OK, so reason prevailed and I didn't rip up my living room wall-to-wall.
My past DIY projects always start with the best of intentions and end up with professionals or something I'll deeply regret. I'm ok with painting. Painting is relatively safe. But larger projects ... you know that saying about having the right tool for the job?
I tend to think I am somehow ABOVE correct tools. That circular saw? I CAN CUT THAT PERGO LAMINATE FLOORING WITH MY BRAIN WAVES. An electric nail gun? I WILL POUND THE NAILS IN WITH THE HEEL OF MY FERRAGAMO SHOE. A utility knife? Those KNIVES, they are for MERE HUMANS. I, GREAT HOME IMPROVEMENT EXPERT, CAN CUT CARPET BY CROOKING MY LITTLE FINGER.
When I am unable to resolve the more esoteric elements of my existence (i.e. i'm in debt, there's nothing to do about it just now, etc.) I look for hard physical labor, or failing that, an impossible project, to occupy myself.
Inspired by Laurie, and her floor project, I am going to take up my horrible, horrible carpet. (Mitigated here by the Wee One at Christmas.)
Now, finances being what they are, my options are somewhat limited. So I'm going to do this
I'm guessing it's not going to look that good. BUT as I told my mother, the worst-case scenario means that I don't have a stinky carpet, and I have to pay to have the tile i was going to have anyway.
If I tell you this, will you promise not to tell the dogs?
I had a dream the other night that two of them had died (not during the dream, but recently) and for a moment I felt panic ("Where are the dogs?") and then I remembered they were gone and felt overwhelming relief.
I'm a little over the dogs.
Archie's been marking things. Molly got into the remains of a box of chocolates. Bea ... well she was responsible for the Weekend of Poo at my mother's house.
I just feel like they're more than I can handle right now. Or maybe they're the low men on the totem pole, after the Wee One and work and bills.
I know intellectually that worry is essentially useless. And as I've gotten older, I do worry less about stuff I truly have no control over. But I also ~sublimate~ a lot of worry, so instead of actively worrying, or not worrying at all, I pretend not to worry, thereby wasting effort both on the worry and the pretending not to.
Why, yes, I do spend too much time in my own head, why do you ask?
PS And can someone explain why my face is breaking out? Could it be the 10 diet Cokes I drink every day? Or perhaps the 400 animal crackers I seem to prefer to any other form of nutrition?
Given my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, combined with my eldest-girl-child MUST BE PERFECT MUST BE PERFECT tendencies, I am a crazy comparison shopper. I read reviews, I research prices. I look at last year's version vs. next year's vs. this year's, I ask questions on obscure forums.
And that's when I'm looking for a new lipstick color.
So you can imagine what happens when I'm buying something intimately involved in the safety of my child.
Yeah. It's crazy.
When she was first born she was this big:
and she rode in something chic and Italian like this:
It was a pain in the butt to use (IslayGirl's first lesson in never buying the cool new thing from a company that's never made one before. It's saved me a lot of money at Apple.), and shortly after we discovered it was a pain, we also were informed it was recalled.
So I bought this:
which, because it was made by a different company from the original seat, needed a special, impossible-to-find adapter bar to use with the stroller.
But before I knew it, she didn't fit in that seat anymore, and I got one of these:
Then before I knew it, she was outgrowing that one (what's funny about car seats is that the upper range of what will fit seems so far away you figure the child will be in college before you need to shell out another $250 for a seat).
So, anyway, she outgrew that and we got this:
Then we realized we needed another seat for Daddy's car, so we put that one in his car and got a new one for mom's car (looks like this one only in a super-awesome limited edition designer fabric. because we're stupid like that).
And really, I thought I was done. We had the same seats for almost 2 years. Then last week I was thinking about the trips we have planned for this summer, and thinking that since she's big enough, I'd get a lighter, easier-to-transport booster seat since we'd be getting on and off planes, trains and automobiles.
But once I started investigating, I realized that she was almost growing out of her current seat. Dear God.
So. On to boosters.
I bought this yesterday:
It met the Wee One's requirements of being cute, but sadly, it didn't fit properly in my car. After the security of her real carseat, this was like those plastic seat belts they have on the Dumbo ride at Disneyland.
So today, I researched. I posted on forums. I read reviews. I looked at terrifying footage from YouTube, like this:
I was pretty much convinced that the usual booster seat wouldn't do. I wanted the seat to attach to the car, I wanted a 5-point harness, I wanted a tether, but I didn't want to just buy a huge carseat like this:
I didn't want something like this because honestly, it weighs 25 pounds. I started this whole thing wanting something that would travel well. This would not be it. And it costs $250. I don't even want to think about how much I've spent on car seats in the past 5 years.
So, I was about to buy this:
Even though it didn't attach to the car, didn't have a tether, didn't have a 5-point harness. It did, however, come in pink, and the seat belt guides seemed like they would work better than the one I bought yesterday.
But this is what I got:
Tethered? Check. 5-point harness? Check. Attached to car? Check. Portable? Check. Sadly, it was rather expensive, but at least it does everything else I want it to. Of course, I had to bribe the Wee One by telling her I'd make her a pink floral cover for it. It seems kind of ... unconstructed (the back is soft) ... but it's actually safer than the other ones. The company that makes it is the one who makes the straps and LATCH connectors for all the other companies, and they test more stringently than the NHTSA, but it still seems a little counter-intuitive. And worst of all, it doesn't even have cup holders.
Yes, this is the dark, dark heart of my obsessive tendencies.
And when all this is said and done, I remember sitting, unbelted, on the white pleather fold-down armrest between my grandma and grandpa while we barreled down the highways of northeastern Pennsylvania. And I'm here to tell the story.
UPDATED TO ADD:
OK, that one isn't going to work, either, it only gives her an inch of growing room before she couldn't use the harness anymore. I'm going to go live somewhere where we don't regularly go 80 miles an hour. Like Bora Bora.
I know that I'm not getting married (ever. again.) and that I've used up my allotment of stephanotis and beading and tulle and white flowers, but this is a gorgeous nosegay.
The picture (and presumably, the nosegay) is from here. I was looking for bulk freesia online, because freesia + IslayGirl = happy.
I asked my Big Boss for a raise today. I've been talking to some Other Places, who would offer me Much More than I'm currently making, for more or less the same job. He was very complimentary and said he wants to give me the raise, and I will get SOME sort of raise (reviews are next month, and my annual COLA raise is already done) and told me to talk to my other boss, the Thinking Fashionista on how to plot to get it by HR. She's been in on the whole situation from the beginning, and is also in favor of my getting a big bump.
But really, I don't expect anything close to what I asked for to happen. I know I have the worst ability to be patient, but knowing that this will have to go through the concrete wall that is HR ... I don't know. If I get another offer, then at least I will have set the stage and they won't be broadsided.
We'll see what happens when I get my review next month.
Tonight, despite my promise to myself yesterday not to spend any money on myself until I got a raise, I went to the Chance. I wasn't going to go. I had to go to Walgreens to pick up a prescription and some cotton balls.
And then, instead of turning north back to my house, I turned south and went to the Chance (I'll just walk around, I said to myself. I have a night off from the Wee One, I should go out SOMEWHERE.)
So I went to the Chance. I casually perused the bags and walked around for awhile with a Marc Jacobs bag that needed a new zipper. I looked at shoes. I saw a diminutive woman in a great raincoat (had to be Burberry) pushing a stroller with a great bag slung over the handle.
Then I saw the security tag on the bag. She was buying it! Lucky her! What a find.
I went about my business, then I saw her again, looking at the bag, putting it over her shoulder and looking in the mirror, seeming ... unsure.
I lurked near the 10N shoes. I am not a 10N. But she didn't know that. I tried to be unobtrusive. I'm sure I failed miserably.
After a couple of minutes she came over and in halting English asked me why the bag was dirty on the inside. I tried to explain that everything in the store was returned, few things were new, and tried not to scream that THIS IS A $1,000 BAG FOR $150, WOMAN, AND YOU'RE QUIBBLING ABOUT SOME DUST?!
I don't think she understood what I said, but she did see the yearning greed in my eyes, because after another five minutes of lurking stalking, she came up and offered me the bag.
We made it back to Phoenix without incident. Scottie #3 came back to the world of Normal Digestive Processes, and the visit really ... well, I hesitate to say this; hesitate even more to WRITE it, but the visit went ...
OK.
My dad was normal, which was strange in itself, but I got over it. He gave me some good career advice (though tinged ever-so-slightly with his anti-equal-pay bias) and not only that, he gave me some free airline tickets.
So, all in all, I'll take the subconscious slam on my earning power (my husband should be supporting me, doncha know. Never mind that I DON'T HAVE A HUSBAND) if it comes with a way to make my summer holidays cheaper.
UPDATED TO ADD:
We got the financial aid package from the Wee One's school. We pay LESS this year, even though tuition went up. THANK YOU, UNNAMED PRIVATE SCHOOL! I realized the other day how much the Wee One truly loves this school and has done so well, and how for her to be this comfortable in her environment was something I could only imagine a couple of years ago. So.
Scottie #3 is officially sick. And not in the 'Yo, you phat!' sense.
In the have bloody diarrhea all over the kitchen way.
And while she is Elderly Dog, I'm pretty sure the reason this is happening is because on Thursday she went to the vet and the vet said, 'Give this dog puppy food! She's losing weight not because she has advanced liver disease and she's 110, she's losing weight because she's hungry!'
So I duly bought the High Quality Puppy Food and PRETENDING THE RULES DIDN'T APPLY TO ME (yes, i got that from my dad, see this post) I didn't gently add a little bit of puppy food to her existing diet. I didn't even go half-and-half for a couple of days, like EVERY DOG OWNER KNOWS TO DO.
No. I just said, 'Here ya go! Fill 'er up! And while we're at it, how about MORE THAN USUAL? HOW ABOUT SOME FILET MIGNON WITH THAT LOBSTER WHEN YOU USUALLY EAT BREAD CRUSTS?'
So now I'm at my mother's with Bea The Pooping Dog and I want nothing more than to load everyone in the car and go back home, where she has a dog door and can poop with abandon.
