Blue is the new red

Early last week, Tropical Storm Eduoard blew through town. Not a huge storm, but it brought us a little relief from the heat and some much needed rain. He also took a limb out of one of the trees and ripped a phone line from the back of the house.

Yes, it is odd as we seem to have been the only people around to get any damage out of the storm. It was mostly rain when it got here, and really didn't even dump much of that, and just a few wind gusts. So, I was totally shocked when DH called and told me we had a giant limb down out front. But, sure enough, it took a giant live limb out of one of the front oak trees.

Now, both boys were in a state of high excitement over the limb falling. Yes, it was a big live limb blocking most of the front yard. No, it didn't hit anything, cause other damage or block the driveway. And yet, they were on full tilt freak out mode. Hoot kept saying we needed to get Beaver, who is a character from his favorite show Dragon, to come and chop it in to pieces. DH was all atwitter that we didn't have a giant saw. In the end, the boys chopped most of it up and had it to the curb in time for pick up by Thursday.

The phone line wasn't discovered until later in the week. I had been super busy and didn't try to get online until Thursday evening. Alas, the DSL wasn't working. After a long bit of trouble shooting, I discovered that it was the phone outlet behind the desk that was bad. We only use it for the computer and for Tivo, so if I hadn't tried to get online I might not have noticed for a few more days. Once I looked out back during the daylight, I could see that the line had come off of the house and it was so old the insulation had rubbed off. Hence the crappy signal.

Saturday I traipsed down to Lowes and picked up everything I thought I needed to run a new line from the phone box. Then, I started to fix it all up. But, as usual, I had far too much help and way too much frustration. Seriously, why does everything have to have so much drama? A middle aged man and a small boy ought to be able to entertain themselves without me for about an hour. Sure.

Three hours later, the men had been banished from the house and I had misplaced the phone jack that I had just bought. (Never did find it either!) I found myself at Home Depot picking up another one and a "plan b" kit consisting of 50' of phone line to string through the wall from the guest bedroom. Once I got home, it took me only 10 minutes to get the jack working. The jack from Home Depot had a "color chart" that explained that blue is the new red and white is the new green. Well, lets just say "Who knew?" Does this apply to anything other than phone lines? Will it change the major color schemes of Christmas?

Now the DSL is happy, Tivo is happy, and well, I guess that makes Momma happy. And we all know what happens when Momma is happy. It is good to be back in cyberspace.