Okay, Seriously

My feet are healing.  Toe maybe not broken after all, although the word mofo still pops up now and again.  Broken blisters are only sore while I'm wearing shoes.

I did sleep weird the other day and got a kink in my neck.  I guess I pretty much asked for that, though, didn't I?

Instead of adding new body parts to a list of complaints, I'll just say I'm really glad I don't have to.

This morning, while driving the girls to Grandma's house, we had issues.  In case you're new around here and don't know, our morning drive goes from an elevated desert over a mountain range pass and down to the bottom of the other side.

It's not exactly treacherous mountain driving, being that each side of the freeway has three to four lanes.  There's enough of a downhill grade to have emergency ramps should one of the thousands of semis that passes through have a brake failure.

I did not have a brake failure.  Even better, I didn't have any trouble while in the pass.  About 10 miles from Grandma's house I heard that beep.  Saw the red triangle with an exclamation point.  Read the message that said, "Stop safely now."

Felt sick.

The last time this happened was a few years back, and my car had just run out of gas.  Today, I had plenty of fuel.  Last time I was only doing about 35 miles per hour; the car died in about 30 feet, complete with a locked up steering wheel.

Today I was driving closer to 75 miles an hour.  In the fast lane of a very fast freeway.

With my girls in the back.

*deep cleansing breath*

I did not attempt to get to the other side.  I made the equally bad decision to pull onto the center divide. 

A call to roadside assistance had someone on there way.  "They'll be there in 80 minutes or less."

"Eighty minutes?  I'm on the center divide with two small children."

I am not a crier, but I could have been.

A CHP officer pulled up, mentioned three times that I was in a very unsafe spot.  (It wasn't just the center divide, I was up against the start of a bridge, where the shoulder narrows.  Every passing carr rocked us.  I could not move forward or back.  Although my car was still running, it wouldn't go.)

He had dispatch call the tow service to see if they could speed things up.  Apparently not.  He came back and asked for my cell number.  Called my cell phone to make sure it was right and then told me he was going back to run a traffic break.  He would call me to let me know when to go.  I was concerned at how fast I could get the car to go.  He went back to his SUV and came back again.  Said another officer would run the break and he would escort me.

Someone on his walkie-talkie asked if I'd turned the car off and then turned it back on.  I had not. 

I tried it.

The triangle of doom was gone.  Replacing the "stop safely now" message was the same old "miles until E."

I do not understand cars.

Apparently I reset the car's computer.  Not that everything was fine, mind you, but it was good enough to make the traffic break work for us.

It was a little surreal being escorted off the freeway by two CHP officers.  Officer Garcia, my knight in shining black and white... whatever SUVs are made of these days... and the officer who ran the break made sure I got into a parking lot near the off-ramp and waved as they drove away.

My car was running fine, so I called my dad and Nance to update them before heading off again.  Got to Dad and Margaret's place only to hear the unmistakable sound of air leaking from a tire.  I had a moment of desperate hope when I wondered if maybe the flattening tire could have caused my earlier dilemma.

I believe my tires are "run flats," meaning I can go a little way before they show the effects of, say, a roofing nail being jammed clear through.  Despite leaking air for at least 10 minutes, the the tire still looked and felt normal.  So I dropped off the girls and had my dad follow me to the dealership.

The examination of my car revealed several problems.  Maybe the missing air filter case clip could be dealt with another time, but that and the rest are being worked on now and for at least one more day.

Thankfully, the problem that brought us to a (metaphorically) screeching halt this morning is covered under the extended warranty we purchased four years ago.  I am about 10,000 miles from the end of that warranty.  Whew!  With the driving I do, it will likely run out by the middle of winter.

Unfortunately, there are a host of "maintenance" issues that are all going to be handled at the same time.

The only estimate I've received so far is that we're at $550.

Plus two new tires.  No, not the one with the roofing nail; they're going to repair that one. 
Update: 
Tires are a veritable bargain at $330, because it's not just tires.  They're gonna mount, balance and install them.  I may have begun self-medicating with chocolate.

And there may be a deductible for our warranty work. 
Update:
There's no deductible, hooray!

I have a theory on why this happened.  Want to hear it?

Last night I worked out our bills for tomorrow and next Friday.  We pay all of our bills ahead of schedule, but had gotten ourselves up tight against the due dates with all of the activities in July and August.  Last night I mentally patted myself on the back as I thought, "By next Friday we'll only have one bill left for the month of October.  Then we can start on Christmas, Tom's mother's retirement gift and a few other things.  As long as nothing happens."

Stupid thought.

Here's another, much better:  Mad, Fynn and I were only delayed.  We They were not frightened or injured.  Even though I will be driving a rental car home tonight, we will all go home together.

Skipping Around

Despite a backlog of partially written posts, I'm going straight to this past Friday. Cuz I'm wild and crazy like that, that's why.

Friday was our fifth wedding anniversary, or what I consider our five year + five and a half anniversary. Just think, next year the number of years we'll be married will exceed the number of years we were together before all hell broke loose and he had to snap me up! Unlike previous years, when getting ready for our date or weekend away was fun and relaxing, this day was chaotic.

I got in the shower about 45 minutes before we were supposed to leave. As I was shaving up to there (okay, my knees, but let's just be glad I got to shave at all, 'kay?), I could hear the kids over the monitor in Madelyn's room. Specifically I could hear Fynn crying, Mad fussing and Corey, after 35 seconds of dealing with it, saying, "Mom, I know you're busy but I need you."

Sometimes I wish we had a 2-way speaker system. Sometimes it's good we do not.

Getting dressed, the girls ready and the car loaded with people and things took about an hour.  The good news? I was able to wear pants I have only dared to try on since getting pregnant with Mad. And they have these stupid obnoxious "cute" little button details on the waist that I was finally able to tighten back up. My ass may still be fat and jiggly, but I'm making headway.

The major delay at the end was Mad's repeated refusal to use the potty even though she was doing the pee pee dance and didn't want a diaper for the long car ride down to Grandma's. After she finally went and tried to get away with three M & M's for her success, we got out of the house. It was a few minutes after we were supposed to be at my dad's.

I dropped Corey at Mom's and headed to Dad's ("Grandma's house," according to Mad). While carrying Fynn in the carrier, the diaper bag and Mad's jacket, and helping Mad, who had tripped, I managed to tweak my shoulder. The only thing that could have made things worse by then would have been hot, humid weather. Thankfully it was low 50's and I wasn't starting to glisten or smell like a rhino.

My dad and Margaret gave us our anniversary present. It was a card with a note saying that the gift for five years is wood, and wood comes from trees and paper is also made from trees, so it's wood. And they gave us an amount of money that was suspiciously similar to the loan they'd offered two nights before so we could be sure to buy Christmas presents for the kids. (What's that? I didn't tell you how my employer has now decided that they aren't paying half of my pay for the time I'm taking after my maternity leave ended? Or how they decided to take it all out of the only check I'll get between now and Christmas? Reader's Digest version is that, after I expressed to them quite clearly that they put the original plan in writing and that I've been having stress-induced palpitations as we try to prepare for the next in a series of financial hits because of their antics, they compromised, so we will not be destitute for Christmas. Angry and bitter with them, yes, but there will be presents and love amongst mi familia.)

Tom and I went to a Peruvian restaurant we haven't been to since Mad arrived. Dinner was fabulous. We started and finished with beef empanadas and the best chimichurri sauce. Seriously. There's one left over in my fridge right now and my mouth is watering just thinking about it. I'd eat it, but I'm pretty sure Tom wants it. Although, he did eat most of the other one... hmm...

Anyway, the food was excellent, wine was just as good as I remembered and the conversation never lagged. Considering Tom and I were wiped out before leaving on our date, that's impressive. Or maybe it was the wine.

From what I can tell, Peruvian time moves much more slowly. So dinner was nearly a two hour affair. It's always like that at this place, but the food is definitely worth it. However, it meant that our second plan for the night, seeing a current movie in an actual theater, was no longer an option. It was, like, 8:35 people! And the next time our movie started was over an hour later. Add in the time for the movie, getting the girls, nursing Fynn before leaving, getting Corey and the schlep home and that was not happening.

We headed to a bookstore with a coffee shop, where we bought a few books for the kids and some hot drinks. As we sipped our drinks I gazed lovingly into Tom's bleary red eyes. No, it wasn't too much wine. It was 10:00 at night. Almost. I suggested we call it a night. Tom resisted until I mentioned we still had to get the girls and Corey and drive an hour home. We dashed to the car.

While I was nursing Fynn before leaving, my dad gave me one more present that night. He told me he'd had a dream about my biological father, Russ, someone I haven't spoken with in seven or eight years now. In his dream Dad asked him what he was thinking with the choices he'd made and did he have any idea what he was giving up? Most people only get one father, and a lot of people get mediocre to crappy to absentee fathers. I don't even know how I got so lucky.

By the time we got home last night it was about 12:30. Fynn wanted to nurse again, so I sat here and cuddled her in the dark. Tom crawled into bed. We talked for a minute and he told me I looked nice tonight. And then he fell asleep. Forty-five minutes later I joined him. It's not exactly the big shebang I think we'd envisioned for our fifth anniversary even as recently as last year. But it was fun and loving. Last year we made a baby and this year I got to eat a meal with two hands and without someone standing over me holding the baby while they "wait for me to finish." I'll take it.

Argh! and Yea!

I have been attempting to add photos to a pending post since Sunday night.  Still only extremely limited success (and none of the cute ones).  I'm hoping my cries for help are the reason "image uploads" is going to be serviced tomorrow.  In the meantime, here is a random sampling of my life:


I set up my phone so I can send posts to Blogger, but there must be a step I'm missing.


This has been stuck in my head for a week (I kind of like it):

Potty training is going very well.  I gave up the ridiculous idea that changing Mad's diaper while she's laying down will confuse her or I'm failing to reinforce that she's not a baby anymore. So, no more poopy hands for Mama.  Whoever thought of using a timer to make kids go to the potty is a fricken genius.  I'd kiss him or her on the mouth!  And realizing that I can use my cell phone alarm instead of the oven timer (thereby not having to rest Fynn's perpetually nursing body on the stove so I can make the ringing stop) makes me a freaking genius, too!  (At least to me.)  Mad's been telling me when she needs to go during nap time and overnight.  I mostly make it to her in time, but she's diapered then, so it's not as urgent.  She's getting good at telling me when she needs to go the rest of the day, too.  As I'm getting a sense of her timing, we are not living our entire mornings in 10 minute increments.  This is great!  However, when I offered to let her wear panties while we took Brother to school, she declined.


My friend with the lung situation has been tested four different ways.  One shows a borderline cancer score (6-10 typically means cancer; she got a 6).  However, a biopsy shows that there are no lesions.  It's not exactly a clean bill of health.  The doctor wanted to do another procedure, but the test results weren't close enough to 100% reliable for L, so she declined.  She'll go through another PET scan in two months to see if it's grown.  There are so many things to say or think about a friend in this situation.  I think I know how I'd handle much of it.  For one thing, I'd want to know as much as possible.  The opposite is true for her.  No googling, no super-involved conversations with the doctor.  Her philosophy is that everything she ever felt like she wouldn't be able to survive has happened, with this being the big one (if it is, indeed, the big one), but she's survived everything else.  Why not this, too, right?


In odd news that I probably shouldn't be mentioning, tomorrow would be my 20th anniversary if I'd stayed married the first time.  I cannot imagine still being married to him.  I have felt exactly that way since we agreed to divorce.  Yet every year at this time I feel a mental countdown.  I have no idea where he's at, if he's still married to wife number three (or was it four?  I couldn't keep track), or even if he's still alive.  I am glad we're not in contact, but I would tolerate him and be decent if he were part of Corey's life.  Fricken jackass.


Over the past 24 hours or so we've had some spectacular thunder and lightning.  Tom, Fynn and I sat upstairs in our bedroom watching (well, Fynnie nursed... is it possible that she's starting her next growth spurt so early?!?).  The strangest thing to me was the lack of heavy winds during most of it.  The gentle breeze made it possible to sit here with the window open.... until all of a sudden the storm got serious.  Wind, rain, hail.  Little chilly until Tom could close the window.  I'm so glad we have wireless Internet or I'd be stuck playing solitaire on my phone tonight while Tom and Fynn sleep.


I don't remember mentioning, but I have scheduled my tubal.  Two weeks from this Friday.  I'm good with the decision again.  Really, I always have been; I realized it while talking to my doctor.  I'll be 40 in the spring.  As I said to the doc, "There's room in the house.  There isn't room in the budget or the calendar."  Or the car.  Corey barely fits back there with the girls.  It's good we've gone so many places as a family, but if this continues, we'll have to get a bigger car.


There is still a slim chance we can make it to Chicago for Christmas, because the state still owes me money.  If nothing else unexpected happens, the money I'll get through PFL may be enough to do a slightly shorter trip.


Let's end with some good news.  I got my statement today showing that my check will be this month will only be a few hundred dollars short.  Compared to last month, I feel rich!

Mixing It Up

Here's another hodgepodge rundown of life lately:


*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Mad-a-speak ~ "I putting a ball on my butt, Dad," really means, "I'm sitting on my ball, Dad."


*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Today I went from this

to this

(you can thank me later for sparing you the sight of my extremely tired eyes).

I did have to wrestle the big round brushes out of the stylist's hands.  "Yes, I have curly hair.  Yes, I love straight hair as much as you apparently do.  But I've been out of the house for over an hour and I can feel my baby calling me.  You're going to see physical evidence of my psychic abilities very soon if you don't just dry my hair and let me get out of here."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Our financial woes have been resolved without loans and with only being late on two payments.  One of them we were still within the "grace period."  The other called me yesterday.  We were less than a week overdue.  On the one hand, I'm glad to know they won't just let us get behind due to sleep deprivation (after Mad was born I overpaid one bill by $250... money I'd intended to send somewhere else... whoops!).  On the other hand... seriously?  After five days I have to confirm every piece of contact information you have on me?  I resisted the urge to have the poor woman repeat herself after each one.  She said due to the economy she has to ask everybody these questions.  I hate her job for her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I have found another mom's group in my area.  There is an event Tuesday evening (Mom's Night Out!  At Starbucks!!) I'm hoping to attend.  It all depends on Fynnie.  We'd intended for her two month doctor visit/shot to be last week, but there was a scheduling error.  Thankfully I know they're closed on Friday afternoons and called earlier in the week to see when her real appointment was.  Turns out the girl had put us down for December 8, not October.  I'm all for delaying vaccines to a point, but there are some I think should be given as cold and flu season starts up.  So her new appointment is this coming Tuesday afternoon.  We only do one shot at a time, but if I recall correctly, the first one is a doozie.  If she's not feeling well, I'm not going, obviously.  But the thing is that I've found people.  Now I just have to meet them and take it from there.


*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Corey has been making big plans for Halloween with his cousin Sarah.  The original plan was for Sarah and her friends to all dress like zombies; Corey will be a zombie hunter.  Tonight I got this email from my sister-in-law: 

Sarah is not going as a zombie princess. Nor is she going with the group that will be zombie princesses.  She is going with her old friends, and Corey knows all of them. Sarah is going to be a rubber ducky girl, but if Corey would like a zombie, she is willing to add a zombie aspect to her costume.

Sarah's a giver, that girl!

Home Is the New Away

Wednesday will be our third wedding anniversary. Being married just three years seems odd somehow. Maybe it's that we've been together well over eight years. So this year I will again say we've been married X years + five and a half.
For our previous wedding anniversaries (I point out wedding because there is also the first time we acknowledged we liked one another even though it was so impossible, because he lived in Chicago and I lived in LA; the first time we said I Love You, something we'd been feeling for a couple of months, but were waiting to admit to because... *ahem*... we hadn't met in person just yet; and the first time we met in person. Okay, we don't really celebrate the others so much anymore, but we used to, and I still keep things separate in my mind.), we have spent the weekend in Big Bear or in Julian. This year there is a budget crisis in our home.
Not only is Mad the proverbial "like a weed" daughter (hello! I'm hoping the size 12 months clothes we bought for winter are going to fit long enough for the weather to stay below 90 for more than two days in a row), but this is the year of our biennial Christmas trip to Chicago. Oh, and the company Tom works for (which shall remain nameless because I sense a rant coming sooner or later) is doing what it can to stay afloat. That means that he generally works four or five eight-hour days instead of five 10-11 hour days each week.
We have a "free" trip to San Francisco (airfare and hotel included) that we had planned to use this coming week, but the $80 processing fee and the fact that he'd be using up days off that we'll need for Christmas means that we had to come up with an alternate celebration.
In all honesty, I spent most of Saturday morning mentally moping. I didn't even bother to call my parents to see if they'd watch Mad until just before noon. Lots of internal scolding, cajoling and name-calling helped me get my act back together well enough to get going. We didn't have much of a plan before the kids were dropped off at their preferred grandparents' houses. I wasn't sure how late we could leave Mad with Margaret and my dad. We went for an early start time so we could get back early, too. Based on recent history (recent being since I got pregnant with my perpetually tardy husband's child), I am stunned to announce that everybody, including me, was ready to go, kids were dropped off and we were free to do what we wanted at 4:03 PM.
Neither of us had eaten much and Tom was starving, so he suggested an early dinner. I laughed and pointed out that we should go to Lenny's for the early bird special. Seriously. And to underscore how early we were seeking dinner, the Indian restaurant we'd chosen wouldn't be open for another hour.

**On a side note, I would have chosen something more than two blocks from my mom's place, but we are pretty well surrounded by fires and freeways are not all open right now, so it made more sense to stick close.
We talked about a few more options and decided to go to our old standby, Casa Sanchez. Sure, it's a little unfancy place in a strip mall. Not everyone would think to go there to celebrate getting married, but it was the first bona fide happy choice of the night for me. Why? Aside from the fact that the owners and staff are friends, this is the restaurant that catered our wedding. Between us, we had all the wedding night food. It was delicious. I can't remember the flavor of anything at the wedding because I couldn't get more than a couple of bites down, I was so excited. So we relived it that afternoon.
Yes, afternoon. It was still well within the four o'clock hour when we arrived. No, most of the people there weren't blue-hairs, but the couple coming out when we went in were rather old. And she was on oxygen. That's how close we were to being old fuddy-duddies (maybe the fact that I'm using that term means it's too late).
Dinner was great. We hadn't set any "let's not talk about the kids" rules. In fact, we talked about the kids we have and the fact that Tom would like to have one more. I'm telling you, he could probably talk me into anything. Oh alright, he already has, but not for now. Mad was our summer vacation surprise last year. The timing worked out perfectly in terms of time off after she was born, so that's our plan for next year. I'm a little excited about it. Like, I've already picked out a name excited, haha. But I'm only telling you, dear readers, because I don't want to have to answer questions from everybody I know for the next eight months. Plus, if it doesn't work out for some reason, I won't have to explain it over and over again.
Anyway, we decided to go see a movie after that. The plan was to find a light romantic comedy (Tom's suggestion because he knows his girl and because he was probably trying to set the mood, bow-chicka-bow-bow). We drove to a theater to see our options: nothing! So we headed over to a small independent theater. It's outside of "the village," a charming little place that is growing a bit too much. Tom's friend has called it too Disney-fied. The village is not, but the theater and surrounding shops do look a bit like a set. Most of the movies were either not for us this night (Bond, Madagascar 2) or we'd never heard of them. The one I recognized and knew I'd been interested in seeing was Rachel Getting Married.
Did I stop to recall what it was about? Did I pause to think about the review I'd read recently in which the word "disturbing" was used? No, I did not. So we bought tickets for a showing that started in an hour and went for a walk. We had ice cream and Tom answered sports questions from roughly a dozen kids who were apparently on a scavenger hunt type activity. They came to us while we sat outside Coldstone after going inside and singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame with the server inside.

The movie was good, but it was not light, romantic nor comedic. It was intense. I was tense. So tense, in fact, that I wanted to yell at any number of the characters or get up and leave, maybe slamming a door on the way out. Whew! And the music was mostly great, but there were huge stretches where it seemed like the makers of this movie just wanted to showcase their varied tastes.
After it was over, we needed to get Mad and go home. When we'd dropped her off, Margaret had offered to keep her overnight, but it seemed inappropriate to take her up on that at the last minute, like I was hoping she'd offer because I didn't have the nerve to ask.
I nursed Mad as soon as we were home and then Tom put her to bed. In the penultimate alternative anniversary celebration finale, I fell asleep on the couch while he took care of her. I'm pretty sure he tried to get me to come to bed, but I did not. It wasn't meant to be a withholding sex type of thing, just an exhausted woman thing. Thankfully, Tom doesn't tend to hold grudges and we were eventually able to enjoy the best part of our weekend during Mad's afternoon nap today. Corey didn't come home from Grammy's until after 9:00 tonight and that, too, felt a little like time away.
So even though I taught two classes Friday night and one Saturday morning, for the first time in a couple of months, I felt like the weekend was all that it should have been. I almost don't mind getting up and going to work tomorrow. I love my job, but Tom will be off, so I'd like to be here, too.