Recap of My Day

So I wake Hannah up for daycare. The child (like her mother) does NOT like to be woken up in the mornings. Unfortunately, I can't dump coffee down her throat (like her mother does to wake up), so three days a week, the first 45 minutes of my morning are a battle. So anyway, my mom gets here to pick her up (my mom works at the daycare, so she comes and gets her) and now it's time to get Grace ready for school.

So all is going well until we start battling about her coat and hat. She would prefer to wear neither. It's 40 effing degrees here. She's wearing the damn things. So I finally get her all zipped up and we're ready to head outside to wait for the bus. It's 7:40 and the bus normally arrives around 7:45. So we're still in the house and I hear a loud idling noise. I look up and the flippin' bus is HERE already (and kindly waiting at the end of our driveway to see if anyone's coming out). SHIT! I swear, it was like a scene from Forrest Gump. I whip open the door, push Grace outside and yell, "Run, Gracie! RUN!" [sigh] So she gets on the bus and off she goes.

Now the fun begins. I do the usual morning things... chug more coffee, check my email, message boards, and blogs, etc. Steve's puttering around (he didn't work today), and I'm mentally willing him to just get the hell out of the house so I can be slow and lazy and not get dirty looks for it.

He finally heads outside to play on the damn skidloader, building a damn "road" down a very steep embankment in our backyard to some damn old springhouse on the side of the damn hill. Now WHAT this road is for, is beyond me. And let's not discuss that he was in danger of toppling down the hill at any moment OR that we have a sunroom that still needs to be gutted a redone, a bungalow in our backyard that IS gutted and is awaiting more work so Steve can start working out again over there, and no heat in one room of our upstairs because it still needs to be hooked up. Whatever dude. You're out of the house, so I'm happy.

So I decided that today was the day. The day that I finally put our 9-year-old Gateway PC out to pasture. Since acquiring this laptop back in May, the ONLY thing I used the old PC for was for Steve's business stuff and to print things. The thing was so damn slow that I could literally double-click on a shortcut icon, walk away and empty the dishwasher, and then come back just in time to have the program actually open.

The problem was that before unplugging the thing for good, I had to transfer all of Steve's business stuff to my laptop. This means I needed to find the installation discs for QuickBooks, which is the program we use for Steve's stuff. Shit. I hadn't seen the damn things since we bought them back in 1998.

So I head up into our attic (what I call "Critter Country") to start digging through boxes and bags. So there I was, in the cold, dark attic, digging through dusty boxes with a damn flashlight (the light doesn't work up there), looking for the disks, all the while praying nothing would run across my feet or jump out of a box at me. The disks weren't there. I did spot my very first diary from when I was probably 8 or 9, and some other odd things I didn't even know we owned, but no QuickBooks disks.

After being up there a damn HOUR, in a last ditch effort, I decided to check the cabinets in our upstairs kitchen. (Background: When we bought the house, it was divided into two seperate living spaces... one upstairs and one downstairs. We rented the upstairs to my brother for a year or two, and when he moved out, we converted it back into one house. The "kitchen" upstairs actually became more of a storage and laundry room for us.) So anyway, after all of the damn searching in the attic while fearing for my life (hey... mice can have rabies ya know...), I find the QuickBooks discs, in their original box, nestled safely in the corner of one of the kitchen cabinets. Shit.

So I finally start installing it on my laptop and all goes well from what I can tell. But I won't know for sure until I actually try to open Steve's company file. Of course, that particular file still needs to be transferred from the old PC. Did I mention that the PC was bought before computers came with CD burning capabilities? And the the floppy drive on it fried years ago? [sigh]

So I have to email the file to myself and then download it onto the laptop. Okee dokee. So I fire the beast up, switch all the damn wires that are necessary to have it connected to the Internet, and email the files to myself. Done.

But when I switch the wires back and go back to the laptop, I've suddenly lost my Internet connection. SHIT! So after trying everything, I call tech support. The woman there was wonderful and it took us (literally) a damn hour, but we finally got everything running smoothly again. (We still don't know what was wrong, but I don't really care frankly, now that it's fixed.) So anyway, I get everything working, kiss the ol' Gateway goodbye, and get the damn thing off of my computer desk, out of my living room, and onto the floor of the kitchen, ready to be given to my BIL and SIL. They don't own a computer, never have, and probably don't even know how to turn one on, so they'll have NO idea that it's actually a real piece of shit and slow as all hell. LOL!

I hook up the new printer/scanner/fax machine/copier that I bought yesterday, and I am golden baby! WOOHOO! It only took ALL DAY LONG. Dear lord...

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In other news, I've decided to join the gym down the street. [sigh] I know. I know. Some of you are probably angered and annoyed by this. I know that when one of my lazy, unhealthy friends that smokes and drinks like I do suddenly decides to "change her life" and get all healthy, it pisses me off. I think, "Bitch! We're supposed to be a team, dammit." But let me explain...

I've been wanting to get in better shape and get a little healthier (note on "a little"). Not for any health benefits or anything so noble. Nope. It's because I've always wanted a belly button ring. And right now, sporting some bling on my leftover baby roll would be well... not that attractive.

Now that in and of itself probably wouldn't have been enough to actually make me do anything about it, but it has crossed my mind a few times recently. No... the real reason is totally more "Allison."

Last night, Steve was at his mom's for a bit and came home and told me how, "My mom said Jen hits the gym a few times a week now and then works out at home. She said she's starting to look really good." Jen is my SIL. The one I used to despise with every ounce of my being... The one I now like (for the most part), but that always wears khaki bottoms and solid colored tops... The one that has the same sweater as me, but in a different color (thanks to the mother-in-law and Christmas)... The one that totally paints her eyebrows on, and in a way that makes her look like she uses a melted crayon and stencils taped on her forehead (I don't think I ever talked about that here. Remind me to take inconspicuous photos at the next family gathering.)... The one, that since the time we met, was always fiercely competitive with me and was constantly trying to "one up" me with everything in our lives... cars, marriage (they weren't going to get married until Steve proposed... then they were engaged 1 month later), children (they weren't going to have kids, but then suddenly changed their minds and got pregnant 4 months into my pregnancy with Grace), and all sorts of other stuff.

Now the competitiveness seems to have died down (if not died completely), but I can't help but to keep it in the back of my mind. She has ALWAYS been either slightly bigger than me or possibly close to my exact size. But she's never, ever, ever been smaller. And this, my friends, is where my sudden desire to join the gym comes in. I cannot let her look better than me. I can't. I know it's petty. I know it's catty. I know it's downright ridiculous. But it can't happen. Other women out there will understand, I'm sure. You could tell me any other woman on the face of the planet was smaller than me/in better shape/looked better/was hitting the gym/etc. and I wouldn't give a rat's ass. But not her. It can't be her. Must... start... working... out...

So there you have it. I've admitted it. So starting next week (or maybe the week after... LOL!), I'm going to drive down the street, pay my $25 for a monthly membership, and I, Allison L., am going to start pumping iron and running my fat little ass off on those treadmills that always remind me of hamster wheels. Shit. I think I hate her again. Look at what she's making me DO, dammit! [sigh]

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So I guess I've rambled on long enough tonight. Maybe if I have to go to Jen's house this weekend to hook up their new hunk of shit computer, I can casually suggest documenting the occasion with photos, and I'll snap one of her comma-shaped eyebrows. Do you think she'll catch on?....

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Editing to add that I forgot to tell you that my two children devoured some bear chops tonight. As in chops that literally came from a bear. Now this, in and of itself, wouldn't bother me too much. I mean, we eat cows... we eat chickens... why not bears. But dudes, it came from the bear that in a few short days (or so we've been told) will be SITTING IN MY LIVING ROOM!!!! There is just something seriously disturbing about that... "Hey Little Smokey, it's nice to have you as a member of our family. Last week, my husband and children ate your fleshy innards." Nice. Real fucking nice. I took one bite, had the above thought, and ate mac and cheese.