Gimpy finger

I'll be on a posting hold for a few days... and this is why! Never get your finger caught in your security mail box.

At least it isn't my texting thumbs, right?!

Saturday & Weekend Blog Hops!

Job perks :D

I got to order my brand-spanking-new phone today. It should be here next week. I cannot WAIT!! The phone has been out for only about 2.5 weeks... I finally get a top of the line phone! I'm so thrilled!!!

Check it out here! :D

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc5750006prd&deviceSKUId=57500024&flow=AAL&planSKUId=null&tabId=dt_phones&ptn=

Thursday Blog Hops!

First day on the job!

I made it through my first day! I'm very excited to be back in the working field again. Of course it's work, they wouldn't call it work for nothing, but it is nice to be helping out the family with a new job. I feel like with some time and getting to know how things work, I'll rock in this field.

I have quite a bit of training courses to go through, and then the formal training classes start Sept 6. Meanwhile, I'll just be helping out around the store and getting to know how things work. I was really excited getting to log in to my work website, work email, etc. I even got to order company shirts! :) Before you know it I'll be wearing my shirts with the Sprint logo. Yippee!

You know what the best part I found out today? Here I thought benefits wouldn't start for 3-6 months. Nope, they start after 30 days! How wonderful is that? Our family needs this desperately. It's amazing.

Later this month I believe I'll be transferring my number to a new line, and upgrading my phone. Oh I'm giddy about that!

My coworkers have been really friendly too. That's always a plus!

Wednesday Blog Hops!

Tuesday Blog Hops

Greetings fellow blog hoppers!

I start my first day of a new job today... I'm so excited! And nervous!

Magical boiling water! - a money saving tip

I shall now share a magical, money saving tip...

Have you heard about the powers of boiling water? I'll be honest, I've heard about this trick for well over a year now, and have never tried it. Tonight, I unleashed my magical homemaking skills and boiled water.

I then held the tops of those Lysol No Touch Hand Soap System soap dispensers. They are the ones that are basically impossible to screw the lid off. Rigged! Rigged I tell you! The same goes for those Swiffer Wet Jet Refills.

Anyway, you hold the top in boiling water, take it out, unscrew the cap and voila! It comes right off!

Now I can enjoy the excitement of my Lysol No Hand Touch Soap System without having to spend $4 on the refill. (I'm sorry, I can find Up & Up Generic Soap in a massive refill bottle for under $4... let alone ONE dinky size Lysol Refill for $4!)

Needless to say, I'm very thrilled off of this!

Mice and hamsters and turtles, oh my!

The Mouse

On Friday night, just as I was heading to bed, I walked into the kitchen for a moment.

I spy with my little eye...

Hobbes the cat spying on a baby mouse.

Eek! We get waves of mice problems around here. They'll come and try to set up camp behind the stove, then scurry across our counters, and unfortunately for them, encounter a cat or a trap and meet their maker.

After twenty minutes of watching this literal game of cat and mouse, I got tired of waiting for Hobbes to catch the mouse, and tired of watching this mouse try to scurry out of the sink (which it couldn't), and trapped it in a jar. For a moment, I felt like a cat in that excitement of what it is like to catch something. It's pretty awesome.

I left it in the jar overnight... all to fall like a sucker for cute little Jerry. I told him, "Good night, Jerry. Good work. I'll most likely kill you in the morning." (Name that movie!!!)

That's right, by morning I named the darn thing. (Thanks Brandie for the name idea, when she said "Did Tom catch Jerry yet?"). As I headed to run some errands later that day, I ran into PetSmart, and to my surprise found this amazing cage on clearance! It was usually $36.99, and I got it on clearance for $8.67. SCORE! Pet mouse, here we come! Just so you know how much of a sucker I am for cute little baby critters, I even got it a bag of treats.

I shredded up newspaper, I gave it some treats and left over food, a fun little house, and do you know how that ungrateful rat bastard repaid me? Baby Jerry escaped from the cage during the middle of the night! Jerk.

The Hamster

The boys were very excited to see the mouse in the cage in the morning. Too bad Jerry bailed on us. They weren't heartbroken. I suppose growing up as little "farm boys" they are accustomed to things running off or dying. However, that new cage looked all sad, lonely, and empty without some sort of little critter to keep it warm.

Well, we already have the cage, might as well stick something else in there! Back off to PetSmart we go.

Meet our new hamster. She doesn't officially have a name, but Elijah and I are really liking Ophelia. Let's just hope she doesn't run off and drown herself. Ba-da-ching! That's my Jay-Leno-Style-Punch-Line-Drum-Hit, by the way. (Don't give me that blank stare about the Ophelia joke... Hamlet people, Hamlet!) I had a shlew of other ideas for her name. Everyone gives me weird looks when it comes to my names for pets. They usually come from mythology or literature. This hamster just looks like she deserves a Shakespearean name.

Aww... she's sleeping.

Or maybe I should name her Jillian Michaels, because all she has done the whole time I'm typing is exercised on her wheel.

The Turtle

We were invited to a neighbor's 50th birthday party shin-dig on Saturday. This was our first time going to their house. You know the coolest part?

They have a pet turtle!!

This sucker is HUGE. They say he weighs about 30lbs.

My little boys were fascinated with him. It's the first time they've ever seen one up close and personal. We even got to pet it! It was very exciting.

The Tent

Ahh tent building. A favorite childhood past time. Or, as Mama likes to call it, cheap entertainment! When I was a wee lil' thing, I loved building forts and tents in the living room. It is the sweetest thing that the boys are old enough now to appreciate the joy of building a "tent" in the living room! Can you spot AJ's head popping out of there?

It reminds me of when I was a child! I won't deny, I was a bit jealous that I am too big to crawl in there myself. I suppose that is why Elijah & AJ have each other... they can enjoy their company in their tent. Elijah was so thrilled off of it, he wanted to sleep in there tonight.

Ah, no.

Monday Blog Hops!

"Looks like someone has a case of the 'Mondays' ..."

Greetings to all the Blog Hoppers! :) Hope you are having a wonderful start to the week and no case of the "Mondays" (quick, name that movie!)

Songs that make you cry

Do we all have songs that make us cry? You can hear it one hundred times, and every time it gets you choked up into tears.

The song "Life Ain't Always Beautiful" from Gary Allan gets me every.single.time.

I find the song so real. Maybe it is because I know the back story behind the song. Gary Allan's wife suffered from depression and committed suicide. During his grief, he made the album "Tough All Over" which has many songs that helped him with his grief, including this one.

It always makes me think about our own struggles. Not "our" as in my life, or my family, but all of our lives as humans, and all the trials each of us have to face. It's true, like the song lyrics say, "Life ain't always beautiful. Sometimes it's just plain hard." At times it is hard to sit back and question why bad things happen to good people. It's the question passed through the ages, I suppose.

Every time I hear the song, and how he says, "[life] it can just break your heart," I think back to our family's struggles the past few years. I think about my friend who lost her 2.5 year old son in January 2010. I think about that friend of mine from high school who passed in a car accident. I think about the trials I faced as an adolescent. I think about my off and on battle of depression. I think about all these things and ask, "Why why why?"

"Life can knock you down, it can break your heart."

The best conclusion I settle on, is our struggles are what make life real.

I heard one time on Coast to Coast AM, with a psychic medium (don't laugh at me, I love Coast to Coast!), that she communicated with a baby that passed at birth, right after her father held her. The Medium's response was this infant, now in the other life, said she experienced enough love to fill a lifetime in those moments her dad held her. How sweet is that? I don't understand why some people die so young, but the idea of people being ready to move on because they've experienced so much love that they feel complete, it's very comforting.

As for the rest of us, and our daily life encounters...
"But the struggles make me stronger,

And the changes make me wise,

And happiness has it's own way of takin' it's sweet time."

Aside: Don't you just love that when you look at lyrics of a song, how some seem to transform to a beautiful, lyrical poem? Of course, I am a bit of poetry nut, so examining songs out of the element of the music fascinates me.

As Allan says though, those struggles make us stronger, "tears will fall sometimes ... but it's a beautiful ride."

Sunday Blog Hops!

Greetings everyone! Hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday! See you around the hops. :)

Hunting black shirts

I went to Kohl's yesterday and found some black work shoes (you know, comfortable shoes). I feared finding shoes was going to be a pain in the, well, you know. Amazingly, I found some right away, in my size, that are cute, and FIT!

I'm quite excited. Cozy shoes are hard to come by, I tell you! I'm even so kind as to link those pictures up to the Kohl's website, just in case anyone else is searching for black shoes as well!

What I thought would be the hard part, turned to be the easy part. I was looking for black button up shirts or black polo shirts since they will be ordering the official Sprint polo for me on Tuesday, and that will take a couple weeks to get in. Meanwhile, I was told to wear all black. You would think everyone has black button up shirts or polo? Nay, my friends, nay. I have this new favorite button up I found at Kohl's from their Apt 9 brand. I thought for sure they would have them in black. Nope. Furthermore, nowhere in the store could I find black button ups or polos.

I thought it a bit strange, but thought I'd check Fashion Bug instead. Nada. I checked Target. They had some black polos, on clearance!, but not in my size! Then I got the brilliant idea to check KMart. Again, they had some, even on clearance, not in my size. Not even close. I went home to reevaluate what I should do. Thanks to my wonderful Mom, she found an email coupon from JC Penney. Off we went again, this time to the mall. Bare in mind, Kohl's is across the street from the mall (and my new work! haha), and it is on the complete other side of town. About a 20-30 min drive through town. Lovely. I was determined though to find some black shirts.

We arrive at JC Penney, with my two boys who are very eager to get this shopping done and go to the mall playground. At first, I couldn't find ANYTHING! They had Liz Claiborne polos, St John's Bay Polos, Junior's Arizona polos, and nobody but the juniors had black, and the juniors side didn't have my size! I'm meandering through the store when suddenly I spot a black button up on clearance. And another, and another! I ended up finding three in my size, on clearance for $10-$11, and then got an extra 20% off somehow, which brought them down to $8-something. I also found an extra pair of black pants! Seriously though, who knew finding a black button up would be so difficult? At least they are cute so when I do have my Sprint shirt in, I can wear them on days off.

Veni, Vidi, Vici! Take that black shirts!