Fried Mommy Brain

I've been sitting here with the cursor blinking at me for quite a while now. I'm staring at a screen just waiting for letters and words to fill the white void of a textbox. I sit here debating whether I should put this out there for everyone to read when just a day or two ago, I was refusing to tell anyone what was suddenly happening to me.  But ultimately I am saying screw it. I will share it. It's my business and I am choosing to put it out there.  I've always been an open book so why stop now?  Besides, keeping it locked up caused too many moments of melt down over the last two days so maybe by just putting it out there, it'll be like a form of emotional release.

Although I am sure that 99.9% of my readers are female, I will put out a forewarning if there is anyone of the male gender out there right now. You might as well skip this post. It's one of those posts. You know...girl stuff.  So just move on along.  Treat it like one of those awkward commercials on TV where a mom is teaching her daughter about tampons or "sanitary napkins".  Just click and move forward.

Alright now that that is out of the way, I'll just be blunt.

I found a lump.

And anyone that is female reading this knows exactly what I am talking about. A lump. The dreaded, panic inducing breast lump.

But let's rewind a moment.

It was late Sunday night, right around midnight actually after a very long day with the girls (what day isn't long with them though, really?).  While tending to an itch, I discovered it quite accidentally on my left side.  I froze for a moment. Just stopped dead. My eyebrows furrowed and I calmly told myself I must have something inside my shirt. You know, like I don't know..a large piece of food or lint or God anything.  I threw my shirt aside and felt against bare skin.  Shit. Holy shit.  That can't be right.

So there I am late on a Sunday night discovering for the very first time in my life that I have a breast lump.  Everything became very quiet, almost silent. Just the soft hum of the fan and the soft static over Madi's baby monitor. I sat there with my hand covering myself and held my breath. The rational part of my brain screamed at me to take a breath and relax.  I know the stats. Something close to 80% of discovered lumps are nothing to worry about. A lump doesn't mean the big bad C word. It doesn't mean chemo and mastectomies. It could be any number of harmless things. That is what my rational side said.  My irrational side?  The side that was slowly beating the crap out of the rational side? Well, that one was screaming at me, "Oh my God..you are so totally screwed!  So...totally...screwed!" 

I started to shake and my stomach dropped like on the downhill of a roller coaster.  I suddenly felt sick to my stomach and couldn't fight the feeling of utter panic that was consuming me.  There I was late on a Sunday night discovering for the very time in my life that I have a lump and I was completely and utterly alone.  I slowly turned around and was assaulted by the realization.  I couldn't just march up to Matt, shove aside my shirt and demand him to tell me if he thought "this" felt odd.  I couldn't beg him to tell me it'd be ok and that I was being silly. I couldn't watch as he sat me down infront of the computer and showed me the research that would say odds were in my favor. And the most important part, I couldn't collapse into his open arms and let myself completely surrender to the irrational side.  No. I was completely and utterly alone.  Set aside the air conditioning breaking during the summer, or all of my yardtools revolting at the beginning of lawn season, forget the 5 day stomach virus that I have yet to recover the weight from, forget the endless puddles of urine and the wet princess panties of potty training, forget the tape worm ordeal and the all nighters with sick children.  Forget all of that and just know that at that very moment--very late on a Sunday night--that I realized I have never felt so alone in my entire married life.

Once composed enough to get myself down to the computer, I did email Matt. I debated for about 1/2 second about whether I should just keep it from him because he has so many other worries but in the end, that is not how our marriage works.  We both lack the ability to keep things from one another. As I always tell people, I tell Matt if I buy a $5 pair of shoes on clearance. It's just the way we work. No secrets. No trying to protect one another. Good or bad, it's all laid on the table.  But I think any of you civilians that have read this blog long enough already know how unreliable Naval communication is.  Matt's email system went down. Oh it was up long enough for him to read my email about the discovery a few hours after I sent it but it went down and didn't allow him to respond or for any of my updates to go through.  It was about 12 hours later I received a very concerned phonecall from him. 

I gave myself a couple days to absorb it all. To constantly feel myself up to the point of bruising myself. To just try to sit back and collect my thoughts.  I finally decided to make a call to the dr eventhough I was doing a pretty damn good job convincing myself it was probably nothing more than a cyst.  I won't go into the details of how our lovely military appointment schedulers tried to make me wait a month to be seen and will just cut to the chase. I lucked out and caught a cancelleation at the last second.  "Be here in one hour," they said.  I threw down the phone, packed food and toys for Alyssa and Madi and packed up all three kids to make the trip out to the dr's (I really, really have to switch now that we have moved).

This post could go on for days so let's see if I can cut this a bit shorter.  The girls sat like angels in the waiting room. I really must say having a responsible 6th grader kicks ass.  The nurse took me back and asked me questions like if I was in pain-to which I replied "Only because I can't stop obsessively checking myself!"  The dr came in, talked to me a bit then got down to business.  I really rather liked her if I could just overlook the fact she felt the need to comment about how small I was. Gee, thanks, doc. Really?  You think I didn't notice and just wanted to bring it to my attention incase I had missed it? Want to offer me some in house implants while you're at it?  Good God.  Welp, just another story to lock away in the vault of why I am forever horribly self conscious.  So once she became professional again, she did a very thorough exam and declared that she belives it is most likely a fibrocystic condition. Basically cysts that form during certain times of your cycle. Nothing serious, nothing of concern but she said keep an eye on "them" (she claimed she felt more than the one I originally did although damned if I can find what she was talking about) and to come back in a month. If they are still hanging around, she will do an ultrasound at that point. 

So hopefully this will be nothing.  Hopefully this will just be yet another fun phase I'll hit in the "oh yay! happy, happy, joy, joy I am getting older!" part of my life.  Hopefully by the end of this month, my mind can rest easy once again like it did before that very late night moment on Sunday.

Whew there I go again..getting behind on my book reviews.  The other day I actually went back to the list of what I have read since Matt left in January and I am up to 83 books.  83 books. Good Lord...perhaps I have too much time on my hands.

The SBC Fighters Series:  I've been slowly working my way through the four books of this series by Lori Foster, suffering through being at the whim of the library's time schedule. Previously,  I reviewed Hard to Handle and My Man Michael.   I accidentally started with book four of this series--not realizing it was not a stand alone novel before it was too late. Luckily, it was written that way though-it was written as a stand alone novel.  I am saying it now, reading My Man Michael by itself will not affect the series for you.  It was completely unlike the others in the series and I see why, now, it received such harsh reviews from followers of the previous books eventhough I found it to be enjoyable.  However, do not read books #1-3 out of order. I did. I went in reverse order and I shouldn't have.  I should have been more patient.  The series would have been more enjoyable and been more impactful if I had gone in order because characters from books one and two are brought up in later books so you can get updates on their lives.  You know, who is married, who is knocked up, etc.  I followed along fine because Foster recaps in the later books but it would have just meant more if I had an interest in the characters first.  All in all though, I would actually recommend the series if you are looking for quick, fast paced reads.  It has good ole possessive hotties and amazing love scenes with just enough mention of professional fighting to possibly hold a guy reader's interest.  I actually went ahead and ordered them on half.com if that says anything. Not everyone will dig them but I found them pretty darn entertaining.  Real people, real life situations, writing that doesn't require too many firing brain cells and yummy romance scenes. Can't ask for much more.

Anita Blake #9 and #10:  I'm still plugging along in my quest to read the entire Anita Blake series (which is up to #17 and still counting).  Last week I tackled Obsidian Butterfly and Narcissus in Chains.  Obsidian Butterfly has no love scenes. There, I said it outright.  Did I chuck it against the wall in disgust?  Oddly enough, no, I didn't.  It was so well written and so heart poundingly good that I couldn't put it down. It was a rather long novel and had nothing at all to do with Anita's love life and yet I plowed through it in two days.  It centers mostly around Anita's buddy--cold blooded assassin Edward.  And oddly enough, Edward's new love life-with a single mother of two small children.  It has twists and turns and good ole horror, gore and suspense, and I fully understand why that one received rave reviews online. It was fantastically done.  As soon as I finished the last page and closed the book, I reached over and grabbed the next book and cracked open to chapter one.  Narcissus in Chains makes up for lost time. Holy hell, Hamilton-good to see you come out of your good little girl shell.  I'll sum it up in one word--orgies.  Lordie I hope our daughter isn't reading this entry but there ya go. It is what it is. Anita finds herself one step closer to completing her bond with Master Vampire of the City Jean Claude and with that bond comes an almost uncontrollable lust--a curse if you will. And no man, shape shifter or vamp is safe when it kicks in. This leads to some really rather yummy situations.  And what the heck? Let's throw in a few more potential love interests and one serious, suitably perfect match for Anita and it's just downright enthralling.  Some other readers and lovers of Anita Blake thinks she should get out of bed and get back to work, but I personally adored this book. It was my favorite thus far. What that says about me..well let's not go there.  My family reads this thing.

Heartbreakers:  Since the next two Anita's wouldn't be ready for a few days at the library, I needed a quick read to hold me over.  I was in Lori Foster's section when I saw the book Heartbreakers which is actually two of her novellas put into one book.  The cover was mouth watering and the little write up said, "Men out of uniform never looked so good."  I figured, "Yeah that'll work" and threw it into my bag.  It looked borderline cheesy but hey, it's not as bad as the one book I saw called Real Men Last All Night. Ok, even I'm not reading that one.  If the title makes me snort in laughter, it does not make it into my library tote bag.

The first story in this book is based around single, widowed dad and yummy paramedic Zack.  It starts right off with Zack meeting his large, obnoxious and somehow amazingly sexy neighbor Wynn.  I wasn't that far into the book before the two of them were tumbling around in the lawn at midnight.  The second story, centered around hunky firefighter Josh and the prissy, conservative Amanada was much the same.  What can I say? These books won't challenge your intellect.  In the very least, you might learn a new word or two because Foster tends to throw in a thesaurus word once in a while but that's about the extent of that.  They are meant to be fast, easy and fun reads. There are no thick plots or actually anything that makes you go, "Wow, I would have never thought of that!"  Actually you read these and think, "Eh, I could have written that" but it doesn't mean they weren't enjoyable in their own way. They served their purpose of entertaining me while waiting for my other books.  

I will, however, say a few things about Foster now that I've read 6 of her books.  One, she's very real life and I love that about her.  She has to be one of the first authors I've read that actually goes to great lengths to have her characters step back long enough during the heat of passion to make sure the sex they are having is safe.  And she even addresses the sometimes less than pleasant aftermath of being protected.  Not only that, but she actually went one step further and one of her main characters suffered through a week of PMS and her monthly cycle.  I can't remember the last time I read something so real life in a romance novel.  Usually it seems these beautiful main character chicks never deal with their very inconveniently timed monthlies.    It was refreshing.  It was also refreshing to have one of the characters be less than perfect physically. FInally..finally a chick that was built like a plank and self conscious about being less than an A cup.  Finally a chick that wasn't perfectly "stacked".  And not only that but that chick found herself the object of obsession of a massively huge, tattooed professional fighter. Thank you, Foster...I highly enjoyed that lil twist.

But the one negative I will say is this...Foster is not a young spring chicken. I mean no disrespect by saying that because well let's face it, we'll all find ourselves aging against our wills at some point.  But Foster writes about characters anywhere from 21 to about 32--the age group I find myself falling into--and yet there have been numerous scences or particular lines where I just snorted and said, "PLEASE! We would not talk like that!"  It wasn't necessarily the vocabulary that you know would never be used in daily life but rather was just the phrasing of certain things--the dialogue at times.  I became very aware, at times, of her 50+ years of age.  I feel almost mean saying that, but if you're writing about people 20 to 30 years your junior, you have to step aside from your life and try to write like they would act or speak. And at times, she just wasn't fooling anyone.

What's up next?  I was told that my Anita's #11 and #12 are ready to pick up at the library.  Wahoo!  After that, I am not real sure.  I have a few potential books I am looking into.  Whatever it is, it'll be something borderline trashy I am sure. Sorry, guys, there's no early 19th century famous literature in my furture of reviews and the most complicated plot you'll read about is a good gory murder mystery.

It was almost 2 years ago when I posted this for the first time.  It just felt right to go ahead and post it again to share it with any new readers or as a revisit for long time followers--you know, it's kinda like one of those obnoxious flashback TV shows that try to pass as a new episode but is really just airing old stuff (sidenote-the only show I never minded doing that was Golden Girls..man when those chicks pulled up a chair and broke out the cheesecake, you just KNEW a flashback episode was a comin')

Maybe it's the time of year that is forcing me to become overly sentimental.  Right about now would be the time in my youth when we would start our more regular Wildwood visits.  Loading up the ole '84 Chevy Caprice baby blue station wagon complete with our chocolate brown lab who used to drool insistently over the back seat until his saliva ran down my shoulders.  I'd often snooze until we hit the old shanty town bridge that led us into the heart of North Wildwood.  And it never failed, Grandmom would be on that small front porch waiting for us--often in her pale pink Isotoner slippers.  Some of my most vivid memories of childhood center around their home. It never fails--to this day the sound of a sea gull flying overhead or the mellow scent of overly ripened bananas in a summer kitchen can whisk me right on back.  But instead of continuing with this new post, let's go ahead and take the easy way out and do a flashback...originally posted in June 2007, here it is...Memories of East Fifth Avenue:

So it's Father's day. Hallmark holiday or not, you find you want to do something special for the one with whom you share some pretty amazing kids. Problem?  He's 8,000 miles away and communication is very limited. Hmmm...

Well, first, you better plan ahead. This means putting together a package and mailing it off atleast a month in advance. Then you sit back and pray like hell that the USPS doesn't screw this one up. With any luck, he'll receive it right around Father's Day--or atleast in the same fiscal year.

Second, you take note of the massively huge time difference and obsessively check the clock so the second it hits midnight where he is, you can be the first one to drop him an email wishing him a happy holiday.

Lastly, you compose a mushy lil blog entry and hope his internet is working. 

So here's to you, baby...Father's Day 2009.  Separated physically against our wills by 8,000 miles but never closer in our hearts.  You mean the world to us. You are our everything. All your little women miss you terribly and can not wait for the day you return to us.

All our love

XOXO

Quote by Pam Brown

With all my heart, I wish all the loving fathers of this world--cut off from their families by want or work or war--could be safe again.  For I know how much it means to have such a father--how much I need him in the small everyday things--and just how much he needs me.

Julesmatt1999

Julesmattsleeping2000

Julesmatt2000

Alyssadaddyjuly

Mattalyssabird

Alyssapreschoolmatt

Madilyndaddysleeping

Madilyndaddyface

Madilyndaddygoodbyekiss2008

How to quickly sum up the last couple of days?  Hmm...well let's see...let's start with the casualties first: a broken chair, a busted weed whacker and a temperamental lawn mower.  The chair I will take full responsibility for. The other two...they are just being a pain in the ass.

We'll start with the yardwork items and work our way up to the good stuff.  Yeah, yeah two more tools have bitten the dust.  I'm not sure what I did to piss off the lawn god somewhere along the line but someone is ticked at me.  The weed whacker started acting up last week and I admit that after 30 minutes of struggling with it in supressing heat, my temper flared up and I busted the gas tank off. Hey, don't start on me though--I got it back on. Good as new (well almost anyway). But it still wouldn't stay on. It starts but just putters out.  I was over it.  This week, after giving it 7 whole days to rest, I tried again. Nothing.  Fantastic.  I pulled out the push mower and did as close to all edges as I could and use a gloved hand to yank out tall grass along other areas.  A gloved hand. For God's sakes...I am anal about my landscaping, ain't I?  Anal or dedicated. Not sure which.

So once the front was done, I moved along to the back.  My ride on, thank goodness, is still working but to do the property behind our fence, I need the push mower. I went to start it up and what do you know? It kept cutting off.  Enter curse words of your choosing here and then listen for the psychotic laughter. What else could I do, really? It was almost comical at this point.  I walked away. Because that's all I could do in the end.  I might be lifting weights but I'm not about to pick up and throw a lawn mower. Even I have a little more sense than that. Besides, Matt asked me to, "Please, stop breaking his shit." <end quote>

I have informed Matt that a new weed whacker is being purchased. The lawn mower he can deal with when he comes home. I'll borrow one every other week to maintain behind the fence.  But the weed whacker? I've never liked ours. It's very testy and heavy.  Momma wants a new one.  So we'll have his and her weed whackers. How darling.

I have found, amidst all this god foresaken yardwork, that my lovely lil muscular skeletal disorder is kicking in again. It sounds a little more extreme than it is really.  Don't you love how proper medical terms make things sound so severe? I was diagnosed when I was a little older than Jules. I don't remember much other than a lot of tests and a lot of pain. Out of nowhere, a sharp stabbing pain would assault the area around my heart. Although sometimes it likes to switch things up and stab me around my right lung. Either way, it made breathing very painful-like someone driving a knife into me with each breath (well I can only assume that is what it would feel like anyway).  Usually it was brief in duration. And I actually caught a break for several years until I was pregnant with Alyssa and the pain would last for days at a time.  It hasn't been bad until recently. Now it's been hitting regularily when I run (which is normally every other day) or when I do a lot of strenuous yardwork.  It makes it so I can't take a deep breath without cursing. I've retrained myself to breathe shallow again--something I had not done since my teen years. It's one of things not many people--other than Matt and my parents--really know about because I just don't see a point in advertising it. I've never let it stop me from doing things, so why share? But I tell ya, it's a bitch to deal with and a little discouraging to know there is nothing medically that can be done. It is what it is.  It makes a lawn service crew sound more appealing though.

So the chair. You're wondering, aren't you?  Ok, look, this one I wasn't even going to admit because it shows total lack of control on my part. It shows I am cracking. It shows that no matter how much people claim I am doing a good job, that I really do have my moments of being a crap mom.  One of my goals in keeping this blog and sharing everything from funny to sad to embarrasing is to hopefully give people an inside glimpse of not just my life but our life as a military family.  And let's face it. It's not all pretty. It's not all sweet sentiments in emails sent from thousands of miles away. It's not just about receiving flowers one day out of the blue because email went down.  It's not about having some time to focus on one's self and using it to rediscover old beloved hobbies or start new ones.  And it's certainly not all about that one glorious day that marks the end--when the 200+ days of hell seem almost worth it and you are thrust into the pure bliss of reunion.   More often than that, it's about the dirty, unpleasant, and emotional aspects.  It's about slowly becoming a person you no longer recogonize because you are pushed to your absolute limits. It's about being wonderfully numb one second and then a raving lunatic the next.  It's about not caring if you have to fast forward through days in your kids' lives as long as it means reaching that day of reunion a little faster.  You know you should feel guilty for that, but you don't.  Life loses so much of its meaning when you are forced to be separated so you find the desperation to reach the end of that overwhelming.  It's also about realizing that daily life is almost too much to handle let alone anything more than that.  Throw in a variable--something small like a broken lawn mower--and you find yourself cracking.  And finally it's about seeing how the people in your life measure up. Some will pleasantly surprise you while others are a crushing let down. You find out who has the strength, the love and the loyality to stick by you not during just the first week or month but through the whole damn messy deployment.  The ones that will suffer your wrath and bitchiness but still manage to call you anyway. The ones that know you have nothing nice and cheerful to say but still want to be around you anyway.  The ones that, no matter what they are drowning in within their own lives, still find the chance to check in with you. Deployments test many, many aspects in life from the strength of your own marriage and friendships or relationships with family to your own inner strength.  The moto may be "See the world!" but it's "Let's see what you are made of...."  that rings closer to the truth.

That was one hell of a rambling lead in-my apologies. Let's get back to that chair.  A pink wooden princess chair. Tiny and made for small children. It had three of Disney's most beloved royalty painted on it and it was a source of competition and argument in our household. We only have one you see and we have two butts tiny enough to fit in it. Alyssa's and Madilyn's. Day in and day out, I hear the arguments of whose lil ass will be sitting in that chair. They pinch, hit, scream yell...which means I threaten and hiss and yell back.  I've removed the chair, I've given alloted times for that chair.  I had tried everything. 

Yesterday morning was not a good one. I found myself part numb, part angry, part depressed.  Basically I was a level 9 out of 10 and momma's lid was about to blow.  It wasn't even 10am..hell not even 9:30am when the fighting was reaching alarming levels between the girls.  When the fighting finally came around to be focused on that damn princess chair, I snapped.  That was it. Enough.  I can take no more of this utter b.s.  Long story made short? The chair is now in a million pieces and in the trash. Beyond repair.  I will no longer hear that particular argument.  And sadly, I was actually somewhat proud that during my moment of explosion, I did not focus my anger on the kids.  They remained untouched and hell, I threw the chair away from them, not at them. I deserve some credit for that, don't I?

That is, sadly, only one shining example of how my strength is now rapidly fading and I am becoming a ghost of who I once was. 

And before you go there, dear Lord don't tell me "Atleast it's almost over".  Just don't. I'm in too foul a mood at this point in this deployment to have that be any kind of comfort. Because yeah, he will be home in under 2 months now, but let's be truthful--he will leave again. It's just a matter of time.  And if we're lucky, it'll only be another 7 monther and not a year. 

And yeah, as I always says--no one put a gun to our heads, we chose this life. But that doesn't mean it makes it any less shitty, does it?

All of this--this entry and any of the past ones I've written in that last several months--only shows, really, my side of things.  I do realize that is short sighted of me. Matt lives a daily hell that is my life times three.  I have not failed to realize that and I do have plans to touch upon his side of things from what he has told me. Civilians seem well aware that families are separated and wives struggle at home but sometimes are very ignorant as to what the military member actually endures--even one on a ship (which admittedly is nothing compared the hell of a tent in the middle of a desert with nothing more than sheer fabric and some strong vaccinations standing between them and obnoxiously huge critters of the night).  In short, Matt has given up almost every freedom we here at home take for granted just to enable the rest of us to keep ours.  But again, that is a post for another day--when I don't have three kids fighting in the next room, distracting me.

So there you have it. Long, drawn out and very unpleasant. I do understand why the people that have up and pretty much disappeared have done so to be honest.  It's always easier to turn your back on the unpleasantries in life than to embrace them.  In truth, things are worse now than they were before even though we are nearing the end. Maybe it's because we know damn right well we'll have to do this all again--a few times over. Maybe it's because Dear God, it's just been so long.  Or maybe its because once you start to lose yourself and your control, it's all that much harder to keep a grasp on things.  I always joked that I was proud that I got out of bed and fed my kids.  At this point, I am no longer joking.  It's a feat to be accomplished all on its own.  I am actually expected to make a trip to NJ next week and although it sounds pathetic and weak, I am unsure if that will happen. It seems too great a challenge and simply unfathomable at this point. To pack up the kids and puking dog, to make the trip, shuffle ourselves constantly between family's homes, packing and unpacking...to travel through the state making stops along the way, to make our way back here and catch up on bills and yardwork and housework..oh hell, who am I kidding? It threatens to break the last thread of my precious sanity.  It remains unseen whether I'll be strong enough to risk it or not.

Eh, I was going to throw in here how I managed to take the kids to see the second Night at the Museum movie the other day--Madilyn's first trip to the movies--but it seems completely and utterly out of place in this entry so I'll leave it out for now.  What is there to say anyway other than the girls had a great time, the movie wasn't too suckish, I had to steal from their college accounts to buy the tickets and food and the theater was colder than a meat locker?

Hopefully my next entry will be something a little more pleasant--but for now, the truth needed to be written so there it is. Ugly or not, there it is. Life is kinda sucky right now and it takes all my strength not to be sucked under with it like a sinking ship.

Not bad, not bad.  Kinda finding myself jealous of my kid.

Here is Jules new TV--a flat panel 19 inch with dvd player. She paid for this sucker (as well as the bracket to hang it) by herself.

And ha, look at that!  I managed to hang it and it didn't even fall down (yet). Nice.

Julesroomtv2

Alrighty, add another check to my list of "What I have survived during deployment".  I have now dealt with a busted HVAC system. Yep, you read that correctly.  The air conditioning in my brand new home went out the other day. And let me be clear. I know *nothing* of heating and cooling. 

I was upstairs hanging some items in Jules new room when the first signs that something was up came about.  By the way, I loathe hanging items.  I refuse to go completely half ass which means I break out the anchors and the level and the stud finder. I am not the hanger in the family though--Matt is. But that's a little too bad for me right now, isn't it?  So I busted out the tools and did the best I could.

It was while I was finishing up with Jules' new glass corner shelf that I realized how hot I was getting. Shrugging and figuring I was just overworked, I stripped off my tank top.  A few minutes later, I was absolutely drenched. Damn, I had no idea a shelf could kick my butt like this. Off came the bra.  Ok, so yeah I just created a sickening visual for my family, sorry about that, but it's the truth of the situation. I was hanging a shelf in nothing more than a pair of shorts. Matt was horrified at the thought of my giving the neighbors a free show but I told him to chill out--it was daylight outside and the room had curtains.  It's doubtful anyone saw me.  I think.

It hit me then that this was just not right. Something was up. That room gets hot but this was getting ridiculous.  I went to the thermostat in the hall and what the hell?  It read 85 degrees when I had it set to 76. Hmmm, wait a tick, something is not right here.

I grabbed our ladder from the shed out back and hoisted myself up into the attic access.  And yes, by this point, I did have a shirt back on. I noticed water in the A/C pan. I don't know much but I know that's not right. And wait another tick, there was a block of ice on the pipes.

Long story short because HVAC stories are so damn boring, I called our builder who arrived a short time later after praising me for my early catch and he proceeded to work on it until 11:15pm on a Sunday evening.  You gotta give him credit for that one. However, he merely got rid of the potential water drainage issue, the system still had to be fixed. Monday came and went and the HVAC guy never showed.  Tuesday morning's 9am sharp appt time came and went and finally, finally at around 10:30am, the guy decided to show up.  How nice of him. But what I can say? I can't bitch about it really--I wasn't paying a dime for this repair.

Again long story short, it's fixed. We have air conditioning again and I am grateful our temps were lower than they normally are at this time of year so all in all, it wasn't completely horrible.

However, this wasn't going to be the end of the home issues.  No lie but a couple hours after the guys left, our large flat screen TV went off in the living room. It just shut off. I almost broke down thinking our one year old TV just crapped out as well.  Enough already. Seriously.  But then I noticed another device sharing the same outlet circuit wasn't on. Hmm. I went to the fuse box and did the flip of the switch thing and returned to the TV.  When I turned it on, however, another outlet in the room hissed and all of a sudden everything shut off again. Once again, I know nothing of electrical but I did know that can't be good.  After a few more investigations, I just shut the fuse switch off completely and called the builder again.  He asked what seemed a very random and yet very insightful question: "Were there jets flying today?"  Why, yes, yes there were.  Low enough to rattle our pictures actually. He said it's rare but he's had it where if they were low enough, they could knock a wire just loose enough to cause an issue.  He is due out to take a look in person though.  In the mean time, I kept the power off so you know, the house doesn't go up in flames in our sleep.

I figured, at this point, I just need a broken bone and a tree to fall through the roof to complete my list of things I have endured.

So what else have I been up to these past few days?  Well, Jules now has a flat screen TV in her room and I am doubting I will see her much anymore.  Once I get the bracket attached to the wall, I will post pictures. It's a pretty sweet set up and I find myself wanting to hang in there. I am sincerely happy for her--every child should have a space they consider their own and that makes them feel safe, secure and happy.  I think we pretty much got that covered in these past few days.  She's got some rocking digs.  And by the way, this is it. That room is not being redone until she moves out and goes to college.

Amidst the room remodel, which has included numerous trips to Target, Walmart, Lowes, etc, we managed to fit in some time with friends. Jules and Alyssa each had a sleepover at a friend's house, we had dinner at a friend's place, and I even escaped to next door for an hour to watch True Blood since my cheap ass still doesn't have HBO.  All in all, our days haven't been too bad.  Sure, I've had to play peace keeper among the girls and remind them that the goal is to *not* draw blood on one another, but otherwise we have survived our first week of summer vacation and are anxiously counting down the weeks and days until homecoming.

The only things missing?  A zebra seat cushion for the hope chest and a small flat screen that will be wall mounted between the dresser and bookcase.

Julesroom2

Julesroombedarea

Julesroomdresser

Julesroomdresserarea

Julesroomlamp

Julesroom

Did you ever get the urge to have a little make out session with you computer screen or am I the only one that goes through that?  Matt was able to send a picture of himself the other day. I have only received a few this deployment. But each time, I find it hard to fight the urge to place my hand on the screen over his face as if I could actually touch his cheek through the monitor.  It's pathetic I suppose but what do you want? The last time I saw him in person, we had just put away our Christmas tree. 

We have, however, broken the 2 month mark in our countdown to homecoming. We have less than two months left now until he returns home.  Leave periods have been scheduled for the guys and the ombudsman to the families here at home has began emailing information.  It's becoming a little bit more real that he will actually be returning to us and I may actually be able to survive this.

Mattjune2009edited