Free Arts Day

I forgot to tell everyone about my volunteer day last Saturday. I joined about 50 people from Lifetouch and went downtown to a shelter called Mary's Place. We were paired up with a child and went around to stations doing art projects. My child was Mia, she was 11 y/o, in 6th grade. She did every art project-drum making, picture frame, yarn art, hand prints, and self . We did the picture frame one twice. At the end of the art session we were treated to a lesson on Taiko drums. First they taught us the different sounds that make up the beats. The kids got to play on practice drums. Then we went into a different room and were able to listen to a real performance. It was so cool, I felt a little emotional watching it. The group performs in the Twin Cities and other cities in the US. Their next venue is at the Anime convention April 6th. Unfortunetaly it is sold out. I always enjoy volunteering for Lifetouch activities because you usually get some kind of treat out of it as well as the volunteering. I went to Haiti and besides getting the experience of a lifetime, there was the volunteering part. As with this event, there was the experience of helping a child smile again and seeing the Taiko drum demonstration.

In The Motherhood

I came across this website off of MSN. It is little 6 minute sketches written by moms, about motherhood. They are hilarious. If you get a chance (each one is only 6 minutes!) check them out. It stars Jenny McCarthy (she just started season 2), Leah Remini, and Chelsea Handler.

http://inthemotherhood.msn.com

Playing Receptionist

Most of the people are back today. Some kind of 24 hour stomach flu. The receptionist is still out because her kids are sick. Since I called all my schools yesterday I am now sitting at the front desk. More time for blogging I guess.

Mondays

Seriously-I think there needs to be a rule about everyone calling in sick at the same time. My department has 5 people and a receptionist. Two people called in sick, then the receptionist had to go home because her kid was sick. The other girl in my area took over for her. That left me and the supervisor to answer the phones. Luckily they weren't that busy. I know I have mentioned this before-I am a machine. It is Monday and I have already called my whole weeks worth of schools. Granted I had to leave messages at half of them, but I did call them and now I am just waiting on call backs. If I don't hear from them by Wednesday I call again, and then again Friday. I don't want to be too pesty, but I do have to get the info this week. So even with 3 people out, and answering the phones (since the supervisor was of course in meetings for most of the day). I still managed to get my work done.

Don't you just love Mondays...oh and it was my mom's birthday today so we went out for dinner.

Lucky Day

Driving to work today at my normal speed of 75, it is dark so I couldn't see what was behind me other than some headlights. I looked closer at the car and saw lights on top of the car. I looked down at how fast I was going-CRAP. He's right on my butt, so I get over. He goes speeding by me. I'm still going around 70 and he is passing me. I took that to be a good sign that it is going to be a good day.

I came across this photo when looking for a good cop photo-how funny!

The sign says SLOW DOWN THE COP HIDES BEHIND THIS SIGN.

Cat Naps

Buddy and Cleo napping with me this afternoon. Buddy had his leg over mine. Too cute!

Buddy left, Tiger came in. I don't think Cleo ever moved.

Valentines Day

I think I ate too much candy...work consisted of chocolate, cookies, starbursts, and skittles. I worked so efficiently the last few days that I have been very ahead and helping others with their work. My supervisor just told me to go home early today. When Jon got home he brought me flowers. I didn't expect anything because I did just get a diamond ring a week ago.

Graduation Day

After 6 weeks of training class every Monday (and enduring dinners with my mom), Polly has graduated from puppy school. She did very well. I have to give my mom a lot if not all the credit. Since she stays with my mom she had to do most of the training or at least enforce what we learned each week. My mom even taught her how to lay down and stay before we got to that part in class. Then they had to learn a trick for graduation day. My mom taught Polly to shake. Polly really did good at the lay down and stay-no effort really, just lounging around. Soon we will be able to take her with us when we get the house and she has a yard to run around in.

New Blog

I started a blog just having to do with wedding stuff. carrieandjon.blogspot.com

I said...

We are in Waukesha visiting Jodi and Brian. I went to school with Jodi today. You think art class is all painting, crayons and fun stuff-then teach it. It was still a lot of fun, but so tiring. And I only was there for half a day! Jodi and Brian had birthing class this evening so Jon and I were going to go to dinner by ourselves. He wanted to stop at the hotel first to drop off something. We get to the room and there are these beautiful roses. Then he tells me to go into the bedroom (get your head out of the gutter!). The light switch doesn't work so I went to turn on the light and saw a bouquet of roses on the bed. I turned around and Jon was going down on one knee. I've been through this before-I knew what that meant. I couldn't believe it. I said yes.

DSW Day

I almost forgot what it was like to have a normal job. Where you only have one persons tasks to do. When I worked in Burnsville I was the office manager and helped other people in the office with their jobs. For a while at the Maple Grove office I was doing my job and the supervisors job. The supervisor is back and has taken on her duties (I think she is going to regret not taking my offer to help). I wondered why the other girls had multiple offices that they serviced and I only had one-well, they are trying to keep each person to 350-400 accounts. My office alone has 400+, so they thought that should be good enough for me. Little do they know that I am a machine. So, the DSW part-we are required to take a lunch break. I work 7:30-4:30; which means I have to take an hour lunch. What the heck am I supposed to do with an hour. I can barely use up a half hour. So today I went shopping.
I don't know who is regretting the hour lunch more, me or them. It was an expensive lunch (I needed new shoes anyway-mine were starting to talk-not good), but at the same time they are the ones that said I had to be gone for a whole hour!

$#!&$#!@ and other expletives

So we were supposed to have the inspection today. Tiny flaw-even though we were sent an email saying our offer had been accepted by the bank, there is still some investor out there that has to approve it too. So now Darbi is writing up new paperwork that would state all this new crap because we are still supposed to close on the house on or before 2/28. The bank de-winterized the house and is going to re-winterize it when done; then we have to pay to have it de-winterized again. I told Darbi to put in the new paperwork that they are to leave it de-winterized because by the time everything is said and done (inspection and appraisal are done) it will probably be less than 2 weeks to closing. What is the point of them paying to go back and forth and then us having to pay also. It doesn't make any sense. The thing that doesn't make the most sense is, why would you tell someone that they have been approved for a house and then say they really hadn't? Why not just wait until it was official? So again...we wait.

Appliance Hunt

We went out today pricing appliances. The house has appliances in the kitchen, but they look a little shabby. It doesn't have a washer or dryer so that is one thing we will have to get. Best Buy had the best prices. We only went to Sears and Best Buy so I can't say that we looked everywhere. Best Buy had a brand called LG. It was a real money saver. It was side loading so it uses less water. Top loading washers use 50 gallons for one load; side loading ones use 10. This particular brand as it spins it creates it's own electricity-very cool.

I'm thinking all we would do with this kitchen is get a new counter top, paint the cupboards, replace the knobs, take the wall paper down and possibly redo the floor.


We really like the back yard. My parents have been taking care of our dog, Polly. The yard is nice and big, but needs to be fenced in. It backs up to a grade school.

I can't wait to be playing with Polly in this yard!

Offer Accepted

Just got off the phone with our Realtor, Darbi. She said our offer was accepted. Now we have to get it inspected by Wednesday. Closing date is on or before 2/28.

They accepted our offer of 143,500, and it is still contingent on an inspection. We had a good feeling about this one. It went a lot quicker than the other offers we put in. One house it took the bank 1 week to tell us they were accepting a different offer; then the second house twisted things around for two weeks about whether or not the house could be FHA approved, and then after we had an appraisal done on the house, the realtor said the bank wouldn't accept an FHA loan anyway. After two weeks he hadn't even given our offer to the bank. We said forget you and moved on. Now this house we put in the offer on Monday, they countered on Tuesday, we countered back, and then they accepted today!

Pizza/painting party anyone?