Thursday, November 19, 2009

smooth criminal

I got fingerprinted today. Apparently it's Georgia state law that anyone employed by a mortgage company has to be fingerprinted. Random. Especially since they did a background check. What are fingerprints going to show that a background check wouldn't? I guess maybe my aliases.

Funny story about aliases...When we lived in NC I worked for an insurance company. In order to do quotes we had to order a tier score. Tier scores are based on credit scores and give you that kind of info without putting a hit on your credit report. So you don't get your actual credit score, you just get another number based on it. If that makes sense. Anyway, I checked my tier score shortly after I started working there; just for giggles. According to the report, I had an alias. WTF??? The only other name I've ever had is my maiden name, but it sure wasn't that. I don't recall exactly what it was, but it was something way off. Like Katherine Ann Jones or something random like that. I had to call the people and get it taken off. Crazy.

So I wonder if my mystery alias will show up on anything. No one has ever asked me about it, so I suppose it doesn't. Anyway, the place that you get your fingerprints done at is g-h-e-t-t-o. I was slightly terrified. In the middle of the day...I felt like I was getting booked. For someone who has never been arrested, that's an odd feeling. Especially when I didn't even do anything wrong! I went straight to my car and busted out my hand sanitizer. I love hand sanitizer. I have multiple bottles so that they're accessible wherever I may be. One in my purse, one in my car, one in my desk at work, one at all the sinks in my house, and so on.

I just ate a lot of goldfish and now the top of my mouth is all raw. I don't just chew up my goldfish. I have to suck on them till they get mushy and then I eat them. Totally random and pointless, but it's how I eat them. That means the little salty dudes get smashed up against the roof of my mouth and rub it raw. Fun fact for the day.

I wish I had something more exciting to say. I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging, so even though I was totally boring tonight I wrote anyway. Now I have to get in bed cause I'm way sleepy tonight. I've been sleeping without my sleeping pill though!! I'm proud of myself :)

In other news, the husband comes home tomorrow. He's been in Florida for the last week. He was in Vegas two weeks ago. Funny how the military trips are always somewhere "vacation-esque". I'm starting to doubt the actual amount of work that gets done on these trips...Oh boys. I'm glad he's coming home. Mostly because I missed him, but a lot because we're having everyone (and I do mean everyone - his mom, dad, brother, brother's dog, Kylie, my mom, dad and sister) here for Thanksgiving and we need to get ready. I'm only just a little neurotic and freaked out about the whole thing. Just a tad. First time I'm hosting Thanksgiving...no biggie. How hard can it be to have 6 extra people and 1 extra dog in your house and get them all entertained and fed? Cake.

Yeah right. I'd be delusional to think that. It'll be fine though, and I cannot wait to see everyone!! Ok, ok I also can't wait to show off my new house :) Now I'm really going to bed. I wore a semi-itchy sweater today and it's starting to morph into a majorly itchy sweater the longer I wear it. PJ's and Ghost Whisperer re-runs here I come!!

xoxo

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

using cliff notes is not cheating...

I don't even know where to start. I've been a bad, bad blogger. There has been soooo much going on lately! I barely have time to breathe. Then when I think about catching up on everything y'all have missed, my head feels like it's going to explode. Then I caught up with my blogging friend Angela on Facebook the other night and I began to miss this badly. I miss catching up on everyone's live and I miss writing about mine.

Angela is a doll and she made me some cliff notes of her life for the past month or so. It was so awesome! I love her for reasons just like that. But she inspired me, so now I present the cliff notes version of my life recently.

Last time I wrote I think TJ was in the first part of Ranger school. It's called PRC (Pre-Ranger Course). He was there for two weeks and we only talked a few times. Stupid. He was supposed to come home for a weekend after that and then leave directly for Ranger school. That's 2 months of absolutely no talking (minus two weekends that he has phone privileges). His class date ended up getting pushed back to January 4th, so he didn't have to leave.

During all that I was job hunting and house hunting. I found a house and made an offer. Shortly after it got accepted, TJ got back from PRC. We closed on our house on October 28th. We moved that weekend because TJ had to leave on Saturday (Halloween). He went to Las Vegas for a week. Before he left we got everything to the house. I worked on unpacking and organizing while he was gone.

He got back the following Saturday. He had a few days off and we spent them doing finishing touches on the house. Hanging stuff, setting up knick knacks, etc. We also went to a ball that Thursday. It was my first military formal! Ranger Ball was a BLAST! Good friends and food and drink :) Plus I got to wear a stunning dress that a friend was nice enough to let me borrow. I felt like a princess.

On the day of our closing, our mortgage guy offered me a job. I had to get all kinds of background checks and junk, so that took awhile. I just started the job this Monday. On day three, things are looking good. The people are sweet as can be and the job is pretty ok. It's a lot to learn since I could fit everything I know about mortgages on a post-it note. In big handwriting. I think it's going to be good though.

In miscellaneous news: we had mice in the house. I caught 3 while TJ was gone and when he got back we caught another in the garage. This was quite traumatizing for me because I think they're actually really cute. Here's the story of my first mouse-catching experience that I posted on Facebook:

i met the mouse. gosh but he was cute! i snared him in a little trap thing. it said it would kill him, so i get home, check the trap and the release is tripped. i picked it up. it didn't feel any heavier. i thought maybe it tripped itself cause it's touchy. so i slowly pulled down the hinge. mouse head! i screamed and dropped it. he got trapped by the squishy thing with his little head sticking out. we made eye contact. i thought "crap, i can't kill him now." he was just a tiny little thing. his head was all cute and furry. he kinda looked like a mini-hamster i had once.

he started squeaking. i grabbed the trap and ran to the car. i was barefoot and didn't take my purse because i was so worried that he was going to die if i didn't get him out of that thing stat. as i was backing out and closing the garage door i realized i left the door from the garage to the house hanging open. oh well. no time for that now. there was a life hanging in the balance.


so i drove him about 3 miles away, opened my car door, placed the trap on the ground while staying safely in my vehicle, and opened the trap door. he scuttled out into the grass. although i'm sure he has internal injuries and won't survive very long, i feel better since i set him free. my husband is going to kill me...

So yeah, there you have the mouse story. That's all the highlights I can think of at the moment. My brain is fried from being a grown-up working woman. It's been about a year since I worked, so I have to get back in the swing of things. I'm quite put out that I have to be somewhere at a certain time and I can't do whatever I want. I sound like a brat, but it's true. It'll be nice to have the extra cash money though. At least that's what I tell myself at 6:30am when my alarm goes off.

I don't know how much time I'll have to do Spoonfuls now. I'll do them when I can. I'm thinking of doing something more like a featured store/artist kinda thing. It'd be more detailed and involved on a particular artist, just less often. We'll see. I definitely don't have time to make tiled stuff anymore. That makes me infinitely sad. I can't express it. But I'm back to the real world now, and I just can't balance a full-time job (with a 25 mile one way commute) and my tiling. The process is much too involved and time consuming. I'll have time for some here and there, but not enough time to maintain a shop. It breaks my heart. I found a lot of myself in my work and I'm devastated that I can't focus on it as much anymore. But such is life, right?

Here are some links to my Facebook pictures, if you want to see the house and some other stuff.


Okey dokey; the cliff notes of my life lately. Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear. Show me some love so I keep coming back :)

Missed you all massively!

xoxo