Sunday, May 29, 2011

Plumbing Disaster

This has not been a week that I want to repeat.

I took the week off work to do some much needed cleaning in my house. Unfortunately, our AC has developed a leak somewhere and we've lost over 2lbs of freon since December. Needless to say, we're not using out Air Conditioning and this week ended up being one of the hotter weeks we've had. When I've been at work we've had nice 70 - 80 degree days, I take off and we've had primarily 90+ degree days. My cleaning made it on schedule 2 days before true disaster hit.

Wednesday afternoon I got a call from my mother, that my grandmother had fallen and she needed help picking her back up, so I headed over. After getting grandma back up in a chair I visited for a while. Back in the car I found that I missed a call from the school. I had to go pick up my little guy. He'd had and accident and needed to be picked up. Did that, then home, shower and off to meet Nana and shoe shopping. A new pair of sandals later we were off to pick up sissy from school, and dropping brother off at church. Finally home again. Now, is when the real "fun" began.

With no air conditioning little man wanted a bath. I popped him in the tub, flushed to toilet and disaster struck... the toilet backed up... the tub backed up... pulled little man out of the now nasty water and tried to get the overflowing toilet under control. Long story short... six hours later I was still without working plumbing, but the general location of the problem had been narrowed down to my main sewer line by my brother and father. My hubby who had a class that night, hadn't shown up home yet, all though he'd left the class at 8:30PM and I'd called him at 11:15PM.

The next morning my hubby got home around 4:30AM, but didn't make it into the house until 7:30, about 15 minutes before my brother showed up to return the equipment he'd rented and exchange it for something that worked.

I got little man dressed and ready to get on the bus, got yelled at to come up stairs and help put in the window unit in our room by a drunk hubby. He was throwing clothes across the room and generally being ugly. Once the AC was in the window he laid down on the floor and went to sleep. My other two children, thankfully, got little man on the bus as they headed out to theirs - thank goodness they had a late morning. I left my hubby on the floor, closed the windows, and went out to help finish with the plumbing issue.

Within 2 hours of returning with the new hundred foot electric snake it was run down the main line... found some roots, sigh...but once that was cleared it's now operating again. Yeah!! Showers and flushing toilets is taken for granted WAY too much! By 11 everything was returned, I was home, and my dad and brother headed back to their homes.

My hubby woke up around 1 or 2 PM in a much better mood. The kids came home... did chores... I got dinner underway. 6PM I dropped of the daughter at school and headed back home to finish up dinner. During dinner the hubby asked if I'd help pull out the AC under the house and test it. I agreed although I was the one who ended up under the house, he did help pull it out by using a tarp, once I had it on there (he really doesn't like spiders). Amazingly, it worked. Together we got the pre-run maintenance done and got it installed in the downstairs window. My daughter called to get picked up as we were getting the unit the last few inches pushed back in the case. I ran out and picked up our daughter and by the time we came back the dining room was already cooling down.

My little guy has kicked, knocked, etc. his bedroom door until he dislodged the frame. So, at this time, his door frame had been taken down which means he's free to roam when he wakes up in the middle of the night. My daughter agreed to have him sleep in the trundle in her room, if I'd do her chore of washing dishes. I agreed since I didn't have time to get his door fixed.

Friday I caught up on some sleep... I got little man out to school and then went back to bed and slept till 1pm. The rest of the day was fairly calm... I'm so thankful for plumbing and air conditioning. I dropped off the daughter for the last night of the school talent show, then picked her up and dropped her off at her friends house a sleep over. I hadn't been home too long when I got a phone call from a friend and she and I went out. We had good time. Vented, which we all need to do from time to time, and felt by the end of it. It was odd, however, when I'm the one getting home at 2:15AM. That's definitely more the hubby's deal.

It's gotten better now that I'm not roasting all day long, but my cleaning never made it back into the schedule. Now I'm just tired from all the "excitement" of my vacation and am hoping tomorrow will be a good round up to my time off and have me ready to head back to the office on Tuesday.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Guns

I want to start off stating clearly. I am an advocate for gun ownership and a firm believe in the 2nd amendment.

Now.... my spouse has bought a gun. We have a special needs child. I am NOT comfortable with this. He gets mad when his sun glasses are messed with... how is he going to manage ensuring that our son doesn't get a hold of the gun. He doesn't put away his pocket knife & I'm constently taking that away as our 9 year old opens it. ..
Just saying....

A Bad Day

I've come to the conclusion that my life is nothing more than a constant test of patients and dashed hopes and dreams.

I'm trapped in an existence of my own creation and although I love my children, if I could go back none of them would be here. I've become something I don't recognize. I despise the institution of marriage. Children are one of the worst decisions that can be made...not that mine were planned. Family will fail you and friends are only there when it benefits them.

Today is bad...I'm not normally this depressing. Unbelievably, given this post, my friends and coworkers think I'm amazingly optimistic, patient and forgiving. That's who I prefer to be, but there are days where I'm overwhelmed with responsibility, tired of my spouse treating me like a child, especially since I'm the one who makes the money, pays the bills, does whatever needs to be done for the house and the kids and then gets yelled out because I missed a yogurt lid when I tossed out trash from my work area in the house. Not that I have a real work area, I apparently don't merit that type of space or consideration in the house I pay for.

I love my children, but if I could go back none of them would be here. They're normal kids l. A mixture of self-centeredness and caring. I guess I just had them too young and that's why I find myself resenting them. I had all three between the ages of 20 and 26. It doesn't sound that young, but I went from a student/daughter directly to mother and wife. I never had time to find out who I was before having the responsibility of another life. I use to say I was living for my 40's when the kids would be grown, but my youngest has a genetic disorder,so that will never happen now. It's my own fault. .. my own bad decisions, but it does make me resentful from time to time.

As for marriage- that institution should be outlawed. I've become very bitter. I went in with the belief of partnerships and ended up as the main breadwinner (when not the sole one) and the cook, maid, chauffeur, nurse, handyman, book keeper, and designated whipping post whenever something isn't done to the satisfaction of my spouse, who doesn't actually do much of anything other than tell everyone else what to do, and how they didn't do it right. Normally very loudly. There's no consideration from him. I had tonsillitis and worked from home through it, because of work deadlines, so I needed to rest whenever I could. Well, I finally had a chance to lay down one evening around 6:30. He came home and work me up to go to the store for him. .. the sad thing is I did it. It was easier than fighting. I'm conflicted- I care what happens to him and see the potential, but at the same time I hate what I'm becoming.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Dinner Fiasco

Why does the type of potatoes I fix result in my dinner being unacceptable to eat? I fixed meatloaf with potatoes au gratin ... apparently only mashed potatoes are acceptable. Anyhow this resulted in take out instead of my cooking. Should this bother me? Because it really does piss me off.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Drunk

Tonight has been disturbing. The hubby can home drunk...funny but argumentative. He'd ask for something get it then argue about not having it. I quickly orcestrated things so the kids were removed to their bedrooms. For one it was bedtime and the other voluntarily went early to get out of the line com fire.

He's asleep / passed out now. I took care of the kids chores to eleminate arguements when he wakes. He's been arguementative all day...came home in the middle of the day and was mad from the moment he walked in & I expressed surprise that he was there at 3pm when he's not been coming home till 9pm or later. Maybe he was already drunk.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Loyal Dog

Have you ever had one of those days, you know the ones I’m talking about, where you look over at the person that you have bound yourself to for a lifetime and just thought “Shit.”

It’s not that the person is inherently bad, they don’t beat you, they don’t assault you verbally— let’s all be honest, we’ve all said something to our significant other at one time or another that was cruel and hurtful — what I’m saying is that it’s not habitual. Okay, now that I’ve got that straight, back to the original topic. It’s just that… something. You can’t really put your finger on it, just something that rubs you the wrong way. Not necessarily forever, just from time to time.

From time to time I find myself thinking of my significant other like a loyal dog. Not the perfect pet, but the devoted but poorly trained one. The dog that you couldn’t wait to own, but once you got him home and the “honeymoon” period ended you realized that you had a DOG. A dog that doesn’t stray to anyone else for companionship – so he’s not a hound – but who’s just a bad dog.

You come home from a hard day at work and he jumps on you, putting muddy paw prints on your dry clean only suit. Your fixing dinner and he stand up at the counter and snags the steak you just cooked. You bring him home a new chew toy and take him for a long walk. Then you leave him home so you can take an hour or two to do something for yourself and come back only to find your favorite Italian pumps chewed up and a “present” left in the hall.

Your friends and family ask why you keep him around, but you’ve had him so long now that he’s just part of the family and you care about him, even if he frustrates you. After all he has some redeeming qualities, there companionship and he’s loyal. He may go bounding through the woods with his guy dog friends, but always comes home at the end of the day. He snuggles up on the bed, and he makes you feel safe in the middle of the night.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Starting the New Year in the ER

We're home... made it in around 5-5:30. We went in to the ER around 11:30 with my youngest gasping for breath, complaining of pain in the right side of his chest, and a temperature of nearly 103. After chest x-rays, blood work, oxygen, IV fluids and antibiotics and a couple of discussions about transferring him to a hospital that had a pediatric unit, his temperature decreased and his breathing rate finally slowed down enough that the ER doc let us take him home with a prescription javascript:void(0)for a continued hefty dose of antibiotics. Diagnosis is bronchitis/pneumonia - the x-ray didn't give a clear picture of the congestion location.

As of now - he's still coughing, breathing a bit raspy, but much slower than it's been and he doesn't feel like he has a temperature any longer.