It seems that all I’ve been doing lately is waiting.

Waiting for the my grades to get posted online for the Human Resources class I completed (I got an A).

Waiting for my daughter to come home from swimming in the neighbors pool (she did come home, about 7 hours after she left).

Waiting for Louis Vuitton to fix the zipper on my handbag that I bought over 15 years ago using my tax return money to purchase (a check that I waited FOR.EVER to receive in the mail). Waiting for FedEx Home Delivery to deliver my repaired handbag so I can go on with my life knowing that the contents of my purse are securely zippered inside. I waited ALL DAY on Saturday for them to deliver it, after missing them on Thursday and Friday, it wasn’t on the truck for some unknown reason.

And today I’m waiting for the sprinkler people to come out and turn on my sprinklers so that I can water my grass — and my flowerbeds, which I’m waiting for my husband to design so that we can actually have flowerbeds.

I’m also waiting for summer. We got a peek at it yesterday when it was 90 degrees out, but today, it’s back down to 53.

I’m waiting for June 13th because we are going to Door County for a short getaway to one of my favorite places ever. 

I’m waiting for August 19th, which is the LAST day of my very last graduate class that I’m registered for for my Master’s in Business Administration. I still have two classes to take after that, and the capstone, but I’m WAITING until after Christmas, I think.

And I’m waiting for September because then I’m going to DISNEY WORLD!!!!

That’s a lot of things to wait for. What are you waiting for?

Oh, and the sprinkler people are here, so now I’m waiting to see if the new play set is smack dab on top of a sprinkler head. What are the chances?

(Cross-posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

About six weeks ago I hired Merry Maids to come and clean my home. They are to come every other week, and while I'd love for them to come every week, I simply can not afford it. Their sales person came out to my home, and walked my husband and I through how the cleaning would be done, what it included, what we could expect, and how much it would cost us. We signed up right then and there.

The first cleaning was amazing. AMAZING! They knocked our socks off. The second cleaning was pretty good, but they missed a few things, like the laundry room, the bay window, all the window sills, and the faceplates of the electrical outlets, something they said would be done. Also, every week they'd choose two rooms that they'd pay extra special attention to, those rooms get deep cleaned and everything is moved out of the way, cleaned under, and then moved back. During my second cleaning the master bathroom and master bedroom were the rooms that were to get the special attention. It was in my opinion that while they were clean, they were NOT given special attention at all. The fact that I found things underneath the nightstands and dressers told me that they didn't move a single thing, nor did then even stick a vacuum hose under them.

My third cleaning was today, and let me tell you, I'm so disappointed. My husband left the house at noon and told me that Merry Maids had just arrived. I got home alittle before 1 p.m. and circled the block because I saw they were just leaving. ONE HOUR. They were here for ONE HOUR and folks, it showed. My seven year old could have cleaned better than they did. The utility room was not even swept, there was cat liter on the floor and under the throw rug; the bathroom floors were not washed, nor was the master bathroom floor even swept (and the reason I know this is because my shoulder length hair was ALL over the floor!); the bathroom countertops were not even wiped down, and the sinks were rinsed at best; my sliding glass doors were not cleaned; and the dressers were dusted ONE handlength in on the tops, leaving a very nice line of dust. I also ran my Dyson through the house and filled the canister 1/4 of the way. Did they even vacuum? I doubt it.

I called and complained. Three times actually. They aren't charging me for today's visit, and they shouldn't because I really think they fake cleaned my house.

What did they do? Well, I know they did wipe down my end tables and my coffee table in the living room because there was an oily finish to the them when I walked in, and they took out the trash, but beyond that I have no clue.

I'm giving them one more chance to get it right, and if they don't, they'll be fired. At that point, I'll be looking for someone else to come in and clean my house. For REAL. Can you recommend a good cleaner?

Some may say that I'm being too picky. I disagree. If you sell me a service and tell me that you'll pick up every single thing I own, wipe it down, then wipe down the surface it's sitting on, you had better do it -- because that's what I expect.

On Saturday my husband, daughter, and I were at Panera for lunch, it was the Brookfield location at Ruby Isle, and if you’ve been there before you know about the separate dining room that is off of the main room. It’s quieter in there and for some reason it’s Zoe primo spot when she’s choosing a place to sit.

So we were eating our lunch, and there was a couple of ladies a few tables away, but other than that we had the room to ourselves, when all of a sudden, I swear to God, I heard a bird chirp. I glanced around and didn’t see a bird, nor did I see anything that could have made that noise, so I went back to eating. A few minutes later I heard the bird again. I looked up, thinking I’d catch it flying across the ceiling or something, but again, I saw nothing. My husband and daughter heard the chirping too, so at least I wasn’t hearing things.

This is where I have to say that stuff like this drives me nuts! I know I heard a bird, but I never ever saw it. I’ll bet in all we heard it at least five or six times over a 20 minute period, yet every time I looked around, I couldn’t find it. If it were not for those ladies sitting a couple tables down, I would have done a complete top to bottom search of the room. However, since they were there, and didn’t seem to even notice the chirping, I’d look rather insane if I dropped to my knees and started looking underneath all the tables in search of where the chirping was coming from. Although, I did take the opportunity to look behind the garbage cans when I cleared our trays.

Zoe kept saying, ‘Okay, if I hear that chirping again then I know there’s a bird here for sure!’

Folks, let me tell you this: There was a bird there, I’m sure of it. And if I would have had the time, I would have done a stake out, if only to say ‘A ha! There’s the bird!’  and then I’d have gone about the rest of my day, just waiting for the next crazy thing to happen.

One time, at our last house, I was in our family room watching tv. My husband, and daughter, who was just a baby, were both sleeping. All of a sudden something flew across the room! My mind started to flip through it’s internal rolodex of all the possible things it could have been, and it stopped on: bat. A BAT!!! There’s a bat in my house! In the room where I am sitting!!!

And that’s when I started shrieking and threw a blanket over my head. I was frozen in my chair, and thought that if I got up and ran to the other room, the bat might just fly into me. SHRIEK!!!!! SCREAM!!!!!

My husband came running from the bedroom, saw what I was screaming about, and pretty much commanded me to get into the kitchen where we could close the swinging butler door behind us, thereby quarantining the bat in the dining room and family room area. I shot like a bullet across the room, with a blanket over my head, and he shut the door behind me.

Now what do we do? How in the heck do we get that freaking bat out of our house? Well, we walked around outside to the front door, opened it, and then waiting for the bat to fly out. Which he did, and it only took a few minutes actually. That stupid bat. That was probably one of the craziest things to ever happen.

(Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

My daughter is seven years old, and she's desperately wanted a swingset for as long as I can remember. That child has always loved the swings. ALWAYS. When we'd take her to the park, she'd spend the entire time on the swings, and if we were able to pull her off of them and over to the slide? She'd slide down and then race straight back over to the swings, as if to say: "Are you happy now? I went down the slide! FOR YOU!! Now I'd like a push, please."

My daughter, who is an only child, also snubs almost any toy she gets. Moon Sand? She had to have it, played with it once. American Girl Doll? She couldn't live without Nicki (and her horse, and her dog), but really isn't interested in playing with her. Wii? No thanks. A bicycle? Sometimes. She's just not interested in any of them. However, give the kid an artbox and a pile of paper and she's making drawings and pictures until the cows come home. While she's extremely talented when it comes to drawing, she's a kid and she should go outside and play! Put down your markers and go run around! 

We decided to make her swingset dreams come true and we bought her a Rainbow Play System. This is where I tell you that we didn't specifically set out to buy her a Rainbow, but it ended up that way, and we could not be happier. It was installed on May 5th, and she's outside playing on it every chance she gets. Friends are popping up from the subdivision too, which is really nice to see because when we moved to Menomonee Falls we chose to keep our daughter in the school she was previously attending, which meant not living near school friends.

And the added bonus (besides the fact that she's watching a lot less Sponge Bob Squarepants and Hannah Montana)? The Rainbow is big enough so that I can play on it too. There's nothing like revisiting my own childhood on the swings for a while, and yes, I've even jumped off mid-swing. Wouldn't you? 

Saturday morning I decided to check out a growing puddle of water in my basement. I grabbed the mop and started to clean it up, and that is when I saw where it was coming from. It was flowing out of the bottom of my hot water heater. HOT WATER. OUT OF THE BOTTOM OF MY HOT WATER HEATER.

And all I could think about was how much my next water bill was going to be.

I've heard tales of the $900 water bill from neighbors of neighbors who've had something go wrong in the basement and they didn't know they had a problem with wasting water until the bill arrived. And I've head there is no credit given when something breaks and money runs down the drain.

My husband figures that the water is leaking at the rate of one gallon per hour. That's a lot. And who knows how long it was leaking before I noticed it. A week? A few days?

On Saturday we purchased a new water heater, but since it was the weekend I'm sure I'll have to wait until Monday to get the install scheduled. If you know me, you know that I'm stressing about the water going down the drain. I know how expensive the water is here in Menomonee Falls, and with gas being $3.79 a gallon, and grocery store visits costing nearly $200 a week, the last thing we need is an out of ordinary water bill next quarter.