Shoo Fly

I have never had so many flies in my house as we've had since moving to Virginia.  Part of the problem is that the toddler runs in and out of the balcy aka balcony and leaves the door open, but I also think there are just a lot of flies in Virginia.  I actually heard someone say it was just that time of year.

The flies in the house are driving me crazy and to top it off we are apparently hosting a family of fruit flies as well.  I tried leaving a cup of red wine mixed with a little sugar out. Nothing. I tried carniverous plants. Little bastards must not be hungry. Finally the hubby went to Lowe's a couple days ago so I asked him to get some fly paper and a fruit fly trap.  He dutifully did and I set both up before bed with the excitement of Christmas Eve, just knowing that I would come downstairs in the morning to find that a massive fly genocide had occurred.

The next day I come downstairs and there is not 1 stinking fly on the stupid fly paper and the fruit flies are hanging out on top of the fruit fly trap like they are at Beaches Family Resort soaking up the sun and drinking mai tais.  Are you freaking kidding me?  Where was my fly genocide???? 

And to make matters worse I ended up killing 2 flies and 2 fruit flies with my bare hands!

While the fruit flies are still on their family vacation, the fly paper did manage to snag 1 fly and 3 fruit flies whereas this morning I killed an additional 2 flies with my hands. 

You can just call me Fists of Fury!

The Beauty of HGTV

Ask any woman what her favorite television channels are and I bet most of them list HGTV in the top 3 among the majority of women.  I'm not gonna lie.  We watch some HGTV.  How could you not?  Hot carpenters, getting all sweaty, fixing stuff...yum!  Even if you're lucky enough to have your own hot handyman like I am there's still something about Yard Crashers and Income Property, that gets my blood pumping.  Heck, I even have a girl crush on Nicole Curtis.

(OMG my boxer narrowly missed throwing up on my UGG moccasins!!!  Thankfully I was able to get off the couch with the speed of a sloth that has been eaten by a gazelle and move them.  And luckily my daughter is obsessed with kitchen towels and I had 15 clean dish towels in the living room with which to clean up the vomit.  She likes to use them as blankets to cover our dogs and her toys when they are "sleeping.").

So yesterday I'm doing some laundry, walk into the bathroom, and step into a huge puddle of water!  OMG!         There was quite the puddle of water in front of the washing machine and I had just had the house cleaned.  Grrr!  Our friend Mike who was doing some painting for us chose that moment to show up and, being the awesome guy that he is, volunteered to look at the washing machine.  As he's laying on the floor Paul arrived home.  I'm sure Mike curses the day he met us at Applebees.  Seriously.

Now I'm given the task of scheduling a repair with GE.  $100 for the repairman just to come to our house.  Um, what!  So I look up the manual for our 2 year old washing machine that GE doesn't make anymore supposedly so I can tell them what the men think the problem is and I start reading and I think hmmm, I can fix this.

I can fix this.  (Are you laughing yet?)  Thanks to HGTV I am confident in my ability to get 'er done and I get to work.

I remove parts, I clean out parts, there's water involved, some towels.  My tools were a tablespoon and, wait for it, some chopsticks and a paper towel.

I put everything back together and text Paul, "I read the manual for the washing machine and I may have fixed it.  Let's run a load tonight and see before I schedule a $100 repair call."

I can see the expression of omg on Paul's face as he gets this message at work.  To his credit though he did respond with the "omg what have you done?" but went with the supportive "Look at you superstar" that I was not expecting.

So thank you HGTV for the confidence to tackle an expensive washing machine with some chopsticks and a spoon.  (Seriously for awhile I was convinced I could put in a new window on my own.)

HGTV...making women everywhere think they can do stuff that they have zero experience in.