006. Bleh

Well I don't know what is in the air, but since the 4th a few people in my family have been battling some sinus/allergy issues. Well I guess with that, that tells you what's in the air. haha And it has not been fun. My dad was supposed to come over to do some things on our house, the week before the 4th and couldn't because he was sick. He ended up coming ON the 4th and I was able to take him to Lowes and help him out, while he in turn did some things for me.

When we got home from fireworks that night, it kind of scared me because the baby was sounding congested and was coughing. To me, for a barely 3 month old to be coughing, doesn't settle right. I tried to suck up the nasty-ness in his nose, and noticed that his coughing was less when I did that. And as the days went on he seemed to be getting better and I was relieved. I called one of the nurses at the doctor's office and she suggest "Little Noses" (a saline solution) and suck it up with that. But that babies his age is normal for congestion. BUT then I started getting sick. I got that scratchy feeling at the back of my throat, my eyes were itchy & watery, and was sneezing to no end. Even my ears were itchy! So for the last of the week I spent it with my bff Benadryl. I can say I'm not 100% but I'm way better than I was.

While battling the allergies, I've had to deal with the agony that is "renting-to-own". As I've mentioned before, we moved not to long ago. We put down a good chunk for a down payment, and are paying rent up til the place is paid off. Should be about 5 years or less. Upon purchasing the place, we were given a 60-day guarantee on things like plumbing, a/c, roof .. things like that. But anything else was on an "as-is" basis.

WELL, we've had the A/C people come out twice, with word from the owner, and our A/C STILL isn't fixed properly. They come out, we get excited and then hours later something else is wrong. They came out Friday, and when I turned it off after being satisfied with the outcome, the inside fan motor was still going. After calling the owner & the A/C people and getting no answer I had to shut it off by the breaker box. I've been calling the owner since Friday. I've left messages, each with a more irritated tone added to it, and have not heard anything back. I got ahold of Tony, the A/C guy, on Monday and he was able to guide me over the phone about how to turn the fan motor off (he apparently had left the switch by the actual fan motor "on" instead of "auto") But at about 1 or 2 in the morning it starts blowing warm air, instead of cold air. So first thing Tuesday morning I was back calling Tony & the owner. Now it's Wednesday, and Tony says he can't get ahold of the owner. It's really quite irritating. Irritating that no one can get ahold of this guy and the guarantee is closing in. Oh but wait .. we did get ahold of the guy. How you ask? By calling from another number. Yeah! So apparently he's avoiding me. Not cool I tell you. Not cool.

005. Beginning of the Week

Hope everyone had a great 4th. It was ok for us. Just a normal day of running around, the only thing different was R came home early. After cleaning up and some repairs around the house, the kids and I went down to the boardwalk (area) to watch fireworks. I say "area" because the traffic/people was insane, so we park in the Target parking lot down the street and stood at the edge of the street to watch. And I had doubted their size being somewhat far but they still came out gorgeous and big!



And that day was the last day of my precious camera. Granted I wanted desperately to get another one, I at least had a camera. Yesterday, I went to go put the batteries in and use it to take some pictures for a recipe, and the screen comes on shattered. :( I have no clue as to what happened, considering it was right by my desk the whole time, but it doesn't even take pictures. I was so upset.

Speaking of recipes, I wanted to post a how-to on rainbow cakes. I never knew how easy this was until I briefly skimmed over a recipe over at La Cocina de Leslie. Easy, easy!! Now I'll have to warn you on the quality of the pics. I had to use my BlackBerry (great phone, the camera sucks!) so eh ..


I didn't really want to learn a new cake recipe as well, so I just went ahead and used a box cake mix. I just wanted to grasp the concept of this.


After following the instructions on the box, I separated the batter into 4 bowls and added food coloring and mixed it up.


Spraying the dish, I added each color one by one on top of each other and afterward took the dish to give a little shake to even it all out.

Followed baking instructions and came out with this beauty. Ignore the icing. I went a little too far to try a rainbow topping buuut didn't work.


Isn't that awesome!! :) I plan on doing cupcakes for the kids' birthday. Should be a hit! :)

004. Cereal Containers

You know those plastic containers that have the nifty spout, the indention where it is easy to grab and keeps you from having to deal with the boxes & bags of cereal? Well then you know how much they cost right?! Granted you can say "not that much" but when you know the alternative and how much IT costs you'd want to make the switch.

Your run of the mill pitcher. That's right ...



And the best part is .. I got that for 1.00$ at Wal-Mart. Yep! It was in the clearance section with all the other picnic accessories after, I do believe, 4th of July. And all you do is open the cereal, pour it and voila!




Doesn't look that bad does it? Now I do you warn you, with the 2qt pitchers, some of the whole boxes don't fit in one pitcher. The only downside. But my kids eat a TON of cereal, so within a day I can put the remaining bag into the pitcher. It always works out.

003. *SIGH*

A couple of nights ago, my brother in law's friend came over to look at our air conditioner.

Ever since we moved into our trailer, running the a/c alone was just unbearable. It wasn't blowing hard enough to cool the place down. And well, we're in Texas so you know the heat is insane. We knew something was wrong with it because at night you could freeze your tush off, but once the sun came up you were sweating bullets. We tried everything to putting foil on the windows, putting blankets in between the window and curtain to darken the room. Nothing was working. My dad was so generous in "donating" one of his big window units. Once that was installed in the living room, it felt amazing.

Well, brother in law's friend got it working to where you could put your hand, mid-wall and feel the blowing of the a/c. I was so excited. But twice the a/c decided to freeze up and shut down. So yesterday we were relying on that one window unit to cool us down. 3 kids, 3 adults & a baby .. heh not likely.

There was always talk of buying 2 more units, one to go in our bedroom and the other in the boys' room. Their room is right in front so the sun heats it up like no other. But like I said .. all talk. Until finally when we spent not even 24hrs with the main a/c off, R had sent me to Wal-Mart to buy a little a/c for our room. (the kids spend most of their days in the living room we figured to hold off a couple of weeks to get their unit).

Talk.About.Heaven! It felt so great last night. I am so glad that my husband has been supportive through all this. If it would have been years ago, he would be saying that we could live without a/c blah blah blah .. but now I think he's gotten used to the fact a cool house, is a happy house.

Although, I still think it lit a fire under his booty when I told him the kids and I were going to be sleeping in the living room last night, because of the heat. He knew what he needed to do. haha