I am so not joking.

Thursday night we went to a local farmer’s market and then to dinner.  On the five minute drive home that night, Sugar fell asleep– not having peed in several hours and with cherry stains on her cream colored dress. I was bummed I wouldn’t be able to use my mad stain removal skills until morning, but glad we had one less child to try and force to sleep that night.

Of course, the combination of Sugar not having peed recently, and an ill placed, holey matress protector assured that she would pee the bed in the night. At 5:45 she woke up from the accident and after following the protocol, I tossed her clothes in the sink, unrinsed and we went back to bed.

At around 9 am I figured it was time to get at the stain removal.

Only there were no more stains.

The pee bleached them away. 

Isn’t that the weirdest thing ever?  And slightly gross?  Anyone ever have a similar experience? 

I grew up here in the Rainy Place.  I love the rain. I love listening to it.  Watching it.  It makes me want to curl up with a bookand a blanket and eat popcorn. Of course, when I was a kid, that would have been a great thing to do on the weekend, or after school when there was no other obligations.  On a regular Monday though Friday day, Mom kicked me off to school, rain or not, and I was fine with that.

But now as an adult, day after day, it rains.  The kids are out of preschool.  I have no playdates, and a gallon of gas costs more than a watermelon.  I’ve got no mom (ok, I’m here) in my house telling me to get off my bum and get moving.  And as much as I love the rain, I am withering.

Too much water tends to drown things.

I need the sun, and I need it now. 

I never knew I was so much like a sunflower. 

I spent most of yesterday out running errands.  Feeling green, I bought some organic tampons and chlorine-free bleach (among other things).  Since I didn’t need to use the tampons when I got home, I decided to try a wash with the bleach.  I was unconvinced that the tree-hugger bleach was capable of my toxic bleach’s germ killing power so I decided that a hot water wash would cover all my bases.  And it did indeed cover more than that.

It covered my garage floor.

I imagine in Heaven (or where ever it is that He lives) that God said to himself, "I think Stephanie needs to clean out her garage.  I  know she will never just do it on her own, so I am going to give her an excuse."

How helpful.

I walked in the garage, for reasons still unknown to me, to see water spurting from my hot water heater and flowing down my garage floor.  I called Charming immediately who told me to turn off the water supply, which I somehow managed to figure out.  I then sent out two emails for help and started to panic.  Charming had asked me if I could handle it, and I said I could, but I quickly im’d him saying I could NOT DEAL WITH THIS.

A mild anxiety attack started to set in.  I was shaking and my heart was pounding.  I just had no idea what to do.  Charming asked me to call people, but I couldn’t.  It’s hard to understand this if you’ve never suffered from a mood disorder, but I could not pick up the phone.

And then the phone rang.

"Hi, this is (gal from church that I don’t know very well) and I still have that brand new water heater in my garage that I can give you for cheap, and you ought to call so and so and let me call some other people to see what we can do."

Nice. 

An hour later I tried calling a few plumbers and had no luck. (One number I called was actually a private residence– a story for another time). And then the phone rang again.

"Hi this is (son of someone at church) I am a general contractor, let me come look at that water heater tonight so we can figure out a way to get you some hot water."

Wow.

As for the rest of the day, I had one friend come over and buy some product and offer up her shower, another came by and took a load of laundry and another friend volunteered to come over and help with the cleanup and she took a load of laundry home too as well as opening her home for showers.

Think I’m being watched out for? 

I don’t really believe in coincidences.  That water heater sat in that woman’s garage for three years before she sent out an email saying she needed to get rid of it.  I think it no coincidence that she still had it a few weeks later.  That water heater was meant for me in this moment, I am pretty sure.  Because God knows I don’t have any more cash for these kinds of things, and that I am working on getting our financial house in order while still paying our tithing on a regular basis.  And God knows that sometimes I feel like no one at church likes me and he sent those ladies to serve me so I could remember to stop eating worms.

At first I was mad about the water heater breaking, but now I know, God just wanted to show me a little love.  And I hope that when your water heater breaks, you have a community like the one I have.  I am so grateful that I have it.

Going to get your new driver’s license and your new vehicle registration is not something I would recommend with PMS.  Do not go at the end of the month, around lunch time, when you have PMS.  Do not go if you do not know EXACTLY where it is.  You will get lost, curse your gps and curse your anxiety.  Do not go with PMS.

Do not take children.

If you have to take children, leave Sugar at least one with someone else. 

Do not go with PMS.

We went yesterday and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

We waited at the DOL for an hour– and I almost couldn’t get my license because I didn’t have my proof of address.  (It’s a rule that I must always forget something.)  And then on the way to the DMV I got hopelessly lost, and I started to totally lose it.

At least the children were well behaved and incredibly patient.  I know Sugar would have made it a nightmare so I am glad she was with a friend.  

Four hours of my life that I will never get back.  

But at least I am registered and at least I didn’t cry like I did when I got my Utah license.  I guess that means I am happy to be here.

If any of you are thinking about using babysitters4hire.com, DON"T DO IT!  THEY SUCK!

I guess I didn’t read enough between the fine lines, but I paid my "registration fee" and then I could not get the site to work.  Now they are telling me that they won’t refund my money and that it looks like it is working now, so blah blah blah blah blah.  

I think making things be non-refundable is a way of covering your butt so you don’t have to back your product.  It’s a way of getting out of the antiquated notion of "satisfaction guaranteed."  And it pisses me off.  I mean, fine, when you go to the clearance center, I get that.  They are so wanting to get rid of that stuff, that they don’t want it back.  I don’t think it’s a money issue so much as a "I don’t want to see that again," issue.  But if you are just being non-refundable so you can make money,and not have to deal with any thing, that is bad business practice.

The lady on the phone said that because I was able to log in, I have now had access to the site and all the babysitter’s information so I am not entitled to be refunded.  I say I couldn’t get the blasted thing working, so I really did not have access to the information. 

The lady kept going on and on about how they’d been in business since 1987, and they have never had any complaints about the site…. as if that’s going to make me feel better about flushing my cash down the loo.

So, if you are desperate for a babysitter– don’t do babysitters4hire.com.  The user iterface (the part that I could use) is crappy and cumbersome and the ladies that run it are not nice.   And pass this info on to EVERYONE you know.  My money is gone, but yours doesn’t have to be. 

I am sick and I don’t like it.

Spider and I were thinking of Earth Day and today, we were pretty heroic. Let me explain.

So I was happily checking email this afternoon under the impression that my sweet one and half year old was in the toy room with her older siblings. Not totally convinced of this, I thought that I should, perhaps, check to be sure. Not there. Shoot. I go downstairs.

I followed my nose to find the babe, asleep, on my nice sofa, in a pool of …. dunh, dunh, dunh… poo!!!!

Crum! It leaked out of her diaper, I thought. Oh wait…

She wasn’t wearing a diaper! I had forgotten that she had taken it off earlier, and in my getting lunch ready, taking care of other things, people, messes mayhem, I totally neglected to put a fresh one on her.

And so here she was, a sleeping angel, resting in her own poos, while I tried to decide what to do. (Yes, I felt like a bad mom, sheesh.) Normally, I would just give her a bath, but she was sleeping, so I laid her on a towel on the floor and began to sponge bathe her off with a washcloth. She slept through all of it, peacefully unaffected, until I remov*d her dress and she began to scream and be awake and cranky for the rest of the day…

Good thing I hadn’t already dealt with her clinging/vomiting/diarrheaing all of Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Yeah.

Well, one less poopy diaper sitting in a landfill for a million years, right?

Just doing our part to save the earth. All congratulations and bravos can be left in the comments section.

Everything is caving in on me.

I am having a hate-my-house-who-designed-this-thing-it-is-totally-unfunctional-why-can’t-I-keep-it-
clean-I-wish-everyone-would-stop-judging-me-I-don’t-want-to-feel-like-I-have-to-prove-
myself-to-people-I-sure-hope-I-can-sell-$400-a-week-this-month-because-I-am-sick-of-
not-having-enough-$-to-not-be-able-to-spend-on-this-money-pit-of-a-house-things-were-
a-lot-better-in-utah-at-least-I-liked-my-house-and-no-one-thought-I-was-a-bad-mom day.

Nuff said. 

The first thing I noticed this morning was Engineer’s big, chappy lips.  They really looked puffy, red and well, chapped. 

Maybe his lack of lip hydration is what spurred him to push our cat Rosie, out the second storywindow this afternoon. 

Because I don’t know why else he would do such a thing.

Yep.  The cat is GONE and the fiver year old dunnit.  I sure hope she comes back, because if she is not in tonight, I really think she’s gonna get eaten. 

And my lips are starting to feel like Engineer’s look.  Raw.  I can see how the raw lips could push one over the edge… to want to push someone else over the edge.

I’m trying to make humor, but I really do hope my cat comes back soon. 

An open letter to the lady that cut my hair tonight.

Dear Haircut Lady,

Thank you for cutting my hair.  I realize I was taking much of your time, and keeping you from hanging out with your gentlemen friend.  Thank you for not TOTALLY ruining my hair.  

Thank you for NOT listening to what I wanted and then NOT doing what I wanted.  Thank you for NOT taking the time to get to know me or my hairstyle needs.  Thank you for talking to your friend the entire time instead of talking to me.  I really was NOT interested in hearing you tell him that you were planning on spending the weekend at the bar, and that you have a three year old out of wedlock child.  I was also incredibly NOTinterested to hear him tell you about all the good bars, and how he didn’t want to go home to his new baby and not-wife-mother-of-his-child.

Thank you for reassuring me that you did my bangs the right way when I could see that they were not how I really wanted them. That helped me trust you.

NOT. 

Thank you for cutting my hair so quickly.  But just as a reminder, you don’t work at Great Clips because of your ability to do a good job in a short amount of time.  Thank you for NOT being very thorough in re-checking the cut.

Thank you for letting me know that if I got home and didn’t like it, that I could come back again for FREE.  I should friggin hope so.  

Thank you for letting me know that you would be at work again on Sunday, so that I knew what day to NOT come in again.

I will NOT be letting you EVER come near my head with a scissors again.

And I really do NOT want to go in tomorrow, but really, something must be done about this do.

Your Un-Client,

Stephanie