Holiday Insanity

We are leaving in the morning for our 10+ hour drive to Colorado.

Oh goody. I might as well start knocking back shots right now.

As always, everything has been left up to me to take care of. And there is sooo much to do.

And traveling with a 2 year old and a 4 year old is not easy. Nor is it fun.

We had originally planned to leave this afternoon when I got off work early but I am having to work all day so we will leave in the morning.

I am so not even going to get the boys dressed. They can stay in their pajamas.

Things done:
I have their car bag packed. Hopefully, I packed enough stuff in there to keep them occupied for at least half the drive. If I remember correctly, this is what is in their travel bag:

• 2 boxes of crayons and 2 coloring books (we all know that they won't share)
• Monk Man's Leapster 2
• Bobblehead's "Laptop"
• a couple of Baby Einstein books I got in the mail Saturday
• a few action figures (X-Men, G I Joes, Little Peoples)
• the new V-Motion (because Monk Man won't let it go in their suitcase)
• some picture books
• and some of their cds

I also have a "secret" bag packed with juice boxes, suckers, Teddy Grahams and 2 candy bars.

Oh, and I found their beanies, mittens AND hoodies already.

And stuff I have to do still:

• pack clothes
• pack Bendaroos
• pack some books and magazines for me
• buy MIL some nacho cheese (her Walmart wont carry the good stuff)
• find the phone chargers
• find my sunglasses
• pack bathroom stuff (makeup, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, toothpaste, tweezers, nail clippers, hair brushes)
• find a blanket big enough yet small enough for the car
• pack up the gifts

Plus, I guess we are doing some kind of cooking competition thing. MIL said that they got the idea from Top Chef. Ummm, we don't watch Top Chef so I have no idea. All I know is that I have to come up with something to cook. Riiiight. I think she forgot that I can't cook. Hubbs, BIL and step FIL are cooking the main dishes. MIL and I are cooking sides.

After days of stressing about this (because I can't even make Crescent Dogs without someone getting food poisoning) I have decided on either my Baked Mac & Cheese or Fancy Mashed Potatoes.

I am still keeping my fingers crossed that I get to leave work early (due to no business, that is another blog post) so I can make a dent in all the shit I still have to do. Even if I do get out of here early, I am sure I will still be awake at midnight trying to get everything done.

It is going to be a giant Red Bull kind of day.

Happy New Year!

We got home from Colorado Monday afternoon and this is the first chance I have had to get on the computer and type.

We had a good Christmas with the Colorado family. Hubbs wanted to stay an extra day but I had to get my ass into work and close out the year on Tuesday.

Let me tell you, it was COLD up there in the mountains. StepFIL and I sat at the kitchen table one morning and watched the temperature drop. And drop. It got down to 3 degrees around 7 a.m.

I am soooo glad to be back in semi-warm Arizona.

The boys got TONS of stuff and had more stuff to open when we got home.

Yesterday, I spent my day divided between opening the rest of the gifts, working, and putting all the toys together.

Today, we cleaned Monk Man and Bobblehead's "office" (play room) so all their gifts could fit.

All those Christmas' were fun and the boys seemed to enjoy themselves but next year is going to have to be different. I think I am going to put my foot down and demand on 1 Christmas at MY home. If the family can't or won't get along, then whatever. Stay home. Whoever wants to show up can.

I think I will let Hubbs break the news. I am too chicken to be bitchy to his side of the family and my family thinks Hubbs is the best thing since sliced bread.

Ugh

I am almost all packed and ready to go. It took me 4 straight hours last night and another half hour this morning.

At 4:00 a.m.

Yes, I think I am out of my mind too.

Wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed I don't crash the HHR. Oh, and if you could will the boys into sleeping the whole way, that would be awesome.

We are leaving for Colorado as soon as the sun starts to come up. Maybe 6, 6:30ish.

Sorry, no new posts for a week. Waaaa. Ok, I have 1 scheduled for tomorrow. And I will try to hijack Hubb's laptop while he isn't looking if I get a chance.

The Story On Hubbs

So earlier in the week, I mentioned being home. Here is the story about that. Yes, I know it is Thursday and I am just barely getting around to this. Forgive me please. It has been a rough week.



We drove to the valley Friday night and stayed in the Hilton. Very nice hotel and thanks to hotels.com, we got the room for $59.00 a night. Of course there was the $15.00 extra person charge (bringing the total bill to $74.00) but still, a night at the Hilton for under $100.00 is pretty good. Oh the room was nice. There was only 1 queen sized bed but the couch made out to a bed. Soft towels, fluffy bed, never ending hot water and a balcony. It was a little piece of heaven.



Traffic was a breeze. We did have a hard time getting around though. I am directionally dyslexic. I cant tell left from right or east from north. Long story short, normally if I don't know exactly how to get there, I don't even try. So finding a restaurant to have dinner at, the actual hotel, a restaurant to have breakfast at and finally the airport was a nightmare.



We had dinner at Applebees. I can honestly say that it was the best thing I have eaten in a really long time. I got a grilled chicken Caesar salad (awesome), Hubbs got steak and shrimp (awesome) and Monk Man had a breaded chicken sandwich as big as my hand (again, awesome). Now usually, I don't like shrimp. But I let Hubbs talk me into tasting it and it was divine!

Monk Man behaved pretty well throughout the whole trip. He only got spanked once and that was when he tried to open the room door and escape.

We had to be at the airport early so while we were there, I bought a Starbucks coffee. It was the first I had had in about a year. Monk Man discovered escalators. OMG, he loved them. Up and down and up and down and up, the WHOLE morning. Hubbs had to take him because I have an irrational fear of escalators (elevators too).

When it got close enough to Hubbs flight time, he told us that we should just go ahead and start the drive home. We said our goodbyes and my the time I got into the parking garage, I was bawling so hard that I had lost the car. That was so fun, I want to do it every day.

When I finally did find the car, Monk Man crawled in his car seat and fell asleep before I had even made it to the bottom of the parking garage. He slept the whole way home. 3+ hour drive, even when I stopped for gas (which was 4.11/gal holy crap!).

My Head Is Spinning

Why? The last 2 days have been Hell.



Yesterday (Thursday)

Hubbs got a call from the Railroad and they told him that the board he has been on (that pays him to not find another job) had been abolished. So no more paychecks, no more insurance.



So I went into survival mode. I started thinking about what we can cut out of our routines to save us money. I didn't come up with much. Things are already pretty tight. I really don't want to have to charge anything ever again.



I *could* cancel the WOW account but then Hubbs would find some more expensive hobby. I *could* cancel XM but then I would be back to buying CDs. I already buy generic foods, generic diapers, generic everything.



The best thing I could come up with is to temporarily stop the debt snowballing. Its not much but it IS an extra $150.00 to $200.00 a month. And Hubbs would be going up to Colorado to build houses with his brother.



That's all I came up with.



Hubbs checked some memos from the Railroad and found out that he could put in a request for "temporary transfer" to Iowa. So he called his union rep and left a voice mail. The union rep called back very late last night and gave him some of the information he needed but not ALL of what he wanted to know. So he called a dude in Iowa that was in charge of the whole thing. Voice mail with this dude too.

So off to bed with an ass kicking migraine. Fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today (Friday)

Hubbs got up at 3 AM. I don't know why. He just said he couldn't sleep. I got up at 6 AM and just around that time, the dude from Iowa called him back with the information he needed.

But right after he got off the phone he found another memo that offered Montana as another option for the temporary transfer.

Ugh. Too many life altering decisions. I do not do well with shit changing. Not at all.

We decided on Iowa.

So he got all his paperwork faxed in. The Railroad bought him an airplane ticket for tomorrow. It was something like $600. Oh. My. Gawd. It is a good thing that the Railroad paid for the ticket because that is not cool. We don't have that kind of money. I don't think most people do either.

So we are staying in a hotel in Phoenix tonight so he can catch the plane tomorrow. There is no way in hell I would try to drive down there tomorrow and then drive back in the same day. My back is too screwed up to sit for that long in the car.

We are taking Monk Man with us but leaving Bobblehead with my mom.

I am not happy about having to suck it up and let my mom watch the boys today and Bobblehead tonight. But at least my dad is there to keep that whole crazy ass family in line.

So anyway, the deal with the temporary transfer. Hubbs gets a bonus when he gets to Iowa. Plus he gets another bonus every week he is there on top of what he would normally make.

I guess the reason that they are offering this temporary transfer is because of all the flooding. The floods washed out the tracks and now that the tracks are replaced they have way more trains than they have people to drive them.

So I don't feel 100% at ease with this but I don't feel like something bad is going to happen.

He could be gone for 3 weeks (at the least) or he could be gone for 3 months (at the most). Its really up in the air right now.

So I feel like my head is going to explode. There is so much to do, so much to worry about, so much unknown. Ugh. That's all for now.

I HAVE to get some work done today so they don't fire my ass.