I don’t know if it is just me or maybe it is global warming, so I guess we can blame Al Gore. But seriously. I mean S.E.R.I.O.U.S.L.Y.

I get home from Texas today, the sun is shining and my kids are waiting for my arrival with open arms. I can’t tell you how excited I was to be back here, in Carmel. I love living here, I love our new house. After a lovely afternoon with the family and a great nap, we started a little clean up in the kitchen and Kevin got the dishwasher going.

About a half hour later, I walk into the hallway. Or should I say, the river? I don’t know how all the physics or pipes or accounting work but somehow the dishwasher on the other side of the kitchen, was causing a fountain of water to spurt from inside the utility closet in the hallway. When I opened the doors to the closet, not only was water pouring out, so were the contents of our garbage disposal. Food, ground up bits of food and several buckets worth of water all over the stuff in the closet, floor and walls.

The plumber came, and while it wasn’t as fun as the last time we had a late night visit from a plumber…the guy was pleasant. However, it won’t be fixed until tomorrow and in the meantime we can’t use our kitchen. Lovely, considering we are having a Superbowl party tomorrow.

I will fill you all in after we know what the problem is and after I take some xanax and try to recover from the myriad of things that have happened over the past 2 weeks.

Welcome to Texas y’all!

So, I am lucky enough to be in the great state of Texas this week for work. Well, not really lucky but hey, you have to keep a positive outlook right? I decided that while I’m here I should pick up the accent because everything sounds better in a southern drawl.

 For instance:

Oh darlin’ I love you but it just ain’t workin’ for me, ya’ll take care.

I mean, would you even know you were being broken up with? I think not. Anyway, as I sit in training all week, I am perfecting my southern lilt, sure to impress the waiters and waitresses each evening as we try new Texas fare. So far, I have been to a Texas Land and Cattle and a Chuy’s. Both very good, I think Chuy’s ranks a little higher for me because of the margherita’s. Everything tastes better with tequila y’all!

We are staying outside Austin in a town called Lakeline or Lakeport or Lakeland or something. Sad part is I have not seen a lake anywhere. It is foggy and dreary and I am missing my quaint little hometown – not to mention my babies! So much good stuff is going on at home with the new house that I hated to leave but work callls. Speaking of work, I have some exciting new opportunities coming up, two job interviews and a possible consulting gig and I am really, really hoping that one of these things pans out. It has been a while since I have enjoyed my job and I am feeling the need to be challenged again. So if you are of the praying sort, please do.

Later this week we are staying in downtown Austin near 6th Street. Those of you familiar with this part of the state – any suggestions? I would like to experience some Austin “weirdness” if at all possible. For those of you unfamiliar with Austin, apparently it is the most liberal town of the state and they fancy themselves to be like Santa Cruz – to which I say…I will believe that when I see it.

More to come from the great Country I mean state of Texas. In the meantime, catch y’all some shut eye, ya hear?

So much to say, so much to write about this move. There are leasing agents I’d like to string up by their evil toes, incidents with garbage men, and soapy basements – all stories worth telling. I insist on starting from the beginning though so, let’s just cover Day 1 today.

Moving day (Saturday) started with a bang, or rather a ralph – Joshua started puking from a high fever at 1am that morning. Needless to say, I was without sleep going into the big day. As 7am approached I was up and headed to Starbucks for caffeine reinforcement. Despite the sick baby I was in relatively good spirits and ready for the long day ahead.

Mostly the day went as expected, a few broken items, lots of muttering and cursing over bruised shins and dropped boxes. Everyone who showed up to help was fantastic and made the occasion better than it should have been. At the end of the day, with boxes everywhere and a mountain of unpacking and cleaning ahead of me like a looming mountain, I was spent. I had very little sleep the night before and had worked myself to the bone for about 16 straight hours. So, I bid my guests goodnight and retired to my new master bathroom where my jacuzzi tub awaited me. The jacuzzi  tub that made me want to rent this house in the first place.

I ran the water, got in and took a deep breath. After 8 months without a bathtub, this was as close to Heaven as I could imagine. I decided that tonight was as good a night as any to try out the jacuzzi function and reached for the button. This is where things get kinda fuzzy and the emotional scarring begins.

Eyes closed, head resting, I reach for the button and depress it with ease. Joyously the tub fills with aerated bubbles and I sigh contentedly. Before said sigh had run its course, it was replaced with a shriek. Apparently the gentleman who rented this house before us, didn’t fancy himself to be a jacuzzi bath taker. You want to know how I know this? Because BLACK MOLD SHOT OUT OF THE JETS AND ALL OVER MY BODY! Let me re-iterate, BLACK SLIMEY CHUNKS OF MOLD ON MY BODY!

I jumped up and began draining the bathtub, while furiously trying to get the pieces off of me. As I sat on the edge of the tub, near tears, waiting for the gross water to drain all I could do was laugh. This had to be a joke. I mean after all of my hard work and lack of sleep, isn’t it just my luck that my naked body would end of covered in mold?

While it seems reasonable that I would just clean out the tub and run another bath, alas, there was no more hot water. Whoever added the master addition on installed a seriously insufficient water heater for the tub, so that was that. No hot water, no bath.

Sometimes I wonder why these things happen to me but then I am reminded, if they didn’t….what in the world would I write about on this webpage? Happy reading y’all!

Two weeks ago I needed some boxes in order to start packing for the big move. In the spirit of saving money, I decided I was going to go to a few of our local grocery stores and ask for boxes from their produce departments. A long, long time ago I used to work at a grocery store and I had the lovely task of throwing boxes into the baler each night, so I knew that grocery stores were abundant with extra boxes.

I’ll admit, I felt a little like a beggar for bumming boxes off of the grocery clerk instead of ordering them online or buying them someplace. However, I was determined to save a few dollars. Once again I am placing little to no monetary value on my pride.

The first store went so smoothly that I decided to try another. This time I went to Safeway and with new found confidence I strolled right to the back of the store and asked one of the workers for extra boxes. He was obliging and filled my cart to the brim with boxes. So full in fact was the cart, that I had to peek around the side of it in order to steer straight. I noticed I was getting a few strange glances from fellow customers but I didn’t care – these boxes were free!!!

As I got to the exit, it felt like the wheels on my cart were stuck. I kept pushing the cart forward but something was blocking the front wheels. About this time, I hear a faint alarm but pay no attention to its’ cause, as I was too focused on getting my cart to move forward. I was in the middle of the doorway, cart stubbornly stuck and boxes falling hither and yon every time I tried to push the cart toward the door. I am so focused in fact on the task at hand that I can barely hear a grocery clerk yelling “hey lady that alarm is for YOU!”

Once this message registered in my tiny brain I was mortified. Why would the alarm go off? Why wasn’t my cart moving? Before I could ask these questions out loud, a breathless clerk is standing in front of me, exasperated that I haven’t been listening to his pleas to stop what I am doing. He has some type of remote in his hand and I am kind of scared that he might taser me at this point. I think I may have even put up my hands as a gesture of peace. Instead of shooting me, he leans down and points the remote at the cart’s front wheels. I ask him what is going on and he explains that when a cart enters the store and then leaves without going through the checkout stand, the wheels lock up.

Oh.

So, it wasn’t that the wheels were stuck on some object I couldn’t identify due to the mountain of free boxes blocking my view. It was the “robo wheel” and its’ crime fighting sensors. Who would have thought.

Needless to say, everyone is now watching me and the clerk and the robo wheel cart. After he unlocks the wheels, I stumble out to the car with a red face. People the lesson here is – nothing in life is free. Even free boxes have a price.

This was just the start of the hilarity that was our big move. I have so much to write about – however after four straight days of moving, a sick Joshua, a sick Isaac and now a sick Mommy, I am burned out. So, more to come later but I thought you would all like to know that grocery stores are taking a bite out of crime these days –  so watch out.

Oh people, once again this whole moving thing has swallowed me whole. I promise at least one real post this week, even if it kills me. You guys had so much feedback on that cosmetics post that I just may have to do a follow-up. However, I have been informed by my male readership (Aaron) that if I keep posting on such ridiculous matters, they are going to leave and never come back. So I promise an “anti” make-up post, like something about cars or sex. Or sex in cars. That is what guys talk about right? 

Until then, if you find yourself bored do the following:

start weight watchers

begin p90X workouts (google it)

agree to travel for 6 days (work) right after you move into a new house

move into a new house for the second time in 8 months

try not to die and/or kill your spouse

I am hungry all the time and sore from working out,  I should be great company in Austin, Texas at the end of the month when I have to go to training for work. I should say that I really do like weight watchers so far, it is just the whole portion control thing that gets me. Like, I had no idea that I can’t eat a whole chicken in one setting. Did you? Also, 1 cup or 1 tsp of anything is never enough. I knew I should have looked into that lap band surgery. Anyhow, at the rate I am going if I don’t look like a hard body in 90 days, someone is gonna pay.