Not Very Good News 5/4/09

A couple more pictures of Sparky, just because she is so incredibly beautiful.

and a little shaggy at times.

It's May 4, 2009 now (Mon) - - I am giving you this news first, so this blog entry is not in order.

My position at American Express was dissolved today. There were a few other people in my department also. Plus, we were closing 2 of our out-of-state offices today, meaning that's another 120 people who won't have jobs by the end of today. It was really fun working there. I met some very good people & made friends who I feel will be life-long friends. I have an okay severance package - somewhat less than desirable. Now I can finish editing my book. Then I'd better start looking for another job.

Lewis & Alex at Tarah's shower

Our 21st anniversary was this past Fri (5/1). 21 yrs ! We went to this quaint little family-run Italian place. Only 10 tables in the whole place. We went there years ago & loved it. It was when I was pregnant. We had a nice dinner.

We did end up buying 2 new recliners on Sunday. They were delivered today. They're very nice, but Sparky isn't sure about them. She finally got up with me & sniffed all over the chair.

My website still needs the PayPal buttons. Rick tried to help me yesterday, but he was stumped. I think I need to delete the entire thing & start again because we kept getting the error message. And who the hell knows what that means !

Tarah & Brandon at Tarah's baby shower. She had the twins just a few days later.

Okay, on to the regular stuff . . . . .

April 20, 2009 (Mon) Lewis & I worked on the garage on Sat. We wanted to clean out what we could because we are having a yard sale next Sat for the twice annual McDowell Mountain Ranch yard sales. You would not believe the stuff we found in there. First of all, Lewis has about 10 boxes of just papers. Papers of stuff. Stuff. I don't know what they are, but apparently, they are important enough to keep. He dug through some of them, folded them back up & put them in the "to keep" pile. I found a 4-drawer filing cabinet in there. I didn't remember we had it. I thought I could use a couple of the drawers for my new organization plan. But they are all filled with more of Lewis's papers. They are not in files. The papers are just thrown in there. So I am going to take the top 2 drawers & empty all of those loose papers into the 3rd & 4th drawers, where there is more of his stuff. Then I will be able to use the top 2 drawers for my filing. It was very exciting discovering this.

Exciting didn't begin to describe what I felt when I FOUND MY CAMERA. It was in a bag with 2 books, Sevilan's lipstick & the camera bag. I cannot remember taking it out of my car or house into the garage. I would never put a camera in that kind of heat. I was worried that I may have ruined the memory card. Took it inside & plugged it into my computer. Everything is perfect! Amazing. So I downloaded all of the photos onto my hard drive & then to my external hard drive. No more lost pictures. If I had waited to post my blog until this evening, you would have had pictures.

So the garage is done. About 1/2 of it is yard sale stuff. We keep supplies out there too. Since we buy paper goods at Costco, we always have piles of Kleenex, paper towels, toilet paper, bathroom cleaner, scrubbie sponges. Stuff like that. You can't just buy a little bit of anything at Costco. I typed up 3 lists of everything we're selling & how much to charge for it, what a lower price is that is acceptable, & the lowest price we will take after 9:00 a.m. The lists are for Martha, Lewis & me. That way, I don't have to put price tags on anything.

Alex should be able to get his permit this wk. I may have mentioned that Lewis didn't take him to get it last wk because he did something he was not supposed to do. Lewis warned him to not do it again or he wouldn't take him to get his permit. Alex did it again & had to suffer the consequences. So Lewis didn't take him on Weds. He'll take him this wk. We didn't drive at all last wk. Well, a few of his friends came over on Fri & spent the night. We had to move the Camry out of the driveway so they could play on all 3 sections of the driveway. I got in the car with Alex & let him back the car out. He's feeling better about backing up now. On Fri, I took Alex & 3 of his friends to the movie theatre. They went to the Wild Wings place to eat, then to Sports Authority, then to Borders. Never made it to the movie. When I picked them up they were all eating gelato. We waited until 1 of the boy's parents came to get him, then I took the other 4 home with me. Took 1 home, & the other 2 spent the night. They are really nice kids. They helped Alex put the sheets on the beds, helped him clean up, cleaned up their own breakfast dishes. Really nice kids. And Sparky loves to chase Alex's friends around the house. He knows he has to do all of the work if he wants to have anyone spend the night. That means putting the sheets on the extra beds & taking the sheets off in the morning & putting them in the laundry room.

U2 coming to Phx. Lewis wants to go to the concert. As much as I like U2, I would rather put that ticket money in my diamond fund.

April 22 (Weds) Lewis & Alex went to the dentist last night for their 6-month cleaning. Then I met them for dinner - Ribs & sweet potato fries! They were delicious. Notice how sweet potato fries are big now? Within the last couple of yrs, it seems.

Meeting Kim & Charlie for dinner tonight. For some reason none of my emails go through to Charlie, so Kim ends up transferring messages for me.

I have been trying for days to put the PayPal buttons on my website. The "Add to Cart" button & the "PayPal" button. But I keep cutting & pasting the html code. It doesn't show up as a button. It shows up as code. I'm going to ask my neighbor if he can come over on Thurs & help me. I've had enough of this aggravation. I can't start directing traffic to my website if it doesn't have those buttons set up.

April 23 (Thurs) Alex got his permit last night. Lewis came home from work early to take him to the DMV. I can't believe it. Another milestone in my baby's life.

I've been contacting Scottsdale resort gift shops & other gift shops about selling my Arizona Air. They want to see a brochure. So now I have to make a brochure on nice paper. Tonight I should be able to have Rick (my neighbor) help me with the PayPal buttons. (He has a little Westie too).

Mother's Day is coming up. It's always difficult trying to figure out what to get mom. She gets everything she needs all through the year. This is always our annual challenge. We now have to alternate where we go on Mother's Day. My whole family goes to Cathy's house to celebrate on Sun, Mother's Day. Since everyone was there, we would go see Lewis's mom on Sat. Well, that is no longer acceptable, so we have to alternate years now, like we do on Thanksgiving. With this going on every yr, I sometimes forget I'm a mother too. I just want 1 yr to be a Mother's Day with no conflict. So when it's our turn to see my mom on a Sat, it will just be Lewis, Alex & me there. I won't see the whole family. It won't be such a party atmosphere like that. We have a good sized family. It's always fun & loud when we're all together. There are 5 generations of us now. All ages. Aunt Bertha is my dad's aunt. She's always with us too. And now the babies. That makes 5 generations.

My bar mitzvah book is so close to being ready. "Just Whose Bar Mitzvah is it, Anyway!" I've been working on it a little each night & morning before I go to work. I would like to have it ready to print out on Saturday so I can hand it off to Rosalie when we have dinner with her & Henry later that night. She is going to review it for me for consistency. I have tonight & tomorrow to work on it. So I guess getting Rick to work on my PapPal buttons will have to wait until next wk. So the plan looks like this:

Finish the bar mitzvah book Have Rosalie review it

Get it copyrighted

Have Rick help me with the PayPal buttons

Once book is copyrighted, put it on my website

Then start going to various Jewish gift shops with a few copies of my book

Print AZ Air fliers

Continue to work on Scottsdale resort gift shops with AZ Air

Check out Phx airport gift shops for AZ Air

Put everything on eBay

I wish I had a marketing rep, because I don't like going into places asking them to sell my product. But there's no one but me to do it. I'll call first to see when a manager will be available so I go at the right time. I have finished making my brochure. Well, it's not a brochure, it's a flier. 11" x 4 1/4", both sides. It includes 2 pictures. I will print them on my good photo quality glossy paper. So this should all be keeping me busy for a little while. You know how I love my little projects.

I just called & scheduled Alex's first 3-hr driving session. 3 hrs is a long time. We should drive with him more often.

April 28 (Tues) I am freezing today. Inside it's freezing; Outside it's in the high 80's. My hands are like ice.

Cath & Terri & I figured out what to do for Mother's Day. We are celebrating it the wk after Mother's Day so we can all be together. We'll go to Lewis's parents' house on 5/10 (Mother's Day) & then to Cathy's the following Sunday. It's nice that they're all doing that for me. And Adam will be able to come too. He's in Flagstaff at NAU. Sophomore. It's great when he comes home. Everyone misses him so much.

On Fri (4/24) six other administrative assistants & I went to Capital Grill for lunch. I had the filet oscar. The crab was so sweet! There was so much of it! The next night we went to dinner with Henry & Rosalie at Jasper's Peak, & Lewis & I both ordered the crab-stuffed filet. I have to stop meat for a while. We also had the shrimp & avacado salad. I had a mango margarita. I love those. Their mango margaritas aren't sickly sweet like some places make them. It was delicious. Rosalie & I may try it again for one of our happy hour nights.

A couple days ago Alex was going to his friend, Brian's to work on their algebra together. I let him drive the entire way. When Lewis picked him up later, he drove home too. He's feeling much more confident behind the wheel now & bugs us to take him driving constantly. Lewis is taking him tonight. He has to have 10 hrs of night driving & 30-something of day driving. We were going to go to the library tonight to donate the 6 boxes of books that didn't sell in the yard sale. I guess we can do that tomorrow. We did pretty well at the yard sale. Got rid of a lot of stuff. Our 2 recliner chairs are now gone. They were very comfortable but Lewis thought they looked too out of style, so we had to get rid of them. I miss them already. So there was no place to sit in the family room to watch tv except on that horrible, uncomfortable couch. So we brought the other couch in from the computer room. It is a good size & it reclines for 2 people. But it looks stupid & out of place in that room. We are on the look-out for new recliners now. The stuff we didn't sell will be picked up by the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Arizona next wk. So we will have 1/2 of that section of the garage cleaned out! Martha is giving me some shelving units. I will stack what I can & use the shelves. I'm pretty confident that we will be able to get Alex's car in there soon. It's my mission now.

Lewis made this great onion soup last night. He bought a sweet Hawaiian onion. Couldn't find any Vidalias yet. The soup was excellent. He put a little sherry in it too.

We decided we're getting mom a copier for Mother's Day. She is always running up to the drug store to make copies of stuff. I don't know what that stuff is; Just that she is always doing it. So the 3 of us are going in on it together. She doesn't have a computer so she can't use a printer as a copier. She's one of the few people I know who does not have a computer. Cathy got her one for Christmas one yr, but she only played solitaire on it then gave it away. She doesn't like technology.

Martha & I are having dinner on Thurs. Then Rosalie & I are meeting for happy hour the next wk.

Sparky's birthday was Saturday. She turned 9. Nine! I can't believe it. She still acts like a puppy. Happy little scampering girl. Her daddy made her a special breakfast & she had a special dinner too.

April 30 (Thurs) - Alex went to a friend's last night to work on his project. They finished early & went to the basketball court for a while. The kid can't go a day without playing basketball. He is really going to be unhappy right after his surgery when he can't do any sports for a year. Between basketball, tennis, golf, & baseball, I don't know what he's going to do. Those things take up a great deal of his time. He is not an indoors kind of guy. I have to get more details from the surgeon. We'll have to go for walks every day. With Sparky. He drove home from his friend's house (at night). He is really happy about this whole driving thing. We have gotten out of the neighborhood & onto "real" traffic streets. Lewis even showed him how to put the gas in. A new milestone in his life. He's a good driver. He seems to understand the laws & the reasons for them. Some people seem to think a stop sign means "Stop, except if no one else is coming." I told him that is not what it means. It says "Stop" & nothing else. It means stop, with no exceptions. He understands. It doesn't help when the cars in front of us do a rolling stop & go right through.

Been listening to my iPod at work again. Now that I've updated my library & My Favorites, it's a lot of fun being at work. Sometimes I just feel like getting up & dancing. (Dazz Band - "Let it Whip" - great dance song). The warranty on my iPod expired the first wk of April. Now I hold my breath. But I've been very good to it. Guns 'N Roses's "Sweet Child of Mine" right now. I love that song. If it didn't make so many references to females, "her" "she" I would have used it as a part of Alex's bar mitzvah. I remember trying to figure out a way to do it, but there are too many of the wrong pronouns in the song.

Basketball jerseys on eBay did not sell. I will look for another category & re-list them. Although I can't think of a more appropriate one than - - Clothing > Jerseys > Basketball. Kind of stumped. I read somewhere that you should only list for 3 days. That didn't work. I just ended up paying fees & not selling, so I will now list for 7-10 days.

I'll get going now. Need to reach out to all of my friends who may be able to help me find a job.

Hugs,

Candace