It's Been a Hell of a Day

I have had one hell of a day... and it's been going since 2 AM! I'll tell you all about it in a minute.

First, I have to tell you... I was almost brought to tears today by a fellow blogger who I absolutely adore. You might know her from her blog The Reality of Happily Ever After... her name is Anna and she is such an amazing woman! Anyway, she left me a comment that I should check out her blog today because there was something I'd probably like to see. She likes to feature a Weekly Blog Love, and this week it happens to be me! She's going on a tiny hiatus and will return in a few weeks, but go check out her blog.... you won't be disappointed.

Want to hear about the last 15 hours of my life? Here goes:

• 1:45 AM - Go to get in bed, see spider in my bed.
• 1:46 AM - Say "Ew, gross," out loud and stare at the spider.
• 1:47 AM - Get the spider out of the bed and kill it on the floor.
• 1:48 AM - Make executive decision not to change the sheets at 2 AM and decide to sleep on the couch upstairs
• 2:00 AM - Get settled on the couch and ready for sleepy time.
• 2:30 AM - Turn off the TV as it's flickering light is keeping me awake.
• 2:45 to 5:45 AM - Continue tossing and turning, not sleeping.
• 6:00 AM - Mom comes downstairs to start her day; still not sleeping.
• 7:00 AM - Go downstairs, change sheets.
• 7:10 AM - Get into a clean bed and try to fall asleep.
• 8:32 AM - Wake up, look at the wall and see another ginormous spider, jump out of bed and grab glasses
• 8:33 AM - After turning on light and examining wall, sheets and surrounding areas, realize I was probably dreaming
• 8:35 AM - Fall back asleep until 11:30 when I actually got out of bed.
• 11:30 AM - Get up, check emails on CrackBerry
• 11:31 AM - See email from boss that says my next project assignment is in ALABAMA!
• 11:35 AM to present - regular daily activities.

So, to recap here are the highlights... had a spider in my bed, spent the night on the couch, didn't get to sleep until 7 AM. And to top it all off, I'm heading to Alabama in a couple of weeks! Holy hell!

I know nothing about Alabama, except for the fact that it's really far from here, and I think I'm going to have culture shock. If anyone can give me any fun places to see, visit, eat at, or get a drink at in Montgomery, let me know! Hope you all have a fab weekend and I'll chat with you soon!

Oh, Hell No!

To some of you, the last 48-72 hours of my life may seem like no big deal... they may even seem comical. I am here to tell you that you are oh, so wrong! This is a little long, but worth it! I woke up yesterday morning with exactly four more bug bites than I went to bed with on my left foot. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go read my guest post from yesterday on Jenn's blog at Free and Flawed. (Jenn is awesome, by the way, and we're both pretty sure we're destined to be blogger BFFs due to our love of vampires and True Blood). Anyhoodle... One of Jenn's readers left a comment after the post and suggested that I may want to consider the possibility of Bed Bugs? WTF? Bed Bugs? Things like that don't happen to me! (BTW, thanks to Angela for the suggestion because I'm well on my way to having the cleanest bedroom in the country!)

While I was sitting at my desk, just the thought of the possibility of having Bed Bugs grew and festered and eventually drove me to look them up online. Those little fuckers are not cute. Not in any way, shape, or form. I learned everything I could about them (from the two sites I went to) and how to get rid of them. I even went as far as reading about how they mate. The male "pierces" the female's abdomen and deposits sperm. Pierces? If any man tried to "pierce" me with his shlong, he'd be out the window looking for it in the bushes.

So, what did I do when I got home? I did what any one of the rest of you would have done. I marched down stairs, stripped all the bedding from my bed, moved the mattress off the box springs, lifted up the box springs, and did an inch-by-inch inspection of it all! I vacuumed every inch of baseboards (might I add, for the second time in 3 days) surrounding my bed. I vacuumed all the carpet underneath my bed. I vacuumed the corners of the metal bed frame, the box springs (top, bottom and sides) and the mattress in its entirety. Then I took all the bedding upstairs to wash it in hot water. Let me explain why this is such a diffucult task... I have a lot of bedding... I'll start with the first layer:
Box spring
Dust ruffle
Mattress
Mattress pad
Down feather mattress topper
Heated mattress pad
Fitted sheet
Flat sheet
Cotton blanket
Comforter
Fleece blanket
Blanket I cuddle with
4 pillow cases
2 Sham covers

Obviously I didn't put the box spring or mattress in the washing machine, but everything else went in. Or is sitting on the floor of the laundry room waiting to be washed. Now you understand why I'm only halfway done with the washing. It started at 6 PM, and I finally gave up on it at 11. Exhaustion is a bitch.

Have you ever smelled a wet down feather mattress topper? Here's some advice: Don't. The smell will haunt you. And will the damn thing dry? Hell no. It spent at least two hours in the dryer on High heat and was still wet in some spots by the time I took it out. It's currently hanging over a few bar stools air-drying. Sonofabitch!

Anyway, in the middle of waiting for everything to finish being washed, I tackled the bathroom. You may remember from my RTT post this week, I took on a major cleaning job in the basement. I started Monday night and got 75% of it finished. On Tuesday night I did some light cleaning, but didn't make it to my bathroom. Last night seemed like the best opportunity since I was waiting for 476,589 loads of laundry!
By the time I was done, the buckets of sweat were dripping down my face, my neck, my chest and my back (aren't those the words to a dirty song?), and I was also very close to becoming permanently crippled from the pain in my back... I could hardly walk. And because it was 11 PM, I wanted to scream and cry and kick my feet! The thought of having to wait for the rest of my bedding was too overwhelming so I decided to sleep on the couch (where the dog sleeps, as pictured above)... as soon as I made that decision, all was well! Realizing I didn't have to stay up all night was the best feeling, ever, considering how tired I was!

Hello, Ambien! Hello, Couch! I love you both!

In the end, I found no bugs (save for a few dead spiders that creeped me out; I tell ya, I attract them) and I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I've still got 2458 loads of washing to complete, I'm sleep deprived, and my basement smells like wet feathers. Gross. I think I'd rather live with the bugs than smell that again! Not really, but that should give you some inkling of how disgusting it smells! Tonight I get to finish it all, and then I'm not cleaning again for at least a week!