Baseball, spiders, plumbing... & dad to the rescue!

The 1st day of September I wake up and look out my window & what do I see?  A tree with its leaves starting to turn & a light blanket of fallen orange & yellow around it.  Really?  I love autumn!  I'm anticipating it (except for this cold feeling being hypothyroid) but this is just too early!

The last few days I have been feeling awful both mentally & physically.   My vision has really been stressing me, especially with reading so I went to some forums looking for advise as I had read that even after surgery I could have complications with the Thyroid Eye Disease & will not really have the answers I need until my next appointment.  A few people responded & advised I could still have Graves' antibodies attacking my eyes after my thyroidectomy.  So, when I go in to have blood work done, I'm going to request that the levels for those are checked also & sent to my eye specialist.

For a while now I've been having trouble with a leaky faucet in my bathroom.  I'll go & wash my hands or be cleaning my face & after I turn the water off I hear, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, only to find that it's all flooded underneath in my cabinet.  Sometimes I don't even hear it dripping.  Well, I caught it yesterday, though it already accumulated a nice puddle of water and dripped all over my hair dryer.  Being fed up, do I call a plumber?  Nope, I call my dad.  Instead of paying him in cash I can usually pay him in ice cream for his services.  :)

We had to turn the main water switch off, which connects to my downstairs neighbor's place also.  Tried to knock on the door to tell them & hope no one would turn the water back on, otherwise there would have been a real flood.  Seems like they weren't home so I left a nice note on the door advising them of what was going on.  Dad & Chris left for a bit then came back with a nice new faucet, hooked it up & now no more leak!  Plus it looks much nicer than the prior one I had.  Now, all I need is a new tub, new vanity, new flooring, new walls & new tile.  Maybe a new toilet also.

I love insects.  I love moths, katydids, beetles.  I hate spiders and centipedes, though I think millipedes are cool.  Things with more than 6 legs or things that bite I try to avoid.  Spiders are creepy, ugly and if I get bit by one I will have a welt as large & as hard as a baseball under my skin.  They like to jump onto me or fall onto me if I try to capture one to kill or even release it.  It's a given.  So I avoid them at all costs.  Not to mention the high stress and anxiety they cause me.  I have a true phobia of spiders.

The company my dad works for had a picnic at the local MiLB baseball field yesterday.  Dinner then a game.  We usually go at at least 1 game every year & sit behind 1st base.  After a pretty good dinner we go to find our seats & are surprised to find them behind home plate!  Pretty cool.  We go to sit down, I go to take off my jacket & I look in front of me & there's a huge spider in the cup holder.  Anyone who has been to any sporting events knows how close these seats are, really no leg room, & no room between me & this spider.

I immediately shoot up out of my seat & exclaim how I have to move.  I go to grab my jacket & my mom asks if I want to sit where she is so I go to switch & then see 2 spiders crawling on the under of the seat, up to the armrest of where I was just sitting.  This is now a problem!  The seats were the last row before an isle so I went & stood behind them & noticed a bunch of spiders on the back of the seats.  I'm getting hot, I can't breathe, I feel like I have them on me and my dad wants to just brush them off the chairs but now that I've seen so many I can't bring myself to even sit in there.  And here's my family trying to coax someone who has a severe fear of spiders to sit in a pool of them.  This is becoming a scene & I don't want it to.

An usher standing by is really nice & she brings me a spider free folding chair that I can sit in behind them.  Of course, at this point, I am spending more time eying the back of the chairs because my dad already killed about 5 of them & I'm just waiting for more to show up in front of me.  I feel bad because my dad loves baseball & wants to enjoy the game, so I kind of keep my mouth shut sitting in my special chair.  Eventually am able to start paying attention to the game more around the 4th inning.  Never had this problem with the chairs around 1st base.  Throughout the game, probably another 5 spiders meet their death either by shoe, napkin or my father's hand.

My dad loves baseball, can you tell?

I swear probably about 10 or more had met their death by the end of the game.  Next time I think I will bring a bottle of Raid with me & spray down the chairs before I sit down so I can enjoy a stress free game & enjoy it.

Now, during the 7th inning stretch everyone got up, stretched & sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."  When I was in middle school we had to sing it in chorus & during the part where it goes, "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack," most of us said Cracker Jack(S).  Holy crap did our teacher drill it into us that there was NO "S" after Cracker Jack, & she's right!  (see link)  So, on the billboard they have the lyrics up & it comes to that part & what do you know, they put the "s" after Cracker Jack & everyone adds it on & I'm all like, "THAT'S NOT RIGHT!"  Heck, the name of the product is Cracker Jack & if we want to get technical, in the song you are asking to have it bought for just you, not a bunch of people.  So, if you are reading this, now you know!  Don't add the "s" after Cracker Jack!   

At the end of the game there were fireworks and the worst of the spiders came out!  there were probably about another 7 of them crawling all over the back and underneath of the chairs that I could see & I had to move my chair back further as to avoid another anxiety attack.  One on the ground started crawling toward me and a lady that was next to me in the isle stomped on it.

All in all, I survived!  We were losing at 1st and then won 3 to 2 scoring all 3 in the 8th inning!  Can't wait for hockey to start now!  More action, no spiders.  :)

A HUGE thanks to my dad for everything he has done!  I am paying for the actual faucet, just not the hard work he put into it for me.  Also for putting up with my spider phobia during the game.

Hope you are all having a nice Labor Day.  I really don't have any plans.  No shopping, no visits, just sitting home feeling miserable today & hoping this feeling changes soon.  I have a lot of awesome products to eventually write about, just not now.