So yeah...the mess from last night was still waiting for me when I woke up. No little fairy gnomes had come in and scrubbed the house while I slept. You'd think at least the cats and dog would pitch in once in while....but alas they do not appreciate me (throws head back indignantly)
So got the kids to schools, and headed BACK home (I look forward to when school isn't over 50 miles away). I did not bring my breakfast with me, which was a dangerous oversight as I really need to eat by 9am, and when I am hungry I am not good with temptation. I stopped at McDonald's on the way and got a sausage mcmuffin with egg, hash brown, and small orange juice. I went to the bank on the way home and got quarters for laundry, then stopped at the old trailer, where a lot of my stuff is still stored. And climbed a good 8 foot snowbank and trudged through thigh deep snow (took nearly 10 minutes to get to the door, and without snow it is only about 15-20 steps from where I parked to the door) to get in and retrieve my bigger vacuum cleaner, which I have been meaning to get but my little one has been fine, but has no beater bar. With the sand making the living room feel like a beach, I figured I'd need to beater bar. So after climbing back across the deep snow and huge snowbank, I went home.
First I threw in a load of towels in the washer. When you have to dry off with a little hand towel (especially when you are as big as me) you REALLY need to wash some towels. So, I got those going and then started in on cleaning up the kitchen (dishes, counters, stove). I swept the floor and then straightened up the living room. Then came the fun part.
The big vacuum has been sitting alone in the trailer for 8 months with no heat or power or anything. It was NOT emptied prior to our leaving (leaving was a LONG story, as is why so much of my stuff, stuff that I actually use) is over there still). So first I emptied it, and was surprised by how much dog hair was in it. Well, the other dog (we used to have two but when I left A I found a good home for the big one and took the little one with me as A wanted her, but alas has not been able to take her). Anyway after that, I tried to get the beater bar to turn, but it would not budge. So I spent time with WD40 and got it to turn again, but it was sticking at one end. I got part of the floor vacuumed and she stopped spinning again. So I again took it apart, and unstuck the one side again. And round and round we went, the vacuum and I, until I finally gave up and got out the little vacuum. I think I got most of the really sandy spot with the big vac before giving up, but I really want to use the big one just to get a deeper vacuuming done. I will have to order a new beater bar, again. This will be the second beater bar for this vacuum in the last 7 years (it was bought used). The end of the bar actually melts and then shatters apart on the inside. You can still hodge podge it to make it work, but it takes frequent resetting to get it to work.
So, by the time I finished tinkering with the vacuum and then finishing the living room, it was time to leave and get the kids. I had a cup of mac and cheese (not box) for lunch, and snacked on a handful of almonds and a cheese stick on the drive, along with a bottle of water.
Both boys had a good day at school, and it was an easy ride home, aside from the fact that one of Josiah's braces is hurting him. I need to get back to the ortho so we can get the brace adjusted a bit. So I did have to stop on the way and take off his braces to give him some relief.
When we got back, I switched the laundry ( I can never seem to keep up with it). Then I tried talking with the boys about what went on last night (why they didn't eat dinner, why they trashed the house, why they did not go to bed when it was bed time, etc...) I am still just blown away by how out of control they were last night, that is usually not like them. J at least had some answers, not good ones, but at least could give me some reasons for his behavior, but over all his behavior was not that bad. It was G that emptied the book shelf and pummeled the guitar with the videos, and G that dumped bags of sand all over the house. It would be different if he had been doing sand art and gotten it everywhere, but he was not doing art, he was literally opening the bags and flipping them in the air multiple times. there was sand on top of the TV, all over the couch and chair, on top of all the shelves, probably in the fish tank even. G has a tendency to destroy things for the sake of destroying them. I have yet to find a plausible explanation for some of the times when he has completely destroyed a toy or a game (ripping cards in half, pealing all of the decals off the game boards, smashing his Nintendo control on the floor until it fell apart (we went through 3 before I started making him discard his own destroyed toys and did not replace them (but Santa did bring more controllers one year). Anyway, I was trying to work through what had actually happened, like where Grandpa was and what he was doing while G was destroying the house, and why G did not go to bed at 8:00 when he knows the routine, or why he refused to eat dinner....
And G kept giving me the run around (he does have trouble answering questions in anything like a way that makes sense, but usually I can piece what he says together and get a good sense of what happened and why he made the choices he did. But after 45 minutes of G's circles round and round the issue, I was ready to pull out my hair and run screaming down the street, but instead I told him to just go play in his room and I went out to fold laundry in the living room--twitch, twitch, twitch.....
So, I am just trying to let go of last night, and move on. It just gets under my skin when there is senseless destruction, especially of a project that could have been a lot of fun to do together. So now I just made a frozen pepperoni Pizza and rinsed off some grapes. Not a stellar dinner for the kids and I but it works. This has been an exhausting week for some reason.
Tomorrow is A's birthday and while we are no longer a couple, no one else was planning anything for A and turning 50 is a big deal. Most woman I know over 50 tell me that 50 is like a new start to life, life begins anew at 50. I will trust them on that as I am a mere 36, so it will be a while before I know if that is my own experience. But 50 is an important time, so a party is always in order. So I invited most of my family and A's family to come to dinner tomorrow night. I have to bake a cake to night and J has an appointment tomorrow, but if A can pick up G from school it should all work out. I just have to make sure I have everything ready tonight, so I can just cook it tomorrow, and have my mom, and step dad, my father, my brother, one of my sisters and her two kids, myself and the kids, A's sister is going to come out for the night (she lives 5 hours away), and me--so that's 12 people in my little house (less than we had for G's b-day last week when we had the family party as my other sister with her 4 kids is not coming). So 12 people, a small corned beef and cabbage with a baked Ziti to supplement so that everyone gets enough to eat (I couldn't afford a corned beef big enough to really feed that many people, hence the ziti). As A is Irish and today is St. Patrick's Day, I figured that as long as everyone can have a little bit of the traditional Irish meal, everyone would be happy. But I do have to bake a cake and decorate it tonight, and I want to clean the bathroom and fold all the clean laundry before I go to bed too. So it is going to be yet another late night.
Well, I need to get the kids in the bath, so I am signing off for the night (unless I decide to hop on later, which well, you never do know right? Blogging is fun, i wonder if anyone is actually reading it....I need to get one of those little ticket things that tracks page views. G-night, sleep tight, and don't let the bed bugs bites (nasty that they have made a come back isn't it...)
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