Happy 6th Anniversary!

Today is my 6th Wedding Anniversary!

I am so glad 2008 is over with. I really hope for a better 2009 for us! With new hotels opening up in a few months, there will be new jobs in our area. With new hotels, come new jobs, which means people will be looking! Either way, there will be lots of open positions and hopefully our city can prosper from the new hotels!

His work is still cutting down everyone’s hours. There are people in other departments working as little as one day a week!!!! Not only that, they said that November was their most profitable month EVER (and here they are laying people off)!!!

Kyle will be 3 years old in 2 days! He’s doing really well eating at the table (I am so proud!). He seems to prefer to eat with me and not by himself! He’s really cute getting his food on the spoon or fork and then using his other hand to either pick up the food or put the food on the spoon or fork, he loves eating with TWO hands! He’s learning how to feed himself and he seems to be a pro at it, minus the mess he leaves behind. LOL It is definitely less work for me, now that we have our dining table!!!! These days, he drinks nothing but water. Once in awhile, he’ll have apple juice but we have since stopped buying it. Sometimes he’ll drink chocolate soy milk, but still prefers water. We have him on a vitamin, which he loves taking. The vitamin looks and tastes just like a gummy bear! A lot of times, he’ll eat nothing but honey nut cheerios (we buy the malt-o-meal brand that come in the big bags), or he’s just really picky with the food that he eats.

Back to Pen Palling

I have decided to get back into pen palling again. I miss receiving real mail instead of junk, bills, and freebies. Freebies aren't bad but it would be nice to receive letters again. I started writing yesterday and now have 4 letters done! I have several more letters to respond to, so that should keep me busy this week. I also got back into pen palling because I have some really amazing people I write to and I miss writing them!

Shannon brought home a packaged tray of cookies from work on Christmas Day! He said someone from the kitchen gave them to him, I guess the Chef had many trays left over so he was giving them away! They are delicious and Kyle and I have been eating cookies here and there.

Kyle is doing really well eating at the table! While I was writing letters on MY NEW TABLE, Kyle came up and sat down too. So that's when I pulled out his crayons and a coloring page for him to color on. He wanted to scribble on my letters so I gave him a blank piece of paper. He colored a bit on the table but thankfully that came off.

Table for Three!

Shannon put our brand new dining set together last night! It looks beautiful! I feel spoiled just having a dinner table now. We've been married almost 6 years and we've never had a dining set!

Today was our first day of using the table. Kyle and I started off with eating breakfast at the table. It definitely felt odd using it! Kyle got the hang of it. I even had him eat his snacks at the table. Kyle and I also had lunch together. By dinner, we all ate together. Kyle didn't really eat, since all he really eats these days is cheerios.

Shannon has to work the next two days but then he's off again on Friday. Four days off this week! I am still trying to get our food stamp application taken care of. In the meantime, Shannon will be saving his pay stubs. Especially the one for this week where he has four days off.

Not approved!?

We received a response from DSS about our food stamps application and we were "not approved." The reason...wde didn't provide proof of income -- even though we did! Shannon had HR write a letter stating his wage, hours, and income info. How much more clear do they need it to be?

I tried calling the DSS office first thing this morning at 8:10 AM to be exact and left a message because the lady wasn't there. Since it was 10 minutes into her shift, I bet she was already on a coffee break or out on her 4 hour lunch! I just really want to get this resolved and find out what information they need and why the letter isn't sufficient!

Shannon is off today and tomorrow and again later this week. He said he'd put our dining set together, so hopefully that will be today! I am dying for it to be set up!



Our DVR stopped working sometime last night. I have no idea what's going on. But thankfully all the shows are re-runs so I am not really missing anything.

And now there are TWO!!!

We were just notified that we have a package in the management office of our apartment complex! Since I am not expecting anything and the note said we would need a TRUCK to pick this up, I had a feeling of what it might be. Still I was curious, so I called the office and she said it’s a table from Target! In other words, Target refunded me for the table, yet it was delivered anyway!!!! We have to pick it up from the office by Monday or they will send it back to UPS and charge it to us. Well, we don’t have a truck, so I guess we’ll be sending it back to Target!? I am waiting to hear what Shannon says we should do.

Could it be?

Not even 5 minutes after Shannon left for work today did I hear a delivery truck outside. It was FedEx with our dining set! I never thought we would actually receive it. Third times a charm! I called Shannon to let him know that it was here and he sounded excited. He may put it together this week. He canceled his video game subscription a few weeks ago so he has time after he gets home from work. I can’t wait for our table to be set up, Kyle needs to learn how to eat at the table.

I caught up on a few chores today. I had 3 loads laundry to do! I also cleaned our bathroom.

Kyle received some Christmas presents early. He’s been playing with his new toys since this morning. He got toy cars, coloring books and crayons. I showed him how to color and he colored a bit but he loved playing with the crayons more. He also got a one piece pajamas and a pull-over sweatshirt.

Is there a Table in the Future for us?

I am not sure if the Universe is trying to tell us something. I’ve been waiting over a month and a half for a dining set to be delivered to us. I first ordered our set through Target and it reached our state but then it was determined that it was damaged during transit, so it was returned to sender. Then Target tried sending our set a second time, and it was returned because it wasn’t addressed correctly. So then I had Target refund my money, although I did still get credit through Upromise for my purchase! NICE!

Just a few days ago, I found a dining set at Walmart that I really liked based on the customer reviews. I ordered it and yesterday I received an email from Walmart saying my item was out of stock!!! I started thinking the Universe is trying to tell us that a table is not meant to be for us! LOL

I checked my email this morning and our ordered has shipped! We’ll see how this one turns out. You can see the table I ordered HERE!! It was between that one and a table at Kmart by Martha Stewart. I chose this one because of the reviews and that it is made of “solid hardwood” which sounds really sturdy!

3 Days Off

Shannon has the next 3 days off. He’s going to use his PTO (paid time off) hours to cover one of the days. We applied for food stamps and now we are gathering all the information together to send back to them.

The General Manager forwarded Shannon’s resume to the hotel that is being built across from his work. Hopefully they will call. Shannon also applied for another position in another city that is 2 hours away. He also put for a transfer within the same company but it’s in another state. So, now we’re just waiting to hear from either of the above. We are also still looking for any positions that open up.

We are still waiting for our dining set from Target. I ordered our set over 2 weeks ago. The first shipment made it all the way to North Carolina but was sent back due to damage during transit. I contacted Target and they sent out another shipment and now I am not sure about this second shipment. On the UPS website, it says merchandised returned… But Target is saying it is due to be delivered tomorrow. So, we’ll see. If it does get here tomorrow, Shannon can put it together over his days off. It will be nice to finally have a table!

I am still lauching at the CEO's of the big 3 car companies showing up in Washington, D.C. in their big corporate private jets asking for a bailout from Congress! LOL WTF were they thinking? At least dress and act the part when asking for help.

Saturday

Shannon has the “weekend” off. I made some business cards for one of my businesses. I will be sending them out to other home business owners. This is a great way to network and help others promote their businesses.

I’ve been wanting to get a dining room table since we’ve never had one. We’ve thought about looking at buying a used one on Craiglist, newspaper, or wherever but that is not an option. We don’t have a truck or a big vehicle to carry it in. Since I don’t know this area, the only furniture I know of (in our price range) is 40 minutes away. I heard about them on TV and visited their website many times to see what they have. I even found the dinette set I wanted. Shannon finally said to buy one online and have it delivered. Since this website didn’t have the option to “buy online” Shannon suggested I check Rooms to go and Rent a center. Both of those places were higher priced so then I thought of Target and Shannon suggested Kmart too. I loved the tables at Target and Kmart. Target is currently offering free shipping on some of their sets. I found a Martha Stewart set at Kmart that I liked but after shipping costs and taxes it was going to be more than I wanted to spend. So I went back to Target and found a table I liked, based on the customer reviews. It’s a little more than the price range I was set on but the free shipping is worth it. Last night, I spent an hour looking and searching and comparing dinette sets and finally found the one we are getting.

Somehow we ended up on the Walmart mailing list and they sent us a toy catalog. Kyle loves catalogs/magazines and he always wants to look through them before me. So I gave him the catalog to look through and there was a full page of Disney’s Cars stuff, including twin bed set, and other toys. Kyle stopped on that page and did a double take. He recognized the cartoon characters! He LOVES Cars!