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!