We've had a ridiculous amount of rain. Ridiculous. 

Last night, I was sitting at a PTA meeting at school, which was of course running long, waiting for the conversation about where people should stand to pick up their children after school when my phone rang. I saw that it was Brendan but figured that he was just wondering why I wasn't home yet - 45 minutes after the meeting was supposed to be over. My phone wasn't catching much of a signal, so I let it go. And then I immediately got a text. So I walked out of the meeting to look at it.

 

Not exactly the best text to receive. As I walked outside, the rain was coming down seriously hard. Roads were flooding. Our street was full of water - it was almost over the curb. I came home to find our basement carpet soaking wet, all the electronics up off the floor (phew) and everything moved away from the exterior walls.

Poor Brendan was outside bailing out our one window well with a pink beach bucket. I took over and he went to the store fingers crossed that they'd still have something to help solve our problem. Water was just pouring in the window well from underground. It simply had no place else to go (we have gotten somewhere around 12-15 inches of rain the last 24 hours!). Thankfully, Bren was able to pick up a sump pump and get it working so we didn't have to bail all night. 

There's no school, and no daycare today. Hopefully there's very little in the way of rain.

Bridget starts school on Tuesday. She's thrilled about it. I know that she'll do great. I'm not worried about her making friends, or riding the bus, or anything else. No, I'm worried about me having to meet other parents. This afternoon at lunch time we've got a playdate thing at the school where all the new kindergarteners are invited. 

I'm sitting here getting all nervous and worked up at the prospect of having to talk to another parent. I'm forcing myself to just do it. Because honestly, the thing that I am really afraid of is silly - I'm afraid of just standing there looking like an idiot having no one to talk to. 

It's ironic really, because more often than not, I end up putting my foot into my (giant) mouth. It's guaranteed that I'll offend someone. It's high time that I just embrace that, and look for the other mom who's laughing at the offended person and be friends with HER. 

Johnny has always been a little bit harder to contain than his sister was at his age. If we closed the gate, she may not have been happy about it, but she always just accepted that was the situation. But not Johnny. He pulls on the mesh at just the right spot where the velcro is slightly weakened and blammo, he's free. Yesterday we also had to remove the side table that you can only barely see in this photo (if you're not distracted from the mess of toys) because Johnny thought it would be awesome to stand on (and turn the light on and off). I always knew he was going to be a bit of a climber. I don't think it's going to get any easier from here on out.

I've was off from work this Monday and Tuesday as our daycare provider is on vacation, and so I took the kids up to my parents' house in Arbutus for a little visit. I had the perfect afternoon in mind: we'd hang out at the house for a while, have lunch, and then walk down to the corner of Sulfur Spring Road and get ourselves snowballs; then we'd walk back, take a trip over "the little bridge" (above) and run around in the sprinkler in the yard when we got back since Bridget would probably be sticky. 

Things did not go as planned.

There are TWO snowball stands at the same corner and both of them were closed. And there weren't any signs with hours, so there was no telling when they'd be open (if at all on Monday). So instead we went down to Rita's. I love Rita's, but there's one down the road here at our house, so it wasn't really special. If we hadn't been on foot, we'd have gone down the road a bit to the Ice Cream Cottage, but it was too far to walk. After we picked up some water to take with us on the way back, we did at least get to go across "the little bridge". However, the sprinkler was a bust. Bridget got in her suit and we got it all set up and she wasn't having it. Didn't even get a tiny bit wet.

Ah well, it was still a nice visit with my mom.

Thing is, I am still, two days later, thinking about that damn snowball. I want one. I might have to start my own stand in order to get one "Baltimore style". It didn't even occur to me that snowball stands might not exist in Virginia. I've lived here for just shy of a decade and it never occurred to me. I never wanted one. And now, now I can't stop wanting one. 

"Mom," Bridget asked the other night, "why is there a hole in our ceiling?"

"Go ask your father."

You see, we've had this hole in our ceiling in the kitchen for I think about four years. I honestly can't remember what came first, the hole, or the birth of our first child. I think it was the hole. We came home to a water stain one day (our shower in the master bath is right above) and Brendan cut this hole to see what was going on. There's no pipe or anything there, turns out we just needed some more caulk.

So why then, you might ask, is there still a hole in the ceiling? Brendan is very good with drywall repair. Well, it happens that the kitchen and the room off of it (the kids' play area) is the only part of the house with ugly popcorn on it. So we want to replace the whole ceiling. But if we do that, then we might as well take down the paneling (that's thankfully painted cream) on the walls of the play area. If we do that, then we might as well take up the stained Berber carpet that's in the play area and the peel and stick tile in the kitchen. You see, it's not really just the ceiling that needs fixed, it's the whole room.

So we have a hole.

(I have seriously thought about contacting some remodel show on HGTV and begging for a renovation.)

 

Yesterday was one of those days. A Terrible Awful No Good Day. Or at least, it ended badly. Bridget did not nap. Not a single wink. Boy did she need a nap, too. By three she was bouncing off the walls and driving us all crazy. Poor Johnny is working on a tooth and so he's been cranky and not wanting to sleep a whole lot and generally needy. The snow was falling and blowing and we were all inside. Together. For the fifth day.

There was a brief point where the snow ended and the sun came out briefly and so I went out and shoveled the drive. I'm sure this is why my mother always shoveled when I was growing up: to get away from us. Plus, it's quiet outside just after the snow stops. I thought, maybe that break would be enough. But alas, it was not.

By 4:30 and after a whole lot of whining we had all (and by we I moslty mean myself) had just about enough. So I got Bridget in her PJs and fixed her some eggs and toast and had her ready for bed by 6. Man did she need to sleep. Of course, she fought it the whole way. Johnny went down at about 6:30 and she just started yelling for her Dad. She'd already tried Mom and I told her that I'd have to take "her guys" (whatever stuffed animal she's picked for the night) away if I came back in. Switching it up was her way of trying to get around that.

But I went in instead and she was not happy. I had her hand over her guys and she just started bawling. Asking for dessert. Wanting her Dad. So I asked her, "Why do you want Dad?"

"Because I love him. You're mean to me. You only love Johnny."

That killed me. So I explained to her that I am not mean because I like it, that there are rules and she has to follow them. It's bedtime. After some hugs and assurances that yes, I do love her, Johnny just needs extra attention right now, I back-tracked a little and let her have just one guy (instead of the usual two) and promised her I'd tuck in the other one after she went to sleep.

And of course, by now it was around 7. Her normal bedtime.

Beer and some emails to friends and family made me feel a little better.

We are on-track for a better day today. And that's all I can really ask for.

Last year I joined an organization through work to take advantage of some published materials that they make available. It turned out to not be as useful as I'd hoped so I let my membership lapse. Occasionally, I get an email from the organization asking me to consider coming back, or asking why I haven't. I understand the need for them to send these emails, they make their money off of memberships. I just let them go to a special folder to be ignored and deleted later.

Yesterday, one email made it through the filter. No big deal, I deleted it. Someone else who also got this email decided that they were going to reply asking to be unsubscribed. However, turns out the email that gets replied to is a listserv set up to email every other person who was being solicited. After a few more emails from other strangers asking to be removed from the list, someone figured this out and sent one saying as much. But the unsubscribes have continued. Then someone else tried to be helpful:

Dear all, 

could you please just stop sending e-mail to "[LISTSERV]"?

I'm doing it now to ask you to stop doing this. If you don't stop doing that, everyone else will keep receiving your messages as well.

And we'll all end up in each other's spam boxes, all thousands of us.

If you want to complain to [ORGANIZATION], send it to another address at [ORGANIZATION], not to "[LISTSERV]".

Nice enough. But of course there were more unsubscribe requests and various other commentary about how stupid the organization was for setting things up this way etc. This made some people angry:

For Heavens sake, will you people take this into a forum or something!!! STOP REPLYING TO ALL! The biggest reason I didn't renew is absolutely none of anyones business. I resent surveys of any sort as you're simply using my time for free to help out your business.
I've had two screens of messages from an organization I don't belong to. That is SPAM, harassment and a general pain in the ass.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE!
I DON"T WANT PURSUASION, RETORTS OR COUNTER ARGUMENTS - I WANT YOU ALL OUT OF MY INBOX!

This guy is clearly very important, because he sent another email after a few more people responded with unsubscribe requests:

I didn't SUBSCRIBE to ANYTHING. That's what makes it the definition of SPAM.
BTW, You don't get the English language very well?? The entire point of the last post was LEAVE ME ALONE!

Clearly, he might think he's important, but he doesn't seem very smart. (Maybe he should review his English is all I'm saying.) So after some more emails, someone else tried to be helpful:

Enough already!

The fact that you joined [ORGANIZATION] in the first place shows that you are an intelligent member of the computing and technology world. Email and its use should not be foreign to you nor the use of professional etiquette.

Continual replies to this list will only keep informing ex members like yourselves that you want to be removed. If this was my organization I would not place any valid internal email addresses within this lapsed member list. If my assumptions are correct your replies are not even being viewed by anyone at [ORGANIZATION] and you are only wasting your time.
From a spammer's point of view the more you continue to reply the more valid email addresses they can harvest.

Sorry for the continued spam but I thought some explanation might be in order.

Personally, I don't know how it helps spammers harvest email addresses, but whatever... But of course people kept chatting a little and then this guy chimed in:

Having unsubscribed a number of times, I believe that the [ORGANIZATION] is now in breach of the CAN SPAM leglislaton so I believe that the next step is to report the [ORGANIZATION] to FTC, state attorney and Internet service provider for review.

And no one has said anything else (which makes me a little sad). Maybe there will be more later because I was enjoying the outrage.

 

We didn't get quite as much snow as some other places a little farther north; we got maybe six inches. Digging out here isn't so bad, there's just a little driveway and sidewalk to take care of. Sometime soon, we'll only have one car to clean off. The garage still has to be organized.

The last time I shoveled a car out was probably college. Chris and I were in our apartment and I was still driving the van, so it must have been junior year. There was a bunch of snow -- 8 or 10 inches maybe. Of course, we didn't have a shovel and for some reason I had to get my car out. The guys that lived next door had dug their cars out, so I went over there to ask if they had a shovel. The guy says no, but let me get you what I used. And he brought me back a hubcap. Yeah, no, that wasn't going to work. He was a nice guy though and since he was going to do laundry, he bought us a shovel. (I think it's the one that we currently have. I think. I could be wrong.)

The other thing I loved the most about that year was how creative people were about protecting their parking spots. If they had parked on the street and spent the time shoveling out their space, before they left, they'd put something in its place to hold it until they got back. Farther down the street where there were rowhouses, the rules were clearer but still people would put lawn chairs in their spot. Near our apartment people put out ironing boards and art easels.

Now, Brendan is totally jealous of the guy across the street -- he has a snowblower. Of course, this is only the second time this year he's had to shovel anything. Hopefully there won't be too many more.

Apparently, it's impossible for a supermarket bakery to make a cake that is "not in the book". We called them all and explained that we wanted a custom cake that was not in any of their books; we just wanted a cake that looks like a ladybug. But they all either flat out said "No" or went to look in the book anyway and then said no.

I'm looking at a bakery brochure for one of the supermarkets, and it has a whole section on birthday cakes and says "Your next birthday party is sure to be a smash. We have cakes for everyone in mind -- just pick your favorite theme! Or, if we don't have exactly what you want we'll help you design your own." (emphasis mine) Then to the right of that little quote is a photo of a cake with bees on it.  But this particular store was one that had a whole lot of trouble even understanding what we were asking for and Bren just said "You know, I don't think this is going to work out" and hung up. Just not worth it to get a cake that I'd probably end up submitting to CakeWrecks.

 Maybe we just should have said, "Do you make round cakes? Do you have red icing? Can you put black polka dots on the red iced round cake?" But seriously, it should not be that hard.

All the stand-alone bakeries close to us "don't do that" so we're out of luck on that front. And I don't need something along the lines of a Duff creation so I think we're on our own. 

I don't know that I'm going to attempt to decorate a round cake as a ladybug. I have zero confidence that the dots wouldn't look like little mounds of poo. So I think the plan now is to either look for ladybug toys to put onto the cake, or to maybe decorate strawberries to look like bugs. Or something else entirely. Rest assured, no matter how pitiful the cake is, I'll post photos.

 

This post was going to be about how awesome the new front flower beds look. But about halfway through digging out the old flowers and small, young forest that has sprouted there, I had to take a break, planning on finishing up after Bridget's nap. And then it rained. And rained some more. And it's still raining today. I hope it stops at some point.