Rest In Peace, Jedi Noah....

This has been weighing heavily on my mind ever since Sunday morning.  We (I should say I), 'met' this little boy, Noah, in church on Sunday morning.  As I was standing outside in the Narthex, there was a binder with pictures of this adorable boy and his parents meeting The Pope, and a basket of bracelets, and his story.  So I read it.  If you want to read the entire heartbreaking story, find it here.
 And I felt myself being called yet again to children with cancer.  I don't know why, I don't know for what reason, but I've had this call before.  I need to do something about it, definitely pray about it, see where it leads.  I told my husband before when the possibility of us moving to Memphis was on the table- I'd love to work for St. Jude's but it would break my heart, and I'd come home in tears every night.  But, I was happily browsing the open positions there, and figuring out how my background fit into their openings.  So even though it was going to hurt me, I wanted to do it so badly.  I still do.  Even though we are planted in central Indiana. 

We're going to laugh about this later!

Yesterday, I decided to go strawberry picking, because I am making jam on Saturday.  I love my local berry farm, they are affordable, friendly, and the best part of all?  The strawberries taste like candy!!  I ended up purchasing almost 12 lbs over two picking trips, one by myself, one with Luke after school.  So we did awesome.  And I'm so excited about making jam tomorrow.  I haven't done it in several years, so it'll be interesting to see if I can do better than I did last time!
And in the midst of strawberry picking, I get a phone call from my brother saying that dad's in the hospital!  Dad is the type of guy that could be bleeding profusely, and he'll be like, oh, it's ok, I'll just put a bandaid on it!  But he told my brother to stick around, because he was dizzy and lightheaded.  Thankfully they didn't find anything, and they did an entire battery of tests- including heart/lungs/etc.  I'm just so glad for that- it's my daddy, and I'm totally a daddy's girl. 
That knocked me on my butt in terms of news, and THEN, while I was at Spencer Farms, I sat down and didn't check to make sure the lid was up on the toilet, and I had an accident.  Someday, yes, I will laugh about my day.  I just felt like I was spinning around and just getting hit from all angles.  Like, what else could go wrong? 
Thankfully, vacay is almost here, and I'll be relaxing and traveling.  Which will be awesome.  :)
Unfortunately, I've been lacking on my food.  I've been finding a ton of recipes that I want to try, but I've been having problems with picking Luke up from school and getting dinner.  So hopefully, everything will be better now that school's almost over, and he'll be in a new school next year.  At least I'll be able to cook better meals, and not have to stop, drive to pick him up, and then drive home and finish the meal.  Or have him be hungry, and fight for fast food on the way home. 

Customer Service is so lacking these days....

I joke about the fact that I'm going to be the crochety old lady shaking her fist at people as they walk by.  But I'm really secretly quite serious about that.  I have very precise ways that I feel things need to be done, and how people need to behave- especially if I'm paying them money to do something for me.  I do not expect groveling, I expect politeness, and, doing the best you can to help me resolve my issue.  Because chances are really good that by the time I call you, I've tried everything in my power to resolve it, or figure it out on my own.  And *now* I'm angry.  This has happened twice this week already.  And it's only Tuesday.  I can't WAIT to see what next week and the rest of this week will bring.  :(
The first one was Chase Bank.  As most of you all know, we recently moved.  Three weeks ago, I called, and let them know the updated snail mail address.  I was also quite clear, and asked the girl, as there are 4 accounts associated with my name, to make sure that all 4 accounts had been updated.  She stated they had been.  No problem, or so I thought.  Last week, I got a bounce check notice, (oops, my bad!) and noticed that it had gone to my old address.  Um, ok, whatever.  Sunday night, I tried yet again to get paypal to work so that I could purchase a gift card for Disney when we go, and it wasn't going through.  PayPal kept saying that the address didn't match my billing address, etc.  So I call Chase.  Yeah.  Those 4 accounts?  Only 2 of them had been changed, and when I questioned it, I was told that it would take 30 days to update it.  WTF?  Seriously- a multi billion dollar industry can't update addresses instantly?  So I spent an HOUR on the phone with them, because they couldn't get it straightened out.  The woman put me on hold, and when she comes back on, I just told her they won.  I couldn't take their incompetence anymore, and I was going to leave their bank, because I couldn't deal with them anymore.  She kept on trying to get me to talk to HER manager, but I was like, no, you keep trying to get me to talk to them, but I don't care enough anymore to talk to him/her.  I'm done with Chase.  So when we get back, I'm going to start switching everything to Indiana Members.  It's going to suck, having to change all those instant payments, but who the hell cares at this point?  I don't. 
The second one is a local mom, whom I trusted to book our Disney trip.  I've been the one emailing asking questions, etc.  She has not once emailed telling me what's going on, when I should be expecting stuff from Disney, etc.  She posted something about packets, so I'm like Yay, I'll be looking for mine.  I get the response, oh you should get it today, great, right?  No.  She mailed it to the WRONG address.  And then today, I get a message from her, oh, well, they'll forward it to you, right?  Well, yes, the post office will forward, but you've had the packet from Disney for over a week, and the trip is in a week for us.  That's not cool already.  I should have just planned/booked my own trip, and skipped using a travel agent.  And, really, in her defense, they did just move as well, however, we were booked before she moved, and all the business stuff should have been a priority for her.  I don't expect a lot, I expect common courtesy.  And maybe she just doesn't feel I'm a priority for her, but Disney paid her to book this trip.  Maybe because I didn't get the dining package.  Maybe because I'm not doing a bunch of add-ons.  I don't know.  All I know is next time we do Disney, I'm going my own. 

It's been awhile!

*Gasp* I have been neglecting the blog, and for that I apologize!  It's been super busy around here, but thankfully, it's calmed down a bit.  Now we have 2 weeks (from yesterday) until vacation, and all of us are sorely in need of that.  Every morning, Luke wakes up and gives me the countdown.  He's so excited to see the Mouse's House.  I'm ready to just stick my feet in the sand, and relax for a little.  Charlie isn't so sure about it, but I swear he'll have a good time!  :)
I am so excited that it is spring!  And strawberries are in season, finally, and they're almost ready for u-pick.  We go to a local farm, Spencer Farms in Noblesville and we LOVE it there.  Not only are the prices super reasonable, but we get the sweetest, most perfect strawberries ever from there. I've decided, that since I'm off work on Thursday, we are going strawberry picking when I pick Luke up from school.  And then my bestie and I are making strawberry jam this weekend!  Whoo!!
I've been thinking a lot lately, and I'm in a very pensive mood.  I've got a lot on my mind, and I'm really not sure where I'm going with the entire thing.  I don't even know that I could explain it, or put thoughts to paper.  Or even if I WANT to.  I think once I get everything figured out, I'll blog about it, but until then, I think I need to think on it.  Or perhaps drink on it.  (in the immortal words of Blake Shelton.)  I've just been really super quiet lately around here, which is completely out of the ordinary for me.  I don't even want to confide in my bestie.  Which, then you know it's bad!