I am BEYOND flabbergasted right now. I’m also a redhead, with all the attendant cliche-ridden tendencies . . . so feel free to picture flame coming out of my nostrils, unruly curls that look like they could shape shift into sea monsters, and of course, a voice at a decibel level that IS BEYOND HUMAN.

OK? Got the picture? Here’s the story:

My car needed an oxygen sensor. The very nice guys at Toyotechs fixed it. In order to fix it, the battery had to be unplugged and whenever you unplug a battery, it takes a while for the car’s computer to reset. They told me to drive it 30-40 miles before I took the vehicle in to have its emissions tested. (Incidentally, my husband’s oxygen sensor ALSO went out in his BMW and the mechanic told him to drive it 40-100 miles, so apparently, this is “standard” for cars.)

So I drove it the required miles, took it to be tested, and it failed the “readiness” portion which means the computer isn’t ready. It hasn’t re-set yet. Chris drove his car the required miles and it passed. Harumph!

I drove it some more . . . 163 miles in total and took it back in. Again, I got a “readiness fail.” Now, my tags expired last week so I am driving around with expired tags. I did, however, go to the DMV and pay the taxes so I can at least show the cop I am TRYING.

Back to Toyotechs I went. They ran it through their computer and received a set of instructions on exactly what we need to do to re-set the computer. It has to be followed EXACTLY LIKE THIS, in this exact order. Here’s what I have to do — and before you read on — this is for real. THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

1) Drive vehicle at 40-55 mph for approximately 3 minutes (no stopping, no slowing down). No sudden acceleration.

2) Then drive it at 35-45 mph for approximately 7 minutes.

3) Car must have 1/2 – 3/4 tank of gas. No more, no less.

4) Let the car sit overnight or for 8 hours. (No pesky trips to the grocery store or pediatrician visits!)

5) Drive vehicle at approximately 45 mph for about 5 minutes.

6) Drive vehicle at approximately 25 mph for about 15 minutes, and include a minimum of two stops for approximately 30 seconds.

7) Steps 5 and 6 must be completed on smooth roads to minimize fuel sloshing.

Let the car cool.

9) Start the car, let it warm up until the engine temp is 167 or higher.

10) Run the engine at 3,000 RPM for about 10 seconds.

11) Allow the engine to idle with the A/C on for 15-50 minutes. (Which is it, Toyota? 15 or 50?)

12) Drive vehicle at 43-56 mph for a period of 3-5 minutes (no more than 5).

13) Let the engine idle for 3-5 minutes.

14) Drive vehicle at 43-56 mph for a period of 3-5 minutes again – but you cannot allow the throttle position to exceed 30% and you must avoid sudden acceleration. (How am I supposed to merge on a highway to get back up to that speed? Anybody?)

15) Let the engine idle again for 3-5 minutes.

16) Pray that the car will now pass.

There are actually more instructions to do with outside temperature (can’t be too hot or cold — like the three little bears, it must be “just right”). . . Joe at Toyotechs printed out the 5-page instructions for me. After I passed out and he revived me (a bit of redheaded exaggeration), I started racing through the possibilities. Where in the hell in Atlanta can I maintain a speed of 43-56 mph, pull over and let it idle, then somehow get back up to that speed WITHOUT ACCELERATING too fast?

Never mind that the Corolla is our only car that can fit a car seat (we can kind of cram one in the back of Chris’ car, but it’s a 2-door and not easy). Besides, he has to go to work, and I have to take the baby in for his 15-month well visit tomorrow, followed by a doctor’s appointment I have to check on my — are you ready — HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. I cannot imagine what is causing that, can you?

Oh wait, maybe it’s the CONDEMNED stove in this lemon house. (Gas company came out Monday and said the stove is causing carbon monoxide to leak.) Landlord is supposed to replace the stove. We’re still waiting.

Or maybe it’s the roaches. Landlord has sprayed but whatever he’s using, it isn’t working. We bug him about it (”bug him,” haha) all the time because we see at least one roach a day. I decided to start emailing him every day with the roach count. I hope I irritate the hell out of him because his irritation at getting daily roach count emails from me is nothing compared to MY IRRITATION AT DEALING WITH FREAKIN’ ROACHES every day.

Anyhow, back to the car. This is how great Joe at Toyotechs is. He said he’ll take my car home tonight and try and do all this. He said he has the advantage of being able to drive around with the computer to see if it passes each step. So now I just have to figure out how to get a car rental and get over there (or have them come pick me up) and get the car seat in there because today, of all days, is a day my nanny has to leave early.

So there you have it. And because you made it all the way through my rant, here’s a cute picture. Even with all this insanity, he makes me smile and keeps me sane. I know you all know what I mean.

It seems that the trend these days is to go with travertine in showers. It’s a natural stone but it has to be sealed and re-sealed and you can’t clean it with bleach or any harsh chemicals. So my husband and I don’t get it. All the houses we looked at before we decided to build advertised “travertine master showers” like that was a big selling point. What my engineering husband hears is “maintenance issue.”

We also just got bored with travertine. Everywhere we went, we saw beige/taupe travertine “caves” like this:

So we’re rebelling against travertine a bit.

We like the look of marble, but marble chips, dings, scratches, and STAINS. I asked my decorator why it’s all over the decorating magazines and she said people love the look but that yes, it is hard to keep looking nice. With a young boy and me — a clumsy momma — we’re going to stay away from marble.

There is a quartz that looks like marble if you want a marble-looking countertop without marble maintenance. And for floors, there is a porcelain that you would swear is Carrera marble from a distance. And porcelain is virtually maintenance-free.

So that’s the tile lesson. Later, I’m going to show you what we’re thinking of doing. I’m trying to get some images and pics together and frankly, find my brain.

. . . cuz Monday kind of sucked. We took my car to a repair shop that specializes in Toyotas. On the way back, my hubby’s car stalled out over and over and check engine light came on. Made it home and I tweeted and Facebooked to find a repair shop around here (we’re in a new neighborhood, and don’t have all that sorted out) that can work on BMWs. Found one; they came and picked Chris up and we were home all day with the baby and no transportation.

Not a big deal, really, but kind of comical. We have to get the cars emission tested because it’s our birthday month (both of us). They were both fixed late yesterday and the techs told us NOT to take it to emissions until we’ve driven it at least 40+ miles and started the car several times. Not an exact science, apparently, but if you get your oxygen sensor replaced (both cars needed that), the computer won’t reset in the way emissions testing needs it to “for a while.”

Every day we wait now is a day I have to pay fees on my darn license registration.

Totally my fault, er, my husband’s fault. My check engine light came on last summer when we were visiting Dad. Dad and Chris figured out what was wrong and fixed it (or thought they fixed it). Check engine light remained on. Dad said to unplug battery for five minutes to reset it. Which my husband finally did. Saturday. It didn’t work and so that brings us to Monday morning and the story you’ve already heard.

But just cuz that wasn’t fun enough, our little lemon house had a surprise in store for us Sunday night: a LEAK! Rain dripping in to my baby’s room.

The fun. It never ends. I cannot WAIT to move into the new house. Please, please, please, Brian, hurry up and build it. Be the first builder in history to come in AHEAD of schedule. Please. I’m begging you. Get me out of this house.

The house is framed up and looking like a real house! Last week we looked at granite for the counter tops and tile for floors, showers and backsplashes. It was fun but a bit much to process. I still don’t get how to pick stuff out in such a silo. I need an idea of the whole room – then I can pick the finishes.  In fact, the kitchen, which is the only room I’ve thought through, was easy and quick. We’re planning to have white kitchen cabinets with black counters and a black island with a white counter. White subway tiles on the wall. So at the granite store (shop, factory, warehouse – whatever you call this place), I just needed to look at the black granite in our price range. And since we’d ruled out marble because it stains and chips, but we wanted something that looked sort of marble-like, we just looked at the white granite that had veins and striations. Easy. And the subway tile? The sales person showed me two different white ones and said she had another one she could pull out that was a few dollars more per square foot. Huh? I said, no thanks, I can manage just fine with my choices here. Plain white subway tile. Really.

So we were cooking along till we got to the part where the decorator told us we had to pick out granite and tile for ALL THE OTHER BATHROOMS. That’s three more full baths plus a powder room. Then it was just a free-for-all. It all looks good. But I have no context – no idea to build this all on. We went ahead and picked some stuff but have a few weeks to change our minds so I will be frantically looking at pictures all weekend to get ideas.

But hey, that’s kind of fun! I’m certainly not complaining.

Yesterday, Chris met the electrician and figured out stuff like which rooms to pre-wire for speakers. I totally don’t get that. Today, I asked the builder, “why do we need speakers in our master bedroom ceiling?” I mean, like, where is the radio dial to control that sound? And you know where it is, don’t you? In the basic system, it would be DOWNSTAIRS. Why would I run downstairs to turn on music? Why wouldn’t I just stick my iPod in a desktop speaker system? Exactly. Our builder said we don’t need speakers in our master bedroom and that he never uses his. Maybe just the dining room and porch so if we have company over, we can have the same music playing throughout the main entertaining areas. OK, so we have that solved.

Back to the granite and tile!

Here are some pics from my camera phone if you’re interested in what we selected:

The white granite for the kitchen island

Possible master bath tile

Oy. The little guy had a fever of 103 for several days this week with all the attendant fussiness one would expect. I think that’s the highest his fever has ever been, so of course, being the new mom that I am, I scooped him up and took him to the doc. Actually, with his history of bladder infection (he’s only had one but the docs consider that a history), we have to have him checked every time he has a fever. Fever with no other symptoms could be another UTI. And UTIs at his age can damage the kidneys.

So off to the doc we went. Do you know how they collect a urine sample from a baby boy? (If you’re a guy reading this, you might want to look away.) A catheter. Up the penis. Yup.

He’s had this done — oh I dunno — five or six times now but each time seems worse than the last. I actually cried with him this time. It’s just awful.

Urine was clean so file this fever under the 1,000 mystery viruses that babies get.

He seems to be cutting some pretty painful teeth again, causing more fussiness and lots of night wakings. And Suzy (our wonderful nanny) has been on vacation. She has a friend who fills in for her but our son still has a bit of stranger anxiety so it’s been a challenging week.

Still, I managed to squeeze in several meetings with clients and prospective clients. Lots of exciting things going on with my business. 2010 is off to a great start.

Speaking of great starts, this is always a good time of year for sales. I just got these green linen sheer curtain panels, 108″ long, for $34.95 a piece at Crate and Barrel. LOVE them! They will look fabulous in the great room of the new house.

And the end of January is always a busy time of year for us. My birthday is Sunday; my husband’s is next week. My sister, and an aunt and uncle, all had birthdays yesterday. My husband’s sister has a birthday next week. I’ve been scouring the web for good deals and gift ideas. Christopher’s sister loves to bake and I saw these nifty measuring cups that allow you to pour ingredients into your stand mixer without spilling them everywhere. I’m thinking I need to get these for myself! I’ll let you know if she likes them and how they work out.

There is a reason I call this blog Random Neural Firings. I am all over the map today, aren’t I? Hope you’re all having a great Friday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY RELATIVES!!!

Looking for more great photos? Grab a cup of tea or coffee and check out these sites that host more Wordless Wednesday entries: SevenClownCircus, 5MinutesforMom, and WordlessWednesday.

Last week, we had the walk through of the house at the framing stage. VERY exciting to see the outline of a real “house” there. VERY stressful to be asked a million questions like this:

Come into this room, switch here for light, fan, over here is where your center light will go. You can have can lights, too. Do you want cans? Where do you want electrical outlets? Which walls, how many? High up (like for wall-mounted cable) or low? Do you like the windows here in this room? What about over here? Closet door goes here, opens this way. Everything good? OK, onto the next room.

I’M SORRY BUT THAT IS TOO DAMN MANY THINGS FOR ME TO ANSWER ALL AT ONCE! I have NO idea if I want recessed lighting in the basement den or the home office or anywhere other than the kitchen. I hadn’t thought about it. I like to weigh the pros and cons, think through how this will help or potentially hurt me with decorating options later on. I like to peruse magazines and pictures online to get a feel for things.

Basically, I needed to have put together a plan to decorate EACH AND EVERY ROOM IN THE HOUSE before the framing walk thru so I could have an idea of what was happening in each room which in turn would have given me more confidence to answer the builder’s questions.

And I had a few questions of my own. Like our breakfast nook. Our wonderful, much dreamed-about feature. The one and only thing I had a picture to show the builder. (”Show us a picture, we’ll build it,” he said.) Here’s our inspiration picture:

But our breakfast nook is TOO small. We’ll have to have a table built and even with the smallest possible table, there is NO room for chairs on the front side (and no room for more than 2 of our plates). It’s too close to the kitchen island so there would be no room to walk. THIS MEANS THERE’S NO ROOM FOR A HIGH CHAIR. WHICH MEANS I MIGHT HAVE TO ACTUALLY USE THE FREAKIN’ DINING ROOM ALL THE TIME CUZ I DON’T KNOW WHERE/HOW ELSE WE’LL EAT. THE BREAKFAST NOOK IS UNUSABLE. The architect was an idiot about this area. Great on other things but left his measuring tape in the car when he designed the nook. The nook, my favorite, beautiful, cozy place where the family (and a couple of friends) were going to enjoy meals, play cards, and relax. The nook that now might be the “kids table” at Thanksgiving.

I am pissed.

One solution is to move the door that leads from the nook to the patio; we’d have to move it into the great room. So as you enter the house and walk down the hall, you would see a door at the end of the hall. Not a tragedy. But that doesn’t give us room for chairs. That just gives us room to make the built-in banquette a little longer on one end so a person can sit. In order to get room for chairs, we have to decrease the size of our island.

Now, our island is our main prep surface. It’s currently configured for a sink with about 2′ of space on either side for prep. Dishwaser on one side, trash pull out on the other. Looks like I’m going to lose the trash pullout and have to have a trash can sitting out somewhere. Again, not a tragedy. But lopping off the island means I’m losing prep space and storage below.

I’m pissed, I tell ya. We have a dining room (which we’ll rarely use) that’s too big and a kitchen with an eat-in nook that’s too small (and that we’ll use all the time).

I hope I don’t hate it when it’s all said and done.

For those of you new to this issue, here’s what went down at our first appointment with an occupational therapist. Our 2nd visit was much more productive. For starters, we saw a therapist who specializes in feeding issues with infants (vs our first visit with one who did not). She explained some of the reasons why this happens: one of the most common causes is infant reflux (GERD). Basically, as our son started trying finger foods, he choked and gagged. She said that chewing is a learned skill and he “learned” that it’s more trouble than it’s worth because it caused him discomfort.

She likened it to an adult getting sick from eating undercooked chicken or drinking too much. We’d avoid the offending food or beverage for a very long time!

The protocol to “fix” this is a 6-12 month program with weekly visits. <sigh> I don’t mind really schlepping him out there weekly. I just mind that he has the problem. Poor little guy. I worry that we’re setting him up for a lifelong uncomfortable relationship with food – something I thought was primarily the domain of women! (Only half kidding.) Is he going to hate food? Love it too much? Undereat when he’s older? Overeat? Use food as a weapon, a comfort, or something else? And how am I the one qualified to help him through this? I totally stress eat or stress starve.

This is not good.

We were told to do homework:

1. Put finger food on his tray at every meal. Do NOT try and offer it to him. If he throws if off the table, we are to pick it up and say “food stays on the table.”
2. Feed him only easily accepted foods. Don’t try anything too textural or that we know he won’t eat.
3. After the meal is over, have him help us “clean up” by picking up the finger food and throwing it into a little trash can (paper cup or bowl).
4. Then, we do an “exercise.” They gave us a thing that looks like a toothbrush, except it has bristles all around the tip. (Like a miniature blow dryer round brush – the size of a toothbrush.) We are to touch it to our lips three times, saying “Mommy’s turn . . . 1, 2, 3,” then touch it to his lips saying “Hunter’s turn . . . 1, 2, 3.” We have to do three sets of this.
5. When this is done, we are to recount what we did and praise him. “You ate your yogurt and helped Mommy clean up and did your exercises. Good job!”

So how’s it going? Well, much better after a VERY rocky start. The first few days, he screamed and cried every time we did the brush. It got to where he would scream and cry as his meal was ending because he knew what was coming. Now he lets us do it and even occasionally smiles during it.

He also showed an interest in playing with his baby food. OK, so he still won’t touch a Cheerio or a puff (except to throw them in the “trash”) but at least he’s touching food! Christopher (my hubby) thought he looked like Pooh with his hand shoved in the honey pot.

We have our next appointment tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.

“URGENT! FACEBOOK VIRUS ALERT! An e-mail recently went out to women asking them to post the color of their BRA. THIS IS A VIRUS. To fix it, you must remove your bra, then go to > Settings > Enable Webcam > Record Movie. Please re-post to your status message.”

Technically, it’s a cold-air vaporizer. No babies were burned or injured during this photo shoot!

Looking for more great photos? Grab a cup of tea or coffee and check out these sites that host more Wordless Wednesday entries: SevenClownCircus, 5MinutesforMom, and WordlessWednesday.

OK, now that I have Susanna Hoffs stuck in your head (for those of you old enough to remember her), let me just tell you that I wish I had a do-over for today. I had a sudden, terrible migraine come on yesterday (totally hormonal) and hoped I could sleep it off (with the help of some good drugs) but woke early and it was still there. Which doesn’t suck in and of itself, but it does suck when you have to quickly get the baby ready – without feeding him breakfast – to make it to the occupational therapist/feeding specialist by 8:00 a.m. In Atlanta traffic. Fortunately, my husband did most of the morning routine while I bumped into things trying to get dressed. And he drove.
The OT was great but the appointment was AWFUL – screaming, crying baby – my heart breaking kind of awful. You know how that goes.
Rushed home, got a shower and make-up and my best outfit on for a new business appointment for my company. This was rescheduled once before because the guy I’m meeting with is very busy (and apparently, overscheduled). Alas, I was running a few minutes late and he only had 10 minutes to meet. Basically, he told me we need to schedule another time to talk. He was very nice, though, and I’m glad they’re still interested in hiring a marketing firm.
I have a very busy week this week. We have the walk-through of the framing on the house (yay!) and I have a speaking engagement Thursday (on social media marketing). I’m actually nervous about Thursday and keep procrastinating on my prep. Which I’m sure I will regret.
OK, off to the chiro now for a much needed adjustment. Wonder if he can adjust my attitude, too?
But tonight – tonight I’m going to get the baby to bed and sink into the couch with my hubby to watch the season premiere of “Chuck” which we recorded last night. Yippee!!

It’s “snowing” here in Atlanta so Phil posted:

I crossed a snowman with a vampire. I got frostbite.

My friend, Tommy (who seems to be going by “Thomas” these days, ahem):

Living vicariously through other people usually works for me….Sadly, eating vicariously via The Food Network…not so much.

• In case nobody clued you in, yesterday women ’round the world played a little game on Facebook, posting only their bra color as their status update. (”Midnight black,” I posted, which prompted a friend to quip, “What’s midnight black? Isn’t black – ‘black’?” Good point, Steph.) Our little game was picked up in one of the social media industry blogs (Mashable). I wonder if it’ll hit the mainstream media this weekend as an amusing fluff piece?
• My son figured out the sign for “more” this week. I love that he has a new way of communicating! Last week, we figured out that he’s been saying a word (attaching meaning to a word): “bite” for “light.” He looks up at the lights and says “bite” over and over again. Too cute! For all I know, he’s been doing this for weeks and I just now put two and two together. (”Two and two together.” Let it be known that I CAN occasionally do math!)
• So you may have heard that it “snowed” here in Atlanta last night. What we call snow down here, you all up north would call “spring.” It’s pathetic. But the roads are icy and we don’t exactly have oodles and oodles of equipment. So today should be an interesting day.

Hope you all have a great weekend. Stay warm!

Another classic from Tommy:

I get stressed out when people do their smilies like this (-: instead of this . Confused, party of one.