The sunburn that would not end......

I just wanted to let everyone know that for the past 3 hours I have been at work I have been peeling the sun burned skin that I got on Monday July 27th from spending 3 little hours at the pool..........off my boob.

And now my Jeep is gone,,,,,

Man, this blog of mine is turning into quite the downer. I just seem to have some bad luck this month. Before I tell you the Jeep story let me just say that we have opened up a new checking account, we have received our new debit cards and check book, a friend of mine bought me new DVD players for the kids since we were road tripping it for a few days and I might die without them, we got print outs of our social security numbers and mine and Matt's cards are ordered, I got my new drivers license and the homeowners claim for the ring and everything else is going pretty smooth right now. Just waiting for them to get a copy of the police report and then it's pretty much done and they can cut me a check so I can go and get my new ring.

There, with that out of the way I can tell you my Jeep story. And you know since I love detail, this may be on the longer side. And I will point out that after this post I am really going to try and have more upbeat posts, I mean, come on, something good is bound to happen to me one of these days.

So Tuesday was our big day. We were taking a 2 1/2 hour road trip to PA to go to Idlewild!!!! We got all packed and left the house around 3pm. About oh, I don't know, 1 hour and 45 minutes in the trip, the Jeep (that we just bought in February, used of course) overheated, we pulled off the turnpike and everything was dry. My husband always has a thing of water in the car so he poured it in, well, I guess that wasn't enough. We resorted to pouring about 10 or so bottles of water in too. So there went all my water for the trip :(

After it cooled down, we took off!! About a mile after we left, it over heated again. I tried driving a little bit cause hubby was trying to get in to stop by playing with the heater and such but it started to shake so bad that I got really scared and pulled off the side of the road. Hubby got out, popped the hood and NOTHING!! Not a drop of coolant or water anywhere. Hubby, who is just plain awesome with cars and really knows his stuff, informed me that we were screwed. After tinkering with it for a few minutes, he gets in the car and again tells me we are screwed. And of course I ask why and he responds "it's dead". Apparently the engine has a cracked block.

So we kinda sit there for like 10 minutes just trying to figure out what to do. We are on the turnpike, right before a construction zone, no air, no nothing. We are 95 miles from home and 35 miles from the hotel...... What to do???

So we call *11, which is like the PA turnpike assistance peeps and they tell us they are sending a tow truck. And at this point we have no idea where we are even going to go. Oh, I should mention we called the tow truck at 5:25pm.

So tow truck dude shows up at 6:35, we convince him to take the Jeep to our hotel and he tells us it's $75 to hook it up and $3.50 per mile, so again we are screwed but we tell him to do it anyways - which btw, ends up costing us $170.00!!!!

So Matt rides with the tow truck guy and the kids and I have to ride with the PA turnpike First Responders people. Now here's the fun part. These First Responders are only allowed to work certain legs of the turnpike. So we get in the truck with the first guy and he tells me that he can only take me as far as the next rest stop which is like 4 miles and then another Responder will pick us up there. So whatever, that's fine.

We get to the rest stop at 7pm. And AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER the other Responder shows up. At this point my hubby is already at the hotel, the kids are about ready to kill each other, I am about ready to kill the kids and the new responder tells me the farthest he can take me is the McDonald's right off the exit!!! SOOOOOO, that still leaves me about 12 miles away from our hotel. But he was nice and told me "at least is the Big Mac museum" WTF!!! Like I really care if it's the Big Mac Museum, I hate Big Macs!!

So then I tell him, that was alright, I will just call a cab to come pick up me and my children and have them take us to the hotel. At this point he informs me that Greensburg, PA HAS NO TAXIS!!!

I am soooooo upset at this point (I think I had like 7-8 breakdowns by this point) I called my hubby all frantic cause I didn't know what else to do. I told him to run to the front desk and ask them for help.

Ask and you shall receive.

The hotel has a shuttle. They are only supposed to go in a 3 mile radius but they came all the way out and picked us up. I am eternally grateful.

So blah blah blah, we get to the hotel about 9:45, the kids run wild, we eat, get the kids ready for bed and all that fun stuff. Then it's time to talk about the Jeep.

I won't bore you with all the small details but we pretty much decided to rent a small U Haul truck then rent a towing trailer. It was about $200 for a one way trip. We priced it out and the tow company wanted about $650 to tow it back and Penske was $899 just for the truck to rent one way - INSANE!!!! So I hopped on line and booked everything.

Through all this we had family calling is out the wazoo cause I am dumb and posted a status update on Facebook even before I called anyone and told them what was going on. Cause at that point I just wanted to veg on the computer and I really didn't wanna have to explain everything cause I was already a wreck.

So again, long story short, it was decided that my sister in law, Samantha, (hubby's brothers wife) her dad was going to bring his big truck (cause it can fit all of us), then hook the towing trailer to that and tow us home. And that only cost us $100. And that's exactly what happened. He came Thursday morning, they got the Jeep all squared away on the trailer thing and we loaded the kids up and took off. We made it home in one piece, the STUPID JEEP is sitting in the drive dead as a door nail and I keep have anxiety attacks.

Cause you know we don't have the funds to fix it and we don't have the funds for a new car. I am using my grandma's 02 Buick LaSabre right now and it's amazing, but that's only temporary.

And as far as our vacation went We didn't go to Idlewild on Wednesday as planned, but good news is that it rained ALL DAY Wednesday, so we would of been rained out anyways. We went to Eat N Park for lunch then to CVS (cause we could walk there), then lots o swimming in the hotel. We had the shuttle take us to the mall where we walked around then we found the best place ever..... CHUCK E CHEESE. As crappy as hubby and I were feeling, we had to think about the kids, and this is one of their favorite places and of course they had a blast.

I just keep telling Emma, when they ask you on your first day of school "what did you do on summer vacation?", please don't tell them the truck broke down and we got stuck on the turnpike for 5 hours then we went to Eat N Park.......

Everything is gone....

Yep that's right everything is gone. Someone stole pretty much everything I own from my car. And please please please do not say "I told you so" when you find out I left my purse in the car, please!!

So Thursday night I get home from work and my awesome sister in law, Samantha, has taken ALL my kids to VBS and hubby is still at work. So I run out of the car leaving everything in it except my keys and cell.

So when hubby gets home we chat, then the SIL brings the kiddos back and we talk, then we have to do baths and night time stuff and just the typical end of day busy things and then off to bed I go.

So I have to be to work at 9am and at 935am I am finally walking out the door. I reach over to get something off the ledge of the porch and I can see into my car and my work notebook is laying on the passenger seat and I think to my self "why is that there? I didn't get into that last night" THEN I went to the car, opened the door, sat down looked over, and all I said was "SHIT". I get outta the car and go inside and calmly tell the babysitter someone broke in my car and stole my purse. I grab the phone book and call the non emergency police number. While I am waiting for them I call the bank to alert them that my debit card, checkbook, drivers license and all of out social security cards (yes, mine, hubby's and all 3 kids!! I had just been somewhere where they needed them and forgot to put them back in the house, remember don't yell at me, I have heard it enough the past 3 days). It's all GONE. I idiots actually went through the wallet taking things out like health insurance cards and store savings cards and threw them on the floor.
So mister nice policeman came and took my info and by then I was seriously late for work. So about 1015, I am finally in the car on the way to work. I pull into the gas station to get my morning cup o coffee and quickly realize you need money to pay for that sorta thing. So I was upset and decided to call a friend. As I was talking and driving (here's the good part), I looked at my ring finger and realized I forgot my wedding ring ($3000) and here's the kicker, it was inside my purse!!! Okay before I get hit with how stupid I am, let me explain. The evening before I was at work at the shelter and we don't have air conditioning. When it gets really hot sometimes my hands swell and well I'm not the skinniest person and my ring is kinda tight anyways and it was really starting too hurt so I took my wedding ring off and locked it up in the cabinet in my purse.

So at this moment I am talking on the phone, realized my ring was also stolen and went completely nuts IN MY CAR. A normal person would of pulled over but nope I kept on trucking.

After I got to work and calmed down, I called the insurance co and made a homeowners claim for it.

THEN, I went back out to the car to try and clean up some of the mess (yeah I got a pretty cool job like that). And that's when I realized they had also stolen my kids portable dual DVD player. Even though the cop asked me like 5 times and said "No officer, there is nothing else". So now I have to call them back and add a $3000 wedding ring and DVD players to the items stolen. He is seriously going to think I am full of shit.

So most of the day was spent at the bank opening new accounts, getting all the old stuff shut down (oh, and I ended up leaving at 1pm and taking some personal time) and running to Matt's work to give him the new direct deposit info. So I spent a good portion of the day running here and there and talking to 800 people on the phone.

THEN, it was finally night time, I went to go take my medicine and GUESS WHAT??? It was also in my purse. They took my antibiotic, Ultram and my IBS meds!!! So now on Monday, I have even more phone calls to make. I have to find out how to get all my meds replaced without having to pay full price for them.

And on the first day of my vacation we ALL have to go down to the Social Security building and get print outs of our numbers and reorder ALL our stupid cards, then I have to go down and get a new drivers license.

And pray to God that my new debit cards and stuff come before we actually leave for vacation, cause if not I am pretty much screwed.

So here's the weird part, I am more upset because these stupid people stole my kids DVD player then the wedding ring. I am absolutely fuming that they stole from my kids. Mess with me, that's fine, but don't you EVER mess with my kids. So now I am hoping to have my homeowners claim settled by July 27th, so I have enough time to go out and buy them another DVD player.

And on top of all this I am really depressed. I can't pull myself together. I have been crying all weekend, moping all weekend and I didn't even want to do anything all weekend.

I hope that's going to go away soon after everything gets back to normal.

A nice letter to my Brother in Law........

Hi Jim,

Since I don't know your email address this is the only way to contact you. I think you are the biggest piece of crap on earth. You call your self a Christian but you are nothing more then an abusive man. Don't you think I see this day in and day out. You are controlling of everything my sister and your kids do. You force my sister to act a certain way, to dress a certain way, to talk a certain way. Let's get one thing straight, you are not the boss.

YOU ARE NOT GOD.

Please step down and let the real man do his job. I can't believe the position you have put my sister and your children in to. In my opinion since you don't physically beat my sister anymore, you are doing everything in your power to abuse her any other way you can. You have ruined this marriage. You have caused the pain and hurt. And yes I know that Amy is not innocent by far but you CAN'T CONTROL EVERYTHING.

Amy needs to be her own person. She needs to find out who she is. She has gone sooooo many years under your evil control and it's her time. You need to pack your things and go live with your mom. My sister needs to be in that house for the kids. The kids need a stable place to stay. And you sir are not stable, you are about one step away from joining a cult. You have unrealistic expectation's from Amy and the kids. You have made life miserable and your kids are suffering. You need to get out of that house and let my sister and the kids come back. They deserve a normal life. And if you ever threaten my sister or anyone in my family, you better pray God is on your side that day.

Your Loving Sister In Law,

Kelly

PS - And I will find a way to help my sister in any way I can, so you can expect more of this to come.

So after almost 10 years of marriage my sister finally got the courage to stand up for herself and he is beating her down any way he can besides physically. I am getting so frustrated at this whole situation and maybe I shouldn't of written that email (which was left as a comment on his blog) and oh well. Some one needs to say these things to him, I was going to say a heck of alot more, but I could feel my blood pressure rising and felt that I needed to stop writing, cause I was about to say something very inapporiate.

Well, I have to get going back to work. I just had to vent for awhile. I may need to come back later!!

Finally pics of Emma's new room!!

OK, so I know that I promised these like forever ago, but come on, you know how it is. I have been so busy with work and home and parties and life. We had an awesome 4th of July (I'll blog about that another day, maybe)

FYI - I took a new position at work - YEAH!! I am now going to be working Monday - Friday midnight to 8am. And yes I have thought about all the pros and cons. And I really think it's going to work. And it will save me 200 miles a week in gas cause the position is in the Akron shelter, which is 2.3 miles from my house!! (Right now I drive to Medina 4 days a week at 50 miles round trip). So that's my good news and now on to the good stuff.....

And here is my new scrapbbok station!! I am so excited cause I have shelves and a desk and a ton of other storage!!

And we can't forget my purse rack. I am not sure how many are actaully on there. And it may not seem like alot, but there are a ton underneath the bigger ones and let's not forget the ones in the back.

Just some Random Thought....

• I have to stop waking up late. I have been late 3 out of 3 days so far. And Monday I woke up so late I wore my pajama shirt to work and half way through the day noticed Butterfinger that I had for a late night snack all over it.

• Why is it that when I am at work I miss my children soooo much, then within 15 minutes of being home I am ready to send them to Children Services??



• My very clean house is not so very clean anymore



• We are going Strawberry picking Saturday morning.



• I am going to play switch a roo with some of our rooms. Ok, picture this, we have a Cape Cod. My bedroom and computer room is upstairs, so here's my plan. I am going to move the boys bedroom and the playroom up stairs. And move my bedroom and computer/scrapbook roon downstairs. Now I just have to find a way to lock the new computer room door and my plan wll work.


• I have been so stressed out at work lately. I could just scream.



• I am $300 short for vacation. I hope the money fairy visits me really soon.



• My daughter, Emma, started seeing a therapist. You can go ahead and put my down for mother of year please. I totally screwed her up.

And now time for some completely random pictures.......

Halloween 2008

Easter 2009

Emma's 7th birthday while we were in Florida

Making Christmas Cookies December 2007

Have an awesome Wednesday!!

Experienced Bloggers..... Need Help???

So this is going to sound really stupid but I need a little help with my pictures.

I read blogs and I look at pictures and they always have cute little frames around them, whether it be just a simple white or black border, or one that looks like a polaroid shot.

I need my pictures to look better, so 2 questions, where can I go to get them and how do I do it. (I am pretty good on the computer, just speak in lamans terms) Thanks!!