I picked her up from the airport on Wednesday afternoon.
That's my mom on the left. (The lovely redhead on the right is my sister, Katie, who met us on her lunch hour).We spent the rest of the day getting mom settled in, running errands and relaxing.
Thursday we slept in a little and went to lunch with Krissy (my other sister) and Mary (her partner). After lunch, Krissy gave mom & Tyson henna tattoos. It's a skill she refined while studying abroad in India a few years ago, and she's really good at it.
Here is my mom's (before the henna paste was removed):
And here is Tyson's:
We hung out for a while afterward, and then ate an early dinner. We discussed plans for Riley's baptism and the party afterward. (Remember, this was Thursday, and the baptism was Saturday). Tyson asked for a scoop of ice cream after dinner, and since he ate all of his healthy foods, I said okay. I went to the freezer and quickly realized that everything in the freezer was in a goopy state of half-frozen-ness. We thought perhaps the freezer door had been left ajar, but just to be on the safe side, we moved most of the contents to our chest freezer in the basement. Then we closed the door tight and put a thermometer in the refrigerator, which felt suspiciously tropical inside.
An hour later, the verdict was in: our seven year old refrigerator had kicked the bucket. Two days before the party. I think it's safe to say that I started to um... ahem... well, I may have stated to panic a bit.
Matt & I quickly ran up to Lowe's and picked out a replacement just ten minutes before they closed. After that we had to pack everything from the fridge into a cooler and take it to my dad's house. We got home from this chore just after midnight.
The new fridge was delivered on Friday, and by Friday night we had all the food put back inside, but on Saturday morning, just hours before 20 people were coming over for the party, our kitchen & dining room still looked awful. It was chaos.
This was just a portion of the disaster. I had no idea how much crap I had stored on top of and around the fridge!!! And we discovered that I own more magnets than anyone else on the planet!
Here's our new fridge (this picture was obviously taken before I had a chance to plaster it with my many magnets!).
Overall, it was a completely insane couple of days. And not at all how I wanted to spend the bulk of my mom's visit. Of all the crap-ass times for our fridge to up and die... I should mention that my mom was amazing during this whole ordeal. She helped me move all the food around, clean the new fridge and restock it. She also helped out by cleaning my house for the party on Saturday morning. Isn't she great?
So, now that you've stuck through to the end of this very long (and possibly very boring) post, you're rewarded with a contest!
Leave a comment and tell me your best household crisis story (your oven went out on Thanksgiving Day? Your garage door froze shut during a snow storm?). Be sure you leave your email address in the comment (spell out "at" and "dot") and I'll randomly pick the winner. That winner will receive a set of handmade Knitting Buddha greeting cards and something else (that is yet to be determined). ETA: I'll leave this open until this Friday, July 25!
Oh, and I do have pictures from Riley's baptism and the party afterward, but Matt loaded them onto the Mac instead of our server. Now those photos are stuck in the Mac & I don't know how to get them out. (I'm still learning my way around the Mac.) So, check back in a couple of days for those photos!
5 comments:
Oh I feel your pain!
Let's see...household disasters...you SURE you want to hear them? LOL
1. Vacation, August 2006: Truck transmission went out and had to be replaced, house air conditioner died ($400 for a SWITCH. Gah.), and discovered my cat was dying from thyroid disease and kidney failure.
2. That same winter: Well tank sprung a leak, flooded basement with 6 inches of water. Fire department had to be called out to pull the electric meter because it was "endangering electric". Lovely. Lost a lot of books, magazines and clothes that were stored.
3. All's been quiet on the homefront until two weeks ago...the 2nd well tank sprung another leak, spewing highly pressurized water over 30 feet through the basement. Thankfully we didn't lose anything this time because we learned our lesson from the last flood and had everything in Rubbermaid totes. :)
Those are the biggies I can remember!
Glad your Mom was there to help out! She looks like she's doing well, and I love the henna tattoos Krissy did!
It's pretty minor as far as "disaster" stories go - knock on wood! - but here goes:
When we first moved into our house, we noticed that the refrigerator had been unplugged, so we plugged it back in and went on about our business. After about 10 minutes, we looked at each other and said "Do you smell smoke?"
Yeah, our "new" fridge had a minor (internal) fire that melted some of the plastic shelves. The smell was yummy!
It was a 1970's harvest gold model that we were intending to replace soon, but that just made it sooner!
Sarah
tenrec_girlATyahooDOTcom
Alright, a household disaster.
During the hottest days of the year last summer our air conditioner went kaputz. We then called the repairman who wasn't able to fix it for two days!
Another: in 2006 my fiance and I went up to Michigan's Upper Peninsula for a wedding and borrowed my future mother-in-law's car. When we arrived in Iron Mountain, we called only to find out that the steering column in my car had broke and that cost $500 to fix! Luckily, she paid for it and that was my Christmas present.
Email: dunlapa2 AT msu DOT edu
Well...over the past 7 weeks, we've had power outages 3 times, the satellite repairman here 2 times, the garbage disposal, clothes dryer, and ice dispenser have gone haywire, AND we had a flat tire on the van! My husband is afraid to answer the phone at work when I call, because he's sure it's going to be me calling to report another dead appliance/and or crisis.
But my favorite story is when the dishwasher quit the week before Christmas, and it needed a part from the opposite end of the earth and took 2 weeks to fix. That was the year the Christmas "china" was red and green paper plates and cups and the "silver" ware was plastic!
tamgoff AT yahoo DOT com
The day after we returned from Katrina evacuation our stove/oven bit the dust. We were fortunate that the local furniture store had just reopened and within a few days we were back in operation.
Of course, we've also had the hot water heater, clothes dryer/washer, and a/c shut down at the worst possible times, but really is there any good time for those things to happen? LOL It never fails but that the dryer will die with a load of wet clothes in it. Overall we've not been too badly tread upon.
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