The Crappy Day...

Today’s been a shitty day…literally.

I woke up early…three hours before the alarm to be exact.  At first I was a little peeved because it’s my weekend off, after getting up at 4:15 am all week, I wanted to sleep in.  Hubby had a doctor’s appointment (more on that later) and I was going to take him so I could also talk to the doctor about a couple of things as well.  We see the same doctor, so it makes it easy!  Well, 6 am came and my eyes popped open and there I was.  All awake and not a lick of “sleeping-in” was to be seen.  So I played around on my phone for a little bit, checking Facebook, Twitter, sending a few words in Words with Friends, played a bit of Candy Crush, you know the drill, until my bladder couldn’t hold out any longer and I HAD to get up out of my nice warm bed.  Hubby was sleeping nicely, so I decided to throw a load of laundry in and take advantage of a little quiet time before he got up.  So there I was, in the middle of my breathing treatment, when I hear hubby bounding down the hallway yelling “turn the washer off, turn the washer off, TURN THE WASHER OFF!!!”

Part of me wanted to look at him and say “I’m sorry, do I need to turn the washer OFF?”…however the look on his face made me think twice.

Apparently, the issues we’ve been having with our septic system were not resolved by the landlord having the tank pumped like he thought.  Apparently, the whole system was clogged to high Heaven and back, because the water from the washer draining caused the toilet AND bathtub in to back up.  And overflow.  Onto the bathroom floor.  And my pretty bathroom rug.  And my gorgeous shower curtain I love.  Not just any old water.  Sewage water.  Sew. Age.  Use your imagination…and it was probably worse
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So…my day was spent between shopvac-ing the poop water off the bathroom floor, cleaning the crap out of everything (literally), and waiting for the landlord to come to fix the plumbing.  He finally got here and augured every drain in the apartment (including going onto the roof and snaking out the vent stack?).  The toilet works like a charm and the drains run faster than Forrest Gump going for a touchdown.  However.  Now my washer is FUBARED.  Apparently when I had to stop it in the middle of the spin cycle, it got a little pissed at me and now refuses to work.  We think the drive belt came off or something like that.  It makes all the appropriate noises (plus a really loud grinding one) but the tub goes nowhere.  And now I have a washer full of wet clothes and six more loads waiting because of course with this being my weekend off, it was laundry day.  Tomorrow morning it will be loaded up and transported to Mommy and Daddy’s house (thank God they only live 5 miles away!) so I can do all my laundry there.

Oh yeah, the doctor’s appointments.  Poor hubby came down with the gunk I had, and he was not improving even after two rounds of antibiotics and other over the counter remedies.  He started having some trouble breathing yesterday, being really short of breath and wheezy, so he called to get in to get looked at today. Our doctor took one listen to him and said “yep, lungs are full!”  He got a lovely little steroid shot and another round of a stronger antibiotic plus some good cough medicine to help him clear his lungs up. Crazy thing is our doctor is sick with it too!  She’s on her second round of antibiotics and still sounds and feels terrible!  Seriously, whatever precautions you need to take to avoid getting this respiratory shit this year, DO IT!  It’s bad bad juju!

While we were there I asked her about my recent asthma diagnosis and what we should plan on doing for it since I’m pretty much over the pneumonia/bronchitis/avian swine zombie flu.  It wasn’t really what I wanted to hear, but she’s the doctor.  She wants to just play it by ear and see how things go with just a rescue inhaler to keep on hand if I have symptoms of a flare up (wheezing, shortness of breath, excessive coughing).  I have the nebulizer and enough medication for six breathing treatments if I need them, but she wants to see how “serious” my asthma is without having to be on a daily medication.  She said if I find myself needing a breathing treatment more than twice a week or using the rescue inhaler more than twice a day to call her and we will then talk about what kind of daily maintenance drug (such as Advair or other inhaled anti-inflammatory/corticosteroid) we will use.  I guess that’s good…one less medication to have to be on, but it also kind of worries me.  I just wanted to know that she is taking it seriously.  I mean, she’s my doctor, she takes my conditions seriously, but well, I don’t know what I mean.  LOL

Well, I have a few more things I want to write about, but I think I’ll sign off for tonight and leave those for another post over the weekend.  We're supposed to go down to hubby's friend's house tomorrow evening for a "make up" bonfire (they had one two weeks ago that I had to miss because I was so sick), and then Sunday we'll be going to church, I'll be donating blood at a local blood drive, and prepping for the week ahead!  What's on deck for your weekend?  Anything fun?

Now, though, it's time for some knitting and Doctor Who!!!

Sometimes, a girl's just gotta vent!

A few things that irritated me the past few days:

~We had severe storms pass through our area last weekend.  Several funnel clouds were spotted, severe lightning, heavy rain, damaging hail, that kind of storm.  This was my view driving home from work after the worst was over:

But that's not the irritating part.  A local bank has a huge American flag flying out front.  Everyone in Festus knows what bank it is, because it's referred to as "the bank with the big-ass flag".  Said flag was damaged by the storm Saturday night.  As in ripped right in half.  Lengthwise.  So instead of one proud patriotic big-ass American flag, there were two strips of a sad looking flag flapping in the breeze.

 

The minute I saw it on the way to work on Sunday morning I cringed.  When I saw it on Monday morning I was irritated.  When I saw it STILL flying in two pieces on Tuesday morning I was pissed.  I mean, come on.  I understand that you might not have a replacement for a flag as big as my house just laying around in the vault, but can you not just take the damaged one down and destroy it respectfully instead of letting it linger there?  I found it quite offensive to the flag, to America, and the American citizens who still understand what the Flag and America should stand for.  Thankfully when I went out a while ago, it had been replaced with a brand new flag.

~Matt and I have been walking at the local school track recently, in an effort to lose this enormous amount of weight that I have packed on over the past few years.  I'm doing quite well, given we've only been at it for a week.  I found an awesome app for my iPhone called "My Fitness Pal", which can also be accessed without an iPhone at www.myfitnesspal.com.  Anyway, I've been religiously journaling my food and water intake and exercise, and am happy to report that I've lost 9.4 lbs in a week!  I know most of it is just water weight and the severe shock of me going from doing nothing to actually moving this immense body of mine.  But I'm pleased with the results anyway.  The first night I couldn't even walk one lap around the track without my lower back screaming in sciatic pain.  The second night I walked two laps, but halfway through the second one I thought someone was stabbing me in the lower back and hip and almost had to crawl the rest of the way.  Last night we went to walk and halfway through the first lap, we saw the high school baseball team had decided that the best place to play catch was right in the middle of the track.  Literally.  They were paired off, playing catch in every lane of the track in front of the bleachers.  Seriously?  You couldn't find somewhere else to do that shit?  So we only walked one lap, even though I made it the entire lap with NO BACK PAIN!!!  I was thrilled!!! 

~Before said walk last night, we were at the Festus PUBLIC Library because Matt needed to use some of their resources while he was studying for a final.  I went down there with him and decided to see about getting us a library card.  We were told that we would have to pay $20 a year because we live "outside city limits".  I got so pissed!  See, where we live, there is a subdivision literally 20 feet from our mailbox.  The city limit dividing line runs down the MIDDLE OF OUR ROAD.  5 feet from our mailbox.  But we have to pay $20 a year for a freaking library card, while the person who lives across the street WHOSE WINDOWS I CAN SEE INTO FROM MY LIVING ROOM gets one free.  And, someone who lives outside of Jefferson County only has to pay $25 a year.  Five dollars more than me, who lives a STONES FREAKING THROW from the city limits???



This is the view from my driveway.  See that road at the end of it?  The center stripe is where Festus "city limits" starts.  Everything past that is city.  That white house directly across from my driveway?  They're in city limits.  But we, who live 25 feet from them, are not.  Arrrrgh!!! 

The thing that irritates me is it's written on the building "FESTUS PUBLIC LIBRARY".  To me, that should mean that if you have a Festus mailing address, you should be able to use the PUBLIC library free of charge.  If you live outside of Festus, then I can totally understand charging a fee.  See, down here in Festus, we don't have any other library.  There isn't a County library until you get about 10 miles north of us, and even then if you're not a resident of that library's school district it STILL costs you to have a card.  It just pissed me off.  I mean, I pay taxes for everything else down here...ambulance, school (which I don't even have a kid in so don't get me started on how unfair that is that I have to pay taxes for a school that will never be used by a child of mine since I probably won't ever have one to send there), special road district, everything.  Matt suggested I write a letter to city hall and the local paper and I just might do that.  I even asked them if they could make an exception since we live so damn close to city limits and the old biddy wouldn't even consider it.  See if I ever go there again.

~Everyone, and I do mean everyone (with one or two exceptions) is popping up pregnant. 

A few things that made the past few days a little more bearable even with said irritations:

I have a husband that loves me and would do anything for me.

I have the most awesome and inspiring and supportive best friend in the whole wide world.

I have lost 9.4 pounds.

I got the yarn to start my second attempt at my Renaissance sweater and cast on last night for the first panel.



I, in a moment of weakness, left Walgreens today with TWO new Dean Koontz books.  :)  As if I needed more books...I already have 17 waiting to be read!!!

Ok, I feel much better now.  On to our regularly scheduled blogging.  :)