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Weekend mess in pictures

Well I was going to post pictures of the mess from this past weekend, however Blogger won't let me. :( I've tried twice now and it just thinks and thinks and thinks and then I get the silly "timed out" message from their server.

What IS that smell?

Remember this post about the stinky smell in the basement? Dead mouse? Dead frog? Nah, we weren't quite that lucky. Try our septic tank was overflowing from under the lid into our yard and we didn't discover it until Saturday afternoon. You know how many septic tank fixers work on a Saturday afternoon??!! Zip. Zero. Zilch. So while I was ranting and raving that SOMEBODY had to be able to return a call on the weekend, hubby just stared at me like the crazy I-want-action-NOW whacko that I can be. (This is why he put me in charge of the sub-contractors when we built the house. I could call them and get action out of them.)

I have pictures to document the fixin' of the problem, but I forgot them and without them, the rest of the story just wouldn't be the same. So I'll let you imagine what could have happened until tomorrow. All that I will say is that for once, I was glad The Home Depot was open late on a Saturday night. Oh and that we are able to flush the toilets and shower again.

Welcome to the Tweener Years

It's with firm conviction that I declare G. to be Tweener. Too old to be a little girl and too young to be a pre-teen. The attitude, the self-conscience demeaner about looks, the unsure self-esteem of a pre-teen are all slowly surfacing, but yet the little girl obsessions over Barbie, Littlest Pet Shop and Polly Pockets are still there. It's a fine line to walk with her for her daddy. One minute she's happy so snuggle up and watch Shrek 2 and the next minute he's "totally embarrassing" her. In a moment they can go from joking around and teasing to tears and foot stomping or from I love you Daddy to you don't understand me Daddy.

It'll be interesting to see how this Tweener grows into a Pre-teen and beyond. Being in two households is hard enough for a kid, but being a hormone filled, gangly girl will surely be a challenge both for her and her parents. I have a feeling she'll clash with her Mom more than her Dad, mostly because she is SO much like her Dad, and there's so much history to show how "well" Mom and Dad get along. Albeit much better lately, but I think you catch my drift.

I imagine that the next year or two will be very telling. Will it be a battle all the time or will it only be an occasional battle? Will she become more withdrawn into her awkward tweener stage of life, or blossom into a socialite who shares every thing? Right now, she has declared that she doesn't care if she has a lot of friends. Will that change? If not, I can just imagine how much more boring we'll become to hang out with.

House boat in waiting

Oh look, it's raining again. What a surprise! I wouldn't have expected it to rain for the 6th day in a row. (insert eye rolling smilie here)

Last night, or really early this morning at 4 a.m., it rained so hard I thought for sure the house was going to start floating away. This morning, it was no surprise when we woke up to see Lake G. and Lake G. Squared in the front and back of the house. Yes, we have a drainage problem. And yes, we are working on it. Obviously unsuccessfully working on it. But, if it doesn't stop raining, then we can't get out there and fix it because it's too muddy and wet to work with the tractor. Such a vicious cycle. We need the month of July back. Lots and lots of dry, dry, dry, hot days. But this is mid-September in Michigan, so the chances of that kind of weather are slim to none.

In other house news, I headed down into the basement yesterday morning and before I could reach the bottom two stairs I noticed a pungent dead mouse like smell coming from beyond the door. I followed my nose to the corner where the smell was the strongest and discovered it was coming from our sump pump crock. Convinced that a mouse or frog had fallen in and died, I grabbed a flash light to take a look. But no floating mouse or frog revealed itself. So what did I do next? Called hubby of course. Then when he couldn't figure it out, but was convinced that our septic field was leaking into our drainage field, I did the next logical thing. Call our plumber.

The plumber said, "Maybe a mouse or frog got in there and died. Put some bleach in there and see if it helps." So we did and this morning, the dead mouse smell is gone. But that might be because Lake G., which is in the back of the house, is draining into our drainage field at breakneck spead, so the water is being pumped out of the sump crock about every 5 minutes. If there was anything dead in there, it got jetted out somewhere in the middle of the night. So while the rain helped to solve one problem, it created another.

On the good news side of things, since hubby can't work outside this weekend, I can finally get him to help me move some things around on the inside. Or maybe, just maybe, we can *gasp* go out somewhere. It's a long shot, I know, but one can hope, one can hope. ;)

(Disclaimer: I inserted the winky because most of the time I'm just as lame as he is and opt for staying in rather than going out.)

Oh Ungrateful Me

Me: Um, I don't know how to say this diplomatically, so I'm just going to say it. I don't want anymore of your Mom's hand-me-downs.

Hubby: Oh. Like what?

Me: Like she brought another lamp.

Hubby: It goes with the desk that she gave us.

Me: We have a lamp for that desk. And her style is not my style.

Hubby: I told her I wanted all her stuff. Like her couches.

Me: Her couches?!?!?! No way in hell am I taking those couches.

Hubby: Why? We could recover them.

Me: They are ugly and uncomfortable. We have no place for them.

Me: At the old house, I had to live with the ghost of your ex-wife. This is our house. I'm not living with your mom's furniture like I had to be reminded of your ex. all the time at the old house.

Hubby: Oh. It's just that a lot of it is my favorite stuff from my childhood.

Me: That's fine. I don't want it. I don't decorate in that style. We already have 2 desks, an armoire, a nightstand, a "game" table and lamps. One of those desks I didn't want in the first place.


So yes, hubby thinks he's doing us a great service by getting us "free" furniture, when all I see is yet another time in my life where somebody else gets to decorate my (our) space with their hand-me-downs. Frankly, I'd much rather NOT have anything and save the money to get what I really wanted in the first place. I am so past hand-me-downs.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice, solid, quality furniture, but it doesn't go with my Pottery Barn wannabe style. And the problem is, the stuff we do have, I didn't have much of say about either. He just showed up from a visit with a cargo van stuffed full of her furniture. So I guess I see this as the best opportunity to speak up about the rest of the stuff.

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I'm not ignoring the fact that today is the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but it also happens to be my step-daughters birthday. So I'd much rather think about this as her day and the day my husband became a father for the first time, than think about the horrible day that it was 5 years ago.

Ranting Part Deux

I'll let my email to the company speak for itself:

Dear Sirs,
On July 7th, I purchased a pair of Chaco sandals at in , MI. Since then, I have worn them maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Today, as I left a meeting and got ready to walk the 15 minutes back to my office, I notice that my right sandal was fitting odd. I looked down and discovered that the plastic buckle on that sandal had broken. So, I walked back to my office and am now emailing you to find out what you can do for me and my barely two month old sandals. I've attached photos that I took with my picture phone. If you need better pictures, I'll be more than happy to take some with my digital camera and send them to you, along with proof of purchase.

As a side note, up until this point, I have always purchased Nike sandals and they have lasted my a good 3 or 4 years before I had to replace them because I wore them out. On the recommendation of several friends, I decided to give Chaco sandals a try. I hope I don't have to go back to Nike, because I've been very happy with my Chaco product up until now.

Thank you,

Edit: The response from the fine Chaco folks (note sarcasm)

We warranty all manufacturing defects. We warranty any component that has worn out more quickly than the rest of the sandals due to a flaw in the material. We would be more then happy to warranty evaluate the buckles. Your photo's show the broken buckle, but we do need to physically see them, since we haven't had a problem with defective buckles lately.

Please use our web site at www.chacousa.com <> and fill out the repair form, which has all the information you need. This entitles you to a $5.00 discount for using our web site, if there is a cost to you.

In any case, we will contact you with your options.

Ok, so basically they have a warranty, but I have to ship my sandal to them to prove that it is broken and if they deem that it is some freakish busted buckle episode, they'll fix it for free. Otherwise, I'll get to pony-up for shipping and a repair. (minus the $5 discount) Oh and I'm supposed to clean them in the wash machine before I ship them, because if they end up in Colorado dirty, they aren't touching them. But what if they break in the wash machine?? Hmmm???

Excuse me for expecting more from my 2 month old $75 sandals.

Restroom rant

I have a bone to pick. Well actually, two bones.

One, how hard is it to flush the freakin' toilet?!?! I went into the restroom at work today and like so many times before, somebody before me didn't flush the toilet. Ick. My nine year old forgets to flush the toilet (often), I expect more out of adults.

Two, how the hell do you get the seat wet in a women's bathroom?! Ok, if you are squatting, I can see a stray spray happening, but then wipe it up. And before you tell me that I should squat, there's no way my legs are strong enough to squat for anything other than a #1. And I didn't have to do a #1, so I sat. And my thighs got wet. Ick.

Every time this happens, I immediately want to go home and shower. But I can't, so I get to live with a cold, wet and sticky icky feeling between my leg and my pants.

So please flush and if you squat and spray, wipe the seat. Because when I only have 5 minutes between meetings to take care of business, I don't always inspect the seat first for stray spray.