PMS and a bad date

Not a "date" as in going out. A "date" as in on the calendar. Today is April 19th. This would've been my father's 61st birthday. And you know what? It didn't even dawn on me that his birthday was coming up until I stopped at the school this morning and saw today's date on a calendar and I did a double take. Part of me is actually glad that I wasn't forced to spend some afternoon with him for his birthday. (My sister always made sure we all did the "right" thing like that.) The other part of me is still mad at him for being such a slave to alcohol.

And I'm probably just feeling all sorta sappy and melancholy because I'm PMSing. I'd be fine if they took *those parts* out - I have no more use for them and I'd be happy to have no more periods.

My 14 month old niece was here for an hour tonight. She's such a cutie, but I spent soooooo much time just trying to get her to stop crying. Yowza! Not even the kitty interested her enough to get her to stop. Fortunately, it was nice outside so I was able to walk around outside with her and finally found something that made her stop crying - watching a purple Hot Wheels car go down the slide in the backyard. Once she finally calmed down, I was able to stop the Hot Wheels entertainment and walk around the yard and show her my plants growing and the trees and we listened to birds. Then we sat on the garden swing in the front yard and watched the cars go by on the street and listened to more birds until mom came back. And she was here for just an hour. Next time, I do this on her turf. She does much better there.

The past two days hubby and I have been helping Aunt Jen get a new roof put on her house. Aunt Jen is a single gal that purchased her first home last fall. I'm so proud of her for doing this!!! When she bought the home, she knew it would need a new roof in the spring. Her boyfriend said he'd be happy to do it if she could round up some help. Well, she got a couple other guys from her work lined up to help out and they both backed out last minute. So yesterday, hubby and I and Medicine Man and Nurse in Space all went over and helped where we could. Boyfriend wouldn't allow anyone without a penis up on the roof. Normally, I'd complain or just march right up there anyhow and be all bratty, but I'm not fond of heights, so this was one time I wasn't gonna argue too much. ;) Yesterday, the three guys got all the old shingles (THREE layers!) torn off while the three gals put the old shingles in a trailer to haul to the dump, and also ran errands and anything else that needed to be done. The guys even got a bit of the shingling started. Today, I was back over for a few hours and I'd walk a stack of shingles up the ladder, deposit them on the edge of the roof, then walk back down and repeat the process many times. I also got to use the circular saw to cut some boards. :) (Remember, I'm a gal that likes power tools!) Aunt Jen keeps telling us how she's gonna find a way to pay us, blah, blah.... We keep telling her she doesn't need to - that we don't mind helping out a friend when needed. Other times we've helped her out, we've just told her that someday, she gets to help someone else out to pass it along. Goodness only knows how many times we depended on hubby's dad to help us out!!!

So I'm pretty pooped. And I didn't get a big housecleaning done. (Can you tell I'm crushed about that? LOL!) I got the bathrooms cleaned and the kitchen cleaned up a bit. I'll just sweep and vacuum tomorrow evening and call it good. I just don't want to come home to a dirty house after being gone. I hate that.

Ever notice...

...I tend to blog late at night? I'm not certain why that is.... "Back in the day" when I used to journal longhand, it was always late at night, so maybe that's it. I can just hear my child in a few years - "People actually used to use pen and paper to journal? Wow." Wait 'til I tell him I never had cable tv until I was a teenager.... That'll throw him for a huge loop.

Where have I been for 10 days? (I honestly thought I'd only been away for about 4 days. So much for the concept of telling time.) Frodo's palate expander has been put in. It's been 5 days now, and I think he's finally grown accustomed to it. Fortunately, there's been very little pain involved - only one morning did he complain about his teeth hurting while he chewed. Phew! That was my biggest fear - that he would have a lot of pain. His talking sure has been funny! But he's taken that quite in stride. Just today, he finally sounds like he only has a little bit of Trident gum stuck to the roof of his mouth instead of a whole pack of Hubba Bubba.

We went to one of those hotels with an indoor waterpark on Wednesday and Thursday. It was so much fun! We let Frodo bring a friend with him. I like his friend Matthew. He's a good kid and the two of them really get along well. I have just one complaint about him - he chews with his mouth open! Ack!!! That drives me nuts. (So take note - if you're ever with me, DON'T chew with your mouth open.) Other than the two meals I had to listen to his chewing, the little trip was great.

Other than those things, I've just been enjoying the spectacular weather! We've had summer-like weather recently, so I've taken advantage of that by doing yard work. Yay! I've raked the thatch from the lawn, cleaned out the gardens, fertilized the lawn, and cleaned out the garage. I'll gladly trade yard work time with anyone - if you want me to do your yard work, you can come clean my house. I'll warn you though - I'd totally be getting the better end of the deal!

I ended up at the doctor's on Saturday morning with an EAR INFECTION! I felt like such a little kid sitting up on that exam table, complaining about my ear hurting. It's a swimmer's ear. I felt it coming on before we even went to the waterpark, so I'm sure being in the water at the waterpark sort of hurried things along. I've got antibiotic drops and after just a couple days of doing those, I feel MUCH better.

Speaking of ears, I'm busy planning *Operation Ears*. It's T minus six days now. Frodo still doesn't know. >mischevious grin here< I've got a packing list started. The suitcase just happens to still be in the spare bedroom from our trip to the waterpark hotel, and leaving something out for a couple weeks would be NOTHING out of the ordinary in this home, so that won't arouse suspicion with him. I'm all caught up on laundry as of today. The only stumbling block I've come across is how I'm going to persuade a 9yr old boy out of bed at 5am come departure day.... What the heck am I gonna tell him as to why we're getting up at 5am? (Darn airlines changed our flight on us from 10 am to 7 am.) Aunt Jen is giving us a ride to the airport, and she soooo wanted to see his face when we told him we were going. I think maybe we'll have her come over at 5am and wake him up and tell him then so she can see it. Heh.

Let's see... anything else... Oh - Carla! To answer your question, my cat is your standard "domestic short hair". Nothing fancy. Here's a picture of her:









Yes, her ears have always looked big on her. They looked even funnier when she was a tiny kitten.

She's a good kitty. Most of the time. She had me up veerrrryy early yesterday for no discernable reason. She just decided 6am was time to stand on my chest and meow. She had food and water in her dishes. So I made hubby change the litter box. She didn't have me up early today! Hooray!

Tomorrow, however, will be a different story. Spring break will be over, and we will be back to getting up early! So off to dreamland I go!

My *time to go to bed* clock

Every night that I'm still up at 11pm, a little clock goes off to remind me that it's bedtime. That clock is my kitty cat. She either crawls up and sits right on my lap, or she sits on the floor and stares at me with this "Woman! Why the hell are you still awake?" look.

When I get to bed, she follows me into the bedroom. She always sleeps under the covers. If I try to pick her up and put her there before I turn the nightstand light off, she'll scurry right out and back to the floor. Once I turn the light off and get my pillow all situated, she jumps back on the bed, walks the perimeter, then stops on my pillow. Sometimes she'll sit there and put her face reeeeeaaaaallly close to mine so that it tickles me like mad. Other times she'll knead the pillow for a couple minutes. But she ALWAYS paws at the edge of the covers until I lift them up so she can walk in and lay down on the spot I'd tried to put her in just 5 minutes prior. What a freakin' princess.

And I think that princess just ate a bug. Blech.

We're in the middle...

...of starting orthodontic work for Frodo. He got some "spacing elastics" put in between a couple teeth last week. Today they will make a mold of his mouth. Next week he gets the palate expander placed. I have the bottles of tylenol and advil all ready. I'm going to pick him up early for his appointment today and we'll go out to lunch together. :)

Today, I also have to go and vote. It's the local spring elections. Then when that's done, I'm going to go outside and enjoy the gorgeous weather. It's going to be in the mid 50s and sunny. I think I might clean the garage. I have to persuade hubby to help with that. He got some last night, so he should be pretty agreeable today. ;)

My printer wasn't working well recently. It was leaving streaks all over printed pages. I did all the "maintenence" functions on it, and it wasn't resolved. I took an example page into the office supply store we purchased it from just 13 months prior and asked if they had any suggestions. The gal in their tech department said it was probably that the print head needed to be replaced. (After just 13 months? WTF?) I mentioned I'd purchased the "protection plan" thingy. (Which I almost NEVER do!) She said those usually didn't cover the print head. (WTF again?) So I went home.

I checked the protection plan document and I couldn't find any mention of it not covering a print head, so I called the number on the document. After a short eternity on hold, I got a pleasant woman with a Jersey accent on the phone. She ran through a list of things with me and after determining I'd done all I could, she said she'd have some labels printed up for me so I could - get this - box the printer up and ship it to them so they could look at it. (WTF yet again!)

After hanging up with her, I decided if it was already shot, I'd try taking it apart to look at it. I got all the print cartridges out and the print head actually comes out after I lift a little switch on the mechanism that carries it back and forth. I look at the print head and see it's got all sorts of wet paper fiber-ey gunk built up on it - it looks like when you color with a marker on a cheap piece of paper and the paper starts to disintegrate. So I grabbed a kleenex, wiped it off, and *voila!* the printer works fine now. I figured when I got the shipping labels in the mail, I'd just trash them.

Yesterday rolls around, and I'd actually forgotten about the shipping labels arriving because it took so long. I open the envelope and inside is a letter and no shipping labels. The letter states that under the terms of the protection plan, I was entitled to a refund of the original purchase price of the item due to the defect in the item. So instead of shipping labels, I got a gift card to spend at the office supply store! So now I get to buy $180 worth of *something* from there. IU really don't need lots of paper or staplers or anything. I might put it towards a new digital camera because I really don't like the one I have. :) Either that or a new chair for the computer desk. Hmmmm.... Decisions, decisions!

I hope you have an enjoyable day!