Last Day of Work in Texas

Well, today was my last day here in Texas as a working woman. It was bittersweet but a lot got done today.

I came in to a cake, flowers, balloon, gifts and homemade breakfast tacos by RR. All good as I was going to go next door to buy one anyways. Saved me some money. We all sat around and talked while we ate. Had to have our morning water cooler talk about WifeSwap and Apprentice. I opened my gifts and found some Mary Kay goodies and a girly girl bag. It was very sweet and very appreciated.

I was asked if I liked a restaurant called Fish Daddy. I have never been there so they decided that is where I needed to go for my farewell lunch. I got a bunch of stuff sorted and thrown away this morning and passed along what I needed to pass along. Then it was off to lunch we went.

Lunch passed quickly and it was good. Then back to the grind. Had E in there for a bit as we needed to figure out some stuff. BossLady followed with stuff to go over with me. We got that taken care of and I got my paycheck along with my remaining vacation days paid.

So that is what it is like to work for a mature employer. Sorry E didn't work for one this past time.

B had his own little party at school complete with cupcakes and pictures. They were all pretty good except for one who was sent to the office. E went to the school to celebrate with him. B was thrilled to see Daddy. He finished his day out and I went to pick him up. Said goodbye to Ms. Maria. I was getting all emotional both at work and at his school. What was that all about?

We will be heading out tomorrow morning. I will be with B and the cat in one car and E will be in the other car. Quiet ride for him and noisy for me.

Wish me luck and send good wishes for a safe drive and prompt delivery of the moving truck on Friday.

"These dreams go on when I close my eyes, every second of the night I live another life......" Heart

It has been a while since I have had a dream sequence. Here is the latest from last night.

I am at a water park with B, E and my family and we are riding the water rides. B and I want to go on a water log ride. As we try to go on the ride, they change it to a water slide. And we go down and enjoy it. But it was a fun and peaceful ride all at the same time.

According to dreammoods.com, this is what part of the dream means:

Waterslide
To dream that you are on or see a waterslide, suggests that you are being swept away by your emotions. You are slowly exploring the realm of your unconscious. Alternatively, the dream suggests that you are going with the flow of things without any objections or resistance.

I think it means the latter. I seem to be going with the flow of everything and just taking this ride in life by stride. I am calm and that is incredible for me.

Everything was pretty well packed into the moving trailer this Saturday thanks to a few past co-workers of E's that were kind enough to take the time and help. We are very appreciative for them as they made it move pretty fast. We are sleeping on the floors in sleeping bags and playing camp out. It is fun for us to be in the same room together.

Here is hoping the rest of this week goes by as easily as this weekend has. Departure is Wednesday morning.

March 22-23. Days from HELL!!!

It is not often that I go completely off in a blog post. But this time I think that I absolutely deserve it.

Bad Thing #1 - E was involved in an auto accident. E was stopped and was rearended by a GMC truck. You would think that his Mazda 6 would be torn up but it is not. Amazingly there were only a few scratches and scuffs on the back of his bumper. The woman gave her insurance information and we called in the claim. The woman decided to call back and give sass on what was on the claim. E than reminded her that he had not called out the police therefore letting her avoid a ticket for ACDA. She had a choice. Quit griping or he will file the police report too and let that show up on her record. Haven't heard from her since.

Bad Thing #2 - One of my co-workers decided that in a staff meeting that it would be a great time to berate me in front of our boss on an answer that I gave on the phone to a client. She never talked to me before about it and chose that moment to let loose on how she felt. That ticks me off to the highest degree. I confronted her after the meeting and she got all defensive. I made my point and let it be.

Bad Thing #3 - E gets a text message from Asshole V (the new service manager) to come into the office. E gets in and he decides to tell E that they have decided to let him go early. Now he only had four more days to go and the right thing to do would have been to just let him work out those days after the dedication that he gave that place for well over a year. But they decided that there was not enough work. That is crap. That is why he had driven over 100+ miles that day for service calls. I think that Asshole V wanted him gone and this was the way to do it. To make matters MUCH worse, they screwed him with his paycheck. He got a check for 40 hours and NO VACATION PAY!! He was promised that he would get the rest of his vacation pay when he leaves but according to Asshole V, BossMan J was pissed off when E took a day off to stay at home with B when B was running a fever. I could not stay home because of a work meeting that I had to be at. Asshole V said that a part of the agreement of E getting his vacation pay was that he could not take off any time before he was to leave or he would lose that. E doesn't remember it and I do not see it in writing. BossMan J feels that I should have stayed home with B that day, regardless if I had work commitments. Sorry Jackass, but when you are in a dual income household there are things to consider and that is one of them. But he would not know that. His wife stays home and their youngest child is in DAY CARE!! Explain that one to me. So much for being a family friendly company. I guess that only counts when it is their family and NO ONE ELSES. End result: We were screwed out of $800 post tax. Not good. Plus, BossMan J & BossMan H did not bother to meet with him before he was let go when they were the ones responsible for uprooting all of our lives to move to Texas Hell. They could have cut their losses in July and E could have moved back and we could avoided the whole transition. Cowards!!!

Bad Thing #4 - I am awoken at 1:30 AM to a howling scream. All I thought was "Great there are two cats getting it on outside my bedroom.". Then I hear it again and realize it is coming from the other side of the house. I listen again and it does not sound like B. I look next to me and realize that E was not there. Oh great, something is wrong. I get out of bed and stumble into the bathroom. He is in there just moaning in pain. He tells me there is a sharp pain in his left side and he could not go to the bathroom. I had to think for a second and realized that it may be kidney stones. Perfect. That is not good as it will constitute a trip to the ER and bills that we cannot afford now. But E needed to be taken care of and that came first. I called my mom to see if what I was thinking was correct. My dad had kidney stones and she knows what the symptoms are. And she confirmed that it was probably kidney stones. So we got dressed, got B up and headed to the ER. E was still moaning in pain and B was completely confused. Got to the ER and they got E in right away. B was a champ. He behaved so well in the ER. I am still in shock. They gave E a CT scan, a strainer and a good dose of drugs. He was feeling no pain when we left there. Got home at around 6 AM. I had to go in late to work and miss an event I ccordinated but I knew that I would be worth absolutely nothing if I went in right away with little to no sleep under me.

So, all in all, it has been a hideous past couple of days. Good things that have come out of it are that the trip to the ER may be covered under the auto insurance claim as the impact possibly jarred the stones that were in the kidney and forced them to pass. And the meds for him to take were under $10. Thank God for generic.

Now all we need is more money. Anyone wish to contribute? It can go to the E Got Screwed fund. Thanks!!!

Kids Are Too Smart Nowadays

This post is inspired from MissOhio92. AKA Crowns of Ohio.

I was in the bathroom drying my hair when B came in. He wanted to listen to iTunes on the computer. I told him to wait until I was finished.

As I continue to dry my hair I hear music coming from the computer. I look over and the screen for iTunes is on the computer!!! I ask if Daddy brought it up for him and he did not say a word. E then walked in and I asked him if he brought up the screen for iTunes. He said no. We both look at each other and look at B. He just sat there with a smile on his face.

We closed out the screen and asked him to show us how to get into iTunes again. B moved the mouse to the icon, double clicked and opened the screen. Then he selected a song and double clicked. It started to play.

I will be darned!! He really did open that himself. A four year old opened iTunes!

I am amazed with how much more kids know. I wonder if it is just easier for them in a technology driven society or if they learn it while we are pregnant with them. LOL!!

I still think it is hysterical when someone is using a 35MM camera and a child asks to see the back of it to see the picture. Goes to prove how much we have advanced technologically.

Texas Garage Sales Rock My World

Sorry I have been a bit absent lately. Have been preparing for a garage sale to help fund our return home to Ohio. And boy did it pay off!

I posted our garage sale on www.craigslist.org and got some hits off of it. Early hits. I contacted these people about some of the stuff being offered and got no reply. I figured I may have wasted my time. But it was too early to tell.

We spent Friday night making large bright colored posters with big arrows. The fumes from the markers were killing me but we made it. I went to bed shortly after finishing the posters because I was beyond exhausted. E came to bed at midnight and was back up at 6 AM to hang posters.

I got up and went to the garage. It was almost 6:30 AM and E had just come back. When he came back so did two other cars. People to start buying. At 6:30 AM?!?!?! Crazy. We put on the posters from 9 AM - 3 PM. But what I learned yesterday was that the die hard garage salers were out by 6 AM.

We had a steady stream of people from 6:30 AM to 8:00 AM. Unbelievable. A number of our larger items were purchased as well as a bunch of stuff I thought would never go at all. Majority who came were hispanic and some did not even speak English. But they knew prices and how to negotiate. I hate negotiating at garage sales!!! The price is on there, pay it or go.

One of the best things we did was put a tote full of toys that we were selling in the very front of the garage and the glass items in the very back. No kids came back to the area because the y were taken by the toys in the front. Genius!!

Another thing that we did was put all of the baby clothes in three totes. Some had prices and some did not. We just told people that we would negotiate when they brought the items to us. Once we looked through all of the stuff we made an offer. All but one offer was taken. The woman had about $200 retail worth of clothing. We asked $28 and she balked at that. Put it all back and a woman right behind her picked them all up and brought them over to us. Then she paid for it. That was a hoot.

One memorable story was a Mexican man was looking really hard at my photo vanity. He kept debating over whether to buy it or not. He showed his wife and she fell in love with it. After much debate he passed it because of the cost. E and I decided to let them make us an offer. We negotiated and took the offer. She was so ecstatic. It made me feel good.

To top it off we got rid of a ton of clutter, opened up two totes to pack and made enough money to help us move back. A good sale if you ask me. And the thing that was funniest of all this. It RAINED ALL DAY!! In Ohio, no one would come out but they sure do here!!!!

And this morning I took a small test of where I should live. Here is what mine said:

You Belong in New York City

You're an energetic, ambitious woman.And only NYC is fast enough for you.Maybe you'll set yourself up with a killer careerOr simply take in all the city has to offer.

What City Do You Belong In?"

Not sure if I agree with that but who knows?!?!

My Hot Pick for American Idol

Watched all two hours of American Idol last night. After much evaluation with E we decided who was hot to stay and who needed to go. Here are our picks from last nights performance alone:

Hot to stay:

Chris Daughtry
Mandisa
Paris Bennett
Katharine McPhee

Has to go:

Kellie Pickler

Last night was a rough night for many of the contestants. But the four above stood out and did an outstanding job in our opinion.

I am trying to figure out how to post the pics from the website for all to see and I am not successful. HELP!!!

SpongeBob SquarePants really does teach a lesson!!

OK. I am in shock. SpongeBob SquarePants is actually quality TV that can be used as a learning tool.

To be fair, who can take seriously a cartoon that is based under the sea and the key character lives in a pineapple? And he is a sponge and wears pants and underwear?!?! Not me.

But as I was applying my make-up this morning I caught myself listening to the show. They were doing a show on how it was wrong to steal. A good lesson to teach a child. Then I recalled one episode where they were teaching about consequences. Another one that I put in the back of my mind.

I always say that I learn something new every day but that was the one thing I did not expect to learn.

Sing it with me:

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SpongeBob SquarePants
Absorbent and yellow and pourous is he
SpongeBob SquarePants
If nautical nonsense be something you wish
SpongeBob SquarePants
Then flub on the deck and flop like a fish
SpongeBob SquarePants

Ready?!?!
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants
Spoooooonge Boooooob Squareeeeeeeeee Paaaaaaannnnntttss!!

And for those parents at work. I apologize for now getting the song into your head.

The Purging Party

What a title for today but it does explain my weekend to a T.

We have been cleaning out as an effort to bring less back to Ohio. Had to clean through piles of mail, items in filing cabinets and all unnecessary crap that keeps piling up. We took yesterday to do most of this and accomplished a lot.

We now have a trash can filled to the brim with purged items and plenty of shreddings from our paper shredder. We gave it such an incredible work out that it stopped working on us twice!! We let it cool down and returned to it to do more work.

To reward ourselves we went to the park to do soem kite flying and to let B run the playground. Went to dinner and came home to watch Desperate Housewives. YEAH!! A brand new episode was on!!!

Posted our garage sale on www.craigslist.org. Hopefully will have people look at it and come to help contribute to the Moving Back To Ohio Fund. We could seroiusly use all the money that we can get.

So Much To Do... So Little Time....

This week has been interesting.

All of us have been battling the head cold, congestion, fever stuff that has been going around. And this is due to stupid people who do NOT keep their kids home from day care even if they know they have a fever. So the rest of us responsible parents get sick along with our kids. Nice.

This has placed a major damper on all that we have needed to get done. My goal was to have a tote packed per night and I have been lucky to get two packed per week. We were hoping to have a garage sale today but we decided to hold off until next weekend. I was also hoping to work out this week but working out with a cold hurts like heck. Oh well.

The goal of this weekend is to get everything packed up as much as possible and then set up all week for the garage sale next weekend. Maybe I will follow Martini's advice and start listing stuff on Craig's List. Hopefully that will move some stuff and give us more money for the move back.

We also need to do some spot grocery shopping. This will be fun. We received $22 of gift certificates from HEB here and we plan to use them. We at least need food for lunches and dinners. Maybe some breakfast too.

Wish me luck on packing everything!!! I will need it.

Telltale Signs of a True Friend

This blog entry is dedicated to Flexigirl. I tell her that she is important to me but I do not tell her often enough. I hope that this will help her understand why she is such a terrific friend:

Here are the signs:

1) Will always have their home open to you 24/7 whenever you need it.
2) Will make sure that you never feel like a guest but always feel like you belong.
3) Will let you talk about yourself when you need to and not go stir-crazy at the thought of it.
4) Will be there to help sort out important decisions in your life.
5) Will let their children sleep in their room to allow you to have a comfortable place to stay (even when their children snore!).
6) Will be willing to drive anywhere with you just to spend the extra time with you.
7) Will share their stuff with you just because they can.
8) Will stay up late with you just to catch up on everything going on in life.
9) Will wake up extremely early in the morning to make sure that you are okay and to say goodbye.
10) Will call or e-mail to just to say hello or let you know that they miss you.

All of these are what Flexigirl is awesome at. I am blessed to have her in my life.

Thank you for all that you do. You are a true treasure.

Interview World

Finally, more insight on my weekend.

I had three interviews that I was going up for. Here is a synopsis from each:

Interview #1:

It was a breakfast meeting at a little restaurant called First Watch. Had never been there before but looked very cozy. I got there 15 minutes before my interview. The agent and his staff member were 15 minutes late. So there was a half an hour more to be anxious about the meeting. See, this agent came in the same time as my old BossMan and they are good friends. That brings up the tension even more. When they finally arrived we chatted and hit a lot of points early on. It was interesting. We finished breakfast and I was asked to come to the office to have a peek around. So I headed over there in my rental PT Cruiser (ick). Got to the office and spent an hour there talking and looking at the building. Left with the promise that I would get a call over the weekend.

I did receive three calls. One for reassurance that he was interested, one for salary requirements and one to let me know he could not afford me at the present time. Bummer.

Interview #2:

This agent is a relatively new agent (5 years) and was looking for someone to fill in while her staff person was on maternity leave. But also looking past that too. She is in need of someone who can roll up their sleeves and dig in for the sales. Something I am currently doing now. We hit it off well. Ironically, the staff member she had before went to work with my old BossMan. The main reason I can't return there. But she is more of a service person versus a sales person.

No job offer. Hers was a matter of growing pains. Catch 22. She can't afford to have me but can't afford not to have me. I can respect that.

Interview #3:

I was pretty well informed that the job was mine unless I passed it up. But I had never met the agent and wanted to get to know him. I went in and interviewed for 2.25 hours!!! I was offered the position and the bonus structure in the first 30 minutes. He was more than willing to pay what I was asking and feels that I deserve it due to the amount of experience. That does not give me room to slack off. But gives me the incentive to work that much harder and aim for the bonuses. They are really good.

End result: Job offered, job accepted!!!

I have a job!!! I can breathe a bit more now. Now to work on E's job situation.

And the best part, it is 10 minutes from the house and with a family oriented agent. Something that I love. He is a father and a grandfather so he understands it. His wife works there and so does his daughter-in-law. I asked if that makes me the long lost daughter that he never had?!!? They laughed.

I think this will work very well. Keep the fingers crossed.

Airport craziness

I will share my Thursday and write later about the rest of my weekend.

Left work early afternoon on Thursday to finish up packing and loading the car with my suitcases for Ohio. Had three interviews lined up and had to get going on everything. Got the last of my packing done and loaded the suitcases into the car. Picked up B and waited for E to get home to take me to the airport. I was hoping for some good conversation with E before I left but work calls kept coming in for him. And he was supposed to be on his lunch break!?!?! I don't think so.

Got to the airport and B was crashed out. I kissed him good bye and left to get my stuff checked in and go through security. When checking in, I put on the screen that I had less that 50 pounds per bag. The airline employee quickly corrects me that I needed to weigh the bags first then put that in. After flashing a sweet "I know what the hell I am doing so leave me alone" smile I put the bags on the scales to prove my point. They were both under the 50 pounds. So me being me I made a silly face behind her back and she turned too quickly to see me do it. Whoops. But the other airport employee saw and laughed. Said that she needed to be put in her place.

Got through security and went to my gate. Plane was due in on time and I was happy. Then the sign changed and it was going to be delayed by 10 minutes. I started to panic as I knew that my flight to Columbus was the last flight that night. I went to the desk and asked if I was going to miss my flight. They assured me that it would not happen. So I go back to an impatient wait. They finish unloading the plane and start to call for our flight. And they took their precious time doing it. It was getting irritating.

After they called all of the first class, OnePass Elite Members and everyone else that was not important I finally got to board. I get myself settled and was seated next to a gorgeous blonde. I will admit it, she was hot. I felt so frumpy in my jeans and shirt then. We started talking and she was a sweet girl. She was heading to Sarasota to see her boyfriend who is a baseball player with the Cincinnati Reds. Nice. But not so nice was the fact that the plane started to take off then sat forever. There was plane traffic and we had to wait for the plane to take off. There was a delay of 15 more minutes. Panic set in.

As I was freaking out about missing my plane I felt a little relieved that my plane took off at 7:05 PM. The girl who was next to me, her connection was at 6:30 PM. And she was going to possibly miss it. We were frantically calling to the airlines to see if they would hold our flight or if they were delayed and no one could give us the answer. Finally we take off and were told that we will find out more at the airport.

We arrived in at 6:35 PM. Most of the people on my flight missed their connecting flights and I had very little time to make it to my gate. And of course my gate was all the way across the airport. I ran like you could not imagine and it hurt like heck. I made it to my plane completely winded and hungry. No time to get something to eat so I got into my seat and finally caught my breath.

Then they were having problems with people on the plane. They overbooked the flight and now people were scrambling for seats. There was an empty seat by me and they wanted to put someone in it. Me with my blood sugar going down told the snotty stewardess that the only way someone could sit next to me was if they had food. She just snapped at me that I had no choice unless I wanted to move seats. So here comes my seatmate.

My seatmate was incredible. Built beautifully and had a duffle bag full of food. Found out that he was the 2nd ranked Strongman in the world. And he was going up for the Arnold Classic in Columbus. First thing I say to him was "So, do you have any food or what?" Clever. But he produced a smoothie for me and gave me fruit snacks. Thank god for a good sense of humor.

Because of his build, I was squished in my seat. But I did not care. We chatted for a bit and found out that he was married and had a stepson. Then we talked about competing and I told him about Mrs. Ohio. He was very impressed and couldn't help but brag to his wife about me. She was really cool and we talked competition.

Then the fun of the trip. I pulled my DVD player out and played the movie Love Stinks. For anyone who has seen it they understand the humor of the movie. The closed caption was on and it can be read on the screen. Before long, I was watching the movie along with the two people seated next to me and the two people behind me. It was a riot.

Finally we touched down and got off the plane. Into cold Ohio. Oh well.

Definitely a very interesting plane excursion.

The Good Catholic Girl Thing!!

Okay, have to give up something for Lent. If Martini and Maynan Mombi can do it, I can too.

40 days. What can I give up for 40 days? I jokingly told E that it could be sex. Thought he was going to go into cardiac arrest. But he is fine.

Martini gave up iTunes
Maynan Mombi gave up eBay shopping
Ohio Queen will give up pizza.

Don't need it but it is very easy to grab it in a quick fix.

I could give up drinking but I do not do much of it anyway so why bother? God help it be Frozen Cokes or chocolate. I thought about the Cadbury Creme Egg but alas I am not strong enough.

So pizza it is.

Post what you are giving up for Lent if you are Catholic.