Vacation? Part II

As we continued on our merry little way down the mountain (the Sierra Nevada's) toward California, it was nice to see the different scenery.  As I said before we usually make these trips to California in the early summer, So seeing snow over the pass was different and pretty.
As we got down toward Placerville, Craig decided to take a left and follow highway 49.  That was an excellent choice on his part.  It was a a beautiful drive and we got to skip Sacramento altogether, which was nice because Sac-town is, frankly, not that great.  (Sorry to all you Sacramento people)  We drove through a little town called "Cool".  Honest.  That was the name of the town.  They had the Cool Deli, the Cool Fire Department, the Cool Market and quite a few other "Cool" things.  We soon got to Coloma, the place where Gold was discovered in 1848.  We got out and roamed around the place for a little while, it was quite interesting. I recommend going there if you ever have the chance.
We kept traveling on toward Stockton, through Sutter Creek and Jackson.  It seemed so strange that nothing looked familiar to me.  I LOVE Jackson.  I spent a LOT of time in Jackson and the surrounding area when I was younger.  Electra Beach anyone??  Anyway.  It was a sunny day and I enjoyed the drive immensely.  We almost over shot Stockton when we got to highway 88... we passed Eight Mile Road and just kept on going!  We had to turn around when we got to Waterloo and realized we were headed to Linden.   We drove straight to Arroyo's to meet our family and friends and had an excellent Mexican dinner.
I was so surprised to see how many friends and family actually showed up there!!!  I had posted on Facebook that we would be there and low and behold about 40 people showed up!!  We are loved!   
We had nice visit all week staying with my other sister, Susie, and her husband.  I got to visit with friends and family for the next few days- but as usual- time is short and we didn't get to see half the people we wanted to see or do half the stuff we planned... but that's life.
We had to leave so we could get to Seattle in time for Craig's dad's 88th birthday. Stay tuned for the next installment....

Vacation? Part 1

Ok. So me and the hubby decided to take a little break while we are both (temporarily) unemployed.  I was missing my California family big time and he was wanting to see his parents who now live in the Seattle area.  We left Utah the end of February in the middle of what was supposed to be a snow storm.  Said storm really didn't rear it's ugly head until we were in the middle of Nevada. 
Now we have traveled I-80 many, many times through LOVELY Nevada-but always in summer.  Only now do I realize how nervous my sister gets about the weather when she comes to visit every October from Reno.  Nevada has absolutely no regard for human life!  They do not salt the highways.  I can understand that in some places salt is not environmentally friendly, but the-middle-of-nowhere Nevada??  Come on! It's a flippin' desert!
Everything was fine until we got to Battle Mountain.  You know the place with the giant BM on the mountain?  It's slogan is "Battle Mountain-half way to everywhere" But really, really close to nowhere! 
The snow started to come down pretty heavy, and having an all-wheel-drive vehicle we felt pretty safe.  There were NO snow plows out, and only one lane was plowed.  The sand they put on the road (in lieu of salt) doesn't really help with frozen ice, and it's loaded with guess what?  BUGS.  It must be. That is the only reason I can think of that made all the stupid tweety birds come down and land on the road.  ALL OF THE TWEETY BIRDS.  We honked our horn, and honked and honked to no avail. We must've killed  about 100 birds.  The sound of their little bodies hitting the car was starting to make me feel ill.  So after about 40 minutes of driving 15-20 mph we got to Winnemucca. (Nothing was plowed there either)
We pulled off the highway because for one thing, Winnemucca is the first place from Utah that has a Jack-in-the box (love those tacos), and we wanted to give the plow people a chance to redeem themselves.    I think Craig pulled about 4-5 dead birds out of our grill. We sat at Jack in the box for about 45 minutes, (until we saw a snow plow) and then ventured back on to the interstate. It was smooth sailing to Reno from there, except as we got to Imlay we noticed that the "Thunder Mountain" historical  monument was GONE!  We always called it the "Bone House" and it was really cool. Really spooky, but cool.  I don't know why they dismantled it, but it was disappointing to see it gone.  We spent a couple of days in Reno with one of my sisters.  The weather forecast was more snow and we didn't want to drive over the pass (Donner) until it was clear.   Stay tuned for the second installment of "VACATION?"

The last laugh

So far I am enjoying having some time off.  Although, like I said before, my husband is also unemployed and has a tendency to get on my nerves (I'm sure that I DO NOT get on his! Sarcasm) it can be a little hectic sometimes.  I have been doing some much needed deep cleaning around the house, and  watching a LOT of movies and TV. My husband has found a show that he loves- MONK.  It's a show about a detective from San Francisco who is OCD.  Some how he (my husband) thinks he is MONK. Which is really funny, because Monk is a germaphobe.  My husband is a plumber.  If he was a germaphobe he would have had a break down by now!!  When anyone but him loads the dishwasher, he complains that it wasn't done right. So guess what?  We let him load the dishwasher.  When he complains that no one but him loads the dishwasher, we have to remind him that he's the only that does it properly, so he gets to do it ALL the time.   Pretty soon he'll be the only one doing laundry and vacuuming as well.  Then I will HAVE to get a job- I'll be bored to death with nothing to do.

New Bed

Today was the day we were going to get our new king sized bed.  We have been so excited to get our new bed. After 25 years of marriage we FINALLY were going to get a KING SIZED BED.  It's been long overdue and we spent the morning getting prepared to get our new bed.   We had the bedroom all cleaned out and vacuumed-put the old queen sized bed out in the drive way so they could haul it away, and were so excited when the delivery guy called and said they were running a little early and would that be OK?  So 3:00 the guys show up with our King size mattress and ONE TWIN SIZE BOX SPRING.  Well- any idiot knows that a king size mattress REQUIRES TWO (that's 2) twin box springs. The delivery guy said "I think we have a problem." WELL NO SH** SHERLOCK.  Didn't he think there was a problem at the warehouse when they loaded a king size mattress and only 1 twin box spring?  Apparently not.  He asked to see our receipt, and then he said "Looks like you only purchased one"  HUH?  I went to Sears to buy a mattress SET.  That's what I paid for. That's what they charged me for.  So for the next 3 hours we had to HAGGLE with the manager of the Sears store to get another box springs since they hauled off our other bed, we now would have no bed to sleep on if we didn't resolve this matter. We ended up getting a floor sample for half price.  I was very disappointed with the way the whole thing was handled.  From the store manager all the way down to the stupid sales kid.  We have always used Sears for our large appliance purchases, and have always been taken well care of up to this point.  I'm thinking that from now on RC Willey has my business.  I'm not done with this problem by a long shot.... I'm going to get a hold of their Corporate customer service and let them know how disappointed I am with the way this was handled. If anyone out there has any suggestions please feel free to let me know what your thoughts are on this incident!

WOW!

Something about living in the high mountain desert is- it warms up when it snows.  I know, I know, it sounds crazy. But it's true.  Today looked like a beautiful sunny day, then I stepped outside. UGH. The wind was blowing and with the chill factor the temperature is about 4. Yes. 4 degrees.  Did we somehow turn into Minnesota? Wisconsin?  I mean COME ON! It's February!  Can we get just a small break?  Thing is I'm afraid tomorrow (Ground Hog Day) that stupid ground hog is going to come out of his burrow and see his stupid shadow.  What then?  Six more flippin' weeks of winter.  NOT something I'm looking forward too.
The other thing I woke up to today is a sore throat.  Everyone (except me and the hubby) in the house has been sick for the last couple of weeks. I felt like I was almost out of the woods and able to avoid it, and WHAM!  Here I am feeling like crap!  I almost called into work and told them I was sick!  ( I crack myself up sometimes)
So we got a movie at the old Red Box.  It was called,  "MACHETE".  I think I laughed myself even sicker!!  It was TOTALLY inappropriate, but wildly entertaining.   Would I recommend it to you?  Only if you think you can handle really bad acting and lots of swearing and a bit of nudity.  My LDS friends should probably NOT watch it. 
Had a little run around with the HR dept for the bank I used to work for and my insurance guy.  The bank actually sent my pay stub to the branch where I used to work, instead of mailing it to my home!  (Good thinkin'.) Plus-it looks like they're trying to screw me out of my bonus incentive pay for the 4th quarter last year. And my home owners insurance actually deducted their annual premium TWICE from my escrow last year, so now the bank is asking me to come up with an additional twelve hundred bucks to cover the escrow account. I DON'T think so.
Jeez- maybe I should hire a secretary to handle all this crap for me!!  I was hoping to relax  a little in between jobs.

Daily?

OK. So the "daily" adventure thing may turn out to be a bit much.  I'm really not one who sits at the computer for hours and hours.  It's located in the basement of our home, and not really convenient.
Today is another wonderful day here in lovely West Jordan, Utah.  Woke up to a bit of snow this morning, and was glad I didn't have to get up and drive to work!  My husband is quite the control freak, so he keeps trying to plan out our days.  I, on the other hand, have always had a bit of an independent streak so I keep throwing wrenches into his plans.   He finds it irritating. Oh well.  Hopefully we won't kill each other over the next few weeks while neither one of us is working.
I have had a lot to think about these past few days.  It's such a HUGE adjustment not working after 10 long years of working in the corporate world.  I say that, because before that I was a stay at home mom and frankly,had to get a job just so I could have a break! Don't ever think that staying at home with the kids isn't work, because it is. HARD work too. I wouldn't change it for the world though.  I feel bad for a lot of mothers today who don't have that opportunity for financial reasons.  We gave up a lot so that I could stay home, but like I said, I don't regret it for one minute.
So-I'm thinking about going back to school, starting to sew again, doing some needlepoint, doing SOMETHING with the back yard from hell, writing in my journal everyday, finishing my Personal Progress (for all you LDS followers), reading all my beloved mysteries AGAIN, and changing the world. Oh yeah.  And blogging.  Doesn't sound like too much, does it?
Until tomorrow...

New World

So- as many of my good friends know, I recently lost my job of 10 years at a well known bank.  At first I was sad, but now I see it as a blessing in disguise.  I've been unhappy there for the last few years because I don't like being told to cheat if I want to get ahead!  I still have my integrity!  More than I can say for THOSE people.
So now here I am. 50 years old and no job!  Frankly I've been looking forward to a little time off... there are so many things I want to get done around the house and yard!  My kids are all grown now, the oldest will be 25 this  summer and the youngest (twins) just turned 18.  They are good people and I think I've done a pretty good job raising them. I am very proud of the people they have become.  Look at me... taking all the credit!!  OK OK... my husband, Craig, helped too!
  I will most likely start to look for another job soon, but I just don't feel in a hurry right now.  As some annoying people I USED to work with say "It is what it is".  I really hate that saying.  It just sounds so incredibly dumb.  It is what it is.  Really?  I know what it means, I just think it could be said in a more intelligent way.  Like-"That's the way it is" or "Just accept it" or SOMETHING.  Maybe it's just the people who say it that annoy me. 
Anyway.  It's late on a Friday afternoon and I'm just taking it easy this week since being "dismissed" from my employ.  We have tickets to go to the University of Utah gymnastics event tonight.  They have an excellent gymnastics team, and it's always fun to go with the family.