I Fixed It!!

Yes, that's right! ME! I fixed it!

Let me back up a bit by saying that one heck of a blizzard started Friday afternoon. This blizzard is expected to be blowing and bringing misery to this area until Sunday. Here we are Saturday afternoon and boy, they weren't lying. We are snowed in and not going anywhere.

Friday after dinner, Ron remembered a battery charger in the garage that needed to be shut off. He was going to get dressed and go out and do it. Well, unfortunately Ron has also come down with a case of the creeping cruds. Since he was sick, I thought it better that I go outside and turn off whatever needed turned off.

I put my sneakers back on (bad idea - should have been boots) and trudged back to the garage, about 15 feet behind the house. The snow was up over my ankles so I figured that we were indeed in for a bad night. I went into the garage and did what needed done. There is a switch on the inside wall of the garage next to the bay door. I usually hit that switch on my way out of the garage and the garage door goes down. Last night, I hit that switch and started to walk back to the house. As I got to the door, I turned to look at the garage and lo and behold the door was on its way back up again! What's up with that? I hit the switch inside of my back door and watched the garage door go back down. Hmm.

The garage door has safety sensors that are low and next to the track of the garage door. If anything is in front of the sensors while the door is coming down, the door will go right back up. My first thought was that a small animal or one of the neighborhood cats had maybe run into the garage while the door was coming down, causing the door to go back up again. This actually happened once before, but the cat came shooting back out once I hit the button from inside the house to shut the door again. Since I didn't see anything come shooting out of the garage when I hit the button again, I assumed it was just snow blowing in the garage as it was very windy last night.

I didn't think much about it until about 11:00 last night. You know my OCD and my looking out of the windows. This is one of the reasons I MUST look out of the windows! I looked out our bedroom window and the dang garage door was open again! Hey, in this neighborhood, even in a blizzard, I would not leave that door or any door open.

My first response was to go downstairs to the mudroom where we have a numeric keypad that will also open and close the garage door. I punched in the code, watched the door come down and go right back up again. Now I'm on a mission.

With Ron feeling like poop, I said I'm going to fix this problem. Ron in turn, said he'd stand in the window which faces the garage and offer advice from inside. I put my boots on and zipped up my coat and out I went into the elements.

I grabbed the shovel in the garage thinking my problem is the snow on the ground where the door comes down. I shoveled out quite a bit of snow from the entrance and tried to shut the door. Down and right back up again. I shoveled more. Same result. My gloved hands pushed all of the show and ice out and took it right down to the pavement. Still no good. Ron is telling me to check the sensors. With a gloved finger, I just rubbed each of the two sensors, sort of like cleaning the lens. I hit the button one more time and it stayed down! Blizzard or no blizzard, I was doing a happy dance in my driveway! I DID IT! ME! I don't usually do anything right! No Ron, no brother, ME! It may sound silly, but it was damn empowering. I walked into the house to find Ron sitting in the dining room putting his boots on. HA! Take 'em back off, buddy. I DID IT!

That was my excitement for Friday night. Now it's Saturday and it's much worse than it was last night.

Below is a picture of the two foot high snow drift sitting on our front porch. I hope you don't need either of us this weekend because we aren't going anywhere.