To say that I have been having problems with UPS lately is an understatement. Within the past month they:

1. Left a severely damaged package at my front door and didn't bother to knock. (I was home - the lawn crew knocked on the door to let me know I received a package).

2. Threw a 15lb package over my 5' fence and into my backyard. (Did I mention that my backyard is cement with a couple of flower beds?)

3. A week later threw a 16lb package over my 5' fence and into my backyard. (This one was sitting in a puddle of water.)

4. And on Tuesday, the driver didn't bother to get out of the truck. He sat by my garage for less than five minutes. He did not bother to leave a notice and had the nerve to say that he attempted to deliver my package but I wasn't home. (I called when I saw that status update online and he was back at my house within five minutes of my hanging up the phone.)

After the first package was thrown over the fence, I had customer service add a note on my account that all deliveries are to be made to the front door. My garage is in the back and there is no way to access the backyard other than through the garage stall door. There is a gate, but the latch is broken, so it is padlocked shut.

I've called and complained to several supervisors at UPS. Time and time again I'm told that the driver will be talked to and the situation dealt with. Where's the resolution for me? I call and complain and nothing seems to change.

Generally I prefer UPS, but good lord! What is with their service nowadays???




{~2300}

Posted on Thursday, 10 January 2008 [14:55:05 UTC]

Annual Checkup...

...It's not just for cats and dogs.

I just wanted to remind everyone that bunnies should be seen by a rabbit savvy vet at least once a year for an annual checkup.

Speaking of which...

Beaker went in for his annual checkup on the 2nd. He had a pea-sized ball of ear wax in his left ear and he was starting to get tooth spurs on his molars again (his molars were filed down in February of last year). In addition to his exam, he had his molars filed and his ears rinsed out.

The vet used a gas anesthesia while she was filing his molars. It took her a whole 10 minutes and then I was able to take Beaker home. When his teeth were filed last year, it was with his old vet (that was about a 45 minute drive away) who used an injectable anesthesia, making a tooth filing an all day procedure.

Both vets are rabbit savvy. The main differences are the distance and cost. The new vet is a lot closer and easier on my wallet.

She said that Beaker's abdomen felt good and aside from the ear wax and tooth spurs, she thought he was in excellent health.

When she put the scope in Beaker's mouth to look at his teeth he started smacking his lips around it and licking it - he thought she was giving him a syringe full of medicine! *laughs*

When I first got Beaker he was three months old and had to be put on a couple of different antibiotics. Shortly after he was neutered and was given more antibiotics as well as pain medication. So he's had a lot of liquid meds.

The vet was so shocked that he was so well behaved with the scope in his mouth that she took her time looking throughout his mouth. She told me that most rabbits won't let her keep a scope in their mouth as long as Beaker had. She kept saying how well behaved he was. (it made me so proud.)

I had to flush out his ears once a day for a week, with an ear cleansing solution, to help fight the ear wax buildup.

He's now 6 1/2lbs. He's lost 2lbs since he was placed on an all hay diet (with daily veggies - no pellets) a year ago. He's at a healthier weight and he's still my big boy. :)

Before we went to the vet I trimmed Beaker's nails and brushed him. He's getting ready to start molting again. I think Bunsen is getting ready to start molting too. I'm not looking forward to both bunnies molting at the same time. My house is going to look like bunny fur exploded everywhere. *sigh*

It was a good thing I trimmed Beaker's nails. He jumped off of the examining table onto my shoulder three times while we were at the vet. He hates standing on the metal table. He calmed down once they got a towel for him to stand on and one of the vet techs held him.

Wisdom, or Lack Thereof...

My wisdom tooth socket checkup went just fine. Everything is healing nicely. My oral surgeon told me that it takes a few weeks for the socket to close up completely. I have a small socket hole now, but I'm ready for it to close up. I'm tired of food constantly getting stuck in it.

Anniversary

Sunday, April 8th, was our first wedding anniversary. I'm very grateful to those that remembered our anniversary - it meant a lot to me. Everyone in my family forgot. I don't know if it had anything to do with the fact that Easter was on our anniversary this year or not. It was quite disappointing nonetheless.

Michael and I went out to the movies to see Premonition. It was VERY good. Not a good anniversary movie, but still good. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be and the ending was quite a surprise.

After the movies we had dinner at Red Lobster. Then we went home and just relaxed. Overall it was a great anniversary.

On Monday I received flowers for our anniversary. They were supposed to be delivered on Sunday. When Michael ordered them he was told that they couldn't give him a time frame for delivery because they were really busy with Easter deliveries. When he called to find out what happened to my flowers they told him that they don't deliver flowers to residences on Sunday. The woman he spoke with didn't care that Michael was told the flowers would be delivered on Sunday, nor did she care that they were for our anniversary. Michael said that it's the last time he'll be using that florist.

My flowers are wonderful, despite the issues with delivering them. It's a spring arrangement in a clay pot. They're still thriving and are sitting on the kitchen table where I can see them.

Handy Crafts

There's a girl that I work with that is having her bridal shower at the end of this month. I'm knitting her a set of dishcloths and I'm also going to crochet her a set of hanging towels.

I went to The Knit Nook, a local yarn shop, to get some yarn. I use cotton yarn for my dishcloths and the set I'm making needs to match a kitchen that's decorated in shades of greens and browns. (It sounds God awful to me. Maybe I'd have to see it to appreciate it.) I found some really nice yarn in an olive green and a suede brown.

This was my first trip to the The Knit Nook and I was quite surprised. They have quite a selection for such a small place. I had to resist the urge to buy more yarn. The priceyness of the yarn was a really good deterrent. It seems that many women just take their knitting there and hang out in the shop just to knit. It has a nice atmosphere, but it's a little too far for me to drive to just to knit.

They offer classes there as well. I'd like to take a few to work on some different skills when we have the money.

Sugar Shortcake???

I picked up some strawberries when I was at the store last night. I decided to make strawberry shortcake with it. So I cut up the strawberries and added the sugar. I wasn't thinking about how much sugar I was putting in there and added WAY too much! I let it soak in the fridge overnight to let the sugar pull the juice out of the strawberries.

Today I had a thick layer of sugar sitting at the bottom of the container. I spooned out the strawberries and the juice from the over sugared container and moved it to a new one. I tasted one of the strawberries and it was fine. I was worried that I had just wasted/ruined a batch of strawberries.

Whew!

Wanton Wonton

I made wonton soup for the first time last month. I made up a huge batch of wontons and froze half of them to eat later. It wasn't the best wonton soup I had ever had, but it was okay. Some of my wontons died/exploded/fell apart while they were cooking. I think I overstuffed a few of them. I'm sure I'll get better with more practice. I made another batch of wonton soup today for lunch.






{1331}

Posted on Friday, 13 April 2007 [18:25:27 UTC]

Cat

Cat, the iguana, has found a new home. He is now living at Herp Haven, a nearby rescue that specializes in lizards, snakes, etc. We dropped him off on Thursday, March 22. We are allowed to visit him if we want to. We need to make another trip over there this week to drop off the rest of Cat's things as well as his medical records.

Cat will be kept in quarantine for 90 days to ensure that he is eating well, is healthy, free of parasites, etc. After the quarantine period is over, the rescue will start looking for a new home for Cat. Eddie, the rescue owner, has many contacts throughout the area. He said that he didn't think he would have any problem placing Cat in a new home since he is the healthiest iguana he has had. (He's had about 50+ iguanas come through his rescue.)

The iguana bathroom has become the guest bathroom once again. We did some major scrubbing, cleaning, and sanitizing in there and it looks like a normal bathroom again. Now people can use that bathroom when they come over instead of our master bathroom.

Quick Updates

• I have a follow-up appointment for my wisdom tooth (socket) on Wednesday. It has been healing just fine. I only needed to take my pain meds for four days after the removal. The socket is still there, although it is now about half the size it was when the tooth was first extracted.

• We finally got our tax refund on Friday. Yay! Now we can take care of a few things.

• Michael's car is in the shop today. It was in dire need of a tune-up. It also has to have some recall work done and the check engine light has been on for the past month. We would have taken it in earlier, but we didn't have the money. (yay again for our tax refund coming in)

• Spring Break is now over. Thankfully the semester is over at the end of this month. I'm going to take a break from school for a while after that. I'm getting really burned out. I'm hoping that just taking the sumer off will be enough but I'm willing to take a longer break if it's necessary.

• I've been doing a lot of knitting lately. I'm still not finished with my current plan of making massive quantities of dish cloths. I'm almost finished with #6 out of this group. There are 10+ additional dish cloths left to make.

• Beaker is going to the vet today for his annual checkup. I'm sure he's going to be mad at me when we get home.

{1275}

Posted on Monday, 02 April 2007 [15:24:52 UTC]

Losing Wisdom, One Piece at a Time...

I had my upper right wisdom tooth extracted this morning after having a nasty infection around it earlier this month. It needed to come out anyway (as do the other three) but this one needed to be removed sooner rather than later.

The extraction went well - only took a couple minutes once I was numb enough. The tooth came out in one piece - my oral surgeon was shocked. He thought it was either going to break on its own or he would have to break it to get it out.

I'm hoping we'll have the money to have my other three wisdom teeth extracted soon. I'd really like to have this oral surgeon perform the surgery. I like him and have had a good experience with today's procedure.

So far I'm doing good (although I'm sure I'll be feeling it later). I just changed my second wad of gauze. Since the numbing meds were starting to wear off I took one of my pain pills (Lortab 10) during my first gauze change. I'm on antibiotics (Z-Pack/Azithromycin) along with pain pills for the next few days to make sure I don't develop an infection.

I can't eat anything hard, chewy, or sharp. I have to use a syringe and rinse out my socket with warm, salty water after each meal to make sure food doesn't get stuck in there. I'm eating some applesauce right now. I think I'm going to have to make a special trip to the store to get my soft, mushy foods. I have some for now, though I'm not sure how long my supply will last. Eating is a very slow process right now. My stomach is hating me as a result.

It's really strange not being able to feel that tooth with my tongue. All I feel is my gums, I don't even feel the socket. So either my gums collapsed over the socket, or my tongue is too short. *shrugs* I wish I had asked the oral surgeon if I could take a look at my tooth. It would have been pretty cool to hold the object that's been causing me so much pain for the last decade.

I'm hoping that the tooth that was in front of that wisdom tooth will move back into place on its own. It was pushed towards my cheek by the wisdom tooth.

I'm feeling a little dizzy now. I'm sure it's from a combination of the loss of blood and my pain meds. After I'm done eating, I'm going to rinse out my socket and take a nap.

Misc.

• I'm still looking for additional work. I mailed off a couple copies of my resume last week. I'll probably be doing that this week as well. I haven't told work about it yet, I want to have a new job lined up first.

• Spring Break starts for me on Friday. I can't wait! I'm getting really burned out on school and am definitely looking forward to a break. I'm considering taking a semester or two off in the future.

• Beaker and Bunsen have been up to their usual antics. They've been having quite a few nose wars lately. They'll nudge each other with their noses trying to get their head under the other's chin. The winner gets his head groomed by the loser. Beaker's been losing a lot lately.

• We're still hoping to find a new home for the iguana. He's been getting really aggressive lately - to the point of scaring both Michael and I. It's possible that he may have to be put to sleep. He's been lunging at us and trying to bite us.

• We're going to Cincinnati next weekend to meet Michael's sister's boyfriend's family. (what a mouthful) I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't been to Cincinnati. Maybe we'll head over there early and stop at the aquarium or something.

• There isn't much else going on. Just pluggin' away.

{1219}

Posted on Monday, 19 March 2007 [15:50:57 UTC]

Biting off More Than You can Chew

Last Wednesday I woke up with a terrible pain in my mouth. The gums around my upper right wisdom tooth were swollen. By Thursday morning, I could barely open my mouth wide enough to eat. It hurt to talk, chew, yawn, etc. I was afraid it was an infection and called my dentist to get an emergency appointment.

I went in later that afternoon to discover that I was right - I did have an infection. My dentist gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and referred me back to the oral surgeon I had a consultation with back in October about removing all four of my wisdom teeth. If I don't have that tooth pulled the infection will keep coming back. I can't afford to have all four teeth removed so my dentist suggested that I get a quote for just having that one tooth removed without anesthesia.

I called the oral surgeon's office after I picked up my antibiotics. It's going to cost $165 to have that one tooth removed. It's not great, but it's not terrible either. The soonest they could squeeze me in is Monday the 19th. I'll be on an ice cream and soft food diet for a while after that.

We don't have dental insurance (or vision insurance for that matter) so we have to pay the full cost of everything.

STOP!

Michael noticed that his brakes weren't working quite right last Tuesday. He made an appointment for the following day to have them checked out. Turns out that all four of his brakes had to be replaced.

Michael's car has to have working brakes. That isn't something to mess around with so we found a way to pay for the work and replaced the brakes on his car.

The Best Things in Life Are Free. But You can Give Them to the Birds and Bees. I Want Money!

We're trying to save up as much money as possible. It just seems that as soon as we get a little saved something major happens and we're starting all over again. We're doing okay financially, but not as good as we would like and there isn't a lot of money left over for savings.

After all of the money we've had to pay out in the past week we're feeling really poor.

I am currently accepting donations for the "Amber is Po' fund."

Crafts

I've decided that I'm going to try selling some of my needlecraft work. I've looked at some items on eBay that are similar to what I'm planning on selling. I don't think I would have a problem selling these items (dish cloths and hanging towels to start). My crafts are made better/look nicer than the ones I've seen for sale. IMHO

I never thought about possibly selling them until Michael and his mother mentioned it. I've always given them away to family as gifts.

We'll see how it goes. If it goes well enough maybe I can do that for income.

eBay

I've been a member on eBay for almost eight years now. I've been a buyer only until recently. To earn some extra money, I decided to sell some of my old books. So far I have sold two different sets and have made $30. I'm running a few auctions at a time to start off with so I can get the hang of things. So far so good.

I'm planning in selling about half of my porcelain doll collection (eight dolls) as well. I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to do that on eBay or not. It seems like it would be difficult to package them safely enough because they're so fragile. I may try to sell them on our local cheap cycle group instead.

Misc.

• For the most part we're doing okay.
• I'm trying to be creative and find more ways to earn money.
• I'm considering picking up a second part-time job.
• Bunsen's 5th birthday is today! Happy birthday Bunsen!!!
• We're still looking for a new home for Cat, the iguana.

{1141}

Posted on Tuesday, 06 March 2007 [07:19:05 UTC]

Flood On Valentine's Day

Wednesday afternoon, the handyman rang our bell and asked if we had a storage unit in the basement (we did and it was labeled with our names and apartment number). I told him we did and he said I'd better come down to the basement.

I went downstairs to find water and sewage pipes pouring water into our storage unit. I ran upstairs to grab Michael so he could help me get everything out before anything else got damaged. The handyman turned off the water (he didn't think to turn it off until Michael asked him if he could) so we could get in and we started hauling things out. One of our extra computer monitors was filled with water. We had to throw that out. I had to unpack a few things and will need to repack them into new boxes because the old ones were destroyed.

We had another monitor in there but it didn't get wet at all. The majority of our things were in plastic totes and thankfully they didn't leak. They were soaked on the outside. We lost a few empty boxes and a shelf. Everything was lifted off of the floor and stacked on pallets but that was to protect them from the basement flooding from the floor up, not from the ceiling.

Michael helped the handyman push the water with a floor brush and a large squeegee into the sub pump while I moved the rest of the empty boxes that weren't destroyed into our garage. We moved the rest of our things into the empty storage unit next to ours. There are no water pipes going through that one, it's the same size as our old one, and the person that had it before us had placed several cinder blocks on end with a sheet of plywood on top to keep things off the floor. Our things are further from the floor now and should be safe.

The side of Michael's box of Christmas ornaments got wet. When we opened it up everything was dry on the inside. Thankfully none of his ornaments were lost. I was really worried about those things because all of our Christmas stuff is stored in the basement. All of the other Christmas things are in plastic totes.

We're now sanitizing everything that needs to be reboxed, since some of what had leaked was sewage.

It turned out that the old lady that lives below us called the office because her toilet started overflowing and wouldn't stop. She wasn't even using the bathroom and was on the other side of her apartment. She's 89 if I remember right. She told the handyman that she wasn't using the toilet when it started to overflow and that's when he ran downstairs to see what was going on.

He saw all the water gushing out of the pipes and into our storage unit and all over the floor. He then went and knocked on the doors to all of the apartments telling people to stop using their water. (IMHO it would have been easier, faster, and more reliable to just shut off the water, but I guess that's just me.)

Plumbers were called to fix the problem. Whatever the problem was, it was fixed. We never heard what was wrong. *shrugs*

The storage unit on the other side of ours (the one that was occupied) belongs to an older lady that is out of town for three months. The handyman took her storage unit door off of its hinges to get inside and pull some of her things out that would be damaged by the water. She had a square foam chair that unfolded into a bed. He left that out of her storage unit as well as a rolling table, two lamp shades, and one of her lamps. He left without returning her things to her storage unit or putting the hinges back on. The door is only hanging there by its lock. Her chair is now missing - as of the 15th. I think someone stole it.

We don't know if our landlord will reimburse us for that monitor that we lost, which was the only thing of real value that was destroyed by the flood. However, giving how cheap they are, we highly doubt they would reimburse us anything. We have not contacted them, nor have they contacted us. Michael still needs to call our renter's insurance agent and see if there's anything that can be done from their office.

I told Michael that we would never forget our first Valentine's Day together as a married couple after what had happened. We dressed up and went out to a nice dinner and spoiled ourselves a bit afterwards. At least we had a nice evening so the day wasn't a total disaster.

The day after Valentine's Day, I received half dozen roses from Michael. He was planning on having them delivered to my office but I didn't work that afternoon so he had the florist deliver them to our apartment instead.


{1060}

Posted on Saturday, 17 February 2007 [12:42:19 UTC]

New Article

Yes, I know, I've been bad. I haven't posted in my journal for far too long. It happens from time to time as those who've been reading my journal regularly well know.

Other than being super-busy with work, I had the opportunity to spend some time writing an article on how to use Mezzanine to turn source tarballs into SRPM/RPM packages. Hopefully it will be a good starting point for those wishing to contribute to cAos Linux and for others who are familiar with Mezzanine but haven't played with specgen just yet.

Posted on Monday, 23 October 2006 [14:47:35 UTC]

Skipping Town

I'm leaving for Michigan in about an hour to go visit with some family. Michael is staying home to take care of the animals. This way I can stay more than one night. It's not a fun trip to make two days in a row.

I don't have too much planned for when I'm there. Just going to visit, work on some crochet projects, and help my brother out with some college details.

I'll be home sometime on Sunday.



{300}

Posted on Friday, 07 July 2006 [09:18:42 UTC]

Vacation's All I Ever Wanted...

I'm working finding ways to entertain myself this summer. I think I'm going to be working on a lot of crochet. I'm currently making a ripple (zigzag) blanket. It's three different shades of blue and also white. I was going for a fade effect where the blue continues to get lighter until it becomes white. It's not as fluid of a fade as I would have liked.

I'm going to try to find a group of girls to crochet with. I can't be the only one my age that likes to do this. I'm hoping that something like that will get me out of the house and give me something social to do.

I was hoping to sign up for a sewing class at Baer Fabrics this summer. Unfortunately it looks like most of the classes for this part of the summer are all into to ... II. I'm pretty sure I would need the intro to ... I first.

Technically, I can sew. But it isn't pretty.

There are so many things that I want to do and I feel like I don't have enough time to do everything. I want to learn embroidery, sewing, and quilting. I also want to enhance my skills in crochet and knitting. I really need help with
finding some easier instructions to follow for knitting and crochet.

Other than crafts and cleaning, I don't have much else planned for the summer. I do hope to be able to make a trip up to Michigan this summer so I can see my brother before he leaves for college.

School Schtuff

I have my grades for my classes that I took this summer. I didn't do too terribly. I got an A in college algebra and a C+ in public speaking. I wasn't too upset over my public speaking grade. All I wanted out of that class was a passing grade so I wouldn't have to take it again. I hate giving speeches.

I am now officially a junior in college. Only two more years to go at my college, two years of clinical work at Bellarmine and I will have my degree. Hopefully I'll have it before I'm 30.

Wedding

Some of our wedding pics are now up on the site. Be sure to check back periodically for updates.

I have not had the chance (or money) to order actual prints of the pictures yet. I do plan on doing that sometime in the near future. Of course I'll have to buy a photo album or two first.

Sunday was the first time that we've been back to Wilmore since the wedding. We had lunch and a nice visit with Michael's parents. I'm sure they were glad that we took the last of our wedding things out of their garage.


The thank you notes are finally done! They should go out in the mail later today. Finally.



{272}

Posted on Tuesday, 27 June 2006 [07:54:59 UTC]