Feelin' Pukey

So...I keep experiencing blog worthy things but haven't been feeling all that great for a couple of days and haven't wanted to post. Today has got to be the last day. I'm counting on it. Here are just a few...


Blog worthy thing #1: Travis came home from two weeks worth of travel. It was a very long two weeks. I couldn't type anything to describe how happy we all were that he returned home. Thanks to all who took care of him along the trip.

Blog worthy thing #2: The night before Trav was supposed to come home, things started going down around here. I put a fussy Burke to bed with a fever. I thought it felt warm in the house so I turned the heater down a tiny bit, thinking I was also doing him a favor. My boys kept waking up all night long. Each time I got out of bed I realized it was freezing cold in our house so I stumbled downstairs, in zombie mode with my eyes closed, time after time, to turn the heater up a little bit more.
Finally, it was time to get up at 6:40am with Isaac to get ready for the bus to come. It was still freezing cold. My eyes were finally open far enough to read the thermostat. It was 60 degrees!! I called Travis, who was about to board the airplane. He quickly called our friend Erik, who is kind enough to help us fix everything we can't fix for ourselves. Erik came over a short time later. He turned the breaker for the furnace off and took the furnace apart. He found a bad switch but needed a new part to fix it. He rigged it temporarily to heat the house up while we worked on getting the new part.
He left telling me that if I left the house it would be a good idea to turn the furnace off but to just watch it otherwise. I got in the shower to get ready for the day. Midway through I heard the deafening sound of the smoke detector going off. Instantly I ran out of the shower and downstairs, sopping wet, towel in hand, convinced that the furnace had just blown up and we were about to be burned to death. Charlie and Burke were fine (Theron and Isaac were at school) and I was running through the house in my fancy fancy birthday suit searching for the fire.
As I started down the basement stairs I could see that the air was cloudy. I continued to search for the fire. No luck. I quickly realized that it was very humid in the basement and after a few more seconds of thought decided that the dryer vent had been knocked off the back of the dryer (which was running) and that the cloudy air was from lint and not smoke. I nervously decided there was no fire. The fire alarm stopped screaming at me and things got pretty quiet.
Just as I began making my way upstairs to finish my shower the alarm started going off again. I went back down to the basement. No fire. I checked the garage and everything else I could think of. No fire. The alarm stopped screaming again. Just then the phone rang. It was Travis calling from the airport to check in on us while he waited to board the next plane. The alarm started going off again. Travis: "How are you?" Me: "NOT GOOD." Travis: "Why don't you just take the battery out?" Convinced now that there was no fire I reached up to pull the battery out. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I was standing in front of the front window (still in my birthday suit) reaching up to pull the battery out of the detector while the school kids waited out on the corner in front of our house for the bus. What a show! I can hear them now, "There she goes again!" To bring a long story to and end...there was no fire and Travis fixed the furnace with the new part when he got home later that day. Until then we left the furnace and dryer off while awaiting the hero's return just to be safe. It wasn't a warm wait.

Blog worthy thing #3: Sometime in the middle of the fire alarm going off I discovered Charlie in the kitchen with the gift wrapping tape strung out all over the place. I addressed the situation and moved on to more important things...like fighting fires.

Blog worthy thing #4: Also sometime during the fire search I remember noticing that Charlie was picking his nose. Who cares about a little nose picking when your house is burning down, right? When I finally did make it back to the shower I found Charlie in my bathroom. He had a huge pile of hand soap squirted out on the counter and was washing his hands in the sink leaning his belly right into his "clean" mess. Trying not to overreact... Me: "Charlie, what are you doing?" Charlie: "I washing the hands." Me: "Why?...oh, did you have boogers on your fingers?" Charlie matter of factly: "I ate a booger!" Me, totally grossed out but almost too exhausted to care: "Ew, yucky! Don't eat your boogers." Charlie confused: "Don't eat a booger?" Charlie (under his breath): "Ew, yucky."