Monkling's Blog

I cannot believe an entire week has gone by since I’ve blogged. I guess the whole “blog every day” experiment failed. This week has been a bit busy. This past Saturday we had an engagement party for Theresa & Brett. I wasn’t quite sure of the exact number of guests but it fell within the range of about 40 people. That meant there was a great deal of borrowing of tables and chairs and a whole lot of cleaning. My future son in-law thought I was going for overkill in the cleaning department. What? Just because I cleaned every single surface in the entire house?

I also went into “get things done” mode in a major way. Tasks that have been neglected for months are suddenly getting done. This week the schedule includes getting my chimney cap replaced, the chimney cleaned, a plumber in to replace a leaking outdoor faucet, estimates on how much it would cost to upgrade out central air system (that hasn’t been used in probably 25 years) and an electrician to fix a few issues. Now if I could only get that money tree out back to produce a bit more money…

Why do they make spray paint that’s intended to be used indoors when it’s really not? I wanted to apply glass frost paint to the windows in the side door. It said to use in a well ventilated area. Well, let me tell you, there is no such thing as a well ventilated area indoors. I had the door opened, the windows opened and the stove fan on. I still was inhaling paint fumes.

Then there was the mildew that is close to impossible to prevent or get rid of in the bathroom. Again, the window was wide open as I scrubbed things down with bleach. Not a pleasant odor, let me tell ya. Worse – the bleach didn’t get rid of all of it. Clearly the only way to get rid of it will be to knock down the walls and ceiling.

This afternoon Frank went to the nursing home to visit his mother. In the hallway were two old men in wheelchairs, discussing the basketball game between the Knicks & Heat. They were rooting for opposing teams. According to my husband, they were trash talking. There was a lot of bickering about in whose room they would be watching the game. I’m glad Frank left before the game. I’m thinking old men armed with miscellaneous pieces of medical equipment could have gotten dangerous.

I wrote a blog post this morning. I don’t know what happened to it. It’s just gone. It’s bad enough that I broke my streak and missed yesterday. No, the blog gods conspired to make me miss two days in a row. Luckily I noticed in time that it disappeared. We cannot, after all, go 2 days in a row.

I cannot remember what I wrote about. No doubt it was extemely witty and interesting. Unfortunately, I am unable to reproduce it. Sorry. Blame it on whatever cause the post to dissolve I to the void.

This won’t really be a blog post but more of an observation – now I’m no copywriter but I suspect I can do a bit better than some of the commercials out there. Seriously, if you are yelling, making weird noises or doing something else to annoy me, I am not going to buy your product. Sure your antics may make your product stick in my mind but I’m also thinking, “That is the stupidest thing I ever saw. If you have such bad taste in hiring an advertising firm and choosing commercials, I’m thinking you’re equally inadequate at picking programmers or mechanics or whatever.”

Now back to your show.

In less than 2 weeks 45 people will crowd into my house to celebrate my daughter & future son in-law’s engagement. Due to this fact, I have been trying to declutter the house. I’ve run out of places to hide junk. Clearly that means I must get rid of some of it in order to make more room.

I’ve also been cleaning because I hear that’s what one does when expecting company. That was when I was attacked. I needed to move a snack table so I foolishly thought I’d fold it up and move it to another room. It seems the snack table didn’t approve of the move. To show it’s disapproval, it tried to bite off the tip of my index finger.

Luckily I excel in the art of closing up wounds with steri-strips. Yep, a darn expert.

I wish I had one. Note I said had one, not that I wish I was one. I am talking in a very literal sense. You see, I was at yet another meeting tonight. (Side note – I hate meetings.) The meeting lasted an hour and a half. Let me tell ya something – sitting on hard, metal folding chairs for that length of time is not terribly comfortable. My back was aching and worse, my butt was aching. Thus the desire for a hard ass – the theory being if it was hard, it could have withstood the torture of an hour and a half of sitting on very uncomfortable chairs.

Apparently all the extra padding that is now there didn’t really help. You’d think it would but alas, it did not. Maybe I should try standing at the next meeting. Or carrying my own chair. Or… skipping the meeting.