I’ve Been Busy…

 

Momma has been a busy girl this week.  I’ve racked up 13 hours of OT this week from Monday to Wednesday and I’m still going strong.  The paycheck will be nice, but man am I tired.  My territory was expanded to all of Bryan/College Station and the surrounding areas.  There is a lot of drive time for me now.  On Monday it was 5 hours roundtrip.  Yesterday I was in Somerville and I had a 4 hour drive time.  I had 3 appointments and I’m just not fast enough yet to do that.  I spent a couple of hours at home each morning at 4:00 doing paperwork.  It’s crazy.  I’m up anyway, so I might as well be paid for it!

The windshield time is the worst part.  Okay, maybe the climbing the roof itself is the worst part, but I don’t really like the driving either.  I don’t mind the actual time behind the wheel except that I can’t really talk to customers or get paperwork done when I’m spending all my time driving.  It’s a Catch 22.  Most of my co-workers have less than an hour drive time, but they drive in Houston so they hit traffic and the roofs are much steeper in their territories.  I have to drive but I get the rural older homes. 

We had a hail storm come thru this weekend and most of my co-workers claims are being picked up by our Catastrophe team.  My territory is so rural that they don’t bother picking those up.  So, my happy butt is driving and working them.  I haven’t clocked it yet, but I know I’ll put at least 1,000 miles on the van this week alone. 

But the upside is helping people.  I’ve really enjoyed that aspect of this job.  I get to meet with customers face to face and so far everyone has been really nice.  I have had one bitter old viper who wouldn’t talk to me.  She just stared at me the whole time then walked away muttering stuff under her breath.  I had to deal with her nephew she was so mean, but she’s been the only one.  Most of the people I’ve seen this week have had a lot of damage to their houses and cars.  We had golf ball sized hail and some of them had to be bigger than golf ball judging by the size of the dents on the roofs and cars. 

Meanwhile, Tommy has been manning the house and Erin.  I usually take her in the mornings but have had to leave too early to do it.  He’s been taking and picking her up.  It’s much easier doing this job with a supportive husband behind me.  He encourages me when I call him scared out of my mind when I pull up to a really steep one.  He always tells me I’ve got this.  Turns out most of the time I do!  Mr. Mom has also had to do some cooking and cleaning.  Shout out to him for not complaining (too much). 

This job has been an adjustment for all of us.  SF is having more openings come up in May and I may try to switch to inside homeowners (HCCS).  I would be doing more water leaks and inside stuff.  I really enjoy the simplicity of the job I’m doing now, but it’s hot and hard and I think I would prefer to do the inside gig.  Not even sure there will be openings for that position, but if there are, Momma is going to try.  I would really miss my teammates though.  I’ve gotten pretty close to 3 of them and really really like them.  But I’ve gotta do what’s best for me and I think moving inside instead of up on top might be my best option.  This outside weather stuff is brutal.

Stay tuned…

Everything Must Go…

 

I started something with my Spring Cleaning.  Tommy has been selling stuff left and right that I was going to give to GoodWill.  We have really been able to de-clutter the house and we both feel so much better.

Ebay or other selling sites move too slowly for me.  I want to buy instantly and I hate the selling game and people trying to low ball me.  I have listed stuff on the Woodlands Online before and been successful, but I can’t stand the waiting period.  Tommy is not that way.  He’s as patient as Job when it comes to selling stuff.  I dare say he’s obsessed with selling our old crap!  And he has been known to dig thru my piles of donation stuff to see if there is anything worth selling.

We have an neighborhood app that he’s on and they have a classified section.  Right now he’s got our crib mattress and a bedding set listed.  It’s funny to me because he doesn’t have a high price on it but some woman sent him a private message that she would trade a one hour massage with essential oils at her house for it.  LOL!  I have been laughing at that for hours.

Tommy’s obsession is a good thing because I would have just given the stuff away.  It’s cluttering up the house and garage and it’s all stuff that we don’t use or that Erin has outgrown.  Yesterday he sold my like new rollerblades that I think I used maybe 5 times.  (Might have held on to them if it wasn’t for the ankle surgery after Steph’s massive rollerblading wipeout that scared me straight!)  He also sold a mechanic’s creeper yesterday.  He bought it years ago and it’s been hanging in the garage for no real reason. 

The stuff people buy and sell on there is just totally random.  I actually bought a desk and chair for my little work area.  Tommy did the same since we’re both working from home now.  Nothing fancy, just simple glass and metal desks that aren’t too big.  We didn’t want to convert an entire room in the house to SF and since we’re both on the phone at the same time occasionally it seemed like a better idea to set up in different rooms.  One of us is a “loud” talker so I hear.

Tommy lives to negotiate and is fantastic at it.  He’s actually the best negotiator I know.  He does awesome with it at work too.  He has handpicked crazy items to sell and it really into the rush.  The first day he sold 3 items in like 2 hours.  It was the weekend and I think listings are more successful on the weekend.  Since then, he’s put other random stuff on there and it’s sat for a couple of days.  I think he’s actually pretty disappointed things have slowed down.  Maybe we’re just sold all the choice treasure already. 

So far he’s made over $100 bucks for our old stuff!  I haven’t counted it but there is a stack of money in the kitchen from his sales.  Of course, it’s burning a hole in my pocket, but Mr. Patient has an idea for our Sanford & Son earnings I’m sure.  I’ve even tried to recruit my parents with this app.  I loaded it on Daddy’s phone and told him he can unload some of their junk but he hasn’t done it yet.  With all the crap my Momma holds on to they’re probably sitting on a gold mine!

I just wanted to prepare all of your that come to our house.  You may have to sit on the floor and look at blank walls by the time we’re finished.  It’s like a Fire Sale around here.  Everything must go.

A Trip to the Museum…

 

We met Erin’s BFF Avery and her mom at the Children’s Museum today.  It was great.  The girls have really missed each other.  There were hugs and kisses and a lot of laughter when they saw each other.

Here are some shots from today.  Neither of them would stop long enough for me to get a good one of them together!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Last Trike-a-Thon 2015…

 

Erin was able to raise almost $400 dollars in the St. Jude’s Trike-a-Thon this year when the donations and raffle tickets were added up.  Thanks to all that donated.  It’s such a great cause and I’m thankful everyday for my happy healthy kiddo.

She did so great.  I practically had to pull her kicking and screaming from her bike.  The rest of her class had stopped riding to eat lunch but Erin just kept on going.  I finally made her stop so Gram and Pawpaw could take her to get something to eat and go home.  Bless her heart, she rode for like an hour and a half straight.

You can tell the kids that really love to ride from the novices like Erin.  Erin has never shown much interest in riding her bike.  She ask her all the time if she wants to ride and she usually says no.  She’s been “practicing” at Gram and Pawpaw’s house, so she had it down for the ride.  I think she thought it was an endurance test!

Here are a couple of shots.  When I saw Luke in that pink shirt I nearly laughed my head off.  I saw him in the hall before it started and he told me first thing that he had on a “girl’s” shirt.  I told him real men wear pink, but I don’t think he was convinced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out With the Old…

 

It’s Spring Fever around here.  Erin wants to play outside.  Tommy is totally into the Rockets playoffs.  Pollen is in the air and I am cleaning house!  Let me preface this by saying we have a housekeeper that does a fantastic job and our house isn’t dirty.  It was just very cluttered.  We had stuff everywhere and it was all unorganized.

I took yesterday and today off of work to get the job done.  It wasn’t how I wanted to spend my vacation days, but I didn’t want to take a whole weekend on it either.  Right after I dropped Erin off I got to work.  We’ve already loaded up 2 truck loads of stuff and taken it to GoodWill.  By the time I”m finished I want those workers at GoodWill to know my truck! I want them salivating over the great crap I’m bringing them.

I’m not sure who invented totes but the dude is a genius.  I bought 2 cute metal shelves and $150 bucks worth of totes for my project.  When I’m done, it will be the best $250 I’ve spent all year.  I put the shelves together and put one of them in my “Harry Potter” closet under the stairs and the other in the attic.  If you’ve seen the Harry Potter closet then you know, it’s a very deep closet with crap piled everywhere.  All the stuff in there was folded and in totes already but there was no place to put it.  It just got stacked on top of each other on the floor.  Not anymore!  The shelf in there was a brilliant idea.

My one regret is not taking before and after pictures.  I was too embarrassed by the before to take them!  The after looks terrific, but geez, we were living like wanna be hoarders.  It wasn’t so bad that a TV crew was going to show up, but it was certainly more disorganized than I could handle.

So far I’ve tackled Erin’s room, the upstairs guest room, the downstairs guest room, the dining room and part of the kitchen.  I am going to skip the pantry this time because I think I’ll run out of time, but it’s on my list this weekend.  I only stopped working yesterday because even though I was off, I had a 2:00 conference call that I had to take.  It lasted 45 minutes and I was too pooped to get started again.  I called it a day, took a walk around the neighborhood and grabbed a shower all before Erin got home.

Today’s project is our closet, our room, the laundry room and to finish up in the kitchen.  I have a lot to do because our closet is a complete mess.  For someone as OCD as I am, I really let the closet get away from me.  I am going to give away a bunch of clothes and shoes and purses today.  That closet will never know what hit it.

I keep looking at the dining room when I walk by it.  I had put all my stuff from my job there and taken over the dining room table.  It was convenient when I was doing my on-line training 8 hours a day and wasn’t that messy.  I just never moved it once I started going out in the field.  It looked like a Sanford and Son junk yard.  I moved it all upstairs to the spare room up there.  I put up a folding table and this is now my home office.

The only room I’m going to spare in all of this is the game room upstairs with the computer niche.  We both consider this Tommy’s area.  He’s in charge of getting it straightened out.  He took off yesterday too but spent most of the day listing the bigger ticket items on Ebay and our community on-line classifieds.  He’s made some deals and about $100 bucks off of crap I was willing to give away.

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure… come get your share of our treasure before I throw it out or Tommy sells it!

Easter in the Country 2015…

 

We spent the day yesterday in the Country for Easter.  We were a week late this year, but I don’t think the kids minded!

Uncle Mark grilled hamburgers and we had a great lunch.  It was fun sitting around the table.  Erin was holding court and never stopped talking the whole time.  She chatted about everything and Pepaw just sat beside her soaking it in.  Luke joined in but only when Erin was taking a breath.  Man, that little girl can talk and that’s saying something coming from me!

It was time to hunt eggs so they loaded up in the back of the ranch truck and Pepaw took them to the back while we hid the eggs.  There were bags of corn in the back of the truck and they made the perfect place to sit.  I’m sure we were breaking about 50 laws by letting them ride back there, but they had a blast and Pepaw was going super slow.  We hid 105 eggs this year and I think they found them all.  No one counted them in the end.  If not I guess some varmint up there will have a nice treat.

Here are some of the pics from the day.  They’re mostly action shots because the kids were getting tire of me following them around trying to get them to pose.  I gave up.

I was trying to get Erin to stay still in the ones where she’s laughing.  I was sitting in the chair and she was running up to me.  I actually got a couple of good ones.

 

Anything But That…

 

I’m all about boosting Erin’s confidence like my parents did with me.  I am always hugging and kissing her and tell her how smart and pretty she is.  I want her to grow up confident and self-assured.  My mom was always telling us that girls can do anything boys can do and telling us how smart and pretty we were.  I am carrying on the Wistner family tradition by trying to raise a smart, independent young lady.

Last night she slept with me since Tommy was at the Rockets game.  We woke up and she was so warm and snuggly that I took advantage of it.  I was hugging her and snuggling and told her she was smart and pretty and could be anything in the world she wanted to be.

She very calmly told me she wanted to be a sister when she grows up.

Epic parental fail!  How can I dash her dreams by telling her that’s the one thing she will never be!!!  LOL  I just got finished telling her she can be anything and she totally stumped me with that one. 

She’s at the age now where she’s obsessed with baby pictures and babies.  She doesn’t play with dolls or anything like that but most of her friends at school either have older sibs or their moms are having babies.  Sorry Charlie.  You’re out of luck if you’re wanting me to have another kid!  Even though there was a little Mommy guilt this morning, I WILL NOT be having any more children just to satisfy my 4 year old!

Tommy and I are great with our choice to have one.  There will be times when she wants brothers and sisters, but I know there will be times when she’s glad she gets undivided attention and most anything she wants and is happy to be the one and only.

Life is good for Erin, even if I’m raising her to have a big head about her smarts and looks and we’re dashing her dreams. 

We Cut Our Hair…

 

Erin came home on Monday wanting to cut her hair like Taylor’s.  I have no idea who Taylor is and thought it was just a passing thing. 

She told me again on Tuesday and then again yesterday morning.  So, I took her last night to get it cut.  She told me she wanted it really short.  I was a little bit afraid that she would regret it because she loves to play with her long hair in the mirror.  She climbed up in the chair and told the lady what she wanted.  The lady and I decided on a short length but not too short.  I didn’t want her to really regret it if she decided she wanted it long again.

Hopefully this will stop the morning drama.  Erin’s hair tangles so badly that we have a fight on our hands when it’s time to blow dry her hair and when we go to brush it in the morning. 

I think we’ll go shorter when school starts but this little cut turned out super cute on her.

 

It’s Official…

 

We officially have a 2015-2016 Conroe ISD – Broadway Elementary Star student at home now.

I registered Erin for Kindergarten yesterday.  They have designated days to register for the Kindergarten Round-up and I found out they also have dedicated times!  Yikes!  Luckily, I pulled up right under the wire.  I had what I thought was all the paperwork with me then I realized I had forgotten the water bill.  (Yes, you have to show them a utility bill with the parent’s name on it to prove residency.)  Anyway, thankfully we’re right there so I just popped home and grabbed it and got back there just as registration was wrapping up.

They offered to let me fill the form out written or online.  I opted for the online version and I’m glad I did.  It took me a good 30 minutes to go thru the questionnaire and answer all the redundant questions.  I’m not sure why they ask for my phone number 10 different times, but they now have it. 

Last night I told her that I registered her to go to the big school next year.  I told her I had to fill out lots of papers to get her signed up.  She immediately ran to the backdoor so she could see the school and wanted to go over there to look.  Luckily they had given me a packet of 2014-2015 stuff so we went thru it like it was the Declaration of Independence.  (I guess in a way, it was!)

We’re excited about the school too.  I found a website that rated them and Broadway gets and A rating.  The highest is A+, but none of the surrounding elementariness got A+’s.  I think the class size has something to do with it.  There has been a population boom in our area and the size of the classrooms has exploded.  The article said that Broadway will reach capacity in a year or two so they have some of the larger class sizes.  I can live with an A rather than A+ rating.  I know Erin is going to be like a little sponge and soak it all up. 

The only downer was the form itself.  I got to a section that nearly broke my heart.  It’s the demographics section.  It asked questions like whether we had electricity and running water in the home.  It asked if we live in a tent, car or abandoned building.  It was so sad.  The worst part was the suburban guilt knowing that the kids that go to this school mainly live in our neighborhood and a couple of them surrounding our hood.  They all live in nice brick houses and I assume they have running water and lights.  I was also shocked by the number of language choices there were on the form.  I was expecting English, Spanish and maybe an Asian language or two.  No, there were about 40 language choices and half of them I didn’t even recognize!

While I was there, another woman was signing her daughter up.  The little girl was super excited and stood at the glass double door entrance to the school and watched the kids go to lunch.  She asked a 1,000 questions and was just as excited as Erin would be.  Her name was Paisley.  Cute kid too!  Maybe she and Erin will be in the same class.  Her mom and I bonded over lengthy forms and computer issues with the school laptops!

It felt great to sign her up.  I’m actually excited about school clothes shopping for her.  She loves to wear dresses and skirts and refuses to wear jeans or anything with buttons on it.  I’m wondering if that will change once we get to school…  I’ll order her school supplies thru the PTO.  They put together the packets of exactly what each grade needs and sell them as a fund raiser.  They deliver them to the classroom on the first day of school and the kids have exactly what they need.  I was looking forward to having her pick out folders and junk like that.  I will probably still take her to do it anyway.  And, there is always the major decision of which lunchbox to select.

It was a good and exciting day in the Mize household.  Mission accomplished.

Getting Big…

 

This week we register Erin for Kindergarten.  I can’t believe she’s already starting K-garten.  People tell you that the time goes by quickly, but when you’re in the moment of being a new parent you just don’t understand.  Now I get it.  I’m so excited that I got her paperwork ready 2 months ago when I found out when Kindergarten Round-up was! 

I wouldn’t go back to the baby days for anything.  I loved Erin then, but she is so much more fun now.  She has a sparky spunky personality and I can’t wait for her to start school and make friends.

I think the best part of Kindergarten will be the raise we get from the daycare!!!  It’s unreal how much we pay a year.  Although we’ve had a great experience at Gateway to Learning and we couldn’t have picked a better school for Erin, I’m glad it’s coming to an end.  She’s ready for a new challenge and new friends.  Every time we drive by Broadway Elementary she tells me that is where Jake goes to school and her and Luke will be going there too.  (The school is literally behind our house, so we pass it several times a day.  And yes, we hear about it every time!)

Instead of Gateway, we’re going to sign her up for the YMCA program after school.  The school is so close to the house and Daddy and Pawpaw are going to cut a gate thru the fence this month.  We’ll walk to school this year on pretty days.  (I have a feeling some of the neighbors will be using the gate too!) 

The YMCA has a great reputation. I have a friend from work who sends her kids there and another friend who uses a YMCA program at a different school.  They rave about it.  I called to find out when we can enroll and they gave me a rundown of the program.  They have counselors that watch the kids until 6:30 if you need.  They set up centers and have a homework area so that they can do homework or play.  Hmmmm… wonder which Erin will do! 

The Y is a fraction of the daycare money.  Our plan is to try it out for a while, but if we can pull it off with our schedules, we might just skip the after school and pick her up when the bell rings.  Tommy and I both work from home now, but we’re just not sure if it will work long term.  My appointments are sometimes long in the afternoon and I still have work to do when I get home.  Tommy has meetings at various times and has to go out of town.  We always have the Gram and Pawpaw Back-Up Plan, but for now we’ll try the Y.

Big changes coming to the Mize household and we’re excited.

Me and My Shadow…

 

A couple of snaps from Easter morning.

 

Bluebonnet Pictures 2015 (Minerva)