A little overdue for an update

So my foot’s not broken.  Even though my foot was feeling better, I went to the doctor on Friday and got some x-rays to find out that I have an inflamed tendon.  Most likely due to the new activity of playing on the Wii Fit.  So now I have to avoid any weight-bearing activities for the next 2-3 weeks.  I’ve been ordered to take the elevator instead of the stairs.  I have to ice my foot for 20-30 minutes 2 or 3 times a day.  And I have to take Aleve on a regular basis for a week since it’s an anti-inflammatory.  But, I don’t hurt anymore and I’m still walking under my own power.  No boot or crutches, etc.  And they got me in an out in right about an hour.  The longest wait that I had was for the xrays to develop.  So I worked for a bit from home in the morning, went to the doctor, came home to get Aleve and a bag for ice and was at work about 10:30 to then sit in an all-day meeting.

I have to go to the doctor

So I figured I’d break my long silence by letting everyone know that I’m going to have to go to the doctor tomorrow.  Now, I don’t have a regular doctor, so prompt care it is.  Why, you may ask?  Well, I think I may have broken a bone in my foot, though I couldn’t exactly tell you how.  But something’s not right, and earlier there was a piece shifting strangely when I moved my foot.  *sigh*  This ought to be fun.

The Haps

Not too much going on lately.  I got out of my funk – as expected.  With the freezing cold weather, I’ve had kind of a weird working arrangement.  On Wed, I worked from home, not because I couldn’t have gotten to work if I tried, but more because by the time I was getting everything dug out (I park outside) and would then change (cause of traipsing through 4+ inches of drifting snow, my pants were wet from about mid-calf down) and drive slowly to work, I’d have been to work SO late.  On Thurs, I did go to work in the freezing cold – I had meetings.  On Fri, I stayed home because my supervisor told us all to work from home and stay out of the cold.

I had a baby shower to attend in Chicago on Sat.  I had originally tried to go up on Saturday morning, go to the shower, then hang out that night and come back Sun, but that didn’t end up working out for the person I was staying with, so I drove up Fri night and came back Sat after the shower.  It was just starting to snow in the Chicago area when I left, so I called Mr. B to find out what the roads were like before I took off.  He said there was a little snow starting in Chicago, and nothing the rest of the way, so I decided to come home instead of finding a place to crash.

Just south of Joliet, I ran into some idiot guys.  They were hanging out in the left lane, and when I finally gave up and went to pass them on the right, they sped up to match.  I then got stuck behind a car and had to slow down behind them.  They then dropped down to about 60 in the 65 and hung out there.  By the time we finally got around the car, they sped back up where I couldn’t get around them.  This went on continually, ticking off another car that ended up behind us, until I finally gave up and just slowed way down.  That time, they finally just went past me and the guy in the passenger’s seat opened the window, leaned out and blew me a kiss.  If I’d have been closer and it wasn’t already dark out, I’d have flipped them off.

Just after I got rid of them, there were a bunch of police and fire trucks off the side of the road.  When slowing down, I realized the roads were pretty icy and it turned out there was a camper and two cars in the ditch.  Slowed things down to about 45 mph on the interstate.  I called Mr. B again to get an update and he couldn’t find anything anywhere about any weather or bad roads through there.  It ended up lasting for about 30 miles or so, which was very not fun.  I ended up seeing at least 10 cars in the ditch between both directions of the interstate.  Luckily, the jerks in front of me had stopped messing around. The rest of the trip home was uneventful.

Then I tried to just spend the rest of the weekend being lazy.  I did end up getting a haircut yesterday, and then Mr. B and I went out shopping.  I’m trying to find a new swimsuit since both of my others are pretty worn out, and I want to get one while there’s still a good mix-and-match selection.  The stores that did have them out before Christmas no longer had them out.  And the ones that still did have theirs out really didn’t have much of any selection.  The only thing we could think was they put some out before the holidays for the people who are traveling to the warmer states for the holidays and then pulled them all back until a few weeks from now when they really start pushing them. I’m just going to be keeping my eye out for now.

Feeling out of sorts

I’m pretty sure I’ve used that title before – and for roughly the same reason.  I don’t know what my problem is, but I’m just feeling…not right for no particular reason.  I didn’t have that bad of a day.  OK, so I had a staff meeting this morning that really set my mood on edge and then almost had me crying afterward, but then I had a decent afternoon. So I really don’t know what my problem is.

I came home and tried to relax while Mr. B was in class, so I decided to watch 27 Dresses since it’s a total chick flick that he wouldn’t watch with me anyways and I just wanted some me-time.  And it was cute and enjoyable, but it didn’t help.  I’m just still kind of…upset.  I’ll get over it, but I wish I knew what caused it.  It just seems to crop up now and again and then I’m fine, but I don’t care for this feeling in the meantime.

I hear August’s NaBloPoMo theme is “Hot”

Does this mean I’m participating? Probably not. Just making sure that’s known, cause I don’t want to get your hopes up for nothing.

Well, right now, I am a bit hot. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with crappy customer service. Mr. B bought a truck off e-bay on July 3rd and it has yet to get to us. Why? First, because the bank won’t clear a cashier’s check for 10 days due to all the problems with fakes. And because apparently the air conditioning isn’t working, though this wasn’t listed in the auction. So the guy tried to fix it, but they’re having difficulty and now he wants to refund the money instead of fixing and sending the truck. All we can think of is that he’s sinking too much money into it for what we paid for it, and would rather fix it and re-list it than send it back to us. Mr. B has already said he’d work with him on it, maybe take it with the broken air conditioning with a slight refund or something. But the guy is hardly, if ever, calling us back.

To top that off, the other day I called our cable company, Comcast, to upgrade to digital with HD channels. Everything was fine there except I got cut off from one call and then the guy I was talking to had trouble with his computer when I called back, so it took forever.

Well, today, the guy came to install the cable cards into the TiVo, and didn’t want to wait for it to finish configuring and wasn’t there a few min later when it failed. So Mr. B (who works 4 10s and is home on Fridays) called back and the guy was supposed to come back…but didn’t. And he talked to TiVo, who said the card wasn’t configured properly with the problem we’re having, so he called Comcast, who said the card hadn’t been activated. And then they were going to track down the guy who had come and have him call us to make sure he’d come back, and no one called.

So basically, Mr. B sat here from 8-10, waiting for the service call sometime between 8 and 12. Then waited from 10:30 when the card failed until about 6:00 when he called back again cause no one called. We were then supposed to be called back by a supervisor, when they were able to track one down. Yeah – that didn’t happen until 8 pm. So basically he was waiting around from 8 am til 8 pm. And when that supervisor called, she was pretty clueless and didn’t even know if they had technicians working at that time of night or Sat, so she didn’t do a thing, except they’re supposed to call back again and let us know if they’re able to make it tomorrow. Because calling back has worked SO well thus far…

So yeah, perfect blog topic for the month the way my month is starting…GRRR!

“And…Christmas is finally over…”

This is what I said to Mr. B a few minutes ago as we finally got our Christmas tree taken down. Yes, you heard me – the tree finally came down on Feb. 6, even though it sat undecorated and unlit since Dec. 29 and the rest of the Christmas decorations were packed up by Jan. 6. At that point, Mr. B had lamented that Christmas was over. But the tree remained. Why? Well, several reasons, actually.

• Mr. B started classes again the weekend of the 7th, with two classes this semester, so he was in class two nights, and working on homework usually two other nights and Sunday mornings.
• Mr. B has been working overtime for months consisting of 10-hr days on weekends and an 8-hr day on Saturday. One week he even worked a couple 12-hr days when they were trying to perform some work during a shut-down. Between that and the classes and homework schedule, he’s pretty wiped out most of the time. The overtime finally stopped last week, but we’re not sure how long that’ll last.
• We’ve had stuff going on most weekends since the holidays. Between birthday dinners, being on-call for work, trying to squeeze in grocery shopping and the like, it’s been quite hectic. And Mr. B got really sick at the end of Jan. to the point where he basically slept the entire weekend. This weekend we spent taking care of puppies at his house. His roommate recently adopted a dog and then found out she was gonna have puppies that ended up being born on New Year’s Eve. His roommate was going out of town last weekend, so we were taking care of the two dogs and 7 puppies. Talk about a handful. That definitely didn’t leave any free time.
• My cat chewed through a couple of the wires on the bottom of the pre-lit tree, so Mr. B’s been refusing to take it down until he could also fix the wires. At first, he didn’t have his tools here. Then he didn’t have connectors. Then he didn’t have enough time. It was always something.

Well, last night his class was canceled due to the weather. I tried to convince him to take the tree down last night, but it never happened. Tonight, his other class got canceled. Since that meant he had a week with no homework to tie him down, he didn’t have excuses like this was his only chance to do…whatever. So I finally convinced him to do it. And how long did it take him to actually fix the wires? Oh, about 5 min, including getting the tools and connectors out. Wasn’t that long of a task at all.

As we were leaving the basement after storing the tree, I told Mr. B, “And…Christmas is finally over.” I know he was a bit disappointed. He’s a big fan of Christmas.

Color Me Impressed aka iPod Woes (No Longer)

I must say, the whole Apple service request went rather well. Last we left it, I had just dropped my iPod off at a DHL drop to be shipped to Apple. That was a Thurs at 6 pm. It was picked up around 7 pm and in Apple’s hands mid-Friday. Friday night, they diagnosed my iPod, and on Saturday, a new one was being shipped out to me from New Jersey. Checking the DHL site, it was supposed to be delivered on Mon. However, the ice storms or snow or something that went through that weekend caused some changes in that plan. DHL never updated the estimated delivery date on their site, which was also quite difficult to read given things were all out of order. It was finally delivered on Thursday, though no one was around to sign for it since in the morning it still didn’t appear anywhere near being delivered.

Since we were planning on going to Minnesota that evening, I called to make sure they wouldn’t keep trying to deliver it and would just hold it until I could pick it up. They took my information and said they’d call me when it came back in on the truck and they’d hold it for three business days. An hour later, I got a call that it would be available for pick-up in about 1-1/2 hrs, so I was actually going to be able to pick it up before we left. About 30 minutes later, a DHL truck pulled up and handed me my new iPod. Got no clue why, but I wasn’t going to complain.

When I opened it up, I had an iPod that was in very good shape. Couldn’t see any scratches. Can’t tell if it’s new, refurbed, or an open box type of used. So no complaints there. Except for the pains in waiting for the iPod to arrive, which DHL made up for by redelivering my package the same day, the entire process was quite simple and quick. And I’ve been using the new one for over a week now with no issues.

The best laid plans…

Yeah – they never quite work out the way they’re supposed to, do they?

The plan as it started out was to leave for Minnesota on Thursday afternoon. I took the afternoon off to finish packing and take care of a couple things around the house. Mr. B only had to work until 2:30, so then he was going to get cleaned up and come to my house to get his car packed quickly. We were going to drop my car off at the shop so it could have the tires remounted and balanced and an alignment done, since it desperately needed it, and then get on the road. We wanted to get out of town well before any of the weather hit.

Well, things started out OK. I left work on time. I got home and got everything taken care of around the house. At about 3:30, Mr. B called and said there was a change in plans. He was sitting in the middle of an accident on the Bob Michael bridge. Apparently a car had died on the way up the bridge from East Peoria to Peoria and was sitting at a dead standstill. He realized the car was going slow, but not that it was completely stopped until the car in front of him ducked over to the other lane at the last minute. He had a car next to him, so he slammed on the brakes and came to a stop a few feet from the car. However, he was then hit from behind and drilled into the car anyway. Then that car was hit by a truck. So the front and rear of his car is banged up. Apparently the back end of his car was a couple inches off the ground where the car behind was wedged underneath. It was still driveable, but he didn’t want to make a long trip in it since he wasn’t completely sure what all was damaged, not to mention the back hatch wouldn’t open because of the damage.

The phone call basically consisted of him telling me he was in a car accident and we were going to have to take my car. Never once said that he was OK, though I figured he was since all he was talking about was the trip. Well, he called the car shop, Goodyear in Pekin, owned by some friends of his family to see if they could get my car in to at least get the alignment done quickly. But I’d been worried about the tires lately cause I’ve been having trouble getting traction, so I was especially nervous about going further north and in the weather that was supposed to go through Thurs. night/Fri. morning. I hurried out to the shop, and they said my tires were “iffy” and weren’t sure whether I should go with them or not. Luckily they had the correct size in stock, so in an hour they had 4 new tires mounted and balanced and an alignment done on my car. They rock.

I hurried home and met Mr. B right as he was getting there. We threw stuff into my car and got on the road right as the snow was hitting (over 2 hours after we had planned on leaving). Unfortunately we were heading out the back side of the storm, right through the areas that it had already passed through, so it was slow going. It took us 3-1/2 to 4 hrs to go from Peoria to Cedar Rapids, IA – a trip which should have taken about 2-1/2 hours. We had taken the nationwide number of Choice hotels with us and called when we stopped for dinner to find out what they had in the way of open rooms along our route when we started to figure out how far we might get. After dinner, the roads had been cleared enough that we didn’t really have any issues, though we still weren’t going full speed cause there were a couple of icy spots here and there.

The only real issue we had was slightly before we stopped for dinner. We were driving through the Quad Cities along a section of interstate three lanes wide. Still not completely sure where we were at the time. Mr. B had been on the phone for a few minutes with his family getting weather updates and filling them in on the situation with his car. I was asking him to get off the phone cause it makes me nervous when he’s on the phone and the roads are bad cause I know he’s a little less observant when he’s on the phone – though he swears in that kinda weather, he’s fully focused on the road. All of a sudden, a deer ran out in front of us. Mr. B slammed on the brakes, we started sliding, luckily pretty straight down the middle of the three lanes, and the sound of the tires must have scared the deer away cause he hopped up into the air, turned right back around and ran off. It was at that point that Mr. B then remembered my car doesn’t have anti-lock brakes. It freaked me out pretty well, but otherwise no big deal. Mr. B did get off the phone, especially cause at that point, I was pretty shaky and was really giving him a bad time about being on the phone.

The next morning, we made the rest of the trip to Minneapolis without any issue at all – and at almost full speed. He was still taking it pretty easy on the roads just cause there were some bridges that were a little slick, though nothing big enough that we really had any problem with losing traction. The rest of the weekend went without incident except we nearly bought more than we could fit into my little car, but that’s probably another post…

I will never have another cat

I currently have a single cat. A 5-year old female. And, yes, I’ll never have another cat. There are times when I’m wondering why on earth I have this one. Why? First off, cat’s aren’t trainable, at least not by me. I’ve failed in just about everything I’ve attempted to train her not to do. Stay off the kitchen table and counters? Failed. Stop chewing up cords? Failed. I’m sure there are other examples, but at the moment, I’m not coming up with anything else I’ve attempted to train her on. And it’s not that she doesn’t learn. She knows she’s not supposed to do it, but she does it anyway, just to get attention. She will look at me to make sure I’m watching before she attempts to chew on the computer’s power cord.

For some reason, lately, she’s really into the mini-blinds. She dives between them and reaches up through them, though I have no clue why. Well, when she does this I’ve been shooting her with water from a spray bottle that I keep on the end table next to the couch. It used to be half water and half vinegar, but she always came over to the spray bottle trying to get a drink. After a couple weeks of not getting anywhere with this, I ended up raising the one set of mini-blinds up higher than the chair-back she normally sleeps on. All the other mini-blinds had long since been raised well up above this point. I still occasionally have to spray her to get her down from standing up on the chair and rooting around under them, but it’s a lot less painful for both of us. I sometimes wonder which one of us got trained in this situation.

However, just the other day she started doing this same thing on one of the bedroom windows. And since we’re only in the bedroom to sleep, she’s usually doing this when I’m trying to get some sleep. And of course, since it’s the bedroom, I refuse to open the mini-blinds. Well last week, she decided to keep me up all night doing this. I spent the first 15 minutes try to give her some attention so she’d settle down. I spent the next 10 minutes trying to swat her on the head or butt to convince her she wasn’t supposed to be up near the window. I spent the next 5 minutes spraying her with water and throwing her out of the room. I then gave up and locked her in the bathroom for 15 min because that usually calms her down. But I felt bad leaving her in there too long, so I let her back out. She immediately began digging through the mini-blinds again. After about 10 minutes of chasing her around again, I locked her back up in the bathroom and tried to go to sleep. A couple hours later, I woke up feeling extremely guilty and let her out of the bathroom. Less than 5 minutes later, she was at it again. Mr. B got up for work shortly thereafter, but she still kept at it. I think the only sleep I got that night was the couple hours when she was locked in the bathroom.

Luckily, she’s been pretty well behaved since then. That’s not to say she’s not still doing it, but she’s stopped when I’ve told her to. Let’s hope she keeps it up. I don’t want another night like that.

Dave Rocks aka iPod Woes (Part 3)

(Yes, Dave, I just put it in writing and in public, no less. Betcha never thought that would happen. )

After writing the iPod update the other night, Dave called me to say if I would bring my iPod to work, he’d take pictures of it for me. That’s a good thing cause I was having trouble getting pictures that were both in focus and not all reflective or washed out. If I used the flash, it would cause a bright glare. If I didn’t use the flash, I couldn’t hold the camera still enough or get enough light in order to get a decent picture. And I had trouble with reflections getting in the way also. What can I say? I’m not a photographer.

While Dave and I were talking, I asked about lens cleaner so I could get my camera lens cleaned. He told me what I needed to get, then said if I brought it with the iPod, he’d clean it too since it’d take 10 seconds. So today, we met for lunch (special note for Korey: I had a cheese and tomato deep dish at Uno’s cause I know you’ve been waiting all month to hear what I had for lunch today) and I gave him both iPod and camera. Later in the afternoon, he sent me some pictures and then after work, I swung by to pick stuff up. So I’m getting the iPod all packed up, and tomorrow when I run errands I’ll drop it off at a DHL location. Hopefully there’s quick turnaround and I’ll have a working iPod soon. I’m sure I’ll have at least one more update to say how everything turned out.