Monday, June 29, 2009

Traveling in hel...I mean Illinois (Same thing!)

A couple weekends ago we were supposed to drive to IL for a wedding... here is how it played out!
We started off leaving 2 hours later then planned. That was mainly my fault due to not being completely packed, but partially Mike's fault cause he didn't know what time he was going to be done with work. The weather was horrible. It was pouring so hard that visibility was 50-100 ft for the first 2 hours. This just stressed Mike out and made him very tense. His neck started hurting much sooner in the trip because of this. While it was pouring, we all of a sudden came to a standstill. After about 5 minutes of being stopped, I called my mother-in-law to see if she could check the news for accidents or whatever. After 5 minutes of no news, we found out the road was flooded and we would have to turn around and find a different road all on our own. Luckily for me I can read maps... even old ones with water spots all over them.

Mike is now EXTREMLY stressed. I think he has a sincere phobia of getting lost, and as much as he trusts my map reading skills, he was even more stressed then before. At this point we had gotten on a smller highway which would only take us about 10 minutes out of our way. THEN we came to a stand still again. As we crept forward we came to what looked like a river flowing across the hwy at a rushing speed. This "river" was atleast 50ft wide and 2-3ft deep and we needed to drive through it. We wouldn't have crossed if we hadn't just witnessed a car the same size as ours go through safely. Needless to say, this was now even more stressful.

After this point I demanded we stop at a gas station because I had a horrible headache from reading the map while driving. The next hour or so was spent with me trying to navigate the map. I missed one turn off which took us another 45 minutes out of our way. And then when we finally got to the Mississippi River crossing, there was a detour so I took my own way which ended up getting us lost in IL on a tollway. So we had to turn around, costing us an additional $5 to get off and on and off again from this dumb tollway. After the long trip we finally made it to the hotel at 10:30 pm, when we originally planned to get there around 6pm.

We were very hungry and there were ZERO fast food places within eye sight. We didn't WANT to drive and didn't know where we would have gone anyways. So we walked to this little bar and grill right by the hotel. When we got in there it was karaoke night and the most unorganized place ever. No servers, no menus. Couldn't here anything. Ugh. Very disappointing. So we went back to our room and I ended up ordering Pizza Hut (which only took 8 calls to find the one that delivered to us).-So the first day SUCKED!

Saturday morning we went to the restaurant located in the hotel for breakfast. It was a decent breakfast, but I don't know about it costing $15 a person. Then we went to the pool and swam for a little bit. The heater for the hot tub was broken. The sauna didn't work very well. Then Mike wanted to play racquet ball. I had never played but agreed to play. There was a $10 charge to play, which I didn't tell Mike about. It would have stressed him out and it was the one thing he was really looking forward to doing. So I spent about an hour trying to learn a new sport and have my husband criticize my every move as I lost each game by over 20 points. Then we went back to the same bar and grill to try it for lunch. The food was good but when I went to pay my card was declined. After we left I called the bank to find out my account was negative $600 and there were atleast $500 in pending transactions which would be recieving fees of $35 each (about 12 of them). (It turned out that most were false charges but in turn caused checks to bounce and othr angry people).
As if nothing else could go wrong, my pancreas started hurting. In an effort to not miss the entire reception, I decided that I would nap instead of going to the ceremony. Luckily for me it worked and I was good to go for the reception. When we got to the reception there was a group of my friends there that I had no idea were going to be there. In this group was a guy that I used to work with at Pizza Hut. He is truly one of my best guy friends. So this was a good part! Yay for something good! There was an open bar, which I was looking forward too, even though Mike specifically told me he didn't want me to get trashed. This one bar tender was a total d!ck to me. He wouldn't serve me half the things I asked for when he would serve it to others, and I could get it from a different tender.

There was lots of very yummy food. There was great music and lots of dancing. After the dance we actually invited a few people back to our room for card games. We played games till 2 am! When I woke up in the morning with a pounding headache I realized my ibuprofen was in the car... and I also couldn't complain cause Mike would be upset that I had drank enough to get a hangover. We then went to breakfast (paid by the wedding party). After breakfast there was a note under our door saying that in order to check out all you had to do was leave your keys on top of the TV and thats it.

So we left and 30 minutes into our trip I realized I left my phone charger there. So I called one of the guys I knew was still at the hotel. He went to try and get it and the desk told him we weren't checked out yet and would have to come back to check out or be charged another day as penalty. So we had to turn around which involved 4 extra tolls (about $3 total). Mike is now insanely pissed and telling me how dumb I was for thinking I could just leave without talking to the desk, even though I showed him the paper.

It turned out that we weren't checked out because my bank was denying their charges for the stay. Luckily we had some cash to buy gas on the way back. I went up to the room and got my charger and we left again. (More tolls). When we got to the Mississippi we had to take my own little detour again, which at least didn't get us lost, just stressed Mike out some. Then we stopped for gas and there was an arbys there. I got a large fry and wanted Bronco Berry sauce for it (tastes like sweet and sour). They gave me the frys and then told me they didn't have any sauce. I didn't frickin want the frys without the sauce. UGH! It was only now that I tried to use the new adapter for out ipod to play it over the radio in the car. Guess what: It didn't work! When we finally got back home we had to pick up Reyna from Mikes parents house and they wanted us to stay for a evening of family activities. When we declined, they tried to guilt us into staying... we still went home. When we got home Mike wanted dinner, and Reyna wanted a bath. I took care of them then tried again at getting my Sims 3 to work. After 4 hours of working on my computer I STILL have an un-working copy of the Sims 3. It won't work until EA puts out a patch for it. -So this was my horrible weekend that I had been looking SO forward too.



This is a pic of me and one of the friends I had there- Samantha! (Still looking for my pic with Mike)

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Darn Kool-Aid, ruining my movie!

Think of your kitchen. The countertops. The space on the countertop where the appliances are lined up (Microwave, Toaster, Coffee Maker, Mixer, etc.) They all are so cozy and squeezed next to each other. When you clean, you wipe right under the edge of each so all crumbs are out of sight (out of mind).
Now you spill a large glass of red kool-aid onto the counter and it seeps underneath each of these items. If it were water, you would just put a towel to the edges and let the rest dry up on its own. But even after a couple seconds exposure, it will take bleach to rid your (rented) counters of the red stains.
The next hour is spent meticulously cleaning the places you didn't plan to clean until you moved out. What was supposed to be a quick drink break during your movie ends up being an entire intermission with a side of a workout.
You know that when you look back on this it will be funny someday. That day is not today.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Bike Accident

Yesterday I was in an accident while on my bike... well I would call it an accident. I was on my way home from the store on my bike. There is a hill right before my apartment going down into a turn (not huge, but all road signs say slow to 10mph). While I was slowing down a car cut me off on the turn and I had to take a sharp turn and slam my brakes sending my bike sideways. I skid probably 5 ft or so on the pavement into the gravel... The impact on my head was pretty hard, but I haven't found blood. I braced myself with my hands, which hurt when I got up. The car had drove away quickly of course.

About 2 minutes later when I got home, I couldn't even turn on the water to rinse my bloody arm. I really hurt my wrist. I think I just landed hard right on the muscle of the palm. All day yesterday I could garsp anything with my hand. My thumb was useless!

Sleeping last night was no fun at all. I didn't realize that I like to sleep on my right side, which I didn't know is invisibly bruised from head to toe.I am kinda glad you can't see the bruises... but it'd be nice to show the battle wounds you know? I hate complaining about an invisible pain... ugh- story of my life!

You can kinda see the bruise on my hand, and the scrapes on my shoulder and arm have healed quite a bit already (YAY for aloe). Mike (dh) laughed when he went to go feel the bump on my head. His words "hehe, its like you glued half an egg to your head!". My head doesn't hurt at all, except to the touch. My shoulder is throbbing mostly from the scrapes. And my wrist is quite a bit better than it was yesterday. I can hold most things. Typing is ok, writing is a little shaky, opening bottles and what not... yeah can't do that one yet.

After I started thinking about it last night, I was wearing a backpack when I fell (squished and ruined most my groceries). When I fell I rolled to my back. I am pretty sure that my backpack kept me from having to go to the ER... possibly even saved my life cause I am sure it slowed me down and maybe even cushioned my head on the landing. My bag is tore up and dirty. My groceries are squished. My wrist hurts, and there are lovely bruises along my right side, BUT I am aliveto tell the story and to thank the Lord that I am!

Here are some battle wound pics :)




Saturday, April 11, 2009

Pretty Toes


I painted Reyna's toe nails for the first time. I thought she would touch them right away and smear them , but she did very well. Sh even helped me "blow them" all dry.
The best part is that now when she walks, she raises her toes and walks on her heals and stairs at her feet. And every time she sits dow she points at her toes and says "Look! Pretty!"

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Spankings and Discipline

Yesterday, Reyna was throwing another one of her now normal tantrums... she is two, what can I say? She was screaming about everything under the sun. And we have decided to basically pretend she is not screaming and talk to her normally as if she is quiet. We say "Would you like some milk?, You can have the milk if you sit at the table to drink it." she belted "NOOOOooooo" And I answered calmly - "Then we will leave it on the counter, and when you would like to sit at the table you can have it."

That's the basic tantrum in our place. Yesterday during one of these, I asked her if she would like to play with her docter bag, and then I proceeded to open the bag. She ran over to me, grabbed a toy from it and threw it across the room. I slightly raised my voice but calmly replied "Reyna,you don't throw things, and you know that." She scowled at me, picked up 2 toys and threw them right at me.

I picked her up. Gave her a pat on the behind then took her into her room. We sat in the rocking chair. She was screaming (still, from the last 2 hours). I said in a normal tone "You know you don't throw things. You can hurt people." And right away after that I started reading her a book and making funny animal noises with her. It was a short discipline for an act that she did deliberately though she knew it was wrong. Then we immediately changed the subject and played and had fun. The discipline was over. I wasn't mad at her. I wanted her to know that she got a spanking for throwing intentionally. Once I made that point I moved on.

Monday, March 23, 2009

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

I was so excited to hear it was supposed to start raining real hard about 6 am this morning. I LOVE rain. Even better it was supposed to be storming about 8 am. The 6 am was gonna wake me up and the 8 am storms were gonna keep me motivated. Well it was only sprinkling at 6 and the storms are gonna miss us.

I don't know about anyone else, but severe weather makes me excited. I LOVE storms. I LOVE wind, loud thunder and cracking lightning. When it's storming I sit online with 3 different radar sites up trying to see when the best stuff is coming. I see the big red spots and wish I lived in that tiny town. Is this weird? Am I the only one?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

8am, Time for a nap!

Reyna woke up at 3 am and was up litearally every 10 minutes after that. I rocked her and sang to her. -NOPE! I tried sleeping on the floor of her room with her cuddled next to me.- NOPE! I tried her sleeping on me on the couch (always works). -NOPE! I wouldn't have cared, that she was up but she was just screaming -crying for really no reason.

--Want a blanket? NO!

--Want the couch? NO!

--Want juice? NO!

--What do you want? BLANKET!

--...ugh... NO, NO BLANKET! (And I thought I was fickel)

After about 150 times (literally) singing through her lullabye I gave up and made her a "bed" on the living room floor, got her some fruit snacks (at 4am!?!) and turned on disney channel. I 'slept' on the couch. All was well till I got up an hour later and couldn't find my glasses ... or see enough to find them. After about 20 minutes saying "Reyna, where are my glasses?" to which she would respond "GLASSES! " and point to her eyes with a grin and giggle.... I eventually found my glasses bent into an odd shape under the kiddy table.