Now what?

Plumbing is fixed. Annabelle is over the tummy bug. Bill and I went away for the first time (Ojai Valley Inn in Ojai, CA, approx. 75 miles north of LA). It was dreamy. Soooo dreamy.

Back to reality. The queasiness I couldn't shake Sun. morning turned out to be the stomach flu. Water is leaking from the washer.

Alex from Foster's Appliance came to check the washer. Some critter chewed the hose. Alex said, "You will need new hose. Insurance no cover."

I had to take a bag full of wet laundry to my new buddies at SilverGlen Cleaners. Other laundry continues to pile up.

Now, the dryer is not working. What???

Adventures in Mopping and other Household Fun

I learned to mop today. For 30 years, I have managed to completely avoid the task. Sure, I have done my share of swiffering and dusting. Just not mopping. Bill was puzzled that I could elude such a thing in our almost eight yrs. of marriage. And he almost choked on his lunch when I asked him if I needed a bucket.

Why did I have to mop today? Because we had brown water / sewage coming up in our shower, of course. Our plumbing got backed up. Bill, who gets an "A" for effort, looked up online how to unclog pipes. He went to Home Depot this morning at 6:30 am to purchase a snake. He worked for a couple of hours. No dice.


Ahmad from Roto Rooter to the rescue. Had to leave to get his supervisor, which is never a good sign. We have a root growing in our pipes. Ahmad and co. took a nifty video, which I got to keep as a lovely souvenir for my day of muck, of our pipes so I could see the root. This will be an ongoing problem. We have to put root killer down the trap and will probably have to use the "Jetter Special" package from Roto every 6 months or so to clean out the root.

I am proud of my first mopping job. That is until Annabelle throws up on the dining room floor a few hours later. Figures. That's what I get for all those times I made Bill mop.

Uncle Jon's Visit

Bill's youngest brother, Jon, made the trip from NYC to visit his niece. Annabelle loved meeting her uncle and kept him entertained with her dancing and tossing her toys everywhere. Jon receives the prestigious honor of being the first of the 3 uncles to babysit Annabelle. He successfully completed his mission, even conducting one of his first diaper changes on a very mobile baby (not to mention one who likes to crawl even faster with her bare bum exposed requiring one to chase and hold her down to diaper her....sometimes I think a lasso would be nice).

Annabelle @ 10 months

Oh Blog, I've missed you, my old friend.

Finally, after a month of living amongst boxes, no Internet access and constant traveling (thus the reason for the lack of blogging), I am happy to report that we are finally back in LA, living in a new house and the good people at Time Warner have us up and running here (actually, it should be the "bad people" since our technician left without making sure that the Internet works. Grrrrrrrr. But a nice "level 2" customer service rep just fixed all of our problems after being on hold for about an hour). And now that I am drinking my Earl Grey tea and eating a handful of delightfully buttery cookies (which actually won "Best Cookie in 2004"), I'm setting down to blog.....or maybe not....since I hear some shrieking down the hall from Miss Annabelle who is waking up for her subpar afternoon nap (or napping for less than 1 hour, which will lead to a surge of grumpiness between 4:00 & 5:00). Now that I am a parent, it is all about the napping - scheduling naps, scheduling activities around naps, running home so the baby can nap, pulling my hair out when the baby won't nap, driving around aimlessly so she can finish her nap, etc. I'll even admit that Bill and I have had nap strategizing sessions. Ahhh, the baby is now napping again and it's time to go watch Oprah.

Ben & Bonny-Kate's Wedding

It's been almost 2 weeks since my brother's wedding in Dallas, and life is slowly getting back to normal. And slowly, I will get pictures posted from the joyous occasion.


For now, here is a link to a cool slideshow that will give you a snapshot of how the wedding went - http://www.edmonsonweddings.com/v2/weddings/Bonny-Kate-Ben-Ralston/Slideshow/index.html

And a link to a gizillion more photos (Bootsie, this one is for you!)
http://www.pictage.com/event.jsp?event_id=266806&branding=yes