Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Naked Table Dancer

Katie loves to climb up onto the coffee table. She also loves to dance. Last night she combined her two favorite things and voila - table dancing!



She was playing her music on my mother's phone, which is why she is dancing with it.

Monday, July 30, 2007

When It Rains...

I'm already stressed out enough about money since Phil's paychecks have been missing a day's pay for two weeks in a row, and we have to buy school clothes and supplies before school starts in three weeks, and we have birthdays and parties to pay for, and did I mention that the first of the month is almost here so our mortgage payment is due again? Yeah, I'm stressed out, to be sure.
So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when my tire blew out while I was driving on the interstate highway this morning on my way to take the girls to the zoo. I was driving 70mph when it happened, and the noise it made was so loud I could only imagine that it was something far worse than just a blown tire. Luckily, it wasn't.
After successfully pulling off to the side of the highway, I called AAA to have someone come out and change my tire. However, while I was waiting for AAA to show up, the Road Ranger pulled up behind me to help me out. Just as he was finishing up with the tire change (screwing the lug-nuts back on) it suddenly started raining. Actually, it started pouring. I grabbed my umbrella out of the car and did my best to provide shelter for this nice man who was changing my tire for me. Meanwhile, I got completely soaked.
The crazy thing about the rain, though, was that by the time I called AAA back to cancel the service call, it had already stopped. It wasn't even sprinkling when we got back on the road. We were able to continue on our way to the zoo, and even though we weren't able to stay for very long, we did get to see our friends and have a little bit of fun.
After we left the zoo, we went to the mall where I bought two new tires from Sears to keep things even. The girls and I did some window shopping while we waited for the car to be ready. I had the girls try some clothes on for size, but we didn't buy anything since A: we don't have the extra money right now, and B: Florida's Back-to-School Tax-Free week starts this weekend and we want to wait for that to stretch our dollars further.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Why do I care?

So, I was looking on eBay today for a graphing calculator like mine for my friend who needs one. She borrowed mine from me to use for a math class she was taking, and since she has more to take, she wants to go ahead and get one of her own. (I am very attached to my calculator and really couldn't live without it much longer.)
Anyhow, in my search for one of these calculators, I came across a listing for the calculator I was looking for, but the photo provided did not look like the actual model listed and it wasn't clear enough to read the model number on the calculator. So, I asked the seller what was up with that, but did not get any response. Of course, I didn't figure I would get an answer if this guy really is trying pull a fast one.
When I first found this listing, the high bid was only about $6, so I figured if someone was going to get screwed out of their money, at least they won't have lost much. But when I was checking to see if the seller had answered my question yet, I noticed that the bids were up above $20 already. So, I contacted the high bidder to let her know about the situation. I really hope that she doesn't get taken advantage of here.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with me. I am neither the seller, nor the buyer. I won't be affected at all however this turns out. So why do I care? Maybe it's because I hate dishonesty so much. I don't know, but now that I've vented a bit, I feel a little bit better.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Need a Vacation


That's right. I need a vacation from my vacation. Having family visit is stressful enough, what with all of the cleaning and hoping the children will be on their best behavior. Of course, it's even more stressful when you have to try to make plans and coordinate schedules and your visitors don't make any effort to help out with making the plans. It's kind of hard to just be "on call" for whatever they decide they want to do that day when you have children. With the baby it's no big deal, but with the older girls who want to do things, it's hard to tell them, "No, you can't do that because Grandpa might decide to do something today." Then when you wait around half the day and Grandpa decides he's not doing anything with you that day, how do you explain to them that they stayed home and missed out on fun for no reason?

The only really good day I had was the 4th of July when we went to the beach. The weather on Anna Maria Island was beautiful all day long. We got over three inches of rain at home, but there was barely a cloud in the sky at the beach. The water was warm like bathwater, and Katie really enjoyed her first time in the Gulf. Sarah and Emily got a bit sunburned from staying in the sun all day, but not really bad. All they needed was a little aloe to take care of it.

Also, on Sunday I celebrated my 12th Mommiversary. That's right, my eldest baby turned 12 years old, marking the 12th anniversary since the day I became a mom. Oh yeah, and it was Sarah's birthday, too. We planned to take Sarah out to the restaurant of her choice for dinner Sunday night, but it ended up being a much bigger ordeal than a simple family dinner. I ended up inviting my father and his wife and son to join us because they will not be in town for the party we are having in a couple of weeks for Sarah & Emily. After finding out that we were all going out to dinner together, my aunt and uncle decided to come along as well so that they could see Sarah on her birthday. So, our small family dinner turned into a large party of 10. Then, of course, I had to explain to other family members why they had not been invited to Sarah's dinner.

Oh, and I would love to post some pics from our day at the beach, but unfortunately my camera lens has gone foggy for some reason and I could only take blurry pics at the beach. Hopefully, I can get it fixed soon without spending a ton of money.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Argh!!!

Wow! It's been a while since I've blogged, hasn't it? Well, I've been pretty busy, but more on that later.
Tonight's topic is my latest catastrophy. I was already stressed out tonight because Phil had to go back to work after his week of vacation, the house was already starting to get messy, and the kids were fighting and getting on my nerves. Then it happens... Sarah comes in to inform me that she "heard something" and discovered that my toilet was overflowing. Well, since no one had used that bathroom since before Phil left for work TWO HOURS earlier, not only was my bathroom flooded, but my bedroom was half flooded, too!
So, for the past two and a half hours, I have been working on trying to get my bedroom and bathroom dried up. I called Phil because I truly had no idea what to do or where to begin. He told me that I could use the steam cleaner to suck the water out of the carpet in my bedroom. The only problem - I've never used the steam cleaner and had no idea how to make it work. I had to call him back at least three times before I was able to get it working. Once I figured it all out, though, it did a pretty good job. The major drawback, however, has that I now have blisters which will probably turn into callouses on my hands. "Momma always said you could tell a lady by her hands!"
While I was starting on getting the water out of my carpet, Sarah helped me out by putting every towel that we own down on the bathroom floor to absorb the standing water in there. Once I finished with the carpet, I went to work on the bathroom. Even with every towel we own in there, there is still plenty of water that needs to be soaked up. So, now I am washing a load of towels that has soaked up some of the flood waters in my bathroom. Once I get those towels dry, I will put another load in the wash and put the clean, dry towels back down on the bathroom floor to soak up some more water.
Now, I know what you're thinking... "Wow! This woman leads such a glamorous life!" Yeah.. right. Anyway, back to the clean-up!
I'll be sure to blog about our vacation week and Sarah's birthday once I've recovered from my catastrophy.