Climbing Out of the Abyss

Good golly, it has been a rotten past few days surrounding the new year. I certainly hope that this is not foreshadowing of what is to become in 2009. If so, I quit now.

Two days before the end of the year, two calamities struck. Both, oddly enough, involved water. The first was a heater malfunction in our fish tank. We have gone through 12 fish since Jonny brought home that first "free fish" from the fair in August. Two of the fish (owned by the girls) managed to make it through disease, filth, and death, and had been doing quite well for several months. All of a sudden, the big white fish, Barbie, up and died. Hmmmm.....we thought. Two days later, the littler white fish, Sonja got herself caught in the filter due to lack of all energy and died. Hmmm... so very odd. The water seemed to be evaporating at an alarming rate. Where did that thermometer float off to? When it was finally found, the temp reading was as high as it could go.....those poor fish fried to death at over 100 degrees, and the heater had never once been moved from it's original setting. Stupid heater. Poor fish.

The second disaster was due to Polish (forgive me, but I live with a house full of these people) brain malfunction. Someone had left the water on in the sink upstairs after brushing his teeth. For how long? Who knows. About an hour. But long enough that it was noticed by myself as water came pouring into my kitchen on the second floor. The mudroom ceiling was entirely saturated, and a waterfall existed where my door frame once was. When I went to investigate, I found a completely flooded upstairs bathroom, vanity, and hallway, with one itty bitty little towel on the floor (to clean up the mess). Of course, when questioned, no one did it. Crispy later changed his answer to "I don't know if I left the sink on." I sent the kids down into the basement to escape my wrath while I tried to clean up the mess. Ten minutes later, they came up saying, "It's raining down there!" Sure enough, Crispy's morning forgetfulness had just ruined three levels of our home.

Two adjusters, 10 loads of laundry, and 5 days of fans in attempts to dry out this mess. We attempted to forget our troubles on New Year's Eve, and spent it with our neighbors at their intact home. It was a very nice time away, and though we didn't get to eat at the Pizza Ranch Buffet(because they had to unexpectedly close early), we were compensated for our troubles with free upgraded pizzas and pop. We had tons of food, snacks, and good things to eat and drink. Our cat allergies were effectively combated with healthy doses of Benadryl, and the kids played games they made up on their own. The best was a competitive Fashion Show that both boys and girls were involved in. Funny kids. Though I seriously wanted to push all the clocks up by three hours (who would know, really??), we made it long enough to celebrate the ringing in of the New Year with the East Coast. Most certainly good enough for all of us this year. Off to bed.

New Year's Day offered some fun as we headed off to Grandma and Grandpa's to finally celebrate Christmas. That meant, lots of good food again (that I did not have to cook), and more presents for the kids! The girls got to play with their twin cousins, and while it had been sad to miss our Miami cousins, we had a nice Christmas party anyhow. Tubby kept Grandpa busy putting all his new toys together. Laura and the twins busied themselves with Polly Pocket sized Cinderella, and Melissa oogled over her deluxe paper dolls. We ate ourselves silly and loaded our truck with all our new loot. We stayed a little too long, and my "morning sickness" was not treating me well. Once home, again, it was off to bed.

One "present" we were hoping NOT to bring home from Grandma's house was that nasty GI bug they had all gone through at Christmas. Luck was not on our side, and 32 hours later, three of the kids began the puking dance. Not lovely. Not nice. Not fun. Poor Grandma ? got more than she bargained for when she brought those 4 Musketeers back down to the farm for the weekend. She got a houseful of puke and way too much dirty laundry to mention. At our house, we fell to the illness one by one over the weekend. Only Alex (who had sequestered himself to his room and did not eat for 63 hours) survived unscathed. The poor pregnant person in our house got it the worst....once you start a morning-sickness-prone pregnant person puking, it is pretty hard to stop.

Two days later (and again 10 loads of laundry), the horrible headache remains, but I think I can finally see light at the end of this tunnel. (....i think...)