Here's the latest

I know I said I'd stay away. I also said I'd try to check in. I have a few minutes, so read on & humor me, wontcha?

Popeye left to go fishing on Tuesday with his dad. We paid over $200 to get the truck fixed so he could go. The truck was running fine - until he pulled onto the off-ramp to get to his dad's house. The truck wouldn't accelerate past 23 mph. Oh joy. Over $200, his fishing limit caught, a good night's sleep & an engine tune-up later he was back on the road to come home. Until he got 2 miles past his dad's town on the interstate and the truck started acting up again. He was able to get it back to the shop & was told it would be another $700 to fix. Joy, again. Thankfully, his dad drove him home (2 hours one way) even though I was willing to pack all the kids up in the van to pick him up.

And luckily his dad DID bring him home. Because this morning while dropping the boys off at school, the van's dashboard started flashing, the radio turned off & all needles were going haywire. More Joy. We pulled over, said a quick prayer to get us all to our various destinations, and headed back to school. I got home to grab my supplies for work and asked Popeye to take a look. Yeah, the van died. No power whatsoever. Can I say OVER-Joyed? One broken vehicle in the driveway, the other one 2hours away broken in another driveway.

Needless to say, Cap'n came to my rescue to get me to VoldeMart to buy a new battery - twice. And twice the battery didn't fit. So Popeye will have to come up with a plan tomorrow because I am NOT walking to church on Sunday. I didn't go to work today but instead cleaned and organized the tools in the bathroom, ran around town in Cap'n's van and then walked to the elementary school to help in Optimus Prime's classroom - where we ended up taking a nature walk to the park. Lots of walking.

But if you've been wondering what I've been doing in my OFF time! Well, let me tell you - my to do list is getting smaller and smaller. 2 of the 4 items for the upstairs bathroom have been finished. All three hall closets have been cleaned out and organized. The super long list for the living room is almost done. The Cub Scout flag (that should've been done this last Wednesday) is almost done. I really HAVE been working on it. Just a few more letters & then to put on the backing... The kitchen is all done (minus the last cleaning it will need before family gets here). Blah blah blah. You get the picture, I've been busy.

And because I've been so busy, it's taken a toll on my body. Last night the baby hardly moved at all & I started worrying that she wasn't okay. I mean, when we saw her on the U.S, she had moved the umbilical cord from out of her face, so I started thinking back to that one "ER" episode when John Carter's girlfriend/wife (I don't remember) said she hadn't felt the baby move & she was 8+ months preggo and the cord was wrapped around his neck & she had to give birth to a still born baby.... Anyway - I started thinking of that episode & was really getting worried. So I asked Popeye for a blessing and he obliged. (I'm so thankful for him.) In it he told me that the baby is fine and the lack of movement is attributed to her little spirit floating back and forth between this world and the last (you know, that place called heaven). And he also warned me that I needed to not push my body too far. That I need to watch my limits. So I felt better after that and was able to watch "Speeders" in peace.

Other than all these little financial mishaps and this's and that's going on, life is boring. I'm going to go clean the kitchen now and then put Thor to bed. And then, because I woke up at 3am today and my nap was only 15 mintues long, I am going to go to bed, leaving Princess Monkey Eyes awake watching her movie for 'movie night'. Hopefully she'll fall asleep where she is...

And here's a picture of the AWESOME job my new degreaser did on my oven hood. (And if you're wondering what degreaser it is, well, it's some industrial strength stuff found at Sam's Club and it's AMAZING!!!!!!!!)


This is a before shot. Nasty, huh? Yeah, it pretty much grossed me out, too. EEEEEEEW!!!!






And this is the progress that I made with hardly any elbow grease involved. It is wonderful, isn't it? THESE are the kinds of tasks I've been doing this week.

Bye y'all!