Thursday, July 02, 2009

Not So Imaginary Anymore!

I've been reading Kjersten's blog for a few years now. And this weekend in San Diego, I got to meet her!!

Kjersten got married just a couple of months before I did. Her first born, Jackson, was born about 6 weeks after Ava & her daughter, Abbie, is one day older than Alexa. Not to mention that I am exactly one day older than Kjersten. I don't think I will ever find anyone quite as close to my life ever again.

We met at the San Diego zoo. Ava & Jackson played well together & Kjersten & I were chatting away like old friends. It was a lot of fun!

Ava & Jackson on the Elephants
Mommies & Babies

Ava Feeding Jackson


Playing

All of us!

Thanks for a fun meetup Kjersten! We'll definitely be doing it again.

Monday, June 29, 2009

SD, OC, IE and LA

We just got back very late last night from a trip down to San Diego, Orange County, the Inland Empire & the LA area. I've got lots of pictures and lots to write about, including a real life blog meet up with Kjersten, but it will all have to wait for now because I'm at work today. We had a really great time. We spent two days in San Diego, then spent a night at Edward's mom's in San Clemente, then headed out to the IE for a day/evening with friends, then went to Calabasas & Pasadena yesterday to meet up with some family & friends before driving home. All in all, a very busy long weekend, but tons of fun! I swear I'll write all about it when I have a moment.

Alexa had her 4 month check up this morning, which went very well. Ava has swim lessons again this week, so after work I have to throw together a quick dinner then it's off to the pool. I'll try to leave some time tomorrow for blogging, but amongst the laundry, unpacking and cleaning, I'm not sure how much time I'll have. How did life get so busy?

Monday, June 22, 2009

Crazy with a Capital C

I just got off the phone with my sister, who had the craziest story. First of all, a little back story on my sister's work history. She is the best worker in the world, and I'm not exaggerating. Every job she has ever had, her employers just LOVE her. She once worked for a family owned ice cream shop where the owner approached her asking if she would be interested in training to someday buy the ice cream shop from him because he wanted it to go to someone he trusted. She has similar stories for every job she's worked at, except for the employer I'm about to tell you about.

So Kim started working about a year ago for an orthodontist as a treatment coordinator, meaning that she met with prospective new patients & tried to sell the process of getting braces to them. She liked the job & did well at it, but even though she's good at it, she wasn't too crazy about doing sales, because it's highly stressful. She also hated the office manager, who just happened to be the wife of the orthodontist. However, regardless of how she felt about the wife, she was always professional.

Since she was burned out on the sales, she decided to quit. So a few weeks ago she went & spoke to the orthodontist to give her notice. As with every employer she's ever worked for, he was shocked & told her that she's the best treatment coordinator that he's ever had & would she consider working part time. That sounded like an okay deal to her for awhile since it would take some of the pressure off.

So she was supposed to work 2 full weeks and then start on the two day a week job. Mid-week last week she approached the wife asking if it would be a possibly to work 3 days a week so that she could keep her benefits & not have to work another job. She told Kim that she'd have to discuss it with her husband. So on Friday Kim went to him & asked. He said, no, they don't need her anymore than 2 days a week & even though she was supposed to be working a full week the next week, he decided that she should start part time the next week. So she was disappointed & a bit hurt, but took her briefcase home like she always does, assuming she'd be back on Tuesday to work.

However, the more she thought about it over the weekend, the more hurt she was. She had an interview for a full time waitress position on Saturday, and they offered it to her. So since she had another job lined up & they were cutting her hours right away anyhow, she sent a very formal resignation letter stating her intention to not come back & that she would arrange to return the key to the office as soon as possible.

First thing this morning she gets two messages from the wife saying that Kim is breaking the law by keeping the briefcase that has confidential patient information in it. She finished the second message by saying that if she didn't hear back from her within 10 minutes she was calling the police. My sister was obviously floored because first of all, the only thing in the briefcase was statistical information, not patient information, and second of all, she didn't think she was leaving on bad terms. They cut her hours early, which they had every right to do, but as a result, she changed her mind on working for them part time. It was all very business like & there was no reason to get nasty.

To continue, obviously at this point my sister is beyond upset, so she has her new husband call to tell her that Kim is working right now & can't bring it by, but that he'll come by on his lunch break to bring her the briefcase. The wife says, no, she needs it now because it's against the law. He was like, look lady, I'm trying to work with you here. The conversation didn't go to well & I think he even told her that she was crazy & that Kim hated working for her & would come home from work crying because of her. In the end, she told Nick that if he didn't bring it down right now, she was calling the police. He said fine because he wasn't bringing it until his lunch break.

So right after they got off the phone, Kim decided to call the police herself. She basically told them that she resigned from her job over the weekend & had this briefcase that didn't even have any patient information in it, but that they were telling her that they were calling the police on her. She told them that they've left her harassing phone calls & as a result does not feel comfortable going down there herself but her husband can't go until his lunch break. Turns out they had already gotten a call from the wife. So they arranged for Kim to meet up with an officer to get the briefcase. The dispatcher & the officer obviously thought Kim was not a threat & that the wife was kinda crazy.

The worst of it is that my sister's very good friend works there & she called Kim to tell her that the wife is going around the office telling everyone about her conversation with Nick & saying that Kim went psycho, called the cops, and refused to return the briefcase. My poor sister is devastated because she really didn't do anything wrong, but this woman is obviously psycho. A huge part of me so wants to call this woman to tell her off, but I know that would not accomplish anything & only make Kim look worse. But now Kim is even more upset because it appears that some of her friends from work are believing crazy lady & now she's worried that she'll lose friends over this whole thing.

It really is just crazy. I so want to leave the name of this orthodontist & tell everyone not to go there, but I know that very few people read this in the first place, and those that do probably don't live in Florida, so it wouldn't accomplish anything. But seriously, this woman is crazy!!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A Wedding Toast/Speech

My little sister got married while we were in NY. I've been meaning to post about what a wonderful wedding it was for awhile, but I never get around to it. Courtney just posted the toast that she gave at her sister's wedding, which inspired me to do the same. I didn't write it down but did it from memory since I had gone through it in my head over & over again for months prior to the wedding, so this may be slightly different than the actual version. A warning though... I made over half of the people in the reception cry, including men (and myself). Get out your tissues now.



Good Evening everyone. My speech is going to be slightly longer than the one the best man gave and it will probably make you all cry. I thought long and hard about this toast because I knew that it would make a lot of you cry, but I'm giving this speech anyhow. Bear with me.

I'd like to tell you a love story, a fairytale of sorts. It's about another young couple who got married in the late 70's. They fell in love, got married, bought a house, and had their first child. A very cute little baby if I do say so myself [everyone laughs here... hahaha]. In case you haven't gotten it yet, I'm that child and I'm talking about my mom & my first dad.

They had the perfect start to their fairy tale life. But as all of you know, tragedy hit, as it does in most fairytales. My dad was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. My parents were then faced with a very tough decision. Should they stop having children because it was unfair to bring a child into the world knowing it was going to lose it's father? Or have a child anyhow so that I wouldn't have to be an only child?

Obviously, they chose the latter and my little sister is here, getting married today. As we all know, this fairytale does have a happy ending. We did lose our first dad, but my mom found love again & Kim & I were lucky enough to have had not one, but two dads in our life. Thank you, dad.

I was raised knowing that my sister was extra special because she was created for me. I've always believed that God put her on this earth to be my sister, my playmate, my best friend.

But I was wrong.... she was also put here to be Nick's wife. These two are absolutely perfect for each other and I know that is why she's here.

However, there was a time when I wasn't so sure of Nick. Being Kim's older sister, I really had to be protective. She had told me about Nick but I still had my reservations. Until one day when she called me & told me the following story:

Kim & Nick had scheduled a date, but she had to call it off because she was sick. She felt horrible about it & called to tell him that she was cancelling. He offered to bring her some soup, but she said no, she was too sick to even go out & get some much needed medicine. He understood & she went to bed. The next day, Kim went out to her car & found a bag full of every kind of medicine you could think of.

When Kim told me this story, that's when I knew that Nick was the one for her. A man who would do that much for my sister was okay by me. Nick, we're so happy to have you as a part of the family.

So please raise your glasses. To Kim & Nick & their happily ever after.

A Few Pictures

I know it's been awhile, but here are a few pictures of my girlies. Ava will be two at the end of July & Alexa is 4 months old this week. Time sure goes by so fast!
My Sleeping Beauty

Ava playing in Black Lake, NY


Ava at my parent's house


Memorial Day BBQ at my Uncle Ben's

Me & My Baby

Monday, June 01, 2009

Leaving NY

Today is our last day in NY. We have a 5pm flight this evening, so we're on our way to the airport after lunch. We've been here for over a week and a half, and it was so nice. I'll try to get some pictures up when I get home. My sister's wedding was wonderful, we had such a great time visiting with my parents, and we even managed a trip up to our family camp in the north country of NY, along with a nice long ride from there through Vermont to New Hampshire for dinner with Edward's aunt, cousin & her family. It really has been a great vacation and I truly hate that we're leaving today.

Besides the trip, I've obviously just been too busy for blogging. I hope that things will change when we get back, but I have a feeling that they are only going to get crazier. There's a big change about to happen in our lives. It's not something I can blog about right now, and I probably won't be giving details even when I can blog about it, but for now just trust me when I say that our lives our about to get super hectic. Off to pack now.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Why Do I Bother?

I really should just give up blogging all together because I honestly just don't have the time. Between two kids, taking care of a house that is just falling apart around me & work, I just don't ever want to take the time to blog. Yet for some reason, I always find myself trying to do at least one post a week because I guess I don't want to completely give up something that I've enjoyed doing for almost 4 years now. So here is today's random stream of thoughts...


Alexa slept for over 8 hours straight last night. Total heaven. Ava's been totally going through the terrible two's already, which means many, many temper tantrums, which all get completely ignored. We've been busy going to the park & the farmer's market & friend's houses. Pretty much anything that gets us out of the house that I hate so that I can avoid the millions of things that need to be done here. Here's just a sampling of the things I've been avoiding:

  • Mopping
  • Dusting
  • Unpacking our suitcases from NY/Vegas
  • Packing our suitcases for NY next week
  • Going through my maternity clothes
  • Going through the clothes in my dresser & closet to send to Goodwill
  • Going through Ava & Alexa's clothes
  • Buying a dresser for Alexa instead of pulling them out of boxes in the closet when I get tired of the same ol' clothes she's been wearing
  • Going through all of Ava's toys in the living room because I've never done that & there are some non-Alexa friendly toys that in a few more months can become a big problem
  • De-clutter my dining room & kitchen that for some reason just seems to accumulate (for example, my dining room currently has 1 regular stroller, 2 double strollers, & an office chair that we picked up from an abandoned suite in my building just last night)
  • File. I honestly have let this get so out of control that I can't even fathom dealing with it until I can get a bigger file cabinet & have at least 4 hours to really do it right. I don't see that happening anytime soon
  • Organizing the den

Notice most of this is all stuff that include organizing? I once prided myself on being such an organized person. Not at all anymore. I'd like to blame it on having kids, but I honestly haven't been all that organized since we moved into this house. I never got it properly organized in the first place & it just keeps getting worse with the more stuff we accumulate. I absolutely hate accumulating more stuff, but it always seems that we need more somehow. I'm so tired of it!

To help with the organizing though, we did pick up Ava a toy box yesterday. Now that I have the tools to organize Ava's toys, it's definitely time to tackle that task. Of course, it's park day with the mom's group so I'll probably end up doing that instead of cleaning/organizing.

Also, I hate work. Seriously. I have at least half of my tenants furious because the HVAC system doesn't work properly & there is no money to fix it, meaning I have the unfortunate job of just apologizing over & over again & not really changing anything. I have one tenant who truly hates me and I don't quite know how to deal with that because nobody hates me.

I still have pictures from 3 months ago on our digital camera that I haven't uploaded to the computer. I haven't changed my profile pic on facebook that I put up of Alexa when she was first born because I don't have a single good picture of me taken since then.

I'm very disappointed that I haven't logged into weight watchers in um, well over a month. I haven't lost any more weight because I just don't care enough. I'm not going to look fantastic at my sister's wedding next week because I can't control myself. I know Alexa isn't even 3 months old, but I should be able to do better than this.

Back in December, when I was very pregnant and apparently had no brain, I let some kid who came to our door talk me into paying $65 for a year's subscription to Rachel Ray's magazine, which I know is too much, but I had already agreed before I found out the price & I was too tired to change my mind at the time. Five months later, still don't have the magazine. Called the number on the receipt he gave me, they went out of business, but said if you ordered before January you'd still get your magazine. Um, I didn't. I'm not sure if there is anyway to fix this, or if I just suckered out of $65. Thankfully I never mentioned my stupidity to Edward so he doesn't know that I got suckered out of our hard earned money.

Enough random musings for one day. If you're still following me, good for you! What a boring person I've been lately.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Working 9-5

Well, really working 10-3. And only on Wednesdays & Fridays. But I am officially back to work. And it sucks.

I started last Friday, which wasn't too bad really. Alexa came with me, and as always, was a little angel. However, when I had a security call on Sunday night, I was too thrilled. I don't want to put too much on the internet, but let's just say that I ended up spending almost three hours at the office with both girls on Sunday evening dealing with issues while Edward was still in Vegas. So not fun!

Then this week word has started to spread to the tenants so all of the issues that they've obviously been accumulating while I've been away have been brought to my attention. They are driving me nuts with complaints!

Today was a bit busy at work, but I caught up quite a bit. I'm feeling better now. I wish I didn't have to work, but at least Alexa's with me.