Never been so happy to see a year end

 

Wow. We freaking made it! Well, almost. Personally, I am not setting foot outside my house until 2020 is officially over. I feel like it might have a few more punches to throw and I'd like to avoid them! 

I haven't posted in a year, but I figured it was a year to document, at least at a glance!

1. What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before?  Lived through a Global pandemic.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't make resolutions

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Not unless you count people I follow on YouTube.

4. Did anyone close to you die? My stepfather-in-law Richard, our dog Gracie, and my coworker Kerry. This year sucked.

5. What countries did you visit? I've only left my county a handful of times this year, I definitely didn't leave the country.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you didn’t have in 2020? Less anxiety about everything, even marginally less.

7. What dates from 2020 will be etched upon your memory, and why? Early March, when the world shut down.

8. What was your biggest achievement of this year? Just keeping it together, working from home, helping supervise the kids virtual learning, and not being a total shrew to my family.

9. What was your biggest failure? I refuse to pick a failure this year. It was rough enough.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?  It wasn't a great year for my health. I had a detatched retina in June that required surgery. I have recently been dealing with a random rapid heartbeat. So far, everything checks out ok, but it's an ongoing concern for me. But I didn't catch Covid!

11. What was the best thing you bought? Clothes that fit!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? I have lost 60 lbs since September 2019 and kept it off. I am very proud of that and I definitely feel better physically and mentally because of it.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? People who refuse to wear masks!

14. Where did most of your money go? Bills, though we saved a lot on gas this year!

15. What did you get really excited about? Painting my nails! I think I've only had naked nails a couple of weeks this entire year!

16. What song will always remind you of 2020? Anything from Frozen 2, which Spotify tells me I have listened to more than anything else

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer  or poorer? I am proud to say I'm thinner and richer. I'd have to say sadder though, it's been a hard year. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Reading and writing again. I want to write, but inspiration is lacking.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Stressing out

20. How did you spend Christmas? We had a quiet but lovely day at home. Comfy clothes, games, and watching the kids enjoy the day. We missed having my sisters and almost brother in law over, but otherwise it was a normal Christmas. Santa came through with a PS5, so my boys (all 3) were happy!

21. Did you fall in love in 2020? More and more every day with my husband and kids

22. What was your favorite TV show? Star Trek Discovery

 23. What was the best book you read? I finally read Jenny Larson's books and they were hilarious.

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Classical and instrumental music. Its great background while I'm working.

25. What did you want and get? For my family to stay safe and healthy

26. What did you want and not get? To spend time with friends and family. 

27. What was your favorite film of 2020? I don't know if I saw anything new, actually.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 38. I worked and had chocolate cake, same as last year.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? No pandemic, obviously.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept of 2020? Lol I don't know if I'll ever be able to wear real pants for an entire day again. I wear regular work type tops with yoga/lounge pants or leggings during the work day with comfy shoes or slippers. I spent most of the year in clothes that were too big for me and have just started buying new things that fit. Online shopping is hard when you don't know your size!

31. What kept you sane? Adam and the boys, YouTube, Netflix, music

32. What political issue stirred you the most? We did not re-elect Trump, thank goodness!!!!

33. Who did you miss? My sister, my grandparents and my great aunt and my little Gabriel and all the friends and family I haven't seen in person this year.

 34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020. I am mostly a homebody.

 35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Keep holding on, you're gonna make it through, you'll make it through.

Best hopes for 2021 to anyone who stumbles onto this post on this mostly dead blog!

BOO-HISS!!!

I consider myself a decent person.  I'm not a saint, but I try to be nice, to do the right thing, to treat others fairly.  Sometimes I fail at these things, but I'd like to think, on the whole, it all averages out to me being a pretty okay human being.

Some people are NOT decent human beings.

And one of those decidedly NOT decent human beings HIT my car over the weekend.  And drove off.  No note, no knock on the door. NOT a decent thing to do.

Some background before I tell the tale...We have a very narrow driveway, only big enough for one vehicle. You see, we live on a cul-de-sac and so our property is like a slice of pie, narrow in the front and quite wide in the back.  Our one car garage is used for storage, so we park our van in the driveway. My sister has been parking to the right of the driveway, in the grass, and we park our car on the street in front of our mailbox.  This is totally legal and there are others that do the same.  There are five houses on our cul-de-sac, three tri-levels in the center and a double on each end/corner.  One of the doubles is under construction, putting on a new roof and new siding.

I left work early on Friday to take Tyler to the dentist (No cavities--YAY!!!)--Michelle (my sis) drove Tyler up to Adam's work in the van so I could leave the car for Adam to drive home.  He got home around 5:45 pm and parked in his usual spot.  Michelle went out for a bit in the evening and go home around 8:30.  She didn't notice anything strange at that point.  So, fast forward to Saturday morning.  Mom takes the car to work at the bookstore on Saturdays. We were all getting ready to leave at the same time, around 9:00 am, because we had appointments to get the kids haircut.  Mom left first, but she called right after she left and said that something was wrong with the car, that it looked like someone had hit it.  She came back to the house and we could see that the front drivers side had been hit by another vehicle.  At first glance, the damage didn't look too bad, dents, scrapes, and a plastic underside of the wheel well was broken and pressing against the tire.  We took some photos and Adam was able to move the pieces away from the tire, so since mom needed to get to work, we decided it was probably okay to drive it and we'd get it looked at later.

She did manage to get to work in it, but it seems as though the damage is much more extensive than we thought.  When the tires are straight, the crossbar on the steering wheel is not straight across like it should be, but at a sharp angle.  It's very hard to make the car turn and the brakes are squealing.  It's definitely out of alignment (remember I JUST got the car aligned along with 4 new tires and a new rim like a month ago) and who knows what else. I'm really worried that the axle or frame is bent.  It's a 2008, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that there might be more damage that the amount the car is worth. 

I spent Saturday afternoon filing a police hit and run report, starting a claim with my insurance company, scheduling a repair shop to come get it for an estimate, and setting up a rental car reservation (which I had to do again on Sunday, because something wasn't done right in the system).  They picked up the car this afternoon, so we'll see what they say when the estimate is ready.  I'm dreading the phone call, honestly. 

When we saw the damage, we did approach the contractor working on the house on the corner, because it seems awfully coincidental that something like this happened on the same day that many trucks, vans and trailers were taking over the street and backing in and out of the small area. They claim to know nothing about it, both the contractor and his team, and the group of roofers (though most of them didn't speak English).  I certainly can't prove that they did it, I suppose it could have just as easily been someone doing doughnuts in the middle of the night, but it certainly seems suspicious to me. We didn't hear anything and so far none of the neighbors have reported seeing anything.  It could have been during the night or early in the morning, we just don't know. The police officer said she would hand the report over to the hit and run detective and he might give us a call, but it's unlikely they'll find out who did it.

So the whole thing is horrifically frustrating, but there isn't much we can do.  We have a $400 deductible, which means the chances of us being able to pay that, plus the extra charges on the rental car (We have an allowance of $20 per day from the insurance company, but with tax the car is slightly more than that, plus we opted for the $16/day insurance coverage, because we're feeling anything but lucky right now), and continue to work on the house and move this fall are slim.

We spent the day Sunday moving Michelle's stuff from her storage unit to her new place. She's renting a half double from a really nice lady and it's not far from our house, so that is good. It was hot, but at least it didn't pour rain on us.  When we moved her last time, it was snowing and sleeting.

So that's the goings-on here!  More to come as this story develops LOL!

Snoverit!

If you understand that title you win a prize!  And your prize is (most likely) a TON of that cold white stuff!

As most of the country is painfully aware, we've been getting a lot of snow this year.  Like A LOT.  This week was no exception and we got over 7 inches Tuesday-Wednesday.  It started snowing about 2:00 pm on Tuesday while I was at work.  At first it was just flurries, but about five minutes later it was seriously snowing.  My boss told us we could leave at 4.  Adam and I carpool, so I let him know and asked him if he could leave early too.  He agreed (sort of) but didn't come out of his office until 4:45 pm.  We headed home. Visibility was pretty bad and roads were definitely icing up.  Half way home, in an area called the South Split (Dead Man's Mile is what I'm going to call it--a few years ago we hit some sort of trailer hitch that was bouncing down the road and tore the oil pan on our Vibe apart.  Seriously, the exact same stretch of highway), BUMP!  Yep. We got rear ended.

So that was fun.  Luckily, it doesn't look like we have any real damage.  We haven't examined it really carefully, because it is SNOWY and COLD.  But we got the driver's info, so I guess if we need it, we can use it.  We finally got home and I slipped (didn't fall, just slipped) and pulled a whole bunch of muscles in my back. Boy was I glad to get home and stay there!

As for the rest of the week, AJ caught my awful cold and is pitifully miserable.  Adam installed flooring at his mom's house Wednesday and Thursday evenings.  Wednesday I put on a movie (Tangled--seriously probably my all time favorite animated movie) and the kids and I hung out and had leftover pizza.  AJ fell asleep just before 8 so I was able to put him down and get Tyler off to bed and I even got my workout in!  Success!  I'm back on track and I've unofficially dropped a little bit--SO CLOSE to 40 lbs down!!

Last night we had another Mommy Movie night and watched the Croods.  The kids were a little rough, AJ really wasn't feeling good and Tyler refused his dinner, but we got through the evening.  Neither of them slept well though UGH!

I also found out I'm going to be traveling to Birmingham in April for work. I've been once before, with the whole group of people that do my job across the company, but this time it's just me and one other girl with a group at the corporate office.  I'll definitely need to get some clothes that fit better before that trip!  I'm actually considering buying my first pair of SKINNY JEANS!  I love how they look with knee high boots, so I just might treat myself!  We'll see!

Stay warm peeps!  (I know, I know, impossible in this weather...Snowmaggedon out there!)

Thank you Gilbert, AZ

Dear Random Resident of Gilbert, AZ who stole or bought my debit card number,
   I hope you enjoyed your $355.07 shopping spree to Ross, TJ Maxx, and Marshall's.  I really appreciated getting a call from my bank's fraud department at 4:00 pm on a Friday about possible fraudulent charges on my account.  And I appreciated having to leave work early--missing out on some of my hard earned overtime and making me late going home and thus getting stuck in traffic, so I could go to my bank and fill out fraud paperwork.  Great way to spend a Friday afternoon.  On the plus side, my bank won't pay for those charges.  On the negative side, it could take up to 10 days for the charges to be completely reversed, which totally screwed my weekend plans (because, you know, they entailed spending money that my bank account now shows as unavailable).  I even tried to nail your ass by calling one of the stores, where I suspect you bought a $100 gift card.  My banker said he's done this before and the store cancelled the gift card, rendering it useless.  But apparently, the Ross store doesn't mind being out $100, so I guess you win on that too.  Luckily, according to the fraud department, you'd tried to spend another $200+ somewhere and it looks like you finally got denied, thank Jeebus!  I hope it caused you at least a tiny bit of shame.  Probably not, but I can hope.  Now I find out that regardless of everything I did, the charges have actually CLEARED my bank anyway.  Fantastic.

  So thanks for ruining my weekend just a little bit.  Oh, and I hope you get hit by a bus.

Bite me,
Melissa


Yeah so that happened.  Fun times.

23 weeks pregnant!  My fun food/baby size ticker is still saying baby is the size of a papaya, which is what it said last week.  Lame.  So I googled it and found a site that tells me baby is the size of a grapefruit this week.  Night time is starting to get more uncomfortable, with my neck and back starting to complain more and of course the never ending trips to the bathroom!  Baby boy likes to kick me in such a way that makes me feel like I need to "go" even when I don't.  No flutters and gentle pokes for this girl!  Nope, it's the old 80's version of Batman!  BAM!  POW!  My belly is poking out and I'm carrying very high AGAIN.  But I can safely say, I look pregnant and not just chubby :)  I've also been condemned to grocery shopping from one of those old lady motorized carts, because for some reason Sunday mornings and the grocery store equals almost passing out.  I think it's the heat, combined with everything I can possibly eat for breakfast not having enough protein or something in it.  I feel stupid, looking (I think) younger than my 30 years, certainly not hugely pregnant yet, riding in a cart with no signs of injury, but I suppose it's better than actually passing out and the embarrassment that would bring!  Plus then I can usually avoid feeling like a puddle of ick the rest of the day.  Not that it stopped me from being a complete couch potato yesterday.

Doctor's appointment Wednesday!  Shouldn't be too exciting, probably just a bp and heart rate check, plus scheduling the glucose tolerance test.  Yum I can taste the orangey sweetness now! :-P

Suck it, October

This month SUCKS.  Praise Jeebus it only has 3 more days, two of which are weekend.  Work has been awful, Tyler hasn't felt well and will have his endoscopy next week, so he can't take his reflux meds and it's already bothering him.  And, not surprisingly, I'm not pregnant.

Okay, shake it off...letitgo

Good things!  I'm going to have a niece in April!!  My sister in law, who has three wonderful boys that I love to bits, is finally going to have a girl!  I can't wait to meet Elizabeth Grace!!

Tyler peepeed in the potty for the first time yesterday!  With all of his constipation problems, potty training has been delayed for the most part, and it was totally an accident that he went, but it's the first step!  My big boy!!!

Good things...good things...I could probably think of more, but I'm tired and cranky, so that's all I got!  Come on November, bring me good things!

A request

Do you think if I put in a request now for next week to not suck, it might be granted?

'Cause really, last week sucked.  And this week, pretty much a suckfest too.

Firstly, my mom's diabetic 11 year old cat Tigger has been sick.  He had something that looked like a seizure the other day.  We were told it might have been a reaction to flea treatments and him being diabetic.  So we gave the cat a bath.  That wasn't a lot of fun.  The next day my mom took him to the vet. Turns out he is VERY anemic.  They aren't sure why, and my mom flat cannot afford the tests to really figure out why.  So far the vet is treating him as best as he can, with fluids mostly.  This vet doesn't keep animals overnight, so we keep having to take him back in to be checked again.  They are being super great and not charging for the extra care, God bless them.  But it remains to be seen if anything they can do at this point will help.

Also, today Tyler had a doctor's appointment at his GI specialist.  Tyler has been treated for acid reflux since he was a newborn.  He is also super picky about what he will eat and he has issues with constipation.  I went in thinking they were going to tell us to keep doing what we are doing, since he isn't doing too badly.  Instead, they said they want to do an endoscopy to see if there is an underlying problem that is causing him to not eat that well.  They also want to put a probe in for 24 hours that will measure the amount of reflux he's having.  Just the thought of putting him through that is making me feel sick.  I know it's what is best, they'll be able to treat him if there is a problem or we can take him off the reflux medication if that's not an issue anymore.  But it's still an awful though for a mother to have to allow her child to go through a scary thing like that.

Finally, I had my HSG test today.  It went okay, my uterus and right fallopian tube look good, but they dye wouldn't go through my left tube.  The doctor is blaming the fact that I was cramping during the procedure. Apparently, the opening of the tube is only about 1 millimeter, so if the uterus is cramping, the dye might not be able to get through.  Since the dye wasn't getting in at all and I don't have any history that would suggest a blockage, he isn't very concerned.  So we will continue with this cycle of Clomid and then move on if it doesn't work.

I guess I didn't think they would find anything abnormal, so now that nasty doubt is creeping in a little bit.  I know that if it's meant to be, it will happen.  But in this moment, I feel overwhelmed and sad.  I guess it's probably everything going on at once.

But if the universe could possibly squeeze out a less stressful, more pleasant or at least less eventful week next week, I would really appreciate it. Just putting it out there.

SPRINT=FAIL

I have spent the better part of a week fighting (yet again) with my cell phone provider, Sprint.  If I was ever going to go completely postal on a company it would be them!

It all started in October when I called to try to see if I could lower my bill.  We were struggling money-wise and I thought I'd check.  They discovered that I wasn't getting a discount that I was supposed to be getting and my darling husband had never noticed!  They assured me they would put in for a credit for the entire 10 months I had not been getting my discount, but that it might not be in time for the next billing cycle. 

Nearly 2 months later, I still hadn't seen it, so I called to check and see what the status was.  I was told it can take up to 3 billing cycles.  I informed them that I was not told that.  She apologized and told me that I was eligible to resign my contract and get a different credit that would show up immediately, thus allowing me to skip a payment in December.  I needed that, so I agreed.  She told me to just go to any Sprint store and I could also upgrade my phones.  A few weeks later, I did that, but left the store without buy because I wasn't sure.  I found one online for a good deal (free) and called to order.  Then I was told that I was only eligible for a PARTIAL credit, which meant I would have to pay about 50 bucks a phone to upgrade.

By now I was mad.  No one told me that.  Not even close!  I argued and this one guy said he was going to transfer me, but he'd explain everything first and he thought they could probably push that through.  Then he dumped me to the completely wrong department with no explanation.  I was livid.  The poor girl who answered could do nothing for me. She was nice, but she couldn't even transfer me anywhere.  I finally had to call back in and start all over.  At the end, I did not get the full upgrade then.  Before hanging up, I wanted to check the status of my refund. 

Then they told me that I could only get a three month refund.  No.  Not.  At.  All.  I unloaded on them, eventually getting the refund I was owed.  And being assured that on April 1st, I would be eligible for a full upgrade.

I waited a little impatiently and a few days before the first, I called to check what plans Sprint has for Smartphones.  I had my heart set on having one if we could afford it.  I talked to a girl and she explained the cheapest plan is $129.99.  She saw that I have 3 phones on my plan and a discount. She calculated my discount and estimated my bill to be $112 a month for 3 smartphones. I needed to consider this, so I thanked her and told her I'd call back with a decision after the 1st.

We talked about it and decide to indulge ourselves.  So I called on Friday to order them and all of the sudden there was an extra $19.99 charge for the third phone plus $10.00 per phone for smartphone data.  The estimated price would be over $175.  In this exchange my phone "dropped" the call twice, forcing me to call again and start over.  I got a lot of excuses about how the plan is the plan yadayada.  Eventually I talked to a guy who seemed nice and said they were going to file a complaint about the girl who misquoted me and listen to the call. If the call was as I said it was there was a "very good chance" they could work something out and get me a better price.  he would call me on Tuesday.   I went ahead and ordered the phones, so not to miss out on the deal, but when they arrived on Monday, we did not activate them. If we had to return them we'd be charged a restocking fee if we had activated them.

Tuesday at 5pm I still hadn't heard back. I called and fought with a few people before one guy was really nasty, saying he was going to make sure if I called again I would always have to talk to him because I just didn't like the answer he was giving me.  Finally though he let me talk to his boss.  She said that the guy I'd spoken to Friday had just left me a message and did I want her to hold so I could check it. I said yes and while I used my home phone to call, she HUNG UP on me.  No dropped call.  She hung up.  And there was no voicemail message. They say that's because I was on with Sprint already so it wouldn't go through.

I was PISSED.  I called again and talked to a nice guy who said he was going to try to contact the guy from Friday for me.  He actually gave me an email address so I could contact him.  No one else would do that. 

Yesterday, William (the guy from Friday) called and he said he was passing my information on to one of the higher ups at his location and she would call as soon as she'd had a chance to look it over.  Josh, the nice guy who tried to contact William also checked in.

Today, William's boss called my cell phone but he was really just seeing if he could get me to give up.  While I was on with him, William called.  I told him I was on with his supervisor and he said, "Bear with me a minute" and put me on hold.  I got off the phone with his boss Fredrick and waited.  A few minutes later I realize that he too had disconnected me.

What.

The.

Fetch.

So here I am, over a week into this, with an awesome phone I can't activate and a MAJOR headache.  Everytime I see their number on my phone, my heart races and I get sooooo anxious!  It's really making me sick!  I just want them to stand behind what their employees say.  I work in sales too, and that's what we have to do!  If we get the price wrong, we have to eat it!  And over and over I'm being told that something someone told me isn't true.  I'm basically being lied to.

I've considered canceling, and I still may.  I'm trying to see this through.  If anyone had an "in" at Sprint, I could really use one!

Bummin'

I'm feeling pretty bummed today....Aunt Flo (AF as she's know in TTC (trying to conceive) speak) arrived today. Another unsuccessful month. Adam and I gave it our best this month. I got a positive OPK (ovulation predictor kit) 5 days in a row. I thought I had some symptoms like extreme weepiness, fatigue, backache, sore breasts....but I guess these were in my head, cause there she was this afternoon. I even toyed with the possibility that it was implantation bleeding. I'm delusional. Or desperate. Ugh I know it's pathetic. I have a beautiful son, it'll happen when it's meant, yada yada. But this is my blog, right? I can bitch about this? Right? Next month would put a baby due near xmas and the next month would be near Tyler's bday...I didn't want either of those, but I don't want to stop either. Ugh, just the cherry on top of a crap sundae of a week.

Speaking of TTC speak, I'm amazed at all the acronyms! I've been hanging out on some forums (big mistake, I know) Can you guess these? Highlight after the acronym to see answer.

BD Baby Dance
AF Aunt Flo aka period
BFN Big Fat Negative
BFP Big Fat Positive
CD Cycle Day
DPO Days Past Ovulation
HPT Home Pregnancy Test
POAS Pee on a Stick
TWW/2WW Two Week Wait (refers to time between Ovulation and Next expected period)

I swear, it's another language entirely!

Okay, moving on...shake it off. Life goes on. On the upside, new posting series premiere coming soon! (I know, my whole 3 or 4 readers will be on the edges of their seats LOL) Twin and I are going to take a photo series of field trips with DOMO! Domo is...well a Domo....a little Japanese character. He's squarish and has a large gaping mouth. Her Domo was crocheted for her by a coworker. He is awesome and we will be traveling the city with him, taking fun photos and I'll be posting them here with some fun captions. So stay tuned! I promise that postings to come will be more upbeat!

Birthday Bomb

I've never had very good luck on my birthday. Hell, before it was even officially my birthday I had bad luck. That is to say that my older sister was buried on my birthday, although I was still around -7 years old, but still, it's a little bit of a damper on the day. Usually it's something minor, like having a head cold or something. But I've had a few birthdays from hell. The worst one was probably my 19th. My appendix ruptured and I had emergency surgery followed by four days in the hospital. Fun. This year wasn't great though. My parents had to go to court about their impending divorce and whether my dad had to pay spousal support. So no fun there at all. But at least I only had to work a half day. It could be worse...right? Oh yeah and my back is all screwed up cause, like the jack ass I obviously am, I decided to try some of my old skating moves while hanging out with friends for a pre bday bash with my twin and fell hard. I'm only 25? Why do I feel 125???