2d Extermination

Today is the BIG EVENT! We've been counting down the days and it's finally here! I feel like it's a prom or a party or a birthday or a holiday. But no... it's an extermination. Who ever thought that an extermination could be such a joyous occasion?

Here are my plans:

In a few minutes I need to strip the girls beds and get everything in the wash (***which may not be easy considering that Bunny is still laying in her bed begrudgingly, refusing to get out of it).

Then I need to get the girls ready and off to school. Come home, flip the laundry, do a bit of tidying, get dressed (and if I'm lucky I'll be able to shower as well), put my cats in their carriers (something that I've been dreading because they FIGHT) and take them to the vet.

Then, I need to get back to my house to meet the exterminator.

I forgot that tomorrow was picture day. My poor children have nothing to wear. Usually we do dresses and get up early to curl their hair. Instead, due to the constraints of my budget and the fact that I don't have ANYTHING for them to wear or ANY way to curl their hair, I'm going to go out to the Old Navy and buy them each a new dress (hopefully I can find one that is on sale). Though I can imagine some people not feeling that this is sacrificial, it actually is. I generally do fancy outfits and lots of accessories. But anyway, then I'm going to a drug store and picking up two packs of curlers and a few bobby pins.

Unfortunately I'll have Sidney with me for this trip. I'm petrified of leaving her in a car alone. My friend J says that I can pick her up and she'll go along for the ride. She'll just Sidneysit while I do my errands. Phew!!!!!

After I pick the girls up from school we have to get frozen yogurt. We do this every Wednesday. I've noticed that Bunny is especially interested in new traditions lately. She's been asking for all sorts of things to "happen on such and such day." Last night I made a whole, stuffed, citrus, honey chicken and she asked that I do this every Tuesday. I think that they miss pie night a lot... which is the one tradition that we've had and kept. I think that I'll start pie nights again next Thursday!

By the way, it's a little bit early in the day to know for sure (because bites usually don't appear on me until after lunch) but I am 99% sure that it's been over 5 days since I've been bitten by a bed bug. I say this because yesterday I had my first itch free day and I noticed that my bites seem to itch for around five days. I've also noticed that my dog doesn't appear to have been bitten recently either. Bunny hasn't been bitten since she was attacked that night in our old apartment. And Lila hasn't been bitten since the night preceding the morning when I found the poisoned bed bug in her bed (almost two weeks ago). Who knows about Jay. It's tough to say because he doesn't have a reaction to them. He may have been bitten over the weekend... but I suspect it was a mosquito bite. After all, there's no way that they could have eaten him up all summer and he didn't feel anything... and now suddenly he's allergic to them.

I have never hated anything the way I hate a bed bug

***I just noticed that my time stamp is off and this post shows as being published at 3:58 am. Don't worry. It was actually 6:58 when I published this. I wasn't forcing my 6 year old out of bed in the middle of the night.

Hitting the Pavement

I hit the Philly pavement today to find a job! I don't need much or many hours. I just need SOMETHING. From now until December I'll put everything away so that I am able to ensure that my girls have a great Christmas. After Christmas I'll work to help chip away at the damage created by our recent crisis.

I targeted bakeries because... well, I love baking. My ability to bake is one of the things in life that I'm particularly confident in. That said, I didn't find much. Most bakeries are only hiring for cake decorators. This is something that I'd love to do but am not experienced in. I've worked as a cookie designer, but never a cake decorator.

I went into the Big Green Earth Store and really liked the manager there. He told me to send my resume in tonight. I told him that my resume is superiorly unimpressive because I've been a stay at home mom for the past seven years. He responded really well to this and made me feel incredibly comfortable. Given my love for green, low-impact living, this seems like the kind of place where I could thrive.

Cross your fingers for me!

Unbelievable kindness

Sometimes, when you feel alone, someone will do something extraordinary that makes you feel loved and supported. Some days this happens on a small scale. A stranger smiles at you or opens a door. A neighbor helps you inside with your grocery bags. A bakery worker gives your child a free cookie while you shop. A lady on the street engages you in conversation about how much she likes your shoes/hair/earrings. Just something that makes you feel good.

Tonight it happened for me by way of a gift from an unexpected place.

A friend of mine, Ginger, who 17 years ago was one of my very best friends sent us a care package. What amazes me is that I haven't seen in her nearly 15 years... and yet she managed to send us the most considerate, heartfelt package. She printed photographs of my family from my facebook page and framed them. She baked us a loaf of pumpkin bread and jarred smoked peach and habenaro salsa, sugar free peach preserves, canvases, paints and paintbrushes so that we can create artwork for our new home and a whole craft kit for my girls.

I would never expect this from ANYONE. I have been blinded by the pure love in the generous offering of people... this just totally shocked me.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate such a kind act.

I feel so loved.

Here are some pictures that I took just after opening the package. My girls were so incredibly thrilled! The photos are a little dark because I took them with my phone and it's the evening... but you'll get the gist.

Starting over- Tales of a Bed Bug Warrior

Jay and I have had such a mountain of crap to deal with that we didn't quite know where to start.

For the most part (and take this for what it is because the emotion might be different in 30 seconds) I think that we are both done being traumatized by the idea of bedbugs. This is, in part, because we have our second extermination on Wed. morning. Everyone needs more than one chemical extermination. About 20% of people need more than 2 chemical exterminations. So, we're hoping for the best on Wed.

Before we can sue the panties off of our management group (who are bloodsuckers themselves), we really need to get our here and now in order. We need to know that our present life isn't compromised. This means, we need to know that we can pay our bills and feed our children. Really, not having furniture and rewashing all of your bedding and clothing every day isn't the end of the world, stressful as it may be, if all your other bases are covered. For us, the financial burden of this situation has stung and this has exasperated our already stressed out state of mind.

Step one to recovery: Jay called the credit card companies who were pretty reasonable. The second company suggested we call a number for a credit council. We did a conference and the lady was really helpful. We can use the service and cut our interest rates drastically. It will take us four years to pay off our credit cards (we obviously had some debt before. It was more manageable though. This huge bed bug problem pushed our manageable debt over the edge and made it unmanageable).

Step 2: Have our second extermination. The exterminator is coming at 11 on Wednesday morning. To avoid one of our pets dying, I called the vet who has agreed to pet sit for Sherbert and Pandora from 10-6 on Wed. This should give our house plenty of time to dry and we don't have to worry about our cats being trapped in little pet carriers in our car, totally stressed out with no food water or way to go to the bathroom. It's $30 bucks per pet, but I think that's money well spent. After all... what did our "Sherbert Almost Died" vet visit cost? A whole helluva lot more than $30 bucks. Thatsfersure.

Step 3: I need a job. I applied at Whole Foods, my favorite place on earth. I'm going to go in tomorrow and talk to someone. I'm going to go around from place to place on South street and see if I can find something. Anything will do I will totally work for minimum wage. Honestly, the whole reason that I need a job (outside of digging myself out of this financial hole) is because I'm scared that I won't be able to afford Christmas this year. That's just unacceptable to me. I will NEVER let fucking bedbugs strip the magic of Christmas out of my children's lives. NEVER. NEVER. NEVER.

Step 4: Get furniture. No explanation needed.

Step 5: Organize everything that we need to present to a lawyer to make a case against Philadelphia Management.

Step 6: Sue the MoFo's.

Okay, so this is where we stand. I feel like I'm in a slightly better mental place (for the most part) right this second than I have been since the whole bed bug thing began.

Hopefully I can survive this without running away. Hopefully the worst is over. Hopefully things will just get better from here.

UPDATE:

I just called this place and the mailbox was full so I was unable to leave a message. Why does that strike me as bad?

Fair Housing Commission 34 S Eleventh Street, 6th Floor Philadelphia PA 19107 215.686.3237

Fair Housing addresses housing code violations and unfair rental practices

Oobleck on Columbus Day

One of the great things about The Please Touch Museum is that they have this giant craft room with all kinds of cool, experiments and mushy, gushy, sticky stuff that you can make at home.

Last weekend when we were there they had Oobleck. It's a strange liquid that you scoop up with your hand, run through your fingers and and drop on the table. As soon as it hits the table it solidifies and you can peel it up and mold it. Also, it's liquid on your hands... but it can be peeled off as a solid. The moment that you put it back it's a big batch of liquid again. It keeps moving between a liquid and a solid- ENDLESSLY. The museum had the recipe posted and we made a batch of it yesterday. After the girls played with it we put it away and they got it out again this morning. It kept surprisingly well and I'm going to guess that it's the kind of stuff that lasts FOREVER. The best part ever, IT WAS SO EASY TO MAKE.

Here's the recipe, plus a few more. They are easy, snappy, craft experiments that your kids will love and are fun for a rainy day!

Oobleck

1 part water

2 parts corn starch.

Mix it with your hands and have fun playing.

Finger Paint

1/4 cup corn starch

2 cups water

food coloring

mix corn starch and water in a saucepan and boil until it thickens. Let it cool and distribute into jars. Add desired colors to the jars. Viola!

Chalk

1 Cup plaster of paris

1/2 cup water

Popsicle, ice cube tray or other mold (5 oz paper cups will also work)

Powdered tempera paint or liquid craft paint

Mix plaster of paris and paint

Add water in mix

pour into the molds and allow to dry

Glue

1 part water

1 part flour

food coloring (optional)

Mix water and flour in bowl

add food coloring to your glue

Silly Goop

1 cup liquid starch

2 cups glue

food coloring (optional)

Start with liquid starch in a bowl. Add glue. Mix with hands. Add food coloring and mix well.

The Grochowicz Farm

After a morning meltdown I decided that I needed to get the girls out of our empty house and into some fresh air for a good dose of happiness. Jay worked over 12 hours and we headed up to northern New Jersey to a farm that we used to frequent. They have a fall festival every year and we've always gone to it. Honestly, I think that the girls are a little bit old for the festivities there, but they didn't seem to care. All they really cared about was the fact that they could run around and play. There were fun activities like pumpkin picking, pumpkin painting, face painting, a little kid maze, tractor tricycle rides, scare crows to dress up, a corn pit, a hay ride and good food. My friend Ana and her daughter Chloe joined us for a few hours too.

It was nice to get out of the city.

ps. in my last post I said that "no one would help us," which was a poor way to phrase it. More to the point, we weren't able to find people who were able to help us today. I don't think that anyone was like, "I won't help those Holler's move." Sorry if I made it seem that way. It was one of those venting, ranting, teary-eyed posts.

recovering...

So, the bed bugs have hit us financially pretty hard.

As it was, we were just scraping by. I mean, we had food, shelter and our bills were getting paid... but we certainly weren't eating out every night or building our savings with all of our extra money. The bed bugs have really robbed us of everything. On top of our safety, peace of mind and furniture, we have also dug ourselves a hole of debt.

It looks like I need a job. With the craziness of exterminations and laundry (doing laundry in our home has become a full time/ 8 hour a day job), I will need to wait it out briefly. But, maybe by the end of next week I can start trying to find a job. Anything would help.

We're taking my engagment ring (the only expensive piece of jewelry that I own) to the pawn shop today in hopes that it will help cut down on our credit card bill. I doubt that they'll give us much for it... but, we'll see.

And we're considering filing for bankruptcy.

Both Jay and I feel so overwhelmed.

Also, we got a letter from our apartment managment company saying that we owe them about $4000 in charges. Pretty sure that they are going to sue us. We really need to take a step toward taking legal action against them. I HATE them. When I think about it I can't breathe.

Jay spent the evening last night watching the cleaning crew remove all of our old belongings for disposal. I can't believe that losing our stuff is hitting me so hard. I'm crying as I write it. I mean, it's JUST stuff. We'll get more stuff. It will be okay. I just feel stripped of everything.

Jay is working all the time in hopes of recovering from this a little bit.

Did I tell you that we are holding off on moving our things. We couldn't find anyone to help us. This strikes me as being so insane. Jay asked everyone he knows. No one would help. The only person who even offered was someone who we haven't been close with in years. I couldn't even find someone who was willing to babysit the girls while I helped Jay load the storage facility into a uhall. So, we'll have to hold off and go longer until we are able to find people to help. Honestly, I wasn't that comfortable bringing furniture into our house right now anyway. So, maybe it's for the best.