Perspective

Yesterday, I had a hilarious day at work and Alicia and I maintained genius status all day long.  We fully believe this is due to the fact she brought peanut butter cups to work for us.

When I arrived home, it sorta all fell apart.

Our area was bound to get a snow storm - again - but the boys already had a random day off so there was no fear of a snow day that would add to our summertime days in school to make it up. Knowing there was no school the next day had a celebratory feel to the air.  I picked up the mail and there was a notice that they were canceling our home owners insurance due to lack of payment.

Um, what?

Called immediately, they told me to call the bank, called the bank and their exact words were, "I am so sorry.  We dropped the ball on this."  We had switched our home loan this summer, our insurance had come due and since we did not have an escrow account, the bank wasn't paying it but we weren't getting a notification of payment either.  We did get the cancellation notice.

So, I'm on the phone with like the fifth person in a row giving them all my information when I get switched to someone new - again.  I had begun to go through all my information - again - and none of my words were coming out correctly.  Perhaps I was in shock.  Cancellation Notice when you haven't been late on a payment sorta does that.  S4 was handing me a lego block and pointing to it because he needed my nails (he has claws) to take it apart.  I paused.  The woman on the other end seemed a bit irritated.  "I'm sorry," I blurted out, "I just returned home from work to this notice, my brain has completely shut off for the day and I haven't even had time to make my afternoon cup of coffee yet."

That. Changed. Everything.

Even more so when she read my email address.  "Life with four boys?  Oh my!"

She was efficient and quick and had me all set up in no time so this never happens again and I don't have to pay the full amount up front - considering I did not know about it - and I nearly hugged her.

No sooner did I get off the phone with her and bill payment center when my husband, who called and texted me a few times in this time span, called.  I rattled off the whole story.  He said, "Hey, can you watch the news for me?"

"I haven't even had time to turn the tv on!"

"Well, now you can.  Oh, and hey, did you find S3's glasses?  I read on facebook he lost them."

It's a good thing he wasn't home.  Instead I said, "No, I haven't so much as PEED yet because I have been on the phone for AN HOUR getting our home owners insurance saved!"

It was then my husband told me that he had the day off of work the next day.  I cheered! I had no work, the boys had no school, this was perfection on my rapidly deteriorating evening. Then he told me he would have the whole day to plow snow.

But he didn't ask for anything else then.

The boys and I then, after I made a HUGE mug of coffee, cuddled in the living room and watched Brave.  When we were done watching it, I looked out the window to a winter wonderland.  Seriously, this storm was not messing around.

I went to get on my computer to check the radar and the computer would not connect.  At all.  Nothing.  I did all those "do this before you call" things and nada.

So I called our AMAZING internet provider. We spent the next two hours calling each other back and forth and finally just giving up.  They ominously said, "I'm afraid we'll have to put a ticket in for this."

I really need a stack of peanut butter cups in my house to bring awesome to my house whenever I need it.

This morning, at 8:30 as I was making pancakes and waffles and smokey links, I received a phone call. My honey had been gone since half past midnight plowing.  But it wasn't him, it was our internet provider saying he was nearly at our home.

I greeted him in my pajamas and uncombed hair.  I had had just enough time to literally take all my stacks of papers and put them on another table and brush my teeth.  I didn't even have a full cup of coffee in me yet.

It took mere moments for him to go from being confused to looking around to realizing that our internet box had literally fallen off our house due to ice falling on it and the wires had literally burned.  In less than half an hour he had us up and running again.

Much later in the day, when my husband arrived home from plowing just in time for dinner, I made a dramatic sweeping motion with my arm and slight curtsy.  "Welcome to your home in daylight!" I declared.

He wrapped me in a hug and kissed me, telling me he was glad he was home.  Asking me if I was glad he had made money today on his day off.

And I shrug.

"Remember when we were broke?"

I nod.  I remember it all too well because it wasn't that long ago.  I remember emptying any place that I may have any cash at all just to put a little gas in the tank and food on the table.  I still feel the icy fingers of fear encircle me from time to time.

"This is better than broke, isn't it?" he asked me.  I nod and smile and am thankful a million times over for my hard working husband.

It all sort of puts a lot of things in perspective for me.

It was a bunch of minor things that were making me irritated.  Exhausted really.  Alicia texted me that morning saying that her electric was out (due to the snow taking out power lines), and here I just had my internet out.  And what if our house had burned like my friend with five kiddos whose house just burned and had stopped in to chat yesterday?

And my husband.  Who can complain about such a hard working man as he?  A man who loves us all so greatly? Yet sometimes I do.

Perspective people.  We need a new one once in awhile.

It doesn't change the fact that the boys are insane today and that I will have to bake cookies to bring peace back into our house.  Cookies solve everything minor, correct?

I hope so.

LEGOs in the Oven

Over here we are on Christmas break.  This means that I stay awake until one in the morning finishing the latest book I have been reading and then waking up to boys staring at me saying something like, "Can you make us waffles again this morning?" at a time in the morning that I wished they would be awake at for a school week but never are.

I am a wee bit tired this week.

But the waffles I have been making? Awesome!  Except that they call for egg whites and I don't have  hand mixer and have you ever tried to get stiff egg whites without a beater?

Don't try.

Mine are sloppy at best.

Which begs to wonder...how awesome would those waffles be if I made them with a hand mixer?

Pretty amazingly awesome, I think.

Because I am determined to tell you about the lego in the oven and did not look on amazon for a hand mixer.  That is dedication to a post, let me tell you.

S3 really wanted an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas.  They only make them in pink and while I had lots of suggestions of getting one and letting him decorate it with duct tape I just could see the duct tape melting and the smell and the mess and yuck.  So for Christmas I got him some baking mixes, measuring cups I am even jealous of, measuring spoons, spatula, spoon and an apron.

Then I promptly forgot to get a photo.

Further evidence I am sleepy.

Today he made up some sugar cookies from a box mix.  Because sugar cookies are a fine breakfast food on Christmas break when Mama won't make waffles.  In his joy at baking he dropped some legos he had been working on onto the table in the kitchen that we use as an island.  When he pulled the hot cookie sheet out of the oven and set it on the table, it landed right on the lego.

If a hot pan is put upon a lego, said lego will stick to it.

I do not recall seeing any WARNING ad on the Lego box about this so I thought I would inform you all of this danger.  I am just trying my best to keep you safe.

S3 slid the cookie sheet back into the oven with the still suck lego on it and as he went to shut the oven he said, "Um, Mama, there's a lego in the oven."

That has never happened before but now that I think back on it all, I wonder how it never has.

I immediately shut the oven off and stood there for a moment wondering what to do next.  Keep in mind I only had a half of cup of coffee in me...which makes me wonder how I ever ended up agreeing to baking cookies with him in the morning if all I had had to drink was half a cup of coffee.

I could see my near future ahead...all the baking and fixing of food I have yet to do for even more Christmas parties we have to attend and all of the food smelling of burnt plastic.  It wasn't a pretty picture.  Or a good smell.

And then I thought (and I know this will shock you all at my brilliance) "I know! Take it out of the oven!"

So I grabbed a pair of tongs (which the boys call thongs and one day that will not be funny but right now it still is) and pulled the still solid but very mushy blue lego out of the oven.

It slid from the tongs/thongs and fell to the kitchen floor in a melted mess.

But then it was quickly solid enough to just toss in the garbage.

There could have been lots of way to tell you this story.  I could have told you the garbage started on fire from the smoldering lego.  The lego burst into flames when I pulled it out of the oven.  Lots of drama.

But none of that happened.  S3 just put the cookies back in the oven, turned it on and we waited for the smell too good to just be box mix sugar cookies to finish baking.

Then all the boys went outside to snow board down our itty bitty hill on our light covering of snow so I blogged you this story.  With only one cup of coffee in my system.

Welcome to our Christmas break.