Works for My Friend Wednesday: A slip-free shower

My very good friend Cj has Multiple Sclerosis. She is famous for falling. In fact, she fell coming out of the shower a few years ago and broke her hand. Since then, she has been trying to come up with an idea to make her walk-in shower safe. Here's what she had to say:

After my lovely crash out of the shower, I've been trying to come up with a better solution than a shower mat. Problem with a mat is you have to lift it after each shower, then step out by way of the slippery floor.

This solution uses 3M Indoor/Outdoor Tread tape that you use on a deck or boat. I tried the cutsie sticky feet, but even after following the directions precisely AND waiting the 24 hrs., I ended up with a bunch of feet trying to go down the drain after the FIRST shower! This tread tape is absolutely doing the trick.

Thought you'd all benefit from my solution!

So if you or someone you know has a slippery shower problem, here's a great solution for you. Cj reports that there has been no lifting and the tape is pleasant on your feet. She credits the man in her life with having come up with the solution. Thanks, Cj and Guy!

Smiles in my day:
- A good day at work. I met with my boss regarding the tree decorating demo I'm to do on Sunday and she is thrilled with all of my suggestions. She is giving me free reign (hooray!) and allowing me to do the prep work from home while being paid for it.
- Going over the sight words tonight with K-. Boy, that girl is busting it through words left and right. Hooray for reading!
- It was RIF/PTA Book Giveaway Day today at school and K- loved her new Arthur book so much, that she had her grandmother read it to her twice and wanted me to read it for a third time!
- My brother is looking for a job.
- Hubs got his H1N1 shot yesterday, thanks to Leland for coming over from time to time to hang out at our home. Because he is in the baby age zone (not 6 months), both Hubs and I qualified. Sadly, Hubs' dad did not qualify for the shot because of age, regardless to the fact that his cardiologist wants him to have it. My MIL was not pleased, and I don't blame her. We're going to try to cycle my FIL through another H1N1 clinic with an rx in hand.
- The little neighbor girl found a hobby horse unicorn at the dollar store that looks like a miniature version of K-'s now famous Sparkle. Now both girls gallop to school and Michelle and I feel like we are running the mile there! E- has decided to name her hobby horse unicorn "Baby Sparkle." It is hilarious! Have I mentioned that people know us because of Sparkle? I mean, how many kids gallop to school?
- I swear that K- has grown a bajillion inches since last week. Her leggings are now floods and she seems to be a full head taller than her friend, E-. I laughed when K- got together with her classmate Z- this AM. She's towering over him, too!
- Having remembered to put the Festival Choir CD in my CD player in the truck. Practicing the songs as I drive puts me into a lovely mood.

Have a great week!

Tales from the Trenches: Behind

I'm behind on stuff from being sick one week, then rolling into a week long marathon to get the Christmas stuff up. The upside? The open house at work this weekend was a huge success! Compliments were given regarding the displays and whatnot. I had a nice atagirl from my boss. The downside? I had another closed door meeting with the boss and the floor manager due to the coworker who as mad at me because I inquired on things left unfilled, the counter strewn with items with unknown reason of abandonment and broken ornaments were found in many places. Apparently, he was a hair chaffed and I was just irritated because I came in to a festival of undone things and holes everywhere. I said that was fine, that next time I just won't say anything at all. My boss laughed and told me that she understands how I get in trouble because she does the exact same thing to people, doesn't mean to get people mad, is just trying to get things done and makes people unhappy. The meeting ended well, but I did boldly speak my mind and I'm glad that I can do that and not lose my job for it. My boss knows that I'm a hard worker and realizes that I pour my heart and soul into my job. She appreciates that. Still, I don't mean to offend people and I think that we are all just suffering from display/sales fatigue.

So, I sit here staring at a mountain of laundry. I need to fold it. I'm going to tackle it and at least fold it all into piles this evening. I'll put it away tomorrow. I haven't been this behind on laundry since, hmmm, let me think-- last year this time! I've broken my line dry rule and used the dryer to get pulled back up to my normal routine.

Must tend to laundry. I'm also crabby and not feeling so smilesy today. Pardon the lack of.

Smell my nose breath

My beloved little person crawled into bed with us early Sunday morning and asked me exactly that. "Mommy. Mommy? Um, smell my nose breath." "No thank you, baby." "No really, Mommy [insert her nose moving up toward my nose]. Smell my nose breath." "K-, really, I'm good. No thank you." "But mom, [insert breathing nose now basically touching my nose] smell my nose breath!" "K-, really. I'm good with NOT smelling your nose breath. Your nose breath could be gross and I really don't want to be smelling that right now." My then defeated little person decided that snuggling up was good enough. She opted to keep her nose breath to herself. I was thankful for that.

It was a tough parental weekend. You know those days when you would like to sit at the table and repeatedly bang your head against it for knowing that at least that way you would actually be accomplishing something?

We had the battle of the wills this weekend. Since I can't be put in time out, I would say that I won.

K-'s crabbiness started when she left school on Friday. She was hungry and I had snacks for her to have. We picked my aunt up and took her to Super Wal. My aunt is sight impaired and has mobility issues, so going to the store is not something she gets to do that often. When we got to the Wal, no motorized carts were available at the door we went to. I had to go down to the other door and fetch a motorized cart.

Folks, I had never operated one of those things in my life. I now know why my grandmother runs into everything. Sheesh.

So, K- and I were able to make it back down to my aunt and we went off and on our way. Auntie D- kept remember what she needed when she was on the opposite side of the grocery section. We flip flopped a few times, but got her nearly all that she needed. K- needed to use the restroom in the midst of the flip flopping and the one at the front of the store was closed for cleaning. She did make it to the back and handled all of her business. She was still crabby, though. She was fixated on the fact that she was thirsty. Every 10 seconds she would tell me. As any good germaphobe mommy, the drinking fountains at the Wal are ABSOLUTELY OFF LIMITS PERIOD. I would rather shrivel up from dehydration than drink from a major public fountain. The one at church is pushing it, but I know that one gets cleaned all the time.

I'm sorry, where was I?

Oh yes, Aunt D- and her shopping trip. Y'all, she spent so much time looking and looking in ALL sections of the store that I started fading out and K- finally asked when we were going to go home.

Aunt D- wore us out. It is probably because I have a distinct dislike for the Wal anyhow (watching the movie didn't help that, but I have had a bit of a dislike for quite sometime now anyhow), but it didn't help that they didn't have what I was looking for anyhow.

We dropped Aunt D- off and scooted on home. We started working on the Jesse Tree ornaments that were due on Sunday night for the big ornament exchange party.

Saturday morning began with a true crankensteiner. K- ended up with a few time-out's before we even left for Amish Country. In fact, it put is about a half hour behind where we wanted to be for leaving. That's okay. I made it to Amish Country in record time. No, my truck doesn't have wings but let us just say that the traffic had a good flow in sections. K- was mad that we didn't take the "tiny TV" AKA the portable DVD player. She said that Daddy said that, "She could look out the window and that is just boring!" I went on-line and found some car bingo cards to print out for her. She continued to fit, so I took the privilege of the Leapster going with us and told her that she could take some coloring books and crayons and that was it.

K- was good in Amish Country. We stopped in at the bulk food store, where I fetched things not only for us, but canned items for Christmas gifts, spices for the demo at work, spices and sprinkles for my sister & mom and a variety of food items for our consumption.

We cruised by our favorite restaurant for lunch. We left stuffed. I decided that since they had just ended the breakfast, but still had the breakfast bar items available with the salad bar, that was what I would get. K- and Hubs both got turkey and potatoes. It was the most delicious meal we ever had there yet! I also ate the most wonderful cinnamon roll ever. I'll be dreaming about it for sometime.

After, we stopped by the chocolate factory to finish off Hubs' coworkers Christmas gift (he drew the name of the one real picky person), picked up something for a coworker and a snack (of course) and we pressed onward.

Completely by accident, we took the scenic tour on our way to the vegetable stand. We weren't holding out much hope that it would be open, but we thought we would give it a shot. When we finally reached the hill where they have their sign of availability, they were open and had a lot of great stuff left! They had all kinds of squash (not crook neck or patty pan), pumpkins and mums. We opted to buy orange cauliflower, 5 pounds of potatoes and the bunch of Indian corn that K- loved.

We cruised by the bakery and with the amount of folks there, you would have thought that they were giving things away.

Hubs stopped in at this favorite outdoor boot store with hopes of getting Aquaseal and a hat. Of course after he got home, he discovered that he had more than enough Aquaseal and was able to find his hats that were missing. That's okay. He needed a good hat and he has decided to gift the container of Aquaseal to his boss for Christmas. (What do you buy a single man who needs nothing?)

We made the haul back home and that is where the real fun with K- began. I told K- that she needed to go in to make her bed and straighten her room. When I was working late last week, she opted to use her desk as a dumping ground and things were literally sliding off the desk and onto the floor. That is not okay. She used to always make her bed. I let her slide when getting used to get ready to go to school (I know I shouldn't have and learned my lesson), so she has been bed making resistant. She fussed, yelled, was demanding and giving "if you don't do - -, then I won't do - - ." Um, I don't operate that way. In the end, she had several time-out's, a few triples, a couple of doubles and a single or two. I think that all the 5 1/2 minute blocks ended up adding up to 10 time-out's or so? She also lost TV, and other little belongings.

The need to straighten lopped on over to Sunday, so she wasn't all that pleased. We had our Jesse Tree ornament exchange Sunday evening, and she nearly missed it because of bad behavior. In the end, she pulled it around and was able to attend.

Smiles in my weekend:
- Going to Amish Country with my people.
- Finding great gifts for friends and family.
- The cinnamon roll.
- K- finally cleaning her bedroom BY HERSELF and knowing that it is absolutely her responsibility to keep it tidy.
- Instead of doing laundry on Saturday evening like I should have been, I thumbed through magazines and pulled out lovely recipes. I tried one on Sunday evening. I made a lovely Alfredo sauce (easy) and used my Garlic Parsley noodles that I purchased while in Amish Country. The orange cauliflower was tossed in. Delicious!
- Trying to get back on track with the laundry. Speaking of, I need to excuse myself so that I may deposit another load into the washer.

Have a great week!

"Mommy?"

"I really need to rest my eyes. And my face. You know, it gets tired from having to look at each other all day." (Speaking of school.)

Amen to that, my friend. Amen.

One last day of work. I've obligated myself to one last short shift while K- is in school. Heaven help me now. The fun part of my day? My brother called me as I was standing in line at McD's for breakfast (not a norm for me) to say that the gallery was a feature on one of the morning news stations. "You are kidding me." "No, no. They are there." "Fantastic. I'm going in to set the ceiling above the front desk and the news team will get a shot of my butt on camera."

I got to work. I find that they would have loved to do a nice bit about all of the wonderful trees that I decorated, but they couldn't because the place was a wreck and the news crew couldn't get the camera in!

They forgot to tell us. Our store oozes Christmas. Oozes. I got a mention in Cleveland Magazine for tree decorating at the gallery and THEY FORGOT TO TELL US! Both owners knew and the gallery manager. I understand the owners forgetting to tell us, but the manager didn't say a thing!

They apologized, though. In fact, my boss felt horrible and said that she was "Sorry. I really scre*wed up." You know, it did my heart some good to have them know how important that would have been for us. Oh well. The gallery got some free press. People will come. They'll see my trees. They'll buy our stuff.

With that, I'm ready to hit the sack. I'm not used to a 5 day work week.

Have a great weekend. Stay dry, Rachael!

Flying bits of self and funky odors.

Y'all, it has been a l.o.n.g. week. L O N G. There have been some pet peeves along the way. I'm sorry, but this is going to be a venting post. Please know that I'm warning you now.

I've had people lose control of their digestive tract and leave bits of self behind for us to clean up.

I've had a co-worker experience a visit from Auntie Flo and lose control and leave bits of self behind, without having been cleaned up.

I've experienced odors of people in many ways. There have been the raw onion eaters that came in right after lunch (my assumption) and stink up the joint. I've had people with far too much perfume on having their scent waft about. I've had a co-worker with an unclean smell overtake rooms and make me sick to my stomach. I've experienced folks with strong body odor and smell of unlaundered clothing.

I've been trapped on the ladder with ladies standing at the cheeks of my behind.

I've had people reaching over me.

I've had people step over me.

I've had people run me out of my displays.

I had an older woman who stated that she needed the restroom. I told her that it was currently unavailable, but before she could let me finish, she yelled at me, "WELL, WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO? GO HOME TO GO TO THE BATHROOM?!" I told her that I was sorry that we would need a few minutes because there were glass shelves leaned against the door. I told her that as soon as we cleared a path for her, we would let her know. Within two minutes, we were able to accommodate her request.

I've had to deal with a very lazy seasonal worker who has a habit of lying to keep herself from having to do work. She drives me absolutely insane, as I have an intolerance for lazy people who are being paid to work and there are so many others out there that would love the job. She has personally decided that she prefers to work at our sister store over us and when she has an opportunity, she'll escape to go back to the other counter.

Of course, I've dropped things and broke stuff. Not big expensive things, but I've broken stuff.

I have to work on Thursday at the very least. Thursday is my day off and my day for cleaning. I absolutely have to get done what I've promised to do. I'll work while K- is in school. It won't be a full day, but it should provide me with enough time to get the couple of displays done that I absolutely have to do.

My kid has been asleep the last two nights when I got home. That bums me out. At least tonight, she wasn't fast asleep so she did reach around and give me a hug when I told her that I was there.

I've been getting up and crawling into K-'s bed a little earlier than I normally do so that we can still get our reading time in together. We've only got three more blocks of 15 minutes of reading to get to the 200 mark for her 100 Book Challenge. We will finish this on Thursday. K- is very excited, as the next step is to adopt a stuffed animal. Still, my hope was to get this done earlier in the week. I promised by the end and by the end of the week she'll have.

Hubs has been doing K-'s school work with her every night, including her speech therapy homework. We normally do this together as a family at least a few times a week. I miss it.

I packed Daddy's macaroni and cheese in K-'s lunch on Tuesday and apparently I tightened the top so much that K- couldn't open it. She didn't know that she could ask the monitors for help, so other than carrots and a juice box, she didn't eat anything else for lunch. Ugh. Good news is that she ate all of the pot pie that I packed her on Wednesday.

I've had to toss laundry in the dryer to keep up. I just haven't had the time to hang items on the line this week. It makes me feel like a laundress failure.

I woke up tired Wednesday morning. I had to do display by caffeine. I've been running and running and I'm flat out tired. Soon and very soon, it'll all be done.

Have a very energetic day!

Works for Me Wednesday: A girl's guide to car winterization

Saturday was a beyond gorgeous day. I ran to my sister's house twice because I completely forgot to get what I went out for. I was on a run for provisions like fresh veggies, Tylenol and Motrin. However, I forgot the Tylenol and Motrin for my nephew Leland who was sporting a lovely case of H1N1 at the ripe age of 5 1/2 months. He's on the mend, but did spike 104 F. So, after I came back from doing the victory lap, I decided that it warmed enough to wash and wax the car before the winter weather kicks in.

Winter weather here makes cars look really funky, inside and out. I decided to do one last hoorah. I wanted to be certain that everything had the once over and we were good.

Folks, I spent about 3 1/2 hours accomplishing that goal.

Now grant you, I did not by any stretch of the imagination do a professional job, but I'm happy with the outcome. Here's what I did in my attempt to winterize my ride in probably more of a female fashion:

1. Washed the RAV from top to bottom, even getting all of the brake dust off of the rims. They shine now.
2. Waxed the RAV from top to bottom, including the roof rails. Salt is yucky on the paint. A little extra protection doesn't hurt.
3. Washed the windows inside and out, including the windshield and moon roof. Dirty windows are rather difficult to see out of. That's not so safe.
4. Washed the inside, including but not limited to the dash, interior side of window glass, doors from top to bottom, spraying the heavy duty mat at the driver's seat and K-'s seat, all the cooks and nannies in the PRNDL and the kind of gross cup holders. I wasn't in the mood to deal with Armor All. A bad job with Armor All can be spotted from a parking lot away. I just didn't have the dedication.
5. Swept the entire truck, having chased many soft and rotting grapes, cracker bits, and crayons in a variety of states of being.
6. Had K- help in the unveiling of the backseat from all of the reading books, coloring books, dolls and miscellaneous "must keep" garbage that amassed in her corner of my mode of transportation.
7. Restocked the storm food. Many packages of crackers in a variety of flavors are now stowed away in the console, awaiting consumption on days where we are forever stuck in massive traffic because one flake on the road makes 70 % of the population of NE Ohio twitch to near convulsions. And for the record, I LOVE! to drive in the snow. It also doesn't hurt that I have a 4WD. Hubs does, too.
8. Refilled the Purell dispenser on my driver's side door. Germs are everywhere people and ATM machines and gas pumps are the worst! Ick!
9. Made certain that I have lip goo and intensive hand cream easily accessible. After all, what else am I supposed to do on an otherwise dry highway while there are three flakes causing a major back-up? May as well moisturize!
10. Checked the condition of all my wiper blades. I found that my rear wiper blade had split and is beginning to rip. Since it is famous for freezing to the glass and I forget that until I've tried to make it go a few times, I decided that I shall replace it and only allow it to go when the de-icer has actually melted all of the winter gunk off of my back window.
11. While trying to find the size for the rear wiper blade, I learned that the side mirror de-icing functions when the de-icing button is pushed for the back window. Good to know. I knew that it worked (on accident), but didn't know how it happened! I also learned that the store has a master book with the wiper blades to tell you what size you need. Also good to know. The book was wrong, though. It also didn't state that I needed the blade only and not the arm thingy. Hubs took the wiper blade back.
12. I checked and refilled the windshield washer fluid. That is probably one of my biggest pet peeves when driving. Nothing is worse than having the windshield constantly sprayed with road salt and not being able to remove it. Driving blindly is not something that I care to do.
13. Speaking of, I purchased canopy straps to latch the bottle of windshield wiper fluid to the hooks in the back of my truck. Having the bottle roll around back, from side to side, is a little nerve wracking. Thwamp to the left! Thwamp to the right! I was able to hook the bottle in a few different places. There is a grocery sack hook (again, I found that out when reading the book to see wiper size) and another hook that is probably to just latch things down. Having tied the bottle down in two places has kept it in its place. Hooray!
14. I touched up the stone chip hunks in the paint. Our RAV was delivered with a few stone chips in the hood and the settlement that I made with the dealership was to give us a stone guard and a paint pen. Both are rather handy to have. (They drove the RAV in from Dubois, PA and knew that we were in a crunch for time, as opposed to bringing it by car hauler. They would have repainted the front half of the truck, but stone chips will happen. As it was, 4 months later the RAV was stoned by a weed eater, 1/2 the truck was painted twice in a month, as well as having to have the passenger window of the driver's side replaced. We can live with a few stone chips having been repaired. Besides, we know that if we put the dealership to that much work, a boulder would have fallen out of the sky as we drove off the lot and would have totaled the front end. Believe me, stone chips are fine. Remember that black cloud? It hovers over us often.)
15. I found a better home for my proof of insurance card.
16. I double checked that the blanket is in the back.
17. I double checked that I have a little pocket knife in the car, to cut the seat belt strapping if we should ever get trapped.
18. I also have a pair of scissors. I forgot about them, but it's good to remember that they are there. You never know when you need them.
19. I double checked the location of my pressure gauge. Remember? Me and tires? 'Nuff said.
20. We have a box of tissues near K-'s booster in the backseat and a spare in the cargo net in back. Winter noses run.

The tail end of my car winterization list is:
- Go to Toyota to have them repair the CD player, my seat belt latch that I slammed the door on, broke a piece off and now the latch hangs all the way to the floor which makes reaching it very hard, and I'll be returning the blasted tire cover AGAIN to have them see why it discontinues fitting after being taken off only once.
- Go to a Goodyear Service Center, tell them I realize that they are probably going to try to sell me new tires, but I'll be thrilled with a free tire rotation, please.
- Check to make sure that the shake flash light is in the glove box.
- Add a first aid kit.
- Add a few personal sized bottles of water. Though they will freeze, they can be thawed quickly with the very warm heating system that Toyota is so kind to provide.
- Add an extra hat and pair of gloves each for K- and me. I'll put a hat in for Hubs, but usually he isn't with us.
- I'd like to have a Life hammer to break the windows out if needed. I think of the ladies that drowned this week when they accidentally drove into the lake. Intense pressure builds and you are unable to unroll your windows while underwater. I know of a friend's sister that died this very way.
- Add a felt eraser. I've read that this is an excellent way to remove fogginess from your windows.

So, I'll admit that this started as my Monday post, but became my Wednesday post. Have a great Wednesday!

Smiles in my day:
- The Christmas tree display that was fighting me all day like a two year old in a rolling tantrum, actually decided to submit to my decorating abilities and cooperate. Unfortunately, I'm still behind on my decorating schedule. Fortunately, I was able to take the gorgeous merchandise I had no place for other than relegating it to a sad sack display from the ceiling into a fantastic pink, burgundy, black and white tree. It sounds wrong, but it is so right! :)! Success after yesterday made me smile. Don't worry, the pictures of the trees that I create at work will be on the blog for all to see on December 14 for the Christmas Tour.
- I was able to work enough extra hours to make up for the day I missed last week. Never mind that the extra hours combined as 2 1/2 hours on Thursday, 2 1/2 hours on Monday and 3 hours today. Hey, whatever combination it takes to make that paycheck whole again. Happily, I feel much, much better.
- K-, her teacher and her class waving to me through the window this morning. I always wait outside of her window to see her arrive at class. We both wave and get on with our day.

Crunch time

Busy week. 12 hour + days. Much Christmas decorating to be done at work. Will be in and out. Check out Saturday's post, if you didn't get to already. Many smiles. :)

Smiles in my weekend:
- Getting my car all cleaned for winter. Check back in for my WFMW post about it.
- Leland is recovering from H1N1. I admit that the Saturday morning call of my sister bawling on the way to the doctor and asking for prayer about broke my heart. I held it together for her and prayed her a far amount of way there. Though he spiked to 104 F, she was able to get the fever back down to 101 F. He is well hydrated and hovering with the lower grade fever. She said that she never thought she'd be so happy with a 100-101 F fever.
- J-, my sister's younger daughter, spiked to 104 F twice in the early morning hours of Sunday. (Yes, H1N1.) My sister, having had major issue with my having taken K-'s blanket away in the time of high fever with probable H1N1, found herself doing the same thing at 2 AM. She apologized and told me that when she got to that point, she completely understood why I did it. She told me that she has learned not to be so judgmental regarding parental decisions. That has bit all of us in the butt from time to time!
- Sunday was new phone day with AT&T. Hubs and I now have the same cell phones in different colors. A great advantage since whatever he figures out for his phone he can do to mine. He made me a ring tone which took hours because there were no directions. Then, that ring tone didn't quite work well, so he made me a second one! What is my ring tone? The first 13 seconds of this song:

He laughs because he said that he can't help but to admit that the ring tone is completely me! :)

Have a great week!