At the tone you know what to do...

After calling people almost all day everyday for the past few weeks and for the most part getting an answering machine message I have a few observations to make. One: The prerecorded message that comes with the machine is very annoying. Two: do not have your small children make the message, yes it's cute the first time but after that I really would prefer just about anything else. Three: Do NOT just record your favorite song for your message, I do not want to sit there and listen to Beyonce or George Straight for a minute just because it's YOUR favorite song.

Ship This!

I spent about half of my day today on the phone with various "representatives" of Fed Ex trying to track down five packages that have no shipping history after being picked up each over a week ago. Let me tell you, they must be having some serious problems with their package tracking systems because of these five packages three were express shipping, two were ground shipping and none could be found. Mind you these were not the only packages we were having picked up and being neither on the sending or receiving end we really are flying blindly as to what the website or our shippers are telling us. Of the three express packages, one was picked up and never scanned again, one was never actually picked up (yet was scanned as such on the website), and yet another was confused for a ground package and delayed. The two actual ground packages I have no actual hope of ever tracking down though the (mostly) kind people on the other end of the phone seemed to assure me other wise. I say mostly kind because there was one gentleman I encountered in my five or so phone calls today that did not in any way seem helpful or willing to divulge information that many of the other representatives had given me freely, like the case number. I had another one who was quite genial but disconnected our phone call after putting me on hold for ten minutes. All in all I am not dissatisfied with my phone conversations as I, for the most part, got the information and assistance I was seeking but all in all my faith in their abilities to keep track of a package are dwindling rapidly.

Workin' at the Car Wash

I think everything comes down to whether you are willing to put the time and effort in to it. As I mentioned in a post not too long ago, I have a Beetle. Well, as it happens my car got dirty in the two months I have called her mine. Something I have noticed with this car is that the color shows dirt a lot sooner than my other car did. Not nearly as badly as my husband's "atomic blue" Civic though. So, after a trip to Cost-co and the grocery store we decided the weather was nice enough and would stay nice long enough for it to be worthwhile to bathe our respective vehicles.

It's been a good while since I've sudsed up my own vehicle, although it is really not all that complicated my husband likes to make it that way. "You have to spray in an up and down motion to get the dirt to run off properly, and then wash in a circular motion. Most importantly when you're drying go top to bottom in one smooth line so that it won't streak," he instructs me. I didn't realize that this process was so complicated. It would be a lot easier if I just took it to the car wash down the road.

The most complicated part of washing my car myself is that we live in an apartment complex. I suspect that our strutting around to "Sympathy for the Devil" as we go through the appropriate movements involved in washing a vehicle in the complex's shared space where we all spend as little time as possible on a regular basis can cause a mixture of emotions. I can never tell if it amuses or annoys our neighbors when we get around to doing this, perhaps it's a fair blend of both.

The Ballad of the Unemployeed

I find myself once again in the realm of unemployment. I have always thought of myself as a diligent, hard working employee, some one that an employer would be proud to have on staff. But in the past year I have discovered myself to be ... lacking. Now, I don't quite know for sure if the jobs that I've had while in this area just don't suit me and my skill set but nothing has lasted. Is it really too much to ask for a little stability? I suppose it is probably my own fault for jumping headlong in to things that really aren't my forte and end up being unhappy and not putting my best effort in to things.

Today I went back to a temp agency that I had done some work for last year and got a brief assignment to watch the phones at University of Phoenix for five hours this evening, purely by chance. I answered the phone all of four times this evening and spent the rest of the evening going through anything remotely interesting to me in the Oregonian from Friday and today. My other success was drawing a beautiful picture on a post it note as well as getting hit on by two of the male students. Oh yeah, get a little padding for the bank account and get an ego boost to go ;-)

A Year in Review

Has it really been a year already? I'm not going to be cliche and say that it seems like just yesterday I was walking down the isle to become a Mrs., but holy cow it doesn't seem like that long ago. Perhaps that's a good thing.

Ben and I got married on what was very near to our three year "getting together" anniversary, so it seems that this past year might just be another tally wherever we happen to be keeping track. But this past year was so much more than that. We redefined ourselves as a married couple, no longer just two individuals who happen to be living together but something so much more than that. It seems that people expect so much more from you as a married couple, when in reality nothing really changed except that we got up in front of our friends and family and made it official. Or has it?

A week ago Ben and I had the pleasure of participating in a good friend's wedding. This was the first wedding that we had attended since exchanging our own vows. While I was listening to the happy couple say their "I dos" I couldn't help but think of our own moments where we had to be strong for each other and others where we made each other laugh uncontrollably. I can't put in to words how I feel about the man that I call my husband, all I can say is that I'm blessed to have this man in my life.