things have gone downhill since i got back from the caymans... what is http://www.elegant/?

i have some suspicious charges on my debit card, and i used it to pay my phone bill online at the hotel computer on grand cayman. mistake! (well, it's only one suspicious charge so far. i am guessing i should just cancel the card, but i have a couple of important charges that are pending...)
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you know better

THE DOGS WON'T STOP PISSING ON EVERYTHING. mainly buddy, but the others get in on it here and there. we make him wear a diaper in the house now, but he pissed on that even. so today i washed it. in a moment of being distracted today, i let him in the house (since he can't be outside at the same time as maggie now) and forgot our bedroom door open. he must've gone straight for the bedroom, because by the time i realized it he had made a puddle on the carpet and marked the bedskirt. i put him in a crate because it's the only place i had to put him while i dried his diaper and he barked for an hour straight. tonight, he pissed in his diaper again. my only consolation is that he going to live with patty on sunday. i love the little guy and all, but he's her dog after all... and she's got all those nice, bare floors. i'll be content to visit. (i think the romance ended when he started not minding wet diapers. and this whole maggie-separate-from-all-other-dogs-but-still-no-fence-built thing. that definitely complicated matters.)

also, one of the cats pissed on the living room rug while we were away. we had to play a game of "Find That Smell" to figure out where they had been bad... and sebastian pissed on our coffee table while we were gone, too. i attribute both of those rare accidents to them being mad. but honestly, can't they think of something better than PEEING ON FURNITURE to show anger and resentment for being abandoned? piercings, tattoos, a job dancing at the booby trap, date the big burly black cat down the street, SOMETHING???

i am really, really tired of cleaning up pee, and really tired of the smell of effing resolve carpet cleaner. i can't wait until this plague of piss stops so we can get our carpets steam-cleaned. and if mystery puddles come out of nowhere once he's gone, we're going back to crate-training because this is unacceptable.

can you tell i've been stuck at home with no car this week? chris's parents have one of them since they're in town... we were going to rent one but then realized i didn't have class so cancelled the reservation. today i felt like a SAHM who had a really day with the kids. seriously.
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must avoid pregnant sisters

my sister who is visiting was seriously pissing me off. she wants me to do her a favor before she comes, namely find a toddler-size car seat for her with a budget of $10. this is so she does not have to check hers, as she is worried they will lose it, even though she is checking baggage. do not even get me started.

i actually wouldn't mind this if she had asked me instead of told me, and hopefully with a little less attitude. i tried, and so far have really been unsuccessful as i'm not willing to drive 2 hours round-trip for this task. she basically hung up on me today when i was trying to carefully explain to her why it would just be much easlier and more realistic for her to check her car seat. like everyone else does.

i will blame her fluctuating pregnant hormones on the enormous amounts of attitude she was throwing my way with her suggestions like, "just go to some rummage sales, you find them all the time there." like i'm gonna just spend every saturday between now and her visit poking around at rummage sales, hoping to find a car seat. ??? i will give this lady a kidney, but give up a weekend day when all she has to do is CHECK THE DAMN CAR SEAT, i will not do. thankfully, it is all resolved now. chris be my knight in shining armor and found a co-worker with a spare... :)
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last meal

chris's parents have been here since last wednesday, but chris advised his mother that they would not be staying here. she was here for something like 2 weeks at christmas and spent the entire time yelling, insulting her absolutely lovely kids, etc. we really weren't up for that this time, and they're here because patty just got a house anyway, so why not stay there?

so we've managed to be parent-free this whole time... but since they're leaving sunday, we're going up to have breakfast with them tomorrow. his mom is probably still mad at me for talking back...

this is sometime after christmas. we had left the quiet safety of the bedroom to make some lunch and she started yelling at chris again and my heart just sank. chris asked her to stop and said she was upsetting me and she asked why would stacey be upset and then GLARED AT ME, expecting an answer, and i figured, okay, here's my chance. so i said in a very, very small voice that it was because she had been yelling the whole time she was there and we have a pretty happy house so we're not used to all this yelling, and we really just wanted to eat, maybe without the yelling. to this she responded something very rude which i will not repeat here and which this day she denies she ever said - and now she's been mad at me ever since, if that makes any sort of sense, but i think i'm in good company with who else she's been mad at, so hey..

well, wish me luck!  ¶ 12:08 AM