Real Men Take Out The Garbage

I have always heard that men, in general, are good problem solvers. They are better with math and just generally good at figuring things out. Recently, I have learned that this does not apply to all men. As a woman, it is only natural for me to want to try to fix a problem when I come across one (as long as it doesn’t involve fractions.) I thought men were wired this way as well. Not true in all cases.

Take my husband, for instance. With my new schedule, dinner duty falls on him. I commend him for not making boxed mac and cheese every night. He’s actually not a bad cook, and I respect his creativity in making new recipes as they are usually pretty tasty. However, every night, I come home to a pile of dishes. I call him out on this regularly, and his response is, “I didn’t know if the dishwasher was full (or clean).”

Problem: I don’t know if the dishwasher is full. OR I don’t know if the dishes in the dishwasher are clean or dirty.
Solution: Step 1: Open the door and look. Step 2: If the dishes are dirty, and the dishwasher is NOT full, put more in. If the dishes are CLEAN, unload the dishwasher and load in dirty dishes. Here’s where it gets tricky… If the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty AND it’s full, start the dishwasher and leave the dirty dishes near the dishwasher to load when it is done washing current load.

Another problem that arises in our house quite frequently is an overly full trash can. (My husband is not the only one guilty of this. Maggie and Kasen are frequent offenders.) I’m assuming it goes something like this, “I have trash to throw away, but the trash can is full. I will just set the trash on top of the trash can…”

Problem: I have trash to throw away but the trash can is full.
Solution: Step 1: take out full trash bag. Step 2: insert new trash bag. Step 3: throw away trash. (Kasen is still too little for this, but the other two are not.)

These are just a few of the problems I come across day to day. At this point, I’m not sure if this is failure to problem solve effectively, lack of common sense, or just because he is a man. What it is, though, is infuriating. Will it always be like this?

Sunday Funday and Grocery Store Hell

Last weekend I had planned to spend Memorial Day with my mom. She was going to make fried green tomatoes (yum!) and we were going to spend the day by her pool. Unfortunately, Maggie was sick Sunday (both kids ended up with strep- how icky!), so we decided not to go over there. We, instead, went over to her house today. It worked out nicely because yesterday she had asked me if Maggie could spend the night with her, and since I had to go pick her up today anyway, we just sort of made a day out of it.

Before Kasen and I left the house I grabbed my coupons for CVS and I had gotten a text from mom asking if I could pick up mushrooms to fry as well (again, YUM!), potatoes, and milk. No problem. Off we go.

At CVS, I’m on the hunt for toothpaste. I’ve been struggling to get mine out of the tube for a week so it’s time to buy more, and I’ve got coupons! Yay! CVS had it on sale for 2.99 plus 2.00 extra care bucks so it basically free! Go me! Here’s how it broke down:
Colgate toothpaste: 2.99 minus 1.00 off coupon plus 2.00 extra care bucks = .01 money maker. Times two.
My first transaction total was 2.13, save extra care bucks for later.
Second transaction same as above.
I’ve also picked up a 3-pack of toothbrushes (3.59), and 2 8.4 ounce bottles of Colgate mouth wash (4.59 each).
Third transaction breakdown: mouthwash 4.59 each minus 2.00 coupon for each bottle, toothbrushes 3.59 minus 4.00 in extra care bucks plus another 1.50 subtracted as a bonus coupon for oral care. Total 3.13. In case you missed it, I got 2 toothpastes, 2 mouth washes, and three toothbrushes for $5 and change! Go me!! Now don’t tell me I have bad breath…

Now on to the nightmare. I had Kasen with me, remember? The CVS I go to has the carts with the plastic car attached to it. Don’t ever take him in there and use another cart. If you’ve never driven one, let me tell you how fun they are. The wheels on the car don’t move, so god forbid if you need to turn a corner. You have to pick the damn thing up to turn it. They don’t come with seat belts (or at least this one didn’t), so if you turn too fast, your kid will fly out before you knew what happened. I’m pretty sure Kasen fell out at least once because he was half way leaning out of the thing to touch something, and of course I’m hunting for toothpaste, so when I moved the cart he ended up on the floor. Sorry dude. Those things should have a damn restraint in them. So as we get up to the front and I’m paying for my stuff, Kasen gets out of the car and is eyeballing all of the candy that is taunting him at the checkout. I swear, these places should have the candy out of arm’s reach. Of course he sees something he wants, and it’s a giant package of peppermint patties that probably cost more than what I paid for all the shit I bought. What does he do? Takes it and runs, of course. So here I am trying to juggle my bag of goodies, my purse, my wallet, and my phone while chasing a manic 3-year-old that’s about to get mommy arrested for shoplifting candy. I caught him before he hit the door and put the candy back, which immediately caused Kasen to go into bat-shit crazy mode. Still juggling all of my junk I now have to enforce the football hold and carry him out of the store screaming. I became “That mom.” Fan-friggin-tastic. Off to the grocery store.

The grocery store in our town also has the car/cart. Unfortunately for Kasen, the store I went to in mom’s town doesn’t have them. Instead, they have miniature carts designed for little kids to push around. First of all, these are a law-suit waiting to happen. Have you ever seen a 3-year-old try to navigate a shopping cart? I have. Not pretty. Secondly, the person that invented these grocery store marvels should be taken out back and shot. Better yet, he should be in charge of all of the toddlers running around with fucking shopping carts. Thank God he didn’t hit anybody. So we are moving right along and I get to the mushrooms. First item on my list. There are only about 9 billion different kinds to get. Pre-sliced? Whole? Little white ones that look like toadstools? I called my mom. She will know. Here’s how are conversation goes:
Me: What kind of mushrooms do you want?
Mom: I don’t know.
Me: Pick one, there are too many to choose from.
Mom: I don’t care, whatever looks good.
Me: Do you want the big portobello kind tha-KASEN WHAT DO YOU HAVE?!? Put it back! Put it ba. Click.

I look in the cart and he’s put a zucchini and a yellow bell pepper in the cart and is reaching for a giant bag of carrots bigger than he is. Seriously?!? If I actually bought the zucchini and pepper and put it front of him to eat, he wouldn’t eat it. “But it’s pretty mom.”

We finally make it out of the produce section and on to the milk, which is, of course, at the other end of the building. It only took us about 4 years to get there with my miniature Magellan pushing the pint-sized shopping cart from Hell. Luckily, we only ended up buying 1 thing not on our list: Cheetos Mix-Ups salsa edition. Kasen didn’t like them, but I sure did. That shit was GOOD.

After my shopping trips today, I remembered why I don’t go with Kasen alone. Normally, I do the shopping while someone else keeps him entertained and anti-kleptomaniacal. Regardless, we both ended up at mom’s in one piece, and had fun swimming, cooking, and stuffing our fat faces with even more fattening fried food. I think I need a weekend to recoup from my weekend…

Cell Phones an Strep Throat

Well, it’s official. Both little ones have strep. I’m currently taking bets on who ends up with it next. I would put money on me. I had to stay home with them both today because Jeremy had an appointment with the cardiologist, and it’s been quite noisy around here to say the least. You would think with both kids being sicker than shit, that they would rest a lot and be pretty mellow. You don’t know my kids… Both have been sooooo whiny. Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand that they don’t feel good, and the only thing I want right now is for them to feel better, but do you have to fight about everything? That being said, I hope they both feel better soon.

I had actually forgotten about this until now, what with all the whining and rivers of snot I’ve dealt with today, but yesterday my brother-in-law lost his phone. He is currently on our phone plan (which I’ve tried to change with no success). Jeremy justifies this by saying that when he was out of work, Josh paid for his cell phone, and since Josh has been out of work for a while, we have been paying for his (which frustrates me to no end. His mother should be paying for it, not me!) Anyway, I found out over the weekend that his mom is due for an upgrade. Perfect! My idea was that she could pick up Josh’s line, and we could surprise Maggie with a phone for her birthday. It was a good plan.

Josh has recently found a job washing cars. Yesterday his phone slipped out of his pocket while working and someone took it home with them. Apparently everyone put Josh’s phone on blast and she actually answered and told him that she would bring the phone back to his job today. Sweet! Now we don’t have to go through the hassle of making a claim and having a new phone sent out and all that fun stuff. Guess who didn’t drop the phone off like she said she would? That’s just fantastic.

So I call our cell provider an told them what happened. He was very nice and explained that since he had insurance on his phone it shouldn’t be a problem. Thank God. (I was thinking even if his mother picks him up on her plan, we can just give the phone to Maggie an she will be thrilled. This is how conversation goes:

CS: Yes ma’am, let me look up your deductible for you and we can get a new one sent out right away.
Me: Thanks!
CS: Yes ma’am, looks like your deductible is two hundred.
Me: Dollars?!?!?
CS: Yes ma’am. Would you like me to process this now?
Me: Um, NO! Seriously, what’s the point in having insurance if it will cost me an arm and a leg to replace it anyway?
CS: Well ma’am, (I quit listening at this point.)

So while I have him on the phone, and have nothing but money to lose at this point, I explain my genius idea to him about possibly switching phone numbers on the third line. This is how it breaks down:

Situation one: I can pay the $200 deductible and have a new phone sent out, while my mother-in-law picks Josh up on her plan. Josh will need a new phone number, and Maggie gets his replacement phone and old phone number. Probably not going to happen.

Situation two: I can pay $255 and have the third line cancelled completely. Josh gets to keep his phone number, Maggie gets no phone.

Situation three: I can pay $255 to have the third line cancelled completely. Josh gets to keep his phone number, and reopen the third line for Maggie’s phone. (Honestly, I don’t understand why I would have to pay for a cancelled line if I were to reopen it immediately.) This is why I HATE cell phone companies.

IDEAL situation: Mother-in-law pays $255 to cancel the line completely and picks him up on her plan. Josh gets to keep his phone number, we reopen the third line for Maggie’s use. Hahahahahaha! Like that will ever happen… However, I do feel that it is only fair since we have been paying for his phone for 4 years. It is her turn, and it wasn’t me who lost his phone. Unfortunately, I am the only one that sees it this way.

Bottom line: no matter how this pans out, it’s going to cost me money that I do not have. Oh, and cell phones SUCK.

Another Saturday

Reading my past posts, I am noticing a pattern. Turns out, I don’t have a whole lot of good days, and this morning wasn’t the exception. Oh well, let’s just roll with it.

Working overnights, I worked Sunday night through Thursday night. My weekend starts Friday morning when I get off work. With this Monday being a holiday, and me switching shifts next week, I ended up with an extra long weekend! Yay me! I tried to take a nap yesterday morning before Kasen woke up, but he decided that 8:30 was a good time to get up. No nap for mommy. Oh well. I had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon and after running a few errands last night, I was ready for bed early. At around 8:30, Amos fell asleep on the couch and was snoozing pretty good, so I put him in his kennel and headed to bed myself and was out before I hit the pillow.

Early this morning, I heard Jeremy get out of bed and go into the living room. I didn’t know what time it was, but assumed it was around 6:00 (I was right). Amos started barking shortly thereafter, which doesn’t surprise me because that is around the time that he gets up in the morning. Things got quiet again and I fell back asleep. Kasen snuck out of bed around 8:30, and Amos really started going nuts. After listening to him bark for about 20 minutes I decided I better get up.

Both times I heard Amos barking I could tell he was still in his kennel. I don’t know why he was still in there, but it kind of irritated me. When I finally mosey on out there, Jeremy was laying on the couch playing on his phone and Kasen was watching tv. I asked Jeremy if he’d let the dog out and he said no.

Wait, what? Why didn’t you let him out at 6 when you got up? “Because I intended to go back to sleep and he quit barking.” Yeah. He quit barking because he was waiting for you to get him out. So I go in there and he makes a beeline for the back door. In the first 20 minutes he did both of his duties TWICE.

A little while later, Jeremy gets a phone call so I decide to clean the laundry room where Amos sleeps. He’s torn up an old rug I put in his kennel for him and for some reason he feels it’s necessary to dump all of his food on the floor. When I move the kennel, I discover that not only has poor Amos peed in his bed, but took a nice big dump as well.

Was I mad? Damn right, but not at the dog!! He asked why I was pissed. Really??? You try holding it for 12 hours. So not only was poor Amos forced to do the unthinkable in his bed, he was forced into a bath as well. And giving him a bath is like trying to shampoo an angry giant octopus. I may or may not have gotten a bath as well.

So while I’m standing in the living room in my soaked t-shirt, smelling a lot like the wet dog running around the living room like a fool, I am informed that we are out of hot water due to Jeremy doing dishes (I may have threatened him into doing them) and the washing machine going (is my washing machine supposed to sound like newlyweds on a squeaky mattress?), I decided to nix the shower and head straight for the vacuum, when all of a sudden, unexpected company strolls through my front door… Total. Fail.

On the flip side, yesterday I bought a metal cabinet thingy at the antique mall. This is what it looked like before I got my hands on it:

Can you say fugly?
This is what it looks like now:

Look at me! I’m all crafty and shit!

So, I suppose, today wasn’t too terribly bad. Just a rough start. Hopefully tomorrow doesn’t repeat itself. Here’s to hoping!

Cheers!

Dance Like No One is Watching

It has been an eventful week, from Amish witches to demonic wiener dogs, locking myself out of the house (boy was that a fun time), dance meetings, and Saturday overtime for me (yay…?).

To focus on the positive, yesterday we had our competitive dance meeting. It seems like there will be lots of changes to our dance team this year, and with all of our veteran dancers and dance moms and some new dancers and families, this may just be our best season yet! We are trying new things, and traveling to new places. This year we will be venturing to Panama City, Florida for our nationals competition. Our choices were there or Myrtle Beach and, while I would’ve preferred Myrtle Beach, I am thrilled that we are heading to Florida. I have never been there, so this will be quite the adventure! I will finally get to see the ocean! (Okay, so I’ll get to see the Gulf, but that’s close enough for me!) Jeremy and Kasen have yet to join us at our competitions (I don’t think Kasen could handle it just yet), but our goal for nationals is for all of us to go. Let the penny pinching begin! This also means that I have roughly 300 days to get “beach ready”. This oughtta be fun…

No Rest for the Wicked

The title pretty much says it all. I got NO sleep today. It was quite the shitty day actually.

It all starts at work. Me and all of the temps were sent home at lunch time, again (read 1:30 am.) I get home and the house is gloriously quiet. Until Amos wakes up, that is. I had already started my DVR on ‘Breaking Amish L.A.’ (If you don’t watch it, you totally should!) and it starts out focusing on one of the Amish girls that is involved in witchcraft, so I’m already a tad freaked. Amos decides to song me the song of his people, so I hit pause and take him outside, where in the pitch black, save for the puny outdoor lights I have, he sees something. And proceeds to continue “singing” at the top of his lungs, all while backing up the whole time (because he is a pansy). I imagine it was probably a cat, but I couldn’t see it. He was legit freaked out, which in turn freaked me out (more so because i was afraid of being hung from the nearest tree by an angry husband or pissed off neighbor. It was the wee hours of the morning, remember.) He finally does his business (albeit cautiously) and we go inside, where for the next 10 minutes he sprints from the back door to the front door barking his fool head off. Surprisingly, I was not lynched by an angry husband, and consequently, we were not attacked by any sort of invisible demonic cat (or wiener dog.) And so the morning continues with Amos snoring VERY loudly, and me tossing and turning with images of Amish witches and demonic wiener dogs dancing in my head until I finally decide to say eff this and get up.

And so it continues.
Back story:
It’s no secret to those that know me that I’ve been trying to be rehired at my previous job for about a year. I’ve applied 3 times, and been declined 3 times, despite the fact that I’ve been told on several occasions that I am rehire-eligible. The most recent time that I was declined (on the same day no less) a good friend of my husband called and said that he had gotten a call from the company wanting to know if he would like to come back (he quit earlier this year) for a part-time gig on any shift he wanted. Wait, but I was declined? He didn’t even apply!! They just called him out of the blue. WTF? Makes no sense. No sense at all.

The next day I found out that the same thing had happened to my son’s babysitter. They also called her to see if she would like the same gig. Overlooked again? I took it upon myself to call the douchebag offering these opportunities to all my friends except me. He actually called me back!!! He told me he would be doing some research to find out why I wasn’t contacted. Needless to say, I never heard back from him. Asshat.

I was astonished last Friday when a member of human resources called me about the position! There’s hope?! Yeah. No. She goes on to inform me that a member of management told her that I am NOT, in fact, rehire-eligible. Um, WHAT?!?!? I informed her that HQ has told me different on several occasions. And then I got the universal managerial phrase for “I’m going to crush your dreams.” She said, “I’ll get back to you.”

Surprisingly, she called me this morning. She informed me that although I’m TECHNICALLY rehire-eligible, their management team has decided to refuse to hire me for reasons unknown. Lovely. So I said, “So basically, I should stop wasting everyone’s time by applying?” Her response? “Yes.” Fucking fantastic. That’s EXACTLY what I wanted to hear.

I also found out that my husband has to go back to third shift on September 2nd. Great. Now what am I going to do? Can’t exactly leave the kids to their own devices while we are busy busting our asses overnight. So I called my job to ask if there was a way I could possibly switch shifts (which pains me because I really do like 3rd shift and all the people on it) until there is a permanent first shift opening for my husband (the rumor is January). She sounds hopeful, but ultimately tells me “I’ll get back to you.” So far I’m batting 1000. At this point our options are slim. I can either switch shifts, find (and pay) someone to watch the kids overnight, or find a different job. I don’t like ANY of those options.

All of the above happened before noon today. And then my husband calls me. He told me that he had been to the company nurse twice today because he felt really weak, was dizzy, and blacked out a couple of times. He left early and went to urgent care where they told him that his blood sugar was high and his heart rate was abnormal and that it didn’t LOOK like he’d had a stroke or heart attack but that he needed to get in to see his doctor ASAP. He was also told that energy drinks are a no-no, he needs to eat more veggies and fruits, and stay away from fatty foods. Inside I’m chuckling (not over the heart rate thing, that shit is totally scary!) but because I’ve told him these things for YEARS and he still won’t touch any food that is green. He has also been instructed to drink water instead of anything caffeine-y (I’ve also told him that.) I’ve also told him (for years) that the only reason I’m fat is because nobody in this friggin house will eat anything that’s good for them, and I’ll be damned if I have to cook two meals: one that’s healthy and good, and one for the junk-foodies. Now he HAS to change his diet! Hahahaha! Victory is mine!!! (I give the “new diet” a week.) And I also hope he doesn’t croak.

Until then, I sure hope things start to look up. This old fat girl can’t take any more surprises. Rant over.

The Dog Days of Summer

Okay, so it’s the middle of August and it was like 65 degrees and rainy all day. Feels more like October than the “dog days of summer”, but I’m totally not complaining… This really isn’t about the weather, anyway.

Last Friday, my husband and I (mostly my husband) decided to consider bringing a dog into the family. While I love animals, especially dogs, I was a little apprehensive. Dogs are expensive. And they eat. And poop. A lot.

The place we went to to look at this puppy was about 30 minutes away, and when we got there, it looked like a decent enough place. Any place that still has Christmas lights hung up in August looks like a fun place to me! The ad said that they had 10 puppies, and when we got there, they had 5 or 6 left. We had to walk through the fun house to get to the backyard, and the second the door was open, the smell of 12 dogs hit me like a brick wall. We get back there and then we saw them. Puppies. And puppies. And more puppies. Okay, so there were only a handful of them, but it seemed like a lot more. And NONE of them looked healthy. 😦 All of them were super skinny, and most definitely were covered in fleas. All I could picture in my head were these sad, starving dogs, with Sarah McLauchlin music playing as a sadistic montage. Needless to say, we brought one home.

Amos is a five-month-old hound dog. Why these people kept 10 puppies (with both parents on-site) for 5 months is beyond me. When I picked him up the next day, it was clear he didn’t want to go. I had to pick him up and put him in the car. Juggling a 30 pound puppy and a 3 year old is no easy task. Halfway through the ride home, he decided the best place for him to sit for the ride home was ON TOP of the 3 year old. Oy. I pulled over and separated them and we were on our way. The whole way home I was reconsidering our decision. After having him for a week, here are a few things I’ve noticed about our new friend, Amos.

1. He eats a lot.
2. He poops a lot. (And with a big dog, comes big poop.)
3. He is lazy. Not once has he tried to get a job, offered to help with laundry, or buy us dinner for a change.
4. He is a couch hog. No, seriously. He pretty much takes up the whole couch.

5. He WILL try to eat your food while you are eating it. He doesn’t even ask first. Jerk.
6. So far, he is not a good guard dog. In fact, he is a total pansy. He is absolutely TERRIFIED of the wiener dog that lives two doors down.

Those may all seem like negative things to say about our new friend, Amos. Fear not, I have a positive list, too!

1. Yes, he eats a lot, but he has already put on weight since we got him. I can’t see his ribs or hip bones anymore! Yay!
2. He poops a lot, but in the week that we’ve had him, he has only had 2 accidents in the house. I’d say that’s pretty darn good!
3. He is lazy, but so am I. We’re kind of meant for each other. On a side note, him being lazy also means that he is very mellow. We are not a hyper family, and do not need a hyper dog.
4. He is definitely a couch hog, but he is also the best damn snuggler. Ever.

5. He steals food, but I imagine with 10 puppies and both parents fighting over dog food at meal time, if you didn’t steal it from somebody else, you didn’t eat. He’s just hungry yo.
6. He is HILARIOUS. When he runs at full speed, his ears look like wings and he’s about to take off. And his tongue rolls around in his head. He’s kind of derp. We don’t need a guard dog anyway.

I think we’ll keep him. ❤

New Beginnings

Since sleep is not looking possible right now, I figured I might as well start this thing like I said I was going to when my son was born. That was three years ago. Okay, so I’m a procrastinator. Shoot me.

I’m also a night shift worker (be jealous), a dance mom of an almost 11-year-old girl (NOT like what you see on TV btw), a mom of a very rambunctious 3-year-old boy, and a wife. I am rude, crude, and vulgar. But, for some reason, they love me anyway. This is my life.

Let’s go!

So far, today has been rough, to say the least. My employer sent me home at 4 this morning (I work for a temp agency at a warehouse in my hometown. Be jealous.) Last night I called the babysitter and told her that I was keeping Kasen home with me today because he was running a fever, and with school starting this morning, I was totally OK with leaving a few hours early.

By the time I got home, let the dog out, and got all settled in for a nap, it was 5 am. My alarm goes off at 6 to wake Maggie up. Sleep, or no sleep? I do have my DVR… I could watcNOPE! Sleep always wins. Bad idea. My alarm goes off, so I stumbled up the stairs to wake sleeping beauty for her first day of school. I think she was just as thrilled to be awake at 6 as I was… Surprisingly, she didn’t give me any trouble and even had time to make herself some breakfast. And actually eat it. Off to school she goes. Did I mention she started middle school today? Holy shit. I’m old.

By the time she gets on the bus and I get settled back down to go back to sleep, it’s 7:30. My son, who is notorious for sleeping until 11:30 for no apparent reason, decides that 8:30 is the best time to wake up today. Of course. I may or may not have turned on the Disney channel and snoozed for an hour…

Now that I’m wide awake, I decided to step outside to have a cigarette (stop judging me), and I can hear Kasen standing at the front door behind me. I turn around, and this is what I see:

Oh, lord.