Me and Martha

Last weekend, we finally purchased our final piece of necessary furniture for the new apartment. I was happy inside, but also a little sad because it meant I could no longer hold off on the decorating process. As I've mentioned before, being creative and making things look good is definitely not a forte of mine. I have been trying to be upbeat and positive about the situation and even thought of a few things I thought would spruce our place up.

I like coupons and pretty dutifully go through all the ads each week. I was excited when I came across a Customer Appreciation Sale at one of the local craft stores featuring 60% off home decor, 50% one item and an additional 30% of your total purchase; they were even giving away gift certificates to the first 50 people through the doors. I'll admit, my find made a little tiny bit of excitement creep into me, and this morning, I jumped out of bed, hurriedly dressed and headed out the door.

I was excited because I made it to the store even earlier than I had planned, but quickly began to doubt my plan when I saw the number of cars in the parking lot. It was 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday, who would of thought so many people would be at a craft store?! I couldn't believe it when I walked to the end of the 80-100 people line and took my place about 1/2 mile away from the doors. I tried to stay optimistic and upbeat by telling myself that the people were just big families (it was only 1 per household), but deep-down inside, I knew I had lost my chance at the gift card.

Thirty minutes later, the line made its way into the store. I grabbed a cart and started shopping. I definitely felt WAY out of my element among the women running around filling their carts with items and assembling wreaths and centerpieces as they went and did my best to imagine/pretend I knew what ribbon would go well with this fake grass and fruit topped off with that colored candle all the while kicking myself for not dragging along one of my more "cutsey" inclined acquaintances that early morning.

After 45 minutes of wandering, I felt pretty good about my purchases. I excitedly loaded up the car and headed home to make my living the next show room of Martha Stewart's magazine. Much to my dismay, I had underestimated my shelf height and NOTHING would fit! Talk about dashing all my hopes. Sadly, Operation Martha was definitely a bust. My poor house...

Who??

So my office has an information and referral call center that when you dial a certain 3-digit phone number (no, it's not 911, I don't work at the jail), it connects you with one of our "specialists" who can then tell you where you can get help with human services meaning things like paying your utility bill, how to get a ride to the doctors when you're too old to drive yourself or where to go if your kid has a drug problem. Well, the other day my coworker received a phone call that went like this.

CoWorker: "Thanks for calling UW *11, how can I help you?"
Caller: "Yes, I need the number for O'Reilly."
CW: "O'Reilly? I'm sorry I'm not sure what you're looking for. Is that a name of an organization?"
C: "You know, O'Reilly. I want to call O'Reilly"
CW: "Is O'Reilly a person?"
C: "Haven't you ever heard of the show? I want to call into the Bill O'Reilly show!"

Needless to say, although we have a pretty high rate of keeping our "customers" happy, this was one number we were unable to refer.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow (or a Couple of Weeks Ago)

I've always been a longer hair type of gal but recently, it has become a little out of control. It reached what matt affectionately called "Polygamist Hair" (one or two inches above my behind), so that as well as me thinking it was time for some adventure in my life led me to decide to get it cut.

(This kind of a funny picture shows the idea of the great mass that was my hair)

I knew that I wanted to keep it "long," but was undecided on the length. I figured if I did Locks for Love, it was on the border of my limit. When I got to the salon, I thought it was silly for me to cut so much off and be so close to doing Locks for Love and not do it, so I bit the bullet.

The girl chopped the ponytail, and I was feeling pretty good about things, but by the time she was finished styling it, she had taken an additional 4 or so inches off for a grand total of 14 inches or 1 foot, 2 inches! I was pretty bummed, but what can you do? At least there will be one less bald kid running around...

I went to bed last night but was kept up because of some loud noises. I peeked out the window and saw an ambulance and fire truck parked in the middle of the road with multiple cop cars behind it. We couldn't see what was going on until the ambulance left and then we could only see them patting down some woman.

We sat peering out the blinds for awhile but didn't know what was going on. My neighbor apparently had a little bit more information than us though. I took this from her blog.

"...Just as we had drifted off to sleep, Dave got up and went somewhere. When he came back he said, "Some lady just knocked on our door asking for someone named Meatball and she had an open knife!" I may have mentioned that Dave is prone to sleep-walking and –talking. So I was a little skeptical at first, but then I heard her outside our window slapping the brick wall of the basement apartment next door and yelling for Meatball. Dave had already called the cops, but he didn't know where she had gone, so he called them again and gave them our neighbors address. Soon there were 4 cops parked outside our house, and I went outside to point out where she was, then I went back inside. We watched through the blinds as the cops confronted her. They asked her to drop the knife several times, and then tazered her! She was very drunk so she had difficulty understanding what they wanted, but eventually they got the knife away from her. They cuffed her and put her in one of the cop cars and waited for the paramedics because she was bleeding. She could have cut herself or just fallen in her drunken state.
Understandably we had difficulty falling back asleep after all that midnight excitement!"'

What a night! I don't think she ever found her friend Meatball, but I wish her the best of luck.

Oh, Check the Freezer!

I read a story the other day in one of the Salt Lake newspapers. It talked about a man who has been missing for a few months. They finally found him, or I guess I should say they found his body. It was in his freezer. I was sad for the man, but then a few days later, they had a follow up story. Apparently the coroners determined his cause of death was suicide.

Huh? Who decides to kill themselves by climbing into their freezer? I guess I don't comprehend the whole suicide thing, but seriously, it seems like even if you thought that was a good idea, it would take so long before anything besides getting to know the chicken, steak and vegetables and being pretty cold happened that you would give up. Even if you decided to poison yourself or something, why climb into the freezer? I definitely wonder what the story here is. It just seems too bizarre.

Customer Service Woes

We are supposed to receive cable as part of our rent in the new place. But when we went to hook up the tv, we didn't get anything but a blank screen. I called Comcast and was put on hold for an extended period of time before ever being connected with a real person, so I decided to help our manager earn her keep and turn the task over to her. Much to my dismay, I received a message from her telling us the way to solve the problem was to call Comcast, so I made sure I had some time (in preparation of holding), and once again attempted to speak with a representative, preferably someone I could actually understand.

Well, after pushing lots of different buttons telling them what I wanted, I was delighted to finally hear "Comcast Cable, how can I help you?" I explained what the problem was, and he told me it sounded like we needed a technician to come out and see what was going on. I told him ok and then was shocked by him saying it would be Aug. 19th at the earliest (this was earlier this week)! What? A few thoughts raced through my mind: We're expected to pay for 2 weeks of service that we don't get, and wow, Comcast must not be very good service if they have that many problems going on.

I thought that was pretty lame and told the guy so. I tried talking my way into having someone come out sooner, but no, the 19th it is. I wanted to demand a credit or something, but since our HOA pays it, I figured it wasn't worth the battle. I'm pretty disappointed though. It definitely makes me double think getting our internet through Comcast. Anyone have recommendations on an internet company?

The Past Couple of Weeks

We moved into our new apartment. We've been spending our time

• Cleaning
• Unpacking
• Looking for furniture

We currently have a kitchen table, bed frame and a desk with chair. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any couches out there that we like. What is with the current styles? We're hoping for a successful day today, so we can actually have a place to sit (I've been spending a lot of time of the floor lately...) We also don't have the internet yet, so that means no blogging. I've never had to pay for my own internet (it was always included in the rent); it makes me feel like more of a "big girl" a.k.a. real adult.