Coming Home

I'm coming home, coming home, tell the world that I'm coming home.

Not that I'm excited or anything. I'm ready for a break. I need a break. Sooooo bad. I had a psychotherapist customer the other day (she therapizes dreams) and we had a discussion about what my dreaming about selling phones meant.

"Your subconscious is calling you and you're trying to get rid of it by selling it. What do you suppose it's calling you about?" she asked.

I made a flippant remark of course, because no one really likes being therapist-ed in their place of business, but it got me thinking. It's saying I need a break, and I'm refusing to listen.

Yesterday, the ill-fated Friday the 13th, wasn't quite so bad as all that (I actually had a decent day numbers wise) except for one event right before I went to lunch. I had a guy return a phone.

Except I hadn't known he had returned the phone because the person who returned it didn't give me the courtesy heads-up. It's by no means a requirement, but it's just the right thing to do and we all do it. Unless of course you don't return the favor. So I wasn't able to ask him, "Hey, what's up? You spent an hour yesterday deciding this was the right phone for you, what's the deal?" and we could have avoided the whole situation.

Because what that other rep didn't know that I knew, was that his original phone had a blown speaker, so there had to be a hinky reason if he "just wanted to go back to his Blackberry."

And then the guy was back to re-buy the phone. He had received bad information from an asshat who had no business giving out that information in the first place. *Hand to face* The problem with re-purchasing the phone was that the gentleman in question had used an "early upgrade" and if you return the device you used the early upgrade for and don't just exchange it for something else, that early upgrade goes away and you have to wait until your actual upgrade date.

Sound confusing?

Don't worry, it is.

Bottom line was that what should have been a nice guy enjoying a nice 16GB white iPhone turned into a 3-ring circus where I lost a sale, got hit on my return ratio, he had to be on the phone for an hour with customer care to get his upgrade back, he ate $55, and I still ended up selling that nice guy an iPhone. Again. But we were out of the white ones. So he had to get a black one.

Oh well.

Just promise me, that if you have Verizon and someone tells you something that sounds too good to be true, run it by me first. Please. Because while I don't know everything, I have the tools to help you find out if it's true or not. And I would love to help you do that.

And sometimes it isn't too good to be true. Usually it is a really really good deal.

But then there's that one time it is.

The moral of the story is that from the bottom of my heart, I want your day to go smoothly. I don't want to see anyone have to deal with what my customer had to deal with yesterday. Part of it was that the right questions weren't asked, but they shouldn't have had to been asked in the first place. There were a number of places where someone should have said, "Hold up, wait a minute..." and it never happened.

I guess what I'm just trying to say is that I work for a fantastic company, but like the rest of the world, we have good days and bad days, smart people and not-so-smart people and you have to give us a little credit for being human — and I don't mind at all if you have a question. I'll do my best to answer it or direct you to someone who can.

Ciao,
kc

Dear Mommy

This post is for you.

1. You are the best mother a girl could ask for.

2. You care if I blog, you call me if I forget.

3. You laugh with me over the horror that are the new Necco Sweethearts (because really, chalk tastes so much better than soap and it's just a travesty that they changed their darned recipe).

4. You get so excited when sister and I come see you.

5. One of my favorite memories is us surprising you with her last summer and you crying with happiness to have us both at once because it was just the best surprise ever. (And we were super super sneaky and proud of ourselves that we had managed to surprise you, because somehow, you know everything...often even before we know it ourselves.)

6. (That's a mommy trick isn't it? Knowing everything?)

7. I love the way you sing pop songs as if you listen to them all the time. ("So what/I'm still a rock star/I've got my rock moves...")

8. I love that because of you, I've started making lasagna to take with me when I visit people who don't cook or I prepare it ahead of time when I'm gone for the weekend so that when I get back I don't have to cook.

9. Because of you, lasagna is inevitable.

10. I love that you have made me (in part, 'cause Dad helped too) the person I am today, because I really like her and I couldn't have done it without you.

11. I love it that I got it from my mama.

12. Happy Mother's Day, Mommy. I'll see you in a week.

Love,
kc

A day of sun

Yesterday was gorgeous. It reminded me of San Luis Obispo with it's deep blue sky, 70+ degree weather and it's ability to sunburn formerly-unsunburnable people like me whom have been in the pale of winter so long that our skin has quite forgotten what the hell tan lines are.

Instead of cleaning the house in preparation for boyfriend's return (he was at a ski patroller conference...yes, they have those...all week) I decided it was too good a day to stay inside and did some spring planting (that in all honesty will probably just freeze in the next week, but It got me outside), read my book in the sun, opened every single window in my house, took a trip to Urgent Care with my dear friends Andy and Sara because Andy enjoyed the sun in the form of a really long run and had an allergic reaction to his protein drink mixed with the abundant, sunshiney pollen and the exhaustion from the heat and his 2 hour run - his eyes swelled nearly shut, puffy whites and all, we made the decision to see the doc than take a walk. And I finished off my day with a bike ride to Pilot Butte (1.5 miles from my house) a run UP Pilot Butte (1 mile up, 1 mile down) and making dinner for boyfriend upon his return.

It's supposed to rain today, which has put a decided damper on my former plans to ski and hike, as the sky is decidedly gloomy and the house still needs to be cleaned...

Ciao,
kc

NWM 10.16.11

I know I've been super super lax, and I apologize because this is going to be super super short, I'm just super super excited because...

I run to be.

AND I'M IN!

The Nike Women's Half is kind of a big deal. There's a lottery to get in. Sexy firemen give out Tiffany necklaces at the end to all the finishers. I'm only a little excited.

Try a LOT!

Ciao,
kc

The little things

So I finished a project that's long overdue. I won't tell you what it is or who it is for, but see if you can guess.

I love love love this fabric (and the shop I bought it from!). It's a whole series of fabric (13 colors and patterns, which was the number I needed for this pattern!) that's just adorable. Adorable adorable. And it's backed in super super soft flannel, because let's face it, that's just the way all things should be made.

I've got a number of other projects on my list for this weekend, but this was the most important.

Oh, that and making a dent in the accumulated laundry pile. Hurrah for getting a washer last weekend, sad day for not having a dryer. Hang-drying sheets in the house is a bitch. Oh well, right? At least it's just hang-drying and not hand-washing. In the summer it won't be so bad, we can line dry outside. Right now it's just a pain though.

Now I shall amuse you with two pictures of my kitty cat doing odd things. She's currently circling my chair demanding attention. Or just talking. Considering how much she meows, we think she just likes the sound of her own voice.

You DIDN'T want me to help with the laundry? Are you sure?

Must...get...loved...by...Tyler...too bad he takes up so much of the bed.

Ciao,
kc

Egg's Lament

Today I have no pictures, but I felt like it was time to write again. I ought to have pictures, considering the baking frenzy I had on Monday, but for some reason, the camera never made it downstairs.

It's interesting the blockade stairs put on things.

I baked an Angel Food Cake from scratch, which is actually very easy, but it leaves you with all of these egg yolks because you use a dozen egg whites, and I'm too...erm...natural? to use the already separated ones.

Yes folks, that's right. I separate my own egg whites.

But then I had these yolks staring sadly at me from the lonely carton where I had left them swimming in the remainder of their shells.

Shells of themselves, really.

(I'm so punny sometimes...yolk yolk yolk).

And they looked so lonely and sad.

And I had these beautiful lemons that I was going to use for dinner, but I had five lemons which was really overkill, because I could really make due with just one or two for dinner. They had just been so beautiful at Trader Joe's that I got five.

I thought to myself, "Lemon bars use egg yolks, don't they?"

Surely enough they do. Seven, to be exact. Which didn't use all of the yolks, but seven is better than none.

So I made lemon bars. But no one got to eat those but me, because I just don't share lemon bars. I don't make any pretenses about sharing lemon bars. I just don't do it. Nope. All mine.

Well, I let boyfriend have two.


Which is quite generous, considering.


Ciao,
kc

Sucker Punch

I know, I know. It's been a while. But I've been busy. And as the end of the month nears, stress levels rise for me...not to mention we've been a veritable hotel around here with friends and family in and out all month (which we loved, but it makes for little time for blogging).

First things first, and please ignore the mess.

Guest room/library...still not finished

My office/craft room. The closet is full of my art supplies and to the left is my sewing machine.

Guest bathroom

Master bathroom, sorry, not pics of the walk-in closet. But there's a jack and jill sink as well (two).

Stairwell

View of living room from stairs. There's a fireplace on the right.

Kitchen from stairs.

Fireplace

My giant kitchen! Again, excuse the mess, it's a weekday!

Master bedroom

More master bedroom

What's that you say? A cat? No, surely you're mistaken. That's not a cat in those pictures.

Oh wait, maybe it is.

Meet Maddie.

 She's 3 years old, fully fixed, microchipped and freakin' adorable.

She sings to herself in the middle of the night in our bathroom. We think she likes the acoustics. Luckily, her meowing in the middle of the night is still adorable. Give it a week.

She's a super snuggler. Last night I dreamed I couldn't breathe, and woke up with her being very close: sleeping on my chest. She luuuuurves everything, and is quite the talker.

Oddly, she hates the camera. I had to take about a hundred pics to get one that wasn't blurry. She loves the attention, but not the clicking noise! She is our precious girl. Even boyfriend is a sucker. He picked her out, after all.

We went to just "look." He was in the doghouse, which is pretty much the only reason he agreed. I was confident that I could just look at the time, as the kitties we met initially, while precious, I felt no great attachment to. Then boyfriend found Maddie in the corner, purring away and doing "cute kitty tricks" and he was suckered. I picked her up and all she wanted to do was snuggle.

Now that she's warmed up to us, she's a great deal more independent and has a feisty streak (she spent a lot of time attacking our feet last night), but her number one priority is to still be in our laps whether we want it or not, and to be loved, adored, and the center of our attention every possible minute.

Goal number two is finding the most bizarre hidey holes.

Her first night here we went out to dinner and came back to find her chilling in her litter box. Now that she's used it for its purpose, she curls up under the sink next to it. Her other favorite place is in our closet under boyfriend's hanging shelves. There's a little nook there that she's a fan of.

But her most hilarious attribute is something boyfriend and I have dubbed her "sucker punch." She is quite determined in her quest for attention, and is a big fan of headbutts. She's almost taken out my teeth a couple times by leaping into my lap while I was taking a drink of something and head-butting my cup. That's not the sucker punch though.

The sucker punch is what she does in the middle of the night when you twitch just enough that she thinks you're awake. She head butts your face. Hard. At two a.m. it feels like someone's sucker punched you.

It's adorable.

Really.

Luckily she so damned cute.

Another funny story about our girlie is when we were bringing her home. The shelter ladies put her in her carry box about ten minutes before we were taking off, to give her time to settle a little before we picked it up and carted her off. Five minutes in the box and she had already busted a paw all the way to her shoulder through this tiny slit in the side of the box. We laughed, because she'd reach it out and swat any of the other kitties who were passing by.

"These boxes are supposed to be indestructible!" one of the shelter caretakers laughed. "Don't worry, she can't get out."

As we pulled into the parking lot of PetCo to supply our new lady with the critical items she needed, we heard a pop in the back seat. Little miss had busted her whole head and part of her shoulders through that tiny slit.

We briefly considered super-heroine names before concluding that there really weren't any good ones.

Boyfriend kept going to check on her to make sure she hadn't Houdini'd the rest of the way out of the box while we were in the store (and don't worry, we were responsible parents and cracked the windows and parked in the shade and were in the store for all of 15 minutes). Luckily, once she had reached a semblance of freedom, she was pretty content to stay in the box.

Anyways, I gotta go get ready for work now.

Ciao,
kc