Of course...

When everything else about this damn machine has been so horrible WHY would I expect the "get a new machine" process to be easy?? OF COURSE it would take me over an hour standing in Best Buy to get them to give me my machine....

First of all I had to drive in rush hour traffic to a best buy 20 miles away from me b/c they were the only ones that had the replacement washing machine my husband wanted....

and my Ipod was dead. no charge to it.

of course.

THEN I get to the best buy and tell the people what's going on, and customer service runs around like idiots for thirty minutes trying to figure out how i'm gonna get my machine b/c the return has to be done through the NATOMAS store b/c that is where we originally bought it and had it delivered from....

THEN they had to get the store credit from that store put on a gift card and sell me the machine a the citrus heights store by reading the gift card number over the phone to the lady in front of me ( I should say "kid" b/c they looked about 18 to me)

This seemed to take a small eternity, meanwhile my mom is calling me from home to find out when I'm gonna be back b/c the baby wants to go to sleep for the night and only wants ME to do it

greeaaat...

So they finally figure it out (after over an hour) and the chick explains to me that b/c the machine is being swapped out it voids the warranty and i have to purchase another one...

really?

even though the machine i'm buying is CHEAPER than the one we originally bought AND the warranty we had on our machine was 5 YEARS and not THREE like i just had to rebuy????

But seeing as I had already been there so long, I was not about to stand around and argue the point, so i called my attack dog (JIM) and he ripped them a new one...


SO NOW i have two gift cards waiting for me with store credit that i have to drive BACK over WITH two kids and pick up....gahhh I was JUST THERE YESTERDAY

*sigh*

so yeah, wish me luck...

Why me??

Ok so it's been awhile since my last blog, and it's not like I haven't had things to blog about...it's been quite the opposite. I've had SO MUCH to blog about I started to loose track and only be able to remember the recent bad half. *sigh*

Ok so where to start?? Jim got his new job, he's traveling ALOT. I knew this was going to be a part of the job, and fully accepted that, but what i didn't expect was for my kids to get together and decide to be total shits the entire time he was gone. That was lovely. I'm hoping it was just them adjusting to him being away and this time will go more smoothly.

So any of you that followed the myspace blogs I had know about the broken washing machine that caused me to slip and fall on my ass....well the damn thing died AGAIN!!! Don't even start me on how friggin mad I was...

Jim calls Best buy and tells them about the washer and the lady on the phone makes it sound like the tech will just evaluate whether we need a new machine and that will be that....

LMFAO

i wish....

So the tech comes out and i can OVERHEAR him on the phone tell his supervisor, or whoever he has to talk to, that our machine is DEAD, as in NON FIXABLE, as in WE NEED A NEW MACHINE...

Ask me if we got a new machine....


NO!

INSTEAD they make him order a part that will take FIVE TO SEVEN business days....When he walked out of my house after telling me, I seriously sat on my couch and cried for 10 minutes...

Deciding to USE this emotion I had welling up inside of me i called "Best buy" customer service and ripped three people a new asshole....i KNOW they were walking funny and couldn't shit right after i was done with them....I was SOOOOO PISSED...

Of course, they did nothing for me. I call Jim and pass the baton, letting him know it is now HIS problem, and he calls and get the same thing out of them...JS (that stands for JACK SHIT)

But according to him they notated the account and blah blah w/e scheduled a tech to come out.

So this tech comes out with the part FULLY KNOWING that the part will not fix the machine. He claims he HAS to complete this repair before they will consider giving us a new machine. He says "just so we're all on the same page here, this machine was 'working' when I left" (which it clearly was not). "They will schedule me back out again after the long weekend and I'll come out, determine it's dead and you'll get a new machine"

w00t

or so i thought....

So Jim, thinking he can work the system, spends EVERY DAY of the weekend yelling at a new person, telling them our tale of woe in order to get some kind of faster turn around from them...

no dice.

So Tuesday rolls around and we get a call that the tech will be out between 12-2pm...

*fast forward to 2pm*

*ding dong* doorbell rings

OH hello mister NEW TECH that I've never seen before!

*sigh*

now i have to go through the ENTIRE STORY ALL OVER AGAIN with new tech guy...who's on the phone trying to verify information and figure out WTF the OTHER GUY repaired...

um...how would I KNOW what he repaired, don't you have a computer or something that TELL YOU???

anywayz....new tech guy is actually pretty cool. So I'm telling him I feel bad for them (the techs) b/c they are at the mercy of w/e the insurance people/customer care guys tell them to do...

So this tech looks at me and goes "We have alot more power than you think"

Really?? *looks intrigued*

So yeah, this guy spends a few on the phone calling around and says "I was unable to get you a new machine with the lemon clause they have in the contract BUT I'm putting in a code that basically says the machine is not cost effective to repair and you can walk into a best buy store with this code and get a new one"

:O

So I asked him "do you want a beer or something?? Cookies? I think I have some chocolate left from Valentine's day...."

I seriously would have washed his car, rubbed his feet WHATEVER....b/c he totally saved us another repair and having to wait for another part to come in....

So Jim went to a best buy there in Washington where he's working right now and talked to some really cool guys that went out of their way to help us...

There is a washing machine at a Best Buy 20 miles from my house that is STILL in the box (it was supposed to be a floor model but they never took it out) and is on special for under the amount we paid for our old one, but is worth more, with a big note on it that says "HOLD FOR IRMA"

I'm so happy right now i could piss blood...

Nice start to a week full of fun [/sarcasm]

So Jim's flight was scheduled for the booty butt crack of dawn this morning. He was up most of the night packing (which was in itself an ordeal b/c for the FOURTH TIME since we bought it our friggin WASHING MACHINE is DEAD) and I knew he would have to get up pretty early to catch his flight.

He's been slowly ebaying all the belongings from his former office, but in the meantime his "inventory" has been housed in my garage. I've stubbed my toe on the crap a few times, and a few days ago banged my shin straight into the corner of a desk drawer randomly in my path....

He finally decides yesterday that he will clear out his side of the garage so he can now park his truck in there.

So he goes to give me a goodbye kiss and let me know he's leaving and right before he walks out says "I hope the garage door doesn't wake the baby up. If it does, I'm sorry"

"Nah", I say, "I just fed him at 4am, he should be good"

um....

guess who's been up since 5am.

I realize Jason was not going back to sleep after trying to put him down about four times....come downstairs at about 6am. He's happy as a clam, crawling around, cruising the house all giddy and bubbly. Almost as if to admit defeat I start a pot of coffee....

He's still cruising around by the time the coffee brews. Now, Jason does this thing when he gets tired...he starts crawling around after me and pulls himself to standing on my legs, looking up at me and fussing. That's baby speak for "Pick me up mamma!"

I like how he timed this just perfectly so that I could not even get ONE SIP of coffee before he did this to me.

Babies are evil.

So now he's in bed upstairs, I was downstairs drinking some coffee with (*shock*) nothing to do?? My oldest was still sleeping and Sonya almost always sleeps until at least 9am...

OMG i could take a shower!! w00t!

I glance at the time knowing my son wakes up about 7am....hmmm 15 min till, that's enough for a quick shower...

I get my shower in (double w00t) and get dressed....I halfway contemplate doing my makeup since Robbie always comes into my room to check if we're up or not....

and i hear crying...


not baby crying, SONYA crying


GAHHHHH

Now you have to understand, my daughter is just like me....you DO NOT wake her up early...nor do you WANT HER to wake up early...if she ain't happy NOBODY is...

I go into her room and inform her that it's still "night night" time and she FLIP OUT

"I go downstairs, I GO DOWNSTAIRS"

(keep in mind the baby had just fallen asleep like thirty min ago and she's in the room next door)

"ok fine fine, let's go downstairs"

*sigh*

So she's up, the baby is sleeping, it's now 7:37 am and my oldest who almost ALWAYS gets up at 7am sharp is still sleeping...

Is it National Bass Ackwards day and someone forgot to tell me??

Here kitty kitty...

My three year old daughter has taken a liking to putting a blanket over our kitten (she's a young cat, under a year) and getting the cat riled up enough to grab on with her claws. My daughter then proceeds to run through the house back and forth at full steam ahead, toting the cat behind her. The cat appears to enjoy this, I draw this conclusion based on the fact that the cat does not let go.

So my daughter was doing this a couple nights ago right before shower time. She had pooped for the upteenth time and rather than deal with the hassle of clothes, I simply let her run around in her pullup. I see her zooming back and forth with the cat and think nothing of it...I hear from the other room very loudly and expressively "UH OH.....What's DAT??"

Jim comes walking in from the other room before I get a chance to go in there and I hear him ask me "What is all this stuff on her?"

I examine it carefully and come the the disgusting but humorous conclusion that it was cat barf.

You see, there is no such thing as "too much" for a preschooler. Not knowing when to say when, she swung that poor cat around to the point of nausea. The cat tossed her kitten chow all over my daughter and the blanket she rode in on.

As we put her in the shower and rinsed the remnants of cat food smell out of her hair, Jim and I both stepped back from the situation and laughed our asses off. THESE are the kinds of stories we can tell her when she's 18 and bringing her boyfriends home from school. Well, that and I still have her tantrum videos on youtube (she's gonna kill me when she's older)

After the shower the children were especially uncooperative. Hearing me struggle in the next room, Jim shouts at me "Do you want to return them?"

"What, the kids??" I yell back

"Yeah"

"Yup, lets take them back to the stork. You have the receipt with all the tax stuff right?"

Then I started talking about how cool it would be if they could do an exchange program...like provide "loaner" kids....you know, more cooperative ones and send my old ones back once they are older and more reasonable...


I'd say 30 is a good reasonable age..

random rantings and word vomit...

Sometimes I find myself in not such a good place. I am a very "unfake" person, so if you are unfortunate enough to catch me in of these moments, I apologize. I have so much going on i really have to get it out somewhere or I'm gonna shoot myself.

So Jim got this new job where he travels alot. I talked to my mom before he ever accepted the job to see if she'd be willing to stay here and use or house as a homebase of sorts, basically living here while he was gone to help me with the kids. She was all gung-ho green light about it. Basically she said anytime Jim was out of town she would stay here with me, as long as Jim left his truck for her to use to drive back and forth to work.

When he first got the job he was informed that his regional sales meeting in Florida would be the second full week in Feb. I told my mom about this and she wrote it down. Then Jim had another trip scheduled before that to South Dakota. She informed me that should be no problem, she'd stay here, etc...


Ok so I should have known better than to believe a damn word that comes out her mouth, b/c she is FAMOUS for pushing me off for taking other responsibilities that PAY HER MONEY. No fault in that, but even if she's promised me she'll do something, if another opportunity comes her way she takes it w/o any regard for what she's promised me. We are on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to her commitment level.

So Jim gets ready to leave for South Dakota and the arrangement was for me to pick my mom up Sunday night, have her staying until Weds night when Jim was supposed to be back. I had no reason to check in or see if anything had changed, b/c she usually calls me if anything is different.

So I call her right before getting ready to pick her up on Sunday and I hear the infamous "uhhhhh" tone that predicates her changing everything on me and invariably pissing me off.

APPARENTLY the man she cleans houses for and housesits had a "family emergency" and had to fly out to Chicago on a whim and asked her to watch the house and his dogs. AND SHE SAID YES despite promising me the help while Jim was gone. But could she come right out and just SAY THAT?? No. It was about five minutes of irrelevant information that I could really give a flying rat's ass about to get her to spill WTF her point was.

"Sooooo....you can't come and stay here now?"

"No nononono it's not that, I can stay i just have to do .... (by this point I've tuned her out b/c she was really pissing me off)

"You know what mom, I'll call you later, I have to figure out how all this is going to work now that every thing's changed"

"OH it's exactly the same except (insert six billion things that are NOT the same)"

So I wind up calling her back and telling her nevermind, thanks anyway, but we'll be fine here by ourselves.

After having the night from HELL on Sunday night I call her and change my mind. She was able to come over and help for awhile, which was better than nothing, but she really wasn't much help at all.

So South Dakota came and went, and we were fast approaching Jim's Florida trip. She fills out a whiteboard calender (which never has the correct information) showing her work schedule and any housesitting responsibilities she has.

So she fills this "calender" out and there are CIRCLES around the week of when Jim was gone. Circles around a date means she is HOUSE SITTING!!!

so yeah, ask me if I'm getting ANY HELP at all next week while Jim is gone...

I told Jim about this and he was PISSED. He only felt right about leaving me knowing my mom was here to help me

*sigh*

well, hopefully his paycheck will bring me some comfort (LOL)

so wish me luck next week, I'm gonna need it.

dooooode

So i DROVE to pick Robbie up from school...I had promised him earlier in the day he could ride his bike to school without thinking that I had no way to lock it up once we got there. I looked around for a padlock or something we could use and came up empty handed, so I told Robbie we'd have to walk. *cue crying child*

"Ok ok, tell you what....mommy will pick Robbie up from school in the car and we'll drive to Target and get a bike lock so you can ride tomorrow"

*cue child calming down*

So I go to the van to get Sonya and Jason in their carseats and low and behold! There ARE no carseats in there. Jim had borrowed my van to ship a buttload of stuff he had ebayed and took EVERY baby seat out of my van....and didn't put them back. Well, my timeframe did not budget for replacing seats in the van, so I was late picking up Robbie.

I get the kids into the car after getting him from class and notice he has a really nice fruit loop necklace from class. "OH that's right, it was the 100th day of school today! How exciting did you make that during your party?"

THE PARTY I WAS SUPPOSED TO VOLUNTEER FOR AND COMPLETELY FORGOT????

*smacks forhead*

whooops.

So off to Target we go to buy this bike lock. My son's teacher was holding a bunch of "100" pencils to give to the children to take home and Sonya points and says "Mrs. Gill pencil pweeeeeze?"

so yeah, she got a pencil. No big deal EXCEPT...

she wore her glittery princess shoes that she's famous for tripping and eating pavement in.

We get to Target and pull into the parking spot, I get Jason out of the carseat and since we are only buying one thing I figure the older two can walk while the baby sits in the cart.

I open the car door and Robbie throws a fit over something ( I honestly can't remember what it was even) and Sonya freaks out b/c I tell her that the pencil needs to stay in the car....

*cue screaming tantrum kids*

"YOU KNOW WHAT??? This behavior is UNACCEPTABLE. If you can't learn how to behave in public, we will not GO ANYWHERE in public. GET BACK IN THE CAR"

*cue screaming tantrum kids*

so yeah, we didn't go to Target.

I call Jim from the parking lot and tell him "the kids are being brats. YOU are going to buy a lock for Robbie's bike today"

*fast forward to 10:30 pm*

Me: Hey, I forgot to ask you, did you get Robbie's bike lock?

Him: No

Me: WHAT?? Why not??

Him: It's gonna be too cold to walk tomorrow

Me: Wait, so you decided on your own without talking to me that we were NOT walking, therefore you did NOT need to stop and get a bike lock

Him: *silence*

SOOOOO it's now 9am on Turesday....

(rhetorical question time)

Ask me if Robbie is riding his bike to school today....

stupid, stupid, stupid

So, I decided to walk my son to school instead of be lazy and load the kids up in the car. I look outside and see sun, figure that i should work up his endurance to be able to ride his bike to school...(plus mom needs the excersize)

Stupid, stupid, stupid

OH look what I just found on yahoo weather...

Current conditions as of 11:53 am PST

Fair

Feels Like: 52°

Wind: NNW 20 mph

Fair?

ask me how "fair" it was to be pushing three kids INTO the wind for a mile....

so yeah, my husband's working from home right now and sometimes if the baby is asleep he'll volunteer to listen to the monitor while i'm gone (i am usually back within 15 minute)

well stupid, stupid me decides to walk.

so yeah, i had to wake the baby up.

ask me how "Fair" he thought that was.

My kids are being complete brats as I'm trying to fish out the double stroller from the ridiculous amount of garbage stored in my garage b/c my hubby is trying to ebay all the crap from his office....

So I get the double stroller set up and try to bend the sun protector part on the front of it....it's not budging....

Hubby comes in b/c he hears me grumbling and almost cursing at the thing to please bend and it finally give way....


....and snaps off....


glorious.

SO NOW I have to go upstairs and wake up grumpasourous rex from his slumbering dreamland and stick him in the back of a double stroller where he and my other kids will proceed to freeze their little hineys off...

He cried the entire way there.

As soon as we get to the school the baby starts bawling. My daughter runs up to line up with my oldest, pretending she's old enough to go to school....I'm too busy with a screaming baby that I've now removed from the stroller and snuggling to my chest with a huge blanket....

...his hands are like little Popsicles :(

I'm holding Mr. Fussypants and hear my older two giggling that "I know I shouldn't be doing this" giggle, and find Sonya facing the window LICKING and wiping it away saying "yucky"

"Yucky" is right.

"GET AWAY from the window" I yell. (very loudly i might add)

Do you think she left the window?

"GET AWAY and stop licking the window"

it's like talking to cheesecloth

*mom STOMPS toward Sonya* "GET AWAY"

*Sonya screams and runs away*

*two seconds later, goes back to the same window*

wash, rinse, repeat....

On my way home I ran into six pack mom (nicknamed for her ridiculously fit body despite having three kids) and we chatted on the way home about our boys who are the same age, and how we get around the obstacles most moms encounter: what to tell them about where babies come from, how we're going to explain the Santa thing, how to get the older ones to stop fighting...

So now I'm home and blogging in the comfort of my nice warm computer chair....listening to my baby decide whether or not he's going to nap (so far it's "no") and my screaming preschooler who is worried about Ariel and Sebastian making it out of the perilous claws of some giant hermit crabs....

*sigh*

I was supposed to go out on Saturday night, but that's another blog for another time. I did not get to go out.

surprise surprise.

ask me if I'm driving to pick my son up from school...