I’ve started going through the tapes that we had once recorded that I thought we might want to keep. Some of these are so bad there’s nothing to do but throw away, they’re all static. Some of these are in great condition.

So now I’m sitting here watching the Addams Family… the ORIGINAL, the GOOD, not those silly movies, the original show… and the family is trying to teach Lurch to dance. Besides this marathon from a few years ago on TVLand, I can’t remember the last time I saw this show on TV.

There’s a ton of junk on TV now, why can’t anyone show the good stuff anymore? Who cares if it is in black and white? Nothing beats it. The Addams Family, I Love Lucy, I Dream of Jeannie, Green Acres, Leave it to Beaver, etc. Not to mention stuff from the 80′s even, like Mama’s Family and The Carol Burnett Show. The only one I ever see on anymore is the Andy Griffith Show. Meh, I guess I’m just mad at TVLand and their stupid “reality” shows that seem to have taken over their airwaves.

Now to see which of these are on DVD. Not that I can afford anything right now, but hey, I can add them to my wishlist. :P

Oh, I’m also proud of my organizational skills. I bought some plastic drawers to put inside the entertainment center’s two cabinets. There are two drawers in each of the two cabinets and they fit perfectly… after I took off the door magnets! Then they slid in and I screwed the magnets back on so the doors will actually stay shut. Now, throwing out or getting rid of most of these tapes, I also have at least one of the larger drawers for my yarn which is overflowing out of it’s basket. I will even have room for my scrapbooks of recent years to be in a decent place! I figure with neither of us finding any work, we’re not going to be moving anytime soon, so we might as well make this closet we call a house work… again.

When I was literally on my way out the door – and everyone else was already piling in the vehicle – our power went out… again. It went out just like it had gone out on Thursday the first and second times, and came back, it was only out a few seconds. The computer started freaking out so I turned that off and went on out. Steve deposited the dog back inside and we left.

When we got home, I unlocked the door and he took the baby in and subsequently went: WHY IS IT SO HOT IN HERE!?

Usually, that’s my line. I HATE coming into the house when he’s turned off all the fans and/or turned up the a/c, it always feels so stuffy.

But he was right, it was HOT. And it smelled… like a gas furnace.

He took a look at the thermostat and yelled, “who turned the heat on!?” After further discussion we figured out that when the power went off, the thermostat must have freaked out. It was set on 90, and in the few hours that we were gone, the temperature had risen from 76 to 83. I never like it at 83. 75 is really my cut-off. :)

So there goes our cheap gas bill before winter!!

Hehehe, ok, so I’m sure it won’t be that bad. But we were enjoying lower bills since we had to get a new water heater and Steve went ahead and got us an electric one instead of gas. It’s going to be big time bills this winter though, since we can’t use wood heat because of K, at least this year and probably next, too.

That was just so weird though. I don’t know how the thermostat could have freaked to turn the heat on. I guess I don’t know as much about it as I thought but I thought only the heat or the a/c could be on, and that there was a manual button for that. Guess not!

Torrential winds have not only ripped off one of our shutters, but broke it in two pieces. How, I have no idea. Especially when considering the uber-lightweight patio furniture wasn’t even moved that same day. I haven’t bothered to look, I doubt he’s been able to fix it – he doesn’t even have a ladder that tall and would have to borrow it from his friend and I know he’s not done that.

Two weeks ago his truck broke down, stupid clutch again. I am beginning to hate that truck. It’s 20 years old this year and we’ve been wanting to get him a work car instead but he refuses to go spend the money. I’m sure we could do it just fine, but there’s always something going on which makes him say, “not right now, we’ve got….” And I think the recent me on bed rest and soon-to-be extended hospital stay is now what he’s got in mind. Thankfully that day, though, his brother was able to pick him up and the truck and bring them both home. But he spent the next two weeks driving the Jeep to work. Finally, last Thursday, he, his dad, and two brothers, were able to get the truck into the garage so he could work on it. He spent Friday until 1 am getting the parts out, went and traded them in on new parts (he buys the kind where he gets discounts for bringing in the old ones), and spent all day Saturday getting it put back together. Finally, he’s now finished! It’s not a big deal, really, for him to drive the Jeep, especially with me not needing it, but we don’t want to put all those miles on it (something like 130 a day).

Tuesday the Jeep also broke down! Thankfully here, this turned out to be a small and easily fixable problem, but when he was rolling into town, he didn’t know that yet. He called the dealership where we got the Jeep and the lady told him she’d have someone in the service department call him back but they never did. When he tried again an hour or so later, they were closed. So that made him mad. He went into the dealership of the same type, up the road here, and they told him that they were too busy, it would be a couple of weeks before they could look at it. The owner, who he knows, didn’t seem to care, so Steve left. He was a bit mad about that (but said, “well if they don’t want my money, then fine”). So he started looking at it himself and found the problem, a big fat stupid hose that had a rip in it so it wasn’t sealing and the Jeep had no power. Turns out that this was a simple thing, but it’s also something we’re told shouldn’t have happened until the Jeep was much older. But, whatever. So he starts calling parts stores around here and no one has the blasted thing. He starts calling parts stores up north a bit and no one has it up there either. Finally someone tells him that it’s a dealer part, you have to get it from a dealership. I don’t even know where he ended up getting it from but that night he was finally able to temporarily patch it up with duct tape (lol) then got the part the next day on his way home and spent time Wednesday fixing it.

And now! This morning a bit ago, I was simply walking out of the bathroom when I heard a crash and the distinct sound of glass breaking in the basement. Without even thinking that, er, derrrr, maybe someone could have broken in or some large animal or something, I head down there. It was none of that, though, but a rather large fluorescent shop light. One end of it fell and one of the two long tube bulbs in it shattered. Little… tiny… minuscule… pieces of glass… everywhere. Ugh. I tried to unplug it, the plug is from the (low) ceiling right next to the end of the light that didn’t fall, but it’s zip tied really close and I couldn’t pull it out. I wasn’t going to really try, either, since I’m not supposed to be doing stuff. I called Steve though, since my boys were on their way to church, and he said that it won’t come on anyway, so don’t worry about it and don’t go down there. This is the sort of thing that’s his area in the house anyway, whether or not I’m on bed rest, but still, it’s like….

The poor guy barely has time to go to work, eat dinner (not to mention if he has to cook something), then relax for a few minutes before he has to sleep and start all over again, let alone be fixing all this crazy stuff right now. The list really doesn’t end right there but that’s the biggest stuff, I think. I mean, it will be grass cutting season very soon again, there’s other stuff around this house that needs to be done, etc. Sometimes I think it would just be so much easier to rent from someone and make them do everything. “Oh, hello, Mr. Landlord? Yeah a light bulb in the basement shattered… fix it!” Heh, but I know it’s not that easy for renters either, and I’d rather own. But it gets frustrated sometimes, especially when I can’t do anything myself to help.

Then there’s all the stuff that is usually done by pregnant women in the “nesting” stage. It’s going to either have to be done by someone else or wait until I actually get home with the baby…

We’re both doing better though. Of course, Elijah never really acted sick other than taking a nap the other day. My voice is still crud, and I’m coughing a lot more now, though. But there’s no pressure in my head anymore and I don’t feel like puking all the time. The two of us actually got out today to take some pictures and what not. Mostly we drove around, but we got some sun, too.

The new dehumidifier is working out great and maybe that’s helping, too. In just short of 24 hours, I already had to empty it. I don’t think its tank is any smaller than the old one, it’s just gotten pretty damp down there in between normal stuff and all the rain we’ve been getting. This evening Steve said it was almost full again, so I’ll have to check on it when I do some laundry here in a sec.

Anyway, more to come later.

But with that said, I forgot what else I had to say.

I know I’ve been saying that a lot lately but, man, today kinda sucked. I was locked out of things three times today. The day’s not even over yet, I wouldn’t be surprised for it to happen again, knowing my luck!!

one.
It was this morning and I was getting ready to shower. Elijah was being, well, a butt, so I told him he was going to have to take a “nap” while I showered rather than being free range. So the second I’m not looking, he thinks it would be an awesome idea to lock his door and close it so that he can use the excuse “but my door’s locked.”

My first response was, “no it’s not, keep trying,” because the door knob has been known to stick and not turn. But then he gets the butter knife and so I went to look at it. Yup, it’s locked. Tried the little flathead screwdriver in the hole on the end. Nothing.

Finally, giving up on that, I realize I have to take the door knob off. So I get a bigger screwdriver. I’m getting more frustrated the whole time because (well, first, I can’t find a bigger screwdriver) the stupid things keeps slipping and it’s taking me forever to get anywhere.

Nearly the whole time, too, Elijah’s over on the couch crying, “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to!” Yeah, like you didn’t mean to poke the dog with a fork last night…

So, anyway, I finally get the door knob off after many moons of messing with the dang thing but the other side is still on. That takes a bit to knock it off. It’s still locked, the little piece inside refuses to let go. It takes me about two minutes of messing with that to finally get the stupid door open.

At this point, I also must admit that there was a second where I lost all control and slammed the screwdriver into the door. I’m actually surprised that it didn’t leave a bigger mark than it did. I immediately felt stupid, that’s not me (I make fun of people who hit things in anger), but what’s done is done.

two.
I order Elijah to the bathroom then to lay in his bed and be quiet while I take a shower and get dressed. He actually obeys me, at least for then. I get dressed and let him up and we’re getting ready to go. “Go put your sandals on,” I say.

Seconds later, he’s yelling. He’s locked himself inside his room!

This time it took me even longer to do that third piece of getting the door open. I would have been considering taking the hinges out, but they’re on the inside, too.

Of course, he’s in there crying that he’s stuck in his room and he wants to go to grandma’s. Furthermore, his sandals were in the living room the whole time.

three.
So it was up to my mom’s for a little mini-graduation celebration for my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law (N). Er, mini on the part of the celebration, not the graduation. That was nice, we had a little meal with some of his family there, too, talked, yada yada. After all the others left, it was time for me to get ready to go.

I saw it was starting to rain and since it had been nice when I’d gotten there, every one of my windows and my sunroof were open. So I hurried Elijah up and we started out the door. Only he ran ahead of me and was opening the driver’s side door before I got there. “What are you doing?!” I called, “Come give your grandma a hug and kiss.” So he turned around and headed back to the house (dancing in the rain all the way).

I got to the Jeep, put my purse on the passenger’s seat, put the key in, turned it slightly (didn’t start it up), then put all the windows up, closed the sunroof, and… shut the door. Normally I would, at that point, leave the door hanging open since I was going to be turning around and getting right in after Elijah returned. But because it was raining, I closed it. And in that last split second before it closed, I realized the doors were locked.

I actually screamed, “Nooooo!!”

I could see right there that all doors were locked, despite my, as is typical, unlocking them all with the remote unlock key as I was walking up. Elijah, when standing there at my door, had simply pushed down the button and locked them all in one swift move. And, of course, all the windows were up!

The last time I locked my keys in my car I was in my first year of college. Before that I was in high school. And both times the windows, at least one window, was open just barely enough for someone to reach in and unlock the door.

I wasn’t so lucky this time.

Oh, and remember when I said I turned the key forward? Yeah, that’s where it still was, the radio was playing.

And, apparently, asking Elijah “why did you lock the doors?” translates to “please, show us how you’d scream if you stepped in a bear trap.”

My dad and N got started almost immediately, trying to get it unlocked. They tried on several separate occasions while the rain started coming heavier and heavier. By the time they finally gave up, they were soaked.

In the meantime, we went over a few scenarios. My house is 40 miles from there. Should someone drive me home, get Steve’s keys and return? Or should we wait for Steve to get home from work, then have him come up? My in-laws’ couldn’t help, they were another additional hour away from my house at the moment. I called the dealership where we leased the blasted thing from, all their mechanics were gone for the weekend. Finally my mom starts looking up locksmiths and sees someone familiar in there.

Apparently, the father of my brother’s friend (the guy who was his best man) and the friend, do a business where they tow and such. I didn’t know this at all but apparently my family has used them many times in the last years for towing and repair. They were also listed under locksmiths.

So he came out and saved me. Who’d have thought, when I first met him when I was in the 6th grade and he in the 3rd that he’d be unlocking my Jeep for me more than ten years later, haha. It took him all of two seconds, too, it was awesome. They also were going to do it for me half price. However, with our insurance and such, we’re still going to submit to them so that they can get all their money they normally get for that. Our insurance should cover it but if they don’t or they are going to give us a price increase, I’ll just send them the rest of the money myself.

So there it was, #3. And after nearly an hour of all this, I was glad that my battery was still fine. No dead battery, very nice. That just would have been insult to injury. Er, injury to insult. Or something.

Of course, too, while all this was going on, everyone’s trying to give me advice. Stupid stuff, like, never leave your keys in the ignition. Well, duh. Like I said before, normally the door would have been hanging open but this was just a one time out of hundreds that this has happened. Not to mention that Elijah’s not usually in my door like that. Dad told me always to carry a spare key… between my teeth and gums. Yeah, dad, okay, because I really need help getting cavities. Mom suggested a magnetic key holder to put under the Jeep. Yeahhhh. They act like I do this every day. :P