So, today I ran to the grocery store like every other psycho crazy person that needed to grab something before Thanksgiving and wanted to get there and back before the stupid first snow of the year season started….

(Happy, Blue?)

I really love the general population on a whole. Honestly.

No, I’m not bitter about it being snowy. What gave you that impression?

Anyway - I make it to the grocery store without any craziness. I park my car with no problems. I walk nearly all the way to the door with no issues.

But, as I’m walking to the door, I see a mother of 3 children and I nearly want to tackle her.

Why, you ask?

Lets do this in a list form, k?

• The newborn she is carrying has no hat on.
• The newborn she is carrying has no real blanket on.
• The approximately 6 year old child is not wearing a coat.
• The 6 year old child is not even wearing warm clothes.
• The approximately 2 year old child is not wearing a coat.
• The 2 year old child is not even wearing warm clothes.
• The 2 year old child is more memorized by the cold mist that is wetting her hair than getting out of the parking lot.
• The mother does not even turn back to check on the 2 year old while walking through the parking lot.
• The mother does not even notice that the 2 year old is so distracted that she has stopped walking - in the middle of the parking lot!!
• The mother makes it all the way into the grocery store with the newborn and 6 year old before finally turning back to find the 2 year old outside IN THE PARKING LOT!!

Several shoppers and I watched in shock as this all occurred. At least we were observant enough to know to whom the child belonged with… but there was ample time for that child to be taken.

Taken as in kidnapped. Gone.

I really wanted to smack this mother.

I could tell from the whole families appearance that this was not a poor family. I’m fairly certain that these children had coats somewhere. But, thats not even what bothered me most, obviously, about the ordeal.

Why?! Why, oh why would you NOT hold your 2 year old’s hand in a PARKING LOT?! I mean, a busy holiday traffic parking lot?! Why would you allow the opportunity of your child getting run over or kidnapped because you didn’t hold their hand?

I’m astonished. I’m baffled.

So, I charged a little less than two hundred dollars today on my credit card for the service man who came and looked at my furnace.

It turns out that the morons who owned this house before me have come back to bite me in the butt again.  See, when they wired the thermostat, they used different one different colored wire.  Instead of the wire being green, it was black.

So, after the bathroom remodel, when we went to hook back up the thermostat, we matched the black wire to the black connector.

No, no, nooooo.  By doing this, the blower motor stays on 24 hours a day, unless you manually flip the switch.  Obviously, we didn’t realize this.  Otherwise, I could of fixed the problem.  Tom’s dad even came out and looked at it all!

Right.  So, literally, the dude comes out, looks at the furnace, looks at the thermostat and said the wiring was messed up.  Then proceeded to unconnect the black wire, put it on the green connector and *presto* problem solved.

$183.00 for this folks.

$79.00 for the analysis of the problem.

$99.00 to connect the wire to the correct terminal.

Right.

I will totally come over to someone’s house and connect a wire for $99.  Any takers?

I got yummy socks from Miss Ann today.  Its the perfect day for them, too.   Its chillllllly here!!

I’ll take pictures later.  I’m too cozy with my socks right now to be bothered to photograph them…

Thanks Miss Ann!  I PPH them!!

So, I’ve decided that since I’ve been giving Blue crap about coming down to meet us all, I thought I would quickly look on the internet to see how much it would cost.  You know, just for giggles.

Right.

Uhm.

I pink puffy heart you, Blue, but you’re on your own to finance a trip down here.  Not that you were seriously considering it anyhow.

I mean, $600-$700 is a little bit more pocket change than I have on me.   Yeah, and thats only for one person.  Sorry, Jittery Joe, you’d have to stay home and mind the kids…. (or win the lottery, then everyone could fly down!)

But, hey, if you do find the spare change in your couch cushions, I’ll totally pick you up from the airport and let you crash in my guest room.

See, I’m nice!

• Turns out that Tom’s wonderful shower chair that was purchased for him is too small. Who knew it was such a curse to be over 6 feet tall?! So, now I have to figure out how to return the one we have and get one that he can sit in without his feet dragging on the floor, without costing extra cash. It sure would be great if that were a simple task, but I know it won’t be.

• Our power went out during the beautiful, clear skied day. For some reason, it’ll go out on gorgeous days… but we’ve not really had it go out due to weather. I don’t get it. The whole neighborhood was out for about an hour. Which really sucked because Tom’s air mattress that helps prevent pressure sores is powered by electricity. As soon as it looses power, it immediately begins to deflate. So, instead of leaving Tom’s sensitive skin pushed against the wire framing of the bed, I quickly got Tom dressed and up in his chair. Of course, not even 15 minutes after getting Tom up, the power comes back on. Go figure.

• I’ve decided that November 3rd is the best date to sneak in a fund raiser here at the house before next year. I think we’ve got 3 bands that have volunteered to play a little while. I’m going to have to ask some people to bring a finger food, also. I plan on finding someone to lend me money to get a keg, and request that the guests donate a couple bucks each to pay it back. Maybe we’ll be able to raise enough money to pay back the guys that opened the credit card to make Tom’s bathroom accessible.

• I still have to paint the bathroom. Elizabeth is coming over tomorrow night.

• I have yet to start cleaning, although Paul has, to a degree… thank God.

• We’re supposed to go to a routine doctors appointment tomorrow morning, but I’ve had to stay up ridiculously late trying to finish Tom’s program. I doubt we’ll make it to the appointment tomorrow. Its nearly 4 AM. A smidge late in the night, if you ask me. No, we didn’t start late… its just being difficult.

• (If you don’t know what the ‘program’ is, be thankful. And don’t ask.)

• We had nachos tonight for dinner and they were wonderful. I haven’t had them in forever!

• I’m busy every Saturday until the week after Thanksgiving. I’m supposed to work on Saturdays. I’ll have to figure out how to manage that pretty quickly! I might have to start going in the morning. *gasp*

• I’m tired and I still can’t go to sleep yet…

I’m totally taking a shower tonight!

The bathroom still isn’t complete, though. The walls aren’t done, the flooring is being put in tomorrow and the toilet still needs to be put back in…

But, by golly, I’m showering.

PS - Tom won’t get his first shower until the shower chair that was ordered comes in. It might be a week, I think I was told.

Okay - so quickly, let me tell you what’s going on.

Tom’s wonderful friends since childhood had been trying to figure out how to get the bathroom remodeled since we moved in here.  They are more than capable of doing the work, they just needed the funding…

Then, about a month ago, out of the blue, one of these friends calls and says that he’s opened a Home Depot credit card with the sole intention of making our bathroom wheelchair accessible.  Isn’t that just amazing?!

I’d love to be able to pay him back, and hopefully over time I will be able to give him some money.  Let alone finding a way to pay back all of Tom’s friends that have come over to help out with the remodel…

I mean, how do you say thank you enough for something like this?

The guys have been here long hours over the weekend, and have their regular jobs through the week, but plan on coming over straight from work… I’m just so amazed.  They’re shooting for it to be done by Wednesday…

We are blessed.  Thank you God for placing these wonderful people in our lives.

And, for all of you that did donate to the bathroom originally, again, we THANK YOU, too!!  Without all of you, Tom wouldn’t have transportation… which, in all honesty, is more important than the shower!