Hey folks, it feels like it's coming down to the nitty-gritty right now with this economy. Is it not? It's beginning to feel like it's time to go back to trade, growing & killing your own food; everyone back on an even playing field & only the strong survive! Things are looking very Bad (with a capital B) out there, according to the evening news. Thousands losing their jobs, gas prices, bankruptsy, foreclosures, devasting storms, to name just a few. All I can think to say is: Wow! I truly try to look at things with an optimistic atmosphere, but I'll tell you, it's getting really hard to do so. Things have been Bad for me for awhile, but that's lately been my norm. Now it seems others are starting to catch up to me & it's truly scaring the crap out of me. Gas, food, everything is going up....  Being unemployed is freightening enough, but when your hurting so bad you can't even afford the gas to get to interviews and when you finally dig up the money to get there, there's a good months wait before you hear anything from said job. If you happen to luck out and get the job, now your waiting a good three weeks wait for a first paycheck (not that I got one yet, just pointing out the vicious circle) ~ GULP.  

Ok, so I got that little bitch session out and I am sitting here trying to think about something positive to write about, while I'm procrastinating making my coffee. I could write about how much I LOVE the new book I started last night and have read 200 pages of already. The book I Won ~ Made in the U.S.A. When suddenly, I hear my door slam.... Oh No...  a notice is posted on my door ~ never a good thing.  (Ok, turns out It's better than it could be, but still not a great start to my day) 

TO ALL RESIDENTS:

The water will be turned off for quite a while today. At this time we are experiencing some water difficulties. The water will be turned off and on today trying to determine the problem. The water should be back on this evning without any interruptions.

So it is recommended that you set aside some water for the day so you will not run out. If you have any difficulites please contact the office.

Difficulties?  How about the fact that immediately after reading the news, while the guy was still pulling away, I run to fill up my coffee pot that requires water and I've been procrastinating making; and simultaneously run to grab a jug & a large boiling pan to fill, as advised.  BUT.... it's already off!! Happy Day! Can you feel my pain?

Big Brother is truly watching!  Have you heard of the new E-Verify system? How scary is this?

Today I went to the temporary agency interview to complete the necessary and "humdrum, done this a million times" required paperwork. Of course and as expected, the paperwork included the Federal I-9 form and W2, both required to work in the good ole U.S. of A! 

While completing the computerized application, the company (without even notifying me of such...) ran my SS # into a new government / immigration "pilot" system (according to the letter I recieved after the fact) called "E-Verify".  I'm now very aware of this program only because, being slightly dislexic, I managed to transpose two of the numbers in my social security number and after completing my application was confronted by the receptionist that my "name & social do not match"  ~ Oops.  No such thing as a simple Oops these days though!  

I double check my information and find the transposed number, an honest mistake on my part and point it out to her...  "Oh so Sorry ~ too late" is esssentially her respoonse and she procedes to tell me, in an attitude seeming to insinuate that I had purposely gave the wrong information that I now have to report to the local SSA office to explain the discrepancy within 8 business days. 

Are you f'ing kidding me? And YES, she was completely serious ~ with a letter in hand from Homeland Security to prove it.

It wasn't, but it could have easily been a typo from the person entering the info into the "E-Verify" program, not to mention a million other problems with this system.  Now I'm being punished....  by having to drive to my nearest SSA office, which happens to be 40 miles away, one way!  NOT HAPPENING FOLKS!

I feel like ranting and raving over this ~ it's complete Bullshit. But instead, I'll sit idly back and behave. I won't make noise but also won't comply.  I'm going to gamble on this one... there's no way I'm going to the SSA office to explain such BS.  After asking her what would happen if I didn't show up at the SSA office within 8 days, Miss Receptionist' stumbling response was that I wouldn't be eligible to work in the US. Oh really... We'll see! I think it's more like I won't be able to work for them.... but so what. The scary part being that I don't think anyone had ever even dared to ask her such a question! 

My thinking is this: How they would even track such a thing if it wasn't the right social security # to begin with? And.... if I'm not going to attempt to work under that same number again, because it was a simple error, how can they keep me from working under my correct number?  I may be gambling slightly, but those that know me, know that that's my nature and so isn't rebeling against such a program!  How many more ways can they track us? This is beginning to feel like _____! (fill in the blank) 

If.... they try to stop me from working in the future based on this silly error, then I'll go down to the SSA office at that point ~ and not before!

Becky and I like to trade work stories, when we talk. Her "war" stories tend to deal with corporate Bullshit (with a captial B) or irrate customers. I always loved to hear about the irrate customers and her interesting stories and now we can compete!

Working in the service industry is interesting, to say the least. There is never a dull moment and last night was a whopper. Anything that would go wrong, did!

I work at a local hotel and this week is Virginia Tech's "move-in" week. The hotel is completely booked for the week, with no free rooms. With the exception, I should say, of the 3 or 4 rooms that were reserved under the GM's name for emergency situations. I'm still in training, but am more or less on my own now (need I mention I love the work, but already hate the management). Last night I got to deal, on my own.

Story #1: I got a call from another local hotel, asking if we have a room. We were told it's ok to release those rooms under the GMs name at 7 p.m. and give them to "walk-in" customers (at an exorbitant amount, I may add), so I said "yes, send them over, we have a walk-in room available". They came in and were so grateful that we had something available. They had driven from NY State, with their 3 kids, one of which was beginning her first year at Tech, and arrived to the news that the other hotel had "lost" their reservation. Apparently they confirmed this reservation 3 times since they booked it. I made their night!  I got them all checked in, with the woman in tears the whole time, at which point they asked "this is for two nights, right?"  "No, no-one had mentioned two nights at all" Chrissie searches for a room for the 2nd night and Yikes..... The only thing I had were two rooms for the next night, which also had been reserved under the GM's name for emergency purposes only, and were not supposed to be used. Here come the tears again and of course I gave it to them and of course I got in trouble. Can't win for losing!  

So that's Story #1, watch out, it only get's better....  A man and his daughter check in from Maryland, again the daughter is beginning at Tech this week. They stayed at the hotel about 6 months previous and enjoyed their stay. The day they got back to Maryland, they made a reservation for this upcoming "move-in" week at a rate of 110.00 per night. When they arrived last night and checked in, the rate popped up to 159.00! (After the fact I learned that the GM didn't change the rates to the higher amounts until after they made the reservation. You would think that he would honor those reservations already in the system, but no.... I wonder how many other people thought they were paying 110?) Needless to say, the man was quite upset, but because my co-worker (person training me) told him all the rooms in this area were pretty much competative with our rates and were also completely booked, he heatedly went ahead and decided to stay. About an hour later they came back down to the front desk, hotter than before, demanding their money back. Apparently, they went to the room and called around and found that our "sister" hotel, on campus no less, had an available room and it was Cheaper! In my mind, fine, go ahead. In managements mind, he could leave, but he wasn't getting a refund, because he had checked in and been in the room for a period of time, he was getting no refund! The man, understandably still very upset, insisted on talking to the GM (at this point it was 10 p.m.), who stubbornly refused to speak to him (I couldn't believe he wouldn't get on the phone). The man claimed he would make "such a stink, we'd never forget him" (Thank God they knew I was the "Good Guy"). He screamed that the GM is a coward (which apparently his is, hence the photo to the right), called our dispute center for mediation from the front desk phone (with no luck), couldn't get ahold of his credit card company and then refused to leave the front desk until we refunded him the money, which we refused to do! It was a stale-mate. After about an hour he said he would stay in the room, but only so that he could confront the GM in the morning. It'd like to be a fly on the wall this morning..... I wonder if the coward showed up? The general consensus, amongst us front desk people, was that he wouldn't.

Sami is off for her first day of school. She looked very pretty today and was ready to go by 5 a.m. She doesn't like the people on her new school bus, so opted to wake up an hour earlier and ride with her friend Lindsey, who also doesn't like the people on this specific school bus, and gets a ride to her grandmother's every morning to ride a different bus. So Sami rode with them to the grandmother's - she is off and in high school! Good Luck little Girl!  

I have an 89 Camry, which is old, but drives like new.  There aren't all that many miles on it, at least not for a Toyota, so I don't mind it, it's not a bad little running car.  But... Saturday morning it started mishaving again.  I live on top of a mountain and in order to get home from work, I must go up!  My lil Camry apparently wasn't in the mood to go Up anymore.  It would only chug along at like 45 mph, even on the interstate.  It was fine in flat areas and of course was great going downhill, but not up!  So... I'm dealing with it.  I've had this happen twice before and for some reason it loses power and runs on only 3 cylinders instead of 4. 

So anyway... I drove home from Roanoke twice Saturday, with it going ever so slow up hills, and although it was annoying, I was able to handle it, knowing that Kevin could looked at it again on Monday or Tuesday, my days off.  This morning it got me half way to work, about a 45 minute drive, when it finally decided to chug it's last hill.  I got to the very top and was so so so so looking forward to sailing down the other side.... when the RPM's dropped and it died right there, on the tippity-top of the hill. 

$60.00 later, it was towed to Evil Trucks house and awaits repair now.  Becky is picking me up at work and I'm spending the night at her house so that I can take her to work tomorrow and borrow her car to go fix mine....  Samantha, who spent the weekend at her friend Dani's is now staying another night, on a school night, so I'm sure she's excited about that! I am praying it won't take too much to repair - too much money or effort, and I'm trying not to think of that fact that I have to take Samantha to Richmond on Thursday or Friday to get on an Amtrak so she can spend her Christmas vacation at her Nana's, which could be another disaster in and of itself!

This is Toby, our German Shepherd.  Cute, isn't he?  He is georgous and very big ~ we love him very much!

So, I woke up this morning to a hard knock on my new front door. Low and behold, there stood a policeman.  I wasn't thrilled at this sight, to say the least and I still had sleep in my eyes and on my mind.  Can you even imagine being awoke by police at 9 a.m.?  Me either.

The police happened to end up being the Animal Control officer (thank god) and boy was I not happy that he had come knocking at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning, not to mention that I was slightly angry he was on my doorstep at all.  He also happened to be an arrogant ass on a power trip, making my morning experience just oh so much better.  His first question was whether I owned a German Shepherd? Followed by "are you aware that there is a lease law in Montgomery County?" - "Yes I am but my dog got off his chain, sorry" (slight fib here)

He then proceded to ask me for my ID, which I refused to give him because why the hell does he need my ID? He’s at MY door.  I'm not driving and he's invading my space, big time.  (I really only refused because I actually don’t physically have an ID right now.  I lost my pocketbook a few months ago and am still procrastinating to get a copy, but still).  He said someone had called because my dog was not on a leash and that if he catches him free then he’ll “write me up”.

 

Yes, Toby was off the lease, however if there's anything I don't believe in, it's keeping a dog chained up. It’s not fair and I’d rather just not own a dog.  Toby is the sweetest dog ever, who, I admit, does have quite a bark to him, but for the few weeks that we have been at the new house he has never even left my yard.  He would just lay in my front yard and wasn’t hurting a soul.  He has run free since he was a puppy and he is not going to be a happy camper on a chain. 

This, ladies and gentleman, is a perfect example of why I love the country and why I hate living in a “neighborhood” with nosy ass neighbors who have nothing better to do than bother other peoples lives.  I’m kicking myself in the ass for not finding a place where Toby could run and now I’ve got to come up with other options ~ I don't plan on compromising my beliefs for long. 

I loved being surrounded fields and no people!  I’m on the lookout now and because I'm re-settled, I have the time to wait for the perfect, ideal situation.  Priorites are that it's in Sami’s school district, is affordable for myself and where Toby can run!  It might take me a year, but I’ll find it!

I have been waiting for my new cell phones since June 22nd, when I decided to switch providers!  I called my old provider and informed them of my switch and ordered my new ones.  

But.... Never got the new ones!  I'm very annoyed with my new provider and haven't even gotten the phones yet.  Good start huh?  

They were supposed to ship the phone 1 - 3 business days after I placed the order.  When they hadn't arrived within the 1st week,  I called them and was told "your order had gotten "caught" in between two software systems and that it would have to be manually entered" "but not to worry, I'll do this manual work right now and the phones should be arriving in yet another 1 - 3 business days". 

Another week, no phone.  The story I got this time was that they were out of one of the three phones I ordered (no one bothered to call to tell me this) and that I needed to pick another.  I had ordered two pink phones for me and Sam and black one for Kevin.  Just to get the phones in my possesion I told them to just go ahead and send three pink ones, knowing that Kevin would pitch a fit over a pink phone, but pink is better than nonel.  The pink phones were in stock, afterall.  "Ok... they will ship within 1 - 3 business days". 

4 days later, still no phone.  Surprize, Surprize! 

Yesterday I called and now I'm getting  "all three phones are now out of stock"!!!!  Arggggh!  In addition, I still got no email or return call explanation when they discovered as much.  

Instead of standing in the rain at the payphone, as I was, I choose to call today from work.  I think, (think being the key word) that I've actually got it taken care of this time, but of course won't know for sure for another 1 - 3 business days! 

The bummer though, is that all they had in stock were the cheapest of cheap phones... No camera, nothing. What the hell is the matter with these peoples inventory?  I told the woman I needed the phones and at this point I didn't care what the damn thing looked like.  Just send something, Please! She claims that I can watch the website or call in and check on other availablities over my first 30 days.  As long as it's within these 30 days I can swap the phones out for one that I do want, when and if they ever have stock on the selected phone.  Or....  if I want to pay then I can purchase a good phone, of course!  So to end my tale, they are sending the cheapo and at least I'll have something to use.  How frustrating!!!!  If there is nothing available by the 30th day, I plan on cancelling the whole deal and again going elsewhere!  I'll keep you posted, dear friends.

It all started when I agreed that Samantha's almost step-brother (Eric's girlfriends son) spend the night so that they could go out and also agreed for Sami to have a friend spend the night from school.  So we have one eight year old boy and two thirteen year old girls - what kind of a combo do you think this would make? 

Well it started just fine.  They played freeze tag and hide and seek and when it got dark they played flashlight tage and went over and jumped in the hay across the road from us.  I had already done dinner and was sitting down crossstitching and the kids had come in and were playing around in our upstairs open area / computer room.  There's a paneled glass door that closes off the open area upstairs to the actual stairs which is kind of nice because they can play music, dance, rough howse, whatever and I can't hear it. 

Suddenly I hear smash.  Yes there goes the glass door and Chandler comes down the stairs with blood gushing from his arm and a tear spaning his entire forearm and going right down deep to the bone.  I have never in my life seen anything quite so gruesome looking.  He was so brave though, simply came running downstairs yelling "call 911" and the girls screaming behind him didn't help my panic in the least.  I called and the volunteer resque squad took over and took him to the hospital.

55 stitches that little boy had to have.  I'm not feeling too wonderful over the whole thing, I can't stop seeing it all over and over in my mind! 

And I thought the exciting airline trip to Boston was bad…  if you read below you’ll see we missed our connection flight and had to wait an hour to get on the next flight….  I was sadly mistaken. 

The trip home was double bad, if not triple. 

It started out well.  I went right up to the e-ticket booth, no lines and got our luggage stowed right away.  Sam and I did a little wandering before our flight was due to board.  I was there ½ hour early, as I had learned my lesson during that first flight.   The flight itself was fine too.  Very smooth sailing.  Sami and I had different seats – window seats – one in front of the other, which wasn’t bad  either because we could still talk to each other, but a sweet man offered to change with us so we ended up sitting together.  This was nice, everything was turning out very nice indeed. 

Our change over was in Dulles (DC) where we would get off the big jet liner and transfer into a smaller plane.   

The problems began when the jet pulled into Dulles and there were no gates available for unloading of us patient passengers.  Patient passengers of over an hour no less! 

While waiting, my connection flight left without us. 

After standing in a customer service line for over an hour (because many people missed the connectors) we were advised that we could take the midnight flight, only 6 hours to wait!  Ummm – No.       

On top of all this, security is just ridiculous, to add insult to injury.  Those security folks make you feel like a criminal if they find something in your carry-on bags.  I had the cutest little small souvenir bottles of ketchup, mustard and mayo (they were so cute, like the size of a salt shaker) and they wouldn’t let me have them – they went straight in the trash.  Yet…  I carried on three different pairs of scissors in my stitching bag. 

Go figure. 

The airline agent at least compromised a little.  I didn’t have anyone to pick us up at midnight in Roanoke so they split the cost of a Holiday Inn.  I was exhausted by then so this was perfectly fine with me.  The hotel was Excellent.  Very nice!  A Fancy Holiday Inn! 

More issues though.  By about 10 pm Sami was crying due to a toothache.  Leading us, the next morning, to pick a dentist from the phone book, before getting on our 5 pm flight.  $50.00 more on cab fair to and from the dentist to have her cavity tooth pulled.  (It was a baby tooth, Thank God)  This dentist was excellent and did a great job.  But I've got a question?  What is this my month for dentists?  I have spent 769.00 in dentist fee’s over the past two weeks!   

(Tomorrow I shall catch up on two more weeks of Blog Fodder Subjects.  I have too much to do today getting un-Christmas organized).

I had just closed an email from my aunt stating that my boyfriend Kevin should get into computer work.  I had been on our Love-Link (our family email discussion forum) bragging that Kevin, my boyfriend, could fix any computer under the sun.  My mother's computer has been down for a few weeks now - actually since Thanksgiving - and we were discussing these new developments.  

The next time I came to my computer it was null and void, no longer working, caput....  I guess I should have knocked on wood.

No big deal, I thought, Kevin will be up this weekend and he'll have it up and running in no time.  Still null & void, still no longer working, still caput...  He spent a good while trying to get it up and running but apparently the motherboard is fried!  (Yesterday I recalled that before this happened I did get a virus warning but I don't know if these two are connected)  

I lasted 6 days without my computer before hiking to my local Best Buy for a new one.  I can't go without, I have determined, so I bought me a brand spanking new computer and am back in the lap of luxury!  And....  computers are fairly inexpensive now, I was thrilled & surprized to learn!  I guess I just bought myself an early Christmas gift!

I've got some blogging to catch up on and emailing too....   

To follow:

Blog Fodder #2, which I missed last weekend and coincidentally wrote and lost twice when my computer was acting up.

Blog Fodder #3, this weeks topic.

We have a new wireless mouse & keypad.  It's really cool - except for one thing.  The mouse has to be charged and everyone, including myself, gets up from the computer and forgets to put the mouse in its charger.  What I need are big post-it notes all over this room to remind people I guess.  It's frustrating because you come to the computer and the mouse won't work! 

The first time this happened was a sight.  Of course Kevin wasn't here (as he only is on the weekends) and I thought the mouse was just freezing up.  I keep rebooting the dang computer until about 1/2 hour later, and probably about 10 reboots, I noticed this charger sitting next to the scanner.  Then it dawned on me...  its wireless, it needs to charge!  Bingo - problem fixed.

Kevin claims he told me and Sami that we needed to charge the mouse.  Kevin claims he tells us things all the time, that he doesn't.  I don't know if he thinks about telling us, therefore his mind thinks he did, but I swear - he did not tell us.  Kevin claiming to tell us things happens in  other cases too, trust me.  Oh and another thing - he loses his stuff all over the house and then thinks I moved them (because I do have a habit of straightening up and putting his stuff away where it's supposed to go (according to me)) but...  I know if I've done so and if he asks me and I say I didn't touch it - he never believes me.  

My other question?  Why do we need a wireless mouse and keyboard?  Where are we going to take the mouse and keyboard to, besides right in front of the computer?  I do know why though....  because Kevin has got to have every last new gadget out there!  I admit, it's kind of nice because we are definitely on the top when it comes to electronics, but come on...  He is constantly buying hard drives and upgrading stuff....  I don't really understand why?  If the computer works perfectly, why can't it just be left alone?  Why do we need so much memory or storage?  I guess that's just one of the things that makes Kevin, Kevin - and I do love him!  

As I type the mouse is charging.  I came in to do my daily and it was dead, of course!  I am the type that has a thousand windows open and go back between blogging, email and any other project I'm working on.  I don't like to wait for stuff to load (not that it takes that long with high speed, but still) and therefore I do something and go to the next window, do something else and then back to it.  I guess that would be "Multi-tasking"?  My style is cramped now.  The mouse charges, so while I'm waiting, I might as well type up my blog....  I don't need the mouse to type, thank god!

Pretend the Post Below Isn't Even There... It's Just A Figment Of Your Imagination!

Wow - I screwed that one up below....  I can't get to my "edit this post" because the pics that were there threw the link for editing right off the page.  The next thing I tried was to go in and delete the pics from the File Manager - this worked but only to block the pics from being seen. I still can't get to my "edit this post" link - now I can see it, but I can't click it because it's behind one of those white boxes with a red X. 

I'm going to Tripod Help to get assistance and will post my pic's I had planned a little later today - so hang on... and come back...

Once upon a time there was a post here that was supposed to be pictures of funny signs.  Because I didn't Preview my entry first when I posted it it ran across way out, further than even my sidebars.  It looked screwy.  I wanted to edit it but I was unable to edit it, as you will read above. 

Along came a magic person who gave me the instructions to manually repair this post.  As you can see, the photo's are gone now!  Thank you so much to "cw"!  I can't thank you enough.  You saved my Mom with her deleted Blog and now you've cleaned up one of my messes too.  Your wonderful!

I had my shopping list all ready as I got out of work last night.  I had to get my Thanksgiving stuff and Samantha's birthday things. 

I got in my car and attempted to leave and the damn thing won't start, it won't even turn over.    Dead as a doornail.  (Why do they say a doornail is dead?  What is a doornail?)

My car does have some electrical issues because it sat at Colleeen's house for close to two years while I was living in Massachusetts.  Needless to say, the field mice wrecked havoc.  I actually found a few mice nests under the hood and wrapped in my wires. 

On the way to work the car had stalled and acted like the battery had died – but I wiggled the battery connections and it started right back up – something that I learned a few months back when I was having the same issues.  Same thing at lunch – wiggling wires worked.  But this time – wiggling wires won’t work!  Yikes!  Under my breath I’m cussing and thinking "Just what I need… right in time for Sam’s birthday, our upcoming weekend away horseback riding and Christmas on the horizon."   Luckily, my girlfriend at work gave me a jump and after about a ½ hour of wiggling the car finally started.  For while anyway….  The car stayed running until I pulled into Kevin's motel room and stalled dead again right in my parking spot.  (Thank god it happened where it did).  I called Sami to let her know this would be her first night spending the night alone because I wasn't going anywhere, at least until Kevin got out of work at 2 am.  Kevin would be able to check the car out in the morning but I couldn't make the 45 minute trek up the mountain, knowing that even if I could get it started it probably wouldn't make it the whole way.  I called Kim and asked her to pick me up at work, no problem, while asking Kevin if he could keep my car and check it out when he woke up today.    

Kim took me back to his place this evening, which is where I am now.  I'm getting ready to attempt to drive home.  Wish me luck!   

It's been awhile since I've posted. 

Alot going on - but then again, not much at all. 

This kind of brings me to my title, should I laugh or should I cry? 

That's how I feel right now. 

I wished I could answer that question because it would make life a whole hell of a lot easier.  But, I can't. 

I'm thinking positive so hopefully I'll be laughing before it's over.....

I started work Monday.  Yep, I have a new job.  I like it pretty well but it's still not what I'm accustomed too.  It is a paycheck - laughter - but not until the 29th of this month - tears on the horizon - because that's almost three weeks - making the tears slightly more self explanatory.  

We move in the new house this weekend.  Great!  Can't wait!  Laughter heard in the distance.  Tears because I don't know how I'm going to survive in that new house until the 29th.  I have yet to get the utilities into our names, which I can gaurantee will cost more money.  Furniture, in and of itself, can't be added until I can get it out of storage - so I get to live like a camper, still, until at least Halloween.  More tears. 

Sami started back to school a few weeks back.  Laughter - it's a great school and she could be doing great.  Tears because she can't attend because I can't get her home from school this week,  due to my new job.  I have asked everybody that is supposed to give a shit and haven't gotten very far.  So... do I keep her home and make her suffer, so as not to lose my job, when she has already missed a few too many days in only three weeks?  Or do I stay home so my daughter lives a "normal" life and stays in good graces at school, but lose my job?  What is normal and where should the sacrifice lie?  What would you do?  Because I'll be damned if I can answer that question.  

The worse part being, if I were home, I wouldn't even be facing this situation.....   (But.... go ahead and say it - I've chosen).  If I could go back I know of something I would change....    

That's what I'm facing tonight and you know what?  I'm tired of facing this type of stuff that normally is mundane for most.

And this is only the beginning.......

So I just re-read, trying to decide whether to even post this.... 

After all - isn't a blog supposed to be a journal?

Here's hoping things are looking up the next time I post!

Another week without blogging.  For some reason I don't feel like blogging when I'm not feeling "right" with things.  I have had so much on my mind but to actually spell it out in writing is way too much effort and to think of anything else to write about is hardly on my mind and even more effort.  So in silence I remain, when I'm feeling this way.  I apologize dear readers.  I seem to want to write only when my thoughts are positive.

So a positive thing finally happened!  I was offered a position today at one of the companies I have recently interviewed with.  This was some very needed good news and it does seem to be helping my outlook, somewhat...  although there still are some big obstacles I need to tackle.  I honestly don't know where I'm going in life right now and I hate feeling this way.  I'm tired of struggling along and just want peace.

I wasn't planning to tell you this story, but it ended up on my blog page, so here it is:     The week before last I had rented a little house that I thought was going to fit into my scheme of things just perfectly.  Well, this didn't materialize the way it was supposed to and fell through at the very last minute.  I moved 1/2 my stuff in and then moved the same stuff back out again.  I had already enrolled Sami in the new school, located in the county of what I am now calling the "house that never was" - so now I have to drive her 15 miles to school and then drive myself 15 miles back to the Becky's every morning and do it all over again at 2:25 p.m.  I've been doing this for three days now and it's no fun!  It is literally costing me 10.00 per day just to get her to school and back.  Doesn't sound like a lot, but when your living on pennies, it really is!  I literally rolled 7.00 in pennies to get her to school today, and they weren't even my pennies!  How pitiful is that? 

But..... remember that saying that everything happens for a reason?  I'm still trying to believe it.....  As hard as it might seem right now. 

There is another house - a huge georgous white farm house - located in the same school district - that just happened to appear right around the time I needed it.  It was just like it manifested itself when I really needed it too.  Only $100.00 more than the "house that never was" and three times as big.  It's got about 10 acres surrounding it and would be perfect for us, as well as the seemingly troublesome animals.  

Actually it's a dream house and the even funnier part about this house is that for years I have driven past this house, looking at it longingly, thinking how I would love to live there, even though it was falling apart.  I even, at one point, when I was pregnant with Sami, called the owners to see if they would consider renting it out (at the time they didn't want to).   In the past 12 years I guess they had a change of heart and there's a big FOR RENT sign in the yard and it's in the process of being restored.  I went to see it last weekend and it is georgous!  It won't be done until the 15th of September.  So now it's a waiting game.  I've submitted an application, but I've also moved alot, so I'm never all that confident when it comes to applications and such.  This application seemed a little more "formal" than I would prefer - but at the same time the owner is a 75 year old local farmer who seemed rather negotiable - so it's kind of a strange situation.  Only time will tell.  And if it's meant to be....  then this truly will prove it! 

(On the other hand, if this house doesn't come through then I need to begin a new thought pattern...  Stability must be my main focus for Sami.  Finding a home in her new school area isn't going to be easy and more than anything I want her to stay put for awhile, for the sake of school).   

So after I found out about the sparkling new job it made me feel a little better and I decided I might try to blog.  I had to check my emails first though, which I usually do daily, even if I'm not blogging.  I decided to check my horoscope that I get daily.  Sometimes I ignore it and don't even open it, but today I did and got what I think was a pretty accurate horoscope.  It seems rather fitting, don't you think?  Progress - A step in the right direction!

Aries

Despite any obstacles, you should be able to make some progress today. You still may have a few fears in the back of your mind, but you should just try to put any uncertainties aside and focus on the tasks at hand. You can
probably accomplish a lot right now if you just focus on what really needs
to get done.

Friday night Becky and I hung out on her front porch.  It was a georgous night and great to get some nice fresh mountain air.  We played Scattergories at the outisde table and stayed out there until about 1 a.m.  At around 10:00 p.m. I started to notice a little "yuck" feeling in the back of my throat, which to me is a sure sign I'm about to come down with something.  I went in and took a handful of Vitamin C.  But....  I didn't catch it in time.  I have been sick in bed with aches, pains, no energy, sore throat and that horrible post nasal drip in back of my throat feeling - all weekend!  I have no idea where I could have gotten this from - I don't remember talking with anyone that had mentioned such a thing...  and hopefully I'll be the only one in the house to get it.  Last night I started moving around some, because I was tired of "just being".  Today I feel a little better, energy wise, but my ear is throbbing.  It has moved into my ear now!  Little bugger!  I got an earache last year too, but before that it had probablly been 25 years since I had had one.  They are the worst, let me tell you.....  I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy! 

I used to love Tripod!  Until about 2 months ago......  until they decided to change almost everything about their system.  I had no problems with it and the few people I know that use Tripod didn't either.  Why fix something that isn't broken? 

The changes begin I would say in May or June.  For a month I was unable to see comments that had been posted at my blog.  Whenever the blog felt it was time for them to appear, they would and I would have three or four comments that I had never seen - sometimes from days earlier.  My Mother, who uses a Mac, can't even post a comment at her own blog, or any other Tripod site for that matter.  Mac's don't seem to be compatable with their new pop-up commenting system!  One of my aunts, has a regular PC and she can't post comments either.  The Tripod commenting system uses a "pop up" window and I think it has something to do with that.  The only logical thing I can think of explaining this, is perhaps if you have pop-ups blocked then you can't see the pop-up window????  I don't know - but it's frustrating as all hell.  

I also am unable to submit a link.  I used to be able to post a link and name it and the post would show a hyperlink, named as I wanted it named.  Now it just shows up like a regular link - showing the website address lit up - as if you were sending a link via email.  

To top it all off, I've lost two posts this week.  The first was on Wednesday and was about Sami's poison ivy.  I hit submit and the post disappeared.  I thought it was lost and was a little frustrated, but it wasn't a long post, so I included it in my 13 Thursday the next day.  But.....  today I was peeking over this past weeks posts and I found it.  It was between Sunday's & Monday's posts.  Don't ask me how it got there, because I couldn't tell you!  (I am going to edit the date so that post shows up today - as I don't think anyone saw it!)  The other lost post was long and more than frustrating!

So - I'm changing sites over the next few weeks and need your advice:

What Blog Site would you suggest and why?