What do you know!!! Posting on back-to-back days! Whoa!!!
Today has been quite a roller coaster. I had every intention of having a great, "regular" day: breakfast, devotions, school, then some more unpacking and such. We made it through breakfast without a hitch, but that's about it! Ha! James headed to town early and wanted me to make some calls right away so he'd know what steps to take when he got back home. There were several situations we were dealing with, but the most trying was...
Hershey Dog. Again. ~sigh~ I love that dog. But he does make it difficult to make plans! Ha! I'm hoping we can make some friends here in the mountains, perhaps some who would enjoy poodle sitting from time to time when we travel. That would be sooooo nice. We haven't had time to make any such friends as yet, so we figured we'd just have to bite the bullet and actually board the dog somewhere while we're gone to Arizona this weekend. So I started making calls...
These crazy people want $97 to get him current on his shots and all that junk! Can you imagine?! It was, like, $30 in Texas!!! I was appalled. I become rather vocal when I'm appalled and the lady on the other end of the line was ever so patient as I informed her of how ludicrous those prices were. But what are we to do?! Nobody can board the dog unless he has current shots. So I sighed a deep, frustrated sigh and asked the next question: how much do you charge to board a small poodle? That crazy woman had the nerve to tell me $17 a day!!! Can you imagine?! I went a little bazerk at that. "You can't be serious... Are you serious?! No way!!! That's how much they charge to board BIG dogs back in Texas!" (At this point the poor lady was probably already tired of hearing about "back in Texas...") I then apologized and asked her to please not take any of my comments personally--I realize that these absurd prices aren't her fault, I'm just in shock. She said, "Oh, I'm just sitting here smiling to myself because... well, you haven't called very many kennels yet, have you?" Nope, this was the first one I called. She informed me that they are one of the cheapest in town and that many of the others charge $30 or $35 a night, plus food, plus play time (?!), plus... !!! For a DOG!!! Good grief, on a lucky night we can get a motel room for our entire family (AND THE DOG!) for $35!!! I only thought I was in shock before. "That's NUTS!!! Who in the world would pay that kind of money to board a dog?!" "They do it," she said. "Well, we don't!," I said. "This dog will just have to stay home alone or something--that's outrageous!" I left off any more "back in Texas" talk and thanked her for the information, preposterous as it was.
I tried to call James on the cell phone to tell him to buy a dog door TODAY because this dog is going to have to stay home while we're gone, but he didn't answer the phone. In the meantime, I called Mom to ask for the phone number of the place we'll be staying in Phoenix. It's a condo or suite or some such thing that we'll be sharing with Mom & Dad while we're there. Mom said she was sure they wouldn't allow pets (as if I didn't already know) and suggested I call Aunt Kay and ask if Hershey can stay at her house and play with Duke. "Mother!!! Are you crazy?! While they've got wedding madness going on and people coming out their ears??? There is no way I could possibly ask that!!! The last thing we need is for me to go ask some stupid thing like that and us lose what little family we have left because of it!!! ...But if I can't come up with any other plan... will you call and ask her???" Ha! I knew it was a waste of time to call the motel, but I dialed it anyway...
"Hello, my name is Rebekah Horne and we have reservations to stay at your motel this coming weekend. I already know the answer to this question--I mean, any place named 'The Lodge at Sun Ridge'--but I have to ask it anyway because I'm so terribly desperate... Is there any way possible that you would allow a cute, sweet little brown poodle to stay at your motel???" I clinched my teeth and waited for the rejection. I've never been able to handle rejection very well.
The voice on the other line said, "Sure."
"WHAT?! You will?!?!?!? Are you serious?!"
"Yeah, that'll be fine--just clean up after him outside, okay?"
"Are you for real??? Is there any kind of a pet fee or anything?"
"How 'bout $1 a day?"
"$1 a day?! Oh, you are the most wonderful man in the world!!! You have no idea! These crazy people want $97 for shots for the dog and $17 a night to board him--that's more than we paid for the dumb dog!!! Oh, you have noooooo idea how wonderful you are!!! What is your name?"
"John."
"John! I'm going to have to hug you when we get there--thank you sooooooooo much!!!!"
"No problem, Ma'am. All hugs accepted."
~SIGH~ Oh, the wave of relief!!! And it doesn't even bother me that good old John thinks I'M a crazy lady. He actually said since we'll only be there a few nights he wouldn't charge us anything at all for the dog. WHAT A BLESSING!!! A stupid little thing to a lot of folks, but when you're the one looking at paying $97, plus $17 4 or 5 times--it's a BIG BLESSING!!! I was sure to thank God a whole lot. And John. So now we'll have 7 people and a dog staying together in a room that was intended for 4 people. Fun, fun, fun! :-) The most important thing is that we'll not be paying anything extra for the dog AND we haven't severed any more family ties. Ha!
All of the above occupied the first hour of my day. Afterward we finally got into devotions, then headed straight into school. It was a total disaster. Oh my goodness--it was the worst day of school we've had in AGES! Sam did okay, but he only does school for a very short time, then goes off to play while the other finish up. Joe did alright today, but Katie was a wreck. She was just lazy and didn't want to do her work, so she spent forever one this one simple little page while Joe worked through all of his subjects and finished up. It's always a race between to two of them and they try to finish Reading Comprehension and move on the English before the other does, or whatever subject comes next. When Katie isn't winning (at ANYTHING) she falls apart. She gets soooooo frustrated and breaks down into tears and the whole "I'm no good at this" depression junk. Oooooh, I hate that!!! So then I break down and... Ha! I can usually work her through things and she can sort of cope and go on. Not today. I was ready to string her up. It went on for a couple of hours, during which the boys were rough and rowdy and noisy and my nerves were just shot. Things continued to spiral out of control and get worse and worse until I realized it was nearly 2:00 and nobody had eaten lunch yet. I threw some sandwiches on the table and told them to eat quick--they were going to bed! And that's exactly what we did: lunch and nap time. Unfortunately, nobody actually took a nap. Still, the quiet time was good for all of us and allowed me to get some more things done around the house.
Sadly, the quiet time didn't seem to improve anybody's attitudes or responses, so most of the rest of the day was unpleasant for all of us, too. ~Ugh~ I hate days like that!!! It was awful.
The good news is that I got two more boxes unpacked (Ha! Big deal!) and James brought home a new dishwasher for me! Wa-Hoo! I tried to use the other one a few days ago and the results were nothing short of grotesque, as was the case with every other appliance in this house. We spent the afternoon working on getting the new dishwasher installed and making sure we didn't have any leaks or anything. I think everything is working great and I'm sooooo happy! I now have a nice, clean, white dishwasher--that actually works! It's a really, really nice one, too. :-) What a good husband I have!
Unfortunately, the kids continued their streak of badness (I wonder if they're in some sort of secret competition?) while we were working and then BOTH parents were at wit's end by the time we finished with the kitchen project. I cooked some Totino's in the toaster oven (my stove should be coming in tomorrow!), fed the little rats, then we had family devotions and put them to bed at 8:00 tonight! We had a good prayer and I played some nice, soothing instrumental worship music while they went to sleep. I'm hoping the prayer and music helped us all! Ha! I'm trusting we'll have a much better day tomorrow. But on the bright side... Hershey isn't going to cost us an arm and a leg this weekend!!! :-)
That's the extent of our day. Seems like there was something else that happened, but all I can think of are the dog, the bad kids, and the dishwasher. I know I'm wiped out. Going to call it a night. Maybe a good night's sleep will help us all, too! Time will tell!!!
~Becki~
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