The gas man just got here to restore our service, and as he knelt down next to our stove, my son greeted him with a warm, "EWWW! He stinks."

Labels: Shameless Statements

The other day, we woke up to find trucks parked in front of our house. Big, yellow, heavy-duty trucks. Because our neighbors are having their driveway completely redone, we didn't think another thing of it...that is, until a backhoe started digging up our front yard. My husband went outside to find there was a gas leak, though no one bothered to tell us. Good thing, considering I probably would've wound up in a panic, packed up the two kids and the dog (I would've left the fish), and ran from the house. The pipeline workers assured us it was okay to stay, and since they had to shut the gas off to work on the line, I felt pretty safe. That was at Noon, day before yesterday. At 9:30 that night, the gas company finally came out to turn our gas back on. Of course, and I say "of course" because we have the WORST luck of any people I know, when they went into our basement, they found FIVE gas leaks coming from the pipe in our house. Not that I don't want to know there are five gas leaks in my basement, but we had no control over this. This all started when the backhoe folks showed up that morning. Next thing we know, the gas company tells us we have seven days to fix it or they're shutting it off. Nice.

Since then, we've had two trips by a repairman and three from the gas company. We've had gas for approximately 10 hours, most of which was overnight. I do not know how people lived without hot water coming straight from a faucet. My kids have had to take cold-bordering-on-lukewarm baths the past two nights (only bordering-on-lukewarm because there was a little bit of water left in the hot water tank). It's no wonder women used to wear those big, long, dresses with lots of layers. It was to hide their stench.

In addition, my husband noticed this morning that the pipeline people, who had so delicately torn up our yard, also crushed the drain running from our TWO sump pumps to the street. Those sump pumps run all the time, so we need that drain. The pumps are the result of five different trips made to our house by a waterproofing company to fix our constantly flooding basement. We recently found out that was due to a broken water line in our front yard. We had it replaced a couple of months ago. The flooding caused a mold problem that actually DID send me into a panic and made me pack up the two kids (I left the fish AND the dog) and run from the house. We're going camping this weekend, and I think I'm going to feel like I'm living in luxury compared to this place.

I can not stress this enough people...buy a brand new house.

Labels: House of Horrors

I have suffered from insomnia since I was pregnant with my daughter. She'll be nine in December. For a long, long time I suffered with it, mostly because I saw my doctor frequently enough for all my other ailments that I didn't want to bother him with me not sleeping. I mean, that's my fault, not his, right? I tried to solve my own problem by looking on-line, where I found St. John's Wort. I'm sure it works perfectly well for lots of people, but it made me feel like a sloth while my head and heart were racing. Like I was running a marathon and taking a math test at the same time, but I couldn't lift my arm if I tried. Not a pleasant feeling. I finally talked to my doctor about it, and have tried two different prescription medications, one of which made me crazy. Like, wanting to drive my car into a brick wall crazy. Or, waking up and seeing knives floating around the room crazy. Just plain ca-RAZY, crazy. The other one gave me heart palpitations.

So, after many more sleepless nights of me wanting to drive my fist through my headboard. And, countless repetitions of, "I surrender this God. You can let me sleep", I went back to the herbal route and tried Melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone produced naturally, in some gland that I can't spell or pronounce, which controls internal clocks. I've been taking half a pill (1.5 milligrams) for a couple of weeks now, and I think it may be working! Now, I still have issues, don't get me wrong. If my daughter has a bad dream, I'm the one who is up for the rest of the night.

Labels: Insomnia

Ah, the joys of computing. Here I had fully explained my new adventure in my first blog entry and then it didn't post. Let me begin again...

I'm starting this blog for many reasons. First and foremost, because I enjoy writing and sharing my experiences. I think we can all learn from each other's mistakes, which means you will all learn significantly from my blog. I love to write and started a novel a few years ago, but because that actually takes TIME, it has sat untouched for quite awhile. As much as I thought my insomnia would give me plenty of time to write a book, it turns out I'd rather sit and watch infomercials on HGTV at 3:00 AM.

The name of my blog came from my best friend, Bean. After the birth of my son a few years ago, I posted some pictures on-line under the user name "Momofali", which stood for "Mom of Ali" (my firstborn). Bean sent me an e-mail asking, "Who's Momo Fali"? So, Momo, or Mo for short, has stuck. It's who I am. I'm a Mom. A stay at home Mom, or SAHM. I also use the acronym SMWH, which stands for Shoot Me While Hanging. It's not entirely accurate, as I can't say that my children have actually made me suicidal, but it simply stands for the level of frustration I feel when I've stepped on a Matchbox car for the 10th time in a day.

Labels: Ramblings