My Last Two Horrid Weeks

The last couple of weeks have been quite horrible. I must have ticked somebody off in the universe or something.

It started with one of our horses dying. Rex was my daughter's horse, her best friend, and he died unexpectedly. We were so attached to that gentle giant and he left a hole, a lot of questions, and a lot of tears behind. That was two weeks ago.

Then, our hot water tank, which has been on its last leg for awhile now, finally died completely. It's a propane water tank with a power vent (stops the carbon monoxide from backing up into the house because of the way the idiot builders of this house vented it to begin with) which costs twice as much as a regular one so we are out $1200 for parts and labor on that (and still don't have it yet). The power vent makes it a special order and it's still in shipping somewhere. So, we've been boiling water for baths or on warm days, putting the kids in their bathing suits and under the hose (the Beverly Hillbillies ain't got nothin' on us!). We hope to see a new hot water tank in our house within this next week (PLEASE!).

My pre-schooler has been yakking on her bus ride to school still these past two weeks and I can't get the transportation manager to return my call. So, I emailed the principal of the school and plan to stop in there tomorrow if I can squeeze it in between everything else going on. I will change her schools if they won't do something about it!

Then, she my youngest gets sick (as in virus sick) a few days ago. I knew it would happen as her immune system adjusts to being around all of these kids but it still stinks.

Then, a few mornings ago about 4:00 a.m., my daughter wakes me up, says a pop woke her up and sparks are flying out of an electrical outlet by her bed. We'd already replaced one outlet and circuit when this happened before. This blew an outlet in my son's room next door too - black plate and black plug. There are no sparks when I get up there but it's warm. I unplug everything in the two rooms and check all the plugs and others throughout the house. They cool off so there isn't anything arcing in the wall that I can tell. Then I am up because I can't go to sleep by this point because I am worried. Hubby and I start going thru the circuits to see which one it is to see: 1) if it popped off like it should have and 2) which circuit it was. Turns out it didn't pop off the way it should have and it was the same darn circuit we'd already replaced with a new one. So, we get it turned off and I replace all the batteries in the smoke detectors to ease my mind and we leave the circuit off. We are leaving the whole circuit off until we can get an electrician in so we are sure no other electrical problems can occur. That leaves my kids rooms without any plugs whatsoever but better safe than sorry. I am thinking we need to update/replace the electrical box completely and have both those bedrooms (and the kitchen while we're at it) totally rewired with new wires. I'd rather just have the whole house rewired but we can't afford that. Heck, we can't afford to have those two rooms rewired yet which is why the circuit will stay off until we can.

Then yesterday, oh my gawd yesterday...

My husband is sick now from our youngest's germs. My son is starting to get sick then too. I am feeling it in my lungs already. That's not all...

THEN I am grilling burgers outside...my two oldest girls do something on their bike together that they were told just the other day NOT to do. That results in my seven year old's foot is all twisted in between the rear wheel and the steel bar that the wheel is attached to. My husband is gone so I have no help. I'm not sure if she's broke anything but she's in a lot of pain. I am trying to hold her up and the bike at the same time because the pressure on her foot/ankle/leg has her screaming bloody murder and any movement makes it worse. I need help because I can't get her foot out and hold her and the bike up and my two oldest kids have disappeared into the house (my oldest probably because she knows she is in a boatload of trouble at this point). I am yelling like an angry banshee for my oldest to get outside and help me (I can't imagine what the neighbors must think at this point between the bloody murder screaming of my seven year old and me). I'm swearing like a truck driver (I don't know how to take a bike apart, where is your dad, there are no neighbors outside, I don't have any help, etc...add a few swear words in there...I let loose). My daughter finally comes out so I send her for scissors to cut the shoe off. I get that off and still can't slide her foot through. I send her into the garage for tools to try to take the bike apart. The only thing I can think of is to try to take that wheel off to give her some room if I can so I take the nuts off holding the wheel on and am able to move the wheel enough to slide my daughter's leg up where there is now a gap and get her foot out. Phew! If that hadn't worked, I would've been calling the Fire Department to cut that bike off of her leg because I didn't know what else to do to free her. My oldest locks herself in her room to cry and my burgers are burned - shoe leather! Their grounding is going to be more strict than usual because I am tired of telling them not to do something (especially when it is for their own safety) and they go ahead and do it anyway so they've lost going to cheer camp at school this week, cheering at the football game, and extra chores to pay me back for the $$ I paid for cheer camp for them already, plus no texts or phone calls on my oldest's cell phone. There were tears over cheer camp but darnit, they have to learn when I say something, that I mean it and this has to stick. This was the only thing I knew to take away, that meant something to them, that would make an impression on them since taking away tv privileges, extra chores, and early bedtimes weren't making an impression.

So, we sit down to eat dinner anyway and my youngest gets a chip caught in her throat. She is making noise so I know her airway isn't totally blocked but it's hurting her. She vomits in her hands and in the sink and clears the chip. She's better, but I am about to lose it and run crying to my room myself.

Then (yes, there is more), my husband heats up water on our flat, glass top stove for his bath (remember the hot water tank is out). He turns the stove off but it takes awhile for those burners to cool and they don't look hot anymore. My nine year old son puts his fingers on the burner. He's in agony. I run cool water which isn't cool enough so I get an ice pack out and try to cool his fingers a bit. I then put Lidocaine on it to try to numb the pain because he's still rolling all over the place and crying, hanging onto his hand and banging it into the couch. Between his fever and sore throat from the virus and now his hand, he's pretty miserable but he finally gets some sleep when his fingers numb up a bit.

I am surprised I still have my sanity after these last two weeks. A bottle of Cuervo is seriously needed about right now.