So I was shopping at the mega home improvement store yesterday. I was minding my own business looking for yet more parts to our micro watering system when a helper monkey shockingly asked if I needed actual help. Oddly enough I did. I asked my question and the helper monkey and I struck up a conversation. She was a nice enough girl. Somehow I mentioned my little sob story of how Dane the Dumbass Previous Homeowner got pissed off at his wife and turned down the pressure regulation valve for our water and that we couldn’t flush the toilet and wash our hands at the same time. In the 5 years we have lived in our house we have been unable to locate the regulator to turn it back up.
I went about my business and continued shopping. Meanwhile, behind me helper monkey girl told my story to some dude standing next to her. I was friendly and filled in the rest of the story about how we’ve looked for the valve and that our horrible water pressure makes watering the grass nearly impossible. He said he could find the valve and turn it up.
Now I’m not normally the kind of girl that brings home random strangers from the mega home improvement store (unless you are Ahmed Hassan then dude, I would totally bring that guy home), but seeing as I have to wait at least 2 hours to take a shower after the trusty husband lest I have nothing but cold water I thought it was worth a shot.
Before you go getting all “don’t bring strangers home” on me let me assure you that the guy didn’t follow me home that day. He gave me his number and I talked to the trusty husband first. He said go ahead and call the guy, but then we had a slight incident with a rock and child so I didn’t get around to calling. I planned on doing it this morning. Then I was busy trying on 14 gagillion swim suits (eww) and didn’t do it. Then we had to go to said mega home improvement store for yet more sprinkler parts. Lo and behold plumber dude was there. You see, he is the plumbing “expert” there. He has 26 years of experience as a plumber. I also had the trusty husband with me.
We arrange a time for Dwayne to come over and we go on our way.
Around 5:30 he shows up, as expected and within 3 minutes has the long lost valve located. Totally not where we were looking. Wrench and a screwdriver and we go from 30psi pressure to 65. We turned on all of the sprinklers and flushed the toilets just because we could.
While under our house he also noticed that the main drain from our kitchen was leaking. The same drain that the home inspector said was leaking and that Dane the Dumbass Previous Homeowner traded his big red truck to a plumber to “fix.” My new BFF Dwayne said, “I’ll be right back.” The guy goes out to his truck, comes back and crawls back under the house. He then proceeds to fix the drain.
We thank him profusely and the trusty husband walks him out. ”How much do I owe you?” he asks. ”20 bucks,” Dwayne says. That man’s phone number now has a place of honor on our refrigerator.
At 7:30 this morning I found myself caffeinated, fed, with my email and blogs checked and nothing else to do. After doing some internet surfing to find info for an upcoming camping trip I called it a morning and took a shower. After I was dressed and such I looked at the clock: 8:30 a.m. I’m usually barely awake by 8:30 let alone ready to go for the day. Since I was ready to go I got my day started.
First I sorted through all of the boy’s old clothes (for the 3rd time). The plan was to take 2 18 gallon totes to Once Upon A Child to try to sell them. Hey, if I could make a little bit off of them it’s better than nothing. Once I crammed the bins full I loaded up the rest for the Goodwill along with 1/2 of my wardrobe that I cleaned out last year.
I dropped the bins at the store then continued on to the mall. *shudder* I had a mission. Return Ice Cream Maker. Earlier attempts to fool Costco into taking back my (not purchased there) ice cream maker were foiled when they tried to look up my account and my mother’s account. Evidently, Costco is much like Google and tracks everything you have ever purchased. Since neither ice cream maker was purchased there (did I mention that I got 2 for my birthday?) they wouldn’t take it. Curses. So I had to take back one to Macy’s. They happily took it back (I’ve never had an issue with returning something to Macy’s) and gave me a gift card for the amount. I toted my child around the store looking for something to buy. I didn’t want to return either ice cream maker to the stores they were purchased at because I knew I would have a difficult time finding something wanted. Sure enough, I walked out of Macy’s empty handed. Oh, I did find something I did want, but I assure you a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker wouldn’t cover the cost of a Michael Kors handbag (consequently this is the only Michael Kors I’ve ever found that I like).
We moved onto Cash & Carry to pick up containers to hold aforementioned ice cream. That was easy.
Then onto the grocery. This is where my day took a downhill turn. First reason I knew this wouldn’t be a good trip, no list. I hate not going to the grocery without a list. I texted the trusty husband. Maybe he could remember what we needed. Stupid Twitter is being stupid so he texted back, but I didn’t get the message. Come to find out we needed PAM. Oops, didn’t get that. But I did buy 2 boxes of brownie mix. That makes up for it right?
About 6 people tried to run into me with their carts. Then one lady tried to run me over with her car. No shit. The back of my car is full of stuff to take to the Goodwill. I was loading the groceries into the back seat when all of a sudden the door closes on me. Wind I thought. Then I hear this thunk noise. For some reason, the lady parked next to me wasn’t kind enough to wait for me to unload my groceries or didn’t have the courtesy to ask for me to move so she could back out. Instead, she decided to run my ass over. She backed into my car door closing it on me. Then didn’t even apologize for doing so.
On the way home I was cut off by 2 more people. I would stay home for the rest of the day, but I have more errands to run. Damn.
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The rest of the day was fairly mundane. I did score $58 for 1/2 of an 18 gallon tote of the boy’s old clothes. That went to purchase a new swim suit that didn’t make my ass look like the size of Rhode Island.
Well… it was mundane up until the point where I was watching TV, waiting for the brownies (mmm, brownies) to finish cooking when the trusty husband and I hear, “Ow, Ow, EEEEEE!” come from the back yard. Since the child is master of screaming like something is killing him I’ve now begun to decipher between actual imminent death and there is a fly nearby. This was close to the former. We sprinted to the back yard to the child. By that point he was holding a giant piece of asphalt rock and the top of his head.
Gravity is now my son’s worst enemy.
My child has this tendency to throw things up in the air and watch them come down. Dirt, pine cones, pine needles… rocks. You see where this is going don’t you? He originally said it hit his nose. There was no mark on his nose. When asked again he said, through the wailing, noooo here, pointing to the top of his head. I swear that seeing blood pour out of your child’s head is always startling. Sure enough, the rock came down smack on the top of his head. We have no clue how far up in the air the rock went, but we do know that it was pointy. No stitches were needed, but he does have a nasty scab that, while less gross than the teeth thing, is still kinda blicky.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with good friends and family. I always enjoy doing that. This time it was to celebrate my being yet another year older. Aren’t birthdays just an excuse to get together and have a party? I think so.
Amidst the invitees for this particular party I included one of my Uncles on my Dad’s side. My Dad comes from a family of 7 with Dad being the oldest and this particular Uncle being the youngest (being 16 years younger than my father). My uncle Shawn is more like a big brother to me. He is only 7 years older and treated me more like a sister than an niece. We were lucky enough to be invited to his son’s high school graduation a few weeks ago and I invited him to watch the boy play hockey and come over for the party. To be honest, I didn’t think he would make it. My aunts and uncles rarely come to anything I invite them to. Lo and behold he walked into the hockey rink Saturday morning.
It meant so much to me for him to be there. As you may recall my family is a bit on the different side. You see, since the writing of this post I have not seen nor really talked to my father. I talked to him the day before his birthday last year and then again on Thursday. For the past year I have been very upset with my dad. There are many reasons for that and the last one being that he just let my aunt slide at my uncle’s wedding when she was saying horrible things about me. In years past my dad would have been my greatest defender. In this case he said nothing. Could have something to do with the fact that he was well on his way to being three sheets to the wind.
I know that in this case I should be the bigger person, but frankly I’m tired of being the parent in the relationship. I can’t do it anymore. That really hit home with the news of my brother’s latest escapades and everyone telling me that I’m not the parent and that it’s not my fault.
So my dad actually called on Thursday to say that he would make it to my birthday party (Lil’ Bro was also supposed to be coming). I had words with my dad and brother. I tried to find out what happened with Lil’ Bro and neither of them wanted to talk about it. The conversation ended as such:
Me: Dad, I want to know what is going on
Dad: See you Saturday baby!
Me: Whatever dad.
I didn’t believe that he would actually show up, but secretly hoped he would. As we were walking out of the hockey rink I said something to Shawn about dad coming, and his words were, “I hate to tell you this, but don’t get your hopes up.” I didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t come. I was right. My own dad.
Hoping that my dad will man up and be my dad is like being a little kid holding onto a balloon string. You hold on so tight, but you know that at some point it is going to slip out of your grip. As you watch it float away you jump higher and higher trying to catch it, but it just keeps floating away. No matter how hard you try. I think my dad has gotten to the point that I really can’t reach the string anymore. I just have to sit and wait for the balloon to pop.
In the mean time, I have this one uncle. One uncle that cares about his family. One that is willing to let me know that I’m still a Kinney and that’s it’s ok to be the” black (or really white) sheep” of the family. Even if being the black sheep means it’s the one with her shit together.
Alternate title: Because you haven’t heard enough about sleep from me in the last three years.
There comes a time in every child’s life when they give up their nap. Mothers around the globe go into mourning at the loss of that precious little bit of free time they are allowed to do things such as go pee without little eyes peering at you or heaven forbid check their email in silence. For me, I spend that precious hour - hour and half working. As in doing stuff that makes this family just a wee bit of money. Without that nap time I have to get up every 5 minutes to attend to something. I can’t find it. I’m hungry. Wipe my butt. When I sit back down it takes another 5 minutes to figure out what I was doing and what program I was doing it with. Thus I never get anything done. Therefore I put sticky notes all over my computer screen telling me what I should be doing next. For instance one says GSA brochure. I take this to mean that I am supposed to create a brochure for our Gay Straight Alliance group at church. I think there is a deadline. The sticky didn’t tell me so… so meh. Oh look! Blogs!
Naps.
It has come to pass that my child only “requires” a nap every third day. I am of the personal belief that he needs a nap every day. Mostly out of selfish reasons, but in part because he can become quite the little crab come dinner time. Especially since he caught on to our attempts to constantly feed him. That was soon met with, “NO! No. more. food.”
Since he doesn’t nap he is constantly there asking if we can go to the pool, the park or somewhere outside. My answer to that is see that sticky note right there? It says I have to do this thing or else we don’t get to eat next week. And now you just made me forget when the deadline is for it.
My other issue is that I have told him that he doesn’t have to necessarily nap, but he does have to have a mandatory quiet time. If not he gets so wound up that we can’t get him down and he crashes so hard one of us gets seriously maimed. However, when I put him in his bed for said quiet time he spends the whole time rocking. I kind of breaks my heart that he’s in there rocking away. However, I can’t just put him in his room and say here, read this book. He’s like his mother and has the attention span of a gnat. He would look at the book for 10 minutes and want to play.
So here I sit between this rock and a hard place. And I still don’t remember when that deadline for the brochure is.
Thank you all for the birthday well wishes. I was a little overwhelmed. Every time I opened my email I would have 6-10 new ones.
My birthday celebration actually started on Sunday. It was the first time the trusty husband and I have been able to celebrate together. Meaning my birthday and Father’s Day. For Father’s Day we spent it running around Portland, Oregon. Little decided to have my nephew’s 1st birthday party (has it been 1 year already) on Father’s Day. That meant we had to drive down to Portland. Never a fun experience in my opinion. However, we made the best of it by staying Saturday night with my sister-in-law.
G (we actually call her that btw) got up and made her brother cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Next to doughnuts that is his favorite. Of course no Lindholm meal would be complete without a trip to the store. So the trusty husband had to go get coffee creamer. After breakfast we did the trusty husband’s next favorite thing and visited the Vancouver Farmer’s Market where he purchased his weight in berries. Then it was off to Leo’s party.
Once we were done with the party we headed over to the mega home improvement store to find the long sought after valves for our sprinkler system. It just so happens that next door was a bike shop. I let the boy pick what he wanted to get his dad (I gave him options). He chose a bike seat. We found the bike seat and then were off to buy one of my birthday gifts. I didn’t know where we were going, but by the time we entered my favorite NE Portland neighborhood (where I would totally want to live if I ever had to move to Portland) I knew where we were headed.
We pulled into the parking lot at Portland Nursery and the trusty husband took me to the tool section. They had the tool that I wanted. It was very exciting. From there we ventured into downtown Portland for coffee. Originally hunting for a Peet’s we ditched that idea for Stumptown once we crossed the Burnside Bridge. Coffee in hand, we went back to G’s for a lovely dinner and another birthday present for me (an iTunes gift card that was used to purchase Big Whiskey).
That’s a whole lot of Sunday.
Yesterday was a nice leisurely day. We trekked out to South Hill for lunch at Sonic (just so I could have a Cherry Lime-Aide). It took me back to working in Southern Utah when we lived in Vegas. I broke in my new hoe and did a little more gardening.
In the evening the trusty husband made me a lovely dinner of halibut on the grill, fried rice and steamed broccoli. It was perfect. After dinner I was given an actual gift to open. I like to open presents. Inside was a truly surprising gift. Derek found a copy of The Artful Dodger by Nick Bantock. It is his “autobiography” and personal reflections on his art.
Nick Bantock is one of my favorite artists. His layers upon layers of different material and the way he can use a pencil to sketch something that looks like a photograph are amazing. I own every single one of the Griffin & Sabine books and have read them over and over. I’ve studied his collage work and tried to copy some of it. This book is like a little peek into his mind and I can’t stop looking at it. It was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. Mostly because it wasn’t something that I’ve ever asked for and he knows how much I love Bantock’s art. Thank you babe!
I would have to say that turning 33 was pretty damn good.
