Day in Review - Christa and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I wanted to call this post Year in Review because it seems like that's that how long I have been away! Surprise!  I am here!  I have been such a busy girl this past week or so.  What have I been up to you ask?  Well, I will reveal all by the end of this post and will also tell you about my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day today.  Before I do, however, I want to give myself a shout-out and announce that today is my 3 week anniversary of my "Quit Smoking, 2011" campaign. I feel really good actually. I am still feeling some effects, however, but almost back to my normal self! This topic will come up again below!

So...I have been busy! I have not had a lot of time to write the blog for a few reasons, but the biggest is I have been getting more paid gigs! I have been expanding and getting more clients during the afternoon for my part time dog walking job, which is pushing back my 2nd part time job in the afternoon/evening job with ChaCha, which is getting cut to extremes because I have gotten a few paid writing gigs!   I am currently working on finishing up writing an e-book on...what else?  Quitting smoking!!!!!  It is almost done, so I thought tonight would be a great time to get a blog post out before I attempt to sleep. As much as I wish I could write blog posts all day, every day, right now I have to choose to spend my time with activities that actually pay...since the blog doesn't.

I have still been hitting the gym when I can. I was invited tonight, but just couldn't swing it with the e-book needing to get finished.  It's actually fine with me since I can barely walk at the moment from my work out yesterday!  It wasn't bad all day until this evening.  I may need an ass massage because that's what is hurting so badly...if there is anyone hot reading this and wants to volunteer, let me know and I will give you my address...

Since the weekend I have also been busy dog sitting as my parents, yes, Sarah and Todd, are on one of their tropical vacations they like to take several times a year (without their daughter, mind you...they did take me once actually, so I am not going to complain) . I am officially in charge of their chihuahua's, Margarita and Tia, until Sunday.

Tia on the left, Margarita on the right

I tend to get along better (until this week) with Tia, since Margarita and I have always had, let's say a "troubled" relationship, due to the fact she has tried to bite me roughly 158 times in her lifetime and has even succeeded two or three times in getting her little chihuahua teeth into my delicately, beautiful skin. However, I have to say, little Margarita is being a dream...compared to the hurricane that is Tia. Since Tia has been a little terror, and her parents Sarah and Todd are out of town, I considered writing up a little classified ad, but considering her breath smells, she pees on the floor like she owns the place, barks all the time and has to be hand fed, I can't really see that anyone would take her.  I have told her several times in the past few days: "Tia, you are damn lucky you are cute".

I am sure you have noticed the title of this blog post...Yes, I am Christa and most of my day was, indeed, terrible, horrible, no good and very bad. See, I woke up this morning with high hopes of a fabulous Tuesday. I would do some work, go walk my dogs, come back and do some more work, settle in and watch Glee, write a fantastic blog post, then go to bed at a decent time. (Would just like to say it is currently 11:44pm and not decent in my book) Since "the girls" have been here this week, my mornings have been a little slower than normal.  I have take Chloe outside to go potty first, then come back up and get Maggie (This is what we call Margarita) and Tia. Fat assed little Maggie can't walk down the stairs by herself, so I have to carry her. (This is why I don't take all three dogs at one time, as I would only have one hand free) Of course it is 6:30 am and Tia starts barking the whole way down the steps. We finally get downstairs "the girls" do their business and we go back up. Once we get up stairs, I must feed them. (Remember, Tia needs to be hand fed due to "medical reasons". Some may say she just has a bad attitude and won't learn to eat on her own) It takes longer than just filling a bowl with food and setting it down, as I do with Chloe.

Lets move ahead...I am about 45 minutes behind already at this point, so I start my work. I am happily working along, poured some wonderful tea, I had a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats...and at some point, checked my e-mail...Oh good!  My electric bill is here!  I open it up and have a heart attack on the spot...$108.  (The highest it has been since I have lived in this apartment was $25)  I immediately got on the phone...4 Customer Service reps later, 3 which were not fit to work in any Customer Service capacity, two untimely disconnections of my phone signal (Verizon, you are NEXT!!!), and one crying Chloe at my side (she needed to go outside), I finally got an explanation I can understand and though I am not happy about it, there is nothing I can do about it, but suck it up and pay. Whoever invented the "Actual" vs "Estimated" system for checking meters should be banned from the world.

I hang up the phone and take a deep breath...and I smell poop...of course, my first thought went to Tia who has had a history of pooping in the house, so I swung around quickly in my chair...Tia is sleeping very innocently curled up on the couch. I noticed there were some brown spots on the carpet...I followed them with my eyes...(I will try to be as "non gross" as possible) and there were just several large brown spots of nasty dog diarrhea all over my carpeting....and Chloe sitting in the corner looking extremely scared that I was about to yell at her. I had three issues with this.  1) I knew it was kind of my fault because she was crying to go out, but I couldn't take her out when I was on the phone, so I didn't yell at her. 2) There are several puppy pads spread strategically around the apartment due to Tia's refusal to pee outside like a normal dog and 3) the realization that I would be cleaning up dog diarrhea in my very near future.

I did clean the carpet...Woolite carpet cleaner followed by Oxyclean followed by Febreeze...then I had to go to work. Work was actually pretty good. No major issues or problem. I picked up a new client so I did have a little bit of "first day jitters", but in general it was fine. I came back home and walked in and the apartment smelled like poop....All the dogs were crated/gated...I prepared myself...but there was no poop anywhere.  I Febreezed again, and have continued once every few hours....

The third major thing that happened was this...my friend Laurel had given me a new lamp this weekend. I needed it, it is a large floor lamp and though I had brought it up from the car, I had yet to plug it in and decide where I was going to put it. I just had it in the middle of the floor and went to plug it in to see how much light it was going to give off...as I plugged it into the socket...every electronic device in my apartment went off...the TV, all the clocks, the light I had on...all just black. So I had to call the office of my apartment and figured I could just find out if I had to flip a switch or what...but no, the generous landlord said he would come fix it himself and for me not to worry about it!  Hurruh!  My apartment smells like poop, I have two illegal dogs in here and the living room is scattered with random dog toys, puppy pads and bones. Great.... I tried to hide the chihuahua's in my bedroom with Chloe, kicked as many toys and bones as possible in with them, Febreezed as well as I could and waited for Matthew.   Long story as short as possible, Matthew came up, flipped a switch behind my refrigerator, and left...no comment on the poop smell or the mysterious random pitched dog barks coming from the bedroom.  Phew...that was the turning point...things started to look up from there...and have continued.  And now, since it is technically a new day (12:31am) I can know when I wake up, it will still be a good one!