Not a Baby Anymore

Most parents have a defining moment when they realize that their baby really is not a baby anymore. I say most because we’ve all met those mothers who insist that little Bobby still call her “Mommy” when they’re 35. I truly strive not to be that mother. Anyway, I think my moment came yesterday. KMan has had two loose front teeth for about a week and yesterday was D-Day. The tooth is out and the tooth fairy has landed.

I fully realize that this kid will be going to kindergarten in the fall and his 5th birthday is just around the corner. However, it is hard to separate the thought of him as my little guy and the big guy he is becoming. I have said in the past that I am always ready for the next milestone in his life and that is still true. What I haven’t said in the past is that I think I may get a little melancholy about some of the transitions, and today, that is also true.

You've Got Mail

Dear Tanaya,

Your IPOD 5TH GENERATION (LATE 2006) has reached our repair center. We will notify you by email when the repair is complete.

Date received: 2008-02-16

Repair ID: D14811225


Your repair status is available online.

Apple


My ipod died last week. By some miracle, it was still under warranty and Apple sent me a prepaid shipping box in which to return it. I receive the box, packed up my ipod and read all of the instructions. Well, here's where things take a turn for the worst. I am a complete moron and was under a little mental distress. Mister and I were having one of our mature adult conversations and I got a little bent and put the box in my mailbox for pickup. The package was supposed to be shipped via DHL, not USPS. In the ensuing week, I have talked to the post office 5 times, Apple 4 times and the folks at DHL about 10 times. I have learned some valuable lessons and spent at least a couple hours on the phone trying to explain that I am complete dumbass and that I am absolutely lost without my ipod. Yesterday, I was about to give up hope. I could see my box on some high shelf in a USPS facility holding unclaimed mail for eternity and me shelling out a $250 stupidity fee to buy a new ipod. I spent at least an hour yesterday and 5 or 6 phone calls only to not be any closer to finding the missing ipod. I cannot tell you how hopeless I was about that box ever making it to Apple. I said to Mister not a half an hour ago..."What if it never shows up?"

Obviously, my very generic email above has made me very very happy.

Give me an R. Give me an S. Give me another S.

I often lament about my advanced age (36 as of last December) and realize that I’m really only ancient if you count it out it dog years. I read somewhere today about gay math - a means of deciding whether or not a love interest is too young for you. Not that I have any need for this, I’m just sayin’… You divide your age in half and add seven. If said boytoy is close to that age, give or take 5 years, you’re golden. So, in gay math, I’m 25 and anything within 5 years is eligible, but I digress. I feel old when I don’t know about the latest and greatest internet/computer goodies. Case in point, I spent the better part of one afternoon a couple of weeks ago figuring out RSS Feeds, how to subscribe, manage and read.


What sent me on my way was trying to keep up to date on when to lower the American flag at work. The governor has decreed that the flags will be lowered to half staff whenever a Montana soldier loses their life in Iraq . However, he still has to make some kind of announcement as to when we are to lower and raise the flags. Our bank has missed a few and in an effort to stay on top of it, I started digging around the gov’s web page and found that you can subscribe to the RSS feed and be given a heads up for the flag height. I told my friend about the wonders of RSS and the need to know when to lower and raise the flag. She then became somewhat incensed that a lowly Governor could decide about flying the flag at half-mast. In fact, she decided that it must not be legal for a state governor to declare that the federal flag be lowered for something as trivial as dying while serving your country in Iraq . Well, as I suspected, she was not right. The flag can be ordered to fly at half mast only by a presidential or gubernatorial order. However, the gubernatorial order must follow some rules – “Section 7m of the Flag Code authorizes a governor to half-staff the US flag upon the death of a present or former official of the government of the state, or the death of a member of the Armed Forces from that state who dies while serving on active duty.”



So, this old dog learned two new tricks in the last few days – how to use subscribe to RSS feeds and that it is not illegal for our governor to decide that the U.S. flag should be lowered to honor fallen heroes.

Closet Homophobe?

I really, really love the first minute of songs by Melissa Ethridge and k.d. lange. They are both super talented artists. However, after the first minute, I remember that these girls are singing love songs…to other girls. As much as I like to have the motto “…not that there’s anything wrong with that…”, it just ruins my groove. I can’t make myself stop thinking about it and then I have to change the channel.

Will I Qualify for Worker's Comp?

I injured myself on Friday at a work function. My left hip flexor is killing me and I limp every time I get up from sitting. How did I do this to myself, you ask? At our annual party, dancing my ass off in cute, but not dance friendly, shoes. I think, no I'm sure, there is some unwritten rule about having that much fun at a work function, but whatever. I figure for as much as I stress about things at work and lay away nights thinking about work issues, it is probably OK to have some real fun with my co-workers. Copious amounts of alcohol and shaking your thang is pretty good for the stress relief. Even Mister, who normally hates things like this, had a really great time, much to his surprise. Nice location, really good food, fun company and a really great band. Oh, and the hundred dollar cash gift that our very generous bank owner provided to all employees, very nice. Maybe I can put that Benjamin towards a massage.

Sorry for my prolonged absence. I have been in a serious funk since Christmas. Mister and I have been dieting, which is so much fun that I know all four of my regular readers wanted to hear about it. As per the usual, I have lost about 4 pounds by working my ass off and Mister has lost 15 pounds by cutting back on some of his food intake. I'd like to kill the person who coined the phrase, "Sometimes, life just isn't fair." Instead, I think I'll just paste that quote on my ass or the scale.

I have also been in a bit of a funk because Mister has not had any major projects since before Christmas. Unfortunately, we need two incomes to keep the Mama Mister boat afloat. Mister has a general idea of what it takes to keep the boat seaworthy, but he doesn't necessarily know when it's time to start bailing water or to get out the life raft. We have been having some very civil adult (read arguments) discussions about when we give up ship and he looks for an actual job. Right now, he is doing odd jobs for different people and we are waiting to hear about a house he bid last week. Our bid is right in the middle of the other two and these folks have been our friends for a quite a while. I hope those two things will be in our favor and Mister will become gainfully employed and all of our adult conversations can come to an end. Lord knows I will miss all that intellect and calm rational behavior, but it will be a fabulous trade off for the resulting paycheck. Send some good juju out to the universe for us and I'll let you when we have some more info.

Lesson Learned - The HARD Way

As is destined to happen, even a little stress must come our way during the holidays. Mister just finished a two month addition project for the parents of our next door neighbors. The project has gone very smoothly and Mister has bent over backwards to accommodate their schedule and stay on budget. Homeowners had said many, many times that they couldn’t be happier with the work and would highly recommend their services. However, upon presentation of the final bill and the standard 10% profit, the Homeowners said that they never agreed to pay the 10% and all but said that Mister was putting the screws to them. Now, to play the devil’s advocate, Mister didn’t have them sign a contract stating that the payment terms were time and materials plus 10% contractor fee on the final cost. Also, Mister has always been in the habit of charging that 10% at the very end of the job which is a big, big mistake. I have never thought this was good idea for this exact reason. People have a tendency to forget these things and also run out of money at the end of a job. I try to stay out of the family business because they mostly do small jobs, know the people they are working for AND I have a tendency to get my knickers in a knot about things. As long as Mister is getting paid and he’s working, its all good and makes for better family relations. However, from here on out, no matter how small a job, we’re getting an agreement on PAPER, signed by everybody. We may go all out and buy the AIA Contractor forms. We’re also charging 10% markup on every single invoice. No surprises and you get your funds even if the job doesn’t go to completion.

Anyhoo, on the other side of the coin and in defense of Mister, he, his father and the homeowners all sat down and had a two hour meeting prior to starting the project to discuss the payment arrangements. Homeowners said twice that they didn’t need a written estimate (Mister had estimated a high and low figure and they agreed) So, at the end of the meeting, Mister and his father were under the impression that everything was business as usual – time and materials plus 10% at the end. Homeowners were under the impression that the billing would be time and materials. On Saturday, Homeowners sent Mister a letter that said that they weren’t paying anything until the issue was resolved. My FIL called Homeowners and hashed about the situation. Homeowners said some things that were not true and in general acted like asses. However, they finally agreed to give us about 35% of the profit amount after FIL told them that contract or not, we would put a lien against their house for the whole invoiced amount and it would get sorted out from there.

The saddest thing about all of this is that these people really think that Mister and my FIL are crooked. My FIL has been building in the area for over forty years. He knows a lot of people and I think you would have to look long and hard to find somebody who would call him dishonest. Mister said that the Homeowners basically called him a liar and that really does make me sad - probably more sad than I am about losing the profit money. I think Mister is even more upset about his character being questioned than he is about the cash. Wile I realize that I have no perspective in the matter, I know that Mister and his dad are not the kind of contractors out to make a fast buck and screw people over. If that is the case, they're not doing a very damn good job of it!

Oh, and remember, these folks are the grandparents of one of KMan’s best buddies. I sure hope his parents have some perspective.

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

Whew… it’s been a while and we’ve been pretty busy doing a whole lot of nothing. I have been off work since Friday the 14th and returned today expecting an onslaught. To my surprise, I caught up on just about everything before noon and had a fairly easy transition from slacker pajama mom back to hardnosed banking professional. I spent my time off doing domestic goddess type things: baking, shopping, cleaning, wrapping, reading and wine drinking. I tell you, it was better than a week at the spa, minus all those relaxing massages, healthy meals and being treated like a queen. But hey, the forty million times I heard the words “Mom?” “Hey, Mommy…” “Mom did you….?” “Mom, can I…?” more than made up for missing all that. We even managed to shag our little hineys over to my parent’s dirt farm for the night. Here’s a shot of KMan helping grandma with the chores.
We had a good visit and were able to stop in to see my grandpa at the assisted living facility. I was very impressed with the place and my grandpa seems to really like it. The place resembles a high end apartment building and is so unlike a hospital that my dad finally asked where they keep the nurses. My grandpa does need some help keeping track of his medicines, his blood sugar monitoring and some personal hygiene issues. However, he doesn’t need constant care and is happy to have his own little apartment and a long list of activities available to him. Seriously, I looked over his little calendar of events, the assisted living folks have it going on – live music, shopping trips, bingo and Lawrence Welk on Saturdays, 6pm on channel 12.

Christmas Eve was spent at our house for the first time ever. We even bought a new dining room set for the occasion and we almost didn’t get home with it from the store. The “little pencil neck” (Mister’s word, not mine) at World Market got a little huffy when we were trying to load everything up. Normally, we would buy something at an actual furniture store and have it delivered. However, we live in BFE and almost all local furniture stores don’t actually sell you what they have on the floor. You have to order it and then wait several weeks for delivery. Our time frame was little more compressed, so we opted for World Market and I have to say that I like the set better than anything I saw at the furniture stores – minus the pencil neck who almost got the pleasure of singing “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”. Mister was ready to beat the tar out of him and was still angry about it an hour later.

Santa was good to us all and Mister was out on the ladder at 8:30 pm last night installing all the goodies for his new weather station. From here on out, there will be no question about how hard the wind is blowing, the actual wind chill, how much rain we have received or the temperature in up to ten different spots around our house. Yes, he is a weather geek.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and can still button your pants today!