Wednesday, January 28, 2009

New Year - New Chaos and Confusion

*Sigh*

Never a dull moment I tell ya.

The cold weather continues but at least there have been a few warm days thrown into the mix to keep our spirits up. There is hope of spring arriving.....eventually.

Mom continues to struggle with her health and I've spent a night or two at her house just to provide her the comfort of knowing she isn't alone while she feels so poorly. She's had some more tests done with still no answers as to what's going on with her stomach - but on the bright side, having the procedures done seems to have disrupted the cycle of pain and queasiness which is a bonus. She is still battling the sinus cold from hell - and to some extent so am I. You'd think after 2 months it would get the hint that it is unwanted and move on.

As if trying to get her to a healthier state isn't fun enough, my own children are giving me a run for my sanity too. The younger two have become walking plague-monkeys and we have been doing our very best to contain the spread of their Chicken Pox to the unsuspecting of the world. I sure hope we succeeded. Mr O fell victim first and in huge dramatic fashion he wasted no time in being totally covered in spots. Just as quickly as they came, they crusted over and he was on the road to recovery. The true drama didn't begin until a few days later when Miss Em began to show signs of spots - tiny little spots that showed up one at a time, with the worst possible timing --- the day of Malanka. This princess LIVES to dance, to perform, to get up infront of people. Her universe revolves around it and there she was - quarentined and unable to go. Adding insult to this was the fact that her little brother who 'has the chicken pox too!' was already into the non-contagious stage of the pox and he was allowed to go and dance. How Unfair! She took it like a trooper though and her and I spent the evening at home. Since she'd just started breaking out, she wasn't uncomfortable and we had alot of fun spending time together. The fun didn't last long though. While Owen wasted no time in breaking out and healing without much discomfort, she has taken the opposite route and it has been a long week with alot of tears and advil and calamine lotion and benadryl and the last day or two has also included her breaking out in huge patches of hives whenever the benadryl wears off. My Poor Princess!

In other health news - my van is ill too. Very ill. Expensively ill. Well, not really expensively ill, just too expensive to want to deal with, considering all the other issues that tired old piece of crap has. Is it really worth it to soak that much money into a vehicle that really isn't worth it. So what does Al do? He drags me to a dealership and has me fall in love with a new(er) van with some cool bells and whistles...including dual sliding doors - a dream of mine! Our financial health is in even poorer health - to the point where I'm almost ready to put it on the DNR list. Pending unemployment kinda has that effect on ones bank account. How the heck we are even considering that we will get financing for this new van is beyond me - but we don't have many other options so keep your fingers crossed.

Monday, January 05, 2009

And then there were 12

12 more Mondays that is. I sure do hope that none of them are as stinking cold as this one was. Working on the truck is hard enough when you are warm. It's pure hell when you aren't. It started out at -32 and got up to a toasty -26 this afternoon with NO wind at all which was a treat I tell ya. I can't imagine what today would have been like if last nights forecast of -48 with the windchill had actually happened.

The only thing that kept me going was the pack of HotHands I found in the storage compartment in the big truck this morning. My toes were SO cold I couldn't move them and every step hurt. A pack of those hand warmers in each of my boots and in no time my toes had thawed out. By mid afternoon my fingers were hurting too so I opened a couple more packages and into my gloves they went.

Aside from the cold - another reason I'm counting down the days.....the little truck broke down at 9am. Ugh! Somehow we managed to get the work done and with only one contract, we have a whole week to fix the truck instead of the usual one day. It's kind of nice. I mean, kinda nice in a 'no pressure to get the truck fixed in a hurry before we need it wednesday' kind of way. Kinda nice in the 'whoo-hoo...only have to work one day a week' kind of way. I'm looking on the bright side of the whole pending unemployment thing here of course. I could totally spin this a whole other way and say Oh no...only 12 more weeks and then what do we do with our lives kind of way but I'm not. Not after working in -31 weather and almost freezing my fingers and toes off and having a truck break down at 9am. Nope. I'm completely looking at the next 12 weeks as a count down to bigger and better....and WARMER things.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

And they all sat in the kitchen

The 'open house' in my newly designed open-floor-plan house went well.....
except the part where nobody left the dang kitchen and actually made use of the recently opened up dining/living rooms. I mean seriously. I spent 5 days on that reno, insisting it be relatively done by the 31st and for what? So everyone could spend the evening in my tiny not-so-eat-in kitchen? Oh the humor of it all.

Honestly the reno project had very little to do with the open house - the open house just gave me a deadline to have it done by (you know - to prevent a doh-dee-doh attitude of getting to it one day).

The reno was 100% for my sanity.

The reno project worked. My sanity is intact (more or less) and for the first time in quite awhile my relateionship with this house isn't teetering on the edge of me going out and renting a bulldozer.

At least the added space gave the kids room to run about while friends came and went. At times up to 16 people crowded into every conceivable space in my kitchen. We had a great time laughing and telling stories and jokes, talking about the future of our business and drinking and eatting our way though the evening. By 9:30 everyone had cleared out, leaving behind a scattered array of almost empty food trays, empty bottles and for some reason there were a whole lot of grapes on my floor.

Aarica went to bed shortly after everyone left and Alan, Tyler, Emily, Owen and I curled up in the living room to watch Shrek2 on TV. I fell asleep on the couch but they woke me up a few minutes before midnight and we counted down to the New Year together.

It really couldn't have been a more perfect night. Having a great time with friends and ending the night with those who matter most. Family.