Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Only it's my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad MONTH! The animal drama has continued, on a lesser scale, but it's still there.....

Cat(s) peed on my recipe notebook, that I left open on my kitchen counter, so I would be inspired to actually cook a meal for my poor neglected children. There was dog throw up in the hall, this morning....and did you know it's invisible to all but a mom's eye. I think that could be marketed, you know, something like chocolate that only a mom could see?

Max spent the morning screaming and yelling and not listening to us. So I tried to get him down for a nap, for two hours.....the good thing is that the younger boy's clothes are all put away nicely and I can walk across their bedroom floor without stepping on legos...... He never did go to sleep, round two is this afternoon.

That was just today and it's only noon!

I've had other cat spots. It's not an every day thing, just often enough to catch me off balance. And lets not forget the diarrhea that was found on the floor and then I had to go check cat butts. And did I find anything for my effort? NO! The barn is looking better and better.

Yesterday Happy had a seizure of such length and oddity that I started to think this was it and he was dying in my arms. He hasn't had one in a long time, like maybe last summer was the last one?

Today I changed my laundry out and found that my blue tooth headset, that cost more than I'm willing to admit, is all nice and shiny clean......here's hoping it drys out and works again.... It's not just a phone headset, I can also listen to my music through it. You can't just do that with any blue tooth headset, thus the price. So I really, really hope it drys out. Please baby, be ok.......

Because guess what......I FOUND my phone. Yep. It only took 14 days, but I found it. Well ok, maybe stumbled upon it would be a better description. It was in our four drawer filing cabinet, that is reserved for very occasional filing and tax paper work. Evidently I had opened the drawer on the 1st and set my phone down on top of the files.

That was a good thing. But then it incited all kinds of mind drama. The phone is a Blackberry. For the uninitiated, a Blackberry (BB) allows you to get your email on it, and respond to said email, also it has pretty nifty tools, like calendaring, music programs and list making. You can browse the internet and access websites that you find you want while away from your computer. There are lots of other apps, otherwise known as programs for your phone, that can be helpful or amusing. I use it A LOT. However, it's $25 a month for the privilege of having it all in one place.

We dropped our phone bill by $20 by lowering our minutes. And then because I had lost the BB, I replaced it with a regular phone, after I tried another BB. It wasn't the same model and I just couldn't bear it. It made me miss my BB to much. So that was another $25 saved, for a total of $45!

Well now, that was pretty impressive to me! We're serious about paying off our consumer debts and every little bit helps!

The mind drama is that I keep arguing with myself over the dang phone. I really, really miss my BB. A LOT! But I really like the savings and really a BB is NOT a need. And on and on I go. Brent told me twice yesterday to just go back to the BB. So I guess that's what I'm going to do.....maybe.....I have to decide tonight or tomorrow. The current phone drops too many calls for me to keep it. I have 30 days to exchange my phone for different one, that's US Cellular's guarantee. I could get a different, better brand phone that wouldn't cost me $25 a month to have....... I could.............I think I can..........I think I can.......... Talk about wasted energy, MAKE UP MY MIND ALREADY!!

Also in the last two weeks on the negative side.....Max ran away from us deliberately in the store and stayed hidden long enough that I was headed up front to tell them I lost my child. We didn't know he was doing it deliberately, so we were starting to envision him having been kidnapped.

Jayden went to the bathroom and came out holding our toilet seat and lid....that was the same day as Max running away. And it was Saturday night, so we spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with out a seat on that toilet. I'd start to head into that bathroom and remember..... We don't shop on Sunday, and I wasn't going anywhere Monday or Tuesday that I could do something about getting a seat. Brent was very kind and bought one last night when his meeting got canceled and he installed it last night too. Such a wonderful guy.

Last week I messed up our checking account and had to pull money out of our emergency fund to the tune of $1500 to fix the account......

I think maybe I should go back to bed and avoid the rest of the day. I see a pattern of things continuing to go wrong, once they start......

On the positive side.....we paid off $11000+ and closed out a line of credit. Collin got braces last week, and we paid cash for them up front , something we usually have to make payments on. I had the $1500 available to take care of the mistake and I didn't incur any overdraft fees!

Brent's working an outage and so his overtime is replacing the money I used without impacting our regular monthly stuff. This is huge, if I had done the mistakes any other time of the year, we'd be hurting!

Collin and Lee both started lessons this month. Lee is doing guitar and Collin is doing voice, both with the same teacher. Jayden started piano this month and he turned 8!

I found my motivation again and have been making progress on spring cleaning/decluttering.

And so far we haven't strangled any of our animals.........or Max.........just kidding.

We had an incident in the first week of this month with him.....it was a close run thing. He was so out of control that every one noticed and was frustrated with him. His brothers ignore him to some extent, but there was no ignoring him that day. I had to stop the car repeatedly to deal with him and I threatened him with staying home the next day when everyone was going on a field trip.

My friend, Lissa was coming to stay the night, along with her son. That way we could get an early start as where we were going was a couple hours away. I mentioned that she was coming so she wouldn't have to drive and she wouldn't be thrilled to find out she was driving everyone but me and Max to the field trip.

One of the boys said that Lissa could stay home and watch Max. I replied, "Lissa will only watch Max if I provide a roll of duct tape to use on him, and I've resisted using duct tape on him for 6 years and I'm not going to start using it now!" True story. Max was so difficult to keep track of as a toddler that Lissa really did refuse to watch him, and I completely understood!

Now I'm off to make bread....I hope.....I'm having kitchen challenges too. As in it's a challenge for me to enter it and actually cook/bake something. I just am resisting it with every fiber I have right now, and I don't understand it.....