Frustrated

I got a pretty new phone last night from my sister in law who had just replaced it with a Blackberry she liked better. It's really pretty and still new. However, it's really frustrating me because I can't figure out how to use the darn thing. I can dial out, answer calls and look at the calendar, but I'll be damned if I can figure out anything else such as memory expansions, ringtones, files and the music media player. Ugh. Does anyone have one of these things? I've wasted almost a whole afternoon of my life trying to figure this thing out!

And before you ask - yes, I've been to Verizon to have it activated. I'm not that dumb.

The Countdown To Insanity

9 days. That's all that's left. The school carnival is in 9 days. I'm stressed out and ready for it to be here and gone. The sad part is that I probably won't even be able to enjoy any of it because I'll be running around the whole night like a chicken with its head cut off.

This event has taken up so much of my time and patience that there just isn't enough left in me for anything else. I just about broke down today. There were so many things going on this morning that I thought I was going to lose my sanity.

My van is done ($1800 later), but getting the check from the Insurance company has turned into a nightmare. Apparantly it takes more than 6 hours to print out a check. Now I'm here at home with 6 kids so it's not looking hopeful that I'll get my van back today.

I should have known this was going to be a difficult day when I rolled over to turn off the alarm clock this morning at 6:13am (already running 13 minutes late) and rolled over my son in the process. I have no idea when he climbed into bed with me, but he was there when I woke up.

I have no idea where I'm going with this, other than that I am exhausted and just want to sit down and spend time with my family and have no other obligations beyond that.

I apologize for ranting - I'll try to be in a better mood tomorrow.

Mommies, UNITE!

Some one needs to calm me down, because the mommy claws are coming out! You see, we've had an issue with a little boy at school who has been bullying Ryan and many other kids during recess. It ranges from unkind words to pushing Ryan out of line while he waits his turn to kick in kickball. Ryan or the other kids get pushed down, they fall down, they then have to go to the back of the line because this little punk hasn't gotten a taste of his own medicine yet. I say yet, because his day will come, I'm sure. (Ok, I pray.) (No one said I had to be nice, here.)

Bret and I have brought this up with the school principal and Ryan's teacher. We've been told that the school has a zero tolerance for bullying and that it will be taken care of in a delicate fashion that will not make the situation worse for the child that is being bullied. Basically, they want to catch the little punk in the act so that it doesn't look like some crazy mommy is out to protect her baby. Humph.

Two days ago I had to make a trip to school to talk Ryan into staying at school because he was upset and wanted to go home. He said his stomach hurt, but admitted that another kid had been mean to him. I didn't put two and two together until he told Bret that night that the kid was in fact, "the punk." Grrrrr.

Rest assured, they say they are taking care of it.

Case closed? No. Tonight I as I'm laying with Ryan in bed (a ritual Bret started - insert dirty look here) we are talking and I ask him if he's had anymore problems with "the punk". (We use his real name here at home, but that probably wouldn't be smart here and this is much nicer than the name that I would like to call him.) He tells me that yesterday during morning recess, "the punk" punched him in the face and Ryan fell and hit his head on the gym floor. He said he told on him, but didn't know if he got in trouble because Ryan had to go to the office to put ice on his head. The little shit punched my son in the face. I'm done being nice.

Why wasn't I called? Why is this kid still allowed around my son - or in recess for that matter?! If this kid breaks a $5,000.00 hearing aid, is his mother going to cough up the money to replace it? This obviously isn't being taken care of since it's still happening. The poor kid's lips are so chapped from nervously biting them that I'm scared to death they're going to get infected.

So I've emailed Ryan's teacher, with the purpose of explaining why he'll be glued to his Chapstick tomorrow and tactfully mentioned why I think Ryan is a bit stressed. As mad as I am and as demanding as I want to be right now - it won't get me or Ryan anywhere. So I will remain calm and nice when I call the school's principal tomorrow, but will insist that this kid be kept away from my precious little boy. Or else.

If that doesn't work they may get an unexpected visitor (plus two more in a double stroller) at recess everyday to help them out with supervision since there obviously is a lack of it.

It Was Suppose To Be This Easy

Since we won't be in town this weekend I decided to put the Christmas tree up today. When I started I had no idea of the stress that would soon begin to invade my peaceful day with no kids. Three years ago we bought a prelight tree that I was confident would last for quite a few years. I loved that tree. Now it's dead to me.

I got started at 8:30 this morning to find that many of the bulbs were burned out. I made a quick trip to Target to get some new bulbs and came home only to find they didn't fit. I then left again to try Menards and came home with the wrong size again.

Giving up, I went back to putting the tree together. Once I got to the top section, I was horrified to find that half of the lights didn't work. Sick to my stomach about it, I began trying different fuses. Didn't help. I went through and tested every single bulb, people! Still didn't help. So I then decided to pull off the prelight strands and I now have a half of strand of nonworking lights hanging from the d*#% tree.

Will someone please tell me what to do?!?! I really don't want to go out and buy a new tree, but I'm afraid that if I take off the rest of the lights on the partially nonworking strand, my tree is going to look mangled and that the lights I replace them with won't match the rest of the tree.

I will never buy a prelight tree again!

Poof

I was all set to sit down and post some really cute pictures from Ryan Cub Scout field trip this morning when, Poof!, they just disapeared. I downloaded them from my camera and when I went to look at them, the folder was empty. Then I went back to my camera and found that Picasa had deleted them from there, too. What's even worse is that I had taken a picture for another mom of her son holding the American flag during their opening ceremony and now I have no picture to email to her. So now what you get is some serious ranting of the problem with some parents these days...

Last night I spent three hours shooting out emails to everyone that had signed up to help out with the carnival for Ryan's school that Teri and I are chairing. I must have sent out emails to a couple of hundred parents and can you believe that I've only gotten responses from 3 parents so far? Sad. I hope they don't think we're giving up easily, because they will get a phone call - or maybe a few hundred phone calls. Hopefully the responses will start flooding in once the weekend is over.

On a totally different subject, the kids have their Halloween costumes all picked out and ready to go. They are really excited. Ryan is going to be a Chicago Bears football player and Ashley and her friend, Danielle are going as ketchup and mustard. It was quite hilarious watching them try them on in the store bathroom last week. The costumes are bigger than they are. Now if we could just find the time to head over to Apple Blossom Farm to get our pumpkins.

Well, I'm off to finish cleaning my house. Break's over.

Score Card

Number of cute babies who were insanely well behaved at the car dealership this morning: 1

Hours spent waiting for an oil change, tire rotation and DVD player problem at said car dealership: 2 and a half

...

Number of tractors stuck behind on the way home just today alone (in a no passing zone too, of course): 3

Number of corn stalks surrounding our neighborhood: too many to count

Idiots using the camera on their cell phone while driving: 1

I guess that's what you get when you move out to a neighborhood in the middle of farm country.

Dear Gold's Gym,

Do you really think it's fair to change your policies regarding your child care services ten months after telling me that I can bring Chloe there with me? When I have written authorization from her mother, who is also a member? I realize that by telling members that they can no longer bring children who are not their own, you believe this will solve your over crowding issue, but do you honestly think that is fair? I've been a member there for two years and was completely shocked when you threw this piece of garbage news at me this morning. I've been honest about this situation from the start and all you are doing is encouraging people to lie to you.

So, let me see if I've got this right. Instead of bringing just ONE child in the morning, you would rather me bring my TWO children in the evening when it is just as crowded? What the heck are you smoking?

Ungratefully yours,

Lynda

*By the way, my two page letter with my detailed opinion on this matter will be on it's way to your owner soon. Failing to resolve this amicably will result in another detailed letter to your corporate office, filling them in on how you treat your members and all of the DCFS regulations you are so obviously ignoring.

Indecision

Help me decide:

Do I clean up the basement today for Ryan's upcoming birthday party or do I take the kids to the pool instead? Such tough decisions!

~ ~ ~ ~

Update (3:04pm): I hate basements. And basement bathrooms. And basement bedrooms. And in a couple of hours from now? I'm going to hate basement livingrooms and rec rooms. I should have gone to the pool.

~ ~ ~ ~

3:28pm: I killed the vacuum cleaner. The darn cord ripped right out of the thing.

~ ~ ~ ~

5:45pm: Oops, just woke up from a nap.

Irony

For the past few months, Bret and I have been discussing the need for a new Laptop computer. Okay, it's been more like I've been begging and pleading and Bret's been trying to keep the check book closed, but still I was afraid that the older second hand laptop was on it's way to lappy heaven and I'd lose all of the pictures from this summer that were on it when it did.

We finally found a Gateway that we could both agree on at Best Buy, but it was out of stock in the store. They did have it available online last night, but then I nearly broke down and cried when I went to order it this morning and they were all sold out!

I did manage to find a Toshiba that had the same specs and ran out as soon as I could fit it into my busy 3 kid day to buy it. As soon as I got home and later got Chloe down for her afternoon nap, I sat down to try and figure the thing out. That's when everything went downhill fast and I nearly lost my mind.

We already had the other computers set up on a wireless network so I figured (in my computer genius mind) that all I had to do was log onto the network and poof, it'd be all ready to go. Not so much. I spent the next 2 and a half hours trying to set up the network. I was ready to give up and throw the thing back at the salesman when my mom called and asked if I was sure I had the right password to the network. Like I'm that dumb. Yeah, I had the password all wrong for over 2 hours. I put in the password that she insisted was correct and low and behold my new toy sprung to life. Figures. (Have I told you how thankful I am yet, Mom?)

So I got to work and started to prepare to transfer all of the pictures from the old laptop over the network when all of a sudden the thing died. It made a sad noise, shut itself off and died. Did I mention it DIED? (Taking a deep breath...) I lost all of my pictures from July. My cute son playing T-Ball for the first time ever, my growing up too fast daughter's softball game pictures, my temporary loss of insanity over at the trampoline pictures, and many more. It makes me sick to my stomach. Thankfully I have this blog. I've posted my favorites here and can at least copy those onto the new laptop.

It's ironic and sad, isn't it? We replaced the old laptop because we were afraid something like this would happen and just as I'm trying to transfer everything to the new one, I lose it all forever.

I do love my new computer though. This thing is sweet! Did you know that you can post to your blog with your pictures easily with the push of one button through Picassa? It's great!

But let's go over my user error mistakes. A half hour of trying to figure out how to connect the internet and finally realized that there was a wi-fi switch on the front of the computer. Next, another two hours of frustration because I had the wrong password for the network. And then finally realizing that the printer wasn't working because the wire wasn't plugged in. Yep. Aha.

A Spider Tried To Kill Me!

On the way home from Ashley's softball game tonight, the kids and I were terrorized by a big furry black spider that some how found it's way into my van. It started out on the passenger seat and made it's way closer to me as I was driving. I don't think I've ever been as freaked out in my life before as I was tonight. While driving, I attempted to kill it with Ryan's flip flop (did you really think I was going to use my own?) but it just kept curling up into a ball and running away. As we pulled into the neighborhood I swung into the first driveway and jumped out. Larry and Joan were outside doing some work on their house and probably thought I had lost my mind. Larry tried his hardest to find the thing, but it's God knows where, hiding and just waiting for me to get back inside before it tries to attack again. I managed to get home (yes, I sped just a teeny tiny bit) and got myself and the kids out of the van. I looked all over again and still couldn't find the nasty thing. I left my van on the driveway, because I am NOT getting back into it until Bret gets home from his softball game and exterminates it. If he can't find it we'll just have to have the van towed and buy a new one!

I think it looked a little something like this.

Okay, maybe it was more like this. But really! It's just as bad and it's still in there!

Weekend Update

I am officially garage saled out! It's amazing how many people will try to talk you down a mere 50 cents and then walk away when you say no. Or when you have 8 pairs of medical scrubs and someone asks if you'll take a dollar off each one and you say no, thinking that surely someone else will buy them - and then two weekends later they are still in your possesion. Everything is back in rubbermaid tubs and ready to be put away for the next neighborhood sale. If I ever recover from these last two weekends by then.

I went to the doctor to have my ankle checked out again yesterday and he told me, "Congratulations. You've managed to tear all three tendons in your one ankle." Ouch. Luckily, he said that if I go back to icing it every 2 hours again, it should heal up pretty well for our vacation to Disney World in 11 DAYS! We're almost to single digits, people! I may have to wear the air cast he gave me while I'm there, but it should be okay. I just may end up with some pretty horrible tan lines around my ankle by the time we get home.

Well, I'm off to finish icing my ankle and then I'm going to go take back control of my house. It's been neglected for way too long!

Too Loud

I am so ready for my kids to go to bed. So very ready. It has been such a long day. Too long of a day to form any kind of sentence that makes sense. Do you think it would have been too much to ask that a volume control have been included when they were born?

Take ME Away

Remember those old calgon commercials they use to show on TV where the mom is having a bad day and she says, "Calgon, take me away"? I use to be scared of those commercials when I was a kid, thinking that "Calgon" was going to take the mom away and the kids would never see her again. I was always everwatchful for the feared calgon bottle in our bathroom - ready to dispose of it should it appear.

My kids have only been home from school for less than two hours and I have two kids fighting - one laying on the basement stairs crying and now a flute and a trumpet being practiced in the basement. All this after having a somewhat rough afternoon with a baby who didn't really want to sleep or eat.

So now I have to ask . . .

Calgon, can you take ME away?

Coming To My Senses

I think I may have lost my mind tonight. After dropping Ashley off at the Michael's craft store for her girl scout meeting, I headed over to Cub Foods to get some much needed groceries since it's right across the street from Michael's. Pusing my cart down the aisles, I was upset to see just how much more Cub Foods charges for almost everything compared to Walmart. Now I know some people are against the whole Walmart thing because of how little they pay their employees and the fear that they'll put everyone else out of business, but it's money I'd much rather spend elsewhere. So, do you know what I did half way through Cub Foods after I saw that they wanted a buck fifty more for Ryan's Trix yogurt than Walmart does? I turned around and back tracked, putting everything back. (Ok, everything but the Sara Lee coffee cake that you can't get at Walmart.) They're lucky I took the time to actually put the stuff back. I then headed over to Walmart to buy my groceries and probably saved a good thirty or fourty bucks. (Ha! Who's laughing now?!)

Headache

This is what happens to my house when it's too hot for the kids to play outside. What can I say, it's just been that kind of day. (Sigh) Thankfully, I'm looking forward to a night out with the girls tonight.