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Archive for June, 2013

Dealing with Citi ... Again

June 17th, 2013 at 10:57 pm

Ugh. Please remind me to not sign up for any "reward" from a credit card that is offered as "statement credits" over a period of time. Back in September (I think) I signed up for the Citi offer giving you up to $9.95 statement credit for Netflix up to a year. It worked great for the first few months, and then I got an email telling me that I had an overdue balance. Say what?? So, I check it out - two months of Netflix had been charged within one statement period. I called Citi and they gave me a credit which fixed it.

Fast forward to yesterday. I again get an email telling me I have an overdue balance. Same thing had happened - two monthly charges on one statement. Again, I called and hashed it out with them. It took a lot longer this time, but they wiped out the balance due. I also asked that they make a note on my account so that I don't have to go through this yet again in October. (The problem is when there is a month with less than 31 days. Such as February or April.)

I will very happily be canceling this card as soon as the free year of Netflix is over. (I came close to just going ahead and cancelling the card as it was ... even though I'd lose out on $40 of free Netflix.)

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I redeemed Chase points today for a $51 statement credit.

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I also booked my hotel for my trip to NE using hotels com through Swagbucks. I'll be getting 6 SBs per dollar ($53!) I was going to book at a somewhat cheaper place, but they only allow dogs in their rooms. When I asked why no cats, the front desk guy was pretty rude. Now I wouldn't book there even if I didn't have Kari with me!

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NE sent me a link to a house/property near him that is $12k - 1900 sq ft/5 acres. The kitchen reminds me a little of my mom's parent's kitchen. The bathroom made me laugh though - normal toilet and sink, but a miniature do it yourself type shower. Smile Best of all though it's close enough to a city where you can get city Internet (instead of having to do Satellite.) He's not ready to buy anything yet, but this goes to show that there are some good options available. (He wants a country house with acreage to raise turtle/dig a pond, etc., with few neighbors nearby. Sounds good to me. Smile )

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I got laundry and dishes done yesterday, and so far nothing really done today. Ooops. Tomorrow I have to pack for CA and NE trips and try to leave the house in somewhat presentable shape.

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My walking partner and I went to town yesterday. I bought some more clothes at Walmart. I need to reign in the clothing spending here ...

After stepping on the scale this a.m., I also decided to quit the soda. I hate to think what the scale would look like if I wasn't walking most days...

Yay! Rain!

June 16th, 2013 at 03:56 am

Although we've had a "chance of rain" in the forecast for several weeks, tonight was the first time we've had "actual" rain! It's still coming down now. Smile

I talked to NE last night (and this afternoon too - bonus talk.. squee!! Big Grin ) He doesn't want to go there (aunt's in TN) until after July 3rd for a variety of reasons. So what it boils down to is no change in my plans for my CA trip.

In our phone conversation this afternoon NE mentioned Ronnie Milsap and was surprised when I told him I wasn't familiar with the name. Tonight I listened to a bunch of youtube videos of RM. I recognized a couple of the songs (Any Day was one.) Nice voice.

Didn't accomplish much today other than sleeping in and getting a walk in. Smile OH, did find my thing of pepper spray. Now just have to get it out of the package!

Tomorrow I plan to do laundry and dishes and sweep and scrub counters. Maybe take a load of stuff to the thrift store too. Will see if I actually get all that done. Smile

I checked at the PO today to see if the transfer papers for moving my 403b to a different company had arrived yet. Still not arrived. I hope they come by Tuesday so I can get it taken care of before I leave. Then I'm going to have to figure out how to distribute the funds. It'll all go into one index fund to start with, but I have enough total that I could buy into several different index funds. (Van)
The money I moved into that particular fund from my bank CD IRA has already earned $50 in 3? months time - so incredibly better than what it was doing in the bank CD IRA (earned $600 in 14 years...)

Possible Change in Plans

June 15th, 2013 at 12:01 am

This morning I got an email from NE telling me that he'd just found out that a favorite aunt is dying, and probably doesn't have too much longer. She's in TN. I emailed him back and told him that if he decides to go see her/go to funeral, to let me know if he'd like me to go with him. If that happens, then that may mean I won't get to CA this summer. My tickets are with Southwest, so I can always use them at another time. This is something I know he'd do for me, so I'm glad to be able to return the favor.

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Today was the last day of summer school for me. Yay! Smile Overall, I'd say the last two weeks weren't too bad - almost enjoyable. But no, I will not be asking to do it again next year!

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I took Kari to the vet today - had her nails clipped and had her weighed (9.2 lbs) The vet gave me a prescription for xxxxphodrine (something like that - don't have it in front of me.) He didn't charge me for an office visit, just the nail trimming and the meds - $18.xx Not bad!

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On the way back from the vet, I came *really* close to getting into what could've potentially been a *very* bad car accident. I really had been paying attention, and thought the way was clear enough for me to pull out and go ... but as soon as I was half-way out in the lane I saw the vehicle not even 50 feet away (probably less.) I kicked on my accelerator, and they probably slammed their brakes ... and we avoided each other. Our angels were watching out for us for sure!

Why I Don't Walk Alone in My Neighborhood

June 13th, 2013 at 02:34 am

Tonight it was finally cool enough to consider going for a walk again with my walking partner. As I was heading over to where we meet, a short black boxer type dog runs across the street from where it lives and bumps against the back of my knees. That was startling enough, but I also felt a sharp stab as he did this. I immediately stopped and looked, and saw that he'd broken my skin.

I then just kept on walking ignoring the dog. It was following me, and the child of the owner kept calling him back (which he ignored.) Finally I got to my walking partner, and the other dog left. (probably after getting a whiff of my walking partners bull mastiff!)

This is a not great picture of it. In the grand scheme of things, not that big of a deal/bite. It's more the principle of it that really irks me. (Not to mention that if the dog had *really* wanted to be aggressive/attack, I'd probably be in the hospital now with major leg wounds at the least.)



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One bit of great news -- the maintenance guys came by today and hooked up my swamp cooler! Yes!! I'm glad I didn't go spend money on an a/c unit.

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Cancer s*cks. I found out today that one of my friends from Pathways (a life improvement program I went through in 2006) has stage 2 breast cancer. She's the mom of two young kids. Frown

Consolidating .. in process

June 12th, 2013 at 12:42 am

Despite the heat yesterday I did manage to get one task accomplished .. or at least the beginning of it. I have a 403b from when I was teaching that has just been sitting at a particular company. So finally yesterday I made the call to the company I want to move it to, and the financial guy walked me through the process of moving it over. Now I just have to wait for the forms and mail them in. Once this move is over, I'll have my taxable/tax-deferred accounts at 3 institutions rather than 6 (like back in January.) I don't know yet if I'll consolidate further or not yet.

Only 3 days of summer school left! As much as I'm eager for it to be over, I am actually enjoying myself. I still have no desire however to repeat it next summer! We'll be getting our paychecks for summer school on the 25th - I've asked for mine to be mailed to NE so I don't have to worry about making it in to big G before leaving town. Thanks to the smartphone app, I can easily deposit it. Smile

I found a Bill Nye video on pollution which I'm going to play for the kids on Friday (thanks Youtube!)

This afternoon we had the grand opening of our neighborhood playground which was built this past weekend. It was quite fun seeing 70+ K - 8th grade students, plus 20+ neighborhood kids running around and enjoying the new equipment.

I stopped at Family Dollar today and bought a blackout panel which I've now nailed above my office window. I'm hoping that this will help both with privacy and with heat. I also bought two six packs of bubbles which I'm going to let the kids use tomorrow as a bit of a treat for good behavior during Mass the last two days. (We're having Mass everyday this week except Friday.) They also had a bunch of deodorants in the clearance bin - $.80 each. Smile

I am *hoping* that the swamp coolers will be turned on tomorrow ... I just can't get motivated to do much of anything with it so hot. There is so much I should be doing too ...

Hot!

June 10th, 2013 at 11:08 pm

Last night at 9 p.m. it was 82 outside, but inside my mobile home it was 95. One of my co-workers went and bought a window air conditioner unit because she just could not stand it. If I knew for sure how much longer it would be before the powers that be decide to hook up our swamp coolers, I might just do that myself ...

Seriously ridiculous. Take a 30+ minute COLD shower, step out, and am instantly sweltering again.

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Today was the first half-day of summer school for me. (kids still go full day - but volunteers take over for the afternoon.) That was nice - except that one of my students got sick during lunch, so I stayed with her until the dad came and picked her up.

I'd planned on getting stuff done today in my house, but with the heat, I just can't make myself. I did manage to get two loads of laundry done yesterday - which probably didn't help the heat inside (had to use the dryer for a few items.)

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Maybe good news! My friend/IT person who is battling lung cancer the second time around? Her latest report is saying that the tumor is shrinking with chemo -- so maybe she won't have to have surgery!!! She should know for sure in two weeks time.

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I got the last of my 5 $5 AGCs from SBs today. I have a healthy balance on Amazon right now.

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I have finalized my plans for my CA trip. Will be in San Jose 19/20,24 and Napa 21/22/23 - with a side trip to Lodi on the 23rd (where my dad is buried.) My brother is starting his new job (can't remember if I mentioned that or not - as of the 24th he's no longer working for the Wine Train) on Monday, the 24th. So I wanted to make sure to not interfere with his first day on the job! Big Grin

I'll have about one day here in NM to recover, and then head out to NE! Smile I still need to finalize my plans for what I'm going to do with Kari while I'm gone.

Is there something I can give her so she's not exactly sleeping, but is relaxed and not anxious? If I take her with me, she'll have a total of 4 8 hour car rides (2 each way.) Is there a valium for cats?

Counting Down :)

June 9th, 2013 at 02:45 am

So ... in 5 weekdays my part of summer school will be over. In 11 days I head out to CA to see my brother, aunt and grandma. Then Big Grin in 19 days I head out to NE to see my NE man. Big Grin Big Grin Big Grin Can you tell I'm excited and ready? (especially for the last one!!)

Today was build day for the new playground sponsored by our school and our health insurance company. Hot, tired, sweaty just barely begin to describe how I felt when I got home. I took a 30 minute COLD shower, and still didn't feel that much cooler. At least I felt cleaner! Smile

I spent part of the morning at the registration table, and then a few hours in the afternoon putting water in the wheelbarrows where people were mixing cement. I wouldn't have minded the job too much if it hadn't been for this one guy (who I guess was in charge) constantly telling me I was doing it wrong and then grabbing the hose out of my hand to start doing it himself ... Ugh. When we reached a breaking point where we had more cement ready for the mixer than could be easily/quickly mixed, I left and went back to the registration table.

The playground is very nice, although using mulch as the ground cover is pretty questionable here - especially considering how very windy it can get. I also heard that the flowers that the students/neighborhood kids had planted about 4 or 5 weeks ago and that had been left outside the science building at our school to grow, had been killed by someone pouring bleach on them. Twice. I hope whoever did that doesn't decide to mess with the new playground.

I'm thinking of renting Tiger Eyes from iTunes tonight. I doubt it'll come out in any theaters around here, plus seeing it on iTunes would be cheaper. I heart Judy Blume and am so happy that one of her books finally became a movie! (especially this one - one that I read at least a dozen times when I was in elementary school (7th/8th grade.)

Tomorrow I'll need to go into big G to pick up a memory card reader for our preschool director. She'd had our IT person buy her a brand new computer so that she could print pictures off her memory card ... but the computer doesn't have a memory card reader!! She asked me to look at it on Friday after school, and that's when I told her about the usb memory card reader. Oh, UGH UGH UGH - the computer has Windows 8 OS. It is HORRIBLE. For a smartphone, it'd be fine, but for a desktop? UGH UGH UGH! And this is coming from someone who feel way comfortable finding their way around a computer AND a smartphone. (She'll reimburse me for the purchase.)
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I recieved 3 of my 5 $5 AGCs from SBs yesterday. I'm just waiting for the last two now. I missed the daily goal on Thursday I think.

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I picked up my NON-generic Sythroid prescrip yesterday - along with sunscreen (from the clearance box!), sunglasses (to replace the ones I broke recently), and a few other items. Hopefully within a couple weeks this NON-generic will do the trick and I'll have my energy back. (I also read somewhere that sometimes you can get dizzy spells due to thryoid issues ... which might explain some of the dizzy spells I've had.)

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I also filled up my gas (had two bars left - so didn't wait for fumes!!) The first gas station I went to - tried two different pumps and they wouldn't work. After the first pump didn't work, I canceled the transaction. At the second pump it told me to "see attendant" - he tells me that I have to leave my card with him and he'll turn the pump on for me. UGH! I do this, and of course it doesn't work. I went back in and told him "nevermind, I'm going somewhere else." Next place I went to the first pump worked with no problem - and it was for the same price! ($3.29/gallon)

Counting Down :)

June 9th, 2013 at 02:41 am

So ... in 5 weekdays my part of summer school will be over. In 11 days I head out to CA to see my brother, aunt and grandma. Then Big Grin in 19 days I head out to NE to see my NE man. Big Grin Big Grin Big Grin Can you tell I'm excited and ready? (especially for the last one!!)

Today was build day for the new playground sponsored by our school and our health insurance company. Hot, tired, sweaty just barely begin to describe how I felt when I got home. I took a 30 minute COLD shower, and still didn't feel that much cooler. At least I felt cleaner! Smile

I spent part of the morning at the registration table, and then a few hours in the afternoon putting water in the wheelbarrows where people were mixing cement. I wouldn't have minded the job too much if it hadn't been for this one guy (who I guess was in charge) constantly telling me I was doing it wrong and then grabbing the hose out of my hand to start doing it himself ... Ugh. When we reached a breaking point where we had more cement ready for the mixer than could be easily/quickly mixed, I left and went back to the registration table.

The playground is very nice, although using mulch as the ground cover is pretty questionable here - especially considering how very windy it can get. I also heard that the flowers that the students/neighborhood kids had planted about 4 or 5 weeks ago and that had been left outside the science building at our school to grow, had been killed by someone pouring bleach on them. Twice. I hope whoever did that doesn't decide to mess with the new playground.

I'm thinking of renting Tiger Eyes from iTunes tonight. I doubt it'll come out in any theaters around here, plus seeing it on iTunes would be cheaper. I heart Judy Blume and am so happy that one of her books finally became a movie! (especially this one - one that I read at least a dozen times when I was in elementary school (7th/8th grade.)

Tomorrow I'll need to go into big G to pick up a memory card reader for our preschool director. She'd had our IT person buy her a brand new computer so that she could print pictures off her memory card ... but the computer doesn't have a memory card reader!! She asked me to look at it on Friday after school, and that's when I told her about the usb memory card reader. Oh, UGH UGH UGH - the computer has Windows 8 OS. It is HORRIBLE. For a smartphone, it'd be fine, but for a desktop? UGH UGH UGH! And this is coming from someone who feel way comfortable finding their way around a computer AND a smartphone. (She'll reimburse me for the purchase.)
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I recieved 3 of my 5 $5 AGCs from SBs yesterday. I'm just waiting for the last two now. I missed the daily goal on Thursday I think.

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I picked up my NON-generic Sythroid prescrip yesterday - along with sunscreen (from the clearance box!), sunglasses (to replace the ones I broke recently), and a few other items. Hopefully within a couple weeks this NON-generic will do the trick and I'll have my energy back. (I also read somewhere that sometimes you can get dizzy spells due to thryoid issues ... which might explain some of the dizzy spells I've had.)

Blahs, one year :(

June 7th, 2013 at 02:28 am

Ugh. Did it again. Posted without saving.

Not feeling great at all today - in fact had a bad episode of light headedness around ten - think was partly due to not eating much for breakfast.

One of my students got miserably sick today. My assistants took care of the rest of the class while I waited with the student for someone to pick him up.

Tomorrow should be fairly easy - one of my assistants is taking care of math, and the afternoon is pretty much used up with The Lorax movie.

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Today is one year since my dad died. Been dreading it for awhile - not sure how I'd take it/react. NE has been truly amazing and special and supportive - especially the past few days. I think that has helped a lot. It probably also helped that I've been so busy/exhausted and haven't had a whole lot of time to think about it. So much I'd like to tell my dad about what's happened, so much I'm sad about that he might miss out on in the future.

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Speaking of exhaustion .. 6 nights in a row with 5 hours or less of sleep - no matter what time I go to bed. Tonight I'm thinking of taking some generic Nyquil and seeing if it will help me get at least more than 5 hours.

Will be going into town tomorrow to pick up the NON generic Synthroid. Hopefully this will help soon.

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My June car payment should be going out tomorrow I think. two payments closer to payoff Smile

Didn't come even close to SBs goal today and am not going to bother trying (especially with one single search win of 6 ...gah!_)

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NE sent me a Firehouse song (one of the *many* super sweet things over the past few days) and that has gotten me on a long hair band kick - Firehouse, Journey, etc. Gotta love youtube right?

Went Much Better

June 4th, 2013 at 01:48 am

I slept maybe 5 hours last night. Got to the school shortly after 7 (unheard of for me!) Had two surprise student additions, but thankfully had 6 who didn't show up.

Overall, it went much, much better than I feared. The kids listened well, and other than math, everything ran pretty smoothly. They (kids) seemed to enjoy everything I had planned out for them - even overheard multiple students saying how much they'd liked summer school. Smile

I had one student tell me that she was surprised that I (a teacher) hadn't melted standing out on the playground during recess. I guess most of the teachers don't tend to stay out for recess ... Oh well. Smile

I broke my rule to not spend anything ... I bought 6 $1 decks of playing cards for math class - math war! (If you've never played it, you really should sometime. It's a blast!) That'll be enough to occupy a group of 6 students during a rotation. That'll help the congestion of kids needing their initial worksheets corrected/signed so they can go to the next activity/game.

I think I got a bit of a sunburn - need to see if I can find any sunscreen 0 don't remember the last time I had any though.

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My doctor called with my test results from Friday. No anemia, etc. My thyroid is still on the low side, so she thinks we may have to up it again. Once I can get my new prescription filled (insurance won't pay for it until June 5) if I'm not feeling more myself within a few weeks, she may up it. I really don't like that idea because I'm at .15 right now and am not sure how much further it goes up. Somewhere I have the idea that .2 is the upper limit, and then it means something like you have a non-functioning thyroid. Really don't want to research it and scare myself ...

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I got a 40 search win on SBs this morning before leaving for work. Big Grin That definitely helped me make goal much more easily than it would've been otherwise.

So Worn Out, Spent $

June 3rd, 2013 at 03:30 am

Ugh. Today I spent about 9 hours at the school trying to get ready for tomorrow. That makes a total of about 25 hours (not including time before school got out when I was doing research for ideas.) I do NOT feel ready at all. I have three assistants, but they won't be getting there until the same time the kids do in the morning - so no way for me to prep them and make sure they know what all we're doing. I met with them on Friday for an hour, but that was barely enough time to sort out and group the kids ..

I had two classrooms to set up the desks and put down chairs. No decorations whatsoever in either room - just not energy, time or able to get to resources (free ones at least..) Couldn't find any math manipulatives, the toner on the copier was running low, and the computers need Adobe Flash updated to use the Math website I want the kids to use ... Ugh.

I really need to do dishes and laundry, but will only manage to get a shower in before I zonk out tonight I think.

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CCF - thanks for pointing me to the job possibility. I checked it out and even started an application. But the more I thought about it today, I really don't think I'd feel good about leaving after I'd already signed my contract here.

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Yesterday I finally took the plunge I've been thinking and debating about for a long time. I upgraded my phone to the 4S. With the new cover, it cost $121.xx for the 16 GB. One thing I hadn't realized is that ATT has 4G coverage in this area - I guess my 3GS phone couldn't pick that up. I'm very happy with it so far.

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So far in June I've redeemed $20 in AGC from SBs. Tomorrow I'll redeem another $5 one. I'm pretty close to my next $5 AGC with Irazoo. I'm really hoping tomorrow's daily goal on SBs isn't too ridiculous - otherwise I probably won't be able to make it.