Rachel's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Morning!

Okay, so it hasn't been quite that bad, but it is now only 10:17 in the morning, and I got up at 9:30!

So here's how it went...

I woke up this morning hearing my dad in the kitchen.  I wondered what time it was because lately I've been waking up just before my alarm goes off.  So I looked at my alarm clock and it was blinking 2:11!  Still thinking it might be around 8:30 or so, I looked at the wall clock we have hanging in our room.  It said 9:30.  Ahh!  I'm supposed to be up, dressed, and available to help my mom at 9:00!  So I jumped out of bed and headed towards the shower.

When I got to the bathroom, I noticed a HUGE puddle of cat urine.  My cat's urine.  My perfectly behaved cats urine!  And the worst part was it was surrounding the littler box!  Not in it, all the way around it!  Why?!  WHY?!  But then I looked in the box, and it was in need of a change, so I kicked myself.  By changing the box yesterday, I could have avoided the mess!  So once I got the mess under control, I took my shower and got dressed and ready.

Then I went to get some gloves and a trash bag to do the real dirty work.  It's not too bad cleaning the littler box.  We use Feline Pine so the solid waste is flushable, but there is something rather disgusting about dumping out a bunch of moist sawdust.  Especially when it flies in your face!

And I needed some assistance.  With all the pee locked in the sawdust, the litter box becomes at least twice as heavy as when it's clean, so I needed my dad to dump the box while I held the bag.  I walked over to his office (home office, it's literally just 10 steps away from everything in the house), and just as I was about to say, "Dad, would you help me for a minute..."  I noticed a little pile of kitten puke on the floor, just inside the door.  Darn!  Well at least this little pile was easy to clean up this time. 

He came and helped me (THANKS DAD!!!), and once I got the box rinsed out, dried and refilled, I knew I needed to clean up the floor a little better.  So I put the rugs in the washing machine, got down on my hands and knees, and started cleaning the floor.  Once I got all that done and the box back in it's place, I breathed a sigh of relief and thought that I could just get on with the morning!

But that was not to be because all over the counter and the last homemade cherry turnover, were a bunch of sugar ants!  I quickly put the dish in the sink, and turned to get some paper towels.  But the paper towels weren't open yet and I had a little trouble getting the first sheet or two off.  I ended up tearing off a big chunk from one side.  Then I started pounding.  Then I noticed that they were under the rice cooker and mixer too.  So I got out the spray and sprayed them to smithereens!

And then I still had the dish with the turnover and all the ants to deal with.  So I took off the plastic wrap, wrapped it around the turnover, ran outside and threw it away in the big trash can.  Then I drowned the ants in hot water, washed the dish, and then put it in the dishwasher!

Then I ate a mini-muffin.  And I felt better! :D

Valentine's Day Weekend

After a crazy week, this weekend was almost relaxing.  As many of you who me locally, my mom was in the hospital this last week.  I've got more about that in my next post.  Suffice it to say, our world was turned a little upside down as we took turns spending time with her 24/7.

But she came home Friday night, so Saturday was a fairly normal day for Derek and I.  We slept in, and Derek made me heart shaped pancakes!  I was tickled pink as my dad would say.   I so wished I had my camera available!  Somehow my memory card got corrupted and it's my only one (Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it?  I already reformatted it in my camera and that didn't do anything...).

Then we ran a few errands.  Derek helped out our friends the Ortons. I delivered some valentines and then met my new piano student and his mother at the music store to pick out some lesson books.  My first piano student!  Thanks Tanya for suggesting me when Crystal asked for someone!  I'm so excited!  Wish me luck!

After our errands, we watched a couple of Law and Order episodes.  I have a weakness for crime shows and L&O is our favorite.  It was just so nice to relax and watch TV!

And Derek's E-mart watch died.  E-mart is the Wal-mart equivelant in Korea.  It's been going for some time now and finally completely died.  Good excuse to go to Wal-mart for some shopping.  Not only did we get a stylin' watch, but we got some Cheetos Puffs and Sweethart conversation hearts.  My favorite!  I can already feel some sore spots on my tounge from too much sugar!

Saturday evening was a little rough for my dad.  He called us to see if there was anything we could do to help the situation any.  There wasn't anything we could do.  My mom was just having a really rough time, but I think it helped my dad to have someone else there with him.

Today was a little rough for me.  A lot of what's been happening around here is just setting in.  Sacrament meeting was great.  Both speakers talked about very timely topics, finding blessings in adversity and prayer.  And the hymns were just perfect too!  After the first hour, Derek and I mutually agreed that we needed to be at my parent's house to keep my dad sane and see how we could help my mom.  It was a good choice.  She's come around a bit and act a little more like herself.

And that's where we are as of now.  A little frazzled, but we're doing okay.  And surprisingly, we're happy.  Not happy with the situation per se, but we've been blessed with some feeling of happiness.

And PS:  I can't post this without giving a shout out to our amazing ward, the Caldwell 3rd Ward.  Especially our Relief Society President and Compassionate Service Leader.   They've really took the bull by the horns and have some great plans to help us out.  And thank you to everyone else for your kindness and concern for my family.  We really appreciate it!  

AGH!!!

I had a nice howdy-do this morning!  I went to check my account balances online this morning and found that someone had spent around $2500 on our debit card today, putting us quite a ways in the hole.  Big, red numbers are NOT my friend!

I immediately contacted the bank and signed the dispute forms.  I looks like things are going to ok... in about 10-15 days (meaning we get the money back).

Until things get worked out and we get new cards, numbers and stuff, our checking account is frozen.  Which means that I had to contact all the places that I have automatically withdraw payments from my account, tell them my sob story, and then see if there was anything to be done about paying them.  Most of them were really easy to work with and I was able to change most of them to paper billing.

We were also able to pay rent from our savings (Yay for savings!), and I checked our credit report, and things look good on that end too.  Looks like someone just stole our debit card number and went to town!

So for now, things are okay.  Hopefully things will turn out alright and we'll get refunded all the money.  I'm hoping it will get resolved even sooner than the 10-15 days!