Extra Sensory Annoyance Detectors

**Warning ** Extra long, extremely whiny post**

So I had a bad week last week and I thought maybe if I wrote it all down, I could see some humor in it and have a better week this week. But before I get started on my week, I thought I would preface with an email that one of my friends sent me this week:

UCLA STUDY (VERY INTERESTING & SHORT)

A study worth sharing with friends both male and female: A study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle. For example: If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is menstruating, or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth and a spear lodged in his chest while he is on fire.

No further studies are expected.

Oh I laughed and laughed over that one....

Last week I seemed to have super human extra sensory powers (maybe from the mine-mutated mosquitoes in Soda Springs?) for detecting all the really annoying things around me. Here I'll share a few:



My alarm clock. Actually this is Rik's alarm clock which he got before he went on his mission, so it's 19 years old. I should just replace the thing, since it's old, ugly, and has a mean streak, but you know how I am with wasting things. Right now I have two couches in my house. One we picked up used to match our emerald green carpet that was in our last house (does that give you any idea how lovely that couch is?) Anyway, I found a slip cover on sale for a really good price, and used one of those 20% off coupons with it and with some upholstery nails and staples, covered the emerald green and pink with brown. But it still has to be tucked and have no one ever sitting on it for it to look good. But as long as it is still functioning I just can't replace it. I think it is going to have to spontaneously start on fire before I ever get it replaced! The other couch is downstairs, and was a nice couch, but to move it out of our last house we had to saw off one third of it. But Rik did a nice job sawing it in two, and so we still own it and use it... because well, it still works and I just have a hard time wasting anything. I also have a kitchen table that seats 4.... with a family of 7.... but we just keep making due, because there is nothing really wrong with the table... and I don't want to waste it! One of my piano kids brought me a ginormous zucchini (the thing is nearly 2 feet long....) and I am already feeling all stressed trying to figure out how to use all that zucchini, because I don't want to waste it! Well sheesh, that was a little off topic, what was I talking about?! Oh yeah, my gripe with my dumb old alarm clock. In it's day it was probably awesome. It has the dual alarms and a cassette player, and for setting the time it has a "slow" button that goes up or down and a "fast" button that goes up or down, which is pretty handy.... if it worked properly. Right now those buttons aren't working very well. If you want to know the truth, I think the clock has got it out for me. Let's say I want to set my alarm for 7:10 (which is what time I get up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays). I push the buttons trying to get to 7:10 and end up at 8:36, so I push the down button and get 6:42, then I push up just a little tiny bit and get 11:50, so then I push the down button and get 9:02 and 25 minutes later I finally get 7:02, I figure that's as good as it's going to get. It would be ok if I could just leave it at that, but I have to get up at 6:30 on Tuesdays and Thursday because of early morning piano lessons. So I have to deal with the alarm clock every night. Last week I seemed especially bothered by the clock and felt the need to throw it across the room, but didn't because that would be wasteful. So I was all conflicted inside. And had bad sleep. Which didn't help my mood.

The weather has cooled down a lot lately so the spiders are taking refuge in the house now. So the other day I went downstairs to do some laundry (which is a gripe all in itself.... Malia and Kayden are going though double the clothes with their sports. Malia has a favorite pair of volleyball spankies, and she swears she plays better with them than her other pair, which means that they have to be washed and dried every night.... but again, that's off topic....) anyway, I picked up a load to put in the washer and this huge spider went scurrying out from under my pile. Normally the spiders head off to find another hiding space, but this one went a foot or so down the hall from me, so it could get a better look at me, decided it could take me down, got all aggressive, and I was forced to smash it with a 2x4. Between the spiders, the never ending supply of wasps in the backyard, and the flies that have free rain of the house because my kids can't close a door (and my heightened sense of being bugged...hehe...no pun intended...)... well, it just added to my bad week.

Malia and Kayden get home from school between 5:30 and 6:30 everyday (and they come home STARVING... so I have to have dinner done and waiting for them, or else they might die... like one night I was making eggs, sausage and hash browns for dinner, and everything was done except the sausage needed another few minutes... but Kayden came home STARVING, and couldn't wait three minutes for the sausage... so he had to make a pot pie in the microwave to hold him over until dinner was ready 5 minutes later!) Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh ya, by the time they get home and eat dinner they have limited time to get everything else done before I need the house settling down and getting ready for bed. Malia has to get her piano practiced and Kayden seems to need some downtime every day or else he gets really grumpy (I mean more grumpy than his normal 14 year old self). He likes to wind down playing Rockband. So every night there is this really loud battle of the bands of sorts. Malia is playing the piano as loudly as she possibly can, and Kayden has Rockband full blast through the TV. Until the basement gets done (another gripe for another blog) my front room is my piano room, my family room and my toy room. Malia actually practices longer just to bug Kayden, and is getting to be such a good piano player, at least as far as I can hear, because I think I might be getting deaf in one ear.... and thank heavens for that! Between this and the nightly alarm clock procedure... I just about go crazy!

I don't generally volunteer for very much, but if you come and tell me you need some help I automatically say "Sure! I can do that!" You could ask me if I could do a trumpet solo, and I would so "Sure, I'd love to!" and my brain would be screaming "You idiot... you don't even know how to play the trumpet... don't own a trumpet... and don't have time to practice!! What are you doing!!!!" And then I would spend all sorts of time that I don't have watching YouTube videos learning how to play the trumpet, I would rent one, and sure enough I would play some hideous trumpet solo. All because of this personality disorder I have. So the last two years I have helped with our school's carnival. I am in charge of the food. All the food. And there is major food. I have to write the letters to have the food donated, collect a fleet of vehicles to pick of the food, and then live in the kitchen until the carnival is over. Our school does lots of food.... pizza, BBQ beef, hot dogs, chili, caramel apples, nachos, cotton candy (500 bags that we make the night before... all night long...), tator tots and everything else. This year I decided that I didn't think I could handle being in charge of the food. I could probably help out in the kitchen, but I just didn't think I had the time for being in charge. So the carnival lady that is in charge of the whole thing, stopped by and I had every intention of telling her that I couldn't do it.... until she showed up with her twin toddler girls, very pregnant. This was clearly the wrong person to talk to about having too much on my plate. So the carnival is this Friday. I pick up the food on Thursday so we can start slow roasting all 35 roasts for the BBQ beef. I wonder if there is some kind of pill I can take to fix my "can't say no" thing.


So by Saturday I thought maybe if I spent some time outside in the yard, my mood might improve. Rik and Kayden were canoeing and kayaking with the young men in our ward (they had so much fun.... Rik was the first one to fall in the water... and those were the first words out of Kayden's mouth when they got home). When we went to Soda over Labor Day weekend Rik stole a nice big rock from his mom's land (this is the 4th time he stole rocks from their land.... I think he has a problem). Anyway, the rock has been sitting in the back of my van ever since then. I have been waiting for him to move the rock by the tree that I planted (well I mostly planted.... My dad had an extra tree, and brought it over to my house, so thought I would plant it in my front yard. I removed the grass and started digging, but couldn't get my shovel in the ground even an inch. So I went and picked up a pick ax from my dad to hopefully loosen the ground a little. I was hacking away (not making very much progress with the hole... but making some pretty impressive sparks hitting the rocks in the hole!) when some nice just barely graduated boy stopped by asked if I needed some help, and when I said I was fine, he said he'd get me started (which I thought I had started... there were a few little holes...), and then proceeded to dig the whole hole for me! How nice was that!) Anyway..... I was wanting to plant some tulip bulbs around the tree, but wanted to wait for Rik to move the rock over so that I didn't plant tulips under the rock... but he has been so swamped lately! So I decided I would move the rock over myself. I got the wheelbarrow (which was still full of the rocks and grass from planting the tree), slid the rock to the edge of the van, carefully balanced one leg over the opposite side of the wheelbarrow, so it didn't tip over when I slid the rock in and tried to move the rock... which was hard because well, it's a big, heavy rock. I finally managed to get the rock into the wheelbarrow, pushed the whole thing over to the tree, tried to gauge where to park so that I didn't hit the nice tree with the rock, wrapped my leg around the opposite side of the wheelbarrow again, so that it wouldn't tip, and flipped the rock onto the ground (and missed the tree...phew!) When I flipped it though, it ended upside down, which at that point I was ready to leave it that way, but the whole reason Rik likes these rocks so much is because of the pretty mosses that grow on the top (or bottom in my case), so I got down on my knees and flipped the rock over, got it in the right place, adjusted all the dirt and bark around it, and decided it looked pretty good. Right then the missionaries walked by and asked if I needed any help. I just smiled and said I didn't think so (because duh.... all the work was done.....) Then I got all my bulbs planted and weeded my other flower gardens and was pretty happy with how the yard looked by the end of the day... and I didn't throw my back out....bonus!


I'm feeling a little better about things now. The marker came out of my bed spread (not the chap stick though.... but at least it was a nice plum color.... so it blends in and is hardly noticeable), the yard is looking good, I finished my expository for honors life science... I mean Kayden finished...whatever, I think I got the toilet to stop spewing water out of the tank, the carnival will be over this week, our first practice for the primary sacrament program went off without a hitch and I found out that someone in the bishopric has a crush on me! There's nothing better than that. Also, it seems my super human extrasensory annoyance detectors have vanished. Good thing for that! I am a little stressed about that zucchini though.....