Molehills aka Mountains

Reagan just doesn’t sleep through the night. At least, that’s what we thought. She would do great from about 8 PM all the way to 4 or 5 AM. Then we would find her sitting up in bed, crying in complete and utter confusion. We’d lay her back down, give her the pacifier, stumble back to bed, only to repeat this process several times over during the following 2 hours. We’ve been doing this for weeks. Last night, we tried something new. Upon hearing her cry at 5 AM this morning, I instructed Hubby to check on her, insert her pacifier, lay her down, and walk away. He did. She cried. And cried. And cried. And...fell asleep. It was strangely wonderful. Her forlorn nobody loves me cries had longer and longer pauses. Till at last, they subsided altogether. So we’re trying this new thing. No more 30+ minute back rubs, no stroking her cheek till she falls asleep. Put her down, insert pacifier, walk away. It might work. We’ll keep you posted. For now, this mountain has been downgraded to molehill.

We stayed at a hotel for my brother’s wedding. It was a nice hotel - not the gross grimy do-I-really-want-to-sleep-on-that-bed? kind of hotel. Checking out seemed to be quite an experience for Hubby - it took at least 30 minutes. We recently found out that this fine establishment double-billed us - and so here we sit, our bank account missing $171. I didn’t freak out. I kept calm. I was very reasonable. I see stuff like this fairly often at work. Nothing to panic about. So I called hotelguy on Monday. He promised to rectify the problem as soon as possible. Fine. Here we are, its Wednesday morning, and my bank account is still missing $171. To make matters worse, hotelguy is not returning my phone calls. I am still calm. But he is about to learn a very valuable lesson. Don’t mess with the girl who works for lawyers. He got a very strongly worded fax this morning, wherein I pointed out his hotel had actually "stolen" funds from my bank account as I never authorized the withdrawal of said funds. I went on for a while stating my attempts to contact him, his inability to return 4 of my phone calls, and clarifying my expectations (immediate return of the stolen funds). The last line was indeed, the kicker: "I will contact my attorney if I do not hear from you forthwith." And Mr. Bossman (aka my attorney) told me this morning that since this is theft and money was stolen, he would be happy to talk to this hotelguy and if he doesn’t cooperate Mr. Bossman will contact the police department. Rock. On. Mr. Bossman also told me that I had no reason to feel bad or feel like I was stirring up trouble. THEY were the ones who were causing the problem. Not me. Yay! I just want my money back. Molehill/mountain - still undecided.

I have a recipe for a sour cream coffee cake which has failed me three times. I remember making it a few times and having it work and be lovely and crunchy and wonderful. But the last three have been disasters - flat, thick, dense, heavy. I am not a chef. In my wild and crazy dreams I like to think that I am, but I’m not. So when I get a failed recipe, I usually lean towards throwing it away rather than attempting to fix it. Because, seriously, how on earth would I go about "fixing it"? But the memory of the success of this coffee cake was just more than I could shake, and I refused to give up and throw it away. No. I had to conquer it. So yesterday, I set about a trial and error method of fixing it. And I’m almost afraid to say this, but it worked. It came out light, fluffy, crunchy, lovely, wonderful. Just as I had remembered. It was a mountain. Then a molehill. Now its no longer a problem. I rejoice.