Tresa's Blog

Way Too Much Email

I haven’t been on facebook yet today and it’s after 1 PM, a new record.  Seriously do you see the numbers in the inbox on yahoo?  4000+ emails makes it really hard to find anything.  There were almost 6000 when I started this morning.  (pats self on back)   I’m getting rid of all that are junk or semi junk, putting the rest in folders and organizing it all every morning!  My filters quit working for some reason or else it would be organized anyway.

See you again when I feel virtuous and clean.

I have a gmail account too and one on my home provider server but I am afraid……..

I had a bad week last week, (see here and here), as of Friday it wasn’t over.  UPS was supposed to deliver a bank deposit by Friday,  by 11 am Friday the envelope had traveled all of 20 miles instead of 100.  I find this out online so I’m trying to get more details by calling UPS.  My first mistake, they are the ultimate in press 1 and we will make your life miserable and run you around till you can’t think straight phone information services.  So I put the tracking number in by phone and the phone system says they have no idea where the package is but it hasn’t been delivered which is a lie according to the online tracking system.  So then it says press 2 for further information, I do and it says put in tracking number and then you can talk to a representative, so I put the tracking number in and it says it has no idea what happened to my package but I will need a valid tracking number before I talk to a representative.  Can you feel the love I’m experiencing for these people right now?  I go through the rigamarole again and twirl the dead cat, I’m getting frustrated.  So I curse D@*& You.    Instantly a voice comes on the phone and says we will connect you with a representative right now.

So now you know the proper use of cursing.  Package was still in KS when it was supposed to be in MO, nothing could be done about that, they can’t even give me credit for it till it actually gets delivered but I got to talk to a human and that is worth something.

Warning Pure Venting….pure and holy venting……..

If someone waits till 4:41 pm to send an email that HAS to be printed off (they’ve had all day to send it, they just put it off and they wait till after 10 pm to text important numbers you will need before morning too, they just generally wait till the last minute sometimes) and you are in a moving truck and just hate to hook up the printer while moving (not to mention like illegal to be moving around in the truck and just sort of stupid, and more difficult than doing hard yoga while water skiing, I have a scar on my back from a bolt on the bottom of the bunk to prove it)…then the printer nozzles are dirty and won’t print in the printer that is in the extreme heat under the bunk …..my question is…..is it your fault?

When you call said person up and tell them about it and you say if you had had the email earlier you MIGHT have had a chance to get the printer fixed or figure out you NEED to get to a fax machine, and they say oh it’s my fault now?  Then you reply no I could have tried to print it off while moving.  Then you tell them you don’t have a fax number yet for them to fax to and they ask if you would like for them to send the phone company down to give me a fax number and you say yes and the line goes dead…….do you think they hung up?

They did call back, we found a fax machine, they faxed the paperwork, I got the printer fixed within half an hour, long before we actually  needed it but still……I’m thinking maybe my blood pressure is up a tad.  Am I wrong for being peeved?  I have to email and text and remind him of what we don’t have but if I bug him too much he’s like I’ll get it to you I’ll get it to you….. it’s often after 10 pm when he gets it to us though.   BTW this person has taken emergency phone calls and helped beyond the call of duty in the middle of the night, if it’s easy and only involves money he is a peach.

Part of my technology frustration may be from putting an AT&T sim card for a regular account into a prepaid phone so my husband would have a phone….(his phone just quit, this isn’t the only thing that happened this week, two blog posts here and here.) so I was on the phone with at&t for awhile arguing that this COULD be done this morning (they are not going to let you put a regular sim card in a prepaid phone soon!!!)  Then I paid a bill with a newly activated credit card which I had to activate going down the road, that just added to the joy of dealing with people who knew what they were doing……..

Then we haven’t been home for a month and my husband wants to go to a steam engine show away from home this weekend.  Blowing a gasket now…….

I should be working on double checking web pages (I tend to lose interest when it’s not actually a deadline or anything) or I should be working on a classified ad site we are starting up (excitement is in the air, I feel like Craig on Craigs list or @ least igs since my cousin has done the hard work so far).   I looked @ the translations and decided that I hoped all the people who use the site speak English because I’m not to sure about php and other languages and wordpress and all that fun stuff.

I have worked a bit on my other blogs, mostly Florence View, we’ve had a refrigerator go out and resurrect and then an ac fan go out, windshield crack, trailer quit, locked out of a motel room, and the dog got dirty which went on my Animals Blog.

So that is how you make a completely link filled paragraph, wasn’t that simple?  OK, it’s not complete but it’s close.

So where have I really been besides facebook?

I got to watch episode 4 of Mad Men.  You know the show to end all shows?  I am a little younger than Sally in the show and I find it endlessly fascinating.  Jon Hamm finds me fascinating too.  OK, he’s my friend on facebook and I think it’s the real one, since I have my eye for my portrait picture maybe he likes my eye?    Anyway episode 4 was on twice last night and that was the FIRST episode I’d gotten to watch live.   I’ve got AMC @ home but just got it and haven’t had a chance to be home for the sacred hour.  Now I have been partially satiated.   To further the effect of the 60s last night I can go to their discussion. I have been there some but I need to go back REALLY badly so au revoir, sayanora, adios….buenos noches…….

And BTW does ANYONE understand Rubicon?  I’m going to have to look it up……….

I used the term “Hey Stupid” to get my husbands attention as we were leaving IHOP the international restaurant this morning.  My daughter was with us and remarked that people should be around me to know why she acted as she did.  I wasn’t being mean or even derogatory to my husband and I had something legitimate to say.  We know when we are joking and when we aren’t.  The dog also answers to “Hey Stupid.”   If I start cooing and saying lovey dovey things everyone worries.

So then this afternoon I return my 70 year old brothers phone call (I was an afterthought with my parents, he is OLD, I am not).  He is a YOUNG 70 like we aren’t sure which childhood he is in.   He wanted to buy a new convertible a couple weeks ago..and has a racecar…  Anyway he wanted help with his new computer but had gotten it figured out, I know he can figure it out, I did, and I’ve seen him get on my computer so…….

So I get on facebook to  tell the masses there is fresh blood to pick on a new relative who has email.   My nephew replies ——-HE GOT A COMPUTER!!  It just struck me (perhaps because I had discussed the computer thing with the nephew previously) that of course my brother has a computer if he has email.  So what do I do?  Answer nicely?

You surely jest.

I wrote back and said no he didn’t get a computer he receives the messages through his brain waves by sitting there and humming.  Then I waited for the cursing to begin.  I was almost immediately gratified.  But I’m sitting there waiting for the reply and I’m grinning and I suddenly think, WHY does this make me SOOOO happy?  BTW my nephew used the exact curseword I knew he was going to use, perhaps because it fit?

I love my relatives….

My phone fell in the dog water twice this spring here in the truck.  The second time did it in, that’s one insurance claim.  My husband lost his phone on the tractor, almost had another claim but we found it in the middle of BFE in stubble.  It’s been so hot lately that there’s condensation where the hot under the truck bunk meets the cool ac air and there’s a bit of a puddle on the floor on occasion. (we  blamed it on the dog till we figured out what it was!!) I don’t use my phone tethered to my computer up front much anymore because of the dog water incident.  So I drop it the other day and don’t notice it and guess where it lands?

You’ve got it, you win the prize!! (no prize, it’s called a figure of speech).  The phone was in the puddle of water in back, phone was fine but I said enough is enough, the phone is DRAWN to water. (sort of like coffee and my cadillac, I had an eclipse for years, kept it pristine, get a cts and I’ve spilled gallons of coffee in it!  The dogs have helped greatly though, and then there was the strawberry shake on the floor.)  So I put my phone in the laptop case and zipped the cover, the photo above is of said case with tether cord going inside.  I know it’s hard on phone batteries getting that hot but it’s going to have to be a mighty big water puddle for the phone to get wet…….

The regular phone case won’t let me plug into the side of the phone so now I have the biggest phone case in history, does the trick though, I don’t drop it in water!!

I”m not saying I slept with a homeless man now am I, that would be cause for concern wouldn’t it since I’m pretty sure my husband has a home?

The story is we pulled into a little truck stop in Hampshire TX, which is close to Beaumont earlier this week about 11 pm to sleep for the night.  There was a small house @ the edge of the lot with all sorts of appliances sitting out on the porch, new clean appliances airing out.  I noticed someone laying behind the house which was right @ the edge of the brightly lit gravel parking lot.  I made my husband look and make sure I wasn’t seeing things but it was a bearded homeless man.  I asked my husband to take the dog out.  He usually does @ night anyway but I sure didn’t want to be chasing the dog by the man laying on the ground.

I got up about ever hour that night, not sure why, I guess I was afraid the man would be right outside the truck bouncing a ball against a wall like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and grinning..although this guy in no way resembled Jack.  Or maybe sitting there with a sign that said I eat bichons?   I told the ladies inside the nice clean little truck stop about it in the mornng.  I don’t know if they called anyone but the man was still there when we left.

I know I’m pretty sheltered despite riding with my husband in the truck but this is the first time I’ve seen a homeless man sleeping that close ever.  I know it seems like there are more homeless people now.   I am a fairly tolerant person, probably middle class, and I was astonished @ my reaction of fear.  I think part of it was brought on by his choice of sleeping places since if he had moved a few feet over he would have been in the dark shadows and I would have never seen him.  I have no idea why he slept in the glare of the vapor light?  He wasn’t even old and was a large skinny man with a red beard.

Just wondering if it’s any coincidence that the two shows on worth watching are Bethanny Getting Married? and Monsters Inside Of Me.  Just Saying……

1. I did Jillian Michaels  hideously hard tortuous EASY Body Sculpting workout yesterday, the 20 minute wimpy EASY one with the cool down and warm up and all that.  Henceforth Ms. Michaels shall be known in this house as that nasty person, said in the voice like the slimey guy on Boston Legal like naesty peersun.

2.  I will TRY to quit equating my husband who does not do anything necessary on the computer except entertain himself with auction sites and games with a corvette driving down a gravel road slowly.   This happens mostly when I have been trying to get some work done all day and he comes home and gets on the big computer and plays solitaire immediately…

3. I do believe I am justified when we come home after being gone ALL day since EARLY this morning and ending up driving 400 miles in answering him when he asks what I have to feed him (he’s had breakfast and a HUGE DOUBLE cheeseburger on the way home) with ” OH, snarl since I was home all day just lazing around I whipped you up all sorts of good things to eat…completely justified ………

Ms Michels may regain my good graces soon….it didn’t hurt when I was doing it….And I do love my husband, it’s just hard to be nice with these aching tired muscles…

All of this cooking and cleaning is getting in the way of my computer time! The latest venture? Zuchinni Ratoullie or my version of it without eggplant because I didn’t have any eggplant. I also put in italian spices in my eggplantless ratoullie and everything but the meat and crust for pizza, in other words cheese and tomatoes are important.  Of course the head of the web design company  (best friend/sis/cousin/neighbor) I freelance for actually GREW these veggies and I am REALLY glad to have them, thanks Peggi!!!

I made cucumber salad too. Slice cumcumbers and onions, mix up a salad dressing with miracle whip, sugar (light miracle whip and truvia and sweet n low in our case) milk, vinegar, salt and freshly ground pepper. Sea salt preferably and I used sour cream because I ran out of miracle whip.

Home made ww bread in the bread maker too. Yesterday and today, we are gradually working back to a “normal” diet from low carbing. Also I had homemade bread up @ my husbands cousins house (thanks alot Sidney!) and I’ve decided I HAVE to have a bit of homemade whole wheat bread. I’ve got the recipe memorized, 2 c white or white ww four (unbleached if you insist on white) 2 t yeast, maybe a bit less if it’s really good, 2 t salt (husband is a saltoholic so this may be a bit much) 1 1/3 C water or milk, I just use like a T of sugar or a bit more, enough to make the yeast do it’s thing, oh yeah, 2 C of whole wheat flour and 2  T of butter with a dollop (large T) of unsweetened applesauce. All adjusted accordingly for what diet you are on. Slap it in the breadmaker under whole wheat setting.