Oh yes my babies...

There's a spider loose in my back room.

Fucker got away.

And it's BIG. HUGE!!!!

See, I was in my beloved back room...the media room some of you might say, when I noticed a slight movement off to my right. I glanced over, and saw the hairy thing skedaddling up the bookcase. Horrified, I watched it in terror, because WHAT IF it concocted a silky strand of spider butt-floss and bungeed its way over to me? So I watched it. Then I very very slowly backed away from the computer, and cautiously backed up out of the room. I was looking for something to mash the living crap out of it. But sadly - in the frenzy of keeping my house showroom-neat for any potential buyers, any and all spider-mashers are out of sight.

I peered back into the back room, and saw it meander in back of my computers. Back where there are a kajillion power cords plugged into the wall in a fire-hazard configuration. BLAST!

"Norman!!! OH Norman!! heeeheheheheeee (demonic little laugh). It's me!! Mr. Spider!! I'm hiding from you....and tonight, when you go to sleep I'm going to crawl into your ear and bite you!!!! MWAAAHHAHAHAAAA!!! You can't get me Norman, I'm hidden in the power cords and you'll never be able to find me. But don't worry about finding little ol' me... because I'll find YOU!! AAAAHAHAHAHHHHHAAAAA!!"

It's truly an evil spider.

I returned to the kitchen and dug up a flashlight and a potato masher.

Activate Plan B:

"ETHAN!! COME HERE BOY!!! I NEEEEEEED YOU!!"

"What is it mommy?"

"Hey little buddy! See that power strip on the floor there?"

"Yes"

"Can you jiggle it for me?"

"OK... Mommy, why are you standing way back there with a flashlight?" (he jiggles the strip)

"Well, there's a big hairy spider back there, and I'm hoping he'll pop out. When he does, I'll rush in with this spider-masher and squish it!!"

----this is where my son jumps about 2 feet in the air, and mildly concusses himself when he conks his head on the underside of the computer desk.

"Moooooommmmmmmmmmyyyyyy!!!!" he squealed, "how big is the spider?!!"

"oh..yeah - he's a big one. But YOU'RE bigger than he is, so just reach your hand under there and jiggle cords....don't be worried, I've got a spider-masher..."

"That's a potato squisher. I saw you make smashed potatoes the other day with that!" he leveled an accusatory glare at me.

Meanwhile, Ashton heard the whole exchange and is now perched on top of one of the bar stools. She swears that she is never coming down. Ever.

And the spider is laughing. I could hear it chuckling quietly. It's hidden.

Activate Plan C...

"Hey Ashton...come here and...."

"No. " she said.

About this time, my mother let herself in to my house. She lives about 2 blocks away, so the "pop-in" is inevitable.

"What are you doing?" she said. "MOMMY!!! Help me!! There's a big spider in here. I saw it crawl back here, and we're trying to make it come out so I can hit it with this!" I yelped, brandishing the potato masher.

"Oh. Forget it. It's gone now. You'll never find it." She turned to leave. "MOM!! DON'T LEAVE!! HELP!!"

"You'll find it later, have your husband help you when he gets home... gotta go - bye!"

What?? She just got here, and now she's LEAVING without even TELLING me what she came by for? What's up with that!? a HA! I'm guessing that she too is afraid of spiders but tries to act like she isn't.... ha. I'm on to her.....

So....in order to make a long story short (too late, I know but hey - this story could go on and on), I tore apart my back room and that little shit is GONE. It's hiding somewhere and I am now cowering in the front room trying to calm down. My hubby is trying to fly home, but all the flights out of the Dallas/Ft Worth airport are majorly delayed, and he just called to tell me that they have now pushed his 8:20pm flight back to midnight. I'm thinking he's not going to be able to make it home, which means that spider has won this battle. By the time he gets home, he'll be too tired to help me pull the wainscoting off the wall to find the bugger.

And then the news just gets worse from there. That frickin' spider has JINXED me!! I called back the Very Large Company, and they told me that I must take some assessments before I can be brought in for an interview. So the recruiter e-mailed the first assessment to me, I completed it and sent it back to her. These assessments must be completed within 48 hours. I spoke to her this morning, and she said I scored very well on my first assessment, so she was going to send me the 2nd assessment. Again... I must complete this assessment within 48 hours. So I got home tonight, and after the Great Spider Hunt concluded, I fired up the old laptop and settled in to take the assessment. Only...when I logged in, instead of saying "Welcome Norman" like it did last night, it had some other person's name in there.

My 48 hours to complete the assessment expires at noon on Sunday, and she doesn't go back to work until Monday. I called the help desk, and they told me to e-mail her a description of the problem I was experiencing.

I'm thinking I'm pretty much screwed. Not even hired on yet, and I'm already causing the issues. They'll never want to hire me now..... *sniff sniff*

Fucking Spider.

Norman!

oh, and PS. I haven't changed out my links yet, but those of you who responded that you want to be added to my blog links, I'll get to it sometime this weekend!!! PROMISE!

I think it's time I update my blog links. I've noticed that some of the blogs I visit are now defunct. I need to remove them.

So while I'm poking around in there, let me know if you need to be added....I rarely screw around with that area so let me know while I'm there.

On the exciting side:

We've got a bunch of tornados running around in the Texas Panhandle right now, and one appears to be heading towards my work. If that happens - I just want everyone to know right now that you should all bend over, grab your knees and attempt to kiss your ass goodbye. i'm just sayin'. But on the other hand -- if it DOES hit my work, I'll probably not have to go in tomorrow.....FREE DAY!! WOOT!!

We've got an interested person in our house. That's exciting. And this weekend, I'm having an open house!! Did I mention that there are tornados in the Texas Panhandle right now? This is good news because my neighbor's fence blew down last year, and now I can lie and say it was a tornado.

I applied to a Very Large Company in San Antonio, that is notoriously hard to get in to, and I got a phone call from one of their "staffers" wanting to "visit with me". ooooOOOOOOOHHH YEAH! Cross your fingers, your legs, and whatever the hell else you can cross and wish me luck!

Norman!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer, people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

OK. Let's be serious for a moment.

I've got a decision to make, and maybe you guys can help. It concerns my eldest daughter. I suspect she's got ADD. Now, she does not display ALL the symptoms, but she does display quite a few of them.

She's smart. In fact, here in Texas, the kids have to take an assessment called the TAKS test. They just completed the reading part, and she tested out at the commended level. That's great!!! So she knows the things she's supposed to know. BUT. Her teacher tells me that she's slow to complete her in-class assignments, and that she catchers her daydreaming quite a bit. Also, she's not quite..."socially accepted". This baffles me because she's such a loving child. At first I chalked it up to snotty little kids in the rich-kid school. But the more I observe her at play with her friends, I notice that she becomes very excitable (we called them "spazzes" when I was her age) and VERY bossy. So the kids don't want to play with her. At home, she bosses her brother around incessantly. It's almost a compulsion for her. And then if I pay any attention to her younger brother and sister, she crys and says that all I want to do is be with them...which is simply not true.

My mother was at the house the other night after I brought Ashton & Ethan home from ice-skating. That was pretty much a disaster. Here I was trying to have fun with the kids at a birthday party. Neither of the kids are adept at ice-skating, and both kept falling on their asses. I split my time trying to pick them up from the ice before other skaters amputated their fingers whenever they splayed out on the ice. By the time I got home, Ashton was in tears, as was Ethan because both felt that I spent too much time with the other. The difference between the two kids was that Ethan stopped crying as soon as we got in the car and I told both of them that I was sorry I couldn't dedicate more time to both of them. He accepted my explanation that there was only one of me and that I tried my hardest to help both of them. Ashton, however just radiated misery and loneliness. I honestly don't think you can fake the emotions that were coming off her.

I sent them both to bed since it was 10:00pm, and turned to my mother in tears. "I'm failing her!", I blubbered to my mother. I really think I am. In fact, I have nightmares that this child is a prime candidate for future-suicide. That frightens the ever-loving crap out of me. She has no earthly idea how special she is to me, and to think that she is just this miserable fills me with sadness.

My mother, who is part of the "suck-it-up" club and "make-do with what you got", gently suggested counseling. She thinks that Ashy is beyond the help we can give her. To be honest, I was expecting her to tell me that everything would be allright and that we just needed to give Ashton more support, but she told me that no....no... if we gave her any more support than we do now, we'd be ignoring the other two.

So Monday I'm calling a child counselor to ask for an evaluation.

Which brings me to my decision.

What if they suggest meds? I've heard so much good and bad about that. Some people say that meds for kids are just for parents that are lazy and don't want to deal with their kids individual moods.

Then I hear the ones that say the meds have helped their child become a better, well-adjusted child.

Now. We're moving in a few months. New town, new school. I think the kids here have already made up their minds about how they feel about Ashy. And they are a clique-ish bunch. If they don't accept her now, I don't think they are going to accept her later. It's how they are.

But if she enters a new school, and is on meds (IF she gets them....I don't even know yet that the psych is going to suggest it), she would be a calmer child, and maybe more acceptable to the others.

I suspect I have adult ADHD. I suspect I've had it all my life, and never got help. It just wasn't recognized. I also think I've learned to work around it, and while I still have spastic moments, and lots of times where I can't follow a meeting because my mind wanders, I've learned to adapt and work around any attention spans because I become creative to make up for the instruction I missed.

I often wonder if meds would have helped me thru my school years. I was the outcast she is now, and while I'm a relatively happy adult --- it took a loooooooong time to get here, and I don't want that for her.

So my question is:

Do any of you have any experience with meds vs. non-meds and any thoughts? I would appreciate immensely and guidance or info or thoughts on this.

Thanks!!!!

Norman

Dear HomeBuyer:

I really appreciate the fact that you came by to look at my house. In fact - I'm thrilled!! I really hope you buy it!! Especially since you saw fit to rip the textured wall in my kids Rubber Ducky Bathroom! I mean... yeah - it's a cool wall, my husband and I spent three days applying that texture. Of course you want to touch it, but you really shouldn't try to peel it off to see if it will come off you stupid ignorant asswipe if I find you I will kick your ass and charge you $500.

I also would appreciate it if next time you will flush after leaving that grunt-log in my toilet you nasty fucker. Please remember to use proper bathroom etiquette and flush next time. (And please see a physician about that apparent irritable bowl syndrome)

Control your demon spawn while in my house Now. I understand that you have children, and they are more than likely excited about the Thomas the Train table in my son's room, but please use courtesy and don't let them destroy the bridges that my son worked very hard at creating.

And please. Refrain from pawing thru my underwear drawer you freaking pervert. I've just spent the last 3 hours sanitizing my laundry to make sure that I don't experience any unexpected pregnancies from any kind of bio-hazard you might have left while you tossed my drawer around.

Thanks!!

Norman

My dad just sent me this pic of my MOMMY!!

Isn't she a HOTTIE? I had nooooo idea!

But it's funny, cause after I showed her this, she started talking about her life back in "BC" (before children).

I guess she really DID have a life before I came along. huh. See - this picture is when my parents were in Hawaii. My dad was fighting over in Vietnam, and got a furlough...or an R&R pass.

This picture was taken in November 1969. I was born July 1970.

GROSS!!

Chances are pretty good that I am...in fact... somewhere present in this picture... ICKY ICKY ICKY!!

Dammit!!

The goal my husband & I have right now is to SAVE money. Mainly because when we move, I will be without a job for a few weeks while I job hunt down in SA. So we're trying to SAVE money.

One problem that we have to deal with on our house is some of our windows are crappy. It's our own stupid fault. Actually, it's the PRIOR homeowner's stupid fault but we're the ones that got screwed with it, and we didn't deal with it immediately like we should have. We've got those casement windows, which let me tell you now - RUN AWAY from houses with casement windows. Oh sure, they look pretty and all that, but they are expensive as HELL to repair. We have 17 windows on the front of our house. All casements. They cost anywere from $1000 to $1200 to repair. Each. You do the math. It' hurts my stomach when I do the math.

So we thought we'd change them out. To vinyl windows, with fake wood trim. Want the quote? Sure you do!! $14k. BUT !!! The salesman said he would do it for us for $10K. AND not only that but if we called him back in 30 minutes with our decision, he lower the price yet again to $9500.

I hate high-pressure salesmen.

But we turned him down. So sorry. We're going to just replace the ones that are in super sorry shape. Prolly spend about $5000. If the prospective home-buyer wants a window allowance for anything other than that he/she can bite me and deal with it themselves.

But see, I was on my way to Lowe's to check out the cost of ordering said windows. I had the car loaded up with kids and got to a stoplight. Hit the brakes and.......GRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND.

Ethan started yelling that there was a monster growling at him, which set Avery off into an orbit of freaked out that would have launched her out the window if she hadn't have been strapped into her car seat. Ashton was afraid we were going to blow up, and I was pissed off cause that grinding noise sounded a lot like money leaving my ass in a most unpleasant manner.

So we bypassed Lowe's and hobbled into a brake store.

I think they saw me coming. I HATE IT WHEN I GET TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF!! Stupid brake people tried to charge me $750 to replace all my rotors, brake pads, flush the brake system and I think replace the brake lines with a diamond studded gold rope. They were very surprised when I insisted on seeing my brakes.

I got brought out to the shop area and proceeded to show me all sorts of metal stuff and thingamabobs and tell me how crappy they are.

I proceeded to lie through my teeth. "Hey. Those look repairable to me. I think you can just slap a new pad on there and it will be just fine." "Well, uh ma'am... see these are to the eighty-thousandth degree thickness and they need to be replaced.... that costs" "Well - so show me all of them..." And do you know what? Apparently , they thought I knew what I was talking about, because the shop manager did a "double look" at the quote and said, "Hey...some of this isn't necessary...." and started taking items off. Either that or I pissed them off with all my nosiness and they are HOPING that I get in an accident... so they lowered the price to $359.

Still hurts.

You know what? I need some money to show up in the mail right about now... or maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.

Guess where I am!? Go ahead!!! Guess!

I'll wait...

ok. You got your best guess on? Ready? Ya ready??!!!

I'm in my living room.

My living room!! Didja hear me?!! Oh. You don't understand the significance of that? Oh. Well, see... our computers are in the BACK ROOM. I'm in the LIVING ROOM.

So how am I posting? On my new Dell Inspiron 1501 with WIFI access!!!!

YESSSSSSS!!!!

This makes a total of 4 computers in our house, but one of them is a Mac, so that doesn't really count.

My little hubby bought this for me because I've been so stressed lately, and Ashy has been hogging my computer to visit Barbie.com and play her Sims games. Then Ethan steals the other one to play kneebouncers.com. So that means I can never get online when the kids are occupied because they are occupied on MY COMPUTERS!!

Also, my hubby got me this so I can haul it around to my Pampered Chef shows and print out sales receipts instead of having to handwrite them. Can you say: Tax Write Off?!

So basically, in a nutshell, this means that the internets are a little more accessible to me, which means it won't be such a chore to find time to POST!!

And before some of you guys start saying that I was just trying to be pitiful....well I sorta was, but I was also serious. You'll be glad to know that I've gotten off my pity-pot. The Assblaster at work however, blew a chunk of crap out and it is stuck to the WALL. I'll be sooooo glad to be gone from that place, if for the mere sake of never having to see her by-products ever again.

Toodles!

it's raining.

It's a dreary, lazy Sunday and it's raining.

it's raaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnninngg.

I can't like the rain if it's not thundering and lightening and tornado-ing because I like the violence like that. Repressed rage issues maybe? Nah. Not me.

I just don't like rain unless it's pouring down in buckets. This rain is just sort of like the sky is pissing on us. Blech.

So BIG NEWS! My house? I finally listed it. It's OFFICIAL! We actually have a sign in our front yard now!! Yessss!! The bad news of this is that I now have to keep my house clean. Oh, I keep my house clean you know. I'm not nasty or anything, but now I have to keep it SHOWPLACE clean. And that's not easy to do with 3 kids who don't get the meaning of "Play with one toy at a time". Grrrrrrrr. And the suckiest thing was having to do the disclosure sheet. Pissed...me...off. All sorts of little things that we don't really care about are all of a sudden possible future issues to any prospective homebuyer. Like this: We have a trash compacter. It came with the house. We never use it, other than to hold a trash bag and trash. But do we USE the thing? As in mash our garbage into a compact square? No. Never have. So, does it work? Darned if I know...and we actually unplugged the stupid thing about 4 years ago because Ethan kept sticking his toys in there and running it. So we haven't used it in 4 years, and I can't get to the plug to test it because it's behind the cabinets. I'd have to have my husband yank it out, hook it back up and see if it runs. I've not a freaking clue if it works...but it must be disclosed.

But look. That's not what I want to talk about. I wanna talk about this blog.

I keep thinking about shutting it down. I mean - I average about 200 hits a day, so I know people are reading it, but hey - it's all about the comments. I just feel like I'm talking to myself and I don't want to take up blog-space.

I don't know. I have lots going on right now. I'm trying to sell a house, work full-time, keep my kids healthy, keep myself healthy, trying to find a house in San Antonio, trying to find a job in San Antonio, trying to stay sane. That's the key... Sane.

But I really like blogging. I don't want to shut this down. I just don't know what to do right now. I would hate to tell you guys that I'm stopping my blog - only to have something TOTALLY blogworthy pop up in a few days and jump in with a post.

Maybe a half-hiatus. Maybe that would work. That way - you don't expect a post on here, but if you pop in to check SURPRISE!! A POST!

Would that work? Maybe. Let's try...

ANNOUNCING NORMAN'S HALF-HIATUS. MAYBE I'LL POST. MAYBE I WON'T!

OH MY GOD!!

THIS IS HUGE!!

I HAVE A PHONE AGAIN!!

QUICK! CALL ME!


806-354-XXXX !!!!


NORM!

Wow. I'm really angry. I just read my last couple of posts. I'm taking myself off the steroids. I really don't see how they are supposed to help bronchitis. I'll just drink lots of water to help with the congestion.

In the meantime - Freak Magnet swiped a meme from this guy. Looked kinda silly, and I thought "HEY! That's right up my alley!!"

so let's DO it!

YOUR REAL NAME: Let's just keep this simple with my blog name..mmm'kay? NORMAN!

YOUR GANGSTA NAME (1st 4 letters plus izzle): Normizzle!

YOUR DETECTIVE NAME (fave color + fave animal): Purple Cat (is that like Smelly Cat?)

YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name + childhood street): Lynn Fabulous (This actually sounds more like a PORN STAR name)

YOUR STAR WARS NAME (last 3 letters of your last name + first 2 letters of your first name + first 3 letters of Mom's maiden name): Crinolac (that sounds like a drug for lactose intolerant people)

YOUR SUPER HERO NAME (2nd fave color + fave drink): Blue Margarita (ok...ok - I can hang with that)

YOUR IRAQI NAME (2nd letter of your first name + 3rd letter of your last name + any letter of your middle name + 2nd letter of your Mom's maiden name + 3rd letter of your Dad's middle name + 1st letter of a sibling's first name + last letter of your Mom's middle name): Oryagse (heh....sounds Orgasmic!!)

YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM NAME (Grandma/Grandpa's first name + Jones): Ferdnande Jones (I kinda think the old-timey French first name wipes out any attempt at anonymity attempts like Jones)

YOUR GOTH NAME (Black + name of one of your pets): Black Fishy (so maybe I need to take a shower sometime or another if I turn Goth?)

YOUR AMERICAN IDOL NAME (fav car and sea food) Jeep Crab (eh?)

NAME OF YOUR DREAM BAND (name of computer + printer): Dell HP(Hey!! I'm in the same band as FREAK MAGNET!!)

MOVIE STAR NAME (sibling's middle name + mother-in-law's maiden name): Lynn Sealey (For those of you who have followed this blog diligently from day 1, you will notice that my sister and I sport the very same middle name. My mother said she just likes the name "Lynn". Apparently - so did everyone else in the 70's)

YOUR ALTER EGO NAME (name of one your childhood pets + popular brand of clothes when you were young): Spooky Cavaricci (OH GOD!! Do you remember those jeans!?)

YOUR LAWYER NAME (fav actor's last name + fav hard liquor): Connery Tequila (I don't really have a favorite actor, so I just put the name of the very last actor I saw, and that would be Sean Mr. 007 Connery)

YOUR HIP HOP NAME (fav candy + fruit): Gummy Bear Apple (That does NOT sound right)

hmm... I'm still angry. Crap. The meme didn't work. On top of that - I'm still sick, and I absolutely cannot call in sick tomorrow because I called in sick on Thursday AND Friday. I feel like my ears are about to implode. Not a very pleasant feeling, let me tell you that. On the upside, I can't hear very well because of that - so maybe when my boss gripes at me for being sick, I'll not have to hear it! Silver linings, guys... it's all about the silver linings!

Now I'm not too sure this can actually be classified as a true 'roid rage, because I happen to believe that I'm ALLOWED to be as angry as I wanna be about this.

See, our internet/cable company was bought out by a company called "SuddenLink". SuddenLink has been marketing this truly fantabulous offer of internet and phone service all on one bill, with a SUPER LOW LOW PRICE. So we jumped on it. It's all about saving the $$'s you know? Well, we went ahead and switched two weeks ago from AT&T to SuddenLink on our phone.

Biggest...Mistake...Of ...The ...Year

We have now had SuddenLink phone service for 2 weeks. We are in the process of frantically trying to switch it back to a company that actually knows their ass from a hole in ground. For some reason, SuddenLink has felt compelled to drop our service for the past two Fridays. And we don't get our service back until MONDAY when the local office opens to schedule their own repair appointments. Oh sure, we can ask the on-call person to schedule an appointment for us, but then we get appointment times for Wednesday or Thursday. We have to call the LOCAL OFFICE during business hours in order to get a Monday time slot. Forget having them come out on weekends. They just don't "DO" that.

And did I mention that since our phone & internet are bundled together now? This means that when our phone service goes out....SO DOES OUR INTERNET! Last weekend when our 'nets went out, I called the company and they mumbled something about Wednesday before service would be restored. So I went off on some tangent about me having a home-based business, numerous job applications perking around in San Antonio, incompetent cable companies that are trying to be too big for their britches, and having NO PHONE SERVICE and NO INTERNET Service and that meant they would have NO PAYMENT from me for services NOT RENDERED and blah blah blah. (BTW, if you're wondering how I called them with no phone service, I used my cell....so shut it, I ain't lying) So they pro-rated my bill for the days without service, and promised it would never ever ever happen again... until last night...

Same frickin shit. Only this time it's slightly better because our phone service only goes out SPORADICALLY and so does the internet. See, today we were without phone & internet service from about 11:00 pm last night until about 3:30pm today, and then on & off on & off on & off. So I called them again and asked them WTF was up. This time they gave me a story about migrating data down in Lubbock and we would have service on Monday. I think I screamed something like "Hell to the NO!!" before I got hung up on. This meant that I had to wait thru the voice options on the eternal hell of cable company telephone routers while I whipped my 'roid rage in a frenzy. See - what they don't know is that my dad lives 1 block away from me, and he was plugging away on the internet playing Poker (using SuddenLink), with NO service outage at all.

1... Block...Away.... So apparently, the migration of data from Amarillo to Lubbock is only affecting....my house. Yeah – right... and...and...


AND DAMN IT!!!!

Ok, you guys can’t see this, but right now I’m typing in frickin’ Microsoft WORD, because the damned service just now went down again. AGGGGGGGGAAAIN!!!!! I was typing away in blogger when this stupid little pink bar appeared on the bottom of the window that says:

“Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving & publishing may fail. Test connection now”.

Oh hunny. I don’t NEED to test the connection ‘cause I know that SuddenLink is probably migrating a bunch of shit in Lubbock that they try to package up and sell as “Great Service” to us here in Amarillo.

Nice.... SuddenLink. Real nice. I can’t wait for the “so-called” service to pop back up for that minute it will take me to publish this crap about the way you really work...

Oh – and just try and sue me for slander, because we’ve got the service records to prove it.

Here’s your new slogan: SuddenLink...suddenly you have it, and then suddenly you DON’T!

jerkoffs.

It's not often that I have someone backstab me. For reals. Generally, people are really nice to me. Maybe that's because I hide my anger issues really well and always put on a happy cheerful frickin' face for all. But you guys know differently. And someone this last week tried to pull a number over on me, and got CAUGHT at it! Here's the deal:

You all know that I peddle Pampered Chef. I love selling this stuff. I'm not doing it for the money, although that's a nice little perk. I do it for the free stuff I get, and put the commission checks in a little bank account for "fun".

But now I want to welcome you to the sometimes sordid world of direct sales.

Years ago, I used to sell Pampered Chef. Our "cluster" was quite large and my director was very successful. She was wonderful at assisting us and giving us helpful tips and pointers on things to do to book shows and get our sales higher. Then I quit selling the stuff because I was pregnant with Ashton and working extremely long hours at my full time job. Shortly after I quit, my director began experiencing "home troubles" and left Pampered Chef. Got that?

Let's fast forward to this year. My former director started working at my place of employment. I was happy to see her, as it had been years since I'd last talked to her. She was pleased to find out that I had begun selling Pampered Chef again, and started pestering me to do a show for her. I asked her if she was going to re-sign up and she said no, she just wanted to do a show for me since she had some people that were wanting some stuff. Cool! Great! I gave her some catalogs and order forms and she told me that she would have the 'show' ready to turn in at the end of the month.

So with one week left in the month, I started calling her. "Hey! It's Norman! Just checking on you to see if you need any help with your show! Give me a call" That was my first message. The other 16 were pretty much the same thing. The bottom line here was she would not call me back. Generally, after 17 calls, I can take a hint and figure that she never really wanted to do a show after all, even though she VOLUNTEERED to do this.

Then on the 28th of February, she called me. "Norman, I can't do this. Would you come pick up this show and turn it in for me?" I sat there for a minute, confused "er...Ok. What do you mean "you can't do this"?" I asked. "Well, see - it's like this" she replied, "I don't have time to enter the orders and send it in because my consultant number is expired and I don't have time to get a new disk to upload the program and well....*sigh*, I just don't have time, so I'm going to let you send it in."

WHAT??!! Ok. For those of you who aren't in to direct sales or anything, this BEEYOTCH was attempting to steal my show! Now, normally, since this was a catalog show and technically - she WAS the one who did all the work, I wouldn't get upset about this. BUT SHE HAD TOLD ME SHE WAS GOING TO GIVE IT TO ME. She was my former director so she knew exactly what she was doing. She used MY SUPPLIES and my name to make these sales, and then attempted to turn them in herself. This pissed me right off. Not only that, but she had told me that SHE was going to be the hostess. Then when she concocted this scheme to thief the show from me, she decided to ask someone ELSE to do the show. But this person was already signed up to do a show for someone else that does Pampered Chef. So she swiped this person from yet another consultant and ran the show under that name. So let's review:

1. Told me she was going to do a show for me
2. Swiped another hostess from a different consultant
3. Gathered payments MADE OUT TO HER and used MY SUPPLIES
4. Chickened out when I began calling her asking the status of this show
5. Tried to turn it around as if I knew about this the whole time
6. Turned show over to me all the while acting as if this were the plan the whole time

I asked the new "hostess" the name of the consultant my old director swiped her from. (I was going to give the show to them) She said she didn't remember their name but that they never followed up on the show for her, so she was perfectly willing to turn it over to me.

So I'm vindicated on submitting this show under my name.

But the topper was when my former friend advised me that I should buy her a stoneware muffin pan as a "thank you" for doing a show for me. And she was quite serious.

Yeah right. I think she needs to hold her breath and wait for it.

Yes bloggie-people. I'm sick AGAIN. Yesterday I couldn't even muster the strength to get up and type on my computer. Today I'm feeling better, largely because of the Z-Pack and STEROIDS my doctor prescribed. Did ya hear that? 'ROIDS!! This means that if you piss me off (which apparently - is quite easy to do to people on steroids aka "Roid Rage"), I can knock the ever-lovin' shit out of you. So be nice. I mean it. And if you're curious, I have a nifty little case of viral-bronchitis.

Sitting at the doc's office last night, I ran across a recipe that I thought sound DEE-LISH. And I thought it sounded yummy even being sick! So here:

Buffalo Wing Dip

1 8 oz pkg cream cheese
1 10 oz can of white chunk chicken
1/2 cup of Buffalo Wing Sauce
1/2 cup of Ranch dressing (**or Bleu Cheese dressing per recommendation from Talula, see comments)
2 cups Shredded Colby & Monteray Jack Cheese

Spread cream cheese into bottom of a one-quart baking dish (you Pampered Chef lovers will know to use the oval baker).

Layer chicken, wing sauce and ranch dressing. Next cover everything with cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until all the cheese is melted.

Serve warm - with tortilla chips. DONE!

Wasn't that easy? And for you guys that are not "into" recipes. CLICK THIS