I Learned Something New Today...

Wow, it's been a while since I last blogged (that word sounds like such a disease). I didn't think it had been that long. Well, here I am, still above ground. I found out a few weeks ago that I passed my CIC, so I'm one happy chickadee! I treated myself to a steak dinner when I found out.

So I learned something new at work today...in the company bathrooms, there are two toilet paper holders on the walls, and the janitors are always kind enough to leave extra rolls of toilet paper in case one on the wall should go empty. I have been at the company for four years, and I have never figured out how to change the toilet paper roll on the holder. It doesn't sound hard, but you have not seen these holders. I could not figure out how to get the holder detached from the unit so I could put the new roll on. I could see the little bar that connected the holder to the unit, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not get the little bar to unhook. I would pull on it as hard as I could (one day, I even strained a musle in my neck), but it just wouldn't work. Sometimes, I'd be talking to other people in the company, and someone would bring up the toilet paper rolls in the bathrooms and would complain that others were not changing the rolls when one went empty. They'd be like, "I don't understand why people don't just change the toilet paper rolls when one runs out," and I'd be all, "Oh I know, some people are so lazy," but secretly, I was filled with shame, because I knew I was one of them, and I was too embarrased to ask how to change them. But today, I finally figured it out on my own. It's ridiculous, because you have to actually rip the old roll off the holder and then push in on this springy thing to get it off. I've never seen toilet paper so guarded. Maybe the company is afraid some of the employees will try to pilfer the TP when no one's looking. Not that I could blame them if they did -- times are hard...

I was going to try to blog yesterday, it being Father's Day and all, but I didn't quite make it. We had a good day, watched some home videos with dad in them, and then we went to his grave to give him some flowers. I haven't read Becky's blog yet, but I am going to defend myself right now, because she already stated she was going to try to disparage me by making me sound all callous because I was admiring the hanging baskets on someone else's grave. True, I may have made a stray comment about trying to take one home when no one was looking, but it was all in jest. Besides, everyone else was thinking it, I was the only one who had the guts to say it. You can't believe Becky sometimes -- she gets her facts mixed up.

So anyway, just wanted to wish Dad a happy Father's Day, and to say....Naugahyde, Dad. Naugahyde.

Catching Up

Okay, so it's been a little while since I last blogged -- been kind of busy. Allow me to recap the last month of my life: I was either working or taking classes. And sometimes, I did laundry. I'm just a wild and crazy girl. Actually, I took the last class for my CIC designation, so I'm pretty excited about that. I just hope I passed. I am currently studying for a supervisory class that I took through the company, and if I can pass this one (which I will take in June), I'll have that designation, too. Then I think I'd like to stop studying for a while. It's starting to get overwhelming. I just...wait a minute, I need to go outside for a sec, I think that stupid raccoon is back and is eating my cat's food again...

Okay, I'm back. I had to run the raccoon off. I hate that animal, and I don't know how to get rid of it. I wish I owned a pistol. Even a bb gun would do the trick. He's always coming over here, eating all my baby's food, making a mess all over the porch. Anyway, what was I saying? I can't remember now where I was going with it, but in short, life has been hectic.

So Adam is back home from college, so I have my permanent lawn-mower again. Actually, I had a kid name Tyler from our church mowing my lawn until Adam got back. He did a good job, except...last year, I was so excited when spring came, because I have a row of daffodils that come up right in front of my house. I could see the plants starting to come up, and I knew they would bloom soon. They look so pretty when they're all bloomed out. I would lie awake at night and think about how nice my house would look when they were bloomed. And then I came home one day, and all my daffodil plants were gone. Adam mowed over top of every single one of them. No daffodils for me for 2008. I yelled and yelled at him about it last year. So this year, even though Adam wasn't around, I thought, at least I'll get my daffodils this year. The plants starting coming up in April, and I layed awake at night thinking about how nice my house was going to look when they bloomed. And then I came home one day, and my daffodils were gone. Tyler had mowed over top of every single one of them. No daffodils for 2009. I swear I have this curse hanging over the perimeter of my property. Next year, I'm not even going to get my hopes up. I can't take getting hurt again...

Venting

So, I was in the hardware store today, and I don't normally go in for the whole feminism thing, but I have to ask this -- what in the world do men find so amusing about a woman being in a hardware store by herself? I mean, I ask you -- WHAT is so funny about that? I was looking for doorknobs (because, gosh, I don't know, sometimes people just need things for the house -- I can see how that's just hilarious), and these two guys kept looking at me and kind of smiling and laughing. I tried to ignore it for a little bit, but they didn't stop looking at me, so of course I got mad. I grew up with a father who didn't treat women like that, so it's difficult for me to comprehend that level of idiocy. So I finally just asked them if I could help them with something, because they seemed interested in what I was doing, and then they left. I think it embarrased them, because I said it kind of loud. It made me feel good inside. Sometimes a woman's got to take a stand. I mean, for crying out loud, I'm 35 years old, and I realize I may look like I'm 12, but I should still be able to go into a store and not get visually harrassed by some swine male who thinks I'm out of place for trying to fix up my home. I got back to the house and told my rubber chicken all about it over a cup of coffee. Little Jimmy never makes fun of me (despite what Becky says in her blogs, he's a good companion, and he comes in handy when we have to do skits in church that involves butchers...)

On a less venemous note, I heard the other day that this is National Tell A Joke month (I'm not sure if that's really true, or if someone was just playing a joke on me), so let me end with a joke that I have found humorous:

"This guy walks into a bar. It really hurt. "

HA! I love that joke!

A Short Note

This blog will be brief -- I just got home from Cleveland, and I'm pretty exhausted. There's not much thought going through my head right now. Well, actually there is, but it's all a jumbled mess, and I can't make much of it. I hate it when you get a bunch of thoughts in your head, and before you can finish one thought, another one comes along and cuts in line, so you forget the first thing you were thinking about. Then you drive yourself crazy trying to remember what it was you were thinking about to begin with.

You know what else I hate? Weird dreams. I had one again last night. You know how you'll be dreaming about something, and then the dream just changes all of a sudden to something totally unexpected and unrelated? Like, you're dreaming that you're standing in the middle of a grassy field, talking to your friends about cherry pies, and then all of a sudden you're in some strange house you've never seen before, watching a western on TV and holding a three-legged puppy? That's what this dream was like. It was just all over the place, made no sense at all, and then someone shot me in the neck at the end of it, which made me wake up in a cold sweat. Then I started having all kinds of thoughts going through my head again, which made me not be able to sleep. I think maybe I'm under too much stress. Anyway, I'm going to retire for the night. Hopefully I can keep up with this blog more than once a week...

A Bad Day

It is 8:57 on Tuesday, March 31st, I'm watching American Idol, eating Oreos, and I can't believe I'm actually blogging. "Blog" reminds me of a sound someone makes when their tongue is too lazy to form an actual word, so when Shelley asked me to get involved in this, I was leery. The idea of putting my thoughts down for people to read causes me some discomfort, mainly because people laugh at my thoughts most of the time. We'll see how it goes...

I got home an hour ago after a fairly taxing day. I woke up this morning with the intention of getting an early start. When I looked at the clock, I realized I woke up late. A word immediately formed in my head that, although not a swear word, would probably be considered somewhat distasteful. I got ready (had a bad hair day today), ran out of the house, ran back in the house because I forgot to open the garage door, ran back out of the house, ran back in the house because I forgot to put more food in my cat's dish, ran back out of the house, got in the car and left. Hit a mirror on the way out of the garage. Spent the day visiting agents in the Columbus/Lancaster area. When I got to the first agency, I realized I forgot my notebook and all my business cards. Not a great impression.

Got through the day, headed back home around 5:00. Took a wrong turn. Got back on the right road (ran over someone's plastic trash can during the turn-around. It looked like it popped back into shape, so I didn't stop). By the time I got close to home, I was hungry, so I went through a drive-through. The food came to $7.42. I gave the guy $5. He said, "It's $7.42," so I took back the bill, went through my purse, and gave the guy $5. He looked at me like I was an idiot, and I then realized I still had the other $5 in my hand. I meant to give him both of them. So I said, "Oh, I'm sorry," took the $5 out of his hand, then handed both the $5 bills back to him. He was right. I am an idiot. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I finally got home, was feeling pretty bad about myself, so I sat down to play the piano. I played the first 7 or 8 measures of Fur Elise. I messed up three times. Then I turned on American Idol and saw some blind guy singing a Billy Joel song WHILE PLAYING THE PIANO. As if I didn't already feel lower than a snake's belly in a wagon track. And now, I just realized that NCIS comes on at 8:00, not 9:00, so I missed the show. I'm going to go drown my sorrows in some seedless grapes. Thus ends my first blog.