Now... what, exactly?

It's been an interesting few weeks at the Soup house....

D.Soup now has a red meat allergy.

My self proclaimed "meatatarian" husband can no longer eat beef, pork, or lamb.  His hands and feet start to swell, rashes form up his arms, and he has terrible stomach pains.

Also, pork being "the other white meat" is a lie.  Rude.

All because of a tick bite.

The Lone Star Tick has been spreading across the country, and if it bites you there is a chance that you will develop an allergy to red meat.  The tick carries a sugar called Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose(alpha-gal) in its belly.  It transfers the alpha-gal to you and your body starts to fight it like it would a disease.  Alpha-gal is also found in the fatty parts of all non-primate mammals.  So when your body processes the fat cells of any red meat that you have eaten, you have an allergic reaction.

...That's my very dumbed down explanation of this whole shenanigans.

What does this mean for us?

We will now be a fish and fowl loving family.  We are only in the first week of transferring over to our new lifestyle and we honestly don't know how much he will be affected by different scenarios.  A lot of people with this allergy have issues eating out because of cross contamination.  We will have to take it day by day.  He has been prescribed an Epi pen, and we now have Benadryl stored in every vehicle and multiple areas in our house.


The good news.

He doesn't (so far) seem to have any feelings of his throat closing up during a reaction.

We already eat a decent amount of chicken.  So transitioning isn't going to be TOO hard for a majority of our meals. 

The other good thing is that turkey is much healthier than beef, so it will help us in our weight loss endeavors.

There is a chance that the allergy will go away on its own (3 weeks to 5 years is the "average"), he has to be careful not to get another Lone Star tick bite, because that will bring the allergy back, or make it worse if he is still allergic at the time of the bite.   

The bad news.

D.Soup hunts.  Deer meat is included in the list of no-nos.  We haven't tested it, and some people say they can still eat it so we are feeling hopeful at the moment.  We shall see.

We also have bags and bags of beef - hamburgers, steaks, ground beef, cubes - in our freezers.  I'm going to have to package everything up and give it away.  At least we know people around us that will take it, so we don't have to throw everything away.

It's also possible that we could deal with cross contamination in our own kitchen.  We use cast iron pans to cook a majority of our meals.  Those could very easily have remnants of meat that might affect him.



There's so much more.  I start thinking about it and I end up in a rabbit hole of stress and panic.  We just don't know everything that he will react to so its a strange and slightly scary time for us me.  He is less panicked than I am, at least externally.  I think if I wasn't so stressed about it he would be more stressed, but for now he has to deal with all my craziness so he's taken on his job as the confident one.

I can't believe that a tick bite can do this to people.  Hardly anyone knows about it either. Almost everyone that we've talked to has been completely dumbfounded that this is even a thing.

The allergist that D.Soup saw to get tested for alpha-gal was actually excited (for herself, not for him) that he was there.  She told him "I've studied this but have never actually seen a case of it before!  I'm going to have to do some more research!"

I will continue to post any changes.

End of June recap. I am really far behind.

I've been quite busy in the time since I last posted any crafty update... so busy that this post is all about stuff that happened in June!  But I'm starting to feel a little embarrassed in the amount of time it's taking me to finish these things I've started.  Let's recap:

1.  Foyer wall.  Got the new paint to finish the base layer for this wall.  Have not even thought about opening it.  I think now I need a new roller, since I was all "oh I'll be right back to this in a few days" and never cleaned off the old roller, just wrapped it in saran wrap.  *sigh*

2.  Boxes for the nursery.  I FINALLY FINISHED THEM.  If L.Soup wasn't already asleep I would march this last part up there right now and take pictures of all of them together.  Its taken so long to get these done.  I'll be happy when I don't have to look at them anymore.  For a "quick project" they've been misery.  Okay, that's an exaggeration.  I just didn't expect them to take this long.  They are looking super cute though, can't wait for them to be done so I can take pictures of them!  I put the two bookshelf boxes in her room already because I was sick of books all over.  I'll get some pictures tomorrow and post that right up.

3. A present for my mom.  I have been working on this for a while, and originally you all were supposed to see this post before the reveal of the surprise.  But I finished it and gave it to her yesterday.  So that post went up because I got excited about it.

4.  Sewing.  Just all general sewing projects.  Which have been on hold since I decided that I NEEDED the boxes to be done.  Most important was L.Soup's 4th of July outfit.  Well I actually did get this finished, the morning of the 4th (I'm totally not a procrastinator). I also made a pattern for some bibs that I'm going to make for her.  So, there's a step in the right direction.

Now let's move on to the reasons I haven't gotten anything done.

First, and most importantly: Saturday, June 22 was Girls Day Out.  There were cupcakes, and shopping, and day drinking, and more cupcakes, and BRUNO MARS.  And it was incredible!  It was one of my friend's birthdays, so we did an entire day of celebrating. I have a ton of pictures, but I didn't really dedicate a post to it, and now it's almost a month past and I feel I've missed the boat.  Whoops.

Then Sunday D.Soup went fishing in the morning, and we hung out with some OTHER friends for dinner and frozen yogurt.  Now, I'm not usually one to choose frozen yogurt over ice cream.  But I must say that Yolavie is actually really good.  We've been there twice in the last few days.  We've had other places that we really were not happy with, but I can be down with sometimes substituting.  Not all the time. No no no no.

In other (more disgusting, sorry) news.  Sunday morning I went to snuggle in with L.Soup on the couch for nap time.  And smelled something strange.  I started looking around, and found cat pee on my couch!  GAH!  I couldn't believe it.  I was so sad all the rest of the day.  I cleaned up as much of it as I could, but of course he peed right where the back of the couch meets the seat, so I was never 100% sure that I got it all.

Now let me explain...  One of my cats is very particular about the cleanliness of his litter box.  We are normally really good about taking care of it, but sometimes it goes a little bit longer than it should before we clean it.  We have 2 boxes, but haven't really found a good place for the second one, so currently we're working with 1, which is not a good thing when you have 2 cats.  Anywho.   A few times in the past, he's used the couch as a litter box.  I don't know why he decided on the couch, but that's where he goes.  I guess its because he knows we are there all the time.  But never NEVER before has he peed.  It's always been poop...  Which sounds like it would be more disgusting than pee...  But in actuality I've always been grateful because cat pee is not something that you can get out of ANYTHING.  It always smells.  *sigh*

So immediately when D.Soup got home I demanded that we go to the furniture store and pick out a new couch.  We found one that we liked, but we were still looking around when a salesman came up and started talking to us.  We ended up asking him about getting animal urine smells out of the couch and he asked if we had gotten a warranty on the couch when we had purchased it.  And we had.  So we felt a little better about that.  AND we found the matching loveseat to the couch we currently have, which had been discontinued, and was on sale!  So we bought that and headed home happier with the news that we could have someone come clean the couch and get use out of our warranty...

WELL, come to find out.  Because there is no actual stain on the couch, and it's just smell, the warranty does not cover it!  Of course not!  How is a couch that's DARK BROWN going to get a stain on it EVER.  Answer?  IT'S NOT.  So what's the point of paying for a warranty (which we really only got BECAUSE of situations like this) if it's not going to cover the ONE TIME I need it.  I was so angry.  It does cover other things, like scratches and if its broken, things of that nature.  So I guess there's still a chance for me to need it.  But why INCLUDE "pet urine" and "pet feces" into the list, when you know the only REAL worry with those things is the SMELL. 

hurumph





Moving on...

On Tuesday's schedule was the delivery of a shed D.Soup bought with his bonus money.  The only problem is the delivery time was 9-5.  And someone needed to be there to sign for it.  Luckily my parents came over in the morning and watched L.Soup at our house and waited for the delivery. 

Wednesday was the pick up for our new loveseat.  D.Soup and one of our friends drove over to the furniture place and picked it up while I picked L.Soup up from my parents.  We got there about the same time.  I got everything together to pass the boat pads on to our friend while they put the few pieces.  When they finished putting the loveseat together, they plopped down onto it, reclined both their seats and started holding hands... I just about fell over.  I was laughing too hard to even think about getting my camera, and I'm really sad about that now.  Then we handed over the boat pads...
He was happy to have them (and to not have spent a million dollars on them) and I was happy to get them out of my house.  At least I got one thing completed.

I borrowed a wet vac and went to work on the couch.  I'm hoping that fixed all the issues.

After that we met D.Soup's family for dinner.  I got a salad because everything else on the menu at Friendly's is well over 900 calories, and that's a bit extreme.  By the time we got home and got Little Miss to bed, we were not in the mood to do anything.  So we sat on our new loveseat and watched the first episode of this season on Rizzoli and Isles! I was so excited that it was coming back on!

source

That next weekend was filled with building the shed, laundry and preparing for vacation!

More on that later.

Does this make me a terrible friend?

One of my best friends is getting married tomorrow.

She was the Maid of Honor in my wedding.

When she asked me to be her Maid of Honor, I was so excited and happy to be able to return the favor.

About 2 weeks ago I remembered that being a Maid of Honor meant writing a speech. And actually reading it... out loud... in.front.of.people. I did not sign up for this. Oh, wait... yes I did. Dammit.

I finished my speech yesterday, and it's so short I'm almost embarrassed by it. But I literally cannot think of a single extra thing to put in there. I don't have many stories of the two of them together, because we don't get to see them very often anymore.

I don't really have sappy stories of how much I love her ready to throw out. I'm not comfortable with being overly emotional in front of people if I can help it. It's awkward. It's also awkward for others to listen to overly emotional people talk about memories that no one else was ever involved in except for two people.

I really don't think that she wants me to tell people about the time we stole the giant Shrek standee from the kiosk outside the movies at the mall. Or the time she spent the entire school day in a Tigger costume and ran around the halls looking for her teacher.

So basically, what I'm saying, is I got nothing.

So I've decided to keep it short and sweet. I'm sure everyone will appreciate that.

Hello everyone, I want to start off by saying Congratulations to ___ and ___, and to thank everyone for coming today. For those who don't know me, I'm Mz.Soup, and I’ve known ___ since high school.___ and I have been through quite a bit together, and I'm so glad that I am able to share this day with her. Last year I had the pleasure of celebrating my own wedding day with ___ by my side as my Maid of Honor, and when she asked me to return the favor I happily agreed.

I personally feel that is a perfect match for . He's quiet, and she's... well, not. He's calm, and she's... well, not. At first glance they seem like complete opposites, but at the same time they are so similar, and that's what makes them such a great couple. I’m really thrilled that has found a husband in and I know they’ll make a wonderful life together. I’d like to wish them a life full of health, happiness and endless adventure.
Please raise your glasses to ___, and ___, the bride and groom.

I got my little moment of funny in, and I feel that I did an okay job pulling it together with the little that my brain could squeak out.

Personally, I think wedding speeches
are stupid.
(Mainly because I have way too much anxiety for something like that)

Never again will I inform my body of plans that I am making for us.

I started off my "do better at exercising" plan focused and motivated. And then everything came to a screeching halt... For good reason.

It's like a crime scene in my pants.

Yes, that is a quote from "No Strings Attached". And it is completely appropriate for the last three days of my existence.

This is sort of how it went down...

Mz.Soup: Hmm, I think it might be about time to think about babies.
Uterus: Say what?
MS: Yeah, I think I'm going to go off my pills soon.
Uterus: You want to do WHAT?! Let me remind you of how life was when you weren't on the pill...

Three days later and I'm uncertain if I'm exhausted from my vacation (which is completely unfair, you're supposed to be relaxed after vacation), or if it's from the blood loss.

I vaguely remember laying on the floor and informing my mother that "it feels like someone is sucking my insides out with a vacuum".

My life has been fairly stable since I started taking the pill, light periods, no pain. A mild case of the crazies (read: Hysterical sobbing because D.Soup had not cleaned the litter box immediately after I asked him) there for a little while until I got my pills changed around. But since then, magical. Well, until Monday.

I only have one more comment for the moment.

Rot in hell, Uterus.
Rot.in.hell.




PS. Please don't ACTUALLY rot... I need you.
For, you know, baby making related things

Thinking

I woke up with a migraine this morning. One that, if not dealt with immediately had the potential to be a doozey. And yes, spell check... that is a real word. So shut your face.

I ripped myself from my 10 inches of space that D.Soup had left me to sleep in. Glared at him, and the 15 inches on the other side of him. And stumbled my way blindly to the bathroom.

After searching in every cabinet I could find (in the dark).... And almost throwing a few bottles of what was NOT Excedrin Migraine across the room.... I remembered that the miracle drug was downstairs. Blast.

I crawled back into my tiny space, not so nicely asked D.Soup to share the {damn} bed, and let him know that he needed to get up so he could be my hero. There's no way I was making it down the stairs.

My loving, adoring husband took his sweet time getting out of bed... and made sure to make a pit stop in the bathroom before heading downstairs to find me my relief. Thanks love.

He finally brought it upstairs, alone. No water. No cup even. Thanks again.

And THEN, he flipped on the lights so he could start to get ready. Luckily, while in my head I was hissing and screaming nothing but HATE at him, my mouth could only manage "uuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnn" while I rolled over an covered my eyes as quickly as I could. (For those that don't have the luxury of experiencing a migraine, light = BAD).

So once again, eyes closed, face planted firmly in the crook of my elbow, I made a mad blind dash for the darkness of the bathroom. I scooped water from the sink into my mouth like I had been lost in the desert for a week and just found a river... and tossed back the breakfast of champions.

I knew it was a terrible idea, but there was no stopping me.

The nausea that ensued for the following hour was completely worth my lack of headache.

...I just gave myself a pep talk in the bathroom. It was, and I quote:

"Okay, Shambles. Get your shit together."

I'm doing much better now.



But this got me to thinking... We're making plans to start a family sometime in the near future...

What on earth am I going to do without Excedrin Migraine for 10 months?

Ten.whole.months, and most likely more, with no light at the end of the tunnel when a migraine randomly decides to grace me with its presence. And who knows what other kinds of crazed emotions I will be experiencing while another life form is growing inside of me... A migraine like that could set of an entire domino effect of disaster.

There's only one answer...

The Soup house is going to become a war zone. One of us may not make it out alive. And I don't know if it will be me - in my debilitated state, or my husband - who will have to go up against Hulk Smash, that will survive.

I need to buy the animals some armor.

Once upon a time...

Before we moved into our house, another family lived there - I will dub them "The Old's Family". This is usually the case. It was a family of 4, 2 parents and 2 grown children - one just out of high school and the other finishing up that year.

Our house has 3 bedrooms, and one bathroom. At times its too small for D.Soup and I... Who am I kidding, it's almost ALWAYS too small for us.

I think all the time about how those two "kids" were living in the two rooms that we now call the computer room and the exercise room. I wish I had the actual room dimensions to give you. You would feel bad for them too.

I'm sure I am going to spend a ton of time listing off all the things that were wrong with the house once we were physically there all the time, and you are going to be thinking to yourself "Really, Mz.Soup? You spent all this time to complain about... what, exactly?" And then I'll be sad because you don't understand.

But whatever, continuing on.

And maybe, just maybe you'll be on my side and completely understand why I tell people all the time "I really dislike the people who lived in our house before us."

*crosses her fingers*

-------------------------------

The first time we ever saw the house. Before we bought it. Our realtor called 30 minutes in advance to let the owners know that we would be stopping by.

You know, so they could get out of there... because who wants to walk around a potential house with the owners following you around breathing down your neck??

..............................................

We walk in the door... And there they all were. In the house. With us.

Awkward? Yes.

Especially when Mr.Old started following us around and explaining each part of the house to us

because that's not what our realtor was there for or anything.

-------------------------------

The closet. Oh god our awful closet. I knew it was awful the first time we ever walked in there, during the incident with the previous owners. I'm fairly certain my first words were: "This is going to need to be changed" even then.

Of course, we're just now getting around to doing something about it, but that's beside the point.

-------------------------------

The paint (part 1).* There are three real rooms on the first floor of our house.

Kitchen, Living room, Dining room.

Our living room and dining room are connected (well, all three are technically connected but just for visual sake). Two separate rooms, but connected. They were painted the same color. Tan. Oh, so was the stairwell. Tan. Almost everywhere was tan.

This tan to be exact: Now, don't get all "oh it's not that bad!" on me. Two full rooms of that. Hundreds of feet of wall space covered in THAT. It was awful. And it took us almost 3 years to be completely rid of all of it. Ugh.

The only other room in the house that was painted something other than white... was lavender.

-------------------------------

The floral wall borders (part 1). Three separate rooms.

All. different. border.

Maybe it's just because I'm not much of flower person.

(I made standees of D.Soup and I as centerpieces for our wedding because I did NOT want flowers)

Two rooms downstairs: Living Room and Dining Room (again, attached) each had their own special borders. Then the one room upstairs, the only other non-white paint room in our whole house - also wall bordered.

-------------------------------

The floral wall borders (part 2). Removal.

We started in the dining room - super excited about getting rid of at least one border and armed with a wall steamer. We did fairly well, only minor cursing and a few steam burns. And we got very skilled at maneuvering around the room on our dining room chairs.

We got three quarters of the way down. And discovered another. layer. of. wall. border. UNDERNEATH the first, with a layer of paint in between.

Who does that?!

I believe this is the first time I uttered "I HATE the Old's"

.................................................

Here is a picture of the wall the way the Old's had it (after the border was taken down -- note the TAN, and the back of D.Soup):

we got rid of that fan too, it's just not one of the necessary "I hate the Old's" memories

Luckily the other two rooms were no where near as bad. In fact the day we started working on the living room, we were dreading the wall paper removal... and I went downstairs and pulled the whole thing down - sans steamer - in almost one full piece.

It was a thing of beauty.

-------------------------------

The paint (part 2). I'm not the best painter, I understand that. Even on my worst day, I am 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than anyone in the Old's family. In every room that we have painted since we bought our house, we have had to cut the electrical socket plates and light switch plates from the wall.

Because the Old's painted right over them. Socket and all.

Which meant paint running down the wall after they were finished from where it had globbed on the corners of the plate. And paint in the holes of the sockets.

We had to sand the wall around each of the holes where there were sockets, because the paint was so thick that there was a ledge.

We have purchased new electrical sockets/light switches and covers for every room that we have painted.

(You're next, kitchen)

-------------------------------

The doorknobs. Every. single. doorknob. upstairs. was. different. Even knobs attached to the SAME DOOR. The front would be gold and the back would be silver.

WHAT?

that is all.

-------------------------------

I wish that I would have had the forethought to take more pictures of this stuff before we got rid of it. But at the time I just wanted it GONE.

Gah.
I hate the Old's.

I feel better now.

*Now I understand that paint color is a preference thing. I'm sure whoever buys our house from us is going to COMPLETELY hate us too. Because I have bright (read: "crazy") color preferences. And D.Soup is color blind so I pretty much can choose whatever I want. So I get that. But Tan and Lavender are NOT something I would choose. And they were both ugly versions of their designated color family. And for that I blame you, people-I-shall-not-name-but lived-in-the-house-before-me. The end.

My Current Dilemma

I hate my bras.

I.Hate.Them.

When I first bought them, it was love. BIOFit from Victoria's Secret.

*sigh*

I think my love of them, and the fact that I only bought 2 and had already begun to hate the other bras that I had at that time, caused me to wear them more frequently than I should have.

That turned into wearing them ALL the time.

And now I hate them.

They are uncomfortable. They don't sit where they are supposed to anymore. The straps fall down ALL THE TIME even when they are all the way tight.

And recently, when I put one on it feels like something is stabbing me. And it's not the underwire, because I've checked... and probably offended some people for feeling myself up in public... but it's ANNOYING.

For example:
Today I put my bra on. And immediately felt an itching/stabbing sensation on the "underside" of my boob (hah, I just said boob). So I check, nothing there. Cool. BUT IT STILL HURT. I'm to the point, 4 hours into my day, that I'm dreaming about getting in the car this afternoon so that I can take it off. And again, probably offend some people as I pull my bra out of the sleeve of my shirt, in the middle of the day, where anyone could see me. Whatever, you don't know me.

I'm also daydreaming about going to the bathroom right now and taking it off. I would do it too, but the threat of 4 hours of perky nipples is greater than the annoyance of the phantom itching/stabbing non-underwire harassment that I am experiencing currently.

Solution:
I get paid tomorrow. I will be going out and purchasing myself some new bras.

Roadblocks:

1. Calli's surgery is tomorrow. So I have to see how she's feeling before I run off to the store. I also have to pay for her surgery, so that takes away some of my funds.
2. I need to get my hair dyed, BAD. It will happen this month. More removal of funds.
3. I'm trying to pay down my credit cards. So if I spend a bunch of money on new bras, I won't be able to pay as much off.
4. D.Soup's birthday is next Tuesday. I need to keep some money around in case he finally decides what he wants

I don't really think these things are going to play much of a part in my decision making, but who knows.

Only a few more hours until freedom.
For me AND my boobs.

Night from hell

I know I posted once already today, but I need to get this down before I push it to the part of my brain that I save for horrible things I don't want to remember... Which hopefully will be any time now.

I would like to preface this with a reminder that at this point in my life, at approximately 7 pm I "turn into a pumpkin." This is a cute little saying my sister came up with to describe my niece if she's not in bed by a certain time. It's a nice way of say that my niece turns into a screaming banshee if she's passed bedtime.

So remember: 7 pm = Mz.Soup turns into a pumpkin...

Normally, D.Soup and I have a fairly laid back evening once we get home from work. Other than the "crazy time" we usually deal with regularly with the animals, our life is simple.

Not tonight.

Tonight we decided to begin a plan we developed yesterday, we'll call it: Revamp Parts Of Our House That Bother Us So We Don't Hate It Anymore Because We Are Going To Be Here For At Least Another Year. Ugh.

Stage 1 of RPOOHTBUSWDHIABWAGTBHFALAY: We need plywood for attic storage, and for under our bed, and we need to pick out/order a new front door. Easy enough, right?

That's where you are wrong.

We borrow my grandfather's truck and drive, excited and oblivious, to Home Depot.

We walk immediately over to the lumber section to pick out some plywood. This is about how our first conversation went:

Useless Home Depot Employee #1:Hello, do you all need help with anything today?

D.Soup: Yes actually, we need to buy some plywood for under our bed.

#1: Great! It's all right over here...

(As you can see it started well...)

D.S: So we are going to need two pieces, our bed is 61x80.

#1:What? That's not going to work.... *confused stare*

D.S: Yeah, one piece won't be enough....

#1:No, that won't work... You're going to need two pieces

Mz.Soup:*blank stare*

He then proceeds to show us this super thick plywood that, while sturdy, is probably more than we need for the bed. But he insists this will be our best option, and that there's some "damaged pieces" that he could "get us a good deal from his manager".

Looking back now it felt like a drug deal. I couldn't think of something like that during though, my vision was already steadily clouding over in red.

He walks away from us to call his manager, and consequentially begins helping other customers. He helps 2 people while we are standing there. We decide to walk over and look at the lawn mowers because D.Soup is interested in one.

We head back over 10 minutes later to tell him that we aren't worried about the cost and to just cut the plywood for us, only to find him helping not only the same guy he was with when we left, but with 2 other people waiting for him.

Useless Home Depot Employee #2 was standing right next to #1 listening to the conversation, not bothering to help anyone else. Awesome.

So we finally get back to the front of the line. And tell him not to worry about the cost, just cut the plywood.

Uhhh, I can't cut it here, someone broke my saw...

Is that the only saw that can cut plywood?

Yes.

Again I say, awesome.

We give up on the plywood for the moment, and walk over to the door section. We had a basic idea of what we wanted walking into the store. So of course that means we spent the next HOUR running through the option selection with Less Useless Home Depot Employee #3. He at least knew his stuff, he just worked so slow.

Finally, door ordered, we tiredly head back to the wood section. D.Soup informs me that "If that annoying guy is still over there we aren't getting plywood tonight.". Can't argue with that, I wanted to punch him within 2 minutes off meeting him.

Luckily a non-useless employee (the only one we encountered) confirmed our suspicion that we didn't need the super thick plywood, and that the thinner plywood that is HALF THE PRICE of the other stuff will work just fine for what we need. Thank you, Greg. Where were you earlier?

I made a complete fool out of myself as I 'helped' D.Soup move the plywood to our cart. I might have whined a little. Pouted. But I soldiered through. We needed to get out of this store and I was NOT willing to wait for someone to help.

So, all necessary items in hand (well, cart) we start making our way to the register.

When you see someone rolling a giant cart through a store, without much visibility, do you move to the side and let them through? I do. Apparently not everyone does... Useless Home Depot Customer #1 decided he needed to walk down the wide open aisle towards us, nice and slow, like he didn't see the cart with the 8 foot long pieces of plywood on it come around the corner towards him.

Jerk.

I tried to stare him down. Death stare offended face style. And ran into a sign. So the moment was kind of ruined. But I'm still bitter.

I pay for our stuff as D.Soup runs out to get the car. We are free and clear.

Not quite.

Useless Home Depot Employee #4 comes up to me in the parking lot to ask if we needed help loading our stuff.

"That would be wonderful." I say. It was not wonderful.

He was about 5'4", 130 lbs. Why would they put him in the loading area? Poor planning, Home Depot. How do you look at that guy and say "I know the perfect position for you.". Shame on you.

He tried to pick up 2 pieces of plywood the first round. Struggled, but managed. Until he got to the truck. Then he backed himself up between the truck bed and the plywood. Then he dropped his end in an effort to move out of the way. My attempt to help was foiled by the wind trying to drive the cart into the side of the truck.

Mz.Soup makes a fool out of herself part 2: "Eeeeeeeeeeekkkkk, the cart!" as I'm running to catch it.

Slowly but surely #4 and D.Soup get the other pieces of plywood into the truck. Freedom!

All that terribleness is behind us and we can just go home now and make dinner and watch Caps hockey. Right?

Wrong.

Dinner prep was going well, until I finished grating the zucchini.

I should probably tell you that grating the zucchini was step 1. Sigh.

I took the pieces of the zucchini I had cut off and tossed them down the drain to feed to my garbage disposal. Turned on the hot water. Flip the switch.

GRRRRJVDIWONKDNNVJFrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr click

That's what I heard.

Uhh, I think I broke the garbage disposal...

...Again?...

Come to find out, a rogue measuring spoon that I thought I had successfully looked for remained hidden from me within the disposal. And me flipping the switch caught it. And slammed it into the side of the already old disposal. And busted a giant hole through the wall. And shot water and food particles all over the inside of the cabinet under our sink.

Way to go me.

D.Soup is an angel, he sat down there and cleaned up my mess while I continued on with dinner prep. He even held off the mockery, for the most part.

I asked him in terror if this meant we had to go back to the hardware store tonight.

No,you just cant really use the sink.

I can be okay with that.

Not two minutes later, while he was finishing up his cleanup... While cutting up some onion.... I sliced into my finger.

Really, this day cannot get any better.

Let me help you

NO, I'm going to finish this on a matter of principle...and then I'm going to go somewhere and cry.

...Luckily I completed both at the same time... Cutting up onion has that kind of perk...

And now, finally we are going to bed. The night is looking up, the Caps won and dinner was delicious.

At least everything isn't in a shambles.

Here's to tomorrow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

You are NOT the "female Indiana Jones"

My friend suggested that I try to start blogging. Just post a bunch of the random stuff that I send out over email every day... well here goes nothing:

I'm going to start with a mild, and completely ridiculous rant :). I'm acknowledging the fact that this is ridiculous in advance because my obsession with Indiana Jones might be clouding my judgement slightly. As I was steadily getting more and more offended by the following article, I could feel the level of my self-proclaimed nerdiness rising to a level that has only been reached about two, okay maybe three, other times in my life.

I was clicking through links on CNN earlier today, and noticed one titled Meet the 'female Indiana Jones'. So I'm thinking, sweet! This girls gotta be a bad ass, which she is -- She travels the world, discovers new animals, runs with giraffes, swims with "unusually aggressive" sharks, has tried cow blood, and eats a plethora of strange things at each stop she makes on her journeys. All of that makes her completely awesome in my book, and mildly jealous (minus the cow blood) that I don't have the time or energy to live a life full of animals and traveling.

While all of this is great and she really is some kind of super human, she is NOT the female version of Indiana Jones, nor is she the "real life Lara Croft"... I understand these are not nicknames that she has given herself, so I should not be bitter towards her, but for some reason I am. Her other nickname, the female Steve Irwin, I feel is COMPLETELY appropriate and I have no qualms with it. I actually suggested it (to myself as I was stewing about the original nickname) before I had reached that section of the article.

NOW, continuing my rant about Indiana Jones.....
THIS is Indiana Jones, as I'm sure most of you know. He's a archeology teacher/OSS Operative/Adventurer. He carries a whip, wears a fedora and a leather jacket. He outruns boulders, hates snakes and generally saves the world every chance he gets:

He discovered the Ark of the Covenant, and saved it from the Nazi's... sort of. He saved a bunch of enslaved children from a bloodthirsty cult. He found the location of the Holy Grail. He even comes back later in his life and saves a Crystal Skull from the misuse of the Soviet!

So as we can see, there's a lot more to Indiana Jones than going around the world and discovering new species of animals. IN FACT, most of his experiences with animals weren't exactly pleasant... So I don't quite understand how people can claim that his female counterpart is a woman who admits that the draw for her to visit dangerous, exotic places around the world is nothing more than the animals. NOT the adventure, NOT the adrenaline associated with danger, NOT the prospect of discovering centuries old pieces of archeology!

Dear Media-type people,

Next time you try to find a "label" for a person that is making a name for themselves by doing GREAT things. Find something more appropriate so that you don't ruin it for the rest of us.

Thanks in advance,

Ashley

Now...
let me take a moment to mourn the fact that Indiana Jones is, in fact, fictional.
Sad.