Sunday night we had a nasty storm come through. it spawned three tornadoes that touched down and numerous funnel clouds. needless to say, I was scared out of my tree. Hubs was very confidant and seemed to actually be enjoying himself.

My eldest son was born in late October, and the summer after he was born, the very first thunderstorm we had I got scared. how do I protect this baby form mother nature herself?? Since that day, I have been terrified of storms. I love summer, but I dread the storms. I think about them during winter months, planning how we get out, where we hide during a tornado and what papers I would need to bring during an evacuation situation.

Sunday night I was literally shaking. I made many trips to the washroom becuase I feared that if there was anything in my bladder, I would pee at the next loud crack of thunder. At one point the hail was coming down so hard (it was two inches in diameter) on the skylight that I was hyperventilating. I would have been in tears, but I was too panicked to cry!

I wanted to run screaming out of the house! In the hail, thats how loud it was. I had taken my four year old out of his room on the upper levels, and put him to bed with his eldest brother in the basement becuase I was worried about how to get the dog and cat down when the time came to hide from the tornadoes they were warning us about.

And in the morning, when I went out to survey the damage, I cried. My beautiful apple trees were ruined. The leaves torn, the apples bruised.

It seems like we are having one storm a week with hail. I cannot remember a summer where we get more than one storm with hail, and in 2008? This is the sixth time!

I am So damn tired of storms.

Last post I bitched about my Step mother not giving me the number to the woman who has the dogs who has the puppies. Uhm. Lets just ignore that sentence’s structure for now!

Round one PM this afternoon I got a phone call saying that my brother’s girlfriend, J, Might be in labour (she is six weeks early) and would I be able to find a baby sitter for the boys and go to the hospital to be with J becuase my brother is 14 hours away at work.

I said of course!

We get to the hospital and they cannot figure out what is wrong. She is in obvious pain, and having contractions according to the monitor. but, she is not dilating – not even close to dilating either. Her cervix was “long and hard”. But why the pain? She had a UTI two weeks ago so they did a few tests on her urine and that came out clean – after a very long wait where we had convinced ourselves that it was just a UTI and the baby is A-OK, I might add, so now what?

They wanted to do an ultrasound, they feel she may be having problems with her kidney, but the U/S techs are gone for the day at this point.

But she lives an hour out of town and it is hard for her to get into the city for this kind of stuff. Plus, by now we are pretty darn hungry. We made arrangements with J’s doctor for the U/S techs to call to make an appointment for her and she was discharged, still in pain.

But what does all of this have to do with the puppy lady you might be asking yourselves!

Simple. My dad, who had driven J in, and picked me up, decided we would stop at McDonalds for dinner before heading home. While at McDonalds, my dad, my step momma, who had driven into the city and J figured out the name of the lady.

Since she lives in the same small town as my dad does, it should be quite easy for me to find her number and giver her a call!

needless to say, I will keep you updated!

So my relatives decided not to come down to the house on Friday – oh well. The horrible thing? Once I heard that they were not coming, I stopped cleaning immediately. I was feeling So ill from the cramps that I wanted to scream and celebrate when they said they would not be able to make it!

Today i was feeling slightly better – well, actually, a lot better – I am now to the point that Tylenol will take the pain away, and it stays away for a good six hours. In fact, last night my mother in law took the boys and Hubs and I went into the city for a date night – we saw Hancock – what an awesome movie!

Anyway. on to the “secret”. It isn’t really a secret, but since I am not sure on the particulars, I feel uncomfortable talking about it a lot. Here, on my special blog, I feel comfortable talking about the what ifs and might be’s.

We are getting a puppy

But we do not know when. See, my dad and his wife got the most adorable dog, Joey, as a pup from a woman on the reserve where they live. the woman has two dogs and the female and male breed constantly. I love Joey. LOVE.

When we started looking for a dog a year ago, I wanted desperately to get a tiny dog, but then Smokey basically fell into our laps and we adore her to pieces. But I still want a small dog. Smokey has spent quite a bit of time playing with Dad’s dog, Joey, and they get along amazingly. Smokey, being eighty times Joey’s size, you would think, would hurt Joey, but never has she hurt him. They love to play!

Smokey has also been introduced to a LOT of other dogs of all different sizes, and all of them she interacted beautifully with. I am extremly confidant that Smokey and the new puppy will get along well.

The new pup will be a female – I am not a fan of male dogs (their junk hanging out grosses me out) and becuase I do not want to be scrimping on moths that the pup will need her shots and her spaying, so I have insisted we save the money for the shots before we get the puppy. It wont be difficult, they need three shots and I have enough saved for the first shot already. int he four months we will have her before she gets spayed, I will easily be able to save the money for her operation.

So thats one thing that is holding us back. I figure about six more weeks before I have enough saved. (I would like to save a bit extra for dog toys and a dog bed as well, I do not expect Smokey to share her bed and toys, though it would be awfully cute to see them sleep together.)

But the biggest hurdle is getting my step mother to find the number of the woman who owns the dogs. I am perfectly fine waiting months or even a year for my puppy. But I would just like to know approximately how long. I mean, is the dog pregnant NOW? Did she just have puppies? Will it be another six months till she becomes pregnant? What??!!!

I can stand long waits, just as long as I know when the end of the wait IS! But Step Mother wants to wait to get the number until they get back from their vacation – TWO MORE WEEKS (plus!!) and this upsets me a lot!

I mean. All she has to do is go on Facebook, message her friend and ask for the number. It’s not that freaking hard!

I’m just so anxious!

I am so ill.

I am also SO very very thankful i slept last night.

The night before I was up till 3 with sever back pain and cramping, slept for an hour and was back up, for the day. Last night I got a good six hours before the pain awoke me, but I took some medicine and was back asleep within the hour for another two hours of rest.

I’m so very pleased that the only thing we have planned for tonight is staying home and relaxing! Its funny that ten years ago the idea of staying in on a Friday night would have been ghastly, and now, it is something to look forward to!

Although, you have to take into account that we were out of the house Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday AND Thursday evenings – each of those evenings were late nights too!

Saturday is our Shopping day and I am still working on the list – we only shop every second Saturday, if I have forgotten something on the list that is not essential – IE: milk or toilet paper, too bad, it has to wait until the next shopping Saturday, so i take my list seriously!

TTYL!

Quick post here, I have to clean house! In fact, this post is about WHY I fell I have to clean house.

I mentioned we have relatives down, they are staying at an RV place a few miles from us, maybe 20-25 minutes away. I desperately want them to come over and see the house, they have seen it before, but not since we ramped up our interior decorating.

Son 3’s room is almost done, I am trying to convince hubs it is worth the effort to get in there and paint it, as his paint is seven years old and in bad shape, our room is done and I LOVE it, and am VERY proud of what we did. (Who wants pictures) and of course, the boys rooms downstairs have been done for a long time, becuase we had to build them and immediately decorated them after the construction was complete.

I’m not the best house keeper on a good day, we do not live in a dirty house, but it certainly is messy! I always have a sink full of dishes and laundry waiting to be done – either washed or folded, and my counters attract various piles of sundry 2.5 seconds after I have cleaned them off.

My aunt is not a spotless housekeeper herself, but I do like her a lot,and I do not want her leaving my home thinking we are a pack of pigs living here, so, I need to do the dishes and wash the floors, and maybe fold a bit of the pile that is sitting there begging to be hidden in drawers!

(but it is so Damn hot today, humid, no breeze at all, it’s horrible. All I want to do is sit and type type type!)

I’m not even sure when they are coming to see the house. Not today, I do not think, Aunty said she wanted to spend the day relaxing, and on Thursday they are driving to my father’s house, but they might come over Friday for a visit!

So off I go!

( If I put off cleaning house becuase they *might* not come until Friday I will put it off too long and not get it done, or with my luck, they will show up tonight!!)

Monday went well. I did only 25 minutes on the Wii Fit, but they were a hard 25 minutes, by the end I was literally dripping with sweat – and I do not sweat easily!

From there we went to my fathers house for a BBQ, it was nice to see a relative I had not seen in four years, but besides bringing her son, she brought two teen aged children with her that sat and watched MTV the whole time. It made me a bit uncomfortable. I’m not a fan of people I do not know!

One of the most important aspects of the night is that Hubs and I decided we want another dog. Sure it means shelling out another 500 in shots and spaying, and that we will be getting up at night for pee breaks and that a puppy will go through the chewing on everything stage Smokey miraculously skipped, but oh, do we want a puppy!

I think a smaller dog – for the new puppy will be tiny will be great, Smokey is used to playing with my fathers 9 pound dog*, so I am sure she will be fine with a new pup, and the cat? well, she will be chased less becuase Smokey has a playmate!

*The new pup will be a sibling to my fathers dog.

Well, the weekend is over, and what a weekend it was!

Saturday we had yet another storm – this time we were at my Mother In Laws home when it hit, Lots of hard and fast rain and more hail. This is the second storm like this in a week and the leaves on my apples trees are showing some definite damage from the hail. So far, only one hail bruise on my sweet little apples though, so thats a relief.

Unfortunately, the garden, just a 20 X 4 patch has flooded for the second time in a week. My Mother in Law said my carrots should be fine, but that my peas will be done for, they cannot take all that water. Since I want to remove the garden this fall and put in grass it seems like a shame to wait, all I had planted was the carrots and peas!

Oh well, I will keep an eye on the carrots if they perk up, they can stay- LOLz!

Sunday we had a bit more excitement! The girl I baby say for three years turned four, and we were all invited to the party. It was hot, but fun. After the party I went for a quick coffee with a friend and came home in time for two of the three boys to be bitten by wasps. My middle boy was bit on the side, and the youngest was bit three times, on the forehead above his eye, on his head and on his upper arm.

They are both feeling fine – but from some of the comments they have made, I get the feeling there will be some fighting when it comes time for them to play outside! Even though this is the first time they have been stung/bit, they seem to think now, that it will happen every time they go outside!

Now, I’m off to go make a pot of coffee!

You know what that means? Thats right! only two more weeks until Hubs vacation starts!

We are still panicking and trying to figure out what to do about going camping, I had called them on Friday and they are all booked up for electrical sites, AND to make it worse worse WORSE, Hubs vacation coincides with the August Long Weekend, making it pretty damn unlikely we will be able to reserve a non-electric site!

On one hand, this is not the worst thing in the world, we CAN go camping on a different weekend, and our chances of getting a site are good, BUT if we do not go the week we want to go, BFF Kiss will not be able to come. She is the assistant manager where she works and just getting the original days off were extremely tough for her.

Not only do I WANT Bff Kissy to come, she is my BFF after all, having her along will be a big help with the boys – particularly since Hubs will be staying at the campsite with the dog while we take the boys swimming – at least, thats our plan, and I do not feel comfortable taking all three boys to the pool by myself! (I only have two hands)

Tomorrow I am going to try and call to reserve a site for the days we want, in non electric, I’m not even sure the reservation office is open on the weekend!

Wish me LUCK!

Yesterday I mentioned we are redoing out patio, that we found out it was badly sloped due to a huge storm we had come through.

I thought I would share some photos!

I know, I know, you are thinking, she should have rotated this photo, but its just plain a and simple a BAD angle. I tried rotating it and it looked just as bad!

This is right at the start of it, on the deck. Just imagine, the hail started, came down so hard I could not see the bottom of the stairs of my deck (five steps!!) and was done in under a minute.

Yea. We got a lot!

But on the good side? It was very SMALL hail!!

This headache has been kicking my ass now for a full two weeks and I am super tired of it. Its definitely time for it to give up the ghost and find someone else to bug!

But you know what? Im DONE letting my head rule my life..wait. that came out wrong.. Oh well!

LOLz

I heard an awesome quote the other day “Friendship is like peeing your pants, everyone notices, but only you feel the warmth!”

Isn’t that great?

I’m excited about a bunch of stuff, we are redoing the back yard patio – by necessity, we had a huge storm come through and the patio, which is WRONGLY slopped toward the house (NOT by us, by the previous owners) had four inches of water standing on it. Last thing we need is to flood the basement!

I’m also excited because I got my Wii Fit, finally! It’s been hard to force myself to use it, what with my head pounding, but I have been doing some of the less active exercises. Every bit counts, eh!