Wanna hear about my past two days?

Tough shit. I'm going to tell you anyway. Because they say misery loves company and I'm all for big gatherings.

So yesterday, I get an email about an impromptu conference call for one of my projects. No biggie. I had Hannah here with me, but she had managed to entertain herself all day up until that point, so I figured she'd be good. And she was... for the entire damn TWO HOURS I was on the phone. Oh, but wait. We had to hang up because people had other meetings. But we weren't done discussing the document, so hey, let's schedule another conference call for last night. At nine o'freakin' clock! Shit.

So Daddy was in charge of getting the girls to bed (which they weren't too happy about), and I had my conference call for the next 90 minutes, totally missing Last Comic Standing (which happens to be one of my very favorite shows).

I hang up at 10:45pm and get Grace to go to sleep. See, she was determined to stay awake until I was finished and I didn't think the other two ladies on the phone (both of whom are affiliated somehow with childcare or parenting skills or organizations or something) wanted to hear me scream, "Get your ass to bed, dammit!" (Which I wouldn't have really yelled, but I would've been thinking it.)

So anyway, I hang up and start fucking around on my laptop, building a few more digital scrapbook pages. Paint Shop Pro was running particularly slow however, so I decided to reboot. (Because we all know rebooting fixes pretty much anything). I went out to smoke a cigarette while the computer restarted and came back in to find a black screen with white text that said, "Windows cannot start because the following file is either missing or corrupt." and then listed a file. Son of a BITCH! Tried rebooting a billion times. Tried a bunch of other stuff. No go. My laptop was dead. [sigh]

Chugged another beer and went to bed at 2 AM.

Woke up and sent the girls off to school. I had a TON of stuff to get done today since I have pig roast guests starting to arrive tomorrow. I told Steve I'd run and get the three turkeys that we always deep fry and was reminded that the maximum poundage for the fryer is 12 lbs. No problem, babe.

Head to grocery store #1 in the next town over (5 miles away). They have two turkeys. One is 12.5 lbs. and one is a measley 6.5 lbs. Shit.

Head to grocery store #2 (another 10-15 miles away). They have 4 turkeys. Oh wait! They're all 13 to 14 lbs. Fuck.

Head back to grocery store #1 and grab the 12.5 lb one figuring Steve can at least smoke that one in the smoker. On the way out, help lift a little boy into a shopping cart because his mom was obviously very pregnant and I overheard her tell him that she couldn't lift him in and he'd have to walk. Great. Did my good deed for the day.

Come home to find a voice mail from Steve telling me I should "call around and order a port-a-potty" for Saturday. Yeah. Great. Wonderful spur of the moment decision there dude. What, exactly, does one look for in the yellow pages when looking to order a portable shitter?

I order the friggin' potty.

Head to grocery store #3 (15 miles in the other direction from my house). Keep in mind it's been about a 2 hour adventure now up to this point, it's almost noon, and I have another flippin' conference call at 2:00.

Remember Grace has to take something to daycare tomorrow for her daycare class to put in their treasure chest (whatever the hell that is). Dart into the dollar store, grab two 20-packs of markers and head over to the grocery store.

Ask the meat dude about turkeys. They've got 5 that are 16 lbs. (who the hell buys turkeys that big this time of year) and one without a label. Ask the guy to weigh it for me, explaining the situation. He says it's 13 lbs. but assures me that after it's defrosted and the packaging is removed, it'll be right around 12 lbs. Fine. I'll take it. He even checks in the back for me, but the rest are all around 20 lbs. [sigh] So I leave with turkey #2 and still need one more.

Go across the street to Crazy Jake's. This is a guy who has a portable BBQ joint. It's a grill on a trailor and he parks in a gas station parking lot all summer and it's always PACKED. Steve swears it's the best BBQ ever. (I hate BBQ sauce, so I'm taking his word for it.) Buy a gallon jug of Crazy Jake's sauce for the pig roast.

Head home and try to get some laundry done. Fail miserabley.

Get a call at 1:55 PM saying I just missed some other conference call. See, braindead me had assumed that the other two conference calls we had yesterday had been instead of the one today at 1:00. Um, no. But I still had to immediately dial into the 2:00 one (that I had remembered). Fuck. (They were TOTALLY nice about it though and didn't seem phased, so no biggie.)

Was on the phone for an hour and a half and ended the call being informed that conference call #4 will be held tomorrow from 10:30AM until noon. Fanfuckingtastic. Because I have nothing better to do tomorrow, ya know?

Took an hour to plug Steve's quarterly taxes into the computer so I could take it to the accountant.

I won't bore you with the rest of tonight's details, but it involved Steve popping wheelies on his skid loader (apparently, he's excited about this weekend?), 2 filthy, overtired children - one of whom tried to refuse a bath until I threatened her with bodily harm), me getting nothing else accomplished, Steve and I getting into a HUGE fight because he says I'm (literally) killing our kids because I microwave some of their food (seriously dude, this organic/health kick has got to stop), a bazillion phone calls from people regarding the pig roast, flight plans, pig pick ups, and other crap, a 5-year-old who refused to go to sleep until 10:00 tonight, random tantrums (by me), and partridge in a pear tree.

And tomorrow, lucky ol' me gets to run to WalMart, try to find another damn turkey somewhere, get home before 10:30 for my 1.5 hour conference call, wash bedding, wash towels, run to my FIL's to get an air mattress and foam camping/sleeping thing-a-ma-jigs, find enough pillows for everyone who will be sleeping here, do some actual work, find and clean the Pack & Play for our friends bringing their baby here this weekend, and get my laptop fixed.

But at 3:00, Tracey will arrive and all will be right with the world. Because once that first guest sets foot in my driveway, I pretty much don't give a shit what didn't get done. Not to say I still don't have a shitload to do before Saturday. I just won't care as much.

And since I'm rarely here anymore (SOB!), I'll throw in other news and add that our neighbor and her boyfriend broke up and he's moving out (which truly, truly breaks our hearts... we adore him), and my brother's going to be a DADDY! Hooray! So far, I'm the only one with kids, and I'm SOOOOO excited that that won't be the case anymore. YAHOO!!!

And with that, I must say goodnight. Because this is one tired girl and I don't see much rest happening for a good week or so. LOL! Damn pigroast... ;)