First Time for Everything

The hubby and I had a busy day today. The kids are spending the weekend with my in-laws, so we decided we'd try to get some things accomplished around the house.

We've been wanting to get a privacy fence put up out back. Since the kids weren't home this weekend, we decided to try to get started on that today. So we planned to go over to Home Depot to price the things we would need. I have been pretty adamant about having a shadowbox fence ever since I first started researching different styles. The hubby wanted to use pre-made panels, because they're so much easier to work with. But whenever we would look at fencing supplies, there were no pre-made panels in the shadowbox style. Well, today at Home Depot, we were comparing prices, and come to find out, they now have the pre-made shadowbox panels! Yay! I get my pretty shadowbox fence, and the hubby gets the convenience of the pre-made panels. Can't get much better than that! Only downside is that those particular panels are special order items, so it's going to take a week or two for them to come in, then our local store will deliver them for us. Although we weren't able to start putting the fence up today as originally planned, we're both very happy with what we were able to get.

Another thing I've really wanted since we bought this house is a nice flag pole for the front yard. We have always had the type that mounts to the house or porch, but now that we own our home, I wanted a nice pole out front. We found a kit at Home Depot while we were there today that was much less expensive than the ones that we had looked at before, and it was steel instead of aluminum. Cool! So we bought that today too. So I now have one in my front yard. We also bought a set of solar spot lights so it will be lit at night without us having to remember to turn on the lights. I'm terrible about that. We'll just have to make sure they work properly and are bright enough. Only one of them is lit tonight (we didn't run the flag up yet...waiting for the concrete to set), but I'm hoping that's just because it was late afternoon before we got them put out so they're not fully charged yet. We'll see.

After the hubby finished working outside, we decided to take a ride to get some dinner without the kiddos. Here's where the first time for everything comes in. While he was out working, I kept thinking we were going to get a storm. There were some dark clouds overhead, and I kept hearing thunder. It mostly missed us though. The thunderstorm warning for our county was expiring at 6:30 this evening, and it would be after that by the time we left the house, so we figured we'd take the chance and ride. On our way to Fayetteville, we felt some drizzle. No big deal, nothing to warrant turning around and heading back home. Once we got farther into Fayetteville, though, we could tell they had gotten a good rain. The roads were wet. So we just slowed down and made sure we kept our distance all around us. So although we didn't really have that much rain, we got pretty wet from the water being splashed up by our tires and the mist from the cars in front of us. It was a good experience, though. It had been so hot today that it actually felt pretty good to get a little wet while riding. It definitely cooled us off. I also figure that if we're going to continue to take trips on the bikes, we're eventually going to have no choice but to ride in the rain - can't avoid it forever. I'd much rather be in familiar territory for a first time experience like that. Yeah, Fayetteville is crazy, but I know the roads around here.

On the way home, I had an experience that reminded me that I always have to watch out for others when I'm riding...even more so than when I'm in the car. I was in the center lane of three lanes going in the same direction. That makes me nervous anyway, but I hadn't had an opportunity to move over into the right lane yet. I was watching the vehicles on either side of me to make sure I'd be prepared if anybody decided to do anything stupid. Sure enough, the car on my right came over into my lane practically right on top of me. Fortunately, I was watching him so had plenty of room to slow down without having to lock up my brakes. My biggest concern was that there was also a car on my left and I wasn't sure what that one was going to do. I just didn't want to get boxed in there. But when that car cut in front of me, it gave me room to get into the far right lane, where I wanted to be anyway. The funny thing was that when I got into the right lane, the hubby blew past me on his bike. I think he was more pissed than I was about the car that cut me off. He got over in the right lane a car or two in front of me, and I caught up with him a few minutes later. I figure there was no need to get pissed, because I sort of expect people to do that when I'm on my bike...after all, that's what I was taught to watch for. The ironic thing was that the car had a bumper sticker on it that said "Got Jesus?" I was thinking to myself that it's a good thing I do since you tried to take me out!

Then when we got into our neighborhood, there were some kids that really frustrated me. There were two teenage boys and one little boy probably my daughter's age or younger. The littlest one was standing right in the middle of the road that the hubby and I were turning left onto. Smack in the middle! I had my signal on and he wouldn't move, nor did the two older boys tell him to move. He just stood there, with his little hands posed like he was holding handlebars. Bless his heart, I know he just wanted to watch, but the older boys never should have let him be in the middle of the road like that. It's dangerous for him, and it was dangerous for us on the bikes. What if he had unexpectedly moved into our path? He could have been hurt badly, as could one or both of us. I thought about having a few choice words with the older boys, but decided against it.

So that's our day in a nutshell. Although we didn't get as much accomplished as we'd have liked, we did get quite a bit done. We'll be glad when the stuff gets here from Home Depot so we can get even more done!