So tired...

This baby has been keeping me up at night with his crazy kicks and punches. I'm glad he is doing well, but PLEASE let momma sleep for more than 45 min at time!

What did I just step on?

Holy #&!%, it's a mouse!

I stepped on a dead mouse this morning.
In the middle of my bedroom floor.
My recently vacuumed bedroom floor.

What on earth was it doing there?

I think Tallulah found it somewhere else and brought it into the room. Much like when Delilah brought me a dead baby squirrel when I was sick. (gross)

Michael has now disposed of the mouse and I'm hoping that is the last we see of the little buggers.
Needless to say, that is not the way I like to start my mornings.

An Alarming NIght

We live across the street from an elementary school. Normally I love this. It's fun to see the kids out in the playground when I come home for lunch. We love to let Tallulah run around in the big field in the evening. Most of the neighbors we have met, we have met because they come to the playground with their dogs and kids too.
But this weekend I stared to hate the school. On Saturday afternoon and alarm of some kind went off...and stayed on until Monday morning. It's an irksome, constant sounds, which I suppose is better than those car alarms that change pitch and frequency every few seconds. Instead this sounds kind of like the locusts that are out there anyway, but louder and longer. And the locusts shut up at some point.
Late last night/early this morning the alarm went off again, waking both of us up. It stayed on for a couple of hours, but we both went back to sleep - having spent the weekend getting used to the noise.
I'm just hoping it won't go off again tonight.

Not a Good Day for the Garden

It appears that my zucchini plant is rotten. So rotten that even though there are leaves and blossoms and a wee zucchini the stem has separated about 8 inches from the ground. We are talking decapitation. And now ants are having a hey day eating it. So no zucchini this year. The yellow squash on the other hand has over grown into the yard. Also, my tomatoes never seem to ripen. I've had lovely unripe fruit on the vine for weeks but not a blush of color. Even the green ones haven't reached their correct shade and firmness. An to top that off all my pepper are still green too and they are supposed to be orange and red.

Where have all the colors gone?!
When will I be able to eat the things I've been growing?
Aside from creating some lovely foliage is this garden a complete failure?

And I saw a slug. Sigh.

In which I (surprise, surprise) complain about the weather

It's hot. July in KC hot. Every year I forget what it is like and am startled the first (or 50th) time I burn the back of my legs on the car seat. I blissfully forget about the searing pain of touching a hot door handle (seriously I need oven mitts for some of these doors) until once again I find myself cursing the summer sun.

During this heat wave we are trying to productive by cleaning out our closest in preparation for a garage sale that the in-laws will be holding later this summer and where we plan to share our crap, I mean junk, I mean very valuable items for which we no longer have a need. It appears the guest room closet served no other purpose than to hold the things we weren't ready to get rid of yet, but knew we someday would.

We also painted some swatches on the walls of that room. It's a small room and painting it should be no problem at all. While I love the strange sage-y green and cream that is EVERY room of our house, it is time for at least one room to have a change. Apparently our bedroom will never be that room - for years now I've wanted to paint it but have been vetoed every time. I think we will paint the guest room a muted yellow. It's subtle yet vibrant and should enhance that little room.

On the sewing front I have cut out all the pieces for the dress, but I'm now at a loss because the directions don't make any sense. ZERO. I've read them at least 10 times and every time I'm more confused. The plan is now to throw the directions away and just go with my gut. It is a simple sun dress, it really can't be that hard.

One of those days

Today I headed downtown to go to the courthouse to figure out the hoopla that is my personal property taxes and then to the DMV so I can renew my tags. Well the DMV is open but the Collection office wasn't and I needed the one prior to the other. So it was a worthless trip downtown. Sigh.
Upon arriving home from my worthless trip I found that our water pressure was all messed up. Seriously we have very little water pressure - and the water department is closed until Monday.
Yep. Good times.

Late Night Thunderstorms Are Not Okay

At 1:45am the wind really started to pick up and it started to hail a little bit. Which freaked Michael out - waking me up while he tried to find a weather update on the radio. I suggested turning on the TV because TV newscasters get all excited about the weather.
Guess what? we were having a thunderstorm! Really?
Now I'm just tired and grumpy.
Oh, and all the knitting I did while waiting for the Honda? ALL WRONG. I had to tear out and start back about 60 rows. SIXTY.
I think I need to go back to bed.

Pardon me whilst I complain.

We are going to tackle this with bullet points - today's been THAT good.

• Our refrigerator has stopped running. We cannot catch it.
• The freezer part is freezing so well that everything is rock hard and I think it gave me frost bite when I was pulling things out of it.
• The fridge part is warm. Everything is lukewarm and now I've got to decide what can be kept and what has to be tossed. The brand new gallon of milk? spoiled All that yummy cheese? Ruined. The brand new jar of Almond Butter? Most likely it's go to go too.
• I have a vicious sinus infection.
• It's already in my throat and about an hour ago my ears started to hurt too.
• There is water in our basement.
• It seems that the weeks of drain installation did no good.
• The basement looks just like it always does after it rains.
• I am disappointed and surprised.
• My 2:45pm drs. appointment took until nearly 4:00pm to be actually seen.
• Then the pharmacy lost my perscription.
• We have ants.
• The kitchen has been scoured and cleaned from top to bottom and we have sprayed for bugs, but still they come.
• They are also in my bathroom...in my bath-tub. So I'm going to take a bath with some ants because I really need to take a bath.
  

let me tell you what is not a good idea

Even if you are very hungry it is not a good idea to drink a glass of Cran-Grape juice, then eat a bowl of Curried Sweet Potato Soup, then each half a Quesadilla and them drink another glass of Cran-Grap juice.
It is not a good idea at all.

beets

For Christmas I received the Deceptively Delicious cookbook and last night I pureed a bunch a veggies for a weeks worth of health meals. It was messy, especially the beets. They are so magnificently red - staining my hands and the counter top magenta. Plus they smell bad. Michael says it made our kitchen smell like Russian Peasants lived there. And it did.
This morning I set about to make Pink Pancakes (with beets). The beets turned the mix a violent shade of hot pink and no matter how much cinnamon and apple was added to the mix it still smelled like dirt (and not good fresh dirt). The first pancake was still gooey after it had cooked for 5 min so I tossed it and started again. The second appeared to be cooked through so I sprinkled it with powdered sugar and a little syrup and took a bite of the brilliant pink pancake.
And spit it right back out.
Normally I can go ahead and swallow down one bite of about anything, but this was so terrible. Just awful.
When I made Brussels Sprouts a few weeks ago (which I loved by the way) Michael made the comment that some foods are eaten because there is no other option. That people ate Brussels Sprouts because the didn't have corn or other veggies that taste good. After the Beet Pancakes and think that he is on to something. I know they are highly nutritious and they probably kept many a peasant family alive, but they will not be sustaining this family.

Grinch-er-ific

I'm a Grinch this year. I don't want to shop, the few times I have gone out have been disasters. And I don't really want anyone to shop for me either. I don't really want anything. The only things I do want are for the yard - a fence and some sod. Seriously.
Michael and I have paired down Christmas to the bare minimum too. He's getting a new bathrobe (he knows), I purchased myself some books (which I'll wrap and open on Christmas) and the 1st season of How I Met Your Mother (best show ever) is our combined gift. That's it. The idea of putting anything else into the house just makes me cringe. It could be that I've been struggling with the ever flowing pile of junk that is our guest room. I want things to leave the house, not come it. Also, I've only put up about half the decorations because I just don't want the clutter.

Yeah, I'm a Grinch this year. Sorry.

I do have a car load of non-perishable food to take to the food pantry, and gifts for most of the people on my list, so I'm not a total Grinch, but I'm not Who either.

Heat Wave

We're having a heat wave.
A na-as-ty heat wave!
I hate the heat wave!

Seriously it's nasty hot out there. And as we are in Kansas City we have the addition of a super kind of humidity that makes it that much more miserable.

We are trying to keep the house cool without burning up the AC - what do people without Central Air do?

Global warming anyone?

I've been warned

I was taking Tallulah for a short walk this morning to celebrate her trip the groomers (I would never pay that much for my own hair cut!) when all at once the noise lever shot through the roof.
We were walking down a street we don't usually take when a tiny black poodle on a cord starting going nuts. Yapping and jumping up and down and generally freaking out. Which starting off the rottweiler next to her. So he starts barking in these low, scary barks and then across the street another dog starts barking and jumping at the front door. I saw all four paws hit the glass door. Tallulah and I were picking up our speed just a bit when then tornado siren starts to go off.
At first I didn't know what it was. Were we being attacked on this 4th of July?
Nope just the monthly testing of the tornado siren. Guess what? It works!
It works so well that I thought my ears would bleed.
Tallulah and I sprinted back to the house just so we could put a wall between us and the piercing siren. Seriously if there is ever a tornado we will definitely hear the warning.

In a Week

In one week I'll be in Orlando for the National Convention on PKD! I'm excited to go, I love seeing everyone and this year I'll be leading Chapter Training, which both scares and excites me. At the moment though I am so exhausted from preparing for it that I really just want to spend the next 7 days in my comfy new bed. Two more days of preparing, then I can relax Monday and Tuesday - because its too late to do anything else after that point anyway.
Here's hoping to make it Florida without crashing too badly.

puddles

I should just warn you now that the next week or so this site will be devoted to freaking out about the never ending rain.
I know it has only been a day - with at least 4 more to follow. And I know that I should just be grateful that we don't live in Greensburg, KS where a tornando wiped an entire town away.

But the basement is full of water. I just spent 30 min squeegeeing it down the drain and it's still full of puddles. Puddles in places we don't normally get puddles.

Rain, rain go-a-way!

Standing Water

Seriously - There is water everywhere- EVERYWHERE!!

The yard is nothing but a giant puddle. Places where we don't normally have standing water are now under inches of water.

I don't think we will be able to take much more of this.

We may float away.

Biggest I've Ever Seen!

You know the whining that happened in the previous post? Well here's some more.
It has now been 5 days since the mold was discovered and I am still miserable. 1 antibiotic, 1 new allergy medicine and 1 new nasal spray and I still sound ridiculous on the phone. Some words still cannot be formed through the congestion.
At least the swelling in my tonsils has gone down, my new doctor actually exclaimed "Those are the biggest tonsils I have EVER seen!" And to be honest they weren't as huge at that time as they often are. So I'm looking into having them taken out. Sometime this fall I'm thinking. Hopefully that will help with the seemingly constant stream of swollen tonsils and general illness.
We'll see!


On another topic we have the tile in the house so we can get to work this weekend!

The sun porch...continued

Last weekend we painted the sun porch blue. And while we thought it might take some getting used to we realize now that it is just way too blue. Blue like the inside of a swimming pool. Or more precisely the same shade of blue that they paint the insides of the fountains at William Jewell. Clearly too blue.

You can't really tell from this picture, but the blue is really very bright!

So we have decided to re-paint. But before we re-paint we decided to pull out the carpet and prep the floor so we can lay tile on Friday.

Upon pulling of the carpet we discovered that it was glued down. Carpet glued to pad which was glued to linoleum, which is some parts of the room was glued to a second layer of linoleum then glued to the floor. YIPPEE!! So I ran off to Lowes for new paint, a giant floor scrapper and a dangerous solvent that removes many layers of glue. Dangerous solvent. I do like such things so I decided to just scrape the heck out of the floor in hopes that the "ds" would not have to be used! And as luck would have it 4 hours later our 8x9 ft room is down to the smooth(ish) concrete and the dangerous solvent remains unopened and ready to be returned. VICTORY! I am, how ever, sore in the entirety of my body and may have to spend the rest of the day lying down watching Hugh Grant movies.

The new paint color is called "Greek Sea" and is much greener, much greyer and looks much better with rest of the house. I'm not sure if we will get around to painting tonight as Michael is in there right now pulling up the baseboards which appear to be installed with 4-inch nails that make up for being unnecessarily long by being rather flimsy and breaking off leaving part of the nail in the baseboard and part in the wall. Good times.

Also we discovered mold (which I plan to tackle using the tea tree cleaner found in my new favorite book "Better Basics for the Home" - Thank-you Aunt Gail!) and 50+ years of dust. So even with my Allegra D I'm still feeling a bit like crap. This post has become a bit whinnier than intended, so I'll stop now saying that this room will be super-awesome even if it kill us!

Hair Away!

We had Tallulah shaved today. She looks so weird. Before she was this fluffy (all be it matted) Muppet like creature and now she looks like a deer. All thin and long legs. I'm hoping we won't have to shave her down like this ever again. The last time we had her groomed did the fur in. It was too long, and instead of curling like does naturally they brushed it all out straight and HUGE, so no matter how much we brushed it she just got more mattes.
So now she is sleek and we will start brushing her the right way and keep her fur at a manageable length. No more super long fur! (or super short) Check out the pics:

BEFORE: Fluffy and oh so cute!

AFTER: Thin, frail and deer like.

What have you done to me?

Spring Fever

It was beautiful today. Absolutely wonderful outside. I came home, threw off my sweater, donned my Capri pants and flip flops and just smiled. Yippee for warm weather! I made some veggie kabos and was ready to fire up the grill when the storm moved in.
Now it is cold again. And wet.
Spring is not here.
It was a dirty, dirty trick.
Now I want spring even more!