Just So much

Hey everyone!! I really had no intentions of being away from my blog this long.  My last post , I was about to leave for my vacation to Boston.  It was so great! Todd had never been and we really enjoyed our trip. I ate something lobster almost every day we were there.  I , of course, went to Salem one day and bought a couple of fun things for my Holliween party.  We also took a day trip to Maine and saw the coast and gorgeous leaves turning.  I could live up there!!  I am SO over having 90 degree weather in October here in Dallas!! I am currently wearing a sleeveless summer maxi dress and sandals at work.

When we came home from our trip, I had 2 concerts back to back.  Todd and I went to see Alice in Chains at Winstar which is just over the Oklahoma state line less than an hour away. The following night, a friend drove down from San Antonio and we saw Rob Thomas and Counting Crows in Allen.  Both concerts were absolutely fantastic!!!

Oh and while we were gone, our air conditioning went out and we had to replace a coil which is a big deal over 2 grand to fix and that hit us hard.  As mentioned, we had no choice to get fixed because we’re still having high hot temps.

I went to a Pinners Conference with a friend and then also went to a fun junk show with that same friend a few weeks later.  I am preparing for my next junk show which is in 2 weeks. 

My work is taking everything out of me. Literally. I am swamped every minute of the day and have been getting to office super early just to get caught up on my emails. I don’t get overtime but its worth it for me. I’m training 4 hour classes in the morning with a few classes scattered in the afternoon. Lots of meetings and preparation for the classes. This is GO time in that we are starting the training that is regarding our huge merge we did 2 years ago.  Its been pretty stressful. Lots of pressure.

This Saturday is our 5^th annual Holliween party and this years theme is Masquerade.  I’ve been crazy busy decorating every night when I get home from work.  I will show yall pics next week.

Todd started a new job a month ago and he’s traveling full time now.  Lots of stuff going on it seems .  I miss all my blogging friends !!  I just don’t have any free time to post anymore. I am going to try to make more time.  I summed up a lot of things just in this small post.

Just wanted to say HI so you don’t forget about me and I WILL be back soon.  I’m taking tomorrow off to wrap  up the last of decorations and begin to clean the house.

I wish you could all come to my party!!  Have a great weekend, yall. 

Happy Independence Day!!

After a long exhausting week even though tomorrow is a holiday- I am so ready for it to be Friday!
Working through this merger, my team is not allowed to take any vacation days off at all the whole month of July. I will appreciate tomorrow a great deal!  We have a some dear friends who are having a party tomorrow night to celebrate one of them becoming a US citizen.  Mike (the husband of Caroline ) is originally from Canada and has completed all the courses, signed the forms, taken the oaths, etc and is an American as of just a few days ago. I think its great timing to celebrate his being a US of A citizen.   I hope we can see some fireworks from somewhere nearby.
I am super duper excited for a family party out at my uncles house in East Texas on Saturday.  My most awesomest ,lovely, bestie cousin Lauren is driving down from Georgia to see her new nephew ( my newest cousin) and the rest of the fam.  We are taking Jax too for his country adventure. I even bought him an Old Navy July 4th t-shirt for him to wear.  It will be nice to see Nanny again too since it's been 2 weeks.
Sunday we have some friends coming over for dinner after church so we have a pretty full weekend planned.  Please be careful out there and have tons of fun!
Remember the most important thing: we are free BECAUSE of the brave!

God Bless!

A time to dance - A time to mourn

Hey y'all!  So yesterday was our last day of being Unisource of which I was employed for almost 19 years.  Today is our first official day of being new company and new coworkers.  Tomorrow will be the day of celebration though where we will have the ringing of the bell on Wall Street and some hubbub around the office.  As I've mentioned, the company we merged with has many of past employees that I've worked with and so its nice to be a family again.
After 19 years I am saying goodbye to a company that I truly grew to love.  Today we merge with another company, take a new name, and go public.  Although we've had our ups and downs, we had a good run, made some great friendships, and just maybe changed some lives.
I cant say that I didn't have anxiety on Monday coming to work knowing that everything i'm used to will be forever changed but at same time its exciting.  All I can do is do the best at my job and PRAY that the new CEO wont make me wear panty hose!!  
I am singing this in my head now. The song Turn Turn Turn by The Byrds.

 

I have 19 yrs of company swag! Hmmm. 

And here is Jax watching me get ready this morning. It's good to have his support. 

Stay tuned tomorrow where I will post about Dallas and be a part of a fun blog hop.  Happy Tuesday! 

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. What summer activity most takes you back to your own childhood? Probably jumping thru the sprinklers in our back yard. We didn’t have a pool and my cousins and I would go to my grandma’s house and would play hours outside running and jumping through the sprinklers. It was so much fun! We also had a slip n slide and wore that out as well.

2. What's your favorite summer smell? Hmmm, Probably the smell of suntan lotion. The coconut-lemon smell will automatically take you to memories of the beach or swimming pool.

  3. It's beach season in the US of A...so how do you feel about sand? I don’t mind the sand. In fact, I dream of having my toes in the sand right about now. When I travel anywhere there is a beach, I have my own tradition that I have to put my feet in the sand. Even if its winter.

  4. Sun tea, SunChips, sunflower seeds, Capri Sun, Sunny Delight, Sun-Maid raisins, sun-dried tomatoes...your favorite food or beverage with sun in its name? Sunflower seeds and then sunchips. I really love the unshelled sunflower seeds. I eat them quite a bit

. 5. What's your favorite way to cool off on a hot summer day? The older I get, the heat really gives me headaches and I am more sensitive to the sun. I enjoy air-conditioned cool rooms with cold frozen beverages

. 6. Share a favorite song with the word sun or sunshine in it's title.

  First one that comes to mind is Here comes the sun by the Beatles and then my childhood song- You are my Sunshine, My only Sunshine, You make me happy when skies are gray….

7. Tell us about a time you had an exceedingly good or truly awful customer service experience. If it was awful, did you report it? Ever go back there again? I’ve had a few awful experiences with customer service but I didn’t report them. I probably should have. I was in Pennsylvania on business with 3 other coworkers and we stopped at this restaurant we had seen that had cars in parking lot so we figured it might be good. They were terribly understaffed. The hostess sat us quickly but then our waitress never showed up for another 15 minutes. I got up asked the manager if we had a waitress assigned to our table- the waitress came over and Literally yelled at us. She said we are very busy and its not going to do you any good to tell the manager! I cant tell you how I fumed over this for days. I new I would never go back because I don’t live there but I never wanted to slap a waitress before until then.
  8. Insert your own random thought here. So this week I began my training to the other company we’re merging with ( the enemy). I’ve been so busy preparing and training that the blog posts are not happening this week. I got to office extra early today so I can at least post to the hodgepodge link. I love it! I hope to maybe post tomorrow or Friday though.  Have  a great day y'all!

Hodgepodging it today

1. Since you weren't Hodgepodging last Wednesday, how did you pass the time? I still actually posted. I made it a goal to post more than once and I ended up posting 3 times last week. 

 2. What's the first word that comes to mind when I say marriage? Yes, one word. Forever

 3. Summer officially arrives in the Northern hemishpere later this week. Does it feel like summer where you live? Describe your idea of the perfect summer day. It started feeling like summer back in the spring. Dallas, Tx is always sweltering hot! My perfect summer day would be near a beach with a light breeze blowing and a frozen drink in my hand, on lawn chair reading a book. 

 4. "Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability."(Sam Keen) Is laziness ever respectable? Do you have a lazy summer planned, or something semi-ambitious? Being lazy is not a good quality unless its planned. There is nothing wrong with decompressing and relaxing on a planned vacation day or even a quiet Sunday after church at home spending time with the husband. I am so crazy busy at work that I need to plan a lazy summer for sure. Instead, we are going to try to make it to Montana in September to see my mom. 

 5. Past or present, who's your favorite television dad? Why is he a favorite? Is he anything like your own dad? Herman Munster. He always had best intentions for his family but he was also goofy and had fun sense of humor. That is definitely like my dad!! Daddy is a prankster and always playing jokes. At the end of the day though he is a great Dad and will be there for you in a heartbeat! 

 6. June 18th is International Picnic Day...share a favorite picnic memory. Well, its been a very long time since I have been on a picnic. I even have the cutest picnic basket I need to use. I went on a few picnic dates long long time ago and they were actually pretty fun. My favorite is when we packed a basket with grapes, cheese, crackers and some salami and climbed on the top of an old train car looking over downtown Dallas.

 7. The travel site Trip Advisor lists the top five islands in the world for 2014 as- Ambergris Caye in Belize Cayes, Providenciales in Turks and Caicos, Bora Bora in French Polynesia, Marco Island Florida, and Lewis and Harris in The Outer Hebrides (Scotland). Have you been to any of these? Of those listed (and if price were not a factor) which would you most like to book for a holiday? I have been to Marco Island in Florida and its is beautiful! If money was no object, I would love to go to Bora Bora. I’ve always wanted to see those crystal blue waters and stay in a hut that is above the water. We’ve all seen those pictures that are used for computer backgrounds. lol

 8. Insert your own random thought here. I have so much randomness going on in my head right now , its hard to pinpoint one. The house is starting to come together. I bought a mattress off Craigslist last week for the guest room. I need to tackle that room this week and then I will feel pretty much complete in the home. This week at work is kind of the calm before the storm. I have to train 457 customer service reps next week who is with the other company that we are merging with. Did I mention to yall that we are literally merging with our greatest NEMESIS!!! For all 19 years I’ve been with the company, they have been our neck to neck competitor. Its hard to wrap my head around merging with the enemy. LOL!! Oh well, the plus side is that we had several people go work for them when they left us so I will see them again. I guess I had something to say after all on my random thought. Haha!

Have a great day today would you please!