Saturday, June 21, 2008

A Little Offline Time For Me

My laptop wireless card died and when I looked it up online, I found out that it was a hardware malfunction (wireless card and motherboard clash, so new motherboard and card for me) and HP extended the warranty for this problem, which is the good news. The bad news is that it has to be mailed off and will be away from home for 7-9 business days or so. Our desktop is really slow AND I have about a zillion things that I need to do around the house, so this will be a good time to get my arse in gear.

I will pop in different places from time to time and if you have my number, feel free to call.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

I'm Hooked

Tummy suggested that I buy a Ped Egg for my yucky callous (heels have not been kind to my feet this spring. Perhaps 3" is too high for work?). I happened to mention said product at a family thing this week and two people there both insisted that I needed to try it. I left the party and went straight to Walgreens to find one. Lo, there it was on an end cap beckoning me. I had to buy it.

I expected to either gash myself and bleed all over the place or not be able to tell a difference. I was wrong on both counts. My feet are MUCH smoother and the gross tough places are much less noticeable. For some weird reason, I take much pleasure in emptying the egg and seeing all the funky dead skin that has come off the bottom of my foot--sort of like using those Biore strips.

If you haven't already, go buy a Ped Egg. Your feet will thank you.

P.S. Jay thought I had bought a Pet Egg. He couldn't figure out what all the fuss was. Sam, on the hand, saw it and immediately knew it was a Ped Egg and that it was for scraping the dead skin off your feet AND that it was so gentle, you can rub it against a ballon and it won't pop. My little TV geek.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Tagged By Tummy

Random things about me:

1. I am a terrible speller.

2. I have had the worst spring ever. Just a lot of things combined to make it positively horrid. I'm hoping for a better summer, but it doesn't look promising. Some days there just aren't enough drugs to make things look better.

3. I hate blue eyeshadow. I try to wear it--navy, not baby--and it always looks like hell. Boo hiss on blue.

4. I just bought two new lispsticks--that long wear Cover Girl stuff-- and two new tubes of mascara--one regular Lash Blast and another waterproof Lash Something or Other. These are the only Cover Girl products I would ever buy. I have bad memories of everything CG smelling like Noxema, so I have an aversion. I wear a lot of L'Oreal and Milani lately with just a touch of Tarte.

5. I have a callous on the bottom of my foot that is driving me infuckingsane. How do I get rid of this? I've never had one before. I'm guessing it's from wearing high heels so much.

6. I have recently discovered how to email from my cell phone. How did I not know this was possible? I love it.

Am not tagging anyone yet---will go back and do that in a bit.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home

*clicks well moisturized and exfoliated heels together while wearing pink Old Navy flip flops**
So it has occurred to me that no matter how much of a sty one's home is, it is still HOME. Gah! I left my house on Thursday, May something, intending to return home the following Monday morning. I went down to participate in the Relay for Life (my faux sister Susan organizes it and my high school friends that now teach at the middle school have a team that I join) that I extended that stay until Wednesday voluntarily--Sarah was moving to Calgary and I wanted to be able to spend some more time with her and her girls. We went so many years without ever seeing each other that I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do with her daughters.
Insert really unflattering photos of me and Sarah's oldest daughter Jackson at last year's Relay here:


And with Austin this year here:



Friends, never let it be said that I am too full of myself to hide the less than attractive photos of myself...it's what keeps me real and in touch with the people.

Anyway, read the other post if you want to know exactly WHY I didn't leave Chattanooga as planned on Wednesday. No, here it is Saturday--NINE frigging days after I left home for a 4.5 day jaunt, and I'm preparing to leave. You can imagine how thrilled W. is with me a this point. He's a good egg no matter how much I bitch about him. Frankly, no matter how much he's complained about me being gone, I think he and Five have actually probably enjoyed having the sty, er house to themselves for the whole week plus.

Since Sarah left, I've had lots of free time. I could have gone out w/ a friend on Thursday night, but I just didn't feel like it. Everyone that I know had to do mundane things such as work or spend time with family, so I had lots of solitude. I went to see Sex and the City. I ate at Panera a lot. I stayed up faaaaar too much (last night was freakish and I went to sleep at SIX a.m.) and watched all sorts of my favorite cable rerun shows, Top Chef, and Regis and Kelly. Good times, but pretty damn boring after awhile.

I miss having something to actually DO. This is a clear sign that the Wellbutrin is kicking in, I think. So, I'm heading home in just a few--meeting the parents in Murfreesboro to pick up my kids on their way home from their trip to Wyoming because I don't want to wait for them to drive all the way here and then leave. I'm that ready to just be home. Weird, but true.

I will update here more often, but if I disappear other places, you understand why. I have summer school for two weeks and many, many weeks worth of housework to deal with. Plus, I have to begin my holy-shit-I'm-almost-40 workout regimine so that I don't cry when I see pictures of the unfortunate event. To quote a smart lady, "Be safe!"

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Want To Feel Better About YOUR Day?

Then read about MY day yesterday--Thursday, June 4, which is evidently the day of Satan.
After staying up waaaay too late, I got up at 4 to get sarah and the girls off to Calgary. She stayed here with me because it's closer to the airport (I'm in Hixon at my parents' house). I went out to check my van because we were afraid that a light had been left on last night--it had not, but I left the keys in it like a dumbass. turned to the kill-the-battery-position and then left them there for close to an hour.

We get outside with the girls to leave and my fucking van wouldn't start. Igo tearing around the house and get dad's Jeep keys, start the jeep--thinking that surely he has jumper cables or we can drive it if we have to. I can't get the back doors unlocked for some reason, so i get out--with it running--and shut the door. as SOON as I shut it, I realised that I had locked it. so now the Jeep is running with the keys locked in it AND the van won't start. Sarah is starting to panic and the girls are getting freaked.

I had to call Daddy and wake him up---3.55 a.m. mountain time. He told me where to find more jeep keys AND that he doesn't have jumper cables here, so I can't jump it off. there are no backseats in the Jeep and it is loaded with tools and stuff. Well, if you know my parents, then you know that means there is only one vehicle left to choose from (techincally, there are three, but the VW Thing isn't running and there's no way in hell I'd drive the 64 1/2 Mustang....that leaves the 15 passenger white Dodge van affectionately known 'round these parts as Big Ugly. It's a leftover from my parents' antique show hauling days and they still use it for camping. I have never driven it before--for good reason.

Sarah and I unloaded her four lead-filled suitcases, along with the biggest jogging stroller on the planet, all the kids' stuff and piled into Big Ugly, which I then proceeded to drive to the airport. My parents' driveway isn't long, but it's got a weird curve, so I always turn around and drive out 'normal' in my own car. Given my luck of the day, I wasn't about to chance turning around--I'm sure I would have hit my van, the house or backed off the edge of the driveway, so with Sarah hanging out one door and me the other, I successfully made it out fhe drive in reverse.Yay for me! Once we got out of the driveway, it was a piece of cake, but my nerves were shot. Got to the airport in plenty of time.

I returned home. Tried my van...it started. I was like, WTF?, but glad that I wouldn't have to bother anyone. Oh, silly Kim, if you'd only known.

I went back in and cleaned up, washed the sheets that we'd used, showered, dressed, packed, etc. Around 10.45 or so I went out and tried the car again--it started. Then, like a complete Simpleton, I turned off the van, plugged my cell phone into the car charger and left the motherfucking side door open. Didn't even cross my feeble mind that I should have left it running.

You can guess what happened next---the damn thing was deader than hell when I went back out. I gave it an hour. Still nothing, so I had to call Aunt Barbara to come jump me off. Bless her heart, she came right over and we managed to get it running. Whew. Off to home.

Or not.

After driving all around southeastern Tennessee, the Check Transmission message started blinking at me and my overdrive light began to flash as I drove down Amnicola Highway. Even a mechanical ignoramous such as myself knew that this was bad. I found a place to pull over, called W. in a panic. He said to check the trans. fluid and add some. (Sidenote--my van had been driving oddly all weekend, but I didn't really put it all together at the time). I made it to a Conoco, which didn't carry the fluid, but I checked my level there and I was almost totally out. Yikes.

Drove a little bit further, praying all the way that the transmission wouldn't just lock up on me. Made it to a Chevron. Bless the lovely man who worked there. He called me "Sunshine" and helped me put the fluid in, check everything. I felt confident that the worst was behind me.

I? am notorious for being inept at judging the future and this? was another example.

I start driving down Amnicola again and get to almost the same exact spot and the frigging transmission light comes on. Fuck me. I managed to pull over and drive up a block or so to an empty parking lot...this involved going up a hill and I wasn't entirely sure I was even going to make it, but I did. I got out and checked. Damn fluid was empty. I looked under the van for the obvious and yes, there where even I, Kim the Automotive Moron, could see it was transmission fluid flowing freely out and making an impressive puddle on the pavement. The black asphalt pavement. The black asphalt pavement that was super heated because it was about 95 degrees outside and there wasn't a lick of shade.

More panicked calls. Clearly I wasn't going anywhere in the van. I'm smart like that. After much, much cursing and such, I had to call Aunt Barbara yet again to come get me. As I waited for her, I got hotter and hotter. I swear I have never sweated so much in my whole entire life. I had sweat rolling down the backs of my legs. Nasty.

To make this incredibly long story a little shorter, I will spare you the details about trying to figure out where to take my car. I knew that the Ford dealership was my last resort because those folks are slow as Christmas and dumber than shit. After calling like a million people that live in and around Chatanooga, friend from high school, David Poe, found me a place to take it, but they didn't advertise transmission work. I was going to call them and see what they suggested, but then my dad remembered that the name of the place where he had the Mustang worked on is called Mr. Transmission. Needless to say, my search for a mechanic was over.

So here I sit in my parents' house with pretty much nothing to do. Car was towed today to Soddy Daisy and will hopefully be repaired cheaply and quickly. I'm just going to stay here until the weekend when the kids get back from their trip out West with Mom and Dad. And I'll probably be driving the Jeep home, which makes my back and knee hurt just thinking about it--stick shift, no frills, three hour trip. Ugh.

I have been to Walgreens and bought mascara and lipstick because they were on sale. Had a prescription for Tramadol transferred here so I won't be forced to go seek out drug dealers w/ Percocet or Demerol downtown. I'm going to ice and heat my back and just listen to the silence for a couple of days. And try not to go bonkers in the process.

So unless you ate accidentally live slug for breakfast or you peed yourself in public yesterday, consider your day much better than mine.

Monday, June 02, 2008

Summer Is Here, I Will Be Soon, Really.

Ugh. Just super-duper overwhelmed with life. I have been a bad cyberfriend and I apologize profusely. I am just not good at dealing with stress sometimes, and that manifests itself in hermitlike behavior.

I am currenly in Chattanooga helping a friend pack and move for the summer. I'll be home in a couple of days and I hope to be refreshed and ready to get back into the swing of being kimtastic.