Because she must have a portable outlet, or something

So Katie calls a few minutes ago from trick-or-treating. At 15, but whatever. She asks if she can come in the house to get her phone charger (she stays at her dad's on the weekends) because she forgot it. Now, normally this wouldn't be an issue, but the boy just got done screaming crying fighting going to sleep and ain't nobody going up those stairs before morning and taking the chance of waking him now. Especially since it's a Friday night. Eh-hem.

She has to be at her dad's house by 9:30. It's already after 9. She's bitching that her phone is going to go dead before she gets there. Uh-not if you get off the phone now and quit wasting the battery on this lost cause. So she says, "Now I'm going to be on the streets without a phone." My eyes are just about stuck up under my eyelids from not being able to stop rolling them over this one. How about the 87 friends that you're with that all have cell phones? And, even more curiously, how the hell did she think she was going to charge it while roaming the streets?

Just pick it up in the morning, kid.

I'm still marveling that I ever survived childhood without all the things that kids have now-a-days. I also marvel that said kids feel that it's their God given right to have them to begin with.

Not a drop of snow at my house....

....but check out this video from just a few minutes north of me! Whoa.

Wait. What?

A snow storm tomorrow? You've got to be kidding! If this really happens, I'll post pics. It seems a bit early to me....

Update on Mom

Mom finally got her type of leukemia diagnosed. She has CLL...which I think is a good thing. Well, as good as it can be when you are diagnosed with, you know, cancer. *shudder & wince* She hasn't seen the specialist yet. Her appointment is at the end of the month, but her family doctor cannot feel any swollen lymph nodes. With her blood count being normal except for the WBCs, it sounds like she'll be staged low. The usual prognosis is 10-20 years. She's 70. Looking at it logically, and not emotionally, her lifespan really shouldn't be affected too much. Does that sound callous? I don't mean it to. It's just the way my brain works. Of course, things could change at any time and it could accelerate tomorrow. I pray she continues with her life which is filled with vitality. She puts most 70 year olds to shame. Hell, she puts me to shame. I can't imagine her any other way. I don't want to.

New thingy in my sidebar...

OK, I had no idea this thing existed. I was on my dashboard page and saw someone was listed as a follower of my blog. (Thanks, Janet ) I was, like, WTF is this? I'm still trying to figure the thing out because I'm not sure what all it involves...

I will tell you this much...if nobody else clicks on that thing, it'll be off my sidebar in no time flat because, you know, advertising that one person follows my blog is not exactly good for the ol' self esteem. You know?

No pressure, though.

Why me? Sigh.

I swear. It's always some damn thing that goes wrong for me in any plan.

I, being the kind soul that I am, decided to make things as easy as possible for the delivery guys today. Besides, it was the perfect chance to wash the walls in the laundry room. As I mentioned, I took the washer and dryer outside last night. Today, I washed the walls where they were because, I don't know about y'all, but I don't move out my washer and dryer to clean behind them on a regular basis. Maybe I should. Then I cleared all the furniture out of the way between the front door and my kitchen for the stove. My house looked like it had been tilted on its side.

As a side note, I decided I'd love to downsize my furniture. It's amazing how big the rooms look when all that big ol' furniture is out of the way. The furniture never looks that big in the furniture store until it gets home and then it's, like, huge.

Anyway.

First of all, these guys were nice enough, but I'm sure glad I wasn't paying them by the hour because they took 3 times as long as I would have if I did it my damn self. Honestly. I was just about to hip-check the stereotypicalfatbellyheavybreathingasscrackshowing one guy the hell out of my way and say, "Just let me do it, already!" It took about an hour just to take the old stove out and bring the new stove in! WTF?! It took Katie and I 10 minutes to take the washer and dryer outside last night. A fifteen year old girly-girl and a 5'1" woman.

After I rolled my eyes through this, while all the while being as sweet as could be, they went back out to the truck. They were gone about 20 minutes. You really have no idea how irritating this was for me. Finally, dude #1 comes back to the door and tells me that they didn't notice at the store, but there's a dent in the dryer on the side and they can knock 10% off if I wanted to take it and, if not, they can bring me another one back tomorrow. I asked which side of the dryer. He tells me the right side. Figures. The right side is the side that would be showing. He asked if I wanted to see it. Yes, I did. I went out to the truck and it was a pretty big dent. I said, "You can only take 10% off for that? Because that's pretty big." He said he could call in to the manager and I told him to do just that. The manager, after yelling at the guy for not noticing the dent and me looking around like I couldn't hear him blaring out of the 2-way, said to offer $150 off. I was cool with that 'cause I'm all about saving money. They finally bring it in, lose one of the screws to hook the plug up to, spent at least 20 minutes looking for it, until I went to my toolbox to see what I had available. I had one. They tell me they can't hook the vent up to it because it's a plastic one...I know that's not their fault so I kicked them out of my way and did it mydamnself. Then they tested it....THUNK...THUNK...THUNK...THUNK and it got HOT. Sigh. Disconnect and take back outside.

Bring in washer. I had left the hoses from the old washer hooked up to the water source because I had no idea if new hoses would come with the new washer, or not. Now, this is very important...the old hoses were hooked up to the water source. The other end of each were not hooked up to anything. Dude #2 wasn't sure if the water was turned off before he was going to remove them...Do you see where this is going? He turned the fucking water on. I about bit my entire face off to not scream, "YOUSTUPIDFUCK,IFTHEWATERWASONITWOULDBEFLOWINGOUTOFTHEENDOFTHEHOSEALREADY!!!

Sigh.

Now I have no dryer until tomorrow. I work 16 hour shifts on the weekend. They are not allowed to hook up the vent hose. Roni can't do it. Ergo, I have to wait until Monday to move the dryer back out, to hook up the vent and do some laundry. Laundry that is really piling up, BTW.

Changes....in a hurry

Because of the washer/dryer changes coming tomorrow, I'm trying to get the new floor down in that half of the laundry/dog room.



I did mention that I'm putting a new floor down, right? Yeah, I did...OK...well, when I first started a couple weeks ago I went nuts and started cutting the carpet into about 5 foot sections and ripping it out. I got almost all of it out except the last 4 feet, or so, and came to a screeching halt because of having to move the washer and dryer. It's a general PITA to do this stuff when you have to shuffle stuff around to do it. With the new stuff coming tomorrow, it gave me the kick in the ass I needed to get going again. Rather than shuffle the stuff, though, I took them right out the back door and put them in my back yard. I can imagine what the neighbors think. They'll be taken away tomorrow by the guys making the delivery. I promise I'm not going to leave them there....honest.



I didn't take a pic of the old carpet....that would be too embarrassing, but I did take it of the floor before I laid the new tile down and, of course, after:

Before:

After (well, actually it's during...semantics):

What are the odds?

My dryer is near death. Runs for 2 hours and the clothes are nowhere near dry, all of a sudden. To be fair, I don't even know how old the thing is. I got it second hand, from a friend, about 10 years ago. I certainly can't complain. Especially since it was free. Along with the washer. My stove is about 8 years old. It's a smooth top and we cracked the top in the beginning of summer. The crack goes right across one of the large burners, so I've made do with the one large burner and 2 small ones while waiting for the moment some liquid goes down the crack and electrocutes me. Don't worry. I've covered the crack with blue painter's tape to help to keep that from happening. High class all the way. I've been meaning to get a new stove since it happened, but you probably know by now how much I procrastinate. I decided to buy new rather than replace the ceramic top because, with the stove being 8 years old, I just know I'd get a new top and then the whole stove would die, or something.

I also had to buy a new A/C this summer. Do appliances always die within a short time of each other?

Although I've made do with the stove while risking life and limb, but cannot survive without a dryer. This is the thing that has finally prompted me to get shopping. My intent was to buy just about the least expensive dryer I could find. I also intended to buy an inexpensive washer because I figure that I might as well replace my ancient one at the same time since the clock is probably ticking on that sucker, also. That was my intent. But. I wound up ordering a HE washer and its matching dryer. I'm inordinately excited about my purchase. I wish the pics could do them justice, but, if I try to enlarge them, they just get all fuzzy:



After I told the salesman that I would take those, I told him I needed a stove. I'm pretty sure the one pictured is the one I ordered. To be honest, once I heard the ridiculously inexpensive price he gave me (It was on clearance and he knocked another 30% off), I swooned and can't be absolutely positive of it. I'm pretty sure this is the one, though. I love, love, love that it has dual burners on the two large ones. Both large burners are in front, also, which I also love.



You just know that I'll be shopping for a refrigerator soon, don't you?

Woot!

Just a few pics

The weather was picture perfect today and we spent some time outside after grocery shopping and dinner.

I can't believe how big my boy is getting:

This one is while grocery shopping and he's showing how laid back and cool he is:

After 7 years of trying...

Pennsylvania has finally passed the law banning mandatory overtime for nurses. It is on the govenor's desk and he is expected to sign it. It will go into effect on 7/1/09. They finally saw how unsafe it is for a nurse to be mandated. This is a huge win for nurses and patients alike.

Confirmed

Well, the only new thing I know re: my mom and her diagnosis is that they re-did the blood work and her WBCs came back at 96,000 this time. The doctor said that there is no doubt at all that she has Leukemia. She has to see a specialist and I'm still waiting to hear what type of Leukemia it is. I have a call out to her, but she has not called me back yet.

ION (in other news): I had to postpone my interview yesterday because I was totally exhausted from my weekend at work. It was unfreakin' believable at work Sunday. I got to bed around 2:30AM and, of course, Kevin woke up at 6. I called the new place and told her that I would come across as a babbling idiot if I showed up for an interview that day. Oh, yes I did.

So....I went this morning. They want to hire me. Alas, they can't afford me. The Personnel Manager said that "Corporate" was working on coming up with new pay rates. Yeah, they need to. They don't even come close to our STARTING rates, let alone someone with my experience. She looked so sad, I almost felt guilty. I told her to hold onto my application and give me a call if something happens. I'm glad I went, though. For one thing, I got to do an interview for the first time and got that out of the way. For another, I got to see how I'd be in an interview. I thought I'd be nervous, but I was very comfortable and confident. It was cool.

Prayers, please

My mom just called me. She had bloodwork and pulmonary tests done today. She also has Shingles. The covering MD just called her to say her WBCs are at 100,000 and that she has Leukemia. That's all he said to her except to say that if anything happens this weekend, to go to the ER. If not, to call her regular doctor on Monday to see what she wants to do...

We have no idea what kind it's supposed to be. We have no idea what the prognosis is. We don't know anything, yet.

The story of my life...

This right here?

Yeah. It about sums things up right now. Finding my sewer line blocked by tree roots was the capper on my week. Two hundred and eighty dollars later...that is 2-8-0 y'all...and we can use our plumbing again. You just don't realize how precious it is until you don't have it.

After playing phone tag half the week with the Personnel woman at the facility I called to ask about a position, I have an interview for Monday. Monday. My worst day. I can go and look like I'm hung over because I'm just not at my best on that day...sigh. In a way, though, Monday is good because I will have been reminded over the weekend why I am trying to leave a job I've been at for so long. See, by now, my memory becomes foggy and my irritation level with the place is way down because I've been away for days, but I'm sure that by Sunday night I'll be aggravated again and will be happy to check out a new place.

I'm making myself a nervous wreck thinking about it. I've never had to have an interview before. I was pretty much just hired on the spot for this job that I'm at. What the hell do I even wear?! I have nothing! I live in jeans or shorts and scrubs. All my "good" clothes from when I was a manager are either gone or outdated.

I think I'm gonna puke