I'm grumpy!

I shouldn't be because I just bought my wedding dress this weekend but I am! My boyfriend is driving me crazy, customers are driving me crazy, my future inlaws are driving me crazy. Bah!
First of all, I don't make up the amount of traffic fines. Nor do I make up the rules and procedures that we follow in the court. SO DON'T TAKE SHIT OUT ON ME. You're the one that got the ticket, asshole. You got yourself into it. We don't have to help you. In fact, we're not supposed to help you. So be happy that you get any guidance at all. If you have a problem with the fine amounts take it up with the state legislature whoever comes up with the fines. I don't know who it is, they don't work in little ol' Yolo County. Also, while we're at it - the money that I collect in no way goes into my pocket. I make less than most office workers who only have to deal with their computer all day and they never have to put up with assholes. I make less than the court accounting department that does nothing but send out bills and refer all questions or concerns to ME and my department. In fact, the money doesn't even go to our court. It goes to the state and a portion of it goes to the cop who gave you a ticket. Go bitch him out, he deserves it more than I. Sure you refused to yeild to an ambulance because you were talking on your cell phone to a very important client of yours. Yes I'm sure you're an upstanding citizen who always upholds the law and I totally understand why you think it's not that big of a deal. I mean it's not life or death right? Oh wait... It is. One guy bitched me out because I wouldn't take an emailed copy of his traffic school certificate and he insisted that I know why the court's policy doesn't allow it. This was after he talked nonstop shit about how I'm ripping him off and I probably get a great satisfaction stealing from him and blah blah blah. Hello, asshole - you're going to get a hard copy of your certificate. Is it really that fucking hard to put it in an envelope and mail it? I mean it can't be any harder than scanning the certificate and then attaching it to an email and trying to send it to our totally cryptic email address. I'm seriously so sick of people blaming me for shit I have no control over.

I'm also sick of Andrew expecting me to take care of everything for him. I swear to god it's a wonder he can wipe his own ass anymore. Then if I ask him to do something for himself he gets all bent out of shape and pissy. Like last night, for example. He insisted that the dog stay in the house even though I told him to put her out. In the first 1 1/2 hours that I was attempting to sleep she woke me like 3 times. First she wanted out. Then she wanted food. Then she decided to dig through the trash. I woke Andrew up and asked him to take her out to the garage where she sleeps with her babies and he threw a freaking fit and got all bent out of shape. Ok, first of all it's his dog. Second of all, he's the one that insisted she stay in the house. Third of all, he's always telling me to wake him up to take care of her when I bitch that I didn't get any sleep thanks to the dog. Lastly, he didn't have to work today but I did. It just pisses me off even thinking about it! Then today he wonders why I'm not all freaking loving. He swears to god that just because he works 2 jobs that he's off the hook for everything else. I'm so freaking sick of it. I mean I don't expect him to clean house or cook or run errands or anything. I just expect a little cooperation and some help once in awhile. He wants kids like crazy but he's high if he thinks I'm going to have kids and then be the only one that takes care of them while taking care of everything else and working. I don't think he realizes what exactly is involved in taking care of everything at home. Especially when he does nothing to make it easier on me like putting his clothes in the laundry basket or rinsing his dishes. He's such a freaking pig and then he has the audicity to bitch about other people! I'm just so freaking tired of everyone expecting so much from me and expecting me to make their lives easier for them. What about me? When do I get to relax? When is someone going to make life easy for me? I've asked around and everyone says it's the same thing with their men. Everyone has their issues I guess. I don't think it would bother me as much if the whole freaking world didn't treat me the same way. I'm tired of bending over my backwards to help people and being taken for granted. Nobody would do that shit for me.

On the subject of my inlaws - my future mother in law is insistent that I have religion in my wedding. I don't do religion. Not because I'm ignorant and I don't know anything about it - because I spent many, many years involved in the church and I made an educated choice NOT to buy into it. She's flying out a freaking preacher from Georgia who is a family friend and she keeps trying to talk me into having him be a part of the ceremony. A) I'm being married by a judge B) I HATE religious ceremonies and unless you're a bible thumper you probably do too. Nobody likes listening to a sermon while they're hot, uncomfortable, and sitting way too close to the bride's great aunt Mary who has a beard longer than the bride's father. Then she asked me if I'm going to do that bread breaking thing. WTF? NO. Now she's insisting that the dude pray before dinner. I think I'm going to let him but I'm going to pick the bible verse and I'm giving him a time limit. On one hand I think it's my wedding and since neither Andrew or I do religion we shouldn't have it at our wedding. On the other hand I know a marriage is a blending of families and I'm going to spend the rest of life compromising with her so I might as well start now. I'm also annoyed because she claims she's paying for this fellow to come out from Georgia and it's costing her $500. That's awfully nice of her but I'd much rather her pitch in that money towards the ceremony that at this point my parents are hosting alone. I mean I know they're tight on money and my parents aren't anymore but it's just the idea. To me it's not worth the money to have the dude fly out for a small garden wedding when Andrew hasn't seen him in 10+ years. But whatever, it's out of my hands.

I guess I'll quit ranting now. Mostly because it's F'ing freezing in here and I want to cuddle into my bed.

2 shotguns and camo gear

So we get home last night and our damned front door was open AGAIN because it hasn't been latching. Andrew got pissed and decided that he was going to fix it right then and there and he took off to Osh to get some supplies and then he was headed off to his shop to fabricate a new latch thingy. I got tired of waiting for him so I put Gidget in her kennel with her babies and I went to bed. About 11:30 I was awakened to the sound of a helicopter flying about 3 feet away from my roof. Andrew had came in the bedroom about that time to tell me that he had just finished the door and he heard the chopper too. I made a comment to him that it must be life flight and they must be landing nearby. Andrew took a peek outside and commented that the chopper was circling the area with it's flood light on. Uh-Oh. Life flight doesn't do that shit. I immediately became scared to death and Andrew grabbed his gun and went outside to get Gidget and let her back in the house. We huddled in the living room with our police scanner which is a piece of shit trying to figure out what the F was going on. We only live about 1/2 - 3/4 mile from the county jail and we thought for sure someone had broken out and they were looking for him. Now I wasn't scared because I thought a hardened criminal was on the loose, Yolo County only houses druggies and the occasional wife beater or drunkard. We only get like one murder a year maybe. What I was scared about is the possibility of seeing or hearing some guy running through my backyard or hiding on the side of my house or anything else that's equally as scary. I kind of thought that if dude was smart enough to get out of jail he would be smart enough NOT to run down the highly lit and highly used Gibson road that runs behind my house but you just never know. After about a 1/2 hour the chopper stopped and we never did hear anything on the POS scanner so we hit the sack. Today my grandma informs me that some dude managed to get into the mall and hide out while they closed down and sometime around 11 pm he was picked up on survelience cruising the mall in camoflauge while packing two rifles. Problem is that only one freaking house and a wall seperates me from said mall. I can literally hear the a/c on the mall running from my front yard. SCARY. Of course nothing came of it 'cause, well, this is Woodland and we just don't have a ton of serious crime but STILL. It's just scary to think about the crazy people in this world and it's scary knowing that we are never safe, no matter how many locks or cameras or security measures we take. The idea of bringing kids into this mess scares the crap out of me.

Freaking Fabulous

I fucking LOVE Brooks and Dunn. I also fucking LOVE Alan Jackson. And by love I mean LOVE!!!!! I went to their concert last night (they were playing together in Concord) and I don't think I have ever enjoyed a concert as much as I enjoyed that one. Toby Keith is a close runner up but you really can't beat Brooks and Dunn AND Alan Jackson. The night started out questionable because it was raining and of course the concord pavilion is outside. It cleared up in time for the concert though and it actually turned into a beautiful night. I'd seen Brooks and Dunn in concert before and I knew they rocked so I wasn't surprised when they had me covered in goosebumps with tears in my eye (that happens to me when I'm really into music. I'm a freak, I know). When their concert was over I didn't have any voice left from singing and screaming and I couldn't believe I was still going to hear Alan Jackson! Alan had me screaming and dancing and crying ("remember when" is emotional when you're trying to plan a wedding). I have to say it was one of the best nights of my life. Hands down. Oh and Brooks and Dunn had 4 marines come on the stage when they were singing "Only in America" and they had flags waving on the background. Shit like that always covers me in goosebumps and blurs my eyes. Even now as I remember it I'm getting covered in goosebumps! Just as a side note - I'm against Bush and against the decisions our government sometimes makes and our foreign affairs policies but I am ALL ABOUT THE SOLDIERS. I even teared up on fleet week when the ships came in and all those boys were lining the sides of the boat in their white uniforms. I took some amazing pictures with my mother in law's camera but unfortunately I forgot to download them before she took off with camera in tow so those will have to be a later post :).

If you EVER get the chance to see either Brooks and Dunn or Alan Jackson I strongly recommend it!!!!!

My new baby

So blogger is being an asshole and not letting me post pictures but my new baby is a Bissell steamcleaner for the carpets!!!
(Insert picture of Andrew shampooing the carpet here)
I got it yesterday with my credit card which I'm cancelling on the 15th. Might as well go out with a bang, right? I know this doesn't seem incredibly thrilling to most people but that's because y'all don't have my carpet issues. Namely, my carpets are disgusting. Now that I'm puppy free it's time to get my carpets back in shape! I'm down to just Gidget who is a relatively clean dog. Sure she drools alot and she tracks in dirt by the back door but she doesn't potty in the house (unless I lock her in the house after giving her canned food that I didn't know would give her the shits). Anyway, Andrew and I are pretty excited. Andrew spent an hour or so last night working on our closet. He looked so cute I realized why I keep him around :). I sure love to see a man with a steam cleaner going to town on my carpets!

So me and my best house hold pal, Magic Eraser, have had one hell of a day today. We cleaned my bathroom which included getting on our hands and knees to do the floor. Then we tackled the nasty ass kitchen floor by hand. It still looks as ugly as sin to the naked eye but I can see the difference. I'm sure you're thinking to yourself right now "wow, Sarah has a 3 day weekend and she's spending it house cleaning? What a loser!" YES. I am a loser. A broke loser who's fiance, friends, and mother are all at work today. So what else is a girl to do? Clean house of course. Especially since my new baby put me in the mood for some heavy duty cleaning! I even cleaned out our closet and threw some old, stained, nasty clothes away. Shhh.... don't tell Andrew. He'd kill me if he knew I tossed some of his old nasty clothes. God knows they could be shop rags or some shit.

So normally I'm an excellent typist but I've begun to notice that blogger screws my words up all the time. WTF? I can type anywhere else like a pro ('cause I am a pro) but on blogger I end up with missing letters and it's like I have to bang on the keyboard to get it to work! I know it's blogger 'cause I've been doing alot of typing on Word on my computer alot lately and it works like a champ. What the F is going on?

Overwhelmed

That's how I've been feeling lately. Don't ask me why, there's nothing going on now that hasn't always been going on. I think it's just wearing on me. I often wonder to myself how I'm ever going to handle having kids at this rate. Everyday is the same. I get off work, come home and do whatever chores need to be done (grocery shopping, laundry, unloading the dishwasher, etc). Then I have to cook dinner and I usually have to clean up after dinner as I'm usually home alone. This is on top of taking care of the dog and the puppies. Just the other day I walked in the house to find that Gidget had diarrhea all over the living room. Great! Just fucking dandy! I actually did call Andrew and work that day and told him to get his buns home because I wasn't handling that shit alone (it was making me gag). By the time I'm done with all of that it doesn't leave much time for unwinding. I think I realize why people with kids are so high strung all the time now :). I've been getting really resentful to Andrew lately too because he doesn't have to do shit around the house. He work until like 7 every night and then often runs off to a side job. I know he's working his ass off and without it we wouldn't survive but it gets really, really old after awhile. Plus he can't ever just simply do something - everything is a big freaking project to him. If I ask him to do the dishes he'll decide that he has this special doo-hicky in the garage that would make doing the dishes easier so he'll go out there and look around for 1/2 an hour for the damned thing. Then it'll take him another 1/2 an hour to get it set up. Then it won't work so he'll have to fix it. By the time everything is done it'll have turned into a 3 hour project! It's insane!

Plus I think alot of it is the wedding planning. It doesn't seem like I should be busting my ass this far in advance but everyone wants deposits and a 5 month notice. So that leaves me deadline at Decemeber. Hopefully everything gets fun after that point :). It wouldn't be so bad if I was doing it all myself but everyone has an idea for me or knows someone that I should use. Especially my mother in law. I love my mother in law, I truly do. But she wants to use all these Colusa people and my wedding is in Esparto. On top of that her catering dude hasn't returned any of her calls which tells me that he's not interested in our business and I haven't heard from her cake lady either. All that kind of scares me because most people in the wedding business call you every day to check up on your plans 'cause they want your money. My mom is the total opposite, she has no ideas, no preferences and she thought I was going dress shopping with my cousin. Duh, mom! That's a total mother-daughter time. Her and my dad are footing the bill though so I can't complain too much. Just the other day I commented to my friend about how when women get married they get a lifetime of more laundry, more dishes, and a garage full of shit and what do we get back? Love? Companionship? More money in the bank? Men get home cooked meals (ok my man does cook sometimes), a clean house, clean laundry neatly hung in the closet for them, and a personal accountant. Hardly seems fair :). But yet we continue to do it because oddly enough it still beats being alone and at the end of the long, hard day you still love him. Even if he punched you in the mouth last night while attempting to cuddle you in his sleep.

On a brighter note we got the stink pots moved out of my closet and into the garage and it costs us a lot less than I thought it would to build a pen. Only problem ('cause you know there had to be one)? Gidget barks her ass off whenever you put her in with the puppies because she's a spoiled bitch now and she thinks her place is in the house. I'm starting to rethink the idea of keeping a puppy. Dogs are pissing me off right now. Actually, everything is pissing me off right now. Good thing Monday's a holiday!!!!

Apple cider, caramel apples, apple butter....

Just a few of things I put in my tummy today....
Oh, and some kettle corn and a tri tip sandwich. So yummy! It was such a perfect day at Apple Hill! The weather was unbeatable. It was actually kind of chilly at home but it was perfect once we got up there. Even a little warm at times. The taste of Harvest thing we were looking forward to was lame. There was one itty bitty table with some cheese and some apples. Big whoop. Needless to say we didn't spend too much time at that particular stop. I wanted to buy some pumpkins but I know that they will be icky by the time Halloween comes around. Plus I don't know what kind of pumpkins you use for cooking and Andrew wants me to try to make a homemade pumpkin pie. Actually, I say Andrew wants me too but really I'm curious to see if I can do it :). He just encourages me because he loves pumpkin. We were so freaking excited when we saw the pumpkin ice cream out in stores. We bought 2 containers and then I went back for 2 more a week later. Now I'm going to have to be crazy about apples because we bought a 20 lb box at Apple Hill. I'm going to make a big apple crisp and give some to my coworker and some to my sister in law because they are both crazy about apples. Personally I'm not a huge fan unless they are covered in caramel or baked in a pie. Maybe I'll attempt an apple pie this year too.... I'm actually a little disappointed because I was looking forward to some caramel toffee apple pie that I saw advertised on the apple hill website but I couldn't find any! Bastards.

On a totally different note Gidget stinks really bad and I swear the smell of the puppy piss is penetrating the clothes that we still have in the closet. They must be moved. As much as I love them I can't go into public smelling like puppy pee. Plus I'm suppossedly hosting a bunko party at my house on Oct 19 and I can't have people coming over when the house smells like this. It just ain't right. Once they get moved I'm going to shampoo the whole house again. Frankie isn't around anymore so I'm free to do some hard core carpet cleaning once the puppies get booted.

Andrew's BBQ'ing tri tip for dinner tonight. Guess he didn't get enough in the tri tip sandwich we ate earlier. Mmm.... tri tip. I never buy it 'cause I insist on trying to buy healthy foods. Ok, Gidget really stinks. I can't be on the computer anymore because I can't breathe....

Banana cake anyone?

We had a pot luck at work today that was supposed to be Mexican themed. I never follow the rules of course so I decided to make this banana - sour cream cake that I saw in the Raley's magazine. I had made it once before and Andrew gobbled it up so I gave it a shot again and everyone loved it! One of my coworkers even proposed to me (jokingly) because he thinks I'm such a good cook! I was really surprised and happy. I mean, I don't think I'm a horrible cook or anything but I'm nothing special either. I have a few tricks up my sleeve and apparently this is one of my new ones! I just love when you make something that everyone likes :).

Tomorrow I'm off to Apple Hill!!! Woohoo!!! Then Sunday I'm getting together with my mom, mother in law to be, aunt, and cousin (maid of honor) to look over the wedding site and decide what we're going to need and how we're going to set things up. Should be fun. I feel like I'm jumping the gun on my wedding planning but people want sooo much notice for their services! Once I get everything figured out and booked I'm hoping I'll be able to relax a little bit.

The puppies are growing like weeds! I'm about ready to give them the boot to the garage because they're reeking up my house something awful! At least they're blocked into my closet so it's a relatively small area to clean up. We've already shampooed in there once after they were born and it's horrible already. I didn't know the little bastards could piss so much. We've got a box set up for them in the garage but we need to put up some fencing around it so that they don't get out and get into anything harmful. In order to put up the fencing we need to get paid by one of our customers who is thiscloes to NOT being our customer anymore because he's been jerking us around lately. He was supposed to pay us $900 on the 25th. It's now the 28th and he refuses to answer our calls. Of course he still expects Andrew to do work for him while he refuses to pay us. Time to cut him off. Bastard.

Speaking of bastards, I'm still mad at Andrew's father! GRRR..... He STILL hasn't given my the pictures of my trip! His computer sucked all my photos off my camera a month ago when I was in Canada and I've been begging them to upload the photos onto a website for me. Do you think they've done it? Yeah right. 'Cause you know, it's so freaking hard to set the pictures to upload and then go to sleep. If I was in their position I would have done it right away. Maybe that's just because I know how important pictures are to people. Especially when they're pictures of the weekend YOU GOT ENGAGED AT NIAGARA FALLS. I could scream. Really. Needless to say they did not get an engagement announcement and they will not be receiving a wedding invitation (but that's mostly 'cause they drive me insane).