Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: whining and complaining (Page 11 of 12)

More tires (sigh)

December 12, 2007 / / 6 Comments

It’s car inspection time for many of us. When you buy a vehicle near the end of the year, you don’t really think about how much of a pain it’s going to be to have to get that vehicle inspected and registered at this time of year. Every. Single. Year. Well, we really blew it. We currently have 3 vehicles, and two of them come due for their registration in November, and one in December. So you know that windshield you’ve been putting off buying? Well, now you’d better buy it. You know that check engine light that’s been on? Well, that car won’t pass it’s safety inspection with it on. Yes, it means unwanted unexpected car repair expenses RIGHT when you don’t have any extra money to do those repairs. A good friend of mine decided to sell her car last weekend rather than invest ANY more money in it and buy the new tires she needed. I can understand where she’s coming from.

So, anyway, Ryan took the last of our three vehicles to be inspected yesterday, and –surprise, surprise– it has two bad tires and needs something done on the brakes. Oh joy of joys, for Christmas we’ll be getting….more tires! That’s just what I wanted! I say ‘more’ tires because this is not the first set of tires we have bought this year. You may remember my extremely bad day back in July when we needed to repair the van and THEN get new tires (and then pay those overdue taxes). Yes, that was quite a financial setback. But we made it through. And we’ve only had to put about $300 more into that car this year. (You may notice that I say ‘Ryan’ is taking care of all these repairs, and for that I am grateful. I have this strange aversion to car repair places and tend to freak out just a bit when I am trapped in one with no vehicle. Maybe it’s because I know I’m paying about the amount of my mortgage for someone to fix a tiny little part that I can’t even see, just so I can continue driving. Yeah, maybe it’s that.)

But last month when Ryan took the Suburban to be inspected, he realized that it’s tires were also very bald. Ka-ching. He bought new tires for that one. And he was glad that he had, as he was driving through snow and ice this past weekend. And now these tires for the truck. So, if you are keeping track, that’s 4 plus 4 plus another 2 (maybe 4–he hasn’t told me if he’s doing just two or if all 4 are bad). So that’s 10 new tires.

I should have put that in my Christmas card. I could have done a 12 days of Christmas type thing. “And the tenth thing at Christmas that we didn’t plan to buy…. Ten brand new tires!”

I know I should be counting my blessings, being grateful that we HAVE cars and all that stuff. But right now I’m just frustrated. And a little ticked off. And wondering how long it will take us to pay all this stuff off.

So, if you have an encouraging story or a lovely quote or something nice to say to cheer me up, now would be the time to leave a comment. Or you could come over here and slap me and tell me to stop complaining. But I’d rather you brought me chocolate.

Does this ever happen at your house?

November 30, 2007 / / 6 Comments

Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate the end of a certain large event that we won’t talk about anymore. While enjoying our dinner (which was awesome, by the way.  Mimi’s cafe rocks!  Great service and they let us use gift certificates for ALL FIVE kids’ meals!), the subject of homework came up, and we learned that two of my children had major assignments that were due the next day.

One child said that he was writing a report on Galapagos tortoises, but assured me that had done most of the assignment already, and it was on his flash drive.  Oops–did you mean the flash drive that you currently can’t find?  Good luck with that.

The other child was supposed to do a book report on a biography.  She had chosen to read a book about Michelle Kwan.  So, on the way home, I asked that child to tell us all about Michelle Kwan to prepare her brain for the book report she had yet to write.  She told us that Michelle had started skating at age 6, that her inspiration was her hockey playing brother (or maybe it was cousin.  Anyway, someone played hockey), and that she had won some competition when she was 13.  The end.  Hmmm.  “Did she go to the Olympics?”  I asked.  “I don’t know.  I haven’t finished the book” she says.  It’s a good thing it was dark in the car, so she couldn’t see the smoke coming out of my ears.

When we got home from our lovely dinner, I assigned the Galapagos writer to work on my computer, and the Michelle Kwan biographer to come and dictate what she wanted to say to me in Dad’s office.  Then the real drama began.  She couldn’t FIND the book on Michelle Kwan, and when pressed, she admitted that she had only read two chapters.  She then decided to do the report on Harry Houdini, since she also had his biography there.  I left her to read and do some research for about a half an hour while I went to go cool down and watch 30 Rock (hilarious, by the way).  Twenty minutes later, I came to check on them.  It’s about bedtime by this time.  I check report boy, and he’s got ONE WHOLE PARAGRAPH done, and one picture.  Biographer girl has finished the first chapter.

I lost it.

I did a great job of making them both feel horribly guilty that they a-hadn’t mentioned that they had these assignments, and b-hadn’t started working on it until now.  I made sure that they both knew they were destined to fail their respective classes and would only be qualified to work at a gas station if they kept up this pattern of behavior.  Not my finest moment.  I went off to put the other children to bed, not knowing what to do with these two.

After teeth brushing, stories and prayers with the other three, I came back to see what, if anything, I could do to help my two slackers not fail.  We decided to do a timeline of Houdini’s life, and I asked her to write down the important dates from his life that she had read about (birth, death, marriage, important events, etc.).  She came up with about 10, and with a little help from me, we got the dates right, printed a few pictures from the old internet, and got a reasonably decent time line put together by 9:30.  I sent her off to bed.

Galapagos boy had pulled it together and done a halfway decent report, complete with 3 or 4 pictures.  When I read it through, I was pretty sure that he had put it in his own words and not just done a cut and paste job from the internet.  (Especially the part about “these turtles are important because if they weren’t there, the sailors wouldn’t have had anything to eat”).  I encouraged a few changes, put new color ink in the printer so the pictures wouldn’t look all striped, made sure he had an appropriate bibliography and had covered all the points listed in the assignment sheet.  I gave him a folder to put it in, then told him to go to bed when he was done.

I dragged myself up to bed.  Exhausted.  Feeling like a failure, myself.

I know this little crisis could have been handled better, but I’m not exactly sure how.  I just want my kids to be successful, responsible people, and part of that is getting good grades, turning things in when they are due, and not leaving big assignments until the very last second.  I also don’t want to be the tyrant mother that my kids are afraid of and they don’t want to admit anything because they know their mom will jump all over them.  I want to be the nice, understanding mom.  The mom who helps them through the tough times, not the mom who yells at them for causing their own tough times.  I guess maybe I was a little bit of both last night.

And this will be the last time I blog about Reflections. Really.

November 28, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Today was my awards assembly for our school’s reflections contest.  Hallelujah!  This morning I left my house at 9:00, with all the entries, awards, medals, and certificates piled in the car.  I dropped John off at a friends, and drove to the school.  Since it was icy, I had to carefully pick my way along the sidewalk from the car to the school about 5 times back and forth as I brought my many boxes of stuff into the gym.  As I was setting up for the 1st assembly at 9:30, I realized what I had left home.  The basket of candy bars.  EEERG.  The kids were promised candy bars, and if I didn’t deliver candy bars, someone might complain.  I called my friend, who was going to come and help me, but I only got her answering machine.  I tried her cell, but no answer.  At 9:15 I saw her walking down the hall.  She was a complete doll and drove to my house, and picked up the candy bars.  Crisis averted.

At the assembly, we showed the slide show that Cole had made for me (pictures of all the entries set to music), then we showed our first place film/video winner, a darling claymation that I just love, and then handed out the awards.  For the lower grades that goes pretty fast, and we were done in one hour.

I had set up the non winning entries on tables, so that afterward, they could just come and pick up their entry, certificate and treats.  But then I had kids coming saying they couldn’t find their entries, and teachers saying that they had a child in tears because they thought they had entered, but couldn’t find it.  One or two art entries I can understand, but 10 that we can’t find?  I went to go look in my car between assemblies, and found a box right outside the door full of ….you guessed it….art entries.  Ugh.  I had put that box down so that I could open the door, but then forgot to go back and get it.  Oh well, crisis controlled.

The second assembly went well, with the kids clapping and cheering more than the little kids.  By the end of the slideshow, they were really cheering.  The words “We’d like to thank the following businesses for their generous donations” scroll by, and the cheering gets louder.  What?  Oh, I see.  They see the names of the businesses….Coldstone (cheering and screaming), Hale Center Theater, (crazed cheering).  By the time they read “Boondocks”, I think someone’s going to go home with larangitis.  I’m glad they were excited.

After delivering a few art entries to the younger kids, cleaning up the few extra medals and certificates, and collecting all of my boxes, I’m exhausted, but very relieved.  Hooray, it’s over!

I just have to get the entries ready to move on to the next level, but that won’t take me more than an hour (I hope).

So.  It is done.  Thanks for putting up with my whining and complaining.  I’m glad it’s over (and I’m sure you are, too!)

Tomorrow night we will have our celebratory reflections dinner, and use some of these free kids meals the kids won.  Mimi’s cafe, anyone?

And right now my kids are arguing over who gets to be the baby Jesus with the newly discovered nativity scene.  And I wonder why we lose a piece of this nativity about every year?

Oh, the relief. Oh, the joy.

November 26, 2007 / / 4 Comments

My husband just came home early (shock!) and surprised me with some much needed good news.

a-Ryan left work early today and  took the van to the second repair place.  The first place fixed a bad injector for us, but recommended that we take it to a different place that does more electrical work to fix the horn/cruise control.  So, he took it to that place today, and JOy of all joys, they just hooked the little connection back up and now it works fine.  No Charge.  Did you hear that, people, NO CHARGE?!  After all the work we’ve had to do on cars lately, that was a such a blessing.  Thank you, kind repair guy.

b- There was a UPS package on the porch for me containing the much anticipated reordered medal for the reflections program in two days.  Breathe a big sigh of relief on that one!  I am SO READY for this one to be over, folks.  I’ve already turned in my “PTA resignation”–in other words, I won’t be doing reflections again next year, thank you very much.  I’ve just spent WAY too many HOURS on this volunteer job.  I blame myself because I’m not very good at delegating (it’s too much work to explain what I want to someone else, if that makes sense).  But now I have the right medals, and today I called all the parents of the winners, and I am seriously ready.  Then hopefully I can move on to more fun things.  Like Christmas cards.

On a side note, soon after Ryan came home, there was a phone call for him, and it was someone from MyTowne.  Hey, I thought, he must have won something from that web site (yes, I entered him).  So, when he was off the phone I went in to his office, and asked if he had won something.  “Yeah,” he said, “They said I had won Kurt Bestor concert tickets for tonight, but I told them no.”

“WHAT?  YOU TOLD THEM NO? ”
“Didn’t you just say we were going to an indoor soccer game for FHE tonight?” he asked.

“Well,  YOU could go to the indoor soccer game, and I could go to the concert with one of the kids!”  I couldn’t believe he would say no to free tickets.  I then had to explain to him that at any time, if someone calls and tells you you have won something, or there is a chance to win something for FREE, then the answer is Yes.  How long has he been married to me and he didn’t understand this?

And one more unrelated thing, John wore a tie to school.  An orange t-shirt that says ‘polo’ on it, shorts, and a blue tie with white polka-dots on it.  No, I don’t know why, but when he picked out his clothes this morning, he brought down the tie and wanted to wear them.  Whatever.  I’m sure his preschool teacher got a nice chuckle from his appearance.  The boy won’t use the potty, but he doesn’t mind wearing a tie.  I will never understand him.

Let’s drag this out a bit more

November 19, 2007 / / 4 Comments

You may know that I’m in charge of the PTA Reflections contest for our school. If you didn’t know that, well then you haven’t been paying attention around here. For the past two weeks, I’ve had 151 entries here at my house, and I’ve been in charge of getting entries judged, tally the scores, calling businesses and collecting freebies. About a week and a half ago I ordered medals. I found a company online with good prices. Plus I could order from the comfort of my own home instead of driving around town to order and pick up. Because basically I’m tired of driving all over for this PTA job. I’m getting tired of my PTA job, and maybe, just maybe a little bit burned out.

So, when my medals arrived on Thursday, I rejoiced (hooray! They came in time) and glanced at them (Cool!) and set them aside until after my dinner party on Thursday (Lots of fun!). On Friday, I took another look at them and realized I had to hook all the ribbons on to the medals. I enlisted the help of my lovely daughter, Megan. As I’m struggling to clip the ribbons on (Ouch! These things are killing my fingers!), Megan looks at the one she’s doing and says, “Gross.”

What? What is gross? What’s wrong? I come to see, and I see the medals, and don’t see anything wrong.

Upon closer examination, I realize that the bas relief-ness of the art medal may present a problem.

I’ve tried to blow this little picture up a bit so that it’s more of it’s actual size. Do you see anything that might present a problem? It’s art, right? There’s an artist’s palette, the Parthenon, The Venus De Milo. Art things. Oh! I just realized that giving these awards, which are in 3D, may be a problem for your average 5th grade boy. Or girl. Oh, the titillation. Since this realization that this may be a big mistake hit me on Friday night, and I don’t have the phone number of the principal at home, I got to stew about it all weekend. I mean, the assembly is TUESDAY, as in Tomorrow, people.

This morning I went in to the school to run it by the principal, and he laughed and said we would be better off if we got different medals. “I can just hear the phone calls already.”

So, we get to drag this ordeal that is reflections out just a bit LONGER and have our assembly NEXT week instead. Which is fine. The only reason I scheduled it before Thanksgiving was to get it over with. I called the medal people, and yes, they can replace them with a more appropriate, although pretty generic medal. They will of course charge me a 15% restocking fee and I’ll have to pay the return shipping and more shipping on the new stuff. Ka-ching. That will eat up the extra I had in the budget, but it seems worth it, don’t you think?

My supportive husband, Ryan, had really gotten a kick out of this whole thing. He laughs that I’m distributing soft p*rn to the kids at school, and suggested that he grind all the Venuses off with a grinder. Or we could draw little t-shirts on them all with a sharpie. Because that won’t draw attention to it at ALL. Ha, Ha. Really funny.

wrong number

October 22, 2007 / / 1 Comment

The other night, the phone was ringing. I was asleep already, but from the depths of my grogginess, I heard it ring a couple of times before my non asleep husband who was working downstairs answered it. Then I heard it ring again. Hmmm. I went back to sleep. When it rang again at around midnight, I knew something was wrong. Someone is hurt. Someone MUST be in the hospital or dieing, right? I stumbled downstairs to ask Ryan what was going on.
WRong number, he said. What? Then why does he keep calling once he knows it’s a wrong number? Ryan said he didn’t speak English and he kept telling the guy that this is the wrong number and to Please stop calling, but he kept on calling us. And he’s called again the next day! And the next! I’m wondering how I can block just that one number so he can’t call us again. Do any of you phone savvy people know how to do that?
I’ve also been receiving calls from the Census Bureau. They sent me that huge packet to fill out, and of course I didn’t get to it right away. Then they started calling and asking if I could just spend a half an hour and answer the questions over the phone. Well, that motivated me to just fill out the packet and send it in, so that they would stop calling me. But then even AFTER I sent it in, they kept calling. We haven’t received your information, and it’s getting close to the deadline, they would say. BUT I sent it IN!

Some things I don’t want to do today but have been putting them off until the last minutes and absolutely HAVE to get done

October 19, 2007 / / 2 Comments

I’m not ALWAYS a procrastinator. But mostly. I have this huge list of things that just need to get done “sometime” and it looks like “sometime” is now today. In my defense, we have been on vacation, then I had a sick child, and yesterday I had play group with 6 little boys at my house. So I haven’t had a lot of time to run errands. So today’s the day. After I drop the boys off for preschool, I need to:

1-Go pay my stupid ticket and register for traffic school. I’m SO looking forward to this. GRRRRR.  (Done. Paid, and registered for dumb traffic school)
2-Go to Hale Center Theater and pick up some free passes for reflections. (Well, I WENT there, but the person I needed to get them from had “just left”, so I’m have to get them some other time)
3-Hopefully go to Sizzler and pick up some free gift certificates for reflections. If the lady calls me back in time. (She didn’t call me back at all, and when I tried to call while I was in Orem, their line was constantly busy)
4-Go to the school and get some reflections reminders copied, then put them in the teacher’s boxes.

5-Go to the grocery store and buy carrots, snack size baggies, and yogurt. Oh, and toilet paper. Must not forget that one.

6-Organize a quartet to sing in church on Sunday. Yes, I know it’s Friday and I should have done this at the beginning of the week. So sue me. And then we need to get together and practice this thing sometime before Sunday. I have it all worked out in my head, I guess I just forgot to actually call people and let them know that they were singing with me. (Well, I have the accompanist, and have a tenor and a bass, and I’m working on an alto.  I think we may have to practice Sunday morning before Church)
7-Set my tivo to record Music and the Spoken Word for Sunday, since my sister Amy is doing the art for the spoken word part again. Oh, and if you missed seeing the Bells on Temple Square on last Sunday’s broadcast, that will be replayed this Sunday at 8 am and 4 pm on KBYU. (SET)
8-Finish calling the moms and organizing the 1st grade Halloween party. Oh, and make sure that it’s not at the same time as the 6th grade Halloween play. (Left some messages)
9-Sew the curtains for my office. (While I didn’t start on the curtain sewing yet, I did stop at the fabric store and buy some fabric for the family room curtains.  So that should count, right?)
10-Start on Natalie’s Halloween costume. Yes, I know I’m getting a late start, but I thought all the kids could just wear costumes that we already have. Silly me.

11-Find some kind of a musical concert that Cole can attend before next Thursday so that he can write up a concert report form.

12-Clean out the crock pot from yesterday’s dinner. (DONE, and put away)
13-Call other businesses and beg for free stuff for reflections. Even though I already sent them letters, I’m not getting any responses. So I have to get on the phone and start begging. I hate begging. (I talked to and picked up free kids meal certificates from TGIFridays and Chili’s.  I left messages and/or requests with several others)
So, there you have it, folks. My all important list. I’ll come back here and update when I get these things crossed off, so I can share in my joy. Wish me luck. And good luck on your lists today, too.

It’s his decision

October 5, 2007 / / 5 Comments

3:30 the phone rings.  It’s Cole’s friend, asking for him.  When I told him he had gone to a different friend to play, he mumbled something about the campout.

Campout?  I ask, What campout?

He mumbles something about a campout and that it’s probably too late, since they are supposed to be at the scout master’s house at 4:00.  Then he tells me to hold on just a minute, and he puts his mom on.  She asks me didn’t I know about the campout to Camp Floyd?  You know, the one they signed up for in the spring?  I’m wondering how I would know that.  Probably on that note from the scout master in the middle of the summer that outlined a few months worth of things.  Things I should have written on the calendar, but for some reason did not.

So, I called Cole at his friend’s house, to see if he wanted me to rush over and get him and help him pack for this campout.

No.  He said.  It’s too late, and I didn’t remember about it.  He gives me all the reasons why he didn’t know, and that I didn’t tell him about it.

I kind of lost it a tiny bit there in telling him that I can’t be responsible for telling him about every single SCOUT activity that he has.

But he decided that he would rather not go this time.

So, I need to let it be his decision, and let it be all right to miss out on this one thing.  It’s his decision, right, and if he doesn’t want to do it, I can’t force him to do it.  Even though I know it will be tons of fun, and every scout activity is always a good thing for them to do.

But it’s not my decision.

Ugh.  Letting them grow up is hard.

Random, disjointed thoughts. But at least I have thoughts.

September 25, 2007 / / 6 Comments

Any of you who know my friend Robin know that she’s got a little obsession with Vanagons. Well, I must have been channeling Robin in my dream last night. I dreamed that I was garage sale shopping (also something the Robin is a pro at), and I was buying some things from one family. I noticed they had a white vanagon sitting there, and I asked how much they were asking for it.

“Oh,” said the guy, thinking, “if you really want it, you can just have it.” Well, I couldn’t pass that one up, even if it didn’t run very well. He gave me the keys, and I drove it away. At home, I looked it over, and it was spotless! There was a cool kitchen in the back, and places to store everything. I couldn’t believe my luck. I called Robin immediately to tell her what I had found. (Of course, my dear husband was NOT pleased that I would bring ‘that junky thing’ home, and asked what we were going to do with it, where we were going to store it, who was going to insure it, etc.) I think the cold medicine might be affecting my dreams, y’all.

So, Robin, if you’d like to take a look at my dream vanagon, it’ll be parked at the end of the driveway in my dream last night.

***

My friend Lisa mentioned that she’s going to have to start potty training her twins. I do not envy her that job, because as you may know, I’m a failure in that department. How’s that going? you may ask. Well, let me tell you. The other day, I sent John in to use the potty before preschool. I had helped him take his shorts off and he was pulling down his pull-up, when I walked away and gave him some privacy (sometimes he wants me to stay there, sometimes he wants me to go–I never know). Soon I heard the little splashy sound that could only mean he was using the potty. So I walked back in there, but noticed the wood floor was wet. I was looking down at the floor, wondering if something was dripping or we had spilled something on the floor in the hall (I know, I know–how dumb am I?). When I looked up, I saw John on the floor trying to wipe up his little “accident” with Kleenex. The whole floor was wet, and there was nary a drop in the potty. “What happened?” I asked him in an unexpectly calm voice. He looked up at me with confusion on his face, and said, “I was just standing there, and stuff came out on the floor!” He honestly had no idea what was happening. So, no. We’re not really all the way there on the potty training front. Although this morning he did say to me ‘I want to use the potty’ instead of ‘I want breakfast’. So baby steps, people. Baby steps. Maybe by the time he’s a senior in high school he’ll have both number one and number two down.  We hope.

***

Heros?  Did you watch it?  I was kind of confused, with all this time between episodes (and I missed the first few minutes.  Do you think that might have helped?  I’m excited for all the new shows that are starting, and all of our old favorites that are coming back on.  Our tivo runneth over.

***

We have a little concert-ette tonight for the bell choir.  It’s a benefit dinner for the Cathedral of the Madeleine held at the Grand America Hotel.  We’re only playing four songs, so it should be fun.  Not the pressure of a full out concert, although we won’t have any time to rehearse or warm up before, so we’ll be starting cold.  I guess I’ll have to run through the music in my head today.  I’d invite you, but I believe it’s about $150 a plate.

***

I saw both Becoming Jane and Hairspray this weekend.  While I enjoyed Becoming Jane, and thought it was visually beautiful, I can’t say I loved it like I did Hairspray.  I wanted to get up and dance with that cutie Zac Efron, and sing along.  When each song was done, I felt like clapping and cheering as if it were live theater.  I think I’ll have to be getting that soundtrack!

***

Ryan had to take the amplifier in to work today.  I’m not sure why.  He probably told me, but in my cold medicine induced state, I don’t really remember.  But that means I have to listen to radio through a crappy little boom box thing.  I have to tune with this silly little round thing and try to figure out what station I’m listening to.  No nice button on the keypad that instantly brings me to the station. And when I go upstairs, it’s even worse.  All I have is my 20 year old clock radio in my bedroom that only tunes into about two stations.   Man, do I feel sorry for those of you who don’t have a whole house audio system.  And I feel sorry for me, that I don’t have one today.  If I didn’t have two or three contests I’m listening for, I wouldn’t worry about it.  I know, you really feel sorry for me, don’t you.

I’ll stop talking now.

What is this weird stuffed up thing on my neck and what happened to my head?

September 23, 2007 / / 6 Comments

It’s either a major allergy season thing I’ve woken up with, or someone has given me their cold.  SNURRRF.  Excuse me while I blow my nose, yet again.  BLEART.  Ok.  I feel slightly better.  Is anyone else suffering with a stuffy nose, watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, sore throat and just wants to go back to bed? Or is it just me?  I think I’ll go dig through the medicines and see if there’s something that can make me feel better, since I have to teach primary today and can’t just go back to bed and sleep it off.  Cold-eez, here I come.

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