"Mi Vida Loca"

I started this post last Tuesday and never had a chance to finish. Life is still crazy so, I'm going to just publish this post "as is" and finish it later... Maybe! At this point I feel the need to journal. Am I recording the beginning of a nervous breakdown? Hope not! :) Read if you dare. Today (3-31-08) is day 7 of the floor installation. Oh boy! corrected

My crazy life. So fitting this week. Why you ask? Let's review the last 7 or 8 days or so.

First some back ground. Last Monday we went back to school from Spring Break. I had a horrible sinus infection that would not allow me to sleep. I averaged 3 to 4 hours of sleep at best. Our washer was broken and had spewed oily stuff all over my clothes. The water heater was putting pebble size white chunks of something in our hot water and stopping up the washer, dishwasher, shower heads etc. The time had changed a week earlier but because we were on Spring Break we were not at all adjusted.

Monday... Our PTA brought the Fort Worth Children's Opera's production of "Carmenella"
to the kid's school. I'm the Cultural Arts PTA person so I got to play hostess, which was really fun. Had I not been sick or had I not had a repair guy coming to my house, I would have totally enjoyed it. My sweet Mom who was on her Spring Break stayed with Ella Kate and let the repairman in. It was a hurried morning. At the last minute I remembered to put on the only clean green thing in my closet. (Never go to an elementary school on St Patrick's Day not wearing green!) I made it to school just in time to greet the "Carmenella" cast. I showed them around going all over the school. They set up , the kids filed in and it began. I was so relieved. About 15 minutes into the show my friend leaned over and whispered that the tag to my sweater was showing in the back. She tried to tuck it in for me but couldn't. About that time I looked down and we both realized I had my sweater on INSIDE OUT!!!! It was hard not to burst out laughing. I had just greeted strangers and gotten up in front of the whole school wearing my sweater inside out! NICE.

I went home to find out that there is a 4 foot 6 inch long piece of PVC like pipe in a water heater called a dipstick. When the repairman pulled the dipstick out of our water heater it was less than an inch long. That means that 4 feet 5 inches of this pipe had disintegrated and clogged everything in our house that gets hot water. And all those things have to be cleaned out or if too clogged, replaced. And the water heater tank needs to be drained weekly until all the stuff is out. AND none of that "cleaning out" stuff is covered by the Home Shield we have on our house. So we will be doing all that ourselves. FUN! But I have to say, I love how much better it feels to take a hot shower now that there isn't a cup of crud blocking up the shower head! :)

Later that day (wearing a different shirt put on the right way) I took Rhett and Ella Kate to get eggs for their class Easter Egg hunts. I thought Rhett would enjoy picking out his eggs, candy and a cheap "take to school" basket. I was wrong. Maybe it was the fact that I made Rhett stand in the shopping cart baby seat to get "BIG" eggs for me off the top shelf that drove him over the edge. I'm not sure. But half way down the crazy crowded Wal-Mart Easter aisle, with his baby sister screaming and pulling all she could grab off the shelf, and an grouchy old woman behind us ramming my heels with her basket if I paused for too long in the bumper to bumper basket traffic... Rhett lost it. "Mom let's just get the eggs and get out of here!" he roared. Every man on the Easter aisle seemed to cheer in agreement and all the women snickered. Rhett turned bright red and melted on to the basket which made it even harder to push. Evidently, he's not a shopper.

Tuesday my fever rocketed. It was raining hard. Mom took EK to school for me. I slept. Finally my fever broke around noon giving me enough time to get up, shower, go to the pharmacy for prescription #3 and pick up EK and the big kids from school. We later met Rob for Taco Tuesday at Rosa's for dinner. I then sent the kids with Rob and set off to Target and Dollar Tree to get some Easter shopping done. I had accidentally left my cell phone at home so Rob gave me his. Long story short, someone took Rob's cell phone out of the outer cell phone pocket of my purse in the Dollar Tree. I was only in there 25 minutes. I realized the phone was gone as I left the store and went back in the store immediately to call it. I wanted to see if I had dropped it in the store. Maybe someone would hear it. When I called it went straight to Rob's voice mail. I knew something was wrong right away. Whoever took the phone had already taken the SIM card out. I can not tell you how infuriated and violated I felt. I cried the whole way home. It really upset me and Rob. To add insult to injury, we found out that somehow we didn't get insurance when we upgraded phones last fall. So someone has Rob's cool new black razor and he has his old phone. I offered him my hot pink razor, but he passed. I'm still sad about it. And I'm not going back to the Dollar Tree unless I lock my purse in the van. But even then I'm not sure. I have since heard that there are between one to three purse snatchings or car break-ins on that corner area every week. Did I mention Target is across right the street? UUUGGGHHH!

Wednesday... Well, I got to start Wednesday before I finished Tuesday. Ella Kate woke up screaming just as I was going to bed around mid-night Tuesday night. She didn't go back to sleep until around 5 am. It was not fun for either of us. The washer repair guy came at 9am. I was not pretty when I greeted him at the door. He fixed the washer anyway. The rest of the day I tried to catch up on over a week of piled up laundry. Wednesday night we were heading to church to eat. They stop serving at 6:30 and Rob doesn't get home until 6 at the earliest. It is always a rushed thing if we are trying to make it for dinner at church. As the kids were getting in the van, I unloaded some top secret Easter stuff from the trunk. I had both arms full and was trying to hide things, so I left the hatch up. Rob didn't realize the hatch was up and backed out to wait for me in the drive way. I knew what had happened as soon as I heard the crash and grinding metal noise. The garage door, door molding and Van hatch all took a hit. Most still work, but aren't near as pretty. We ended up being too late to get dinner at church so we went to Jason's Deli. Due to a potato malfunction, Jason's ended up taking too long and we ended up missing church altogether. Kolby was in tears because she wanted to go to church. It went downhill from there. It was one of those nights that if properly documented on film would inspire any sexually active person to use multiple forms of birth control. Par for the week, Ella Kate had another very tough night.

Thursday... I called to get EK a doctor's appointment before I even got out of bed. (I just knew it was going to be "a virus" but after three nights of little or no sleep, I felt it necessary to have her checked out. ) Since I had spent some major time stuffing Elmo eggs the night before, and since i am a sucker for holidays, I really wanted EK to get to go to her first Easter Party. I also needed her to go to school so I could go help at Rhett's Easter party. So by 9 am I was on a role. I had everything ready for both parties and had a doctors appointment for EK after school. My mom came over to wake up Ek and get her to school for me so I wouldn't be late to Rhett's party. When Mom got EK out of her bed she was hard to wake up and completely covered in snot. I'll spare you the gory details, but I have never seen that much dried snot in my life. SO disgusting! Poor little thing just cried and cried. And she had no voice. And she had fever. Change of plans. EK did not go to school. My sweet Mom kept her and I went to Rhett's party as planned but a tad late. That afternoon we found out it was more than a virus. Double Ear Infections. (EK's first ear infection ever) And a sinus infection. Happy Easter! But I was happy to get an antibiotic and some drops to help EK sleep at night.

All dressed up to go to the doctor... I couldn't let that cute dress go to waste!

If you are still reading this LONG entry, you might find it hilarious that as I was typing this (Tuesday, March 25) I was interrupted by a phone call from my Mom. All her fire alarms were going off and the Fire Truck was on the way. "Could I please come help her get their cars out of the garage?" No kidding. It really happened. I even took pictures to prove it.

Turns out my parents hadn't changed the batteries in one smoke detector, but all the smoke detectors and alarm system are electrically wired to go off together, so everything went off. (Thank goodness they don't have fire sprinklers!) Ours smoke detectors work the same way but they usually give us a beep warning before going off like there is a fire. (Question. If the smoke detectors are all wired together electronically, why the need for batteries? ) My parents didn't get a beep warning. Instead, they got 6 screaming alarms and 5 firefighters standing in their living room (who were very annoyed at being called out for a dead battery.) At least the neighborhood kids got a show.

It's just another example of how crazy life has been around here. That's all my time to blog for the day....