Thursday, September 18, 2008

Les Petites Victoires

I've been a little bit scattered since the evacuation for Hurricane Gustav. I haven't wanted to do much of anything other than sit on my butt and knit or play with my kid. So, after almost three weeks, I've decided it is time to get re-centered and get my life back in order.

It has been an eventful past few weeks, of course there was the great evacuation, then my father-in-law ended up in the hospital, and there was that minor incident with my truck and the side of that building. After that we had some evacuees of our own from Houston. It was great having them here, but it still didn't help me get any more organized.

So, I have resolved that over the next week, up until our trip to New York, I will get at least something done around this house every day. Today, I decided to tackle the pool table room and my kitchen. Tomorrow, I'll get the rest of the downstairs clean. I know, really not a whole lot to be proud of, but it's better than I have been doing. Small victories, right?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Stupid names for baby blankets

I must admit, I have never understood why people give inane names to their kids' baby blankets. Woobie is one of the more common ones, but I've heard such a variety of weird and wonderful names. Before I was a mom, I swore to myself that I wouldn't be so cutsie, a pacifier would be a pacifier (oops, it became a binkie), and blanket at its most cutsie would be blankie. Aaah, the naivete of the woman without children! I have since figured out that I get no choice in the matter and once a baby learns to talk, they get the deciding vote on what their comfort items will be called.

So, we now have "Goin", rhymes with groin. While we were in Florida, I finally made the connection between that word and Baby Girl's favorite white blanket (Actually, she has two identical ones). I think maybe it came from the fact that she wants it whenever she is going to bed or going out with me. I'm latching onto that explanation because at least it sounds a bit logical. Also, I'm trying to change it to Gawain, like in Sir Gawain of the Knights of the Round Table.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I can't believe I hit a building....

So, I've been avoiding blogging. After I got back from the evacuation, things have been a little crazy. While we were gone, my Father-in-Law ended up in the hospital, so the evacuation lasted a bit longer than we had anticipated and when I finally got home, I really just wanted to focus on Hubby and Baby Girl and relax. Oh, and there was that good chance that Hurricane Ike was going to pay us a little visit, so I was also doing laundry so I could load it back up in the car...

Anyhow, by Monday I was over my drama and decided that it would be a really good day to go back to the gym and blow off some steam. I loaded Baby Girl into the car and even had a little knitting project to bring with me and knit while riding the stationary bike. People read on those things, so why can't I knit. I was terribly excited about the prospect since I haven't done it before and it gives me further opportunity to play with yarn. Alas, it was not to be!

Our gym is awesome, it has tons of pools, great facilities and best of all, a fantastic day care center and you get up to two hours a day while you work out included in your membership. (If any of you out there feel like joining, please list me as a referral, I get points) So, I pulled up and parked outside the day care. I leaned across the car to get Baby Girl's diaper bag and noticed that the car next to me was backing out. No big deal, right? Well, as soon as my car hit the cement thing that they put at the front of parking spaces to keep you from going too far forward, I realized that the other car was not, in fact, backing out, I was the one moving. Apparently I missed the action of putting the car in park as if I haven't done it everyday, multiple times, since I began driving almost 18 years ago. My car began to go over the block, because it's huge and has an enormous engine and I panicked, I slammed my foot on the brake and at that point everything should have been okay, right? I'm guessing you've figured out by now that everything wasn't as it should be. I didn't hit the brake, my foot found the gas and my car smashed into the side of my little girl's day care.

Okay, it didn't go all the way through, but I did put one hell of a dent in the wall. I backed away from it and put my car into park. For real, this time! I got out of the car and looked at the havoc I had wreaked on my grill and on the building. Oh my! What the hell?! One of the day care workers came running out to investigate what had happened only to find me hysterically bawling. After determining that I had not been injured, he kindly took Baby Girl into the facility so she wouldn't have to see her poor mother in such a state and I began the process of explaining what exactly I had done to various members of the gym management and the security at the business park. They couldn't have been nicer to me, although I really didn't feel like I deserved their kindness. They brought me ice water and a big box of tissues. I gave them my license and insurance information. Fair trade right, after all, I did hit their building. Oh, did I mention that it was the day care. I collapsed into tears again when that realization hit me and they took me inside to prove to me that I had not hurt any of the little kids, or really even scared them too much. I did push in the dry wall inside about four inches, so I'm still pretty upset about the fact that even though I didn't hurt anyone, I could have. That's a really crappy thing to realize.

So, after the paperwork was done and most everyone had gone back inside, I sat outside, waiting for Hubby to arrive (my knight in shining armor) and collecting myself. I must've had no less that four people tell me that "these things just happen, you read about it in the paper all the time." Yeah, you do read about such things all the time, but it's usually about some poor, senile octogenarian or followed up by the phrase, "with a blood-alcohol content of _______." So, for all their good intentions, it really didn't make me feel too much better. One of the staff even told me that if I still wanted to work out, they would keep Baby Girl for a little longer than usual so I could. Nope, I wasn't ready for that, so Hubby took us for sushi instead and then I got my car off to the collision center and picked up my rental. I was beating myself up pretty hard until my wonderful neighbor called later that night and brought me homemade cookies and told me when I am ready to go back to the gym, she will ride with me and prove that she thinks I'm still a safe driver. What a sweetie! I still haven't gone back though, it's still a little too fresh.

I can't believe they didn't revoke my membership....

I will try and post some pictures tomorrow, Hubby has them on his camera and I am tired tonight and want to go to bed.

Take care, all!