It only SEEMS like I've disappeared

Between finishing out the school semester, NaNoWriMo, and a Thanksgiving trip up to visit my parents, I really don't have time to be writing this.

But here I am, anyhow.

So let me overshare with this story of toddlers and their bodily functions.

The trip from my house to my parent's house is a 15-16 hour drive, plus time to stop and take care of Silas's needs. The last two times I've made the trip, each way has been 18 hours long. Travel days are long days, is what I'm getting at.

Silas does remarkably well on the trip. He is content to listen to books all day, as long as he gets to stretch his legs every two hours or so by searching for sticks outside at rest stops. And since there are long stretches of road that aren't super well-lit, Silas also falls asleep fairly readily in the evening.

We had been driving all day, leaving my parent's house in the morning and merrily making our way back south. It was now about eight in the evening and we had finally broken through Tennessee into Alabama. We stopped to grab some dinner and to take a bathroom break.

I brought a sleepy Silas into the bathroom and looked for the changing station, which was located inside the handicapped stall at the end of the room. Cool. I got Silas onto the table and took off his diaper, which was surprisingly dry given how red his poor baby bottom was.

I thought for a moment, willing my car trip addled brain to use logic and reason. The issue at hand was that we still had over eight hours of driving to go, and I didn't want Silas screaming because of a bad diaper rash. I didn't have any diaper rash cream or baby powder on hand because I had left them up at my parent's house by accident. As anyone who has tended to a small child in diapers knows, that left the option of letting him air out for a few minutes. (Or, I guess, stopping to buy it at a drugstore, but that only seems obvious now.)

The problem came to a head when I thought to myself, "Oh well, I'll kill two birds with one stone by letting him walk around in the handicapped stall, diaper-free, for a bit."

You know how something seems so reasonable in your mind and then reality sets in? Truth be told, I've let Silas go bare-bum around our house every so often, and I could count the number of accidents he's had during those times on one hand.

This turned out to be the time that left me needing two hands to count the accidents. As soon as I set him down, Silas took note of the bathroom drain on the tile floor. He pointed at it, and then promptly peed on it. I watched in surprise and shock and then shook my head in disbelief.

"Ok," I said aloud, "Well, let's wipe that up and let the lady at the counter know that they should probably mop or something. And yeah, I guess it's good that you kind of understand that pee should, uh, go down a drain or something?"

Then Silas walked over to the door of the bathroom stall, and peed again on the floor, as if to say that he heard what I said and wanted to show me that I was incorrect. I could see why his diaper had been so dry.

You might be thinking that the smart idea here would have been to grab Silas and diaper him up before cleaning the bathroom floor. I make no excuses for myself, as I simply didn't think to do that at the time. Instead, I put Silas over on the other side of the floor and started grabbing wipes to clean up after him, putting my priority at cleaning up the symptoms rather than fixing the source.

So of course, Silas wandered over to the toilet and then peed on it too. (Had I taken him on too many walks with the dogs? Did he now think he had to leave his scent everywhere?)

Oh, hindsight.

In any case, you'll be happy to know that 1) Silas's air time did prevent diaper rash and he slept mostly peacefully for the rest of the trip and 2) I cleaned up the restroom floor as best I could and then went over to the register and told them what happened (albeit an abridged version) so they could mop up with better chemicals than wet wipes and tons of toilet paper.

A few closing thoughts - I've recently learned that pretty much everything I post online seems to be on one list or another of "things that no one wants to read about." Whoops. I thought this seemed like a funny story, but as we learned above, it's not good to trust my judgement.

I need to find a better way to get from Florida to Illinois and back again. Planes are so expensive, but the time-consuming drive is not much better. Just gotta keep holding out for portal technology, I guess.

I am a DIY "goddess"

For the past few months, our bathroom faucet has been leaking. Drip, drip, drop. One little tiny bit at a time. Barely worth looking into. I tried to get Smiley to fix it, but he deemed it too insignificant to spend a potential half afternoon fixing and said one of these weekends he would just buy a new faucet since the current one is kind of cheap anyhow. I was agreeable to that, but the drip was not. It got worse, probably as a form of protest ("how dare you suggest I'm not a leak to be contended with?!").

But there came the moment I could no longer ignore this drip. After all, every drop was probably costing us about a fraction of a fraction of a penny. And eventually it would end up costing us a penny. And from there, the sky was the limit!

Now as you all know, we keep stuff. So it didn't take me long to dig up the box that the faucet came in. I was hoping to see, I don't know, maybe a troubleshooting guide or something? The box was empty, but I noticed the installation guide on the bottom and it worried me. The installation process was shown to be three steps: open box, put top part of faucet above sink, secure bottom part under sink.

Why did this worry me? I had looked up on The Internet how to fix a faucet, and it had been intimidating. Pictures showed the various screws, washers and valves that could comprise a faucet. So this overly simplistic box picture made me wonder if the faucet was so cheap that it really couldn't be taken down into its component parts. And that made me wonder if I was going to have to go to the store and really buy a faucet. And installing a faucet seemed ten times more scary than trying to fix a mysterious leak.

So I went into the bathroom and stared down the faucet. Gave it the once-over. And there I noticed two little plastic spots on the inside of the handles. I gently pried them out and saw there was a space for an allen wrench! I could take the handles apart after all!

Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to check and see if only one side was leaking before taking everything apart. First I turned off both hot and cold water to the faucet and (of course) the leak stopped. Then I turned on the cold water. No leak. Then I turned off the cold water and turned on the hot water. Then we had a leak!

Yes, that is one of those moments that I felt proud about. (Did I mention that Silas thought I was hilarious? He was quite content to play in the hallway during this little ordeal of mine. Amazing what a change of scenery can do for a baby.) Even though I knew that anyone could have done that in no time at all, it still felt like a step in the right direction for me. I turned the water supply off again, just in case, and got all up under the sink.

It was not easy to get all up under the sink. Though that bathroom has a spacious cabinet, a spacious cabinet is still a somewhat cramped space for a human being. I looked up under the sink, shining a light, and found nothing that seemed to be useful. There was a black washer and I half heartedly gave it a twist to see if it was loose or something. (This was my method of "trial and error at work, people!) It was not loose. It felt like it probably should feel, I decided. My back cramping had nothing to do with that decision at all, I swear.

I knew I would have to remove the handle. I loaded a picture of potential handle insides onto my phone and searched around the house for the proper size allen wrench. I was surprised to find one in our bedroom window sill that was a match. Then I promptly managed to use it incorrectly. (I used the short side of the wrench which meant I had to keep pulling it out and reinserting it because the long side would hit the bathroom counter. Whoops.)

As I was unscrewing this tiny screw, I had one thought - "I need to make sure I don't drop this into the sink."

Of course the moment I gently took the screw from the handle, I dropped it into the sink. Crap. '

Then I tried to grab it before it could roll down into the drain. Of course it rolled down into the drain. I knew vaguely that the "p-trap" could catch this item and that somehow I could retrieve it, but I put that thought aside for now. I looked at the handle mechanism.

Of course it was different than the diagram I found online.

I noticed there was a screw, a larger screw, holding an orange piece together. So, logically, it made sense that I should take out this screw also. Imagine how great I felt when I found a screwdriver (also in our bedroom) that was the perfect fit. I took out that screw. I did not drop it in the sink, because it was large enough that it wouldn't have fallen down the drain.

Then I looked at the orange piece and decided to pry it up as well. At first, I wasn't really sure what I was looking at. The piece was about a half inch in diameter and fit on a metal piece that I couldn't figure out how to pry up. In fact, it was at this point that I realized that I had taken apart as much as I was able to. I didn't have the wrench needed to remove the metal bolt that held this metal piece/orange thing combination. I had reached the end of my attempt to fix this. I decided to take heart in the fact that at least Silas was still thrilled about exploring a different section of carpeting.

So I pressed the orange thing back onto the metal thing (I'm using all the highly technical terms here) and realized that this was the mechanism that decided how much water came through the faucet. So before I put the decorative handle part back on, I decided to play with it and see how it worked. I turned the hot water back on and amused myself by rotating the orange plastic piece to turn on and off the water.

And that's when I realized that when I turned the faucet off, it wasn't leaking anymore.

I looked down at the orange piece. It looked the exact same as it had before I took it off. I hadn't made any adjustments, consciously. Clearly my subconscious mind had done something amazing. I tentatively put the long screw back into the orange/metal combination. Still no leak.

I put the handle part back over everything and turned on the water. I turned it off. No leak.

I resisted squealing in joy, because the tiny screw was still stuck in the p-trap. But somehow, I had fixed the leak. And, even better, my husband got home just as this was happening, so I could share my triumphant fix (and less triumphant screw-loss). Luckily, as he is able to do this sort of thing much better than me, he removed the p-trap, retrieved the screw, and we replaced that together.

Silas started to fuss at this point, presumably because he realized that just like the carpet in the living room and the bedroom, he is unable to eat this "different" hallway carpeting too. It was quite perfect in timing.

As of this writing, the leak is still fixed.

Which is more "redneck?"

My husband and I purchased a house some two and a half years ago (time flies) and from the start, there's been a small, rusty old shed in the back of our yard that we kind of want to get rid of. There's a problem though, and you better believe this problem is related to our "Stuff" issue.

Let me, briefly, start at the beginning. When we bought this house, we knew we'd have to redo the bathrooms. The master bath had a huge leak somewhere, somewhere being to the point that we had to strip the whole room to the studs and redo a lot of the plumbing. This was fine; we planned for it.

We also attempted to save money by seeing if we could scrounge up a tub and toilet for free, as Smiley has a lot of friends who are also maintenance type guys and property manager type guys and those type guys sometimes have extra tubs and toilets floating around.

So we spent one Saturday crawling to the top of a steep backyard hill to reach a rusty old shed at a friend's house to take and remove two bathtubs. It is not exactly easy to bring a tub down a steep hill that is overgrown with vines and what were once small trees. But free is free, we figured. Right until we realized that the tubs were oriented in the wrong direction for our bathroom. Our friend benefited from having two tubs gone from his collection of Stuff and we, well, we had two tubs that we couldn't use but didn't necessarily want to get rid of because they were tubs and could eventually someday be useful.

We spent another Saturday in similar fashion, though a different place and people, obtaining three toilets. Free toilets. Three free toilets that we did not end up using either when we decided the toilet already in the bathroom was actually not leaking. Well, now we had three free toilets that we could maybe someday use when we probably needed to replace the current toilets. Someday.

These items languished in our garage for a bit until our garage needed to be a place for different Stuff and then the tubs and toilets migrated to our shed. Then the shed got hit by a tree and now in addition to being old and rusty, it is also partially, mostly caved in. We really need to rip it down. There's actually a little foundation underneath it that I want to use as a small patio. Maybe put a firepit on it or something. Except then we get back to the problem of the tubs and toilets. They could still be useful.

Actually, I think Smiley said we could put the tubs out but he wanted to keep the toilets. Or something. But despite the partially caved-in, rusted shed being an eyesore on our property, he postulates that taking the toilets and temporarily storing them on our gazebo is too redneck. Moreso than having an old, falling apart shed. I'm sure you can tell I don't 100% agree with this.

Until we figure out what to do, I'm just going to go back to wishing that the tree branch that partially collapsed the shed was big enough to put it out of its misery. Maybe crushing a few toilets on the way. But I figure I'm not that lucky.

Managed to shampoo with shampoo!

You might remember when I was shampooing with conditioner last year during my extreme sleep deprivation. Well, Silas still doesn't sleep through the night, so I'm not doing much better, but at least I can sleep in til about 8 am most days, which helps.

But not quite enough.

This morning, I woke up and played with Silas for a little bit and then laid him down so I could take a quick shower. I got into the shower, thinking about that time (..those times...) I shampooed with conditioner. I smirked, because I'm past that now. I can shampoo with shampoo, like a real person.

Except for the next thing I knew, I was conditioning my hair. Now, this is a step up, because I was using my conditioner as conditioner. It's just that I had forgot to shampoo at all. I had been so busy thinking about it that I guess my brain just accepted that I had already done it. And so in the time between getting my hair wet and reaching for the bottle, I just assumed I was on the conditioner step.

As I stood there, letting the conditioner soak in for a minute or two, I realized that my shower seemed like it was already over even though I had just gotten in. Ever so slowly, it dawned on me that I had not, in fact, shampooed my hair. Whoops!

So I rinsed out the conditioner and started over. But hey, it's a step in the right direction. I'll take it!

Another Tale Of Sleep Deprivation

Quick - ask me to pronounce "deprivation" - there's a good chance I'll completely screw it up; I have been messing up words left and right and my only claim to education is an English degree, so it's darned embarrassing. I mean, if I were awake and aware enough to be embarrassed.

The other week, maybe two or three weeks ago, Smiley and I went to Target and I picked up some shampoo and conditioner since my current bottles were running low. When we got home, I put them in our shower and promptly flipped my current bottles over to make sure I was getting every last bit of cleansing liquid from the current bottles.

At the beginning of last week, my then-current bottles finally ran out and I took them out of the shower when I was done, ready to seamlessly switch over to my new choices next shower.

Now, maybe none of you guys are dirty hippies like me, but I typically (even before baby Silas!) like to wash my hair every other day. I have terribly fine, thin hair and if I wash it daily, it just goes as greasy as a piece of Pizza Hut pizza by the end of each afternoon. Not a good look.

But with the addition of baby Silas to the household, I'm not ashamed to say that sometimes I don't wash my hair until every third day. (Hey, when you have a minute or two to clean up before the baby starts screaming, you prioritize. If my dirty hair has offended anyone, I'm sorry).

Again, unless you're used to thin, fine hair, you might not know that when I do go three days before washing it, sometimes the shampoo won't exactly sud up like normal. Sometimes you have to shampoo twice, because your hair needs it and not because the bottle suggests it. So, I was not at all surprised when on Wednesday last week, I jumped into the shower and grabbed my new bottle of shampoo and found that it didn't sud up at all the first time.

As I was rinsing out the first shampoo, I vaguely noticed that my hair felt different than it normally did with the shampoo brand I was using. But it wasn't enough to force me to stop and think about the situation. I just rinsed out the shampoo and reapplied another round. This time, it still didn't bubble as I scrubbed it in. Now, you people with your fancy "full nights of sleep" or even "just four hours at a time sleep" might have stopped and checked your shampoo at this point to make sure all was well, but I chalked it up to my hair possibly being exceptionally dirty and I rinsed it out and used my conditioner and promised myself I'd wash my hair before three more days passed.

Three more days passed before I washed my hair again. I got into the shower, fully ready to wash my hair well, and applied the first coat of shampoo. Again, no suds. And that feeling of something being off was finally enough that I checked my bottle of so-called shampoo. For those of you playing "Guess the Mystery" at home, yes, when I was at Target last month, I picked up a bottle of conditioner instead of shampoo. For those of you who know I'm pretty blind without my glasses, I never noticed the darned word "conditioner" on the bottle the few times I've used it.

And for those of you who've wondered how my hair looked so dirty and yet incredibly soft and conditioned, now you know. I've been conditioning my hair twice, if not three times, every time I wash it. Whoops.

An extremely short HGTV rant - double vanities

Once, a woman on one of the house hunting shows proclaimed that without double vanities in the bathroom, a marriage is doomed to fail.

Maybe she was being sarcastic. It didn't seem that way.

It just seems to me that if you can't coordinate getting ready in the morning with your partner, maybe there's an underlying problem that can't be solved with another sink.

I mean, Smiley and I share a tiny bathroom and we've made it work. And not once have I had the thought of divorce as I stepped to the side a little to let him use the sink when we were both getting ready to go someplace. Just saying.