We would be at a carnival right now, except that a couple of minutes after we left the house the skies opened up and let loose with heavy rain. We continued on, but once we were several miles from home and the rain was coming down even harder, we pulled over and checked multiple forecasts, which all said the same thing: Heavy rain, thunderstorms, and a chance of hail. Go home, dumb asses.
So we came home. Fortunately the cheap carnival bracelets ($12 if purchased prior to the carnival vs. $25 if purchased at the carnival) are good for tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday, so we still have two more nights to choose from. Alyssa and Ryan want to go tomorrow night, of course; but weather-wise, Wednesday night is our best bet.
Amazingly, Alyssa and Ryan weren’t too disappointed. I expected tears, or at the very least some whining. Instead all I got was acknowledgment of the crappy weather and our crappy luck. And a few minutes after we got home, Alyssa skipped back out the door to join a neighbor friend at VBS1, while Ryan holed up in his bedroom with iCarly and Candy Crush.
It’s been a busy couple of days. On Friday we… I don’t even remember what we did, besides the kids and I running to eleven hundred different stores in the span of a couple of hours in order to hunt down the products that I had free coupons for. But since we did the errands IN MY CAR, MY SWEET GLORIOUS LOYAL AWESOME AIR-CONDITIONED CAR, it wasn’t too bad. Especially since I bribed them with freezer pops. That aside, I know we didn’t stay up too late, because on Saturday we had a birthday party to attend (Amanda’s daughter, Sophie, turned 7 on June 13th – yes, I am awesome enough to share a birthday with my best friend’s daughter), and a baby to babysit (my nephew – my sister-in-law wanted to take my brother-in-law out for a Father’s Day Eve movie, and I wasn’t about to turn down some adorable cuddly infant time).
The drive up to Amanda’s was uneventful, and the birthday party was fun. There were a half dozen of squealy kids, made even squealier courtesy of soda, juice, fruit snacks, and cake. Sophie was cute, as always. After helping Amanda’s mom clean up the party shrapnel, we hit the road to make the hour-ish drive to my sister-in-law’s house.
Only halfway there, I had to make a sudden exit from the highway, because out of nowhere my oil light came on. Dafuq?! After pulling over, puzzled but relieved that my car’s operating temperature was still well within normal range and nothing smelled or sounded out of place, I put about half of a quart of oil in, then stopped because I splashed a bit onto the still-hot engine parts, which sent up quite a bit of smoke. After a second spazzy phone call to Dan to ask if I had to worry about setting my car — and everyone and everything in it — on fire, and being assured that so long as I didn’t spill a huge amount it’d be fine, and waiting ten minutes with the car off, and then another couple of minutes with the car on, we were on our way.
(I think my oil light coming in was just a fluke. I had my oil changed less than 600 miles ago, and when Dan checked the oil level yesterday morning, after the car had been sitting for twelve hours on a flat surface, it was completely full. My low gas light stopped working a couple of years ago — I found that out when I RAN OUT OF GAS and luckily coasted off the side of a busy road into a hotel parking lot — so I’m assuming my oil light is now going, too. Whatevs. I’m a good girl when it comes to checking fluids and getting oil changes, so I don’t care too much about the loss of an accurate sensor. If two non-working sensors are all I have to worry about in an eleven year old car with nearly 136,000 miles on it, I’ll take it!)
We arrived at my sister-in-law’s house around 6pm, and stayed with my nephew until they got back around 10:30pm. Then home, but not quite…we made a stop at the gross and disgusting ghettolicious Walmart in a desperate last-ditch effort to find a very specific type of Purex detergent, which the store had. We also grabbed a bunch of free yogurt (more coupons!), and two quarts of oil for my car (which are now sitting, unopened, in my trunk). True to its shitacular usual setup, Walmart had approximately four registers and four thousand customers. We were second in line at the 20 items or less checkout, but waited over half an hour while the couple in front of us used three EBT cards and a wad of cash to pay for about 50 items, which were broken up into six different transactions.
Finally: home! By now it was just about midnight, and I was horrified to have Alyssa and Ryan up and out so late. After throwing some yogurt at them to scarf down, I tucked them into bed, scribbled a “Happy Father’s Day!” message on our refrigerator’s dry-erase board for Dan to read in the morning, put together a lunch bag for our Sunday plans (me taking the kids to the pool for a couple of hours), and went to bed.
Sunday: slept in, bugged Dan to put the center console back into my car, then took the kids to the pool. We got about four hours in before the forecasted rain came along and the lifeguards kicked everyone out. Then we hit up the playground a bit before more rain came along. Then we went home, where we had waffles and macaroni & cheese for dinner. Grossly lacking in nutrition, I know, but Dan desperately wanted the waffles (which I promised to him for Father’s Day), and the kids wanted macaroni & cheese, and I was too beat from all of the driving and running around to argue. So, carbs & carbs for dinner it was, with graham crackers, yogurt, and a few miscellaneous Reese’s Miniature’s for dessert.
Oh, and the best part of yesterday? TRUE BLOOD SEASON 6 PREMIERE, HELLS YES. It’s a toss-up between Alcide and Eric as to who I lust for more. 
Today we went to the Strasburg Railroad, and then we went to the library to get a jump start on this year’s summer reading program (the basic 10 to-do’s earn the kids some awesome stuff, including tickets for bowling, rollerskating, and to the local baseball stadium; the bonus 5 hours of reading earn them amusement park tickets, heck yeah read up kids — bumper cars and roller coasters are awaiting!). Tonight we would have been at the carnival, but, you know…rain and hail and lightening and such kind of put a damper (literally) on our plans.
- I’m not religious, but I do love me some free evening camp! ↩
My birthday was fairly uneventful, but in my life, uneventful is a welcome reprieve. 
29, and not happy about it.
‘Tis the night before my birthday, and all through the house, all of the creatures are a-stirring, except for the frozen-and-then-reheated dead mouse1.
Since Dan is working until 3 tomorrow, and Ryan has Boy Scouts tomorrow night, we did my birthday dinner tonight. Since I had an Outback Steakhouse gift card to use, that’s where we went. Jason joined us for dinner (which I later threw up part of *sigh*), and then treated us to Friendly’s for dessert (which I also threw up part of. Today is not my day for solid food, apparently.).
Oh, and I am such a housewife: Dan gave me a Hoover TwinTank Disinfecting Steam Mop for my birthday, and I’m very happy with it. But most of all I’m happy with the price: under $30 (it was originally more than $100), thanks to it being a display model that was clearanced again, and again, and again.
Oh, and here are the goodies the lovely Amanda gave me last night, when I stopped by her house after seeing my brother graduate(!) high school:
(the handwritten card is from her just-about-seven-year-old, Sophie, in case there was any question about Amanda’s writing skills)
And I am such a mom: tonight we picked up three2 $12 wristband vouchers to use at a kick-ass carnival that starts on Monday. The bands are $25 if you buy them there, so a 50+% savings? I’ll take it!
So tomorrow I turn 29. I feel old and frazzled and rung out…the last thing I need is a birthday confirming that I’m one step closer to being old. :/
Alternate title: My Baby Brothers Grew Up.
Google Latitude is fun. I’m currently stalking Dan’s and Jason’s whereabouts. The weekend went surprisingly quickly. Then again, that’s how time seems to go these days, especially with two kids and a house full of animals to keep me busy.
At the moment I’m lounging in pajamas and am very tempted to take a Flexeril, as I started my period overnight and am currently dealing with some pretty nasty cramps that are only bound to get worse as the day progresses. But Flexeril has a habit of hitting me like a ton of bricks about an hour or so after taking it, and I need to pick Dan up from his brother’s house once they all get back, so I’m holding off and making due with a heating pad and some Tylenol. And water, of course. I’ve been working on a 24 oz. bottle of water with two packets of protein mixed in. It’s not that bad…the protein powder is mostly unflavored, and the resulting mixture is kind of milky tasting, but again, very subtle. I’m not sure how much protein is in the packets…I think 10? So, 20 grams in progress, and another 30 to go. On my “off” days I still try to get 40-50g in.
Currently Alyssa is driving me crazy with wanting to put a collar on Precious, aka Nameless. Alcide had a snazzy leather crystal-studded collar, but that was because he was handsome and gorgeous and had amazing swagger that called for a collar. The rest of these guys? Pfft. Half of them hate collars, and do their best to work them off and leave them in obvious places for us to find, as if to say, “You think you’re going to make me wear a collar? Think again, human”.
Puff turns eighteen on July 1st, and if all goes well, he will be enrolled and attending college in the fall. And by fall, I really mean summer, since ’round these parts school starts up in mid-to-late August. Dan and I have discussed Puff living with us until college starts…and we’ve mostly decided that yes, he can. It will certainly bring its challenges, but if Puff needs a place to live, then better with us, you know? And to be perfectly honest: he is willing to pay rent, and right now we are in no position to turn that offer down. We want to make sure he starts building up savings, too, so it’s not as if we’d charge him an unfair amount. And on the flip side, we’d be providing not only housing for him, but food, hygiene products, transportation, etc. My dad lives in a residential group home in Philadelphia with the same type of “benefits”, and pays $425 per month. Reasonable? I think so. I don’t think we’ll ask my brother for that much… but we’ll definitely be firmly establishing ground rules, something Puff himself said he needs — he’s repeatedly (over the past year) told me that he’s thought a lot about his behaviors when he lived with us before and is very sorry for them.
So, that’s that, I suppose. I know Puff is anxious about his future, and I’m anxious for him…and Alyssa and Ryan miss him. And on a purely practical front we could certainly use the extra $. A win-win for all of us, hopefully.
Man, sometimes I feel so old and worn out from dealing with so much all of the time. And to think, I’m “only” turning 29 in four days.
Hello! I'm Jenn, and this is my blog. I'm 29, married to a sexy man named Daniel, and mother to an eight year old girl named Alyssa and a six year old autistic boy named Ryan. I'm obsessed with all things hot 
