Oh my words is it raining cats and dogs here.  The kind of soaking rain that is great for our grass, but will inevitably do a number on our septic tank….again.  Better enjoy the master bathroom today, because I forsee a good 4-8 days ahead of avoidance.  One day we’ll add more drainfields….one day.

So I have to tell you about a situation that happened to me last night.  After a long day of surgery with a baby (and ridiculous comments from anesthesiologists,) I just wasn’t in the mood for “situations.”

My mom came to help yesterday with my kiddos.  (SO thankful for her by the way!)  And last night, at the end of a hard day, she treated us to take out.  Good takeout too!

I called to place the order over the phone and when the girl put me on hold to transfer the call, I was listening to the restaurant’s pre-recorded loop of specials, advertisements, etc.  Pretty much as soon as I was put on hold there was an add saying “If you place a pick-up order online with our online ordering service, as a way to say thank-you, we will give you 4 of our delicious bakery muffins absolutely free!”

So obviously, I hung up and got online!  They have good muffins people!

I placed the order online, so excited about my 4 free muffins!  If I’d known there was online ordering, I’d probably have done that anyways…but I didn’t.  So thanks to their phone information loop, I was going to score 4 muffins now too!  WOOHOO!

The hubs asked me after I’d placed the order if we’d get bread with our dinner since it was pick-up and I wasn’t sure, so I called to ask.  Also, I figured if I got to choose the muffin types, I might as well ask that too.  Turned out we did get bread!  Score.  But get a load of the following conversation….

Me: “Oh, I also wanted to ask about the 4 muffins we get for ordering online.  Do I get to choose the flavors or is it prepackaged?”

Hostess: “I don’t know about the muffins. Let me ask my manager.”

pause…she comes back. “Ma’m, we don’t offer muffins just for ordering online.  I’m not sure where you saw that online, but our store does not do that.”

“Well, I didn’t see it online.  I called originally to place my order with you and when you placed me on hold, I heard it on your phone loop.  It was your store’s phone that offered the special.”

“I’m sorry ma’m, I am not aware of that special.  We do not offer muffins for online ordering.  I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”

Ok….now let me just say here that I do have a pretty decent understanding of the English language, and if something says “If you place a pick-up order online with our online ordering service, as a way to say thank-you, we will give you 4 of our delicious bakery muffins absolutely free!”…I don’t know, I guess I understand that to mean that they will give you 4 actual delicious bakery muffins free.  If it had been in Chinese or German, I’m pretty sure I would have misunderstood, but this message was actually in my native language….English.  And I’m confident that I did not misunderstand.

So I said…”Well, that’s fine if you don’t stand by your own advertisement, but I would recommend that you remove the offer from your store’s phone loop just to avoid further confusion.”

And then I let it go.  But I was ticked.  Not because I care that much about the stupid muffins.  But I’m one of those people that if I say I’m going to do something, I do it.  And I expect other people to do the same.  And I REALLY expect businesses to stand by their own advertisements.  If they forgot to take a sign off of a sale rack, their fault…I think they should honor the sale price.  If they say buy one get one free and don’t have an end date printed on the coupon….well, I expect that deal to be honored.  If a special is intended for “new customers only” but that isn’t stated ANYWHERE in the ad, well then…even if I am an old customer…I expect that to be extended…even if it was just their goof.

I’m not trying to put anyone out of business or anything, but I just go by the old idea of “say what you mean, and mean what you say.”  Oh yeah, I’ve read that before somewhere else too….how about “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no'” from the Bible?!  All to say…I’m BIG on doing what you say.

When I was a freshman in college I volunteered to be in charge of the freshman Homecoming float project in the first month or so of school.  I was thrilled when 150 people signed up over a couple of days to help.  What a turn-out!  Until the time came to actually build the float and there were only TEN of us working on it.  All. Night. Long.  And that night I learned a sad but important lesson about the world.

Bummer.

But that doesn’t mean that I will be one of those people.

My mom was the one who went in to pick up our take-out.  I had forgotten to tell her about the muffin debauchle since we wouldn’t be getting any muffins anyhow.  Apparently somewhere between the phone call and the pick-up though, a waiter there concurred with my understanding of the phone loop ad and I guess they decided we should get some muffins afterall.  So in the end, we got 4 delicious bakery muffins absolutely free because the restaurant did end up standing by what they had advertised.  But the moral of the story here for me is that…I have issues when people don’t do what they say they will.

Be different people.  Be honorable.  Be trustworthy.  Be dependable.  And for crying out loud…don’t say you’ll do something if you know that you never will!

Yesterday I made the most of the day with my kids.  We went to the zoo and had a picnic with some friends.  I needed yesterday to be a good day too, because I knew that today could be a hard one.

Hudson had his adenoids out this morning.  And tubes put in his ears.  And really, the worst thing of all to me was the frenulectomy.  Don’t worry, I didn’t know what that was before either.  It’s for kids who are “tongue-tied.”  Meaning, when they stick out their tongue, it looks kinda like this….

See…it doesn’t stick out all the way…kinda curves back downwards. (that’s not actually him.)

Well, Hudson had that.  So, they go up under the tongue and clip that piece of tissue that holds your tongue down because it’s too long and can cause speech issues, etc.  (In infants it can often cause issues nursing, but didn’t for Hudson ever which is probably why we didn’t notice it earlier.)

Tid bit had his adenoids out last year (and tonsils), so I was prepared for that part.  And the tubes in the ears, well we know LOADS of kids who’ve had that done.  But this tongue thing….well it just made the whole thing pitiful.  And noone ever told me that I should wear a shirt I don’t care about to the hospital because my shoulders were covered in blood when we left.

I don’t know about you, but when my kids are bleeding…and a lot of it, well it just makes me cry.  Not to mention that when they come out of anesthesia they’re just pitiful.  Crying and crying.  Man…just broke my heart!  I’m not the pass-out -at-the-sight-of-blood sort of person either, but it does make me sad.  And today, well his poor little mouth…it just kept bleeding and bleeding.  All over me when i was holding him after his surgery.  I feel sure I’ll come up with some new tips for everyone about how to get blood out of a shirt that you really like.  Or not….  It remains to be seen.

Anyhow, we’re home and he is sleeping now, and I’m thinking that despite the nice weather, I might just go take a nap too.  I’m exhausted.  Watching your child be pitiful just takes it right out of you!

Hopefully he’ll be feeling better soon.  Sure do appreciate any prayers you feel like tossing to the Big Daddy in the sky on behalf of us!

PS.  You’ll never guess who almost made an appearance at the hospital today either?!

No, I’m not kidding.

First words out of the anesthesiologist’s mouth when he walks in to meet us and go over things…. “Oh, he has a crooked eye.  Do you know that he has a crooked eye?”

GROWL!!!

“Yes I know…does it have any affect on his ability to have anesthesia for this procedure today?”

“No.”

“Alright then, moving on.”

Are you kidding me?!  He clearly doesn’t ever read my blog!?!?! LOL!

Ok…forgiving now.  Just had to tell you!

I’m not naturally the most tidy person in the world.  In fact, well….you know what, let’s just keep it at “I’m not naturally tidy.”

But once in awhile, I get bit by the super cleaning bug and when I do, I better get on it because it may be some time before it happens again.

Case in point….the day I bought a steam mop.

I have what appears to be a Mexican-type tile on the floors in my kitchen and laundry room. See…

They’re not quite as yellow looking as this picture shows, but you get the idea.  And I guess I should be partly thankful that it takes a whole lot of junk to actually make these floors feel really dirty….since they sort of always feel dirty because of the shading.  Ok, so if I’m honest, I am kinda glad it takes a lot…I don’t mop every day.  Alright, alright…I maybe mop once a week.  It’s quick vacuuming or dustbusting for me most days.

But once in awhile, I want these babies as clean as they can possibly get.  So I decided that what I needed was a steam mop.  Now thankfully for me, The Hubs is a research kind of guy.  And if he wasn’t, then it’s ok because I think that I inherited some bizarre product research gene from my dad (you remember from the Hanky Panky post, he won’t watch a movie without Wall Street Journal approval.)  Anywhoo….I wasn’t going to just go to Lowes and buy the first one I saw…which would have been the Shark steam mop because it’s everywhere.

And I’m glad I didn’t…because doesn’t rate nearly as highly as several others.

So at the time I checked which was a few months back, the Eureka EnviroSteam 313A was the highest rated on Consumer Reports (which you have to be a member of fyi to access their ratings….obviously with the research gene I have, we are members.)  That’s the one I ended up with…ran about $89 when I bought it probably 5 months ago, is about $65 now. Currently on Consumer Reports though there is one called the H2O Ultra that is rating higher (although I will say it’s not getting great user reviews.)  One thing I will tell you that I LOVE about about this mop is that the pads you use are easily washable.  Also, instead of using their custom pads, you could clip any old thick dishrag on and use them to clean your floors.  It’s the hot sanitizing steam that gets the floors clean.  And with this model, you only have to hold the mop in place for 3 seconds over any area to actually sanitize since the water reaches about 220 degrees.  Both this and the next one I’ll tell you about (the Haan FS-20) actually get hot enough to sanitize.  If they don’t get hot enough to sanitize, then there’s really not any benefit to getting this over a regular mop besides not having to wring it out periodically. 

<—– The other highly rated mop is the Haan FS-20 which in some places actually rated higher than the Eureka that I have.  I didn’t get that one because I was in the mood to clean my floors THAT day that I bought it and I couldn’t find the Haan in a store easily, plus the Eureka got higher reviews on some sites as well.  On Amazon they are roughly the same price.  Both this one and the Eureka take about 3 minutes to heat up, but they each sanitize a section by keeping in place for just 3 seconds (this one heats to about 212 degrees)…it’s a slow pace cleaning, but not nearly as slow as some that require you to hold in place for a full 15 seconds to sanitize.  The longer you have to hold it in place by the way, the wetter it’ll leave your floors in the end.

I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you….if you have a Shark, you probably like it….but that’s probably because you haven’t compared it to what these other mac-daddy mops can do.  The shark only heats up to 110 degrees and just fyi, that’s warm enough to mop, but can’t begin to touch sanitizing.  Which also means that glob of unknown goop that’s been stuck on your floor for ages…well, it’s not coming up with the Shark.  At 220 degrees, the Envirosteam heated up dried-on paint enough to scrape off with my fingernail.  I couldn’t hardly get it off with a knife before.

If you want to keep reading more, HERE is a link from Amazon to a customer review I found very helpful in addition to my other research.

In the end though, if you are in the market for a steam mop…I’d recommend the Haan FS-20 or the Eureka Envirosteam 313A.  And if there are men reading this thinking of grabbing one of these gems up for your wife for Mother’s Day….you are awesome.  As long as you give her a gift certificate for a massage for Mother’s Day as well.  Do NOT…I repeat…DO NOT only give your wife a mop for Mother’s Day.  It just doesn’t send the loving message I know you want to send.  There’s really nothing like saying “enjoy your day now honey, but get back to cleaning the floors tomorrow!”  I’d recommend coupling this gift with something that lets her take a load off for a couple of hours as well!

Well friends, happy cleaning!  And if you think I’m completely wrong, or have comments to add to my research, then please by all means post away!

I guess I should tell you that the above is my opinion but it’s based upon reading easily 10 different site reviews and loads of consumer comments.  And don’t I wish that I’d been compensated for these reviews….but I wasn’t.  So this is straight up, my opinion.  If anyone would like to pay me for that though, I’m open to it! LOL!

I know, I know.  The title says it all doesn’t it?

<—–This was pretty much me today…for most of the day.  I know, awesome right?!

Today wasn’t my best day.  Not even close.  It started great, but ONE thing went differently than I expected and I’m sorry to say I let it ruin my attitude for the rest of the day.  Yes, I did say for the rest of the day.

Have you ever read “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” by Judith Viorst?

If not, you really should.  This poor kid Alexander just has it rough one day and nothing goes quite like he’d wanted or expected it to.  And whenever I read this to Tid Bit, I always mention what the author never does, and that is that we have a choice to let our disappointments continue to ruin our day or not. 

Today, I’m very embarrassed to say that I did not model that very good advice that I give to my own son.  And very unfortunately, he was completely aware of my crappy attitude and behavior….and during his prayers tonight prayed that I’d have a better day and a better attitude tomorrow.  WOW!  Nothing like a 4 year old’s prayers to kick you in the pants!

So you’re probably wondering what went wrong today and I wish I could say it was something truly awful, but it wasn’t.  It all stemmed from me being selfish and just having a crappy attitude when things didn’t go like I’d expected. 

This morning we were getting ready for church and I made sure that Hudson would squeeze in at least an hour nap so that hopefully, just hopefully I’d be able to sit through the entire service today.  I think I’ve mentioned before that in the 14 months since he was born, I have been able to sit through an entire church service just once without being called out to get him (or in the earlier days having to go out to nurse him.)  It’s been a LONG time since I’ve been able to be a part of an entire service…and I really miss it.  And today was a special day because our church has been collecting offerings over the past month to distribute to 7 community organizations that benefit the homeless, the elderly, the orphaned, the widows, the poor in finances and in spirit.  Today, we were totalling the monies and distributing checks to these groups.  Last year the goal was to raise $16,000 and give each group $2K, but we ended up raising $64,000 and each group was given a check for $8K….obviously exciting to see how generous our church body has been.  (If your’e wondering, I think we have about 600 members.) And all of this is above the normal giving.  So this year we wanted to try to give more.  And I really wanted to be able to be a part of the celebration service today.  And the plan was to come a little late so that Hudson could nap, and hopefully I could be there for the whole service.

We walked in, and no sooner than I had begun to look for a seat, the children’s pastor asked me if I could please help out in the nursery because they were short staffed.  And right there is where I let go of my day….because there, my friends, is where my expectations weren’t met.

I’m sitting here typing and shaking my head at myself and my awful attitude.  I was upset because this one time I was really trying to make it work for me, and I was asked to work for someone else.  It’s so ironic too…I fell apart because I wanted to be involved with serving “the greater good” with our community partners, but at the same time my entire attitude just frankly sucked at having to serve in a capacity different from what I had set my mind upon. 

And to add insult to injury, Hudson actually stayed in his nursery class the entire time.  I guess I should be thankful that he did it, but instead it just made me feel more upset that everything I had done to insure that had actually worked…and I didn’t get any of the benefit of those efforts like I’d hoped today.

On the way home, Tid Bit pitched a fit because he didn’t get to jump in the bounce house at the Celebration Lunch after church.  Then Hudson started crying too.  My head hurt because I had cried before I went in to work in the nursery, and I was even more frustrated feeling at the picnic with all of my friends who were talking about how amazing the service was…and to give over $12K to each community group this year…how incredible. (Which it is by the way!) But I had wanted to be there.  I felt rotten.  Then the Hubs said something that made me mad, but I don’t even remember what it was, so by the time we got home, I was in tears, I yelled at Tid Bit, hit the side of the car (and busted a blood vessel in my finger), and to really add to my ridiculousness, I kicked a baby gate over on my way to put myself in Time Out in my room.  Wow….I am awesome…I behaved exactly like my almost 5 year old.  And now I’m telling you all about it. 

I, friends, had a temper tantrum.

Have I mentioned that I’m not 5… but 32?!

Hopefully by the end here, you will maybe feel sort of better if you too have days like this.  If you don’t, then I really would like to soak up some of your awesomeness.

SO here’s the thing that keeps coming in my mind today.  And if you know me well, I’m sure I’ve said this in person plenty of times too.  Thanks to my friend, Trisha, who years ago said something to me that has always stuck….

And when you think about it….it’s true.

How many times do we get bent out of shape because something didn’t go like we expected?  We expected to have a great birthday present, but instead we got a movie that we didn’t want in a bag with a kid picking his nose on it from our spouse.  We expected that our kids would love that we took them to the zoo, but instead they pitch an all out fit when we don’t let them buy $10 worth of crackers to throw in the general direction of the giraffes who don’t eat them.  We expect a raise in our job, but when it comes it’s just a slap in the face.  And the list goes on doesn’t it?

When we expect things to go one way….we often set ourselves up for disappointment and/or resentment when they don’t.

And PS…  Life doesn’t generally go as expected.

So today I’m reminded that I need to make sure that for one…I clearly need to get a good night’s sleep tonight!  Two, my expectations need to be held more loosely.  And three, I need to remember that serving is serving….whether it’s giving more than I’m comfortable with to the poor …..or helping out in the nursery so maybe someone new could put their kids in and enjoy the service.  Serving is serving.  And the reality is that no matter how you serve, it will require something of you.

Today for me, it required me to expect less and give more. And I sure hope that next time I do a better job of it in my heart as well.

What expectations do you have in your life that leave you throwing a tantrum when they’re not met?  Do you place expectations on others that may set up your relationships with them for failure?  When life doesn’t go like you expect, how do you respond?


I do want to say that today’s response isn’t my M.O. by any stretch of the imagination.  It was just one of those days where it all hit me wrong…and it probably doesn’t help that I’m in a horomonal state of the month either…but still, no excuse.  I want you to know that this confession is sadly the truth, but that it’s also not how I function normally when faced with a disappointment!

SO today has been pretty full of excitement ’round about our house!

Tid Bit and Hudson have been mezmerized by the guys cutting down trees in our yard today!  Between climbing a tree with chainsaws, a Bobcat hauling giant stumps around, and now a stumpgrinder going to town on the remnants of 5 over 100ft tall trees in our yard…it has been a little boy’s (and apparently big boys too) playground of equipment here!

Check out this video I took of just one of the trees coming down in our yard!  I could feel our whole house shake when this puppy hit the ground!

All to say, we’ve had quite the amount of activity going on today at Casa de Wolfram!  And it’s such an amazingly gorgeous day today (I’m talking mid-seventies and sunny, people!)…we’re gonna get out some more here in a bit and enjoy it!

Don’t forget that tomorrow we have our first guest post here at Life for Dessert!!!

Emily Knotts from Crisp Interiors will be here giving us all some tips for beautifully decorating with whites!!!  It’s a really great post that you don’t want to miss!  And fun for me, I’ll be guest posting on her lovely site about how to decorate with COLOR!!!  Get excited and make sure to stop by and visit us both tomorrow!!!