the value of life

time waiting for sister to fly into chicago from denver -38 hrs
time spent in the car traveling home to rochester -13.5 hrs
time spent in rochester for christmas -34 hrs
time traveling back to MI -8.5 hrs
time spent with extended family in MI -10 hrs
time traveling with sis back to chicago -3 hrs
time spent in chicago with sis -13 hrs
time back at work the friday after christmas -8 hrs
time spent with bex in chicago -30 hrs
time spent back in MI to attend bro's band concert for NYE -18 hrs

amount of money spent on gas for traveling...
number of hours in the car traveling...
number of hours of sleep lost due to traveling...

all so that i could spend as much time with the fam and friends for the Christmas/New Year's Holidays as possible...
-Priceless

change in plans

it seems that with any trip, nothing ever goes as planned. either you get out later than expected, coats are forgotten in the closet and you have to go back (like when i moved to chicago), flights are delayed or luggage lost. something always requires a revision.

this time, my sis got stuck in Colorado as Denver flights were cancelled and backed up for days. strangely enough, even though it means one less day with her (BOOO) it may have worked out better...as i got sick on thursday and wasn't able to make it to work friday. what was planned was that sis was supposed to arrive at Midway airport at 11:57 Friday night and we were to either drive 3 hrs to MI or get up super early to make a long trip to NY via MI saturday morning. i never would have physically made it, or i would have been miserable the ENTIRE ride home and would probably be sick the whole time i was home b/c i never had time to recoop. instead...my sis comes in to O'Hare at 7:30am Sunday morning, and then we'll head to NY via MI anyways. with two full days to get better, my vacation won't be spent napping and making sure i don't over-do anything so that i can be better by the time i return to Chicago for work next friday. yesterday (Friday) i probably slept 20 of the 24 hours of the day, which was great, except for the feeling like shit part. but today, even though i'm still a little weak, and am taking things a bit slowly, i feel much better and am able to clean my apartment, and pack so that i'm ready for the drive home tomorrow. hopefully the worst of the changes are over and the rest of the trip will go without a hitch:)

while getting ready this morning, i was thinking about Christmas and being home and all. i put on Christmas carols and have been getting into the Christmas spirit, more than i have been in a long time. i'm looking forward to being in NY and enjoying our neighborhood, my house and family, all of which/whom i haven't seen in a long time. i think Brayson is ready for his play dates with Zeke too, so that's good, though any minute, he'll start freaking out because i'm changing sheets on my bed and packing my clothes. He has a chronic fear of being left behind...poor guy:)

oh, and for the record. Alphabet vegetable soup is awesome when you're not feeling well...(just thought i'd throw that in there)

MERRY CHRISTMAS:):)

Drama Drama Drama...

The male race never ceases to amaze me. seriously...what the heck???

how many times can the word "plunger" be used in a post

two important household items, among others, that i needed to buy when i moved to chicago was a toilet bowl brush and a plunger. two items that aren't used every day, but are necessary if you want to keep your bathroom clean and working properly. i bought the toilet bowl brush soon after i moved in, but kept putting the plunger on the back burner, cause really, how often do you need a plunger. in my apartment in WV, the old tenant left three of them, and i used one once in 2 years. turns out i should've bought a plunger along with the brush...

today, i had a fight with my toilet and the toilet won.

the battle began when i threw a piece of toilet paper with a squished spider in the bowl and, upon turning the knob, the toilet didn't flush. instead, it decided to fill and fill and not empty.

now, this has happened to me before, a couple weeks ago, and i did the idiot thing by trying to flush the toilet again and,luck up on luck, it actually flushed, without spewing toilet water all over my bathroom floor. i vowed to purchase a plunger the next day, but if i had, i wouldn't be writing this post.

instead, i found myself staring at the filling toilet again this afternoon, 10 minutes before i was supposed to be at work, and i had to make the choice A)leave it because you don't have a plunger and you won't be lucky by flushing it again two times in a row, and B)flush it again cause you just might be lucky two times in a row.

I chose B, and had water all over my bathroom floor. gross. (though i will state again that the water only had a wet tissue and a squished spider in it...but still...eeuuuwww).

the result of my needing a plunger but not having time to buy one before work, meant that i had to buy one after work. and so, i left work 10:30pm on a saturday night and walked 4 blocks to the nearest CVS, which was closed. so i walked one more block to Walgreens which is open 24 hrs a day. mind you, this CVS and Walgreens are actually in and amongst about 12 bars on a 2.5 block stretch. and at 10:30 on a Sat. night, the streets are beginning to fill up with the 'cool' 'young' 'hip' crowd of bar and club goers. and there i am in my restaurant waitress garb...shopping for a device to fix my toilet. anyways, so i go into walgreens and find my plunger, and buy a few new little notebooks for taking orders in for the next few weeks. as i'm looking around for the school/office supply section of the store, i notice 3 or 4 semi-attractive guys walk in the store. probably there to purchase condoms in hopes of having fun tonight. I walk buy them, looking for notebooks, plunger in hand. and of course, on my walk home, i continue to pass attractive guy after attractive guy with what has now been bagged in plastic, but seriously...how many other objects have a 2 foot wood handle sticking out of a plastic bag?? of course those cute guys are no-where to be found when i'm walking brayson, or carrying heavy groceries back to my apartment...;)

needless to say, i guess it was time to buy a plunger, and now, next time, i'll avoid the need to bleach my bathroom floor after flushing...

the good things in life

finally getting to buy things for the ones you love...

Welcome the new Doggie Bed















Welcome dog on new Doggie Bed















that pillow looks so great, I want to sleep on it.

the greatest invention ever ...

Flannel Sheets....

yumm yumm.


nothing like sticking your cold toes in bed and not having to wait til your own body heat warms up the cotton sheets that have been chilling all day in your apartment. These babies are soft and warm and perfect in every way.

for those of you waiting with bated breath...

i know, i have been too...waiting in eager anticipation for what amazing mastery has finally been used to fix the leak in my sadly damp and quite unspeakedly DISGUSTING kitchen.

well, ladies and gents...they came to fix my leak, and i have no water in my kitchen. however, the fact that men were in my apartment was undeniably clear due to evidence all over my apartment. A) the toilet seat was up, and a nasty muck ring from some dirty glass was left on the heater in my bathroom. i serioulsy cleaned the entire bathroom before i used it myself. then, B) i went to the kitchen to find that yes, they had been there...there was a recently plastered rectangle in the wall that had obviously been opened and poorly closed again. two of the tiles from the corner of the floor, which had been removed sat. morning are still on my counter, not properly returned to their original place to finish the already unfortunate state of my floor, there's a kind of goo running down the baseboard and plaster dripped on the floor. am i supposed to thank them for stopping the leak...FINALLY? and call it a day, or am i to call my landlord "Ben" back for another shot at getting my apartment in some kind of normal and acceptable livable state...because, seriously...FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ALEADY...

i truly am just so tired. so tired. so tired of this whole sad scenario.

for the record, i'm quite aware that you readers are just about as sick of reading about my apartment leakage problems as i am writting about them

There are three Slovakian men standing in my 3 feet by 5 feet kitchen as I write…TO FIX MY KITCHEN LEAK. I’ve called my landlord 3 times this week, and again, I had water in the corner every evening. I called again yesterday, asked for their fax number and told him every detail again…as he likes to rush me off the phone before I can explain how I’m not really lying about all of this. The landlord, we’ll call him “Ben,” gets on his walkie-talkie with the company they pay to fix leaks and explains, almost word for word what I told him…I almost fainted in shock. Though he did add a little snobbish remark at the end about getting this done already so that we can all just move on…why do I think he said that to spite me because he knew I could hear him? Well, I’ll take it that he’s finally getting as annoyed with this leak as I am and is finally gonna do his job and make sure that it gets done.

Anyways, Landlord “Ben” gets back on the phone and tells me that the ‘fixers’ will call me later that night to schedule a time for them to come over. I said…fine. (in the back of my mind, i’m 30 seconds from faxing them a written statement that if they don’t have this fixed in 14 days (which really would add up 2 months and 14 days since this has been a problem since I moved in) I’m getting it fixed myself and taking the amount it costs out of my rent. I Do know a little about my tenant rights. So, I waited, NOT holding my breath, for the call later that afternoon.

9pm, I get the call…”will you be there at 9am tomorrow?” I say, yes…and they say they’ll be here.

9:35am this morning, they show up and (thank God) there was a small puddle in the corner of the kitchen. The thing is, it drains, and often in later morning/early afternoon, and so when they’ve been by before, it has ‘dried’ up. I use “ ” because it’s still damp, but there’s not a visible puddle, so they think I’m smoking crack cause there’s no puddle and leave. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no leak. HOWEVER, THIS MORNING. there was still a definite VISIBLE puddle and they were all like “oh my god”.

It’s now 10:30 am and they’re still working on it. Two of the men have now gone upstairs, I guess to check the other apartment for leaks. And the guy who’s in my kitchen is chatting with him in is native language hopefully discussing the next steps to take.

The only problem is that I’m STARVING and have zero food in the house…but I don’t want to leave while they’re here, so that I’m a)here if they have any questions, and b) so that I know exactly what time they leave and they can tell me when they’re coming back or any other important information so that they can’t use anything against me later on.
(though I guess it could be argued the fact that they’re speaking in a language that sounds like gibberish to me, I guess I don’t really know all that’s going on anyways.)

(Oh, and I have to use the crapper like there’s no tomorrow, but there’s NO way I’m going while they’re here…)


Does this look fixed to you?

IT"S WINTER

It seems that every time the meteorologists make a huge deal about the up and coming weather conditions nothing happens, and even though we haven't received 6-12 inches of snow yet...we certainly have SNOW:):) and as it's really just the first time so far this year (except one morning we had flurries in October) i'm excited. it finally feels like December...it's about time:):)