blogging break

please excuse my blogging break as we settle into our new house. I will resume blogging when time allows

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Moving Adventures: Part 3

Tuesday morning I had to work from 9 until 2. And since by now the trailer was attached to the van, there was NO WAY IN HADES I was driving it to work. I'm 100% capable of driving it, and parking it, and FINALLY of backing it. But man oh man I did NOT wanna deal with it at the work parking lot! LOL So instead I got up extra early and drove BFF's DH to his work in his car (well, he drove but you know what I mean) and then drove to my own work. I got there plenty early enough to go and have a Starbucks breakfast and get my day off to a good start.

Work went pretty well. Nothing too out of the ordinary fortunately. I was at the service desk again. I got through my shift and headed out with a good luck and let us know if you need anything.

I drove to the "new" house where we relaxed briefly and then loaded up the kids in the van and drove to her DH's work with the trailer. Most of MY belongings have been in storage at his work since I arrived up here in March.

He had a nice piece of eye candy there who wanted something to do and was happy to take off his cami shirt and help load my furniture and boxes onto the trailer while I watched. :) And BOY OH BOY did I enjoy watching. (yes, I'm being bad.)

We then drove back to the "new" house, unloaded, and called it a day. LOL Yes, we were lazy bums.

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Moving Adventures: Part 2

Monday dawned bright and HOT.

BFF and her DH took off with the van for their physical therapy appointments. The plan was he would drop her off early, then go to his, come back for her, and then they'd go get the trailer and be home by 11. PLENTY of time for me to get to work by 4.

Well, things didn't go as planned. They "took the scenic route" from her PT office to the UHaul place (got lost on accident). Then the guy helping them was brand new and didn't know what he was doing and it took twice as long as necessary. So it was around 1 pm when they arrived home.

BFF suggested loading up the mattresses so we could start sleeping at the new house right away, and we got started. Only one minor problem... We still didn't have the keys to the new place!!!

Well, we got the call about getting the keys finally, and we finished loading up the trailer and headed over with my work uniform in tow. By the time we got there, got parked, etc., I needed to be getting ready to LEAVE!! I knew they needed me to help get the Cal-King mattress up the stairs though. BFF's shoulder just isn't healed enough for that. So I told her DH, if you can get to the mattress by the time I'm ready to go, we'll get it up the stairs. Well, I don't know WHAT he did, but he got it there!!!!! And we got it upstairs! And OH MY WORD. I was hurting, he was hurting, I was ready to go to sleep on it but instead rushed out the door to work.

Where I spent almost 3 straight hours doing non stop checking. Seriously, it had to have been one of the BUSIEST days I've seen. WOWSERS. And of course a busy day means cranky people. But all in all, it wasn't a bad shift. One of the other checkers who was supposed to get off at 9 worked until 10 for me so I could leave at 9. I was very grateful!!!

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Reduced Produce

Okay, so this past Sunday I worked at the Service Desk. I'm pretty much done training and just rely on the book keeper to help and answer my questions. This customer walks up. Here's how the beginning of the convo goes...

me: How can I help you?
her: I would like to return this (reaching into a bag)
me: Okay and do you have your receipt (because how we process the return depends on whether or not there is a receipt)
her: no I don't. I couldn't find it
me: no problem, and why do you need to return it ma'am? (this is a can of tomatoes btw)
her: Oh, I bought 2 and used the other and it tasted funny
me: okay no problem
her: I have these too (pulling out a couple sheets of paper)
me: okay (a little confused). And what are these ma'am?
her: Well THESE (pointing to a sheet of paper with 4 barcodes) were put at the bottom of the bag and some bagger put heavy stuff on top so they were crushed.

At this point I look at the labels, they are our reduced produce labels. When our produce is no longer Prime, but still usable, the produce department bags it up, slaps a label on it and sells it for next to nothing. That's what these were. But all she has are the LABELS! No produce!

her: and THIS one (pointing to the other sheet with one barcode), well as soon as I got it home it was no good, it was just pure liquid.

By this point, bluntly, I'm VERY suspicious. Because you see, this bag, all in the time it takes to get from the rack to her house has gone from: metal rack, into a metal grocery cart, onto a conveyor belt, through a checkers hands (and believe me, we aren't as careful as you'd probably like for us to be sometimes!), onto another conveyor, into a baggers hands (also not so careful), into a bag (and just for the record, OUR baggers are taught to put the dang produce separate and NEVER to put crushables under heavier items), then back into the basket, into the vehicle, and finally into the home where she unloads them and supposedly they are "pure liquid." I personally think that she or another person would have noticed the totally ROTTEN nature of this product at SOME point for them to be PURE LIQUID, you know??

So I ask the book keeper for help. She comes out, and asks the customer about her situation, and the story about the 4 barcodes changes from crushed to the stems separating from the produce. Hmmmm.... I dunno about you, but I personally am NOT concerned about the stems separating from most of my produce.

But it is at THIS point that I look a little closer at her labels and notice a date on them, of JUNE 4, 2009!!!!!!!!!!! It's AUGUST. She bought these TWO MONTHS AGO! No wonder she has no receipt!!!!! I wouldn't either. Of course I wouldn't try to return something that much later either! LOL

In the end, cuz that's just the way we are, we did the "return" and gave her store credit. It was only about $5.50 TOTAL anyway. So I really didn't feel like she totally ripped off the store.

BUT BUT BUT... oh yes, there is MORE.

She then went over to the reduced rack AGAIN, and proceeded to get more produce, bring it to the service desk and COMPLAIN ABOUT THE QUALITY. HELLO????? 3 small summer squash in really good condition in all honesty and a PERFECT tomato that is just soft enough for saucing, all for less than $1 and you are going to COMPLAIN????? OH MY WORD.

The produce manager came and took care of the situation. Turns out she just wanted the squash and didn't want to pay for the tomato. Sheesh. Oh well.

It all worked out. :)

More blogs to come, but first some moving must be done.

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Moving adventures: Part 1

Oh me oh my... Moving is an ADVENTURE. Especially with 7 children involved!!! :)

Let's start with the lead up.

We found out about 3 weeks ago that this house had become available and was being offered to us. But as we didn't know at that time where the next 6 months would lead us, this made this a very difficult decision to make. Largely because of the very real possibility that we could be moving again as early as January. But in the end the toilets won out. (at least that was my vote!) 1 toilet for 10 people versus 4 toilets for 10 people, by MY calculations, this presents a MUCH better likelihood that a commode will be available for my use at MY convenience, not at the CHILDREN'S! So we opted to move and notified them we would and would like to take possession on 3 August.

Last week, after the reservations for the trailer have been made, the phone and cable services have been set to be canceled at the "old" house and set up at the "new" house and we are well into packing, we get news that BFF's DH's job here WILL be ending at the end of the year. So from our perspective, we now KNOW we will be moving again in January, maybe February. We discuss and debating changing our mind and staying in the smaller house rather than moving twice. But we all felt we needed more space (and toilets) so we decided to move but basically to not unpack things we felt we could do without for the next 5 months.

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