Monday, March 30, 2009

Ahh, the smell of accomplishment...

Yup, that's right, that smell is blowing my way this time. I was dreading today. I had so much to do! I didn't want to wake up, for fear of getting lost in my list of things, or just collapsing. But i did it, and all of it! I went for my run, showered, fed my baby breakfast, did 2 loads of laundry, played with the baby for almost an hour, went grocery shopping (which those of you with children know, is very very difficult and time comsuming), ate lunch, did another load of laundry, fed my baby lunch, got dressed and made it to work 15 whole minutes early! This was seriously quite an accomplishing day for me. I am very happy with myself. And to end my day, i made dinner, fed the baby dinner, folded the last load of laundry, gave the baby a bath, changed my bathroom (the towels and shower curtain and all, i made it "April-y"), put away the dishes, and now i'm blogging! Whew! I'm going to sit down for a bit. I'll be back tomorrow :)

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Ok, seriously now!

I've honest to God had enough of the water around here!
Tuesday, the private contractor had the water turned off to fix the pipe that is direct into our house...Wednesday, the water company had the water turned off to fix the main pipe out in the middle of the road...Now today, we have a mini flood in our basement! How could this happen after all this pipe fixing you may ask?! I asked the same thing.
Frank got up for work this morning at his usual 430am. He gets almost all dressed, but his jeans are still hanging in the basement. See, my dear husband is too lazy to go downstairs and bring them all up and put them away, he'd rather have to go all the way down to the basement EVERY MORNING to get a new pair of work jeans. Whatever, his walk not mine. But for once, i'm glad he did have to go down there. He went down to get his jeans and heard water running. Now, this is very unlikely in our basement. So he looked toward the back of the basement and saw a mini river starting. He walked toward the back of the basement and noticed that the wall was pretty much soaked half way up, and he could hear water rushing in the basement next door. Well, there is one spot where you can pretty much see over to the other basement, and he noticed a waterfall. Yup, that's right, i said waterfall, in their basement. So of course he realized that they had sprung a leak and were quickly flooding. He proceeds to come upstairs, wake me up, and ask me what to do. Like i have a clue here babe! My Uncle Jack is a plumber, so Frank says to me "Should i call Jack?", to which i reply "It's 445am, are you out of your mind?!". Of course, he realized that he must be, and decided that he would call at 7am, a more decent hour. But what he didn't realize at that time was that there was nothing Uncle Jack could do until we got in touch with the neighbors. For those of you who aren't familiar with our situation, to make a long story short, the neighbors are trying to sell the house for their mother who is in the hospital...and they live a decent drive away. Well, Frank used his brain (good job baby), and found the neighbors home phone number and called them to tell them what was going on so they could come and do something. Thank god that when he called them at 530AM, they were awake. They rushed here and shut the water off. They found someone who could fix everything that was wrong on their side, and they told us to check and see if anything was wrong on our side or if anything was ruined, and their insurance would cover it. They also thanked us profusely for calling them. Honestly though, it was to our benefit, so our basement wouldn't flood as well. But we were also doing the neighborly thing, they are really nice people. So needless to say, i am totally fed up with water at this point!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Yup, still dry!

Well, for the second day in a row, our water has been shut off for a period of time. This time it wasn't the guy on the corner though, it was the water company themselves. Apparently there was a leak in another part of the pipe, so they had to shut our water off and dig into the street up from our house. They told me that the water would be off around 930-10am, and would be back on around 130-2pm. Well, by 830am the water was off. Good that i had just finished working out and was in dire need of a shower. I had to sit around, stinky, all day long waiting for the water to come back on. It finally did around 12pm thank god. Just in time for me to shower, feed Mady and get dressed and go to work. Woo-Hoo!

Is it dry in here, or is it just me?!

Yesterday they shut my water off. No, not because i didn't pay my bill. It's because of the man on the corner. But it's not for good. They were fixing the pipe so it wouldn't leak, so they had to shut the water off to the whole block for about 4 hours. This is a hard thing to deal with when you have a 5 month old. I had to block up the kitchen and bathroom sinks so i could do simple things, like wash out her bottles, wash her face, brush my teeth, etc. At least it's fixed now though, and i don't have to hear about it ever again. I can say that with confidence because i'm sure we'll be moved by the time something happens again. Oh, and by the way, it's all still one pipe (for those of you following our drama). We had thought they would change it to 4 seperate pipes so we wouldn't have to go through this drama again, but they didn't. Whatever, i'm just happy it's done and over now.

Mady has become anti-sock lately. It's not that she doesn't like things on her feet, it's that she likes to grab her feet and put them in her mouth. When she does this, she tends to fall to the side and lose grip on her feet. Subsiquently, she doesn't let go of her socks as she loses grips and off comes the socks! Then the socks go right into her mouth, like everything else she can get a hold of, and they get soaked and we have to put dry socks on her feet so she doesn't freeze from her own drool!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Beads for baby...

Saturday, we went to the St Patty's Day parade as a family. It was quite fun, if i must say so myself. It was a bit chilly at first, but when the sun finally shone on our side of the parade route, it was quite nice. Mady was in her full glory, soaking up all the attention she possibly could. She was also entranced by all of the fire trucks and bands that were there. But her favorite things, by far, were the bagpipers. She is so much like her mommy :) One of the fire trucks that came by had a bunch of people handing out beads to people, and of course Mady got a strand. Needless to say, Frank wasn't too happy about that. "She's too young for beads, it'll give her a bad impression", is what he says to me. Like she flashed her diaper for those beads or something. I thought it was super cute, and she totally loved them! She was playing with them and having a great time. Then right at the end of the parade, she fell asleep in my arms. All in all it was a great day, i must say.

Not Me Monday ~ Postponed

Normally I do a Not Me! Monday post, and I know you all love it. Mckmama is the founder of this fab blog carnival, and I love participating.

Today I ask a favor instead. For those of you who follow Mckmama, you are aware of what is going on with Baby Stellan. For those of you that don't, I ask that you please go over to her blog, and catch up on what is happening.

A very brief recap of her story is that when Mckmama was pregnant, Stellan was found to have heart complications. Such severe complications, that the entire MckFamily were told by doctors that he would not survive to be born. Stellan WAS born, and not a single heart defect was found after his birth. Unfortunately, at not quite 5 months, they have returned. Stellan is in SVT, and his heart is enlarged. Doctors have told the family that his little body can't continue at this pace, so they must get his heart rate back to normal. The MckFamily needs your prayers right now.

So if you would all take the time that you would have used reading my blog, to say a little prayer for Stellan, that would be greatly appreciated. God bless you Stellan.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Harder than i gave it credit for...

Today was day 2 of my workout DVD. It's 30 days total, and you're supposed to go either 5 or 10 days and then take a day off, and do that until you hit the end. It's not the most challenging thing i've ever done, but let me tell you that those teeny tiny muscles that you never use but totally take for granted, yea, they are aching a bit today. I figure it's a good thing, no pain no gain ya know. I still can't wait to get out and go running already. Hurry up spring!

Tomorrow we're taking Mady to her very first parade, the St Patty's Day parade in Girardville. I love this parade. It's pretty long, you can drink beer on the street, there are bagpipers (those of you who dont know, i totally love bagpipers!), and everyone is celebrating! I'm just hoping that it's pretty nice out, so Mady doesn't freeze. I think we're going to take her jogger stroller AND the carrier, so that way we can just tote her around with us as we walk and talk. I'm hoping she loves the bagpipers as much as i do.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

And so it starts...

I made myself get up early this morning...well, earlier than usual...and i exercised. Now, exercising isn't a new thing for me. I love to exercise. But running is more my thing. But since Mady is so little still, i want to wait until the track opens up during the day to take her for a run that's longer than a mile or two. Now, i have no idea when they are finally going to open the track up, so i have to improvise. I want to be ready for when i can get out and run finally, and i want to look like i did before i had my baby, so i ordered an exercise DVD. Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. It's a pretty good workout. It's not super hard, at least not yet, but you can feel the burn in the muscles you don't use a lot. And for a 20min workout, i have to give it props, it's pretty good. I follow my workout with 8 minute abs. I'm hoping to get the 6 pack that those people on the 8 minute ab workout have...hahaha, yea right, i know, one can hope though.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Why oh why...

Why oh why do i have to grow up? Is it because i have a daughter now, who depends on me to be the adult, and help her grow up and learn what to do and what not to do? Is it because i'm married? Is is because i have a real job that i need to keep to pay the bills? Or is it all of the above.

I hate paying bills. Don't get me wrong, it's not my job that i hate, it's honest to god just the bills. I love my job, nothing could be better for me (except getting paid this much to stay at home with my baby). I just hate the process of actually paying the bills and keeping track of everything in my check book. That has to be the worst part of it all, keeping track of everything. Us Stiffies, we're not cash people. We tried that once when we first got together, and it didn't go so well. We tend to spend any cash we have on hand, we're like kids. So we went plastic all the way. We use our debit card for pretty much everything, and it has really helped curb our excessive spending. But now i have to keep track of ALL the receipts. Everything. From gas, to withdrawls, to little nothings at the store. It really gets to be a pain in the you-know-what.

Can i just be a non-bill paying adult for a day or two?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Oh yea baby...

Today has been a pretty good day overall. First off, it's St.Patty's Day, and i'm Irish...what could be better than a day meant especially for people like me?! And yes, it's a perfect excuse to have a beer...or two...or a few :)

Secondly, we talked to our tax guy today, and we are getting a great refund back. Seriously double what i thought we would be getting. It's about time! We seem to get screwed every year with tax returns, we never get what we think we'll get. We finally did! It's partially due to Mady, so of course we're going to have to buy her a little thank you present, lol. We're even getting her portion of the stimulus from last year...woo hoo!

On a bad note, i think i've killed my bamboo plant. Yes, i said my bamboo plant, the one plant that is supposed to live no matter what, and people with black thumbs like mine aren't even supposed to be able to kill. Well, i've done it! I honestly try to water it and keep it in the warmth and sun, but it just never works out. So mom, i know you're reading this....HELP! Come save my bamboo for me!

Happy St Patty's Day!













Monday, March 16, 2009

Where's my instruction manuel?

After babies are born, they should be followed by an instruction manuel, not a placenta. Especially your first baby. Things can be so complicated!

Like feeding...how in the world are you supposed to know what to feed your baby, let alone how much, and when?! I know i know, every baby is different. I found that out the hard way by talking to my fellow mommies on the babycenter. Each of the babies eats different things, in different amounts, at different times. It gets so confusing! Frank tells me to go with my instincts, and just do what i think is right. Hello!!! This is my first baby, i don't have instincts about any of this stuff yet! I'm pretty much just happy when she eats. And i hate the thought of "winging" it with my child...this is my child people, i'm not just going to wing it. Oy!

And why is it that men are always ready and willing to jump on your back to do things, but they will never ever ever do them themselves?! I mean seriously! It won't kill you to do it yourself, i'm pretty sure you can, you aren't a cripple! Why do women have to do EVERYTHING?! And how many times do us women hear a "thank you" or a "please" or a "that was good" or anything?! Honestly people, is that too much to ask? I think i'm gonna stop doing everything for a while and make HIM do things, then he can see how much i do for him and maybe he'll be greatful for one day in his life...before i kill him!

And baseball season officially started today. I sat outside in the freezing cold and wind and watched a whole game. I thought i was dressed warm enough, but i realized i wasn't when my toes went numb. How quickly i forget the weather when we're out of season.

All better...finally!

That's right people, everyone in the Stiffie household is finally all better...well, we're back to what we were before, which is healthy in general, but we're still as weird as before. Mady isn't known fondly as "Miss Mady Sniffles" anymore, and Frank and I aren't the hacks anymore. We are finally all better, and ready for the warm weather to get here already!

Our weekend was fairly normal, by our standards. We did, however, manage to get out of the house and away for a while. We went to dinner and the movies with my best friend and her hubby. We saw The Last House on the Left. Let me deter you right now by saying that the previews were scarier than the movie itself was. I was quite unhappy, but at least we were out and socializing with other adults, so that was a plus.

I also talked to our neighbors. Actually, it was the owners daughter and son-in-law, but still. They are also pissed off with the guy on the corner that is trying to shut our water off. They are trying to sell their house, and having no water is NOT a selling point. But i have learned that they have an offer, they are just waiting for the home inspectors to get here and check it out so they can hopefully sell their house. I would like to know what they are getting for their house, but i think it's rude to just ask. I'd really like to know so i have an idea what we'll get for our house.

And lastly, why do men always think they have it harder than us women?! Let's take my dead hubby for example. He apparently thinks he is the only person who has to work in this house, and he is the only one who needs sleep. I am well aware that he has to get up early to go to work, but i would like some sleep sometimes too! We don't split the baby care 50/50 like we originally said we would. It's more like i do all the waking up and staying up and baby care sunday night through friday, and he takes friday night and saturday. Great! What he doesn't totally comprehend is that i have to stay awake with Mady until she falls asleep at night, then i have to get up with her when she cries at night (which isn't always, so i can't complain too to much), and then i get up with her in the morning and i stay up all day long (i don't get naps like i think he thinks i do), and then i have to do all my own stuff like making lunch, taking care of the baby, making dinner, going to work, and getting chores done. I think he thinks it's like a picinic everday for me, and i never get tired...especially not like he does. He just hates the thought of having to help me out sometimes, especially when it's after 7pm or he had a long day at work. Don't be surprised if i kill him one day.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

A quickie...

A few things real quick, yet again, because i'm still pretty sick...

Frank called the lawyer "just to talk" and see what our options were. The lawyer pretty much said that that guy couldn't do that, and he was going to call him, and he would call us back. Good. I can't wait until this gets resolved. I do feel bad for the guy, it must suck to have to fork out that much money to fix a pipe and all, but don't punish me for other peoples doings, especially when i have a baby to take care of. Plus, you own the magistrate's office, you can't be that hard up for the money.

As some of you may already know, Mady is sucessfully rolling over as of today. She is like a machine. She did it about 10 times before i even went for the camera. I did manage to get it on video, thank goodness. I'm so proud of her!

My cold isn't really going away either. Don't get me wrong, i feel better than the "i want to die, shoot me shoot me shoot me, please" that i felt yesterday, but not 100% yet. I still have a stuffy head that won't go away with medicine. I can't taste my food, so eating sucks, and i'm not even very hungry. A plus and a minus from that fact, i'm down 5 pounds. But i miss my food.

Monday, March 9, 2009

May your cage in hell be extra firey...

Ok, i'm going to keep this short, as i'm very very very very sick and i just want to shoot myself right now.
If you remember a while back, we were having problems with the man from the corner and the water pipe issue. Well, we decided to just give in and pay. We were going to give him a good chunk of the money now, and then when our tax return comes in, we would give him the rest. Well, he's being a total @sshat!! He proceeded to tell Frank that nobody was returning his calls (cuz duh, nobody wants to pay you genious), and he plans to just get it fixed and shut off everyones water on the block until they pay. Well, Frank continued to tell him that we were going to pay, but he insisted he will still shut our water off. Wanna know why?! He told Frank that it was HIS responsibilty to get our two neighbors to pay the money, and we wouldn't get water until they paid him. Are you kidding me?! I have a 5 month old baby here @sshat! We're willing to pay, and you're telling us that we have to do your job! You have to be kidding me! So, Frank finally impressed me...he didn't give in like i thought he would...he said to the man "well, then we are going to be getting in touch with a lawyer, and we'll see what happens". I'm pretty sure that they lawyer will make him turn the water on to our house, as long as we are willing to pay of course, and then he will have to sue the other people to get his money. At least i hope that's how it goes, cuz we're screwed if it isn't. The neighbor right next to us doesn't live there anymore and they are trying to sell the house, so they aren't going to put any money into it until they absolutely have to, and the other neighbor is a landlord and has 4 tenants he will have to contend with, but he's a stubborn man and i think he'll fight it as long as he can. If we don't get the water, we'll be looking for a temporary house to be staying in until this all gets resolved. Any takers?!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

He finally reigns supreme...

Well, we just got back from a day at the state wrestling championships. My school had 2 boys go down, and after everything was said and done, we came home with an 8th place finisher and a state champion. That's right people, Jon Fausey has finally done it! After 2 disappointing years finishing 2nd and 3rd (yes, that's right, those were DISAPPOINTMENTS to him), he finally captured that long awaited gold medal he so deserves. I know that the other kids in his bracket were very deserving too, don't get me wrong, but i'm with Jon everyday and i personally don't think there is a more deserving kid out there. He is in the top 5 of his class, he is extremely polite, he is multi-talented, and he's just a great person over all. Watching him wrestle, i was nervous, as if he were my own child. I guess that tells you how attached i am to the kids i work with.

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In other news, Mady is finally getting better. This, i'd like to think, is somehow my fault. I had talked to God the other day, and told him that he can give me Mady's cold 3x over if he would take it away from her...it was breaking my heart to hear her cough and sniffle. Well, i got my wish. Mady is well on the road to recovery, and i want to die. I didn't sleep well last night, i've been coughing up a storm, i'm freezing in the wonderful 70 degree weather (that's right people, it finally hit 70 here, but it's going back down to the 40s next week...short lived glory), and i even puked last night, which i haven't done in a very long time. It's ok though, i can take medicine to make me feel better, Mady can't.

Now it's baseball season, which finally means earlier nights and more time with my family. Oh, did i mention that i hate this whole turn the clocks ahead thing?! It's going to screw up Mady for a few days, i'm sure of it. Hopefully we can adjust pretty quickly.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Capt.Sicky coughs again...

We are currently experiencing Mady's first cold. This, by far, is the worst thing...not just for her, but for Frank and me as well. My heart is absolutely breaking watching her cough and sneeze. Her little eyes are all red and watery, her little nose is stuffy and running, and her little cough is so sad. It's all quite pathetic. I wish i could take her cold away from her and have it myself, but unfortunately, she'll have to go through this whole first cold thing eventually. We took her to the doctor, hoping to get some sort of prescribtion medicine to help her fight off these nasty germs that are infesting her whole body. After all, if either one of us were sick, we would do the same thing and the doctor would give us medicine. Well, no such luck here. The doctor said that it's not in her chest, it's just in her head, so we'd have to just ride it out. Ride it out!?!? This is my little baby here mister, and she is very sick, i need more than just "ride it out"! He said she would get worse today, tomorrow and friday, and she should start to go down the other side of the cold mountain around the weekend, and we should see her improvement by next friday...that's right people, over a week from now. My poor little girl has to suffer for over a week! I'm hoping that lots of formula and lots of sleep will help her fight this off better. My heart is totally broken watching her smile, even though she feels like crap. I've been giving her the baby tylenol to try to help keep the fever down and away, and to ease any pain she may have. I think it's working, but i can't be totally sure. I just can't wait until we get through this one, me and my heart both.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Another one bites the...cereal?

Yes, you read that correctly, i said cereal. Mady is now officially eating cereal...well, if you could even call what she's eating cereal. It's just 1tbsp of rice cereal and about 4-5tbsp formula, so it's extremely runny. So far so good though. She's taking to the spoon pretty well, too. She is still a bit confused as to why it won't give her more formula when she sucks on it, but i'm sure she'll get it sooner or later. My little girl is growing up so fast!

She was reaching for the spoon to get more


She kept sucking on the spoon

She made a mess of herself
She really enjoyed it

Monday, March 2, 2009

Not Me! Monday...

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This is a place where we can hash and re-hash all the not-so suzie homemaker-esk things that we have and haven't done this week. This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. And feel free to join in!

I absolutely DID NOT spend almost 20min pulling out Mady's small clothes from the laundry that i wanted to "retire", only to forget what i was doing and put them back away with the other things. How would i forget anything, it's not like i have anything else to do!
I most definately DID NOT hurt myself putting together Mady's highchair. Putting things together, in our house at least, is Frank's job...so why would i be doing it?! And seriously, who hurts themselves on a plastic highchair?
I totally DID NOT under-estimate how fast the rice cereal would come out of the box, and end up dumping about 2 cups of it into her bowl instead of 2tbsp...and then try to scoop it all back up with the BABY SPOON and put it back into the box. I'm a whole lot smarter than that, thank goodness.
I absolutely DID NOT try to feed Mady her cereal (her very FIRST cereal) with one hand while trying to take pictures and videos of it with the other hand.
I most definately DID NOT get baby puke on my pants while i was out, and just wipe it with the burp cloth and go about doing what i was doing. That would be gross. I'm better than that. I hate when i get dirty.
I certainly DID NOT hear Mady wake herself up at about 2am and start crying, but i was so tired i decided to turn down the monitor and just let her whine for about 10min until she fell back asleep on her own. That would not be good mothering, and i love my child very much. I am very attentive to her every need.

Picture of the week...

Picture of the week...