Trot, Forrest, Trot

I took up running again after a chocolate-filled hiatus. Last week my longest run was 3.6 miles, this week was 4.4. I know that all you marathon runners are scoffing at me but it was super exciting for a chunky non-marathoner like myself and earned a high five from Matt's dad. I take Toby with me. Not because I want to but because he likes it and needs it. The first reason I don't like running with Toby is that I really feel like he's judging me. He's so excited when we start, barely controlled yelping and furious wiggling. As we begin, he tries to pull ahead. I get the feeling he's thinking: 'Master, when are we going to start actually running? Because what we're doing? Is just trotting. We go out for a trot, Master.'

The second reason I don't like running with Toby is that he gets really marky with everyone else's territory. No mailbox is safe. He evens pees on the same fire-ant pile near the woods every morning. Which is a bold move, but then Toby is a bold dog. Maybe it's a self-esteem issue. Like if we complimented him more and encouraged him to follow his dreams and such he wouldn't feel the need to make all the other dogs feel subservient.


An odd thing on my "runs" around the neighborhood is one of these signs:



I don't know, maybe I'm too sensitive but it seems like we could be a little more politically correct about this. Why slow children?

Watch out! The children in this neighborhood are not the sharpest crayons in the box if you know what we mean...Keep a close eye on your bumper, folks.



While I was walking home during my cool off yesterday, someone in the car leaned out the window and said something to me. I had earbuds in so I couldn't hear them but I assume it was something like:

"Way to go, you!"

"Your hair still looks fabulous, well done!"

"Yay!"


But it was probably more like:

"There's a rabid squirrel behind you."

"Out for a very slow trot, are we?"

"Your shoe's untied."

Leather Upholstery and An Unfortunate Song

EL Poor Decisions

A couple weeks ago we bought a car due to our minivan meeting an untimely end. I still shudder when I think about our poor minivan, exposed on the main commercial street in town, doors wide open for all to see its cheerios and trash. The minivan wasn't worth a whole heap of a lot so we went on the hunt for a new vehicle.

Have you shopped for a car lately? It's like a circus but without all the fun. Craigslist is always achieving new levels of odd and we even had one seemingly honest couple ask us to send money via Western Union and we would be sure to get the title to the car they were selling.

Yeah, no.

We even tried dealerships, which we always swore we would never do but we were getting desperate with the slim pickings on Craigslist. We looked at used minivans and the nice saleslady told us that the usual price for this van was $18k but as a special deal for us special, special customers she would let it go to us for the very secretive and amazing price of $16k. Matt told her we'd think about it and went out in the car to look up that dealer's inventory. Turns out, our special, secretive deal was the price listed on the internet for the same van.

Not so special anymore, are we?

We finally settled on an older Expedition (it's a longer version of the original, named 'Expedition El' which is Spanish for 'Expedition you cannot parallel park.'). We had to drive a few hours south but it was a nice older couple with meticulous record keeping, which is Matt's favorite type of people from which to buy.

On the way down, we stopped at a little dollar store to buy drinks as a treat for everyone. I bought Matt a bottle of Diet Coke and he showed me the label after we got back on the road:

It says "Share a Drink with Jess."

That's right - share a drink with me! Which is his favorite thing to do. I'm sure it's some sort of social media contest but still, it was quite exciting for us.

On the way home from getting our car, we stopped at a Wendy's to eat dinner.

Every time we eat at fast food, we remember why we try not to. As we sat forlornly at the table, staring glumly at our lukewarm fries and pathetic little burgers, I mused on the fact that we were the only people eating there at dinner time. My eyes wandered to the highway in front of the restaurant and settled on the IHOP across the street. In big block letters, its sign proclaimed "KIDS EAT FREE! 4PM-10PM!"

Son of a value fry - you've got to be kidding me! We could have been eating better food, maybe not great food but better food. And for half the cost! That put a damper on our evening, the thick, cold reality of the sad news covering us like a spilled Frosty.


We Won't Be Invited Back...

On a somewhat lighter note, the older two kids went to a local VBS in town a couple weeks ago. I grew up in church and my mom (and then my mom and I) ran VBS every year of my childhood. It's just as I remember - the cookie cutter boxed themes, the hand motions to every song, the overly exuberant leaders. But the kids really enjoy it.

We left VBS the last night, all of the participants and leaders streaming from the church to the parking lot. It was a nice evening and my windows were down. As I turned on the car, the radio began to blare.

I kid you not, the song playing at that moment on the classic rock station I was listening to on the way over just happened to be 'Highway to Hell.'

That's right - the CHORUS of 'HIGHWAY TO HELL' was blaring from my car as everyone from VBS walked to their cars.

<HIGHWAY TO HELL!>

"What's that? Yes, it was a very nice VBS."

<ON THE HIGHWAY TO HELL!>

"Yup, the kids did have fun. They sure did learn a lot about God's love tonight. Thanks for putting on such a great program."

<I'M ON THE HIGHWAY TO HELL!>

Birthday Going-Ons and a Tale of Two Companies

This past weekend Noah turned 3 and I turned 32. He's old enough now that he knows we have the same birthday and he got a big kick out of telling me happy birthday so I would tell him the same thing. Lots of laughs. I'm enjoying it because I'm sure when he's 16 he won't find it so funny. At this point I get to decide what we have to eat and where to go and such because 1) he's only 3 and 2) the person who had to endure the birth of an almost 10 lb baby on her birthday gets to choose happy things now.

We were going to head to the beach on Saturday but it's FL in summer so the chance of thunderstorms was high and we ended up swimming and playing Marco Polo and such.

The low point of the day was the mail. We got a bill from a certain cable/internet company (rhymes with Schmomcast) for about $130 more than it should be. So we spent like 2 hrs on the phone with them.

Conversation with Company #1:

Them:  "It looks like these charges were authorized."

Us: "No, they weren't."

Them: "Well, that's debatable."

Us: "Actually, it's not. We just told you neither of us authorized the charges."

Them: "It looks like you only have the economy internet. Are you sure you don't want to upgrade? It's only $5 extra per month. Well, there is also the small surcharge of your soul but you can break that up into easy monthly payments."

Us: "It's a tempting offer but based on how unbelievably terrible your customer service is, we're going to pass."

Them: "Just to be clear, you did just authorize the upgrade, right?"


So that was a pretty frustrating part of the day. Matt thought we should go to Chik-Fil-A so Noah could play. Although fast-food wouldn't be my first choice, I begrudgingly agreed. You know, for the kids and stuff.

Conversation with Company #2:

Me: "Do you do anything special for birthdays? It's mine and my son's birthday today." (Here I'm thinking, free small drink or something).

Them: "I don't think so but let me check with the manager."

Manager: "Can I see your ID to check your birthday?"

(I showed her that today was indeed my birthday)

Manager: "Ok, you guys can order whatever you want."

Really? Really?? Wow. So I ordered for me and Noah and then she said "No, no, all of you can order whatever you want. It's on us."

That's right. They paid for our meals for 6 people. And when we were done, they told us to let them know when we were ready for dessert and that would be on the house too.

Now that is customer service.


The next day we had the family birthday celebration at my parents' house. It was very lovely and Noah was practically swimming in cars and tractors and new Pixar-themed underwear so he was quite the happy camper.

As part of my gift from my in-laws, I got this sign that my mother-in-law picked out for me:

Does she know me or what? We've been good friends since I married Matt 13 years ago and our families have been friends for much longer. We can both agree in friendship that I am not really much into cleaning and I wish I could care more but I just don't.

Jack later read the sign and told me that it's not true; the kids aren't happy because we punish too much. Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. That's...wait, that's 66%. Ok, that's failing.

I may be terrible at parenting but I have recently discovered a way to style my hair so it's not too awful.

You can't win them all.

A Vacation...or Something Like It

This past weekend we headed off to Amelia Island, FL for the annual Edward Jones Summer Regional. We went to a couple when Matt was with Jones the first time, about 5 years ago or so. We're really happy to be back with the company again. One of the things I personally like best about Jones is the Summer Regional. It's a time when all the financial advisors meet up to discuss various money things. The families get to come too and the company does a really great job making it good for kids. They had welcome bags for each family with lots of beach buckets and toys. Each night there was a nice dinner with a kids' buffet. One of the nights was a patriotic theme dinner, with prizes given for best dressed family, individual, and couple. Jack went as George Washington. Well, George Washington if he were somewhat of a pirate.

 The kids love going to the beach and the nice thing is we live close enough to go but not too close that it becomes mundane. Which is what happens with pools now that we have one. This hotel had a great pool (and then we had another smaller one outside our villa - that's right, we had a villa) but they were done swimming after awhile. Which I suppose it's easy to get bored when you have swim practice 4x a week for swim team and then swim in your own pool every afternoon.

I want to grab them by the shoulders and say "You don't realize what you have! Appreciate it!"

When I was a kid, swimming in a pool was heaven. We never had a pool so it was so incredibly awesome to have a friend with one. One of our neighbors in NY had one and I used to stand by the fence looking longingly at the pool, wiping the sweat from my brow and hoping they were notice me from the window and feel sympathy. They never did.

I imagine my parents did the same thing when they bought a brand new Ford Aerostar when I was a kid. New light blue upholstery? Headphone jack in the back? Ho-hum. The headphone jacks were quite nifty when we found them, but the excitement died when we realized it was just allow us to hear Rush Limbaugh or Dr. Laura (aka the Judge Judy of radio) in better quality. In fact, whenever I hear the opening bars of Limbaugh's show, I feel a little carsick. Which is probably a common occurrence for many people when they hear him...

Anyway, back to the vacation. Matt had meetings each morning but we had the afternoons free. We swam, we went to eat on Fernandina Beach, we screamed and cried because we missed naps and stayed up too late. In short, it was as fun as it could be with the toddlers.

On one morning, they had a spouses meeting (the company pays for really fun childcare for the kids at the hotel - snacks! movies! women caretakers nicer than mommy!). As soon as I walked in, I saw a couple nice totebags lined up on a table. Because I'm practically a magpie and love things, I wanted one. And because I'm super competitive, I tried to imagine games we would have to win to get a bag. So for the entire spouses' meeting, I worked on memorizing as many names as I could. I discreetly stretched a little in case we had to see who could jump the highest or something. In the end, they handed out the bags to the spouses of new financial advisors, which included me, as Matt is considered new since he just came back in October.

Yippee! I got a bag! Full of stuff!

They even monogrammed the bag and the cup inside, which is such a southern thing to do. And there was a note inside from Matt's boss, letting us know how happy everyone was to have us back (well, obviously - we're amazing) and wishing us a fun weekend.

At first, I was quite confused by the cup. What a terrible design. Not a lot of space at the top for a drink and the bottom is wobbly when you put it on a table. Then I realized it's one of those cups for putting in the sand at the beach. I have a fancy beach cup!

The bag also had a nice towel, gum, drinks, chips, expensive Neutrogena sunscreen, lip gloss, and a magazine called Southern Lady, which was filled with ideas for clothes and jewelry that cost more than the average American makes in a year.

On the last night, they have a nice dinner only for financial advisors and spouses. We have to wear cocktail dresses and suits and stuff. We dropped the kids off at the childwatch, where they happily ran in to make pizzas and watch Frozen and Finding Nemo. Then we milled around at an open bar, chatting with other Jones people and trying to balance on our new wedge shoes. Well, that last part was more me, really.

The dinner was definitely nicer than we're used to having. The salad was artistically wrapped with a sliver of cucumber, the main course was salmon and chicken with vegetables, the dessert chocolate mousse.  Unobtrusive waitstaff in black quietly refilled our waters and wines.  Matt and I cleaned our plates because we know we're headed home to spaghetti and grilled cheese. It floored me to see all the food left on plates. Entire servings of the delicious sliced chicken with cream sauce, whole portions of steamed salmon, fresh green beans strewn about.

"Matt, look at all the food left! We could take this home for dinner tomorrow..."
"Put some in your purse..." He whispered out of the corner of his mouth, while smiling at the person across from him.

A very classy end to the vacation weekend.