silver linings

I am waiting for some clothes to dry and then Mr. P and I are off to the beach for to celebrate my birthday. No, my birthday is not for another week, but I enjoy at least a week of getting my way with the ever popular (in my family), "...but it's my birthday!"

I am going to eat crab, drink something fruity whilst reading in a lounge chair, walk on the beach, and generally r.e.l.a.x.

OH, and I am very sorry to disappoint, but Mr. P took some time this week and schmoozed our way into NOT having to live at Mom's for that week...we will stay in the apartment for an extra 2 days, then move into the house 5 days early!

SO...anyways...

I am VERY good at growing peppers, of various sizes and styles:

However, I am less good at growing cucumbers.

SH it happens

Thanks for all your well wishes and thoughts out into the blogiverse, but alas, Mr. P did, indeed, get the BIG.FAT.LAY.OFF. He got a month of severance pay, and directions to the unemployment office. Jerks.

He is okay. Actually better than okay. He is nearly giddy with relief, you can almost see the stress draining out of him. I feel awful about how unhappy he must have been for him to be so happy to have gotten let go. So we are going to look at the silver lining and enjoy having a bunch of time together. I have worked, shopped and cooked sauce for dinner. Mr. P has filed for unemployment, taken out the trash, cleaned the litter box, and swept the floors.

Now we are about to take the College Kid to buy some some khaki pants and pick out a refrigerator. Talk about living the dream.

things were going a bit too well, apparently

We settled into our tiny new digs, and other than the tiny brown bugs in our ice cubes, the washer only rinsing in scalding hot water and the refrigerator smelling like bizarre flowery cleaner, we were happy to be downsized. Waiting patiently to move into the house in a little less than a month, even though a week with Mom lies in between.

Then TODAY. Mr. P texts me to tell me that a lady at his work got laid off. THEN about an hour and a half later, the axe men walk into Mr. P's office (he works in a satellite office about 45 minutes away) and are RIGHT.THIS.MOMENT huddled in the manager guys office. The manager guy that we call the Gelmet because he wears his dyed black hair slicked back, a la, Sha-Na-Na. This same dude that has been carrying on a game of grab ass with a co-worker for nearly 6 months. This same dude that threw Mr. P's friend out to the wolves and she got fired. The same dude that treats Mr. P like his secretary (calls him and tells him to email him reminders, tells him to send his UPS shipments, etc.) even though Mr. P is a project manager. This guy is slimy and will sell Mr. P out as sure as anything.

Now, Mr. P is miserable and wants to quit daily, but we are kinda dependent on his money...and we just kind of encouraged our kids to do some stuff that would require more help from us. Blech.

If it happens, we will manage, but man alive, can we not have 4 freaking months of peace???

Lightning only strikes once...

Last Saturday (or now two Saturdays ago), Mr. P and I were swimming in the lake when a big thunderstorm rolled in. We debated going to the marina for cover, but didn't think we would make it in time, plus we were participating in a poker run with about 30 other boats, and even if we got there, we wouldn't have a spot to park the boat. We decided to wait it out.

Rain started, no problem. Rumbling thunder, no problem. Lighting...ehh...maybe, a problem? But then I rationalized that even IF lightning hit the lake, the lake is SO huge that the electricity would dissapate, and while we might feel it, it certainly wouldn't kill us.

Little did I know that theory would be tested. We heard a loud crash and FELT a jolt at the same time as a flash of lightning hit the lake. DUDE. We didn't die, and really it didn't even hurt. It just felt, weird, like you just flexed all your muscles at once. Then I had a lingering feeling in my hip for about a minute, which I have decided healed me as I have run 5K twice this (last) week, no limping, no pain.

Not an incredibly exciting story, but man, I love saying, "I got hit by lightning."

I wrote this post a million days ago, but wanted a picture to accompany it, and I hadn't downloaded pictures since before we went to the Bahamas. yikes.

THEN, the pictures didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped, so, sorry for the anti-climatic lightning post.

Bat shit crazy Alabama summer weather.

Greetings from my kitchen floor

I am sitting in the corner of my kitchen on the floor because that is the only place I can sit. All of our belongings are either outside in the Mobile Attic, or stacked up in the breakfast nook because the entire rest of the house is carpeted and the carpets are being cleaned right now. The oven, refrigerator, bathrooms, all baseboards, chair rail, spider webby corners and fan blades have been cleaned. The inside of the windows. The sheers have been taken down, washed and re-hung. (Except the set that was MINE that Mr. P ruined. "by accident". He hated those flowy flowery drapes, I know it.) Decks have been sprayed down.

When I was showing the carpet guys the layout of the house I remembered the day we arrived from Texas. The CK and I were ahead of the boys, and we could not even believe how HUGE this house was. It is pretty immense. 3 living rooms. 4 bedrooms. 3 bathrooms. Dining room. Kitchen. Laundry room. Breakfast nook. Screened in porch. Deck. On a huge lot, on a little lake. We were amazed at our good fortune. (We rented it sight unseen as we couldn't take a trip East before we had to get place.) We had always lived on top of each other, and in this house we could really spread out. I am not happy with the status of our family right now, and I wonder if it is we really don't function as well spread out as we do right on top of each other. But spread out is how it has to be, and as excited as I am for this phase in all of our lives, right now, I really, really miss that day that we were all so happy to be here in this house.

OH, and I got struck my lightning on Saturday.