. . .do not go in the garbage disposal. Enough said, right?

I was trying to sort through dishes last night to decide which ones would go in the dishwasher and which would be washed by hand. Normally, most go in the dishwasher, but with all the baking I’m doing, I wanted to make sure I could get them right away instead of waiting for the dishwasher. The water was going down the sink so slowly that I flipped on the disposal.

It made a very strange clunking, choking sound.

I shut it off and looked inside. . .to see my dishcloth at the bottom. Grr. It must’ve been pushed down there with the water I was running. Stephen heard the noise and came running, and pulled it out for me. I fully expected it to be shredded to bits, but strangely enough, it wasn’t.

Go figure.

We got an um. . .interesting. . .suprise in the mail yesterday. A letter from the IRS, stating that we were being audited. I cried. After plenty of phone calls and number-crunching, we figured out what had happened and how to solve it. A couple of years ago, Stephen received two 1099 forms. From what we could tell after calling the IRS, we had filed one form, and his employer had filed the other 1099. The solution: photocopy both 1099′s, and mail them to the IRS with a letter telling them which one was the correct one. It was a HUGE relief to hear that the solution was so simple. Had it been our error, we would have had to pay the IRS an additional $3,000. And oh yeah, it was due within a month, or else face hefty interest charges. Thankfully, we don’t owe the extra money!

I did get a chuckle after I got off the phone with the IRS though. I looked at Stephen’s mom and said, “Well, I do feel a lot better after talking to the IRS.” The irony of that statement just amused me.

My big project for the next couple days is baking bread like a mad woman for a bake sale. I made eight loaves today, but cut into two of them. One was a loaf of sourdough. Sometimes, if the bread takes too long to rise, the crust gets tougher than I like, and it gets big air bubbles in it. This dough took about 12 hours longer than usual, so I cut into one of the three loaves just to be sure. The texture was a bit coarser, like I anticipated, but it still tasted good. We ate a couple slices for breakfast, and Stephen took the rest of the loaf to work with him tonight.

The other loaf I cut into was a honey wheat. It had been a while since I made it, and since one of the loaves ended up being shaped kinda funny, I cut into it. It was better than I remembered, but I will still be tweaking the recipe further. We’ll probably have a tray with tiny bite-sized pieces of bread for people to sample, so I’ll use this cut loaf for that.

I still need to make a few signs and lables for the loaves of bread, but I’ll do that tomorrow when I need a break between loaves.

Stephen’s parents left this morning after a week-long visit. Wow – life has been so crazy this past couple of weeks! First Sam and I were up at Mom’s for the funeral, and then the very day we arrived home, Stephen’s parents arrived. My Sam got almost two whole weeks to spend with both sets of grandparents. He loved it. It was so nice to see Stephen’s family again. We haven’t seen them since we left the Carolinas in March. It was a real treat.

Update to my store crisis. . .
I really need to learn more about MySql. Thanks to my incredible webhost, I found that I had not deleted all my products – I was just looking in the wrong place for them. Argh. After a little research, and some experimenting, I found the problem, and then fixed it. The store is working just fine now.

That’s what I get for over-reacting and then blogging about it! But wow – am I ever thankful!

Ok. . .I just killed my store. As in wiped out the entire database – all 70 products and every last customer. Yep, I really know what I’m doing.

I just backed up the database a couple weeks ago, so I’m working on restoring it now. Hopefully I’ll be able to have the store up and running again soon.

It all happened when I tried to do another upgrade. It was supposed to be a simple process. Unfortunately, I clicked the “Install” button instead of the “Upgrade” button. That one little click had horrible, terrible, devastating results.

Note to self: learn more MySql to back up database, and read the instructions more carefully!

I am literally sick to my stomach over this. . .

You can read my update here.

Anyone know? For some reason, when I log into bloglines, none of my blogs are showing up. I’m subscribed to over 70 blogs, and not a single one shows up.

After being away for a week, I was looking forward to catching up on all the blogs I’ve missed. Now I can’t view them. . .and I know I don’t have them all bookmarked. . .

Guess I’m off to find the links again to see what’s up. . .

What was it like?
What was it like when you breathed your last breath
and then breathed in the sweet, fresh, pure air of Heaven?
What was it like when you laid down this body
and stepped into your new, glorious one?
What was it like to hear the noise of this world fade away
and then hear the choir of angels sing?
What was it like to walk through death
and meet face-to-face the Giver of Life?
What was it like to lay down your pain
and look into the face of the Great Physician?

We’re here, and you’ve gone,
Stepped over the threshold of death
To be embraced by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
Our Creator.
What is it like?
We miss you so already
But you’re Home now,
Free from pain,
Free from worry,
Free.

Say hello to Heaven for me, would you?

My uncle recently graduated from college – he’s the first doctor in the family. Woo hoo! My uncle is a chiropractor now. I think that is so cool.

Well, my parents decided to go to his graduation, and then stopped by our house on the way home. While we were at the park Saturday morning, Dad’s phone rang. It was the nursing home were Grandma lives, and things were not looking good.

Stephen and I made a quick decision for me to return to my parents’ house with them (and Sam too). Since I’m playing for the funeral, we figured this would be the easiest way for me to get there. Sadly, Stephen’s work will not let him have time off to go to the funeral.

It won’t be long now. Grandma is not conscious most of the time, but even she has mentioned she knows the end is near during some of her more lucid moments. She is in so much pain now that we are just praying that the Lord will take her home so she can experience true relief.

I’m not sure when I’ll be returning home. Stephen’s parents were planning a trip up to our house, and are supposed to arrive there on Friday. We’ll see what happens!

I just uploaded some new pictures of Little man onto my computer. Here are some of my favorites.

He was thirsty and brought the gallon jug of tea across the house to tell me he wanted some. He knew he was in trouble, but I just get a kick out of this picture.

This picture gives me the giggles too. He decided to be silly one night when he was in the tub.

Since we’re potty training right now, he knows that clean underwear is very likely in the dryer (I wash his underwear every night because we only have a few pairs of training pants). Underwear goes on your arms, right?