Well that didn't go as planned...

A large group of mamas from my local moms group got together for a community garage sale. 22 tables with lots and lots of stuff. Should have been awesome. Would have been awesome if it had stayed at the 15% chance of rain that was forecast all week for Sunday.

Nope wasn't a 15% chance of rain by the time the garage sale was about to start... it was 70% that quickly went up to 100%. And stayed there for the next 3 hours.

The cafe that was so kind to allow us to take over their parking lot for the sale insisted that we set up inside as much as we could. The owner didn't want the sale to be a total bust since he knew we'd all worked so hard at getting everything together.

It was great to see a bunch of great friends and I did sell a few things but not as much as I would have liked to. Another mama came up with a great suggestion for us to try again next month in an area that would be covered so weather shouldn't be an issue.

Here's to better weather for the sale next month!

The kids did enjoy spending the day with my mom again. She was very kind to drive over again and watch the kids so I could go down to the sale sans kids. It is so wonderful to see how much Child #4 has become comfortable around my mom. She just loves to sit right next to my mom almost in her lap at any given time that Mom sits down. :-) Its very sweet. She loves her MeMa. We've been so blessed with children that don't seem to have high separation anxiety and have a general ease around people. I was wiped out from being up late the night before to finish prepping for the sale and all the moving and carting of all those bins of stuff so I was able to crash and take a nap while Mom was still here.

Theoretically he boarded an airplane for Kuwait about 14 hours ago...

Rain, rain, rain, and more rain...

How much more rain can there be? Must it rain all at the same time. How about spreading it out over the months instead of hitting us with it all in a few weeks.

After taking the kids to school this morning, I climbed back into bed with a very tired Child #4. She didn't want to go to sleep last night and was justup off and on most of the evening. She wasn't cranky or sick... just "not tired". Well I was still tired (trying to keep from getting to run down with this possible flu) and I made her get back into bed with me.

It really is nice to sleep in a cozy bed when its dark, overcast and rainy outside. I do love to sleep when it rains. There is just something so soothing and comforting about the sound of falling water.

Just a quiet lazy morning...

It just keeps on coming...

After a week of revival... the fridge died. It is 57 degrees inside... soo not the 40 degrees its suppose to be.

So I went in search of a new fridge. Kind of cheap because after the past summer of dying appliances and super high electric bills... having 60+ days of triple digit heat and the rest of the summer days being in the upper 90s just kills having a low energy bill... there just isn't lots of extra fundage around.

So I found a fridge but they can't deliver it before Friday. Nice, everything that is salvageable is currently in the big ice chest. We'll see how much that is in the ice chest is still salvageable on Friday. I moved as much of the frozen stuff as I could into the garage freezer. The stuff in the freezer seems to be keeping froze and hasn't started to thaw but I moved all the meat and just left basically the gallon of Blue Bell Vanilla ice cream. Better that than the almost $100 worth of meat. Sadly we lost quite a bit of fruit... a large container of strawberries and a large container of raspberries, a bunch of asparagus and lettuce, a gallon of milk, a quart of 1/2 & 1/2 and a quart of buttermilk. A large container of sour cream and a bunch of yogurt cups. Lots of dairy that I just don't trust to be okay.

Seriously, how many more electrical appliances do I need to replace? In the past 5 months I've replaced the battery in the truck, the stereo tuner in the living room, the washer & dryer, the microwave, the phone, the modem and now the fridge. Enough all ready!! We're hemorrhaging money here!!

Sadly the funds that just replaced the fridge were set aside for two special items I'd been wanting to buy for a while... bunkbeds for the #2 and #3 hooligans' room and a Wii for the family. Guess I'll have to wait a couple more months to buy those now...

So the electrician shows up finally after two days of no A/C. I explained to him the problem, stood there and watched him pull out the switch, look at it and then he shoved it right back in... CROOKED!!

And then starts hitting it with his pliers to try to get it to seat!!

WTF?? He is using the "use a bigger hammer to force it in" technique? Honestly, he's the licensed electrician and I do a better job of installing the switch?? Really?!? He tried to play it off like it was in and I said its still crooked. He pulled it out and what do you know, the clips were bent again.

DUH!

So he decided to try a different switch. Since it had a different connector pattern it slipped in easier and now is seated full into the slot.

Finally cold air again in the house.


Good new, #1 Child is back to her normal self. She's fought off the evil scourge that is the Flu and she's lived to tell the tale. She's still a little bit tired but NOTHING like yesterday.

Are you kidding me??

We have no A/C again!!

Why? Because the electrician who changed out the breaker switch jammed it wrong! Seriously? How hard is it to line up two metal posts between two clips?? I pulled it out and straightened out the clips (which were bent because he just shoved it in and didn't seat it correctly). Nice, so you mean for the past 4 days electricity has been ARCing across the offset clips? Great you could have burned my house down!

And of course the switch doesn't want to work. And the temp has gone up again. Its a lovely balmy 85 degrees INSIDE right now.

Why does this always happen on the weekends?

And we have A/C again...

After 2 days of waiting and seeing an A/C tech who found the master breaker switch was tripped... the electrician came out and had to replace the breaker switch.

Nice cool air in the house again.

Thankfully the temperature only went up into the 80s this week... and it rained a ton. Didn't help to really cool the house off much at night but at least it was bearable. Everybody had a fan pointed on them and an overhead fan while they slept.

Oh and the fridge seems to have revived itself from the death's door. THANK YOU, that at least is one expense I don't have to worry about right now.

WHY? Stop the world I want to get off...

I swear if it isn't one thing its another...

So Saturday night I realized that the house wasn't very cool. Yep, the A/C has stopped working. NICE! This will be the FIFTH time since we moved into this house almost 5 years ago. This is really getting old. Thankfully with my landlord's service insurance its only cost us about $35-50 each time but still. WTF?? I'm so tired of having the damn A/C go out. Its probably the compressor... again. Nothing is working on the outside unit. And with the way the house is designed opening the windows doesn't really help to cool off the house. Last night the temp never went below 82 degrees and let me tell you, its nice and sticky in here.

Yes, there are small favors. It could have gone out two weeks ago when we were still hitting triple digit numbers... but we've actually already done that twice with this A/C unit in the past. I'm just sooo over this crap. And of course the service insurance will not cover weekend services so we have to wait until this morning for the service call to be filed with someone. Nice. Which can mean that we might not have someone out here until tomorrow.

And NOW... the damn fridge has stopped working.

FUCK!!!!

I've got a light on inside but otherwise no power. Everything is starting to get covered in condensation and the freezer is starting to defrost. And of course its nice and full of food! Its 6 years old. It shouldn't have gone out yet... right? Of course the warranty was only good for 5 years. I'm not sure if its worth trying to get someone out here to try to fix it.

I really didn't need this today. So now I have to wait until I hear about the A/C service and then I've got to go and find a new fridge... for cheap. Very cheap and that can be delivered today.

UGH!!

And then to just piss me off this morning, the kitchen light had decided to become finicky. Its one of those crappy fluorescent tube lights. One side has decided to not come on at all and the other one will only come on after I try a few times.

Seriously? Did I really need this??

DAMMIT!!

Today was a good day...

Lunch at Terra Burger w/ friends.

Ice Cream at Thai Fresh (AWESOME Jam!!).

Looked at fish at Petsmart.

Went to HPBooks.

Kids played in the sprinkler.

Child#4 wanted to "sleep wif yous" so we did.

Now quiet house & a glass of wine... it was a Good Day.

And so it begins...

I slowly poke my toe into the blogging world. We shall see how well I really do with this.

Can I blog, tweet, facebook, read tons of emails, AND "single parent" (Hubby is halfway around the world in Afghanistan) four small children under that age of 9? Along with 5 cats, 1 dog, 2 parakeets, 1 guinea pig and more fish tanks than there should be in one household... while keeping said household clean... okay we won't worry about the cleanliness too much... will we?

I won't look at your floor if you won't look at mine.

Deal?

Because you know a non-sticky crumb less floor is highly overrated. Honestly, who really needs to be able to walk across a room without having funky grit stick to your feet. Socks are great. Slippers even better. Actually I keep most of the floors pretty clean I just HATE doing the kitchen floors.

Honestly, they look like hell within 15 minutes of doing them. The only time they look great for longer than 15 minutes is when I do them late at night. Then the hooligans destroy it when they get up in the morning.

Between the gallon of milk or the jug of apple cider that doesn't make it INTO the cup by Child #3 (the almost 5 yr old boy), Child #4's (the 3 year old girl) obsession with dumping the sugar bowl on the floor, the crumbles that don't stay in the mouths because they chew like horses... actually I think horses are tidier... the dirt tracked in from the backyard especially child #2 (the 6 yr old boy) who usually has pockets full of dirt, rocks, pebbles and other bit so flora and fauna that should remain outside and Child #1 (the 8 yrs old girl) who has the propensity for tearing/cutting paper into little bits and "saving" them... is it any wonder my kitchen floor looks like hell???

But enough of my floor...