It's Pretty Ok » Life Under The Big Top (cue the music)

And because you wanted another update

Lisa — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:37:58 +0000

This morning we’re back to puking again. I think the only thing more miserable than taking care of one puking child and a baby who is interested in playing with the puke bucket would be two sick kids. This sucks. Im not sure what I’ve done to piss Karma off. Karma:1 Me: 0

Groundhogs Day with a twist

Lisa — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:11:50 +0000

When PC walked in the door tonight and asked how I was I told him, you know, same old same old, except with more spiders and rodents. Because in the 30 minutes prior to him getting home Mackenzie was fussy because she was tired, Nathan was having trouble listening, I was trying to get dinner ready (and by “ready” I mean removing hot dogs from package to put on the grill). This is pretty much the standard around dinnertime. Mackenzie was screaming in her swing, Nathan was whining about how tired he was and I went out to start the grill. Im not a huge fan of this process to begin with because I’ve “given myself bangs”so-to-speak on many occasion so Im a bit timid with the grill. I turn the gas on, turn the burner on, press the ignite button…”tick tick tick tick POOF”. Burner one. Poof. Burner two. Poof. Burner three. REEEE, large SHREW hops out of the grill just inches from me and runs into the backyard. Nice. As if the ants living with us weren’t enough, now I have shrews living in my grill. I come back in, pick up the neglected baby, get Nathan started with some food, go to check on our wholesome meal hot dogs when I see a spider the size of my palm right next to the patio door. Bouncing the baby on my hip, smelling the hot dogs burning, I grab the vacuum, suck up the worlds largest spider and in walks the Capt. to save the day.

Tell me, do your days go anything like this?

Reason number 73 why rental property is a bad idea

Lisa — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:48:03 +0000

Since you asked- our house is in Colorado. We kept it when we joined the Marine Corps in the event that things didn’t pan out and we wanted to move back. Now that we are staying in Japan, it no longer made sense to keep it. That is the story of why we have a house in Colorado.

The story of the home inspection that happened yesterday is this: shit is broken, shit is wired wrong, some shit was just built wrong to begin with, and the hot tub is like a dead beluga whale that washed up on our deck (that is ALSO wired wrong). But then there’s the zinger. The personal favorite of mine, if you will:

Crawl Space:

3. It appears a cat has been allowed to use the crawl space as a litter box for an extended period of time. I recommend the cat waste be removed.

What can I say? Un. Believable. I have been fuming all morning. I have some choice things to say but I know that cat lovers exist, at least a few, so I’ll reserve judgement. I don’t like cats, like, at all. Evidently, I should like a certain set of cat OWNERS even less. So, what Im wondering is, if this happened a tenant or two ago do you think the property management company should pay for this, um, clean up? I realize its a stretch to expect a management company to check the crawl space for cat feces but at the very least they should have a non-refundable pet deposit for things like this. Our realtor said the buyers are feeling “jittery”….gee, ya think? They probably feel like they are buying one of those houses you hear about on the news. You know, the one’s where they uncover an old lady who’s squirreled away a few hundred cats under her roof.

Mothers Day Better Be Freaking Awesome This Year

Lisa — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:46 +0000

Because now I’m sick. Nathan is still under the weather (and subsequently home today) and the icing on the cake is that Sandy shit in her bed sometime last night. A Plus.

PC let me know yesterday that he had strep and hoped I didn’t get it. And last night as my head was pounding I wondered which was better….having strep and having to take antibiotics which I have been informed can give a baby (girl) a yeast infection and/or thrush OR just have it be a virus and feel like ass for a few days. I vote for feel like ass because Im not sure I can handle the first option.

Vomit Included

Lisa — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:30:43 +0000

Last night ranked up there on the crap-o meter. Nathan was still feeling crappy- coming into our room a few times in the night, waking up crying a few times, waking up talking a few times. Mackenzie kept waking up…needing a paci, needing a diaper change, needing to be fed. At 3am I was wide awake and my mind was racing. Thinking about what a shitious night it was, I was at least grateful that no one was puking. And then, as if on cue the dog gets up, starts retching and pukes all over the carpet, PC’s uniform, and a pillow that had fallen on the floor. Unbelievable. If bad things come in three’s I’ll take that to mean last night with child 1, child 2 and the dog. Please tell me we are DONE for a while: remove our name from shit list.

Which is the less sucktastic option?

Lisa — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:36:36 +0000

1) Fly back to the USA by myself with a 3yr old and a 4 month old, enduring 30-ish hours of travel. Spending several thousand on airfare. Schlepping backpacks, carseats, stroller, snacks, changes of clothes extra diapers, toys etc. Wanting to poke my own eyes out standing in the painfully long immigration lines with two possibly fussy kids. Knowing that dear God, if I can just survive the trip without killing myself my parents will be on the other end to help me for the next month. But also being without conveniences of home (crib, swing, toys, preschool). While keeping in mind I have to repeat the entire process on the way home

2) Stay home for the month* by myself single parenting it with aforementioned children. Having to be solely responsible for every meal, diaper change, tantrum, bath, illness, entertaining of kids knowing there is no one to give me a break at the end of the day. Taking care of dog I don’t like or have patience for. But would save several thousand $’s, have all the conveniences of home. Could also use the money we would save on a trip to Taipei/Hong Kong for the big (three oh) birthday in a few weeks.

*The last time my husband left “for a month” one month turned into three when the whole Myanmar/Burma thing happened. Ah, my love for the Marine Corps knows no limits….

Full Fat I’ll-have-seconds-please Thanksgiving Edition

Lisa — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:47:18 +0000

Last night we went to the Shopette to rent a movie, get a bottle of wine, and Cool Whip*. While checking out I put Mackenzie (in her carseat) on the checkout counter while I got my wallet out. Nathan, very concerned, asks me “Mommy, why do we have to pay for Mackenzie?”

*More on that in a minute

***

Today I was all excited to get started on Thanksgiving preparations and have talked up all the Special Jobs I had for Nathan (grinding nuts, putting cranberries in the food grinder, putting chocolate kisses in the center of the cookies etc.) He has passed on every. single. one. Bummer. I guess its just as well since he had a fever for 2 days and now is specializing in the production of copious amounts of green snot.

***

I know what all of you should be thankful for- whipping cream. Because the entire island of Okinawa has none. The commissaries has been out of whipping cream for at least 2 weeks. Then a few days ago I guess people figured half and half was better than nothing so that sold out as well. Now we are down to Cool Whip (from the shopette) and Im not sure what the Reddi-Whip situation is. It boggles the mind how we run out of holiday essentials every single year.

****

Three Strikes

I got engaged the day after my 21st birthday. Because we were young I know we were totally taken advantage of when we bought my ring set from the Shane Company. Despite the nauseating ads on the radio that try and tell you how great they are, the store is a total sham. They sell junk and are totally dishonest to boot. I should note that PC did a great job and picked out what it was I wanted. He worked hard to save up enough money (even though we were still in college) to buy me the ring I wanted.

Strike 1

That summer we went to St. Maarten with his family. A day or two after we returned I was looking at my ring in the light and noticed that one side of the big diamond had just planed off. Like, it was just gone. The hardest, most indestructible stone on Earth had cracked and chipped. I was devastated. PC called the Shane company who assured us it was NOT THEIR PROBLEM. Foolishly, because we were only a few months into this engagement thing we didn’t know about the personal articles floater insurance policy needed to cover an incident such as this. PC went into the Shane Company and told him he wasn’t leaving until the refunded his money. This did not go well. After hours of going back and forth they took the junk diamond back begrudgingly because “it was noted that this was a ‘natural untreated diamond’ ” and for those of you who don’t know what ‘natural’ means it means the diamond has an inclusion and is very prone to chipping. Riiight, thats what we thought. PC didnt try and return the entire set then, which, hindsight/20/20/etc we should have. We bought a new diamond from a reputable jeweler and moved on.

Strike 2

When I went home two summers ago I had the prongs checked on my ring as well as getting it cleaned just as ‘annual maintenance.’ The jeweler noted that one of the prongs was badly bent- so bad that I should stop wearing it. I opted to send it to the jewler we bought the diamond from because I trusted them and I knew they would fix it right. I also wanted them to fix the base of the setting because I thought there was glue (and it turns out it was just messily soldered with yellow gold) on it. Once I sent it to the jeweler they said the entire head needed to be replaced because it was soldered poorly and the prong was so badly bent. This was going to be like a $300 fix for a new platinum head. I told them they were the ones who did it initially. They were disappointed to find that they were the ones who did the poor work and that combined with the fact that we were in the military- the replacement head, labor and shipping were all free. At least their customer service is outstanding.

Strike 3

This weekend we drove up to the northern part of the island. This, by the way, brought back fond memories of the same journey with the Rocks, just with less nausea, less nakedness in the parking lot, 7th grade period disasters and intestinal distress…..which can only be appreciated by those on that particular journey. Anyway, thats getting off topic. As we were making our way home both the kiddos were crashed out in the back seat and I was looking at my ring in the light. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but Santa and eight tiny reindeer a CHIP in one of the side diamonds. And, without sounding sacrilegious, Im getting to the point that I think I should just start over. With the ring, not the husband (no, I’ve put way too much hard work into training him to start fresh). So, yeah….I really don’t know what to do.

****

As I was purchasing the remainder of our Thanksgiving food items I was thinking about how its funny, Thanksgiving and Christmas, at least in our house consist of pretty much the exact same thing. Is everyone like this? Do you have vastly different holiday meals? Lets talk about this more tomorrow mkay?

Its almost 11pm here and I’d say Im getting a little loopy. Plus my friend will be looking for me soon. Time to turn in for the night 3 hours.