Murphy’s Law, and other absurdities from my life…

Murphy’s Law – “If anything can go wrong, it will.”
Gumperson’s Law – “The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.”

That is my life, in a nutshell. Now I know many of you are probably saying, “it only feels that way sometimes.” To this I give you Persig’s Postulate: “The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.” You may have a rational hypothesis, but my life is still the phenomenon.

Let’s take stoplights for example. If you ever take more than one car ride with me, you will quickly notice that I get stopped by red lights frequently (read: almost all the time). Sean can not stand to be in the same vehicle with me when we are on a tight schedule because we will get stopped by every light. Even the obscure lights, to which most people ponder their existence, will turn red for me…even when there are no cars on the opposite side.

You may be thinking, stoplights, that’s annoying, but manageable. It doesn’t end there. Trains are not a frequent occurrence in the area where we live now, however, it is a guarantee that I ALWAYS get stopped by the train at Aberdeen and Pembroke, mere yards from the interstate entrance, when I am running late for work.

Airports are the bane of my existence. It starts off at the check-in counter. My bags nearly always get inspected. At least 25% of the time my flights are cancelled or changed (I’m not talking gate changes, I’m talking about the airline changing me from a 9am flight to a 1pm flight without telling me ahead of time). This proportion seems a little extreme to me for such major changes. My layovers are either less than an hour, or greater than 6 hours, and the second flight is always at the furthest point from where the first one lands. Sean used to not mind air travel, he had pretty good luck…not with me! I am always at the FURTHEST gate in the terminal. Fate played a cruel joke on me once and assigned me to gate 2. I couldn’t believe it, I wouldn’t have to walk miles to my gate while lugging multiple carry-ons. This particular airport numbered their gates backwards; gate 2 was all the way at the end. Again, you may be saying, well it only SEEMS like it happens all the time. Ask Sean, he will verify the information…ALL the time. I have flown in and out of Bogota, Colombia 10 times now. ALL but the very last time did I get my luggage opened at least once, if not twice, and even three times on one trip, at the Bogota airport alone. Another one of Sean’s major annoyances when travelling with me is the fact that my luggage is always one of the last ones off the belt.

So maybe I should just stay away from a great deal of travel. Ah, but Murphy’s Law follows me everywhere. I have a “void” that follows me. The void baffles Sean the most. The worst incident of the void striking was in November 2006. We were driving 65-70 MPH down the highway at night in Wisconsin. The windows were up, the car doors were locked. I checked a map we had, put it down to take a drink of my water, and when I bent down to pick the map back up it had disappeared. I spent a half hour looking for it while Sean was driving. We stopped at a gas station and both looked for another 20 minutes. The map has never been found. The Void. This most recently happened with my W-2. When things fall into the void, they are NEVER again found. Nothing has ever returned from the void.

While I truly do love computers and the amazing things that can be done with them, they don’t seem to like me. While attending Winona State University, I went through 13 laptops in 3 years. One laptop got infected with 38,638 viruses, setting a tech support center record. It took six hours for the anti-virus program to finish counting them all. My most recent laptop needed a BIOS update to fix some crucial problems. Unbeknownst to me, this update carried a 1% chance of frying the computer…yes, I am that 1%. When I called the friendly people in India to get it fixed, they told me I was out of warranty. After much friendly screaming, they transferred me to someone in the U.S. who informed me that I had nearly 2 years left on my warranty and they would fix the laptop right away.

All of this does not apply to just external factors. I have also drawn the genetic “short straw” in life (no pun intended). I have all recessive genes. I am 4’10”, blue eyes, horribly pale, and while I don’t like to say my hair is blond, it is quite light. I live at the ends of the bell curve, and not just with my height. I have over-perfect vision, 20/10. You may think that’s a good thing, but it messes with my depth perception. I have over-average intelligence; also backfires a lot.

Things tend to happen in clusters for both Sean and I. When things go wrong, they will all go wrong at the same time. When major life issues pop up, they all happen within the same week. And this is not just our perception, this is fact.

Things also tend to have the worst timing possible. Winter 2004-2005, blizzard conditions, the County Sheriff recommended no one travel outside, roads were being closed…I had searing tooth pain. I drove up Highway 14 from Winona, MN to Lewiston, MN. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Highway 14, it is mostly one lane in each direction, winding up through the bluffs; lots of curves, lots of shade allowing for good ice to form. This is one of the worst roads to drive on in blizzard conditions. I drove it though so that I could get a root canal. My dentist did not give me any antibiotics nor pain medication, so I ended up in the ER at 3:30 in the morning (again, driving through the snow, but on better roads). The infection was so bad though that I couldn’t keep the pills that they gave me down. So, I ended up back in the ER for lots of shots.

When we moved from Minnesota to Virginia, we spent the days leading up to the trip not packing, but driving to and from the ER 2 hours away. The day people were coming to help us load the moving van, Sean had to go back to the hospital 2 hours away for emergency surgery. That left me to drive for three days in a 26’ U-Haul, trailing our car. Thank God for Raychel who came with to help.

Amidst a spring cleaning project, with papers, binders, boxes, strewn in our living room, and a pile of dishes since Sean decided to take an extra day off from washing, Sean went hands first through a window (accidentally of course) and had to get stitches, rendering his hands useless to help clean up the aftermath.

Medical oddities are my specialty. Something is seriously wrong with my body. This started with unexplained eye seizures as a pre-schooler. In Jr. High a quart of Kool-Aid would put me to sleep rather than making me hyper. In high school I had two knee surgeries. The first took seven, rather than three, deep breaths of the gas to knock me out. Despite this, I woke up in the OR, about 30 minutes before they wheeled me down to the recover room. And to top it all off…I started my period during surgery! The second surgery went better, as they learned from the first, but I woke up just as they were wheeling me out of the OR, still a little too early for my tastes. In 2002 I participated in a couple of medical studies for money (gpgp.net). The first study was testing the interaction of a sleeping pill with Midazolam (used to knock you out before surgery). Within 15 minutes of administering both drugs, the other women in my room were out cold. I was wide awake and requested a book to read because I was bored. A couple years later I discovered the spots I have on each eye are common amongst the elderly and people who spend excessive amounts of time in the sun (neither of which describe me). I can have them removed with laser surgery, or leave them alone. Leaving them alone allows them to grow to the point where every couple of years they get too big and make me feel like I have a pebble in my eye and then I have to take special steroid eye drops to make the bump go back down. I also have a bizarre progressive hearing loss that can not be explained. However, the doctor told me in 2001 that I would be completely deaf in 5-10 years. While it is a good thing I am not yet, I think this is just my body rebelling against standard medical knowledge yet again. My newest medical funkiness is PCOS, where rather than just diagnosing you with one thing, they diagnose you with about 20 but put it under one name to make you feel better.


Despite all this I continue to drive, and fly. I own multiple computers, though I always make sure to purchase the best and longest protection plan available. I freak out when everything happens at once, who wouldn't, but I deal with it. And I finally have health insurance to deal with my medical oddities. Why nature continues to conspire against me, I will never know.


To end on a more humorous note, I present you with Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy:
"If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage.
If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get sewage."

Colombia...Finally!

Family photo 2008

I always have the best intentions in updating the blog more regularly, but that never seems to happen. Sorry for those of you who have been waiting on this Colombia post, but enjoy now that it's here. Unfortunately I do not have all my pictures developed yet, and my digitals weren't great because I was playing around with a new camera we got just before the trip. At least it's something!


We had a wonderful trip. I went down about a week before Sean did since his semester ended so late. Our main jobs were helping with all things Christmas, Sean helped at the new school construction site, and I was responsible for getting 22 new computers up and running for the new school. It was a lot of work! The new school is absolutely gorgeous though. Our tour was a bit impromptu, so I did not have my camera. We got to spend a lot of time with the kids since they were out of school, and I chose to work on the computers more at night (so the kids didn't mess with them while I was working).


Here are some pictures - captions/descriptions are below each photo.

























Jeanene and I made HUNDREDS of Rosettes. It was fun to learn the art of making them. On the right is my very first batch of Rosettes that I did myself.




Francisco learning how to shuffle. He got pretty good. Michel having fun playing Phase 10. Francy also enjoys playing Phase 10, but she gets frustrated with Michel's lack of strategy





Francisco sleeping mad. Watch on, legs up. Feet straight up in the air. He's cute awake AND asleep!




We had a family birthday/Christmas party one evening. We did dinner, everyone got a cake with their name written on it, we opened presents, and then we played Phase 10. The whole thing was a disaster - nothing went as planned - but we had fun anyway.




















The girls love helping out with the babies. They are going to be wonderful mothers one day.


And other random cuteness from the home:











There are so many more pictures I could put on. This at least gives you a glimpse into our trip. We can't wait for our next trip back. We will be going in December again this year as Francy is graduating from high school in December. We are so proud of her.

It's done! Almost...

As promised, here are some pictures of the (almost) finished product. I say almost because in the craziness of preparing for Colombia, Sean in school, and holidays to contend with, we are not completely done yet. We have finished the bulk of the work, now we just need to add the finishing touches (putting books on the bookshelves, a few sewing projects, etc.) I have not included any pictures of the living room, because it is in complete disarray at the moment as there are multiple suitcases and totes in it.

The dining room is completely finished!

The next picture is LuLu's new bed in the sunroom. It's not really her bed, but don't try to tell her that. The color scheme I'm going for is pale yellow with white trim, and cobalt blue for an accent color. The curtains are getting re-done, and the daybed looks nicer when it's made, and the pillows are on it. The rest of the room is a little chaotic at the moment.

It's after 3am and I have no further thoughts in my head. Next post will be Colombia! Merry Christmas!

Random Fun, Vol. III

While waiting, in great anticipation, for the final installment of the great home improvement project, I thought I would post another volume of Random Fun. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for another edition of Random Fun coming soon to a computer near you!

Things to do while avoiding sleep...

As my body is feeling not particularly fond of sleep, even though the clock is nearing midnight, today is going to be a double post day. Though by the time I finish this it will probably be past midnight, so really it will be posts two days in a row, which sounds a little better. Therefore, here is installment two of the first floor renovation project. I like to call this "Before". Unfortunately the "After" will be postponed for a couple of weeks due to a wallpaper problem (to be explained later on).


I should first explain what the whole project entailed. Our house has not had anything done to it since the 1970's. When we moved in, we had the electric system upgraded, and we painted the rooms on the 2nd floor and the upstairs hallway. It was our original intention to tackle the first floor shortly after moving in as well, but that proved to be too great a feat all at once. When the house was cosmetically made over in the 1970's there was faux wood paneling installed in the living room, dining room, and one wall of the sunroom. A chair rail, trim, and acoustic ceiling tile was also installed at that time. We wanted color on the walls, not fake wood, and I did not want to see wood paneling lines through paint. This only left us with two options, take down the chair rail, trim, paneling, and celing tile (since it was all done at once before, it's all connected now); or we could cover the paneling. Covering the paneling sounded like the easier option. Let me say that again: covering the paneling sounded like the easier option. What this actually consisted of was the following:





















Step 1: Prep work. All the furniture was moved out of the 3 rooms. Larger items into the kitchen, smaller ones upstairs. We then had to thoroughly clean all the rooms, tape the trim, and seal off the kitchen, coat closet, and half bath with plastic sheeting.
Step 2: Sanding the wood paneling (and then cleaning again).

Step 3: Priming the newly sanded walls (what a difference already! There's so much light!)

























Step 4: Placing strips of fiber glass mesh tape over all of the lines in the wood paneling.
Step 5: Mudding over the tape.





















Step 6: Sanding the mud/tape (and then cleaning again).
Step 7: Priming, again!

Step 8: Two coats of paint on the upper walls, top trim, chair rail, baseboards, and doorways.

Step 9: Apply paintable wallpaper to bottom of wall and let dry for 24 hours.

Step 10: Paint wallpaper.

Step 11: Sanding floors (then cleaning yet again - yes, we refinished the wood floors in all three rooms too...told you I was a little crazy)

Step 12: Conditioning, staining, and sealing floors.

Step 13: Wait 48 hours and then clean again!

Step 14: Move the furniture back and have a house again.

We accomplished step 8 ok, but then ran into issues. We ended up about 2 full days behind schedule, so we skipped 9 and 10 and went onto the floors. We came back to 9 and 10 today only to discover that apparently sometimes wallpaper magically expands, so after cutting all the sections for the wall, dipping them in water, letting them set for 10 minutes, and applying them to the wall, we ran into major issues. So, we now have to re-order some more of the same pattern and come back to that project a little later. I will not post final "After" pictures until we have it all done (good incentive for me), but I will post one picture that shows the corner of the dining room so you can get a good idea. This is not 100% complete, as we will be painting the wallpaper, but you can see the wall color, trim, and the finished floor. I promise I will post more photos after we finish the wallpaper and get furniture moved back in, though it may be a few weeks. Ignore the blue painter's tape in the picture.

We also put in new outlet covers and switchplates, and some new outlets and switches themselves as the old ones were horribly dirty and discolored. I absolutely love the color, the trim, and the paper, so no negative comments please. We worked out butts off for 9 days, 12-15 hours a day. So, unless you want to come here for that long and work that hard, keep negative opinions to yourself. Positive feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you! :0)

I'll take door number...

We had the chimney sweeps out a couple of weeks ago to do an inspection and clean out the chimney. We were surprised to discover that there are two flues, only one of which connects to the fireplace in our living room. That meant two possibilities: 1. The extra flue is there for no apparent reason. 2. There is a hidden fireplace in the sunroom. Well, as we were about to undertake a major first floor renovation project anyway, we figured this would be a good time to see if there was another fireplace lurking behind our wall. Even if there was not, we would still have an exposed brick wall, which would be kind of fun. What did we find?

And thus began our project. First step was removing the faux wood paneling. It actually came off very easy. Next was to break through the plaster, not quite as easy.

Breaking through the plaster, and the metal wiring, was not the easiest thing to do. It was one heck of an arm workout. I knocked down the lower part of the wall while Sean took care of the higher up parts (tall people come in handy sometimes). After a LOT of time and effort and pain tearing down the plaster, we were left with...

Not too bad. I was very proud of myself. After a few good scrubbings, and some waterproofing sealer...

So, no fireplace, but a very nice brick wall, which adds a lot of character to the room. And for the very astute observers who are reading, you just had a sneak peak at the new paint job. I will be posting another blog in the next few days with the chronicle of our work on the dining room, living room, and sun room. Yes, all 3 at once. Yes, I am slightly crazy.

Year in review...

So, this seems to be becoming more of a quarterly blog. Not exactly my intention, but at least it's something. This will be a special post though. I meant to post it last month, but oh well. As of the beginning of August, we have officially been living in Virginia for one year. We thought it would be fun to do a little comparison of life in Virginia vs. life in Minnesota, so enjoy!

Minnesota (Winona) vs. Virginia (Tidewater region)

1. Mosquitoes

I know a lot of you Minnesotans think that the mosquito is the state bird of MN, however, you have nothing on Virginia. There is an entire section of the government here dedicated to controlling the mosquito population!

2. Shamrock Shakes

While I am not a big fan of McDonald's (just a little too much grease for me), I do enjoy having a shamrock shake or two every year around St. Patrick's day. Winona, MN - plenty to go around. Tidewater Virginia area - we called every McDonald's located on the peninsula and no one even knew what we were talking about! Now that's just wrong.

3. Good Friday fish fry (or any lenten friday night fish fry for that matter)

I don't know if it is just a midwest thing or only in places with large numbers of Catholics or what, but I grew up going to a Friday night fish fry every Friday during lent...especially on Good Friday! Not so much here. We called around to every restaurant and bar and grill we could find - again, everyone thought we were crazy. However, being on the ocean, they have a fish fry going on almost every other weekend, but it's just not the same.

4. Festivals

Ah, Steamboat Days in Winona. Small town festivals with parades and fireworks. This is the big event of the year, and the only major festival. Out here on the peninsula we have the St. Patrick's Day Festival, Greek Festival, Black Beard Pirate Festival, Hampton Jazz Festival, Bay Days, in addition to Halloween, Christmas, Easter, and other holiday festivities. It seems like there is always some kind of festival going on!

5. History/Culture

Winona - um...the Twin Cities are only 2 hours away

Tidewater - Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown Victory Center, Jamestown, theaters, ampitheaters, arenas, symphony, orchaestra, theater companies, dance companies, a restaurant for every ethnicity, you name it!

6. Education

Surprisingly enough, I'd say they're pretty even. Winona has a private and a public University and a technical college. Winona also has public and private k-12 schools, Montessori, and a multitude of programs for those who choose to homeschool. Tidewater region has many private and public universities and technical colleges, as well as public and private k-12 schools - however, their Montessori and homeschool programs are not as strong, but they make up for it in special needs educational services and programs.

7. Random comparisons

Minnesota - multiple feet of snow, below zero temperatures - life can still proceed relatively normally.

Virginia - 1 inch of snow, temperatures as low as +30 - schools and businesses shut down, all water and canned food disappear off shelves in stores, and people become complete idiots on the road (seriously).

Minnesota - Ah, the Minnesota good-bye. The two hour phenomenon of saying good-bye in every room of the house, on your way out the door, and by your car.

Virginia - Bye! (first time I experienced it, I felt like the people were very rude, it was a big change)

Minnesota - Bats.

Virginia - Massive spiders.

Minnesota - public transportation? what?

Virginia - We have it, not that it's all that fabulous though.

Minnesota - Tax free food and clothing (I do miss that)

Virginia - Tax free holidays on hurricane supplies (tarps, flashlights, batteries, bottled water, duct tape, smoke detectors, etc.), back to school items (including clothes), and Energy Star qualified products.

Overall it has been a good year. There are definitely a lot of things I miss about Minnesota (especially the people), but there are a lot of bonuses to living in a more populated area. I think about moving back sometimes, especially when I have stopped sweating because it is so far beyond hot and humid my body shuts down and I am covered in mosquito bites. But then I remember all the good things about living out here (more to do, more choices in shopping and medical care, so close to so many other places, etc.) It has been a year of many changes, and there are still more to come...