Ali’s Meanderings

I want to say, Thank You to Jen for posting about the most AMAZING family.

I would also like to invite anyone who travels through my weird Meanderings to visit the above mentioned family as well.

They have the most incredible faith imaginable, the most love to give and receive.  I can’t stop thinking of them right now.

 

more cat pictures

Just in case you thought I was dead, the above kinda explains my last two weeks and then some!

Love you all, I will be back (eventually). Oh, I won’t be here Saturday though, gotta concert to go to - Whoo Hoo!!!

I can’t even say CRAZY!  It was more like ‘head-spinning, vomiting violet colored whatever, kind of Poltergeist-ish’.  No, I wasn’t sick sillies.  Work was INSANE (in the membrane, insane in the brain).

Monday 8am - 9:30pm
Tuedsay 8am - 4:50pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm; back at 8:15pm - 12:02am
Thurdsay 8:05am - 4:45pm
Friday 8am - 4:15pm

Yes, it was horrendous. Anyway, I’m looking forward to a hopefully, milder week this week. Hopefully I can get caught up on things and update you on Regan’s last dance class from Wednesday (see that break in time above - yeah, I left work to watch her and it was soooooo worth it - got vid!!!), and our Sunday at Six Flags.
 

Ever feel like you are just edgy, blah and plain ole bitchy for no GOOD reason.  Yeah??!  Well I was with you yesterday.  Someone told me that we just need to have those days.  I was exhausted yesterday.  I had walked to the library with Regan Thursday evening and then after she was put to bed, I mowed the lawn.  So yeah, I was tired.  I really didn’t feel poorly but I just didn’t get enough sleep. 

Last night I passed out at 8:45pm.  Lights out. I was out no later than 9:00pm.  Seriously, this is huge for me.  It takes me a little while to fall asleep usually so….. within 15 minutes is telling you that, yea, I was TIRED.

Today wasn’t bad however, maybe the vibe was passed on because the little person in the house absolutely WORE.ME.OUT today with questions, not sure what she wanted to do, not sure what she wanted to eat, I could go on and on.  By tonight - I was DONE.  So, I feel like I’m hitting the wall right now and it is only 9:18pm.

Need Sleep and an Attitude Adjustment - Just call me.  We can be bitchy together.

Well, I thought it was funny, I hope that my dad does too.

This morning Regan was up at o’dark thirty (WAY EARLY - if you don’t know the term).  She had asked to have cartoons on which was fine.  I still needed to take a shower and all that.  Once I was back downstairs it was exactly the time for the weather so I asked her if I could watch the weather, she said “yes, but you will put it back on cartoons?!”.  Yes, I will put it right back.

In the mornings we watch Fox 5 and the weather man is Tony Perkins.  Due to the fact that Father’s Day is coming up he was making comments about how AWESOME the weather would be for Father’s Day and he did a little shimmy and said, “that includes me”.  (He was very animated today).

Regan turns to me and says “He looks like Grandpa Gallagher!!”.  I had to laugh, because to an extent she is right.  When Dad has is hair cut short and is wearing his glasses, they do kind of resemble each other.  I hadn’t thought of that.  So here is a pic of Tony Perkins, in case you don’t know who I’m talking about and in case you happen to run into my dad. (tee hee)

I told you this would be the week for pics and vids. This particular series is from our PICNIC!!

When I had that time off a couple weeks ago, I promised Regan that we would have a picnic one of the days that I was off. Well Daddy was off on Monday so that was when we had the picnic. Regan made up the menu of grapes, apple slices, carrots, juice and water. She called grandma and asked her if she could come too, and bring some crackers. So a couple other items were added to our menu but we accomplished it! I hope you enjoy (I may have to make 2 days worth of pics of the picnic - it was that fun)

Doesn’t that make you wanna be a kid again?!

I won’t name any company names, however I may say what they provide for the greater good of man that NO ONE else gets screwed.   Our “dish” provider royally irritates me, like burning in my ASS (except the burning in my ass can be explained and I can only blame myself). 

So here are the facts as I know them.
- It must be my ‘if-I-didn’t-have-bad-luck-I-would-have-no-luck-at-all’ GREAT timing or something but each time that I have cut back on the # of channels that we subscribe to, the cost of the lesser package goes up - effers.
- Last year (probably this time of year) our DVR went out - completely lost episodes of stuff for DH, and myself but lost a LOT of Noggin stuff for Regan too. When DH called about replacing it, the Customer Service Rep. that he spoke to basically said “Yeah, that model of DVR is a POS.” - effers.
- 2 months ago, the ‘POS’ DVR went out - lost EVERYTHING again. Yep, he was right, it is a POS.
- When I called about it and said that we would make the step to another company, we still didn’t get any satisfaction. They would not just send us a replacement even though the last one didn’t last 1 year - effers.
- DH calls about a week later, and……..gets a replacement sent out at NO CHARGE. Uhm, hello, was that too hard??

So what bothers me now is that we received a phone call tonight that says in its automated voice, we have not received your payment, if you have paid it in the last 2 days then disregard this message. If you would like to make a payment now, then please press ‘1′. BITE ME, AUTOMATON!!!

So I go back to the checkbook.  Oh look… I wrote down the auth code, I paid it the day it was due… ONLINE. Granted I don’t like doing it the same day but that was the 4th (a Wed.), today is Monday and your system is still saying that ‘we haven’t rec’d a payment’?? WTF?

So because I really just wanna tear into them, I call them back….But like with a lot of companies these days you can’t get past automated to actually talk to someone (now how come that doesn’t work here?). So I get to the billing part of the automation and the voice says, ‘we have rec’d your payment of $.00 (it was actually an amount greater than $0.00 in case you decide to point out to me that I didn’t have anything to pay on this bill), on the 4th of June, there is no activity in your account since your last payment’.

Okay, so how does one automated system for the SAME company have two different status’ on my account??

Do you see my frustration?

I like the fact that the little girl who the bike belonged to did share but the horn was the OBVIOUS attraction!!! Enjoy!!

I think that I will share with you all a before and after:

Regan before Saturday morning:

Regan after Saturday morning:

 
I know that it might be a bit hard to see but in the pre-pic, she has that one piece of hair that shows that the back is longer than the front. The post-pic almost doesn’t show how short (still getting used to seeing her this way) it is. But the back literally sits right on the nape of her neck and it is layered up the back to about the mid-point between the top of her head and the nape of her neck. Plus I trimmed up the front just a little bit more tonight.

I would have never done this but she said that she wanted it this way.  (I even had 2 guy friends look at me like I had 2 heads this morning, I said “look, she wanted it shorter otherwise I wouldn’t have taken off that much”. They both said that she looked like a completely different child. She does but it still looks CUTE on her.

Anyway, summer heat has obviously hit us here in VA and it is affecting the little one in the house.

Okay, let me just pre-empt the following by saying that I might have been a bit harsh on DH.  Talking about stuff like this while both of us is at work does NOT give us ample opportunity to get our concerns out there and really talk about it.  I felt the steam rising yesterday and it just spewed.  It wasn’t that I didn’t think about it before my rant but sometimes you just need to get stuff out there.  If I didn’t spew here I might have lost my top.

So last night (late meeting), I called DH on the way home and started talking to him about the whole situation.  I asked him what the sentimental value was of the campground and what did he see happening in the future with the property.  He said that he liked that it wasn’t as crowded, the extra festivities that they have through the year, and that it was somewhere safe that Regan can play around.

We were still on the phone when I got home and the conversation continued.  I told him that I just wasn’t willing to give up the money now.  He said that was fine.  He said that he had gone back and forth with it too (thanks for letting me know earlier in the day sweetie), and he knows exactly how his brother is.  He just wants to be able to use the property.  I told him that I understood, but I just can’t do it.  He was fine with my decision.

So at least we are united on that front.  There is harmony in the house and in my head again.

(and Dear Daughter is still asleep at 6:30am - Must run and shower!)