This question will have to roll over into next week since I already had one for this week:

WHY is it that when you actually have "permission" (pronounced money) to go buy some clothes, you walk into a store and you can't find ANYTHING?

I can walk into a mall on any given day, with only enough money to buy someone a small birthday present and lunch for myself, and I see a gadzillion cute clothes?

Last night we decided to check out the new Kohl's store on Goodman Rd. It's a pretty big store and I found a grand total of ONE outfit for church. Everything else was either A) Too old-lady, B) Too low cut, or C) Too tiny and teeny-bopperish. Can somebody say "gag me"??? What DOES a 23-year-old mommy WEAR when she wants to dress up? The Junior department clothes (that I saw) were things I wouldn't want my daughter to wear (if I HAD a daughter), and the grown-up people clothes were clothes I don't even think my grandmother would wear.

I did find some very cute shoes though. :::SIGH:::

Here is my question of the week:

How is "Let's you and me go have dinner together on Friday night, honey" the equivalent of "Let's take Travis to a Tiger baseball game at AutoZone park on Friday night."? And Part B of that question is, how did enough money magically appear to take 3 people to dinner instead of 2, and buy 3 tickets for a baseball game?

I love my kids dearly, but sometimes I just want to have adult interaction only and not worry about Pull-ups and potty training. I do that 24-7 as it is. When do I get a break?

So as to a continuation on the 1-800 Contacts saga, if you've actually been reading this, you know that on Tuesday, I placed a contact order at 1800Contacts.com because well, I need to be able to see, and I used my last pair. So I requested next day shipping via FedEx. Well Wednesday came and went and I got no shipment from them. So Wednesday night I got online to attempt to check the "status" of my order, only to learn that 1800Contacts had inadvertently "deleted" my order. So I e-mailed 1800Contacts to find out WHY my order was deleted, and I soon thereafter learned that it was deleted because my prescription had expired...back in August of 2001. So WHY had 1800Contacts been sending my contacts to me anyway ever since, up until this week??

And we all know that in order to update a prescription, you have to get an eye exam. Well, in order to get an eye exam, you have to have MONEY...$69 to be precise, according to my usual eye doctor, which I do not have until our tax refund gets here. I could wear glasses until I can order some contacts, but the problemo with that is I DON'T HAVE ANY GLASSES, and I haven't since HIGH SCHOOL!

OH, and then get this, my correspondence back and forth between 1-800-Contacts was getting nowhere. I asked them what am I supposed to do in the meantime since they won't sell me any contacts and I can't afford an eye exam until my tax refund gets here. They sent me this e-mail back:

Dear Candice,

Thank you for replying! Please accept our apologies, but we can't fill an
order for an expired prescription. However, we have a program for
customers who need new eye exams called the Doctor Network. They have some
great promotions and can help you find a doctor with convenient hours in
your area. Please call us toll free at 1-800 CONTACTS (1-800-266-8228) at
your earliest convenience so that one of our customer service
representatives may assist you in setting up an appointment. Our Doctor
Network is through Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, and Target Optical. The
cost is $78 for the eye exam, contact lens fitting, and any follow up
visits. Once you have completed your fitting, our eye-care providers will
give you a copy of your prescription, so that you may order through us.

If we can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at
info@1800contacts.com, or call us toll-free at 1-800-CONTACTS
(1-800-266-8228).

We truly appreciate your business and look forward to hearing from you
again!

Sincerely,

Jason
1-800 CONTACTS
Customer Service Representative

I don' t know whether to laugh or to cry at that. I mean, what part of "I don't have the money for an eye exam" do you not understand? The "I don't have the money" or the "I don't have the money"??? And what's worse is that it's $78, which if I know anything about math, that's MORE than MY regular eye doctor. And I don't need a "fitting". I have been wearing contacts since the 10th grade and I KNOW how to put them in and take them out. SLAP!!! (That one's for YOU, Jason.)

Last week when we found out we were getting a nice little chunk of change back from the IRS, we decided that one of the things we wanted to use the money for is to get glasses for us both. But in the meantime, I thought I could go onto 1800Contacts's nice little website and order some more contacts, like I've always done for the past 3 and a half years, without a problem. WRONG!

So I got on the phone this morning with my eye doctor's office. I was informed that there is a "law" that no one is allowed to sell to the consumer any contacts with an expired prescription. Well DUH, but like how long does it take for one to "expire"? If it had expired in August 2001, why was 1800Contacts continuing to sell them to me? Well, I have an answer to THAT question, too. 1800Contacts said that in the last 3 and a half years, every time they attempted to call my eye doctor's office, they didn't get an answer...up until TUESDAY. So then I was thinking WHY weren't they answering the phone all that time, and why did they decide to answer it on Tuesday? Purely retarded! Oh, and did you know that contacts are considered a "controlled substance"? WTF?!?!? So after being on the phone with two different people at my eye doctor's office, them telling me "There is nothing I can do", and me being put on hold about 4 separate times, and explaining to them that I cannot SEE TO DRIVE and I have two little kids, and I'm waiting on my tax refund so I can AFFORD a freaking eye exam, they FINALLY agreed to give me a "trial pair" of contacts with the understanding that I WILL make an appointment for an eye exam. And I was supposed to go clean my mom's house today, too, and make a little money. But I can't do much of a good job cleaning if I can't see the dirt!! Which I'll probably want to run away from home when I can see how dirty my house is!

It is really funny when I think about it now because she's like "We can't give you any more contacts until you come in for an eye exam" and I'm like "How can I see to drive there to my exam if I don't have any contacts?" and then she kept asking me if I have any glasses, and I told her "I haven't had glasses since highschool and they won't fit my head because I've had 2 babies and gained 50 lbs!!!!!!" It reminds me of an old episode of the Carol Burnette show I saw years ago. Carol Burnette goes to the post office to pick up her mail. Well, they asked to see a driver's license, and she shows it to them. Well, her license was expired and so they wouldn't give her her mail because it was expired. Then they made her go to a driver's license class, which was terrible because they sent her to the wrong class and it was all in Spanish. Well, after all of this, she finally got a new driver's license. So she went back to the post office to get her mail, presented her new license, and guess what one of her pieces of mail was?? Her new driver's license that had been mailed to her already!!! AHH! It's like YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE!!!

Welcome to my life!!!

I am killing time right now, waiting for Michael to get home, and waiting until it's time to start getting the kids dressed for church. Heh...very rarely do I ever get to kill time!

You know, I really don't appreciate 1-800 Contacts deleting my order without sending me an e-mail as to why. I finally got sick of going blind, waiting for our tax refund check to come in so I could go buy me some glasses, so yesterday I went to 1800contacts.com to order myself some contacts. I requested Next Day delivery via FedEx. Well, today was coming to an end, as far as delivery people are concerned, so I went back to their website to check the status of my order and see if there was a tracking number. Well, my order had been DELETED! WTF?? So I e-mailed them just now to see what is going on. Aggravating!

Jacob discovered his shadow!!! He was sitting in his highchair the other night, waving his hand like he usually does, and the light hanging directly over the kitchen table cast a shadow of his hands on Jacob's highchair tray. I thought it was really sweet the way he seemed totally amazed at his own shadow. He still hasn't started crawling yet, but he's still getting up on his knees like he really wants to. One day very soon he's going to take off and nobody will be able to stop him. :-)

Spring Break is over for Michael, so this week has been really BLAH for me. I get through the time when he's at work okay, but when he has to come home and then leave AGAIN to go to school for 2 and a half hours, that's when the BLAH-ness really sets in and I get lonely and stir crazy and want to leave the house. But it's not like there's ever anyone to go see, and I don't have any money to go buy something, and if I loaded up the kids and just went driving, I'd be burning gas, and gas prices are outrageous these days, so yeah, being stuck at home alone at night stinks. Yes, the kids are entertaining, and we can do things to pass the time, but some adult interaction is nice every once in awhile.

I am looking for another house to clean, so if you know of someone looking for a cleaning lady, or if you yourself need a cleaning lady and are within 20 miles of where I live, let me know. I have reasonable prices, you just have to be okay with me bringing my kids with me. But they do REALLY GOOD when I clean. Jacob rolls around his playpen and chews on his toys, while Travis usually sits on the couch and I pop in a movie for him. We could REALLY use the extra money. I'm still cleaning for my mom on Fridays, but once summer gets here and she's out of school, she's not going to need me for a few months, so I definitely need something by then.

I guess I am outta here for now! Later gater!

Another weekend has come and gone, and today I have been busy doing my normal Monday's mountain of laundry. Fun stuff. And I also cleaned out my closet (sort of)...even MORE fun! I can actually walk into my closet. Heh...walk-in closet...great concept...IF you can walk in it, which before this morning, I couldn't without stepping on boxes and shoes and clothes. Part of the problem is that I still have two huge garbage bags full of maternity clothes and I have nowhere to put them. I'd prefer NOT to put the bags out in the garage, for fear that mice might try to eat them or something. I'd try to sell my maternity clothes at a garage sale or maybe give them away to someone that could use them, but that's like asking for baby #3!! I also got around to hanging up all of my clothes that were draped over the chair in the bathroom. I am the world's WORST about hanging up clothes! I am talking about my "good" clothes that I will wear several times before washing or dry cleaning them (it makes the clothes last longer). They pile up and pile up on the back of the chair until finally I can no longer see the chair, and I'm afraid the chair will break under the weight of everything. So now that I hung everything up in my closet, I actually have clothes IN my closet again. This brought me to the realization, though, that 90% of my clothes are fall/winter clothes. Sure, I HAVE a few spring/summer things, but most of them are too big for me now, or they are the tiny clothes that I am still waiting to get back into. I am at this weird in between size and so I really need to go shopping, but I'm always too broke to do that. :::SIGH:::

In sports news, TWO of my Final Four picks are gone: Kentucky and Mississippi State. I had KY and MSU down to go to the Championship game, and MSU to win the whole darn thing. State lost to Xavier, and Kentucky lost to UAB. Little 'ol UAB whooped some Wildcat tail!!! UAB...UAB!!! They are now in the Sweet 16!!! And they are now my favorite team that is left in the Tournament. And of course, the REAL bummer was the Memphis lost yesterday to Oklahoma State :( which we pretty much expected anyway, but I was hopeful they'd pull off the upset by having a KILLER game. My hopes were shattered to smitherines :( And now Memphis' basketball season is over...history. And now we will never again see Antonio Burks, unless he goes to the NBA, which I'm not sure what the likelihood of THAT is. :::SNIFF::: I mean, right now, I could CARE LESS about the NCAA Tournament. It's like being head-over-heels in love with someone, and then they break up with you. And it's like, you could SEE the breakup coming, but just couldn't accept that it was for real, but then they do break up with you, and then you feel sooooo let down for the next few weeks. I waited so long...and patiently...for basketball to get here, and with the blink of an eye, it's over again. At least I know it'll be back next season...but still. So now the only thing I can look forward to is football. September 4...Memphis v. Ole Miss...we'll be there...it's only less than 6 months away...only. :::SLUMP:::

Church was great yesterday!! Dorothy was there, and she played piano Sunday morning, and I played the organ. Well at the last minute, the Pastor decided he wanted us to play "Power in the Blood". Well...um...it's written in a key I don't know, and there wasn't enough time for Dorothy to transpose it to a key I know, so I asked her "Tell me right quick what the chords are, and I'll just chord that song." So she told me what they were right quick, we ran through it as part of the prelude music, and it went great! That was scary, especially considering we had a visiting missionary and his wife there. When you have special guests, you always want the music to go smoothly...no surprises or mess ups. But I didn't mess it up. Which I know it's just God giving me the ability to do it. I could never do it on my own. I really miss playing with Dorothy. We hadn't played the church music together since August, but we sat down and played it all as if she'd never been gone. Pretty amazing. She may or may not move back down here when she gets out of school for the summer. She just doesn't know yet because she'd have nowhere to live. ANYWAY, our Ladies' Group sang for one of the specials Sunday morning, and it went great, too. It had been AWHILE since I'd sang the alto part. I had gotten so used to singing the lead parts. Then of course, Sunday NIGHT, I played piano for all the congregation songs, and I also sang my first solo. Talk about teeth chattering and butterflies!!! As the opening prayer was being said (right before time for me to sing), I sat there at the piano and said a little prayer. I said, "Lord, please help me get through this without being nervous. I just want to be a blessing to everyone here. Give me the ability to do this." As soon as it was time for me to start the special, my mouth INSTANTLY went dry!! But then all of the sudden...it was as if my mouth was moving, but it wasn't me singing. Like...it was as if God was just making the song come out of my mouth. And I don't even remember PLAYING the piano as I was singing. It was like my hands just moved over the keys, but I never one time THOUGHT about what I was playing. It is truly awesome how God works. It's amazing to me that God can just take someone that steps up and says they are WILLING and he gives that person the ability to do whatever it is that that person is willing to do. Before I ever started playing for church, I was so scared to play for church. But once I surrendered to God's calling for me, He has given me the music in my heart and my hands, and it truly makes me happier than I have ever been, just because I am doing what God wants me to do.

Anyway, I must go get a bath now while the kids are sleeping. And then I must finish up the laundry so that I don't have to look at it tomorrow!