Do you hear that sizzling sound?

It's the sound of my guts cooking inside of me from this insane heat!

102 today, 114 with the heat index, with humidity at about four trillion percent and not a lick of a breeze. It's H O T. This is Illinois, 102 is fricking deathly hot - not like 102 in say, Arizona. A few years back I was in Phoenix in September and it was 114 when we got off the plane at 11am - got up to 120 and we were on a baseball field at a concert in all that, it was hot, but not like this.

Yesterday we were out in this insanity for about 5 hours. Luckily we were under a tree that offered a little shade, and when I say a little I do mean a little, and there was a breeze from time to time. It was still nasty hot though. It was so hot (how hot was it) that I could barely breathe.

I got home and my clothes were so wet from sweat that you would have thought I just stood outside in pouring rain - if only. From the sound of things, we're in for about 4 more days of this crap this week. Great!

I finally won an American Girl Doll Cubs jacket and hat on eBay that was a give away at the Cubs game I was supposed to go to. I thought my husband would freak out about how much I was bidding on it, but he told me to put in a price of $50 or $60 since it was a heck of a lot cheaper than what it would have cost us to go to the game. Ended up buying it for $39.01. I got out bid by $1 on 2 others I was in on. So, I'm glad I did get it, baby girl will be happy. She doesn't know anything about it, all she knows is that if she has a good day on her first day of kindergarten she'll have a present waiting for her.

Hubby has a church league ball game tonight - tournament play. Don't think we'll be in attendance. We went to the game Saturday night and were literally the only "fans" there for the game. Everybody else was playing, umping or running the concession stand. That was miserable too. Don't need any more of that.

Today at lunch I had just finished eating and sat in the chair to watch some Maury show when I blacked out and fell out of the chair. It was weird, I was coherent the whole time and sort of watched the episode happen from outside myself. I felt strange all last night and haven't exactly felt "right" all day today. Must be residual effects from heat stroke or heat exhaustion or something. All I know is I'm going to spend some quality time soaking in freon tonight while hubby sweats his balls off at the ball game.

Today I'm on the verge of slapping my boss up side his head. Yesterday afternoon was kind of bad too - but today? This man is beyond bad, he needs put in his place.

The way he's been talking to me you'd think that today was my first day on the job and, if I was lucky enough, knew how to flush the toilet. Two weeks ago he was rattling off to a couple of other lawyers how he was going to make me a lawyer yet and that the only thing I was missing was the degree. But today, I'm back to being lucky to be smart enough to flush the toilet.

I seriously believe that a lot of this has to do with his supposed attempt to quit smoking. From what I've seen, he hasn't reduced his daily cigarette intake, if anything I think it's increased. He started taking Wellbutrin the first of this month. He's so cynical when it comes to "modern" medicine. Thousand of people take Wellbutrin with no adverse effects but he thinks he's going to be the one exception to all the scientific evidence. You know, we'd hate for his "cognitive ability" to be altered in any way shape or form.

AGHHHHHH!!!!!!

Here's my advice to him. (1) Stop drinking like a fish, (2) Once you stop drinking like a fish your desire for a smoke with your booze will decrease, (3) Take the medication EVERY DAY as the doctor prescribed it, (4) Act your age - he's 60, and (5) Get over yourself and stop being an asshole!

The Legend of the Boy Band

So I'm surfing the net and come across an article that says that Lance Bass, formerly of N'Sync has "come out" and is telling the world he's gay. The story claims that Lance kept this information a secret because he didn't want his sexuality to overpower the popularity of the group.

I can hear all the tweeny-boppers hearts breaking as the keys clack clack while I type this post. Whatever.

Is this really THAT big of a surprise? Not to me. But, then again, I'm not a tweeny-bopper and I was never a fan, not even a closet fan, of this group. OK, so a few of their songs were ok, still not a fan. Don't own a copy of any of their albums and never ever will.

What I do find a little humorous though is that Justin Timberlake, another member of N'Sync, has a new song out titled "I'm bringing sexy back". Perfect timing with your outing Lance.

But, was sexy ever out? Did anybody tell the Hef that sexy was out? Who decided that Justin Timberlake should be the poster child for bringing sexy back? As a 34 year old hot blooded American woman I can think of, oh - I don't know, about a hundred other guys who should/could be in charge of bringing sexy back. But, the marketing part of me says that sex doesn't sell to 34 year old married women - it sells to - you guessed it, the tweeny-boppers.

Same old Same old

By the time I got home for lunch today the roof was finished and the guys were cleaning up the last bit of their mess. Let me tell you, those guys haul ass. They just started the project at 7:30 Monday morning and were done around 11 Tuesday morning.

You know how you get all excited when you get something "new" for yourself or your house? How you can't wait to see the improvement that new thing made? Yeah, not so much. My house looks the same today as it did at 7:20 Monday morning. Nothing looks remotely changed. Except for the tire tracks in the front yard, those were definitely not there before. Our roof was replaced with the exact same shingles as we had before, well sort of, the new shingles are 30 year and the old shingles were 25 year, other than that - no change.

Oh yeah, we have NO TV now for what could be a week. A WEEK! What the hell am I supposed to do with a 5 1/2 year old without TV for A WEEK!?! The guys had to move our satellite dish to put new shingles under it and put it back in the exact same spot, except now we can't get a signal. We called the local place we got it from and their service guys' kid was hurt in an accident and they have no idea when he may be back to work. Called the national 800 number (Dish Network) and even they can't get anybody out until maybe sometime next week. My husband called another place locally that sells and installs Dish Network and all the guys were out to lunch. Geez, what's it take to find somebody to fix the damn thing?!? I told my husband that as a last resort, we have a client at work that used to work for Dish Network as a service tech, if all else fails, I'll call him up and offer him cash to come fix it. Bad thing now is that he works as a union carpenter up in the city now so it could be dark before he rolls into town.

I can hear my husband already when he realizes tonight that he's missing a Cubs game, and my daughter when she can't watch That's So Raven, Suite Life of Zack and Cody and Phil of the Future...... I hope we get this fixed - T O D A Y !

Total Chaos

This morning the roofers came to our house at 7:30am to get started on replacing our roof from the hail storm last fall. These guys must be fast workers, when I was home for lunch at 11:45am they had the old shingles torn off (only one layer was up there, we just replaced the roof in May of 2001), new sheeting on and they were cutting in the ridge vent. They had the boom truck coming with the new shingles this afternoon. I talked to our friend the contractor, and he hopes to be completely finished before 4pm tomorrow. Yikes! That's fast.

The dog was going ape shit over all the noise. I took her outside so she could do her business and all she wanted to do was find out who those guys were and why they were making such a racket. She finally got calmed down after a while, but geez - I thought she was going to be bleeding from all the scratching on her kennel floor.

A funny thing happened too during all this mess. The phone rang and I saw on the caller id that it was some home improvement company. Normally I'd let it go to the machine, but it was too good to be true today so I answered. You know, the normal speel, do you own your home, were you thinking of making any repairs, we're in your neighborhood doing some other work and would be happy to stop by and give you an estimate. So, I let the guy give me his scripted nonsense. Then, right when I was getting ready to tell him to take a hike, the air compressor kicked on and the guys started sawing the roof for the ridge vent - perfect timing! So, I said to him, as you can hear - we're right in the middle of getting a new roof and siding from the hail storm last September and we just put in new windows two years ago so I don't think you'll need to stop by. Click - he hung up on me! Victory over the telemarketer! Yes!

I'm exhausted today. I spent almost all day cleaning my house. Now I remember why I don't do that. I hate cleaning. I've been trying to convince my husband that a cleaning lady would be a nice thing to have. Not working so far. I'll keep working on him - I already have it at the top of my Christmas list.

This makes sense

I just had Dairy Queen for lunch, for the second time this week. On Tuesday I had a small Pecan Cluster blizzard - today the Pecan Mudslide. Both were yum yum yummy. I see a pattern forming, looks like I'm going nuts.

So, is it no wonder that the numbers on the scale aren't moving? Here I am, working out like a maniac since October, and I haven't so much as lost a pound. I know - I'm losing fat and gaining muscle, muscle weighs more than fat. My legs are getting much more shapely lately - goodbye fat dimples, see you in another lifetime! But it's still frustrating not to even lose one measly pound.

I guess if I was seriously overweight, which I'm not, I'd drop the weight like yesterday's gossip. Believe me, I'm happy with my body for the most part. If I had a choice I wouldn't have a 5" long scar from my belly button to my pelvic bone, but given the option of a natural birth and death or a c-section and life - I choose to live, it's a no-brainer.

If I weren't married I'd find myself some sugar daddy to pay to get me a new set of boobs and some lipo. You know, the finer things in life.

The curse of Thursday

I knew it almost immediately after I woke up this morning...it was going to be a bad day. I don't know how I knew, I just had this feeling.

So far, my feeling has been true. As I was in the shower this morning a mole I have on my right temple, it's been there for - well, ever, decided to burst open spewing blood all over the place. Pretty gross, and painful too. After about 20 minutes I was finally able to get it to stop bleeding but even now, nearly 7 hours after the fact, it's still throbbing. I should probably see somebody about it, but the dermatologist is 45 miles away and I know from previous experience that you can't get a quick appointment there. I doubt this categorizes as an emergency anyhow. It stopped bleeding, it's just the pain factor. Who would have thought that a mole so small could store so much blood. I hate blood, especially when it's mine.

The dog is (has been) acting strangely today (and yesterday) too. She won't potty for me at all. We go outside and she stands there in a strange pose I've not seen before and sniffs. It's kind of ominous. Makes me wonder if she knows something I don't.

Monday at work we had a brief due in the local appellate court. Tons of fun, let me tell you. My boss gets all the credit and I do all the work. Typical.

He gets the credit that is, until we get the notice from the appellate court that something isn't "right", then it's all my fault. Got one of those in the mail today. He hasn't seen it yet - I'm trying to deal with it before he comes back from lunch so when he does see it I've already taken care of the situation. I don't know what the deal is with those people over there...what they say isn't there is, and I did it the way they told me to do it the last time we got one of these love letters. WTF!?! A little consistency would be great people! By the way, since when did I become the lawyer responsible for doing these fricking things to begin with?!?

Well, still four more hours of work for something to go wrong. Can't imagine a misery much worse than this throbbing mole deal but now that I've put that in black and white, something will pop up. Always does.

It is "Man"stration

I just realized something looking back at previous posts. I seriously think my husband suffers from some sort of male menstruation period.

Remember when I was dealing with the silent treatment and seriously contemplating divorce? It was June 19 - exactly one month ago.

Strange?

Fricking Scooter

AGH!

Our luck with motorized vehicles continues on the down hill slope. Monday my husband had his truck in for an oil change and was informed he needs a new serpentine belt, last night took baby girl for a ride on the scooter to the end of our cul-de-sac and it died.

So, the only thing with a motor than hasn't taken a shit on us in the past week is the boat motor. Now that I've put that in black and white I know I'll regret it later. Good thing is, the motor won't get put on the boat for another couple months - have to wait until duck season for that.

My husband was quick to remind me that he didn't want the f@#*ing scooter in the first place and that he told me to take the f@#*ing money and that when he says "no" to something it means f@#*ing no. Believe it or not, I did leave out a few of the times he dropped the F-Bomb on me in a 4 second one sided conversation he had at me last night.

So, it seems my project for today is to get the warranty information for the f@#*ing scooter and get the f@#*ing thing fixed.

Is it Friday yet? No? Great. Mr. Personality has three more days to make my life miserable this week. Woo Hoo!

Yep! Mr. Personality is back rearing his nasty attitude. You know, I didn't force him to take a job in a factory without air conditioning where he has to wear jeans, a sleeved T-shirt and sweaty work boots. Nope, not me. He was working there for a couple years before we even started dating. So then, evidently it's my fault that I have been able to maintain employment in a "cushy" (as he says) air conditioned office where I can wear sleeveless shirts, skirts and sandals? Believe me, there are days that no amount of air conditioning, sleeveless shirts, skirts or sandals make this a cushy job. He thinks I sit on my ass all day (I do) playing on the internet (I do, sometimes) and not even using half of a brain cell. Yeah, right. Working for a lawyer is just all fun and games.

Whatever.

Trouble in Paradise

This morning I received an email from my Aunt in Arizona who is dying from pancreatic cancer. I realized while reading her message exactly how messed up my family is. As I've said before, this is a time when we should all be getting along. As you've probably guessed, we're not. Remember, my mom has 5 sisters...

So, Aunt # 3 had been with Aunt #2 in Arizona since 4th of July. She was planning to be there for about 3 weeks. Evidently, things with my uncle and Aunt #3 have been a little less than friendly since Aunt #3 got to Arizona. The three of them went for one of the usual treatment days and a nurse there was wearing a set of scrubs that were skin tight and my uncle and Aunt #3 got into some sort of discussion about it. They went back and forth until Aunt #3 went into a tirade, my uncle got pissed and took matters into his own hands, literally. Ultimately, my uncle threw Aunt #3's suitcase into the road and she walked out. She spent the better part of a day at Sky Harbor in Phoenix trying to get on a plane to get back to IL and finally got one that came in to Chicago at 2:30 am.

You know, these people are all adults, or so they say. This is not the kind of crap Aunt #2 needs to be dealing with. She's having a lot of reactions to the chemo she's on and is already feeling down in the dumps - this kind of stuff doesn't help at all.

On Sunday I went shopping with my mom and we stopped and had some lunch. As we were there we started talking about some of this stuff. I have 2 cousins getting married in the next year and it should be interesting to see how the wedding / receptions shake out. There are already a couple of my Aunts who swear they aren't going to the first wedding in April because of, you guessed it, Aunt #3 - it's her daughter getting married. And my cousin is evidently oblivious to the fact that her mother is causing so much trouble. Must be all the pot she's smoked finally showing through.

seriously people (referring to my family) you need to get your shit together and start acting like adults instead of grade school kids with the "she said" "she said" bullshit. It's getting real old real fast. If this continues much longer I'll probably be the next to snap, but I really don't care how many of them I piss off - somebody needs to have the balls to slap these bitches in the face and tell them to knock it off. If it has to be me, so be it. Ain't scared.

Hotter than...well, Hell

Today it's been about 100 degrees since 6am. Humidity is at an all time high, which helps soooo much.

If I were to imagine what Hell was like, this would be it. I just ran to the Post Office and the mere act of putting my hands on the steering wheel was like sticking my hand in a raging fire. Not good. Plus, my one of my cats scratched the palm of my hand yesterday. The palm of your hand is not a good place to have an open wound, band-aids are completely out of the question. And, you never really realize how much you use the palm of your hand until you are trying not to.

Step Two: It's Mine

Yep, played the game and won. Turns out it isn't such a hard game to win at when you've got the service manager on your side. Friday night didn't turn as we had wished, I was trying to get as much time in the car as possible since I was convinced I'd be taking it back Saturday and picking up my van again.

Saturday morning, the Hubby called early to see where things were at and got the service manager we've been working with on the problem with the van. He flat out told my husband that he couldn't fix our van, had no idea what was wrong with it, the fuel pump replacement made no difference just like the coil replacement. He said he was going to talk to the General Manager and tell him to do whatever he had to do to get us into the car since the van had them stumped. Yes!

So, Saturday morning about 10am I became the official owner of the 2005 Nissan Altima I had been driving and drooling over since last Wednesday. I'm so happy - I don't want to drive a minivan ever again.

But, today I'm driving a minivan again. It felt weird to climb back up there. Anyway, this minivan is only temporary, my car is being detailed this morning so I only had to drive it the few blocks from the dealership to work and vice versa. I'll be back in my new ride at lunch time.

The weekend was H O T. Felt like we were inside an oven at some points. Saturday we stayed in and sucked up the freon, yesterday I went shopping with my mom and the hubby had a ball game last night. That was hot. Today it's supposed to be triple digit temps, we've got heat advisories and everything.

Step One: Money in the Bank

Yipee!

I just got the call from the bank that we're pre-approved for a loan for the full amount I asked them for. If we do the auto debit feature they'll drop the interest a 1/4% - sign me up for that, duh. 6.75% for 60 months, good to go. Paperwork can be ready for signatures in an hour.

Wow, that's fast! Now for Step Two.

When will the madness end???

We're still playing the game with the car dealership. What a nightmare. Lesson learned, just because someone is your friend in a social setting doesn't necessarily mean they're your friend when they are the General Manager of the car dealership you're trying to buy a car from. I think we'd be better off with Joe Schmo who doesn't know us.

We did all the calculations last night at home and discovered that we're about $1,500.00 away from being "even" on this deal. That is, if we can get him to come down $1,500 more, the car is mine.

Hubby's mom and step-dad came over last night just on happenstance. He's appalled that we're buying a car without first doing extensive research. Sorry, we can't all go through every edition of Consumer Reports known to man and think about what we want to do for two years before we actually do it. Just doesn't work that way in my house. We talk about buying/doing something, we look around locally for what it is we want, we test drive, and we buy. Done deal. This will be my 5th vehicle in the 10 years we've been together, Hubby is on his 3rd. The truck he has now took us the longest to buy, 10 days.

Step-Dad did give us a suggestion on a way to work the dealer over. So, this morning I called our bank and completed a loan application over the phone, I should know what kind of deal they can work us in the next 45 minutes or so. That way, if we get pre-approved for the loan, it's kind of like paying cash for the new vehicle - cut out the middle man at the dealership getting a kick back for using their financing. Plus, we'd keep our money local instead of having to send a payment off somewhere, I hate that.

Hubby knows where I stand on this whole deal. I WANT THIS CAR. So, I'll update later and let you know what's up - if I'm finally a cool 34 year old driving a sporty 4 door sedan or if I'm a 34 year old minivan driving soccer mom.

The madness continues

Well, my frustration with respect to automobiles continues. I'm still without my van, but I'm ok with that. Yesterday at lunch the hubby told me he'd talked to the dealership and they had a 2005 Nissan Altima with 16,000 miles they thought we should look at. So, while still on my lunch (more on that later) I ran out there and gave them back their lovely Ford Taurus with 98,000 miles and flaking paint and picked up the Nissan. I loved it the minute I got in it. As far as cars go, it could be the best I've ever owned, or not.

As a family last night we went for a drive so he could run the piss out of it to see what it had. First off, he's not thrilled with it only being a 2.5 liter. Whatever, he didn't seem to mind about that when he had it going a hundy on the highway with my 5 year old strapped in the back. Agh! I hate it when he does that! He can drive like a fricking moran when he's by himself, there's no need to involve an innocent 5 year old. I've told him thousands of times, one time he'll be jacking around doing some stupid shit like that and get in a wreck, baby girl and I will die and that idiot will walk away without so much as a scratch.

So, by the end of the night last night he was pretty well sold on the 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5 S. I was sold at about Noon yesterday, that's when I picked it up. He talked with our friend the dealership manager yesterday who said he'd have the numbers crunched for us today. When I talked to hubby at lunch he's back to wanting to stick the Nissan up somebody's ass as long as it isn't his. Needless to say, the numbers didn't come back quite as he had expected. We've got a 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan with 46,000 miles on it. We owe about $9,600 on the loan. Hubby told me he wasn't doing anything if he couldn't get the van paid off. Remember too, we just spent $210 to supposedly fix the van and we're currently working on a $500 bill to supposedly fix it again. So, the offer is to pay-off the van, eat the $500 repair bill on the van and take $300 off the price of the car. I pay $333 a month right now for the van, the car payment would go to about $370. NOT. I can barely make the $333, I have no idea at all how I would/could manage $370.

The last thing my husband said to me before he hung up is that he still wants a Volkswagen Jetta or Passat - that's what we were supposed to be looking for. Even being a kraut myself, I've never been an uber fan of the VW. As far as I'm concerned, they can take their Jetta and/or Passat and stick it in their Farfegnugen. This Nissan is a million times nicer than my bosses Passat - and he's got the top of the line. I reminded the hubby that the car/van is my vehicle and I was the one making the payments and that I should be able to get a car that I want. That went well.

So, as I sit here right now, I have no clue what's going to happen but I have a strong feeling that I'll be picking my van up tomorrow and dropping $500 on it. He came to the conclusion that even though the manager of the dealership is a family friend, he's not doing us any favors. He was going to work on him a little more to see if we could at least get even, we aren't really asking for much. I want my van paid off and I want my payments to be less than or the same as what I'm paying now. So, we're really only off a couple hundred dollars. Should be a no brainer if this Ford/Chrysler/Dodge dealership wants to unload a Nissan they ended up with on their lot.

Oh yeah, yesterday the first thing I did in the morning was clean up a pile of cat puke. At lunch, I let the dog out and we came back in. I had to go to the bathroom so in I went and the dog kept pacing back and forth between the kitchen and living room looking at me in the john. Finally she ran into her kennel and puked, twice. Nice. If you've never had the experience of cleaning up dog puke, congratulations. It's the most disgusting thing I think I've ever done - worse than the poopiest poopy diaper, worse than any other puke (except maybe chunks) I've ever had to clean up. N A S T Y.

I'll let you know if I get my way. I never do, so don't hold your breath. I know I'm not.

What? You think I'm made of money?!?

I got the call about the van - not good, not good at all. Remember, I just spent $210 on Friday to "fix" the problem at the same damn dealership. Now they want $500 more!!!! What the hell is wrong with this picture?! They were the dumbshits that couldn't tell if it was a fuel pump or a coil, why aren't they paying for their stupid ass mistake!?! Wait, it gets better - they are being kind enough to decrease the labor charge by $100 since they didn't fix the problem on Friday. Big fricking deal, it's a $100. When you're talking about a repair bill of over $700 in less than a week, who gives a shit about $100? AGHHHHHH!

On a good note, if there can be such a thing, this has prompted the hubby to totally rethink our need for a minivan. For that, I am glad. Never wanted to be a soccer mom driving a minivan, but that's exactly what I've been for the last 2 1/2 years. Last night we talked about it and he's decided he'd like to get a Volkswagen Passat or Jetta. We started looking around online to see what our options were and tried to figure out what our van was worth. Last night, we thought we were stuck with it when we thought we would be sideways in our loan. I called the bank this morning and was pleasantly surprised to learn that we owe a hell of a lot less than we thought. Plus, since I work for an attorney, we get the Black Book that dealers use to value vehicles. Boss man, who is an avid car guy and VW Passat owner, gave me some pointers on how not to get screwed.

We'll see where we get with any of this.

Nothing but trouble

Well, I finally had to bring up the Cubs tickets. Went over like, well - a turd in a punch bowl. So, unless I can resell the damn things to a friend or relative, I just shot $68 on nothing. The seats are a little less than desirable, upper deck - way upper deck. That, coupled with the fact that train tickets to Chicago are $120 have pretty much ruined whatever it was I was going for.

My fricking van has been acting up for about a week and a half. Had it at the dealership last Friday and spent $210 to fix it. Things were great for all of about 18 hours. Saturday morning, the same damn thing happened that I just spent $210 to fix. So, my weekend travels were very limited so I didn't end up stranded without the ability to restart my vehicle. It's been back at the dealership since 7:30 yesterday morning. Wouldn't you know it, they can't get it to act up in any way. Damn Dodge!

Had a nice brief IM encounter with the long lost and refound ex-boyfriend yesterday. He's in Florida you know, and I'm in Illinois - it's a good thing. Anyway, his son that lives here is with him now for summer visitation. Instead of flying back and forth with him they just started sticking him on the plane and sending him on his way. I guess this is a good thing - it means the Ex won't likely be traveling to IL for anything in the all too distant future. Anyway, I know I sound like I'm totally in love with him and would bang him in an instant, but that isn't the case. I do enjoy talking to him and I'm glad we've reconnected after all this time.

Babysitters

Well, the conversation never managed to get the the Cubs tickets situation last night. We had other more pressing issues to deal with.

Monday my daughter goes back to her normal babysitter. The sitter has been on a 2 week vacation that runs out today. This morning on the way to the back-up babysitters house, I reminded my daughter that today was the last day there. She was livid! She started to cry telling me she didn't want to go back to Bevy's that she doesn't have fun and that Bevy doesn't let her do anything.

I have to admit, there has been a very noticeable change in her attitude the last few days. She's interested in doing her "homework" again and is back to playing school with all her stuffed animals and dolls. I do think that the back-up babysitters have everything to do with that - the mom and dad are both teachers, dad teaches grade school PE in the public school system and mom is a grade school teacher at the local Catholic school. These people have 5 kids of their own and deal with other people's kids all day during the school year.

We did talk last night about this summer being it for the normal babysitter. Since we're going to be starting school next month we won't really need the sitter except for school holidays that we don't get off work and the summer. The fitness center here has a day camp they run all summer long and the place is literally 6 blocks from our house. We would pay $8 a week more for the day camp then we do for a week at the sitter. The hubby figured out what it costs us to drive to and from the sitters each week, not including what we pay her, and it shocked me! $48 a week in gas between the two of us.

I don't know. We'll see how things go. It's going to be so hard to break off the relationship with the sitter, she's been going there since February 1, 2001 when she was 6 weeks old. But, I guess that's all a part of the business she's in.

Probably Dead Meat

That's what I could be - dead meat. Maybe, I won't know for a couple days for sure.

The Hubby and I had a brief, and when I say brief I mean like 3 seconds, talk about going to a Cubs game in Chicago. We talked about how much nicer/easier it would be to hop on the train and go, but that it would have to be a 1:20 game so we would make the return train at 5:55 pm.

Well, our anniversary is coming up in September so I got on eBay to see what was available for a 1:20 home game before school starts to baby girl could go with us. She's never been on a real train before. I was looking for Friday, Saturday or Sunday games, but found a Thursday game that's a promotion day, American Girl Doll outfit day. Just so happens that baby girl got an American Girl Doll for Christmas from Nanny and Papa.

So, without checking first with the hubby, I bid on them. Face value of the tickets is $17 each and I bid $20 each kind of half hoping to get out bid. As of right now, I am the winning bidder. Eeek.

So, I got on Amtrak to check the fares and if I get the tickets for the game for my current bid, which will be my max, it'll cost more for train tickets than it will for the game tickets. Still, all told it will be about $150 and that's a hell of a lot better than the Vegas trip I was looking at for just the two of us.

So, we'll see how this goes over at supper tonight. My guess is that it'll go over like a turd in a punch bowl - not great.

Recap

Today is my first day back to work after a 5 day respite. It was hard to get back into it at first, but then when I remembered today was Wednesday it seemed to make it easier.

I was so wrong about the whole scooter issue. I called the jerk of a used car salesman back to get the scoop on selling it back to him only to find that he had knocked $200 off the price he shot me on my driveway. So, rather than $700 in my pocket, I would only have $500 because he couldn't possibly sell the thing as new, it was dinged up. Sorry jackass, I look at mileage on things, when it says 0 all the way across, it's new no matter what song and dance routine you try to sell me on. So, needless to say, I spent $160 on tax, title and license for the damn thing and kept it! My husband was furious, at first. Funny, he's the one that wanted it the least but he's put about 60 miles on it since 3pm Friday. I rode it for maybe 1 mile.

Fireworks were awesome this year. Every year this little town about 20 minutes from us has a being going on all weekend, carnival, beer garden, etc. The fireworks last about an hour and are incredible. I drank a 6 pack of the new Captain Morgan Parrot Bay malt things. Tasty. No buzz, no hangover. They were a little too sweet, but I made it work.

Yesterday we went to a little zoo near Moline. We've been there 3 or 4 times now. They've done a lot of work, added some new exhibits and renovated some others. They've got another big project they have going on now, so we'll have to go back next year and see what it's all about. It's close, it's cheap ($11.25 for 3 of us to get in and ride the train), and my daughter loves the place.

Hubby had a ball game Friday night. They smoked the other team and it was funny. This is church league, fast pitch softball. Some of these teams take the whole thing way to serious. Our team does it for fun, and they certainly have fun doing it. The other team had 4 of the "loaded" bats, I have no idea what the deal is with them except that they cost about $600 a piece. Our guys have a bunch of $10 WalMart bats and were hitting home runs like it was the home run derby in the majors. Funny stuff.

That's it. 5 days off in a row. Nice. But, I'm glad to be back to work today, as strange as that sounds.