This is really seriously starting to get old, but I’m hoping the lack of water this week will actually help us in the long run.  Maybe we’ll stop getting those $35 unexplainable water bills?  We’ve checked everything here, and there’s absolutely no way we’re using that much water.

Our normal bill would range between $16-20, but in the last year it’s skyrocketed with no explanation, well except for the fact the lame water company DOES NOT check our meter like they’re supposed to.  They *guestimate* a random number that they think is right, but we do keep up with our own meter for this reason.  Our billing period *should* run from the 1st-1st, butmost of the time it doesn’t.  Some months it’s 20 days while others it’s 45, so Hubby checks the number on the meter and writes it down every single night.

Of course it does no good because the bill always says something way different, and the water people claim we have no proof our number is correct.  I may just have to start taking photos of the meter each evening at the same time with the daily newspaper showing the date.  Lord knows if I use the timestamp on my camera they’ll claim I changed the date or something.  I already take a photo every single time I pay my bill because I got tired of them claiming we weren’t paying it.  Now I have photographic proof.

Anywho it’s not just us.  Everyone on our road has been complaining about extremely high water bills lately, but city water claims there have been no rate increases.  My grandparent’s bill this month was for over $50 and ours was $35.  As for my Grandparent’s bill, there is absolutely no explanation for the $50 bill.  The last time they got a high bill like that we discovered their meter wasn’t being read because it was buried under tree roots!

It seems we’re not the only ones who have been dealing with our water getting shut off after paying our bill either.  One of our neighbors was ranting a few days ago about his getting cut off two months in a row, and both times he spent days arguing with the incompetent people at city hall (where we pay our bill).  They were still trying to claim he had to pay the reconnect fee because he didn’t pay when he had photocopies from the bank of the checks he’d paid with.  I swear there must be a maximum IQ level in order to be hired for a job in the water dept up there.

Anywho, I wasn’t really meaning to turn this post into a rant, but it looks like it happened that way anyway.  I can’t help it.  Those people just piss me off!

I decided I was going to straighten the bedroom up before going to bed so I don’t have to do it in the morning.  One thing led to another, and I found myself cleaning the bathroom.  Then I thought what the heck I might as well go ahead and put away all the laundry that’ll be in my way in the morning.  After all I needed to spend the morning adding price tags to clothes for the yard sale (thank you MIL for the awesome tagging gun thing!), and that led to me pricing all the clothing tonight.

It’s like i got my umpteenth wind today and just really needed to get this stuff done tonight!  Seriously, am I nesting already?

Speaking of nesting, the doctor’s appointment was fine today.  The munchkin is still tucked safe and sound low in my uterus…so low in fact the doctor had a hard time finding the heartbeat.  Munchkin was hiding below my pelvic bone.

As usual the heart rate was about 153.  Yeah, yeah it’s a “girl heart rate”.  Shhhhh.  No matter how many wife’s tales point to a girl or how many people swear we’re having a girl I’m still holding out for a boy.  We’ll find out on July 17th at 2pm if all goes well.  Hopefully this child won’t be stubborn like our friend’s baby was today during her sex determining ultrasound.

Anywho I got Dr. Beasley to prescribe some new prenatal vitamins for me, so hopefully these won’t make me so sick.  If these don’t work we’ll try something else.  I didn’t have time to get the prescrip filled tonight (plus I’d already attempted my vitamin taking for the day), so I’ll get them filled in the morning and start myself on a night time schedule again.

And on that note, I’m heading to bed again.  My mind can deal with reading a book until I fall asleep because my body is now completely exhausted.  G’nite world.

I’m about to throw this keyboard out the window!  I’m so sick of it!  There’s a short in it, and it seems like every single time I sit down at the pc to get some work done the thing dies on me.  I beat and bang on the thing until it eventually starts working again, but that’s getting old.

Anywho, I should have went anyway because I should have known if she was calling me to go shopping with her at 9am on a Sunday morning something must be wrong.  The fact that it was Sunday didn’t register with me, or I would have known she was feeling bummed out and just wanted to do some mother/daughter stuff today.

It takes a lot to convince my mom to miss church, so when she wanted to go shopping instead I should have made sure she was ok.  I’m pretty much kicking myself for not waking myself up to go with her.  I tried to call her to check on her and apologize, but now she’s not answering her phone.  I guess she’s still out curing what ails her with a few bags of whatever’s on sale today.

Hopefully I’ll get a hold of her later and find that everything is ok.  Maybe she just needed to take a day for herself for once.

~~~~~~~~~

On another note R.I.P. Billy Mays.  I can’t believe how many celebrities we’ve lost this week.

I battled a headache, dealt with the vitamin puking, and spent the rest of the day playing Sims 2 (definitely don’t have the cash to buy 3 right now), talking to my mom on the phone about baby stuff, and just chillin’.

Oh, and there was ice cream, but not just any ice cream.  My grandma made homemade banana ice cream, so of course I had to visit so I could eat 2 bowls.  Luckily she doesn’t put raw eggs in hers, so as long as I ate it fresh out of the churn it was ok for me to eat.

Hubby didn’t want to go by my grandparent’s with me until I mentioned the ice cream.  Then I had to tear him away from their house.  My grandpa kept him occupied for awhile talking about the remodeling work they’re doing in their house and the rv they want to get.

I don’t know if they’ll go with a rv finance or if they’ll just find something they can pay cash for.  Normally they pay cash for all vehicle purchases, but I don’t know if my grandma is wanting a big rv or a little one.  I figure she’d prefer to have something bigger that will be more comfortable.  Then again I might know this stuff if I had listened in on the conversation, but I was too busy eating ice cream and talking baby stuff with my mom and grandma.

The rv talk does remind me of a time when Hubby and I were struggling to make it while trying to come up with enough cash for a wedding and a place to live.  That was before my grandparents offered to let us move into our current house, and at the time we were looking for a cheap rv.  We figured if we had to rough it out in an rv for a few months it’d be worth it because we’d have a roof over our head that we owned.

Of course we were hoping a family member would let us camp out on their property because we didn’t have a clue about how much it costs to actually buy land.  Ah, those were the days when we had no idea what we were in for!  Thank goodness my grandparents helped us out then or there’s no telling where we would be now.

I feel bad because I’ve been really slack about taking them lately due to how sick I get when I do take them.  It doesn’t matter when I take them or how much I’ve eaten, I’m going to get super sick.  Within 30 minutes I’m hurling more violently than I’ve ever thrown up before pregnancy.  In the last couple weeks I’ve given up on taking them all together because I feel like taking them isn’t doing any good anyway if they’re not going to stay in my system long enough to do any good.

I’ve been reading up on it, and a lot of doctors feel there’s really not a lot of reason to take prenatal vitamins after the first trimester if the pregnancy is progressing normally and the mother is receiving the proper nutrients during her diet.  Others feel like a pregnant women should continue prenatals during the entire pregnancy no matter what.

Honestly I’m not exactly how my doctor feels about the vitamin debate because we haven’t really discussed much.  She asks if I’m taking my vitamins, I say I take them when I remember or can keep them down, and she tells me everything is normal.  The NP yells at me when I mention that I forgot to take them one day, so I think I just need to have a talk with the actual ob/gyn on Wednesday.

Yet again this is probably another one of those things I’m just freaking out over, but I’m going to keep freaking out and over analysing all kind of things related to my pregnancy because that’s just the kind of person I am.  I want everything to be perfect.

I absolutely hate cleaning the bathroom, always have, and always will.  I hate it so much I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s well worth it to spring for a Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner, but my mother and grandmother would call me lazy.  Now I don’t have to worry about it anymore because Hubby has to do the dirty deed!

I cleaned the bathroom wearing a mask to protect the munchkin from the fumes as long as I could physically handle doing it, and I can still clean the sink and toilet, but the tub just isn’t feasible anymore.  Hubby graciously offered to scrub it for me today, and he’s in there scrubbing his little heart out right now.  Anyone who knows Hubby knows there are 2 things that man doesn’t do…dishes and bathrooms, so just seeing him going out of his way to help me makes me feel all giddy inside.

While he’s doing that I’ve got a few more important things to do.  I’ve got a ton of my yard sale stuff sorted and priced, and I’m ready to go through another closet.  I’m glad I remembered I still have a box of stuff from when I sold Avon that I can probably totally get rid of when we sell at the flea market.  I even have one of those slide type portable credit card machine things that I purchased used just so I could take credit cards without having to fill out the slips by hand. I bet there might be a vendor or two at the flea market who might want it.

I can still take credit cards for my current business without it because all my clients with credit cards can easily pay me with the help of Paypal.  It saves me from having to do it all old school.  Anywho there’s no telling what else I have in that box that might be of use to someone.  I’ll have to see if Hubby can pull it down for me after he’s done with the tub since it’s in the very top of the closet.

It’s not that he gets in my way, but he’s definitely a distraction when he’s around.  Things that should get accomplished don’t, and I hate that.  Luckily he’s gone to NC to pick up his last check (for now, but we’ll discuss that later) from his boss, so that gave me plenty of time to get things done.

On another note, I made lasagna last night, and we learned something very important.  Stay away from Prego sauces when making lasagna.  I’m not a big fan of Prego sauces anyway, but Hubby won’t eat lasagna unless the sauce is anti-onion.  I made up my big dish of lasagna, but I still had plenty of ingredients left over, so I threw them into another small baking dish.  My only problem…I ran out of sauce, so I popped open a jar of Ragu Homemade Style Pizza Sauce I had instead.

Turns out we both preferred the smaller dish with the pizza sauce, so now I’ve got this huge dish of okay but not great tasting lasagna that I’ve got to do something with.  I made such a large amount because I had planned to freeze some of the leftovers, but I didn’t expect to have this much.  I can’t fit it all in my freezer, so I guess I’ll divide it up today and send some to my grandparents then some to my mom.

Right now I’m going to go enjoy some sunshine.  I need to take the dog out for his mid-morning walk, and I think I’ll soak up some rays in the process.

The job superintendent hubby used to work for agreed to let us take some photos in some of the recent houses he’s built, so if I don’t have many photos of the bathrooms he’s done I’ll get him to ride up there tomorrow to take some photos. Luckily most of these homeowners of the newer homes live elsewhere in the summer, so we still have a chance to go into the houses right now.

If we can get into the last house he built on the lake there’s a gorgeous bathroom with vessel sinks I’d like to showcase. There’s some awesome beam work in the bathroom, too, that just blew me away. Of course there’s beam work throughout the entire house, but it’s unusual to find someone who not only wants it in the bathroom but is also willing to leave it naturally beautiful instead of ruining it with paint.

Anywho…

I might just see if Hubby wants to hit up the flea market in the morning.  Wednesday is the best day to go anyway because it’s when most of the vendors are out.  My main agenda is to mingle, though, since I really don’t have any money to spend.

My dad is a weekly flea market regular, and he has a ton of friends there.  He told us to hit it up for a couple weeks and talk to some of his friends.  Pass out some business cards, and we never know what may happen.  He listed a bunch of people he’s talked to who have mentioned they need a porch built or a roof re-shingled, stuff like that.

I’m going to print out some new business cards for both of us, and I may go ahead and make Hubby a few more flyers today to hang up on some local business windows and bulletin boards.  I’m kicking this search into full gear.

I finally got a lot of my yard sale stuff sorted today, and I’ve still got a bunch more to go through.  I also redid our budget and realized we’re a little bit better off than I was thinking.

Hubby put in a few applications this morning, and he talked to a few builders in the area.  He just got off the phone with a family friend who’s looking for some help in his tire shop, so that might be a possibility for the near future.  I’m crossing my fingers because right now anything is better than nothing.  We know Hubby’s going to have to take a major pay cut for any job he can find right now, so he’s going to take the first thing he can find.

I’m just glad he’s been in a great mood today as well.  Normally he’d mope around, be pissy, and all that, but today he’s in one of the best moods I’ve seen throughout all of this.  I think he’s finally realized it does no good to stay angry, and we have to push on.

Originally it was going to be one of those subdivisions with model homes pre-built, but now they’ve decided not to build anything until a few units are sold.  I can’t blame them in this economy, but it puts Hubby completely 100% out of a job indefinitely.

He was supposed to work today, but his boss called at 6:45 this morning and told him not to come in.  We’re lucky he even got the call before he headed into the dead zone up the mountain because that’s about the time he normally leaves the house.  I’m just glad he didn’t waste gas driving all the way up there to be sent home.

I got him signed up for unemployment this morning, now it’s time for him to beat the streets.  I’d totally be right there next to him if I could actually find anyone willing to hire me, but we know that’s most likely out of the question.

I think it may just be time to start crafting again, and I’m definitely going to take my MIL up on that offer to have our yard sale and hit up the flea market one weekend.  I doubt I’ll have my yard sale stuff ready to go by this weekend, but 4th of July weekend better be ready to see me up bright and early selling all this useless junk!