Its a Hero

annoyances

I just need to vent

by Leave a Comment

It’s OK if you just ignore this post. It’s really for me to just put it out in the universe and be done with it. A little vent-sesh, if you will.

So our new vehicle was broken into last night in the YMCA parking lot while Ari was in gymnastics. In broad daylight. And so were THREE other cars. In addition to the broken window, my purse was stolen, along with my wallet, debit card, drivers license, and my Day Planner (including all four pictures of our sonograms).

Chad was understandably upset that his car was broken into, but happy that they didn’t take his phone OR THE CAR! And, sure, it threw our whole night for a loop, but the cop did a stellar job at getting all the information (and FINGERPRINTS! from another car).

But here are things I just need to vent about:

1. My wallet. It had exactly $2 in change in it. No cash. Plus it was a Tory Burch wristlet. I know, I know… #firstworldproblems. But I’m honestly less concerned about the brand, and more upset that I have to find a new wristlet (which is super convenient while lugging around a toddler).

2. My wallet did, however, have my debit card in it (which was cancelled right away — without any pending charges), my license, our zoo membership pass, and our Café O’Play membership pass. Luckily the gals over at Café O’Play know us well enough to (very likely) just replace the card. However, the zoo membership will need to be replaced in person, likely with photo ID (which I do not have right now). It’s just frustrating.

3. I’ve been so sick. And the last thing I want to do is go have everything replaced, close accounts, and reopen new ones, all for exactly zero dollars in cash. And to have my picture taken for a new license while pregnant.

4. My Day Planner. Guys. I loved this planner. And I write EVERYTHING down in it. Everything. To-do lists, events, play dates… everything. Plus the sonogram pictures are in there. And I just feel so violated. Someone knows the inner workings of my life! I know. Silly, right? But still. They know my schedule. My doctors appointments. Ari’s gymnastics and swim lessons. PLUS they have our address. They know where we live.

PERSPECTIVE:

We are all (relatively speaking) healthy. We are all OK. We are unharmed, physically. Even as I was typing above, I realized how silly I sound. And I think that I really needed to put it all out there to be able to move on. Sure, it’s super inconvenient; but we are OKAY! Sigh. OK. End rant.

I’m grateful for my husband and his ability to be the level-headed one, our son for his attention to detail and his joy (“Mommy’s purse is gone. Someone went ‘bam-bam’ and take it!”), our community for the dozen people who offered help and ‘condolences,’ our law enforcement for their diligence in gathering evidence, our friends for hanging with Ari (and feeding him while we talked to the cops), and again for my husband for reminding me that life is more than the contents of my purse and the car window. ♥

hot hot heat.

by 7 Comments

It’s official. We’ve been hit by a heat wave.

Unfortunately I’m not just referring to the high temps in Ohio this week.

Remember when I introduced our newest addition, Pepper, the adopted beagle mix?

Well it’s been almost 4 months since that introduction. And we’ve had our share of growing pains.

We think her last family neglected her which left us with some behavioral issues that needed to be tended to. We’ve worked very hard to get her to be friendly with people and other animals, to much success!

However, the last couple of days we started to notice some strange behavior. She was extremely affectionate with Oscar, our male cocker spaniel/cavalier king charles spaniel. These two generally avoid each other like the plague {they have a friendly understanding to leave one another alone}.

At about the same time Wednesday night, BF and I looked at each other and pretty much said the same thing: “Do you think she might be in heat?”

To which we both answered our own question: “There’s no way. Her adoption paperwork from the non-profit assured us she had been spayed.”

But today we learned the truth. Poor little Pepper pup has not been spayed.

And she is most certainly in heat.

Although we should have realized from the massively swollen lady goods, larger-than-life nipples, and oh-so-frequent urination, it took some massive amounts of blood to solidify the truth.

On top of it, we are extremely angry with the adoption agency we used. Had we known she wasn’t fixed, we would have gotten her fixed immediately and avoided the unnecessary drama and expense {$28 for 30 doggy diapers!?! You have GOT to be jokin’ me.}.

So for anyone who has had female dogs, how long with this last? And what should we do about the adoption agency??

Dear Crooked River Grill: You suck.

by 8 Comments

Dear Crooked River Grill and Restaurant.com:

Get your crap together. Crooked River Grill {located in Munroe Falls, a suburb of Akron, Ohio}, we heard some pretty “ehh” things about you, but your menu looked pretty good, so we decided to give you a try, thanks to the folks over at Restaurant.com.

So on May 10th of this year, we purchased a $25 Restaurant.com gift certificate {for those who are unfamiliar with Restaurant.com, it’s a website where you pay discounted rates for restaurant gift certificates with an understanding that there is a minimum you must spend at the time of your visit} for $10. The certificate says you must purchase a minimum of $35 worth of food.

It can be difficult for the two of us to spend $35 in one dinner, but BF was excited about trying something he wouldn’t typically {a rack of ribs} and I was going to get the coconut shrimp.

We originally went to the shady place Crooked River Grill on Monday the 5th of July. We were so excited. But the parking lot was empty. It was pretty much the only restaurant in town that was closed for the holiday both Sunday and Monday. Such a bummer. So we went back this past Monday.

As we pulled in BF says to me, “Wouldn’t it suck if they wouldn’t take it?” And we laughed. And then we see a note on the door:

No longer accepting Restaurant.com certificates as of May 15th, 2010.

Immediately my brain was thinking of “going Target lady” on them, as we would refer. But BF, being the logical and level-headed one, decided that maybe we should ask. So we did. And it was true. And I got pissed and tweeted this:



The best is that the woman from Crooked River Grill said they had a disagreement with Restaurant.com and asked them to take it down and they didn’t. And we had just purchased it 5 days prior to the date on the sign.

And I checked today and it’s STILL up on Restaurant.com.


WTF.

And Restaurant.com still hasn’t responded to our WTF refund request.

WTF.

Lesson learned but it still pisses me off.

still processing.

by 17 Comments

This past Tuesday I came face to face with one of the men that shot and killed my grandfather 19 years ago. It was the first time I have ever seen him in person. I meant to write about this Tuesday night, but, honestly, it took me a while to digest what had happened.

I met my family in downtown Cleveland at the Federal courthouse. I’ve never been in a courtroom before. Federal Courtrooms are… intimidating… even for law-abiding citizens such as myself. We were there because the man who was convicted of murdering my grandfather, whom is on death row, is claiming a mistrial in 1991.

Here is the deal: I don’t want my grandfathers killer to be executed. This isn’t always a popular opinion, but I really don’t think that you understand until you are part of the victims family. Let me explain. It’s taken me a long time to deal with everything you have to deal with when someone you love is murdered; I didn’t live a “normal” childhood because of it; I was overly sensitive to things a child should not even be aware of.

But I forgave the men who killed my grandfather. I forgave them because it’s exhausting carrying around that much hatred for someone. I decided that I didn’t want him to be executed because, let’s face it, playing God and choosing who lives and who dies just breeds more hatred in the world. He may be a horrible man, but he is a man with a family; he is a man with people who love him and people who would be destroyed if he was executed. And, truth be told, I do not want anyone to feel like I’ve taken away someone they love; I’ve felt that pain. No one should have to feel it

All this being said, I still want him to be in prison forever. And he’s claiming that the reason he found himself in this situation, is because of the way he was raised and the extremely messed up childhood he had. Let me tell you, he HAD a messed up childhood. I’ll give you that. His mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. He and his mother were beat by his stepfather.

But we all have a story. You can either choose to let it define you, or you can call it a life experience and move on. I’m not saying that these moments don’t change us, cause surely they do. All I’m saying is you take from it what you want to take from it.

We all have things happen to us that help to shape us as individuals — both good things and bad things. But we decide what to do with those experiences. We decide whether to take them and grow from them, or take them and demolish our lives in the name of our tragedies. You create your fate. You decide whether or not you shoot someone. You are in control of your own life.

Basically, I’m not sure what this blog post is about. I have been thinking about getting this out all week, and I am still unsuccessful. Oh well…

just trying to enjoy a baseball game.

by 11 Comments

Friday night we went to an Akron Aeros baseball game. We received free tickets from one of BFs friends, so we invited my sister and her friend, and one of my bestest friends, C, and her boyfriend, T.
We had pretty good seats {which pretty much just means I could actually see what was happening} in a pretty packed crowd. There was a family behind us with two small children. The whole bunch was there… grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, uncles, and a three year old and probably 5-ish year old.

At first I was all, “awe, they are taking the little ones to a game! How cute!” That was, until the peanut shell spitting started.

Let’s be clear. This is a minor league team. The rows of seats are very close together. But these children were chewing up peanuts, and spitting the shells in my hair/on my back and on C’s back. And the parents? They. Laughed.

Only after the laughing did the parents say “Don’t do that,” and then continued to laugh more. Way to reinforce not to do something when you think it’s FUNNY.C and I were visibly irritated. We were wiping the chewed peanut shells out of our hair and off of our backs. But I still let it go. Just kids, right?

That’s what I thought. Until the devil children children started to walk back and forth from Grandma {who just thinks EVERYTHING is “So cute!”} to mom and dad… using our hair/backs/clothes as ways to keep balance. Then the screaming began. Not your normal “I’m-at-a-baseball-game” screaming, but possessed-by-the-devil, screaming at the top of their lungs. In. Our. Ears.


BF could tell I was getting annoyed. And he didn’t try and calm me, as he usually does, because I think he realized I was within reason.

But then the one devil child, whom not surprisingly the mom let open the sippy cup, decided to dump the sippy cup contents onto my back/lap as well as BFs back/lap.
I can’t even say that this was the worst of it. Cause then the parents didn’t even apologize. They had the balls to say, “Don’t worry. It’s just water. Mostly. …and juice.” and continued to laugh at their devil-childrens antics.

BF, who always keeps his cool, was irritated. And then the dad said “If you want you can spank him,” to us.

I was furious. Furious! How could these people be so non-chalant about their children being downright awful in a place so public? Again, I understand that when in public settings, it’s impossible to have your children behave like little angels. I give the benefit-of-the-doubt to parents with children who just refuse to behave. But these parents didn’t even attempt to put their children in line. They thought it was funny. Cute, even. I was so disgusted. I did not go off on these people, but I felt that I had the right to say something. This morning I am frustrated that I let it go.

What do you think? Was I within my rights to say something to their horrible parents?

{ why I’m this way }

by 18 Comments


I’m not gonna lie. I have been majorly down lately.

I’ve noticed. BF’s noticed. You’ve noticed.

So first and foremost I want to thank you all for being so supportive of me lately. It has not gone unnoticed.

I also wanted to fill you all in on what has been raining on my parade.

First, I was sick pretty much the entire month of January. Then I took a pretty nasty fall in the parking lot & work in February and tore my knee up. I’ve been doing physical therapy 3 times a week, seeing another doctor once a week, and my knee has gotten worse.

On top of that, my knee injury is causing some serious sleep deprivation. The aches & pains are keeping me awake pretty much all night long. Take note that Rachel on 1-2 hours of sleep = crying, crabby, angry, hot mess.

& this workout-a-holic has not been able to hit the gym at all. The injury + sleep deprivation = no workouts for me = no endorphins released = UGH.

Plus BF & I haven’t seen each other in 3 weeks. That’s the longest we’ve gone without a visit, but we won’t be seeing each other until next weekend = 4 weeks = Double UGH.

It’s really not like me at all to be so, well, depressed. I’m generally a very happy-go-lucky person. I know it’s temporary, but it’s definitely been a difficult road for me lately. Not asking for your pity, just saying thanks for being there for me y’all!! So thank you for putting up with my crabbiness and my emotional-mess-ness. I appreciate YOU! 🙂