Well it is back to the work week for me again. This week coming and going should be quite interesting. The weekend coming up in another 4 shifts won't be the usual type of weekend. Instead, it is Ally's 10th birthday, and we know that at least grandma *erin's mom* is coming up for it... we're not sure if erin's dad is coming too. She has mentioned possibly staying at our house and has also requested that we make sure that the house is clean. Erin and I both agreed on the same thing, that we will do the best that we can, but worst case scenario, grandma can stay at a local hotel if she wants. With me working my over night schedule, there are not many times when I feel like massively cleaning the house during the day time when I am awake.
Usually I simply want to just lay around and relax.
So on to further news/updates. It has been weeks since I last spoke through email with the hiring representative at that refridgerated trucking company. I think I wrote about it on a previous blog entry, but if not, here is the cliff-notes version.:
Trucking company that transports refridgerated stuff like food and beer, offered me a job about a month ago driving for them. Schedule includes: 3 weeks on the road, 3 days home, resume another 3 weeks on the road, repeat, etc. Starting pay, 25 cents per mile for the first 90 days, then after that I would be a leaser/operator and would be making 85 cents per mile. I did the math, and at 85 cents per mile, 3,000 miles per week, that, I believe, adds up to a little over 100k per year. But, I pretty much had decided not to take it simply because I don't want to be away from my family that much. OH! the job also comes with full benefits as well, and paid vacation after I am employed with them one year.
However, recently, because of how we are always so tight living paycheck to pay check, I started thinking "well maybe it might be worth it, work for them for a year and a half, pay off debts, save a shit load of money away, etc...... then come back and live a little easier because of the lighter money burden.." So I emailed the guy again, explaining that I have just been busy with my job, and apologizing for the delay since our last email... I asked him how paying for gas works...he said during the first 90 days, when you are simply a company driver, you don't have to pay for your own gas...when you become a leaser operator, you then pay for your own gas, but you get paid mileage for your gas, etc... I said "ok, so on average, how much does the average driver end up paying out on gas?" He said "i'm not entirely sure, but I do know that the average take home salary for leaser operators is around $48,000." That got me going a different direction. I havent responded since that email, but basically I'm not sure I want to take the job anymore, simply because I do not know if that is enough money to make it worth it.. If it was 70-100k, 6,000 or so per month, that's one thing, but a thousand a week estimated? Yes that is better than what I make right now... In fact, it's practically double my current take home pay, but still doesn't seem like it's high enough to be away that much.
If I'm sacrificing all my time with my family to work for them, I want to feel like the money is worth the sacrifice.
So on a different note, earlier Erin made a comment about how she should write a children's book. It made me think back to my book that I have going, which I haven't worked on in a while, but instead have been reading through the 100+ pages I do have written, re-acquainting myself with the story, so I can continue. It made me think about how I need to hunker down and get working on it again. With the money situation we have, we need to do whatever we can so that we can make our own financial dreams come true. Maybe for me, part of it is dedicating myself to finishing my book and hopefully publishing a best seller. My main goal for myself and for my family is to make enough money doing something, that we can end up not having to worry about financial issues. I hate living pay check to pay check... But, it's a must!
In closing, school is going ok. Algebra sucks! I have about 3 weeks to go, and these quizzes are hurting me bad! I was up around an 80% when I took the last quiz, which I got a 30% on, and now my grade in class is like 73.9%. I'm like "oh great.. i'm so close.. please do not end up having to retake this class!!" I even expressed my concern to the instructor. The other class, the hospitality class is actually going well. I'm around a 90% in that one. So I have 2 main objectives before I am pretty sure the rest of my courses probably wont be too bad. 1) pass algebra1A. 2) pass algebra1B next session, and then just keep going till I get that degree. Funny how, I'm good at math, yet these two algebra classes are a nightmare for me!
So, here's hoping and praying I will make it through both of them without need of repeat!
On that note, going to sign off as I have other things I have to get done in the next 20 minutes. Thanks for reading and I will write more for you all soon!
C
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thursday April 21, 2011
What a day Wednesday was. I do 'like' getting paid, but sometimes the part I don't like about pay day is all the stuff that one has to do. For example, my pay check usually is in the bank between 6 and 7 AM. When I get off at 8, I go and put gas in my truck first thing, i then head over to the shell station across the bridge in illinois, and I put $20.00 into tickets for the Megamillions lotto drawing, and I do $20.00 in scratch cards from this vending machine they have there. I stick with the scratch cards where you get so much per week for life. Those cards used to be you got so much per week , and even though they said "for life," you really didn't get it for life, but more for like 30 years, or you could opt to get a lump sum. Now, they literally say on the card that for the rest of your life. They advertise it as "the longer you live, the more money you get." So I guess if a 80 year old man or woman wins, they might be better off to take the lump sum ;) and then make out a will for where the money might go should they pass.
I prefer the $5k per week for life, but they were out of those this time. Those are normally $2.00 per ticket, so this time I did a "$2,500 per week for life" tickets which are $5.00 each, so I did 3 of those, and then 5 tickets that were "$500 per week for life." came one number away from the max price on 2 different tickets. It's all a matter of when it will happen. I just gotta keep praying about it, keep having faith that it will happen, and just keep trying. Cant win if you don't play. Too many people just simply don't play because they think they will never hit it big. Well, because of that attitude, they made themselves right;)..
On the back of the $2500.00 per week for life ticket, it says you can opt for a lump sum of close to $2million dollars instead of the weekly payout. The $500 per week one says you can opt to get a lump sum of close to $400,000. I had to think about it, "hmmm... if I won, would I do weekly? or would I want a much smaller amount in the long run, by taking a lump sum right away?" really, $2500 per week would be more than enough for almost anyone to live off of. That would be more than enough reason for me to immediately quit my job and focus more on school, without having to ever worry about money again. The $500 per week, that'd be a nice addition to any income, it'd be nice to know that you have an extra $500.00 hitting each week. But then again, getting $400,000 right now sounds great too. I could easily get our lives set up very nicely with that much. a few thing that I know I would probably do is 1) buy a house, 2) make sure we get any repairs and updates needed on said house. 3) get both of our cars in perfect working order. 4) put $25,000 into an IRA for myself, and $25,000 into an IRA for erin. When we are mid 60's , we should have doubled that quite a few times and have a nice little retirement savings. 5)put some money, maybe $15,000 to $20,000 into a college fund for each of the girls, and the last thing I can think about is 6) getting erin's restaurant started.
The way I see it is, if with that money, we own a house free and clear, own our cars and have them completely in working order, have the different financial accounts set up that we need to, and successfully start erin's bakery/restaurant, we will be on the success path for our lives. it will just be building and maintaining from that point on. I started thinking tonight, whether or not I would want to have a contract with a security company such as securitas or permar when we do eventually win the lotto. I guess it depends on how much we win. If it's $400,000.... it probably won't be something we would do. $2,000,000? Possible, but still maybe not because we would not really go overboard with that necesarily, but if it was like $20,000,000..... or more, or especially if we won when the jackpot is $100mill+, I think especially for any times when I might be away from my family for whatever, which hopefully would not be often, I could see having a guard posted around our home 24/7... Honestly, to me, with the way things are in the world, to keep my loved ones safe, I would be willing to pay out for a company to post guards at our house round the clock. I don't know if I would want guards inside very often, but if we had guards, having them come through the house once a shift just to do a quick look around the main floor might be doable just to make sure no windows are left unlocked or whatever, and then being posted outside throughout the shift.
It'll be interesting whenever it comes to that.
So, I'm not going to go into too much else, but will just talk more about the day. so I get home by 9, I eat breakfast, get the rent check made out and enveloped and stamped for my dad, and put erin's and zoe's breakfast in the fridge. When I go upstairs, I call this dental office that a good friend from work recommended, and I explained that most dental offices require that you pay up front and then the insurance will pay you back. Not many people can afford to pay a lot up front right now, but this guy was highly recommended and apparently doesn't bill you at the door. So, I called and explained about erin, her teeth being broken or whatever, and how she's been in pain for a while, and they said they wouldn't be able to fix them today but that she should come in at 1:45 and they should be able to get her out of pain for the weekend. So we went, they did x-rays of her mouth, found out not just the broken teeth but any cavities, etc, and they scheduled her to come back for a cleaning and to get the cavities done. Then when she left, she didn't have to pay anything up front.
So, I called and said "i'm not really a big fan of going to the dentist, but let's go ahead and get me scheduled to get checked out too." So I'm scheduled for next thursday at 2:30, and we will probably go ahead and have the girls both checked up just to be safe. The way I see it is that it is the right thing to do, since letting it go for too long might result in additional cavities for myself *which I'm not even sure I have any right now anyway,* and if I keep on top of things, I should do pretty well. The girls shouldn't have any probs. Ally brushes her teeth, and Zoe is really good too.
So we get out of the dentist, I put $25.00 worth of gas into her car. Immediately we smell a strong gas smell in the car. We drive to pizza ranch, pick up our late lunch, drive to Jean (our baby sitter's), and we look behind the car and following our car is a wet line from us leaking gas. I look under the car and on what apparently is the fuel filter beside the gas tank it is dripping really rapidly. I'm like "motherf*****" A month back about, Erin went to Valvoline and had her fuel filter replaced. When they primed it, it was fine. So here we are still in the car, he is like "turn the key on, ok turn it back off. Turn it back on...shit,, turn it off... " And so on, for almost an hour. By this point, the gas fumes are horrible, Ally had been dropped off by the bus at home, and has lost her house key, so we knew she was waiting outside in the back yard. So I mentioned to Erin, more so to get Zoe out of the fumes, that I was going to walk home to get ally and bring her back to valvoline. The guy eventually fixed the car, and gave us 2 free oil changes, and we left. The air outside, being fresh and clean felt like gold. It was awesome. Erin let ally and zoe run around outside for probably about 40 minutes getting fresh air. Then Zoe was getting cranky and so we put her down for a nap. After picking up dew and tea and a few groceries from Jewel, and watching some american idol performances, I layed down to catch a few more hours of sleep probably by 8:45. I set my alarm for just after 11. Next thing I know, I don't remember my alarm ever going off, at all....and my phone rings with Erin's name on it, whom is downstairs loopy on the nice pain meds they gave her for her teeth problem.
I thought "oh, she's calling me and waking me up before my alarm..." i look at my watch, and it said "11:52." I jumped up, answered my phone "oh crap!" She was like "I figured!! it was too quiet up there!" I was dressed in my work uniform in about a minute and a half, I put on deoderant, ran into the bathroom and did a quick shave, combed my hair, grabbed my coat and stuff and left. I made it to work on time, but I had to walk around outside for a while to get my bearings again.
From what I heard, Zoe never got up from her nap, she slept straight through and when I left, she was still completely out. I mentioned to Erin that it was probably the gas fumes from earlier, because I felt heavily affected by them too, and think that may have been why I zonked out and went right through my alarm without even realizing what happened. That plus only having slept 3 hours that day might have had something to do with it. At least the car is fixed, we are ok, and all is well, minus the 1/3 tank that dumped on the ground before getting fixed.
Oh well! So on that note, I will talk to you all again later.
C
I prefer the $5k per week for life, but they were out of those this time. Those are normally $2.00 per ticket, so this time I did a "$2,500 per week for life" tickets which are $5.00 each, so I did 3 of those, and then 5 tickets that were "$500 per week for life." came one number away from the max price on 2 different tickets. It's all a matter of when it will happen. I just gotta keep praying about it, keep having faith that it will happen, and just keep trying. Cant win if you don't play. Too many people just simply don't play because they think they will never hit it big. Well, because of that attitude, they made themselves right;)..
On the back of the $2500.00 per week for life ticket, it says you can opt for a lump sum of close to $2million dollars instead of the weekly payout. The $500 per week one says you can opt to get a lump sum of close to $400,000. I had to think about it, "hmmm... if I won, would I do weekly? or would I want a much smaller amount in the long run, by taking a lump sum right away?" really, $2500 per week would be more than enough for almost anyone to live off of. That would be more than enough reason for me to immediately quit my job and focus more on school, without having to ever worry about money again. The $500 per week, that'd be a nice addition to any income, it'd be nice to know that you have an extra $500.00 hitting each week. But then again, getting $400,000 right now sounds great too. I could easily get our lives set up very nicely with that much. a few thing that I know I would probably do is 1) buy a house, 2) make sure we get any repairs and updates needed on said house. 3) get both of our cars in perfect working order. 4) put $25,000 into an IRA for myself, and $25,000 into an IRA for erin. When we are mid 60's , we should have doubled that quite a few times and have a nice little retirement savings. 5)put some money, maybe $15,000 to $20,000 into a college fund for each of the girls, and the last thing I can think about is 6) getting erin's restaurant started.
The way I see it is, if with that money, we own a house free and clear, own our cars and have them completely in working order, have the different financial accounts set up that we need to, and successfully start erin's bakery/restaurant, we will be on the success path for our lives. it will just be building and maintaining from that point on. I started thinking tonight, whether or not I would want to have a contract with a security company such as securitas or permar when we do eventually win the lotto. I guess it depends on how much we win. If it's $400,000.... it probably won't be something we would do. $2,000,000? Possible, but still maybe not because we would not really go overboard with that necesarily, but if it was like $20,000,000..... or more, or especially if we won when the jackpot is $100mill+, I think especially for any times when I might be away from my family for whatever, which hopefully would not be often, I could see having a guard posted around our home 24/7... Honestly, to me, with the way things are in the world, to keep my loved ones safe, I would be willing to pay out for a company to post guards at our house round the clock. I don't know if I would want guards inside very often, but if we had guards, having them come through the house once a shift just to do a quick look around the main floor might be doable just to make sure no windows are left unlocked or whatever, and then being posted outside throughout the shift.
It'll be interesting whenever it comes to that.
So, I'm not going to go into too much else, but will just talk more about the day. so I get home by 9, I eat breakfast, get the rent check made out and enveloped and stamped for my dad, and put erin's and zoe's breakfast in the fridge. When I go upstairs, I call this dental office that a good friend from work recommended, and I explained that most dental offices require that you pay up front and then the insurance will pay you back. Not many people can afford to pay a lot up front right now, but this guy was highly recommended and apparently doesn't bill you at the door. So, I called and explained about erin, her teeth being broken or whatever, and how she's been in pain for a while, and they said they wouldn't be able to fix them today but that she should come in at 1:45 and they should be able to get her out of pain for the weekend. So we went, they did x-rays of her mouth, found out not just the broken teeth but any cavities, etc, and they scheduled her to come back for a cleaning and to get the cavities done. Then when she left, she didn't have to pay anything up front.
So, I called and said "i'm not really a big fan of going to the dentist, but let's go ahead and get me scheduled to get checked out too." So I'm scheduled for next thursday at 2:30, and we will probably go ahead and have the girls both checked up just to be safe. The way I see it is that it is the right thing to do, since letting it go for too long might result in additional cavities for myself *which I'm not even sure I have any right now anyway,* and if I keep on top of things, I should do pretty well. The girls shouldn't have any probs. Ally brushes her teeth, and Zoe is really good too.
So we get out of the dentist, I put $25.00 worth of gas into her car. Immediately we smell a strong gas smell in the car. We drive to pizza ranch, pick up our late lunch, drive to Jean (our baby sitter's), and we look behind the car and following our car is a wet line from us leaking gas. I look under the car and on what apparently is the fuel filter beside the gas tank it is dripping really rapidly. I'm like "motherf*****" A month back about, Erin went to Valvoline and had her fuel filter replaced. When they primed it, it was fine. So here we are still in the car, he is like "turn the key on, ok turn it back off. Turn it back on...shit,, turn it off... " And so on, for almost an hour. By this point, the gas fumes are horrible, Ally had been dropped off by the bus at home, and has lost her house key, so we knew she was waiting outside in the back yard. So I mentioned to Erin, more so to get Zoe out of the fumes, that I was going to walk home to get ally and bring her back to valvoline. The guy eventually fixed the car, and gave us 2 free oil changes, and we left. The air outside, being fresh and clean felt like gold. It was awesome. Erin let ally and zoe run around outside for probably about 40 minutes getting fresh air. Then Zoe was getting cranky and so we put her down for a nap. After picking up dew and tea and a few groceries from Jewel, and watching some american idol performances, I layed down to catch a few more hours of sleep probably by 8:45. I set my alarm for just after 11. Next thing I know, I don't remember my alarm ever going off, at all....and my phone rings with Erin's name on it, whom is downstairs loopy on the nice pain meds they gave her for her teeth problem.
I thought "oh, she's calling me and waking me up before my alarm..." i look at my watch, and it said "11:52." I jumped up, answered my phone "oh crap!" She was like "I figured!! it was too quiet up there!" I was dressed in my work uniform in about a minute and a half, I put on deoderant, ran into the bathroom and did a quick shave, combed my hair, grabbed my coat and stuff and left. I made it to work on time, but I had to walk around outside for a while to get my bearings again.
From what I heard, Zoe never got up from her nap, she slept straight through and when I left, she was still completely out. I mentioned to Erin that it was probably the gas fumes from earlier, because I felt heavily affected by them too, and think that may have been why I zonked out and went right through my alarm without even realizing what happened. That plus only having slept 3 hours that day might have had something to do with it. At least the car is fixed, we are ok, and all is well, minus the 1/3 tank that dumped on the ground before getting fixed.
Oh well! So on that note, I will talk to you all again later.
C
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
Good day everyone. Yes I know it has been a little bit since my last post. At least a week or two I believe. Well, something funny is, earlier, I guess Erin checked my blog because she commented "you havent been doing your blog." I laughed and was like "yeah, I havent been on there in a week or so." It's not that I didn't want to write. I did. I do. In fact, I pretty much would love to write every day. Usually it all depends on what else I am doing. For example, there have been quite a few days the past week or two where I say to myself "i wanna get on my blog and update with an entry." Yet, then I get busy working on assignments for school, then busy hanging out with the family, or busy reading whatever book I'm currently reading on my kindle, and then I end up realizing that I forgot to log online and by that point I don't have a way to get on currently. Then when I get home from work, I rarely think "i wanna get on the internet!" Usually my first and formost thought is "need to get to bed! need sleep!"
Working nights can be a challenge. I am used to it for the most part, and I don't mind it *again, for the most part*, but at the same time, it drags in a bunch of ways. One way that I will share with you is the lack of sleep. I always love my weekends because usually at least one day, if not all my off days, I will end up crashing fairly early and getting a very good nights rest. Then when I work, I get off at 8 AM, and if I'm lucky I can sleep till 3. Otherwise, sometimes I get woken up by noon, either by my sleeplessness *despite the fact that I should sleep longer than 4 hours*, or by Erin and Zoe getting home *some times when that happens, zoe is not behaving for her, and so what ends up jerking me out of a deep sleep is zoe screaming, and erin raising her voice trying to get Zoe to listen. We try our best not to yell, especially more so lately, because Erin and I have both been too easily to yell at the girls if we got frustrated, and I mentioned to Erin that I really wished we (both of us) would not yell as much at them, and so lately, even if they are pushing it big time, what ends up working is us saying things like "ally *or zoe* I am trying not to yell at you, but you are pushing me really close." or something like that, and usually if it's ally, she will suddenly start listening to what we are trying to explain to her.
So, time right now is a little bit short, so I'm going to see what all I can write about in probably the next 5 minute maximum time that I have available to write in. School wise, I'm still in Algebra 1A and Hospitality and tourism *the first hospitality class of my school career so far*. I have close to an A in HTT200 and a low B in Algebra1A (honestly, with some of the assignments in Algebra, I think I will feel fortunate simply to pass with anything C or above... ) I mean cmon! I'm pretty good at math, but there have been some questions that no matter what I read, where I look, what questions I ask or how many question I ask, I still end up looking at these problems and thinking "o shit I'm screwed." I remember when Erin had to take like 4 math classes in a row. It doesn't look like I have to do that, looks like algebra 1A this time, then algebra 1B next session *sighs* that sucks..... that means I have with the 3 weeks left of my current classes, a total of 12 weeks to go till I'm done with math. Somebody please kill me and put me out of my misery! jk.
So school is going ok. Work, work is work. That's pretty much as good as it gets. For the most part, it goes really well. I go to work, I do my job to the best of my ability, do everything that I have to in order to keep off the client/boss's radar, and just work every day, take it week by week, and then really enjoy having the weekend free. They have tried to call me in a few times like when we had that patient up here that was really dangerous, and I refused to come in on my days off. I still can't believe that.. "Chris would you be able to work a 12 hour shift on both your sunday and monday off?" I was like "nope.." didn't even have to think about it!..
So, i know there are other things to write about, but time is up and I have to go. Erin, please comment to let me know that you can see all the current posts. I had thought tonight that I wasn't sure if you could see my last few posts and hense thought that I hadn't posted in a really long time when really it's only been a week or two. =) Other than that folks, I will talk to you all again soon!
C
Working nights can be a challenge. I am used to it for the most part, and I don't mind it *again, for the most part*, but at the same time, it drags in a bunch of ways. One way that I will share with you is the lack of sleep. I always love my weekends because usually at least one day, if not all my off days, I will end up crashing fairly early and getting a very good nights rest. Then when I work, I get off at 8 AM, and if I'm lucky I can sleep till 3. Otherwise, sometimes I get woken up by noon, either by my sleeplessness *despite the fact that I should sleep longer than 4 hours*, or by Erin and Zoe getting home *some times when that happens, zoe is not behaving for her, and so what ends up jerking me out of a deep sleep is zoe screaming, and erin raising her voice trying to get Zoe to listen. We try our best not to yell, especially more so lately, because Erin and I have both been too easily to yell at the girls if we got frustrated, and I mentioned to Erin that I really wished we (both of us) would not yell as much at them, and so lately, even if they are pushing it big time, what ends up working is us saying things like "ally *or zoe* I am trying not to yell at you, but you are pushing me really close." or something like that, and usually if it's ally, she will suddenly start listening to what we are trying to explain to her.
So, time right now is a little bit short, so I'm going to see what all I can write about in probably the next 5 minute maximum time that I have available to write in. School wise, I'm still in Algebra 1A and Hospitality and tourism *the first hospitality class of my school career so far*. I have close to an A in HTT200 and a low B in Algebra1A (honestly, with some of the assignments in Algebra, I think I will feel fortunate simply to pass with anything C or above... ) I mean cmon! I'm pretty good at math, but there have been some questions that no matter what I read, where I look, what questions I ask or how many question I ask, I still end up looking at these problems and thinking "o shit I'm screwed." I remember when Erin had to take like 4 math classes in a row. It doesn't look like I have to do that, looks like algebra 1A this time, then algebra 1B next session *sighs* that sucks..... that means I have with the 3 weeks left of my current classes, a total of 12 weeks to go till I'm done with math. Somebody please kill me and put me out of my misery! jk.
So school is going ok. Work, work is work. That's pretty much as good as it gets. For the most part, it goes really well. I go to work, I do my job to the best of my ability, do everything that I have to in order to keep off the client/boss's radar, and just work every day, take it week by week, and then really enjoy having the weekend free. They have tried to call me in a few times like when we had that patient up here that was really dangerous, and I refused to come in on my days off. I still can't believe that.. "Chris would you be able to work a 12 hour shift on both your sunday and monday off?" I was like "nope.." didn't even have to think about it!..
So, i know there are other things to write about, but time is up and I have to go. Erin, please comment to let me know that you can see all the current posts. I had thought tonight that I wasn't sure if you could see my last few posts and hense thought that I hadn't posted in a really long time when really it's only been a week or two. =) Other than that folks, I will talk to you all again soon!
C
Monday, April 11, 2011
Monday, April 11th, 2011
Nearing the end of yet another weekend off from work. Before getting off Saturday morning, I had the pleasure at work of working with additional guards because of the dangerous patient up in the psych unit. Last I heard, there was going to be additional guard coverage at least till today (monday). When I go back to work tonight at midnight, I may be working solo without having to worry about there being a patient that we might have to get into a physical altercation with and restrain.
I can only hope that by today, the patient has been released or transfered.
So this weekend, we went bowling to celebrate Zoe's 3rd Birthday. It was fun. Not any people whom were invited, showed up, so it was more of a family day out, bowling together. It was fun. Then yesterdy, I wanted Lex and I to go skating like we have been, but lex was dragging her feet getting her chores done, and so mommy had said she needed to get her stuff done if she wanted to go skating. Then when I had gotten my shoes on and was ready to go, lex came down but had short socks on. I mentioned to her that last week she complained that her ankles were red from the skate rubbing against her bare ankles. She had worn short socks last week and she had agreed last week that she should wear long socks.
Well, suddenly as she was standing on the stairs, and I mentioned that she was wearing short socks, and why doesn't she change to long socks so she doesn't hurt her ankles like she did last week, she was like "meh...." shrugging her shoulders. We were like "you aren't seeming very excited to go skating...." and I sat down on the couch figuring "if you're not wanting to go, we will stay. She could have been like "NO!!! NO!! I REALLY WANT TO GO!!!!" but she just sat and didn't say anything. So, by 3:30, there was less than an hour of skating to go, and lex was then like "I WANNA GO!" I was like "well now it's practically too late! it'd take us 15-20 minutes to get there, and then only 40-45 minutes of skating. You should have decided this sooner!!!!" So, regretably, we didn't go, and I felt semi-depressed because of it. I looked forward to it all week, and it is a great form of exercise. So, I told ally that I really want to go next week, and tat she really should be excited about what she wants to do. If she wants to skate then to show us how badly she wants to. Being like "but i do wanna go . . . " without any emotion. Where as me, I'm like "let's go!!!! let' go skate!!!"
It's even more so like how I look at our finances, and the lottery and such. I look at it more as "it's more a matter of when and not if." Lately I decided instead of putting $5.00 on multiple types of drawings,I would pick one individual one and put $20.00 on it. I figure, the extra tickets ups the odds, versus a few tickets on a few drawings. Also, one new thing lately is I have been going online and submitting tickets almost daily for PCH (publishers clearing house). They have several different drawings, like a $10million, $3million, $100,000 .... $25,000.... etc... Every time I get a new email about a drawing taking place, I go ahead and get online on my computer some time afterwards and submit my information again. I am a firm believer i the sayng "if you don't play, you can't win." Yes, maybe the odds never look good, but they look better for those that play than those that give up without ever even trying.
So, on a closing note, when we woke up sunday, we had not yet begun using the window ac unit. We had been trying to keep using the method of windows open at home. Up until recently, it was cool enough outside that the breeze kept the house nice and cool. Sunday though, I had trouble sleeping because it felt too warm inside. I tried to open up windows and stuff,but it has been warm outside. At least mid 70's. With humidity, it felt much warmer. So, I caved in, I turned all ceilin fans on high, and I put up a rotating fan, and I went ahead and turned on the window ac unit. It took most of the day, but by this morning, the house is pretty confortable. The thermastat down here on the main level says the temp is 66, which means upstairs is probably a few degrees warmer. But, all in all, it feels a lot better than yesterday morning. Erin will tell ya that I'm a heater in myself, and I prefer mid 60's, so mid 70's or hotter gets me to the point where I easily am sweating and overheating
So, on that note, I will call that it for now. Time to continue watching battlestar galactica and wait for erin to get off work. We decided that since zoe is always all about Jungle Gyms, and so i mentioned to Erin when she left that when she and zoe come home, that maybe I could just hop into the car with them and we could take zoe up to a jungle gym. =) So, on that note, talk to you all again next time. =)
I can only hope that by today, the patient has been released or transfered.
So this weekend, we went bowling to celebrate Zoe's 3rd Birthday. It was fun. Not any people whom were invited, showed up, so it was more of a family day out, bowling together. It was fun. Then yesterdy, I wanted Lex and I to go skating like we have been, but lex was dragging her feet getting her chores done, and so mommy had said she needed to get her stuff done if she wanted to go skating. Then when I had gotten my shoes on and was ready to go, lex came down but had short socks on. I mentioned to her that last week she complained that her ankles were red from the skate rubbing against her bare ankles. She had worn short socks last week and she had agreed last week that she should wear long socks.
Well, suddenly as she was standing on the stairs, and I mentioned that she was wearing short socks, and why doesn't she change to long socks so she doesn't hurt her ankles like she did last week, she was like "meh...." shrugging her shoulders. We were like "you aren't seeming very excited to go skating...." and I sat down on the couch figuring "if you're not wanting to go, we will stay. She could have been like "NO!!! NO!! I REALLY WANT TO GO!!!!" but she just sat and didn't say anything. So, by 3:30, there was less than an hour of skating to go, and lex was then like "I WANNA GO!" I was like "well now it's practically too late! it'd take us 15-20 minutes to get there, and then only 40-45 minutes of skating. You should have decided this sooner!!!!" So, regretably, we didn't go, and I felt semi-depressed because of it. I looked forward to it all week, and it is a great form of exercise. So, I told ally that I really want to go next week, and tat she really should be excited about what she wants to do. If she wants to skate then to show us how badly she wants to. Being like "but i do wanna go . . . " without any emotion. Where as me, I'm like "let's go!!!! let' go skate!!!"
It's even more so like how I look at our finances, and the lottery and such. I look at it more as "it's more a matter of when and not if." Lately I decided instead of putting $5.00 on multiple types of drawings,I would pick one individual one and put $20.00 on it. I figure, the extra tickets ups the odds, versus a few tickets on a few drawings. Also, one new thing lately is I have been going online and submitting tickets almost daily for PCH (publishers clearing house). They have several different drawings, like a $10million, $3million, $100,000 .... $25,000.... etc... Every time I get a new email about a drawing taking place, I go ahead and get online on my computer some time afterwards and submit my information again. I am a firm believer i the sayng "if you don't play, you can't win." Yes, maybe the odds never look good, but they look better for those that play than those that give up without ever even trying.
So, on a closing note, when we woke up sunday, we had not yet begun using the window ac unit. We had been trying to keep using the method of windows open at home. Up until recently, it was cool enough outside that the breeze kept the house nice and cool. Sunday though, I had trouble sleeping because it felt too warm inside. I tried to open up windows and stuff,but it has been warm outside. At least mid 70's. With humidity, it felt much warmer. So, I caved in, I turned all ceilin fans on high, and I put up a rotating fan, and I went ahead and turned on the window ac unit. It took most of the day, but by this morning, the house is pretty confortable. The thermastat down here on the main level says the temp is 66, which means upstairs is probably a few degrees warmer. But, all in all, it feels a lot better than yesterday morning. Erin will tell ya that I'm a heater in myself, and I prefer mid 60's, so mid 70's or hotter gets me to the point where I easily am sweating and overheating
So, on that note, I will call that it for now. Time to continue watching battlestar galactica and wait for erin to get off work. We decided that since zoe is always all about Jungle Gyms, and so i mentioned to Erin when she left that when she and zoe come home, that maybe I could just hop into the car with them and we could take zoe up to a jungle gym. =) So, on that note, talk to you all again next time. =)
Friday, April 8, 2011
April 9th, 2011
This pay period has already come and gone. Gas prices only help when it comes to more quickly draining the bank account, especially where my truck is concerned. I swear, on pay day I went to fill up my tanks *yes I said tanks, plural...i have 2 tanks, one that is 19 gallons and one 14*..... well so anyway, I went to fill up my tanks, and all in all it cost me $104.00. Of course, then I did something different as far as my bi-weekly lotto tickets go, I usually get $10.00 worth, doing $5 on powerball and $5.00 on megamillions. Well this time, I did $20.00 and did 100% megamillions. The jackpot for this drawing isn't quite as high, it's only around $45million compared to Powerball being over $200million, but hey, I figured it feels like a better idea to put all my tickets into one single than to divide them up. No matter what people say about ("the odds of winning are practically nothing!" or "you're never going to win!" or "you have better odds of being struck by lightning!"...) Well, to those people I say "POO ON YOU!" ;)
What I say is "it's more a matter of "when" not "if." And some day I will make a believer out of those that simply don't play because they think they will never win. Well with that attitude, they are right! We all have the power to control our own lives, and some day I will have complete financial control of ours, never having to worry again. Something funny tonight when I came into work, me and the other guard went up to behavioral to check on the trouble patient, and apparently he was calm while in restraints but that's not the funny part. We were chatting with the staff and I glanced up on this marker board and there was a set of 6 numbers written on the board with $210,000,000 written underneath. Immediately I knew what it was... "lottery numbers I take it?" i said, and they mentioned that the staff up there will randomly put $5.00 a person towards the lotto and one of the daytime staff members goes and gets the tickets. I would love to go in on lotto drawings with my co-workers, but total there is only about 5 guards, and i doubt they would all be interested. It'd be funny though if we did, all 5 of us putting $5.00 or $10.00 towards the drawings and then one day we win. I wonder if we would all give a few weeks notice and resign or if only myself would, or if 2 of us would resign. I know my plan when it happens, if I'm still working security here is to give a notice immediately and resign after a few weeks. If it was a very large amount, I would buy our house from my parents, make an offer on the really run down hotel that we stayed at, with the intention of fixing it up, updating it and turning it into a really good hotel.
It's all dreams right now, but some day i have faith that although they be dreams currently, in the future they will be reality. We just have to have faith, for God is good, and we just have to keep pushing forward and we will eventually get to where we want to be. So today, our babysitter was out of town all morning, and so I stayed up with Zoe till mid afternoon before going to bed myself. I worked long and hard to get my algebra assignments done, which were hell because one was a quiz, and one was a check to see how you are understanding what you are working on, but technically arent both those things the same? lol.. What sucked is we are working on algebraic graphs. I can graph pretty easily, and sometimes I can find a slope, but other times they give me a random fraction and say "find the slope," and I took one look and thought "i have no freaking idea!" lol....
So in those cases, I simply did the best I could, got the answer wrong, and moved on. OH WELL! better a lower grade than failing, or even a 0, so hey, whatever. Then after taking care of all 4 algebra assignments, I called the automated line for our electric company. I thought we were like $1400 behind, but when it gave me our balance, it said our balance is $1,050. That's a pleasant suprise. I was planning to pay the $300 plus a little extra so we could start paying down the balance, so I payed $360.00 to them. That will put our new balance at like $690.00 or something, and so if we pay a little extra to it for a few more months, we should get back on track. We still gotta get back on track with the city, we owe them probably about $500.00 because of them loving to double bill for water and sewage and trash when we also have to buy trash stickers.. sucks royally!
So after paying electric, I searched online for where I could find the best deals for speed quad-roller skates. The ones that are too small cost me $140.00, but I think those will actually fit Erin (worst case scenario she will have to wear thick socks). Then I looked up cheaper versions and found them for around $100.00, then I looked on ebay and cheapest there was like $60 to $75 plus shipping, but I randomly thought "let me check out amazon," and I found brand new speedskates that are made in chicago, and they were for like, $39.00, so all in all it cost me $45.00 with shipping, for skates that look like they will be what I am looking for. They should definitely be a ton better than the skates at the roller rink. And because they are through amazon directly, they will arrive quick. In fact, I bought them around 1:30 this afternoon and by the time I got up after sleeping 5 hours and getting up around 8:45, I had an email from amazon saying they shipped. It's like "SWEEEEEEEEEET!" so, now all that is left is to forward the link for skates for ally's birthday present to grandma. =)
So, although I'm sure there is more that I can go on about, I will begin to close. First though, this week security has remained hightened because of that violent guy upstairs that hurt maintenance bad and did a little bit to the security guard. We have extra guards working with us just in case, and we are not supposed to leave the campus at all for anything because they want us to be able to respond quick. Just yesterday, we were 15 minutes from getting off, and the nurse calls me and is like "this is ______ from behavioral med, we are going to go ahead and put him in restraints, he has been making some statements and some threats, and we are just really nervous about what he is going to do. I have already called the cops, and I am not announcing it overhead as a code yellow because I don't want him to know what's going on before everyone is here." I said "10/4, we are on our way and will bring whoever we can with us." So I got on the radio and was like "Maintenance do you copy?" "Maintenance here." "Maintenance this is Chris with Security, we have an unannounced code yellow in behavioral med, and we need all available personel to respond. We are going to be putting the patient back into restraints. Cops are on the way." "10/4, on our way, maintenance out."
When we got up there, we had quite the crowd. 2 of us security, 4 maintenance, 3 nurses, and 4 cops. We all took off anything that can be used against us as a weapon, and went in. The guy took one look at all of us, and got the look on his face like "oh shit, this is all for me?" and he walked in the room on his own, laid down and let them strap him up. I guess because we had such big numbers, he knew he better cooperate otherwise he was not going to be having a good time in a minute. So I left thanking God that everything went smoothly. I don't like getting into physical confrontations with patients, but it has happened. My technique is usually to not get too close until I have enough backup and we can all get them disabled without anyone getting hurt. I told our babysitter how for some reason this guy was calm with me when I was talking to him, and she said "well chris for a guy, your voice is very calming. Some guys have very intimidating voices, but you dont." I was like "i'm glad you think so."
So on that note, time to sign off. Till next time, you all take care.
C
What I say is "it's more a matter of "when" not "if." And some day I will make a believer out of those that simply don't play because they think they will never win. Well with that attitude, they are right! We all have the power to control our own lives, and some day I will have complete financial control of ours, never having to worry again. Something funny tonight when I came into work, me and the other guard went up to behavioral to check on the trouble patient, and apparently he was calm while in restraints but that's not the funny part. We were chatting with the staff and I glanced up on this marker board and there was a set of 6 numbers written on the board with $210,000,000 written underneath. Immediately I knew what it was... "lottery numbers I take it?" i said, and they mentioned that the staff up there will randomly put $5.00 a person towards the lotto and one of the daytime staff members goes and gets the tickets. I would love to go in on lotto drawings with my co-workers, but total there is only about 5 guards, and i doubt they would all be interested. It'd be funny though if we did, all 5 of us putting $5.00 or $10.00 towards the drawings and then one day we win. I wonder if we would all give a few weeks notice and resign or if only myself would, or if 2 of us would resign. I know my plan when it happens, if I'm still working security here is to give a notice immediately and resign after a few weeks. If it was a very large amount, I would buy our house from my parents, make an offer on the really run down hotel that we stayed at, with the intention of fixing it up, updating it and turning it into a really good hotel.
It's all dreams right now, but some day i have faith that although they be dreams currently, in the future they will be reality. We just have to have faith, for God is good, and we just have to keep pushing forward and we will eventually get to where we want to be. So today, our babysitter was out of town all morning, and so I stayed up with Zoe till mid afternoon before going to bed myself. I worked long and hard to get my algebra assignments done, which were hell because one was a quiz, and one was a check to see how you are understanding what you are working on, but technically arent both those things the same? lol.. What sucked is we are working on algebraic graphs. I can graph pretty easily, and sometimes I can find a slope, but other times they give me a random fraction and say "find the slope," and I took one look and thought "i have no freaking idea!" lol....
So in those cases, I simply did the best I could, got the answer wrong, and moved on. OH WELL! better a lower grade than failing, or even a 0, so hey, whatever. Then after taking care of all 4 algebra assignments, I called the automated line for our electric company. I thought we were like $1400 behind, but when it gave me our balance, it said our balance is $1,050. That's a pleasant suprise. I was planning to pay the $300 plus a little extra so we could start paying down the balance, so I payed $360.00 to them. That will put our new balance at like $690.00 or something, and so if we pay a little extra to it for a few more months, we should get back on track. We still gotta get back on track with the city, we owe them probably about $500.00 because of them loving to double bill for water and sewage and trash when we also have to buy trash stickers.. sucks royally!
So after paying electric, I searched online for where I could find the best deals for speed quad-roller skates. The ones that are too small cost me $140.00, but I think those will actually fit Erin (worst case scenario she will have to wear thick socks). Then I looked up cheaper versions and found them for around $100.00, then I looked on ebay and cheapest there was like $60 to $75 plus shipping, but I randomly thought "let me check out amazon," and I found brand new speedskates that are made in chicago, and they were for like, $39.00, so all in all it cost me $45.00 with shipping, for skates that look like they will be what I am looking for. They should definitely be a ton better than the skates at the roller rink. And because they are through amazon directly, they will arrive quick. In fact, I bought them around 1:30 this afternoon and by the time I got up after sleeping 5 hours and getting up around 8:45, I had an email from amazon saying they shipped. It's like "SWEEEEEEEEEET!" so, now all that is left is to forward the link for skates for ally's birthday present to grandma. =)
So, although I'm sure there is more that I can go on about, I will begin to close. First though, this week security has remained hightened because of that violent guy upstairs that hurt maintenance bad and did a little bit to the security guard. We have extra guards working with us just in case, and we are not supposed to leave the campus at all for anything because they want us to be able to respond quick. Just yesterday, we were 15 minutes from getting off, and the nurse calls me and is like "this is ______ from behavioral med, we are going to go ahead and put him in restraints, he has been making some statements and some threats, and we are just really nervous about what he is going to do. I have already called the cops, and I am not announcing it overhead as a code yellow because I don't want him to know what's going on before everyone is here." I said "10/4, we are on our way and will bring whoever we can with us." So I got on the radio and was like "Maintenance do you copy?" "Maintenance here." "Maintenance this is Chris with Security, we have an unannounced code yellow in behavioral med, and we need all available personel to respond. We are going to be putting the patient back into restraints. Cops are on the way." "10/4, on our way, maintenance out."
When we got up there, we had quite the crowd. 2 of us security, 4 maintenance, 3 nurses, and 4 cops. We all took off anything that can be used against us as a weapon, and went in. The guy took one look at all of us, and got the look on his face like "oh shit, this is all for me?" and he walked in the room on his own, laid down and let them strap him up. I guess because we had such big numbers, he knew he better cooperate otherwise he was not going to be having a good time in a minute. So I left thanking God that everything went smoothly. I don't like getting into physical confrontations with patients, but it has happened. My technique is usually to not get too close until I have enough backup and we can all get them disabled without anyone getting hurt. I told our babysitter how for some reason this guy was calm with me when I was talking to him, and she said "well chris for a guy, your voice is very calming. Some guys have very intimidating voices, but you dont." I was like "i'm glad you think so."
So on that note, time to sign off. Till next time, you all take care.
C
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Wednesday, April 6
Wow, what a great day yesterday was apparently for the guards and maintenance working during the day. About 11PM, which was about an hour before I come in to work, I received a call from the new HR Manager at Securitas. He was like "hey, I'm Jason, the new HR manager here at securitas. I'm sure you are aware of the situation up at the hospital." I was like "um, no? I have not heard anything, what is going on?"
Basically all he could tell me was that there was an "out of control patient," and that the hospital wanted to have extra guards on duty sitting actually up in the behavioral med unit. I didn't find out the full extent until I came in. When I came in, the 2nd shift guard, Matt, I could tell had been in a little bit of a fight with a patient because he has knots on the side of his head. Apparently, he and Tom (the maintenance guy 2nd shift), were called to behavioral med because there was a security situation. This guy broke a door off the hinges and had a female staff worker pinned in a corner and was about to start beating on her. Security and Maintenance arrived. Tom tried to approach the guy and he attacked him, hitting tom in the head a few times, and then matt approached and he got punched also. It ended with the patient pinned on the floor by both maintenance and security, both of them injured pretty bad, but the patient having bruises on his face from what I am told. When they were holding the guy down, the cops showed up, and told them to get off him. They did, and the guy started to get up too, but the cops held him down with their foot and said "You keep your ass down" or something to that extent.
Then they put him in cuffs, dragged him into the solitary room, got him into a hospital gown and restrained him to the bed while the nurses gave him meds to calm him down and make him go to sleep hopefully. According to matt, when he called securitas and told them about the situation, supposedly Pat (one of our managers) said that they need to work on this. Matt was like "work on what?" and pat said "you guys don't make close to enough money up there for having to deal with these kinds of patients." Whether we end up getting a raise, or some equipment to aid us in protecting ourselves and the other staff, I dont know. But apparently Administration here at the hospital is aware of it as well, and they are the ones I had talked to casually about us being able to get hospital badges so that we could get into most of the doors as well, and they agreed with me that it was a good idea, and by the next day we all had badges. So I'm hoping after this incident, that some additional steps will be taken.
Tom, who is a pretty big guy, got taken down to the ER and then sent home for at least a few days. The maintenance guy I am working with tonight said that Tom went home on crutches. Wow.... They both refused to press charges as well. I was a little surprised about that. Maybe it's because the way they looked at it was that the guy is a patient that needs help apparently. If it were me, and I got attacked and injured by some person that just flips out and tries to beat me up, 1) I would go all out and make sure that I defend myself. I know that they probably tried not to hit the guy even though he was hitting them, but if someone is hitting me, I'm going to hit back. Yes I will try to disable them, but if it is a choice between taking a few more hits to the head, or hitting them and taking them down, I'm going to take them down at whatever possible way I can. The way I look at it also is, if something else happens with this guy when he's here at the hospital, and he tries to attack me, once the first move is made, I'm claiming anything else I do on self defense.
So yeah, I was a little bit nervous when I came in. Still am a little bit. I'm not sure if I'm getting off duty at 8AM like I should be, or if I have to stay over for a bit. The guy that technically comes in at 8AM is the guard that is up in behavior med right now. I heard a rumor that they might be letting the guy go in the morning, but put him in restraints last night because of the fight. If they let him go, then we're done with him, if they don't, then there could very well be at least another night of hoping that he will not just flip out and try to hurt someone. What concerns me is that tom and Mat are both quite a bit bigger than me and two of the other guards. I'm not really a huge fighter, although I do know how to defend myself. I'm not sure what I'd do if attacked, other than maybe charge him and try to take him to the ground that way. I dont know. I prayed as soon as I came into work, hoping that with God's help, we will not have any more incidents like this while the guy is a patient here. Why can't people just cooperate when they are court ordered to get medical treatment? I just don't understand. It's the same thing when you get taken by police, people that fight and resist get treated much worse and extend their stay in jail..where as if you cooperate, do what you're told, and just be cool, you get to go home sooner.
This guy I guess either thought he could bust out, or *based on how he tried to beat up a female staff member*, probably was pissed about something and was thinking he would teach her who was boss.
So on that note, I'm going to close this out for now. Will write more again soon. =)
C
Basically all he could tell me was that there was an "out of control patient," and that the hospital wanted to have extra guards on duty sitting actually up in the behavioral med unit. I didn't find out the full extent until I came in. When I came in, the 2nd shift guard, Matt, I could tell had been in a little bit of a fight with a patient because he has knots on the side of his head. Apparently, he and Tom (the maintenance guy 2nd shift), were called to behavioral med because there was a security situation. This guy broke a door off the hinges and had a female staff worker pinned in a corner and was about to start beating on her. Security and Maintenance arrived. Tom tried to approach the guy and he attacked him, hitting tom in the head a few times, and then matt approached and he got punched also. It ended with the patient pinned on the floor by both maintenance and security, both of them injured pretty bad, but the patient having bruises on his face from what I am told. When they were holding the guy down, the cops showed up, and told them to get off him. They did, and the guy started to get up too, but the cops held him down with their foot and said "You keep your ass down" or something to that extent.
Then they put him in cuffs, dragged him into the solitary room, got him into a hospital gown and restrained him to the bed while the nurses gave him meds to calm him down and make him go to sleep hopefully. According to matt, when he called securitas and told them about the situation, supposedly Pat (one of our managers) said that they need to work on this. Matt was like "work on what?" and pat said "you guys don't make close to enough money up there for having to deal with these kinds of patients." Whether we end up getting a raise, or some equipment to aid us in protecting ourselves and the other staff, I dont know. But apparently Administration here at the hospital is aware of it as well, and they are the ones I had talked to casually about us being able to get hospital badges so that we could get into most of the doors as well, and they agreed with me that it was a good idea, and by the next day we all had badges. So I'm hoping after this incident, that some additional steps will be taken.
Tom, who is a pretty big guy, got taken down to the ER and then sent home for at least a few days. The maintenance guy I am working with tonight said that Tom went home on crutches. Wow.... They both refused to press charges as well. I was a little surprised about that. Maybe it's because the way they looked at it was that the guy is a patient that needs help apparently. If it were me, and I got attacked and injured by some person that just flips out and tries to beat me up, 1) I would go all out and make sure that I defend myself. I know that they probably tried not to hit the guy even though he was hitting them, but if someone is hitting me, I'm going to hit back. Yes I will try to disable them, but if it is a choice between taking a few more hits to the head, or hitting them and taking them down, I'm going to take them down at whatever possible way I can. The way I look at it also is, if something else happens with this guy when he's here at the hospital, and he tries to attack me, once the first move is made, I'm claiming anything else I do on self defense.
So yeah, I was a little bit nervous when I came in. Still am a little bit. I'm not sure if I'm getting off duty at 8AM like I should be, or if I have to stay over for a bit. The guy that technically comes in at 8AM is the guard that is up in behavior med right now. I heard a rumor that they might be letting the guy go in the morning, but put him in restraints last night because of the fight. If they let him go, then we're done with him, if they don't, then there could very well be at least another night of hoping that he will not just flip out and try to hurt someone. What concerns me is that tom and Mat are both quite a bit bigger than me and two of the other guards. I'm not really a huge fighter, although I do know how to defend myself. I'm not sure what I'd do if attacked, other than maybe charge him and try to take him to the ground that way. I dont know. I prayed as soon as I came into work, hoping that with God's help, we will not have any more incidents like this while the guy is a patient here. Why can't people just cooperate when they are court ordered to get medical treatment? I just don't understand. It's the same thing when you get taken by police, people that fight and resist get treated much worse and extend their stay in jail..where as if you cooperate, do what you're told, and just be cool, you get to go home sooner.
This guy I guess either thought he could bust out, or *based on how he tried to beat up a female staff member*, probably was pissed about something and was thinking he would teach her who was boss.
So on that note, I'm going to close this out for now. Will write more again soon. =)
C
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Tuesday morning, April 5, 2011
Well, like always, the weekend off from work just flew by. It is always nice and enjoyable, but goes by way too fast. I wish I could make the week fly by fast, and then make the weekend just feel like it drags on. I wouldn't mind that too much. Thankfully I really didn't feel like I had a whole lot I absolutely "had" to do, mainly because I completed all my school work before the end of the week, which meant that I didn't have anything due for school over the weekend. I enjoy doing that because it allows me to focus my energy on relaxing and spending time with the family.
Sunday evening though, after I had gone skating with lex, omg, I must have gotten a good work out because I was laying on the couch half asleep for a few hours while we were all watching a movie together. Of course, I barely remember anything about that movie before I took it back to the redbox to turn it back in, but it was the fact that we were all together hanging out that mattered the most. Of course, while we were doing that, usually Zoe is constantly like "I want to watch MY show!" We are slowly getting her trained around to the point where we don't always have to watch what she wants to watch, but instead she is being more agreeable to hang out with us even if what we are watching is something she is not interested in. We have her new doll house that she got for her birthday down in the family room so that she can go over and play with it if she is bored with what is on tv.
On the to-do list: Erin told me tonight that ally and zoe's grandma (Betsy), said that getting ally a pair of roller skates for her birthday coming up at the end of april would be a great idea and that I should forward her a link to some. Being grandma, I was hoping she would be able to find some that she thought would be really good, because naturally if I send her a link, I'm going to find some decent ones for lex that are not too terribly expensive and forward her that link. Where as, if she picks some out, she might actually pick ones out that were a little better. But, I will have to remember to look them up and forward a link to her so she can check some out. I went online and found some speed skates for myself that I would like to get asap, and I added it to my wishlist on skates.com and created an account so that I could log in at a later date and finalize it. When I bought my last pair of skates back when I was with Lori, they were Carerra Quad-Speed skates, quad basically just means that they have 4 wheels, 2 in front and 2 in back, where as roller blades are referred to as inline skates.
Anyway, when I bought my last pair of skates (that are now too small apparently), they were like $140. Not cheap for skates, but decent quality that I used them for a couple of years without really showing much wear and tear on them. The only reason i can't use them anymore is because my feet have gone from size 9 when I was with Lori, to size 10.5 or 11 now. So anyway, I was looking on skates.com and I found similar skates, but was trying to see what the cheapest ones I could find were that matched the types of skates I was looking for, and the cheapest I could find were $99.00. Expensive, yes, but I don't forsee my shoe size changing again, so I think it'll be perfectly fine. I really look forward to seeing how much better the experience at Roller Den it is when we both have our own skates. The floor would still be an issue, but if we have good skates of our own, I think we would enjoy it even more.
So, on a closing note, we are working with this credit repair guy through quicken loans, and he recommended I get a credit card or 2 with a credit limit of $300. I have a credit card through my USAA bank but the limit is only $250.00. I went onto a few of the possible card options that the repair specialist recommended. One of them approved me but offered me an interest rate of 50%. I was like "hell no.. not interested." Thankfully, I really don't have to do anything to cancel that one because they require a security deposit of $95.00, and if it isn't paid in a certain period of time, the card is canceled anyway. I wouldn't be able to use the card without paying that deposit, so basically we got the card in the mail today, and I said "where are the scissors?" and cut it up into little pieces.
Then tonight I went onto this mastercard offer that I get an email about all the time talking about "rebuild your credit" etc etc, and I got approved for that one, and it has an interest rate of 8% which is 1% better than my american express, but the only catch is, 1) I have to print off the entire application and mail it in, and then they will send me some deposit package, and I have to pay a security deposit of no less than $200.00. 1) I do not have an extra $200.00 just to open a card, and 2) it's just too much of a pain in the butt. Now if they said, they'd give me a credit limit of $300.00 and would charge the $200.00 on there to get me started, technically I would automatically owe $200.00 and would have a $100.00 available credit limit and could pay it down to where I would have an available limit of $300.00, but nope, a lot of these companies want money up front and I'm like "see ya!"
So anyway, yeah, a lot going on. What can I say? I do want to be able to improve our credit and get a home loan, but I'm beginning to wonder "at what cost" it will come. I mean, I have always tried to steer away from credit cards, and then when I got my american express, it was an offer through usaa whom I trust, but I was planning to stick with just that one. Then the repair specialist tells me "i'd recommend trying to have 2 cards with a $300.00 limit". It's almost to the point where I say "can I have my $150.00 fee back that I paid you guys? I'm not interested in being with your program right now." But, of course, we want a morgage and this seems to be how we will get to be home owners. So, we shall see, but I will keep you posted.
On that note, I bid thee farewell for now.
C signing off.
Sunday evening though, after I had gone skating with lex, omg, I must have gotten a good work out because I was laying on the couch half asleep for a few hours while we were all watching a movie together. Of course, I barely remember anything about that movie before I took it back to the redbox to turn it back in, but it was the fact that we were all together hanging out that mattered the most. Of course, while we were doing that, usually Zoe is constantly like "I want to watch MY show!" We are slowly getting her trained around to the point where we don't always have to watch what she wants to watch, but instead she is being more agreeable to hang out with us even if what we are watching is something she is not interested in. We have her new doll house that she got for her birthday down in the family room so that she can go over and play with it if she is bored with what is on tv.
On the to-do list: Erin told me tonight that ally and zoe's grandma (Betsy), said that getting ally a pair of roller skates for her birthday coming up at the end of april would be a great idea and that I should forward her a link to some. Being grandma, I was hoping she would be able to find some that she thought would be really good, because naturally if I send her a link, I'm going to find some decent ones for lex that are not too terribly expensive and forward her that link. Where as, if she picks some out, she might actually pick ones out that were a little better. But, I will have to remember to look them up and forward a link to her so she can check some out. I went online and found some speed skates for myself that I would like to get asap, and I added it to my wishlist on skates.com and created an account so that I could log in at a later date and finalize it. When I bought my last pair of skates back when I was with Lori, they were Carerra Quad-Speed skates, quad basically just means that they have 4 wheels, 2 in front and 2 in back, where as roller blades are referred to as inline skates.
Anyway, when I bought my last pair of skates (that are now too small apparently), they were like $140. Not cheap for skates, but decent quality that I used them for a couple of years without really showing much wear and tear on them. The only reason i can't use them anymore is because my feet have gone from size 9 when I was with Lori, to size 10.5 or 11 now. So anyway, I was looking on skates.com and I found similar skates, but was trying to see what the cheapest ones I could find were that matched the types of skates I was looking for, and the cheapest I could find were $99.00. Expensive, yes, but I don't forsee my shoe size changing again, so I think it'll be perfectly fine. I really look forward to seeing how much better the experience at Roller Den it is when we both have our own skates. The floor would still be an issue, but if we have good skates of our own, I think we would enjoy it even more.
So, on a closing note, we are working with this credit repair guy through quicken loans, and he recommended I get a credit card or 2 with a credit limit of $300. I have a credit card through my USAA bank but the limit is only $250.00. I went onto a few of the possible card options that the repair specialist recommended. One of them approved me but offered me an interest rate of 50%. I was like "hell no.. not interested." Thankfully, I really don't have to do anything to cancel that one because they require a security deposit of $95.00, and if it isn't paid in a certain period of time, the card is canceled anyway. I wouldn't be able to use the card without paying that deposit, so basically we got the card in the mail today, and I said "where are the scissors?" and cut it up into little pieces.
Then tonight I went onto this mastercard offer that I get an email about all the time talking about "rebuild your credit" etc etc, and I got approved for that one, and it has an interest rate of 8% which is 1% better than my american express, but the only catch is, 1) I have to print off the entire application and mail it in, and then they will send me some deposit package, and I have to pay a security deposit of no less than $200.00. 1) I do not have an extra $200.00 just to open a card, and 2) it's just too much of a pain in the butt. Now if they said, they'd give me a credit limit of $300.00 and would charge the $200.00 on there to get me started, technically I would automatically owe $200.00 and would have a $100.00 available credit limit and could pay it down to where I would have an available limit of $300.00, but nope, a lot of these companies want money up front and I'm like "see ya!"
So anyway, yeah, a lot going on. What can I say? I do want to be able to improve our credit and get a home loan, but I'm beginning to wonder "at what cost" it will come. I mean, I have always tried to steer away from credit cards, and then when I got my american express, it was an offer through usaa whom I trust, but I was planning to stick with just that one. Then the repair specialist tells me "i'd recommend trying to have 2 cards with a $300.00 limit". It's almost to the point where I say "can I have my $150.00 fee back that I paid you guys? I'm not interested in being with your program right now." But, of course, we want a morgage and this seems to be how we will get to be home owners. So, we shall see, but I will keep you posted.
On that note, I bid thee farewell for now.
C signing off.
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