Oops

This morning, I "adjusted" the garage door.

My car sat out all night on New Year's Eve so we would have room in the garage for the smokers in attendance. We got a good bit of snow that night, so last night I asked him to bring the car back into the garage. I assumed he would get all the snow off first. Nope.

This is how it looked last night:





When I went to back my car out of the garage this morning to warm it up, I couldn't see out the back window and failed to remember that I had only opened the door halfway when I went out there to smoke a cigarette earlier.

I hate when I do stupid shit like that.

It's not just that I dented the bottom of the door (it's not even that bad). It's more about the fact that Jim now has free reign to give me shit, and there's not a goddamned thing I can do about it...except wait until he does something equally as stupid.

Which do you want first?

I always pick the "bad news". I like to end on a high note.

The Bad News:
Last night Audrey puked her entire dinner back onto her plate. She's not sick this time. I think I just shouldn't let her have a juice box with dinner. She sucked it down like a camel and it just didn't agree with her I guess. I am really sick of cleaning up barf.

The kitchen sink is cloggity clogged and I can't use my dishwasher either as it is backing up into it as well.

I have to pay someone to come fix it.

Winter has arrived. Sitting outside with my laptop and cigarettes isn't as enjoyable when I'm shivering.

Starbucks still has not called me back about an interview. Now I have to call and do the whole "just checking in" bullshit.



The Good News:
I can pull my size 6 pants off without unbuttoning them (straight out of the dryer!).

I have an excuse to go shopping.



Not sure which category this goes in:
I am woefully addicted to Scrabulous on Facebook.

I win!

The refrigerator that came with this house su-ucks. It's much smaller than the one we left the buyers of the old house, but that's something I could have gotten used to. The worst part of this piece of shit is that it is indeed a piece of shit. It's falling apart and the fridge part cools unevenly. I've got shredded cheese covered in ice crystals in back and warm yogurt up front. Not cool. Hahahaha! Ahem.

I got a wild hair up my ass today and decided that I was going to go out and get a new refrigerator. I was online doing a little research and got an idea of what I wanted, so after Jim got home I hopped in the car to price check in person.

Home Depot's selection was sad. One (too small) bottom freezer on the showroom floor and not a salesperson in sight to help me. Fuck them. I was off to Best Buy.

I was helped 4 seconds after walking into the appliance section and they don't even work on commission! Best Buy Guy was very helpful and found me exactly what I wanted. I told him I still had two more places to check, but he might be seeing me before close.

He was quick to add that they price match. Good to know, Mr. Salesguy.

Next stop was Sears. I got my sexy washer and dryer from Sears, and have been happy with their service in the past, so I had to give them a chance at my cash.

I found the exact same refrigerator at Sears that I saw at Best Buy--but for way more. Yikes.

I let Sears Saleswoman in on the info, and she asked me if I had any proof. I thought she was being a bitch until she added that they will price match PLUS 10%. If there's one thing about me you need to know, it's that this girl likes a bargain. I somehow feel like I've actually accomplished something amazing when I save a few bucks.

Somehow the sale gets passed onto Nervous Guy, and I have him bring up the Best Buy website on their in store computer. We find the sale price, he prints it and we're in business.

I hate talking numbers because it seems so rude and weird, but I'm going to make an exception just this once.

After the price match and the extra 10% (plus 0% for 12 months!), I got a $2500(Sears' price) refrigerator for $1600. She's a beaut too. French door/bottom freezer drawer, water dispenser inside, foldy shelf things, stainless steel and it has that Energy Star rating. Yee Fucking Haw!

They're delivering it Monday.

Oh, fercryinoutloud

We dropped the asking price on Tuesday to try and spark some renewed interest, and it worked!

We had a showing Tuesday, Wednesday and THREE showings today.

Today was rough.

The first one was at 1:00 so I decided that after I picked the girls up from preschool I would take them out to lunch to kill some time. Then a woman called wanting to show the house between 2 and 3. OK, no problem. We just killed a little extra time. I had until 2:45 to pick the dogs up from the doggy daycare place anyway.

On my way to my home from picking up the dogs I got another call that someone wanted to see my house at 5:30.

That's when I started to get weary.

I left the house at 10:30 this morning to drop off the dogs and pick up the girls (who had left the house at 8:30 this morning. It was 3:00 at this point which meant I had at least another 3 hours to kill before I could take everyone home.

My kids were tired from the two hours we spent at the pizza place with a ball pit. (I know those things are gross, but it was in the 50's today, and too cold for the park). My dogs were tired from the four hours they spent sniffing butts and wrestling with other dogs. I was tired from shuttling to and fro all damn morning and afternoon with two kids and two dogs in the car.

We finally got to come home around 6:30. Poor Audrey was so tired that she passed out in the car on the way home and barely woke up while I changed her into pajamas. Mina made it through dinner and a bath, but was dead to the world after one short bedtime story.

I usually go out with a couple of friends for a drink on Thursday nights, but even that sounds like it would take too much effort. I don't know that I would be very good company tonight anyway.

I'm just bitchy and out of sorts so much of the time lately. I have to keep my house clean in case someone wants to see it. That part doesn't bother me so much as it is nice to have everything looking nice most of the time. I do hate having to scoop up the kids and the dogs at pretty much the drop of a hat. Audrey was in the process of giving up her nap anyway, but it didn't help that she keeps getting shuffled around town during her normal snooze time.

I know I should be excited that so many people are looking at the house, but I can't help but feel like I am being held hostage by this whole experience.

Hold me

We are under a Winter Storm Warning until tomorrow night.

I hate this shit. I hate winter. I hate snow. Most of all, I hate going to the grocery store in front of a forecast like this.

Don't get wrong. I like to be prepared. If I know we're going to be stuck in the house for a couple of days, I make sure we have some snacky-snacks, ingredients for wholesome hot dinners and shit to do that isn't watching television. Not that I don't let my kids watch TV. I do, and plenty of it.
I just know that if the girls go over the recommended daily allowance of Sprout or Noggin, they start getting twitchy, and no one wants that. I do try to balance TV watching with other stuff. We do crafts from time to time. Usually we have great fun (though we have all agreed never to speak of the Great Glitter Fiasco of 06).

I hate having to deal with people I don't normally have to deal with at the store. I usually have the girls with me and it's not their favorite thing to do, even if we get the big plastic cart shaped like a butterfly or car. That thing is a bitch to steer and half the time they want to get out and walk anyway.

Today, I caught a break and got to go by myself. Because I am so lame, this is a huge treat for me. Normally, I go during the week in the middle of the day. Most people are at work so it's generally other stay-at-home moms and old people to deal with. Old people tend to stay out of the way, occasionally stopping to tsk tsk a badly behaved child. The other moms with kids are too busy dealing with their own meltdowns and whining to notice mine.

Today, since there is apparently an Apocalypse-worthy snowstorm coming, everyone decided to go to the grocery store. Everyone also decided that they were more important than me since they were taking time away from their cubicle to buy 8 loaves of bread and 12 gallons of milk all at once. Amateurs.

I was enjoying a leisurely stroll down the aisles, sans children when I heard the distinct swish of polyester on polyester coming up fast from behind.

"Excuse me! I'm in a very big hurry."

Oh, by all means Sue from accounts payable, let me get my lazy ass out the way. By the way, the hair dye is in aisle 11 unless orange roots and crunchy white ends is the look you were going for.

Another thing I hate about getting copious amounts of snow is the fact that my kids immediately want to go out and play in it. Playing in the snow is fun for me for about 10 minutes. Unfortunately my children disagree. They would stay out there until dark if I would let them. The last big snow we got, my two year old screamed and cried, snot pouring out of her red, half-frozen nose, when I dragged her inside by the leg of her snow suit. Not even my homemade-not from a mix, hot chocolate would calm her down.

The way I see it, playing outside in the snow and freezing my ass off is still preferable to trying to navigate slick roads in order to get my girls to preschool. I'm hoping we get enough of the white stuff to shut school down.

I say, if it's going to snow, bring it the fuck ON. I've got enough tortilla chips and salsa, meat, and construction paper to get us through to next weekend.

Good Eats

Yesterday, I took my dogs to a new vet. The old place was fine, but after some stellar recommendations we decided to make the leap. They were due for their annual credit card-straining exams, so we felt like now was as good a time as any to switch.

One thing necessary for the full yearly doggy work up is a fecal sample. Nothing beats being up before sunrise outside, in the dead of an Illinois winter, scooping up dog shit to put in a bag.

The new vet was great and the final bill was a bit lower than the other place. The male of our two dogs celebrated by shitting on the exam room floor. He's a rock star, that one.

Before we had left the house that morning, it had started snowing quite a bit. The roads were pretty slippery but nothing a little old lady driving couldn't make up for.

What was scary was the fact that the heat in my car, which had been spotty in the last couple of weeks, decided to completely stop working this fine sub-zero morning. My hands and toes were numb and the defrost was not defrosting. I could barely see through my front windshield.

I had to to stop at the bank to make a deposit to cover the bills I sent out that morning. Luckily it was on the way home.

I had given up on the heat coming back on, but kept hoping against hope that somehow my window would defrost. It looked like I was driving through clouds, but if I squinted just enough I could make out my half of the road.

As I was sitting at the drive-up bank teller, I reasoned that I wasn't that far from home and if I was really really careful, I could get there without killing myself and the dogs or anyone else. Suddenly, I smelled something 'not right'-a burning smell to be exact. Then, smoke started billowing out of my dashboard.

I was cold, my dogs were cold, I couldn't see out the front of my car and now something was about to blow up under the hood. I didn't really see the point of panicking, so I just headed home.

After dropping the dogs off at the house, I went to the auto shop a block from my house.

A half hour and 40 bucks later, I was good to go. Something about a gallon of whoosit and a loose whatchamajig. I didn't care. My car was running, smoke-free and warm.

That night I decided, healthy eating be damned, we were eating comfort food for dinner. So I made fried chicken. I'd never made it before and if I may be so bold, it was really damn good. Alton Brown himself would have been proud.