Storms and Loans

Rain, lightening, thunder and HAIL!!! Woke the house at 6 am in the morning!

What happened next was something that we like to call very bad luck!

The newly fixed drain still over flowed unable to keep up with the torrential down pour and the house,

yup you guessed it - flooded again!

The men grabbed the new sump pump and were able to clear out most of the over flow 

before the house flooded to badly.

When all that was done the men to their dismay found out that it was now time for work!

My hubby having plenty of vacation time took the day off. We still had more paperwork that needed to be sorted on the house anyway. We had been told that they were missing coordinating student loan numbers and needed to get them even more paperwork!

Hubby makes his phone calls and we are told the paperwork they had wanted from him - they already had! Why? Because they hadn't looked for the account numbers ON THE BOTTOM OF THE PAPERS! So we are now all done with the paperwork and need Hud to approve a closing day for us.

Last week they were saying not until 9/11 today they said possibly 9/9 - WOW right? Today is the 30th and all the paper work is ready! What are they waiting for?

Cold Medicine

This is my Little man

he is a trouble maker on most days.

Tonight as I was giving him his cold medicine

Prissy who was taking a different 

medicine asks him

"What does it taste like?"

I answer for him

"Grape"

He shakes his head NO,

looks at his sister and says

"Poo Poo!"

Just where do you go from there?

Helping

The last few weeks that we have been helping my BFF around the house has really brought this one word to my attention.

My hubby fixes, helps and creates and with each project I help him. Our children who are monkey see, monkey do have picked up on this. NOT a bad thing. To make it even more amazing my hubby, who is one of a kind, finds little things for them to help with. In this way, they are always learning and always helping.

This has never been something we paid much attention too, it just was. Until we moved in with our friends who have two special needs children. Now they are high functioning and both are in school and progressing, but when house projects start they are removed from the area. Due to this, "Uncle R" my friends husband is having a hard time with my children's constant desire to help.

No amount of shoeing, pleading or cajoling will now deter my children from helping. IF papa or mama are helping then they are too, even if they are sick. Some might find this to be over helpful, others might even think that they need to learn their limits, I however, know that there is a very small window of opportunity. Once a child is told enough times to "Not Help", they will stop.

When I mean stop, I don't mean for the time asked, I mean period. They become pre-teens, then teens and if good hard work ethics or helping others, has not already been instilled in them you will end up like this person.

Being in need of help and not able to find any. Not the type of children future adults, I want to raise. How about you?

Poseidon's Storm

I had to borrow this picture, as earlier this evening when I had enough light to see the boiling green clouds, I unfortunately did not have my camera with me.
The dark sea green in the sky tonight made me think of Poseidon (aka King Triton in the little mermaid).
Poseidon is known as the Greek god of the Sea, storms and is also known as an earth shaker.

The storm that is hitting over head is dark, growing and the lightening is amazing! Utah normally has what is known as single strike lightening, tonight's lightening is filling up the whole sky.
Illuminating the whole sky. I love sheet lightening, my BFF, however, does not. In fact she completely freaks out seeing lightening and being out in it.

The storm that will last all of tonight and a good part of tomorrow I have now nicknamed, "Tridents Storm". I also liked to pretend that Zeus and Poseidon are fighting over the sky contesting to who it truly belongs. Keeping with tradition I will also blame the Gulf of Mexico oil spill for this round of contests as its "making Poseidon angry".

Now I am not a big, huge mythological person, but still this is very unusual Utah weather, so why not have some fun with it right?

Childhood Fun!

I tell Prissy, "You have a nice Peaches and Cream complexion."

She stares at me in horror for a few seconds.

"Peaches and Green! I don't want that!"

She exclaims in a loud wail.

After I explain what it really means and that I had said

the word cream and not green,

she beams happily and say's

"Goody!"

Just some precious moments of my kids playing on the playground. Loved the bright colored hats against the bright colored play ground!

New love found!

The Shabby Nest is offering a giveaway for one of the coolest new toys!

Its called the Silhouette, it can cut magnets, vinyl, paper, almost anything and it does it! Like a printer only it cuts out the items you need!
If I wasn't scrapped for cash buying our new home I would buy this without trying to win it!

Run on by check out the blog, check out the site. If anyone has ever used these please let me know what you think of it.

Wordless Wednesday - Shhhh

Desperation and Dr. Suess

What do you do when you have a house full of sick people? You buy new movies!

Almost three hours of fun! Only down side to the video - No Play All button!!!
This has my favorite episode of The Lorax on it! If you have never watched it, you are missing out on something extraordinary!

My kids are in heaven and haven't moved a muscle since I started the DVD. This is good as they both have colds and need to calm down while warming up under their blankets.
My poor hubby is tuckered out and sleeping, my children are entranced and I am writing. All in all a good albeit sick day!
Hope your day is going better!

Forbidden Moments

So BFF and I had a day yesterday! My kids have been sick for several days. Little Man had been running a high fever that turned into a cold. Prissy has bronchitis and is on very heavy medicine. Medicine that I have to listen for her all night long and run to give her new cough medicine any time I hear her start coughing!

Needless to say I have not gotten much sleep and I have also started coughing. BFF woke up yesterday feeling sick, her little girl beauty as well. By night time we were both either going to go crazy or sneak a girls night.

Tough choice I know, but we choose girls night with lots and lots of chocolate.

Do I feel better? Not really.
Was I up again all night long with Prissy? Of course - she needed medicine four times last night.
Did it help relieve the stress and tension? OH YEAH!

Living in my BFF's basement has been an adventure, the worst part is that my biggest fear of my kids getting her kids sick came true. Something that is not a good thing at all.
Will it work out and be alright - yes.
Should we have a closing date soon? Yes!

Little Man's Bed Set

My BFF recently bought this bedroom set on clearance for $350.00 in the light wood color. She was very happy with the four bedroom purchase and gave us her son Macho's old white bookcase (four shelves) and his old large white dresser.
Hubby then (next day) found a yard sale. Gotta love yard sales. Where he found the exact same bed set (three drawers underneath and a bookcase headboard) for 60.00 dollars!

Here is the headboard (we love the two tone look)

And the bottom bed part the drawers are still in the car. So all in all we have a four piece bedroom set for $60.00!
Now my BFF is still in love with her more expensive matching four piece set and I am thrilled that she is not upset at our blessings or the fact that she helped make it possible! Instead she is thrilled with our good fortune.

We will have to re-nail this bed as they used staples to put it together (who in their right mind uses staples?)
So all we are waiting for now is our closing date to be set! Then its move in time and we are going to go crazy!

I can not wait to tackle my new home!
This is by far the best year of our married life!

I can't wait until I can take a photo of Little Man's room and show you his full $60.00 set!

Getting the Depo!

TMI Warning!

This blog contains my first experience with the Depo Provera Shot. If you are squeamish, not curious, gross out easily or a man who never needs to know about it, you may want to stop reading, NOW!

I am a frank little creature that TMI's way to often and easily. I have tried my hardest not to TMI to much here in blog land, but this one takes the cake.

Every person has different reactions to different shots, so I fully expect that I will get a whole slew of, "that didn't happen to me's" and that is nice. This is what happened to me!

Dr. "Why would you like the shot?"
Me "I want to sleep at night."
Dr. "This doesn't help you sleep, its to keep you from getting pregnant."
Me "Yes and thus I will be able to sleep soundly knowing that I am not having any more kids."
She cracks a smile. I have a very no nonsense Dr. I love her to pieces as she is a great Dr. who doesn't miss much, pays attention and stays 100% focused on her job.
Dr. "You will need to take a calcium supplement from now on and come in every three months."
I nod my head in agreement, I had been warned about all this previously by my BFF.
Dr. "You may also experience spotting, bleeding, discomfort for the next three months and may want to come back in and wring my neck for giving you this shot, but by your second one (shot) all that will be over."
I laugh happily, "I promise, I can deal with the spotting."
Dr. "You may be sore in your leg for the next few days, but again it will fade."
I nod again just wanting the stupid shot and not the liability speech.
Dr. seems to understand and sends the nurse in with the shot, wishing me all best Dr. walks out.

Bright cheery nurse enters holding a small needle. We decide to put the first shot on my right side. I bare my hip she pinches a little bit of my chunky fat inserts the needle, smiles up at me. "All done!"
Seriously no pain from the needle, I didn't even feel it go in.

Five minutes later I feel the medicine moving through my hip -- fast.
Ten minutes later I feel it hit my right ovary. PAIN! I can't even describe the pain I am driving down the road wanting to pull over - can't as I am in the middle of road construction. After five minutes of constant ovary pain I felt all the blood inside of me start to gush out. EWW!
Thirty minutes later the pain hits the other ovary! This time I am walking around a store picking up Prissy's new medicine as she spent all of last night in the ER for bronchitis. (Seriously a very long night)
Again as the pain ends I get another round of YUCK come gushing out of me. This time I hurry up my buying at the store and run home to change my pad!

Will I go in to get another shot in three months - of course! Do I feel the general public should know that they might feel extreme ovary pain with the shot - Obviously, YES, as I am writing this disgusting post to share it!

Now, for all the men that decided to read this post even after the warning - don't you just wish you had changed the page?



Update: The second shot was just as bad as the first if not worse. Seriously gross AND on top of it for the entire 6 months I was on the depo shot, my period never stopped. So I didn't even get that!!!
As you might imagine I stopped taking it, went back to my natural cycle which thankfully is more messed up than most women at every 8-10 weeks, 4-5 days a cycle. I'll take that and the risk of more babies at this point - especially since my husband would LOVE more children.

What a long day today

First off my BFF's house flooded this morning!
Besides running around in the rain chasing flying trash, panicking about the flooding basement, cleaning up the dirt or calming the screaming scared children.

I had a massive mammoth headache! ALL DAY LONG!!!

~ FYI - Lysol concentrate floor cleaner ~ cleans well but stinks! I mean really bad, I will stick with Pinesol in the future.

Shopping today though was great fun! I found the floor tile that I want to install in my soon to be upstairs bathroom! Yeah!

Update on house: Finally we have had progress! Verizon's HR finally gave in and talked to our lender. We received the bid on the fireplace and the shed. Got the final paycheck for this month and the proper paperwork showing that our school loans are not due for another year.
We need to resign the paperwork for the lower interest and then meet for the closing! Yeah closing!
Have I mentioned yet that I want to move into my new home?
NO!!! (fake incredulousness)
I WANT MY HOME!!!

LOL I am happy things are moving along again and I will never ever have to refinance. 4.75 FIXED!

I still have a headache, I still want to shoot people with marshmallow guns (who wouldn't) and of course I still want to move tomorrow, but today has been a fun day in spite of everything!

Confessions of a recycler

First off to warn you there are two versions of this story. The other version can be found at my, Trying to get published, blog.

For the last two weeks Tired Mom, my BFF has been having a really fun time shopping! We have installed two storm doors, a canopy tent, new locks, bubble chairs for her toddlers and many small little things. While all of these new toys have brought joy not only to her heart but to her children and husband, it also led to an abundance of trash piled not only in her bin and recycle bin, but a huge large pile of boxes in front of her home.

Tomorrow is garbage day... after several well thought out plans were presented we of course stuck with the one that would be the most fun for us.
So at eleven o'clock at night Tired Mom, Prissy and myself snuck, from the house and began roaming the neighborhood in search of empty bins.

Luck was with us and we found the next door neighbor (who she doesn't get along with) had a very empty trash and recycle bin.
Hurrying quickly back to the house we started demolishing large boxes and separating the rest of the garbage from the recyclables. This would have been much easier if we hadn't needed to keep whispering to Prissy to be quite!

After we had his bin's full and we still had one very large (8x2 foot) box of trash and two medium (5x2) boxes to recycle we went scrounging around the neighborhood looking for more empty bins.
Four houses down and across the street we struck gold!
Creeping down the street we realized that only Tired Mom was properly dressed all in black for the nights escapade and that my nice gray shirt really lit up at night. Prissy of course drew the most attention in a white dress with pink polka dots. This might have gone unnoticed by the three cars that slowed down to watch us creep down the street with our arms full of recycling and junk, but I am fairly sure that the little old woman in the night dress putting out her own trash bins saw us.

No matter that she can describe us as the deed is already done! All the trash and recyclables have found their ways to empty cans and are waiting for the early morning trucks with hopefully few the wiser.

Post 150

I had been hoping to use this post to say "Yay! HOUSE!" 

Yeah, that's not going to happen this week. They want even more paperwork from us and a second contractor to bid on the work for the house!

I want to shoot people - I even found and reviewed a marshmallow gun just for that purpose!

In an effort to unwind and calm down I called and made an appointment for Friday - I am getting on DEPO!
Yes getting this fabulous shot will help me to be happier as I will sleep better at night knowing that no other little miracles are lurking around the corner.
Being 31, married, mother of two and about to launch my first book out into the world I would rather buy the puppy (a few blogs below) than give birth to something that will make me even crazier (hard to believe I know).

With the appointment set and still feeling frustrated about the whole house thing, I took to internet hunting (in between writing some more on book five as the story comes to me.)

I found several things of interest that I will share with you my wonderful friends and readers.

1. New Dress a Day - fun blog. To read an article about this blog click here.

2. I found a fun quiz titled "What body of water are you?"

You Are a Creek

You are a dynamic, energetic person. You tend to change quickly and often. You are spirited and gleeful. You believe it's important to live a colorful life. You are also quite brave. You are able to look past your fears. You have what it takes to be very heroic. If the opportunity arises, you can use your strength.

What Body of Water Are You?

Blogthings: We'll Tell You The Truth... Someone Has To!

Now I am still frustrated with our money lenders and with Verizon for not playing nice with each other yet, but at least I have been entertained, hope you have been too!

Paperwork and Employment Drama!

Why can't we all just get along?

I know that I am not the only one standing in the wings waiting for everyone to play nice together. Any adult that has purchased a house at one time or another and needed a loan has gone through similar aggravations.

We have had issues getting proper proof that my hubbies loans aren't due for another year as he is still in school. We have had issues getting our old mobile home park to show that we paid our lot rent for three years and the mortgage on the mobile for three years as they never sent them into the credit bureaus. (They never did but I had all the stubs from our cashiers checks - stupid I'm not.) 

We waited a week for our contractor to send us a tiny email with his bid to fix the roof. We have been running around fixing tiny things on our credit and paying off others. 

Now that we are at the very last final stages it comes down to two things that are holding us up. 

1. Verizon's HR not wanting to actually talk to our lender - who wants a five minute conversation to verify employment history.

2. Our paperwork guy was working very hard for us and got them to change our loan percentage from 5.7 to a fixed 4.75.

Now yes, that sounds great and I will really appreciate it later down the road, but what it means in the now is another round of paper work signing and another week in a half before we can close.

I want my house already!!!

Little man is sick and is running a high fever, Prissy is off track right now and is running around hyper in  my BFF's house and I don't even know how to tell the people that want to sell us their dog that it might be ANOTHER week before we can pick him up!

Crap the way this is going we may end up buying him the day we close and then seeing if another friend of ours could house him until the checks clear and we get the house keys.

We may not have a few days to pull the carpets out before moving, right now it looks like we will be camping in our new back yard while we paint, pull carpets and clean.

Seriously why can't everyone just get along and help me get my home? I have waited eight years for this home!

Oh the possibilities!

So with a new house, new yard, new fence and all the rest comes the question of, are you going to try and get a dog again?

The last time we had dogs (Max and Oggie) things did not go well. I had to walk them five times a day on a leash in my yard with my son crying and throwing up inside each and every single time because I was gone - for five minutes.

Hubby had back surgery and couldn't help me, Prissy was far to young and Little man was a clingy mama's boy.
I had two dogs that peed and did the other in our house at random odd intervals even though they were "house trained".

Now a lot of things have changed Little man is older he is four in a half and would do rather well with a small dog he could cuddle with at night.

With the new house we could let the dog run around down stairs and just use throw rugs instead of installing new carpets. Then I could walk the dog into the backyard where he could go wild for as long as he and the kids would like.

Just in case there is any doubt the little guy in the picture is the dog in question. He is a pure breed Shih tzu (and yes I have been told that is the correct way to spell it) three months old and right now answers the strange name of Charlie. In two weeks he may be coming home to us and he will then be called Patch. I know, I know who names a cute little guy like this Charlie? Not me!

My BFF (see blog below) is allergic to dogs so this cutie patutie would have to stay down stairs in the basement with the kids (I know how horrible right? LOL) and out in the yard so that the top floor of our house would be more allergenic friendly for my editor and best friend.

The big question left is, How will he get along with my sister's dogs when they come for Thanksgiving?
Keep your fingers crossed!

My BFF

I know I mention my BFF a lot on my blog and for good reason, but very few of my family or old friends have met her or know anything about her. So let me introduce you to an amazing woman! You can find her blog, Tired Mom here, please check it out! She is truly an amazing person!

First off we have been friends for twelve years, we got married to our sweet hearts within three weeks of each other and tried to have our babies together (we only managed to have Beauty and Little man within four months of each other). Save calling my family she was the very first person I called when my mother died. She is always the person who I laugh, cry, TMI and call when in trouble.

You might ask how I found such an incredible gem and I will tell you pure happenstance brought us together. God knew we needed to be friends so HE went to the most incredible heights to bring us into each others path.

It all started six months before we met. She moved to Utah for schooling (about 7-8 eight months before I met her) and at that time my Big sister and I started getting to know our new Chinese Church pastor - we attended a church that had several small sub churches also using the same building. Their two older daughters, my sister and I got along well and started doing things together. They, after several months of friendship, invited us late January to a Chinese New Year party at their home. That is where they introduced us to their college friends RR and Peter, who in turn invited us up to the college on Thursday nights for Swing Club. My sister and I thought that sounded great and went the very next week, where ironically neither RR or Peter attended - in fact they didn't show for another month and by then my sister and I were established regulars - but I divert from the story I met my BFF that very first night of Swing Club!

See what I mean about happenstance and the total hand of GOD! From that very first night where she mentioned she liked something that I happened to have a spare of and promised to bring the next night - we still don't remember what - we have been friends. One month after meeting we were BFF's (Best Friends Forever) and meeting outside of swing club. Within a few months we did everything together from shopping, outings, dancing and any random fun times were all shared.

Right now we are sharing her house while I am waiting to close on mine. Again it is a complete miracle that our children just work together. Her daughter Beauty has Autism and her son Macho has social anxiety, my wonderful dastardly duo are more hyper than ten normal kids and yet they still work well together and like each other. Our hubby's also get along and have LAN parties together - if you don't speak nerd that is where they hook up their computers and play multiplayer PC games.

My BFF is also acting as my editor, this works wonderful as I have a great imagination, but my English skills are not something I brag about, while her English's skills are incredible. Seriously after I get published she might get several job offers to be a full time editor! (Mid Sis you will be happy we have started editing again!)

So Thank you my BFF for being the most amazing support anyone has ever had while going through more junk than anyone could really believe!

So soon now!

Hubby went this morning to the new soon to be my home to meet with all the utility people as they came by the home and turned everything on for us. Things are going so well that not only did the water, power and gas all get turned on by early morning but the inspector came out and everything was done by 11 am!
How amazing is that?

Next they need the paperwork from the contractor we met with last night on redoing our roof shingles, they all need to review the inspection report and then we need to meet for closing!

By the middle of next week if all goes well I could be moving into my new amazing soon to be torn apart home!
We will be tearing out all of the carpet as their were smokers in the home, washing all of the walls from ceiling to floor and then repainting some of the rooms mainly Prissy's but depending on how well the walls clean possibly the living room and master bedroom.

I have never been so happy to work so hard! I will have a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom home with a fireplace, laundry room and of course a fenced yard for my children! Love it!

Writing Desk

I am sure that once or twice on this blog I have mentioned my love of IKEA that has in no way lessened nor do I ever see that changing in the future.
The desk above is a Secretary desk that I am in love with! I want this in my new soon to be bedroom!

This sits on top giving you more room for your writing, scrap booking and supply items that you may want to store along with any bills and misc things.

This bench is super cool - its padded, fits perfectly under the writing desk and open up underneath for easy and handy storage!

If any of my friends and family want to get me the perfect Christmas present it would be a gift card to IKEA! This is on my want list not my need list so it will be several months to a year before I will be the proud and happy owner of this set!

I also went to IKEA and found a 365 recipe book that is on a final sale of $3.50 after one short day of looking at this tiny book I am in HEAVEN! YUM!


ps. I am in no way paid to advertise, promote or review any products I do so from my own personal beliefs, uses and observances.

Pinesol - Original or Knock off

For those that don't know me personally, I have been broke more often than not in my eight year marriage to my sweetheart. While being poor has brought its own stresses it has also brought many blessings and lessons learned.

You will never and I mean NEVER know who your real friends are like you will when you are having extremely hard times.

During these periods of low income you learn quickly what cheap products are good and what original products are worth buying.

I have bought many different pine-sol knockoffs in recent years from dollar stores to top store knock off''s and I am here to tell you Pine-sol is not that expensive and the knock off''s really are not worth buying.
In fact normally they end up costing more because you have to use more.

Pine-sol original - worth buying
Pine-sol Knockoff (any) NO


ps. I am in no way paid to advertise, promote or review any products. I do so from my own personal beliefs, uses and observances.

The Guild

I have mentioned before that I love my geeky independent shows, The Guild being at the top of the list. As we enter season four of the Guild they put out a special Bollywood type song that has lit up Youtube.
And me of course being such a geeky fan well I have to add it to my blog to share with you!

Bubbles!

Question?

What do bubbles and sword fighting have in common?

Answer:

My son playing with his friend

(my BFF's daughter beauty)

Another Rant

Today I again went to meet with hubby's therapist as she wanted to talk to me more about my book dreams - did we actually talk at all about my book? NO.

Did we come close to talking about my dreams... sure kinda of.

I am getting very annoyed with this person, especially when she asks things like "why are you so sure your books will be published?" Hello! My book is AWESOME! Not only will it be published but I am going to be HUGE! (LOL - Kinda) Seriously I wouldn't even be trying to get a book published if I thought it wouldn't go over well. Lets just say I love my book and I will read it over and over again - a mark of a very good book!


This time she talked mostly about our children and briefly about our soon to be home and then a little bit about if Hubby had had a good week or a bad week.

Then we talked about our living situation and the friends that we are living with - in fact almost the whole visit was spent talking more about my friends, their kids and projects than anything else.

I may be cynical because I don't like her very much but seriously aren't we suppose to be dealing with Hubby's issues? Hmmmm.....

She almost clapped for me when Hubby told her that I had started to drive him into work - seriously woman get a grip on reality. I drive him whenever I have to, like when my daughter has school that day, or when he had back issues and was on medication that restricted his driving. He does not need a chauffeur on the weekends, nor does he need me to do his work for him.

Again she is telling me that I don't do enough for him at home and that we need "more equal labor at home".
Excuse me?
I do everything at home! Laundry, cleaning, cooking, childcare, and most of the yard - he mows it. Although again I did it the year hubby had back surgery.

She's right in the fact that its not equal but she still wants me to do more... ME not him ME.

I don't mind my list I do stay at home, I do like my home jobs however being told that I am not doing enough makes me wonder why I am paying this woman. So far the only help she has been was to give Hubby some time off of work for the meds to kick in and proper medication other than that she seems to be causing more issues than she is curing.

Oh yeah and she wants to see me again next week - this time I made no promises.

Snow

Snowflakes taste like sugar

but it needs more salt.

My Prissy sure keeps me on my toes! Seriously there are days I don't know what is going to come out of her mouth from one minute to the next!

My BFF and I were talking about how her new playground tent cover would have to come down in winter as it was not made to carry the weight of snow.

That is when my beautiful still bald Prissy pipes up "Snow is rain that froze and stuck together." Trying to shush her and finish my conversation I agree and try to continue my original conversation and then she tosses out the above phrase, a phrase that can not be ignored, passed off or not laughed at!

I mean how do you return to a normal conversation after a kicker like that?