I’m crying. Katie brushed her hair on her own after her bath yesterday (something she’s done many times) and this is what I found on the floor by my sink when I went to bed. 😳 She decided to cut out a big knot instead of asking for help. And of course managed to cut way more hair than necessary.
The upsides are that she figured out a solution on her own and that with her crazy mess of curls we can’t even tell and she doesn’t need an emergency haircut.
As soon as I saw these on Pinterest I knew I wanted to make them—we have a bunch of branches in various sizes so it was perfect. I thought it would be a quick 20-minute project.
Ha. Haha.
Tom brought in a Rubbermaid bin full of rounds and I could tell within minutes it wasn’t going to be as easy as I had imagined. It was really difficult to get just the right widths to layer so they looked right. And of course they weren’t all round so you had to try and match shapes. And even though we had like three big branches, it didn’t correlate to the right size pieces. I think I worked for over an hour trying to get a few decent trees (these were going to be gifts).
In the end they aren’t Pinterest Perfect, but they’re still cute, so it’s only a half fail. 🙂
Just when you get complacent thinking your 9yo is self-sufficient in the mornings… You find out he put a plastic container in the oven to heat up pancakes. 😳
You see, Katie came up to ask me how to toast the pancake pieces. I told her to have Owen help her (since he heats up pancakes in the toaster oven regularly). She said she knew but they were (cut up) pieces (instead of full pancakes) so it was different. True, good point. So I told her to put them on a tray and we discussed which tray to use.
Owen came up a little bit later and told me that they put the top in the refrigerator because it was hot. Huh? What? Top? What top? What was hot?
A quick check of the June oven cooking replay shows the entire plastic container in the oven. Top and all. Slowly melting.
I asked Owen how he thought that would toast the pancakes (being inside the container) and he says “BUT I DIDN’T KNOW MOM!”
I asked how it was so different from how he normally does pancakes and he stands there like he can’t understand English.
Stuff like this is so frustrating… How can he not have common sense? I suppose that’s normal for a 9yo boy. Right?! 😣 At least he noticed and took it out and didn’t burn the house down.
I have to say I am very impressed with myself as to just how much weight I gained during our cruise vacation. I knew it was my last hurrah before starting Naturally Slim again HARD CORE, so I went ALL OUT, eating and drinking all the things…and then eating and drinking some more.
We had the unlimited premium beverage package….so there was lots and lots and lots of alcohol. And first breakfasts and second lunches and snacks and extra starters or entrees. By the end of the week I didn’t even want to think about alcohol (which is good, but I’m not sure how long it will last!) and I was actually TIRED of eating.
So today I’ve had two huge glasses of H2OJ and one piece of 4″x4″ thin crust pizza… I have pretty much been at L2 all day…BURNING FAT BABY!!
Oh yeah, how much did I gain? THIRTEEN POUNDS. Yes, 13.
A local restaurant was having a back-to-school kids night that we happened upon accidentally. And there was a balloon lady scheduled to be there!
We had our drinks when we saw her walk in. She did the table next to us and then headed to our table (the only other table with kids in the room) when she was stopped by the hostess to ask if she could go to a table elsewhere as they were getting close to leaving.
Balloon lady said she’d come right back to us when she was done. We hadn’t even ordered yet so said sure no big deal. She then proceeded to come back in the room…and stop at every table except ours—every one of which had come in after us. GRRR.
We didn’t say anything at first because there was still plenty of time as we were still eating, etc. But 40 minutes later we were done and she had completely ignored us. She never even looked our way. 🙁
On our way out Tom went up to her and thanked her for breaking our daughters heart by promising to come back and then ignoring us. She said “Oh I was just getting to you.” No—no you weren’t. You were just starting at a table of three kids (actually friends of ours) that hadn’t even been there when we got there.
It was a good lesson in disappointment for the kids (and thankfully it was just balloon art) but still. She is why I sometimes say I hate people.
I did find her Facebook page and left a comment about how our kids were both really disappointed that she (in essence) lied to us and never came back. I didn’t expect her to respond (I actually expected her to delete it) but she did—and it was all excuses and passing the buck. 🙁
I’ve been struggling with my weight loss reboot. I’ll lose 5-10 then gain it back. Lather, rinse, repeat. (Lather, rinse, repeat.) I partially blame margaritas because DAMN they’re just so good. And I blame my own attitude: I’ve still lost 110# overall and holy crap that’s awesome…right? But I feel blah lots of the time…and fat (some of my clothes are way tighter than they should be). I created a Facebook group (for friends in the same boat) to help with accountability but even that hasn’t helped as much as I’d hoped. I am annoyed at myself for slacking on the NS principles and letting my weight balloon up 30# because I KNOW BETTER and NS couldn’t be easier. I feel guilty I have just seemingly lost any willpower I’ve had. I know I can do this…I just need to DO IT. So I keep trying. All I can ever do is keep trying.
We were supposed to meet friends at Six Flags water park (Hurricane Harbor) after the play date. Let’s just say things didn’t go quite as planned and I didn’t have the fun time I expected.
My friend eventually made it and we headed to the wave pool…which was an even bigger mess of humanity with less place to sit. And by this time we had three adults and eight kids. We tried to sneak into the new VIP section (since it was practically empty) but got called out within minutes.
The kids loved the wave pool and I let them swim for about half an hour but I was long done and we past rest to get the hell out of there. I have zero desire to go back and told the kids I hoped they entire it because we were going back. (And I was even looking forward to the lazy river.)
So you remember that Gramma Jean had a rope swing. Well she got a new swing this year and Tom rigged it up again with a new rope and Katie was really enjoying it. But I wanted to swing too because it’s damn fun. So long story short I ruined the first rope (it was supposed to stretch and rebound but it was too old so when I sat on it it stretched but didn’t rebound). So Tom eventually rigged up a second rope which he tested to make sure it was suitable.
It wasn’t.
He wasn’t hurt, though he was a bit sore.
Needless to say we gave up on the adults using the swing. 🙁
He bought me a new margarita drink.
It was cute and I was excited.
Unfortunately…it was horrible. I dumped it out.
We might have just discovered that Owen left the basement freezer open. Who wants to come for ribs Saturday night? Not kidding. We have four racks of ribs in the sous vide.
At least they told me we needed milk when we were at Sam’s Club this morning. #thestruggleisreal
So Owen snuck into our bedroom and was caught using the iPad that had previously been taken away twice, including for the rest of the summer (and then lying about it). Owen was the actual guilty party but Katie knew he’d done it.
I want to take away the new Xbox they’ve been promised, but after some discussion with Tom, we’re not taking it away but the date they get it back will get pushed out if they keep making bad decisions. (Owen has had two major bad decisions since. I’m hoping he gets it by Christmas.)
We’re not even a week into summer break and I’m done.
It had been storming all night—lots of thunder and lightning—with some being extremely loud (close). Then about 6:20am I was awoken by THE. LOUDEST. NOISE. I’ve ever heard in my LIFE. It literally jolted me out of bed and instantly set my heart racing. Obviously it was a bolt of lightning but I didn’t think much about it other than Wow, that must have been pretty close. I knew Katie would be in our room pretty quickly so waited for her. Yep, within a minute. So while we were cuddling (and I was trying to fall back to sleep), Owen came up to ask if we’d looked outside. Well, no…I was in bed. He excitedly said we had to look at the tree. So I got up and looked out our second-story window and…
Well then. That would certainly explain the super loud crazy lightning strike we heard! YIKES!
Then Tom came up and we ooohed and aaahed and then we thought “Hmmm. Maybe we should check our electronics.”
Yeah. Most everything in the living room was dead. The amazing 55″ Pioneer plasma TV that Dad and Lin had handed down to us nine years ago (that they don’t make anymore). The 2-year-old Yamaha receiver. The lifetimed TiVo. The new-in-January Roku HD. The Xfinity cable box. The cable card.
Oh! And two UPSs/surge protectors (the damage came in through the HDMI cable so the units didn’t protect against that surge).
Needless to say that is not how we envisioned our morning starting.
And how sad is this? Our master bedroom TV moved down so Tom could troubleshoot.
Our first thought was making an insurance claim because the damages totaled about $3000… But it’s always nerve-wracking making a claim on something that isn’t major (and while this felt major, it wasn’t catastrophic). So we just went about gathering receipts and prepping just in case.
We saw these huge marshmallows in the store and thought they’d be great for s’mores—I am always annoyed at having to get two marshmallows to cook evenly at the same time. But this was a huge fail (no pun intended). It was harder to cook the huge marshmallow because it was so thick…and it kind of overpowered the rest of the s’more. 🙂
When you finally look at the tire that’s been making noise but you didn’t worry too much about it since the tire pressure light hadn’t come on.
Sidenote. They really need more people working the tire desk at Costco.
This was what a designer sent me for my cartoon avatar. Just no. No no no. Seriously?!
Minor in the grand scheme of things but I am really regretting cutting my hair. 🙁
As a general statement: I don’t love it but sometimes I kind of like it. In Virginia I was finally really liking it and I could style it decently and easily… And then I colored it and all that went away (the color was cool but it’s a bitch to take care of—colored shampoo creates a huge mess every time I shower, I need to do protein treatments to help it stay healthy and repair damage).
So it slowly grew out more and I started liking it again (I’d always wanted really long hair) but I came to realize the annoyances of long hair so was thinking about a change and after much (but apparently not quite enough) deliberation, got about five inches cut off. And now I’m back to not really liking it again. 🙁
Of course it looked good when the stylist finished but it’s just too short. And whether I leave it curly or straighten it myself it looks bad (to me). Last night Tom said it looks fine and I agree. Fine. Not bad but not good. Fine. Blah. And unfortunately my hair plays a big part of how I feel about myself so this really sucks. Yes it will grow but my hair takes forever so this is going to be painful. I’m now trying to decide if a minor cut will help or hurt more.
I feel like I keep sabotaging myself but at the time I get <whatever> done it seems perfectly reasonable.
😞
I hate that my hair causes me so much grief.
Tom thought he was doing a good thing by moving our pre-lit birch tree behind the bench…except it doesn’t really work for my selfies.
I haven’t had an accident in FOREVER. At least it was very minor, the guy was cool, and USAA makes everything pretty painless.
You know what sucks? Not being able to take a decent hot shower because the hot water runs out really fast (like less than 10 minutes).
You know what sucks even more? Discovering the hot water heater is…23 years old. And it was last serviced four years ago.
You know what’s cool? Tom is handy enough to know how to drain the sediment.
You know what sucks? Draining the sediment didn’t help.
You know what sucks the most? Discovering a slow-ish leak four days later after Tom had gone to bed. So I hooked up the drainage hose to a bucket and put something under the drip. I decided to check the bucket before I went to bed and it already had 2″ in it so I moved the hose into a 25-gallon garbage bin and went to bed, figuring it would be safe. But it apparently turned into more of a spray overnight and by the time Tom got up and checked at 5:30 the 25-gallon bucket was overflowing. We have some wet carpet—unfortunately some is in a place we can’t easily get to and dry (under 300# of loaded shelving) but nothing was damaged. And thankfully we got someone here early and it was a simple fix. (Apparently due to the age and type of tank, you have to unscrew/rescrew the tap a few times to get the gaskets aligned right.)
You know what’s the best? Our landlord, who is now replacing the water heater.
So if you’re keeping track, he’s replaced the garage door, repainted Katie’s room, has planned to replace a few windows, has replaced the kitchen/dining floor, and is now replacing the water heater…
A gift to Katie from a well-meaning aunt. While Katie does love puzzles, of course she doesn’t have the attention span for this (hell, I barely do) but she really wants to color it. If it was up to me I’d just throw it in the trash (well I’m not an idiot, I’d give it away). But guess who will end up doing it all?? Her face just about sums it up for me too. 😂
#whowantstohelp
#idonthavetimeforthis
#puzzleparty
#ihavewineandmargaritas
#whendotheygobacktoschool
#thisauntisonmyshitlist
A friend is going to come help Friday.
Poor bacon. Poor us for not getting to eat the bacon.
This is what happens when you go to the basement for one quick thing then get sucked in to something else. By the time I smelled bacon it was too late.
When you finally realize that the fabric softener explosion from two weeks ago actually did run down the floor vent and came out through the duct and then dripped through the basement ceiling tiles and down the wall (and ledge!) and all over a plastic storage container (it’s going in the garbage because I have literally ZERO patience to clean it), all over a pile of Legos, and then pooled on the floor.
And this is what I look like:
I came home from Sam’s Club and was unloading the car when I smelled something…odd…out of place… But I couldn’t put my finger on it. Unloaded some more. Sniffed. Hmmm. It wasn’t a bad smell but it was overpowering. No idea. I thought I’ll have to explore the house when I’m done unloading and then I happened to look into the laundry room… Oh shit.
SHIT. SHIT. SHIT.
The stupid washer is off balance and jostles things around quite badly. I forget (since our own washer was never this bad) and left it too close to the edge after starting a load earlier. 😣😭 On the bright side, it smelled Downy fresh.
Of course Tom was worried that it went down the vent, but thankfully most of it seeped under the rug.
And very little actually went down the vent.
And me being the idiot I apparently was this morning, grabbed nice kitchen towels INSTEAD OF THE RAGS RIGHT BEHIND ME IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM. (I did remember the rags after the first batch of kitchen towels )
The rug was a total loss—it wouldn’t fit in the washer and it’s too cold to hose off outside.
I spent about a half hour cleaning and wiping the spatter off the walls, doors, and floor (the spots made it way out into the other room and up the garage door). Annoyingly, blue fabric softener stains (ugh).
On a positive note, that load of towels was the softest load of laundry I’ve ever felt in my life.
Welcome to my morning.
Owen threw it too high then tried to clean it with… Are you ready??… A nerf gun, a folder, and a coloring book.
#thishappenedfiveminutesafterwarninghimnottogetslimeanywhere
#thatboyhasnocommonsense
#thisthursdayismymonday
#slimeisnolongerallowedinourhouse
#isittooearlyforwine
I left it all day so he could clean it when he got home. Thankfully it came right off with a magic eraser.
Our A/C died overnight but we didn’t really realize it until about 10am when we started moving around for the day. After a text to the landlord, it was a rush to close all the blinds and put up some curtains on the sliding door to block as much sun as possible. (It helped, but eventually got to 88° by the time they got here to fix it at 6pm.) It was actually somewhat nicer outside in the shade as there was a slight breeze. But our smart thermostat let us know what was going on:
I was trying to toss the ball over the railing. I watched as it went and saw it hit the top of the railing so I knew I didn’t make it over—I instantly recoiled thinking it was going to smash into the tile floor and break something and I didn’t want to see it. But nothing happened. No noise. No smashing. Huh? What happened?
Look closely…
Do you see it?
We had to take Maggie in for a non-emergency emergency appointment. I’m glad I’d already researched local vets and had picked one… And that they could get us in within the hour.
We’re always a little lax on cutting her nails. Tom actually attempted it a few weeks ago before our move but hit the quick on one and it bled and bled and he obviously stopped and didn’t finish them.
Well, before then, I’d noticed one was getting very long and starting to curl around back towards her pad and I know I mentioned it but it got forgotten. Then the move happened, then vacation, etc. I noticed her licking and chewing on one foot but didn’t think much of it. Until this week and I rolled her over to look at her foot and OMG that nail had curled around and was growing INTO HER PAD.
Oh the horror and guilt we felt… We immediately cut the nail as best we could (we’d actually luckily unpacked that box) and it was bleeding a bit and we wanted to get it checked out to make sure it was okay.
The vet’s office was awesome. They gave her an exam, cut the rest of her nails, and gave us some antibiotic wipes. They said it wasn’t bad at all. (And in fact, it was pretty much healed by the next morning, so we likely could have skipped the appointment but of course we felt better going.)
Even though it was a regular appointment I was steeling myself for the cost. And it was only $59. It was $58 for the exam and $1 for the antibiotic wipes. Complimentary nail clip, complimentary tick pill. So we have a great vet now!!