The Party-Line

For years I've enjoyed and taken advantage of the perks of three-way calling. It can save you time if you have something to share with your friends or family. You can kill two birds with one stone by calling two people at once and only having to tell the same story one time. I don't use it very often anymore, but there was a time when I definitely got my money's worth out of the specially added phone feature.

Back in high school, when it first came out, my friends and I loved to use it for prank calling, long before we had to contend with caller ID. We also used to make a "monster party-line" by calling one friend, then they'd call another friend and so on and so on until we had about ten of us on the line and could hardly keep up with who'd just said what. It was a big waste of time but we found it amusing. Once, when my sister-in-law was dating two different guys she called to ask me if I'd call one of them on three-way so she could tell him she was at my house for the evening. This was after caller ID and she needed a cover story. Okay, so I did it. She was young at the time and they were only dating, not serious and not married. So, I called him for her and then laid the phone down and went back later to see if they were still talking. I was too nervous to listen and didn't really want to. (That was a first!)

With the changes in technology came a newer method of the "party-line" and I've been a willing, eager and active participant in this latest form of multi-communication for many years now. It's the email version of the “party-line” where you simply hit reply all and can communicate with your friends all day long. It can certainly break up the monotony of a long day at work and provide countless laughs.

There are several different people who I correspond with via email on a daily basis and with whom I often end up on a “party-line”. It might be me, my sister, Kelli and Shelli, or me, Teedee (Teresa) and Carla or me, Teedee and Kelli. Ya never know and the list goes on. It usually starts out with an email from one of us to the others updating them about something juicy or the latest drama of the day. The topics range from serious to comical. We reply back to all with our opinions or a funny comment and once we get going it's almost impossible to keep up. When we're really on a roll I can hardly reply back before having 5 news messages appear as soon as I hit send. God forbid you're actually busy at work and can’t “play” because you'll end up with 25-30 unread emails in your inbox within five minutes. Or if you go to lunch when things are in full swing, you'll most likely return to mass unread emails.

Yesterday it was Kelli, Shelli, Molly and me and we were on a roll. We went back and forth all day long with some pretty clever one-liners. Ones that were causing me to laugh out loud, even at some of my own responses. Fortunately, my boss was out of town and there is absolutely NOTHING going on at work. It’s a good thing I had the girls around for the entertainment because I was about to play with a razor blade after I watched the clock stand still for hours. I left for lunch in the midst of some major humor. When I returned I got all caught up but everyone had disappeared and I felt abandoned. They actually had to work for a few hours. Ha! My boss has been out all week and there's nothing going on here to keep me occupied all day. I was so excited when they finally started reappearing one by one. I found out later that it was Molly's first time to do the party-line email and she loved it. She said she laughed all day long. We all did. We were making fun of ourselves, our problems, our bad decisions, our flaws and each other. Laughter is the best medicine in life. It makes everything seem better! I’m still laughing as I think about some of the content of those emails. We really should have our own comedy show. We could no doubt be very entertaining.

My boss is still gone and I'm just waiting around on today's party to finally get started!

The Mysterious Seemab and Huma Rashid

About four to six weeks ago I started receiving mail for a Seemab and/or Huma Rashid at my address. At first I just assumed it was an error and didn't think much of it until within days I was receiving five and six pieces of mail a day for these people from various mortgage companies. It appeared that they were applying for home loans but there was no information, other than my address, that indicated they were stealing my identity. I've just been tossing the mail because it was coming in mass quantities and I didn't need any additional stacks of paper lying around the house.

Last week I received a few "Welcome to the Neighborhood" coupons from local stores with their name on them. Again, I tossed just them since they weren't coupons for stores I shop at or anything I could use.

Yesterday I opened something from a National Deed Service Company and it has peaked my curiosity into finding out what exactly is going on here. I googled the names above and came up with nothing. The latest letter definitely appears to be a scam, but I'm questioning where the scam originated from and why all of this mail regarding mortgage loans suddenly started coming to my address for these people. It's odd.

The letter contains a "XXXX county recorder document number" from the county that I reside in.

The letter states:

Our records, obtained from public information, show that Property Deed Document # XXXXX recorded January 18, 2007 indicates your ownership interest in the property located at MY ADDRESS.

At the time you purchased your property, a deed was prepared that shows the title was transferred to you. The deed was recorded by the XXXXX County Recorder.

The US Govt Federal Citizen Information website recommends that property owners should have an official certified copy of their deed.

Okay, the remainder of the letter says they accept payments of $59.95 via check, money order or credit card.

Any ideas? Anyone out there familiar with scams of this nature or have any suggestions as to whether or not I should continue to throw the "Rashid's" mail away or actually be concerned? Obviously, I haven't been too worried about it since everything has been trashed.

The Perks of Flip Phones

Do you ever close your cell phone and then re-open it to check and make that sure it actually hung up? Possibly because you’ve just said something about the person you just hung up with or were about to? And I don’t necessarily mean you’re about to say something bad, just anything you wouldn’t want that person to hear. I'm sure that flip phones have saved me from putting my foot in my big mouth a time or two. I've been busted a few times in the past on my cell and a home answering machine and it’s not a good feeling.

When we lived in Hawaii, my friend and I were out shopping one morning and I called my husband’s cell. His voice mail picked up and I left a message, however, didn't realize that I hadn't actually hung up. He called later to inform me that he had several minutes’ worth of mine and my friend's conversation freshly recorded on his voice mail. My first instinct was uho, what had we just said? Was it anything bad? It's not like either of us had any big secrets to hide but I was known to tell little white lie from time to time about certain things (i.e. the real amount of the long distance bill or how much my highlights had really cost). We hadn’t said anything bad or earth shattering but it’s still embarrassing when you’re conversation has been unknowingly recorded.

There was the time a few years ago when I called my friend, Vicki, because "Delta Dawn" was playing on the oldies country station. I had intended to sing her part of the chorus when her voice mail picked up and then hang up but messed up when hitting the "end call" button. She had the pleasure (NOT) of listening to me sing the entire song and had it all recorded. I thought it was just me, myself and my pretend mic all alone in my car and believe me was singing my heart out, if you could call it that (wailing or howling would be a more accurate description. I can’t carry a tune to save my life). She called me back later laughing hysterically and informed me of my error and how she’d heard the entire song, not just the chorus. I thought I was going to die of embarrassment.

The biggest near blunder of them all was many years back when I called my sister to vent about a particular problem we were both having with a mutual friend and her answering machine picked up. She thought she'd turned it off but it had recorded our entire conversation, which had lasted quite a while. Days later, my brother called over to my mom's house looking for one of us to inform us that he'd just called her house and heard a fifteen to twenty minute conversation about *&^%$#. Apparently the answering machine was malfunctioning and rather than answering with a greeting it was playing the entire conversation we’d had previously for anyone who called. We immediately called to verify it for ourselves and only needed to hear the first few minutes of the call before going into total panic mode. It was a twenty minute drive to her house but we made it in record time to rip that tape right out of the machine.

I'm grateful for flip phones but am still inclined to re-open and check them "just to make sure" it hung up and I'm not the only one with that habit! I have a few friends who do it, too. It's kind of funny when you think about it.

What Time Is It?

I was so flipping mad on Saturday when Lauren first called to ask me if we had to move our clocks forward. She'd just caught part of the announcement on the radio so we weren’t certain. I must’ve been living in the clouds recently because that was the first I’d heard of it so I naturally assumed it had to be next weekend and pretty much forgot about it until later on in the night.

I really hate losing an hour. Okay, so it’s only an hour, but it really annoys me. I really like gaining an hour in the fall but losing one is a totally different story. I just feel so robbed! Not that I would do anything worthwhile with that hour to begin with if someone actually gave it back to me, but it’s the point that it was taken from me in the first place that upsets me. Plus, it also meant that I had to be back at work on Monday morning one hour sooner.

I wasn’t able to confirm that it was indeed the date of “spring forward” until Saturday night, as I was officially losing that precious hour and beating myself up for being up so late to begin with! Then of course there’s that whole week afterwards of having to ask yourself which clocks have been changed and which have not. What time is it really? Some clocks change automatically and figuring out which ones are correct always throws me for a loop. The phones at work switched automatically, as did my computer. Truth be told, my car clock will likely remain off by one hour until this time next year unless one of the kids decides to take action and fix it for me. My least favorite clock to change is the old cell phone that I use as an alarm clock. It’s set to military time and I will be double checking it for days while using my fingers to verify what time 17:30 really is.

My sister and I were chatting on the phone tonight as I was finally changing the cell phone/alarm clock to the correct time. It was 12:58am and I asked her to confirm that that would be 00:58 in military time. She told me just to make it an even 1:00am. She said it would just be easier to go with that. My argument was that I would then lose two whole minutes of sleep. She laughed. I was serious. Two more minutes of sleep is two more minutes! She said she sets her clocks ten minutes fast, as I know many people do. I had to explain to her that that little trick has never worked for me. I've never been one to fall for that or get anywhere earlier because I KNOW the clock is wrong. Why do people bother doing that? If you already know that you set the clock ahead ten minutes fast, aren't you going to leave ten minutes later than you should've? Hmmm, maybe if I trick myself I won't be late to work or school. Maybe I'll forget that clock is fast and leave ten minutes early and arrive on time for a change. Come on! Does that make any sense? All that means to me is that I have an extra ten minutes now and thinking about it slows me down even more.

I really do have more important things to complain about than the time change but it felt good to get it off my chest. I forgot to mention how upsetting it is to wake up when it’s still dark outside, as if I need another reason to want to sleep in later.

I'm So Proud!

I think it's been mentioned here before that Lauren was going to modeling school. Well, a few months ago she was asked by a local photography company if she'd allow them to take photographs of her to be used on their website. In exchange for her services, she would receive some free photographs, which she used for her interview with the modeling school/agency.

She got a few of them back immediately but we just saw the ones shown on their website for the first time tonight. I'm very proud of you, Lauren!

There are seven photos of Lauren. Two of them are the same
with one being in black and white. You have to go to protraits,
gradutaing seniors, or induvidual portrait.


http://photographybyrnr.com/defaultsub.asp?c=portfolio&Cat=11&p=3

Third Child Syndrome

There were some drawbacks to being the youngest child in the family. For one, my baby book only had about two pages completed. That used to really bother me until I had a third child of my own. I think his book might have his full name and birth date and that's about it. How sad is that?

I always got stuck in the worst possible spots in the vehicle on our family vacations. It was an eleven hour drive from Houston to Tulsa (with my Dad driving, but my mom could usually make it in ten). We would often make that trip during the five day Thanksgiving holiday and would leave late at night after our parents had everything packed. This was back in the seventies and the car that I most remember us having was a Buick LeSabre. My dad used to take two buckets and turn them upside down in the floorboard. He then used a piece of plywood that was cut to fit perfectly over the buckets in between the front seat and the back seat. He would wrap the plywood with blankets and lie it across the buckets to make the seat a bigger "bed" for Jerri and Curt to sleep on during the trip. I was always stuck up front in between my mom and dad. My parents used to ask me to switch "laps" because it would become uncomfortable for them during the long drive with my feet kicking them in my sleep. I used to hate it when I had to lie with my head in the driver's lap and also contend with the steering wheel being about a 1/2 inch from my face. (Does anyone else think that might’ve qualified as child abuse?)

We once borrowed my grandmother's van and took a two week trip to Niagara Falls. It was awesome, except while my sibling’s each got a whole seat to themselves, I had to lie on a pallet in the very back by our luggage or in the small floor space right behind the two front seats. My sister slept the entire trip but my brother would sit up and complain that I was in the way of his feet. I pouted during much of the time on that trip about my poor sleeping arrangements and that being on the floor made me car sick. I can only imagine how miserable my parents were with all of the complaining going on within that van.

Caden always says we don't have enough pictures of him. I remember feeling so slighted when I was younger for the same exact reason. Of course, we do have lots of pictures of him but not nearly as many as we do of the girls. This was obvious recently when we were doing a school project that required pictures of him at various ages. As we rummaged through the photo boxes we came across tons of Lauren and many of Cassidy, but finding some of him were a little more challenging. That's just wrong, but it seems to be the norm for the third child and beyond. Your time and energy is drained with each new mouth to feed and rear end to change. I really wish I'd put more effort into keeping up with his baby book. I'm not even 100% sure at exactly what age he started walking or when he lost his first tooth. I'm sure I won't be a recipient of this years Mother of the Year award. Again!

Happy 19th Birthday, Lauren!

We have a very cheesy tradition every year for Lauren's birthday. We play her this personalized birthday song that I bought on tape when she was three-years old. It became a tradition from that point on. I always blast it from the living room stereo for her. I turn it up so loud that the whole house rocks. After all these years, I still manage to catch her off guard each and every time. That’s usually because I have it in the stereo all ready to go, and all I have to do is discreetly hit the play button when I’m ready. There’s a delay of several seconds, which gives me time to move away from the stereo before the song starts. It was most often played in the mornings when she was getting ready for school. She always acts like she hates it, but she loves it.

The song starts out with rocket and space ship sounds that are very high pitched, then some music, and then you hear "Zoom" start to talk. He’s the outer space guy who has a special message for Lauren and who came down from Mars just to sing her this tune. See, told you it was cheesy but it’s awesome.

When she turned eighteen last year, I wanted to do something different for her and came up with the best birthday scam. First, I had to call one of her friends to get approval that it would indeed be funny and not mortifying. Rachel totally approved and helped carry out the plan. I gave her a copy of the tape and she got permission ahead of time from their teacher in their third period class. It was also a class she shared with several of her friends, including current boyfriend Travis, who was actually ex-boyfriend Travis at that time. Rachel set the boom box up by the teacher’s podium and all the teacher had to do was bend down to press play when they were ready. Rachel even managed to get someone from the video department to tape the entire thing. Only Rachel and the teacher knew what was happening ahead of time. Lauren and the rest of the class just thought there was some student filming various classes for their school broadcast and had no idea of the evil plan!

I wish I knew how to post the video. It was so funny. She turned three shades of red and kept covering her face and asking what was going on. She later said she knew immediately that it was “her song” but she couldn’t figure out why Mrs. May was playing her song or why the camera was zooming in on her. Then Rachel told her about halfway through the song. We sent the video out via email last year but I’m not computer savvy enough to know how to link it or make it available to view here. It was so funny to watch her reaction. As soon as the space ships and music started she looked up, frozen. Then when Zoom started talking her eyes started darting from side to side and then her mouth dropped open and again she froze. It really was priceless to have it on video. Here’s a still shot of her face as they were playing her song.

By the way, I purposely skipped our tradition of playing her song before school last year. Then the day got away from us and I figured it was good enough that she’d heard it at school. At almost midnight she called in a panic saying that we’d not yet played her song. I told her everyone was asleep but she rushed home so I could still play it for her. Even when she was expecting it, I still caught her off guard. I had all of the lights off and as soon as I heard her shut her car door, I hit play and then went and hid in the kitchen. She came into the dark house and had just reached the hall to go looking for me when it started. It actually scared her. Then she broke down into tears. She didn’t want to “grow up”. She wanted to “stay seventeen forever”. I couldn’t help it but I started laughing then hugged her and said I didn’t blame her a bit. I didn’t want her to grow up either.

Happy Birthday, “Nawwen”.

We love you!!!!!

I Love My Friends

I grew up with these gals. Molly (far right in the group shot) was my neighbor from birth until age nine. We go way back. I met all of the other friends pictured during my freshman year of high school.(Kim, Shelli, Kelli and Vicki) Like I said, we all go way back. It's hard to believe it's been that long! It feels just like yesterday when we were running the roads together. Jeez, do I have some wild and crazy stories about everyone pictured, but they wouldn't be blog appropriate. (You know, my mom and kids do read here).

I sat in some candy in my white sweat suit and luckily someone had a Tide stick on hand. Man, those things are awesome. Shelli was kind enough to scrub the spot out for me. She's a true friend! No, I was not enjoying it, in spite of that smile on my face. Ha!

Alec's Birthday

Here are some pictures from the weekend at Alec's birthday party.
(Kelli's oldest son). It was fun for both the adults and the kids!

Hockey Night in Houston

My dad and I took the kids to a hockey game Friday night. It was a first for all of us. We had fun. Hockey fans have some different traditions and we got a kick out of some of them. There were lots of cow bells ringing and special hockey songs. I never knew what a zamboni was until Friday night. I'd seen one but never knew it had a special name other than an ice cleaner, and never dreamed there was actually a song about them. The game itself was very fast paced and sometimes hard for me to follow where the puck was at times, but it was enjoyable. We went into overtime and had an extra period and then got to experience "sudden death". We lost by one point. Or is it a goal? It took me a while to learn to say runs in baseball verses points and I'm not claiming to be a big hockey fan. Cassidy and Caden were disappointed that they didn't get to see some "blood". There was a lot of shoving up against the glass that got intense at times but we didn't get to see any blood.

Something to Make You Think

There is a church by our house that has some of the most thought provoking billboard signs posted out front each week. They almost always make me stop and think. I'm not sure who is behind their thought for the week, but it's always a clever message and that person really deserves a raise. The current sign says the following:

This is a CH CH

What is missing?

I went about a quarter of a mile past the sign before I finaly got it.

UR

It really hit home. I first saw it yesterday but was driving too fast to actually read and process it. As I passed it, I thought some of the letters had fallen and totally missed the message. Today I finally got it.

My Best Ever One-Liner

I know I've said before that I'm not very quick on my toes with comebacks and that they usually come to me five minutes later than when I actually needed them. However, there was one time when I produced a master piece comeback.

It was about ten years ago. My husband has always been known to be a bit of a nag. (For some reason that role was reversed in our house) He always said he had to stay on me or nothing would ever get done due to my procrastination and always running behind schedule. Anyhow, I don't recall exactly what he was griping at me about on that particular day but he was basically on me for a while about many different things. It was probably a day when he was doing yard work and I was supposed to be inside cleaning house but he caught me on the couch eating bon-bons and watching soaps or something. His philosophy on our "cleaning day" was always, if I'm out there working on the yard and the cars then you need to be in here doing the house and not camped out on the phone. He never realized I was multi-tasking and can do almost anything with a phone attached to my ear. Anyway, I honestly don't recall what he was nagging at me about but I know he wasn't holding back and I'd had enough.

I remember it like it was yesterday and actually so does he. He was standing on the front porch. We had a large concrete porch at the time. I was walking in the front door and he was saying something to me when I felt these little horns suddenly pop out of each side of my head. I felt my teeth growing into fangs. I think my fingernails even grew two inches. I felt fire roaring from deep within my chest. Try to imagine small amounts of spit spewing out of my mouth as I said it and my voice being very strained from all of the energy I was putting into it. It was sort of like yelling but more of a lower and deeper sound. Anger was radiating from within.

My exact words were, "Why don't you run on down to the feed store and pick up a saddle so you'll be more comfortable while you're riding my ass!!!!!!!!!!!!"

At that moment he realized he needed to lay off. The look on his face was priceless and one I'll never forget. We still laugh about my infamous one-liner and he'll readily admit that he had it coming. To this day it's still one of my proudest moments!

Thank You For Calling XXXXXX

We had a new phone system installed at work on Friday. Our previous one was pretty archaic. This one has four lines and a state of the art voice mail system. It came with some pretty nifty options and we're still trying to figure it all out. We now all have our own voice mail. We just had one general mailbox before.

There is nothing worse than listening to your self on a video or audiotape, or at least that's how I feel whenever I hear myself talking. It's brutal for me to watch videos of us with Lauren when she was a baby and I’m in the background cooing over her and all you can hear is my big mouth. I had the biggest country bumpkin accent you can imagine back then. I like to think that while I’ve still got a southern twang, that I’ve outgrown the one back from 1988 where I sounded like I walked straight off the farm and was dumber than a tree post. Basically, I would prefer to never have to listen to my own voice on tape for the rest of my life.

I remember the first time I ever had to record a phone message to be heard on the phone system at work. It was at a previous job. When my former boss informed me that I would be re-recording the message that was already in place and replacing the existing voice, I just felt sick at my stomach. It was a very long and wordy message and the thought of having to read a script and then be forced to hear myself anytime I called work wasn't something I looked forward to doing. I remember hoping he would just forget about it if I didn’t mention it to him but had no such luck.

One day he brought me the official script and told me to go into the conference room and get started. There were actually several different scripts that I had to record that would take people through various parts of the phone the system. The after hours, the option of selecting a specific department and let's not forget the part welcoming the caller that also required me to briefly describe and plug our product. I must've been in the conference room for hours, reading, recording and listening to each one before deciding what was acceptable and worth keeping verses starting all over and re-recording.

Friday was just about as bad, though not as lengthy as when I had to do it several years ago, except this time I wasn't given the option of doing it while alone. I had an audience, which made it worse. We were in the midst of setting up the system and the phone guy was there to instruct me on each step. He couldn’t leave until he knew we were all squared away. I also had other people in and out of my office, which only made it worse. There were a few times when my co-worker changed the script in the midst of the process and scribbled the change while the automated system was instructing me on what button to push next. I was trying to listen to the robot lady and read what new change he'd made at the same time. With all of the chaos I would mess up and we'd both start laughing in the midst of it.

I thought I was going to get out of it altogether this time because at first my boss wanted to keep Brian's voice on there, but then he thought better of it and decided a woman's voice would be a better image to portray for the company. I was so bummed when he changed his mind. Anyhow, I haven't yet had to call and hear myself (I can’t bear to) and am dreading the day when I do. Call me silly, but hearing myself talk isn't one of my favorite things to do. I’m sure a few of my real life friends and family feel the exact same way! I guess it could be worse if I sounded like Janice from "Friends", but even I don't sound quite that annoying.

Good Times and The Kid in Me

Cassidy and I had to go up to my work last night to borrow the paper cutter to use for her history fair project. The building was dark and empty and I made her go with me because I knew I would get the creeps going in there alone at night. Being in an empty office building does bring out the kid in me, though. I usually have a strong urge to just start running around.

It always takes me back to when I was a kid. I spent many hours at my mom’s office after hours. My mom worked at our church so it was like having full access to a whole world of fun. I used to walk there after school and hang out until it was time to go home.

I had so many options of things to do while I was there. I would often invite a girl to come along who walked home the same way I did. Her family owned the small Mexican restaurant located across from the church so we used to alternate going to the church to play or to the restaurant and pretending to "wait" tables. Sometimes I'd bring other friends along that lived nearby but many times it was just me.

I preferred having a friend because otherwise, I wasn’t brave enough to play in the empty building alone. It was a large church with four separate buildings, all large in size. We could go down to the nursery and play with the dolls. They had cribs, swings, walkers, etc. and we could play nursery or house, or use one of the many empty Sunday school classrooms and play school. We could go over to the gym and play volleyball or basketball. The gym also had a big cafeteria style kitchen and a fully furnished upstairs like apartment with couches, a kitchen and tables that we could play house in. Whenever I was there alone I used to follow the janitors around and talk their ears off. I would help them clean but eventually get preoccupied with my own entertainment. I was like their shadow. I’d follow them from room to room and do my own thing. While they cleaned the Sanctuary I'd play the organ or piano or run around up and down the pews or the stage. It was really cool to have access to everything while it was empty. If the janitors weren't there and I ended up all alone I'd just play "office" or "secretary" in one of the empty offices near my mom's, or read a book in the library. I never recall being bored when I was there.

A few years ago my husband had an extra job working security at an empty chemical plant. The plant had closed and was on the market to sell but they were keeping 24-hour security on site until it sold. The officer's who worked there had set up a little office with a couch, computer and DVD player and all they really had to do was make sure no one came onto the property without permission. It was a piece of cake job for them. The place was huge and almost completely empty. There were a few desks and chairs left but almost everything had been sold.

I used to take the kids up there to hang out and keep him company on Friday nights. After our first few visits we decided to take the dogs. We had a blast. We used the empty conference room to play paper baseball. The dogs ran around not sure what to think of all the empty space. The kids and I always played hide and seek and the dogs would try to keep up. What must've been a chemical laboratory was empty and really spooky looking. I would hide in there and then when the kids would come looking for me I'd pretend I was going to "cook" them in this big glass stove looking thing that was scary looking even to me. We'd run from room to room and chase each other. It was so much fun.

Out in the actual "plant" it was like a three story warehouse looking place with showers to be used for chemical spills and several of these huge empty containers where they mixed chemicals. They had ladders going down to the bottom on the inside. The thought of someone crawling down into one of those things made me feel weak in the knees. The inside of this thing resembled a giant blender with the metal blades that were built into the bottom. It had a lid on top that opened and when I looked down into this thing I wanted to faint! It's amazing to think that we're surrounded by chemical plants around here and for many people close to me climbing into one of those containers would be the norm.

The dogs would run the grounds with us and the feeling of having this huge, empty facility to ourselves totally brought out the kid in me. Those are some good memories. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and the plant eventually sold. It sure made for some cheap Friday night entertainment for me and the kids while it lasted. I think my husband even enjoyed it. We never got him to play hide and seek but he was all for the paper baseball.

Watch Your Step, MeMe!

My poor mother suffered quite a fall down the hardwood stairs at my brother's home this morning. We're still not sure if my sister-in-law pushed her or oiled down the stairs yet. HA!

Actually, we're all laughing about it now but apparently it wasn't pretty. She spent the night over there last night to help out with the kids this morning. She was coming down the stairs and when she got to the landing she missed the first step and fell face first all the way down. The stairs are hardwood and so is the floor at the bottom. She landed face down, arms spread and the top of her head actually cracked the wooden hall tree that sat at the base of the stairs. It could've been much worse but she's okay. She's scraped, bruised and sore but nothing is broken.

We are warped and always laugh at this kind of stuff after the fact. My niece and sister-in-law thought she was going to be covered in blood when she lifted her head but she wasn't. She wouldn't let them help her up (she's too ticklish) and needed a moment to recover before trying to turn herself over and get up.

I talked to her earlier and asked her if it hurt while it was happening or only afterwards. She laughed at the question and indicated it was indeed quite painful. She mentioned feeling her b**bs hitting each step all the way down. Ouch!

I'm glad you're okay, mom! I love you. P.S. Are you going to sue them? HA!

I Am Alive!

I have been totally neglecting the blog lately. There are a lot of things going on in my life these days and I haven't had much time on my hands to construct anything worthy of reading. Add to that my "writer's block" or "brain fart" and it's not a good combination. I'm working on it and hope to have something better than this to share soon. If not, please bear with me. I'll come around sooner or later!

Cassidy's wearing around her brand new and identical Nike Shocks (compliments of MeMe and PawPaw). She learned a very valuable lesson about how thieves come in all shapes and sizes. I got on to Caden tonight after he pulled his wallet from his backpack, which contained over $80 in cash. He'd been carrying it to and from school all week but had it "hidden" away in his zipper pocket. I almost lost it while she lectured him on child thieves and how ruthless they are and how kids could easily search through the pockets for stuff and take it.

We sold all of the baseball candy in record time and I'm proud to say that I never ate a bite of any of it. That's a first!

Lauren's got bronchitis and every time she talks my chest hurts. Her raspy man voice hasn't deterred her from conversing, though. She got a shot in her booty today and I had to hold her hands. She takes after her mother when it comes to needles and pain. We faced each other and I made ugly faces at her while she winced in pain. It was kind of funny.

This is our third week battling sickness. It's been a variety of stuff and I'd just like a week without someone having an issue of any kind. HA!

On a positive note, we're finally having some nice weather after three plus weeks of cold and rainy days. I love the rain but it was too much for even me. It's been nice to actually need my sunglasses again.

If I'm not back around in the next week my writer's block might be more permanent than expected and I might need reinforcements.

Too Much Crap!

It’s time for some whining. I just need to vent about some of the annoying habits of my boss and co-worker. It’s only a three-person office so I don’t have too much to complain about. It’s really not a big deal but you know how spending eight hours a day with someone can reveal so much about a person.

I think I’ve already mentioned that I hate it when people clip their fingernails at work. The sound is like nails running down a chalkboard for me. I also hate it when people need to blow their nose but instead of going to the bathroom to do it they just sit there and snort in and out, trying to reposition the blob of mucus in their nostrils. That’s not a pleasant thing to listen to either. I hate it when I’m on the phone and someone is trying to tell me something and I can’t follow both conversations, but God forbid you quietly bring in a note with a name on it and quietly slide it in front of them while on they're on the phone. They act like you’re the rudest person ever.

I actually have a great boss. He’s a very nice man. He’s just very anal and particular. My biggest pet peeve these days is the fact that no one (except me) believes in throwing anything away. The office is nicely decorated with expensive furniture and paintings. We use a label maker to make all of our files so they sit neatly in the filing cabinets. It’s just the fact that we save almost every piece of paper that comes through that office by mail, via fax or any other method of receipt. The filing cabinets are full of unnecessary information, we're running out of room and the clutter is beginning to grate on my nerves.

The office procedures were already in full operation before I came on board so I’m still trying to figure out a way to implement my “just toss it in the trash” way of thinking. We host financial planning seminar’s, therefore, my boss believes that we should save every single invitation that we receive to other seminar’s to be used as references for future invitations we might wish to create. That, is just one of many the things that we save. We have an armoire stacked with old message books. You know, the carbon copy type. When we fill them up we don’t throw them away, we stack them and save them for years in case we need to backtrack and see where someone left a message back in 2003. You now, just in case we need to check our facts! We receive a variety of post cards with investment information from all sorts of big investment firms, and we must save and file each of those post cards, just in case we need them. Most of the information on the post cards is very generic and appears to be of little relevance. To top it off, each company must have their very own green hanging file folder and label, though we might only have three post cards from them with little useful information listed on the mail outs. I think they both have pack-rat syndrome. My boss is notorious for paper clipping the envelope that something was mailed in to the paperwork, too. Yeah, like we might need to reference that one day, too! I could understand if it was sent certified mail or something. I promise, I'm not exaggerating about this clutter situation.

I’m all about having back up to CYA but the procedures we practice are beyond over the top. I have offered to clean out the files but have been told we must all do it together because there are some pieces that we must “archive” in case we need them. The H-L drawer is so full that I have suffered paper cuts from trying to wedge my hand in far enough to file a post card in there. We have a fax file, an email file and plenty of other back up files. Then, just to be sure we aren’t slipping through the cracks, we also back-up our software to a CD every week. Like I said, CYA, but don’t be ridiculous. Our literature closet is stacked full and most of it is outdated but we "might" need to reference something in the future so we have to hang on to it. It’s wearing me out because I just want to trash 90% of the crap lying around.

By law we’re required to record and document much of the information and communication that takes place between us and our client’s. We have a special form that the correspondence is noted on. I then log the information into our system but we also keep a paper copy of the actual notes in a file. My boss will make notes that are so specific that he will literally log every single detail of a call or meeting with a client. For example, “John left a voice mail for Jane Doe @ 8:20am regarding her mutual fund, Jane returned the call @ 3:20pm. We discussed the cruise she just enjoyed to Alaska. (As I’m logging this information I want to pull my hair out strand by strand) Jane coughed three times during our phone call and sneezed twice. She is suffering from bronchitis and will call us back in one to two weeks once she has recovered and gotten back into the swing of things. Jane’s call waiting beeped in twice and I was put on hold while she answered the calls. I heard Jane's dog barking in the background. Jane and I decided she would leave her funds alone until she was feeling better and able to make clearer financial decisions". I log the information then file the hard copy and also back up the software twice a week. I walk around just wanting to start trashing the mounds of useless and outdated paperwork. However, in spite of feeling that way I am grateful for my job and do work with very nice people. They, like most people, just have some annoying qualities. Gawd, I hope they never find my blog because I really do like my job!

More Saturday Night Bowling

Saturday Night Bowling

Cassidy's Not So Good Week

Cassidy has had a bad week. It all started Friday night when she went to the skating rink and came out crying when I picked her up. Her Nike Shocks, that were a Christmas present that she wore proudly and absolutely adored, were stolen from a cubby. Yes, a cubby. The lockers were full so she was stuck with only a cubby. Had I known that she never would’ve worn them in the first place. We joined the owner to watch surveillance video for evidence of the actual theft, along with another family whose son had inline skates stolen, too. We actually saw them being taken but without video enhancement techniques from the FBI (ha) there was no solid proof that they were indeed her shoes and the girl who took them wasn’t identified as a regular. Basically, there was nothing we could do. I suppose she learned a valuable lesson, but I sure hated it for her. You would understand if you’d seen the excitement on her face and heard all of the gratitude she expressed over getting these shoes. She wore them around the house for days and must’ve thanked us for them 100 times. She went on and on about them being perfect. She couldn’t wait to get back to school over the holidays to show them off. That’s what made it such a hard lesson to see her to learn. She should’ve worn her play shoes to the skating rink that night but hindsight’s always 20/20, right?

I’d just bought myself some new Skecher tennis shoes, which doesn’t happen very often, and she’s been borrowing those and wearing them all week. That really sucks for me! Now my shoes will be worn out in two weeks. I’m working on getting her a new pair but they’re a bit pricey and money doesn’t grown on trees around here.

I can’t help but wonder what the thief’s parents think about their kid showing up at home with new high dollar tennis shoes. “Ummmm, hey Katie, where’d you get those cool shoes?” “Oh, I borrowed them from Sarah”. Six months later when Katie still has those shoes are they supposed to assume they were a gift? Makes you wonder about the parents, huh?

Yesterday there were several broken pencils lying on the coffee table when I got home. I almost trashed them but something told me not to. When Cassidy walked in later she picked them up and informed me that these were just a few of the items thrown at her on the bus today and that she’s tired of it. She’s actually a “cool” and popular girl in her school who never gets in trouble (outside of home, ha!) but none of her friends ride her bus. She’s not usually one to get picked on and can almost always hold her own. It seems as if she has found herself in an intimidating situation for once in her life. She asked me to call and “do something about it” tomorrow because they were also throwing ballpoint pens at her without the lids on them and she said she’s had enough. The bus driver is a nice man but just ignores it. I called the school this morning and was told they'd call her down to get more details and get back to me but they didn't do either. I better hear something back tomorrow before she comes home missing an eye. I hope her week improves soon but guess things could always be worse.