it's pickin up!

The snow is almost all melted and spring is in the air! That only means that summers coming and my life is only going to get busier, luckily, I have only two more papers and presentations to complete until I get my degree… oh man! It’s sooooo close! After all my procrastination, I don’t know why I wait so long! As it was easy breezy… not to knock down the program, but I’m not sure about the instructors and the grading system. The way the course works is a series of eight papers and presentations to be completed in two semesters, if you don’t hear anything back from the instructors after submitting your final draft it’s usually a good sign and you’ll be able to present. After a day and a half of presentations students are assembled into groups to go over a case, after working at it for a few hours we draw for times to present on the final day. Groups don’t usually fail this, as long as they do it… the only groups that have been said to have failed is one where two members broke out in a fist fight…a fable I’m sure. After the group presentation, student papers and presentations marks are available for pick up, typically when I receive my package of markings, I bounce… after 3 days of presentations and nerves I just want to get the hell out of dodge. When I finally got a chance to review the marking scheme I was needless to say confused! There are several points and topics that must be discussed, the instructor is to rate your presentation based on whether you “failed to meet”, “somewhat completed” or “successfully completed”… for one of my presentations the instructor checked off “Successfully Completed” for everything and guess what mark I got!?!?! I got “D”!!! WTF!?! Whatever… it’s over, I passed (barely) but I don’t have to re-do it and I will be receiving my Degree as planned :)

But like I mentioned… summer’s around the corner, and that means ---- wedding season! Just received THREE invites in the mail today, so excited, as we only had one wedding to attend last year… my smoldering eyed - co worker Jonny’s and his beautiful wife Emily.

I love weddings! Yay 2010!

i hate swine flu - but i still love bacon!!!

How seriously upsetting... right now I should be in Mexico, eating breakfast at a five start resort, possibly getting ready to hit the beach in my two-piece.


But no, the media has spun this Swine Flu out of control, the bride and groom whose wedding we are suppose to be celebrating have returned home from Mexico absolutely fine! But our stupid flight carrier cancelled all flights to Mexico as of last Tuesday. What’s even more devastating is they would not accommodate the 40+ people that were supposed to attend to another destination, for some reason at this current time and our location the only destinations they fly to is Mexico… how inconvenient. What really gets me is the fact that they had a plane ready to leave for Mexico this past Sunday, but since the flights got cancelled, I figure they could just tell that plane to fly somewhere else… Vegas, Hawaii, the Caribbean… gosh anywhere I would be fine with… as long as I’m not here, at work.

In light of the situation, I have officially come aware that I am an extremely loving and excellent wife; please see the attached email…

the response is from a friend/coworker, that brought a smile to my face and I think it'll do the same too you :)

Highway Robbery!!!

The past few weeks I’ve been a victim of highway robbery… what is this world coming too, I ask you?


Last week I thought I would be a good little wife and give our truck a bath. Once waiting in the 10 vehicle line up I noticed that I didn’t have any change and so I ran in to the convenient store that was attached to the Hughes, there was a little line at the change machine so I thought I would look around the store… bad idea, spending more than I had to, but what the hey! Picked up one of those nifty Absorber cloths… A-M-A-Z-I-N-G… and a few rags that they conveniently cut and wrapped in packages of 5… very fond of these to wipe the insides of the doors and the foot marks from holding the door open. Went to pay for my few items - $15 dollars – not bad… I figure it’ll take me about $5 to do my whole truck.

As I’m walking back to my truck… feeling pockets… “efffffffffffff! Where are my keys?!?!?!”… awesome! Look inside the truck, yup - there they are… threw them in my purse, I must have exchanged them for my wallet. GAWD! Call Derek, he’s working on the other side of the city and can’t come meet me… “call a locksmith… Sorry, that’s all that you can do…” First, I call my project manager and leave a long lengthy message… a reason why I never leave messages, it’s like I’m actually talking to you, leaving breaks in my sentences for you to respond, when in reality I’m leaving you a message… next, call a locksmith; “oh good, you can be here in the next 20 mins… Perfect, I’ll just continue washing my truck, I'm in the third last stall on the left”



As I’m wiping down my truck with the absorber the locksmith shows up, “HI! Thanks for coming so fast!” he mumbles something about $32.95, I nodded my head and jimmies the slim jim down the passenger side window and pops the lock – estimated time, a whole 53 seconds. Sweet! Reach for the purse, grip the keys and put the lanyard around my neck… take out my debit card and he motions me to his work truck. He swipes my card, enters the amount, presses OK and hands the debit machine to me… I think weird, doesn’t the customer usually get to verify the amount… but continue anyways, its past 1:00 and I’m officially late for work! The receipt prints out… WTF!! $82.95 – “Dude, I thought you said it was $32.95?”

Officially the most expensive carwash to date!


The most current event of highway robbery that I have encountered was at my dentist office...



Yesterday went for my semi-annual cleaning and checkup, the dental hygienist wasn’t as talkative as she normally is and she even left a couple of times… like left me in the chair with the spit sucky thing, I couldn’t see if someone called her or if she got a call on her cell but every time she returned I would hear a few drawers opening and closing.

In any case, I usually have to pay $10 for my fluoride because it’s not covered by my benefits for some reason… good thing I allocated my flex spending to my Health Spending Account this year! HA! The chick at the desk mentioned that there is a remaining balance… so of course expecting $10… she takes my debit card, swipes it, and enters the amount, fortunately she lets me verify the amount… oh good… $37.78?!?!?! “SORRY, I usually only pay $10, what is this cost for?” she replies, “It’s the extra cost of what the insurance doesn’t cover”. I reluctantly, press ok and proceed with the payment. Apparently my Dentist office has increased their prices since I was there last in September… this type of information, I find, would be very informative before getting the work done. I would have rather opt out the fluoride, since its increase of $18 in the past 6 months, gawd!


Yes - I wonder why, the dentist does the billing this way – if your scheduled for the regular maintenance; the exam, scaling/scraping, polishing and/or fluoride, why can’t they bill me before hand that way if I find the cost to be unnecessary then I could reduce the bill by eliminating one of the services…



Like when your shopping at one of your favorite stores and grab a whole bunch of items, the sales associate that rings in your desired items tells you the cost, and most of the time I, personally have grabbed too many things… do I really need that white tee? Those socks? What’s really necessary? What do I really need/want? Most of the time, shoppers will reevaluate and remove items to keep the costs reasonable and within budget. It’s not like in a restaurant where the same payment method is applied – if I were to get bad service, and then the server would receive a tip that would complement the service I received…




I’m not tipping the dental hygienist. So why pay after the fact of receiving the service?

I don’t know... I don’t mean to sound like a cheap ass, it’s just me venting about all these extra unexpected costs!