This evening was one of those rare instances where I was so disgusted and fed up that I didn’t say much of anything, except to tell her to get out of my driveway and go home, as her “services” weren’t needed. To avoid a TL;DR, I don’t know what she is doing financially, except that she is beyond broke, and so I have been helping her out just a tiny bit here and there. I told her flat out she is going to repay me in babysitting. Yesterday afternoon she and I made arrangements for her to come over today at 5:00pm promptly so that I could go over to Panera Bread to get some kid-free work done. It wasn’t like I was going shopping for a plus size swimsuit or gallivanting about. I had already finished up my regular work for the day, but I had a massive writing project I wanted to get started on, and Panera’s finicky wifi would be the perfect setting for me to sit and write in without getting distracted by other online things.

Well, 5:00pm came and went. At 5:35pm, about eight minutes before the kids’ VBS van was due to show up and pick them up, my mom shows up. No apology, no nothing. She barely got out of the car when I was like, “Just go”. She acts all bewildered and puzzled as to why I suddenly wouldn’t need her babysitting services anymore. Is she fucking kidding me? She delayed me over a half an hour, what’s another five minutes or so at that point?

Grr. Just grr. I get so tired of her BS, I seriously do. She is so annoyingly unreliable, and she is such a damn DRAIN. This sounds horrible to say, but there are times when I breathe such a sigh of relief to see her just GO.

So anyway, I’m in better spirits now, since I’ve completed half of the massive writing project, sent out a few important emails, and indulged in the super delicious Jamba All Natural Smoothies. I received them a few weeks ago for a product review, and man I wish I had dove into them sooner! Each smoothie pouch contains just 22g of sugar, and when combined with 8 oz. of low-sugar apple juice (Mott’s, in case you’re interested) and then split into thirds, that’s just 12.3g of sugar in a super delicious smoothie. It looks like I finally have a gastric bypass friendly smoothie to indulge in on hot days! ♥

Right now I’m listening to Adam Lambert (ssh) and am debating on how much more to write tonight. I’m tired and I’d like to go to bed a bit earlier than I did last night, but at the same time I like the idea of going above and beyond my original goal. Decisions, decisions…

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So it should go without saying that I’m just a little bit rusty in terms of churning out loads of words like a machine, which is why I’m dreading tackling the 8000 word writing project that is currently blinking a cursor at me in Notepad++. But I am lookin forward to the payout from it.

Here I go. Wish me luck!

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Have I mentioned that my car is dead? Yes, again. We thought it was the alternator belt and nothing else. Then we thought we just needed a new battery and I’d be good to go. Then the new battery died after one and a half days of use. It sputtered and totally killed my lights, stereo, air conditioning and windows, and put me through a harrowing drive home (95° day, just me and the kids in the car, me praying to every deity imaginable that it would hold out until I hit my driveway, or at least my street), and then died completely. We’re 99% certain it’s the alternator, based on the belt and then the battery going, and then everything going, and on the symptoms our previous Kia showed before its alternator died. Fortunately, we know the problem and it’s easily remedied. Unfortunately, alternator and neighbor’s-brother-the-mechanic-for-hire money is nowhere to be found, at least not until this coming payday, or possibly not until the next. I have a few freelancing/linkage opportunities that I’m waiting on responses from, but it’s a holiday weekend, so yeah…

You never realize how much you take a working vehicle for granted until it suddenly quits working. I work from home, so it’s not like it’s a major crisis that I no longer have my own set of wheels, but it has been majorly inconvenient. Suddenly taking the kids to VBS, or running to the grocery store for a gallon of milk, or picking up OTC meds for this wicked cold/sinus infection that reared its ugly head on Tuesday evening, isn’t so damn simple. I’ve been relying on Dan’s work schedule, my mom and Jason to get from point A to point B when the need arises. And while I certainly appreciate their help, and do my best not to take advantage of their offers of transportation, I want my own car again. Dammit.

Anyway, besides a lack of car and a major overage of snot (I’m sure you’re loving the mental image), I’m doing good. Just work, work, and work. And on the weekends, swimming, going to the park, and lately, to parties at various family members’ houses. This weekend is no exception: I went swimming with Dan, the kids, my mom and my brothers today, had a small birthday party for my now-fifteen-year-old brother late this afternoon, and have been invited to a Fourth of July cookout at Dan’s aunt’s house tomorrow. Fun!

I need to blog more, and blog more about personal things. There has been a major lack of that lately, and for that I apologize. Believe me, I’m well aware of the difference between quantity of posts and the quality of them. I’m doing my best to improve on the latter! In quick bullet form, here’s the latest happenings in the life of Jenn:

• My car is dead (see: the majority of this blog entry)
• Alyssa lost her first tooth last week!
• I have too many toys and not enough batteries.
• Swimming never gets old.
• Dan scored two free tickets to a local amusement park and I can’t WAIT to go.
• Lowest weight yet: 205.6 lbs.
• Speaking of weight, I’m wearing a size 14… shorts? Capris? They’re too short to be called capris, but kind of long for shorts? Corts? Shapris?

I’m also quite aware of the need for a new layout here at jenn.nu. I have something in mind, and hope to make it happen on Monday. Thanks to the lovely paid holidays my job offers, I only have to put in a half day, so I’m going to hopefully devote the afternoon and evening to coming up with a fantabulous new design for jenn.nu.

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In any case, this issue, while certainly significant in my mind (I won’t get into details, but let’s just say that it touches on almost every aspect of our lives, and it’s touching on Alyssa and Ryan as well, and THAT sends me into a murderous rage), I still love Dan with all my heart, and he me, and I know that we’ll make it through this… somehow. Meh.

Right now I’m still scrambling to catch up on work. I was up until 2:00am this morning, and right back to it this afternoon, once Comcast sent out technicians to fix whatever random issue that caused our internet to go out around 10:00am. Remind me to not take a four day weekend ever, ever again!

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And you would think this would all be very clear by the blog entries on my personal blog and the tweets on my personal Twitter account. But no, it’s not that clear, apparently, because at least once every 2-3 days I get a comment (moderated, of course, since it’s from someone who has never commented before) or a @reply on Twitter asking if I could check my email and answer their query on such and such. Um… excuse me? What part of PERSONAL BLOG AND PERSONAL TWITTER ACCOUNT do you not understand? ARGH.

I suppose you could say it’s my own fault for including my Twitter name in my email signature, but I’d like to think that people are considerate and realistic enough to realize that most people are not on-call 24/7, and that it is not considerate or polite to bug them via personal accounts and such for work-related tasks. I wouldn’t expect an off-duty garbage collector to come collect my trash simply because I spotted him in the grocery store, or a stylist who is out picking up some bridesmaids gifts to drop everything and come do my hair, so why would you expect me to take care of your request-that-relates-to-my-job-and-not-to-me-personally when I’m, oh I don’t know, having dinner or blogging or just relaxing with my husband?

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I pulled an all-nighter last night. It wasn’t originally my intention, as around 9:15pm I was seriously tired and not in the mood for anything but sleep. But I forced myself to work through it, and work through it I did. Second, third and fourth winds kept me going until almost 4:00am!

This morning was a record low in terms of how long it took me to get out of bed… thirty minutes after the alarm went off. Fortunately I had set my alarm for 7:45am, which is 15 minutes earlier than my normal wake-up time, so I wasn’t running too behind, and Alyssa and Ryan got to preschool on time.

I don’t know how I functioned today, but I did. I just kept going and going and going. Now that I’m laying down — lounging in bed under the covers with the lights off, actually — sleepiness is definitely taking over. I hope to be blissfully unconscious within the hour!

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Oh! Did I mention that on Wednesday I surprised Dan and the kids with a trip to a zoo? We usually go to the Philadelphia Zoo, but this time I picked something smaller, cheaper, and a bit closer — the Elmwood Park Zoo. This was Ryan’s first trip to such a big place — and without any type of “restraint”, since we left the backpack harness/leash at home and I donated the strollers a few months ago — so I was a little nervous. But he did great. Of course, going on a cooler day in the middle of the week helped. Plus the Elmwood Park Zoo is much smaller, so there weren’t nearly as many people as there would be at the Philly zoo. Also, this zoo is more like a huge park that was upgraded to include several unique playgrounds, some zoo animals (nothing too extravagant — bobcats, jaguars, bison, prairie dogs, a few other animals I’m forgetting, some birds, a reptile house, and a petting zoo), so things were much more spread out, and much more park-like.
Anyway, the kids had a fabulous time. Ryan really enjoyed playing on the playgrounds, petting the animals, riding a pony, and just having the freedom to roam around. Alyssa also had a great time, and both kids loved the fact that we stopped at Friendly’s afterward for ice cream.

We got home a little after 6 on Wednesday evening, and then Dan’s youngest brother’s girlfriend came over to visit. She’s six years younger than me, but honestly the age difference is barely noticeable. Ergh… “age difference”… that makes me sound old! But in any case, we had a great time munching on popcorn and talking, and then we headed out and biked around the neighborhood a few times.

I spent four hours at the car dealership on Thursday, and then I met up with Dan and the kids for lunched, stopped over at Target for bicycle helmets, and then went to Panera Bread to get in another two hours or so worth of work. Then I ran home, got the kids situated while Dan installed a bike rack (borrowed from my mom) on the back of our car, and once my mom came over he and I left to go bike riding! We went to a local park where we biked approximately five miles. About half of that was uphill, too. Ugh… it’s funny… I wasn’t out of breath exactly, just a little winded, but Oh. My. God. My thighs were burning, and once I got off the bike I was all wobbly for a bit. Heh. Then we picked up pizza and bread sticks and went over to Dan’s brothers’ apartment, where the six of us (Dan, me, his brothers, his youngest brother’s girlfriend and Jason) had a great time with food, snacks, video games, card games, an outdoor fireplace, and alcohol. The alcoholic version of pink lemonade is the shit. Tee-hee. I did three shots worth of it in half-shot increments over the course of four hours or so, and whooooooooo… only downside is that it actually BURNED when it hit my empty stomach pouch. That part wasn’t so pleasant!

Friday aka Hangover Day… managed to do a lot of work, run some necessary errands, I think I met up with my mom at some point (total memory lapse going on here)… that was about it.

And the weekend? Work! What else? LOL.

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