Things That Might Happen

Things that may or may not happen when your husband leaves town to start a new job:

1. Your daughter's car may break. Luckily, your brother-in-law is a mechanic who fixed it for the cost of the part. And about $7 in change that I never got, but I figure was well worth it.

2. The downstairs toilet might overflow. And while normally you are able to remedy this problem with a plunger, this time, for some reason, you can't. You work on it periodically with the plunger for two days, and you finally get it unplugged.

3. Your dog might decide to bring a dead pigeon into the house from the backyard. Since you cannot bring yourself to touch the poor dead bird, you might scream like a girl, and then go running next door and ask your neighbor's 20 year-old son if he could do you a tiny little favor and possible remove a dead bird from your kitchen floor. Thankfully, he does not mind.

4. Sunday morning, while you are at work, your 13 year-old daughter may call you and tell you that we have a slight "sitchiation" at the house. Like the ceiling is leaking. It has something to do with the bathtub. We've had this water bubble thing in the ceiling near the dining room table (which just happens to be directly below the bathtub in my bathroom) for a little while now, but I guess Danni just took a bath, and now it's DRIPPING. From the ceiling. Onto the floor in the dining area. At that point, you would probably tell her to put a bucket under it, and not use the bathtub anymore. Showers are nice too, and luckily they are separate entities.

I know there are a lot of single moms out there, and God bless you. I don't know how you do it. Personally, I don't really care for it.

And the garbage needs to go out, too.

Some People Should Not Attempt Crafts

I'll be example A, above.

With Daddy gone and the two older sisters out of the house on a Friday night, I thought maybe this would be a fun thing for Kylie and I to do together. They were on sale at Michael's for $7.99. Every time I think it would be fun to do a project with Kylie, I somehow forget about my complete lack of any sort of creative or artistic talent.


A gingerbread house kit. Kit! Kit means everything included. Kit means easy. Kit means I can do this. Isn't it cute how delusional I am?

See the three examples of decorated houses on the box? They are oh-so-sweetly named "Candy Chalet", "Snowflurry Lodge", and "Christmas Dreams Inn." Awwwww.

I think we'll call ours "The Nightmare at the End of the Block."

First of all, "kit" never means what I think it does. The frosting included was a bag of powdered sugar. Crap, you mean I have to get the mixer out? Gah.

Due to crappy lighting in my dining area, and someone else having my camera so she can take videos of herself and her friend at the dance studio, these are rather bad pictures taken with my cell phone. But I'm sure you get the idea. See all those little colored candies on the side of the house there? That's my "throw 'em on the frosting and see what sticks" method. Creative, no?

How come the gumdrops trees only grow on one side of the house? Oh, I see. Better light on that side. Who threw the tires up on the roof?

Well, I guess we can forget about the frosting-sucker going to sleep for a while. She's going to be in a sugar-induced frenzy right when I'm ready for her she's ready to go to bed.

Well, it's not going to win any awards, but at least she had fun. I wish I could say the same for my tablecloth. I think the cardboard base may be glued to it with frosting.

The Light Parade

First of all, an update on Danni's car. It's fixed! The coolest thing happened yesterday. I left $35 underneath the back tire of the car when I went to work in the morning, and when I came home the car was fixed. It's like I was visited by the car-mechanic fairy. I would highly recommend this method of car repair. Totally painless.


As I had mentioned before, Kylie and I went to our city's light parade Saturday night. They had a bunch of bouncy things for kids to jump on. Of course, they can't be free...they have to cost between 2 and 4 tickets each, where tickets cost $1. But, for $9 you can buy an all-you-can-bounce wristband. Well, no thinking required there. I think I would have spent $30 on tickets for my little motor-bouncer, so the $9 wristband was a great deal.

She did this...

And this...

And a whole lot of this.

She wanted to try the rock wall, but she got scared after she was about 10 ft off the ground, and wanted to come down.

Then it was time to find a spot to watch the parade. My point-and-shoot camera + dark + moving people + Christmas lights = pretty crappy pictures. But hey, I tried. That blur in the middle with the blonde hair is Danni. The flag girls were just twirling poles with Christmas lights wrapped around them.




One of the many lighted floats. Some of them were pretty cool. Others, pretty lame. That would be Kylie's big blonde head in the middle of the frame there.




After the parade, they have the lighting of the Tumbleweed Christmas Tree. A tumbleweed tree, you say? Well, yes. This is Arizona, right? It's just a big ol' tree they make out of tumbleweeds, spray paint white, and put lights all over it. It's about 35 feet tall.

They've had the tree for about 50 years now, it's a tradition thing here. I copied some stuff from the city website about it below, if you're interested. If you're not interested, then stop reading now.


A Community Tradition

This unique Chandler tradition began in 1957, when Chandler resident Earl Barnum raised the idea of a tumbleweed tree after he saw a similar one in Indiana built out of cone-shaped chicken wire with pine boughs stuck in the holes. Many members of the community helped create the first tree in Chandler using tumbleweeds that they gathered from around town. Little did these folks know that they were the first to do such a thing and that it would continue as an annual Christmas tradition from then on. In fact, Chandler is the only city in the southwestern United States that has such a tree!

How is it done?

First, members of the City's Park Operations Division gather tumbleweeds from the outskirts of the City. With Chandler's rapid growth and development, fewer stretches of empty land are within the City limits, which makes it harder to find tumbleweeds in large quantities. So, the Park crews must start collecting the tumbleweeds earlier each year.

Once the tumbling tumbleweeds are collected, between 1,500-2,000 are used to adorn a 35-foot tall wire frame. Then, the tumbleweeds are sprayed with 25 gallons of white paint, 20 gallons of flame retardant and dusted with 65 pounds of glitter. The tree is later adorned with approximately 1,200 holiday lights that give it a spectacular look, day or night.

The lighting of the Tumbleweed Tree draws a large crowd, with more than 12,000 expected to watch the Mayor and members of the City Council flip the switch to light this magnificent sight.

Murphy Blows

Dear Mr. Murphy,
I do not care for you or your law. So there.

You know that it's inevitable that when your husband leaves the state to start a new job in another state, something rather major will go wrong the first day he is gone. I waited. Saturday went by rather normally. Kylie and I went to the Chandler Light Parade. Danni marched in the light parade. Shannon went to sleep over at a friend's house. All was well.

Saturday night, Kylie and I get home from the light parade. Danni calls me and says that she is coming home, and that her car is acting weird. Weird? Like what's it doing? Well, she says, when she goes over 25 mph, the car makes a loud noise and starts shaking.

Wonderful.

So she gets home right about the time that Shannon calls me from the mall, wanting to know if I can come and pick up her two friends and her and take them back to the girl's house where they are spending the night.

Sure, why not?

I decide to take Danni's car, so I can see what she's talking about with the noise and the shaking.

As soon as I hit 25-30 mph, I see exactly what she's talking about. It feels like the car is shaking and shimmying right underneath me. Clearly, it's not an engine problem, it's more towards the middle or the back of the car. In fact, I stopped the car in the middle of the residential street I was on, got out of the car and made sure that one of the back wheels wasn't coming off. Because that's what it felt like.

I continued, slowly, taking mostly residential streets where I could, to the mall. I picked up Shannon and her friends and took them to the other girl's house. Slowly.

Then I went home and called hubby. He said from what I was describing, it sounded like a transmission problem, and that it was probably having a problem when it went into third gear.

Fantastic.

He called his sister to have her husband come over and look at the car on Sunday. Ken did a lot of work on this car, the '93 Dodge Intrepid, when we first got it, and he didn't mind coming and looking at it at all.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. Ken comes over, gets under the car, and sees the problem immediately. There is some sort of arm on the back driver's side wheel that apparently has snapped in half. I'm not sure exactly what it's called, but I'm guessing it has something to do with holding the wheel onto the car. He called it an arm...something.

Anyway, he said it was a pretty easy fix, he just needed to get the part. Which of course, is kind of an obscure part that a part store most likely wouldn't carry. You'd need to get it from the dealer, which is always expensive. So he does what most mechanics do, and goes looking for the part in a junkyard. He's done this for us before, and it's always worked out well...and by well I mean cheap.

He was supposed to go looking for the part this morning, but so far I have not heard from him. It's like 1pm, and I'm waiting. And this is stressing me right the hell out, let me tell you. Because I have gone from three working cars and three drivers to two drivers and one car.

With three kids at three different schools, and me at work, you can see how this becomes an issue.

My plan today was that I would drive Danni to school at 7am. Then she would get a ride home from a friend. She gets out at 2:15pm. My parents would pick Kylie up from her school at 2:40pm and take her home, where ideally, Danni would already be there. Then Shannon, who gets out at 3:35pm, would walk home. Until Danni remembered that she had to stay after school because she's the teaching assistant for beginning dance, and she has to go to their recital rehearsal after school.

Ok. Change of plans. So my parents will pick Kylie up, and take her to their house. I will pick her up from their house on my way home from work. Shannon still walks home. Danni should be done with her thing about the time I get home, so I can pick her up. If she has band practice tonight, which I think she does, she can just take my van.

I backed her car out into the driveway so Ken had access to it. Problem is, when he was messing around with it earlier, the tire got turned in such a way that I had problems backing it up straight. After much twisting and turning of the wheel, I finally got it out of the garage, but now three of the tires are facing forward, and the rear driver's wheel is at a definite angle. Danni says it looks like it's leaning up against the car. I'm hoping I didn't do more serious damage when I backed it out. And I still haven't heard anything from them about getting the danged part.

On top of that, Steve is moving into his new apartment today, and starting his job tomorrow. I'm also totally stressed about money, because we're burning through his moving allowance rather quickly (stuff for the apartment, warmer clothes, apt. deposit, first month's rent, plane ticket back for Christmas, gas for the drive to Denver, he's going to need to go to the grocery store, etc) Luckily, Comcast is setting him up with cable and internet without an installation fee. Although from what I've heard about Comcast and their customer service, we're in for a fun ride there.

He should get his last check from his old job on Friday, but he only worked half the pay period, and he may or may not get paid for all his unused vacation time. I really hope he does, because he had a lot of it. But with Computer Company, you never know.

I don't know where in the pay period he is starting his new job, so I'm not sure exactly when his first check from them will show up.

So what I'm saying is that I'm stressed out.

Help.

Send wine. Or rum. Or Xanax. All of the above.





Edited to Add: So as soon as I take a Xanax to calm my ass down, my sister-in-law calls and says that Ken found the part and that it's going to cost...drumroll please...$28. I can so handle that. If he can fix the thing for $28, there might just be a little something extra in it for him.

I meant I'll pay him some money! Get your mind out of the gutter. Gross.


Please please please let this fix the problem. I promise never to call you a bastard again, Mr. Murphy, if this works out.


Amen.

Conversations With Six Year-Olds

Last night, Kylie was lying in my bed and we were talking about Daddy being gone. I told her that she was going to have to be a big girl and help me out, and listen to me and her older sisters. She said she would, except for one thing:

"Mom, I don't want to listen to Shannon. She's a...well...you know...the 'b' word."

Oh Lord, I am going to kill whichever one of them taught her that little gem. I mean seriously, she's six years old! She shouldn't be thinking that word, or even know it or what it means. I'm gonna kill someone.

"Umm...the 'b' word? What word is that, sweetie?"

"Mom...I'm not supposed to say it. It's a bad word."

"It's ok, you can tell me, I won't be mad. What's the 'b' word?"

Whispering, she said,

"You know Mom...brat."

Oh. That 'b' word.

"You're right, honey. That's not a very nice word."

Whew.

Big Changes

I've been hesitating to write about this for a while, because if I do, it will make it real. But sooner or later, I suppose I have to.

If you read my post titled A Series of Unfortunate Events, you already know that I've been future-fired from my job. If you haven't read it, let me tell you...I've been future-fired from my job.

Future-fired is when you still have your job right now, but you know that on a specific day in the future, you will no longer have your job. That day for me is February 13th. My lovely company has decided to close its Phoenix office.

I had figured on looking for another job in the spring, or even before that. Ideally, I would have had another job by the time this one ends.

However, there were things going on at hubby's job too. He does computer sales, and his company was/is laying off people left and right. He survived two rounds of layoffs, but they said that they were going to be laying off 100 more people before Christmas. As a senior sales rep, he was extremely worried, because they seemed to be getting rid of all the senior reps, and keeping the newer hires, who make less money.

So, we made a decision. Instead of sitting around and waiting for him to get laid off, he is taking a job that was offered to him by one of his customers. A job that pays more, a job that involves some commission, but we will definitely not live or die by it, and a job that is virtually recession/economy proof. The bad news, or the good news, depending on your perspective, is that the job is in Denver.

Hubby was in Denver over the weekend, accepting the job. He has a small one-bedroom apartment lined up, and he is leaving Saturday. As in, this Saturday. Two days from now. Since I'm still at my job until Feb., and by that time we would be in the middle of the second semester of school, the girls and I are going to stay here until the end of the school year. Hubby will visit as often as is financially feasible. In fact, we have already booked his flight back to Phoenix for Christmas.

I think I am mostly good with this. There are a few people that I am going to miss terribly. My mother is going to miss seeing the kids, especially Kylie, all the time. But she will visit us often. I am looking forward to seasons and snow.

I feel so pulled in two different directions. On one hand, Phoenix is my home. I've lived here all my life, and I have deep roots and good friends. My kids have been here all their lives, and also have friends.

However, I know this is something we have to do for the well-being of our family. The kids seem to be adjusting to the idea pretty well. It's going to be hard for Danni, as we are moving right before her senior year. She is a smart kid though, and a great kid, and she understands why we need to do this. Part of her is apprehensive about a new school for her senior year, not knowing anyone. Part of her is also kind of excited about a change. Just think...a whole school full of brand-new boys.

Shannon was very upset at first. She has a tight group of friends. But she seems to be getting used to the idea quickly. She will just be starting high school, so it's actually not a bad time for her to make a move. I know her... she'll be fine, and she will make friends quickly. She's that kind of kid.

Kylie thought she was upset at first, until we told her that it snowed in Colorado. She's only been in the snow once before in her life. After we told her that, she was totally on board.

We've also made a couple of other promises that we're going to try our best to keep. One of them is a four-bedroom house. Shannon doesn't so much enjoy sharing her room with a six year-old, so we told her she'd be able to have her own room. We also told the kids that we could get a second dog. I think I can handle both of those.

One of my most daunting tasks is finding a good high school. There are 17 high schools in the Denver metro area. We need a school with a good dance program for Danni, and one that offers photography classes for Shannon. Because that's what Shannon wanted to do next year, and I don't want to take that away from her. All the high schools there have softball teams, so that's not an issue. We plan on finding a high school first, then looking for a house in that area.

My biggest stress right now, besides financially supporting two households (luckily, Steve got some relocation money so that will help), is the fact that I'm basically going to be a single mom for the next six months. That will be less complicated after my job ends, but Kylie especially, is going to miss her daddy.

Last night, we went and got Steve some things for his bachelor pad. Bathroom towels, some dishes, pots and pans, a garbage can, laundry basket, silverware, sheets, a blanket, a microwave and a can opener. Dish soap, garbage bags, paper towels, a toilet brush, toilet bowl cleaner and Windex. So we can pretend like he will clean. (Just kidding, honey!) We also bought two webcams...one for our desktop computer at home, and one for Steve's laptop. I'm hoping that being able to see and talk to Daddy on video will make things easier for Kylie. For the rest of us too. We tested it out last night, with Steve on his laptop upstairs, and the kids and I on the desktop downstairs. You'd think none of them had ever seen a camera or video before. What a bunch of lunatics.

So, that's basically my story. At the end of the school year, we'll be relocating to Denver.

Dear Arizona,
I will miss my friends, and my parents, but I will not miss cacti, palm trees, the color brown or 9 months of 100 degree plus heat.
Love,
Shelley

Wordless Wednesday

Ok, I lied, it's not totally wordless...I just have to wish that man in the picture a very happy birthday today. Happy Birthday, honey!