November 1, 2008 Emmy's new car....finally!

The morning started quietly and I managed to get out of the house for a run before anybody else woke. 2 runs in 16 hours and I was feeling very motivated. It's been exactly 4 months since my diet and lifestyle change and I've happily lost 60lbs. That's a Danny and a half! According to my Wii fit I'm now within a normal weight range for my height, it estimates my optimal weight to be 136 lbs so I have 16 lbs to go or be able to fit into those size 8 shorts for Disney, whatever comes first. Dan and I took Emmy to work for 1pm while Mike stayed home to do some turning. Dan and I stopped at the grocery store on our way home, then layed down for a nap. Mike woke me up about an hour later saying that Russ from Spirit Auto called and said the car was ready. It was just after 3pm and I had to work at 5pm. Dan and I jumped out of bed and hopped in the van for the ride over. The car was parked in front and ready to go when we got there. I installed Dan's carseat, Mike checked the repairs and put her plates on. In minutes we were ready to go. We got home just after 4pm. I ate, dressed and since Em didn't know we had the car decided I'd take it to work with me, and Mike would pick Em up in the van explaining that the truck was having repairs. I really wanted to be there when she got it. However Mike primed Dan about the surprise and Danny was just too excited to keep it, and spilled the beans. I still got to give her the keys, and see that smile you only see so often these days. Em drove Mike and Danny home and I finished my night. I worked with the Assistant Manager tonight, but it's the last time for the week. I'll be working with kids and my Assistant Manager wished me good luck. I'll be responsible for the money, I've seen this before.

We have a busy week in store. Em's working on Monday. Potentially the last day Danny and I will have to drive her there. Tuesday is election day, which I can't wait to have over and fear the results. Mike and I will vote first thing that morning. Then Em has her road test at 9am and since we didn't have a car that qualified for the test, Mom is coming up from RI so Emily can use hers. Assuming she passes it we'll have a quick lunch before heading to RI to support Ed in his town council re- election campaign.
Wednesday Dan and I are going to do the "we don't have to drive Emmy to work" dance, and gladly push her out the door at 8:15am. He and I will then go to story time at the library, then come home for rest time which we've had to put on hold since we've had to pick Emmy up at 1pm most days. Mike has a woodturners meeting and I school so Em and Dan will hang out Wednesday night.
Thursday is a quiet day for us. Friday Em's working till 1pm then the kids and I are going to RI for a Relay for Life spaghetti dinner fundraiser that Alicia, Ed, and Kristin have organized. We're planning on spending the night and I'm looking forward to it!
I've been in touch via e-mail with my old D & D boss Paul who invited me to join him for breakfast Saturday morning to catch up. We visited briefly with Paul and his wife Paula (cute, I know) a couple of months ago after the Progeny cookout, but we were on our way home and the kids were anxious to go so didn't really get a chance to talk. Mike and I loved Key West the last time we were there and would love to do a trip down there without the kids. Since Paul lives there he's the perfect person to talk to. He was a big influence in my life, and taught me a lot about myself. It'll be good to get together, if Mom doesn't mind entertaining the kids for me for a little while Saturday morning!

October 21, 2008 Happy Halloween!

Since Dad got home so late last night we decided to wait until this morning to carve pumpkins. We were a little slow getting moving but once we did we were on a roll. Danny picked a wolf pattern for Daddy to carve, Em chose a funny dinosaur, and I, a cat. They came out pretty cute, can't wait to see what they look like tonight!

We finished up the pumpkins and since we needed to go to Walmart in Wareham anyway thought we'd stop in at Spirit Auto and see what was going on. When we arrived the car was no where to be seen. Mike and I went in and found the car in their one stall garage. Apparently the alternator came in and was replaced so they sent it across the street for an oil change and the technician over there found a rust hole in the oil pan so they were waiting for that part to come in. The promised it would be ready Saturday morning. We stopped at Sandwich Pizza on the way home then declared it nap time. Dan and Mike fell asleep nearly immediately, I tried but failed and decided instead to go for a run. I came home, took a quick shower and woke Mike and Dan up to get ready for trick or treating. Dan excitedly suited up and thought he looked great. If you can't tell he's Leonardo the teenage mutant ninja turtle. Since it was Mike & Laurie's men's night we made our way up there with our supplies then went back out to do some treating. We have maybe 10 houses in our neighborhood that participate which is just about perfect...not too much, not too little. Dan made sure to tell everybody that if they needed anything he'd be there to help. Pretty cute.

October 30, 2008 Happy Birthday Marley, Emily's car, Halloween

Another day begins and I woke wondering if we'd pick up Em's car today...I'm not holding my breath. Dan and I took Em to work, then to our Thursday playdate at the Oak Ridge Playground. We met Marcial, Ana and Tony there, we haven't seen them in a long time and it was good to catch up. Ana and Danny are the same age and the last time Danny saw Tony he couldn't talk. Dan was very excited when he found out that now he could and wanted to play hide and seek with Dan. He's gotten so big! Marcial is a hospitalist at Cape Cod Hospital, and just a sweet affectionate guy. It's always a treat to catch up with him! At noon we headed home for lunch and then off to pick up Em at work again. On the way home we stopped at the grocery store. Em's direct deposit hasn't started yet so I taught her how to make a deposit to both a checking and savings account with one check. Then we shopped for the making of pizza tonight. Last weekend seemed like too far away from Halloween to carve the pumpkins but we forgot to take into account that I was working Monday and Tuesday night, had school on Wednesday night and Thursday was Survivor, as well as Mikey working late to try to avoid working on Friday. Dan and Marley both needed a walk so we picked up Laurie and did our loop around Cove, Aritsan, Shore drive into the woods back to our house. When we arrived home, Dan asked if we could clean the pumpkins and I said sure. I'd lured Laurie into the house with a cup of tea, but promptly put her to work. Thanks for the help Laurie!
Spirit Auto finally called at 5:30pm to tell us the part never arrived today and they expect it tomorrow, we've heard that before. At this point I'm glad Mike will be able to come with us to pick it up. If something fishy is going on he'll flush it out.

October 29, 2008 Emmy's car, GED, and Sociology

It's Wednesday and we were supposed to pick up Em's car today. Emily is still not feeling well but has to work. We're planning to pick it up after work, but on the way in she said " Will it make it easier if I don't go to pick up the car with you" at which time I said "absolutely!" She gave me permission to pick it up without her. Although this will make life significantly easier for me, I worry that I've pushed her over the edge and she's completely overwhelmed with all that happened in the last few weeks. Dan and I dropped her off at work and immediately went to the registry in Falmouth for what I expected to be a long wait. I was pleasantly surprised when my number was called before I'd even removed it from the machine. To my surprise I had all the necessary paperwork and marveled how the registry has changed since my youth when 3 hour waits and missing paperwork were the norm. Five minutes later we left with Em's registration and headed home to wait for the phone to ring. At 1:30 Dan and I went to pick up Emmy from work and since we still hadn't heard took her directly to 4C's to fill out the GED application that they only take on Wednesdays. Orientation will be Thursday November 13th from 4:00 - 5:30 and the test will be on Tuesday November 18th and Thursday November 20th from 4:00-8:30. Since hopefully she'll be driving herself around by then I showed her where to park and where the classroom for the test was. We left there a little after 3pm and since we still hadn't heard anything about the car decided to call. Russ answered and said they'd found that the alternator was bad and expected the part to come in mid-morning Thursday. We went home and enjoyed a quiet afternoon before it was time to go to school. By the comments my professor has made I've concluded he's a democrat and since Obama's 30 minute info-mercial was due to air at 8pm I wasn't surprised when he let those of us who had already taken test 2, go at 7:30. On the way out he gave us our scores. I smuggly waited for my name to be called sure I had scored no less then an A+ on this exam. I was sadly mistaken and scored only a B. I could find only a couple of things he considered errors and am beginning to question his grading policy. I intend to talk to him next week.

October 28, 2008 Sick and Title

Mike and Em both woke up this morning with sore throats, at which time we concluded they both have Dan's cold. Dan is feeling significantly better and is attempting to expend all the energy he's stored up in the last few days. Em didn't need to be at work so we spent most of the morning sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. The dealer we used doesn't keep his titles in house, and the Title was due to arrive sometime this morning. We were hoping it would be early, so we could run up to Needham to have the insurance started then back to the registry, then finally back to the dealer to pick the car up. But the phone didn't ring until nearly 1:30 so the kids climbed into the van for the ride to Wareham, Em and I signed all the necessary papers and left there 10 minutes later with the title and RMV-1 form in hand. Eric is supposed to come by tonight to stamp the form and initiate the insurance. Dan and I will take a ride to the registry tomorrow before we pick Em up from work to register the car, then it's just a matter of picking her up and coming home so Laurie can give us a ride over to pick up the car. I'm glad it's almost done, and we can move on to her actually passing the road test. Dan had a good time painting his turtle shell, we hadn't taken shrinkage into account but Dan's happy with it anyway. We're running a little behind in Halloween preparation but with Mike, Em and I all home on Friday I'm sure we can get everything done!

October 25, 2008 Halloween,Emmy's new car, and Mike's gallery.

Dan and I spent the better half of Thursday working on his turtle shell for his Halloween costume. He's going to be Leonardo from the Teenaged Mutant Ninja turtles and since Halloween is just over a week away we knew we had to get moving. The grocery store was giving away Red Sox balloons (since their season is now over) so we decided it would be the perfect mold for his turtle shell. Dan had a great time playing in the flour and water glue!
Friday we were scheduled to feed the animals at Green Briar but on our way there we got a text from Buzz and the girls asking us if we'd join them at the playground since it was such a nice morning. Last night was our first frost so I found it hard to believe, but we thought we'd give it a try and sure enough the morning was bright, beautiful, and warm. We played with the girls until it was time for them to go (Seneca had to be to school at noon) and Dan and I went off to feed the animals. We got home and Dan refused lunch, very uncommon for him. He layed on the couch and nearly fell asleep. I felt his head and sure enough a fever. He's spent lots of time with the Harmon girls this week and they all have runny noses. so I wasn't surprised.
Mike and I spent the afternoon getting ready for men's night then I took Marley for a walk while the guys rested. We had a small group for men's night, just Mike and Laurie and Richard. I'm not sure where everybody else was but we had tons of ham and scalloped potatoes left over. The night ended early and we tucked Dan into bed after a dose of Tylenol. Em, Mike and I stayed up to watch Ocean's 11, then went off to bed shortly after.
We woke up this morning and Dan immediately said "feel my head". He was nice and
cool and he seemed to be back to normal. He woke me around 2am to give him another dose of Tylenol, so I wasn't sure he was cured, but glad that he seemed better. I went for a run and did my 3.5 mile loop in 42 minutes, 5 minutes less then the last time I timed it. As I was getting back I decided to get the mail from the day before and found that our Disney tickets had arrived, Hurray!
We decided we'd head over to Wareham and try Leo's luncherama for breakfast then go check out that Ford Contour before Emily had to be to work at 12:45pm. Breakfast was good, typical diner food, Dan didn't eat and was suddenly looking under the weather again. While eating I got a call from Russ at Spirit Auto letting us know the car was ready. "Well good!" I told him "We'll be there in half an hour." We arrived just as the Contour was being finished. Mike immediately popped the hood, climbed under each side, checked the trunk, and found the source of a couple of leaks. He and Em climbed in to take it for a test drive. Mike drove it out, but Emmy drove it back. Mike declared it a decent buy, settled on a price of $3300, Em said it was the one she wanted and signed the papers. We arrived at 11:45am and left with the papers signed at 12:20.

We took Emmy to work then went over to Color Obsession which is a high end art gallery in South Cape Village that caters to New Seabury. Gail took 17 of Mike's pieces to display and sell. He's been working with a glass blower named Dave McDermott http://www.mcdermottglass.com/ and a master furniture builder Paul Noyse who both have work in this gallery. The three of them are getting ready to collaborate on a piece. He's excited and I'm very proud of him for following his passion!

October 18, 2008 More used car shopping...

We got a late start this morning, but eventually made it out the door. Mike finished installing his new exhaust system and was confident his truck would pass inspection, which it did. Since we were out that way we browsed some used car lots on Willow street in Yarmouth and found a Mazda truck Mike said might be ok. Unfortunately nobody was in the office so we'll try calling on Monday. We made a quick stop at a pizza shop then took Em to work for 12:45. Mike, Dan and I made a quick trip to the grocery store for dinner supplies then came home. Mike decided he was going to take a nap. Dan and I opted to take Marley for a walk in the woods. We had a great time, I love walking in the woods in the fall. And both Marley and Dan got out some pent up energy. A win/win for all involved!

I went to work, this could be a long story, but I'll shorten it. Basically I walked in a little before 5pm. The assistant manager (AM) was there who I love to work with, but nobody said anything about me giving notice, until a few minutes after 5 when the AM checked the red book and asked what was going on. I stated that I gave notice. What I hadn't known was that my Brazilian Friend's (BF) last day of work was tonight. AM noted that she didn't think the Manager had seen my note and suggested I let her know later on. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm not quitting. If my BF is leaving, then I'm staying. She and I worked together throughout the night. I had lead headset (the one you can talk through, the other you can only hear) so I was pretty much tied to the service area. My BF was then respondsible for things like sweeping and mopping. I did my job, and was getting ready to work on the sandwich board when I noticed my BF pouring water into the bakery case. We were low on donuts so she'd moved them to one side. Before I knew it she was standing barefoot in a pond behind the counter. I've never seen anything like it. I took a picture. At that moment the phone rang, My BF answered, yelled for a few minutes in Portuguese and then handed the phone to me saying the Manager wanted to talk to me. My BF and the Manager are good friends. I said Hello and she said you wanted to talk to me?
I spilled my guts told her that as of right now my BF was barefoot behind the counter in a puddle with three other unfinished projects going on. She said it was unacceptable and asked to talk to her. My BF sounds like she's yelling when she's having a normal conversation and I wanted to avoid a controntation with so much work left to do so I asked my Manager to hold off until later on. She and I worked the rest of the night until 9:45pm when the phone rang again. I was taking the garbage out but I could hear yelling coming from inside. I did the rest of my work, happily said good bye and promptly left. She grunted....so it goes! So I still have a job and actually can't wait for work tomorrow.....I predict we'll be done early!

October 17, 2008 Used car shopping and Bye Bye Dunkin

I booked Disney! We have three flights round trip, and since I was doing it I ordered tickets for Dan and I for Disney. We decided that with 10 days of passes we didn't need the park hopper feature and saved ourselves a $100. The tickets should arrive by the end of the month. We're very excited, but Dan keeps asking when we're leaving....it's going to be a long few months!!!

Today's Friday and Mike's home and on a mission to replace his exhaust system. I am on a mission of my own. To find Emily a trustworthy car in the $2500 range which is what she's saved along with a $1500 start on insurance/fees/etc. She goes for her drivers road test on election day, November 4th and is thrilled that Gogie will be driving up since neither of our vehicles qualify for the road test. There must be an emergency brake between the two seats in case the testing administrator needs to stop the car. I can't wait for her to be able to drive herself back and forth to work. Ever since she's switch to cashiering sometimes Dan and I wait for an hour for her to be done. The time has definitely come. We checked several dealerships and it seems they all run the same way. They sell off their older trade ins to used car lots so most of them don't have anything in stock under $5000. We checked a couple of used car lots and found a couple, but either they were too old or had high milage. We'll try a place in Buzzards Bay tomorrow that one of the salesmen recommended. We got home around 2pm, had something to eat and relaxed until it was time for work.

I'm scheduled to work with my Brazilian (read, not-so) friend tonight and tomorrow. I don't have a good feeling.
10 O'clock follow up. Tonight went as expected, although I decided that rather then kill myself to get us both out on time I'd see what she does when left to her own devices. Namely, me not cleaning up after her. I arrived 10 minutes early as usual. I like to get there early, see what's going on, get a jump start if I need to without dealing with customers. Seems the other employees think then when I walk through the door I'm on. Laurie promptly collected her tips, counted them out and left! Celia started yelling for me to get her a toasted bagel, I pointed to the clock and told her I wasn't punched in yet. She yelled that I was on, I yelled that I wasn't. And so the night began.
I did what I always do. I took out all the trash in the store, including outside. Swept and mopped the entire store. Cleaned and stocked the Sandwich station, did all the dishes, cleaned the ovens, cleaned out the donut case, emptied and cleaned all the ice coffee urns, and waited on customers. She had to clean two dairy cleaners which normally take her 3 hours (me 30 minutes) and stock and clean the drive thru station. That's it. When I left at 10, because I had to pick Emily up at a football game, she still hadn't finished one of the creamers, and her station was trashed. I didn't feel bad about leaving. As I was finishing the paper work, temps, and donut and bagel throwaways, etc. I added a note for Camilla (the manager) that I was giving my two week notice. Enough is enough, I started working to get out of the house, socialize, gain a sense of accomplishment and make some money. With only two of those goals being met, it's just not worth it....I wonder what I'll do next!