Blogs I Follow

Here are few blogs/websites I follow. They are not crafty like Heather's or inspiring like Kristen's but they make me laugh, and sometimes that is all I need.

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

http://notalwaysright.com/

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

The last website is where I found the photo. At first glance it could be Dad, me, Kris and Heather (if I was an awkward boy that is).

Bored

Now that Faith is older and has more freedom with the car, I find myself wondering what is in store for me in the future. I sit at home when she is out running around or at work and think I really need to get a life. Then I wonder what I could possibly do to fill my time.

1. Clean: Absolutely not, that is the worst possible thing I could be doing.

2. Reading: I LOVE LOVE LOVE to read, but a person can only do it so long before you start to get antsy.

3. Shopping: While I love shopping with family members, I refuse to do it by myself unless it's necessary. Working retail has basically killed my desire to shop.

4. Go for a walk: Not that great by myself.

5. Join a club: That means people, which I purposely try to avoid because I get "overloaded" in dealing with people at work. When I come home, I don't want to interact with anyone, the stress would cause an overload in my brain.

6. Volunteer: Again, dealing with people. I know it would greatly satisfy me to help someone in need, and admire Kristen's work she does, but I just can't deal with more people.

7. Crafts: Not a crafty person. I know I can do it, but just don't have the desire to decorate, paint, sew, scrapbook, etc. I am envious of those that do, and Heather's projects make me INSANELY jealous, but I can't bring myself to even try.

Oh well, guess the reading is the only thing. Forgot to mention Farmville on Facebook. That does take up an hour each day, and I am already planning out my fields so they survive while I'm on vacation. I only hope someone will have a laptop handy so I can at least see what everyone else is up to on Facebook. Ok, reading back on this post really makes my life look sad. Guess I will be the crazy cat lady down the hall who noone ever sees except the Meals on Wheels person who stops by once a day. I just hope my life doesn't become that headline "Smell Notifies Neighbors of Cat Lady's Demise".

Peanuts

Here is another one of my obsessions. I love Charles Schulz's creation of Snoopy and the Gang. Every year I get the desk calendar that has a daily strip and it is one thing I really look forward to at work. I save quite a few of them and hang them around, or bring them home to share. There have been a few times the strips have mirrored my real life, bringing a smile to my face to make my day just a bit brighter.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Dad! This is one of my favorite pics of you because you are having so much fun trying to beat the crap out of your grandchildren and daughters. But I know you really love us as much as we love you. Thanks for all that you do. Are you ready for a rematch?????

I LOVE YOU!!!

My Name is Mary Sutter

This was another bookstore find that I decided to find at the library--the money I save all goes to my coffee addiction so every little bit helps.

I am always looking at historical fiction, and this one was interesting because it had a strong female lead. Mary is a well know midwife who longs to be a surgeon. She has many obstacles because it is right before the start of the Civil War and her mother, her mentor and teacher, needs her at home. Determined, she leaves for Washington D.C. after war is declared and tries to become a nurse. She does eventually learn amputations after a doctor shortage forces the war department's hand, and actually follows some of the battles, helping wherever she can.

After fininshing this book, I realized that many of today's medical technologies have evolved because of war. The situations have forced research to be completed quickly to help out the wounded. It really brings up a question in my mind, if we didn't have war, would we be as advanced as we are now?

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

I am always very busy at work. Even in February I am busy just trying to finish all of the stuff that should have been done in December, although it is so slow we could close the doors and not have any problems. I have realized that I am so busy because of all the extra work caused by stupidity. Yes, stupidity, but not on my part-it never is my fault.

Just yesterday I was running around trying to get schedules together and help out at Guest Services. I answered a manager call to the desk, and went up to help a guy. He had a printout of a charge to his store credit card and was wondering what the extra shirt was on his statement, because he only bought one shirt. He did not have his original sales receipt, so getting his card information, I had to go back to the office and search for it on the electronic journal. The only smart thing he did was give me the corret date of purchase (not when it went through on his account which is always 1-3 days later--that is very important to remember!) and his credit card number. When I pulled up his itemized receipt it showed that the 13.99 mens shirt was charged twice, but the cashier did void it once. I then went to another computer to look up the sku numbers to find out description and brand of this shirt, because he did not remember it. I showed him the itemized receipt and explained which shirt it was, so he remembered what he bought. Then he asked why there were two shirts on his statement. I pointed out that yes, there were two shirts on there, but right below it was the term "line void" meaning the cashier did remove the extra charge. After his confused look I then took the four items he had, added them together in front of him, added tax and showed him he was charged correctly. If he had been charged two times for that shirt, it would have been $14 more. AHHHHH, that is what that means.

Last week had to help a guest who was charged twice on her check card for the same amount. She did not have the receipt information, but could give me the exact date of purchase and the credit card numbers. Looking it up, she had done two different purchases for two different items on the same day. After calling her back to see if this information was helpfull, AHHHHH, sorry, my mistake, sorry for your trouble. This has happened more than this one time. Because our coupons are limited one per purchase, people go through the line twice, sometimes buying the same priced item and automatically assume the cashier screwed them by charging them twice.

A couple of months ago a guest called claiming she had a charge to the store and lived out of town and it wasn't hers, her number must have been stolen. We were able to research the information and our security agent became involved, so she looked on the camera to see if she could get a description in case the police needed to be involved. We were a little perplexed when we were watching a nice looking older lady buying home products. Calling back the card holder and asking if she knew any lady with a that description buying those items, she became flustered, explaining that it was her own mother using the company credit card, shopping because she had asked her to stop when in town to save herself some time. AHHHH, sorry to waste your time, thank you very much.

Right after the last holiday season, a frantic guest called saying her grandson had tried to use his gift card she had given him for Christmas and was told it had a zero balance. She did have her original receipt so I could back track and find out when it was used and for what. Another camera adventure gave us a description of a young man buying shoes and jeans using that exact gift card. Our agent called her back, and after talking with her it was discovered that the young man using the gift card was her other grandson who had "borrowed" it without permission from his cousin. Well, she chose not to press charges, hmmmmm.

This kind of stuff happens all of the time. I am not saying that we don't make mistakes, but don't always assume that the mistake was not made by you. There are many times we have to look for a missing bag because "oh the cashier FORGOT to give it to me" and we find that the guest walked away from the counter, leaving the bag right there, or forgetting it in their shopping cart and someone else grabs it. My favorite it the cashier charged me for these $50 shoes and didn't give them to me, no I don't have my receipt, why can't you just give them to me now, only to find out that they never intended to buy them in the first place. Do I have "Stupid" on my nametag?????

Calvin & Hobbes

You all know my obsession with the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes. I am still very sad that it's creator Bill Watterson no longer publishes it. I'm sure he had a very good reason, and I believe that he did not want to have anyone think that Calvin would never grow up. I have all of his book releases (except for the ultimate collection that was published) and they still give me a chuckle (that word always sounds wierd but it describes my feelings exactly). We should all take a cue from them and dance to our own inner music like no one is watching.

Happy Birthday Dad!!

I have the greatest Dad in the world, and today is his birthday!!!!! Even though I know he does not like to have it acknowledged, I just have to post it!

Dad has worked very hard to make a good living for us while growing up. I remember him being gone stretches at a time when he was starting up the shop, and then remember waking up in the middle of the night when he was coming home from or going to work. I know he was gone alot, but I never felt like he was away on purpose, I always knew it was to support his family. He still had time to do special things for us, or be there to make sure we weren't getting into trouble.

I know we probably drove him nuts, having 3 girls in the house at one time, and I know it was difficult to listen to our fighting, but he hung in there because he loved us. We really put him through the ringer sometimes, and I hope he doesn't remember them!

Dad can fix anything that is broken, and any time we have problems, he is on our speed dial and he makes a point to come to help. I love to listen to his stories, especially about when he was young. I also love the fact that at this stage in our lives we have discovered a mutual love for some music--especially those road trips on vacation!

Thanks so much Dad for all that you have done for us and for always being there! By the way, the car is making a funny noise, can you help me out? (just kidding Dad--I'll wait until it is 20 below outside and have you look under the hood:))

Shoot to Thrill

Yeah, the Monkeewrench team is back in action!!! I absolutely love this series by mother/daughter author team P.J. Tracy. Always set in the Minneapolis area, it has some great characters: Grace, Annie, Harley and Roadrunner make up a strange team of computer experts who help out police, mainly Leo and Gino. The characters are fun to get to know, and it would be very interesting if they were real and not too far away!

This particular book was a quick read and added another interesting character who was a retired judge who was drinking away his pain. The ending did suprise me, which isn't easy to do when you have read so many thrillers and sometimes can see where the author is heading before it actually happens. What was even better, or worse, however you look at it, there seems to be another book on the way to let me know what happens to these characters! If you ever get a chance, pick up a book in this series, but I highly recommend you start with the first publication, actually titled Monkeewrench.

Lucy's Paw

Poor Lucy. About every 6-8 months she cuts her paw. I don't know how she does it, only discover it when I find a faint bloody paw print on the window sill. The first time it happened I freaked, rushing her to the vet. Of course, nothing was found and they wrapped it up. I payed the bill (over $150) so we could come home and she could shake it like mad and get rid of the bandage.

The next time it happened I purchased some liquid bandaid for animals that can be used on minor cuts. The past couple of times Faith and I would hold her down and seal up the cut, getting the wrath and evil eye while she would try to furiously lick it away. That always solved the problem, until the latest one.

Came home from work last night and she won't put any weight on it. It is swollen, but thought I would wait until the morning. This morning she was running around, so I went to work. I came home and it is swollen again.

Now it has a bump. I think it might be a problem, but her nose is still cool and wet, which tells me she doesn't have a fever. I really feel bad about trying to avoid taking her to the vet, but I don't want to go in and them give me some medication and a big bill and send me home. I hate trying to make these kind of decisions!

Reckless

Reckless is the newest by Andrew Gross. This author is one I started reading because he was one of James Patterson's co-authors on five different books. This is his fourth book published by himself, and he seems to be holding his own. I can't compare him to Patterson, but he has thrillers that can be similar. This particular book continued with detective Ty Hauck and started out to be very interesting, but I really struggled to finish it. I don't know if I just lost interest, or what it was, and was disappointed. It ended the way I thought it would with the bad guys, but the lead character's love life just flipped on me and that really irritated me. I will look into his next one, but hope that one will be a little better.

Don't Know Much About Literature part 2

There were some very interesting facts I learned while reading this book. I have to share some of them, because I feel everyone should have the same useless information that is actually fascinating.

1. The Education of Little Tree was a book I always knew was a fake, written by someone claiming to have Cherokee heritage. What I never knew was that it was actually written by Asa Earl Carter, an organizer of the Ku Klux Klan. That fact just blew me away.

2. Dill Harris, Scout Finch's friend and neighbor in the book To Kill A Mockingbird (one of my favorites) was based on Harper Lee's friend Truman Capote. I never knew they were friends.

3. Ulysses by James Joyce and Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman were considered to be obscene novels. In fact Whitman was fired from his job as a clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs after the Secretary of the Interior read a working copy. I find it strange that both were labled as obscene, and I never knew Whitman was working for the BIA.

4. Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to win an Oscar for her portrayal of Mammie in the movie version Gone With The Wind. She was not able to attend the premier of the movie because the theater was segregated.

5. Tim O'Brien, who authored The Things They Carried, a fantastic book about the Vietnam War, served as an infantry foot soldier in the American division that was involved in the My Lai massacre in 1968.

6. The following authors never won a Nobel Prize:

James Joyce

Franz Kafka

Gertrude Stein

Kurt Vonnegut

Willa Cather

Virginia Woolf

7. William Faulkner could not support himself with his novels, so he became a Hollywood screenwriter. He adapted To Have and Have Not by Hemmingway and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler for the big screen.

8. F. Scott Fitzgerald is credited for coining the phrase "The Jazz Age".

9. The Night Before Christmas was originally published anonymously as a poem in a newspaper. Many believe that Clement C. Moore had written it, but others claim it was actually Major Henry Livingston Jr., poet, who wrote the work. Moore claimed the work after Livingston's death, and many who read other works by Moore say the authors other poems are less playful and he could not have written it.

10. John Milton was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost. He would dictate to his daughters who would then write them down.

Happy Birthday Faith!!

My little girl turns 17 today. Wow, time really has gone by so fast since we first met, and what an adventure. Faith has turned into a beautiful young woman I am so proud of. She's caring, sweet, hard working and all around great. Our relationship has grown over the years and we became really close when our small family became just the two of us. She really helped me through some difficult times, and I would not be who I am if it wasn't for her. This will be her final year of high school, and I am excited for this time in her life and glad to be sharing it with her.

Happy Birthday Faith--I Love You!!!

People Are Strange

This post has an alert: if you get sick easily stop here. Bet you can't stop now, your interest is piqued!

I was at work today and called up to the service desk. There was a guy standing there looking a little stressed and everyone standing around looking at a small bag on the counter. I was told not to touch the bag, and I could see that there were bits of something stuck to the inside of it. Well, the associate told me that someone had thrown up in the bag.

WTF?????? It was not the guy standing there, although it was what he had purchased just a few minutes before. Evidentally he was walking out the front doors when some stranger, a woman also leaving at the same time, lost her cookies. Guess she tried to cover her mouth and ended up spewing it all over the poor guy and some landed inside the bag.

The associate said he came back in and cleaned up, and wanted to return the items he had purchased. SERIOUSLY? Well, I really didn't want to screw with his sanity any more than needed so I read the receipt through the side of the bag, returned the money and threw the bag in the trash.

To make matters a little worse, he misplaced his cell phone during all of this. Thankfully it was located or we would have had a breakdown. Definitely goes in the record books of strange happenings.