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pretty jewelry, long story

Kim and Maki
An adorable little set from Kim&Maki. Might make a perfect bridesmaid's gift or even wedding jewelry for a casual event. I love the gold beads mixed in with the metal! Also available in silver.

So, on a complete side note. I have to tell you what happened to me this morning, if only to alleviate some of my embarrassment. So, imagine it's 2:30AM. You're sleeping. I'm sleeping. We are all sleeping. Dell and I wake up to a smoke detector type sound. Never good. So we both get up and run down stairs expecting that maybe the boiler had exploded or something. Turns out, it was just the alarm system. The one that, when we asked the seller about it, he told us he didn't know anything about it, it was there from the previous owner. There were clearly no intruders, and there was certainly no fire, so we press some buttons; "off" seemed appropriate, as did "reset". Anyway, the thing went off. Fine. So back to bed we go. Flash to 6:30AM, same story. Smoke detector noise. Dell runs down, shuts it off, and back to bed. Flash to 7:00AM, again, with the smoke detector noise. So this time, I run down to shut the thing off. Only as soon I hit the "off" button, the read out says "20 SECONDS TO EXIT". I'm thinking, Exit? Exit the house? Exit button? Exit the program? Then, "10 SECONDS TO EXIT". My half asleep, groggy brain is telling me that something bad may be about to happen. There's a countdown. 5-4-3-2-1. Then; LOUD, LOUD, LOUD air-raid type sound coming from the devil box in the hall!!! Much louder than the sweet, innocent smoke detector noise. I have to cover my ears. I scream for Dell, but he's already half way to me. I'm clawing at the box, trying to get inside, turns out, whoever invented this alarm system thought of that. No way in. After about a minute of scramble, Dell takes a hammer to the battery box in the hall. The alarm goes off. Ahhhh... WRONG! Unbeknownst to us, there is a bull horn attached to the outside of the house, high up, on the corner under the second floor window. As soon as we destroyed the inner alarm, an ambulance like noise issues forth from the bullhorn, VERY, VERY LOUD, BROADCASTING IT'S PANIC INDUCING NOISE INTO THE SLEEPING NEIGHBORHOOD. I loose it. I'm in hysterics. I'm picturing all the awful Indiana Jones type booby traps this house could still have in store for us. I'm picturing the poor neighbors, who we have yet to befriend or offend, laying awake in their beds cursing our names, deciding that we are indeed horrible people. We run outside, and I scramble to find a ladder. Dell gets up on the ladder, and R-E-A-C-H, but he can't reach the bull horn. At this point, I'm whimpering. I call my Dad at work, he's in a meeting. I'm full on crying at this point. The neighbors are starting to come out of their houses, in their jammys, they don't look pleased. What feels like an hour but was probably more like 5 minutes passes. I'm scrambling for a taller ladder, a chainsaw, a boomerang, whatever I can find to KILL IT! Meanwhile, Dell is being a genius, and finds wire snips, dangles out the second floor bedroom window, and cuts any and all wires going to the awful nasty bullhorn. SILENCE. All you hear now is me, still whimpering. Unable to comprehend the manner in which I've woken up. Turns out? At seven in the morning, faced with an awful sound, I will crack. I'll crack right open.
All is quiet now. We must start the baking of the cookies that will act as a peace offering to the neighbors. We are the new people who don't know how to work their house, we are sorry. I'm not sure why telling thousands of people that story makes me feel better, but it does.

15 comments:

Anonymous on 8:52 AM

Oh, NO! How awful to be woken up at such an early hour to that kind of drama! Thankfully everything is cut off now...hopefully there is not a gaping hole in your wall where the system was!

L.S. on 9:52 AM

Because you know that the thousands of people who will read it love you-- how awful to happen to you in a new neighborhood!! Hopefully though they will be completely charmed and won over by your fabulous cookies. :)

Lisa on 1:40 PM

O. M. G.

If I lived anywhere nearby I'd be dropping off cookies to you!

All the best with the neighbour befriending,

Lisa

Jennifer on 2:21 PM

Aw, it was painful just to read that post. At 7:00 AM, anybody would crack. We have a security alarm, but no bullhorn on top of our house. That's crazy! There's probably a code you have to punch in to disarm the alarm, so maybe there is a company name on the keypad you could call to help? Come Christmas time, you'll be laughing about this with your neighbors. :)

Anonymous on 2:36 PM

Oh my goodness... you poor harried dears! I say you eat the whole plate of cookies as a consolation prize and leave the neighbors to fend for themselves. (You can tell I'm the popular one on my street)

Glad all was okay though... with no fire or burglars to contend with.

xo
Ez

Unknown on 7:21 PM

I agree, your the one who needs some cookies! Sounds like something that could only happen in the movies. It's a great story though...and I'm sure the neighbors will forgive you!

Unknown on 7:00 AM

That sounds like HELL. I would have freaked- and btw, why a bullhorn? Who has a bullhorn attached to their house? LOL.

Deirdre Gill on 9:12 AM

As a former neighbor who was constantly offended by your antics, I'd say make them a pitcher of your famous margaritas and they'll forget all about it.

Unknown on 9:49 AM

oh my. this would SO happen to me! i'm so sorry about that!

(ps - love your blog. read it everyday :))

Darci on 10:25 AM

I laughed out loud at your story! You should take a picture of the horn on top of your house...we're all dying to see it.

Anonymous on 10:29 AM

first of all, that sucks and you have my sympathy! second, THANK YOU for a hilarious read i so needed this morning - seriously, i was laughing out loud and thought i was gonna wet myself ;)

Anonymous on 12:38 PM

I live in Providence, too, and the day I closed on my house, I smelled natural gas during the walk-through. (My own buyer's agent tried to convince me that it was just "old house smell" because she was so worried I'd just walk away!) The seller ended up putting money in escrow in case the problem was inside the house. So the gas company determines the leak is in the pipe going from the street to my house and then proceeds to close the street to traffic and start digging it up, inconveniencing the neighbors and making a general mess. And I became "the new girl who had the whole street dug up on her first day of homeownership." :-)

Anonymous on 7:45 AM

This happened to my MIL years ago. There was a water leak that shorted it out and she couldn't make it stop. My FIL was out of town, but my husband who was a teenager at the time, came downstairs, half asleep, and cut every wire he could find until it stopped.
I have since learned that the alarm usually has it's on breaker. You can go to your circut panel and trip it manually so it won't have power running to it without doing any real damage to the system. But that only makes sense when it isn't 5 in the morning.

Anonymous on 1:33 PM

Yikes, I had to laugh, it reminded me of a similar situation at our house. Same scenerio new house, etc. so we too snipped the wires. However, next thing you know there's a policeman knocking at the door, LOL! Luckily, he didn't arrest us. You'll laugh at this someday too.

Michelle on 9:54 AM

Oh.my.gosh, you had me totally rivited by that story! I am so sorry, but it sure does make a great story, you guys will laugh about that some day!

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