Friday, October 15, 2010

Pumpkin carving online

Go here!  It is so much fun!  You'll have a hard time pulling yourself away.

Have much fun and a great weekend!

Smiles in my day:
-  Pumpkin math night.  K- had so much fun!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Beating the dead horse for just one more day.

I'll begin by reminding y'all that this is a journal.  With that, forgive me as I talk just one more day.  (Well, I hope that is all that it will take.)

What we're most chaffed about is that someone came along, looked and said, "I want that," and took it.  A small percentage is a stuff thing, but probably 85% is asking why someone felt that they were entitled to something that clearly was not theirs. 

While we've lead pretty average lives, we just so barreled over by the fact that someone would intentionally leave my husband stranded in order to take our trailer to probably junk for drug money. 

We just don't understand the thought process.  What makes people decide to behave the way that they do?  Why are there people that act completely without thought of others and decide that whatever is out there in society is theirs no matter cost or consequence? 

Please don't think that we place the importance of our missing boat trailer on the same level of murder, kidnapping and so forth.  We certainly don't.  We just wonder what the heck would possess someone to do that?  What would possess anyone to do anything harmful to anyone?

Hubs wonders if they watched from the woods to see his reaction and how the boat situation would ultimately be resolved.  Did they hope that he would tie the boat up and go for help, only to come back to it being gone, too? 

It is a violation thing.  It is Hubs' favorite fishing area.  It is a reservoir that is home to Eagles, Osprey, Herons, as well as a ton of wonderful fish to catch and release.  It is a place free of gas motors.  Everyone minds their own, rejoices in the success of others and pulls together to help another fisherman in a bind. 

Hubs will go back.  I'm just afraid that this has changed our habits for good and for bad. 

We don't want to be paranoid.  We want to continue to go and enjoy. 

We don't want them to win.

The end.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The continued saga of the boat trailer heist.

Well, I can officially say that Hubs has now hit mad.  He's not mad often.  For those wondering, we:

1.  Know that it is a material item and I feel dumb about being irked about it in one way. In another way, we live in a materialistic world and while we aren't materialistic people, we like to actually keep the material that we've worked hard for.  Hubs has owned the boat and boat trailer since he was 16.
2.  Are sad that we've had to have long conversations with K- about people purposely stealing something vs. accidentally acquiring something.  (Think school supplies.)  Her solution to keep it from happening again?  She wants Hubs to write his name really big on our next boat trailer so that people know that it belongs to him.  I mean, it works for crayons, pencils, scissors and whatnot, so why not try that with large belongings?  Never mind that it was attached to our RAV and that they had to help themselves to unlatching it and taking the ball hitch plug-in right along with them. 
3.  Will be buying every lock mechanism available and using them when towing our boat again.  No, we didn't have this trailer locked onto the car.  Around here, no one ever does.  My parents have a big ole boat and a typical motor boat and they don't lock their trailer down to their vehicles.  Sadly, it is a changing world and to quote my coworker Sam, "In this economy, you've got to watch where you leave your scrap metal lying around." 
4.  Have reported it stolen and Hubs has to go to the BMV to report the plates as stolen.  It takes the BMV 4-6 weeks to void out the plates and have them declared stolen/dead.  Hmmm.  It's that hard?
5.  Can only find Hubs' butt photo as a picture for the trailer.  Even if we do find it, I doubt that it would hold up to say that it is ours.  Lesson learned.
6.  Are glad that Hubs never leaves his rods or tackle in the boat when he goes to retrieve the truck and trailer.  That is a rather substantial amount of money that could certainly get snagged.  We didn't feel that way before, but now we have been burned.
7.  Are so thankful for the men who towed our boat back to our house.  Without them, we would have had a much more difficult time getting it home.  It would have had to be flat-bedded home and that wouldn't be easy. 
8.  Are checking Craig's List on a daily basis.  Hubs thought he caught it tonight, but it wasn't the right thing. 

We're still processing.  We're still irritated. 

Smiles in my day:
-  The Room Parent Tea.  It was delightful!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Tales from the Trenches: Yucky people steal stuff.

My husband went fishing today.  He returned to our truck at about 12:45 PM to bring the truck and trailer back around to load the boat and go and one thing was missing.

Our trailer. 

Someone/people stole the trailer and ball hitch right off the back of my truck. 

The sunny side?  They didn't damage the vehicle or steal the actual hitch that is bolted to the frame of the RAV. 

The bad side?  My husband was left stranded with a 14' boat and no way to bring it home. 

WHAT THE HECK?! 

So, we've had to report it stolen to the Sheriff's office.  Thankfully, there were two men (an older father and his son) who had a trailer on their truck the size that we needed to bring the boat home.  Now this is sitting on my yard:

The theft has been reported to the scrap yards.  I didn't realize, but scrap yards have a centralized reporting for stolen items that might hit their doorsteps.  They told me that locally, they've even had success in recovering things as far away as Erie, PA.  (For us, that is a good 2 hour drive.)

In the meantime, my husband feels violated.  I'm ticked.  We're both thankful, though.  He was towed back.  The boat is the more valuable thing of the two.  A neighbor was poised to try to help us fetch it, even though all he had was a 9' flat bed trailer.  My brother, Billy, was on stand-by with a truck and a larger trailer. 

Everyone feels so horrible for Hubs. 

I left work early to deal with the crap from this.  Hubs went off to therapeutically shop at his favorite resale CD store. 

A good lesson learned.  Strap trailers to your vehicle with big fat chain and a really strong lock.  Take pictures of your trailer, or you get to send a missing report with a photo of your husband's butt up in the air. 

Ugh.

Smiles in my day:
-  It could have been worse.

An early post for Tuesday.  Read on.  I have another posted for Monday.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Writing while yawning.

Y'all, I'm tuckered out.  This weekend was filled, filled to the gills I tell you. Really, the weekend started a few days early.

I got the text from April about her mom on the way home from walking K- to school on Thursday.  I processed that, then had to do an online training workshop for the PTA communication program, Just Between Friends.  The workshop was well worth the hour and 15 minutes it took.  I cleaned the house, then got a call from a friend needing emergency child care for a couple of hours in the evening.  After her two kids were picked up, I went over homework with K-, then got her ready for bed.  I then proceeded to input PTA member names into a spreadsheet until 11:30 PM. 

Friday provided us with a lovely trip to the "Appled Orcherd."  (As K- would say it.)  I signed on to be a chaperone.  K- has taken to having breakfast at school, so I drove over and had her there at 8 AM.  It was crazy for me to drive back, sit at home for a half hour, then come back.  For the hour that I had, I did some PTA stuff.  I was carpool driver for a few moms, then I had an hour to kill when we came back.  I really didn't want to leave then, because people start arriving to get the kids at 1:30 PM when school isn't out until 2:30 PM.  It becomes a giant traffic jam, so I decided to stay and work on more PTA stuff.  When we left school, we visited Aunt Donna and Grandma.  That trip wasn't exactly in and out and I finally had to tell Aunt Donna that I had been with 100 First graders and my brain was toast.  We went home and we all collapsed.  K- read to Hubs and he was so tired that he fell asleep on the second page of Amelia Bedelia.

Saturday started with Lowe's Building Workshops.  We had the fun house mirror, but Miss Patti had an additional puppet theater kit for the kids to do.  We hung out and built that one, too.  Since I was short on time and had the day full, we went next door to the Super Wal to get the needed supplies to do the massive amount of funeral cooking I had on deck for Sunday.  When we got home, I was a half hour behind the schedule that I had set for myself.  We were helping to work a pioneer event at one of the parks in the system that my husband works for. 

It involved costume.  Costume for me that involved acres of fabric. I had a huge dress with a drawstring neck.  Seriously, the dress looked like a before piece of clothing that would be dropped for a Weigh*t Wat*chers ad.  I had an equally as large skirt and an apron over top.  I also had a lovely vest.  I was supposed to wear the fluffy sleep bonnet, but K- had nothing to wear but her school uniform and little button down shirt.  (That was as plain as I could get.)  It worked out just fine, though.


We arrived at the event at about 12:45 PM.  Hubs didn't need us until 2 PM, so that gave us a little time to cruise around and get something to eat.  We worked the booth.  K- also played on the playground within eye shot of us and made some lovely friends.  We left out of there at about 6:30 PM.  I had to cruise past the grocery on the way home for frozen rolls to rise for the dinner on Sunday.  When we arrived home, it was bath time, bedtime, rolls to rise in the pans overnight time, then sleep time.  Hooray.

K- was up on Sunday morning rather bright und earlie (as we say in our house.)  Sheesh!  Girl was up at about 6:30 AM.  She wanted to watch TV.  She was all pestery.  I wasn't my happiest since I felt like I had something coming on.  (An Oscillo kicked it.)  Hubs took her to have her watch a movie and I was able to sleep on and off until about 8 PM. 

I skipped church and did the Lord's work as I baked and cooked from 8 AM - 1:15 PM.  The memorial for April's mom was today.  It was at the same time as soccer.  April insisted that both she and her mom would want nothing more than to have K- go to her soccer practice/game.  I drove past her mom's house to drop the food off.  I wanted to make sure that though I was unable to attend (with blessing), that my food could attend for me.  Later, I spoke to April who said that they had more than enough food, but not so much that they were floating when they went to leave.  They said that the amount that they had was perfect and I was glad to help in that way.

We went to soccer and K- caught a ball straight to the stomach which made her lose her breath and the pain made her panic.  After a few, I got her calmed down (normally, she doesn't quite panic like that) and off to the field she went.  Today, I was flying solo on the field since Hubs worked and the in-law's were attending a party in Columbus. 

We went to choir practice after and then I skipped the evening church leadership meeting because I'm toast.

How was your weekend?

Smiles in my weekend:
-  All of us are still standing upright. 

Have a great day!