Electrical Mechanism Hostilities

Now that I have caught the attention of the United States Government, I would like to say you can simmer down!  This blog has nothing to do with any foreign or US terrorist activity - unless you consider my everyday appliances a national threat.  However, if you would like to step up and replace any of them, I am more than willing to negotiate!

I am pretty sure in past blogs, I have mentioned my gullible nature for advertising ploys.  You may recall my dishwasher debacle - I fell hook, line and sinker for Kelly Ripa's Electrolux advertisement's and purchased a dishwasher because of her seal of approval.  It turned out to be a huge mistake. I had to replace it within fifteen months, only to be limited to another Electrolux dishwasher! At this time, I am hand washing dishes 85% of the time because they are never sparkling clean. Anyway, it started from there and has only gotten worse.

I am not entirely sure why all of our electric appliances hate it here so much but at this point, I am ready to go old school and move to the country get a bucket and a wringer, build a spring house and cellar and call it a day! 

Here is the current list of broken appliances in my home (No worries, there is a story for each one)

1. Dishwasher
2. Refrigerator
3. Microwave
4. Garage Door Opener
5. Garbage Disposal
6. Straight Iron
7. Curling Iron
8. iPods (2)

We already covered the dishwasher, so we will move right along to the refrigerator.  One day I went over to get some ice for my drink and pushed the cup in to the space where the ice falls out and in to your cup.  Much to my dismay, nothing happened!  NOTHING!  I opened the door and pulled out the ice storage unit and there was nothing in it. I messed with all the buttons and knobs I could find and still nothing.  I called my husband, who checked the water line, pushed all the same buttons and knobs and still nothing.  Since we didn't really have any extra money to spend on something as important to me as ice, we dealt with it by purchasing ice cube trays.  I am not going to spend a whole lot of time on this ice maker situation but it must be said, ice cube trays in a house with four kids, not a fabulous combination!  I lived without manufactured ice for a good six months before I could no longer take it and found the money to replace the ice maker.  I installed it all by myself and had ice cubes by the days end. 

A few months later, we were sitting in our living room and watching television and the refrigerator started making this humming sound.  In all fairness, it was sort of melodic and I found myself soothed by it at first.  By the next day, the soothing stopped and it had become a loud, irritating, buzzing noise!  After some Google searching we came to realize it was due to a frozen back panel which had caused the fan to freeze up.  Great!  This is just what I need and within twenty-four hours, the entire fridge was inoperable. Luckily, we had little food, an upright freezer and a mini fridge in the garage where we were able to put our rations.  The fridge had to sit unplugged and empty for a couple days to thaw.  How much fun was this?  Oh so much fun!  As you are probably aware, you can not leave the doors closed when a refrigerator is not in use. How lovely to have the doors open all the time and instead of yelling at one's offspring to close the dag gone fridge doors, you are now yelling, "LEAVE THEM OPEN!".  Since having a refrigerator repair person come out is costly, we have opted to deal with the twenty-eight day cycle (it works great for about twenty-seven days and then the humming begins).  The great news is, I have even figured out how to get this cycle to work with my grocery shopping!

The microwave isn't a huge deal in the great scheme of things.  The only issue with it is the light underneath doesn't work.  I have changed the light bulb only to have it work for a moment and then BAM it's gone.  If you smack it just "so" sometimes it will provide a moments light but again, it has to be a direct, just "so" smack.  It just isn't worth the effort unless I want to take out some pent up hostility on something.

Moving right along, in the spring our garage door opener decided it can only pull the garage door up a quarter of the way, gives up and the door goes crashing down.  Fabulous, right?  Why yes it is fabulous!  In order to get my Pilot out of the garage I have to push the wall button and sprint across the garage floor, avoiding the children's shoes, rain boots, and whatever else has found itself a home along the garage wall, grab underneath the door and give it a little help to get past the quarter of the way hump and then and only then, will it finish the job a little past the halfway point.  It gets really frustrating if you don't make it to the door in time or if you let go before it reaches the magical spot where it can pull it again.  I love home ownership!

Are you feeling my pain yet?  One would think this would be the end of it!  There couldn't be more, could there?  Oh yes there could! I am "The Queen of Insanity"! How could I exist without some kind of constant crisis?

The Badger has gone off the prairie, I repeat, The Badger has gone off the prairie! "What is a Badger?", you may be asking.  Badger is the name of my garbage disposal - my sister's too.  In fact, my sister and I have a long standing joke about The Badger.  You do not have any idea how dependent you are on your garbage disposal until it is not working.  I have caught myself, on more than one occasion, dumping things into it, only to have to dig them right back out.  Can you say gross?  BLAH! 

My kids (no one has ever stepped forward taking responsibility) broke my very expensive, and obviously purchased prior to my downward financial spiral, FHI straight iron.  On a more positive note, I have learned to go with the flow of my natural curls.  Subsequently, someone broke Abigail's curling iron.  Karma?  I do not know, just sayin'.

In addition to all of this, two of my kids' iPod touches, spontaneously went to the dark side and will no longer do anything! I can't even blame the kids for this one because my own iPod did the very same thing and I gave it special care!  Personally, I think this is a plot of Apple's.  They suck you in with cool technology and right before they come out with something new, "Oh Snap!  My iPod isn't working!" Hmmmmmmm....suspicious, yes?

In closing, if by chance, you see a high speed chase on the news, following a bank heist, and there is a curly haired, crazy woman driving a silver Pilot with a stick family on the side, and other accolades of children stuck to it - it would be a safe bet to guess it's me, The Queen Insanity gone off the reservation!

Sincerely,
The Queen Of Insanity

How I Quit My Job

When I found out Olivia's gymnastics schedule was going to be five days a week this fall, I immediately panicked.  How in the world was I going to get her there four evenings and one Saturday afternoon, get Abigail and Sarah to dance, work and find anytime to say, breath?  After careful consideration, I decided to turn in my notice at my place of employment. 

I wrote my resignation, took it in and left it on my boss' desk.  I knew this would not go over well because she was on vacation for a few more days, however, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.  I thought she would be back from vacation on Monday and she would have some time to "process" my letter.  You know what?  She didn't come back to work till Tuesday.  You know what else?  On Tuesdays (truck day), we are the only two people there from 6:00am till 8:00am!  I had no idea what I would be walking into this Tuesday morning.  I love my boss! She is non-stop, anxious, worst case scenario and matter of fact. Honestly, how can anyone not love the attention deficient?  Face it people, without those of us suffering from it, life would be a great big bore!  Anyway, I see her standing out front of the store when I pull into the parking lot.  My immediate thought is far too inappropriate to type and all of you know exactly what word popped into my head!  I decided it was time to get out and face the music.

As I approached her, she just smiled and we made idle conversation.  I start thinking about how to prolong the conversation and perhaps use my A.D.D. to confuse her A.D.D. into focusing on her Tail of The Dragon motorcycle adventure.  It worked for about two minutes until the rule "Twenty minutes of talking then a few minutes of silence" was apparently on A.D.D. time. "What are you doing to me?" she said.  Thoughts are racing through my mind now and I am trying to have a witty, yet comical comeback - I got nothing!  I start explaining that it's not the job, I actually like my job, it's just my kids schedules are becoming very demanding, and there are only so many hours in the day, my house is a disaster area (anyone who has been to my house knows this is an every day occurrence - I was not blessed my Mother's cleaning talents), Scott is working third shift now which makes it impossible for me to be here at 6:00am on a Tuesday morning with school starting and oh yeah, all of my kids are in school all day now, so if I found an evening to work, I would never see them!  Retail employment is great for flexibility in schedules but generally speaking, it is very difficult to have this sort of schedule if you expect to be able to make plans.  That was that, the conversation was over, well, at least for the next hour.

An hour later, as I predicted, she approached me again and asked if I would be willing to stay and work every other Sunday and Tuesday (truck day). Just to explain my "as I predicted" statement, at my work, it's kind of like the movie The Firm, once you are in, it's impossible to get out.  I explained to her my situation with our union, I owe them back dues and they are taking an incredible amount of money out of my part-time paycheck and I would be working to pay them.  It doesn't matter how many hours you work, they take the same amount.  She asked me to find out how much I still owed and how long it would take me to pay them off and I agreed to do so.

The next day I called the union (I have another name for them).  I still owed them $102.00!  At an additional $10 a pay, which is $20 a month...well you can do the math.  The union's lovely representative was not exactly helpful and assured me of all the great benefits I was getting by being a member of the union.  I begged to differ with her and I am pretty sure she hopes I drive off a cliff in a fiery crash. When I saw my boss for the first time after talking to them, I informed her of the bad news and there was just no way I could stay since I would essentially be making wooden nickels. 

My second to last day working was truck day.  At first we went about putting truck out and right before her scheduled district conference call she made me a possible offer to stay.  Her plan was to promote me to a shift manager, which would in turn give me a decent wage increase, thereby making up for the loss due to union dues and to work with my schedule even further.  There was just one issue, she had to get permission from the district manager, she planned to call him immediately following the conference call and so she did. Right before I was to leave, she came over and told me she had gotten his approval and to please think it over. 

I still work at CVS.


Sincerely,
The Queen of Insanity
*Or stupidity at this point*

Back To School Is Cool

I can not tell a lie,  I love when it's time for the kids to go back to school!  To me, it is better than Christmas.  For a variety of reason, one of which, the gift of peace and quiet is all mine.

This year I was even more excited than usual because it is the first year all four of my offspring will be in school all day, every day Monday through Friday.  You can call me heartless, mean or whatever you want but I am completely unaffected by their daily absence - COMPLETELY!  I laugh at all the posts I see from Mom's boohooing about their "baby" going off to kindergarten.  You know what?  We don't have all day kindergarten where we live so realistically they are gone for a maximum of three hours.  I can not miss you in three hours, I don't care who you are! 

The only thing I don't like about back to school time is having to buy supplies.  Nowadays, you have to buy everything under the sun for them to go to school, only for them to "share" because their items will be "community" supplies.  Community supplies? 

In my "community" we only have Crayola crayons not knock offs that don't color worth crap.  See?  This is what I spend my time worrying about!  Okay, I am buying the name brand crayons and not just because they are name brand but because they are the best crayons/markers/colored pencils out there. They are just better - period - Therefore, my children will bring Crayola to your classroom.  What really cuts me to the core is some parents are just plain cheap!  I don't know if they think they are punishing the teacher, the principal, the school district, or the whole establishment itself for making them buy school supplies in the first place.  However, your cheap ass is punishing MY child because you are too "thrifty" to spend an extra quarter on Crayola!!!!

In my "community"  I buy my own cleaning supplies and you buy your own cleaning supplies!  I do not feel like it is my responsibility to buy paper towels and expensive disinfecting antibacterial wipes for you to make my child wipe down this, that or the other.  Why do I pay two separate taxes to the school district?  Are your janitors not holding up their end of the bargain?  Seriously, fire them!  It isn't that difficult to grab a wash cloth with some good old fashioned soap and water to wash things off.  My child is still going to end up sick at some point during the year, so I fail to see the purpose.

Tissues, I have no issue with tissues.

Then there is shopping for clothing with those indecisive little creatures. 

One of my children would just prefer to wear the same few outfits over and over and over and over and over again - Bam, problem solved.  I can not convince her to go shopping with me.  I just bring home things and she proclaims her undying love for them.  LIES!  Either I will see it on her soon or I never see it again until she proclaims it is too small.

My youngest knows what she wants and you will not be allowed to forget until she has it in her possession.  She isn't rude or obnoxious about it.  No, not at all, she is just like an elephant, never forgets anything (well all of my kids are like that).

Another one of my children is just laid back and very sure of her likes and dislikes in clothes.  This child is totally screwed after one more size of underwear!  Unless by the grace of God The Children's Place comes out with a lingerie line for teens - Pray for this, will ya?

Then there is the one.....yes the one child who was put here on this earth simply to torture me.  For example, tonight we went shopping for tennis shoes and a few other random things.  But the shoe shopping! Oh my, my, my, my, MY! I love shoes!  Seriously and truly I love me some shoes. What I do not like is shoe shopping with any of my kids.  I am not sure why - perhaps I am entirely narcissistic about shoes.  Ha ha ha ha You got me, I am.  Anyway, I am pretty sure I said, "You have five minutes to make a decision" at least twenty times.  By the time we were finally done, I was wondering why they don't sell knives or guns of any kind in shoe stores!  When we were done at the shoe store, we hit Target to return her two day "used" backpack because it was broken.  I had to get a few things and she couldn't find just the perfect bag - therefore, it was my fault we took so long shopping! 

Sincerely,
The Queen Of Insanity

Life or Something Like It

It has been a good long time since I have last blogged.  I have tried many times to get on here and always get side-tracked but I am going to try and do better.

My life has been just a little insane since we last met. Quite honestly, I am not even sure that insane even begins to cover it - My days are a blur!  I work, I take Lu to gymnastics, I bring her home from gymnastics and repeat. On a rare occasion, I get the privilege of driving Abigail and/or Sarah to dance. I even let Lu skip gymnastics once *GASP* to go to her sisters' dance rehearsal.  I think her coach wanted to tar and feather me because when I told him she wouldn't be at practice, he seemed a bit irritated and confused when I said, "Her sisters' have dance rehearsal! You know, I have do have three other children!?!". 

A word of caution:  Competitive activities for children are a slippery slope!

Now I must qualify this cautionary statement - I do not mean your run of the mill little league activities or even school organized sports, band or what have you.  Mainly uniformed, traveling, paid for by the parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousin's, brother's, sister's last dog owner, virtually any one willing to buy; a candy bar, candle, hanging flower, discount card, gift card, ad spot, magazine subscription, 50/50 raffle ticket or eat at this restaurant tonight for our team to get X% of the profit kind of competitive activity. As my Dad would say, "It's slicker than snot on a door knob!" 

I really did used to have a life - now I have three out of four children participating in competitive activities (two dancers and one gymnast).  I often ask myself, "WHY????????? (throwing hands towards the heavens) WHY DO MY CHILDREN HAVE TALENT?"  Clearly they get this from me. This is my own damn fault. I say this because the fourth child is pretty much a bookworm-brainiac, who clearly did NOT, I repeat, DID NOT get that from me.  She is too smart for her own good.  This is not to say that I am dumb, I am smart in my own special way - a way that remains to be revealed.  All joking aside, it is so easy to get sucked into the competition world.  By nature, I am not competitive.  I will literally let someone beat me just because I am that nice - I don't want them to feel bad.  If it's important for them to win, it's important for me to let them.  If you fell for that, you should seek counseling immediately.  Well, the last part anyway, I am really not competitive.  I just don't have it within myself to worry about whether or not someone can beat me at something.  Nor do I care if your kid is faster, more flexible, can do more turns, flips, blah, blah, blah, blah.....doesn't matter to me so long as my kid is doing their best, having fun and being a team player. 

Yes, I am rambling, OKAY?  This is what insane people do - duh! 

Originally, I put my twins in dance when they were three years old. I was so excited to have them wear cute little costumes and prance around the stage.  Why?  Simply because I thought it was cute and isn't this what Queen Mums are suppose to do - Put their unsuspecting daughter's in tutu's for all the world to see? Yes!  After awhile, Emma said, "I can't do this anymore....There are books to be read!" I let her quit but Abigail carried on.  But wait!  I have Olivia, she will love to be like her big sister OR not. Olivia wasn't feeling the dancing scene and wanting to keep my kids active, I enrolled her in gymnastics. Before I knew what was happening, she was signed up on the competition team and there went my personal life. 

Today I spend all of my precious time at dance and gymnastics classes, rehearsals and competitions.  I have at the very least one nervous breakdown per competition season - you just can't help it.  Okay, okay, I can't help it!  It is stressful and it's hard not to get caught up in the emotions of it all.  No, "I" am not competitive but you always want to see your child do their best.  It sucks when they don't and they beat themselves up about it. Never mind the sacrifices of time and money you put in to it.  Sometimes, I just want to strangle them - yeah, I can be honest here.  This is my blog after all! 

The truth is, there is a lot to be learned from competitive arts/sports.  My girls are learning the fine art of winning and losing gracefully (In case you are wondering where I stand on this matter:  I do not believe in not keeping score.  You hippie parents are too much for me! That is not real life.  You are setting your children up for disaster).  My girls are learning to be team players and I am doing the world a favor by keeping my offspring from running the streets and reeking havoc on poor unsuspecting souls.  Trust and believe, it is a favor!

In a nutshell, I haven't been around because I haven't been around.

Sincerely,
The Queen of Insanity

Coming or Going? I'm Not Sure

To all my beloved followers,

I must apologize for my lack of blogging over the past couple, or perhaps few, months.  Life has been insanely crazy and most days I'm not sure if I'm coming or going.  Lest we not forget the title of my blog, "The Insanity Chronicles" and friends, I am the Queen!

Let's try to get you up to speed with the insanity around here, shall we? As far as I can tell my last blog was in October, WOW!  I do suck and have let my court down!  I am very sorry and I hope that you can find it in your blessed little hearts to forgive me (I HATE a grudge holder - please don't make me hate you).  I feel pretty confident this blog will be more like a novel so you better just grab a drink and get cozy!

October:  Came and went, the kids went trick or treating. Abigail played the role of Dorothy, Emma was a Zombie, Olivia and Sarah were both witches.  Boy do I miss the days of sweet little Disney Princess costumes!  In some ways I am glad to see them go.  Why?  Well if you think about it, I mean really think about it, Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora and the likes all start off as broken, if you will, meet Mr Perfect, fall in love and ride off into the sunset.  Is this reality???  Hell no!  I don't want my daughters buying into this fantasy.  It's a set-up for a life of misery.  Jaded?  Why thank you, yes I am!

November:  In case you were unaware, there was a presidential election.  I, of course, was glad to see it come to an end despite the fact it put cold hard cash into our checking account.  It never ceases to amaze me how passionate people become over politics.  Seriously, I am not willing to lose friendships and family members because I don't share like opinions. In my humble ole opinion, each elected official brings their own screwed up agenda to office - It's four years, eight max and then some other idiot moves in with their version of what "We The People" need.

My bestie was the first to hit a numerical birthday that we all dread for the same reason - it's a milestone birthday.  However, I think she wore it well, alone, for the month and a half it took me to catch up.  On a positive note, it also marks thirty years of friendship for us and how many people can say that these days? No gift required!

November also brings the death of harmless turkeys all over, we cheerfully call it, Thanksgiving.  Thank you little turkeys for your yummy light and dark meat smothered in dressing and gravy.  YUM!  All kidding aside, I am not particularly fond of this holiday for various reasons. Do you really care what my various reasons are?  Bottom line, I'm going to tell you so deal with it!  I haven't been around for awhile, I have a lot to say. 

1.  Not a huge fan of turkey
     *Did the pilgrims not have access to a cow?  Why not fillet mignon?

2.  I despise pumpkin pie.

3.  Black Friday
     *This signifies assholes coming out of every nook and cranny to spread holiday cheer!

4.  Christmas wish lists
     *Because money just falls like manna from the sky????

5.  I work in retail
     *No comment needed*

December:  A lot of things happened in this month of my birth - A queen was born! End of story, right?  HA!

For starters, I began to see a therapist at the urging of my family physician.  Why?  Let me count thy reasons........For several years now I have been on medication for anxiety.  Anxious? Me? Doubtful! Anxiety medication never has had the desired effect - I never felt a true relief from what my doctor felt sure was ailing me.  I had told her and told her I didn't think I was anxious.  No, I felt pretty sure it was something else, something one of my children had been diagnosed with - Attention Deficit Disorder.  Shut the front door!  She had refused to treat me for it without my seeking the educated opinion of a licensed shrink.  I had delayed this for at least a year because the last thing I want to do in my 42.7 seconds of free time is sit down on a couch and spill my guts about how disorganized and scatterbrained I am.  What I finally decided was this, my family has suffered me long enough.  You may be thinking, "Dear Queen, we all feel like this sometimes....scatterbrained, disorganized and a little bit lost!" I assure you, my level of chaos is like a constant hurricane. 

It took two appointments for her to determine without a doubt, I was certifiably suffering from A.D.D.  At the first appointment we just talked about why I was there and family history.  She gave me a 128 question test to fill out at my own pace over two weeks. The questions were yes or no and she assured me it was "OKAY" to just do a few at a time.  I thought, "Easy, piece of cake, this will be a ten minute test, worse case scenario - fifteen minutes.  Are you sitting down?  I finished the test the morning I was supposed to be turning it in.  Not because it was hard or it required a lot of thought or effort - it took me two weeks because I have it - I have the A.D.D.!!!! Truth be told, the questions had me in stitches.  I would tell you some of them but I don't have a copy of it anymore.  Just know that what you find annoying in some people, they find hilarious about themselves simply because it is so ridiculous.  As if some Christmas miracle had occurred my doctor prescribed me Adderal on Christmas Eve. 

You might assume the above mentioned was the end of December, you would be mistaken.  There is more, always more where I am concerned.  We took on three new residents at our abode.  It's the Insanity people, I can't control it!  May be it's the A.D.D. no one can say for sure!

The first new resident is Woody. He is the sweetest, cutest boxer ever!  I am pretty sure I failed to mention before my sweet little Lilly passed away unexpectedly in late November.  This left a huge hole in my heart.  She was my little companion.  If you don't have a dog or even if you do - you totally take for granted your love for them! I may call my dogs, especially Mabel, every name in the book but I love them all dearly.  Back to Woody now, he was abandoned at the old dog pound in Columbus by a spiteful man.  I am grateful though because had this man had a heart, I wouldn't have Woody now.  He has been a great addition to our family and like Lilly - he loves me the best!

The other two residents are humans - we are an equal opportunity facility after all!  They came to live with us after my friend decided there were irreconcilable differences in her marriage.  It happens!  Those damn Disney Princesses strike again....happily ever after is for the naive.  Don't jump me about this - I am completely entitled to have an opinion.  Sometimes things just don't work out and it takes bravery to admit it's time to make your own happily ever after!  You may also be thinking, "Girl, you have lost your mind!" but the joke is on you, I lost mine a long long long time ago! 

The truth is, it hasn't been a hard transition.  I entirely understand the whole "sister-wife" theory!  It's fantastic having another "Mom" in the house.  In the words of the Wonder Pets, "What's gonna work? Team WORK!"  I have an extra set of hands around here to help clean, fold laundry, do dishes, chauffeur the kids and a whole list of other perks.  We don't share the King of the house - just in case you were wondering!  All in all, I think everyone here is happy with all the new residents. 

January Oh January:  The King of our homestead made some big changes.  He took a promotion (which to me doesn't seem like a promotion at all)  at work.  This required a decision in two hours.  They called and offered him a position as a Corporal in the jail.  Much to my surprise, he accepted it and was promoted the very next day!  I went with him to the ceremony, along with several other K9 officers.  We stood in the back whispering amongst ourselves about this so-called promotion until it was time for him to get his new stripes. I was honored to move to the front of the room and place these new stripes on his uniform along with his new badge.  Let me clarify my discord about this promotion to Corporal. 

First of all, we have to give up Mira.  Despite the fact she ate an entire sectional couch to show her dissatisfaction with our choice to leave her alone, we kind of love her.  She probably has a couple more weeks here with us, not sure about the time frame but it will be a sad day when we have to say goodbye to her. 

Secondly, the take home cruiser had to be turned in to the department. Goodbye free ride to work - Hello gas station!

Lastly, different work hours for the mister.  He is now a first shift worker.  Yup, 7am to 3pm.  My first inclination was to dread the idea he would be home EVERY night.  No more control of the remote control, no more free time alone in the evenings and a whole list of negatives.  Before you judge me, let me further explain alright?  We have been married almost 20 years and in those 20 years he has only ever worked 1st shift during training periods at work.  The kids and I are not accustomed to him being "around".  This was going to throw a huge wrench in our existence!  As it turns out, I hate this new shift for an entirely different reason.  I NEVER see him now.  Who'd a thunk it?  Not me! Between the kids activities and my working part-time, we just don't really get to spend time together anymore.  It has become apparent to me I was irritated for all the wrong reasons.  It's true, hindsight is 20/20. 

Other than all of the above mentioned, we are busy as ever running to dance, gymnastics and me working but we're plugging away at this thing called life and I wouldn't change it if I could.  I am just sorry that you all have to suffer without my regular blogging.  I do the best I can.

Sincerely,
The Queen of Insanity