OK now, which one of you hit that fast-forward button, hmmmm? August?! That means summer has hit its stride and will be coming to an end sooner rather than later.

Of course if I were being honest, I’m looking forward to the start of school for the kidlets, which is one month from now. I have a bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting for some sort of celebration, you know.

It’s hard to get things done when they’re here all day every day, especially when they start picking on each other for fun. So you know, every day.  But on the days when they’re not being holy terrors, it’s nice hanging out with them. Honest.

The only thing that’s truly problematic is grocery shopping days. Instead of quick and efficient shopping trips, it takes hours,  and both of them are always trying to chatter over each other about nonsensical stuff – you know, like Pokemon and Minecraft and Thomas, oh my!

Since they’re both competing for who has the most interesting thing to talk about, the volume increases dramatically, so I’m always having to tell them to bring the volume level down, I’m not that  hard of hearing…yet.

It’s enough to drive a mama to drink. Or obtain one of those designer jackets with the arms in the back for a little nap in a padded room.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my kids dearly and love having them home during the day, and am not looking forward to when they’re grown and move out of the house. It’s going to be awfully quiet around here when that happens!

Moving on…  So today (if you’re reading this on Monday) or yesterday (if you’re reading this on Tuesday) was the hubby and my 11th anniversary. The hubby doesn’t happen to be the romantic sort, unfortunately, so no big plans were made to celebrate, but we did exchange gifts and cards and cooked steaks on the grill. Yum!

Since he’s a Last-Minute-Joe, one of my gifts won’t be arriving until possibly next week – but I know what it is and it’s cool, so it’s OK that its late. At least after forgetting our anniversary one year he’s never  done that again.

Edited to add: The hubby scored some big  points with our anniversary! Not only did he get me two awesomely touching cards, but he got me a KitchenAid mixer I’ve been ogling forever, since my previous one was generously donated to friends when we moved from PA to WA. And it’s red. Exactly what I was hoping for!

Not only that,  but he got me the ice cream maker attachment to go along with it. Score!  As if that  wasn’t enough, he also ordered a diamond band to match my wedding ring so my engagement ring can be surrounded. That’s the gift that won’t arrive until next week – and confirms it really is cool. He’s a keeper! <end edit>

We sort of have two anniversaries – one on August 4th when we went to the Justice of the Peace and tied the knot, since he wasn’t into all the fanfare (and I respected that), and another on October 4th, when we threw a housewarming party in our new house and had a surprise wedding for our gaggle of friends (since many of them were disappointed they didn’t get to witness the confirmed bachelor walk down the aisle), complete with a wedding dress and bridesmaids and everything. You’ll have to wait to see pictures of that when that rolls around in October.

Speaking of rolling around…  No, no – get your mind out of the gutter!  Remember that kitty condo I mentioned last week that I’d ordered? This one:

KittyCondo

It arrived, and it’s way bigger than I pictured – the base alone is 23-1/2 inches by 23-1/2 inches, and the shelves protrude farther than that. It’s a big beast. Which proves I got it for a steal, based on the price I paid for it.

Sunday I tackled the putting together of that bad boy:

KittyCondo2

Monday I was waiting on delivery of the treadmill I finally was able to get, so I didn’t want the kitty condo to be hanging out in the living room in the way – while I could have traipsed up and down the stairs carrying all those pieces and parts up there before putting it together, I wouldn’t have had sufficient space to do that, so I decided to build it in the living room and figured the hubby and I could carry it up the stairs, no problem.

Only we didn’t get around to doing that Sunday afternoon, so here I was, Monday morning, waiting for the treadmill delivery and decided I could tackle the transfer all by myself. 

Next time I should probably phone a friend and have them smack me out of dreamland and bring me back to reality.

I wrestled that thing up 7-1/2 steps, being good about using my legs and leveraging it with my knees. Except my legs and knees got tired, and when the tippy top got caught on the partial wall at the landing, I wasn’t focused on using my legs as much as I was focused on not falling down the stairs backwards with this thing following suit, so one twist and I felt a ‘pop’ on the right side of my back and realized I’d just pulled a muscle.

Once that information transferred to my brain, the pain started. So I had to stop, and leave the kitty condo like so:

KittyCondo3

Since it wasn’t quite mid-morning yet, I had to wait until Princess Nagger emerged from her late morning slumber in her usual pursuit to raid the pantry or fridge. When she finally did emerge (maybe because I kept calling her name over and over again), she was a help getting it up the last step-and-a-half, and I managed to get it up the last 5 steps around the corner and into her room.

Once the mess that was created in her room by rearranging her furniture is cleaned up, I’ll take pics to show the massive kitty condo in its final spot – hopefully with kitties lounging happily on it.

The next heavy lifting will be hauling the treadmill up the stairs. This time I’ll be sure to take it up while it’s not fully assembled and assemble it where it’s going. And I’ll wait and let the hubby help. Or any volunteers that might want to offer up assistance. Suddenly everyone’s busy washing their hair, right?

That’s a wrap for this week – you know the drill, link up and join in the fun, everyone is welcome – random or not. Be sure to visit your fellow randomizers so they don’t feel so lonely.

Signature

.

Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets — Easy-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

Keeping the random alive (barely) – feel free to snag a badge and play along – one for my wino friends:

Stacy

And one for my non-wino friends:

Stacy

 

 

 

9 Comments

  1. Happy anniversary. I don’t have little kids (my one and only is just out of college now) and can’t really relate to the summertime ordeals Moms have to put up with these days, but I LOVED your funny article about putting this kitty condo together! I love kitties and have two, Julius & Caesar. I want to get one of those condos for them. But I will take your advise and wait to get it upstairs to assemble it. Thanks again for your cute blog! I really enjoyed it. Cindy

  2. Happy Anniversary! You’re husband really stepped it up this year you lucky lady!

    After all that work I hope your cats love that monster cat tree. With my luck my cats would totally ignore it because, well, they’re cats 😉

    We head back to school in a month too. I’m really not looking forward to it at all. I’ve had it with the morning hassles and the homework stress. I love the less stressful days of summer!
    Elle would like you to read ..Random Fun Anyone?My Profile

  3. I was going to comment about the kitty condo and say I hope your back is going to be all right, but I think I’m too overcome with envy that your husband actually bought you JEWELRY as a gift.

    Blerg. I’m so green it’s not even funny.

  4. So far I got a front yard deck for our anniversary, which is Friday. He’s got a few days to do something else, but I’m not holding my breath.
    Congrats to you guys for 11 years!
    Hope your back feels better!
    VandyJ would like you to read ..Let’s Get RandomMy Profile

Comments are closed.