of rodent poop. I don't know what kind of rodent but there are lots of them. I was glad I didn't see any of them.


We hiked around after that for awhile. It was a pretty area on the other side of the tunnel and it overlooked a big canyon.


We made our way back and then to our second stop: Secret Spire
We came across some other people on our way back, the only ones we would see all day (totally surprising since Moab was actually quite busy that weekend but there was no one where we went). They were in a normal Jeep Grand Cherokee going on the trail we went on. It was definitely some 4 wheel driving and I'm sure they must have scraped bottom at some points. They appeared to only go part way and decide to turn around. When they went back up that hill (the one I got out for on the way out), they had a hard time with wheels spinning and up on 3 wheels several times. I was stressed for them. Frank's jeep went right up so yay for big tires and whatnot.


Here is the Secret Spire.
It requires a bit of a 4 wheel drive trip to get there but not too bad.
It was really beautiful and this big spire sits up on a rock.  It really looks crazy, like it could fall on you at any moment.
We decided that this would be a good spot for lunch.
I sat in the shade of the spire and Frank went to get the food.
Turns out, sitting on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere is not really the best spot for lunch because it was quite windy there.
We ended up chasing wrappers,  napkins, a slice of cheese and even my sandwich at one point.
I really though the sandwich was heavy enough to not get blown away...
Frank's water tipped over and spilled all down the rock, into his sandwich and all over his backside. 
A more eventful lunch that we had planned on!
Here is the distant view of the plateau we sat on:


He had some trouble finding a place to stay down in Moab-at least for a price we were willing to pay- since it was the end of spring break. He ended up finding a place to rent that turned out to be a little group of tiny houses!  I've wanted to see one in person (after watching so much HGTV, HA!)  It was super cute and really nice compared to your average hotel room. We liked it a lot and will probably stay there again when we go to Moab.

The cute little house even had it's own fenced yard with grill and picnic table

Our cute front porch...we sat out here when it started to rain and it was so nice.

The inside. Quite roomy and nice!
I've had a bad migraine week and it continued all weekend long so I was grateful for the tiny house because I took a nap while Frank did a little more exploring.

On the way out of town, we tried out some simple dirt trails. We were trying to find some fun trails that aren't too scary so we can talk family members into coming with us next time. It was pretty fun! And we stopped occasionally for Frank to look at rocks and whatnot as he is prone to do.


I enjoyed some pretty flowers. I like to see flowers and trees that grow up out of the barren dirt or rocks. It's just amazing to me.


All in all, a fun weekend. We are determined to find some friends to go with us next time...
stay tuned.


Sunday, April 1, 2018

The butter mishap

About a week ago, as I was cleaning up after a meal, I noticed one of our glass containers (the kind you put leftovers in) was sitting on the counter with a bunch of butter in it. The butter looked like it had been somewhat melted and then rehardened. I thought it was little odd that Frank had put the butter in this container because we have a couple of butter dishes that we use all the time but, hey, I'm willing to go with the flow.  I had a bit of butter left from the recipe I'd made so I plopped that bit into the dish and put it in the cupboard where we keep our butter.

A few days later, when we had a bunch of guests at our house, Frank pulls this container out of the cupboard and just sets it on the countertop.   He says to me "what in the world is that?"
I look and the entire container is just disgusting and covered in mold.

I say, "It's the butter that you put in there. What's wrong with it?"  Because I have never in my life seen moldy butter.

He says, "I never put butter in that"

And suddenly I remember that Frank had made whipped cream some time ago and put the leftovers in the fridge (in the leftover container).  He must have seen it in there and realized it was getting a bit old and set it on the counter. Because it was a bit old, it had a more yellow cast...and I thought it was butter.

I put a container of whipped cream in my cupboard for a few days there and never even looked at it again!  So, yeah, it got moldy.

Pretty gross.  You should thank me that I didn't take any pictures for this blog post.

But I blame Frank for the mishap because if he had just taken care of the old whipped cream himself instead of setting it on the counter for the kitchen fairies to take care of, I never would have mistaken it for butter in the first place!

I'm so glad I never spread that on my toast. Although if I had done that, we would have discovered it before it became a science experiment.