A Day of Cooking

Today was a cooking day.  I made lasagna, which was tasty.  I also tried making a key lime pie.

Juicing limes take a long time!  So does crushing graham crackers!  It was pretty easy, but I had evaporated milk instead of sweetened condensed, so it was not sweet.  Next time I'll make sure I have the right kind.  I think that with some cool whip it tastes OK.  Murl will probably not eat much, which sucks, because he is the one I made the pie for.

That pie took so much time that I didn't really do anything else.  I'm sad that my plants look so sad.  I don't know if they will be ready to go outside anytime soon.  I need to clear a spot for them anyways.  I meant to clean out Wolf's clothing drawer today, but didn't have time.

We had court today for custody.  They figured out our summer vacation, so I'm just waiting to get that in the mail.  Apparently Kitty's mother had an outburst in the courtroom (about Murl not giving her my phone number), which makes her look bad.  And Kitty's advocate is on our side, which means if the custody evaluator had been on our side we would have gotten custody.  So, now its just a waiting game until she screws up.  Should be soon.


Murl leaves tomorrow after work.  I'm excited for new foods, but I will miss him.  I'll have no one to watch SNL with tomorrow or to cuddle with in bed.  I'll have to let the baby in bed with me.

Catching Up

I should get caught up.

I've cleaned the inside of my fridge, so I'm calling the kitchen done.  I'm not moving the fridge.

I picked all the trash out of the car.  It needs to be vacuumed, but I'll have to take it somewhere to do that.

Also, I moved all the furniture in the living room and vacuumed.

We like the park.  Wolf and I spend 2 hours there the other day with the cousins.  People don't like their kids to play with my baby.  Its weird.  This woman had a little boy she was playing with in the sandbox and there was a stroller about 10 ft away with a blanket over it.  I thought no there can't be a baby in there and then I though oh no that can't be that woman's stroller.  I was wrong.  She left her baby in a stroller 10 ft away from her!

Murl leaves Saturday for Tuscon.  He and his brother are driving their late grandmother's car back for his mother to use.  They leave after Murl gets out from work, fly down there and drive back.  They should be in Monday morning before Murl goes to work.  He's going to be dead all day.

I've planned a tasty non-meat weekend.  Sweet potato burritos on Saturday and Potato Madras on Sunday.  It will save me money and I can eat foods that Murl doesn't like!

More cleaning tomorow!

Birthday Woes.

Since Sunday is Mother's Day we were going to drop Kitty off on Saturday night, instead of Sunday morning, because it would be helpful for her mother.  Now, because her mother decided to change her mind about her birthday, we are going to just meet them on Sunday.  Our lawyer said that we shouldn't be doing them any favors, which I agree with.  She is going to raise some hell for us.

Murl talked to Kitty on the phone and asked what she was doing this afternoon and she said they were just going to the park.  Apparently those were her "plans" that interfered with us seeing her after school.  Total crap.

Went back to work today to pick up some stuff.  Didn't have to see the manager since he never works on Thursdays.  It was good to see people and I got some photos printed instead.  Once I finish all my cleaning, I am going to start on my scrapbooking and Wolf's baby book.  I'm super behind on both.

My MIL is taking us to a fair tomorrow afternoon, which will be fun.  I'll need to remember to bring the camera.  Before we go I need to finish cleaning the kitchen and bring laundry to my in-laws.  I think I can handle that.  All the kitchen needs is the fridge cleaned out, the nook cleaned and the floor mopped.

Here's your daily Wolf!

This squinty face is apparently his new thing.

Teeth!

Bottom Left!

My Wolf has finally cut his first tooth that looks like its going to stay.  Around 2 or 3 months he had one come up and go back down.  Its been  hanging out under his gums so we've been able to see it and we rub his gums a lot to try help it break through.  Today he started chewing on my finger and HEY there it was!

Nursing has been fine, except for one nibble fest where I had to remove him and have him wait a little longer.  He didn't like that, but I also didn't like getting munched on.

He also didn't like me attempting to take his photo.  It seems like it would be pretty easy to take a photo when he smiles, but he's really wiggly and you have to have the camera at the right angle.  My little baby is growing up!

He was unhappy and tired.

In less exciting news, I call my store's HR department.  I've never had any real luck with them.  It took me 2 months to get Wolf on my health insurance because they told me they did what they needed to but didn't and never called me back when I tried to fix it.  They rarely return calls.  So, I was surprised when the HR head actually answered his phone.  I told him briefly what was going on and he said he was embarrassed that this happened.  He transfered me to the employee relations person and I told her in more detail.  I don't think she's going to do much.  A co-worker spoke to someone in the office before about similar problems with the manager and they told her too bad, she has to do whatever he says.  But, maybe it'll make everyone else's life a little easier there.

Tomorrow I promise to clean.  I didn't do much today.  Maybe promising here will keep me on task.

Jobless

I quit my job!  I've been working every Sunday since my maternity leave ended.  It was nice to get out of the house and interact with adults once a week and the small amount of extra money was nice, too.  Part of that income was based on a small commision for selling certain items and doing certain services for customers.  We had an agreement in our store that if you do the work, you get the sale.  Its fair.  Again, its only a small amount of money, but if you work on an order for an hour or two, you should get the extra $2-3 for that work.

My manager takes in service orders and does none of them; he makes his extra money with sales and if he works to make the sale, he should get the money for that sale.  Again, its fair.  So, whoever does the work will switch the sale so they get the credit.  We all do this to each other, its not like its something that only happens with him.  He's complained in the past about us doing this to him, but he still refuses to do the work himself.

Today he announced that switching the sales would not be allowed and if you are doing the service work then that's what you are paid for and the person who talks to the customer should get the extra money.  He said that if we don't agree with it we can leave and if we stay and we don't agree we will be fired.  According to him the company has no qualms with replacing every associate in every store.  In fact, he said, all the managers were told to go a closing competitors stores and speak with the managers to get info about the people they are laying off so they can be hired by this company.

So, I said that it sounds like the company doesn't care about us at all.  Blah blah oh yes they do, but they can replace you.  Of course they can.  They can replace us with people who just got laid off and will be happy to have jobs and would probably even work for less (not much less, tho, I barely made above min. wage).

He's threatened our jobs in the past, but I was full time then and couldn't risk losing my job.  I have always been looking, but haven't found anything else, which is why I was still there after 6 crappy years.  I think he was really surprised that someone actually took him up on his offer to quit.  I figure he's been blowing smoke up all our asses for so long since he hasn't ever acted on his threats.

So, I'm going to call HR tomorrow and tell them what happened, though I'm sure they don't care, since they've never cared about our complaints in the past.  Maybe I'll look for something new.  I am going to see if I can get some more free lance jobs through Patch.