It's hot hot hot

The insurance adjuster and the first contractor came by today to get info on fixing our mold problem. Looks like the repairs will be covered, with a $1500.00 deductible. Not too scary, except when they started talking about the timeline, it could take up to 6 weeks for everything to get back to normal.

I've got MaMaMade stuff to get out, samples to send out, a huge amount of product to finish making before the 4th and now, for the coup de grace,
the AC stopped working this afternoon.

That's right, no AC. The fan still blows, but the outside cooling unit isn't working. It's currently 91 outside at 9:30 at night. Joy, oh joy, is mine.

We have one fan. We have a ceiling fan in our room at least.

Oh, and we have mice in the walls. They seem to have come in through the AC power cord vent behind our bedroom wall.

We're plagued, mold, mice, spiders (I'll write about that some other day), AC broken. Blech.

Car needs an oil change, MMM needs a lot of attention, the house repairs will take lots of time, oh and I had the first board meeting for the school today and, hooey that's gonna be a lot of work too.

Pardon me while I have a nice drink.

Mailing Lists

So, I've made a mailing list for MaMaMade. Now I'll start offering special secret codes for the super secret cool people. Also offering a big contest on my google ad to try and draw traffic. Hopefully the enticement of a free baby carrier gets people to the site. :)

Sarah's off playing with the new babysitter. It's her first day so we'll see how it goes. She's much mellower than the last sitter. I think that's good and bad. The other sitter had super high energy, but is vacationing in Europe with her fiance. This one is a nurse though, which I really think is cool.

Whatever the energy level, Sarah's being well taken care of, I know since I've been here all afternoon LOL. Back to the grind for me though.

Blech,

ARGH

I've just sent the progeny off to watch TV. I am so tired of being pawed at, licked, petted, hugged, kicked, squeezed and generally NOT LEFT ALONE. Get off me kid, this is soooo not cool right now. It's 107 degrees now, it is not huggy petty day. I'm not sure what's up with her, but I hope it ends soon.

Signed,

Cranky MaMa from the land of hot sweaty pits.

Cool Moms Know

I was featured today on Cool Mom Picks. MaMaMade's first online review woohoo!!

The source of all evil

The source of all evil is mold. At least it is here in my house.

Frank came home tonight and said, "Hey, the hallway floor is all wonky." We opened up the hall closet with the HVAC and, lo and behold, dripping water from the AC unit. Water that has been dripping since we turned on the AC in May. That has soaked the wallboard, wood under the AC unit, wall to the hall storage closet, the carpet in the hall closet, the Pergo flooring on both sides of the hallway. And grown mold.

Mold, eh, not so bad right?

Wrong. See previous post on how I've felt bad for about, oh, a month. Since we turned on the AC. We've been blowing mold through our house. We've been blowing known mycotoxins through our house. Me, with my stellar immune system, has felt awful. Sarah has been sick, Frank has been sick.

Symptoms of mold health problems:

runny nose
sore throat
scratchy eyes
red eyes
sore lungs
cough
coughing blood
tight chest
sinus infection
lung infection
asthma
skin rashes
bad dandruff
fever
general malaise


Out of those, I have 12 out of 15. That's bad. So far I'm not coughing blood, don't have any new skin rashes and I haven't had any asthma attacks.

What's worse is I decided that to test if it really was the mold making me feel bad, I should try to pull the carpet out of the closet. There was moisture in there, it smelled funky, so I knew there had to be mold. I pulled the carpet up and sure enough, mold. Pulled out the carpet pad, mold. Pulled off the wall trim, mold. Pulled up the carpet nail wood stick thingie, mold.

Apparently there was a lot of mold. My lungs are hot they feel so rotten. My eyes feel like there is sandpaper inside my lids. I can feel the nastiness inside my chest and it scares me. I don't have health insurance. The best I can hope for is good mold eradication and no long term asthmatic affects.

Now we have to thoroughly clean all affected areas. Possibly clean the ventilation system. Replace the hall closet floor, the hallway wood floor and possibly the support wood and wall of the utility closet. But we figured out where the water was coming from and fixed it. There was a clog in the pipe that drains the condensation from the AC, we blew it out with the water hose and now it seems OK.

Because the only thing worse than a house with mold, is a house without AC. Because tomorrow it's supposed to by 101 degrees. Thursday? 106. All the way through next week, over 100. Not a good time to be without AC.

Tired of sick

When am I really going to feel well? I've had congestion, fever off and on and that blah feeling for almost a month. It's like there's one cold that just won't let me go.

Out damn virus, out.

There, that should work. I also got my period with a vengeance Sunday. Happy Father's Day honey, now wait on me.

Puppet theaters are in production. New slings are underway. Mei tais are rocking. Wraps are almost all wrapped up.

I'm checking out a new fair trade, organic fabric supplier on Friday, so I might have some new fabrics then. Until then, we're using up what I have now. I also found this great fabric shop in Mill Valley that I'm going to try to check out, Ambatalia Fabrics.

I also just upgraded to two Juki professional grade machines. Now, I have more power than I know what to do with. And 4 sewing machines under one roof. This definately calls for some serious money making if I want to earn back the money I spent on them LOL.

For you Becky,

Here's the pic that didn't go through:

Puppet Show Anyone?

I just made this little doorway puppet theater for Sarah. She's been playing with it non stop, I'm actually getting a little tired of the same show. I need to make some new puppets for her. We took it to park day with her school and it was a big hit there. Got the kids to sit down and play quietly for a few minutes when they got overheated. :) Now I just have to add it to the website.

Last Day Of School

Sarah's last day of preschool was yesterday. We had a very fun time at school. Took pictures of her with all her buddies. Here's one of her teacher, Nelda.


She's such a super sweet lady. We made her a bag with handprints of all the kids decorated in fabric paint. We added a bunch of cards and pampering stuff inside. Sarah and I made her satin pillowcases.


Sarah's dad came from San Francisco for her end of school picnic. Here they are making paper bag vests for our "roundup".



There was a bounce house for the picnic. Sarah adores bounce houses. I thought we were lucky to get through the night without an injury, but wait, just as we were getting ready to leave. Bam. She gets bounced up from a kid while she was bouncing down. She ended up biting most of the way through her bottom lip and her front four teeth are now slightly loose.
As of today they aren't terribly sore, so I'm not going to worry about a dentist visit. She's getting tons of pampering from us and seems to be doing ok. Her bottom lip is twice it's normal size and black and blue and red. She also has a big lump under her chin from where the other kid's head hit.
I'm very impressed with her pain tolerance though. As soon as the bleeding stopped, she was off playing again. That's kids for ya.

Goofy

We have our first pet. His name is Goofy and he's a Betta fish.

It looks like Sarah is trying to eat him in that picture. My mom is a fish person, so she walked us through the process. So far Goofy is still with us a week later. He seems pretty happy. He's a beautiful red and purple iridescent color. He's already learned that Sarah is the "great bringer of food" so he races to the top and opens his mouth at her when she walks by.

So who's brilliant idea is it to shut down the Bay Bridge?

I had a Breastfeeding and Newborn Care class scheduled for Saturday. Sounds fun, big day in SF, teaching fun classes. Oh wait. Bay Bridge is getting redone and is sporadically closed down.

Options are to:
A: drive through San Mateo to SF. About 40 miles out of the way.
B: try the Bay Bridge, hope I make it to work on time.
C: go through Marin over the Golden Gate Bridge.
D: take BART from an East Bay station.

Smart option would have been D. Or even E, reschedule class.

Instead I went straight to the toll plaza, paid my $3 and thought, woohoo, no traffic. I got to Treasure Island and two CHP pulled out in front. They started doing that sweep across all the lanes, slowing and stopping traffic. So I'm now stopped on the western span of the Bay Bridge while they are doing demo work at the end. Oh Joy.
Then to my left I see a volvo wagon stop for the CHP block. And a sedan behind the volvo didn't stop. Smash, into the back of the Volvo. I've never seen a CHP officer get so pissed off. That just cracked me up, I mean how mad he got, not the accident. Looks like everyone was ok. So 20 minutes later I finally get off the bridge and up to work. An hour early.

Normal trip takes 2 hours. I left at 6:30.
Arrived at 8:40.
Only 20 minute delay.

Score:
Bridge-0
Me-1

The trip home:
The class was awesome, had a great group of students. Even a couple homebirths. Woohoo, parent power.
I dropped by Peasant Pies and picked up a 6 pie supply for the week.
I was in my car and driving by 4:00.
I thought, hmmm, my morning drive went well, let's try it again for the evening.
I got on 280 towards the Bay Bridge since KCBS said 101 was clogged from the interchange. Thought I'd be smart and cross over on city streets and hop on at the base of the bridge.
1.5 hours later I finally got onto the bridge.
1.5 hours later I was home. That's right, it took as much time to get onto the bridge as it did to drive 99 miles.

Score:
Bridge- 5 million (that was my annoyance level)
Me-1 (I had Peasant Pies to eat and Prairie Home Companion on radio)

I was home by 7:30, 13 hours after I left. Whew.

Today we're watching Mythbusters and hanging out on the couch.