Frazzled to my very last nerve [updated]

Oh my good gracious!

I'm frazzled as frazzled can be right now. Why?

Because I'm hearing "something" up in the air duct in the den.

I woke up this morning soon after the Hubs got out of bed. As I finished washing my face, he comes into the bedroom.

Hubs: Babe. Come here.

He had a thoroughly serious tone to his voice so I knew something was up. I quickly followed him. He walked quickly to the den. And then. Stopped.

Hubs: Do you hear that?
Me: What?
Hubs: Listen.

Then I heard it. A russling. Something moving in the duct.

Needless to say, the Hubs has called someone to come in and check out the duct. Someone will be calling around 8am when the shop opens. Funny thing is that the Hubs talked to a live person at 6am when he called. Yes. Someone answered! Hopefully someone wasn't already IN the office. Hopefully that poor gal just has the office phone forwarded to a work cell or something so she can field calls (from anxious folks like us) during the off hours.

Now have YOU ever had anything stuck in your ducts? When? What was it?

--------------- updated @ 10:15 am ---------------

I do believe that I've found the culprit that made all the ruckus in our vent.

I'd started a load of the Princess' stinky clothes into the washer earlier today and I was going to move things over to the dryer. And I saw THIS on the tile in front of the washer.

It wasn't moving. It was just laying there. So I ran and grabbed a plastic snackbag. And slid the darn thing in there. It still didn't move. I figured that it might have been a plastic bug that dropped out of the Princess' pocket. Something she got from Girl Scout camp? But I wasn't taking any chances.

But I do believe this was the little sucker that was in the A/C vent above our den. You see, the laundry room is on the other side of the wall from the den. So I guess that the bug crawled through the tubing and dropped out of the vent in the laundry room.

I haven't heard any sounds from the vent in the den since I found this sucker.

We are getting a visit from a "pest control" person after lunch today though. If there's one bug? There's gotta be more. bleach!

This is when you know that life isn't fair

We're all out there in the blogosphere. When we're on one site, we click on a link to another site. Who knows? We may enjoy that other writer, right?

The reasons why we begin to follow a site are arbitrary. We may enjoy a person's writing style. We may enjoy a person's sense of humor. We may enjoy their photos. We may feel that a person's life is much like our own. Then there are those whose lives touch our hearts.

Last year I somehow found my way to Michelle's site.

Since she was diagnosed with leukemia, she has fought it. And those around her have bound together for the fight. Because of Michelle and her family and friends, more people are educated about being registered donors.

In August 2007, there were 6,745,950 donors on the registry. A further analysis of the donors found 37,336 Filipinos registered -- that's 0.7% of the entire registry! Only a drop in the bucket. There were 391,128 Hispanic donors (7.1%) and 511,622 African-American donors (9.4%) -- a much more plentiful pool of donors. It's only when you add up all the Asian/Pacific Islanders that you get up to 455,494 donors in all -- 8.5% of the registry.

What I read kept me thinking and a couple weeks after I found her site, I submitted my own mail-in kit to be placed on the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Registry. But the timing of my submission was bittersweet. I found out that one of Michelle's friends lost his own battle with cancer.

Since then Michelle and her loving husband have continued their journey. They temporarily moved away from the Bay Area so that Michelle could receive cord blood cells in the hopes of countering the cancer. It all looked good. They stayed up at the center through the cold winter months

This latest post shook me. 10 days after her last chemo treatment, Michelle's cancer is rearing its ugly head once more. Only TEN days? Michelle has been fighting this thing since 2007 and it still won't let her go. They found that Michelle has a chemo-resistant strain of cancer. And there aren't many options left.

This sucks! Totally sucks! I'm not even related to Michelle. I haven't even meet her in real life. But her site has inspired me. Her strength is awesome. Her humor is infectious. Her love for her family, friends, and her husband is there in her eyes. Goodness exudes from her. And she is faced with "this" realization. And it makes me sad.

So if you've got a couple minutes, could you go over to Michelle's site and leave her a few words of encouragement?

Family of three

In less than an hour I'll be dropping the Princess off at her troop leader's house. The girls will be off for the entire weekend to Troop Camp at the Girl Scout campsite up in the mountains.

So we'll be a family of three most of the weekend.

I went to sleep way late last night and just got up a little bit ago.

According to the Hubs, the kids have been playing upstairs quietly since they woke up.

While the Princess is excited about leaving us for the weekend, the Bear wanted to spend "special" time with her before she left him. But let me tell you. The Bear is excited about being the ONLY one in the house for the weekend.

I bought him a new Crayola Star Wars Giant Coloring Pages pad from Tar-jay yesterday when we picked up some additional supplies for the Princess' camping trip. Yes. I got him something fun that he enjoys that we can do together.

I do believe that we'll be heading out for a 3-some dinner tonight. Run some errands. But somewhere in the weekend? I'm sure the Bear will have a breakdown where he'll say "I miss my Sissy" in a pathetic little voice. Nonetheless, I'm sure the Bear will have fun being the only kid we focus on this weekend, while the Princess will just have fun being with the "girls" for a few days.

My fingers hurt like a mutha!

Folks it's about 12:45am and I'm finally done.

Done with what?

I'm now finished sewing patches onto my daughter's Brownie vest.

Eight patches on the back. EIGHT. EIGHT!

I sewed them all by hand. Ya see, I've got no other option. I have no sewing machine. So my thumb (that was sprained about 6 weeks ago) and my pointer finger are aching something mighty.

Some might say that the girl scout patches are iron-on. Yes. That's what they say. But a bunch of folks say that the "iron-on" mechanism doesn't necessarily work in all cases. That the patches should still be sewed on with a simple stitch just to make sure they don't accidentally fall off.

So after getting all the Princess' patches at the last meeting that was held about two months ago, I finally got around to sewing on the patches tonight. You see, the Princess is going to troop camp tomorrow morning. And I have no idea if she needs to bring her vest or not. So my last-minute sewing frenzy, which has been about a 2.5 hour mission, is just in case she is supposed to wear the vest.

Even though I sewed on the eight patches on back of the vest? I still have two more patches that I still need to get on the back. The one she got for caroling and another cookie sale related patch. Then there's the 6 additional try-it patches that I still need to get on the FRONT of her vest. But these will all need to wait for another sewing spree.

Have your little Brownies and/or Girl Scouts been to troop camp already? Or are they still waiting for their weekend to go?

When people say it's easy and they don't know what's going on

You all know that I have issues when people don't communicate properly.

I also have an issue when people assume how long things will take.

This week I got copied on the tail end of an email string about an issue.

Jun 24 @ 8:20AM from Grace's boss to Guy (cc: Grace)
As per your request, the new field has been added to the system. Will you populate the field or would you like Grace to populate the field?


June 24 @ 9:52AM from Guy to Grace's boss (cc: Grace)
Please have Grace populate the field.

Grace - let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.

Further down in the email string were about 12 account names with the old number and a new number that needed to be put into the system. So what did I do? I put the new number in for those 12 accounts. That's all that was there so that's what needed to be done. Right?

June 24 @ 12:58PM from me to Guy & my boss
The 12 accounts now have the new number populated in the system.

June 24 @ 1:29PM from Guy to me & my boss
According to the attached file there are 196 accounts with a new number. Can you populate the new field for all of them?

This shouldn't take too long, using a vlookup and mass import...

Say what?

Yes. He bolded that statement in the email. Then he said it shouldn't take too long. With all the crappy account names they have on the list that don't match up with what we have on the system, it takes a bit of time and tweaking to get the stuff to match. I just can't believe his statement that it shouldn't take long. AND that he bolded that statement. I never got any gosh-dang-doodle spreadsheet before. I was only copied on the email string when it became evidenet that I was going to have to do the work to clean stuff up and those emails had NO SPREADSHEET attached to them.

!#^&%^&N

I really dislike it when I feel this way. The pent-up rage that I feel when people assume that I can just stuff at the drop of the hat. Especially when I have other things on my calendar to get done. I kind of anticipate when I need to do stuff for my boss. I get those requests done pretty quick. But other people's stuff? Stuff that comes from out of the blue? That drives me crazy. C-R-A-Z-Y!!!!!

Being accountable

Every year there is a huge bicycle race in Arizona called El Tour de Tucson.

For the first time last year, a horrific accident occurred during the race.

A driver on the main road going eastbound made a left turn into a resort driveway. The driver failed to realize that a whole slew of riders were riding westbound. The driver's car ended up colliding with 10 bike riders.

The driver apparently stopped the car and checked out the damage to the vehicle. And then drove off. That's right! The driver LEFT the scene. Didn't check on anyone. Just left.

The authorities were informed who the driver was a couple days later.

Five cyclists ended up getting hurt. One rider suffered a life-threatening brain injury and will never fully recover.

The driver was charged with "leaving the scene of an accident causing serious physical injury" but somehow in May the driver pleaded guilty to a less serious charge of "attempted leaving the scene of an accident causing serious physical injury."

I find this crazy. I don't see how this is right. The lesser charger of "attempted leaving"? I don't understand. The driver didn't ATTEMPT to leave. It wasn't an attempt. The driver LEFT!

The Arizona statute requires motorists involved in accidents to stay at the scene, notify authorities of the crash, and provide their insurance info. Obviously, this driver failed to do any of this.

According to the defense attorney, one reason that the driver left was because the driver became frightened when the cyclists began yelling and surrounding the vehicle. Uh yeah? They're injured. They just got run over. Wouldn't you be angry?

The DA also said that the driver didn't notify any authorities because a sheriff's deputy was already nearby (within visual distance). That the deputy could easily call emergency personnel. That his client's lack of action didn't prevent an ambulance from being called. WTF?

And since the driver left there was no exchange of insurance information.

According to the statute? This driver failed on ALL points.

The DA had the audacity to say that the driver shouldn't be forced to pay any type of restitution because the driver didn't cause the crash. Did. Not. Cause. The. Crash? If the driver didn't run into these people, then what did? A gust of air? If the driver had taken more care turning left into the resort, there wouldn't have been a crash at all.

"The sentence in this case sends a bad message to the community," said the county attorney. "If he walks out the door, he's leaving the scene of the accident just like he did that day."

The judge could have given the driver 2 years in jail. The judge opted to give the driver three years of probation. The judge? He said he based his decision on the fact that driver had a clean criminal history and that there was a deputy right there to call for assistance. Do you agree with this? Based upon the state statute, the driver totally ignored the state requirements.

I think that the judge used his heart on this one. I think the judge was swayed by the fact that the driver who caused this horrific accident is a 91-year-old man. And I guess in his eyes? Why send an elderly and ill senior citizen to jail for two years? Who cares that the driver injured five cyclists? Who cares that the driver caused one healthy cyclist's life to turn on a dime? To suffer with such a severe brain injury that he has now been deemed incompetent?

We try to teach our children to make good decisions. To be accountable for their actions. But this? Even though my heart feels for this senior citizen, I can't help but feel the injustice of the judge's decision. What do you think?

Saddened by what I saw and heard

I watched Jon&Kate + 8 since it began years ago.

I watched the first one-hour special and was hooked on the twins and the six.

What I saw on this latest episode saddened my heart.

I could see the earth-shattering sadness in Kate's eyes.

Some people out there have no idea how you can ignore your spouse. When my sister and her husband have a disagreement, they end up making up within an hour or two. Neither one of them can stay mad for long. It's just the way the two of them are made.

The Hubs and I? When we're pissed? We can be in the same room and completely ignore each other. We can sit at the same table and hold conversations with everyone else but each other. We can smile for the kids and laugh with them (not each other). The longest we haven't spoken to each other? A week. Seriously. SEVEN. DAYS.

So the situation that Jon & Kate are going through? I understand the pent-up anger. The lack of communication. It happens. It happens to me every now and again. I totally understand. And my heart aches that they weren't able to find another solution to what has happened to their relationship.

What I wonder now is if the tabloids will leave them alone now that their marriage is officially in shambles? Will the paparazzi move to the next "victim"?

But let me tell you that I know more than a handful of people who are now choosing to no longer support this type of crazy tabloid frenzy. One person I know who would grab 3 gossip magazines a week for decades has vowed to never buy one again. And this person? Doesn't even LIKE Jon&Kate! That's what's amazing. This person doesn't agree with how the tabloids are going about suddenly attacking this family's life. A certified tabloid junkie hasn't purchased any of the weekly mags for about two months now.

Some still might say that Jon & Kate asked for this because they're on tv. I mean they've been doing the show for about 4 years now and the media is suddenly all over them. After four years. And it's not like they're in Hollywood going to fancy clubs and living a fast life. They're in Pennsylvania bringing up their kids the best way they can.

[sigh]

Anyway, I hope that they do find peace. Even ground. A balance for all of them.

Waiting for that phone call [updated]

LilSis and Shorty went into the hospital last night.

LilSis was due on Thursday.

And she still hasn't had the baby!

They went in last night so that LilSis could be induced.

As of 7am, her bag of water is broken and she is now 7cm with an epidural. Apparently she's on a little bit of oxygen to help her breath (I did the same thing).

So now we wait....

------------------- updated @ 12:07pm -------------------

No news yet.

How long did it take for you to get from 7cm to having your baby?

I went through two c-sections so I have no idea how long this last bit might take.

------------------- updated @ 3:50pm -------------------

My newest niece finally made her debut at 1:35pm.

My sister, my BIL, and my niece are now getting to know each other.