I May Need Help

So I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up with my chapter-a-week book review. I’ve been somewhat incapable of normality lately. Last week was filled with insanity. I managed to lock myself out of my house twice in a week. For the first five years of houseownership I was capable of leaving my house and bringing my keys with me. This summer I managed to, thanks to last week, get locked out five times. Nice. After the first time I was stuck outside last week I decided that since I had managed to set a new norm for ditziness I should have another spare key made and hidden. I have plenty of friends and family members with keys but I don’t want to keep asking them to drop everything and rescue me.

My lawn mower has been having problems. I have a great brother-in-law who has some skill at fixing small motors so I asked him to take a look at it. Naturally, in order to do so, he needed to get into my garage and since I now have a spare key I gave it to him so he could get in. He wasn’t able to figure out what the problem was but he has some friends at work who also have some skill at fixing small engines so he took the carburetor out of the mower so he could show them. That evening when I got home from work I didn’t notice the lawn mower sitting in the middle of the garage and ran into it with my car. Oops. The guys weren’t able to figure out what the problem was either so my b-i-l put the mower back together without doing anything to it. He said that he after it was reassembled it started up right away and ran with out any problem and that maybe taking the carburetor out shook something loose and let it pass. I may have helped with that process.

Thursday afternoon I was heading to work. As soon as I stepped out of the house I knew that I had locked my keys inside again. But I had a spare key nearby so no problem. Wait. Problem. My b-i-l still had it. Then I decided to call someone. I reached for my phone and realized it was locked in the house too. No problem. I live in a neighborhood with a bunch of older people and the neighbor across the street appeared to be home so I decided to trot over and ask to borrow his phone. I knocked and there wasn’t an answer so I knocked again. Still no answer. As I turned to run to another neighbor’s house he came to the door…in his tighty-whitey underwear. After recovering from my short-term blindness I was able to make a phone call for help and return to sitting outside my house and waiting to be rescued.

I got my spare key back later that day.

My Penguin

On Saturday night two of my nephews and one of my nieces spent the night. It was fun and they were really well behaved. Being well behaved was probably a huge contributing factor to the fun aspect of the evening. I kind of wish that more kids realized this.

We started our evening by getting Chinese food from Hyvee. We had intended to buy a take and bake pizza but the store we were at doesn’t carry them. After that we decided to rent some movies. The kids wanted to see Nim’s Island so we got that and the first of the six Star Wars movies. Chinese and movies are always a good mix. The youngest probably had the best fortune from the fortune cookies – “You are what you think about.” “Hey, I’m a penguin.” So I guess now I have seven nephews, two nieces, and a penguin. Thanks, Hyvee, for your words of wisdom.

It seems like whenever these particular kids come over things go wrong with my house or the minor problems I can live with are somehow amplified. Last December I was able to get a new furnace. One of my brothers-in-law installed it for me, but since he isn’t an actual “furnace and air conditioner person” he didn’t have access to the needed Freon to get the air up and working. I had asked someone I know to get it up and running, but he wasn’t able to get it done. Because of the heat and humidity the wood on my doors and windows tends to swell which causes problems opening and closing them. Over all my doors are OK…with the exception of the bathroom door. My oldest nephew managed to get stuck in the bathroom Saturday night and again Sunday morning. Imagine a ten year old boy trapped in the bathroom, banging on the door so someone will come and rescue him. Now imagine me, a seven year old girl and a five year old boy pushing on one side of the door and the ten year old pulling from the other; times two, since it happened twice. It was hilarious.