When It Rains, It Pours

The past couple of days have been kind of crazy.  Day before yesterday R went out of town, and I was going to go run some errands but it started to rain so I thought I would wait it out.  It rained and it RAINED!  We got 2.09 inches in an hour.  The city was flooding in areas, they were telling people not to drive unless they had to, and that if they found a street that was filled with water to turn around and go back.  There was a wreck on the freeway involving a horse trailer that blocked I-25 for a couple hours.  We had tornado's too.  Luckily no one was hurt by them.  I was so glad R was up in Vail for a couple days and not driving back from Denver in it.

It rained on through the night and my sinus's were so stuffed up I could barely breathe.  I love rain, but it doesn't love me.  This was excessive though.  Today my garden was nothing but mud.

Later that night, about 10 PM I started to feel sick to my stomach.  By midnight I was violently ill.  It made for a rough and exhausting night between that and the rain.  I drank peppermint tea (peppermint is good for an upset stomach) and took some pepto but it wasn't doing much, by the time R called at 5 AM, I wasn't sure I was going to make it.

Yesterday I was feeling a little better.  I don't know what caused it, it almost felt like food poisoning but I didn't really eat anything that could have been bad.   Needless to say I didn't eat much yesterday. 

I decided to go out and run the errands I was going to do the day before.  I went to the bank drive through, then the post office where I had to wait in line for 45 minutes.  Now I normally use the automated machine, but I was sending Blue Moon to Singapore and the machine doesn't do international shipping.  After that I swung into the store really fast and got cat food.  So I was gone maybe all of an hour and a half.

When I got home Ridley had demolished my house!  All the cushions were off the sofa, my winter boots, gardening clogs and sneakers were pulled out, R's hat and two quilts were on the floor.  He chewed up a pen.  I don't know why, he hasn't done that before.  It was such a mess.  Luckily he didn't chew on the sofa cushions or the quilts...or my shoes.  Believe me he knew he did something very wrong.  After I got it cleaned up, I set about doing some laundry and then I cut out a bear from the new pattern I designed the night before...before I got sick.

I got to looking at some of the things I had made and kept from ages ago.  There aren't a lot, I have sold most of what I have made.  But I did keep a pig I made from years ago, and I have been working on making a smaller one.  I wish I had kept one of each of the elephants, monkeys and dragons.  I may make some more someday, but both the monkey and the dragon take soooooo long to make...the dragon takes about two weeks.  They are both quite large.

I also came across a little bird I made.  I decided to photograph it.  I don't know why I didn't make more.  I only made the one.  I guess I just never thought anyone would want one, so I never made another one...in fact only my Mom and R have ever seen it until now.  I did make several other things, including some very sweet snowmen that I gave everyone for Christmas with their presents that year.

I have an idea for a smaller mohair bird than I am making now that popped into my head yesterday.  It's a peculiar idea and I am not sure why I thought of it, but chances are after I am done with the bear you will be seeing it.

Then probably after that you will be seeing a pig!

Have a lovely day!  Hugs, K. <3

Just One Good Day Please!

Isn't it amazing how some days you can be so strong that you could survive any natural disaster or crisis that is thrown at you...and other days a series of small stupid things can make you crumble like a three year old fruit cake.

Unfortunately yesterday was one of the latter type of days.  I was awakened by another weird dream.  I dreamt that there was a tornado, but it wasn't made of wind, it was made of chunks of something black like graphite or coal.  I have no idea what that was about.  Probably something to do with feeling like things are spiraling out of my control.

I let the dogs out and staggered down the stairs squinting out of one eye, with a death grip on my coffee cup.  I was already in a stressed mood from the day before because one of my stitches fell out of my gum graft allowing me to see under it...as I had suspected a month ago the gum graft itself had pulled out.  So I have been enduring the torture of not eating properly and having four stitches for nothing.  It also means that I have to start over...as if I haven't had enough mouth trauma for the past two months. 

I called the periodontist and I have an appointment on Thursday.  They yelled at me for not calling sooner.  The irony is that I DID call sooner.  I called a month ago and they assured me there is no way it could have pulled out.  They were wrong.  I think I can tell if there is gum tissue over my tooth or not.  I can't believe that after two months I have to start all over again.

Between that and being paranoid that my new crown is going to fall out for a third time, I haven't slept well and my stress cup runneth over.

But then the doorbell rang.  My mail carrier was standing there with the package I had mailed last Wednesday to my Step Dad for Fathers Day.  It had some sort of a big ugly orange sticker on it.  The postman handed it to me and announced that you can't mail alcohol through the post office.  I still wasn't fully awake and couldn't process what he was telling me.

I said it's not alcohol, it's a shower head and faucet set.  (It was a really nice Victorian one that he had wanted because he liked the one R put in for me.)  Then it dawned on me what the problem was. 

I had grabbed a box off of the pile in the garage that it would fit in.  It just happened to be a Corona box that I had put stuff in from Costco.  But it seems to me that any postal employee worth their salt who handles boxes all day should have been able to discern just by handling the box that...
A.  It wasn't heavy enough to actually be a case of beer.
B. There was no glass or liquid sound coming from it.
C. No one in their right mind would spend $18.20 to mail a case of beer which costs what, $25-30.

He said if I took it to the post office I could get a refund on my shipping.  He was wrong.  I stood in line for 20 minutes, then had to wait for a supervisor to come and talk to me.  Apparently the supervisor was in no rush because 45 frustrated minutes later they told me there was no way they were refunding my $18.20, and that it was the fault of the FAA since I mailed it priority.  Way to pass the buck, and doesn't the FAA have an x-ray machine for stuff since they obviously can't tell just by lifting the box.

They did tell me that if I covered up all the Corona logos on the box (it was covered with them) that I could mail it again without paying.  So what I learned is apparently you can get away with sending alcohol in a box as long as it doesn't say it ON the box.  But you can't get away with sending anything else in a box that says anything about alcohol on it.  I left feeling as if the postal customers had more right to go postal than the employees and that I should start shipping stuff UPS.

Then I had to go return the present because in the interim my Step Dad informed my Mom that he would have to cut a hole in the wall in order to put the shower set in, and he didn't want to do that.

Somewhere in there I had a giant coughing fit because I have been sick for two weeks.  I think that I have a low level infection from all this gum graft and temporary crown that was cutting into the other side of my gum and it has caused me to develop flu like symptoms.  By the time I got into Lowes, which always makes me have a reaction from all the wood they cut in there, I couldn't even see my eyes were watering and running so bad.

When I got in my car I broke down out of frustration from lack of sleep for days, losing the shipping money for no good reason and the fact that I am finally convinced that my mouth will forever have something wrong.  Poor R, I called him on the phone and he couldn't make out what I was saying between the allergy attack the the sobbing.

When I got home I had an e-mail from the magazine and realized I made a mistake on my ad, so I had to sit down and immediately fix it.

I also realized I signed up to do a blog party in five days and I haven't even started on it.

My purse broke, and the vacuum cleaner caught the fringe trim on the end of my big wool rug and pulled half of it off. (That can wait until later today for me to repair!)

Plus I have one additional point of stress from my new neighbors, but I am not even going into that right now.

I know eventually this too shall pass, and I know that in the whole scheme of things I could have far worse problems.  I know I shouldn't be so stressed or frustrated or upset by these little things.  But I can't help it.  I am tired.  Losing the money for something so stupid and out of my control right now was hard because I have had so many bills with the gum and the crown and everything else going on.  But the main thing is that I have zero contol over any of this stuff at this point and I am not good at feeling helpless.  I have tried to remain positive despite everything going on.  I keep telling myself that this will pass and that each little issue is the last thing and it will get better...but so far it just keeps piling on.  I would give anything for just one good day right now.  One simple day where nothing goes wrong, falls apart or creates stress.  Is that really so much to ask?

The Sampler Platter

I don't know what it's doing in your part of the world, but it seems as if Colorado is trying to cram all 4 seasons into two days. We have had a veritable sampler platter of weather.

Yesterday we had warm sunshine and when I ran errands I wore a tank top and sandals. Later that afternoon there were Tornado warnings and I believe one actually sat down East of us, out in the country. Last night we had thunder, lightning, rain and hail so bad I thought it was going to break the window. We had to shut down all the electronics and appliances. There were so many downed leaves afterward that it looked like Fall.

This afternoon there was so much snow they had to close the freeway between Denver and Monument. I saw pictures on the news, it looked like Christmas. R had a hard time getting home. He had to take the back roads.

I sincerely hope Spring returns soon.