Seriously?

AT&T is really getting on my last nerve, but the sad thing is that apparently Sprint is even WORSE! I mean WOW!

They told me they wouldn't be charging me for anything, the guy said that the only charges would show up on my next bill, and yet... THEY FRICKIN' CHARGED ME! I'm in the hole $160 because of them! I am *seriously* going to kick someone's butt, and they're going to give me back my money and a month of free data. This is my decision. It looks like they decided for some reason to charge me for the Blackberry (according to the packing slip) which is BS because it was an upgrade and a refurb, therefore it was free of charge.

Anyway, I'm not going to keep ranting, I know you have all heard quite enough of my stupidity of walking in to AT&T traps lately.

I went over and watched the kids for Meg and Michael tonight so they could go out for Michael's birthday and had a lot of fun. Julian's adorable, and made them let him stay up until I got there so he could say hi and after about 10 minutes of cajoling we got him in to bed (he's a surprisingly obedient child for being SOOOO hyperactive!) and Meg and Michael were on their way. Vi was really fussy, turns out she was a bit gassy and her tummy was upset, so after getting her system worked out, I put her down on the bed and cranked up the ambient baby noise (like, the sound of a baby's hearbeat, the sound of a hairdryer, rain falling on the roof, that sort of thing) and she was out for the next few hours. Talked to Jeremy for a while, then put Vantage Point on to watch-- it was ok, but fell short of its potential, I think. Vi woke up around 1230a fussy again, and I thought she might be hungry so I made her a bottle-- she usually only eats like 4oz max but she drained the 5oz bottle! And then looked at me as if to say, "Um, I know that's not all." I burped her (that's what happens when you're a greedy baby!) and she started to drowse off again right as they got home.

I really enjoy watching the kids for them, they're so well behaved and I know they don't get a lot of time to themselves, especially since they have the new baby. Violet's about to turn three months and is getting her personality worked up and set in place, and does this hilarious thing where she'll take her pacifier out of her mouth while she's sleeping, start to get grumpy, and then put it back all without waking up. I can also feel her starting to work her legs when I'm burping her, like she wants to stand up, so I think she'll be an early walker!

Tomorrow I'm going to our staff meeting at Palate, and Susie's bachelorette party is tomorrow night. I'm excited, it'll be fun, but since I don't have any money to spend I feel a little awkward going out. Oh well, it'll be an excuse to dress up cute, I suppose and then I'll just go hang out with Meg and Michael and drink for free with them and play with the baby some more! (note: I do not handle babies while drunk, nor do I really get drunk-- I just have a beer or two. I have no desire to be that lady on COPS)

Ciao!

Meg FTW!

AT&T lost. The first woman hung up on me, but the second guy was very nice and I talked him in to not only renewing my previous plan AND reinstating my old text package, but he set my account so I was approved for an upgrade and I got my free Blackberry.

I win.

We had a staff meeting for the summer camp yesterday and I think it's going to be a lot of fun-- there's one kid there who was a camper there when I was a junior counselor who is JUST as much of an ass as he was when he was ten. Shocker. There are a couple of male counselors who are good kids, one of whom goes to Rhodes, and the other female counselors are really sweet girls, we're starting a crafts committee! Each week, we'll go to Michael's and buy supplies for the next week's crafting and we're going to try to do them to match the theme of the week.

Not much else to say, it's been a pretty boring day. I did get a lot of things on my to-do list done, though, so not too shabby on the whole. Tomorrow I deal with the AOII stuff and a few other things and I'll be all set for summer camp! I feel like a kid again, I'm going to go get some backup batteries and at the very least make sure I have pictures of the Aquarium field trip on Wednesday :D

I am angry AT&T customer, hear me roar!

So I haven't been getting any text messages, and nobody has gotten the ones I've sent, for the last week or so. Finally, today I called AT&T and was like, "WTF, kids?" The following:

Annoying Midwestern Chick: You don't have a texting package, that explains it!
Me: Well, I've been paying for one...
AMC: Oh, it looks like your text messaging package expired on May 19th.
Me: Expired? Not to get smart with you, but was anyone planning on TELLING me this? I mean, nobody bothered to tell me I was off contract, then nobody bothers to tell me that my text package has been yanked?
AMC: Well, no, you're right-- you should have been notified, but it's something you can keep track of online, you know.
Me: But it was still expired and I wasn't notified.
AMC: (hems and haws a few seconds) So, it looks like you took the data plan for your Blackberry off on the same day, so you took off the texting package and the data package at the same time.
Me: Except I didn't ask her to take off the text package-- all I asked for her to take off was the data package.
AMC: I'm terribly sorry about that.
Me: So, you need to put my text package back on.
AMC: I'm so sorry, but I can't do that-- we don't offer that package anymore!

At this point, I asked her where I could file a complaint about a representative making unauthorized changes to my account and she told me I could go to the website under "Contact Us" and there was a complaint section. Yeah, not really. So I get a little bent out of shape about this because, as the girl pointed out, my text plan (200/mo to other carriers, unlimited mobile to mobile) doesn't exist anymore and I don't need 1500 text messages for $15/mo, but I need more than 200 messages a month.

I put on the 200 messages and will use them sparingly, but since I'm off contract I have a little leverage-- I can walk away without any fees. I also went around and looked at other carriers-- Sprint came out on top of AT&T (everything else was more expensive) with a brand new Blackberry (in red!) with unlimited text and data and 450 minutes for $70/mo-- the same thing with AT&T is about $90/mo. Now, Sprint has less coverage, but if they mention that I'll tell them I'm already used to all my calls getting dropped ANYWAY. Kthxbai.

So, wish me luck. I'm going to own them. I hope...

Also, I ran in to my old dance teacher today at the gas station, which I guess means I'm going to *have* to take this class at Callenwalde! I also ran in to Taylor Driskill at Target! I also got some super awesome pitchers at Target that are like the old ones Jan has-- they have a plunger attached to the top so that things get mixed up better and they were on sale cheap so I got two. I'm an even bigger geek-- I'm getting excited about pitchers. Jeremy was happy, too, though, because we do a lot of lemonade and that sort of stuff for which these are perfect! I also picked up a clearance coloring book for Analia (though I might just keep it here since she's still at the doodling stage and I'm sure they've got enough for her to color on)-- it's a WALL-E themed one, which I thought was cute since we got them WALL-E for Christmas this past year!

That's about all for today-- updates tomorrow on who won the big battle with AT&T.

One of those days...

It's strange, I never really have those days where I sit down and look at my life and think, "Man, this isn't all that bad after all!" but today I kinda did. Work's been getting me down lately, as I'm sure you could tell, but I'm glad I had a good night tonight-- I could sit down and look at my photos from this weekend with a clear head and realize that I'm really lucky to have the life I do.

Living in Decatur is an absolute privilege, one I hope to give my child/ren some day, and one of the things its given me is access to a strong learning community and one that appreciates literature. Two of my favorite authors, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, came to the Decatur Public Library this weekend, and Jeremy got to go with me. They write popular novels, but are both very intelligent, very funny, and very witty. Their talk was great and then they signed books and took pictures!

This one's a little blurry, Jeremy was holding the camera weird, but from L to R is Lincoln Child, me, and Douglas Preston! I've been reading Preston's books since I was in middle school!!

After that, we walked around the square and looked at the artists booths, and we stopped in this great little shop called Taste on the back side of the square. LOVE that store so much. If you're local, you can get me a gift certificate there any time!! We poked around there a little extra because it started *pouring* down rain and we didn't have an umbrella, but Jeremy found some yummy chow chow to take back for his sandwiches and I found the most hilarious card to send to Shelby-- a print of Barack taking his presidential oath with the caption, "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear to turn this mother out."

We wandered back to the car, and since I hadn't been able to get in touch with Meg or Michael, I decided we'd "swing by" (shoulda known better!) before going home to take a nap. We got there and Michael was hanging out with Sarah (a girl Meg and I went to high school with, but I haven't seen in who knows how many years!) and trying to get Vi to sleep and Julian was running around... being Julian. He took to Jeremy like nobody's business (not surprising, kids LOVE Jeremy) and took him on the grand tour of Casa de Julian and the costumes in his closet and all his toys. We fed Julian Altoids to see his reaction and he actually liked them, then he attacked Michael like a wild man, then he decided he was going to play with Jeremy some more and continued to use him as a jungle gym. Meg and I decided he's going to be one of those grandads all the little ones use as a jungle gym whether he's actively participating or not. Then we walked up to dinner and met Meg's mom and her sister Della-- The Matador in Oakhurst was pretty decent, and not too expensive. It waited until we got inside to start raining and didn't rain on us on the way home.

Today, I went up to Apres Diem for lunch and to see Adam and Erin in from Seattle. There were, of course, tons of other people there for fantastic company and the food was to die for-- and totally one-upped Fresh Slices which is a little funny. Apres Diem is a chic type tapas place in Midtown Atlanta, and their sandwiches range from about $8-10. With these sandwiches come a side salad AND home fries, whereas at Fresh Slices you don't necissarily get fries, even! Anyway, I got to see Aihanh and Igal, and Greg was there with his new girlfriend, and Hetal and Hugh and some other Tech people I vaguely know. Erin was asking about where Jeremy and I would be when he was done with school and it turns out... they have a house they're trying to rent! It's a three bedroom, soon to be two bath, and while it's not in the bestest area ever, we could get it for about $900 a month! And since we'd know the landlords, we could probably do most anything we like to the house which would keep Jeremy busy and would be at least half funded so we could afford to do it! Yaaay!

So, uploading those pictures to Facebook and Flickr, I looked at my life and realized that there are some really amazing people in my life-- I have a fiancee I love and sometimes still can't believe, there are a couple of pretty cute kids who think I'm swell and I love them to death, I'm re-acquainting myself with friends from high school who are wonderful people, and I feel kind of like I'm a part of a big family here, which is what's so great about Decatur in the first place. We'll be a little farther away, about 20 minutes, if we're at Adam and Erin's place, but we'll still be ITP and we'll have room for folks to stay the night which they just might.

Memphis was where I lived for five years, and I think I almost forgot what home meant while I was there. Now, I'm remembering it and I couldn't be happier.

Ciao for now.

New profile picture!

It's me with Valisa (left) and Caroline (right) after graduation-- aren't they just beautiful?! I feel like a proud mama ;)

I got a Facebook message from Michael today about the summer classes at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, which arrived at just the right time! I'd been thinking about dance classes, not sure whether I wanted to do them or not, but right there on the Callanwolde list was a modern dance class for adults taught my my dance teacher of 16 years! It's $140 for the 10 week course, which is actually $1 a class cheaper than at my old dance school, but the money is due at registration time (by class time on June 2nd) so I'll have to have some really great nights between now and the end of the month to afford it since I won't have had my first paycheck from camp. Perhaps, if I don't get a computer this weekend, I can borrow the money from Jeremy or something. It would be great to dance again, and I'm sure Kate would get a kick out of seeing me again! Even though I'd be terribly nervous about it... I haven't danced in so long...

I'm also planning a surprise for Jeremy, which I'm very excited about-- tomorrow, I'll be going to Emile Baran to deal with the jerk owner to try and figure out what needs to be done. At least I know he'll do the right thing, and do it well.

That's about all for now; slow night at work and a decent drive back from Memphis. For now, I'm going to watch this last episode of Desperate Housewives and hit the hay. Big day of errands tomorrow!

Graduation '09

Well, all my little babies graduated yesterday-- it was a wonderful day and I'm so proud of them! I came primarily to see Caroline, Valisa, and Dustin and secondarily for T-bo, Barnish, and Lindsey. I just can't believe they all graduated already! It seems like just yesterday, Caroline was a senior in high school staying her overnight with me at Rhodes my sophomore year.

They're all off to do good things-- Caroline is going to Paris to teach English for a year, Valisa is going to take some much needed and deserved time off (the girl had her hand in sooo many pots!), Dustin's headed to DC to be an Economic genius, T-bo is headed to law school, Lindsey to DC, and Barnish back up to NY/NJ to do some financial type stuff as well. It dazzles me how much these kids have grown.

Because of eminent rain, they decided to have it at nobody's favorite rain location, the Mississippi Boulevard Church. I've been to one other graduation there and it was awfuuuull. The church gets *really* hot because so many people cram in to it, and unlike Fisher Gardens there isn't a breeze. Pretty much everyone agrees they'd rather get rained on in Fisher Gardens than stuffed in to MBCC. Plus, the lighting was awful, I tried to take pictures from the balcony and they all turned out like dark and fuzzy. And, the most fantastic thing? It never actually rained. The rain disappeared. They also forgot to announce honors societies and majors (Usually it would go, "Caroline Cancelosi, English Literature, Sigma Tau Delta" but yesterday it was just, "Caroline Cancelosi"), and they forogt to print the honors societies in the programs, and forgot to put in the Bonner Scholars' red Chucks.

Afterwards, though, was really nice-- I saw Cord, who is a TOTAL goofball and will be at UGA next year, and Ian, who I knew when he first came to Rhodes after active duty in Iraq. We caught up with Dustin, Kate and Caroline, but hardly saw anyone else. Though I did get to say hi and give hugs to Rob Dove (the world's tallest hippie counselor) and Kenny Morrell (the world's tallest Latin professor) since they were the only people I could find in the crowd.

When everything had just about thinned out, Sophia and I ran in to Leonard (from our class) and went to Fresh Slices in Midtown. I like the food at Fresh Slices, but I'm not too sure I'll be going back. It took soooo long, they don't have lemons (though they insist that lime is perfectly acceptable for sweet tea), even though all their sandwiches are over $7 and most are over $8.50, very few of them actually come with fries, and have I mentioned it took forever to get our food? I know they were busy, but we sat with empty cups for a long time (which resulted in not getting anything else because they ran out of sweet tea which is what Leonard and I were drinking-- the waiter squeezed a little out for us, but I think it was mostly because we were a little grumpy. We were hungry!) and it took 45 minutes for Leonard to get a Caesar salad (lettuce, parm, croutons, side of Caesar dressing) and almost 2 hours for us to get the two Phillys and a pizza! When we finally did get our food, Sophia was halfway through her sandwich before she got her fries! Funny story, though, we DID run in to Lindsey again-- every time Sophia and I have gone out to dinner in Memphis the last two months, we've run in to Lindsey! Chili's last time I was up, Bosco's on Friday, and then Fresh Slices yesterday!

Aaaanyway, after lunch Leonard went back to grad-schooling, Fia left for home (Mobile), and I went to see Valisa. I'd just missed them at the apartment, so I hung out with Brian and Carrie for a while which was really great-- I miss those two, and I'm SO happy they got together, they're pretty darn cute. :) After that, I talked to Jeremy for a while, then went over to see the girls and change since I knew Caroline would be back. I helped them pack up a little and Caroline headed out to dinner with her parents, I kinda teared up a little sending her off-- my little headed to France! I finished helping Valisa out and helped her brother carry all the stuff down to the hallway. Her dad has a flatbed truck, so he'd built a big crate on it to put all her stuff in, which happened to be almost the same size as one of the ol' RJ bins! I hopped up and stuffed it all in with no problem and said my goodbyes to Valisa. And teared up a little again. I'll see V later this summer, though, when I go to Austin! It was nice to meet both of their families-- Caroline looks EXACTLY like her mother, I mean almost moreso than me and MY mom! There is absolutely no mistaking the genetics there! And, of course, Valisa's family is just as sweet and funny as she is.

After seeing them off, I went out with Wayne and Brunner for a drink (aka more sweet tea) and then came home and CRASHED. I just shoved everything off the bed, put on some Deadliest Catch and was out halfway through! Now, I'm going to go warm up the rest of my sandwich from Outback and settle in to watch a movie or something. I need to call AJ, but I'll give her a shout later-- I'm still a little worn out from this weekend, and I need to run up to Target to get some sunglasses and throat lozenges. Whatever I started catching, I kind of beat it back, but it's threatening to resurface!

Ciao for now!

Fooooooood is expensive

So I went to Whole Foods last week and found out they do sushi platters now! And they're reasonably priced, too! The only problem is that I keep adding more food and it keeps getting more and more expensive... my budget hasn't taken a complete nosedive yet since I only spent $100 on the dress (budgeted $300) and we'll get Jeremy's tux for free (budgeted $150) but still... Maybe I'll get lucky and find some of the veggies and stuff on sale that week. I'm also looking at doing breakfast for the wedding party on Sunday before everyone leaves, so we'll see.

I'm in Memphis for Rhodes' graduation tomorrow-- I can't believe Valisa and Caroline are graduating! It seems like just yesterday Caroline was a senior in high school! I'm really excited about the presents I got for them, and Caro will be able to take hers to France this fall when she goes to teach. All these people living abroad, what am I going to do?!

Last night, I got in and went to dinner with Sophia-- we went to Bosco's and split a few things and only spent about $15 each! (Bosco's, for those of you who aren't familiar, is frickin' expensive. You know, the type of place with $10 appetizers) Then, on our way out, we ran in to some people we knew from Rhodes and talked to them for a while, and then went and got a beer with Ashley and her friend Ryan. I came home later than I intended, but it was a really good night and once I finally got to sleep, I slept pretty well. I thought I was coming down with something, but so far it hasn't caught up with me so I'm hoping I caught it in time.

Tomorrow is graduation and whatever Caro and V want to do after their families head back to Jersey and Texas, and then probably hanging out with Brunner and Wayne tomorrow night. I don't really have much planned for Sunday, then driving back on Monday... I need to leave early as I forgot to put work shoes in the back of my car so I could just go straight in. Oh, wells.

Ciao for now!

What a weekend!

I'll just give a quick rundown of the weekend since I've told the story a few times now...

Thursday was the girls' preformal (date party) and the theme was Storybook Couples/Characters. My favorite was India and Houston who came as Calvin and Hobbes!

India's tummy was furry and she kept asking me to pet it, which was kind of hilarious. I also met Houston (her boyfriend) for the first time; he's a really sweet kid and I had fun talking beer and some academics with him. The girls were very well-behaved, but someone's date got way out of control and started a fight with the bouncer! I had to step in at one point, and was apparently pretty scary which is good-- it means word will get around that you don't screw up at an AOII event anymore! The girls are always great, but their dates have ruined stuff for them so many times, it's just not going to happen now that I'm here! The place we went to was called Cypress Pint and Plate. It was pretty good, but definitely on the pricey side-- they charged on average $2-3 more a beer than we do at Palate! $10 for a Hitachino White? Whaaaat? The food was pretty good, though, and the atmosphere was very well constructed. I wouldn't mind going down on a Monday night for their twenty cent wings and buying a couple beers then. After I broke up the fight with the bouncer, I came home and couldn't sleep because I was so wound up/ticked off. I wrote the chapter an e-mail explaining that I knew it wasn't their fault, but they needed to impart to their dates the severity of the punishment should they screw up on Friday at formal.

Friday we were on the Henry Grady River Boat at Stone Mountain for formal and it was AWESOME!! The girls and their dates were the most well behaved Greek organization the security folks could remember, and not only did we get our security deposit back, they actually *wanted* us to come back next year! The weather held out and was perfect-- nary a cloud in the sky and the moon was full and high in the sky, we couldn't have asked for anything better. I wore one of my grandmother's dresses, a really cute vintage number from the '40s. Everyone loved it, and so did I. I'm fairly set on having vintage dresses for my nice events from now on, they fit better and are just so pretty and so well made. They're quite expensive, though, so I'm thinking that it might be easier on my pockets to buy the vintage Vogue patterns and use similar materials.
Above is the view from the riverboat just before sunset of the forest surrounding the mountain.

Today was Susie's bridal shower, which was lots of fun. There was a woman there who is a "grace period" foster mother and I think maybe once Jeremy and I settle in and have our own who's a bit older, I'd like to do it, too. All you do is take in babies who are given up for adoption for the 10-20 day grace period Georgia gives a mother to change her mind so that the adoptive family doesn't have the baby and then get it taken away just as they've gotten it. All told, this woman's had 75!! She had her newest one who was only two weeks old with her, she got passed around and was a little shocked at the number of people there. Everyone was great fun, and my Mancala and Jenga went over well with Susie who loves those games as much as I do :) Her bachelorette party is in a couple weeks, I think, and should be a blast. I'm so excited to get to know Susie better, and Joanna as well-- I think we're all going to be really good friends. And it's appropriate, really, since Emily and I are very close now and met through a mutual friend, that I should be good friends with people I have met through her!

Work tonight was rough for a while, but not too bad-- and I really like working with Peter. If Shale gets in to medical school and heads on up to Philly, I'll probably talk to Jill about picking up Saturdays; they're a good money-making night and Peter and I just get along really well.

I'm so exhausted and have finally wound down enough to fall asleep maybe, so I'll leave you with a picture from my last trip to Florida-- my favorite billboard ever. Heck yeah, Chick'fil'A.

Rain, rain, go away...

There's a big storm system moving in and I'm hoping it won't rain on formal this Friday! We've worked so hard to get everything worked out to have formal on the boat, it would be *super* frustrating if we just sat at the dock the whole night.

This weekend was really great, I drove down on Friday and made good time, got there a little bit before Jeremy and read for a while. I'm on to a few popular fiction series now, one of them thanks to Brunner. That one is Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, and while they're totally cheesy they're a lot of fun and the library has like all fifteen of them. I'm also reading Kathy Reichs's books, the woman on whom the tv show Bones is based-- they're really good, and since I'm a big fan of show I'm enjoying them.

For the next couple of weeks, though, I'm going to be boning up on my Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child books-- the DeKalb County Library is bringing them for the Arts Festival weekend!!! Preston and Child, for those of you who don't know, are two of my favorite authors-- they co-write a great series of mystery thrillers that are quite Holmesian. Preston wrote some contemporary science-based stuff back in the day, one of my favorite books in middle/high school was his called "Hot Zone" about an ebola outbreak, and another I can't remember the name of about an anthrax-like virus. Child I only discovered recently, but he does sci-fi type stuff also based on contemporary science. They both do a lot of references to "real" literature, which is nice for dorky people like me.

Anyway, we got a chance to talk to Valerie and Ana on Friday night which was really nice. I know I like talking to them, and I know Jeremy really misses them a lot. Ana's getting so big, and she knows all the different parts of her body and can say a few words now. She's definitely getting in to the two year old parrot thing, Valerie called for Matt to come get her and she ran off going, "Maaaatt! Maaaatt!"

Went to the beach on Saturday with Ron and Kathy and the seat belt wore the sunblock off our shoulders and we both got pretty sunburned. Our legs were burned, and the tops of our feet, too! The beach was really nice, though, and we got to see some really cool rocks-- high tide obviously lasts a while because there is some massive algae growth, some of the rocks look like they have beards! After the beach, we went back and went swimming in the pool at the campsite where Ron and Kathy live. The water was a little chilly, but I can take cold water in a pool better than in the ocean-- the ocean is supposed to be warm! We had pizza for dinner and went back to the house to relax and watch a movie.

Sunday we didn't do much of anything, it was just a hang around and be lazy day. Jeremy looked at tools and toolboxes online (the Sears website is SO slow!) and I took a little nap after a while, we went and had lunch at Panda Express because they've a) got air conditioning and b) got some pretty good (and spicy!) food we like. Plus, you can feed two people for $7.50 if you want to be stuffed-- we usually just get two entrees, but we went for three since I hadn't eaten (Jeremy had some pizza before he went to church) that morning.

Drove back Monday and made great time-- when I got back, I realized that the storm I went through last time added almost TWO HOURS on to my trip!! In. sane.

Work's been decent the last couple nights, though I'm a little worried about tonight-- we have tornado warnings! Last night was surprisingly good considering it was Cinco de Mayo, which Americans celebrate more than Mexicans do... It was a strange night in the neighborhood, actually. The Mexican place across the street had a band that played "La Bamba" and then went on to play some Janis Joplin and Willie Nelson... Mezcalitos intermittently played Mariachi music, and we went with an XM station called Caliente which turned out to be a lot of fun-- they played some cheesy ballads, some Mariachi, some Reggaeton, some pop, it was a blast.

That's about all for now, really. I'm still on Desperate Housewives and Spooks as far as Netflix goes, and will be watching The Savages and The White Countess later this week. Quantum of Solace is still on looooong wait, The Human Stain, Namastey London, Venture Brothers, Northern Exposure, Sherlock: Case of Evil, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Reader are also all on wait, if you were wondering. I'm not sure when I'll ever get to see Quantum of Solace since it's been on wait since it came out! I'm keeping it at the top of my queue, so one of these days...

Ciao for now, all-- more later this week!