I had one of those weeks last week.  You know, one of those weeks where everything goes wrong.  Like if you sit in your Adirondack chairs and they break or it rains every time you have plans.  I’ve had bad days before, but it seemed like last week was against me.  It kicked me in the butt.

We spent that entire weekend looking for Madison’s retainer.  You know, those suckers are $500 and insurance doesn’t pay to replace if you lose them.  She’s been so good with it that it was amazing that we lost it.  We dug through garbage at our house and at my mother-in-laws house too.  We looked everywhere inside and outside, under outdoor wooden benches and even the kids beds!  We literally tore 2 houses apart.  Her orthodontist was on vacation last week, so we couldn’t get in to see him to see what we could do.  I knew heading in last week we were in trouble since the weekend sucked.

So that happened.  Then, my sites went down.  This was a 2 prong problem.  First, I had no access to my sites.  You may have seen some funkiness on my sites.  That’s why (it ended up having to do with a WordPress upgrade.  Hostgator ended up fixing it) I was a wreck on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Google+.  While digging through the backend stuff, I found out I was almost out of disk space.  Now, I currently pay $50 a month (yes, I know its a lot).  They told me I’d have to upgrade to the $80 month package (yes, I almost keeled over).  I had a great friend dig through my sites and found out that I had a rogue plugin that was backing up my site.  It wasn’t suppose to be saving to the server, but it was without my knowledge.  I had backups dating to 2007!!!!  Needless to say, we deleted 10 GB of backups!!!!!  (Crazy, isn’t it?).

Those two issues pretty much consumed my week.  However, this looked up by the end of the week.  First, Hostgator fixed the issue.  In talking with friends, I found a cheaper host for my blogs (which I’ll be moving to this week sometime if any funkiness happens).  I’ll get more space for less money!  I know somebody using this company already and they love them.  Best of all, I was doing laundry Friday morning, and guess what I found??!!??

Madison’s retainer.

My laundry room is also a junk room and also has a freezer and fridge in there (its all downstairs).  I was throwing in towels to the washer and her retainer was sitting in front of the fridge down there.  It looked great, and I ran it upstairs and brushed it.  The bad news is that she can’t get it into her mouth now.  However, we found it and it can be adjusted.  We have an appointment Thursday morning to do just that.

It’s amazing how your week can just turn better on a dime.  I now can sit outside on my Oakland Living outdoor furniture and relax.  How did your week go last week?

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Amazon, if I could, I would seriously make out with you right now.  Yes, I said it.  Whoever came up with frustration free packaging is a genius.  They deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.  I also have to give a shout out to 37 Signals and Remarkable Parents for letting me know about this.

Now, you can see from this picture how the packaging is different.  The one of the right is what it looks like now.  The one on the left is the new packaging.  I find it weird that a lot of bloggers find this wrong.  However, as a mother of a 4 year old and a 1 year old I find this genius.  I remember when Madison turned one.  It took 6, yes I said 6, adults over an hour to open her toys.  Now, that is crazy.  I remember my fingers hurting from the twisty tie things and just the waste and the mess.  How would you like to get just a brown box, and all you have to do is open it?  Sounds much better, doesn’t it?  How many of you have had kids whining “do you have it out yet??!!??”?  I know I have that here.  They don’t have the attention span while you find a screwdriver and everything else you need to get some of these toys out of their packaging.  Heck, I remember cutting my arms on the clamshell packaging when you are trying not to saw the entire top of the packaging off.  Plus, this new packaging is so much better for the enviroment.  I would love to be able to recycle that box (where I live, the more the community recycles the less we pay for our garbage to get picked up).  Now, this packaging is done right at the factory too, and only effects Amazon.  You will still find normal packaging at your favorite brick and mortar store.

The main argument against this is that the kids can’t see what they are getting.  My response to that is what is worse — they have to actually open the box or have the toy stuck in packaging so the kids can see it but can’t play with it because it will take me 20 minutes to get it out?

I am interested — what are your thoughts on this?  If you can’t tell, I give Amazon two thumbs up on this move!

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Yes, that is what I have to talk about. I honestly don’t get it. I am doing laundry this morning, and I came across two pairs of Bill’s boxer briefs that had holes in it. As a man, how do you not notice this? How do you not notice that it is tad more chilly there?  I know if my underwear had holes in it, it would immediately be in the garbage. This is the same guy who can rattle off bulk cable rates off the top of his head. However, he cannot remember to tell me or at least throw away holey underwear?

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Let me tell you about the house next door to me. In March of 2006, a builder bought the house next door. It sat for a really long time before they bothered to tear it down. Then it took them forever to put something up in its place. Now, I have a house that is half finished sitting next to me. In theory, that should be okay. However, it isn’t since they haven’t bothered closing off the place. On the weekends, teenagers like to throw parties in there and leave their garbage in there. Also, the lawn has never been cut since they bought place. Actually, there is no lawn anymore. It is just a yard of weeds. This makes a perfect breeding ground for a bunch of creatures I really do not want to be living next door too.

On Halloween, we were able to talk to my neighbors, and we found out how bad the problem has really gotten. Rich, my neighbor who lives across the street, is working nights and has seen a possum already. Bill, my neighbor who lives on the other side of the house in question, actually went in it a couple of weeks ago. He is the one that found all of the other unwelcome guests living inside there.

I personally am not sure what to do. We have contacted the people like animal control and the police, and they are doing nothing about this house. Putting poison out is not really an option for me, since I have two young children who too easily can get into that. I am not saying that this is the best option, but I know that Rich is looking at air guns as I write this.

This Weihrauch HW45 looks like exactly what he may be looking for. I know, the animal cruelty people are going to come out and tell me how inhumane this is. Well, talk to me after you end up with a rat or worse in your house this winter. I live in Chicago. It gets darn cold here, and the kids will stop partying there and leaving food for them to eat. If we don’t contain this problem, these creatures will be trying to enter my house and my neighbors’ houses, and we all have younger children. Since Rich lives across the street, he actually has the best vantage point. Bill (neighbor) and I have fences, so it is tad hard to see what is coming and going from that house. I would love to make his day and be able to pick this up for him. I even found a 5% off coupon on the PyramydAir.com site (that sells these). To get the coupon, all you need to do is email them any errors on their site or any suggestions about things you would like changed, and they will email you a coupon code. How’s that for customer service?

When I drop Madison off at school this afternoon, I think I am going to stop over there and show him this. I am pretty sure that this is what he was looking for. How would you deal with this problem?

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You know your life is boring when you are excited about getting new garbage cans. Our village just contracted with a new company for our garbage pickup and part of the deal was that they are supplying us with new recycle cans and new garbage cans. They dropped them off this last Saturday. The garbage one is about 96 gallons, and I think the recycle cans are 60 gallons. They are pretty big, but they are on wheels.

Garbage day was yesterday (due to the holiday), so Madison and I watched out the window as the picked up the trash. It was kinda cool. They just hooked the cans up the doohickey (I know, real technical term there!) on the side of the truck. The truck then dumped the can. Madison was fascinated by it. I think I was too. LOL

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