Champagne Tastes

If you’ve ever gone shopping with me, you know that I’m not very much fun. Well, unless I’m shopping for sandals, makeup, books, sunglasses, and/or electronics. Basically, I’m no fun when it comes to shoes, purses, and clothes. There are a couple reasons behind why I suck at shopping.

I hate shopping for clothes for myself because I’m unhappy with my options. If I keep losing weight, I’ll love shopping for clothes again. Once upon a time, the Mister and I used to blow entire paychecks at the mall on clothes. This was before we were married and when we were both still thin. Nowadays, I LOVE buying clothes for my girls because they are both skinny minnies and it' is so fun dressing them in clothes that I wish I could wear.

Shoes, I hate shoes. I think all athletic shoes are ugly. Ugly. That’s it. I have no other word for it. Dress or casual shoes, I have a hard time figuring out what goes with what. I have one pair of healed slides that I love with jeans, my running shoes, and then tons of sandals. That’s it. Well, I  have one pair of black pumps that I wear to funerals. They look like old lady shoes and I hate them. Plus, they remind me of dead people so they don’t come out of my closet. Sandals I can do, other shoes I can’t. Why should it be fun for me to shop for shoes? It isn’t and I don’t recommend you go with me when I do unless you’re willing to pick them out for me. I totally wouldn’t mind that.

Purses. Shopping with me for purses is a painful experience. I know it and I admit it but surprisingly, I love, love, LOVE, purses. Why don’t I like to shop for them? Because I can’t afford what I’d really like to have:  Fendi, Prada, Gucci, D&G. You get the idea. I currently sport a Tommy Hilfiger purse and it’s the closest I’ve come to a designer label. I really like my purse and am happy with it. Still, it’s not a Louis Vuitton. When it comes to purses, I have champagne tastes on a beer budget. Even if I could afford thousand dollar plus bags, I don’t know if I would buy them. I love to drool and fawn over them though. Yup. Drool and fawn. Not on the purses of course. You shouldn’t actually drool on designer label purses. ;)

I’ve decided to indulge just a bit and I got myself a Burberry purse. After buying it, I had immediate buyer’s remorse because I’ve never spent that much money on a purse,but you only live once, right? I also got myself a membership to Bag, Borrow, or Steal. I have some Gucci sunglasses on the way. Yay! I’m very excited. I hope I don’t become one of those addicted impulse shoppers, lol. Even with a membership, it’s still a bit on the pricey side to rent from the website. It would be very easy to overindulge. I promise to try and control myself, heheh.

 

What I’m Watching

It’s been a while since I’ve done a television post so I think now would be a great time with the regular season ending and the summer one starting in a less than two weeks.

First of all, I said a sad farewell to several shows this year. I watched ER from beginning to end. I thought the finale was fabulous. Prison Break is another show I stuck with to the end. This one was tough too. It stopped being fresh after the first season and became very repetitive. Still, I needed to know how it was going to end. Much in the same way that I’ll read a book to the finish no matter how boring it is. Battlestar Galactica ended too. :( Very sad about that. I loved it beginning to end. I have all the seasons except for the last on DVD which I will be buying as soon as it comes out. I’m planning a marathon, lol.

I have a ton of shows that I’m looking forward to watching next season.

• Grey’s Anatomy
• Private Practice (What a cliffhanger!!)
• Chuck
• Bones
• The Big Bang Theory which is the funniest show since Friends and if you know me at all, you know that this is high praise.
• Two and a Half Men
• The Tudors

Summer season shows that I am really excited about are:

• The Closer
• Raising the Bar
• Gene Simmons Family Jewels (heheh)
• Psych

There are other shows that I watch that I’m not sure when they are due back on but I’m waiting on pins and needles.

• Weeds
• Dexter
• Mad Men
• Big Love
• Flipping Out
• Californication
• The United States of Tara
• My Boys (It hasn’t ended yet but I will be sad when it does and I’ll be looking forward to its next season.)

I hope that Medium does okay on CBS since NBC dropped them. Aside from some grizzly murder scenes and pictures, there really isn’t too much about this show that I would consider too risqué for my kids to watch. It doesn’t have bad language and very little sexual situations. Why can’t people get on board with shows that don’t have half dressed people in it?

There are a few other shows that I watch that are my “fillers” which means that I’ll watch them if I remember that they’re or I’ll catch them in reruns.

• American Chopper
• Deadliest Catch
• Myth Busters
• Ghost Hunters
• Little People, Big World
• J&K + 8 (You know what this one is, right? I used to be a big fan but due to recent events, it’s like watching a train wreck. I don’t know how much I’ll be watching of this season.)

If you have any shows that are not on my lists that you would like to recommend that I watch, DON”T!! I watch too much TV as it is, lol. It’s really no wonder why two DVR’s aren’t enough. 

eBay Woes

I’ve never been a big eBay person. I sold a car stereo and speakers on there once a looong time ago but I have never purchased anything before. I don’t know why. I don’t have anything against it, but it’s never really appealed to me either. Probably for the same reasons why I hate garage sales. I don’t consider people’s trash to be my treasure. Anyway, the Mister was trolling eBay for a thing for his motorcycle. He found exactly what he wanted, brand new, and for about $100 less than retail. “Wow!!”, I thought. “Maybe I have underestimated eBay all these years.” Off I went to peruse all the many eBay items. I found a delectable little item that was again, about half price retail and I went for the “Buy Out” option. As soon as I clicked accept, or whatever the final thing is, I notice that my address was wrong. It had my old address instead of my current one. I don’t remember registering for eBay but apparently I had done so at our old house. CRAP!! So I immediately sent a message to the seller asking her to ship my item to my current address and apologized for the confusion. She replied, thanking me for my prompt payment (I did the fast pay with PayPal), and said she would ship it to my current address.

Then, I get another e-mail from her saying that when she was printing my shipping label, she noticed that I have zero feedback (Um yeah. That would be because this is my first eBay purchase) and with my address change request, she didn’t feel safe mailing me my item. So she refunded my payment and asked me to resubmit with the correct address. I’m an eBay noob here, I have no idea how to re-purchase an item on eBay once the auction has already been closed. I explain this to her and tell her that I would be willing just to send her the payment through PayPal using the “goods” option which would totally switch the trust thing since doing it that way would make it easy for her to renege on the transaction. She replied saying that she has over 13,000 positive feedback and that she would never go back on an agreement and that I should correct my address, cancel the refund, and then she would ship my item. Don’t you think that changing my address would be the first thing that I did after my mistake?

I explained to her that I had, in fact, changed my address on eBay but that it had always been correct on PayPal because I use my PayPal account for business purposes and have had a PayPal account since 2000. I also replied and said that there isn’t an option to cancel the refund as far as I can tell and asked her how to do it since she is such an expert on this stuff. I didn’t say the last part but I was thinking it.

She replied and said that she can send the item to whatever address I have on either eBay or PayPal but I had told her they weren’t correct. Didn’t I already explain that they now match??? Didn’t I tell her that the eBay address was incorrect but that I had changed it so that it wouldn’t be?? ARGH!!! And she also said just to send her the money via PayPal. Didn’t I offer to do that like a thousand e-mails ago?!?!?!? 

I am so frustrated at this point that I don’t even want the damn thing anymore but I can’t go back on this because I already agreed to purchase the item. SO, I am going to send her the money using my PayPal account and hope that she sends me my item. Is eBay always like this? I realize that the original problem was my fault but she had my money because she had to freaking REFUND it to me so how was I not going to pay?!?!?! I should have just gone to a ding dang store and paid full price for what I wanted, had it in hand the moment I paid for it, and been happy with it with no worries that the store wouldn’t give it to me after they already had my ding dang money!!!

I won’t say that I will never eBay again. It surely can’t  be as bad as all this or it wouldn’t be as popular as it is. But, I will think long and consider hard before I do. This level of paranoia is hard to handle.

The Ups and Downs of the Week

As I said earlier, the Mister took some leave this week for what it was worth. He ended up having to go into work both Monday and Tuesday. Not all day, but it was still a pretty crappy arrangement and he was still charged those two days of leave even though he worked both days.

Wednesday we had to get up bright and early for an appointment for the youngest child and then on Thursday, they got out of school early.

Friday, the Mister and I took his car in for new tires, an alignment, and an oil change. We dropped it off around 10:30 in the morning and told them we’d be back to pick it up at 5. That should have given them more than enough time I should think. I called at 4:30 to see if they happened to be done early because I figured that it shouldn’t take 6 1/2 hours to do the work and they said they were doing the alignment. I asked how much longer, and they said 30-45 minutes and they would call when it was ready. I was a bit irritated at that answer. 5:30 rolls around and still no call so we decided to go ahead and drive out figuring they’d call on the way. We get there, and the car is still in their garage. Wth?!?! They didn’t get done until about 6:30. 6:30!!!!!!! They had the car for EIGHT hours. I was not a happy customer. But, I didn’t throw a fit and made them recheck my receipt about five times to make sure they didn’t charge me for anything extra which they did because they tried charging us for new valve stems and we don’t need those cuz we have an air pressure monitoring thing. Oh! And I didn’t even tell you the best part, It turns out that we have freaking Lexus tires on our Rav 4. Wanna guess how much those things cost and how hard they were to find? I won’t say how much we paid but I will tell you that Toyota was going to charge us $1200 for them. Of course, a dealership is going to be more expensive than somewhere else so we didn’t pay quite that much but it was still more than we had guessed it was going to be. We have the sport edition Rav so they have high performance tires on them. Go figure. It’s something to keep in mind the next time we’re in the market for a new car.

So, all in all, the Mister had an entirely sucky leave. The only thing that kept it from being a complete loss was that he got his bonus.

Speaking of his bonus, heheh, we did a little shopping during the week too. I already mentioned the new printer and the Wii Fit. Fun stuff. We also went out for just the regular type of shopping. The oldest child and I hit the Ulta store. It’s makeup in case  you’ve never heard of it. I was like a freaking kid in the candy store. It was all so bright, pretty, and colorful. I ended up with some Smashbox lipglosses, some pretty Opi nail polish in bright, summery colors, and some Urban Decay eye shadow.  I think I”m set in the makeup department for a while.

Then we went to Victoria’s Secret for their sale. I needed new bras and it turns out that it’s been so long since I’ve bought new bras, I had forgotten my size. All the ones I got did not fit and so I still do not have any good bras. It was a bit frustrating. The oldest child and I also got some new panties. Fun!

THEN, we went clothes shopping. I think all of us got new clothes except for the Mister. I don’t know why he didn’t get any new clothes. I think it was because he was shopping for tools and a new baseball cap when we were looking at the clothes, lol. That’s a man for ya. He did get a new Padres baseball cap but it makes his head break out in one of his rashes so he can’t wear it very much, heheh. Yes. He’s still getting rashes. Last night was the worst I’ve ever seen them. The entire left side of his back, from his shoulder to his waist, was a crisscross of welts. It was terrible. And I mean terrible. As someone who was prone to eczema as a child, I feel terrible for him.

Anyway, he went back to work yesterday at noon and is now on a 24 hour duty. Yay for him. But, he has Monday and Tuesday off for the holiday so it’s not that bad. The girls and I are going to have a Wii marathon and our traditional “Daddy has Duty Dinner” of turkey tettrazzin. We’ re looking forward to it, lol.

I hope everyone has a great extended weekend. Enjoy the unofficial start to summer. I know I will.

Close Calls

When we lived in California, we did quite a bit of flying to and from Ohio to visit family. One such unforgettable time, we were coming in to land at the airport in Columbus. We were close enough to the ground that we could see cars and stuff below us. Then all of a sudden, the plane pulled up really hard. The engines were as loud as I’ve ever heard them on a  plane and the whole thing shook with the effort. As passengers, we had no idea what was happening. I don’t recall the captain or any of the crew making announcements to explain or being worried. We were all just curious. My dad was there to pick us up and it turns out that he saw the whole thing from the ground. This must’ve been before 9/11 because he wouldn’t have been able to see from baggage claim. Anyway, he told us that they almost landed us on top of another plane. When the plane pulled up at the last second, he said that black smoke poured out of the engines. That’s how fast and how hard we went back up to avoid what could possibly have been a deadly situation. It’s hard to be traumatized by something that I didn’t see or even realize was going on at the time, but that’s probably as close to death as I’ve ever come.

Since living here in North Carolina, the Mister and I have come extremely close to being involved in very bad car accidents. The head on collision with the Mustang that I blogged about a while back (Sorry. I’m too lazy to find and link to the post.) was extremely scary. This weekend, however, was the worst. Once again, we were on route 17 on the way to Greenville. It started raining pretty good just as the forecast had predicted. Suddenly, the car two cars in front of us hit water in the road and completely spun out. Ironically, it was another Mustang. The car spun and hit two other cars, her hood flew off and landed on the opposite side of the road, and she headed straight for us. I will never in a million years forget the sight of that red sports cars spinning so fast that we lost count of how many doughnuts she turned and watching knowing that she was going to hit us and there was nowhere we could go. Then, she hit the ditch and with the rain softening the earth, she finally came to a stop deep in the mud. The driver who was maybe 18 years old, got out of her car shortly after the Mister ran up to her and her passenger to see if they were okay. I was amazed that anyone could get out of that car on their own steam. I had told the girls to stay in the car and not to look because that was how bad the accident seemed. The other cars she hit, one was totalled and the other one had some pretty good front end damage but it had landed in the ditch too and can probably be fixed. Miraculously, everyone involved was not seriously hurt. The girl was eventually taken away by ambulance because her back was sore, and while I haven’t heard anything, I’m pretty sure she’s okay. She was walking around and stuff before she realized that she was in pain. I managed to hold it together enough to tell 911 where we were. That was my first 911 call too, by the way. It rang three times before they answered and it seemed like a lifetime. I felt so bad for that girl. Her car, what was left of it, was a mangled heap and she’s probably going to end up with a few citations. The funny thing, the 911 operator asked me if we were on north or southbound 17. I don’t know directions when I’m not shaking half to death, lol. Also, the lady whose yard we all ended up in, came out of her house in her pajamas and was worried that people would notice, lol. The things people worry about.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my weekend. Well, the oldest is grounded again,but that’s hardly exciting news anymore. She spends more time grounded than ungrounded these days.

Free Movies??

I saw this online from Work at Home Mom Revolution. It sounds like a good deal  to me! There’s a  Regal Cinema pretty close to where I live so there’s a good chance there will be one close to your house too. Go to Regal’s Website to read more about the offer and to check your state for a participating movie theater.

REG Free Family Film Festival Beginning June 2009!
When school’s out, kids around the country visit selected Regal theatres for the Free Family Film Festival. It’s a fun-filled nine weeks of movies for kids and parents. Since 1991, Regal has provided this service to the community, and best of all it’s FREE!

Selected G & PG movies start at 10AM each Tuesday and Wednesday during the festival. First-come, first-served seating is limited to theatre capacity. The Free Family Film Festival is safe, lots of fun and a great way for kids to spend a weekday morning in the summer.

Tickets for our 2009 Free Family Film Festival are exclusively available at select theatres’ box office on the day of the show.

Another Random Thought Kinda Day

The Mister goes on leave tomorrow at noon. I’m really looking forward to having him home. Monday, he has an early morning thing so he’s getting up with the kids and getting them off to school. Yay!! I get to sleep in on a Monday. Woot!

Speaking of getting the kids to school…I think I need anger management therapy or I need to learn how to meditate or I just need a vacation. The carpool lane at the oldest’s school is really getting the better of me. Maybe I’ll take a video of it so you all can better understand why one of these days, I’m going to take my car and ram a bunch of other cars with it. I need a bigger car for that though. The Scion wouldn’t stand up to ramming too many cars, heheh. On a totally serious note, I need to figure out someway to keep my cool because I let perfect strangers (yes, they’re idiots, but strangers all the same) get to me way too much. But at least I’m not the only one. I had a lady get out of her car last week and come up to me to ask why people are so rude in the carpool lane. I didn’t have a good answer for her other than that they are assholes (sorry). I didn’t say that, but I was thinking it.

Also speaking of the kids…The oldest had a project she had to do for math class. She had to go on a “scavenger hunt” to find different geometric lines and shapes to see how they’re used and can be found in real life. She also had to document where she found all the different items. She chose to make a book with illustrations, clippings, and pictures of her loot. She did a decent job of it. I asked her what the other kids did and she said most of them used Power Point and turned in CD’s of their projects, lmao. Geez. She also said some of them made websites of their hunt. I guess I’m a bit stuck in the past because it never occurred to me that a digital project would be acceptable. When she told me that, I said she should have made a blog diary of her hunt. She responded by saying that blogging is my thing, not hers!! I had to laugh. She’s pretty, popular, and other than games, not interested in computers. Sometimes I really wonder if she’s my kid at all.

I received 13 work related e-mails this morning all before 8 am!! Talk about the early bird getting the worm. Who goes to work that early in the morning? Well, besides the Mister, heheh. Don’t regular, civilian-type people work 9-5? Or is that just a rumor?

The more I work, the more I love it. I have no regrets about being a stay at home  mom for 12 years. I raised my kids myself and I’m working at something that I actually like. I’m also working because I want to and not because I have to. Not many people can say any of that. I’m also meeting awesome people, most of whom are other work at home moms, Most importantly, I’m appreciated. Some days, work is the only thing that keeps me sane. It’s something positive to focus my energy on.

Oh! And I downloaded Pocket Tanks on my iPod yesterday!! I was pretty excited about finding it, lol. The Mister and I used to play it on our computers back in California but I had forgotten about it. It’s way fun even on the free version that I downloaded and a great time waster. If you want to check it out for yourself, here’s the link to their website:  http://www.blitwise.com/ptanks.html . Super DX Ball is fun too and another shareware game you can download at their website. I’ve also been playing the heck out of Kingdoms and iMobsters on my iPod too. It’s silly, I know.

I think that’s about it. I have to go and attend to those 13 e-mails. No rest for the wicked.

 

Use Your Eyes

Check this out:  Optical Illusions

Save the Drama for Your Mama!

Mother’s Day was uneventful at my house. The youngest made me a thing at school and the oldest endeavored not to be a pain. The Mister’s present to me was to take the kids to the commissary so I didn’t have to go and so I could have a couple hours alone. It was darn near perfect. I got exactly what I wanted, heheh.I also managed to talk to my mom, stepmom, and sister on the phone and I texted with my brother on Sunday as well. Talk about a banner freaking day. I hadn’t talked with my brother in any form in months. It had been so long that he had a different phone number. My mom was enjoying the last day of her Disney vacation. My poor stepmom was at work but seemed to be in a good mood overall. My sister found out that her offer on a house had been accepted so she’s soon going to be a first time homeowner. Honestly though, I think I had the best Mother’s Day of all. ;)

Oh. And the youngest spilled a Coke all over my wireless keyboard. I was sure it was ruined because every other keyboard that I’ve spilled soda on (it happens way more often than it should), the keys stuck so I couldn’t type and I figured a wireless keyboard would have more components to ruin. I was wrong. I’m typing on it now and the keys don’t stick at all. It’s a MIRACLE!! Either that or the soda just hasn’t dried yet but I remain hopeful that I won’t have to buy yet another keyboard.

Uh, umm, hmm…

I couldn’t resist taking a break from work to post about this article that I just read on Guila’s website. If you’ll remember, I mentioned Guila Muir in an earlier post because I was doing some work for a couple months ago. Well, now I’m helping her get her new website and blog up and running live and while I was working, I saw this article about disfluencies that I thought some of you might find interesting. Umm’ing and uh’ing actually help people to remember what you say!! In Guila’s opinion, however, public speakers should still strive to remove these disfluencies  (I like that word, heheh.) from their speech because people still find them a bit distracting. I tend to agree with Guila, and not just because she’s paying me, lol, but because in my unprofessional opinion, um’s and uh’s make you sound nervous and unsure about your subject. I hear myself doing it and cringe every time knowing I sound like a dunce. Anyway, below is the article and I will link to it once Guila’s new website is live.

Presentation Skills: Can Dreaded “Ers” and “Ums” Actually be Positive ? by Guila Muir of Guila Muir and Associates

A recent study at Stirling and Edinburgh Universities (U.K.) found that the use of “ers” and “ums” in speech boosted listeners’ retention. These speech boo-boos, called “disfluencies,” actually helped people remember what had been said.

Here’s how it worked: Volunteers listened to a series of sentences, some including verbal blunders and some not. When tested, volunteers remembered more of the sentences with the disfluencies (62% vs. 55%), a statistically significant difference.

What’s going on? Researchers guess that speech disfluencies force the brain to pay attention. Dr Martin Corley, of Edinburgh University, says “It’s like we are saying to ourselves, ‘I’d better pay attention now, because what I thought was going to happen isn’t going to happen!’ ”

Even with this surprising news, most presenters want to clean their speech of disfluencies. And as listeners, we all know how distracting constant “ers” and “ums” can be!

On Being Laid Up

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday some other stuff that has been keeping life less than sane.

My dad had surgery last week on his leg. He had blockages in his leg which were keeping the blood from reaching his foot which caused major pain. He had the same thing in his other leg and had a successful operation on that one too. He’s home and resting comfortably. From what he’s told me, this second surgery was easier than the first. Still, it’s hard not being there with him through this.

The Mister escaped the stomach flu that the girls and I had but instead he has these strange, itchy rashes. It’s really the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. He’ll get them randomly on his face, legs, hands, chest, back, wherever. Sometimes they looks like rash-y bumps, sometimes they look live massive hives, sometimes like scratches or welts. And they come and go in a matter of minutes. They’re driving him insane as  you can probably imagine. He tried going to medical (which should tell you how bad they are. He hates going to medical for anything and won’t go until his miserable.) but they were absolutely no help whatsoever other than to recommend Cortisone cream. He’s also been taking Benadryl but since it makes him drowsy, he can only take it at night. We’re at a loss as to what to do. The doctors said they might be stressed related but they happen at all times of the day and night no matter what he’s doing or where he’s at. Besides, if they were stressed related, he would have been covered in them back in Vermont. If anyone has any insights, your comment would be loved and welcomed.

Lastly, how about that swine flu? We have 7 cases (at last count) here in NC the majority of which are in the county I live in, go figure. One of the elementary schools in the area was closed because of it but since the CDC said that’s unnecessary, it’s opening back up tomorrow. I’m not really a paranoid sick person so I don’t think about it too much.

Constantly Playing Catch Up

I have no routine or pattern to my days anymore. I’m not OCD, at least I don’t think so, but I need structure. I’m like a child that way, lol. Here’s what’s been going on and why I’m in and out so much.

First of all, the Mister reenlisted for another four years of the Marine Corps. So much debate, so much back and forth, so many headaches. Only time will tell if it’s the right decision or not but either way, I’m glad it’s done. I’m watching my bank account like a hawk waiting for the bonus to be deposited because yes, we’re greedy and we have a poor attitude  and there would have been NO, and I mean no, reenlistment without it. That’s all I want to say on this subject.

Secondly, the Mister and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary on Sunday. To say we celebrated is a bit of an exaggeration but we did manage to  fit in dinner out with the girls after shopping at the commissary. We’re wild and crazy.

Next, work has been all over the place for me. I’ve had two repeat customers asking me to do more work for them this past week and another client that was supposed to have given me work clear back in October but couldn’t because of the economy offer me some hours. I dropped a client who was insane (just my opinion but I think they were just a bit.) and I’m continuing work with the two clients that I consider to be my main client base. They’re long term and I love them both. LOVE! I’ve been working for almost a year now and have discovered that what I do is very much a roller coaster. Some months I have five clients, some only two Some weeks I have multiple projects and many hours of work and some I only have one project and just a few hours of work. Good thing that I can go with the flow.

We’ve also been dealing with the youngest and her “issues”. I think I’ve said in the past how she’s been diagnosed with ADHD. Well, we’ve been getting her tested and reevaluated with a different pediatrician, psychologist, speech pathologist, and a brand new developmental pediatrician. My life has been a whirlwind of doctor’s visits, filling out patient history forms that are more like novellas, tracking down old patient records, and trying to get everything scheduled so that as little school as possible is missed. Today was insane as I had to pick both kids up early from school in the pouring freaking rain because of a scheduling snafu. And NONE of these doctors are in the town we live in. The closest is 25 miles away and the furthest is about 55 miles away.  It sucks but theses are the sacrifices that you make for your children. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find someone who can give us a definitive diagnosis and that can offer real help because through three states, four psychologists, and so many pediatricians that I’ve lost count, nobody has been able to help us help her and it’s been a hard and long road.

With summer around the corner and several family members threatening to come down for a visit, heheh, I have no idea when or if things will get back to normal.