Saturday, October 31, 2009

Dog Puke and Neighbor Drama (Loooong Post)

I had a bad day yesterday. All kinds of bad. Be forewarned, there is foul language in this post and it’s long. But kinda funny.

It started out with a knock on my bedroom door when I thought I was home by myself. It scared the holy living crap out of me which isn’t a fun way to wake up. Turns out it was the oldest child. She had spent the night next door and let herself in our house thru the garage which is what I told her to do so it wasn’t her fault. She came in to ask if it was alright if she went to Jacksonville with her friend. I told her it was and went back to bed.

Then, I’m hearing voices and I’m like, “What the heck?” So I get up to see what’s going on and it’s my daughter and the girls from next door and they’re cleaning up dog puke. Since my daughter voluntarily cleaned up the dog puke herself I figured it was one small spot and told them to hurry up and go back next door.

THEN, the youngest knocks on my bedroom door with her friend that she had spent the night with. Oh. Did I mention that there was no school here on Friday? I was totally looking forward to sleeping in on Friday which didn’t happen at all. So, at this point, I have five girls in my house and I’m losing my patience. I told the oldest and her two friends to go back next door and the youngest to go play then I tried going back to bed again. I realized my mistake right away when I’m hearing complete silence. The youngest took my direction to mean to go outside and play which I didn’t want her doing alone and when I was in bed. So I get up to tell her to come back inside and this is when I finally vive up on sleeping in. Oh well.

I walk into the living room to a vomit smell and puke stains EVERY freaking where. What I thought was one spot was at least ten different spots, one of which I suspect was diarrhea because of the nightmarish odor it had to it. I could do nothing but stare in horror at my carpet which I had just had cleaned a month or two ago. I have totally lost my mind at this point. I opened the front door, told the youngest to get inside and all the rest of the neighborhood to get off my porch (including my oldest) and the youngest had her own meltdown on the street which got her sent to her room. So now I have a pissed off oldest daughter, a bawling youngest daughter, two sick dogs, puke everywhere, and I am still in my pajamas. But I’m not crying. Yet.

I grabbed my steam cleaner out of the garage, mixed up some cleaning solution, and went to work on the carpets. Some of it came out but from where the oldest had tried to clean it, not very much of it was coming out at all. This is when I start crying. I went through two tanks of cleaning solution before I gave up. I called our carpet cleaners to see if they made emergency house calls to find out that they don’t and they can’t fit me in until TUESDAY. Meanwhile, I have stains setting in and the puke/diarrhea smell is horrible. I’m crying over the phone too which is humiliating but at this point, I can’t seem to stop myself.

I resigned myself to waiting until Tuesday, Febreezed the hell out of my house, and went to hide in my bedroom and cry for a few hours. I was truly sad and pathetic. Oh. And the oldest didn’t go to Jacksonville with the neighbors because they took two hours to get ready to go and I guess they started bickering with each other. She came home and she and her sister were very quiet while they watched me warily for the rest of the afternoon.

After I had had my self-pity fest, I came out of my room around 2’ish for lunch and the kids decided to get out while the gettin’ was good and went outside to play. My day is finally looking up, right?

The oldest comes in the house about 20 minutes later to tell me that a baby squirrel was being extremely friendly and was letting her and her friend pet it on our front porch. Wow, right? I told her to be careful because they can bite and went about my business. The Mister had come home from work somewhere in the middle of the day so we were upstairs when the oldest comes in crying and saying that the neighbors had yelled at her again. These are the neighbors that live behind us, not the ones with the kids she plays with. Now for a little back story.

These neighbors live on the cul-de-sac behind ours and their yard is directly behind ours. We’ve never talked to these people and they are the only people my dogs have EVER barked at. And I mean out of all the three different neighborhoods they’ve lived in, they’ve never barked at people. Other dogs, yes. People, no. But they bark like mad every time these people go in their backyard even if my dogs are inside. Also, last year on Halloween, they yelled at my kids and a few others to “get the eff out of their yard” when they were running around the neighborhood for trick or treat. I let that go and just told the kids to stay away from them. Then, I started noticing that someone or several someones in that house stand in their back door and stare into my house. I know. Sounds paranoid, but it’s all the time and once I caught them looking into my kitchen with binoculars. By now, I’m pretty weirded out by these people but I have solar screens on my windows so its pretty hard for them to see much and I started keeping my blinds on the backside of my house shut. They’ve also periodically yelled at my kids (and other’s kids) to stay out of their yard over the past year. What the dispute is, is that we have space between our respective fences and the neighborhood kids like to play back there in the ditch. Not the cleanest but I didn’t figure they were hurting anything. That’s where my daughter was when they yelled at her yesterday. There’s a tree back there with tons of acorns and she was watching two baby squirrels eat when they came out and yelled at her to get the eff off their fence and out of their yard.

They picked a gosh freaking bad day to send my kid home crying over freaking acorns I’m telling you. The Mister and I decided that enough was enough and went out to see what the heck was going on. I’ll admit, I was spoiling for a fight. I’d had a bad day and I was sick of these people yelling at my kids and making such a case over a freaking ditch for pete’s sake. So, the Mister starts out real nice and asks them what’s going on. They said something about how they were tired of our kids playing on their fence. I asked them what was the harm? They said that I wouldn’t like it if they were on my fence. First off all, I probably wouldn’t even notice as it’s a 5 ft tall privacy fence and secondly, as long as they weren’t peeking over it into my house, defacing it, or digging it up, why should I care? This went on for a bit with the woman talking in this reasonable, “we’re nice people and you’re horrible neighbors” kind of voice and I am really starting to lose my cool. I mean really. The Mister is still talking to them in a reasonable sort of manner and my voice is slowing rising with each thing that I say. I don’t even remember what was said at this point. All I remember is her holier than thou voice and that she kept talking over me and interrupting me. I finally lose it and say something about how they are being unreasonable and that I can’t talk to people like them and to stop looking in my effing house. She’s all, “Excuse me?” And I’m like, “You heard me (I’m yelling pretty loud. She heard me and the people in the surrounding houses with their doors shut probably heard me too). Stop looking in my effing house! You people are the worst neighbors ever and you’re complete assholes! You’re asshole neighbors!!” I’m totally screaming at this point and I’m not sure if that’s exactly what I said but I know I used the “f” word at least once and assholes twice. Then I slammed into my house and went across the street to the neighbor whose son plays with my kids behind our house to tell her to tell him that they can’t play back there anymore because I can’t take the fact that these people are assholes and just looking for a reason to start crap with me. I told her what happened and she was pretty unhappy too because they have yelled and cursed at her kids too. She said we should go the HOA president and let them know what was going on but I don’t see how that would help anything and declined. She also told me how they shine laser lights into her windows at night. So, it’s not just us that have been having problems with these weirdoes.

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Pictures from two different angles. Click on them to make them bigger.

I completely admit that I could have handled the situation better and that if I hadn’t been wading through dog puke all morning, I would have had a cooler head. But this has been building up for a year now. If they have a problem with my kids, they should come to me, not scream at them and cuss at them until they come home crying. Yesterday wasn’t the first time they had come home crying because of them. Not even the first time this week. Earlier this week, they had been playing with one of those rubber balls, you know the size of basketball but they’re lighter and colorful? Well, the wind took it and blew it into the neighbor’s yard. Not the peeping toms but the house next door to them. This house belongs to an old bat that hates kids I guess. It was my daughter’s ball and she refused to give it back. How mature is that? She also took my strainer that the kids were playing with in the backyard too. The point of that? I don’t know. She was in her backyard putting in her two cents during the confrontation too. I’m sorry. But if you live in a neighborhood with kids, you have to put up with them. They annoy me too on occasion but I certainly don’t cuss at them and steal their toys. This is a young neighborhood where young couples would buy their first house kinda thing. Not a retirement neighborhood. Get a freaking grip.

The peepers also told the Mister (this was after I had left the scene) that instead of worrying about what they are doing that we should be paying more attention to the oldest sneaking out of her bedroom window. Now, I’m not naive enough to think my kids are never going to sneak out at night. I was about this age when I snuck out for the first time. However, I didn’t have to go through two screens to do it. It would be impossible for her to put on the solar screen from inside the house and our doors cause the alarm system to beep every time they’re opened. I’d hear it. And since we always get up before she does, I would have noticed her running out to the backyard to put the screen back on. Sure, she could sneak out but I don’t see how she’d do it unnoticed. At least out of her window anyway. She’d have better luck disarming the alarm system and walking out the front door.

I hate them and hope they rot in hell. Yes. That’s evil but it’s how I feel and I’m not sorry for it. The next time they yell at my kids, I don’t care if they’re throwing rocks through their windows, it’s ON! She probably has 30 pounds on me but I have righteous anger on my side. Their son, who is maybe 18 or 19 invited the Mister over for a fight yesterday too, lmao. Stupid kid.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my day. Drama filled and puke filled. I’ve always said that neighbors suck. I’ve kept myself to myself for a year now and look what happens. I put up wiht a lot from those people, the peeping and the verbal abuse of my kids and didn’t say anything for the sake of peace and look where it got me. Maybe I need to move to Montana where you can buy lots of land and live in the middle of nowhere by yourself.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Reminiscing

I had to have our old electric company from Vermont send me a copy of some of our old bills today. It really sucked looking at them because one month of electric out there in NOVEMBER and DECEMBER is a third, literally, of what our electric costs us here in North Carolina. A THIRD! The cost of electric here sucks out loud. It’s ridiculous that it costs more to heat a house in North Carolina than it does to heat a house in VERMONT in the WINTER. Am I wrong here?

Monday, October 26, 2009

A Bust of a Weekend

(This has nothing to do with this post, but do you know how many posts I type up and then delete?)

I figured I would recap our weekend. For us, it was pretty eventful.

Friday, the oldest attended a school dance. It wasn’t her first but it was the first one this year. She had a good time and then ended up spending the night at a friend’s house. To occupy the youngest while her sister was gone, we invited her friend to spend the night at our house. This little girl is a neighbor and she’s 7 to our daughter’s 10. They get along like two peas in a pod. We’ve had her over before and of all of our daughters’ friends, she’s among our favorites. I just love kids who are polite but join in on our teasing and stuff. She gives as good as she takes.

Saturday, we had to chauffer kids to and from places and then we spent the rest of the night IN. What’s so funny about Saturday is that my sister called in a panic. Why? I turned my phone off Saturday morning after all the kids were in their own houses. So, when my sister called all of two times and my phone went straight to voicemail, she thought something was wrong. Talk about jumping to conclusions, lol. She called the oldest on her phone (like she would ever turn her phone off and risk missing one of a thousand texts she gets in a day.) to get a hold of me. What can I say? I’m on the phone ALL week with work and kids and stuff and the weekends, I just don’t want to hear it. Plus, it picks up my e-mail from three different accounts so not only does it ring when someone calls, but it makes various noises for incoming texts and e-mails. On the weekends, I enjoy a bit of silence. Sue me.

Sunday, we took the kids out for their Halloween pumpkins, We found two rather nice pumpkins and bought decorating kits for them. This year, we’re doing lights. We try and decorate the pumpkins a little different each year. We also bought candy to give out to the two trick or treaters that we get. When you live in a development that consists of two cul-de-sacs, you don’t get a lot of thru traffic. We’ll have a handful of kids that live in our neighborhood and that will be it. They make out pretty good at our house though cuz I give out handfuls of candy instead of just one or two pieces to get rid of it all. I don’t want to indulge myself in leftover candy, heheh.

Oh. And on Saturday we had an issue with our smoke detectors and our alarm system. See? Our smoke detectors are wired in such a way that the alarm system monitors them. So, if they go off, it alerts the fire department and if the battery(s) are low, the control panel beeps and lets us know. Well, for some reason it was detecting that the battery was low in the detector in the hallway. So, the smoke detector was beeping and the alarm system was beeping too. Thing is, we had just replaced every smoke detector battery last week for the same reason. Not knowing what else to do, we went to Lowes to buy MORE batteries. We went around and replaced them all again but the beeping didn’t stop. I called the alarm system company to see what to do because at this point, the Mister was having a minor breakdown (and a major overreaction)  over the situation. The alarm guy could look and see that it was the hall detector causing the problem. I explained to him that we had changed the batteries in the detectors twice in a week’s time and that didn’t help. He had no solution for me. I’m sorry, but what an idiot. At this point, I was ready to rip the thing out of the ceiling and be done with it. What we ended up doing was disconnecting the alarm system from both the house power and the backup battery and that worked. Still, we listened to incessant beeping from two sources for four hours before we got it to shut the eff up. It was a very long four hours.

And I think that sums up our weekend. It was a mover and a shaker compared to what we usual do which is nothing, lol.

12 days to go until we leave for the Outer Banks! Woot!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Hosting a Giveaway

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The Mister and I are hosting a giveaway to celebrate the grand opening of Coastal Natural Soap. We are very excited and hope to get a good response.

If you go to our website you can read the rules on how to enter. It’s actually a series of giveaways. This first one started today and ends on Friday at noon eastern time. The second one will start Monday and end at noon on Wednesday which is when the third one starts and it’ll end the following Friday. So three lucky winners will be getting a sampler four pack of our soap to try out for themselves.

Please tell all your friends (real and imaginary), your family, (whether you can stand them or not),  and your pets (they need baths too)  about the giveaway. The more the merrier.

Thank you!!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Barnes and Noble’s Nook

As if the decision to go digital hasn’t been hard enough already.

You may or may not be aware that Barnes and Noble has been developing an eBook reader to compete with Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eBook reader. I just received an e-mail tonight inviting me to preorder the Nook, Barnes and Nobles “world’s most advanced eBook reader”.

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I’ve been debating for months on whether or not I was going to get an eBook reader of any kind. After trying out Kindle’s app on my iPod Touch, I had pretty much decided to choose that reader over Sony’s if I was going to get one at all. After all, I have already purchased something like 35 Kindle books and I also have a few free ones that I downloaded too. Just when I had thought that I had finally made up my mind, the Nook comes out. What’s a girl geek to do?

The Nook has many cool features such as an expandable memory slot to store up to 17,500 books. Whoa! You can lend your eBooks to others!! It even has a built in dictionary so you can read complicated books and look up words you don’t know. Yeah! AND, it’s competitively priced at $259.00. What to do, what to do.

Now I don’t know whether to be glad that I waited to get an eBook reader because now I have more choices and the Nook looks pretty darn cool. Plus, I like the name. Or whether or not I should be irritated that I waited so long to get one because now I have more choices and I won’t be able to decide between a Kindle and a Nook.Oh well. We’ll see. I’m not much for preordering new technology that hasn’t been tried out yet so I have, at the very earliest, until November 30 to make up my mind. That’s enough time, right?

Monday, October 19, 2009

Open for Business

Soothing Lavender Product

If you’re like me, you were probably thinking that this would never happen. Guess what? The day is finally here!!

The Mister and I talked about starting a soap business about a year ago. We talked and talked and talked. Then, the Mister and I started doing TONS of research into starting a home based business and how to make cold process soap. Then we started buying supplies and ingredients.

After experimenting with a few recipes, we came up with three that we really liked and sent our baby bars out into the world to be tried out by friends and family. We got mainly positive reviews and used that feedback to refine those three recipes and create one more. Now, we have four varieties of soap that are FOR SALE as of today.

For the longest time we procrastinated about getting our business off the ground. The largest obstacle wasn’t capital or ideas but fear. Fear of failure and fear of success if you can believe that. On the one hand we were afraid that we’d open shop and completely bomb. On the other, we were afraid that people would like our stuff and then not be able to keep up with the demand. I spoke to an actual life coach about this (Not professionally. She’s someone I know from work.). Laurie told me that I have a glass half empty mentality and that I needed to stop using various excuses (we kept saying that the website wasn’t ready, lol) and own up to the fear and GET OVER IT. She said that the holiday season is here and that we needed to get our virtual doors open. So, I hired someone to finish up the website and now we’re officially OPEN! And what’s more, we have our first order! Gosh! It’s exciting, lol.

We still have the fear but it’s not overpowering like it was in the beginning. After all, life is about taking chances, right?

Head on over to Coastal Natural Soap and check us out. The site is not 100% (there’s tasks that I need to take care of still) but the important part is there:  the shopping cart, heheh. We’re only able to accept PayPal at the moment unless I know you IRL. PLEASE use the contact form and leave me feedback. We’re still tweaking stuff so if something doesn’t work, is confusing, is just plain ugly, TELL ME. I want to hear it and I actually mean that.

I’m going to be running a contest sometime this week and will be giving away a sample pack of all four soaps to a lucky winner! Stay tuned and follow me on Twitter @trishaj or follow the business on Twitter @soapmakers or subscribe to my feed here or our feed on www.coastalnaturalsoap.com for more info!! 

 

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

You Are WEIRD!!

I know that we are new to the homeschooling thing. I don't, by any means, shape, form, or dream, claim to be an expert on homeschooling. However, for the record, I resent anybody making the JUDGMENT that homeschooled kids are weird. Screw you. And just so you know, our kid was weird before we started homeschooling not that it's any of your damn business. ;)

Thursday, October 08, 2009

A Bookish Post…Sort Of

Considering the book that I’m about to talk about, it’s kind of insulting to book bloggers to call this a “bookish” post. Since I have absolutely no time to read these days, this is the best I can do.

I recently started reading Tucker Max’s book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell41778618The title caught our eye when we were checking out and the Mister and I figured we’d read it together. It’s basically a compilation of Tucker Max’s nefarious stories about drinking and debauchery while he was in grad school and interning. That’s really putting it in very nice terms. What it really is, is an insult to every woman, near and far, on the face of the Earth. Also what it is, is freaking hilarious. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the first story I read in the book, I read on the way home from the bookstore (the Mister was driving) and I about peed myself laughing. I suppose I have somewhat of a sick and twisted sense of humor. I certainly don’t take my womanhood very seriously, lmao.

You can read Tucker’s stories on his website at www.tuckermax.com and his book is also coming out soon as a movie. The movie, I will not watch. I can’t imagine that it would be any good and I think only immature men will find it funny. Still, I’m reading the book and trying to do it as slowly as possible so that the Mister can keep up. It’s funny. Sick and disgusting, but funny.

I have no idea who I would recommend this book to. Maybe our friend Josh or my brother but I can’t think of any of my girlfriends that would like this book. If you’d like to give it a shot, read, “The Famous ‘Sushi Pants’ Story” at Tucker’s website. It’s the first one in the book and the one about peed myself over, heheh.

Monday, October 05, 2009

I’ve Got Stuff to Say!

I’m excited. I have stuff that I want to say on my blog. Woot! It’s a lot and I don’t feel like dividing it up into multiple posts so hang on to your panties and keep up.

First of all, have I mentioned yet that we’ve rented our beach house and have November 7th circled on the calendar? Yup. We’re headed back to the Outer Banks again this year so that the Mister can run in the OBX Marathon. This is the second year we’re going and the closest thing we have to a tradition, lol. No word on whether or not anyone is coming with us though.

Also!!! The Mister found out today that U2, (You know, the music group??) was in our town last night and ate at the same BBQ place that we love to eat at. How cool is that? They weren't in town for a concert or anything (::snort:: Like U2 would come to my town for a concert.)

And you know how people are advertising to buy gold jewelry all over the place? Well, I did that today and it was great. Not because I made a lot of money but because I got rid of some things that had bad memories attached to them or jewelry that was broken or bent but that I couldn’t make myself throw away. Instead, I sold it to a jewelry store nearby and got enough money to pay for a new watch battery and to have my favorite ring repaired. Two things that I had put off doing for about three years. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but it was for some reason.

Another thing…I made chili for dinner tonight. It’s a cold weather dish and it’s not cold here yet but I was totally craving it so I made it anyway. It was GOOOOD!

The oldest child’s punihsment for breaking the garbage disposal has been completed. As a result, I have a spotless kitchen from top to bottom. I made her clean out the cabinets and put everything back in an organized manner. I made her wipe down the outside of all the cabinets, clean out the fridge, clean out the microwave, and mop the floor. It took her two days. Plus she was grounded to her room when she wasn’t cleaning. She’s been an angel for the past few days, heheheh.


Both the Mister’s Twitter account and mine were hacked. He had to make an all new account (caseyj7760) and I just had to change my password. Makes me wonder if anything else was hacked of which we are unaware.

I LOVE my marketing class. I’m learning a lot and it’s just fun.

I cleaned out my bedroom closet yesterday and decided to reorganize it and my dressers. 60 hangers later and it’s complete. It’s much better and I found clothes that I forgot that I had. How nifty is that?

If you’ve ever thought of joining www.bagborroworsteal.com I would really appreciate it if you would use me for a referral. Just so you know, I love my membership. My newest rental is a Fendi bag and it’s FABULOUS!!

NaBloPoMo is right around the corner and I have no idea how I’ll do it this year. Should I even try?

Ok. It’s time for bed. I have other stuff but I’ll get to it another time.