Sunday, February 27, 2011

Sickies!

I got to visit Urgent care AND the Emergency Room all in one day!

Last week Jerry went to Missouri to teach some class, he left Monday and I had such plans for the 3 days he was to be gone, it was Valentines Day. The boys and I had things to do and we were going to be busy! Monday Zachary wasn't feeling his best but he was doing ok, we went to swim lessons and Jerry called and all of a sudden I felt something coming on...oh great, whatever, I'll be fine. We went home and I made the boys soup and that was as far as I got, I laid down on the couch and was out for the count. I barely made it to 7 o'clock (thank god the boys can't tell time yet!) I sent the boys to bed and crawled into bed myself. The next morning my alarm went off and there was no way I could get up and take Zachary to school and then pick him back up and hour later, just no way. So I waited 45 minutes, drifting in and out of sleep and called the school. I told the lady who answered that Zachary would not be at school because he was sick, she said "you don't sound to good yourself", talk about an understatement!

I really thought I had the flu. The last time Jerry went out of town about 3 weeks earlier I got sick but was fine about 24 hours later so I figured this would be the same, at least this time Jerry didn't take the Tylenol with him. I took some Tylenol and sudafed left over from the last time I was sick. I noticed I could not swallow, not even my own saliva! That's never good. My throat wasn't especially soar, I just couldn't swallow, I'd try to take a drink and a small amount of water would trickle down my throat but that was it, I'd have to spit the rest out of feel like I was drowning.

The boys were mostly on their own for the day. Jerry called and said I sounded horrible, yeah well, I felt worse. The boys made themselves peanut butter roll-ups, grabbed an apple and cheese stick for lunch then snacked on fruit snacks and rice crispy treats. When Jerry called I told him I needed someone to come feed the boys dinner because I couldn't stand for very long and would not be able to do it. He was able to get Susan to come by when she finished work. She brought over pizza, fed the boys and got them to bed for me.

I really thought I would be feeling at least a little better on Wednesday. Boy was I wrong. First of all, I couldn't sleep because of the not being able to swallow thing. I hadn't eaten since early Monday, I had barely drank anything since Monday either, that was all taking a toll on top of just being sick. When my alarm went off on Wednesday I felt even worse. The thought did cross my mind to call an ambulance to take me to the emergency room but I had no one to watch the boys. I tried to call the school but was totally incoherent on the phone. I got 2 phone calls from the school advising me that Zachary was absent and I would need to send a note to allow him back into school. Wonderful. It was also class picture day, which I already paid for because it was supposed to be several weeks ago but school was cancelled on the original day for snow, so now I've paid for a picture Zachary won't even be in. So Wednesday I'm feeling even worse. I started throwing up flecks of blood. Wonderful. I can't drive myself to the doctor, I can't even stand, I can barely walk to the bathroom.

Jerry knows how sick I am, he's supposed to be back today, surely he left early, it's a 4-5 hour drive. He called at 9am, surely he's almost home....NOPE. He hasn't even left yet! I told him I needed to go to the doctor as soon as possible. I haven't been able to eat or drink in 3 days. He says he'll be home in a few hours. Surely he'll hurry back and not stop for lunch, right? Nope. He stops for a nice lunch at a nice restaurant with his boss, easily adding an additional hour to his drive back. The boys were on their own again. Granted they did get a little overzealous this day and attempted to cook corndogs in the toaster oven but geeze, had someone left early and not stopped for a long leisurely lunch on the way home they could have been here and had me at the doctor BEFORE lunch time and the boys would not have had to make themselves lunch. Jerry got home and was pissed, like I had been out partying or something. I could literally barely stand and he's mad because there is a small mess because I have no one to help me when I'm sick.

Then when Jerry got home, he took a 2 HOUR NAP because he didn't think Urgent Care was open yet. I called my doctor, I could barely talk at this point, the doctors office had a very hard time understanding me over the phone but the earliest they could see me was 2pm the next day, no way I could wait. I told Jerry to take me to Urgent Care now, he said they don't open until 4 or 5, it was only 2, so he took a nap! At 4 he called Urgent Care and found they opened at 8AM! So he finally took me. Found I had the worst case of strep they'd seen, my tonsils were so swollen they were touching which is why I could not swallow. And since I'm on blood thinners there was very little they could do for me. They prescribed me antibiotic (the biggest pills I've ever seen in my life, of course, I have problems swallowing, prescribe me the biggest pills on the planet!) and magic mouthwash, it's a numbing mouthwash, not that I was in pain but whatever. We went home and within an hour I was throwing up blood, a lot of blood. That is never good but for someone on blood thinners that's really, really bad. I was very surprised that Urgent Care didn't send me straight to the ER when they found out I hadn't had anything to drink in nearly 3 days. When Jerry called to tell them I threw up blood they said to go to the ER. Justin came over to watch the boys.

We went to the ER. We waited 2 hours just to get to triage. I felt horrible.  It was like someone could have walk in with a hole in their head and everyone would have still been watching me to see when I was going to fall over.  The doctor in the ER was wonderful. I grossed him out, and you've got to admit, that takes a lot to gross out an ER doctor.  My tonsils/strep was just that bad.  Even though it took an additional 2 hours after triage to get back to the ER in a room, it was nearly midnight before I got back there. They checked my INR and it was 4.8! They figured when I got sick (threw up) it ruptured my tonsils and that's where the blood came from and since my INR was already so high they were just going to treat me the way they would treat anyone else because they had to get my tonsils back down so I could eat and drink. They gave me IV fluids because I was so dehydrated, gave me steroids to shrink my tonsils, gave me antibiotics to start fighting the strep. By the time I left about an hour and a half later I felt much better and could already swallow.

The whole next day Jerry stayed in bed aside from taking Zachary to school and picking him up. I had to go to the store, make all the meals etc. Even though I was still pretty sick. Needless to say I'm still a bit bitter about all of this. I'm never this sick, I always work through being sick, this is the one time I literally could not do it and I had no help whatsoever.

My INR is now back in range so that's good.

I took Kaleb to the doctor the next day and he has strep, Zachary was also put on antibiotics because he was sick too. Now on Sunday the next week the boys are not done with their antibiotics yet and Zachary is coughing and hoarse and sick sounding again....Winter needs to just DIE!


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Sunday, February 13, 2011

To Elaborate on My Run-On Sentence About Denver From Yesterday...

Yeah, Holy run-on sentences Batman! The last sentence from this post is quite the run-on!  In my half hearted defense, I was in a hurry and just posted without proofing the post.  So sorry it makes no sense to anyone who doesn't know the players in the situation.  I'll try to elaborate today.

Side Note: Getting used to this slightly new keyboard on the Asus laptop is slightly weird!

Ok, back to the Denver thing.  Let me start by saying Jerry and I are having quite a time coming to a final decision on all of this and pressure from outside is not helping.  I'd love to talk to people who don't have a vested interest in what we do because then it might clear some things up in our mind.

Maybe I'll do this in a list, it might be easier to follow....but first some reminders...Jerry works as a police officer for the railroad, he is one of four officers in the entire state of Oklahoma one of whom is the supervisor and isn't technically assigned an area of responsibility but is out of Tulsa along with another officer.  There is one officer out of Enid who is retiring at the end of February and then Jerry in OKC.  The officers in Oklahoma are on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week, they pretty much make their own hours but loosely work 8-4 M-F, Jerry doesn't have any direct/daily supervision as his 'boss' is in Tulsa.  When the Enid guy leaves they are not filling that position, ever, it will be moved to Wellington Kansas (which also falls under the realm of the boss man in Tulsa) this would increase Jerry's area of responsibility.  Jerry already does the job of at least 2 officers (both by call volume and sheer miles he covers), they will NOT hire a 2nd officer for OKC even though it is needed.  The supervisor in Tulsa is probably going to retire in the next year or so, he is eligible at any time and everyone expected it (because he said he was going to) last December.

1.  Supposedly the OKC position is being promoted so Jerry would be salaried and would no longer received overtime, he'd still have to work 60 or more hours a week but would not get paid for it, just straight 40 hours per week pay, the promotion would NOT come with some huge pay raise, a small one yes, but it would NOT offset the loss of overtime AND we'd loose AWESOME health insurance and have to go to the regular health insurance.  There are some benefits in the long run but up front, not so much.

2.  Jerry and I have wanted to move to Colorado for years now.  We've discussed it and said that if the opportunity ever came up we'd take it especially if it came with a moving package and this transfer/promotion DOES include a moving package...and a very very generous one.

3.  If Jerry stays in Oklahoma he'd be doing the same thing at work forever, it would likely never change.  In Denver he would likely have the chance to do different things.  He'd likely have the chance to move up in the company.  In Oklahoma, even if his position is promoted, he'll be stuck in OKC, never be a supervisor, never move up, just be a line officer, responsible for more then 1/2 of the state, probably never getting his due credit.

4.  In Denver Jerry would work shift work, he would work 4 10 hour days with 3 days off.  He would rotate shifts every 4 months.  Once his shift was over he would be off duty and his phone would be turned off, he would not be responsible for calls until he went back to work again.  Very unlike Oklahoma where he would always be on call...

5.  We are very comfortable in Oklahoma, I've been here for 13 years and Jerry grew up here, he did live in Colorado for about 10 years but he's been back in Oklahoma for 15 years.  Moving to Colorado would mean learning a new town, meeting new people...I like that idea...even though it's scary, that's exciting.

6.  We're of course worried about finances, the pay would be the same in Oklahoma as it would be in Colorado so of course the money would go much further here.  We've done the research and know we can buy a house in our price range in Colorado, a nice house because of the number of foreclosures on the market there.  The moving package the railroad gives guarantees the sale of our house within 30 days or they buy us out.  If Jerry doesn't take this transfer and takes the promotion in OKC then we decide in a year or 5 years we want to go to Colorado anyway, we have to pay for the move and selling our house is up to us....obviously it's in our best interest financially to move now.

7.  Jerry has family in Oklahoma, in fact his whole family is in Oklahoma.  We don't see them often.  We see them for the boys' birthday parties and on Christmas for the OU/OSU bedlam football game.  That's it.  Four times a year and they live within an hour drive of us.  My brother lives near Denver so I'd live near someone in my family for the first time in 6 years.  And we'd only be about an 8-10 hour drive from Jerry's family, it's not that far...not like the 30 hour drive to get to my family we are now (to California).

8.  We've been looking for a new house in Oklahoma (before the Denver position came open we had already planned to sell our house and move into the next town North for the schools).  I don't know why even when I find a house I like I cannot get excited about it.  It's like it's not meant to be.  I found a house I really like today but it's just not right.  It's in an awesome neighborhood, in the schools I want for the boys, it's perfect, the kitchen is perfect.  This is THE house.  But something is not right and I've had this feeling the whole time we've been looking.


So a little on the people with a vested interest pressuring us...Jerry's boss is begging him to stay.  I know he is freaking out because he'd have to train someone new to take over the OKC spot but we need to do what is best for us.  He would not hesitate to take a job somewhere else to further his career regardless of who had to take on more work.  Granted he'd also be losing the Enid officer as well but sometimes life just happens that way.

Of course Jerry's family doesn't want us to leave Oklahoma but again, they moved when they wanted for their family.  That's just what you do when you have to.  They moved Jerry all over the place when he was growing up, even out to the country which he hated.  He almost ran away he hated it so much.  It's not like we'd never see them again.  Jerry said they used to visit a couple times a year when he lived there before but because they have the chickens and the cat now that they probably won't venture far from home...well...I don't know what to tell them, visit or don't, those are the choices.

Our friends don't want us to go but again, they've moved away when it was right for their family.  I've got friends all over the state of Oklahoma now because they moved away from the OKC area, I'd love it if they were all right here still but they aren't.  We've got computers for e-mail and facebook and phones and again, it's only an 8 hour drive to Denver, we'd still come back to visit family so it would just have to do I guess.

I actually never moved to Oklahoma intending to stay here for the rest of my life, so moving on 13 years after moving here actually seems a bit late to me...


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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Moving?

To Denver?

It may actually happen this time...really! There is a position open in Denver, it's the promoted position for Jerry (I never remember what it's called). Jerry is the only one who has expressed interest in it. They need to hire 4 officers by August so even if he doesn't get this one, it's likely we'll get there this year anyway. Since it's a promotion it comes with a moving package, which is awesome! Jerry's boss is horrified that he could lose Jerry and begging Jerry to stay but Jerry already put in for the transfer. The position closes on the 17th of February, we don't have any idea when he'd hear anything after that and then because Ken (the Enid officer) is retiring at the end of February and if Jerry got the Denver position he'd be leaving it's likely we wouldn't leave right away anyway since they'd probably want Jerry to stay and train who ever they hired for his position and they'd have to post his position, interview and hire and then train for it so it could still be a long while even if he does get it.


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RIP HP

Our not so beloved HP laptop has died. The battery was crapping out for a while, it only held a charge for about 10 minutes. That didn't really matter much since we didn't need to have it unplugged so we just left it plugged in. Problem fixed. And cheap!

I went to bed on Monday night with the computer in it's normal spot on the couch closed and woke up to find it in it's normal spot but with it open! I turned it on and it wouldn't charge...I checked all the connections and still not charging and showing unplugged.

CRAP!

By this time the computer was dead.

CRAP!

Luckily in November we had bought a desktop so the boys could do school work so I still had computer access. Good thing because I cannot get through my day without computer access!

Jerry looked at the computer. He looked at the charger/cord. Nothing was working. It was D.E.A.D.

CRAP!

So we decided we need to buy a new laptop but we don't want to spend a lot of money. I found the receipt from the HP, we bought it in November of 2008, it's barely 2 years old! That's not acceptable at all! The laptop we had prior to that one was an HP and it lasted quite a bit longer, maybe close to 5 years but the charger and battery are what went on that one too. Plus they run very, very hot. So hot that you could not actually put the computer on your lap even with some sort of laptop tray under it. This last one was also having a lot of other problems, we were using less then 1/2 the memory but it ran very very slowly, then it was so hot that it would freeze up after being on for less then 20 minutes. For being barely 2 years old that's not acceptable. So we decided to avoid HP at all costs. We did look into replacing the cord and battery...battery is between $125 and $150 and the cord would be between $60 and $75...by the time we would have paid for both of those and to have someone look at, diagnose and fix the computer for at least $150 it would have nearly paid for the new computer...might as well buy a new computer with a warranty and new operating system and all the new bells and whistles.

We did some research and Asus seems to get very good reviews. I asked some family members and they have Asus' and they are very happy with them. You get a lot more memory and RAM for a lot less money. So we decided on an Asus laptop. The really good news is that the lower part of the cord fits into the lower part of the cord for the HP and it reset the old cord somehow so we were able to charge the old laptop. That's good because now we can get anything off the old laptop that we want to. We may even be able to sell the old laptop for a couple of bucks (emphasis on *couple*) or maybe donate it to be refurbished and used at a hospital for visiting families or something or just use it as a spare.

We also decided to do our own recovery disks this time instead of paying Best Buy to make them, it took about an hour and a half but saved us $99...worth it.

Luckily I save all my pictures on an external hard drive as a precaution for just such an event...a computer crapping out with no warning. I also save anything I think may be important on jump drives (thumb drives). So even if we cannot get onto the old laptop it's no real loss. I would like to get the music I have on the media player transferred to a jump drive so I don't have to re-convert it but that would only cost me more time, not money.


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Sunday, February 6, 2011

Restaurant Aggravation

We went to lunch today because we had a coupon for buy one get one free at Logan's Roadhouse, which is a steak house.  They have really good food and the boys really enjoy the peanuts and the fact that you get to throw your peanut shells on the floor, in fact they encourage you to throw your peanut shells on the floor.  If you don't and pile them up on the table, when you leave, the guy who cleans off the table will throw the peanut shells on the floor - so since you can't throw things on the floor just about anywhere else, might as well do it at Logan's!

Anyhow, we've severely cut down the number of times we eat out.  I mean we used to eat out A LOT...several times a week.  Now, it's more like two to four times a month so it's truly a treat.  And in the name of saving money I try to have a coupon when we do eat out.  The coupons are usually just save $3 or $5 on the total bill, not buy one get one free meals, so this was a good deal.  Had we not gotten dessert we would have walked out under $25 for all four of us to eat, with tip!  If I could talk dh into getting water when we dine out instead of the insanely expensive coke or iced tea we would have walked out for under $20! That's pretty good considering my meal was $14 (talipia) and Jerry had steak.  Even with dessert it was under $32, still not bad.

But this post is about my aggravation...but first my question...how is it that restaurants can get away with paying the wait staff under minimum wage and then expect their patrons to pay at gratuity to make up the difference?  First of all that is not the definition of gratuity.  Gratuity is something extra, it is to show your appreciation for a job well done not to make up for crappy pay that the restaurant gets away with paying them.

The restaurant  charges the patrons an excessive amount for the food, I mean come on, $14 for talipia?  I can buy talipia at the store for $9 and have enough for at least 4 meals for me AND dh.  The drinks are up to about $2.50 for coke or iced tea...it takes what?  3 cents to make that.  And now they want me to make up for the grossly underpaid wait-staff?  Come on.  That's wrong.  In my opinion, restaurants should have to abide by the minimum wage laws and gratuities should be just that, a gratuity...IF I am impressed with the service I can leave a tip in an amount I feel is deserved.  I should not feel guilty because my waiter worked hard and I know he only makes $2 an hour so if I only leave a $2 tip on a $20 tab he only made $4 on my table IF he didn't have to share the tip from my table...then what if his service wasn't stellar?  I certainly don't leave a great tip if the service isn't stellar, if my drink isn't filled in a timely manner I leave less, if my order isn't correct or the wait-staff is rude I leave less.  Of course the opposite is certainly true, if I have outstanding service I've been known to leave a $5 tip on a $10 bill.  I've even been known to find another member of the wait-staff who took better care of us then our server and hand them a tip while leaving our server a small tip on the tab.  I also clean my own table, obviously I don't clear off the plates but I make sure there is as little to do as possible - wipe the table off and stack all the plates and when my kids were small I'd leave a bigger tip if the floor was messy even though I would pick up what I could reach.

I'm also of the opinion that the wait-staff knew their pay rate before they took the job, it's not like it's a secret.    If you're really good at your job you'll get the good tips but I cannot get over how many really bad servers we've gotten in the past couple of years (which also coincides with when the prices have skyrocketed).  I mean, we get a seat and after 10 minutes finally get our drinks and order our food and then 30 minutes later might get our food from someone other then our server and will ask for something that we originally asked for when we ordered like a side of ranch or mustard...10 or 15 minutes later our server might show up and ask how our meal is and we'll have to remind them we're waiting for the side of ranch or mustard and oh yeah, our drinks have been empty for the last 15 minutes (empty drinks sends me over the edge, ask anyone I've dined with)....this scenario is very, very common and not deserving, in my opinion of even a 5% tip, heck, it's deserving of a discount on the price of my order if I could track down a manager to complain to...oh and by the way...this kind of thing doesn't happen at a busy time, it's usually at a down time, maybe 2-4pm....I've noticed we get better service at busier times.  When I eat out my head is generally on a swivel, it's habit, I keep track of where my server is, I know how many tables they have, if they have a large party, how they are treating their other tables etc...I do give leeway if they are taking care of a large party or have a lot of other tables, I'm not heartless or not understanding.  If I see my server go out for a smoke break and my drink is empty...OMG, you better not be expecting a tip.

I've read plenty of articles on manners and financial responsibly and they all say if you cannot afford to leave at least a 15-20% tip you cannot afford to eat out, I don't agree.  I'm already paying for a meal that is grossly overpriced, just because the restaurant isn't passing that profit onto the wait-staff and I feel a 5-10% tip is sufficient doesn't mean I cannot afford to eat out.  In my personal opinion, with the fast rising cost of meals in restaurants and declining service standards 5-10% is generous in most instances and I don't feel bad leaving that.  The restaurant should feel bad for not paying their wait-staff sufficiently and should consider that's probably the reason they cannot find quality staff and it's probably also the reason they have such a high turn over.


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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A post of pictures...

Kaleb enjoys wearing his no slide socks like this...no idea why but he does...silly boy :)

Zachary wanted his picture taken too!

Green eyed boy :)

Brothers!

Blue eyed boy!

Cheesin!

No idea...

still no idea...

Beautiful 75 degree day in January so we went to the zoo :)

I can finally get Zachary to go on a moving animal on the merry-go-round at the zoo.

Kaleb's always been one for the moving animals on the merry-go-round!

Kaleb riding his bike on a 75 degree day in January!

Zachary on his new to him bike without training wheels ($35 find on Craigslist in nearly perfect condition bike)  Then we got a new helmet from Target on clearance for $4.45 marked down from $19.99!


Kaleb really wanted to ride in the street with daddy and Zachary.

I caught a cookie theif!

Then I caught 2!



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