One of Those Days....

**UPDATE: We found Abby Dog! I was coming back from the grocery store and when I came in the gate of our neighborhood I asked the guard at the guard shack if they would post my flyer in the window and he did me one better! He handed me a flyer that someone had given him, advertising a "Found Beagle" who was our Abby Dog! Yay! Thank goodness for kind neighbors!**

I'm having one of those days.

Its actually been going on longer than just today, but today has been extra-special.

It all started Monday when I had to get in the car to drive home from the trip. Why is the drive home never as fun as the drive to the vacation? I'm not sure why I was so crabby, I was actually looking forward to getting home.

After we got just far enough away from my parent's house to be in the middle of freaking nowhere, my car broke down. Seriously.

I stopped at a gas station that had a DQ (yummy) and got gas, then drove the car to a parking place so AJ and I could grab lunch. We walked back out to the car with Blizzard in hand and the car won't start. In fact, it wouldn't even turn over, making me think it was really bad and was most likely going to strand us for 2 days in the middle of nowhere cost $9000 to fix. (The stranding in the middle of nowhere thing has actually happened to me before, remind me to tell that story another time.)

I did what any sane, almost 30-year-old, self-sufficient, adult traveling with her daughter would do. I called my dad.

Okay, so maybe that is just me. Either way, I didn't cry. (One point for me.)

After talking to my dad (and him surprisingly not being able to do a damn thing over the phone) I walked into the gas station store and asked the woman if there was so where to have my car towed to. She gave me a business card and told me to call Ken.

Ken (may very well be my own personal angel) showed up precisely 15 minutes later and hooked my car up to his thingy-ma-bobber and told me that my battery had a short.

Now, I'm not sure what that means, or how it happened in the 12 minutes AJ and I were eating lunch inside, but it only cost me $150 to fix. That included parts (a new battery), labor, and a convenience fee (since Ken had driven out to the gas station to help me there). It honestly could not have gone any better than it did.

Add this little mishap to my speeding ticket from the first leg of the trip and I'm beginning to think that I won't be traveling for a while.

Don't worry. It gets better.

I arrive at my Aunt and Uncle's house unscathed, albeit later than expected, and get a phone call from D informing me that the dog has gone missing. He let her out while he went for a run (was gone approximately 45 minutes) and when he came home she was no where to be found.

Me, Abby and a bunny.

We had an invisible fence installed about 2 months ago and she is deathly afraid of crossing "the line."

Under no circumstances do I think she ran off. Each of the 4 times in the past 2 months that she has come into contact with the line she has run back into the house, whimpering (no, the shock is not that high, she is a total wuss).

Abby wearing a jacket.

We're pretty sure that someone drove by our house and took her. Our neighbors are also missing their dog and historically, this would not be the first time dogs have been stolen and then re-sold around here. Plus our next-door neighbors were outside, so if she had been, say, attacked and eaten by a wild animal, they would have heard her screaming or something.

Pretty girl.

Then while I was posting things all over the interwebs about her being missing and stuff I was trying to find a verification email that went into my spam folder. I got in there and saw what I thought (stupidly) was an email from a blogger about a giveaway that I entered. I immediately responded to the email with my full name and address (no other information, thankfully). Then I realized that I was in my spam folder and looked at the email address. Sure enough, it was something random. Sooooo, hopefully no one comes to our house to murder us or something, because we don't have a watch-dog anymore. :(

Not that Abby was ever a watch-dog.**

So yeah. I'm feeling pretty damn awesome about life right now.

If you have been a super-sleuth and know where we live (and happen to live near us), please keep an eye out for an overweight beagle named Abby.

She's talented...standing on an exercise ball.**

*Please excuse the massive amounts of dripping sarcasm used in this post. I tend to deal with things by being sarcastic.

**She hates us, BTW. The only reason I'm sure she didn't run away is because she is literally too simple-minded to plan an escape. Seriously.

P.S. "Simple-minded" is a really nice way of saying "she is the stupidest dog ever." I'm not trying to be mean. Anyone who has ever met her knows this to be nothing short of the God's honest truth. So, if you do happen to find her, wandering around somewhere, speak slowly and offer food (preferably Sonic Tots).

Beep, Beep! Comin' Through!

So we left off Wednesday afternoon after our trip to Jeni's ice cream. AJ took a great nap and when she got up, we headed up to my maternal grandparent's to visit. As I mentioned before, my grandad has recently been moved into the assisted living section of the community, so things are changing a lot for them and I think they've had a hard time adjusting to living in two separate places, even if they are only a 5 minute walk away.

AJ getting a picture with great-grandad.

And one with great-grammy.

My cousin Molly was there, too!

Pointing out where she found the cat treats in a drawer.

Pretty interested in said cat treats (she ate a few before I figured out what she was doing).

Pooped after a long, fun day of visiting (and eating cat treats)!

Thursday we got up bright and early again and headed Westward! I wanted to get on the road early to miss any chance of hitting traffic, and luckily it was smooth sailing the whole way! We got to my parent's house around noon and had lunch. After a failed nap, we proceeded to play outside for most of the afternoon.

AJ got in a little driving practice in Z's jeep.

As you can see, we don't play around, she is wearing her seatbelt. ;)

Now if only she could reach the clutch!

Don't fall out, AJ! There are no doors on that Jeep!

My "brother from another mother" aka Hutchy came over last night for dinner!

He was enjoying the faces AJ was making at him! He has a niece of his own who is about 6 months younger than AJ, so seeing AJ at this age will be good practice for him in a few months when Delaney is this age!

And AJ's favorite part of the trip so far, the neighbor's dog, Lily! They're perfectly sized for each other!

So, as you can see, we're having lots of fun and trying to just take it easy so AJ doesn't get too tired from all the activity! We've got lunch plans today and then tomorrow AJ heads up to the in-laws for a big party Saturday night while I head to a bachelorette party.

I'll post again next week with all our weekend pictures!

Happy Friday, all!

The DMV Is So Thorough

So we (and by "we" I mean AJ) were successful in getting the new license plates on Tuesday. We had no issues whatsoever and honestly, I was a little concerned by something that happened at the DMV. Here's the story:

I took my POA, the proof of purchase from when we bought the car, the current registration and a few other important pieces of paper. The POA I have is a special POA that specifically states that I am allowed to register, title, drive, sell, buy blah, blah, blah, basically do anything to D's vehicle in his absence.

So we walked into the building directly from having driven 2 1/2 hours to get there. I told them why I was there and took a number. A few minutes later my number was being called and we made our way over to the counter. I explained why we were there again and basically dumped the entire contents of my file folder out on the counter. The lady picked through and took the copy I had made of my POA and a few other things, then told me to fill out two forms.

After the forms were filled out and she had made copies of everything else she was going to need she told me how much I owed them and directed me across the aisle to the cashier. He made a copy of my POA for another reason (records, I don't know) and then informed me that there was a $4.07 surcharge for using my debit card to pay the $194 fee.

Seriously? The surcharge is wrong on so many different levels, the first being, who the hell came up with $4.07? Couldn't they have chosen a round number? Secondly, the $194 I'm paying your already can't cover the extra $4.07? Does that seem strange to anyone else? Anyways, on with the story.

The thing that disturbed me about the entire transaction was that they never once asked me for my ID. They didn't check to make sure that I was who I was saying I was. They also never checked to make sure that I was the person listed on the POA. I'm pretty sure that they didn't even cross check the forms with the POA to make sure that D's name was the same on both of them. I very easily could have walked in and registered someone else's car in my name and they wouldn't have noticed.

All in all, it was pretty uneventful, but the car is registered in D's name, AJ was fabulous in the car and afterwards we met up with my brother for dinner.

*I just wanted to let everyone know that I've been super busy with AJ lately (since her naps are hit or miss lately) and haven't really had time to read and comment very much. Hopefully this weekend I'll get back into the groove a bit!

I Make Plans, God Laughs.

So the big man upstairs must have heard that I was turning over a new leaf. I knew that it was going to be more difficult than just saying I was going to adjust my attitude, but really? How much can one girl take?! LOL

As many of you know, we are currently stationed in Missouri. One of the perks about living here is that we are only about 2.5 hours from our home state, and while our families live quite a bit further than that, we only have to drive about 150 miles to get to our state of residence.

This is coming in handy today, let me tell you! Here's the story.

A little over a year ago, we bought a car in Washington state. We registered it there because that is where we lived at the time and it was just easier than trying to register it in our home state. Well, as of August, our license plates are expired. Why, you ask? Because I attempted to register our car through the mail and the Department of Motor Vehicles never processed the application. I sent in the $194 check and all the paper work (after calling several times to make sure I was sending everything they would need). I waited the requisite 30 days (plus a few extra days for good measure) that they say it takes to process said application. I called yesterday and they have no record of it.

Seriously? How is it that things only ever get "lost in the mail" when there's a $194 check with my name and checking account number on it involved?

So, this afternoon AJ and I are getting in the car to drive the 2.5 hours to the closest DMV location to register the car in person. I am bringing my Power Of Attorney (because, yeah, I didn't mention that the car is only registered in D's name?), all the proof of purchase forms, the old registration, pretty much anything I can think of because I am not making this drive more than once!

So there you have it, folks. I made plans to be a more positive person and God thought that He should test me on it, right away. Well, God, I'm keeping a smile on my face for the whole drive, if it kills me!

Crazy Week

So this week hasn't been the best on record. First, my car's "Maintenance Required" light came on, so I took it into the shop and they were able to find about $400 worth of things that needed to be fixed on it. At least the receptionist was nice and gave me a ride home while they worked on it.

This this morning D was driving to work and I got a phone call at 5 am because he had a flat tire and wanted to know if we had roadside assistance. Turns out, AAA won't change a tire if the person on the account is not there. D had to change the tire himself on the highway (in the dark, 30 degree weather).

I took his car to Discount Tire to get all new tires (it was overdue for them anyway) and not only was the bill incredibly freaking expensive, but they couldn't even put all the new tires on because 2 of the wheel studs are cross threaded. This basically means that the bolts are stripped and won't hold the nuts on (which hold the wheels on).

Because of this, tomorrow I am heading to yet another auto repair place to get the studs replaced. At least the guy on the phone told me that it shouldn't cost more than $50 (and 2 hours) to fix.

I swear, if we didn't need cars to get around here, I would get rid of both of them at this point (well, maybe I should keep them until the time to spend tons of money on them rolls around again)!