Friendship On The Line

Having a friend as a co-worker is not always the best thing in the world. It puts a strain on a friendship that you never really thought would be pushed like that. S learned that the hard way on Tuesday and Wednesday.

First is when J tried to “help” him finish what he was doing. Lets just say that it’s not help if you have to redo it. Then came a job that had to be a little more precise. It didn’t go well as afar a S was concerned. What do you do when you don’t feel that the work is good enough?

You call the boss. At least that’s what S did. I’m proud of him for it. It isn’t easy to call your boss and say that you feel the work could have been better, and you don’t want to put your name on it until it’s done right. S offered to come back on his own time and fix the bad spots if it was necessary. That shouldn’t be such a big deal right. Wrong.

When you call the boss, the boss calls the foreman, and the foreman calls your friend it’s not pretty. Especially when you’re ten minutes from home and stuck in a car with them right after it happens. It put me smack dab in the middle between someone I view as family and my husband. All I could say was, “You have to talk to S. I wasn’t there so I’m staying out of it.” That felt so wrong. I knew why S had called, I told him to do it if he felt it was necessary. But of course J wouldn’t understand that.

So when I get home I break. I walk in the door with tears streaming down my face and all I can say is, “I hate being put in the middle! I can’t take it!!! Next time I tell you I want you to take me somewhere I want you to do it not someone else!” Then S has to try to get me to calm down enough that I’m not rambling so he can figure out what happened. After about five minutes he can finally make some sense out of what I’m saying. Then he gets back on the phone.

This time his boss isn’t there, but his wife K says to tell her and she’ll pass on the info. But of course S can’t do that, I have to do it since I was the one there when it all blew up. She tells me not to worry about it to much. That S has good work ethics and they like that. I try to explain to her that when he called the first time he wasn’t trying to pin it on J. That he IS taking responsibility for it and that’s why he wants to come back on his own time and fix it. She says she understands and that S did the right thing. She also said to tell S not to change what he did, good work ethics are to his advantage. Especially when working for her husband.

Chris, S’ boss, was supposed to go out to he job site yesterday but he wasn’t able to. So he’s going out there today. I guess it’s the Lord’s mercy that the car broke down Wednesday night and S couldn’t go into work for two days. It has given J a little time to cool down without S being around.

I know that things will be back to normal soon. But until it does it’s going to a bumpy road.

One Little Angel

One little butterfly floating on the breeze

One little butterly perfect as can be

One little butterfly He calls to his side

Now to this butterfly I must say “goodbye”

 

One little angel sitting up in heaven

One little angel as perfect as can be

One little angel called to His side

Now without my angel I must abide

 

With ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes

She lays in His arms and pain she does not know

My littlest angel is now by His side

Forever my angel there will reside

 

Now that little butterfly floating on the breeze

     is just a reminder of her to me

That one little butterfly, so perfect, so pure,

     is really all I have left of her

She flew up to heaven on those wings it would seem

And now she has come back to visit with me

Updates

I have a few updates to make before I do anything else.

 

First and foremost is that I was wrong about “Mr. Pride,” sort of.  He did not withhold anything from us, but I now know that he has treated others the same way in the past.  So as far as he is concerned the subject is closed and we’ve moved on.

 

Second is that S’ job is still going well.  He loves working in construction, whether it’s outdoors or in.  He comes home tired but happy, and that’s all that matters. 

 

Third, and last, Rapunzel is doing well with her swimming lessons, she can now swim across the width of the pool with a flutter board.  I’m so proud of her.  I only wish I could be there to see it.

 

 

Tragedy Strikes A Local Garage Sale

Friday,723/o4, was the first day of our two day garage sale.  It didn’t start out all that great we were supposed to be set up by 9 am but my friend didn’t get here until 8:45 to start setting up.

 

Things were going relatively well.  Superchunk was still asleep so we were able to get quite a bit set up fairly quickly.  At 9:30 I went to the back of the house and I could hear Superchunk screaming like there was no tomorrow.  Not a good start for her day. 

 

So I get her dressed and bring her out front.  About 10 am my friend brought her little blue police car out front.  We thought that this was going to be a good thing, it wasn’t.  She was on the other side of our neighbor’s car under a tree.  I should have known better.

About ten minutes later she lets out this super loud scream, even for her.  At first I thought that she had squished her fingers in the door of her car, but I wasn’t that lucky.  I get around the corner of her car and I see a huge black wasp sitting on her shoulder.  I mean huge too, it was almost two inches long.  I knew that meant that she’d been stung. 

 

For a split second I stopped dead in my tracks and thought how am I going to get that thing off of her without getting stung myself, or her getting stung again.  That’s when the “super mom” kicks in.  I knew it didn’t matter if I got stung I just had to get it off of her without her getting stung. 

 

I picked her up at arms length and slowly spun her around in a circle to my right, hoping that it would fly off of her shoulder in the other direction.  It did for a split second, then it flew straight at us.  I hugged her to me and headed for the garage where my friend was.  I called for her to help me check her over to see where she had been stung.  I couldn’t see anything but her head and upper arm she was holding on to me so tightly.

 

We saw the bump on her upper arm at the same time.  Then it was a mad dash into the house to call the doctor.    She is so sensitive to so many things I was scared she’d have an allergic reaction even though she’d never been stung before.  I leave her in my friends lap, which made her scream even more, to go in the kitchen and get the “Little Miss Helpful” cold pack, the benadryl, and the  tylenol.  I put the cold pack on her arm and she actually helped to hold it there.  She very willingly took the medicine, I think she knew it would make her feel better. 

 

Then it was time to call the doctor’s office.  I’ve never had them call me back so quickly. The nurse asked if the stinger was still in her.  I said no because it was a wasp that stung her and they don’t loose their stinger.  I told her how much benadryl and tylenol that I gave her, and that I had put a cold pack on it.  The nurse asked how much she weighed and how old she was. I told her 20 months and 27 pounds.  She said that I gave her the right amount of medicine, but that if she started to have trouble breathing to take her to the E.R. immediately.  The only thing left to ask was what else I could do to make her more comfortable.

You won’t believe what she told me.  She said to make a paste out of baking soda and water, or meat tenderizer and water and to put it on the area where she was stung.  It’s an old wives tale but it really did work.  She stopped crying and it made the redness and swelling go down very quickly.  Within four hours the only evidence of the sting was the hole from the stinger.  She was a happy, laughing baby, with almost no evidence of what had happened.

 

It’s amazing that so much could happen in less than ten minutes.  I apologized to my friend for panicking and she said that if that’s how I panic I did really good.  I didn’t think my heart could beat that fast without having run around the block a few times first.  Wow.  I hope I never have to go through that again. 

The only consolation is that my instincts of what to do were right on.  You always wonder if they will be accurate, and it’s nice to know that sometimes they are.

Days Two Through Five

Well S’ first week of work went very well.  He was able to do what the boss wanted him to do without a lot of questions.  He framed out the closet on Tuesday, and the boss said that everything about it was exactly what he told him to do.  He spent one morning cleaning before the inspector came.  Then he spent the afternoon sheetrocking the closet and doing more electrical work. 

The owner of the shop was very pleased that he did the closet.  She was worried that it wasn’t going to be done by this weekend when she moved in.  (She will be living above the salon). 

So far Chris has had no complaints about S’ workmanship.  S has asked him about different things so he will no what Chris is looking for in an employee.  He says if he needs to learn about something to help him on the job he’s willing to do it. (As long as I’ll read it to him.  Which he knows I will)>

Sorry if I’m rambling but I’ve been up since 5 a.m. and it’s now 11 p.m.  Good night.

Tomorrow post: Tragedy Strikes At A Local Garage Sale

Kids Say The Funniest Things

It’s true.  You never know what is going to come out of their mouths or when.  I think that’s probably the scariest thing about being a parent. 

Sure, you have to worry about being able to send them to the school of their choice, if they want to go, and secretly you hope they don’t so you don’t have to pay for it.  You have to worry about them turning into some horrible criminal because you didn’t buy them the Barbie or G.I. Joe or Pokemon that they absolutely couldn’t live without.  You wait for the day that they tell you that they hate you, or that “you’re not their friend anymore.”  And that comes sooner than expected.  You have to worry about paying for a wedding, or in my case two.   

But all of that doesn’t compare to the things that they say, because it NEVER happens in the privacy of your own home.  Oh no, it’s ALWAYS in a public place where you are surrounded by people.  If you’re lucky it’s in front of strangers, but the chance of that happening is a slim to none. 

 

These are things that Rapunzel has said, (and they weren’t always directed at me or S so the names are being left out to protect the integrity of those who received them):

1. In a crowded airport bathroom, “You have a fuzzy butt, ___!”
2. In a crowded truck stop, “Did you know that you have a ‘peanut’, ___?”
3. In a hotel lobby full of people I hadn’t seen in a year, “Mommy stop talking you have to go and breastfeed the baby.”  (We referred to it as nursing from then on).
4. In Target, to an innocent person brave enough to ask if the baby in the cart was her sister, ”Yes.  I have another sister, named Ashley, but she’s in heaven.”
5. To the same person, “Mommy started to have her in the bathroom at the mall, and there was a lot of blood.”
6. After listening to a friend on the phone, “How do you catch a polar bear? First you dig a hole in the ice and fill it with peas.  Then you hide and wait, and when he comes and tries to take a pea you kick him in the icehole!”  When told that it wasn’t a joke for little kids, she knew which words to edit out.  She was four.
7. To me on the big truck in the middle of PA, “R,’Mommy.’ Me, ‘Yes, R?’ R, ‘I love you.’ M, ‘I love you too.’  This goes on for a few minutes and then I just can’t take it anymore.  So I say what my friend and I said to her a few days before, ‘That’s it no more ‘Mommies’ in the truck!.’ Her response, ‘Well, then you better get out.”  She was four, and she didn’t even have to pause to think of a response.
8. A conversation with a lady from church we’ll call O, “R, don’t pick the berries they’re for the birdies.’ R looks at her, throws the berries in the air and goes back to picking more.  O, ‘R don’t pick the berries they’re for the birdies.  If you pick all the berries they won’t have anything to eat this winter.’ R, ‘Are you a mommy?’ O, ‘Yes.’  R, ‘Good, I think your kids are calling you.” 

That’s all I can think of right now.  I’m sure once this is posted I’ll think of more, but these should be enough to make you giggle for a while.

I couldn’t even get mad at her for any of this.  It was just to funny. 

I can’t wait to hear what Super Chunk will come up with when she starts to really talk.  She already comes up to me waving her little fat finger and scolding me in gibberish.  I just look scorned and say, “okay I’m sorry.”  Then she happily goes back to what she was doing before.  I can’t help but laugh out loud when she does this, and she just looks at me like I’m nuts, rolls her eyes, and walks away. 

Yes, at twenty months she has learned how to roll her eyes for a great effect. She has also mastered the pout, the “you hurt my feelings look,” the “I’m mad at you look,” and the “I knew I’d get what I wanted look.” 

It’s funny how they can say so much with out saying a word.  Whoever said “Silence is golden,” probably didn’t mean it in this way, but it is fitting.

Day One

Yesterday went very well for S.  He worked with Chris, his new boss, and Tom the Electrician.  I don’t know much about either of them but they seem to like him.  Chris is a big Italian guy who we’ve been told has a pretty good temper, which hopefully he’ll never see. 

 

Tom spent quite a bit of the day trying to figure out S’s age.  (His beard makes him look older).  S  said that he guessed pretty close to it when they were listening to the radio.  He recognized a song by Joe Santriani and Tom said that that “dated” him.  We have three of his cd’s and I still wouldn’t know it if I heard it. 

 

Yesterday was spent plumbing romex through conduit at a former sandwich shop now day spa.  (For those who don’t know conduit is a metal flexible tube that you run the electrical wire (romex) through.)  He says that there is a lot of electrical work to do since there are so many bays.  They line both sides of the space and they all have to have there own breaker.  He was also supposed to frame out a closet, but they didn’t get around to that.  That’s his job for today.  Then it’s back to the wiring again. 

 

Hopefully his day is going okay today.

 

I almost forgot, Chris gave him a key to the site and a credit card to go by supplies for today, since he will be alone at the site for most of the morning.  He has to give them back today, but at least they think that he’s trustworthy.

Pictures

I have updated my photo albums on another site.  (They are under the name AmberSukiMommy)  Please feel free to drop by.  Check out Josephine’s albums too, I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.

What Lies Ahead?

Tomorrow is a new day and we don’t know how it will end.  

S, my husband got a new job; sort of.  He’s going to be working in construction for the next two weeks at least.  Chris, his new boss, hired him on a temporary basis.  So tonight he had the joy of calling ”Mr. Pride,” his old boss and tellig him that he was taking a two week leave of absence.  Let’s just say that his old boss wasn’t exactly thrilled, but he understood; sort of.  S had to remind him that he was told about three weeks ago that he needed a raise or he was going to find a new job.  I guess he didn’t believe him.  S also told him that his new job was temporary and that he’d talk to him about it again in two weeks.  “Mr. Pride” just said okay, I look forward to hearing from you in two weeks.

I think he expects S to come crawling back on his hands and knees begging for his job back.  I can tell you right now, that is not going to happen.  Even if it means going on unemployment for a couple of weeks.  I don’t think S could take going back there.  Things would just be worse than before.  “Mr. Pride would be able to say, “I told you so,” and that’s never good.

 

There are three things that bother me about this whole thing:

 

1) The worse thing about this is that some people think that we’re going to leave the meeting too.  (Click here for explanation of meeting).  Which we’re not.  Right now we can’t afford the gas to get there and have enough to get to work too.  So we have to choose, work or meeting.  I’m not saying work is more important than God, but God will understand if we’re not there, a boss won’t. 

 

2) Next is the fact that Rapunzel doesn’twant her Daddy to quit his job.  This is what she told me tonight:

Rapunzel:  “Don’t let Daddy quit his job.”

Me: “You don’t need to worry about that.”

R: ”Don’t let Daddy quit his job.(!)”

M: “You don’t need to worry about that.  The only thing you need to do is have fun on your Summer vacation.”

R: “But I don’t want the family to starve.(!)”

M: “We won’t starve. Don’t worry about it.”

 

What can I say she’s a very perceptive six year old.  She picks up on everything.

 

3) And lastly not knowing what is going to happen. 

 

(Rapunzel also told S that she didn’t want him to quit his job.  When he told her that when she came home that she needed a new backpack, shoes, clothes, and other such things and that we can’t afford them right now, she softened a little.  She said, “Oh.  Well make sure you have a new job BEFORE I get home.”)

 

 

It is now tomorrow and S left at 5:30 am to drive to the job site.  I’ll write about his first day when he gets home tonight. 

 

P.S. My blog didn’t get lost, just misdirected.  Here it was waiting for me this morning.  And I was able to make a lnk.  Yay for me!

I LOST IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a good post for today. It was all typed out and ready to insert a link.  I went to save it as a draft “just in case” and the “page culd not be found.”  AHHHH!!!!!!!!  So everything I wrote is now gone. But that’s okay I’ll just try again later.  Here’s what you can look forward to:

 

My huband has taken a leave of absence from his work to go work at a new job.