He's At It AGAIN!!!!!!!

Okay, if you have been with me since my first blog you are aware of my oldest child. You know the one I've tried to raise to be independent. The one I complained about on June 17th, just 11 days ago. Well that goober has done it again.

Mr. Independent

I'm sitting at my computer be productive at work when he comes traipsing down the stairs and asks me what is the email address I told him to use for me for important things. Silly me thought he was going to CC me on his college applications so I gave it to him. All the while being impressed that he had matured enough to remember I had told him to do so. He forwards me an email. It's not an application for college.

This fool has forwarded me flight information for a week long event that will be happening in North Carolina. When does he leave? This Sunday, today would be Tuesday in case you didn't know. Really? I have no clue what this is about. Why in the heck is he going to NC? He looks at me as if I'm the one who is pecan here and informs me that he mentioned this to me months ago. MENTIONED. Hello, I'm over 50 with a 3 year old, you cannot mention something to me and expect me to actually remember it, I'm lucky I remember to brush my teeth. Son of a biscuit I forgot to brush my teeth this morning. AGHHHH.

I just glare at him. He then proceeds to inform me that he didn't think he needed to tell me anything else as he had already arranged a ride to the airport. More glaring on my part.  When I ask him what possessed him to suddenly actually give me his flight information, I mean why not just get up on Sunday morning and leave? He just looked at me with a goofy butt grin on his face and shrugged his shoulders. More glaring.

I then ask logical questions, where are you staying, does this include food, what the heck are you going to NC for? He finds me a map of the campus he'll be staying at. He THINKS they might provide breakfast. And he tells me that it is for CONA; like I know what the heck that means. My eyelid is starting to twitch.

I have since emailed his sponsor to see if maybe oh I don't know she can tell me some of the details as since when I go on the CONA website (http://ymcacona.org/) I don't get any necessary information, just a basic overview of the program.

Yes, I'm proud of him. But I'm pretty darn sure I want to smack him too.

Monday Monday

My microwave is possessed!!!!!!!!!! Even without entering a time and pushing start it turns itself on. In fact can't turn it off. Add to that even though it is on it isn't heating up anything. GRRRR!!!!!! So this is a definite monkey in the wrench for the day. Yesterday the temperature hit 105, I am NOT trying to turn on anything with heat today. But that is okay I have a plan. 

Fudge on a STICK!!!!!!!! So since microwave is on crack. No worries I know how we're going to do things and NOT have to turn on oven. For lunch I'll make more tuna salad for sandwiches. For supper tonight I'll heat up Father's Day leftovers in the toaster over. For supper tomorrow night I'll heat up the pizza casserole that I made in the crock-pot via the crock-pot. Brilliant, you shall not defeat me you demonic microwave.

Well of course that would have been to perfect.

I go to make the tuna salad. Sigh no mayonnaise. I already promised Saxon he wouldn't have to go to Wally-World today, since he is going to do the 2 mile round trip to pick his brother up from school. I cannot eat tuna salad without mayo. GRRR... Okay plan B. Move tonight's supper up to lunch, and tomorrow's supper up to tonight's supper. This means I'll have to cook tomorrow but hey at least not today.

Heating up Patrick's plate first, to try and time with when he gets his lunch hour. Take his plate out of the toaster oven, transfer to a clean plate. Use his plate to heat up my lunch. Go to remove plate from toaster over the plate is now in two pieces. What the heck? Why did my ceramic plate decide to break? It can't be that it was too hot, hello the corn on the cob was still ice cold to the touch.

Have to Love an Independent Child

It's my own darn fault. It really is. I was a single parent (I am now in a relationship with the man he considers his father) when I first had Sugar Britches and I have always made it a point to teach him to be independent.

He has been gone for almost a week now. He qualified for a spot on his speech and debate team for Nationals in Salt Lake City, Utah. I've texted and inquired how were things going. Silence. I heard from him once and that was to send me this photo.

Sugar Britches is the second from the left. I will say that is a beautiful photo. But did he include any words with this photo? Nope. Nothing to even explain what the ribbons everyone is wearing. He's due home tomorrow, so last night I sent a text asking what time was his flight landing, yes I know I should know that already. And I have an email with all that information somewhere, but hey I figure I would just ask him. Did I get an answer? Nope. You know what that stinker did? He texted his father about his travel plans. Seriously? I swear it would serve him right if I became a helicopter mother. I mean I think he is taking this independence thing a bit too far.

Customer Support? What Stinkin' Support?

Okay, here is what I already do not like about Blogger, how in the heck do you not have sub-pages? I personally hate blogs that cover several different topics (like I'm prone to doing) but not organized and separated. At least WordPress allowed for that. I mean it's not like I need anything fancy but hello that would be nice.

Also I love how I contact Google for Work (a paid account I use for my freelancing) and am told that Blogger is outside of their core support. What in the fudge does that mean? Blogger is a Google product. You are Google Support how can this be out of your scope of expertise? And then when I ask who do I contact for support you tell me it isn't possible that I have to use the Google help sheets. Well hello, like Googling my question wasn't the first thing I did. Sheesh if I'm contacting you I need a tad bit more assistance.

Now I have to try to figure out how to set up my twitter, website, blah blah blah. Time to reach out to my Thelma as she tends to be the goddess of these things. 

Pass Key Should Call Itself Pass Me

Who knew I'd have something to vetch about so soon? Okay I know I live in a small town, in fact technically I don't think it is a town, I do know it isn't incorporated (that was explained to me but honestly I can't really remember what it means).

There are no real sidewalks, but there are two traffic lights; each at opposite ends of the 'town'. There is a Safeway anchoring a strip mall at one end (of course I live at the other end of town), and a Super Walmart anchoring another strip mall; both located off the major highway. And  once you leave the highway there are a smattering of independent business.

Now if you know me then you know that while I love the convenience and savings of major chains I really prefer to support independent store owners, writers, etc. Whenever I can I pay the slightly higher prices that come along with such independents. We are a non-vehicle household. That means we do one of four things to get around 1) walk, 2)  public transportation, 3) depend on assistance from friends, or 4) cabs (we do not do this often as well we aren't wealthy).   Well where we currently live option 2 is no longer an option as there is no public transportation here. That leaves us with option 1, 2, and 4. Thanks to modern technology we actually do okay typically with those three. Sigh, except for when it comes to delivery.

While there are plenty of restaurants to eat at they don't have delivery and when you are a non-vehicle house hold delivery is important. Wait let me be fair several local restaurants have teamed up with a delivery service (the quality of this is an entirely different post) that for an additional $8-$10 plus tip you can get delivery. Yeah, on our family budget it's a big enough treat for us to afford to order out, we can't afford that kind of delivery fee. So we eat at home a lot, or Subway, the other restaurants that are within walking distance haven't inspired us much.

Okay now that I have painted the picture of where we currently live let me get to the, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????" point of this vetch.

I am a freelancer and work online (yet again topic for another post). Patrick also works online but he is actually hired by his company so technically he telecommutes. His company has several telecommuters all across the US. And the corporate office often tries to do things to make them feel like they are part of the company, you know since they cannot participate in office parties, barbecues, etc. Well they awarded free delivered lunch to some of their telecommuters, of which Patrick was one to receive the reward. He was entitled  to a lunch with delivery totaling $15. Well, you saw the issue with delivery right. Now there is a restaurant that is about three blocks (if this town actually had blocks) from where we live. We ordered from them once when we first moved here but we were not impressed at all with their 'famous Italian sausage' signature sandwich so we never bothered to try anything else on their menu. Patrick decided this would be an excellent opportunity to try something else without us having to pay for it; at least if we were once again unimpressed it wouldn't have cost us anything. He'd simply walk over during his lunch break and pick up the order. Problem solved. You would think so wouldn't you.

Corporate office called in his order and was told that they do not accept credit cards over the phone. WHAT??? Not that they don't accept credit cards mind you, because they do, just not over the phone. What year is this? Can someone explain to me the logic in accepting credit cards but not over the phone? Heck at the very least then I should be able to order online (yes they have a website but no you cannot order online). It would make more sense to me if they didn't accept cards at all.

Beginning Again

Oh my oh my where do I begin, again? I was first introduced to blogging as a 'blogger' when I had the privilege of being an author assistant. While I find blogging to be difficult, I mean honestly does anyone really want to read my random thoughts, I did begin to like it.

I stopped worrying about who if anyone would read my posts and started treating my blog like my own personal diary. Granted a tad weird diary as for the most part I was posting about books, release parties, etc. But I did start adding new pages where I would talk about my kids, cats, vetches, so it did feel like a diary.

Alas my time as an author assistant only lasted two years (I really did enjoy it) and I am now an event manager/virtual assistant for Palo Alto Networks. I still work virtually (I do a lot virtually hence the name of the blog) but my current position doesn't call for me to blog or social media. I miss my virtual community.

Well long story short, yes this is the shortened version, in my virtual traipsing around I stumbled across some Amazon review sites. You know how on Amazon you will read product reviews where the review includes the disclaimer: I received the product at a discount/free for my honest review.? Well I'm one of those people. Sometimes I pay full price, sometimes I get a huge discount on an item (I have yet to get anything for free but maybe one day) and I review.

Yes, my reviews are always honest although most groups do require that if you are going to give a 3 star or less that you reach out to the seller to see if the issue can be resolved. That's okay by me as well at one point in my virtual work world I worked for three Amazon sellers, so I know the back end of things and understand how that is important to the success of their product.

Soooooo after posting one of my reviews I read other reviews, I tend to do this to see if my experience was normal or weird. Anyway I saw a reviewer who was like me who also include a link to her blog where she posted all her reviews and I thought yes, I can do that. Thus getting back into my virtual social love of things.

I swear this is the short version of this tale. When I was an author assistant I used WordPress. Well I never fully understood how to work it and as I was using the free version the support wasn't all that great for me. One would think that as I've been working in a virtual setting for over three years now I'd have basic blogging technical skills down, I don't.  I use Google Apps or as I think of it Google for Business for all my online work and I can get live support (I'll talk about THAT in another post) so I'm setting up here on Blogger. So keep in mind I'm new to Blogger and accept all oops, goofs, typos, brain farts, etc. as either newbie, human or wine induced errors.

Once again I'm not going to worry about who if anyone follows me, but I do hope some folks do otherwise I might just be talking to myself and shoot we all know that's a sign of senility.