what a week (the final chapter).

Now that three weeks have passed, I thought I'd finish my update.  And perhaps get on to something more current.  I would end the saga, except I have a good story to tell you.

Saturday morning my parents and I drove down to Burbank to see Lindsay with two of the chairs we got at the garage sale, still not sure if they were going to match.  We got there, did a couple of quick things at her apartment, then drove to a little restaurant called Eat in North Hollywood.  At least I think it's in NoHo, but all of those towns run together, so... Anyway, we had a yummy lunch, dropped some boxes off that were at Lindsay's apartment at her boyfriend's apartment for when he moves.  We then set off on the mission that was the real reason we went down: buy furniture.  As you might recall, but probably don't, we spent Saturday afternoon the previous weekend furniture shopping.  Lindsay decided she wanted to get the sofa we found at Ashley furniture, but since there is one about four blocks from her apartment, we decided it made more sense to buy it down there where they would deliver it rather than have to haul it all ourselves.  So into Ashley we went, on a mission, knowing exactly what we wanted.  Only problems: they didn't actually have that sofa at that store and we had the worst saleswoman on the planet helping us.  Sounds the the making of a fun two (TWO!) hours we spent in the store.  And we went in knowing what we were going to buy!

It all began with us scouring the store.  When we didn't see the couch, my dad found a saleswoman to help us, which proved to be a mistake he would later regret.  We can blame him for finding her.  Probably the only bonus point she got was that she did know the couch Lindsay was referring to, having seen it in another store.  She puts the sofa in the computer, as well as the chair, since they were having a buy one get one item half off sale.  We had measured Lindsay's apartment and decided there was room for both.  We just wanted to double check the dimensions.  Sue, our oh-so-helpful saleswoman, looked in the computer system but said they weren't listed.  We told her we weren't buying the furniture without them, so could she call a store or something.  We meandered around, looking at TV units with storage underneath, which we were also in the market for.  About 10 minutes later, Sue came to find us, telling us she called the store in West LA, but they were busy and she couldn't get an answer.  We again told her we weren't going to buy without them, so she wandered off to call again.  We decided to take matters into our own hands and call the Bakersfield store.  When she came back 10 minutes later, we told her we had already gotten them.  We knew they would fit, so we were going to go ahead with the sale.  In that waiting period, Lindsay had found a TV stand she liked, but didn't really want to buy a third item without a fourth (because of the sale).  We talked about an end table and asked if they had a matching one.  Sue told us they had them, but you had to buy it as a set of two endtables and a coffeetable.  Ok, nevermind.  Then we ask if we bought the third item if we could get any sort of deal on it.  (It never hurts to ask.)  As if she hadn't already been exhausting, this is where she turned condescending.  She proceeded to "explain" to us how buy one, get one half off worked.  "So if you buy the sofa, you'll get the chair half off.  If you buy the TV stand, you get another item half off."  Um, ok.  I'm pretty sure we grasp that concept, Sue.  Totally not what we were asking.  We gave in on that, but as she was working on the paperwork, suddenly the delivery charge went up from what she originally quoted us.  Oh, and somewhere in this process, we found the end table that matched on the floor and you could buy it separately.  "Oh," she said, "I was thinking of something else."  Yeah, like I wonder if I'm going to make this sale because I'm a moron?  Anyway, she collected Lindsay's pertinent information, then started to fill out the paperwork on the computer.  Lindsay and I conversed some more and decided it might be better to wait on TV stand because the end table was just too big and she wasn't totally in love with it.  After all that, back to square one.  Ha!  There was just one thing standing between us and making it a done deal: the price they had in this store for the sofa was $100 more than it was in Bakersfield.  She told us the manager would match it since they didn't actually have it on their floor.  Ok, perfect.  But, when it came to approving it, the manager said no.  And we walked out.  We had had it.  We all piled in the car, exhausted from the experience and more than a little annoyed.  We decided to drive to the West LA store, even if they wouldn't match the price, we would figure it out and be done.  Before we got far, we saw another eclectic-type furniture store that we decided to stop and look in.  As we were crossing the street, Lindsay's phone rang.  Guess who?  Sue.  She told us that we didn't give her a chance to explain.  We told her she was crazy (Ok, no we didn't, but I, at least, wanted to).  After my mom talked to her a few minutes, she said the manager wanted to have us buy the chair full price and give us the sofa half price.  Funny, that wasn't the deal she gave us when we were in the store.  We're guessing a little negotiation happened after we walked out those doors.  We reluctantly went back, knowing we couldn't do better at another store.  But Lindsay and I couldn't handle another minute of dear Sue, so we waited in the car.  Good thing.  My parents had to wait as she had to reenter the order three or four times because of "technical difficulties."  (Operator error?)  It was exhausting.

We ran some more errands after this, which included Target, Lowe's, BevMo, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Krispy Kreme.  It was dinner time after this and we decided to try an Italian restaurant Lindsay had been to before.  Let's just say, for the sake of brevity since you already read one long story, when they tell you they have a nice booth "in the back," that means they are putting you in the back booth where they forget about you.  Dinner took about two hours, most of which was spent waiting for something...our order to taken, drinks, bread, food, the check, for them to take the check.  It was good food, but I don't think we would go back.  By now it was about 9:00, and we still had to drive Lindsay back to her apartment and head home.  We didn't get home that night until 11:30 or 11:45. 

In short: It was a long day.  Quite the ending to a busy, busy week.

what a week (part two).

Sorry for the slow updates.  Between work and life in general, I've been staying pretty busy.  I was in the middle of telling you about my crazy week a couple of weeks ago...

Tuesday morning was the second day of VBS, which meant another early morning, some quick morning preparations, and an ever growing list of students in my class.  It was hot, too!  If I remember correctly, this was the day we hit 107 degrees.   After a busy morning, I met my mom for lunch.  Ran a couple of errands.  Got home and got the house ready for company.  Planned what I would teach Wednesday and did those preparations.  Had company over for about 3 hours that evening.  Did the last VBS prep.  Fell into bed.

Wednesday morning was basically a repeat of all the other mornings spent at VBS.  Enough craziness that allowed the morning to fly by.  Couple of errands.  Lunch.  Home to plan for Thursday.  Had company again for dinner and fun afterward.  This time it was my cousins from Oregon.  They have two little boys, with another on the way, so they definitely had to utilize our pool in the heat.  They had fun swimming, we had fun watching them swim.  After dessert, they headed back to Gramma's house.  Fell into bed.

Thursday morning, repeat.  I had a few errands to run again.  I was making little goodie bags for the kids in my class, so I had to get the finishing pieces to get them done.  I then spent the afternoon assembling the bags, as well as prepping for Friday.  My cousins came over again after dinner to swim for a little while.  They only stayed for about an hour or so, but it was fun to get to see them again.  Fell into bed.

Friday morning was, again, a repeat of the rest of the days in VBS, with the addition of the general excitement that the last day always brings.  After the morning, I had to stick around and clean up all of the decorations in my classroom.  We didn't put up a ton, really, but it still took me awhile to tear down all by my lonesome.  I noticed how quickly my helpers ditched out of there on that day.  Since I was by myself, it was up to me to climb up on a table to use as a ladder so I could reach the decorations hanging from the ceiling.  After pushing the table around, climbing on a chair, climbing on a table, reaching up, climbing down on the chair, climbing down on the floor about fifteen times, I was tired.  I had just pulled down the last bit of decorations and was stepping onto the chair for the last time, when the chair tipped.  I seemed to suspend mid-air for much longer than I should have and managed to get my feet under me.  All seemed well enough, with the exception of my back getting a bit jarred.  I really felt it a few hours later!  I went home and just did nothing for about an hour.  Then I got a call from my mom letting my know that we were going out to a friend's house who was having a garage sale the following day.  They had called us, letting us know that they had some Polish pottery for sale, which we collect.  We were headed out of town the next day (more on that later), so we wanted to know if we could come by Friday afternoon.  It is quite a trek to their house from ours (more than 30 minutes to the other side of town), but we ended up finding some great treasures.  The pottery was great, which we got some of, but the bigger find was the table and chairs that they had for sale.  My sister has my mom's parents' old dining table, but no chairs.  The table and chairs they were selling were made by the same manufacturer and ended up being a perfect match to Lindsay's table.  Score!  We headed back to town, picked up my dad for dinner, dropped him back off to his car, dropped my mom off to her car, then I headed back to church for the VBS finale night.  After practicing our songs all week, the kids get a chance to share them with the parents.  It was a stifling heat, so I ditched out of there as soon as I got rid of all my kids, not stopping to take part in the cookies and punch treats.  I don't remember what I did that night, but I do know it wasn't much :)

Congrats if you made it this far.  I'll finish the update later...

a fourth of july alternative.

Fourth of July.  Day of barbecues, parades, picnics, fireworks, and everything red, white, and blue.  An exciting day to celebrate our country and the freedoms we have. 

The celebrations were a little more low-key than all of that at our house this year.  I worked during a good portion of the late morning and afternoon.  (Always exciting, I know.)  We had an early dinner planned, Aunt Jerre and Uncle Cliff were here, and Gramma was on her way over.  Mom had decided that we would do somewhat of an experiment and cook ribs for dinner.  My dad especially enjoys ribs, but it's something that we've never really made at home.  Dad was looking online for cooking tips, the first one saying to marinate the meat overnight.  Since we missed that deadline, Mom was going to scrap the project for that day.  But Dad kept searching and it was decided that we would bake the ribs for and hour and fifteen minutes, then barbecue them for about ten minutes after that.  It would delay dinner, but we were all fine.  So, in the oven they went.  Other food prep was done, but it was pretty much a waiting game.  Dad went out to preheat the grill as we waited the last fifteen minutes or so.  As we were pulling them out of the oven I heard a fairly loud popping noise.  It sounded to me like it came from outside.  It wasn't exactly the noise from fireworks, and sounded a lot closer than any of our neighbors.  Well, after about 30 seconds of inspection, we realized that fireworks of a different sort had happened - the barbecue released some heat, causing the window to crack.

The black area on the wall isn't just shadow...it was part of the "explosion."

The crack is hard to see in the first one, so here's a close up.  It extends across the window.

(By the way, the ribs turned out great for a first attempt.  After dinner, we enjoyed some homemade peach cobbler and homemade vanilla ice cream.  After dessert, most of my evening was spent sitting in the laundry room with the dogs with the box fan on.  When I wasn't in there, we listened to one or more dogs whimpering, knowing we were out there.  I didn't even watch the fireworks on TV...)

Hope your 4th of July went out with a bang! 

what a week (part one).

When I last left you, all I had to say was the same old thing.  Well, let me tell you, when it rains, it pours.  Last week was insanely busy.  So busy I didn't even work.  (There are definite pros and cons to having a flexible work schedule.)  Anyway, here's just a taste...

Saturday began with the family trekking across town with three of our vehicles to get the tires rotated and brakes checked.  Mine was done first, so I left for a VBS meeting at church.  After I got all of my many supplies and announcements, it was time to decorate the classroom.  This was also the time I first met both of my classroom helpers.  (Well, I had met one of them at the previous meeting.)  They were both very sweet ladies, but one of them had knee replacement surgery and has very little energy.  Needless to say, when it came to climbing on chairs and tables to decorate, she wasn't much help.  But my family arrived just in time to help.  Without them, I would have been there all day doing it alone.  After a little Chick-fil-A lunch break, we were finished by 1:30.  After that, we went furniture shopping for Lindsay.  She just moved to a new apartment and is in the market for a new sofa, dresser, table and chairs, and entertainment unit with plenty of room for DVD storage.  We basically spent the rest of the afternoon looking at different furniture stores.  She found some stuff she liked, but nothing was purchased that day. We then went and picked up my grandma and took her to dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Sinaloa.  Yum! 

Sunday was Father's Day, which meant Nascar races for some people.  (Not me.)  Speaking of Nascar, for Father's Day we gave my dad the Nascar Driving Experience, which means he gets to take a class and then actually drive a car.  We actually really surprised him and I think he is excited about it.  It's not until October, though.  After that, my mom and I went to church and then put up a few more decorations in my VBS classroom (we needed to wait until Sunday school was done).  We went back home, had lunch, and just hung out the rest of the day.  I don't remember doing much else, other than spending some time remembering the fathers (my grandfathers) that are no longer here to celebrate with us.  I'll be honest, it was a little weird to have just my dad there. 

Monday came bright and early - first day of VBS!  I don't remember if I actually said it before, but I was the lead teacher for a 3rd grade class.  Which actually means they just finished 3rd grade and should really be considered 4th graders now.  My list of kids started with 12 on Saturday and had grown to 20 by the end of the week.  Most of them were great.  There's always one or two that exasperate you/wear you out.  I think I had four.  They weren't bad kids, of course, a couple of them were just socially awkward and really hard to interact with.  A couple of them obviously had some other issues.  Also, one of my helpers wasn't able to be there on Monday.  The one that was there was, again, very nice, but not able to do much as far as helping goes.  I learned after that day to not ask her to do things.  She either assisted the other helper or sat back.  I really didn't care, but I felt obligated to give her things to do that first day.  Anyhow, it was a good morning.  I was really tired, too!  All I wanted was to go home and rest for awhile.  Well, I got to rest that afternoon, but it wasn't very relaxing.  My parents and I left around 2:00 for Ventura.  My dad had a cyst that has been on his back for years.  In recent days, though, it had grown into a huge lump on his back (think Quasimodo...haha, just kidding).  It was noticeable through his shirt though.  What was more troublesome than that, though, was the fact that it was oozing and seemed to be infected.  So, like I said, we took him down to see a surgeon.  We went there because my uncle, who is a doctor, recommended him, and that was faster than trying to get in to see someone locally.  His appointment was at 4:00, and by 4:20 the doctor came out and told my mom and I that he was going to go ahead and remove it, probably about 20 minutes or so.  Forty minutes later, he came out and got my mom so he could show her the crater on my dad's back.  You see, she had been nominated as nurse and official gauze back packer, and he needed to show her what to do.  Meanwhile, I was left in the waiting room, eavesdropping unintentionally on the receptionist who obviously didn't have enough work to do.  She made numerous phone calls to family members and then the city planning office about some work that was being done on her house.  Good stuff right there.  I even memorized her cell phone number for a short time after she gave it out to someone she was talking to.  I should have saved it and called her to get updates on her house.  While the surgery was happening, by the way, my sister had been contacted and she decided to leave work and drive up to check on dad.  It was slightly concerning given the placement of the cyst and the fact that this same doctor a year ago wanted to do the surgery in a surgery center in case of complications and the fact they were dealing with the spine and all that.  I think the only thing that sped up the process was the fact it was infected.  Lindsay ended up just meeting us in Camarillo for a quick dinner.  We then made a couple of returns/exchanges at the outlet mall and then headed home.  We got home around 9, I think, but I still had some preparations to do for VBS on Tuesday. 

standouts.

The first week of So You Think You Can Dance did not disappoint.  These were the standout routines of the week for myself.  But, really, they were all pretty good. 
The first is a Contemportary number:



The second is a Quickstep.  I think it is safe to say the curse of the Quickstep was broken.  Or maybe that's just when you have a world champion ballroom dancer as your partner...Either way, this was fantastic.

random tidbits.

Not a whole lot of new happening around here.  Doing the same old thing as far as work, still in the process of cleaning my room...pretty boring stuff, really.  So, here's a few random bits of information from the last little while:
1. Got my last check from substitute teaching today, which is both good and bad (good to get the money, bad/sad it's the last one for about four months). 

2. Confession: I rarely wash fruit when it's just me eating it.  I've come to realize this more as my fruit consumption has increased, especially with strawberries.  Unless there is visible dirt, I'm not terribly worried about it.  That probably stems from eating grapes fresh from the field...or laziness.  Don't worry, though...if somebody else is eating it, I wash it...I'm not that lazy.

3. Oh, big news: We're pretty sure the chihuahua pack next door has been reduced from 8 members down to (only) 4.  They still manage to escape, though, only now it's out the front.

4. For graduation my parents got me a Wii.  This weekend I bought Wii Fit Plus with some graduation money.  Using it for two days has confirmed my knowledge that I have no balance.  Hopefully that will change with continued use.

5. I am currently trying to get a tan on my shoulders/neck because they are white...and I have to wear a sleeveless dress in a little over a month for a wedding.  I sat outside for 30 minutes on Monday and succeeded in getting a bit of a burn.  Today the burn has progressed into the itching stage, which is terribly annoying.

6. I hate the summer heat.  It's currently 97 degrees outside.  How quickly the cool weather is forgotten...

7. Bakersfield is getting a Yogurtland.  I don't know when it's opening, but it's pretty close to home, so that is exciting!

8. This weekend is Fathers' Day, next week is VBS, so maybe I'll have some interesting material to share with you.  Until then...

thursday's field trip.

If you don't already know, my mom and I work for a grape farmer (my mom full time, me part time and during the summer).  Recently the company has purchased some new land to plant on south of town.  Yesterday we were given the grand tour of the new ranch, seeing the beginning stages of planting.  The rows are laid out and the planting was just getting started.  It was really fun to see the "behind the scenes" look at this side of the operation.  Here we are each planting one vine:

I'm pretty sure the workers who were on their lunch break thought we were crazy, but it was fun!  Only two years until we can taste the fruits of our labor!