Lien On Me or "Can They Really Do That?!!"

In early December of last year, several people in the small town we live in had some problems with their water lines. In the midst of fixing these problems, they (the town bigwigs) decided to update the aging pipelines while they were at it. I left for work one day with the street in front of and to the east of us surrounded by equipment and guys in hard hats working away at replacing said pipe. Later that same day, when I returned home, there was a small pyramid of pipe placed near the edge of the road on the eastern-most side of our property. It wasn't bothering us any, so we never said anything. After all, it was on top of snow and the job was going to be done soon.

Zoom ahead to mid-February. I made my weekly jaunt to pick up the mail and was mildly concerned when I found a notice of a "certified letter" in the stack. I don't know about you, but whenever I've received mail I've had to sign for, it is NEVER the long-awaited Publisher's Clearinghouse notice that I've won a million dollars, or notice of some long-lost relative who's left all their earthly belongings to me. No, in MY household, certified letter always means one thing: T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

I mentally racked my brain to think of all our bills - had I forgotten to pay one for months on end? Don't think so... The last few years have been banner ones for racking up family medical bills, but I'd been paying on all of those, so I knew it couldn't be that. Hmmm.... Well, I guess I'd better just see what it is.

I ran into the main post office area and signed for the thing, pretty certain it couldn't be anything bad: NOTICE OF MECHANIC'S LIEN read the fancy lettering at the top. What's that? I've got my own mechanic, thank you very much. I even sleep with him, so I don't think he'd be suing me! I read further. "Blah, blah, blah... owed by S_*#Head and Sons, Inc., Blah, blah, blah... Lien placed against homeowners at (insert our names and address) owe $8000 plus "reasonable" attorneys fees, blah, blah, blah...

Right about there my heart stopped beating for a long moment, then my blood pressure shot through the roof. You have got to be kidding me!!!! After I'd calmed myself down, I called the "information" number listed at the bottom. Obviously there had to be some mistake as we hadn't had ANY work done on the house for many years, and we'd paid fully for everything ever done. The charming "lady" I spoke with on the phone had all the personality of Atilla the Hun - she obviously relished her job of sticking it to innocent people and wouldn't even pretend to care about the situation. She explained to me that the lien was placed against us because that was the "physical address" where the pipeline for the city's project was delivered. It didn't matter that WE didn't order the pipeline, or even that it didn't get buried in our yard, or even our side of the street. "That's where we delivered it, so basically tough #$*( for you. Have a nice life."

So, long story long (as is always the case with me!), we've spent the last several MONTHS of our life trying to get this seemingly obvious mistake cleared off of our names. Who'da thunk it would be so hard? After numerous phone calls back and forth between us and the mayor, the mayor and the company, the mayor and the recorder's office, and Tom and the company AGAIN because they still hadn't removed it like they said they would, and Tom and our lawyer, it has finally been taken care of.

A good friend of mine at work gave me a sign for my bulletin board a while back that simply reads "Because nice matters." I've tried to use it as a reminder to myself of who and what I really am (really, just ask me!), even if I occasionally have to deal with "not-so-nice" people. However, after this experience, I think I've learned a new lesson: the next time anyone so much as places a piece of paper on my property, I'm going to call the police and have them arrested for trespassing. But I'll at least do it with a smile...

Now we just wait to see if it's hit our credit rating, otherwise we're off to battle again. Ackkk!

May 13, 2009

Better, even, than flowers

The last time that Tom sent me flowers was roughly 13 years ago, back in that first magical year of marriage. We were living in the first of many small towns we would inhabit; a town filled with many inbred colorful characters. The local high school in said town held fundraiser after fundraiser throughout the school year; I swear every-other-week. Unfortunately, this small-town school was not known for being imaginative, so they used the same fundraising idea over and over and over and… Yeah, you get the idea.

Anyway, being a newly-married man in love, every time one of these students' came into his shop peddling their "One Dozen Long-Stemmed Roses – Only $5.99!" fliers, Tom would pony up his six Washington's and place his order. I know, I probably sound heartless: What woman wouldn't love to receive a dozen long-stemmed red roses every couple of weeks? Well, as it turns out, this woman… but I had a valid reason! Even though it was so many years ago, $5.99 for a dozen roses was extremely cheap, even then. Add to that fact that this was a fund-RAISER, presumably meaning that the company supplying the roses actually MADE enough profit to give money back to the school, and you can probably get a pretty good picture in your head as to what these babies looked like. So long as they were prostrate in their pretty pink box they looked fairly decent, but when you attempted to revive them by placing them in a vase full of water, you've never seen such a sight. The term "limp noodle" doesn't begin to do it justice!

Anyway, after receiving about seven or eight of these depressing packages, I begged Tom to go easy on the flowers, to maybe give it a rest for "a while." And so he has honored my wishes for 13 long, flower-barren years! I have explained to him many times in the last 5-10 years that I hadn't meant that I didn't EVER want flowers again – I just didn't want DEAD ones. But to no avail. I know that he loves me, and I don't need flowers to prove it, but there are those days (and ladies, you know what I mean) when a bouquet of beautiful flowers would just go SO far to make you feel loved and cherished.

This weekend, however, Tom proved his love to me in a more meaningful way than flowers ever could. If ever I doubted the depths of his feelings, those worries have now been laid to rest. The proof? He voluntarily cleaned up doggie puke for me. And not just any dog puke, but a virtual mountain of stinky, steaming-fresh Stitch reflux.

Now normally when one of the dogs has an accident of any shape or size, I hear cries of "Mom!" or "Honey!" I don't know when or how it became my job, but I learned years ago that if I want it cleaned up right, I'd better plug my nose, roll up my sleeves, and get to it. Yesterday, I heard Tom's horrified shouts as he herded Stitch out the front door, but I could tell by the sound of his voice that he had reached him too late. I dragged myself out of the bedroom, psyching myself up to handle whatever awaited me. On a brief side note – why, why, why do dogs always choose the carpet when there is nice, easy, cleanable hard floor a mere 3 inches away?! But I digress…

This LOVING, SWEET, STUD of a husband had beaten me to it! I watched in awe as he tackled the pile with a dust pan and paper towels. My heart went pitter-pat as he rushed, gagging, out of the house to the garbage dumpster, face turning bright red. And again as he and Evan cleaned and scrubbed the rug he had puked on. Sigh….

HE LOVES ME!! HE REALLY, REALLY LOVES ME!!! What more can I say?

April 27, 2009

Our Steamy Weekend Alone – Part 2

So Saturday morning, we rolled out of bed at the crack of 10:00 (honestly – I got up at 8:00 a.m., but the better half was still snoring away which explains why I got up so early on a weekend!) and managed to get the trailer packed and out of the driveway a little after noon. About 2 miles from home I realized that we had forgotten to bring food for Annie (the dog, not to be confused with Annie, Evan's girlfriend). I had also assumed (incorrectly) that the trailer was pre-stocked with kitchenware, which it had been at one point, to feed and water her from. Tom, as anxious as I to get out of town, insisted that we would stop somewhere on the way to buy her food. We drove an hour and stopped at a Burger King in Preston, Idaho to have lunch. As we rolled into town, I suggested we stop at the grocery there to make our purchase, but Tom wanted to press on. So on we went!

As soon as we hit the road again, the wind, which had been fairly annoying before, kicked into high gear. You don't know fun until you've towed a trailer through gusting cross-winds – it was very exciting! We finally rolled into Lava Hot Springs, population 486, around 4:00 p.m. After an accidental drive-by of the town's off-ramp, we eventually found a place to get turned around and headed for the motel/RV camp that I had reserved. Tom set up the trailer while I stood by as camp supervisor. When the time came to hook up the water, we discovered two things. First, in addition to the missing dog food and dishes to feed her from, we had also neglected to bring the hose to pipe water into the trailer. Off to the over-priced store we went, where we were able to purchase everything we needed, albeit at horrendously high prices. Second, once we had the hose, we discovered the RV park did not yet have the outside water hook-ups turned on from winter. The nice people running the place ran a hose out one of the motel room windows so that we were able to fill the water tank.

Then, one of the highlights! When the trailer was winterized last fall, apparently we did not get one of the fittings screwed on right, so once we had the water turned on, we REALLY had running water – gushing out all over the kitchen floor from UNDER the sink.

Great.

Long story short, this is the view I had of my husband for most of our weekend alone. He spent two hours on Saturday in this position, mumbling, grunting, and more often than not cursing.

After fixing THIS leak, I talked him into heading across the street to soak and relax in the mineral pools. Tom and I have always had different tolerance levels for heat. I am the type that loves a hot bath, the hotter the better. If I don't look like a cooked lobster when done, it wasn't hot enough. Tom, on the other hand, can put his foot in tepid water, and leap back from the pain of it all. He stepped into the pool and immediately moved into extreme slow-motion, oo-oo-oohing his way further in. Being the sensitive, loving wife that I am, I called him a big baby and told him to put a move on. Until I got in. Holy Hannah was it hot! Too hot for me, and that's really saying something. "Never fear!" I said, "the other pool is much cooler. Let's move over there." So off we went, climbing into what I had remembered as being a much cooler pool. But guess what? It was just as hot as the other. We managed to spend an hour at the pools so that we could feel like we at least got our money's worth, then we took our slip-skinned selves and went to dinner at a cute little place in town. A place that was sold out of the shrimp I was craving, as well as the scones that were supposed to come with the meal and which I was lusting after since seeing them on the menu. In the meantime, Tom got more and more quiet – turns out that the extreme heat of the pools made him sicker than a dog.

Back to the trailer we went. It didn't take long for exhaustion to overtake us both, so we went to turn in for the night. But guess what ELSE we had forgotten? Tom's sleeping pills, which he needs because of his screwed up neck and back. After much more cursing and thrashing around, he finally fell asleep at 3:00 a.m. Unfortunately, the bed in the trailer is like sleeping on a rock (not even a smooth one, but a knobby one that rolls you in unwelcome directions), so I finally got up and moved to the bunk one of the kids' usually sleeps in. Just as I finally got to sleep, an apparent convoy of trains came chugging through the valley, laying on their horns for a minimum of 10 miles both before and after. Needless to say, it was a LOOONNNGGG night, possibly the longest I've ever had.

The next morning, we woke up later than planned, but still had time to go off to breakfast. EXCEPT that the water pump was now making weird sounds. Back under the sink he went for another hour. Water pump fixed, just in time for me to hurriedly wash my hair and then it was time to check out and move on! We ended up eating Easter breakfast (at 1:00 p.m.) at a truck stop on the freeway.

On the bright side, the way back was blissfully less windy, and we did stop to take pictures at Red Rock Pass, the site where ancient Lake Bonneville broke through and drained out onto the Snake River Plain. It wasn't the dream weekend I was hoping for by any stretch of the imagination, but at least we'll be able to look back and laugh about it years from now. At least that's what I'm telling myself. And I managed to withhold my "I TOLD you so" until we were safely home!

April 21, 2009

Our Steamy Weekend Alone, Part 1

This past week was the kids' spring break, so Joshy (as Savannah calls her big, tough-guy, Special Forces brother) flew all three of them to Tennessee to spend four days with him and Jess. Woo hoo! Four whole days without any small fries or sweaty teens underfoot! Whatever would we do?

Well, as luck would have it, the kids flew out on a Friday. I took the day off work to take them to the airport and ship them off, but Tom had to work all day, so really we had 3 whole days alone. Okay, that's still pretty good… Their plane was scheduled to fly in late (and I do mean LATE!) on Monday night. Oh, but wait… We both have to work on Monday. Ah well, that still left us two entire days to be footloose and fancy free!

All week long leading up to the big break, we daydreamed about where we would go and what we would do to celebrate our freedom fill the void that would be left in our lives with the kids gone. Tom mentioned a road trip to Dillon, MT, a trip we took the last time we took a fun weekend away, roughly TEN years ago. I was all for a road trip, and any time I get to head north to my Idaho roots, even if it's just passing through, I'm a happy girl. But, why go where you've already been? Why not take the opportunity to explore uncharted territory? While waiting for Tom to arrive home late Friday, I wandered cyberspace and Google Maps, plotting our journey, checking weather forecasts, and finding a cozy, little suite (with a gas log fireplace in our room) in a beautiful little Idaho town that I've always wanted to visit. I had my speech all prepared and was sure I could successfully argue my case.

But he was not to be persuaded. After arriving home at almost 9 p.m., the last thing my dear hubby wanted to do was wake up early the next morning to drive 5 or more hours to a place that's still almost 20 degrees colder than we are (I say as I watch snow piling up outside the window YET AGAIN), only to turn around the next morning and drive all the way back. I begged, I pleaded, I gave an eloquent speech about the joy being in the journey, but to no avail. His next best plan? Let's take our camp trailer and go stay at a campsite in Mantua, conveniently located right off the main highway 20 minutes from home. Wouldn't that be fun?!!! I countered with just renting a hotel room anywhere, so we didn't have to deal with loading the trailer, hauling it somewhere, spending forever setting it up, getting it leveled, yada, yada, yada…

"Let's just relax" said I. "Every time we take the trailer, it takes up precious time that we could be using to enjoy other things."

Here I need to insert a side note: For YEARS upon YEARS, I have tried to talk Tom into going to Lava Hot Springs, a quaint little town in southeastern Idaho that has mineral pools which are so wonderful for soaking life's cares away, but he has always refused to go. Once he decides he doesn't want to do something, you might as well give it up, because you are NEVER going to convince him otherwise. I swear that "Stubborn" is his middle name, although he will tell you that I am the stubborn one. Anyway, I didn't even dare suggest it as I'd lost that particular battle too many times before.

"Hey!" he says… "How far away is that Lava Hot Springs? Let's go there."

Great idea honey! So glad you thought of it J… I'll get us a room. But no, he didn't want a room; he still wanted to haul the trailer and set up camp. Fine… Whatever! We're going to Idaho.

TO BE CONTINUED…

April 15, 2009

Enough Said

UGGGHHH, Teenagers.

Need I say more? Much as I'd love to vent the whole story, this one can't be told. Just remember me in your prayers...

April 2, 2009

They gave it a good try!

Lately I have come to realize, as my kids grow older, that I no longer plan their weekends, but they plan mine. I'm not always very happy about this, because it often seems that I am only appreciated by those two always-hungry, often smelly things I call my teenage boys when I have car keys and/or cash in hand, preferably in combination.

This weekend has been much the same, so far, but it was also a little fun. Last week, Evan brought me the newspaper to show me an advertisement for a 3-on-3 basketball tournament to be held today.

"Mommy..." he said, which is always my clue that some major sucking-up and a loss of money from my wallet is about to commence. It's rather disturbing to hear a 16-year-old say "mommy," but it's a nice break from hearing him call me "Twink," the nickname that ONLY my parents are allowed to use and which he loves to irritate me with. Anyway, since he actually remembered to ask nicely, I gave my blessing and my credit card and we signed up him , Braden, and another friend of theirs. All the money went to a charity called Buckets for Change, which helps youth in Africa, so at least it was for a good cause.

This morning, I woke up at 9:00 a.m. with Braden poking me. I should probably be thankful that they let me sleep in at all, but this week has been another of those long weeks where I have NOT been able to sleep worth beans, so I was really really really (insert about 2 dozen more "really's" at this point) looking forward to sleeping in later than normal. I used their trick and asked for "just 5 more minutes." 3 minutes later they sent Savannah in to poke me again. We didn't have to be there until 11:30 for pity's sake!

We got to the event, signed in, waited in the hallway with about 60-70 other boys ranging in age from 14 to 25 FOREVER. Did I mention there was no place to sit but the floor? After an hour of waiting, they finally got the brackets together and the boys were assigned to play the winner of two other high school teams: a group from Mtn. Crest, the boys' high school, and the other team, from the land of the Phillistines (you know, where Goliath from your Sunday School days was from?). Okay, I may exaggerate a bit: They WERE as big as Goliath, but they were really from Logan High.

The rules were that the first team to reach 20 points won and moved to the next bracket. The giants easily wiped out the first Mtn. Crest team and then took on my boys. I have to say that the other team was very nice and had fun playing with the boys, kind of like a cat plays with a mouse before it devours it! Evan was the tallest on our team, at 5'7". Sophomores and seniors are NOT created equally. The top of his head literally didn't reach the shoulder of the tallest kid on the other team. They gave it their all, and they really did get some good shots, but it just wasn't enough. It was on to the next team, also built more like football linebackers and a good half-foot taller than any of us. Again, they gave it their all, but it was all over but the crying. They were done (secretly I was a little happy because we could finally go home. My butt was numb from sitting on hard gym floors for so long).

As we left, Braden, ever the comedian, thanked the organizers and apologized for having wasted their time. All in all it was about 5 hours lost in my day, but it really was fun.

When we got home, I picked up this morning's paper, which I hadn't had time to read earlier. There, on the front page of the sports section, was a full color, 8x8 picture of one of the kids they had played on the first game: turns out he was just named player of the year for the entire valley, and Goliath, also known as "Big D" according to the article? He's defensive player of the year.

I think our boys should be proud for the effort they put in! If it had been me, I'd have probably run the other way.

March 28, 2009

A Brief Gulp of (Cold) Air

Hello, Chickens, as one of my favorite bloggette's is fond of writing! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I wanted to write a quick note as it seems like it's been forever since I've posted anything. Okay, probably not THAT long, but it sure seems like it to me. Some of you are probably thinking it's not been long enough! Anyway, here's the scoop.

Last week I had a wonderful, mostly-relaxing, almost-blissful forced vacation from work that we who work at the University fondly call "The Furlough" (insert scary music here). Aside from that pesky little thing called "NO PAY," :( I really enjoyed myself. I used to think that I was never cut out to be a stay-at-home mom, but now, I really think I could! Provided, of course, that the children were all in school, that they were all capable of getting themselves up and off to said school, and that said school didn't release until 6:00 or even 7:00 p.m. each evening. But I digress...

Fun, Furlough Monday I woke up to a foot of new snow (and no, I am NOT exaggerating. All the previous snow had been completely melted) in the driveway with no end in sight. Ahhh... did not matter one whit to me! I didn't have to drive to work!

But then the kids and Tom also saw the snow and decided that surely, school will be cancelled and the canyon to work will be closed. The 2 younger kids missed the bus (although Evan gamely went off. Lest you think he's turned over a new leaf and was being studious, I think it had more to do with wanting to spend time with his new crush) and Tom dilly-dallied around FOREVER worrying about road conditions (you've got 4wd - you'll be fine!). On MY Monday, where I was supposed to have time all alone. By myself. No one else! After some mild nagging, err, cajoling, errr... loving encouragement from me, they all finally headed out.

I had big plans for my week off: spring cleaning, laundry (sigh - it's a regular staple), organizing (not just closets but entire rooms!), scrapbooking (both paper and my newfound digital kind), reading, relaxing, and scanning thousands of old photos into the computer that I have organized into loose eons of time. Although I managed to do a little bit of all, I didn't get near as much done as I had hoped. But boy was I relaxed!

As I said before, the only downside to this whole thing was the fact that I'm losing out on a week's worth of pay. But God is always faithful to provide: What the University taketh away, the good Lord giveth back! Days before the furlough I had not one, but two, of our Ph.D. students come to me to see if I would be willing to do their dissertation reviews, and then yesterday a Master's student also came to me with his. Heck yeah! I have been working diligently on the first (two long chapters to go!), have the second waiting patiently on my desktop, and the third in hard-copy which I am working away on in 5-10 minute increments (at a long stoplight, during breaks, and especially while I wait for my stupid, s-l-o-w home computer to decide to boot up so I can work on the other two. Grrr....).

All this to say that I promise to be back soon, if I ever come up for editing air. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures that I took of our snow day. We had 30 inches, yes, 3-0! in less than 24-hours. Interestingly enough, it's all almost melted away again. Which is only fair considering I'm back at work and have to drive again.

March 17, 2009

7:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m., and still snowing!