The Deal

We have a problem in our family with the kind of words we use and the tone of voice we speak with. It has gotten to the point where pretty much at least half of the stuff that comes out of my mouth or my son's mouths seems to be sarcastic, facetious, unkind, impolite, contentious or just plan mean. I have been thinking for a while that we need to do something to change this, but I wasn't really sure how to help us stop. Today while the youngest son and I were waiting for his last (hopefully) visit with the oral surgeon he made a smart remark and I said, "I think you should see if you can go for a whole week without being sarcastic." His response was "What will you give me?" I told him I would kiss him on the forehead. That definitely wasn't going to cut it. "Will you buy me a car?" "Uh, No." "Will you let me get my driver's license?" "Nope." "If I go for a month without being sarcastic will you let me get my license?" I had to think about this one for a minute. First of all, the way things are in our home at the moment I would say the chances of him going for a month without being sarcastic are less than zero. Probably like a negative 50 at least. And that is not being sarcastic. That is the genuine truth. However, I could really enjoy an entire month of honest, polite responses coming out of this son's mouth. I was thinking it might actually be worth it. I wasn't going to give in too easily though so I upped the ante. "If you can go for a month without saying anything sarcastic, rude, or mean to any member of our family I will let you get your license." "This is going to be easy!" He was immediately checking his calendar in his phone to figure out what day of the week April 23rd was and entering a note that he was getting his driver's license on that day.
On the way home we stopped at Circle K so I could buy the son an ICEE in honor of his one year anniversary of giving up soda. He hasn't intentionally drunk any type of carbonated beverage since March 23, 2008. (He was tricked into drinking soda when he partook of the wedding punch at his sister's wedding reception last April before he was informed that one of the main ingredients happened to be 7up.) He went into the store to make his purchase and I waited in the car. When he came out I remarked "You smell like coffee. Have you been drinking coffee?" He quickly retorted, "All day, every day." I looked at him and he whacked himself on the knee. He pulled out his phone and changed his note. "On Friday, April 24 on I going to get my driver's license." Since then he has done quite well and I am thoroughly enjoying this welcome break from his wicked words. Now I just need to work on myself and his brother. Stay tuned to see how this episode of "Let's Make a Deal" turns out.

Today I am thankful for

a visiting teaching companion that makes the appointments.
a son that took out the trash without complaining and even gathered up the palm tree litter left by last night's windstorm without even being asked.
a husband that goes to the grocery store.
the last trip to the oral surgeon (I hope).

Reflections on Moving Day

Today my youngest daughter and her roommates moved from their apartment in Mesa to a townhouse in Tempe. They have
been planning (not necessarily preparing and packing for) this move for quite a while now and they were very excited. All the members of our family were recruited to help with the move. Lucky us!








The roommate/girlfriend fell down the stairs to their apartment on Sunday and is on crutches and wearing a knee brace so she was out of commission and couldn't offer much assistance. Her family was going to help but her dad stepped on a bristle from a metal cleaning brush, got a very bad infection, had surgery and spent a couple of days in the hospital this week and is only allowed to travel by scooter. Her teenage brother had a kidney stone he finally passed yesterday and her mom is busy taking care of all the invalids. The other roommate's dad and brothers did help her move some stuff when they were in town a couple of weeks ago, but they had a father/son fishing trip to Lee's ferry scheduled for this weekend and since it had to be cancelled once (for Grandpa's funeral) they didn't want to cancel it again. This background is just to help you understand why the girls were willing to put up with our kind of moving help. Apparently we were the best that was available.

I am not a fan of moving. Never have been, Probably never will be. I am especially not a fan of moving when:

1. It is HOT outside.

2. Any of my children are involved.

3. The people being moved aren't the most organized.

4. There is not a designated "leader of the move".

5. Stairs are a part of the moving equation.

I pretty much knew from the 5:30 AM beginning of the day that I wasn't going to enjoy this experience and although I would tell my children that having a good attitude makes a difference, I'm not sure in this situation that it really would have. It hasn't been that long ago that we moved the 2 daughters into this apartment, at the same time of the year, and I unfortunately remembered it too well. You've heard the saying, "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians." Well, in our family we have the opposite problem. "Too many Indians, and no one wants to be chief." We spend a lot of time trying to decide the best way to accomplish the task, or as I perceive it, trying to get out of accomplishing the task at all, while the day just gets hotter and hotter and hotter and so do I.

We started out loading boxes into the oldest son's truck. I became the designated director by default and organized an assembly line. I told the son to stay in his truck to organize the boxes, the other son was responsible for carrying boxes from the apartment to the bottom of the stairs (he was definitely the youngest and the fittest of the group), the hubby loaded the boxes on the dolly and I pushed the dolly through the apartment complex to the truck and back. The moving help recipients were responsible for packing boxes and keeping Poky from getting stepped on (at least that's what they said they were doing). By the time the truck was close to full, we were beginning to realize how many truck trips we
were going to have to take to get all the belongings moved. Way too many! The son-in-law presented the girls with the idea of renting a U-haul and they weren't opposed, especially after realizing that their couch was a lot longer than the son's truck bed. While the newlyweds went to pick up a moving van, the sons, one roommate and I took the truck to the townhouse and emptied it.
We got back about the same time the van arrived and the "men" started loading the big stuff. There were a few scary moments when the couch was balancing precariously on the apartment balcony but it eventually arrived safely on the ground and we'll just pretend that those aren't really holes you can see in the back of it.

Despite some movers who did more entertaining than moving,

(which my mom would definitely say I deserve after all the entertaining rather than working I did as a child),
a few trips to pick up necessary items such as tools and more boxes,



and more than a few rest and water breaks,
we were able to get the van loaded and unloaded before the hottest part of the day. After a couple of hours apart we were once again able to speak civilly to each other and the newly located daughter treated all of the hired help to a delicious dinner at Mi Amigos. I can't quite say that it made all the work worth it, but it did help me feel a little better about the whole experience.

Today I am thankful that

this moving day is over.
my daughter married a boy who knows how to carry boxes, rent U-Hauls, and balance heavy furniture while holding his tongue.
Frys had lots of fruit boxes just waiting for me to come and steal.

For my birthmonth present to myself today I purchased a Diet Pepsi from Pete's Fish and Chips. This wouldn't have qualified as a gift, since I buy soda way too often to be considered special, but today I splurged and went for the 44oz. size. I felt I deserved it after all the fluids I had lost.

PHone PHrustrations!

Isn't it interesting how when things in our lives work right we hardly even notice them, but when they quit working they become so noticeable? Apparently on Saturday our home phone ceased to function correctly. Usually we figure out that we have a problem when the Internet won't connect, but for some reason the DSL continued to work. My mom and sister spent all day calling me, wondering where I was and I spent all day wondering why they didn't call. Finally, in the evening I called them on my cell phone and discovered that something was wrong with my phone. We have a portable phone with one hook up but three bases and three hand sets. One of the bases got ran over by the vacuum cleaner and one of the phones has disappeared, but we still have two. Unfortunately the handsets get left off of the bases and then they run out of battery or get under the couch cushions and accidentally get turned on when someone sits on them. In other words, I felt like there was probably a problem with the phone this time and I couldn't blame the failure on the stupid phone company and there inept ability to repair the phone line adequately a month ago. On Monday I went to Target and bought a new phone. Another one with one hook up, three handsets, three bases - $59.99 on sale. I took it home and low and behold the phone still had no dial tone. I decided perhaps it was time to contact the phone company. Since this kind of thing is what I have a hubby for I immediately called him and asked him to call and request a repair. Being the wonderful, loving man that he is he did it without complaint, later in the evening after he got home from work. Of course, when you call any business now you do not actually get to talk to a person. You get to carry on a conversation with a voice that asks you random questions and then tells you to speak your answer into the phone, but when you speak the voice starts talking again so the voice doesn't understand what you say. The first thing you usually hear upon calling Qwest is "For some reason, we are experiencing a high number of repair calls and there may be a delay in your service". This is a polite way of saying, our repairmen are mostly a bunch of idiots who don't know what they are doing and therefore we have to keep repairing the same mistakes that we supposedly fixed last month and so we have quite a backlog. Eventually, hubby got a repair scheduled for sometime on July 1st, the next day. Hooray! The repairman arrived in the late afternoon (after driving up and down the street for about 20 minutes) and wasn't at all deterred by the vicious attack dog (Poky) who met him at the door with me. After about an hour and a half we receive a call from him that our phone is now working. I always find this humorous because of course it is working, you are calling me on it. At the same moment, the son and I were trying to sign on to the Internet to work on some health. Three tries and no connection. I check the modem box - flashing lights everywhere. STOP that repairman! Too late, there he goes off down the street. Perhaps everything just needs reset. Unplug, unconnect, turn off, re-plug, re-connect, turn on - same results. Once again I call the hubby, he calls the phone company, try these things when you get home, we'll send someone out tomorrow. Tomorrow, July 2, arrives. About 10:00 I receive a phone call with a "message concerning our phone repair." The repair has been completed and everything is working now. If we have any more problems please call this number. I run to my bedroom to check. Still flashing lights. Perhaps everything just needs reset. Unplug, unconnect, turn off, re-plug, re-connect, turn on - same results. Good thing I wrote down that number! I call the phone company. (Hubby is trying to work and I am capable of talking on the phone once in a while.) After speaking to the voice and pushing a multitude of buttons and listening to how valuable I am to Qwest and a sales pitch for every item they could possibly sell me I get to talk to a real, live person. I ask "Was the repair call I receive regarding the old repair or the new repair?" Who knows. I explain the situation and the real person says hold on while I test the line. More sales pitch and valuable person propaganda. The line appears to be working fine. It must be something to do with the DSL line. Let me connect you with the Internet repair department. More of the valuable customer spill and information on how to sign on to the Internet and get help at their website. I would love to sign on to the Internet and I would definitely love to get help. Now I decide to do a hand off to the eldest son to discuss the technical aspects of the problem because that's what I have sons for and I'm tired of listening to the same message over again. This was a very good decision since the son gets to run around the house and stand on his head and connect and unconnect cables for the next 20 minutes. The final determination is that we need a new modem because apparently ours is fried. I get the phone back to discuss the financial portion of the deal. I can get the modem from them for the low price of $59.99 (think I already spent that amount on this problem this week). I query why we need to purchase the modem from them. The original modem didn't come from them. I receive a lengthy lesson on car repair and how important it is to use parts from the maker and not facsimiles thereof. I see. "How long will it take to arrive?" "3 to 5 business days." Hum, not good. We have health to do and we are going out of town on the 4th. I express my concern. "Oh, I am so glad you told me about your concern. You can just go to Best Buy and buy a modem right now." How convenient. I would have liked to know that 15 minutes ago at the beginning of this discussion. That is what I will do. I get off the phone and eldest son says, "I don't think it's the modem. We had a brand new modem (that we bought when we bought the original one and thought we needed two but really only needed one and so never used) and I tried it too with the Internet tech guy and it didn't work either. He said it must be bad too, but I don't see how it could be since it's brand new." Interesting twist. This is the same modem that I will get in my hot car and drive to Best Buy to purchase. I don't really want to do that if it isn't going to fix the problem. I know. I will call the phone company again and see what they suggest. What a good idea! At least I'll try a new phone number. More voices, more buttons, more valuable customer garbage then finally a real person. I explain my situation. "Hold on and I will check your line to see if it's working." "It's working. I'm talking to you on it." "It will just take a couple of minutes. Let me check it." Now I get -upgrade to a faster Internet speed and get 2 months free. I should be getting something free since I'm not getting what I'm paying for! Real person comes back on "It appears the line is working fine. Let me connect you to the DSL department." Been there, done that, but sure let's do it again. I wish the phone company just had elevator music when they put you on hold. DSL person, "Have you...?" "Yes." "Have you...?" "Yes." and so on and so on and so on. "I need to test your line to see if it is working correctly. You need to hang up and I'll call you back in about 2 minutes." Great. No body's thought to test the line before. Half an hour later. "The line seems to be working fine. I have one of our computer specialists on the other line. I am going to bring him on and he is going to help you try one more thing. Here he is." "Thanks." "I'm going to stand on my head and count to 200 and hit this box with a ding dong wrapper and see if that helps. I need you to unplug your modem and I'll tell you when to plug it back in." In case you haven't guessed that's not what he really said, but what he actually did worked just as well as I think that would have. "Plug the modem back in." and we'll carry on some casual conversation while we wait to see if anything happens. "Umm, nothing. Well, it's possible that something didn't get hooked back up correctly after the repair yesterday. I will put in an order for a repairman to come out. He can be there very late tomorrow. Is that OK?" "I guess it will have to be. We are getting ready to leave town and my son has an online class he needs to work on before we go but I guess we can go to the library to work on it." "Well, actually you need to be home to greet the repairman tomorrow and although I don't think he will get there until late he may be there early so you will need to be there." "O.K." X-nay on the library-a. "By the way, what happened to the repairman that my husband scheduled to come out today? Did he come?" "Let me check. No, apparently no order was ever submitted on that call." "Perhaps I could get the repairman there in the morning tomorrow.How about between 9:00 and 1:00." Just lovely. I know this story has dragged on long enough and obviously my computer is once again working since I am posting a blog. The repairman came about 11:00 and "completed a very easy repair." Apparently there are two connections in the box out in the alley. One for the phone and one for the Internet. Somehow the Internet one was left unplugged following the first repair. Imagine that. I am so glad I am one of Qwest's valuable customers and I get to enjoy their company on such a regular basis. Does anyone have a new phone carrier recommendation? By the way. We now have 5 working land line phones, 4 cell phones, and a "fast enough" DSL connection and no one wants to communicate with me. What's with that! The son did get some health done though so that is a plus. I am grateful today for Phones and computers - that all work at the moment. A blog - where I can vent and feel better. Vacation - that I get to go on tomorrow!