more rain?

So, as many of you have probably heard (or experienced), New England has been getting pounded with rain! There is even an apartment complex in my town that is threatening to slip down an embankment into a river... no, its not ours, so don't worry! 

Last night I had to take a different route home because the lake I drive by every day to get to and from work from highway had risen about a foot over the road so the state police shut it down. There is even a guy I work with that couldn't get home at all and had to stay with friends because the flooding on his street was so severe. That would suck! Anyway, my drive home was fairly uneventful except for one stream that had risen over the road, so I am happy about that!  The hubster also got home safely, so all in all we had a pretty quiet night.

Completely unrelated, we have recently discovered that Reggie doesn't like when we chew bubble gum and blow bubbles. For some reason, he totally freaks out. He will run down the hallway and hide from us or bark uncontrollably. Its hilarious! Almost as much fun as tying socks on his feel... but thats another post!

We have also booked our hotel room for our Martha's Vineyard trip in May. I can't wait to get away for a few days! Loved the vineyard last time I was there in 2007, so hopefully this time will be even better (sans Reggie, plus hubby!).

As a parting note, I will leave you with a pic of the CT river that I took yesterday on my way home. You can't really tell what its supposed to look like, but the water is waaaayyy closer than it usually is.

And if we get any more rain, this is what I'm going to look like:

HAPPY TRAILS!

my least favorite day of the week

yes, its monday... if you haven't guessed. 

Haven't had much to say lately, plus I spent last week getting ready for a customer visit on Thursday and Friday.  Everything went well, so that's super good.

This past weekend we didn't do much, pretty much grocery shopped and half cleaned the house.  Hubby spent 2 hours making tortillas yesterday, so now we have a stock of that in the fridge in case anyone cares haha.

Today we have the Gold Medaling Olympic Bobsled team as well as their sled visiting work. I think I'm going to stop by and see them before lunch.

Other than that, nothing major going on.  Pretty standard life here, kids! Hopefully you are all starting your week out delightfully!

Boondock Saints 2 Fail

So, the hubby and I watched Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day last night... No, correction, we TRIED to watch BDS2, but it was terrible!!!!!

First off, Sean Patrick Flanery looks like he was hit with a ton of bricks (or 1000 scalpels). Either way, I didn't believe it was actually him in the movie for the first 20 minutes until I did a little IMDBing and found out it was him. He looks nothing like the hottie he used to be. WTF?  Submitted for your own observations:

The Hotness!

The not-so-hot-ness

I will give the man some credit because I hear he is an MMA fighter so maybe that's why is face is so fucked up, but seriously? He didn't even sound the same. And if you have watched the movie, you've probably noticed that when they do flashbacks, they only show his face up close once for like .3 seconds.

But on a different note, aside from all the hot being rung out of the movie, the plot was terrible.  The new female cop was rediculous. Bad Actress!!!! And the musicy pre-fighting scenes that are supposed to hype you up had the worst music choices, to say the least.

Ugh, I don't even want to expand on this topic any further. I am thouroughly disgusted and wished I had never watched this monstrosity!

Middletown Nissan presents...

MY NEW CAR!!!!

Yep, thats right folks... after an exhausting Saturday of car shopping, I settled on this guy! He's my new baby!  I will be picking him up tonight after work! Yay!!!!!

After getting up at 4:45am Sat to drop Sunny off at the airport, we headed back to sleep for a few hours.  Then it was showers, McD's for breakfast and we were on our way to Bristol to see a man about a 4runner.  The reason I liked the 4runner was because it was a on a truck chassis and it had a 3rd row, but upon getting to the dealership and seeing the it, the 3rd row is, according to my husband, more like a stadium seat cushion layed on the floor.  We still test drove it and it had a good ride, but were dissapointed.  They then showed us a Highlander, also with a 3rd row which was way more functional than  the 4runner. You actually had foot space!  And it had a V6 which was much better than the 4 cyl one I had driven on Thursday.  We left there feeling pretty confident with the Highlander but still had another 4 cars to see.

Next, we headed to Hamden to look at a 2007 Edge.  I had loved this car when I had one for a rental the weekend I met the hubby in NC.  But after driving the Toyotas, it just didn't do it for me. The brakes were soft and there is a HUGE blindspot!  We skipped the next dealer where we were going to look at a 2008 Edge. We grabbed a soy misto at Starbies (recommended by Biochemista... I don't know why I ever doubted her!) and lunch at Panera before heading back to Middletown to go to the Nissan dealership.

My intentions were to look at a Pathfinder, Xterra, and Murano, but we didn't even get into another one after the Pathfinder.  And they sweetened the deal by offering me an additional $1000 on my trade-in over what the other dealers were offering me.  So we signed the paperwork and submitted the credit apps.  I get to finalize everything today and then take it home! 

I'm definately glad that I don't have to deal with worrying about my car anymore.  Sadly, it will be taking a big chunk of money from me monthly, but now we can drive places and not worry!  Here are some more pics:

Front Row

Dash

2nd Row

3rd Row!

Rear View

That's Just F-ed Up!

Yesterday I was working on a project for a sales proposal and it was such a pain in the ass that I thought "Man, I wish I was pregnant right now so I would be out of work and not have to do this!" 

Now, that might seem like an innocuous statement, but if you know me, you know that children are not my number 1 (or even number 100) priorety... So for me to say that, must speak to what I was working on... I hope I never have to work on something like that again!!!!!

Pen-pals

So this weekend, not much happened... except that one of my military pen pals wrote me an email!  It totally made my day, probably even my weekend.

Some background: I've been a pen-pal to military service members for a few years now... started some time in college and got more involved once I started dating one.  There is this great organization ADOPTAPLATOON.ORG that you can sign up with and they will assign you service members.  There are a bunch of different options of support for deployed members, from being a weekly pen-pal to sending monthly care packages, to supporting individual campaigns, like sending socks and underwear (hey, everyone needs this stuff, especially all those overseas that are protecting our rights!).  I urge you to support if you have the time, which you really don't have to have much of.  I mean, who can't spare 5-10 minutes a week to write a letter, right?  You can do it at lunch, during class, even right before you go to bed at night!  There is an application you have to fill out on the website and email it in. Once you are accepted, you can ask for pen-pals (or whatever is your liking).  Then you send a letter a week, regardless of if you hear back from your service member or not.  Sometimes they don't have the time to write.  Its also usually good to send a blank sheet and envelope so they can write back (resources are limited over there).  At any rate, its an interesting way to get to know someone and it shows the troops that you are standing behind them.

Note: Singles will get matched with someone of their same sex. Married people will get matched with other married people, usually men (there are a lot more of them in the service).  This isn't a dating service! haha

So onward to my story. I had a service woman last year and we exchanged many letters, but I also had a service man and never heard from him the entire time I was writing.  Oh well, I volunteered to write so that is what I did.  Now, I will put an open apology out there to any future, past and present service members I have... I write about my life and the boring things I am doing... I'm sorry if that isn't entertaining! I'm trying my best!

Anyway, I now have 2 new pen-pals because my last 2 returned home.  I wrote them both letters last week because that is when I was assigned the new names.  Well Saturday, I recieved an email from one of them! It made me super happy! He thanked me for my letter and for wishing him a happy birthday, when none of the guys he is stationed with over there knew.  It really warmed my heart! How satisfying is that, knowing that you made someone's day a little brighter? SUPER!  Anyway, luckily we are going to be shooting each other emails for correspondence (which may be how your future service member chooses to keep in touch... hint hint), so I can hear from him weekly or a few times a week instead of once a month or never, like my previous experiences.

Alright I will end this advertisement now! But support our troops!!!!!! If you won't stand behind them, feel free to stand in front of them!

I Bite my Thumb at Thee, Sprint

So, our annual "upgrade your phone" time is here... but I was very disappointed when I logged into my account to see what it would cost for new blackberries.  Last year, it was about $100 per BB, which isn't a big deal, I think that is pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things, but hubster's didn't even last him a year before it broke so he has been using my old Treo for a while now.  We didn't use the insurance we've been paying because it would have cost us $100 for a new BB and we were only 2 months away from our upgrade and they couldn't guarantee us that we would get a new phone and not a referbished one.  So we decided to wait... 

So 2 weeks ago, I log in to see what we are going to get for savings on new phones. I'll get $150 and hubby will get $75... not great, but not too bad, still manageable. Ok, 2 more weeks until we upgrade.

Well the day finally came! I was so excited, I tried logging in on my phone before I got to work, but no success there. So I wait until I get to my desk and log in.  I can upgrade to a new BB for $99 ($150 savings and $200 instant rebate)!  Let me check the hubby's, it will probably be around $175, but whatev, we can swing it. 

OH NO!  He gets $75 savings... thats it! So a new BB is going to cost us about $400 for him! WTF!

Now, we have been talking about iphones since we got our BBs last year, so I decide to "chat" with one of their representatives online... You can see the convo:

12:07:51PMSystem: "Thank you for contacting Sprint. My name is Gerry M. In order to better assist you, may I please have your first and last name?"

12:07:51PMMia Merrel: "I was wondering what my early termination fee would be if I cancelled my account?"

12:08:38PMAgent (Gerry M): "Good morning Mia. I will be happy to assist you today."

12:11:03PMAgent (Gerry M): "Which phone number are you inquiring about today?"

12:11:13PMMia Merrel: "My whole account"

12:11:49PMMia Merrel: "I was wondering what my early termination fee would be if I cancelled my account?"

12:12:07PMAgent (Gerry M): "All right, I will only be a moment getting that information for you."

12:12:15PMMia Merrel: "Thank you"

12:14:40PMAgent (Gerry M): "Thank you for your patience. I am showing that the fee for line 1 is currently at $120 and the fee for Line 2 is also at $120, for a total of $240. May I ask as to why you are inquiring?"

12:15:55PMMia Merrel: "Because we were waiting to upgrade our phones, but I just found out today, I can get a new blackberry for about $100, but it would cost us around $400 for my husbands blackberry. And since we have been debating on blackberries and iphones for a year now it would be just about as expensive to cancel and get iphones."

12:19:31PMAgent (Gerry M): "I understand that the iPhone is a cool phone. However some of the drawbacks are that you have to pay for nearly every application that you get for the phone, the phone is uninsurable, so if you were to accidentally break it, you would have to pay full price for it. Also, the data plans required to run an iPhone is $20*-$40/month more that what we offer for the same plan."

12:24:15PMMia Merrel: "I am kind of tired of being jerked around by sprint anyway. Last year I was on a SERO plan and when I ordered new phones I specifically asked if the SERO would work with the Instincts that we ordered. They assured me it would. then we I got the phones and activated them, they told me they wouldn't work and I would have to get a regular plan, which has been costing me almost $100 more a month."

12:24:38PMMia Merrel: "we ended up hating the instincts so we switched to blackberries, but i am still having to pay a lot more than i used to."

12:26:12PMAgent (Gerry M): "I can certainly understand your concern. I also apologize for any incorrect information that was shared with you, causing you not to have a positive experience with Sprint."


Now, I know Sprint isn't a great company, but because I used to pay $30/month, I pretty much let it go... then when I had to move to a family plan and pay $155/month, I figured, whatev, millions of people pay more than I do, so I'll just suck it up... Its normal, plus the new phones are cheap... But I'll be DAMNED if I have to pay a normal rate and $500 for new phones! I'm not paying that much for a freaking BB! Fuck You, Sprint!

Especially when it would be the same price to cancel our phones and get new 16gig refurb 3GS iphones!

I'm pretty sure we are going to wait until the end of the month and then port over... hopefully AT&T will give us some better service... I mean we like their UVERSE tv and internet...  Hopefully the cell service is just as good.  And we would get rollover minutes, which means we don't have to pay for as many anytime minutes to begin with...

So, I hope you are happy, Sprint. Because of your stupid policies, not another providers "cool phone", you are losing a 7 year customer.  And I'm taking my husband with me... hopefully more will follow.

I'm baaaaaack!

Sorry for the 2 week delay. I haven't had much to say and have been rather busy at work.

Lets see, the weekend of Feb 20, we went to Maine with the Boston girlies for some skiing/snowboarding fun! I took a snowboarding lesson and my knees are still recovering! It was really fun and I am going to try to stick with it, but it took a lot out of me.  Everyone else managed to stay on the mountain almost the entire day, but I was done after 1.5 hours of lesson... pathetic, I know.

Unfortunately, the Subie has seen better days. I am just delaying the inevitable by not bringing him into the garage. He needs a head gasket, rear wheel bearing, O2 sensor, and exhaust... $2500 all together... yuck!  Luckily my parents are going to help float me the money until the hubby gets his promotion...

Which leads me to my next update... thats right, the man is getting a big promotion! He will be the breadwinner now! I can take a break! haha... if all goes as planned, he will be the manager of the 3 CT warehouses!  Yahoo! Go him!

I had something else to complain about, but now I can't remember what it was, so lucky you,  you get a positive blog entry today! haha

Also in the works of planning a few trips...  Martha's Vineyard in May with the Boston girlies, Cali in October to visit the hubby's family and have our honeymoon, and Cali again for Xmas!  Lets hope all goes as planned!

Peace out, girl scouts!