A cutie, a hottie and some goodies...

The Cutie

My brother and I bought this ridiculous headband while we were shopping for Monkey's party. The picture is blurry so you may not be able to see that the flames of the candles spell out "Happy Birthday."

The Hottie

This is what my car said last night when we came out of the restaurant at 7 pm. We had to go out for dinner because the house was just too hot. My dad's friend was able to repair the air, thank God, but it had been out so long, it took hours to cool down the house. He had to replace the blower motor. I'm just glad it wasn't something bigger, or more expensive, or something that would have taken days to fix. Now that I'm unemployed, any hit to the pocketbook hurts, but I really had no choice. It HAD to be fixed!

It occurred to me last night that the air must have gone out either Saturday night or early Sunday. I had run home to change after spending the morning setting up for the party, and the house felt warm. I just chalked it up to the fact that I had been running around like a chicken with its head cut off all morning. CSJ said the thermostat said 83 when he got home, but he just thought I had turned the thermostat up in an attempt to be frugal.

Anyhoo, it works now!!

Some Goodies

My Tastefully Simple goodies arrived yesterday!! Look at the size of that box!

The first little peek inside...

I started to unpack the box one section at a time...

It almost didn't all fit on my counter! Then I grouped it according to how it was ordered.

This was my half-priced item. It's called The Perfect 10 Collection. (Normally$79.99, I paid $40)

It consists of 1) Absolutely Almond Pound Cake Mix 2) Artichoke & Spinach Warm Dip Mix 3) Bountiful Beer Bread Mix Value Pack (3-pack) 4) Garlic Garlic 5) Key Lime Cheese Ball Mix 6) Nana's Apple Cake Mix 7) Onion Onion 8) Perfect Parmesan Biscuit Mix 9) Seasoned Salt 10) Spinach & Herb Dip Mix

This was my FREE Hostess Gift.

It's called Returning Favorites, and is only available until the end of July. It retails for $48.45, and comes with a bonus mix valued at $7.99 (total value = $56.44!) Again, I got it FREE.

It consists of 1) Blue Ribbon Blueberry Bar Mix 2) Howlin' Horseradish Dip Mix 3) Meyer Lemon Infused Oil 4) Green Tea Peppercorn Seasoning Blend 5) Vanilla Bean Chiller Drink Mix and the bonus item 6) Viva, Garlic! Alfredo Sauce Mix.

The Rest

I earned $111.15 in product ON TOP OF all the stuff above. This is what I picked out:
Vidalia Onion Dressing
Lemonade Fruit Dip Mix
Onion Onion
Fiesta Party Dip Mix
Garden Veggie Dip Mix
Absolutely Almond Pound Cake Mix
Classy Chocolate Pound Cake Mix
Smokey Cheddar Cheese Ball Mix
Bountiful Beer Bread 3-pack
Bayou Bourbon Glaze
Pomegranate Chipotle Sauce
Perfect Parmesan Biscuit Mix
Twisty Grahams

How's THAT for a haul, huh? And, like I said before, all I paid out-of-pocket was $40! The total retail value of ALL these goodies was $230. I think every one of you should call Jen and set up a show with her!!

Ok, Tastefully Simple commercial over. Time to go clean up the next BIG mess in this house. Oh, what's that? I didn't tell you? Yeah, seems there's a leak SOMEWHERE in the f-ing laundry room (our best guess is IN the damn wall!) so I've been dealing with a flooded laundry room for almost a week now. (That's partly because CSJ insists on doing laundry every damn day.) As I've been typing, the shop vac has been sucking up water like crazy. In the meantime, the laundry piles are sky-high, so I think we just may have to head to the laundromat tonight. In the 100 degree heat. Awesome.

It's so hot....

I'm sooooo hungover after my BIRFFDAY bash! I hope this breakfast helps.

This just landed in my inbox. My brother is crazy. (And please don't comment about how inappropriate it is for him to say his baby has a hangover. It's a freakin' JOKE people!) This picture is too cute. But, I want to know why a certain auntie wasn't invited!!

(Hey, Jo! Recognize this restaurant? =) )

I really wanted to share the party with you yesterday, but after a LOONNNGGGG, exhausting day, I walked into a house that was hotter than it was outside! Remember, friends, we're in the middle of a freakin' killer heat wave. Yep, my flimmin' flammin' air is out. AGAIN!!!!!

So, I'll be back to share after this hell is over. I was actually able to get a hold of my dad's friend (the one who fixed it last time) and he's on his way over. I hope he can fix it today because it's supposed to hit 100 again tomorrow. It's already 88 in here.

I had to do it...

I turned my air conditioner on today. Today. May 28. Memorial Day.

That's the earliest I've EVER turned on my air. I am NOT happy right now.

However, apparently we broke all kinds of records today here in Chicago. The 10:00 news just reported that today was the hottest Memorial Day on record here. Great. Just great.

It's actually been hotter the past week or so than it was today. I still held out, and just cranked the fans. But, this afternoon, as I sat in a puddle of my own sweat, trying to pretend I wasn't, I noticed that my thermostat said it was 94 in my house. Ninety-freakin'-four. I took an ice-cold shower. Less than 5 minutes after drying off I was drenched again. (Ok, I'm sorry, I realize that's just gross.)

I had to do it. I had to close the windows and click the air on. I am NOT happy right now.

IT'S ALIVE!!!

Tom just called me from outside, and asked me to turn on the air. Guess what! There's cold air coming out of my vent!!

Friday, July 29, 2011

What was the last thing you bought?

Subway last night for dinner. I've been craving it for weeks. I don't know why. Man, did I enjoy dinner!!

I know you're dying to know what's going on with my air-conditioner. Well, it's still broken. I finally talked to Tom, my a/c guy, last night, and he said he'd be out this morning. Well, it's almost 11, and I have yet to hear from him. I'm trying to not be pissy about it.

HOLY CRAP! As I was typing that last sentence, my phone started ringing, and it was Tom. Thank the Lord! He'll be here in about an hour. Woo hoo! Now, let's just hope it doesn't start raining until after he finishes fixing things. The sky is looking gray and angry right now.

It stormed again last night. Stud and I spent the night at CSJ's last night, and as I listened to the storm raging outside, all I could think about was the fact that every window in my house was open. I was trying to figure out which room was going to be flooded when I got home this morning. According to this blurb in today's Sun-times, this has been the 7th wettest month in our history!

I got up earlier than I wanted to head back here because, unfortunately, my phone would NOT get a signal at CSJ's. It was pissing me off big time. I told Tom to call my cell when he was on his way because I wasn't going to be able to sleep in my house, as it was unbearable. But, since I couldn't get any calls at CSJ's, I had to come back home to my sauna. (Stud is still sleeping there as I type.)

As soon as I walked in the door, I realized that, at some point, we lost power AGAIN last night. Luckily, according to my neighbor, it wasn't out very long. The best part - NO water in the basement!

I think I'll go see if I have something around here that I can whip up for lunch. Maybe Tom will work faster if he knows lunch is waiting for him. ;-)

Oh, that's just fan-fuckin'-tastic!!

Paul Conrad, my morning news guy, just said that we should have a high of 90 today, but there's so much humidity that the heat index reading will be closer to 110. Oh, and we have a flash flood warning going on, as well!!!! So, do I chance the pounding rain getting in the windows, or do I close them and suffocate? Hmmm...decisions, decisions....

Speaking of my favorite morning show, they just played this right after the weather report. I realize it's probably not nearly as funny to those people who don't watch this morning show, but I think it'll still make you laugh.
As Seen On TV: Robin's favorite songs CD

Pssst....are you up?

I woke up about about 2:30 with that uncomfortable "sweaty" feeling. Crap, not again!

I had heard the air click off last night around 9ish, so I looked at the thermostat real quick and saw that the temp in the house matched the temp it was set at, so I figured that's why it clicked off. In the back of my mind, I was praying that's what it was, anyway. But, I was up for a while after that, and at one point, I had to get under my covers because it was nice and chilly in my room.

Well, like I said, then I woke up around 2:30 feeling hot. Sure enough, the air wasn't on. I went down to the basement and saw that the circuit breaker was tripped again. I flipped it, and it almost immediately tripped again. Ok, take a deep breath.... Flip it again, wait a second and *click*- off again. Ok, try not to scream a slew of swear words (mostly cuz Stud was Skyping with a friend about 2 feet away from me. The fact that he was up in the middle of the night Skyping brought on the urge for it's own slew of swear words, but I digress)

I waited a few more minutes, trying to hang on to my "third time's a charm" philosophy. I flipped the breaker switch one more time. Wait, wait, wait....nothing! Woo hoo! It's been about an hour and a half, and the cold air is still pumping. Maybe I should change the thermostat setting from "auto" to "on" for the fan? Will that keep it from switching off when the set temperature is reached? I have no idea.

I do know that it's now about 4:15 (AM!!) and I'm wide awake. That's NOT good. I need to figure out how to get back to sleep, or I'm going to be worthless tomorrow.

The (boring!) air-conditioner saga

My (ex)brother-in-law was here for about 2 hours yesterday, sweating his ASS off in the sweltering heat, trying to fix my air-conditioner. I'll spare you all the boring details, but he realized that, for some reason, the unit keeps tripping the circuit breaker. The first 2 times he got it to run, it tripped the breaker in about 30 seconds. He then took the whole unit apart and cleaned the hell out of it (it was nasty!! No one ever told me I was supposed to clean it!) then got it running again. It stayed on! Woo hoo!

He called a buddy of his who's a heating/air-conditioning guy, and they determined that the fact that the power went out 3 times in the last week and a half somehow affected the compressor. Thankfully, the compressor has a 10 year warranty.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to do anything else about it, since it was running when he left. However, once again I woke up feeling sweaty, and realized that the air was blowing warm again. Damn it!!! I flipped the circuit breaker, the air kicked on, but then went out about a minute later. Shit, shit, shit!!! The last thing my brother-in-law said as he was pulling out of my driveway yesterday was, "Hey, don't keep flipping that breaker, you'll short it out and burn your house down!" (Yes, he sometimes likes to be dramatic) So, I debated whether or not I should try it again. I figured one more time couldn't hurt. I flipped it on, and before I walked across the room, I heard it click off. FUCK!!

I sat there for about 5 minutes trying to decide if I should bother trying it one more time. I finally determined that the third time's a charm, and flipped it one last time. Success!!! That was at about 11am, and now it's after 8:30pm, and thank the Lord, it's still on. I'm still going to call the nearest Lennox dealer tomorrow to see how much a service call costs for someone to come out and check the compressor. I definitely can NOT live without air-conditioning!! Especially since our heatwave shows no signs of going away anytime soon. Poop.

Cranky Update

Well, I woke up in a pool of my own sweat this morning (sorry for the repulsive imagery) and knew that the air-conditioner was not working. I could feel warm air barely blowing out of the vents. I headed down to the basement to, I don't know, look at the blower. I flipped on the light in the laundry room and was greeted by a small pond on the floor. The big storm must have hit overnight. I slept through the whole thing.

So, now I get to clean up the floor, and then clear out at much crap from the laundry room as I can so that a repairman can get in there. That's no easy task, believe me. The upside of of changing the basement plans to include this laundry/utility room is that I now have a room to hide/store stuff. The downside is that I now have a room to hide/store stuff. It's just full of crap right now, and I'm going to have to deal with it, whether I want to or not. Poop.

I just heard a teaser for the morning news that mentioned the big storms we had overnight, and all the flooding they caused. Great. I'll watch the news while I swab the deck.

Oh, c'mon already!!

I've been feeling hot and cranky all day today. It started this morning when the power went out, leaving me without air-conditioning for a while. Like I said earlier, I opened the windows in my room just a crack, just to get some air circulating. All that did was let the humidity in, making it more miserable.

Like I said, the power, thankfully, was only out for a bit this morning. However, it just wouldn't cool off. I turned the thermostat down a bit, hoping that might help. I took a cold shower around 5, which helped for the moment. Later, I actually went to lie down on my bed, right in front of the fan, hoping to cool off. I ended up falling asleep for a little while, but woke up because I was so hot. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and got up to see what the hell was going on. My thermostat was set at 75, but the temperature of the house read 87!! WTF??!

I checked to make sure the fan was on, then walked over to a vent, thinking that maybe it was just blowing warm air. Well, it wasn't blowing at all! Again, WTF?!

I ran down to the basement, and sure enough, nothing is happening. I checked the circuit breakers, no problem. Then, I opened the front of the furnace. I don't know what the hell I was looking for, but I did notice that the air filter hadn't been changed in a while. So, I grabbed a new filter, slid the old, dirty one out, and started to slide the new one in. I figured, if nothing else, when the HVAC guy came for the inevitable service call tomorrow, he would at least find a clean filter.

As I was trying to slide the new filter in, I somehow bent the cardboard frame a bit, and it fell to the bottom, hitting the blower. Low and behold, it started up. For the third time, WTF?!? I have no idea what made the blower start working again, but you know what? I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

The last couple of days, I feel like the universe has been angry with me for something. Yesterday, when I walked out to take Stud to school, my car was dead. I tried unsuccessfully to jump it from my mom's car before leaving with her for lunch. Then, after lunch, I tried it again. It still didn't work. Last night, after he ate dinner, my poor daddy came over and took care of it for me.

Then, this morning, the power went out. Now, this weird air-conditioner thing. I hope to God it doesn't go out again. My air-conditioning unit is fairly new (less than 3 years) but my furnace/blower is pretty old. I hope I don't have to replace it, cuz that would suck hairy donkey balls.

On a different note, we apparently have big storms rolling through tonight. When I went outside to throw the dirty air filter away, I was stunned to see a light show going on in the distance. I ran back in the house to grab my crappy camera so I could try and capture some of it for you.

Unfortunately, after I downloaded these to my computer, I tried to watch them, and they were almost pitch black. But, I figured, what the hell, I took them for YOU, the least you could do is watch them! ;-)

Ok, I just watched these through Blogger, and they're pretty awful. You can see the lightning, but you can't see what it really looked like. The sky was pretty light, and the lightning show was going on behind a curtain of clouds. Eh, I tried.