The slamming of the door....

As you may recall, the recently promoted so now he is my boss's boss at Peyton PHlaCe is not someone I have a whole lot of respect for...


Not sure that above statement has any grammatical accuracy whatsoever, but I am past caring right now, so if you have a problem with it, you are welcome to move onto another more grammatically correct blog...


But I digress....


Boss's boss now has to replace his former position...


Which is a senior manager position....


However, when he first took that position, it was a lowly manager position...


So he has posted it as such....


He started out that way, so should everyone else....


Except that the position actually grew into a senior management position over the years...


It did not just happen to get a new title because he was so good at what he did....


By the time he left it, the number of people he managed actually evolved into groups of people, with lowly managers leading them...


Supposedly the candidate that he favors for this senior management position that he has posted as a lowly management position has called him on it....


So the position is on hold....


Or so he says....


Apparently, a the posted position has been un-posted and a new senior management position has been posted....


A fact which the non-favored candidates stumbled upon by accident...


And are now wondering if they need to reapply...


Or if they will even be considered qualified for a senior position....


But not my worry....


I did not apply for the position...


I just try to stay out of his way...


Which is a lil tough sometimes...


Literally....


The other day as I was coming back into the area of the office where my desk is located....


As I am reaching out to open the door at the top of the stairs...


The door comes flying open ....


Nearly hitting me in the face...


I had to jump back to avoid the hit...


Yeah , it was SSOB...


No apologies...


No slowing down...


I am on a mission, he says, as he flies down the stairs...


Maybe I should not have moved back so fast...


Would a flattened face be worth a few weeks away from the office?

I'm addicted.....

I admit that I have an addicting personality....


I also claim to be able to control most of my addictions....


For example, I love to smoke...


Once I started I was finding quite a few excuses to smoke....


To be doing something with my hands....


To stay awake while driving home at night...


To get an extra 15-minute break at work....


But smoking is an expensive habit....


So I have curbed it....


Now I have committed myself to only smoke when I am drinking with smoker friends who are providing the smokes....


That is working out pretty well so far....


Tho it seems some of my smoker friends are trying the same tactic....


No  one seems to have cigs on them anymore....


Then there's my sex and street drug addictions....


I think I have those under control, too...


It is hard to tell at times....


But I digress...


In February, a friend asked me to go visit a nearby casino with her...


I took just a few bucks that I could afford to lose....


In case I found that I liked to gamble uncontrollably....


Which I do....


Well, did....


Now I have it under control....


Really.....


Have you heard about the new cyber cafes?


They offer a great cup of coffee...


And provide an outlet for my newest addiction....


Which I have under control...


Really...


I'll explain how....


A lil later...


Right now, I am headed out to find a good cup of coffee.

Bad Car Week

Having recently invested over $1400 in car maintenance, I was not happy to see my Check Engine light light....

I was even less happy that the POS was idling rough and stalling once it was warmed up....

Yeah....

I have seen these problems before....

Usually the CO light goes off by itself after a few tanks of gas....

Not this time...

And once the weather outside settles down, idling smooths....

Usually...

Not so this time...

What the weather outside has to do with the smoothness of the idling process is beyond me...

But then, I am no mechanic....

Not by a long shot....

I was planning on waiting a week or so to get all of this stuff fixed or at least looked at...

Because by then G-Man will have moved home from college for the summer....

And I would be able to share his car while mine was being diagnosed/fixed....

Well, best laid plans...

I got a call from G-Man that his car was causing problems when he was trying to shift into/out of gear....

He had been using the parking brake to keep it in Park...

But now he could not get it into any gear....

And yes, he did check to make sure there was transmission fluid in the reservoir...

So he had it towed...

And apparently it is not worth fixing...

But he can make $250 if he scraps it...

Cool....

We can use that money to get my POS fixed....

So we can share my POS...

Until it needs scrapping...

I'll drink to that....

It's not like I really need a reason to drink...


My wreck of a life is full of them...


But more on that later....


Right now I thought I would share this with you...


Because I do not want any of you suffering from coronary heart disease unnecessarily....


Drink up; alcohol can be good for your heart


It was in the news....


It must be true...

Waking up to a One Cup Connection...

Awhile back I posted about the health benefits of coffee....

And this morning as I was going to get that first cup that I needed so bad, I realized that I have some easy blog fodder that I meant to post last week...

A reader (yes, I actually have a few of those left) saw my 600th post and sent me a link to her company's page....

One Cup Connection...

A place to buy coffee and coffee machines....

Keurig brewers to be more precise....

My reader asked me to promote her site and she sent me some text to use "as is" if I want....

And since I have not had the chance to actually drink that first cup of coffee this morning...

I want...

So....

Without further ado....

Do any of you use a Keurig brewer?

Did you know that "keurig" is actually derived from the Dutch word for excellence? (I have a special place in my heart for the Dutch, well one Dutchman, anyway. ~Phillipia)

One Cup Connection carries some of the most popular one cup coffee machines and has a wide selection of K-Cups. (I'm a D-cup myself, but that post is for another time. ~Phillipia)

You can find the sales and deals on the specials page.

Don’t forget to swing by One Cup Connection's Facebook page for their latest promotions!

I am thinking that Island Coconut flavor looks pretty good...

Happy Easter!

Apart from commemorating the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, Easter gives us a chance to connect with friends and relatives and spend some quality time with our kids.


I like to concentrate on connecting with family and friends...


And spending time with my three wonderful kids and their significant others....


I think I commemorated enough when I was growing up...


But however you choose to celebrate....


Have a wonderful Easter Sunday!


And a sincere thanks to all the chocolate bunnies who are sacrificing their lives for us today...

Just because I do not call....

Damn it has been a trying week....


But now the trial has ended....


And the verdict is in....


My brothers have disowned me...


Again....


Yes, again....


My brothers have chosen to not talk to each other and/or me and/or my parents for long stretches so many times over the years that I have lost track of who they were talking to when....


I am not quite sure how it started this time....


But apparently I started it....


A little background....


Brother1 and I have never been really close ...


Brother2 and I shared a close bond for a couple years during college....


Our parents were very strict catholic parents....


And to hear my brothers talk, we were abused so bad  - not physically, but emotionally - that they had to move away and disown family to get past it....


And I am still not past it...


According to them.....


Because I have not moved away...


Or disowned my parents....


Or both....


I have my head in the sand....


According to them....


And that is why my life is a wreck....


According to them...

Brother2 has been on a "let's get back together and act like family (but without the parents 'cuz they are the reason we are estranged) kick" for the past couple of years...

I have not been playing along the way he would like...

So back to exactly what I did this time....


Brother1 had a health scare last year and shared that info with Brother2....


Brother1 asked Brother2 to not share this info with me....his right....


Except Brother2 did share with me and told me not to tell my parents....


As a Mom, that was really hard for me....


Everytime I talked to my Mom over the next few weeks, I hurt for her....


When Brother1 decided to tell me what he was going through (via email) I emailed back that I was sorry he was going through this and I was praying for him....


And I then told my Mom because he did not say not to....


And when I told him I told Mom he made it clear he did not want to hear from her....


Like I control what she does.... 


But I did keep her posted how he was doing...because she asked...


And when she asked if I thought it would be ok for her to call, I told her she might want to wait for him to tell her....  


Because I kept in touch with Brother1 and his wife via email and asked how tests and treatment were going and let him know I was praying for him. (BTW, he came through with a clean bill of health and his active life was back to normal within a few months)....


I could have called....


But my cell phone service from home sucks...as you know if you follow me....


And I no longer have a landline...


Which is fine by me....because I would much rather email and facebook chat ...


I really rarely call anyone....


Even my Mom...email and chat is good enough for her...


And phone conversations with my brothers are always stressful....


Because I never know when they will start whining about/bashing our past and our parents and my relationship with my parents...


And because it is rude to hang up on them but I can choose not to read parts of emails that bash me or my parents....


Anyway, over the next few months, I noticed that Brother2 was contacting me less than usual...


And then recently I realized Brother2's wife was no longer my friend on FB (Brothers are not on FB)....


She was still on FB, I did check that...


So I replied to one of her forwarded chain emails with some chit chat and also that I noticed that we were no longer FB friends ....I told her I was not sure if she defriended me or if I accidentally defriended her....if I did I did not mean to, but I would leave it up to her to friend request....


She answered my other chit-chat, but made no mention of FB and did not send a new friend request...


So, yeah, I figured something was up....


And I asked myself how much I cared...


Again, I have enough stress in my life...


In fact, I was in the ER with G-Man till 3:30 AM Tuesday morning...


Because he hurt his back again...


So I was realllly tired and cranky when I got to work Tuesday morning...


And my first missed email was from Brother2...


Getting stuff off his chest....


Telling me how he lost respect for me because I did not call my brother last summer...


And he knows it is because Mom said I shouldn't and he is hurt that I keep letting her come between us....


Uh, NEWSFLASH.....


I quit doing what my parents said about the time I moved out of their house 20 some years ago...


But for some reason, my brothers refuse to believe that....


Every time I react to something in a way they think is not right, they insist that it is my parents' doing.


And because I will not admit that....


They think it is their duty to beat it into me (with words) how Mom ruined our lives growing up and how I continue to let her ruin my life (which is a wreck, as you know)....


I love my brothers, but my life has enough stress in it....


And I choose not to blame my past or my  parents or even  my ex for my shortcomings....


Or rehash where it all went wrong over and over and over again.....


I choose to have a civil relationship with my parents....


Because they are my parents and I do love them...


Even tho I do not agree with everything they do....


I choose to believe that my parents were doing what they thought was right when they were raising us...


It is not like we were beaten daily or locked in closets or ....


And I chose not to believe my mom is some evil person with evil intent in everything she does....


No matter how hard my brothers try to convince me otherwise...


WTF....


Just let it go is all I ask....


Brothers, you do not have to talk to your parents....your choice...


I do not try to change that....


I choose to talk them....my choice...


If we cannot drop this line of conversation and find other things to talk about, I guess then we are done....


Because I choose not to rehash and not to be bashed via phone or email....


My choice...


Well for Brother2 anyway...


Brother1 made it clear this week that he did not want to hear from me again and will be relegating any future emails from me to the trash...


Ok.....


And Brother2 says he will not initiate contact with me again..


But...


When I choose to realize what is wrong with my life and want to talk with him I can do so...


By phone...


Not email...


Because it is obvious I share everything with Mom...


OK.....


Well, we all know how much I love to make phone calls....

Just thought I should share....

While I cannot take credit for the studies...


I can share the findings...

Recent studies revealed that the kind of man a woman finds attractive can differ...

Depending on the time of month....
For example...

If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged, masculine features.

However....

If she is in the other time of month...

Or....and especially....

If she is menopausal...

She tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth...

And an axe lodged in his forehead...

While he is on fire....

No further studies are expected.

Just for the record....

I concur with these findings....

It has been a busy week...

Worked Sunday  - Thursday Morning...


Then took off for a girls' weekend:)


With...


A lil Wine....


A lot of cheese....


Some shrimp pizza....


Canoli...


Hot Tub Time....


Lots of movies....


Sight seeing...


Picking out houses whose owners we intended to befriend...


Looking for "the one" ....


He may be hot....


He may be rich.....


He is single....


He may be old and/or ugly and rich....


He may travel a lot for business....


We just want to live in his house...

Sitting in the hot tub on the deck....
Overlooking the lake....
Taking in the view....

He drives a big truck...


With a lot of power...


So much power we could not seem to catch up with him...


Or any of his friends....


WTF, slow down...


We just want to get to know ya...

So why am I not thin????

Study: Americans Get Majority Of Exercise While Drunk

The week that was....

I just realized that it has been a week since I last posted....

And since one of my New Year's resolutions was to post more often - at least once a week...

And since, for once in my life, I would like to keep at least one of my effin resolutions...

I am here to post...

Which begs the question...

Why did I not post at all last week?

You really probably do not want to know...

But here it is...

I am still in a really grumpy mood....

The feeling sorry for myself kind of grumpy mood....

I need to get my life back on track...
Get a plan in place and stick with it....
Ride my bike more often...
Lose some of that ugly fat I have accumulated over the last few years...
Quit feeding my depression with food and shopping....
Quit spending and start saving....
Meet someone to share my life with...

You know the winter blah grumpy mood that does not make for good humor writing...

I have been taking my good old time getting out of it this year...

Hopefully something or someone will kick my butt out of this soon...

In the meantime, thanks to FishHawk over at As the Cracker Head Crumbles for including me in his Sunday Drive this week...

Check him out...

When I was a kid...

First, a disclaimer...


I cannot take credit for this...


But thanks to CoachRick for forwarding this to me....


He cannot take credit either, but he did forward it...


It is just too funny not to share...


So I am sharing...

Adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were:

When I was growing up...
I had to walking twenty-five miles to school every morning....
Uphill...
Barefoot...
BOTH ways...
Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself....

 When I grow up, there is no way in hell I am going to lay a bunch of crap like this on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of ....

I cannot help but look around and notice the youth of today.

And I have to say...

You've got it so easy!

Compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

When I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! I had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then I had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends had permission to kick our ass, too! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If I wanted to steal music, I had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it myself!

Or I had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and eff it all up!

There were no CD players! I had a tape deck in my first car. I'd play my favorite tape and then try to eject it; try being the key word, because most of the time the tape would come all undone and that was the last time I heard that song for awhile...

I never had Call Waiting either! If I was on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, end of story!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If I left the house, I just didn't make a damn call or receive one. Out of the house meant out of touch...with everyone....

And Caller ID had not been not invented yet! When the phone rang, we had no idea who it was! It could be our school, our parents, our boss, our bookie, our drug dealer, the collection agent. We just had to pick it up and take our chances...

We had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! We were screwed when it came to channel surfing! We had to get off our ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!!

There was no Cartoon Network either! We could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! 

My parents told me to stay outside and play... all day long. And if I came back inside I was doing chores - lots of chores!

And car seats....Oh, please! Mom threw us in the back seat and we hung on. If we were lucky, we got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last second if Mom had to stop too fast; and if our head hit the dashboard, well that was our own fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

Thanks again CoachRick....

For helping me remind our kids just how good they have it....

Faded memories....

The triple tragedy in Japan dislodged this life changing memory...

At my previous job...

For a company that wrote banking software...

Before Peyton PHlaCe...

Several years ago....

In September 2011 to be more exact....

I was preparing to train some coworkers on some of the finer points of Microsoft Office...

We had one conference room in this office.

It was pretty nice...

Several computer stations and a big screen t.v....

I was just getting ready to set it up for my training session...

It was a little before 9:00 AM on Sept 11th....

When, as you know, everything went to shit....

Suddenly the conference room was chaos....

People running in and out, watching the events unfold and  frantically trying to get in touch with relatives, friends, and clients who lived/worked in NY.

Everyone was an  emotional wreck...

I naturally canceled my training...

Or tried to...

My boss did not understand...

Work must go on she told me....

OMG...these people do not NEED this training to do their job...

It was something SHE insisted they learn...

I tried to reason with her that they were in no frame of mind to learn...

Nor I to teach...

I ended up having to flat out refuse to hold the class...

I was not going to shut off the tv and kick everyone out of the room....

Obviously she did not have friends/relatives living in NY...

Or compassion for those who did....

Or so I thought....

A couple of days later, suddenly, she becomes very compassionate...

She set up numerous fund raisers to help the victims of 911...

And she insisted on 100% participation....

She developed ongoing 50-50 office bingo...

While we were supposed to be working....

Winning numbers were being announced every few seconds by email...

The winner "won" 50% of the total amount collected to participate...

The other 50% went to some designated charity...

And most of the time the winner's share went to the charity too because they were shamed into it...

Too bad I never won - I would have kept my share...

Just because I do not like to be shamed into charity...

Another one of her great ideas that month was a sweater sale...

Her used - unwanted sweaters...

All profits go to 911 victims...

Unfortunately the lady had a really bad, really noticeable dandruff problem....

 So the sweaters were not only unwanted by her....

They were unwanted...

Being my boss, she assigned me the task of organizing this sale...

I flat out refused....

Notice a pattern here???

I am not a good employee....

She found another underling who was a little more cooperative....

And who bought most of the sweaters herself....

I am pretty sure I noticed them in the trash bin on the way out that evening....

But I digress....

I have a late September birthday....

I had heard rumors that this boss was known to give good presents to her employees...

And take them to awesome places to lunch...

I had bad feelings about this...

I did not want to go to lunch with her....

Especially since the last birthday girl had the privilege of sharing an afternoon at the spa with this lady....

I do not do spas....

At least not with people I do not like...

I am not pretty in a towel...

And I am pretty sure she is not either....

But I was lucky...

No spa day for me...

The events of 911 saved me from that....

On my birthday, she presented me with a check in front of the entire staff....

A check  for  $50 made out to the charity of the day....

Everyone clapped and thanked me and wished me a happy birthday....

And I smiled and proceeded to my desk to send a thank you note to my boss....

Thank you for your generous gift.  I know your birthday is next month and I hope you understand that I have a  rule about not buying coworkers gifts...
Not for birthdays....
Not for holidays...
Not ever....

And then I proceeded to update my resume....

You are probably thinking that I am a pretty selfish bitch about now....

I really am not...

I do give to charities...

But I prefer to give what I want to give...

To who I want...

When I want....

I do not appreciate being conned or shamed into it...

Especially in the work place...