The source of my annoyance

This first picture is the house that is being built directly across the street from my house. It can be yours for the low listing price of *evil voice* One Million Dollars!



This is the view from my driveway. Notice that the white truck is parked pretty much dead center to my driveway (and has been every day for the last I don't know how long). Also take note to the right side of the picture, truck parked to one side of the driveway with it's tailgate down. This morning there was another truck parked to the other side of the driveway. Which brings us to the source of my annoyance. The driveway is surrounded by trucks which makes it a royal PAIN IN THE BOOTY to leave the house. The truck that was gone before I could take the picture could not have been closer to my driveway without actually being IN the driveway.



And last of all is the sign that is planted in front of the house, anyone notice the date on it? Now, I took this picture not more than 15 minutes ago and last I checked it's already SUMMER. *whine* When oh when will the overpriced house be done?!

Oh yeah, don't ya like the port-a-potty in the front yard?

Vacation, small town and Bonda

This weekend we are packing up and going on our first "vacation". We are leaving the state for just over a week and visiting friends and family. We are not going anywhere super spectacular, but it will be great! Ok, so I really could do without all the work that goes into getting everyone ready to go. And the 9 hour drive. And all the laundry and crap when we get back. BUT I'm so excited! This will also be the first time in close to a year where we've gone out of town as a family (with no work involved). I'll say it again, I'm excited!

The past day or so I have been thinking about where I grew up, since that happens to be one of our destinations. I grew up in a small town, smack dab in the middle of the US. They have a Wal-Mart, McDonalds, TacoBell, Sonic and that's about it! Small town WalMart only has 14 registers and usually only 5 or so of them are open. You get the point.

In SmallTown America owning a Honda is a big deal, a very big deal. Shortly after Josh and I got married we were on a visit to SmallTown and spotted a very interesting sight. It was a car that was 25% Honda and 75% Bondo. Subsequent visits had us pondering the status of the beloved Bonda. Most trips we'd drive across town (5 whole minutes!) and see how Bonda was coming along.

One visit in particular had us rather excited, Bonda had found a buddy! Bonda and Hondo had united, it was a freaky looking couple. Hondo got the better end of the deal though. He was comprised of at least 50% Honda and 50% Bondo. It also seemed that the owners of Bonda and Hondo were getting much better with their craftmanship for Hondo had a much smoother finish than the Bubbly Bonda.

The next visit had us even more excited for Bonda and Hondo had even more company After their union they seemed to have a baby, this was an exciting day indeed! This car was affectionatly dubbed Hobo as we were running out of punny options. Hobo was primer grey and hardly had a trace of bondo. At 95% Honda and only 5% bondo, Hobo was blessed with good genetics!

As I mentioned in my previous post, it's been about a year since we've been back to visit. I wonder what has become of Bonda, Hondo and Hobo...

Long time, no posting

It's summertime, what can I say? Well, that and the fact that I'm trying to get things ready to go on vacation. We leave this weekend for a few days in Kansas City and then a few days visiting family. That's the topic of a whole other post which will come. So, the week of the 4th there won't be much new content. When we get back I should be in the swing of things though! So, there's your advanced warning. :-P

How evil is WalMart?

Jill, this one is for you. Make sure you're nice and comfy, this could take a little bit. If anyone out there also has an evil WalMart story, please share it!

The Wal-Mart woes all started 7 years ago with my first "real" job. Yes, that's right, working for WalMart was my first full time job. In those days I worked the closing shift in the infant and boys section. At the end of the summer I moved out of state and transferred to another store. I still worked the closing shift, but this time as a cashier. Later I moved back to the sales floor, I became the phone operator and fitting room person. At this point I moved again, across the state and was unable to transfer again.

Oh, but it doesn't end there! Nope, not at all.

The experience I gained working with WalMart landed me a spiffy job of Menswear manager at none other than K-Mart. Well, one thing led to another and after 9 months I applied at WalMart. This time, because of my experience at K-Mart (isn't it funny how that works?) I was given more money with WalMart! So, I started as a stocker. I reported for duty at 5am and got off at 2pm, crazy, but I loved it at the time. This store is where I spent the bulk of my time and actually got the bulk of my retail experience.

I stared as a stocker for softlines and a back-up cashier. I "served time" in the shoe department, domestics, lawn and garden, seasonal, the smoke shop, the TLE (cashier) and finally, fabrics and crafts. I'm sure you've all seen a WalMart store that has been in the process of remodeling. I've been one of the worker bees. Thrice. I also helped setup a new store. I had worked in more areas of the store than most members of managers ever do.

This brings me to the reasons why I think WalMart is evil.

I mentioned above that I worked setup for a new WalMart store. Well, when that store opened and I went back to my "home store" there was a Department manager position that was up for grabs. I was definetly interested! I applied for the slot, along with 3 or 4 other people. I interviewed and found out later that I didn't get the position. No biggie, right? Wrong. The manager of the store told me the following...

"Pets is a hard department. There's a lot of heavy lifting involved and I'm just not sure that's where you want to be. You don't want to have to mess with that every day."

Nice, eh? Anyone who knows me wouldn't buy that! I love to lift, it's a widely known fact. I'm also 5'11'' and NOT petite. I could handle the lifting and shifting and all the other things that came along with the job. What I find interesting about this situation is the guy they hired for the job. He was in his late 60's and somewhat resembled Mr. Rogers, he got an a pee-on assistant to do all his lifting for him.

Do you see my first frustration? Me, capable of the job. Old guy, not so much. Old guy gets the job. That's reason #1.

I'll make reason #2 much shorter. A while later another Department manager position came open and I also applied for it. Now, it's policy that if you apply for a position, you at least get an interview. Well, I didn't hear anything and didn't hear anything and didn't hear anything. I went to my manager to see when I'd hear something and got the run around. A few days later I hear from someone that the new department manager will be starting in a few weeks! Company policy didn't happen. There was no interviewing of Gail for Fabrics and Crafts and managers that lied about it.

There are TONS and TONS of other little reasons why I think WalMart is evil, but these are a few of the big reasons. I'm shutting up though, this post is already way too long. Maybe later I'll post about why I think WalMart is evil from a consumer point of view.

100 degrees and Allergies

I grew up in Kansas so I shouldn't be a stranger to extreme summer temps or allergies either, for that matter. The last summer that I spent in KS it averaged 117 degrees. In the shade. That was also the summer that I worked a temp job for a place that does plastic blowmolding (for places like Rubbermaid) and the plastic parts would come out of the machines at something like 125 degrees. Needless to say, it was a hot summer.

But I don't live in Kansas anymore, Colorado is currently home. Colorado is not supposta be as hot as Kansas but yesterday it was hotter. The town that I grew up in had high temp of 91. Here in Colorado it was 100 freakin degrees.

The morning didn't start out so bad, but by mid-morning things were starting to get ugly. We don't have air conditioning in this house so I simply had the windows open. The living room where I spend most of my time with the boys has a box fan in the window to suck in air from outside. Yesterday I forgot to turn it off before it started to warm up outside which proved to be a huge mistake. The house was nasty hot.

As the day drug on my allergies started to make an appearance and by bedtime I was felt like my head was going to pop. I've gotten to the point where I don't like to take a bunch of medicine but last night I caved. I couldn't take it anymore! Two Tylenol PM and a glass of water later I went to bed! Sound strange to take Tylenol PM for allergies? Interesting, the "sleep aide" part of Tylenol PM is Diphenhydramine, the generic version of Benadryl Allergy. Neat, huh?

You know your the mother of a toddler boy when...

You clean out your car and in addition to trash you find the following...

2 matchbox cars
1 matchbox truck
1 "monster truck" that when you pull it backwards it propels it forward
2 little tonka trucks
4 sippy cups
1 soccer ball
3 pint sized sweat shirts
1 toddler baseball hat
8 pairs of toddler socks (and I wonder why I couldn't find any in the house!)

Enough said.

When is this EVER ok?

I was at WalMart a while back, it's a place I've grown to hate. There are many reasons that I won't get into. Back to the point though. Here is a quote that I heard a mother say to her daughter, are you ready for this? Here it comes...

"Get that off your head. It's too hot to have a PLASTIC BAG over your head!"

Now call me dense, but when is it EVER ok to have a plastic bag over the top of your head?

Drive thru windows

I find myself sitting here tonight pondering the woman who was working the drive thru at Taco Bell tonight. I wonder what her story is, why she's working a drive thru for what I'm sure is not enough money.

The reason for my curiosity? Her age and ability. You see, she appeared to be in her mid 30's. I'm wondering what happened in her life to have her working fast food. It was obvious that she was intellegent and compitent. What brought her on this path? I seriously hope that this unknown woman knows her full potential, because she has alot!

I often wonder what stories people could tell about their life, if given the chance. People fascinate me. I think that's why I'm addicted to checking out blogs!

It's Friday Night

And I'm sitting at home, alone. The boys have both been in bed for a few hours now and I have been watching the Food Network. Yes, I'm a geeek! But, that is not the point.

Josh took off work early this afternoon so he could make the drive to visit his mom and siblings. I was really bummed when we talked about him going alone, I really wanted to go! But, we decided that it would be best if he made the trip alone. Taking the boys would only make the already long drive even longer. So, we stayed behind.

About an hour and a half ago Josh called and he's about 2 hours away from his final destination, but he's stopping for the night. His radiator hose blew. Ironically, this is not the first time this has happened to him/us while making this drive. It happened almost 4 years ago in his old truck, but again, that's a different story.

Oh, yeah, you'll never believe this! The place he stopped to say the night only had one room available...The Honeymoon Suite! Josh told me that it's the biggest hotel room he's ever been in and it stinks because he is there alone. *sigh* There's always next time, right?

First thing in the morning JoshiePoo is getting up and heading over to AutoZone to get the replacement hose and slap 'er on. He'll be on the road and to his moms house just in time for lunch. Knowing him, he'll work til he's cross eyed tomorrow night. Then get up Sunday morning and drive home! At this rate his visit will last all of 24 hours or so.

I really hope the rest of the trip goes smoothly for him. I know I'll sound like a goober for saying this, but I miss him. So, I'm outa here and gonna go call him!

Grocery delivery and Customer service

I would say that for about 6 weeks now we've been ordering our groceries online and having them delivered the next day. It has all gone perfectly, until yesterdays delivery.

You see, when you order you can select to have substitutions made if they are out of stock with the item that you have selected. Every time I have ordered I have selected 'no substutions'. I've been afraid I'll get white bread and normal pasta instead of the whole wheat variety. You get the idea.

Well, as I was going through the order yesterday I noticed several things that had been subbed. When I got through the list and figured out where all the mistakes were I called the customer service line. I wasn't quite sure what to expect but the lady that I talked to was so nice! She took the time to go over the order that I made versus the order that was filled.

At first she was saying all they could do was have someone come by and pick up the items that had been subbed that shouldn't have been and then they would credit me. But after reviewing the order she gave me a credit for the difference between what I ordered and what I got!

So, if anyone is thinking about using a delivery service I highly reccoment King Soopers! (They're part of the Krogger chain) They are great!

Breastfeeding boost

I've been taking fenugreek now for a lil bit to help with my supply. MiKael has hit a grown spurt and I've needed help!

I have found the answer!

Mike's Hard Berry.








Now, I'm no lush. I had one of these things last night with dinner. Waking up this morning I was in PAIN!

Yummy and effective!