Damn it! I forgot the title again!

I’m back!  Woo hoo!  I remembered to come back and write about the list of things that I had put in my last entry.  =)

I gotta say that I’m not much looking forward to Christmas this year.  Actually.  No.  Let me take that back.  I’m looking forward to Christmas this year.  What I’m NOT looking forward to is Christmas with Jacob’s family.  It’s just never ending with them.  The drama that is.  It never goes away.  It tends to get worse if anything.  I just found out yesterday that Shawn has now gone from having a full time job to having a part time job to having no job at all.  So that’s just a cherry on top of all the other crap that continues to go on up there.  And evidently Mary took it upon herself to go off on Seth and some guy that was with him at the time.  Granted Seth needs to continue to be brought back to reality and realize that the people that he has chosen for friends just SUCK.  Her intentions were "good" but her method of communication was just wrong.

I told Jacob the other day that I could easily be celebrating a wonderful Christmas holiday with my family back home in Nebraska, but instead I have to endure the drama that is my in-laws.  I also told him that if things don’t die down by the week of Christmas, that I will not go to Christmas at all and I will stay home.  I’m serious too.  I do NOT want my Christmas to be another drama filled holiday full of MIL whining about nobody loving her, listening to the house-full of dogs barking at every noise, smelling the aroma of cats that is ingrained in the wood and carpet of her house, listening to Mary and anybody else yelling for one another from one side of the house to the other instead of getting up and either doing whatever they need to do for themselves or finding the person they need to talk to.  Yeah… that’s what I have to look forward to by staying at the MILs house.  Can you tell how thrilled I am?  And thanks to my DH, he promised MIL that we would stay with her when we came up for Christmas.  Great.  JUST great!

Speaking of the MIL… it was brought to my attention that our niece and nephews have begun to refer to her as "The Grandma that Cusses."  LMAO  In addition to this prestigious title, I have taken it upon myself to add an additional title of "The Grandma that Hangs Up on Her Grandchildren."  They are both rather self-explanatory titles.  She actually LAUGHED when they told her that she is now known as "The Grandma that Cusses."  LAUGHED I tell you.  I’m sorry, but if that is how my grandchildren referred to me, I think I would be re-evaluating how I spoke around them.  Which brings me to the reason why I gave her the second title.

Right before Jacob and I were getting ready to come back home after Thanksgiving weekend, we had stopped over at MIL’s house to pick up the dog and say goodbye to everyone over there.  As I’m standing there chatting with MIL and looking at the zillion different sewing projects that she is working on right now, Devon called over to ask if they could borrow a rake to work on their yard.  She then proceeded to tell him she didn’t know what rake he was talking about, and before he could even respond she says, "Alrighty.  Gotta go.  Bye."  And just hangs up the phone.  Literally just hangs up on the kid.  If she EVER hung up on me like that, I would first call her back, cuss her out, hang up on her, and then NEVER call her back again.  Not to say that I call her now.  LOL  But you know what I mean.  She is just plain rude!  I feel so bad for not only her kids but her grandkids.  Grandkids are supposed to be able to go to their grandparents house and be spoiled and sent home with good memories of being with Grandma and Grandpa.  Not memories of a grandmother who cusses like a sailor and hangs up on you because she’s plain pure and simply put a bitch.

I can’t help but think that so many of this family’s ongoing problems, issues, and drama all stem from MIL and her parenting skills, or I should say her lack of parenting skills.  It’s absolutely ridiculous.  And it will take a lot for me to ever change my mind about her as a person.  I hate having these bitter feelings toward her.  I don’t think I even have these bitter feelings toward my abusive ex-bf.  But when it comes to this woman… BITTER! 

And I think the thing that urks me the most is the fact that her kids don’t seem to realize that SHE is the reason why they are all just a little bit off in the head.  And yes that statement does include my husband as well.  He’s not as bad as his brother simply because he works so hard to have a relationship with God, that he does his best not to let the negativity that is present in other members of his family take over.  But he still struggles with reactions to certain situations that would result in a completely different reaction from a "normal" person.  To put it simply, I strongly believe that if all four of these siblings were tested, they would all four be diagnosed as bi-polar or manic depressive or both.  Zane self-medicates with his medical marijuana and honestly stays pretty mellow and level headed.  Hannah for the most part self-medicates as well, but not as much as Zane and therefore the mood swings are still there.  Then of course there is Seth who has in fact been diagnosed as manic-depressive/bi-polar and is therefore on prescribed medication.  Unfortunately he also has surrounded himself with losers and most recently ended up in the nut hut because of the meth usage that completely negated the medication he had been taking.

It’s really no wonder why I don’t want to deal with all of this.  And then I sit and think about how I should be an example of normalcy in their lives.  I should want to be around the nieces and nephews so that they can experience a positive influence and person in their life instead of all of the nut jobs that they are constantly around.  So when things still haven’t calmed down any the week of Christmas, but I back down and go up for the holiday anyway, it’s because of the kids and the fact that I want them to have a good time at Christmas.

QUICK SIDE VENT:
I’m still having to deal with the frustration of the "ringing phone" here at work.  I have reiterated over and over that I will NOT be the only person that answers the phone.  I’m not referring to the two reps that were here originally because obviously they will answer the phone.  I am yet again referring to the OTHER new girl that completely and utterly LAGS when it comes to answering the phone.  Trust me.  I’m keeping track.  I answered the phone a few minutes ago, no big deal.  So when the phone rang just now, and I know for a fact that she isn’t doing anything else right now, I went ahead and let it ring thinking that she can go ahead and get it.  Does she get it though?  No… she VERY SLOWLY reaches for her headset, VERY SLOWLY puts the headset on as the phone continues to ri

ng, waiting to see if somebody else is going to answer the phone.  I look over watch while all of this occurs and in the meantime, Nicole picks up the phone instead.  SUCH UTTER BULLSHIT!  ANSWER THE PHONE, BEEZY!  DAMN!

Oh yeah… there was a chat that she took earlier where the customer was having problems logging into her account to print out the prepaid shipping labels she needed to return her book renter.  The customer really was only requesting to have the labels emailed to her because of the problems she was having.  It was a VERY simple solution.  Instead of telling the customer, sure, let me go ahead and email your labels to you and once I finish doing that for you, I will reset your password for you so that you can log into your account for any future purchases you’d like to make with us… yeah… no.  She sat there and had a long drawn out chat with the customer about how she was going to reset the customer’s password and confirming the customer’s email address so that the customer could log into her account and do everything herself.  It was absolutely ridiculous!  And needless to say the customer was PISSED when all was said and done.

AND THEN there was the customer that I got on chat yesterday who was contacting us because he had purchased extensions for his books so that he could have some penalty fees refunded in exchange for the extension.  Well SHE charged him for the extensions, and then failed to go in and remove the penalty fees from the customer’s account which in turn ended up being charged and costing the customer close to $500.  I was able to refund all of the fees, however the fees ended up costing the customer $90 in overdraft fees from his bank because of it.  Had this been a transaction that happened on MY bank account, I would NEVER use this company again.  So far… other than the fact that she is great for carpooling with… I’m not impressed.  But I guess I’m not the one that needs to be impressed, and as long as I do MY job… all is good.  I figure that if she messes up enough, that they’ll do something about it, and then I can refer Rosie to take her place and then life will be good!  LOL  Okay… so that’s not exactly the nicest way for me to think about this situation.  I’m sure that everything will work out just fine for her and that we’ll be co-workers for a long time to come.

END SIDE RANT

Back to my list!

While we were up north for Thanksgiving, Walmart had Cricut Expressions for sale on Black Friday.  I have been wanting one of these for awhile now, and the fact that they were less than $200 was awesome.  In addition to them being on sale, they also had them in designer colors that I had never seen before.  I hadn’t planned on actually getting up and participating in Black Friday shopping, but I wanted that machine so bad.  When the alarm on our phone went off at 5:10 a.m. on Black Friday (Jacob had forgot to shut the alarm, and this is the time he gets up for work) I took it as a sign that I was indeed meant to go and buy my Cricut.  So we got up and off we went to Walmart.  It really wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated it to be.  When all was said and done, I came home with my brand new RED Cricut Expression that Friday.  Merry Christmas to me!
 

I’ve been having a lot of fun making my greeting cards since I’ve gotten this machine.  I know that I will be able to do so much more once I start to build my collection of cartridges.  In the mean time, I have taken on my first mass production of greeting cards for an outreach project that we are doing for my Bible Study.  I’m making 40 greeting cards, and they are turning out to be oh so very cute!  I’m excited to see the different things that I’m going to be able to create now that I have the Cricut.  I know that I will end up saving money in the end since I won’t have to buy all the embellishments that normally go with making greeting cards and scrapbook pages.  FUN STUFF I SAY!

Okay… I feel like I’ve ranted and raved about the craziness that is my life.  I love how I was given the choice of taking my lunch early or late.  Please note that I’m being sarcastic here.  The OTHER girl jumps up as soon as 12 o’clock hits, she is up and running for the break room.  DAMN WOMAN!  I think I may be PMSing.  I can’t stop complaining!  I would love to just be able to tell people that are in this entry exactly what I’m thinking.  *sigh*