Lily

Lily has been being super cute lately. Here's an example:



I was in the bathroom yesterday getting ready for work and she curled up in the sink and just laid there xD! She was in there for like 15 minutes. This is the first time she's done that. Other times she'll curl up in shoe boxes and laundry baskets.





A few weeks ago I was folding laundry, and she was in the laundry basket, so I started putting clothes in the basket:

She didn't feel like moving xD She was in the laundry basket like that for like 20 minutes. It was hilarious to me, so I took a pic.

She does stuff like that all the time, and it's super cute. I rarely have my camera with me when she does something cute, so these are just examples of how super cute she can be.

The other day she had her toy in her mouth (here's a pic of her FAVORITE toy):

It's a fish that hangs from a string that we move around and she loves to chase it. It has a bell or rattle or something inside it so it makes noise too. Anyway, she always carries her fish into the bedroom when it's time for bed. Anyway, she had her toy in her mouth, and tried to meow while it was in her mouth. One of the fins got caught on her bottom tooth some how and it was hanging off her mouth while she meowed. I was almost dying of laughter. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it. It was priceless, and I doubt I'll ever be able to get a picture of it, because it probably won't happen again.

Yay

We've got Mark all enrolled in school and his schedule set up. Hallelujah. I'm glad it's done. School will be starting next month. It's really weird for Mark going back to school, but it's best in the long run.

We're also looking into moving to Gladstone when our lease ends. Gladstone will be a perfect middle between our jobs. We just need to find a place to live. We don't really care to live in an apartment again. A duplex would be okay, but I would rather a house. Whatever it is we need 2 bedrooms because one bedroom just plain isn't enough space any more. It's a pain trying to look for houses for rent. All the searches I do pull up apartments for rent, not houses.

We're just going to have to drive around Gladstone and look around.

Another Update

Well, there's still not really a whole lot going on for us right now. We had our 1 1/2 year anniversary on June 8. I can't believe it will be 2 years in December, it really doesn't seem that long. Where has the time gone!?

Mark's going back to school. He was officially accepted to the Business & Technology MCC. All that's left to do is take the placement test, set up a schedule, and of course, pay tuition and all that good stuff. It's kinda hard to get used to him in school and I imagine it will take us both quite a bit of getting used to...it'll all be for the best in the long run though.

Nothing much has changed for me. I've still got that promotion thing where I'm a mentor. They are hiring for Team Lead position (which is kind of what mentors are trained in a bit, but team leads are never on the phone with customers unless a customer wants to talk to a supervisor...if they're on the phone, it's with fellow co-workers.) Unfortunately for that position, you have to have CSG/inbound training, which I don't have. (and probably won't have until November or so when I'm done being a mentor.) Right now team leads schedules stink too. They have alternating days off based on which week it is. I think that's terrible, I'd much rather have my scheduled days off so I know all the time what my schedule is going to be like.

I was looking through remodeling things the other day, and now I really want to have a house. (I wanted one before, but I really want one now.) I was about to go into my kitchen and tear it apart so Mark can build drawers in the cabinets xD. I had to stop looking at remodeling/kitchen pictures.

Here's one of the kitchens I was looking at...

I LOVE all the cabinets and drawers. I want one so much...and Mark can build cabinets like that. We'd probably have to save up for it, but it would be neat to have cabinets built by Mark in the kitchen. Plus there's tons of storage space...and since they're drawers you can measure them out just right to fit plates and cuts and pans and all that stuff in the drawer instead of an entire cabinet! What an awesome idea! (As you might be able to guess, I'm extremely excited about that idea xD)

I was also looking up some stuff about "green" remodeling (Actually, I think it was a headline on yahoo.com or msn.com or something, and sometimes I read the articles) Anyway, they had a video of how they make "green" countertops. O_O! I WANT ONE! They're really pretty, and they pretty much make them out of recycled colored bottles and then resin. Here's a pic:

I actually think that counter top is kind of ugly, but I couldn't find another pic that showed what it really looks like. If I got to make my own, it would probably be either blue colored pieces, green colored pieces, or blue and green colored pieces. And it cleans like glass...seriously, you use glass cleaner to clean it. AND it's economy friendly. (I'm not one of those "green" fanatics, but I think this is a super idea, and I like how it looks...in fact, I think it looks nicer than traditional counter tops. It's pretty expensive though, I don't remember how much.

Too bad it's so expensive to become economy-friendly. If they had economy friendly items at the same prices as the other things, I'm sure more people would buy them. When people barely have enough money to live how they're living now, they don't really care if they're buying the "green" lawn mower...they just want something that works at a cheap price.

Oh, speaking of the "green" lawn mower. Here's what it looks like:

According to a news report, it only costs like $5 a YEAR to run! It doesn't use any gas. That's awesome. Anyway, that's the latest I'm interested in in green products I've heard about so far. I want a "green" lawn mower without a doubt...when we have a place that actually has a lawn we need to mow.

Update

Well, life has been pretty much the same for us since the last update. I got a promotion/temporary job at work. For those who don't know, I work in a call center for an alarm company. I'm now a mentor, which pretty much means I help people do their job better. I have to be on the phone (doing my normal job) for at least 51% of the time...the rest of the time I can be used on assist (which is pretty much when someone has a question, they call assist, so I answer questions.) I LOVE doing assist. It's so much fun. I will be doing mentor sessions, where I work one-on-one with someone, or with a small group, depending on what kind of session it is.
A few of the sessions are:
new hire
alarms per hour
QA
New hire we go through the new hire packet and give them tip sheets. Usually these are in small groups, the rest are one-on-one sessions.
alarms per hour, exactly as it sounds...we give them tips to raise their alarms handled per hour.
QA, Quality Assurance, we try to give them tips to do better on QA, such as get all required wording in their phone call.
I had training on Tuesday and Wednesday, and there's me and 3 other mentors. Training was pretty much going over info we already knew and a few other things that we need to know, like how to look up information, change information, etc.
When we're on the assist phone, we're considered supervisors (that includes taking escalated calls if it's needed.) We get to be mentors until November, as long as we meet or exceed the standards, like we have to have a high alarms per hour, good QA, good compliance (which means working when your schedule says you should be working), etc.
I think being a mentor is going to be lots of fun. I haven't really had any sessions yet, since we just got done with training. I did shadow a mentor, which was kinda interesting...it was good to see first-hand what they do and be able to ask questions.

As for Mark's job, he's currently considered an employee of a temp agency. Their plan is to hire him on as a full time employee for them. YAY! :D! He filled out, and put in an application not long ago. We aren't exactly sure when they're going to take him on full time though. Mark is also considering going back to school. The MCC Business and Technology school is literally right down the street from where Mark works. Hopefully we can get him enrolled for the fall semester. (He's not really sure what he wants to do...so he's going to try to explore some options.)
Well, that's the lastest.

Kia Update

Well, we got our Kia back yesterday like 30 minutes before Mark had to leave for work, so he got to test drive it to work. Everything seems to be fixed (hallelujah!) although it ended up costing quite a bit more than we'd expected...oh well, if it doesn't need work for a long time then it'll be worth it.

Mark went to 2nd shift on Monday (the beginning of this week) so I drove him to work, where he was like 1 1/2 hours early, and then I went to work. I get off earlier than him, so when it was time to pick him up, I was a little bit early. It worked out, but I'm so glad we have both vehicles back. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have a job, but with both of us having jobs and having to be to different places at the same time doesn't work well with one vehicle.

We got a digital converter thing for our TV (since we don 't have cable or satellite) that is supposed to be done before February 2009. (The government gives you up to 2 coupons for $40 off, each coupon...so we went and got 2 converters. They were $10.63 each, which isn't bad. I unplugged it yesterday cause it was messing up the show I was watching. So much for that. Hopefully by the time everything is digital it isn't messing up any more. I read reviews on some of the converters and thought we chose some pretty good ones...maybe I got a faulty one or something?

Anyone who hasn't heard about this, you can request the coupons online...Go to this website for more details: https://www.ntiadtv.gov/home.cfm You can also request the coupons from there...that's how I requested mine. It did take them like 2 months to send them, so if you want to have the converter before time runs out, apply for them asap. (At least it took them like 2 months to send it to me.) When they mail you the coupons they also send you a list of which boxes are compatible with the coupons and a list of retailers near you that accept the coupons.

Vehicle troubles are terrible.

We took our Kia to the shop yesterday so they could fix the thing that makes the car decide if it should stay in 2 wheel drive or 4 wheel drive. The shop called us yesterday and told us they don't think that's the problem, but they can't find it. They have to tear the entire thing apart to try and find the problem, and then let us know from there what the problem is, the price, and how long it will take to fix it. Also, most places don't sell Kia parts, so they have to go directly to the Kia dealership for parts (which means they will most likely cost more.)

They were supposed to get back to us today about what they find, but we haven't heard anything yet. I can hardly wait until we have 2 vehicles again. It's extremely hard to work out of one vehicle, especially when our schedules are so different.