**Please note all pictures are at the bottom because I’m special right now and can’t figure out how to get them to show up where I want them to show up. 
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Mom has been bugging me and BUGGING me to post something on the website. I keep telling her it’s not my fault cause I’m busy and my email quit sending me your posts, so I didn’t even know anyone was posting anything! So I’ve solved the posting problem… I subscribed to the RSS feed. 
But the busy problem may be a while before it goes away.
In December I started going to church again… it’s been pretty good. It’s weird, I don’t miss it when I don’t go, but then when I get back into the swing of it and I WANT to go – I don’t know how I lasted so long without it.
Anyway, in May they asked me to join the Activities Committee and that’s my calling. Since then, it’s been go, go, go. Sometimes I like it, but sometimes I REALLY wish I could just sit at home and practice being quiet.
This last week, to give an example, was like this:
Monday: They have Family Home Evening for my singles’ branch. Normally I try to attend, but on Saturday (the 2nd) we have a huge giant activity planned and I was assigned to get the food… and because of the rest of my week; Monday night was it. So I called up a couple of my friends, and we went shopping. I got chips, drinks, potato chips, and basically just food galore! I got home about 9:30 and went to bed.
Tuesday: There’s a movie called Mamma Mia! that came out and it’s based on the music of ABBA. Mom LOVES ABBA… so I arranged a girl’s night. Mom, me, Anna, Ashley, and Camie. Camie couldn’t make it, but the rest of us went to dinner and then the movie. I got home about 9:30 and went to bed.
Wednesday: The Activities Committee asked me to be in charge of our random Wednesday night activity this week. We went swimming at Gem Lake… and at the last minute, our boat decided it wanted to go swimming too. J So that was a lot of fun last night, but again, I didn’t get home until around 9:30… Then I went to bed.
Thursday: I LOVE my job; but they make us help on the phones during the busy times (month-end) once a month… my turn is from 8-10:30 tonight. So I’ll have time to go home and take a bath to shave and stuff like that, but I have to go back to work tonight… so today I’ll have a nice round 11 hour work day. J
Friday: Friday’s are my movie nights. I go to a movie once a week. This actually has a story. J I LOVE movies… and I didn’t go for years because I never had anyone to go with, then mom and dad would go, and not invite me, so I would have someone that wanted to see something, but they wouldn’t take me. SO – I decided it was stupid… Not going just because I don’t have someone to go with. I checked my budget and allocated a movie fund and have been going to the movies once a week since then. It’s been a little over 2 years since I’ve been doing this. For the first bit, I was going by myself, which took at little getting used to. I was going on Sunday afternoons cause it wasn’t busy and I could get accustomed to attending a movie alone. After a while, Aaron (our cousin) found out I was doing this alone and he said he wanted to come with me. So I switched to Saturday matinees. Then I started helping Dad on Saturday’s again, so Aaron and I switched to Friday nights. Once in a while I still go by myself, and I have enough confidence that I can go alone on Friday night. J It’s awesome. Plus, when I tell people I go alone, they all think I’m some sort of super hero. J
Saturday: I help dad, so my day really isn’t mine.
Sunday: Church bright and early at 10:00, home for lunch, then over to mom and dads for quality relaxing time…
So this week… I haven’t really even had time to turn my computer on, let alone check out websites and type up emails, comments, and the like. I am going to try to be better though. J
On July 29th, my first lily bloomed! It’s so awesome. I took a picture for you. You can kinda see my “gardens” as I mentioned before. The farthest plant away from you in the picture is my lone corn stalk… but I don’t think I’ll get anything out of it… it is pretty sad looking. My carrots, next to the corn, might do something… their plants have changed to look like carrot tops at any rate, so maybe the roots will taste carroty…
I also thought I’d include a picture of my new refrigerator. This is a pretty cool story, and since I haven’t been a good person and filling you all in, I’ll tell it now. J I have needed a new one… the one that came with the place kept waking me up at night because it was so LOUD! The compressor did a really cool clanking noise when it turned off. Anyway, I decided to wait until Memorial Day weekend, because there are generally a lot of sales out and about. So I measured my hole and we all went looking. We ended up at Denning’s and found the fridge of my “dreams.” I ordered, paid for the shipping and blah blah blah… then the next day, dad had second thoughts… we re-measured my hole and he was afraid it wouldn’t fit, because there really wasn’t ANY room to make it fit. So he and I went over to Denning’s and re-measured the fridge. It was too big. So we decided to see what we could do, get a smaller ventilation hood for my stove and so on. It turns out there wasn’t much we could do. So we canceled the fridge and went out to Lowe’s to see what they had.
I found a smaller version of the fridge they had at Denning’s for a little bit more money, but I was putting it on an interest-free payment plan the city offers, so I wasn’t too concerned about the payment being a few dollars more a month. The fridge I found was a side by side, basically like mom and dad’s, but it had the ice on the door of the freezer rather than inside. The one at Denning’s was black, but Lowe’s didn’t have black, so I decided I’d just get the white one, then paint it black. So I told ‘em I’d take it. I signed all the applicable paperwork; dad and I bought all the stuff to hook the water up to the ice/water dispenser and all that good stuff. Dad went to go get the truck and I went through the line and paid for all the hardware stuff we were buying… $2.00. J
Anyway, when I was done in line, I went up to the lady that guards the doors and told her I needed to pick up my fridge and that I thought it was the one sitting by the door. She checked my receipt then checked the fridge, said it was and called someone up front to help us load it into the truck. It was HEAVY! So we get it loaded up and I called Wyatt to see if he could abandon the kids long enough to help us muscle it into my house; he said okay, but he needed a few to finish feeding the kids lunch. Dad and I stopped at McDonald’s long enough to give Wyatt the time he needed.
We picked him up on the way back to my house. We positioned the truck for the easiest possible entrance to my house, and then we moaned and groaned a LOT trying to maneuver it out of the truck. Wyatt said, “Nice! You got a Maytag!” I was huffing and puffing and said, “Yup!” We squished dad on the stairs trying to get it up, but eventually got it next to my door. Dad went to go move the truck and Wyatt and I set about undoing the silly thing.
Wyatt grabbed some cardboard and ripped it away. The side of the fridge was black. I’d ordered a white one… So I thought, “Sweet! The lady must have found a black one, knew I wanted it and sent it up instead of the white one. SWEET!” So then, I’m in back unwrapping that side and Wyatt goes, “Sweet Fridge!” I was like, “Yeah, yeah… I know.” I walked around to the front and stopped dead! I said, “This is not my fridge… crap! Wyatt, you know how you asked if I got a Maytag? I didn’t! I got a Whirlpool!”
At that time dad walked up… we retold the story and blah blah blah… and I decided, it was their mistake, they can deal with it. So I decided to keep it. We got it moved into the house and with a quarter inch removal of 4 by 4 area cabinet (dad used a router and sliced a quarter inch out of 4 inches by 4 inches), it slide perfectly into the space. Without a centimeter to spare. So dad took Wyatt home and I sat to watch TV. Dad had to get the router too (Wyatt just helped us push it into the kitchen).
So I’m sitting there and I start thinking about it… The REAL fridge of my dreams is one of those French door ones with the freezer as a drawer on the bottom… so I’d been looking at the prices… and guess what this fridge had turned out to be? My real dream fridge. So I was thinking about it and I thought, “Crap… those fridges were WAY more expensive than the ones I could afford… that’s why I decided on the one I bought.” So I went outside to the box and got the model number and went to Lowe’s.com and checked the model number… it was $2,000 MORE than what I’d paid!
Okay, so for $500, my conscience could have probably been clear, but no way could I let $2,000 slide! So by the time dad got back to my house, I was on the phone with Lowe’s. Telling them what happened and all that good stuff. The lady said they’d never had anything like this happen and took my phone # and name and said they’d talk about it and call me back. So I decided to have dad router, cause I really wanted to keep it and I was trying to convince myself they’d let me. J A bit later, the lady calls me. She asks me to check the box for different markings or numbers or whatever. I look, tell her everything I see and she says she needs to call me back again. We get the fridge fitted in the hole and positioned perfectly. She calls again. She tells me she was having me look for special markings that indicated a special ordered fridge. The one they’d sent me home with was not a special order one. Then she says, “What happened is this: The fridge you purchased and the fridge you got have the same model number, but different manufacturers. Whoever pulled your fridge for you found the right number and just pulled it and didn’t check… so; because you called and you were honest about it, we’ll go ahead and just let you keep it. Congratulations on your new fridge!” It turns out the fridge was only $1,000 more than the one I bought (the one online was another 2 sizes up). So anyway, there’s my great fridge story, and a picture of my fridge. J
So anyway, I’ll try to do better with checking this site and posting things… like I said, I didn’t realize things were still getting posted!
Oh, I guess I should tell some other things… we had like an employee appreciation thing in the finance department back in like April… one person out of each group got a bonus… I was the one! J YAY! It was sort of a recognition for graduating college and for a big old thanks.
And I received a recognition thing for the month of August called “Star Performer.” Basically they tell you how wonderful you are, list out the things you’ve done to earn it, take your picture, and send you to dinner for free. J My boss said some nice things… basically I got it because I have made my department go paperless, I ordered all the stuff necessary for it, did the research for it, enlarged our network drive, all that good stuff… and because I’ve been working on a GST compliance thing with our Canadian customers… LOTS of fun. So last week they took my picture and I got a $40 gift card for Texas Roadhouse. J Basically I feel REALLY good about my job and it’s nice to know the things I do are appreciated. J
With my economic stimulus payment from the government, I decided to buy a PS3. It’s been AWESOME. J It’s just really cool. It likes it when I play with it. I bought a couple blu-rays to watch on my HDTV. I LOVE IT! It’s so cool. J
It’s been really nice having my luck change to good for once. J I guess that’s all I have for now… I’ll yak at you silly people later. J
