Thoughts and Notions

On the fourth of July, situated between an airport and a fireworks display, Denise and I looked behind us and saw the object in the attached picture floating from the sky.

At first I was thinking it might be a weather balloon… and other explanations were quickly dismissed. We couldn't quite figure out how far it was away either, being that it was dark… until it dropped like a rock. I ran and picked it up.

It was a parachute… and I think it had something to do with the fireworks seeing how there was a smoldering chunk of debris at the center bottom point. I beat someone to it too. Too bad it's not worth anything.

We had a crazy weekend!

Friday afternoon a severe thunderstorm rolled through Michigan knocking out the power where Karl is employed. He spent part of his weekend trying to take care of power issues there at work.

On Saturday night another storm came through, this time knocking our power out. We decided to go stay with Mom and Dad Haynes till our power came back on.

On Sunday we emptied our fridge and freezer taking all the food over to Mom and Dad's. I took these pictures as we drove through town. It was like a disaster zone, with so many trees down and damage done. We got to Mom and Dad's place just as another storm came through knocking out their power. Mom and Dad have a generator, so Karl and his Dad soon got that hooked up.

On Monday evening we found out that our power was back on. We are now back at our place and thankful to be back to the familiar. Our Internet was just turned on a bit ago allowing me to make this post. Mom and Dad Haynes are still without power and are told it will not be back on till Thursday. (yuck!)

Wednesday was very cold here with high winds which brought the wind chill factor well below 0°F. We decided to go out for the evening, so I went out to start up the car, giving it a chance to warm up. While I was walking back to our apartment building I heard a sizzling noise. I looked up to see electricity arching on the nearby utility pole! I ran inside to tell Karl who confirmed my findings and immediately called the fire department. They were there in no time to fix it and a few hours later the whole thing was over. (I was wondering why the lights had been flickering all day.)

When was the last time your wet wipes smelled like something rotten? You'll never guess what happened…
I had never heard of wet wipes having an expiration date but what other reason could there be to the awful stench? I searched the web looking for an answer. Just when I was about to call off the search and give up I came across a recall on wet wipes. I ran to get my mega size box of wipes only to find out that they have been recalled. My wet wipes were recalled! And why… because some were found to be contaminated with Burkholderia cepacia, a micro-organism known to cause infections in people with low immune systems. I've been wiping my son's bottom with micro-organism contaminated wipes for the past 4 months! (Talk about being grossed out!) I'm amazed that I even found out. How often do you check to see if something is recalled before you toss it in the trash and just buy a new one?