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Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
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7:13 pm - Guilt, again?
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Once again I realized I hadn't been here in awhile to post or read and I started to feel guilty. I guess I don't even have an excuse, since now I have my own computer and don't have to wait for Alyssa to get bored with the laptop. All I need is a comfy office chair and life would be perfect.
Let's see...life in a nutshell: new Indigo Girls CD is playing on the iPod, it feels like spring and I went for a walk today and discovered I'm out of shape. Work is work and we moved our seats today and I might get lost trying to find my place tomorrow. Porchop got out of the kitchen and I found him this morning just standing in the downstairs spare room, in the dark. Weird pig.
I talked to one old friend tonight and tried to reach out to another, who blew me off. Some things never change. I'm starting to suspect that trying to go back to the past will just bite me in the ass. I should just enjoy the friends I have, love the life I'm in and let the rest go.
Baby rats are getting big. We lost three in four litters, so that wasn't too bad. We don't know what happened to two of them, they were big and running around and eating solid food and then they weren't. Several are dumbos.
I'm sad and I shouldn't be, so I'm going to go re-read a good book and let it go.
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| Monday, February 16th, 2009
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5:47 pm - Lazy bones
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I know, I've been lazy about posting. I'm still around, though. Our HP laptop mostly croaked, so unless I can separate Alyssa from her Macbook I'm out of luck. Life has mostly been work and playing with the birds/dogs/pig, etc. I wish I had more time to spend with the furries/featheries/scalies, but paying the bills has become important to us.
So Alyssa and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary next week. We're going to a place called Adventure Suites and staying in some pretty cool rooms. We've rented the Showtime room for the first night, which has a ten foot movie screen and popcorn machine in it and then we're staying in the Dragon's Lair for the second night. It has a floating bed and dragon statues all over the place. We've got a friend coming to stay with the family while we're gone and I'm only hoping we're back before Janet goes into labor. The good news is that we're only about an hour and a half away so we can jet back if needed.
Work is work. I'm still employed, which is always positive. I miss being off the phone but we do what we've got to do. The dogs are working with a trainer, not that it's making much of a difference. Alyssa got a new tattoo that looks amazing. I'm getting one in a few weeks.
Okay then, that's that.
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| Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
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7:44 pm - Yeppers
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I am posting to say that we are still alive. We just got a new laptop and all is well.
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| Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
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8:46 pm - Life interrupts
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I always mean to update my journal more often than I do, but life keeps interrupting. Work is going strong, we went on vacation at the cape, we had an escaped python (she's home safe after exploring my closet for a week), we got tattooed again...you get the idea. The crazy idea of the week is joining a roller derby league. Alyssa is really excited, I'm a little more hesitant about the whole experience but I'm going to give it a shot. Keep in mind I haven't skated in over 20 years and this weekend has been hell on my legs. I'm at least good at falling down. I think once I get some practice in I'll be playing for real and having a blast--I'm built for skating, after all.
Other than that, life is good. We're behind in the bills again--what's new? Summer is cruising by really fast. We didn't win the power ball (again). I don't really care much. I mean, it'd be nice to have some free time, but I don't mind working.
Anyway, the big brown dog is still here with us. Anyone want a big brown dog?
More to come.
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| Saturday, July 19th, 2008
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10:02 pm - Good bye, old friend
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I was an idiot today and left my Palm Treo in the pocket of my shorts when I changed to go swimming. I left the shorts on one of our rocking chairs in the living room. I left Dakota, our house guest puppy/dog, out of his crate. When we got home from swimming, my shorts were on the floor by the couch and the pocket was slobbery. When I pulled my phone out of my pocket, I discovered that it was destroyed. I mean, running it over with a bus might have done less damage. The only good thing about it was that he never ripped open my pocket liner and so didn't ingest any metal or plastic parts. I had to charge my old Razr (piece of shit) and switch back for now. I lost all my photos and contacts, and most of what I lost was no big deal except for the recent pictures I took at the cape of the cape bunny.
So I just bought a used Moto Q. My sister and her husband use them and they seem like nice phones. I am not sure I love Motorola because my Razr has a battery life of about six hours (and this is without using the phone, just leaving it on) but I need a new phone, I need one that has a qwerty keyboard, and the Q is a little lighter and thinner than the Treo. Motorolas also have the best setting ever, the "roam-only" function, which works really well at my house where cell phone coverage is dubious. If I have roaming enabled without locking into roam-only, my phone will try and go from no signal to roaming and drop my calls.
I'm considering shutting off our home phone and setting up a third cell phone line as our home phone to save money. I don't know if it will float for Alyssa.
I got two new tattoos. One of them was done by The Enigma, and Alyssa got one from him, too. We each got blue puzzle pieces, mine on my left upper arm and hers on the back of her neck.
Anyway, I'm tired.
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| Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
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7:48 pm - Tangents
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I was reading through my friends page last night and Alyssa asked me who all the people I have listed were. I explained I was looking at entries from the "Co-workers suck" community and had no idea who anyone there was. Frankly, I only have that on my page still because I'm too lazy to delete it. She asked me what the few friends I have that aren't from different communities are up to. I told her I had no idea since I hadn't been on in awhile and read my journal. Then I found out--someone on my friends list who I've never met in person (but someone who a good friend of mine knows very well) killed herself last week.
It's just weird for me. I didn't know her online very well and as I said I hadn't met her in person, but still...it's just weird. I've known a couple of people who committed suicide and I always wonder what it was about them that made them give in. I have had some really awful, rough times in my life and I know I've flirted with the idea, but I'm still here. I even managed to become happy most of the time. How did I manage that?
Anyway, Alyssa's upstairs studying and I'm eating cashews and watching CSI reruns. I had a really long day at work, which means that I have a nice, short day coming up. I need to clean, but today I am just too tired. I've been tired a lot--a down to the bones fatigue. I'm hoping that better weather and exercise will help.
Work Out is on! I've been waiting for this new season all year and then I missed the first episode. I'm so glad it's back on.
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| Sunday, April 27th, 2008
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10:20 am - Time flies, I guess
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It feels like I get on this site less and less these days, what with the rest of my life feeling like it's whipping by. Each day is a contest for me to see which obligations I can actually squeeze into my crazy schedule. I miss being able to post to this journal, which I believe I've had now for close to nine years. Phew.
My new job (same company but new position, remember) is still going very well, but it's stressful. It's not stressful moment-to-moment like being on the phone all the time was, but there's a lot of pressure that I put on myself to make sure that every person I am responsible for has every advantage I can provide. Our pass rate wasn't as good as it used to be and now that I'm there I want to be sure it's back to where it needs to be. Right now we are doing pretty well, and the class I worked with from day one is heading into review starting tomorrow. I'll be joining them for most of the day on Tuesday and popping in and out for the rest of the week. For the most part they look pretty promising, but I've been spending a lot of time with one young woman and it's not looking like she's going to pass. It sucks. She knows she's in a bad way and she's busting herself trying to study, and we can't figure out why the material is not sticking. She's smart enough to pass and she's working her tail off. I never asked her if she liked her job--that's the only thing I can think of that might be holding her back. Anyway, I've been killing myself trying to get her to a passing range and I've been sick pretty much the last ten days with god-knows-what. I finally called out on Friday and slept for a good part of the day, but it's not doing a lot of good.
Don't get me wrong. I love my job. I love getting up in the morning and thinking about how great it is that I get to go to work. The pressure I'm feeling comes mostly from myself. I want to keep this position. I'm going back to the floor for a month this summer because we won't have a new-hire class, but I was already asked to come back afterwards and I'd really like that.
Alyssa starts classes tomorrow. Whee! I'm so happy that she's going to college, you all have no idea. She has two classes this term, one that meets Monday and Wednesday evenings and one that meets Saturdays during the day. We have to seriously budget for next term because her financial aid doesn't kick in until July, but I'll sell a kidney if I have to. She needs to do this.
Dakota left last week. I miss the silly dog, even if he was creating a huge nuisance. I hope he's doing okay. He left extremely unexpectedly, probably because we kept telling his owners he wasn't doing well on the shitty food they were buying him--I mean, I have a right to complain when the food caused serious explosive diarrhea all over our house. I've never seen so much nastiness come out of one dog. I didn't blame Dakota, but it didn't make him popular with Alyssa. Anyway, when I found out they were trying to sell him to anyone who would give them four hundred bucks I contacted the shelter about it. He will most likely end up going back and being adopted to someone else. I can only hope this time he goes to a family that actually cares about him. I cried for about an hour when I found out he wasn't coming back. They had picked him up to take him out for a walk and then called later and said they were taking him back to the dad's house, thanks for everything. I would have liked to at least have said goodbye.
I'm stressed out for one of my sisters, who is going through a really tough time and I can't do much of anything for her except listen when she wants to vent. My grandfather was in the hospital again and that really worries me.
Alyssa's car has been through grief the past few weeks, too. First, she hit a snowbank with it. It was snowing and the stupid town wasn't plowing and her tires weren't the best and BAM! She was going slow and trying to turn and the car decided to go straight anyway, and she couldn't have hit a normal snowbank. Instead she hit the one that had a huge rock in it. So, the bumper had to be replaced and a few other minor repairs done and it cost us a shitload. We lowered the deductible on the insurance that day. Then, a week later, the car made a thunking noise and started to smell like something was burning. It turns out a coil spring (didn't even know there WAS such a thing) broke and the frame was now resting on the tire. After she had it towed to her parents' house so her dad could peek at it, the man who fixed it the first time came to look at it to see if it was something his shop missed or caused, and he tried to drive the car to his shop. Of course it didn't make it and he had to have it towed, but then he tried to charge us for it. After Alyssa and he shouted at each other for awhile he let her have it towed to another shop where we were able to get it fixed for the price of the parts. However, the poor car has a big, nasty dent in it and no one will own up to it. Her mom took pictures when it was brought to her house and our insurance company took pictures, too, since we had them make sure the accident hadn't caused the damage. No dent. It was dropped off at the new shop with the big, ugly dent. Hmmmm. The shop owner swears it didn't happen at his place. Insurance guy knows him and says the he wouldn't lie. I'm tempted to start shopping for a new insurance company. AAA is going to look at it and make sure their driver didn't cause it when he towed it out of the first shop.
So we decided to look at cars because this one has been breaking down and breaking parts and generally being a pain in the ass. We went to a used-car dealer that finances anyone (and don't ever do that) regardless of credit, not because of that but because they have a trade-in minimum and our car isn't worth much as trade and her parents bought a car from them years ago and we thought it was a good place to start. They kept us there filling out paperwork and waiting for some answer for two hours after we said we just wanted to see what they had only to tell us that if we wanted to buy a Honda Civic it would just be too expensive with financing and to think domestic. This translated to me as "we have a lot of domestic POS cars we need to unload, so you don't know what you want." We left. We can drive the Pontiac until it breaks for good and then use her parents' Volvo until we have enough for a good downpayment on a gently used Honda Civic, which is the car we want thanks to good gas mileage and reliability.
So that this isn't all bitching, we got this shipment of baby trees because Alyssa joined the Arbor Day Foundation. The trees were tiny little seedlings and came in this big plastic bag with a picture of a stork carrying a bundle. Awwww. We planted them last night after the car shopping fiasco and it's raining out now so they should be happy out there and taking root. They are so small that we're going to let them gain some height and then transplant them to their real locations. I also raked some leaves. I love doing yardwork.
I should be cleaning but I took a break to post and check my e-mail. We're trying to arrange picking up a rabbit hutch so that we can move Rex and Barney outside just for the summer. The hutch is used and cheap and if they can live in it when the weather's nice that would be great. They have a huge indoor cage but it's old and starting to fall apart, so this will work out perfectly until fall, when I'll provide them with new housing. I have to add screens to their hutch because it's turning out to be a great year if you like ticks. I found one crawling on me the other day, Alyssa had one embedded in her leg (ick) and she found another one crawling on her yesterday. We bought some tick repellent and I'm going to be bathing in it before going hiking again.
I'm going to try to post more often for the two people that read this.
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| Saturday, March 29th, 2008
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6:42 pm - Time is just flying
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I always mean to post in the evening but end up running out of time. It feels like we're always busy and I've got a list of other things to do, even online. Oh well...the good news is that I'm really happy.
Alyssa and I are working hard to get our bills paid down and our credit scores up so that we can go get a mortgage in a year or so. My job is going well and my new position is awesome. I love it. I just finished my training class for my last skill set as a trader, so it's time to think about what happens when my current position ends in five months.
Alyssa just asked me to post that she crashed her car yesterday. It's not as bad as it sounds--she slid in some snow while trying to turn onto our road and hit a rock wall. Yep, there's damage and the car is at the car-doctor and we're riding around in Alyssa's mom's volvo. Yay.
Anyway, I wanted to post more but we're making easter-egg salad for dinner and my assistance is required. Be good.
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| Monday, March 10th, 2008
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8:06 pm
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Wish I had more balance in my life right now, but work is really keeping me busy and when I'm home I'm trying to spend as much time with Alyssa and the pets as I can. I've got some worries going on--nothing heavy, mostly to do with what my job is going to be like if we stop hiring people (this means I won't have anyone to mentor and hopefully can go back to the phones) and what will happen if Dakota-doggie's parents can't find a place that will allow dogs. I know he can't stay here but I can't bear the idea of him going to a shelter. Gah. I don't know why I let myself volunteer myself for this. I really adore the silly puppy.
I was reading the news and of course was disgusted when I listened the Oklahoma legislator's rant about gays. I'm not sure how we can be worse than terrorists. I really don't care one way or the other about how she feels about gay people, because she's welcome to her opinion, but to be so hateful...that's what pisses me off. It's like me ranting that born-agains are worse than terrorists. It's not a fair description.
Anyway, I don't want to go off on too much of a rant, here. I'm annoyed about a few things (nothing in my personal life) and I feel like I'd probably be harsher than I mean to.
I still like my new position at work. It's fun. I feel a little lost, but over all I think it's going to work out well.
We're off to feed the sugar-gliders. I'm sure they'll like that.
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| Friday, February 29th, 2008
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8:19 pm - And so it continues!
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The laptop croaked, so I haven't been able to post in forever. I got both of our ancient desktops online but it was an ordeal and one caught a bad virus and the other one decided it did NOT like the wireless adaptor and so rejected it. This made posting impossible. I could have borrowed my sister's computer while over at her house but I feel bad enough about checking my bank balance when I'm supposed to be visiting.
Things have been insane these past few weeks. After we spent a little time helping Janet and Dave move we tried to get some projects done around our house. We adopted some rats in January. We were under the impression that we were getting six but that actually turned into 40 or so when all four young females gave birth. We're getting ready to sort litter number three and four is not far behind.
We're also puppy-sitting a hound/lab mix named Dakota for some friends of ours. He's about five or six months old at the most and bigger than our two girls. He came to us not housetrained (nothing new, our girls are lazy and stubborn) but after the first day he stopped having accidents. He is very sharp and apparently just needed some training. He keeps tangling with Zule and Eli and got scratched twice. This morning he bled all over the floor. Stupid dog. I want to keep him but was told no by Alyssa. It's probably for the best.
Things at work are changing rapidly. I was offered a new position in my department yesterday, accepted and was pulled off the phones indefinitely to work in this new role. It still doesn't feel real and I'm pretty nervous. I'm going to take over a lead mentor role for the big exam we all had to pass. I'm going to be helping new hires pass their exams. I had applied to do this part time as part of my normal role and somehow impressed them so much that when the lead position opened up they hired me. I'm scared of screwing this up, but if I actually do a good job it's a ticket up. I'm not minding that.
I heard it's going to snow. Joy.
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| Friday, February 1st, 2008
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7:13 pm - hiatus
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I didn't mean to be away for so long, but work/life/stuff seems to get in the way of me writing these days. I miss it. Right now we're in the middle of helping Janet and Dave out with their move. We've got two very grumpy cats in the upstairs bathroom for a week. They have to share with Taylor, who seems hardly fazed at all by the company. I'm about to live out a fantasy of introducing Zule to Flake, since they're both all white, blue eyed (Flake's got one good pretty blue eye) and deaf. We've been joking for years that they're connected somehow because of their similarities. However, I think Flake's sense of humor is seriously damaged by a long car trip and Zule's pretty odd. We'll see.
Other than that things are okay...I work a lot and right now work is tough. I have to worry about trading errors and I racked up two in one week after two months without, so I am very concerned. I do well there and they seem to like me and I don't want to ruin that.
I'm tired, but I wanted to write and let my few reading friends know I'm alive. Alyssa is, too.
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| Saturday, December 15th, 2007
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8:36 pm - Weekends rock
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I need this weekend. I'm tired. I can't seem to get untired. I've been sleeping a lot and doing very little. I know part of the problem is that I'm too damned lazy to get up and go for a walk. The other half is plain old stress. Yes, life has been a bit stressful.
We had to postpone the baby-making a month. The boy we have picked out to help us with this is under a lot of stress in HIS life, which apparently gave him performance anxiety. I can't say as I blame him and after I told Alyssa that she's just going to have to be patient and grateful he's willing to do this in the first place I told him that he needs to take some time and clear his head and we'd try again with a little friendlier method. He can do this at home, keep the sample warm and we can either pick it up or he can deliver it. According to web research I've done a well-packaged sample can be good for up to seven hours. We need it to last at most a half hour. We're going to aim for next month. Honestly, this is the best for all concerned.
I want to have kids and I don't want to have kids. It scares the bejesus out of me to think I'm going to be responsible for another human being. It scares me that Alyssa gets testy about having to get a sitter to let the dogs out when we travel and now we're talking about having a baby. I also really worry about what's going to happen to the furry kids...what if the baby is allergic? What if I find I don't have time for everyone? I am not punishing my existing family for a decision that we have total control over.
On the other hand, we're talking about having a baby. Those who know me well know I adore babies. I know I'd be an okay mama. The boy would be a great daddy-figure, and Alyssa's going to be a wonderful mom. I can get really excited thinking of little baby clothes and Christmas and first steps and all of that. I half-raised a little girl for a year and took care of a friend's son for the first month of his life and I remember the sheer joy involved with that.
But wow...it's scary. It's scary because I'm very happy with my life, happier than I remember EVER being and now we want to go and mess with that.
I am the proud co-mama of a baby hedgehog named Harrison. He's very prickly.
Work is good. Trading is getting less exciting but I still dread hearing people say "I want to sell my fund..." or something along those lines. I also spend probably half of my day talking to people about why cashing out their IRAs is a bad idea. I hear some pretty depressing stuff when I open up that can of worms. I'm stuffing as much money as I can into my 401k. In five months I can expect matching contributions and in a year I'm getting profit-sharing. I'm going to take full advantage of this, too. I want to retire and not have to scrape. I'm tired of scraping. I'm exhausted from just getting by. I'm going to do what I can to have what I need.
I am grateful every day for all I have. If this is why I was so miserable for so long, so that I could have this, well, it was worth it.
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| Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
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6:58 pm - Phew...another lifestage
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We're about to attempt to make a baby. Terrified much? Yes.
Besides the trillion other things about this that scare me to death is the fact that we're going to introduce a person into this world who will mean more to Alyssa than I do. It'll probably work that way for me, too, but right now I'm being very selfish and concentrating on that one fact.
She should be here with the boy soon. This is going to be a process that involves gay porn, plastic cups, a needle-less syringe and the dogs harassing our brave volunteer. The bathroom isn't exactly the most inspiring room in the house for producing stuff that makes babies, and I just gave it a wipedown to at least make it less gross.
Let the fun begin.
I want to go play with my baby hedgehog.
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| Monday, December 3rd, 2007
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6:45 pm - Tomorrow is...
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...Alyssa's birthday! We have some fun plans in mind--after going to the dump, that is. We're going out to breakfast (late) and then heading over to Mayhem where Alyssa's getting a new tattoo. Then we're heading to her parents' house for dinner and home for some together time.
Right now we're watching Center Stage and I'm surfing. Yay.
Work is less stressful, especially since I have tomorrow off. Christmas is three weeks away and I've bought one gift for one person. Is it time to panic yet?
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| Friday, November 30th, 2007
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5:55 pm - Rats and cats and chinchillas, oh my!
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Right now we're watching Roo, the chinchilla, sitting in her ball as confused as I've ever seen her. She just had a dust bath and was looking very happy, so we introduced her to her new ball. My sister, Janet, had chinchillas and I know at least one of them loved being in her ball. Roo is not sure what's going on and is sitting next to the fish tank. The dogs and a couple cats have been over to inspect her. Merlin was checking her out until she moved and then he jumped back and took off.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at Alyssa's family's house. The dinner was awesome as always and I swear Alyssa's mom makes the best pumpkin pie I've ever had. I'm not kidding. I'm a huge fan of the stuff and I've had a lot of pumpkin pie/icecream, etc., and this pie blows them all away. The fresh pumpkin helps. I was glad for the day off, because work is extremely stressful right now. I just finished mutual fund training and am now trading. Trading is scary stuff.
I called in sick today. I really didn't feel well but I mostly needed another day to cool down. I got my first error from last week and lucky for me it doesn't count. We get a 30 day grace period for errors unless we make a buy instead of a sell or the other way around. I at least didn't do that. This is the part of this job I didn't appreciate before I started doing it. Now I know why a lot of people quit when they start trading. I don't plan on being one of them, but wow...it's a rough time of year to start a position that's so difficult and complicated.
I adopted a new iguana, Shamrock. He's got a serious case of metabolic bone disease/disorder and will be visiting the lizard vet in the near future. I saw him on Craiglist and e-mailed his owners asking them to please consider taking him to the vet. They ended up dropping the adoption fee. There was a bit of an adventure finding their apartment in a gigantic complex (because I was an idiot and forgot to bring the actual address) but we did it and he's home with us.
Other than that, nothing new is going on. Oh, except we found a new donor so we can actually make a baby. He's a friend we've known for over a year, gay, sweet guy and very excited to be a dad. I can't wait.
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| Sunday, November 18th, 2007
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9:38 pm - The dog is fussy
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I know it's late. These days bedtime is between 9 and 9:30 but I took a nap and now I can't think of sleeping. I'm also nervous about work tomorrow because it's my first day as a mutal fund trader on the floor. We have a lab setting so we all sit together with floor walkers (senior traders who can answer our questions) but even so, I'm really anxioius. Trading's pretty intense.
We spent a good part of the day taking care of our little animals. Snickers had a bath and a nail-clip, marred by a small too-close snip that caused some bleeding. Lucky for me Alyssa had some powder to stop the bleeding. Snickers didn't even squeak. We moved her from the downstairs cage to the upstairs where she's now bunking with Alice, Alyssa's guinea pig that she adopted recently. I mean, all the animals are OURS but some of them came here because of me and some because of her. We also washed Rufus and Alyssa cleaned his cage. We settled the new leopard geckos in and discovered that the albino is blind. He won't eat because he can't find his food.
The dog is fussy. She's been fussing all afternoon/evening and she's driving me up the wall.
Anyway, other than being pretty scared about work tomorrow life is good.
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| Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
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7:33 pm - Pressure like the Billy Joel song
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Work has been stressing me out a little lately, because I'm finally training to become a mutual fund trading. Now I have the power to really screw accounts up. Seriously, though, there's a lot of responsibility with this position and I'm nervous about messing things up. I do still love my job.
Alyssa is ill and trying to go to sleep. I don't know how successful she's being.
I have a lot to write about but no energy to write. More later. I'm going to eat some egg nog ice cream and watch Cops.
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| Sunday, October 28th, 2007
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12:30 pm - I know, long time
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Indigo is fussy today and has been since we got up. I'm not sure what her issue is, but it's my day off and I don't want to hear her constant whining. She has pottied, eaten, napped, etc., and she's still fussing. I patted her, cuddled her, fussed over her, massaged her, you name it. What a weird dog. Noelle's barking at every leaf she sees out the window. When I'm done with some online chores we're going outside for a bit to run around in piles of leaves. I like making big heaps for them and they like leaping into the middle, just like little kids.
I've been pretty busy with work. I was in training for eight out of the last ten days (Saturdays were phone days) and can now call myself licensed...in 19 states. The good news about that is that after the first of the year I'll get the remaining states and for now the phones are gated so that I get mostly calls from the states I can do business in. Lucky for me most of them are big ones, like California and New York and Massachusetts.
I still love my job. I am not sure where I want to take it, but the upside of that is my indecision comes more from not being able to make up my mind between different awesome possibilities rather than from not liking any potential career paths. Heh. First time in awhile I've been able to say that. I'm pretty content right now--they just upped our pay to make sure we're at a competetive level with other companies in our industry. My manager told me I'm very good at my job and to keep it up. Our senior help desk guy said the same thing.
Here's the only problem, and please understand it's not a big deal, but I've discovered that while I like to talk to people on the phone sometimes taking call after call after call is a little harsh. 99% of the people I talk to are great--even if they're pissed off when they come in it's usually pretty understandable and I do my best to make sure that they are in a better mood hanging up than when they called. It's a fine line between acknowledging that yes, something might have gone wrong on our part and actually taking on blame or blaming a co-worker. We aren't allowed to blame--being all one company and all that--but there are times I can see a blatant screw-up and I can't come out and say that. It's okay, though, it's not in my nature to point fingers at other people and I'm getting pretty diplomatic about handling errors. We all are human, after all. Anyway, it's not the people that I talk to or the messes I clean up (most of which the customer accidently caused and I'm not making fun of anyone, there's a reason why I had to study for two months and take a huge exam just to start learning the nuances of this industry) but the sheer volume of calls I take. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way...we had a team meeting a couple of weeks ago where we talked about board games and a few business items just so we could get off the phones. Our manager is great that way. I just about cried yesterday from joy when I found out he'd been hired on as our manager and is no longer interim.
Phew.
My sister is working hard to get her and her family up here by February. She and Dave asked if he could possibly rent a room from us if he has to start his position here before they're moved in and we said no...he could stay with us but no money was changing hands. I don't know if they realize how excited we are that they are moving to NH. Alyssa has been beside herself and she usually doesn't get excited about things like that (I think she's afraid of being disappointed). I can't wait to be around my nephews and niece and of course Janet and Dave. Dave's awesome. I don't think I tell him that enough. I am not nuts about my other brother-in-law but trust me, I tried. Anyway, I'm really stoked.
Last but not least we are really going to buy this house. Again, we have no real time-table but this time it's our call. We have a price (more than fair) and they're fixing some things that need to be taken care of, like the furnace being replaced and they just replaced the water pump as it shit the bed a few weeks ago. Alyssa's dad asked if he could still use some space in the shed and we said yes. So, we're excited and paying off debt left and right. I got our credit card bills down a bit--the total amount was about $1600 and it's now probably more like $900 and shrinking. Her car needs to be paid off next and my loans kick in their full amount in a month or so. My raise kicks in next week. She's got another raise coming up. If we corral our spending we should be okay.
Well, enough about that. I need to get my ass outside to rake some leaves and start cleaning up the yard for winter.
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| Saturday, October 6th, 2007
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7:13 pm - This is what I do on my days off...
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I've been counting down the days until this fine day arrived because it was once again time for the twice-yearly reptile expo in Manchvegas. We live all of fifteen/twenty minutes down 101, so of course we went. We had a blast last year and got our first chameleon who was just a tiny baby and grew and mostly thrived (except for a scary night when she turned black and strained to breathe and we hydrated her by hand and steamed her in the shower and put a heating pad under her hospital container and I was sure I'd get up to a dead Meelie and instead she'd made a full recovery) until she caught some moss with a cricket she was eating and choked to death while we were at work one day. Ugh. It was pretty devastating.
Well, it didn't slow us down from attending this expo and it was worth it. There were tons of vendors with everything you could want relating to lizards, including the lizards themselves. We were thinking we might try and get another chameleon, maybe a one a little older and this time we'd leave out the moss in the cage. Alyssa kept stopping and looking at snakes, especially the pythons.
Now, keep in mind that I've been whining about wanting a snake for a long time and she let me get Gumdrop, who is a ribbon snake. I saw something very similar to him slithering away from me at my grandparents' house a few weeks back. He's not really a handling snake so I have been trying to talk Alyssa into letting me get another one. She's been saying no. Today had her peering at all the snakes and handling a few that were out their containers. Finally, she picked one up and couldn't put her down. This was a two-month-old female ball python. She was a bargain, only $25, and we had a tank at home that was perfect for her.
I did find myself a chameleon, a Graceful Chameleon, and we got her a screen cage since Alyssa's skink is using Meelie's old cage. She's really pretty, with light green skin and dark green/turquoise stripes.
The python is awesome, the chameleon is awesome, we're both happy.
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| Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
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5:17 pm
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sharoane's journal