Friday, July 30, 2010

Blizzards

Yesterday, I totally got a 3-for-1 deal on my DQ Blizzard!
Because I'm awesome!
I got 1 raspberry truffle and 2 cappucino heath. <3

Thursday, July 29, 2010

little monster

I'm really short on time (in other words, I actually have work to do) today, but I still wanted to share one of my new favorite pictures of Devin from this week. He was really crabby, and after like a minute I got him to smile for his picture. He's learning!



In other Devin news: he went to bed without a NUK last night. We're hoping it lasts. We've been talking about making them disappear for about a month now, and I told my daycare I was going to go for it this weekend. Then when I picked him up, she'd lost yet another NUK (she loses them more than I do!) so we went home minus one. I knew we had one at home so we left without it, they usually turn up the next day anyhow. Well, at bedtime I could not find the one we had so we went without. He cried an extra 2 minutes and slept. Normally he doesn't really cry cry at bedtime, but when I set him in the crib he whines when I turn around until when the door shuts, which is like a split second.

And another thing - anyone have any tips on manners & tantrums at 17 months? He's a monster when he wants to be and that's alot! Mommy's little monster....

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

WIP Wednesday

Before I get to WIP Wednesday I have a little bit of random (but then, I usually do, huh?):
  • Day 20: WTF LensCrafters! I'm pretty sure they were kidding when they said my glasses would be ready in 7-10 days. Getting frustrated.
  • Rob is back to work on the farm. This is good & bad.
  • I'm blowing my brains out. I mean, I would think I was if I didn't already know that my brains are gray and not green. I have a sinus infection, I'm pretty sure. Going on a week now.
  • I've been putting off knitting, waiting for my glasses. See (har har), I'm far-sighted. Knitting for more than like 15 minutes makes me feel cross-eyed when I go do something else. Which results in a headache.
  • I'm ready to quit taking Aleve daily because of all the pressure in my head and being cross-eyed.

And finally, the reason we're here. I haven't worked on the orange project because I need to go buy more yarn. So the last couple nights (since I've given up hope of ever getting my glasses) I've done a couple rows on 'yoga socks'. I don't think I've ever showed these in detail here, they're weird in my opinion. LOL. My sister picked out the pattern while we were at the fabric store - this is what they will be:

And this is my progress:


Don't ask me when I'll start the 2nd one. I don't like the pattern and I'm seriously considering ripping this one up and starting over with a different pattern. My sister will never know the difference as long as I use the same yarn LOL.

So, happy humpday!

Monday, July 26, 2010

bad boys

So, remember a long time ago, when I said work was crazy?
It's finally less crazy. We had a couple-month-long ordeal going on, and I finally have time to explain.

Just to get everyone caught up, I work at a life insurance company, not doing important things, really, just the bookkeeping stuff. I don't sell policies or answer questions about them - those are agents. We are the 'home office' and my boss does underwriting calls and the other lady does claims. I take the money. Our office in Bismarck has a bunch of agents (I don't even know a number.. just a bunch) and we have one agent in our office. Most of our business is done by mail from Bismarck & back. Alot of that paragraph isn't all that relevant to this story, but now you know.

One day just after Christmas this year, a tall black man came in wanting to buy life insurance. (later to find out he's either Kenyan or Somalian) Usually when this type of person walks in, they want auto insurance, even though the name of our company has 'life & casualty insurance company' in it and is printed on both sets of doors from the outside.. maybe they consider automobiles to be casualties? Anyways, our agent happens to be in (he goes to people's homes to sell insurance, so he's usually not in the office except to make appointments & other phone calls), and fills out an application with the man. Throughout the week, the man comes back to change what he wants for insurance. First it was just him, then he wanted it for his 8-yo son as well. Then, they were both getting $20,000 policies, and a few days later, he wanted his son's to be the max, which is $50,000.

So they are both approved, and during the time the man keeps coming in (most people call, but he would be hard to understand on the phone) both the agent & my boss have chatted with him a few times. He says that the 8-yo is his only child, and that his wife already has life insurance through her employer - ok and ok.

Fast forward a few months, May 2010. The man comes in and wants to speak with the agent. Agent is not in, will be in on Monday morning. Ok, the man comes back Monday morning and brings the agent a death certificate for his son. But the man is not sad, and the death occurred only days before. The certificate is from Kenya.  A bunch of red flags go up for my boss and the first one is that, there is no official seal on the death certificate and it looks like it is printed on a typewriter. For all we know, that really could be how they do it, and we tried to Google to prove otherwise, but nothing really helpful came up. My boss happens to know that in the US, it takes at least a week for us to get a death certificate from the family. The story from the man goes like this: His father died in Kenya in February, and he, his wife, and son went to Kenya to have the burial ceremony in April, but they only had enough money for him to come back. The son was sick & died of Malaria and the wife is 7 months pregnant and is still in Kenya and she has the fever.

So we're all 'this is waaayyy to fishy' and my boss hires a private investigator here in town. He's all excited, I'm pretty sure this has been his biggest case. I can't even believe there is such a thing as a P.I. in Fargo! LOL! Later, she told her boss (in Bismarck) about this and she's thinking that the ND Insurace Dept. should know about this, or would be able to help her disprove this death certificate, or know what steps to take to investigate a fraud. I mean, who knows! Her boss says don't bother, but a few days later, she just has to know and decides to call the Insurance Dept. anyway. Thank goodness she did because they have a new position there called an Insurance Investigator (or something like that..), so there is someone there who has been investigating insurance frauds and he started in like January. He's going to help us.

Or so we think. So my boss calls and 'fires' the local P.I. and this man takes all kinds of info over the phone. And a couple weeks later, pretty much all he's found is a picture of the kid. Which tells us that the kid really does exist, but not whether he's dead or not. It's a school picture. Then later, the insurance investigator says that he can't do interviews with basically anyone because he's a peace officer (from the state of Alaska) and he'd have to read their rights. But he can't read rights when there hasn't been a crime. Something like that, confused me.

So we hire the origial P.I. again, and he is finally able to obtain records from public housing, landlords, public health, etc. The now-9-yo is not the only child, in fact, they have 6 kids. Their public housing says that they over over their capacity at their apartment, that there can only be 2 people per bedroom and the baby doesn't count. Wait... there's a baby. A 3-month old baby. I thought she was 7 months pregnant in May..? And some records showed that she was making phone calls to the housing authority or whomever. Obviously not making phone calls from Kenya, right? That whole bit was a lie. Lots of other bits were lies. The kid is not dead and we did not pay out $50,000. If we had there'd be a much bigger punishment for actual insurance fraud, but he'd also be the heck out of town by now! So as of right now, our last update from the insurance investigator (who was able to use the evidence from the P.I. to complete the investigation) is that an arrest will be made by the end of the week.

Crazy!
Especially for our tiny company and office of 3 women!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Another milestone

-for me! In terms of weight loss. I've lost 25 lbs as of this weekend. It sounds all good, but it has taken me... ahem, don't laugh . . . . 7.5 months. I'm 8 lbs away from my first goal, and my ultimate goal was to lose 50 lbs by my birthday, in 3 weeks. LOL, I'll take half.

Also, I got the dress I ordered for the wedding in September and tried it on over my clothes (it came to my work and I was anxious about it!) and it fits and I think I like it even more than I expected - it's pretty comfortable, fits well - if not a little big! It's the first dress I've owned since I was like 12, other than the 3 bridesmaids dresses I've bought in the last 5 years HA! Oh - and as an added bonus, when I spied this dress... a while back, it was around $21, and I waited to buy it for lack of funds and to see if anything better came along. I went and ordered it last week and it had been marked down $5! SCORE!

And one last thing from the weekend I forgot to include in yesterday's post, because I forgot it in the trunk of my car until last night:

Devin's new chair from Grandma O!

My mom sewed this chair for Devin. The pattern is a knock-off of this chair from Pottery Barn Kids (which, truthfully, I've never even heard of other than in other peoples' blogs)


The cool thing about it is that the bottom zips open so you can wash the cover if it gets spills. And the insides are made of little pillows that are velcroed together, so you can re-situate them. It's fluffy & looks reaaaally comfortable. I want a grown-up one! Devin loves it, he snuggled in with his blanket last night, but of course the minute either of us went to get a camera, he'd stand up to help/find out what we were doing. And that scratches my plans for wanting to make one of these, which is good, cuz now that I look at it, it looks like a lot of work and I'm still figuring out my sewing machine! Maybe someday.....

I get the day off tomorrow (see, I told you I get excited about those) without using vacation time. I love my boss!

Monday, July 19, 2010

family weekend.

Happy Monday!
This weekend was super fun! Well, Friday and Saturday were just the same old I guess. But Sunday was my little cousin's (2nd cousin, if you wanna get technical) first birthday party! They had a grill-out style party, the weather couldn't have been more perfect either! I sooo miss having the get-togethers we used to have with all the aunts & uncles and everyone was there!

I only took a couple pictures (and a hilarious video which I can't load from my phone):

Devin thinks it's his birthday too!


He stole the bow, before Isaac even got to see it!

I made the gift I gave Isaac:


And I got this picture message right after lunch today.
He's sooo sweet!

After the party, my mom & dad took me and Lex to see Despicable Me. In RealD 3D. The movie was cute and funny and more cute, but the really impressive part was the 3D! I think I might buy it though, when it comes out on blue-ray! Thanks Auntie Chrissy for babysitting!



Friday, July 16, 2010

i like it

K, so a few weeks ago when Lexi stayed with us, her and I drove to the grocery store one night. We were listening to the radio and one of those commercials that plays like 3 clips from different songs came on. So we started talking about the songs...

Here's how it went:
Me: UGH Enrique Iglasias - I hate that song!
Lexi: I like it
Me: What?! Why??
Lexi: I like it - that's what it's called
Me: You like that song?
Lexi: No! That's what the song is called.
Me: Oh good, cuz it sucks.
Lexi: I know, I thought it was a girl the first time I heard it.

HA! And now the song is growing on me. Still not my favorite, but I don't have the hatred anymore, lol.

Also - made those cookies last night. Here's proof:


The dough was amazing, so I knew they'd be good. And they are! Too bad I'm not a good photographer, and plus, I don't think these cookies are all that pretty of a subject anyways. Stayed up wayyy to late last night making cookies, not because they took long, just because I started after bedtime.

And here's the cuteness I got to start my day today (sorry it's fuzzy - getting him to stand still is .im.poss.ib.le.)

He looooves car keys. Two of our vehicles have astrostart though, so unless we want to have our cars running 24/7, he can't have keys. He loves to try to actually use them to unlock stuff. He looked forever for a lock he could reach and he found one last night on our way back from the pool. The garage! Omg, you can just see the little brain working when he's trying to do grown-up stuff! Soooo cute.

Happy Friday!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

WIP Wednesday

WIPs are still at a standstill. I've gotten a few rows done, but really, you have to do a lot of rows to see a difference. Found out last week that I am farsighted and that I need glasses. Glasses for 'up-close' work, a.k.a. reading glasses. That should help with my knitting. They'll be here early next week.

Also, holy crap these look awesome. Gonna try making them tonight or tomorrow. I know Rob won't sneak any, but hopefully Devin will help me eat them. I'll report back on how they turn out.

Otherwise this week, we're just trying to get crap back to normal. Devin is super thrown-off as far as schedule goes. The past few weeks have been a complete mess. He hates waking up in the morning now. Hates going to bed. Hates getting dressed. Hates eating breakfast. The only thing he likes to do anymore is test my nerves! I feel bad for him, he doesn't really know how else to express his frustration so he whines and cries about almost everything. He is getting a few words now. Like up, down, ball, mine, buppy (puppy), no, night night. I'm trying to teach him please and I think he finally repeated it last night! This is probably weird, but I get a kick out of his voice. It's like he's not used to it being able to make words and it's sooo cool to hear it not crying, whining, or even laughing. I think I remember thinking the same thing when Leighton started talking too. They both have pretty soft voices like mine.

Happy humpday!

Monday, July 12, 2010

crap happens

well. our new roommate is gone already. sigh of relief.
she went back to what she knows. we'll leave it at that and wish her the best. and hope to see her again as she says she wants to know her nephew.

On Saturday we were sitting outside chatting away, enjoying a beatiful summer day at Rob's aunt's place in Minnesota. I had just laid the baby down in a non-baby-proof house and was hoping for at least an hour or more for him to nap, since he decided not to (and realllly needed to) on the 1hour drive there. 25 minutes after he finally konked, the tornado siren went off & the weather alert radio in the house. So, needless to say the weather didn't like the idea of a napping baby as much as I did! We got the news on in the house and saw that the bad weather literally formed right above us and it was moving out.

Did I forget to say on my blog that I now own a sewing machine? Cuz I do!
but. I think I broke it already. well, I was going really good on a project. I still like the project, but not sure if it'll ever get finished. While the manual is not real detailed, I'm hoping it's something I can fix based on the pictures. I got the manual after the matter though. Also, I did like 6 rounds on my knitting this weekend. It felt good to have my hands busy again. It's still not even 50% done, but I need to make a trip to hobby lobby for more yarn. lots more.

Today - I'm annoyed. At lots of things. But mostly Motor Mouth. I'm not kidding - she doesn't stop. Earlier today, she was carrying on a conversation with me (mostly herself actually) about pens. Yes, pens. The most unimportant topic of all topics! Just now, about postage and hopefully the flat-rate box is not over its limit. And like half hour ago, she did not want to disrupt me to grab a few things from my stack of work so she brought her own stapler to my desk, but had to tell me specifically why. Makes me think she did want to disrupt me. I want an office!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

WIP Thursday

My WIP Wednesday was post-poned due to having yesterday off. I already mentioned it I know, but a day off is always exciting to me!

Also, WIP Thursday is less-than-thrilling since I have not touched a single project in over a week. It's a pathetic thing, and I keep looking at both of my projects thinking that I should just do one or two rounds (they're both in the round), to keep the progress going. *sigh*

So like I've said, we've been spending tons of time w/Rob's fam this last week or so. Things have been nuts for us, and now we have a new roommate! That's the news. Rob's sister left her husband over the weekend, and now she is staying with us. She's planning to alternate between our place (couch) and their mom's house about 25 miles outside of the city. Today she is picking up job applications here in town. She's only met Devin once before now because of circumstances w/her 'husband,' so it has been wonderful that she know actually gets to get to know her one and only nephew now!

So, now you know why I've not worked on anything lately. It feels weird sometimes to do your nerdy things with people around and plus I've been too busy to want to think about knitting. On the positive side, I now have a cleaning helper. I can tell already she is a neat freak, so I bet she about dropped dead when she walked in the first time. LOL

Here's your daily cuteness and glimpse of my WIPs that have been neglected sitting in the background:

He has 2 of the same size/weight/material blankets. They have different patterns on them, but they're really similar with the polka dots. He usually only has one, and I put the other one up for when it's laundry time, etc. He's recently started to want to carry his blanket around. After I folded the clean one, I put it in his room & meant to put it away, but he found it. Isn't that cute?!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

fun weekend.

It seems like we did nothing and everything this weekend. LOL. How does that happen? We did lots of driving and visiting and somehow I still got time for a nap in my bed on Sunday. Not complaining at all, but, just weird!

 Rob got home {from driving, remember?} laaaaate thursday night. Wait. Maybe it was Wednesday night?Friday, I got off work early and had lunch/girl time with Kim while I let Rob catch some zzzz's and Devin play at daycare. Saturday we went to Fergus Falls where Devin's TX G-parents were staying and had our 4th of July celebration with Rob's family (his aunt & uncle, other uncle, grandma, dad & stepmom, and 2 cousins). Devin held up really well and really enjoyed being outside all day even though the humidity did.not.end. it was miserable outside! I told Rob I wanted to bring swim suits and possibly find a place to dip, but he said no, so we didn't. When we got there and he told everyone my idea, they were like 'oohh, good idea, you shoulda brought suits'. NEXT TIME! We grilled, played ladderball, smoked some delicious ribs, ate and ate, and tried to keep ourselves hydrated, which was a challenge for me. I peed twice the whole day, once when I woke up and once at like 7PM. TMI - sorry, but that's how hot it was!

Sunday, we didn't do much either. We brought Devin over to our pool {it's finally open} for awhile.

Nice tush!

We planned to go see the fireworks show in town at sunset, but instead we had a bonfire at Rob's buddy's house. Devin was a good little boy. He was up past his bedtime, watched Rob do a few fireworks he bought in Missouri (not sold legally here because they're suuuper loud) and then some bottle rockets & such. The neighbor kids over there had a few colorful ones Devin enjoyed. Then when he got tired, I put him in his old swing (friends are borrowing it) and he slept there til we were ready to go home.

OMG Cute, right?

Monday we took another trip to Fergus Falls & met Great Grandma again for lunch. She is such a sweet lady. She reminds me soooo much of my Grandma Olson, from the way she looks to her personality. I think they could've been sisters sometimes! She also treats me like one of her own grandkids and loves Devin to pieces!

Then on the way home stopped and saw Rob's parents again for a visit. They just love baby D. How could they not?!

During our down time we rented a few movies. So far we've watched "The Crazies" which literally was crazy! And "Hot Tub Time Machine" which was very funny.

I have news, but I don't want this post to be any more all over than it is, so I'll share on Thursday. Not to ruin anyone's fun, but no, I'm not pregnant or engaged. :) I have tomorrow off work and won't see a computer all day.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Guess what!

New blog design again!
I think I like this one best!

I had to because apparently the comments on the last design weren't working and I have no clue how to fix that! My HTML skills aren't much more than copy/paste anymore so I had to just go ahead and use blogger's craptastic options.

What do you think... now that you can leave comments.. :)

Hope everyone has a great holiday!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

new shoes.

Nothin like internet shopping at work! =/ Oops!


I blame Charlene. Who doesn't know that I'm linking her, but her post gave me the heads up of the super great buy 1 get 1 sale going on at payless. Plus the 7, 9, 11 sale. These shoes were $7 - marked down from 22. I'm pretty sure drooled over them earlier this season! They're being mailed to my store for free and the $2 off code she gave in her post, worked for me! So the amt on my bill/card is $5.49! I can't ever find my size {12} in any store, but I've never even thought to shop for shoes online! DUH!!

I didn't get to do the buy one get one with this style, but that's ok, it's a pretty big savings for a pretty functional shoe. I just know these are going to be my new go-to summer shoe!