I guess I should preface this by saying that obviously my family has been to the city many times, but anytime you spend a couple of days in the city when that isn’t your natural "habitat" it’s kind of a shock to the system.
Yesterday afternoon, Keith was called into the boss’ office and told that he needed to attend a training in Houston. Oh, and that training? It’s tomorrow. Yeah, so we had about 3 hours to find a hotel, book a room, pack our stuff (including all things necessary for a 2 year old!), and head out of town before the training started the next morning at 8:00am. Of course the above list all fell on me because Keith was supposed to continue working until 5:00 and didn’t have time to book a hotel room, much less come home and help with the packing. I’m also one of those weirdos who really doesn’t want to leave the house in a mess. Obviously cleaning was not on the top of my agenda, when I also had to do a load of laundry before I could even pack considering that, hello, clothes will be needed in Houston, it is not a nudist colony as far as I’m aware. (Not that I would ever go to a nudist colony, I would wear dirty clothes before going anywhere naked, just to clear that up.)
So, bags were packed, toys were gathered, snacks were rounded up, and the SUV was loaded down. By the time Keith got home from work, I was basically ready. I attempted to clean as best as I could in approximately 15 minutes, you just never know when someone is going to break into your house, either for legitimate reasons (ie your house is on fire) or illegitimate reasons (ie I need a snack and want to break into your house for a bite-this actually has happened in our neighborhood by the way-thankfully only one time that I know of). I wanted my house to be clean for these would-be snack thieves so they didn’t run off and tell the rest of the thugs in our area that our house is a disaster and we would never notice if someone broke in and stole a few things.
We left the house right at supper time, without having actually eaten supper, so we stopped on our way out of town for a burger. Then we had to stop at Walmart because we obviously didn’t have all the snacks on hand that would be required for keeping the 2 year old entertained for an entire day in a hotel room. We didn’t get to the hotel until 11:00 last night and we were all exhausted. We’re staying in a Residence Inn by Marriott. I’ve never stayed in one before, but I really like it. The room is a mini-suite with a queen sized bed and a small hide-a-bed in an L-shaped sofa. We also have a refrigerator, microwave, stove and dishwasher! The cabinets are even fully stocked with pots, pans, plates, etc. Obviously I didn’t bring stuff to actually cook with, but I found it interesting that we have that option. We could have even given the hotel a grocery list ahead of time and they would have stocked the fridge! Pretty sweet. So we got checked into the hotel last night and basically crashed in bed. You would think that I would have slept like a log, but I was fortunate enough to see every hour on the clock last night. I’m not sure what my problem was (besides all the traffic noise that I’m not used to), so tonight I will definitely be knocking back a few Tylenol PM. Thankfully Garrett slept well on the hide-a-bed, and even though he was up at 6:00 this morning, he was in a good mood.
Another cool thing about this hotel is that they have a full, hot breakfast buffet every morning, for FREE! It was so yummy. You could make your own waffles or muffins (we didn’t, you’re on borrowed time with a toddler). We dished up the scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, sausage, fruit, etc. We rarely eat breakfast like this and I love breakfast food, so it was great. Garrett ate a banana and said he was done. I’m sure the business men in the eating area loved his screeching and shouting out letters that he saw on various signs (e-x-i-t, that’s right, mom, that’s right!). I have yet to see another person younger than myself, let alone Garrett’s age. We are obviously here with the business crowd. After breakfast, Keith headed off to his class (I actually haven’t seen him since 7:30 this morning, so hopefully his day is going well, I just heard several cops and firetrucks going by so I’m in hopes that they aren’t headed to the building where he is). Garrett and I came back up to our room. We watched a few cartoons and then I turned a movie on the laptop for him to watch so that I could catch "Poseidon" on one of the movie channels. I’ve seen that movie before and really liked it so I watched it again. And again I cried when Kurt Russell dies, I don’t even like him, but it just makes me sad.
Once the movie was over, and I had dried all my tears, Garrett and I headed out of the hotel. (One slightly humorous story, while Garrett and I were waiting on the elevator, there was a man in a suit also standing there. He got on with us and I noticed that he was taking tags off of a tie. He looked up at me and said "You know, a tie and a belt are usually nice things to wear with a suit. I had to run to the store to buy them. You would think that I never travel on business. I’m just going to blame it on my wife." I told him I was sure she would love to hear him say that and then we laughed and that was it. I felt kinda sorry for him because I’m sure that was a big pain in the butt to have to track down a tie and belt that you really don’t need just because you forgot to pack them.)
Back to topic, I know downtown of pretty much any city isn’t particularly safe, but I was willing to risk it for 2 reasons. 1) Houston PD’s headquarters is right across the street from our hotel. 2) Any criminal who actually wants to mess with a 2 year old is insane and deserves the 20 bucks that they would get out of me. I made sure to have just a little bit of money in my pocket for lunch and didn’t carry my purse, Garrett held tightly to my hand and we took off. At first we just walked around the block of our hotel, then I saw Macy’s and headed there to do some walking. I figure it’s safer than being outside. Garrett loved the escalator and seeing that this Macy’s has 5 levels, he got to ride it a lot. After wasting some time in there we headed to a McDonald’s that I had seen about a block from our hotel. It was apparent that we led the lunch crowd because it got crowded really fast. Surprisingly Garrett stuck with me really well. There was no way I could hold his hand, much less hold his entire body, when I had my arms full with 2 drinks and our food. We found a booth and ate our food, right before we left a man approached me and started to say something, but then a McDonald’s employee immediately stopped him and told him to get out and stop harassing their customers or she would call the police. I’m guessing he was a pan-handler, though he looked fairly clean and had on decent clothing, which is more than I can say for the guy sitting in the booth behind us, he stunk like a landfill and looked like one too.
We headed back to the hotel and watched "Calliou" one of Garrett’s favorites and one of my least favorites and then I told Garrett it was time for a nap. We did our usual naptime routine and then he and I lay down on the bed. He immediately wants to test my limits to see how serious I am about this nap business. After one threat of a spanking, he was asleep in 10 minutes. I knew he was tired. I slept for maybe 20 minutes, but then quietly eased myself off the bed and hopped on the computer while he slept. Two hours later he was awake and I asked him if he wanted to go to the pool (the high today was 80 degrees!). He was very excited about going to swim (I have no idea how he knew that going to the pool=swimming, but he did). We both got into our swim clothes and headed to the pool. First of all, it was outdoors, second, it wasn’t heated. So even though it’s 80 degrees, the water was more like 50 or colder. We sat on the side and dangled our feet in the water. Then we went to the hot tub. I really thought the water would be too hot for Garrett, but he hopped right in and loved it. I wouldn’t let him go any further than the second step, but at one point he fell in because he was pretending to jump and forgot to tell his feet that it was just pretend. I, of course, was right there the whole time and we got out with promises of popcorn and candy back in our room. (One of the purchases that I made at Walmart was a set of "water wings" for Garrett to use in the pool. Of course those were forgotten when we headed to the pool which is 3 floors away from our own.) After washing off the chlorine, Garrett has been enjoying more cartoons along with unlimited play-dough time (something that is used very sparingly in our house). He’s had more snacks in the past hour than he typically has in several days at home. I figure this is a mini-vacation so some of the rules can be temporarily disregarded. We’ll see if he eats anything of substance for supper tonight.
So now we sit and wait for Keith to get back in a couple of hours and then we’ll figure out where we’re going to eat. Unfortunately the only food places close to our hotel are fast food, which doesn’t really sound appealing. But our car is in valet parking which is always a pain to get, so I’m not sure what we’ll do for supper. I guess we’ll wait and see what Keith’s plans are. In the mean time I’m enjoying a change of pace as well as seeing how different things are depending on your surroundings. I can’t imagine living in a downtown apartment with no backyard to take your child so they can run off their excess energy, however you do have the option of walking the sidewalks in those cases. I’m thinking that I prefer the relative calmness and solitude of the backyard versus being accosted by pan-handlers and wondering who that person is that continues to walk closely behind you. I would definitely practice the "right to bear arms" if I lived in the city.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Random The Easter Edition
~Hunting Easter eggs is very funny with a 2 year old. He has trouble finding his sippy cups, so searching for eggs was on the difficult side, even when they were hidden in plain view!
~After the egg hunt, Keith and I enjoyed a good laugh at Garrett’s inability to find things. About 10 minutes after said laugh, Keith comes in the living room and asks me "where’s my cell phone?" I wonder where Garrett gets it?
~Garrett has spontaneously decided that having his hair cut isn’t something worth screaming about (I wish this decision had been made a year ago). I gave him a haircut last night and he cooperated as best as a 2 year old can, and even said his reflection in the mirror looked "cuuuute!"
~Being told on Easter morning that you look "purty" by your 2 year old is the ultimate compliment. When it is then followed by an attempt to take a bite out of your necklace because he assumes it’s of the candy variety, it makes me wonder what exactly was purty, me, or the possibility that my necklace was made out of sugar.
~In other news, my mom turned 50 on Friday. I just had to share that on here. We love you Momma and wish we could have been there to celebrate! Garrett still sings "Happy Birthday to Nana" every day.
~I cannot believe that it’s almost April! This year is just flying by. I can’t wait for May so we can go to Indiana to see my family!
~I went to a store last Friday because I knew they were having a big sale and wanted to take advantage of it, if possible. I arrived approximately one hour after the store opened for the day. After making my selections, I walked up to the register and got in line. As soon as it was my turn to check out, an employee walks up to the cashier and tells her to shut it down so they can update their system. She turns to me and tells me it will only take "4" minutes. It’s very obvious that I have a 2 year old strapped into the stroller attached to my hands. Who makes the decision to shut off the register BEFORE checking out the mom of a toddler? After waiting there for 10 minutes (and listening to Garrett hollar "I wanna go home!" approximately 100 times), I told the cashier to forget it and walked out of the store, followed by 3 other customers. They should have taken care of that before opening that morning.
~Lost is the best show ever, seriously. If you have never watched an episode you should consider going to abc.com and start watching one here and there, starting at the beginning. I fully stand by the statement that you will LOVE this show. If you don’t want to look for the little hidden clues and read all the websites where everyone speculates as to what’s going on, you don’t have to and you’ll love the show just as much as I do. I have to say that when Rousseau died at the end of last week’s episode, I was sad. She’s been a good character who we haven’t seen much of. However, I was very happy that Claire and Jin lived to see another day. I’m assuming that they will eventually go the Rousseau route considering what we’ve seen in the flash forwards, but I hope that I’m wrong. I am not happy that we have to wait until April 24 for the next episode!! Darn you writers and your silly strike!
~I am back on another reading binge and I seriously need to stop. My mother-in-law isn’t helping me any. She brings me Walmart bags full of books that she gets through some sort of book exchange that she participates in. Our bookshelf is overflowing with books and Keith only has one shelf of Accounting books. He does not understand my reading addiction, but I don’t understand his desire to look up trucks and tractors on the internet, so I say we just call a truce and stop making fun of each other.
~We have decided we’re going to become pet owners. Yup, we’re headed to the pet store sometime this week to take the plunge. The only thing we can’t decide on is do we buy one or two goldfish? No, we’re not getting a dog or a cat or a bird, honestly I don’t have much of a desire to ever own any animal that is capable of making noise or has any sort of fur. Keith is in full agreement, but Garrett loves the fish in the aquarium in our church’s nursery so we’ve decided to get a bowl with a couple of them and let him enjoy watching them swim around. I’m sure atleast one of them will be named Nemo. Or he might step out a little and call them Buzz and Woody. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.
~After the egg hunt, Keith and I enjoyed a good laugh at Garrett’s inability to find things. About 10 minutes after said laugh, Keith comes in the living room and asks me "where’s my cell phone?" I wonder where Garrett gets it?
~Garrett has spontaneously decided that having his hair cut isn’t something worth screaming about (I wish this decision had been made a year ago). I gave him a haircut last night and he cooperated as best as a 2 year old can, and even said his reflection in the mirror looked "cuuuute!"
~Being told on Easter morning that you look "purty" by your 2 year old is the ultimate compliment. When it is then followed by an attempt to take a bite out of your necklace because he assumes it’s of the candy variety, it makes me wonder what exactly was purty, me, or the possibility that my necklace was made out of sugar.
~In other news, my mom turned 50 on Friday. I just had to share that on here. We love you Momma and wish we could have been there to celebrate! Garrett still sings "Happy Birthday to Nana" every day.
~I cannot believe that it’s almost April! This year is just flying by. I can’t wait for May so we can go to Indiana to see my family!
~I went to a store last Friday because I knew they were having a big sale and wanted to take advantage of it, if possible. I arrived approximately one hour after the store opened for the day. After making my selections, I walked up to the register and got in line. As soon as it was my turn to check out, an employee walks up to the cashier and tells her to shut it down so they can update their system. She turns to me and tells me it will only take "4" minutes. It’s very obvious that I have a 2 year old strapped into the stroller attached to my hands. Who makes the decision to shut off the register BEFORE checking out the mom of a toddler? After waiting there for 10 minutes (and listening to Garrett hollar "I wanna go home!" approximately 100 times), I told the cashier to forget it and walked out of the store, followed by 3 other customers. They should have taken care of that before opening that morning.
~Lost is the best show ever, seriously. If you have never watched an episode you should consider going to abc.com and start watching one here and there, starting at the beginning. I fully stand by the statement that you will LOVE this show. If you don’t want to look for the little hidden clues and read all the websites where everyone speculates as to what’s going on, you don’t have to and you’ll love the show just as much as I do. I have to say that when Rousseau died at the end of last week’s episode, I was sad. She’s been a good character who we haven’t seen much of. However, I was very happy that Claire and Jin lived to see another day. I’m assuming that they will eventually go the Rousseau route considering what we’ve seen in the flash forwards, but I hope that I’m wrong. I am not happy that we have to wait until April 24 for the next episode!! Darn you writers and your silly strike!
~I am back on another reading binge and I seriously need to stop. My mother-in-law isn’t helping me any. She brings me Walmart bags full of books that she gets through some sort of book exchange that she participates in. Our bookshelf is overflowing with books and Keith only has one shelf of Accounting books. He does not understand my reading addiction, but I don’t understand his desire to look up trucks and tractors on the internet, so I say we just call a truce and stop making fun of each other.
~We have decided we’re going to become pet owners. Yup, we’re headed to the pet store sometime this week to take the plunge. The only thing we can’t decide on is do we buy one or two goldfish? No, we’re not getting a dog or a cat or a bird, honestly I don’t have much of a desire to ever own any animal that is capable of making noise or has any sort of fur. Keith is in full agreement, but Garrett loves the fish in the aquarium in our church’s nursery so we’ve decided to get a bowl with a couple of them and let him enjoy watching them swim around. I’m sure atleast one of them will be named Nemo. Or he might step out a little and call them Buzz and Woody. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Shower Woes
Wow, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged, that’s gotta be a record for me. You’d think that having a 2 and a half year old (a BOY, at that) would afford lots of blogging material, but lately things have been pretty calm, so I’m thankful.
The most exciting (well, more likely frustrating and expensive) thing that has happened lately is that we’ve discovered a leak in our shower. The master bath’s shower is tiled with ceramic tile and over the past 5 years that we’ve lived here, we’ve had a few issues with the grout cracking and finding water that has seeped it’s way under the shower and into our bathroom. As soon as it was discovered, we would seal up the crack and everything would be fine. Until this weekend.
Keith was on a cleaning spree (he does that sometimes, so do I, but never at the same time for some reason) and was scrubbing down our bathroom. I have to admit that I haven’t mopped in there in a while, and the last time that I did mop in there, I don’t think I moved the bathmats. Well, Keith moved the bathmats and discovered under the one by our shower, that a tile on the floor had cracked. After doing some investigating he realized that water from the shower had been seeping out again, but this time it was going under our floor tile instead of on top like last time. So, long story short, we have about 4 or 5 tiles in that area of our bathroom that are loose and "squishy" sounding, the baseboard that runs along the wall separating the shower from our bathroom cabinet looks a little questionable, parts of the sheetrock are "mushy" and the cabinet itself has a water line going up about 2 inches from the floor on one side.
I’m sure some of you are wondering how we managed to miss seeing all of this until this point, and trust me, we’re wondering the same thing! I will say that the cabinet has been stuffed full of my things (mostly an overwhelming supply of lotion and shower gel that I was given over my 4 years of teaching that haven’t ever been used), so all of this stuff was hiding the water marks on the wall. We now have the cabinet opened and empty, the bathmats have been washed and moved temporarily, and the shower hasn’t been used since Sunday. We’re still up in the air as to exactly how we’re going to fix this. We go from one extreme (paying several thousands of dollars to completely redo that bathroom, mostly because we’re tired of having this issue with that shower and if we’re going to redo the shower we have to, at the very least, redo the rest of the bathroom tile because currently the floor and the shower have the same tile) to the other (let everything dry out, seal up all the cracks and the grout in the shower and just keep a closer eye on things). I will say that the first extreme is a tough one right now. For heavens sake, we just spent a good bulk of our savings on a new TV and everything that goes with it! We should have known something like this would come up, that’s how it goes, right?
For now we’re in limbo as to what will happen with our shower, but I will say this, I miss using that bathroom! It’s hard going back to a standard sized shower after the majority of my showers over the past 5 years, have been taken in a nice, big shower with a glass door. I’ve gone from having plenty of room, to tripping over Garrett’s bathtoys as I try to be sure and keep the shower curtain where it belongs so water doesn’t go everywhere. And while Keith is showering in there, he’s contemplating all the ways to redo THAT bathroom too. I’m scared to think of what our bathroom future holds for us.
Let’s just hope we don’t have to set up a port-a-potty in the backyard.
The most exciting (well, more likely frustrating and expensive) thing that has happened lately is that we’ve discovered a leak in our shower. The master bath’s shower is tiled with ceramic tile and over the past 5 years that we’ve lived here, we’ve had a few issues with the grout cracking and finding water that has seeped it’s way under the shower and into our bathroom. As soon as it was discovered, we would seal up the crack and everything would be fine. Until this weekend.
Keith was on a cleaning spree (he does that sometimes, so do I, but never at the same time for some reason) and was scrubbing down our bathroom. I have to admit that I haven’t mopped in there in a while, and the last time that I did mop in there, I don’t think I moved the bathmats. Well, Keith moved the bathmats and discovered under the one by our shower, that a tile on the floor had cracked. After doing some investigating he realized that water from the shower had been seeping out again, but this time it was going under our floor tile instead of on top like last time. So, long story short, we have about 4 or 5 tiles in that area of our bathroom that are loose and "squishy" sounding, the baseboard that runs along the wall separating the shower from our bathroom cabinet looks a little questionable, parts of the sheetrock are "mushy" and the cabinet itself has a water line going up about 2 inches from the floor on one side.
I’m sure some of you are wondering how we managed to miss seeing all of this until this point, and trust me, we’re wondering the same thing! I will say that the cabinet has been stuffed full of my things (mostly an overwhelming supply of lotion and shower gel that I was given over my 4 years of teaching that haven’t ever been used), so all of this stuff was hiding the water marks on the wall. We now have the cabinet opened and empty, the bathmats have been washed and moved temporarily, and the shower hasn’t been used since Sunday. We’re still up in the air as to exactly how we’re going to fix this. We go from one extreme (paying several thousands of dollars to completely redo that bathroom, mostly because we’re tired of having this issue with that shower and if we’re going to redo the shower we have to, at the very least, redo the rest of the bathroom tile because currently the floor and the shower have the same tile) to the other (let everything dry out, seal up all the cracks and the grout in the shower and just keep a closer eye on things). I will say that the first extreme is a tough one right now. For heavens sake, we just spent a good bulk of our savings on a new TV and everything that goes with it! We should have known something like this would come up, that’s how it goes, right?
For now we’re in limbo as to what will happen with our shower, but I will say this, I miss using that bathroom! It’s hard going back to a standard sized shower after the majority of my showers over the past 5 years, have been taken in a nice, big shower with a glass door. I’ve gone from having plenty of room, to tripping over Garrett’s bathtoys as I try to be sure and keep the shower curtain where it belongs so water doesn’t go everywhere. And while Keith is showering in there, he’s contemplating all the ways to redo THAT bathroom too. I’m scared to think of what our bathroom future holds for us.
Let’s just hope we don’t have to set up a port-a-potty in the backyard.
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