Every Now and Then...kind of like the song.....

Well.....with the back thing getting better and work is becoming less of a foreign thing, one would think there is no reason to be grumpy, right?  I agree with this idea, but sadly it was not to be (please feel free to laugh at everything you are about to read, it may seem serious, but it's not).

You see, I live with my daughter.  My beautifully intelligent, hilarious, ever evolving daughter.  

I love her dearly.  So very, very dearly. So, so dearly.

Yes, I really do love her.......just not so much for the last four days it seems.

So that you understand clearly the story I'm about to tell you, my daughter is 21 years old.  We have been together through it all since her birth, her diagnosis of autism at 3 and all of the painful life lessons that came after that.  If you were to meet her now you would not even think there was any autism to her and might even go so far as to say she is a bit rude and inconsiderate....side affects of that very diagnosis AND part of her personality.  Having explained that, I shall continue.....

Every now and then I really need to be alone......and not be woken up in the middle of the night to the sounds of my daughter yelling and screaming and laughing in fun with her gaming friends on a work night. Every now and then I would appreciate it if, without my screeching or nagging, household chores were done so that I could be surprised by one less thing I have to do. (It happened once....I think)

Over time, the frustration with the "little things" builds to a certain point that I can only compare to The Last Days of Pompeii and I am Mt. Vesuvius in all of it's glory.  That feeling of being under appreciated, taken advantage of and generally used really starts bugging me and when you add to all of that an attitude which seems uncaring by the very person you love so very, very dearly you have more feelings of guilt for being upset in the first place and anger at yourself for being upset in the first place and instead of using my good words to communicate my concerns with my daughter, who I love so very dearly....I am overtaken by severe sarcasm and back breaking rage.  It's awful!

...and now the story...

Yesterday I was rudely awakened by my alarm...the one that insists I be up because it's time to make the donuts......well, actually it's time to help the families of people who have passed on....so I wrench myself up and out of bed and stagger off to the bathroom for the first order of the day.....and then I flush......and the toilet overflows.  I had to use all the clean towels to stop the flooding.

30 minutes later I wander into my daughter's room and ask "What happened with the toilet?"  She mumbles about how she knocked the Q-tips over and "some" fell in the toilet.  I ask her "Call the maintenance guy so he can snake the toilet".  I am now mad.  Managed to find a towel, took my shower and made it to work with one minute to spare.  Double Mad.

Come home from work and I ask if the maintenance guy fixed the toilet and my daughter....I love her so very, very much.....says to me "No."  Hmmmm, "why not?"  I ask....feeling the magma rising.  "Did you not call him?"  I ask pointedly.  She looks at me in horror and says, "No, I didn't know I was supposed to". Okay, I shall call now....so I call.

Maintenance answers and I tell him the situation and he interrupts me to tell me the story (I've heard before) about the guy who used to live here and how that guy used to throw Q-tips in the toilet and flush because he had no clue that you weren't supposed to do that and OMG he was over here all the time unplugging the toilet blah, blah, blah......it's at this point  I feel an explosion coming on, so I INTERRUPT him and say through clenched teeth, "IT WAS AN ACCIDENT".  Doesn't matter to him because I woke him up from his nap and he doesn't have a snake and he also has to take the toilet up off the floor to make sure he gets everything out of the pipe and more blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Once off the phone, my daughter (you know, the one I love so very dearly??) says, "So here's what happened....ya know those make up applicator thingies that look like Q-tips that we got awhile back?  I knocked that off the shelf and the whole thing fell in the toilet so I flushed the toilet to get them all clumped together and some went down..."  I'm shocked but have to ask..."about how many went down?"  and she rushes on to say "probably about 15..."  Oh dear...........

It came to me at this very moment that I really needed to leave my home.  I MUST do something different or lay waste to my little Pompeii.  Grabbed my purse and left out of the door, got in Little Blue Car and drove away.

I had intentions of going to the movies, but the movie I wanted to see didn't start for 2 more hours...what to do?  Hmmmm, oh look!!  Joann's Fabric!  How on earth did I materialize in there?  And LOOK! 50% OFF signs, and 30% OFF signs AND OMG!!!! Are those little red price tags that say fun things like .50 cents???!!! Hmmmm, I'd better get a cart and wander around for awhile.

What glorious finds! Like fabric......

30% off, so I got three yards of each of these delicious fabrics to make skirts with.  I've had my skirt patterns for years and now that I work in a building that prefers you dress more professionally I thought it was time to get more serious about my wardrobe but really don't care much for what's badly made and high priced in the stores these days...besides, I can keep my own style but still be in style.

Instead of paying around $48, I paid $34.  So far so good, right? Right, and then I spotted this really pretty sewing box.  Normally $44.99 (which is why I haven't gotten a larger one yet) today it was priced at a paltry $19.97!

Do you know what I have crammed in there? All of my thread, my rulers, rotary cutter, glue gun and glue sticks, all of my over dyed floss, Sulky metallics,Kreinik threads, memory wire, measuring tape, bobbin winder and pins.

No longer all over the place, just in ONE place.

I ended up putting my Crochet motifs and the threads I use to make them into the old sewing box as it all fits perfectly in there.  I LOVE my new sewing box!

And yet....there were more finds!  In the cross stitch section there were 9 colors of memory wire which normally are priced at $2.99 and I picked up those nine colors for a mere .97 each.  

As you can see, the old sewing box is quite a bit smaller than the new one.  My daughter (that same one that I love dearly) had picked it out for me so many years ago and insisted this was the one I should have.

With these wonderful finds, I was still loitering in the cross stitch section when I looked down and noticed the painfully high priced box of Kreinik Silk Mori floss.  This was that moment when a normal human would really weigh the pros and cons of making such a purchase....not because normal humans don't cross stitch and don't see the need to own such a delight as this....but the expense.  I'm not sure I can type the amount on here without getting the shakes!

My decision to purchase was due to one thought, "You know eventually you will buy them, so why not now?"

So I bought them.

They are now mine.

I have no idea what project I will use them for but you can be sure that project will be made with extra care and extra love.  I cannot even bring myself to touch a skein for fear of destroying their pristine condition.

Not yet....my precious.....we must waits and sees....

Finally I make my way to the cash register with my loot.  The cashier is ringing things up and the number gets bigger and bigger.  When she's finished she hits the total button and the number is going down, and down, and down, and down.  She then asks if I have a coupon............well YEAH, I do!  I have an app for that nonsense, and whip out my phone and pull up 30% off the purchase price for one item from the app, 20% off total purchase from an email. and THEN the cashier tells me to text "coupon" to 56266 and when I get the return text, respond with Y (it's all algebra at this point) and redeem ANOTHER 20% off total purchase price coupon.  

Has the math confused you?  If so, that was 40% off the total in the end.  THAT is how it's done my friends! I seem to have misplace the receipt at the moment or I'd share the total savings and what I actually paid.  I was so happy with all of that math I couldn't stop gushing at the cashier.

Even if I hadn't found myself in Joann's yesterday, and even if I hadn't pillaged the store and come home with the best booty ever, I really did feel so much better by the time I came back home.  I really think it's just getting out and away for a little bit that can cure a seething volcano back to sleep.  Definitely wasn't angry anymore.

The maintenance guy had come to the house while I was out and supposedly fixed the toilet, but it still tries to over flow, but I don't care.  I'm going to buy a snake and fix it myself.  And I can now remember all of the wonderful things my daughter does do for me on a daily basis that really are special and very wonderful.  I even yelled I LOVE YOU when I was walking back to the NCC as I passed her room and her reply was, "I love you too mommy".  So sweet.

Another hurdle in life has been smashed through (why leap when an axe will do the job faster and with more satisfaction?), and something new in the NCC that is pretty and fun.....what more could an old lady wish for? Can't think of a thing at this very moment!

Until next time....Happy Life!