Author: Melissa

Last night, I was not feeling well at all, so I took this sore throat medicine I found in the medicine cabinet. We often have strange medicines in there, since my MIL buys stuff both here and in India and throws it in there. So you never know what you’ll find – maybe it had instructions in Hindi, maybe its FDA approved… maybe not. There’s all sorts of interesting stuff in there.
(You may have already guessed where this is going.)
So I read the instructions and took this medicine advertising "sore throat" relief.
Then I almost threw up – it tasted like exactly like used Listerine. Not that I’ve ever drank used Listerine, but I’m fairly sure that is what itwould taste like.
Then, about a half hour later, I felt like I was drunk. Seriously – a wall jumped right in front of me and made me run into it. I made it to the bed, where I fell fast asleep. Husband woke me up at 3am to ask why Colin was screaming his head off. I believe I said, "Who?"
Then at 8am, I was still groggy and could barely drag myself out of bed.

I don’t know what was in that stuff. But my throat isn’t hurting very much today! Sure, I still can’t feel my face, but whatever!

Yesterday the printer stopped working. Husband fiddled with it and it started up again. Phew!
Then our computer’s external hard drive crashed. Well, broke. It won’t turn on. At all. It has all of our old pictures – when Ellie and Grace were born, everything.
Then our laptop stopped working.
This all happened within 3 hours.

It was a rough day.

Today I am recovering. And looking up data recovery services to try and get our pictures back.

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Meeting with the realtor went terrific!  She loved what we had done to the house, loved the paint colors, loved seeing how big our kids were. 
If you haven’t done this, I would totally recommend it. She came right in, said "If you were going to try and sell this house, you would need to do this, that, fix this, paint that, etc."
It was great. Now we have a good to-do list of stuff we need to work on and some relief about some projects that are hanging over our heads that it turns out aren’t really important. I get easily overwhelmed when it comes to home maintenance, so I need this type of direction. Anything beyond painting is way out of my league. Just walking in to Home Depot makes me dizzy. 😉
Some of what she said was obvious ("You may want to replace the flower bed that is 98% weeds and a dying bush.") and other stuff I wouldn’t have thought of (like that not bunking the girls’ beds makes it look bigger).
And to top it all off, our house is worth more than we thought. Take that, Zillow.

We’re having our old realtor come over today and evaluate our house, tell us what improvements we should be making, etc. She calls us every 6 months or so and this time we said "Sure! Come on over."
I have been cleaning like a crazy person and have basically decided that if and when we ever do move (which is looking like less and less fun as I get ready for this), it will necessitate getting some kind of storage unit.

To store the children in.

Good heavens, I clean something, I turn around and its messy again. I swear I have cleaned every room at least twice in the 48 hours. They are driving me totally crazy. I say the words "Do not make a mess in here" and they hear "Make an extra big mess in here – that would be really helpful" because they seem proud of how big of a mess they are making.  Even Colin is contributing. "Well, Mom just washed this! Time to poop all over it!"

I need a nap. Or some sort of iced caffeinated beverage. Like my new favorite thing to drink in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD a Mint Mocha Chip Frappuchino Light. Three words: Chocolate. Whipped. Cream. Heaven sipped through a straw, people. Go get one.

I did it. I drove eight hours – by myself – with three kids, including a three-month-old. By myself. For EIGHT HOURS.

I’m proud of myself. I listened to 8 straight hours of children’s programming without losing my mind completely. I managed not to get a speeding ticket. Towards the end, we listened to Colin cry for 45 minutes straight without taking a single breath. I swear. I took three children into a bathroom stall with you in a turnpike rest stop and lived to tell the tale of the giant toilet paper roll rolling out of our stall and across the bathroom, of the conversations that I’m sure other restroom patrons found entertaining ("Please, just try to go potty." "No." "Please." "No." "I mean it! Go potty right now!" "No."), of going back into the bathroom 3 seconds after we left it ("Mommy, I have to go potty!" "Are you kidding me? I JUST ASKED YOU if you had to go and you said ‘NO!!!’")

But, we did it!!

I do not plan on doing it again until Colin is at LEAST 13. Or possibly next summer. Whatever comes first.

Today Husband is traveling home from Turkey and I am driving home.

By myself.

With the three kids.

400 miles.

By myself.

Alone.

With three kids.

By myself.

But I’m not nervous or anything. Not.