A Peaceful New Year To Everyone!

 
 

You Can't Hide! Another Year Is Coming!

 
 

Alligator keychain/ornament from Karry

 
 

Yes, I put cards in my tree

 
 

Kiss me, it's New Year's, Baby!

 
 

New ornament this year

 
 

Favorite new ornament this year

 
 

One last look at the tree

 
 

Rural Michigan New Year's Greeting

Everybody have a good time tonight, Happy New Year.
When going home,
KEEP IT BETWEEN THE DITCHES PEOPLE!

Rooty toot toot

I've been highlighting my hair for a couple of years now. They should call it FRYlighting. Ha. I just made a funny. Anyway whenever I get a little root action going on, I want to run and get them touched up. They really aren't that bad, since some roots have become acceptable. Ever see Sex and the City in the last few seasons? Carrie had roots to her ears. Now with Christmas behind us and a new furnace under the belt, I'm really trying hard to hold off. I kinda like seeing how much my hair has grown. I never believed it actually grew since it seemed to grow so slow. Frylighting actually gives my hair some body too. I have baby-fine hair. The root kinda smack down to my head, then WHOOP! The fried part start it to curl up. We'll see how long I hold out until I take some beer cans in and treat myself.

I talked to the woman at the main office who can't read my faxes today. It's a regular thing that Crutch Woman helps her out. I felt better about it after talking to her. I just get on guard because one too many people can really screw stuff up. Over there the service techs just fix the phones, so they have lots of time on their hands. The place I work at is an island by itself. I take care of creating customer accounts, fixing the phones, closing the orders, answering the phone, and greeting the customers. If the customers are in for repairs, I pretty much handle that myself. Otherwise if somebody wants to know if they are on the right calling plan for the amount of minutes they use, I refer them to Crazy Woman. If Crazy Woman is busy, I keep them company until Crazy Woman gets to them.

I'm holding off on taking the tree down until Saturday night. I'll take the porch lights down too, but I might leave the ball lights up on the lilac tree a little longer. At least through New Year's! People compliment me on it all the time. I think it's because it's a little bit different than anything around this area. People love my balls! Leaving it up Sunday will give the drunks something to look at when they go home.

Caution: Bitching About Work Ahead

Siiiiiiigh.
Dingle-Doofus who hired me has a service tech that he directs all service questions to. This is the only manager that cannot do his employee's work. Anyway, I'll call his crutch-person Madame Phone Permanantly Attached Phone To Head Talking To Dumbass Husband Who Calls Every Thirty Minutes Asking Whuddya Doin. Anyway! The phone carrier who's phones I work on has a replacement program for those who buy the service plan. If it's something I can't fix, I just replace the phone if it's within certain parameters. If ya don't have the insurance, you can pay a small fee. Regardless, these phones have been refurbed. Every once in a while I send these phones out to the correct service center to get them back to issue to somebody else. I fax the list of serial numbers to the main office and they get entered into our non-user-friendly system. If they don't get entered into the system, the work order can't be closed. And on and on and on. Person who enters these into the system has not because she can't read the faxes. I totally understand that, our fax sucks. So I offered to email any information she needs. She said she'll have the Crutch Woman help her. Wha? I have all the information right in front of me, they are an hour away and have nothing. What is there to help with? I don't get it.
I asked Crazy Woman what she thought about it all and she said it's another way to get another person involved who has no idea what's going on and get phones lost.
YAY! I can't get the resumes out there fast enough.

Tonight the angels sing!

Every time I open the microwave or turn on the light over the stove, angels sing!
Yes people, I cleaned the microwave and stovetop today.

The lilac tree

 
 

This year's porch lights

 
 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just a short note to say Merry Christmas to all four of my readers out there!
Above anything, I wish you good health to you and all of your family members.

SIMPLE is the key term today

These days I have no idea what to cook. We have tons of frozen chicken and that's about it. CHICKEN UP THE ASS as we say here. I don't want to grill because I don't want to freeze my butt standing outside cooking it. Yesterday it was chicken and marinade baked in the oven. It would have been edible if husband would have left the giant squirt of Asian hot sauce out of it. Today it's chicken browned in a skillet, a can of cream of celery soup (not cream of chicken as called for, work with what ya got here), and pasta, cheese, and veggie mix. If it's edible, I'm golden.
Just doing laundries tonight. Funny how October and November just zipped by, and now this week before Christmas is just hanging here. Crazy Woman got the rest of the week off, which is really a vacation in itself for me. Office manager came to cover for her, but she is very sick. She threw up right after a long run of customers came through. She told me to lock the door and shut off the lights so nobody else would come. All she had to do is tell me when, I'm ready to go at any time.

Somebody, take my job! Please!

Every phone I look at involves about 10-15 minutes of computer work. Everything is on the internet. This week our connection is so slow, you type a word and the letters appear a minute later. Usually I can burn right through stuff and get it done, but now I have too much time to get distracted or called to something else. Makes my crappy dial-up seem like a T-2 or T-3 or whatever the heck it is.

I was chosen to do a consumer study at the local corporation that manufactures appliances. I was put in a room with two-way glass and a ton of video cameras. I was so self-conscious being watched like that. I had a stupid grin on my face the whole time. They wanted to see how much you read the manual, what you retain from the manual, and what you can figure out yourself. I tested on a microwave hood combo and got $50 for less than an hour. It was really weird, but I'll do it again if asked.

My friend that is moving was supposed to stop by tonight but she never called. I'm kind of relieved. Goodbyes are hard, so I didn't get a chance to cry or say something stupid.

There's a horse farm close to my house, and I normally look over there when I drive by. There was a dark horse on the ground, and that got my attention. I was told horses sleep standing up. Then I realized all of the horse's legs were in the air. He was wrangling around on his back like a dog! I wish I had my camera.

I got the last of my Christmas cards out tonight, now I just have to wrap stuff. I wrote a card out yesterday to a lady I used to work with a the printing company. Every year we exchange our "hate my job" stories in our Christmas cards. She moved away the week we got married. I miss working in that kind of enviroment that we had at the printing company, informal dress, and being around a bunch of people that got along. It was fun, we had to carry something with us at all times, like a job ticket to look like we were talking about official business. We'd have rubber-band fights. We were allowed to listen to walk-mans, and get all wrapped up in our work laying out negatives of book pages. We were strippers. I got so good that I would ricochet the rubber bands off the ceiling so they would drop right in front of my victim on his or her light table. The owners were nazis though, and we all walked out or found other jobs within weeks of each other. I miss those people. Well, most of them.

holiday scrambling

I've been running around doing last minute shopping. I haven't written cards yet. My sister came in today, so I had to wrap her sweater really quick. Our gift exchange at work went really well. I got a Mr. Coffee Cocomotion hot cocoa maker. Crazy Woman says I'm always heating a cup of something in the microwave. Crazy Woman got the AC/DC hoodie that I got her, and her son promptly stole, and a Notre Dame hoodie from the office manager. Office manager got my mexican food gift card, and and hat, glove, and scarf set from Crazy Woman.

My friend Karry and I have a long standing debate whether our old orthodontist died or not. He's alive all right. He came to our store for instruction how to use his cell phone. He had a little pad and paper and Crazy Woman walked him through steps of operation. It was undoubtedly him, perfectly filed teeth and all. Every time I see him it looked like he was wearing hospital scrubs. I just figured that's what they were, and many retirees volunteer at the hospital. So I checked out his pants when he was in there store, they weren't scrubs at all. They are aqua-colored denim. They must be his absolute favorite, he's wearing them every time I see him.

I finally got a chance to wrap some gifts, at least take them out of the bags. I had hardly anything for my husband. He said he was having a hard time this year also. He never had a hard time picking out sweaters or knitted tops for me. He couldn't find anything this year. It seems that ugly is in style this year. All I have to do is buy gift bags and I'm done.

Gift exchange Friday

We are doing a gift exchange Friday at work. Office Manager, Crazy Woman, and myself. Crazy Woman said she and Office Manager made separate trips to the store to get my gift, but it wasn't in stock, so Office Manager's husband is picking it up for them. Boy do I feel bad. I settled on a gift certificate for Office Manager at the new Mexican grill down the road. They have a three-cheese queso for dipping chips in that is out of this world. She brings it to the office, and we share. So it's more of a gift for me too. I got Crazy Woman an AC/DC sweatshirt from the Men's department at Target. It's going to be too big for her, but I can't think of anything else to get her. I spent the first two months at this place wanting to walk out and never come back again because of this person, and now we are shopping for each other. Go figure. Now I understand her, and I got a really thick skin. Momma always said there's always one like that, no matter where you work.

Hey Man, you dropped your uterus!

I called the other service tech yesterday to see if I missed anything good. He was is was the same b.s., that we can't have bad attitudes with the customers. So I'm boycotting all service meetings until springtime. Crazy Woman really mouthed off at the service manager who hired me. He really does not do his job or know his job (hence hiring me?) but regardless he's a Higher Up, and should be given a little respect. I think the Crazy one is going to be in trouble. Problem with her is she thinks she is irreplacable. We're all replacable, baby.

One of my friends has been really sick looking since late summer. She was unable to keep food down and she lost a lot of weight. Everyone thought she had a hiatal hernia by the way she was describing how the food kept coming up. She finally went to the doctor and had surgery. She had some sort of growth that was preventing the food from going down. It got to the point her own saliva was coming up. Whatever kind of growth it was, it might have had cancer on top of it also, she will find out next week. I'm really bummed right now.

We went to dinner and I had a drink, and now I'm putting away laundry that's been on the couch for the last week. I want to put the tree up tonight. I'm listening to one of the music channels on t.v. They're playing good music tonight, Ramones was one they just played. I thought for old times sake I'd do the Pogo around the living room. I thought I could warm up a little. After about two seconds of that feeling my gut bang around, I figured I shouldn't be doing that. Felt like my uterus was going to fall out. If it would fall out, I hope it does it now while I got the deductible paid on the health insurance. But not at all would be best. I don't have time for that sillyness. I thinks I'll have another shot of vanilly vodka, I'll take the edge off this damn dog whining to be put up on the couch.

Fun with blizzards

I didn't go to training yesterday. Since I was up and dressed, I went grocery shopping instead. I figured it was okay, since I don't take the highway to go to the store. Oh my gawd. Why I've never gone morning shopping, I don't know. All the shelves were fully stocked. It was like I was the first to take anything off the shelf. Managers and employees stood at attention at the check out lines. When I did check out, I didn't have to wait for anybody. It was good. Nobody getting in my way. No screaming kids. I just got to say WOW.

I made lasagna for the first time. I always thought it looked like too much work. It was really enjoyable making it. It was a bit bland, however. I used ground turkey instead of ground beef. It needed that grease/tomato sauce mixture. Also missing was that robust flavor. My herbs were old. Next time I will know.

Today we were back to work on the shittens and sharf. I wove a small shanket also, but it's really raggedy and looks more like a deer blind. The dude from the Blo and Go company came and collected all the equipment. No more dealing with that. All the customers were pretty nice, with the exception of that one bastard who cussed the whole time. His next appointment would have been next week. TEEHEE. Now somebody else has to listen to him run his mouth. Hope there's a blizzard when he has to drive to Kazoo.

What kind of gift do you give your office manager?

Me and Crazy Woman have been racking our brains on what to get our office manager for Christmas. She and her husband hunt, and she always has stories on how he keeps coming back from hunting missing a glove, a sock, or underwear because he didn't bring toilet paper with him. With the snowstorms we've been having the last couple of days, business has been slow. So we are making our office manager a present for her husband. We are making a hat and scarf made out of toilet paper, or shat and sharf. We are also going to take a roll of toilet paper, and cut out each sheet the shape of a mitten, all still joined at the perforations. We are calling them shittens. We are planning on calling our line of creations Shat Farm or something similar. If we go with Shat Farm, it will feature the slinky cat sitting in a litter box.
Tomorrow I got to drive out to Kazoo again for more "training". Hopefully there will be some good meat and potatoes that I can actally use in the job. Last time I risked my life driving in the first snowstorm of the year only to get some wishy-washy crap about not having an attitude with the customers. I haven't decided if I'm temporarily ending my boycott of makeup for this meeting or not. Life has been one constant eye-booger. I'm tired of digging at my eyes, I thought I'd give them a rest.
This morning the cat heard my alarm go off, and me shutting it off and going back to bed. He started doing his creepy little barking thing he does. He seems mute 90% of the time, what possesses him to do this, I don't know. It sounds like "ar? ar? ar?" then a quick "ar-ar-ar" and then he's gone. Husband never believes me when I tell him the cat does this, this time he actually heard it.

I'm gonna keep an eye on weather channel, if there is any chance of percipitation, I'm just going to work at my normal time.

$325 worth of Christmas wreath, aaaaaw yeah!

Yesterday was nice that business was slow and end of month paperwork, computer work, and tying up loose ends got done. The sewer/drain people came out, and they had to break out the "big guns" for our kitchen drain to get going again. They even re-attached our condensate tube so there wasn't a kink in the hose. Our drains don't have the much-needed air-vents to let the water flow. There's another thing on the house that needs to be fixed. At the end of the day our office manager came in with a wreath bought for us from the owner's wife. Oh. My. Gawd. It is just, uh, busy. I can only describe it as an Alice In Wonderland acid nightmare. It's base is flocked artificial pine, with a humongous bow that is lime green and hot pink and black and white polka dot. There's a full-sized toy monkey wearing a jester suit. There's a snowman with a feather ballerina skirt with spindly ballerina legs. There's a cat with a snake-looking tail and little elf legs and elf shoes. And a reindeer wearing a sweater with a potted Christmas tree on it's back. The rest of the space is filled with full-sized ornaments. The black and white checkerboard ornaments complement the black and white in the bow. I tell you, it just sucks you in. We just find ourselves staring at it, it's so crazy. We went online to see how much it was. $325! Apparantly it's from a company owned by the founder of our company's daughter. Get that? Me and Crazy Woman would have been happy with the money.