Not a happy post

I feel extra fat today. Not fun. I've been doing really well losing weight and now it has come to a screeching halt, in fact I am now going backwards. I decided not to get on the scale until we weigh in but this morning I succumbed and I have gained back 5 pounds in the last week. I don't know what I am doing wrong and it is FRUSTRATING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not getting back on the scale...EVER! I won't even bother weighing in on April 15th for the end of the contest. I'll just hand over my $20 and be on my way. I'm gross.

HOLY CRAP my house is clean!!

Travis walked in the door on Friday and I yelled to him to take his work boots off because the floors were clean. I heard him say as he was walking in, "Oh, has somebody been doing a little cleaning?".
"Yes," I said "But it sure wasn't me!".
"What??...Oh, did you have Sam come and clean?"
"Yep!"
"Good! Our house was disgusting!"

So, he ended up not being mad at all! Which was nice because I wanted to enjoy the cleanliness without having to justify it to a poopy hubby:) I'm sure that I will be better at keeping my house clean after I have another kid and become a SAHM. But who knows, maybe I'll keep Sam cleaning for as long as he is willing to do it! I really really really hate to clean. I HATE the smell of Windex and toilet bowl cleaner. Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy having my house dirty and I'm good at maintaining cleanliness (Travis on the other hand is a messy messy boy) but I'm just one of those people who wants someone else to clean my house and I'm not ashamed to say it. I think it goes back to my childhood. Most of you who know me know that I was pretty much a cleaning slave growing up. Especially after my sister Sarah and step-sister Amber moved out. I was responsible for cleaning EVERYTHING!! Including (and most of these were weekly, if not twice a week chores):
vacuuming the whole house
cleaning the kitchen and doing the dishes every night(which also included removing all of the burners from the stove and cleaning them)
taking out the garbage
mowing and weed whacking the lawn
trimming the tree in our front yard (this was only once a year of course)
cleaning the pool and keeping the chemicals for the pool in check
cleaning BOTH bathrooms (which I always found incredibly disgusting to have to clean my parents bathroom because...eww...I was cleaning up after THEIR poo & pee & pubes & body scum!!)
scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees with ammonia & water because Gail thought that it was more thorough than using a mop (same with the bathroom floors)
cleaning all SEVEN panes of the sliding glass doors inside and out(not with Windex and paper towels or newspaper. No, I had to use a mixture of vinegar & water with a sponge and then use a squeegee to wipe it off, making sure that I didn't leave any streaks on the doors)
spraying off the cool decking around the pool
brooming off the front step and walkway
trimming the bushes in front of the house
dusting and Windexing all of the furniture including all of the pictures and mirrors throughout the house

I'm sure there are some other random chores I'm forgetting. Wow!! Was that cathartic or what? Anyway, as you can read, I have had my share of the cleaning duties and although I know that now that I am an adult and I am responsible for keeping my own house clean, I choose to have someone else do it for me. Gail had me, so why can't I have Sam?? :) At least I pay him for all the cleaning he does and he doesn't even come close to doing all of what I had to do. So, enough of my justifications. I don't feel guilty about it AT ALL. And for those of you who have kids who hate to do chores, just clue them in to how bad it really could be:)

Summary- My house is clean from top to bottom and I love it.
Peace out and word to your mom.

I gotta basket full of lemons and they all taste the same

So, I rehired Louisa's fiance, Sam, to clean my house again. Travis decided that we could keep it clean ourselves if we worked together and I figured as long as I had his help, we really could give it a go. We were doing a pretty good job until we both went out of town. Since then, we haven't been able to stay on top of...EVERYTHING! So, without consulting Travis, I called in my cleaning wizard and he is probably cleaning my house right now as I write this. I'm so excited I could pee!! Travis might get a little angry with me but I think having the house clean and having me happy are two things you just can't put a price tag on (or at least that's what I keep telling myself). So here's a big here here for my main man maid :) SAM!!!

On another note, while on a road trip with Louisa, to LA, to see our friend Ben in The Graduate (you may know him as Whopper Jr. in the Burger King commercials), Louisa and I mastered the song Letterbox by TMBG. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're missing out, and you should be very impressed with our mad skills.

Here is a picture to ponder...

Let's do this thang...

I'm feeling like my blog is super boring. Not that I think stories about my son are boring but I seem to complain a little bit more than I'd like. I'm really not much of a complainer. So, in the spirit of "me"ness, I'm switching this blog up a bit to become a little bit more fun and more me. Granted I will still tell stories about my son and I'm sure will rant the occassional rant but I'm gonna try to liven up this dusty old blog. Also, I'm feeling kind of bummed that some people have let their blogs go, due to a certain addiction to a thing called Facebook, and I don't want to face an intervention myself. I also know that not many people read my blog but for those few who do, I wanna keep things interesting. So, to kick things off in the right direction, here is a picture from one of my favorite artists...

Let's see what happens...

I commented on my very good friend Sarah's page and so now I am obligated to post this but at least I get a homemade gift:) Honestly, I'm doubting that 5 people even read my blog. Oh well, read on...

Pay attention kids! Here is the deal:

The first five people to comment on this post will get something made by me. My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
2- What I make will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be photography, I may sew or stitch or bake something. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5- I reserve the right to do whatever I want!

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your own blog and offer the same deal to 5 of your own lucky blog readers. So, the first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they are in, win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it.

You know I'm crafty, so bring it on!!

The rest of the story

So, Saturday we got up and played with the horses and got muddy and cold again:) Oh, but before we went outside that morning, Cole decided to walk off the end of a big marble step and cracked his head on the bottom step. His eye was pretty swollen and turned reddish purple. Good times. He now has a pretty nice black eye that Travis is diggin' because he says it makes him look tough. A tough 16 month old...uhhhh. Anyway, Sarah, Cole and I drove down to Chico and had lunch. Yes, the check engine light was still on:(
We stayed the night at Sarah's house in Gridley, had breakfast with my mom in the morning and went back to Sarah's, so Cole could take a nap. And as anti-climactic as it was, the check engine light turned off when we were driving back to Sarah's, but I was thrilled. I debated whether or not to put Cole down for a second nap because it would be cutting it a little close to us needing to leave for the airport. I decided to put him down anyway and just made sure that I would wake him by 2:30pm, so we could have some time to get there to drop off the rental car and catch the shuttle to the airport. He slept for an hour, I got him up, we said our goodbyes and we were on the road by 2:40pm. It had started raining that morning and the closer we got to Sacramento (where the airport is) it was coming down in sheets and there was some pretty thick fog. Despite the rain and fog, I made it to the car rental place in pretty good time and was dropping off my car by 3:45pm. Because it was raining so hard, I kept Cole in the car as long as I could. I unloaded the bags from the trunk and had to take Cole out of his carseat, so that I could attach the wheels to it. While I was doing that, Cole climbed into the front seat and was pretending to drive the car. I took his carseat out of the car and said, "ok buddy, let's go". I shut the back door and went to open the front door to get Cole out and I heard, beep beep. Yep, Cole locked the car!! In hindsight, I figured out that he pushed the lock button on the keys that were still hanging in the ignition (because the lady told me to leave them in). Before I shut the back door, I even looked to see that the car was unlocked and it WAS. Call it perfect, or terrible, timing but he locked the car right after I shut the back door. Needless to say, I started to freak. I actually kept my cool but my heart was seriously beating in my throat. I looked around and the lady who told me to leave the keys in the car sees me and asks, "Did you just lock your baby in the car??".
I reply, "NO! He locked himself in the car. Do you guys have a spare key?"
"No."
"Well, you need to help me because we have a plane to catch."
"How did you lock your baby in the car?"
"I didn't. Can you get someone to get him out??"
"I can try to find the mechanic."
"Do that now, please."
So, she walks away and this really nice lady comes out of the rental place and asks if he's alright. He is, of course, just fine:) In fact, he is honking the horn and turning the wheel making vroom vroom sounds. He's so stinkin' cute. Since I'm getting soaked by the second, I decide to see if I can get Cole to open the car. I knock on the window to get his attention and ask him to push the buttons to unlock the door. Amazingly, he starts to push various buttons (and if the car would have been turned on, he would have rolled down the window!) but unfortunately when he pushed on the lock button, he just kept locking it. I begged for him to push the other side but his understanding only went so far. Then I tried to get him to pull on the door handle to unlock it and again, amazingly, he pulled on the handle. But as hard as he could pull, it was just not enough to undo the lock. The same lady who yelled at me for locking him in the car came back after about 10 minutes with a Slim Jim to try and unlock the car. She had no idea how to use it and I offered to help because I've seen people use them before. But she said that if I hurt the car in any way, I would be held liable for the damages. So I had to watch her fumble and scrap the car up for a good 5 minutes before she gave up. After a few more minutes, the mechanic showed up. By this time, I am COMPLETELY soaked to the bone. There was not a single inch of me that wasn't wet. The mechanic pounded in a shim, inserted this metal thing between the door frame and the car and started to turn a knob that spread the top of the door open. He slid in a long metal wire, that Cole kept yanking on until I told him to stop (I think a part of him knew that it was important for him to listen to me and be good) and eventually the guy hook the lock and unlocked the door. I thanked him, yanked Cole out of the car, put him in his sopping wet car seat and we were off to the shuttle. I was running as fast as my legs could carry me, Cole, and three peices of luggage and as soon as I rounded the corner of the rental building I saw the shuttle sitting there. I ran down the sidewalk praying that the driver saw me and that he would wait. But dontcha know, he closed the doors and pulled away when I was about 15 feet from the shuttle. I was dumbfounded. I'm almost positive that he did see me coming but left anyway. By this time it was about 20 after 4pm. I was supposed to check my luggage in by 4:10 and my flight was leaving at 5:10pm and I was STILL at the car rental place. I called Sarah and told her what had happened and she couldn't even speak. She couldn't even find any words of encouragement because she was blown away by the way this whole trip had gone for us. The next shuttle showed up about 10 minutes later. We loaded up, with the help of a very nice man, and finally were on our way to the airport. Travis called me while I was in line to check my bags and he was really sweet about the whole thing. He told me to keep calm and if I did miss my flight, that it would be ok and I could just get on the next one. Yeah, easy for him to say whe he doesn't have to be the one chasing a crazy baby through the airport for possibly hours! What sucked was that, while I was explaining the whole thing to Travis on the phone, I know that the people in front of me heard that I might miss our flight and no one offered for us to go ahead of them. People suck. When I finally got up to check my bags, I explained the situation (very quickly) to the lady and she said that as long as security didn't hold me up for too long, I'd probably just be able to make my flight, even though we might be the last ones on the plane. I ran to the escalator (I wasn't about to wait for the stinkin' elevator) and akwardly balanced Cole all of the way up. When we got to the top, I saw the line for security. Yeah, that's right, it not only wound back and forth about ten times but then it also extended back over this bridge/walkway thing. There were easily 100+ people in line. I accepted my defeat and turned to walk to the end of the line when I heard a woman behind me saying, "excuse me...excuse me miss...excuse me...can you get her attention for me." I didn't think she was speaking to me but another woman that I was facing said, "that lady is talking to you". I turned around and saw a security woman jesturing for me to come to her. I walked over and she said..."you can use the family lane"!!!!! The clouds opened and the angels sang!!!! There was a line with about 3 small families waiting in a line next to her to go through security. FAMILY LANE!!!!!!! I almost started to cry. We whipped past security, ran to our gate and walked right on the plane. The plane ride home was pretty uneventful because I kept the dvd player with us and we watched Monster Inc. all the way home. I also had M&Ms and water to help with the crankiness and popping ears. I had never been so happy to come home in all of my life:) It was a fun trip and honestly we had near misses all over the place, so it wasn't that terrible. It was just one thing after another, after another, after another...you get the idea. Needless to say, I probably won't be going on any solo kid trips for awhile. Good times.

Our "vacation"

I'm going to try and finish this story before Cole wakes up from his nap but if I don't I'll just post it and finish it later. It's a long one:)

So...Travis decided about a month ago to plan a trip to Wyoming to go ride on the tram that he spent FIVE months building last year. I decided that since he'd be out of town, I'd take Cole to go visit my sister and my mom. No, I didn't think it would be easy going out of town alone with my boy but I had no idea that Murphy's Law would be following me the whole time. We got up the morning of Feb. 19th at 5 am and were at the airport by 5:45am to check in. I had two check on bags, one carry on, Cole's carseat, and Cole (in his carseat). Side note: if you don't have one of these, and you have kids, get one. It made my trip possible! Okay, so I walk up to check my bags and show my id and the lady asks me for proof of Cole's age. Yeah, that's right...I forgot his birth certificate. I explain that he is only 16 months old but she insists that it is policy and if I can't prove his age, I will have to buy another seat on the plane for him ($220). I blurt out that his brithday is 10/13/07 and that I couldn't make it up that fast if it wasn't really his birthday. She smiles and asks if I can have proof for the flight back home and I say 100% for sure. So she hands me my boarding ticket and tells me to have a nice flight (1st crisis averted). By this point, my heart is racing but I'm happy that she didn't charge me for the seat, so I mosy up to our gate and feed Cole bluberries until we board. On the plane, Cole is an angel...for the first hour. For the last 20 minutes of the flight, he was a raving lunatic. Screaming, flailing, snotting, drooling, punching and kicking. He was sick of being confined and his ears were hurting during the descent. I kept apologizing to the people around me but they were all very nice and kept telling me it wasn't my fault and they know how it is. After we finally landed, I got our bags and we headed over in a shuttle to the car rental place. I got the keys, found the car and loaded everything into the trunk. I went to put Cole and his carseat into the car and when I opened the door I was hit in the face with the disgusting smell over cigarette smoke!!! I blurted out, "oh hell no!". I left everything there, except Cole of course, and walked back over tto the main office to get us another car. They obliged and I had to unload, haul over and reload the other car with all of our stuff. I had brought our portable dvd player for Cole to watch in the car, so that he could watch his precious Monsters Inc. and would be happy on the hour and a half car ride to Chico. I had never set up our dvd player in the car before, so I had to read instructions and spend about 20 minutes getting everthing strapped into place and ready to watch. We finally left the car rental place and as we headed out toward the freeway, the dvd screen fell shut and Cole started to have a fit. I should have pulled over but I just reached back and set it up. While I was doing that though, I passed a sign for a freeway and I just assumed it was the one I was supposed to get on. WRONG! After about 5 minutes or so driving on this freeway and having nothing look familiar, I saw that I was on the 5 going north when I was supposed to be on 99. I didn't panick though and figured I would get off at the next exit and flip around. WRONG!! The next exit took me on this FOREVER road that ran parallel to the freeway, still going in the opposite direction! After about 10 minutes on this thing, I was starting to lose it. Finally, it bent back around and I was able to get going in the right direction on the right freeway.

We made it Chico pretty quick and met up with my mom. Then we started the trek up the mountain to her house in Forest Ranch. As we were climbing the hill, wouldn't you know it, the check engine light came on in the rental! We made it though and we figured it was just hard on the car going up the mountain. We had a really great time at my mom's (minus my step-dad's forever menacingly bad attitude). Cole LOVED playing with the horses and dogs and playing in the snow and mud mud mud. There was ALOT of mud and it was cold mud. But Cole was having a blast, so I didn't mind getting dirty right along with him. Unfortunately that night, it was extra cold in the other "wing" of the house (where Cole and I were sleeping) and they left their dog, Eeyore, out and he barked ALL NIGHT LONG. Needless to say, I didn't get any sleep and Cole woke up at 4 in the morning to take a massive dump, so that was fun. Friday afternoon my sister Sarah came up to see us and she stayed the night!! Cole had a blast with her and my mom:) We had a better night sleeping that night because I left Cole downstairs, where it was warm. Sarah and I slept upstairs with lots of blankets and they locked up Eeyore for the night!! The sleep was lovely:)...oh yeah there's more...