Murphy's Law....

I was originally going to write about my daughter's 1st year of preschool and her last day of school. But this past week has been so frustrating that I just had to vent here for a moment.

We're in the process of getting ready for our family vacation. We're taking a road trip back East to visit our family. (My Marine and I are fortunate that both of our families live in the same city.) Getting everything ready this week has been nothing short of a nightmare thanks to Mr. Murphy and his "Law". Yes, Mr. Murphy -- I blame you. Your life must have been so miserable that you actually had to come up with the quote "Anything that can go wrong, will." Well, your philosophy is alive and well here in the Toy Box Household.

1) Nani received a Fisher-Price FP3 player as a Christmas gift. It's a kid's version of a durable, almost indestructible MP3 player. You can listen to the preloaded kids' songs and stories, as well as load your own music on to the player. Petty neat concept - if it would have worked. I figured I'd upload some of Nani's favorite songs (and no, the Little Mermaid soundtrack was not on the list...I certainly didn't want to hear "Part of Your World" for 24 straight hours....) and a couple of her favorite books on CD. Getting the software to install was less than easy. The computer would tell me that the player wasn't connected to my computer. Well of course it was -- I could see that it was. But some tiny little man inside my computer lost his glasses and just didn't see the connection. Ok, I'll try it on our older desktop computer. No such luck. After 4 hours of uninstalling and reinstalling the software, I went to Amazon's website and started to read the reviews -- and let's just say that very few were favorable. At 2am, I gave up and told myself that I just wasted 4 hours.

2) Whenever Nani has been on super-good behavior, we'll allow her to watch a movie at bedtime. My Marine goes through the bedtime routine with Nani, tucks her in, listens to her prayers and goes to start the DVD player. Nothing. Nothing but this horrid grinding. The kind of grinding that just makes you close your eyes and think to yourself -- this isn't good. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem because we have two DVD players - but the 2nd one, ironically was shipped back to the manufacturer for repair. Now -- we're leaving in a few days for a cross-country road trip witha 4 yr. old and a 10-mos. old and NO DVD PLAYER. Now I know that families have been doing this type of trip for years.....and those families are also paying a fortune in therapy bills. We'd like to avoid that at all costs. So, I knew I'd have to suck it up and buy a new player. (There goes the eBay money I'd been saving for a new porch swing. But hey -- that's what parents do, right?)

3) As you know, our new yard is complete and we needed a sprinkler system to keep the darn thing alive while we're gone. So, off I go to Lowe's and buy what looks like a fantastic system. My Marine, excitedly goes to install it only to find out that it doesn't cover the whole yard. Back to Lowe's the system went. He comes home with a new sprinkler system and we spend about 2 hours getting it set exactly right. It worked beautifully that night. The next morning - zilch. It would only go one way and then stop. So, back to Lowe's that system goes.....and then My Marine heads over to Home Depot to see if their sprinklers will work for us. So far, they're installed and working as advertised.

4) I have a Facebook account. Another dear friend of mine got me hooked shortly before Christmas. I love my Facebook account. Now that I've been blogging, it's been a close tie to see what I check first in the morning -- Facebook or my blog. I've reconnected with some high school friends -- one of which I plan to see when I'm back home next week. That morning, I was able to check my account just fine. Later in the afternoon, I try to post a comment and received a red box warning saying that my account has been disabled because I violated the Code of Conduct. Huh?? I checked the Code of Conduct. I haven't been posting any pornography, harrassing any other members, or using my friend list to solicit business. I haven't been breaking any laws like looking for a drug deal or a hired hit man, so what could I have possibly done? I began the appeal process and started a new Facebook account as a backup. This afternoon I received a reply -- "Dear Facebook Member, we apologize for any inconvenience. Please email us the name of the account holder and the email address associated with this account and we will restore your account." That's it. No reason why. I'm still going to keep my other account as a backup.

I'm sure hoping that will everything that has gone wrong so far, this means that we'll have the best vacation ever! Here's hoping!