Holly’s Happenings

It was a VERY smelly ending to the week last week…LOL! We discovered some “problems” with our septic tank and leech field a week or so ago and our landlord finally got around to getting someone over here to look at it Friday. Thankfully it was an easy and inexpensive fix, they just had to pump the septic tank and then cut four to six inches off a pipe that runs from the septic to the flow “valve” for the leech field. Since doing those things, we haven’t had a single problem!

The landlord came down while the septic guy was here to see what needed to be done. After they finished things up be showed me a couple of brochures that he had picked up. He had narrowed his options down to a couple of different bathroom vanities and wanted my opinion about which one I thought would look and work the best for the bathroom he wants to remodel. One of his choices was almost identical to a vanity that I myself had looked at online, so I let him know that I thought that would be the best one. Amazingly, it was the same one that he was leaning towards! Next up is deciding on the bathtub, and I don’t think we’re going to agree as well on that, but we’ll see.

It’s been a little while since I’ve talked about my WONDERFUL memory foam bed, so I thought I’d give you a few updates. As you know from this post, my new bed arrived safe and sound on February 5th. It just so happened that my daughter was home from school that day, so between she and I we were able to tear my old bed down and get my new one set up! Set up for my PacDown Plus mattress and foundation was actually very easy. The instructions for the foundation were simple and easy to follow and we were both laughing over how small the memory foam mattress was in it’s packaging compared to the actual size of it once it came out of it’s packaging!

I’m not going to tell you that going from a standard inner spring mattress to my Bed In A Box memory foam mattress was an easy adjustment. It took a few nights before my body finally adjusted to sleeping on this wonderful mattress. I will tell you, however, that the pain I normally feel in my back and hips when I wake up in the morning, diminished almost immediately from the first morning I woke up! And after almost 2 months of sleeping on my PacDown Plus memory foam mattress, I experience virtually none of the normal aches and pains that I have always had when I wake up in the mornings!

This wonderful bed has completely changed my life! No longer do I spend days dealing with severe back pain from the moment I wake up, nor do I wake up in the morning feeling tired. Instead I wake up pain free and rested! I may not always get the amount of hours of sleep that I should, but I’m now getting a much better quality of sleep than I EVER have before!

So my heartfelt thanks go out to BedInABox.com for allowing me to have such a wonderful product!

I don’t know if I have cabin fever, if I’m stressed out because of the kids being home on Spring Break this week, the “female” health issues I’ve been having recently or what it is, but I have been one mean and grumpy woman lately! If I honestly think about it, I know it’s not from the kids being home this week because my week with them, other than a minor incident Monday morning, actually went fantastic! And my daughter was with my mother all weekend, so since it was just the hubby, myself and our son this weekend, things were VERY quiet around here!

I made a slight detour when I took my daughter up to my mom’s house Friday evening and stopped in to see my brother and sister in law. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas time, and when my mom said they had their grandson for the weekend I decided that I needed to pay them a visit! While I was there, my sister in law let me look through the photo albums from one of their most recent luxury vacations. This time they spent two weeks in the The Turks and Caicos Islands and from the pictures, it was obvious that they were having a wonderful time! My brother works very long hours at his job, he’s worked for the same company for almost 30 years now, and my sister in law said that when they’re on vacation like this, he’s so much happier and at ease than what he is when they’re at home! It makes me feel good to know that they take vacations like this! Their children are all out on their own now and some have children of their own and they both deserve to do wonderful things like this for themselves!

My husband and I are already talking about taking a long vacation to somewhere like Hawaii once our kids are out of school. Our youngest finishes 7th grade in May, so only 5 more years until we can go away on our own luxury vacation!

I often share with you the many things I see when I look out the windows here. If anything, the view for the past several months has been VERY consistent, and this morning definitely isn’t an exception…LOL! Before you look at the pictures, please keep in mind that the temp here yesterday was in the upper 40’s. ENJOY!

If anyone out there knows how to get in touch with Mother Nature, could you PLEASE tell her that if it doesn’t stop snowing SOON, I may end up going off the deep end like Jack Nicholson did in The Shining….LOL! And if there is anyone out there with several dump trucks that would like to come haul this away for me, I’ll let you have it for free ;o)

Well, the landlord is supposed to come here today to check things out and see whether or we have a broken pipe in the leech bed. I know that there is definite water leakage out where the “crock” is that comes up in the yard because when we get decent snowfalls, like the one we got last night, the snow in that area of the yard is the first area to melt. And the other night, when I took Sage out to go potty, my son was taking a shower and you could hear the water almost as if it were gushing out of the crock. But I’m not sure, with as much snow as we got over night, if he’ll be able to come down and do anything or not, he might have to wait a day or two for the snow to melt before he can do anything.

He also talked about the things that he really wants to get done on the house this year. He said his main “goal” is to get the kitchen done since it’s so outdated and just does not have enough storage and cabinet space! He said that he had used a guest pass for our local directbuy to see if it would really be worth his while to go ahead and join. He was impressed with what he seen, but considering that he wants to be as cost effective as he can when he does the remodel in the kitchen and other rooms, he thinks he would be better off just going to one of the local home improvement stores. I also suggested the company that my sister works for and told him that they have an “Open to the public” sale every Saturday, so he thought he might go check that out as well. He’s not trying to be cheap, he just doesn’t want to put major money into the remodel because of the fact that they already owe more than what the house is worth, and I can’t say as I blame him. I wish we could get a loan and buy the house now, before any major work is done on it, because I know the more work that is done, the higher the price of the house will be. Then again, the hubby was telling me last night that he wants to move close enough to town that we can actually get cable service and have other options for TV, internet and phone.

I’ve noticed lately that I’ve had several visits from people looking for info about the HP w2207 monitor. Some are looking for cleaning instructions, while others are looking for the owners manual. Since I had some of the same questions after I purchased my monitor, I thought I’d do a post here to talk about the information that I’ve come across and found useful as well as links to site that I feel may be helpful.

First off, you can go to this page for basic information about the HP w2207. Support and drivers from HP can be found here. If you’ve come here looking for a users manual, you can find it here. If you’re considering purchasing an HP w2207, you can find reviews about it here, here and here.

Now that we’ve gotten the “technical” stuff out of the way, I can tell you about my personal opinions and the things that I’ve discovered, like how to get this thing clean…LOL! First I should let you know that I have had this specific monitor for a year now and I absolutely LOVE it! It is by far the best computer monitor I have ever had! The brilliancy of the colors never ceases to amaze me and I’ve learned to deal with the glare from the screen by making sure I have my monitor situated so that it doesn’t have a window near it. If you do not like a glare on your monitor from time to time or don’t have the facilites to put it where it’s not near a window, then this might not be the monitor for you.

I also love the fact that I have the pivot option on this monitor! Most of the time I keep it so that it is wider side to side, but occasionally I do pivot the monitor so that it is vertically taller. Yes, I admit I don’t know the techincal terms, and I apologize for that, but I think you know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen in some reviews where people complain that the speakers that are built in are cheesy, I’ve never used mine, so I can’t give you any information on them.

Probably my biggest peeve with the monitor is how difficult it is to clean. Over the past year I’ve tried several different types of products to clean it and have only come up with one method that actually works well without leaving streaks on the monitor. What words best for me is first, to have the monitor powered off, then I use 2 different products. First I use an anti-static/alcohol free cleaning wipe that is made for monitors and other types of electronics. I clean a small area with that, then follow up behind it with a dry lint free cloth. The one that I use is almost like a terry cloth material. I use this for “polishing” the monitor and removing the streaks left behind by the wipes. I’ve tried other products to clean the monitor, but none worked as well as this one does. The one thing that you absolutely cannot use to clean the monitor is paper towel because no matter what brand it is, it always leaves behind lint. I also try to dust the monitor off with Swiffer dusters at least a couple of times per week.

One tip that I’d like to pass along about the pivot feature is to make sure your cords are in a position so that when you pivot the monitor they won’t snag on something and pull free from the monitor. Also, if you plan to use the pivot feature, you MUST have the driver that allows you to do this, which you can find here. If you don’t have that installed, when you pivot your monitor, the display will not turn. I’ve also found that some downloadable games will not work if the monitor is pivoted so that it is taller. I’m not sure why and I never have been able to fix this.

That is about all I can think of now. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment on this post and I will be happy to answer it if I can! Thanks to much for stopping by, I hope you have found this post informative!

I’m happy to let you know that the broken tooth saga is over! I didn’t have the outcome that I had hoped for. Although the tooth was saveable, my insurance company drastically changed their dental benefits and will no longer pay for root canals to be done. So if I wanted to save the tooth and have the root canal and eventual crown done, my out of pocket expenses would have been near the $1,000 mark. Yes, teeth are an extremely important thing, but considering our current expenses, I can’t justify putting that kind of money into ONE tooth. My whole mouth maybe, but not a single tooth. So, within 45 minutes of arriving at the dentists office, I was walking out pain free, and minus a tooth. I came home and took a nice nap and slept off the last of the novacaine effects, which was a REALLY nice thing to sleep off!!

Tomorrow is going to be a quiet day, and hopefully I get to sleep in a bit. But for tonight, I need to get my toosh to sleep! Have a good night and I’ll catch up with you tomorrow!

But shall I sleep all day? I doubt it…LOL! This week is the kids’ spring break and it’s not going the best for them right now. My son managed to pick up the first major cold he’s had in years, major rnough that at 15, he laid down and took a 2+ hour nap yesterday. For him, THAT is sick! I was up all night working on a few things and before I knew it it was 4:00 AM, and since the hubby gets up for work at 4:30, I just decided to stay awake until he left for work this morning. So I’ve gotten a little more than 2 hours of sleep since being woke up by my daughter at 7:00 yesterday morning.

Thankfully I stayed busy most of the night, but I did spend some time flipping through channels about 3:00 AM and was having a hard time finding something other than informercials about the latest weight loss pills, cleaning products, pet care products and exercise equipment. I finally managed to find a channel that was running reruns of one of my favorite shows from the 90’s. I miss family sitcoms, today’s highly rated shows pale in comparison to shows like Home Improvement, Rosanne and Frasier! I really miss some of the cartoons from the 90’s like Ren & Stimply, Beevis & Butthead and Rocko’s Modern Life.

OK, I’m really starting to show my age here, so I’d better shush up….LOL! Maybe I need another nap!!!!

OK guys, listen up! And yes honey, I’m talking to you too! We ladies love the lives that we have with you, but you kind of seem to be lacking in some things. Namely, gift giving. They holiday season is behind us and I’ve heard from many of my friends that their men gave them Christmas gifts consisting of things like vacuum cleaners, dish washers, DVD’s, washers, dryers and many other gifts that although are nice, simply aren’t what we’d like to recieve as a gift for a holiday or other special occasion.

So guys, here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to give you a list of items that ladies would LOVE to recieve from you. In other words, these are sure fired ways to make us ladies happy. And if you know us you know that if we’re happy, YOU are happy too….LOL!

1. Jewelry - The old saying is true, diamonds are a girls best friend!
2. Lingerie - Thinks like teddys, corsets, and other romantic gifts.
3. Date nights - Yes, we still love to go out on a date with you (even after 17 years sometimes…LOL)
4. Day spas - These are quickly becoming the new girls best friend!
5. Flowers and chocolate - Yes guys, these are not just meant for Valentines Day. We love chocolate, you should know that by now! And flowers, do I really have to say anything else?

There’s a few to get you started, you should be able to get more ideas from those! But PLEASE no more of the household appliance type gifts unless we SPECIFICALLY ask for them! Use some creativity and I’m sure you’ll come up with something WONDERFUL!

I thought I’d give a list of the things that I’ve tried to help with the pain I’ve gone through with my broken tooth. If you have any suggestions other than the things I’ve tried PLEASE feel free to offer them because so far nothing has really worked and I just want to make it through today!

1. Temporary filling from the store
2. Medicated tooth swabs that numb the area and provide a short amount of relief
3. Ibuprophen in larger than normal doses
4. Rinsing with warm water as well as warm salt water
5. Mini ice pack, which almost sent me through the roof

I honestly wish I could have gotten ahold of a dentist today, but with it being Easter Sunday I knew that isn’t going to happen. So far that only thing that has given me more than a few minutes of relief is larger than suggested doses of ibuprophen. I don’t like taking over the counter meds in doses larger than you’re supposed to, but I just need to get some relief until I can get ahold of the dentist tomorrow!

So, like I said, if you have ANY suggestions of stuff to try that I haven’t listed above, PLEASE let me know! I’m doing OK tonight, but I have a feeling it’s going to be another rough night!

After the snow that we’ve gotten this winter and the arrival of spring this past week, I’m counting the days until we actually have decent weather for a change! Friday and Saturday we received another 6 inches of snow, putting our seasonal snow total near 60 inches of snow this winter. It’s not my idea of a great winter, but I know that living in the area that I live in, it’s to be expected. But with family and my husbands job, moving away from this area at this point in time simply isn’t an option, so I try not to complain too much about it.

But with the calendar saying that spring has arrived as well as my first Robin sighting of the year, I have no doubt we’ll be seeing better weather soon! And warm weather brings the rush of people trying to shed those excess pounds they put on over the winter. I went to the store the other day to pick up a few things for the house and I seen display after display filled with exercise books and equipment as well as weight loss products like Hydroxycut. Since weight loss products really aren’t an option for me I’m going to work harder at eating better and exercising more. I can’t wait to put Sage in the van and take her for her first trip to the park. We can head out and walk some of the trails and I can let her roam in the open areas. She has a fun sense of adventure and I think that she’ll have fun at the park!

Hi everyone and Happy Easter to those that celebrate it! It’s not been the best of days here in my household, I almost wish I could just go back to bed to get the day over with!

It all started this morning a few minutes before 7:00. I woke up to my 12 year old waking me up to say “I’ve been up for a while and I’m bored, can I get on the computer”? EXCUSE ME?!?! You are going to wake me up after a night of heck just to ask if you can get on the (*#@&$(*@#& computer? Sage was waking up at that time as well, so I’d have been up eventually, but that just did not sit right with me at all!

I get up and take Sage outside, come back in and start coffee. Although I’m not in the best of moods I try to get the day going as best as I can. The coffee finally finished and I sat down with my first cup and took a drink and all of a sudden was hit with this HORRIBLE pain in my mouth. It was soon very obvious that I was missing a fairly large part of one tooth. I did have part of the filling fall out a couple of days ago and planned on calling the dentist Monday morning, but obviously the tooth wasn’t going to cooperate until Monday. The pain was almost unbearable!

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I was soon to find out that every single one of my websites were down. Apparently the company that I have them hosted through has been moving some of their servers and rather than give the people who pay their salaries notice via a simple email, they decide to be lazy bastards and only post the info on their status page. Making the people who pay for their service go through hell and back trying to find out what’s going on. I sang their praises after a major mistake they made a couple of months ago, but I’m seriously considering moving now. Their inability to openly communicate with their customers is unacceptable to me. If you know that you are going to do something that will take my site(s) out of service, even for a moment, give me the courtesy of letting me know ahead of time! That way, if I happen to have a morning like I did today, at least I know ahead of time what’s going on!

I’d love to just go back to bed, but I have a TON of stuff I need to get done today, so it’s not an option. So if I come across as rude or witchy today, I apologize ahead of time!

Good morning everyone! TGIF and Happy Good Friday to those that celebrate it! In true NW Ohio fashion, spring is starting on an ugly weather note this weekend. The weathermen have changed their minds 3 times over the past two days about the storm that is heading our way. Initially they were saying that our area was going to get hit with about 6 inches of snow. Then they changed it from 6 inches to right around two inches. This morning all local stations are now saying we’ll get anywhere from 5 to 9 inches of snow. I’m so ready for the snow just to be GONE, as in FOREVER! Yes, I know that I always have the option of moving somewhere that it doesn’t snow, but I’m not ready to do that right now!

What I am ready for is getting things taken care of outside! We moved into this house in October and didn’t have the time to take care of things outside before winter reared it’s ugly head! We didn’t even have time to rake up all the leaves and debris that were in the lawn, but considering that we’re surrounded by acres and acres of woods, I doubt we’d have ever truly gotten the leaves taken care of..LOL! So to say that the yard is a mess it a complete understatement! On top of that we need to fix and expand the deck that is outside of the sliding glass door. It’s totally unstable, one of the corner support beams broke, and it’s way too small for my liking. We’ve built two decks before, so I know that putting one up here won’t be a major task. I just want a deck big enough that I can set a nice patio furniture on. And speaking of patio sets, I found some GORGEOUS teak patio furniture that would look so nice and fit right in with our wooded surroundings!

But with the way our winter weather went, I have the feeling it’s going to be quite a while before I’m going to be able to rake and clean the yard, let alone worry about building the new deck. It’s not even April yet and we almost always get smacked with at least one heavy snow storm in the first half of April. can you say UGH!

Yup, it’s just a few minutes past noon and my first batch of cookies is all mixed and waiting on me. I wanted to take a break and get a few things done online before I started baking them, since I mixed a double batch and it will take the better part of an hour to get them all baked. This batch is Oatmeal Scotchies, which is my personal favorite type of cookie! I remember making these as a kid with my mom…..MMMMMMM!!! Only difference is that she would put coconut in them and since no one else here likes coconut, I left it out!

I’m telling you, I LOVE my new mixer, it makes doing stuff like this so much easier! But the more I do stuff like this, the more I really wish we could do a MAJOR overhaul on this kitchen. I love my little house in the woods, but the kitchen is your typical 70’s style kitchen, with little to no counter space. With the way we rearranged the appliances a few weeks ago, it’s even more obvious how nicely an island would be in the kitchen! I honestly think we should consider a directbuy membership! I would need two walls of upper and lower cabinets as well as the island and counter tops for all of it. And if I were to replace the cabinets and counters I’d definitely want to replace the appliances as well and with the cost, it might just be worth it to look into something like that!

But, the reality is that even if we were to do something like that, it won’t be happening right away. So for now I just have to work with what I have, which honestly isn’t that bad. And speaking of reality, I’d better get to that cookie dough! Back after this batch is done!

Before I get busy this morning I thought I’d share some of the pictures we’ve taken of Sage over the past couple of days! There are quite a few, so I’ll post the first one, then put the rest after the “fold”, so be sure to click the “read more” link to see the rest of the pictures!

Things are definitely going better with her! Hubby came up with a heck of an idea last night to help her sleep! We are putting her in a pet carrier at night because she’s just too little to be out and about and there are just too many worst case scenarios that could happen if we didn’t. The first night wasn’t the best of nights with her. Every couple of hours she would bark and cry until I came out and sat near her. I never took her out of the carrier because, just like with babies, I wanted her to learn to soothe herself back to sleep, so I just sat near her so she would know I was there. My hubby had the idea last night of bringing her carrier in and putting it on his night stand next to the bed. That way she could see that we were right there, and it worked BEAUTIFULLY! She slept through the night except for one minor wake up! YAY!!! She’s really getting comfortable with her surroundings and the other dogs are calming down about her as well, so I figure things will be settled in and good by the weekend, at the latest!

OK, on to the pictures! This first one is my absolute FAVORITE of all the ones that have been taken, thus the reason it’s above the fold…LOL!

So very often I focus on the bills or the kids when I have a little extra money. It is honestly very difficult for me to spend money on myself, and even more so when the purchase isn’t something that I’d need or use on a daily basis. But there has been something that I’ve wanted to buy for a long time, something that I knew I would use often, but it wasn’t an inexpensive item, so I’ve had a hard time justifying the purchase.

I recently won some extra money and told myself that this time I WAS going to use part of it on something for me. I thought about it for a few days, but just couldn’t decide what I wanted to buy. I needed some new clothes, but not badly enough to tell myself buying them was necessary. Being a female, there is always the thought of buying a new pair of shoes or a purse, but my mother bought me a new pair of shoes a couple of weeks ago and I got a new purse for Christmas, so those weren’t necessary purchases. See what I mean about having a hard time purchasing something for myself? I ALWAYS talk myself out of buying something. But yesterday was different, kind of…LOL!

I went to the store yesterday to buy stuff that I needed to bake some cookies. Although I LOVE baking, I do not like my mixer! It’s your general, every day hand mixer and it just does not have enough power! For many, many years I’ve wanted to buy a nice stand mixer, but it’s one of those purchases that I just could not justify! Yes, there are inexpensive ones, but what person that bakes a lot has not dreamed of having a nice Kitchen Aid stand mixer? But even their basic model costs around $200, and it only has 275 watts of power, which isn’t that much more than a hand held mixer. So I went to the kitchen appliance aisle and started looking at mixers. Yes, they had the Kitchen Aid one for $200, but I noticed something else that caught my eye! On the shelf above the Kitchen Aid mixer they had a Sunbeam stand mixer. Its price tag read $89 and change, less than half the price of the Kitchen Aid, but how did it compare in the important areas?

It had 350 watts of power, compared to 250 watts, it had 12 different mix speeds, the bowl position was adjustable and it came with regular mixing beaters as well as special beaters for dough mixing, which is a must have for me! I picked the box up and put it in my cart and went about the rest of my shopping, I was going to spoil myself for a change! After I had gotten everything on my list I looked in my cart and seen the mixer and had a sudden guilt attack. Yes the Sunbeam mixer was half the price of the Kitchen Aid one, but I could still think of several other ways I could spend the money. So I headed back over to the aisle I got it from to put it back.

About that same time my cell phone rang, it was mu husband and he was on his lunch break and called to see what I was doing. I told him that I had gone to the store to pick up the things I needed and then I told him about how I almost purchased the mixer. He asked me to tell him about it and after I did he said “Don’t you dare consider putting it back on the shelf, you’ve wanted a good mixer for as long as I can remember, the bills are paid and there is NO reason for you not to do something for yourself for a change”. I did try to argue with him, but in the end he prevailed. Yes, it was something that I have wanted for a very long time, but it’s still difficult for me to justify it…LOL!

So, if you don’t see me for the next few days it’s because I’m making cookies and bread with my new mixer…LOL! I don’t want to go too overboard on the baking though, because if I do I’ll end up having to go out and buy myself some home gym equipment to work off all the weight..LOL! But I love to bake and after mixing up a batch of peanut butter cookies with my new mixer last night, I’m VERY happy I finally did something for myself! Is it the mixer I’ve dreamed of owning? No, but it’s perfectly fine for what I need and it was less than half the price! And, it’s VERY pretty!! SEE!!

I just thought I would take a moment and introduce you to the latest member of our family. Yes ladies and gentelmen,we added on to our ever growing brood and I didn’t have to be pregnant OR go through labor…LOL!

She doesn’t have a middle name yet, but Sage definitely fits her! She’s just a doll! She’s a pure bred boxer and she’s about 7 weeks old. On all fours I don’t think she’s quite 6 inches tall. The pictures aren’t the best looking, they were taken with the camera on my cell phone, but until I can get some good ones of her here at home, these will have to do!

She just crawled up into her little puppy bed thing that we got her last night and fell asleep under the sweatshirt that I had wrapped her in to bring her home..LOL! The other dogs aren’t sure what to think of her yet, but they also didn’t try to bite or attack her either, so I’m sure that’s a good sign!

Yes, it’s FRIDAY!!!!! Do you know where your week went?? LOL To me it seems like this week went by WAY too fast! And with the way the weekend is looking, I have a feeling that will also go by very quickly!

Today isn’t going to be too busy of a day for me! Mostly house stuff to get done, once again I have an enormous amount of socks to sort and fold, UGH! I swear, I would pay someone to do this job for me…LOL! I would rather stand at the sink for 24 hours a day washing dishes than sort and fold socks! I also need to get my filing cabinet moved to make room for the puppy! From what I am understanding, we’re going to go get her this evening. We still haven’t chosen a name for her, it’s just not something that you can do without first spending some time with a dog, ya know?

I do have to run into town at some point before the hubby gets home from work. He was not too pleased with me last night when he found out that I didn’t go yesterday and get the permanent plates for the van. Since the temporary tag is expired it can’t be driven, and I won’t drive his truck because it’s just a HUGE pain, and he’s not been too happy about not being able to drive the Honda for work. The cost of gas is getting totally out of hand and his truck uses WAY more gas to go back and forth to work than my Honda does. So I have no choice but to go today and get my plates. I’ll also have to pick up some sort of puppy bed while I’m in town as well.

The only other thing that I have to do is be to brat gurls school by 4:00 to pick her up from track practice! I’m so proud of her with how she’s doing with this. I know that she was totally disappointed about not making the basketball team and she really wants to participate in sports. I think track is a good choice for her, but from my own experience with running track in high school, I know that it is DIFFICULT! When I have gotten to school to pick her up the past couple of days they have still been out and running and I’ve seen big improvements in her. Yesterday she was actually running rather than just jogging or walking. The coach really pushes them, but I’ve explained to her the reason why he does that, and I think she understands a little more. I also had a card and a few things she needs for track when I picked her up yesterday. The card was one of those “You can do it” cards, just letting her know that I had faith in her ability to do this and that I knew it was going to be hard for her, but for her to just do her best!! I think that made her feel better too!

So, that’s my day. Nothing spectacular, just the normal, mundane mom stuff…LOL! But I like it when things are “normal”, it’s much less stressful! What are YOU up to today?

And honestly, I think we lost it a VERY long time ago! As you may know, we currently have three dogs. Our “first born” his Harley, a boxer/shepard mix who is almost 3 years old. Our “middle child” is Riley, a pure bred lab who just turned 2 in December and our “baby” is Willow, a Heinz 57, who just turned 1 this month. The three of them are most definitely a handful, but also a never ending source of joy in our lives! Yes, they do your typical dog things and get into trouble (i.e. chewing a hole in the cushion of the couch), but for the most part they are all very well behaved dogs and I can’t picture life without them!

Enter the hubby and a phone call about 30 minutes ago. He first asked how my day was going and if it was going better than yesterday, to which I said “Yes, now what do you want”…LOL! He then asked me if I remembered when I said something a little while back about wanting another puppy, to which I quickly said, “I never said that and you can’t prove it”, then said yes, why? Well, you see, there is the guy that he works with. And this guy just happens to have a female dog. And that female dog just happened to have a few puppies 6 weeks ago. And those puppies just happen to be pure bred boxer puppies without the papers. And he’s having a difficult time finding homes for them because of them not having papers. And would we be interested in assisting this guy by giving one of the puppies a home…LOL!

Can someone just speed up the process and call the guys with the funny white coats for me?

I swear, anything that culd go wrong today has gone wrong! Well, let me back up a bit. The morning with the kids went very well, even considering that my son waited until 10 minutes until the bus was supposed to be here before he even started getting ready for school. But we had fun and were laughing, which is the way I prefer getting their mornings started! I was honestly worried that he’d miss the bus, since his bus comes after I leave to take my daughter to her bus stop, but he was gone when I got back.

Normally Monday’s are my favorite day of the week, I look forward to having the day to myself, but almost from the time I got back from taking my daughter to the bus, things went down hill quickly! When I walked in the door I had a pile of white “fluff” in the middle of the living room floor. After some investigating I dsicovered that the fluffl had come from the leather couch and that one of the dogs had chewed a HUGE hole in one of the cushions.

Not long after I got that cleaned up the dogs were looking out the front window barking, which meant that someone was in the driveway. I went and looked and it was a FedEx truck, they were delivering my daughters replacement MP3 player. Amazingly the company mailed the replacement in a box with no type of protection at all other than those plastic blow up tubes on each side of it, but nothing wrapped around the player at all. It’s still charging, so we’re not sure if it works or not.

Once I got the box for the MP3 player opened and the player out, I had to go into my daughters room to find the charger. I was disgusted with the pile of crap beside her bed that I had to dig through in order to find the dang charger, so I decided that I was going to clean up her room. Yeah, right, that’s going to take a week, if not longer. I know that I’m not the worlds best house keeper, but the way my daughter takes care of her room makes me look like a clean freak!

Then this afternoon I went to go pick my daughter up from track practice, the van started just fine, I pulled out of the driveway then put the van in reverse to back up to the mail box to get the mail, and it stalled, right in the middle of the road, and wouldn’t restart! As I’m trying and trying to get it to restart my cell phone rings and it’s my daughter, they let track practice out half an hour earlier than expected and she is standing outside of the school waiting for me. I had my son come out to try and help me at least move the van off the road, but that beast wasn’t gonig anywhere, PERIOD! I just kept trying and trying and finally it did start, so I drove back in the driveway, parked it and took my VERY reliable Honda! On the way to get my daughter I called my hubby SCREAMING, this is the 2nd time the van has done this and I’m DONE! I don’t give a shit if I only get $200 and have to take a huge loss, the van is GONE! It might look nice, but if I can’t rely on it, it’s worthless in my book!

Days like today make me just want to give up! I just want to throw my hands up in the air and not do things that will improve the longevity of life. But I also know that days like today are not common. Yes, things to go wrong occasionally, but not so many things in a single day. Usually it’s just one thing, maybe two, which is managable. But when so many things go wrong in such a short period of time, it’s difficult to not want to just give up, ya know?

Hopefully tomorrow will be better! In the mean time I need get dinner ready, it’s already 6:30, UGH, it’s going ot be a long night too! Can I just go back to bed and wake up tomorrow? PLEASE?????