Knee-jerk reaction

This Wednesday Chris started his new job. Finally! They've been having training in a different location everyday. First it was Lenexa, then Grain Valley, and today, Oak Grove. But so far so good. He'll get great benefits and he was super excited that if we move to Lexington, he'll be able to change his status to "remote" installer so he'll only have to make one trip to the shop at the beginning of the week and keep the company truck with him all week, essentially working out of the home & just going straight to the job sites each morning. Less driving=very cool.

It's been a good week. And to top it off we heard a fabulous story about his ex-boss at the Embassy Suites that was so horrible to him & all her employees. She told him once, concerning him needing time off to take Afton to a Dr appt b/c I'd already used up all my PTO taking him every time before, that one of us needed to step up, be a parent and take some responsibility. Essentially, she thought I should get written up at my job & take unpaid time off to take him to the Dr instead of letting Chris help out & take him. Or all the times she called him at 3 & 4 AM to cuss him out, screaming into the phone at him about how this or that wasn't done or needed to get done & he had to get up there right that minute & do it. Yes, at 3 & 4 AM, and yes, more than once. Or, how about the time she "punished" him for one of his employees not showing up by making him do that particular job, telling him that she was managing that night & he'd be the server only. Then she disappeared, but not before telling the catering manager that if Chris needed help he was not to go help him. It of course ended up being super busy, Chris had no help, didn't know that his boss had bailed on him & found out what she'd told the other manager. So it was just him with no other server, busser, running the whole restaurant. Or, or, the day he tried to talk to her about it, told her he didn't appreciate the way she was treating him and getting the response, "Well, you deserve it" before she stormed out. This woman is literally a raving psycho. But, we always keep the faith that people like that will get their just deserts one day or another. We don't have to get revenge; all we have to do is sit back & watch.

So, when we heard Wednesday night that one of her employees punched her in the face at work, I just about fell over, but all we really felt was satisfaction that her horrible ways are catching up to her. Just makes you wonder what she said to get that kind of reaction from someone. Hmm... I am honestly surprised it didn't happen before now. But it's great. It made Chris's week for sure!

The moral of the story: You should never do anything wrong. It will catch up with you.

Exhibit

The Art @ Work exhibit for our office will open June 7 with a reception. I also just found out that we can enter up to 3 things. So, I had just gotten it narrowed down to my Anastasia Island tree photo and now I've got 2 other options to select in addition. I'm super excited about this! I already have some other things framed that I could exhibit, such as the redbud photo taken in my Grandma's backyard, or a sprouting tulip photo that I had in the UMKC student show in the gallery on campus my junior year. But, I have so many to choose from and have things in other media besides photography that I could submit too like glass or pottery. I have a few paintings also but nothing that is gallery worthy as painting is not my strongest suit. I also have some prints, drawings & illustrations so I'll have to comb through all my work & see what I find. I've got till June 1 to get my stuff together before submitting for hanging/display. Wish me luck!

Some place warm

Speaking of warm places (see last post)... I'm pining for Florida. I won't get to go back until October (after Stacey's wedding in NC-combining trips for an extended vacation) but we'll be able to spend more time there than if we'd gone this month like we were thinking of doing before. We'll be less rushed and the water will still be warm at the 1st of Oct, unlike it is right now around the beaches of Central Florida. My aunt just took Grandma Rob (I call her Grandma Rob because her last name is Robinson. She used to be my Grandma Koz, short for Kozlowski before re-marrying so I kept up the short-name "tradition" after--not that it's absolutely necessary for you to know this, but just so we're on the same page)...anyway, back to the story.... my aunt just took her to Daytona for a little vacation. She did the same thing with me when Chris & I first moved down there in 2004. Chris was working so he didn't get to go but I didn't have a job that June still so she took me along & we had a great time sipping pina coladas, lounging by the pool (my aunt hates salt water) & I swam & surfed (sort of) with my cousin & his friend and took hot bubble baths (alone, mind you) in our ocean view room. My aunt thought of everything & even brought along a couple candles for the bath and a blender for the drinks. I took a handful of pictures on a disposable waterproof camera, which, shame on me, I still have yet to finish the roll or develop them. Gee, I hope they aren't ruined by now.

So, this year it was my Grandma's turn and I'm really jealous. ;o) But, come October we'll be heading down there from NC and will get to take Afton to the beach again. I don't know if he'll remember this trip or not but I'm sure he doesn't remember his very first time at the beach when he was only 4 months old. We made sure to take him at least once before we moved back to KC. But it was a pretty miserable trip. The wind at Clearwater that day was so strong we could hardly see for the stinging sand hitting us in our faces so hard. My hair tie broke in my desperate attempt to tie my hair out of my face so it also became an uncontrollable mess. We had sand everywhere and poor little Afton was not a happy camper. Below are some pictures from the day, but are not explanatory at all of how miserable it really was in the sand storm. You can see bits of sand on Afton's hat & my stylishly disheveled hair after we got back into the safety of the car.

I was reading through my pregnancy journal a couple weeks ago where I'd written that we couldn't wait to take him to the beach all the time and how we knew how much he'd just love it because we love the beach so much. We had a lot of great beach days, that's for sure (well, except for that one red tide beach day-that was smelly). But, my, how things change in only a little over a year. We'll just have to go back to visit as much as possible and make lots more good memories! :o)

Do NOT reply to all

It seems that some people will never learn from other people's mistakes. We all fear it. You send a personal email at work and double-check the "To:" line. You receive an email that was sent to everyone and really only mean to send a reply to the person that sent it in the first place. But, whoops! What's that silly "reply to all" mean?? Gee, I haven't the faintest...

_____________________________________________
From: Tech.Help (Help Desk)
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 10:58 AM
To: [company name edited] - Everyone
Subject: Please Read - Message Waiting Light

We are currently experiencing issues with the telephone message waiting light not displaying when you have a new voice mail. Our Engineers are working on this issue. We will keep you posted when it has been corrected.
Thank you for your patience during this timeframe. Please contact Help.Tech if you have any questions or further problems.


______________________________________________
From: [Last Name], Carol
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 11:03 AM
To: Tech.Help (Help Desk); [company name edited] - Everyone
Subject: RE: Please Read - Message Waiting Light

I'm hungry and cold and have a stiff neck. Let's go somewhere warm.

Carol [Last Name]
Legal Secretary
Kansas City, MO 64106
Telephone: (816) xxx-3317
Facsimile: (816) xxx-3495


______________________________________________
Yes, Carol, let's do lunch in Aruba. You buying? I'll bring the Advil.

A novel

This'll be a long one, so hang in there with me! :oP

Last week was very eventful (mostly bad events) but it's a new week and a fresh start for a better week. As I posted last week, my grandmother passed away on Tuesday. The funeral was Friday and was a nice service. And just like is appropriate for any day of a funeral the sky clouded up & it rained and poured--but it stopped just in time for the service at the graveside. Good thing because we didn't have an umbrella.

I also had strep last week & am getting over that. Chris's aunt also passed away Saturday morning we found out over the weekend. It's his mother's sister and I guess she was sick for a while but nobody was expecting it still.

I was not at work all last week except for Monday. So I'm catching up this week. Last Wednesday my cube neighbor collapsed in the restroom here at work & had to be taken out by ambulance. She's still in the hospital and is having tests done today to figure out what's going on. And we have a HS student who works here one day a week on a sponsorship program with his school. He was hit by a car last week and is OK but was pretty shaken up. He went up onto the woman's hood of her car & freaked out & ran off.

What a week! I hope everyone's week was better and I would be most grateful for a calm and boring week. You know what they say about "no news is good news"--I hope I get NO news this week!

BUT I do have good news to report and I'll finish with these good notes. As I mentioned in the last post, Chris was offered the job last week that he interviewed for a few weeks ago. He starts training on the 18th but it's 5 weeks of paid training so that's cool. He'll be installing satellites for Dish Network and will only be working 4 days a week. FT with PAID overtime guaranteed (it's been a while since he's gotten paid for OT having been a salaried manager). He'll only work 1 Saturday a month also so we're happy about that that it's not every Saturday like we've been used to the last several years. I really hope he likes it. It sounds like it'll be a good job.

And...it's in Grain Valley, close to the location we've been looking at for houses. The house in Lexington we've had our eyes on for a while dropped from $89,900 to $79,900 last month and just yesterday we noticed that the price listed on the website now says $69,900, so they've dropped it another $10k! We're not quite ready yet to make an offer because of Chris's new start date later than he was originally told, but hopefully the lack of interest in this property will continue and that it'll still be there in a few weeks.

Yesterday I got Afton out in the grass at Chris's brother's house & he didn't even know what to do in the strange green stuff. He truly is a city boy now and we've got to do something about that! Every time I put him down in the grass he cried & acted like he forgot how to walk. With the few steps he took he wobbled & fell. It was like I'd stuck him in a tar pit & he couldn't manage to lift his feet to take steps properly. So I let him take a break, held him a bit and tried again later. He still cried & freaked out when I put him in the grass again but I finally got him calmed down & playing a little. He still just sat there in the grass & didn't move his tush for a half hour though! This kid needs to get out more! The grass was a monster trying to eat his feet apparently.

Well, that's all the update I've got for now. I'll post some pics soon of Afton that I took over the weekend of his "outdoor adventure." :o)