cool

I set up a holiday cash acct. last year through the credit union. Basically it takes $ out of your acct. every month and puts it in a different acct. Now, I know I could probably do it myself. But I'm all about not going it myself, one less thing to remember. In October it deposits the money back into your primary acct. that you designate. I did this last year in like May or something so I didn't have a full year's worth in there, but it was enough.
I just checked it and I already have $600 to spend on Christmas this year! Not that I need to spend it all, I know. And I'm sure we won't. But it's exciting to me that we won't have to "budget for Christmas" so to speak and alter our spending on other things around that time b/c we already have it set aside. Just some excitement for my evening as I was working on my budgets:)

Zyrtec, Hurricanes and Camera

**Edited to add to the below thing about Phil going to FL that that does not mean that he made a million dollars, haha, sorry for the confusion! Obviously, we would have a slightly different lifestyle. Maybe.

I think the girls both are having allergy issues. Particularly Mollie. Surprised? Some of you know my allergy history. I have been taking my medicine since the beginning of March and have had a great allergy season this year! (knocking on wood right now). But Mollie has been coughing bad at night. Sydney coughs occassionally during the day. I started giving Mollie children's Zyrtec a few days ago and wow, the difference is amazing. I'm realizing this now b/c I was out tonight visiting a friend at the hospital who had a beautiful baby girl yesterday:) and I forgot to tell Phil to give her the medicine. She's coughing her head off right now:( Poor baby. And I hope, hope, hope that she doesn't end up with a life time of this! Sorry I gave you that Mollie, sniff, sniff...

I am so excited for the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team! They won game 7 tonight to advance to the next round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. We have been to several games. Phil's company shares a box at the arena with some other group and so then we get free tickets on the nights they have it (plus free food and drink, always good). So we're hoping to get to go when they play at home again in the next round. Anyway, we didn't have their tickets Sunday night, but our neighbor/great friends James and Michele got tickets and took us to that awesome, awesome game! The 4-0 shut out! We just finished watching the great game 7. Fun stuff.

Phil surprised me last night with an early Mother's Day present that he was apparently too excited about to wait to give it to me. I thought my Pandora bracelet I got for my birthday was going to be for M-day also b/c it ended up costing me more than I had planned. But I am always having camera envy around other people so he picked me out a new fancy Nikon digital SLR camera. I still haven't figured it all out yet, but I took some pics today with it. My favorite things are the zoom that you just twist on the lens and the super fast shutter speed. This is very odd because we don't usually give each other expensive gifts, but hey! I'll take it!

He is leaving in the morning to go to Tampa for his national sales meeting. I think he'll probably be recognized for a few things. Well, I know he made it into the "million dollar club" for a million in gross sales this year or something like that so he'll get a plaque or something and there are a lot of their vendors/partners giving away different prizes. We'll see if he/we end up with anything! And for some reason even though he travels all the time I'm feeling like this is a big trip so I'm sort of nervous. Not sure why. He'll be back Friday night. I'm praying for safe travels.

sun princess

I have been having a hard time keeping Sydney in the house the last several days! Not that I want her stuck in the house, but she needs a serious break from the sun and heat! She is one tired girl. She wants to play with her friend/neighbor Emily constantly. Constantly. Which has amounted to my giving her a little more independance than I thought I would let her have at this age. But she and Emily (who is 6, but first grade) have the best time playing on Emily's porch, riding scooters in the culdesac, playing over at Emily's Granny's house (our other next door neighbor), and now swimming! Saturday we got out our little hard plastic pool. The awesome plastic Walmart pool with the slide that Jamie and Michele got us last year! It's pink and gets almost a foot deep;) Sydney and Mollie both have been really excited about it truly being hot enough to play in it. The water gets really warm after the sun heats it a little.

Well, Emily's family got a BIG pool for their back yard. It's one you take down every year, but very big and can be 3 ft. This completely freaked me out. I have fears about Sydney over there unsupervised swimming with bigger kids and drowning! But she is obsessed with it. Not to mention that I have a hard time getting her to come in after hours of play, but now we add something really fun and cool to the mix. Mollie was napping yesterday and Emily wanted Sydney to come swim. I tried to have a really serious talk with her during the day about swimming and water and how it can be dangerous and she always had to have an adult watching, etc. Like, not an adult just home, but actually sitting out there watching the whole time. I walked her over and Emily's Granny was on the screened porch watching Emily and her 2 brothers. They did put a lock on the gate and she said that they have a rule about never swimming without adult supervision. That made me feel a little better. Oh, and that it wasn't filled all the way up, it was just over waist high on Sydney. I made her wear her life jacket at first, but then let her take it off and wear Emily's swimmies. Sydney is a decent beginning swimmer. But goodness, she's 5! Thank GOD they are signed up for swimming lessons starting next week.
So aside from the water safety issues, I am having issues already with her wanting to do things that I'm not 100% comfortable with and getting the "ugh, mom, but THEY'RE doing it!"
And this is going to be a daily battle. Oh, and Emily is tracked out now. She's in week 2, but after next week she'll go back to school. I love Emily, she is a good very nice, good girl. But this sort of stresses me out!
Our neighborhood pool will probably open around the end of May and then I can take them all up there. That will be nice. And we can bum some YMCA passes off my friends:)

As a side note, I found them a swim class at the Triangle Aquatic Center in May that is indoors. I was really trying to find one before summer started. Sydney has had swimming lessons every year since 3. This will be Mollie's first year. And they can be in the same class. They might end up moving Sydney up, but according to the class descriptions, they both fit preschool level 2 based on comfort level and skill so far.

what wonderful weather

We have really been enjoying this long awaited wonderfully warm weather! Especially the girls. Today we cleaned out the upstairs garage. We got rid of a bunch of stuff, Phil hung up some chairs and strollers, and we managed to get his Acura back in the garage! We are selling the Barbie jeep and gave a tricycle back to some neighbors who let us borrow it. The girls played outside all day long! I had a hard time getting Sydney back in, but once we did, she was so tired! Mollie played so hard all morning she took a big nap and I had to wake her up right before 5pm. We put water in our little plastic pool, set up an umbrella, the sprinkler for a few minutes and went through lots of sunscreen. Phil also trimmed all the bushes that were getting a little long and out of control. I think he's very tired and will be very sore tomorrow!
It was so nice though to be outside and I felt like we were really all hanging out as a family. We might have all been scattered around at random times, but we were all outside together for the better part of the day.
I really just can't believe how hot it is this early in the year! It's incredible. And as much as I am enjoying it I will be okay with it dipping back down to around 70 for a few days and giving us more of a true Spring!

only tuesday? rambling post, sorry

It feels like this has been a long week already. Coming back from the beach, even after just a quick weekend, involves a mess. Bags everywhere, laundry, groceries, etc. When we got back Sunday we unpacked a little then went to Rudinos for some pizza and to Kroger for groceries.
Monday I had to get back to work, accepted the delivery of our new dishwasher, kissed the other one goodbye, had my 32 year old check up in the afternoon, then my friend LeAnne and her kids Eliza and Lydia came over for dinner and play. We got pizza from Daniels.
For those of you who live around here, on Mondays at Daniels Pizza Pasta on 55 you can get a small 2 topping pizza for the price of the time you call after 5pm. Make sense? Call at 5:05 (like I did) and get them for $5.05 each! Yum! It was delicious! And we had a great time with the Olive girls!
By the way, Sydney was grilling me about why I needed to go to the dr. (yearly physical) and I didn't want to tell her why she couldn't go. She had her 5 year old check up in Jan. so I told her it was my 32 year old check up! She wanted to know if I got shots and I said no and then she was happy.

The new dishwasher is great by the way! It should be, we probably spent way too much on it, but really, we use it almost every freakin' day. It's really big inside and quiet and I don't really care what else, it works. The Best Buy man (not Sterling, but equally nice, I had met him twice before also) told me that they have been dealing with a lot of Frigidaire returns lately. Our dishwasher at the beach house is a different Frig. model and I was joking around with Phil at the beach about stripping our home one of parts before we sent it back in case we needed them for the beach one:)

Today my day got a little messed up and I realized that the older I get I don't deal as well with change and I like to be a little more in control of things lately. I think Phil would call it bitchy. He did point out the change. I think it all started with my dishwasher issues 3 weeks ago. And some other things that I probably shouldn't say at the risk of sounding SO BITCHY!
But anyway, Mollie didn't have dance this morning so we decided to go eat lunch with Phil at his new office in RTP. They moved there from Wake Forest Rd. in January, but we hadn't seen it yet and it's a LOT closer to us. Well, I had a few questions on the way and couldn't get a hold of him b/c he is always on the phone. Always. His minutes per month are scary. Grr...So he calls me back and asks if I can ride up to the Chevrolet place to get the oil changed in the Tahoe after lunch/before gymnastics at 2. I grumbled. I had planned to go by Target after lunch with him and back home to put away some laundry and then to gymnastics at 2.
I don't like those kind of assignments. I realize it's mostly my car. He does their computer work so they change it for free. I don't like walking in the office either and being like, hey, I'm Kelly, my husband does your computers, I'm here for an oil change. I feel dumb. He had already talked with his good buddy the service manager about it, but his office is INSIDE, not OUTSIDE, so I don't get to see him until I've done the awkward, "who are you?" with the service guys who sometimes know Phil and sometimes don't.
Long story short, they are the nicest people in the world and give the girls candy and washed the car for me. But the girls were monkey crazy while we were in there and we got out of there at 2:10. Gymnastics started at 2. We couldn't have gotten there before 2:30. So we missed it. And then I had two pissed off maniac children who wanted to go. Mollie fell asleep so we went through the McDonalds drive through and Sydney and I got ice cream. Mollie was snoring, but of couse she woke up as Sydney was having her last bit and says, "why do you have that ice cream?" So there we go to Wendy's to get a frosty for Mollie b/c it was the closest, HAHA! So at that point we did our errands and got home and were so tired from really being gone from 11am-almost 5pm.
It was a long day, but tomorrow night Phil and I, his clients Mary Jo and her husband Bobby, and my friend Jennifer are going to the Dave Matthews Band concert. I can't wait!

beach

We came to the beach for the weekend. Ahh...it's nice. We ate at our favorite seafood place, Steven's Oyster Roast, on the way in. You know, hit it at 5:10pm when the average age was approximately 65. The hush puppies were a little sub-par, but otherwise it was what I had been waiting all week for. Then Phil mowed the lawn which was much needed. Scary almost. The girls rode their scooters all around and then we took a quick walk down to the beach for a little digging. It was cold though. Sydney and Mollie then put on their bathing suits for about an hour in the house before bed. I guess it made them feel more beach-like:) Tomorrow should be a nice day! It's supposed to be 72 and full sun so hopefully we can spend more time on the beach without freezing.

I totally forgot to post about our Mr. Al concert we went to on Wednesday. I really need to catch up on some pictures, don't I!?

So, I owe them

I guess we figured out today that I do owe money back to the school system. Apparently they started paying me Oct. 27th. Which is insane. I started Nov. 17th and they told me that they mistakenly paid me starting on the 7th so they would take the extra days out of my Dec. check. I assumed they did. Apparently they didn't. And then paid me extra days. My principal, thank goodness he was fired up enough to get involved, was so angry. B/c they kept harrassing him about my start date and when he gave it to them they screwed it up.
So I told them just to take it out of my June paycheck. I could work 13.5 hours and just add 30 min. to each day or some days, but who would that be helping? No one. I just can't believe they screw stuff like this up!
And I should really probably pay more attention to my pay stubbs and how much I'm supposed to be paid, hmm....;)

hand washing woes...and other issues

Okay, didn't take me long to decide to vent these frustrations. I'm basically getting tired of people being incompetent and getting away with it.

My first short issue is with the payroll dept. at the county office of our school system. I have never changed the amount I will be working by more or less. I fill out forms to take days off appropriately, etc. I have always been a 20% employee and worked 8 hours a week. My lead secretary and principal agree that this should not be an issue. However, payroll thinks that if they continue to pay me at the rate they are paying me I will be overpaid. How is this possible if they are paying me correctly and how do we figure this out? We still haven't. Here is the email the secretary got from payroll a month or so ago:

"According to Ms. Greene work schedule, she will be working total for 196.5 hour. Pre-audit have been complete, it determine she will be overpay $428.68 if she work as 196.5 hours. She need to work 13.5 hours more to increase her work to 210 hours, she will be pay correctly. Please talk to your principal and Ms. Green to see if school can increase and Ms.Greene willing to work 13.5 hours more or not. If they all agree, please send me her update work schedule. Thanks in advance for all your help."

If this makes any sense to you please enlighten me. The only solution I can come up with in this budget crisis is to fire this person.

My second issue:
Long story short, I will not be buying any more new appliances from Best Buy. Phil can take his Reward Zone points and either shove them or use them on something like a DVD or Wii game.
Here is the log I have been creating of my issues. Feel free to not read it, but know that I am getting impatient in my old age and have been really irritable from having no working dishwasher for 2 weeks and know the Geek Squad repairman for our area so well that we should probably exchange Christmas cards...

Refrigerator
Last Spring:
1.Compressor or something went out that was causing it to be hot on the side, part ordered (Sterling)
2. Sterling installed the new part
In the last few months:
3. Clips that hold door closed broken, parts ordered
4. Sterling was supposed to come, had an emergency, couldn’t make it, rescheduled appt.
5. Sterling came out to fix it, we had another broken piece on a drawer, part ordered
Part back ordered
Lots of calls to let me know it was in and someone would call me about a repair

Meanwhile…
Tuesday, March 31
Realize that clean light is still on dishwasher. We’ve always had problems with it running warm/moist, stinking after it had been emptied and reloaded.Then we realize that the door will not stay latched. It will still run...whether the door is closed or not. And it won't.
We report it to Best Buy, they schedule for Saturday April 4th. We always mention the smell to the Geek Squad, but for some reason they don’t address it, just the door latch issue.
**this is our 2nd dishwasher of this model. We bought a new one in October and it was dead on arrival. We returned it and purchased a new one in November.

Wed. April 1st or Thursday, April 2 a technician calls to try to narrow down the issue and says he will order a new door latch and reschedules the install for April 11th.

Thursday, April 9 the Geek Squad calls again to discuss having the refrigerator part installed. I ask them if they can come on Saturday the 11th with the dishwasher install. They could not find a record of anything related to the dishwasher. She said she would see what she could do. This is the last I hear of the fridge issue until Monday the 13th.

Saturday, April 11th Ronald comes to our service appt. He does not have the part. We later get a call from the Geek Squad asking us to call back to the 800 number to schedule service again because they scheduled us with the wrong person and that Sterling has the part, not Ronald. They schedule for Monday.

Monday, April 13th (yesterday)
8:45am Ronald calls to tell me that he will come between 1-3pm. I asked him if he had the part. He said no. I said because they sent someone out Saturday who also didn’t have the part and they were supposed to send someone with the part today. He says, yeah, that was me. Let me call and try to figure this out.

9:10am Another Geek Squad representative calls me to reschedule the service because Sterling as the part on his truck (didn’t we know this?), but he’s not in today and he lives in a gated community so no one can get it off of his truck (really? Is this in the manual to tell people this?). I let her know all of our issues and that I am not happy with the incompetence I am seeing in their organization. She also says that the lady we talked to on the phone on Saturday apparently created a new work order for the DW and that’s where Ronald came in a second time. Not okay.
She also finds the refrigerator information and says she will get them installed at the same time. Super. I ask for a number I can call to speak to someone about how happy I am. She gives me the 1-888-Bestbuy number and tells me to press 0 for a customer service representative. I am not confident this will get me anywhere.

2:56pm I get a call from a 1-800 number and answer it and it says it is the Geek Squad and asks me to press 1, puts me on hold, asks me to enter my secret code (never had a secret code before) or wait on the line. While I’m waiting I get call waiting from the Geek Squad. Seriously?

3:01pm I answer the Geek Squad call again and get the exact same thing. I try to seriously calm myself down and just talk to him about that this might be for my refrigerator because I’ve already spoken to someone about my dishwasher today. He is acting the whole time like I called them. He looks everything up and says, “okay ma’am, I just want to let you know that your part is scheduled for service April 14th in the afternoon. Like maybe 4-6ish. Uh, that’s tomorrow”. I said, really? That’s great. They’re already coming to fix my dishwasher then (I hope) and that is what we were trying to do. Super.
There are a lot of parts of this company that are obviously not connecting!!!

When Phil worked at Gateway out of the store back in like 99 or 2000 or something there was a guy there who is now the sales manager at the Cary BB store. So he called in a favor. He got the guy to agree to give us a new dishwasher. A different one. And they'll take the other one back. Even though we did not have the extended BB warranty and this was just under the 1 year Frigidaire warranty. So we had to pick out a new one from there instead of running to HHGregg or Sears or anywhere else like I wanted to. We went last night. But I made Phil buy the 5 year warranty just in case. We got a new LG one and it was a lot more expensive than the other one so it better freakin' work!!!

So I wasn't surprised when at 9am this morning Sterling calls to say that he's on the way with our parts. He said they had him down for the afternoon, but he didn't know why, so could he come now? I was like, are you kidding? Sure, come on. I'll just skip the gym again and get this damn thing over with!!! No dishwasher = a little more eating out. Worse food for me which adds pounds. Sure I'll skip the gym...
So Sterling fixed the dishwasher door latch and told me to just keep the bag with the old one to turn over to the people who come next Monday to take it away and bring us our new one.
And our part for the fridge was replaced. It was just a plastic drawer clip thing so it wasn't that big of a deal.
So, sorry about all the complaints. I have them off my chest now:)

Easter then Thanksgiving...?

Okay, not really, but I've had a lot of frustration in my life lately. Namely with appliances in my home which apparently got the 7 year itch. Even though we have not had them that long, we've just lived here that long. So instead of bitching (which I will do later), I have comprised this list of what I am so thankful for!

• Our health and that of most of our family
• I am getting a new dishwasher
• Supposedly our refrigerator part will be fixed tomorrow along with our dishwasher that is going back
• my washer and dryer still work and they're 10 years old
• I have a home. And it has a basement and tornado season is upon us (with a bar in it)
• I like my car and all of our cars work
• our microwave and stove have all of their original parts
• I have 2 beautiful children and I am so thankful that I they were given to me at the blink of an eye as I know this doesn't happen for A LOT of people
• I do have a wonderful, patient husband who mostly listens to me. Oh, and he says I'm still his trophy wife even though I told him she's on backorder...
• I am able to mostly stay home with my girls
• I have my Mom and my sisters so close by, I love that for me and the girls as well
• I have awesome friends. Some I don't get to see as often as others and I still think they're awesome!
• My computer works even though Vista permanently slowed it down
• I have great tennis shoes that don't hurt my feet
• I work with great people and am thankful that I was able to have this little position for this year!
• Both Phil's and my parents are involved in the girls' lives b/c I was never close to my grandparents
• Phil's grandma who thinks I always need some pound cake even when she's too tired to make me some
• My gym was taken over by the previous owners about a week before Peak fitness declared bankruptcy.
• I got to eat lunch with some K and 1st grade teachers today b/c it was a workday
• Sydney gets to go to the school I wanted and I hope it's for the best
• I think God really watches out for us...

Happy Easter!

So...short version
Thursday: Planet Child Easter egg hunt, lunch with my friend Liz, babysitter so Phil and I could go to the last regular season home hockey game.
Friday: zoo (it rained 1/2 way through and I ended up dripping)
Saturday: The girls and I went to visit with my cousin Laura, Aunt Nancy, and most importantly, baby Keira! Cookout that night with my Mom and Dad, neighbors James and Michele and Michele's brother, wife and their daughter Teagan who is a little older than Chase and precious! Chase got a stomach bug and was unable to attend. We were so disappointed. But the food was so delicious.
Sunday: The Easter bunny left cool baskets on the front porch on account of our "no bunnies allowed" sign on the front door. Sydney was pretty worried that he would come in the house. We went to 9:30 Mass (girls were a disaster, the result of candy+hour of Church, have to plan that better next year) and then hit the road. We went to Dobson to Phil's Aunt's house for an awesome lunch and egg hunt. More about that later. It was really well executed including tickets and prize tables, haha. We got back at 9pm. Long day.

Now I'm exhausted and going to clean up the whirlwind damage to the living room from this morning. Pictures to come later on!

fun stuff!

We all had a really fun weekend around here and I'm now enjoying my Wake Co. Schools Spring Break!

Friday night we had our friends Jennifer, Andy and the kids bff's Matthew and Lindsay over for pizza and hanging out until bedtime. It was a great time.

Saturday morning Mom came over and Phil and I headed down to the Morehead City area for a wedding for our friends Allyson and Russell. Allyson went to college with Nancy and they sit behind us at football games (we all have lifetime rights and season tickets so...we're stuck together for life!) The wedding was in Swansboro and the reception was at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. FANTASTIC!!! I can't believe they do events like that there and it was amazing. Dancing and eating and drinking around all the poor fishies;) We stayed at a hotel in Atlantic Beach that was in the middle of major, I mean major renovations. Like, here is the lobby view Sunday morning:

Poor Allyson and her mother had no idea when they blocked the rooms here that it would still be at this stage of renovation and the wedding guests were the only people in the hotel. It was fun and interesting. We got a discounted rate though, and still paid $109 a night. With a missing end table, no hot water in the shower and no hair dryer. It was worth the good time though!

So Dad ended up coming up to hang out with Mom and the girls. They took them to Chickfila for lunch Saturday, Kohls to buy new pj's, and to the park to play! Sunday they went to Red Robin for lunch. They definitely had a great weekend also. Sydney played outside so much that she wanted nothing to do with us when we got home. Just wanted to play some more with Emily, our neighbor who is 6.5.

Yesterday I had to work b/c it was a snow make up day. Today actually was too, it ate into the Wake Co. spring break which was NOT a popular thing for the parents and teachers around here. This whole week was supposed to be break. I ended up subbing for a K class in the morning b/c their teacher and TA were on vacation and couldn't make other arrangements (or didn't).

Today the girls and I went to Greensboro to the Children's Museum there to meet up with my friend Audra from high school who I had not seen in 3 years! She has a 4 year old daughter Karlie and she and Sydney were in Heaven together. They had about the same attention span while Mollie would have spent hours in each little station. They lasted about 4 min. in each:) We had a nice Chickfila lunch before heading back out of town. I had to make a mental note to take Mollie back there when Sydney is in school all day so she can stay and pretend as long as she wants!

(LeAnne, maybe we should take she and Eliza there!)

So that brings us to this afternoon and Mollie's Kinderdance recital! Very informal recital, but Ms. Mary is awesome! It was sooooo cute! Here is a really short video from it, I have a few more I'll have to see if I can get smaller or something;)

Disappearing Marshmallow Brownies

Today's cooking adventure...
I have made these before and they were to die for!!
Sydney and I were going to cook some treats today during Mollie's nap and we had mini-marshmallows and chocolate chips so we decided to make these. Well, I forgot that the recipe calls for butterscotch chips which we didn't have. Some reviews for the recipe said that some people didn't have them either so they just used double chocolate chips or 2 different kids, or peanut butter chips (holy yumm0) or something. So I decided to just double the chocolate chips.
Well then I got down to the eggs and you needed 2. Phil is really into making eggs every morning so I thought, "we always have these!" And we had 1. So then I looked up egg substitutions and saw some different options. I decided to use the 2 tbsp. of cornstarch option and added 1 tbsp of water to help it mix better (not sure why I thought of the water). We mixed it all up and instead of making it in a 9x13 pan I used my Pampered Chef bar pan and thought maybe they'd be more like a bar cookie instead of a brownie.

This is turning out to be quite an experimental recipe...

I cooked them at the same temp. it called for (350), but lowered the time from 20min. to 15 min. since I knew they'd be thinner in the bar pan. Perfect amount of time.
They were a little gooey so I let them sit for a little while then cut them. They were hard to cut because they were so gooey, but
OH WOW, THEY TASTE SO GOOD!

And there were a lot of "scraps" that Sydney and I had to take care of, bummer.
Here is a pic. of our masterpiece. The regular ones are a lighter color b/c of the butterscotch.