Rachael Rant of the Week: Be Prepared

From Rachael:

Get ready folks, this one's a doozy!

RACHAEL RANT OF THE WEEK (Month. Actually.)

It's been a rough month. It started with our homeowner's insurance deciding they wanted to cancel our policy because we had:

1. Peeling Paint

2. a car in the driveway without a valid registration tag (what business is a CAR of a HOMEOWNER's insurance company?)

3. a rack with metal next to the house (at first they declared it a "fire hazard". When we told them it was metal, and they'd have to be stupid to think it could be a fire hazard they then changed their story to a "trip hazard", but wait... it's laid NEATLY IN.A.RACK!!! Morons)

4. trenches in the front yard people could trip in (this I will admit was actually a "problem". We were in the middle of fixing pipes and the stupid company refused to give us the time we needed to fix them).

So we were given two weeks to do all of that work or we would lose our insurance which would mean that we would have to pay all of our mortgage at once which would effectively mean we would lose our home.

Well, we did it... in one week. Our backs were sore (dad has two ruptured discs in his back so it was excruciatingly painful for him to do all that stuff that fast, in fact, I did quite a bit of it myself and we were able to get a friend to do most of the rest. Dad was still laid up for the next week afterwards though).

Around that same time, we got a puppy. For a month straight he woke me up every two hours to go potty. Then it was every three hours. Now he has graduated to every four hours with a five hour night thrown in every now and then. So, I haven't had a good night's sleep in a while. Dad and I got into an argument one night due to my sleep deprivation. It was all my fault and it showed me I need to be better at honoring him, even when I feel like I'm going crazy. I serious thought I was going to have a mental breakdown for a few days there it was that bad.

(kinda graphic info about puppy parasites, you may want to skip this paragraph)

We also found out after having him for a month, that he had a tapeworm in him (I'm assuming just one). I'm still having the creeps about that. When we got him we knew he had worms (all pups do unless they were on a strict deworming regimen from the breeder) so we dewormed him twice, that got rid of all but the tapeworm (those usually aren't common but they do occur in pups). Before we knew what it was we didn't understand why it was taking so long for the "worms" to get out of his system. It turns out that what we were seeing were sections of the tapeworm that "fell off" and turned into egg sacks which strangely have their own motion (EWWWWWWWW!).

(/end graphic info)

Because of all of our pup's intestinal troubles I just kept washing my hands every time I touched him. I washed them so much they got raw and cracked and calloused and bled all over the place. They still crusty and hard to the touch, especially the knuckles.

And to top it all off, I studied like a madwoman for my midterm today and felt so good about my understanding and then I got to the room. Our most recent homework was passed back and I got a whopping 6 out of 12. Then I took the test and I'll be lucky to get 50%.

That's been my past month and a half. How's yours been?