This, That, and the Other Thing

This pic totally cracks me up. Eric said this is the food chain (around here) in action! The cat eating his food, with the big scary pitt bull waiting patiently to eat the cat's scraps. Yep, around here Simeon the cat is TOP DOG!

I really think that ambien might be the best medication ever! [Okay, not really, but it's up there.] One of the side effects I have from fibromyalgia is really horrible insomnia. I accidentally forgot to refill my medicine so I didn't have any last night. MISTAKE! I took 6 mg melatonin and some other sleep aide the doc had me try once (that didn't work well). I felt tired alright, but being tired and turning off my brain are totally different things. Long story short, I never fell asleep last night. Ever. Once the sun was up I finally got a few hours of sleep. This does not make for a good Friday! All this to lead into the next paragraph....

Even though I didn't really feel like it, we made plans with the kids to take them to a local Fall Festival (halloween alternative) and I was determined to make good. They were all excited. They packed their candy bags and were looking forward to an evening of carival games. We picked up Eric later than usual (even though he was tired and ready to come home from work) so as to eat dinner and head directly that way. We ate up our Chinese Buffet and then drove to the church. But where are the cars? Maybe around back. Nope. What is going on? Good grief! The thing is on MONDAY, not today. I swear I heard on the radio that it was today! The kids took it pretty well. They know my mommy brain doesn't work well without sleep!

One positive to the evening was that the ladies working at the Chinese restaurant were very nice. They were very complimentary about our family. One lady said that she thought Samren must be our bio son because he looks like his daddy. [We get this often from Asian folks, who can see Samren probably isn't FULL Vietnamese.] I could tell Samren liked that comment as he called her the "nice lady" from then on out. Before we left some folks at another table said, "Excuse me ma'am.." and then said they just wanted to tell us how wonderfully behaved our kids were. How nice! Gotta love those moments. It helps me endure the other moments (like getting a brand new HUGE sharpie marker drawing on the bathroom wall, via Bright!]

Since I was not doing well physically, I popped one of my extra-precious "good" pain pills during dinner (still thinking I had 3 hours of walking to endure). We had no other plans, so the 4 hours of feeling good was going to be wasted! But not. I came home; the kids plugged into a movie; Eric went to bed early; and I have spent the night catching up on email. I even cleaned out my AAI inbox--from 275 emails to less than 75! Whew. That feels good. It got backed up back in June when I went to Ghana and I've not taken the time to clean it out since then.

Hmm...what else? Our washing machine broke this week. Eric wasn't able to fix it, although he's not the most handy guy so that isn't saying a lot. [Blind guys can't usually fix appliances.] I've been sort of hoping to get a new washer for a while, so instead of fixing the old one we decided to shop for a new one. Good grief there are a lot of choices! Ultimately we decided to try a front load. The deciding factor? Our *tiny* laundry room and the fact that we would be able to store stuff below while also putting baskets on top. It will basically double the amount of room in our laundry room! When we went shopping last night we bit the bullet and bought a pair. They really get you when they have them on sale for $800 less than normal and THEN take off a few hundred more if you buy the pair. Being a bit paranoid about getting a lemon we did purchase the 5 year "bumper to bumper" warranty. Our new fancy-schmancy washer/dryer set is to be delivered Tuesday. By then we will be floating in dirty clothes and should be able to really give the new set a workout!

One of the cool things about being blessed enough to be able to purchase a new set is that we can now give our old set to someone else. I put them on Craigs List tonight thinking someone would definitely want the dryer and someone *might* want to fix the washer. Boy was I wrong! I had like 15 responses immediate for the (broken) washer. Folks are really hurting out there. So many sad stories (I know some of them could be lies, but not all). Looks like the washer is going to go to a large family whose washer just broke down. Cool. One of the washer responses was from someone whose house just burned down. We had already given the washer but she can have the dryer. What's neat is that from that response maybe we can help her out. Single mom with 3 kids. She says they need "everything." Well, we have "everything!" Good Lord knows that we have plenty of excess in this house. I hope we're able to help her out with some stuff as she starts over. I love how the Lord puts people in each other's paths.

Hey! Did you see that the author of "Imaginary Jesus" commented on my review of his book? Taevy thinks this is so cool, that a "real live" author posted on my blog! LOL! I had to remind her that authors are "real live" people! He seems like a cool guy.

I guess that's about it. Nothing much that interesting going on around here, for which I am very thankful. That's the way we want it! The 4 hours of feel good time are dwindling down. I think it's time to join the family in a good night's sleep!

Love,

Anita

P.S. Does anybody else constantly spell ie/ei words incorrectly? That grammar rule has never clicked with me. "I before E except after C?" Huh? Then why is "peices" spelled EI instead of IE? Oh crap. I just spellchecked it. It's not. Humph! See what I mean?! Can't get it!