Is it over yet?

Today was just one of those days. Nothing was gonna go my way no matter how hard I tried...

You ever get that feeling when you're about to go to bed that something just doesn't feel right? Your body hurts a little more than usual, you feel a little more depleted than normal, and (in my case) your eyes throb just a bit more than you expect. Fast forward to the next morning and you wake up feeling sick. Maybe not stay-home-from-work sick... And maybe not even stay in bed for an extra 30 minutes sick, but just not 100%. This morning I woke up feeling a little less than ideal. Then I tried to open my eyes and realized why. One eye was so swollen and sticky from last night that it wouldn't really open and the other eye felt like I'd just cried for the last 2 hours. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that I woke up with pink eye.

I don't know where it came from... It doesn't look like it will last long because after my shower and the rest of my day it seems to have cleared up for the most part. There is some residual itching and a lot of pressure and swelling, but otherwise the redness has gone away and the goopiness has not returned.

I decided I wasn't gonna let it get me down, though. I've been looking forward to going to Ikea for the last three weeks, ever since I found my future end tables for my living room. They also have some of the best burning taper candles I have ever found and I wanted to stock up for Christmas.

So Nel and I loaded ourselves into the car and headed for Ikea. While we were there, I verified that yes, indeed, these were my future end tables and headed straight for the basement where all of the pick-ups are done. Nel wanted to get a few things herself so we picked up some lanterns and pillows for her and headed for the candles. I found the candles right away ... in a candelabra on display. Needless to say, the sets of candles were nowhere to be found. I looked high and low (and let me tell you - low makes me feel like my eyeballs are attempting to burst out of my head), far and wide, and alas. No candles. I decided to try the oh-so-helpful Ikea salesperson and after standing around for 10 minutes gave up on him and went to find my end tables. As we were walking away he comes running up to inform me that they are in fact sold out (No way!!!) and they expect a shipment either tomorrow or Tuesday. Seriously??? Really?? I missed it by one day? It's so frustrating.

I chalked the candles up to a loss and figured that the true objective for this Ikea mission was end tables anyway so why get into a huff about it? I headed for the loading bay that houses the magic end tables in question and lo and behold... No end tables. You have to be kidding me, right? I decided I wasn't going to muck around this time - straight to my friendly-neighborhood Ikea salesperson. This particular salesperson didn't even have time to blink before he answered me. My question - "Do you have any more of the Hemnes bedside tables in -" then I was cut off by "Black-brown? No. We won't get any in until afte the first of the year." WHAT?? THE FIRST OF THE YEAR??? This is a joke right? I didn't bother to stick around and find out.

I took my $0.59 mugs to the cash register to check out (I had decided I needed those as well) and gave up. Then I got to the register and my mugs rang up for $2.99 each!! I don't know how many readers out there are familiar with Ikea, but if you are spending that much for anything kitchen-esque in the store, you obviously didn't look around much. Glasses average around $1.00 apiece and pans aren't much more than $10. I wasn't about to spend $2.99 for a mug so I put them on the register and blamed the tear I shed on my eye condition.

Stupid Ikea. You ruined my already crappy day. Oh well... Thanksgiving groceries have been purchased and I'm super excited for a holly jolly holiday week. (I hope.)

Only 4 more days until Christmas decorating!!

Someday...

This past week has been interesting.

I've had the fortunate opportunity of seeing how 83 years can change the hearts of hundreds...
I've seen how 57 years can build the lives of a family...
I've seen how 10 days can make people realize what they've always had but never noticed...
I've seen how 5 minutes can make you wish you had a lifetime back...

I hope someday to be the best friend my grandma was...
I hope someday to be nearly the mother my grandma was...
I hope someday people look back and see me as someone who has touched their hearts...
And I hope someday a little girl will look back, shed a tear, and know she'll never have anyone to take my place again.

I love you Grandma. You own a place in my heart that is yours alone...

Catch Up Post...

It's been pointed out by several people that I'm suffering from a severe case of blog neglect. So here is a summary of the last several months...

Work:
I'm now officially in the Sim Flow!! This is big news because it puts me one step closer to getting certified in time to help support the 1J mission in April. Now I'll be spending about a day a week practicing my flight controller skills in the simulator with a full flight support team.

I'm excited because I'm to the point where I get to apply all of the knowledge I've been studying for the last year and a half... And I'll be honest - I'm super excited to be getting near the end of my studying time! It is notoriously the most painful portion of getting certified and I'm about 3 weeks away from being completed.

Other than that, I'm OJTing this week for the second half of the 10A assembly flight... Keep an eye on Spaceflightnow.com for some detailed info on the progress. There is some concern regarding our Solar Array joints, but I'm sure we'll find a solution like always!

Running:
I just completed one of my first training runs on Sunday... I ran a half-marathon relay race with Nel! Needless to say, it was a hard run because I haven't run that far since the Bolder Boulder. But we finished - and in under 2 hours 20 minutes! My goal time for the half is 2 hours 30 minutes, so that was a good start. Here's a picture from the end of the race - play nice. It was really freaking early and in the middle of my funky flight sleep schedule.


Lillie:
She's still an angel one day and a demon the next... Last night, demon. Right this minute, angel. Hopefully she stays angel for the rest of the night! But I do have a couple of pictures of her in her Halloween costume. It's adorable - and makes me laugh so hard I almost want to pee my pants.

I woke her up to put this on...

Apartment:
I know - I've been promising apartment pics since I moved in in May... I swear, they are coming. I have a new motivation for getting the place all picked up - Thanksgiving is right around the corner! And we all know what that means... CHRISTMAS DECORATING!!!

I can't wait... Only 3 and a half more weeks. :)

The Birthday Present...

I realized that I never said what I got myself for my birthday! (Actually, I was reminded that voting isn't any fun if you don't find out the results...)

And the winner was . . .

None of the above. The occasion arose where I needed a new cell phone so I ended up with this beauty:

It's so pretty...

Nightmare on Best Buy Street

On the way out to the parking lot after work, I decided that 3 weeks was long enough to fix the fan on a laptop... So I gave Best Buy a call to find out exactly what happened to my computer.

I dialed the phone, pressed 5 for the department list, pressed 3 for customer service, and pressed 2 for the Geek Squad. Then I proceeded to listen to the phone ring ... and ring ... and ring. For 2 minutes. Why would I wait that long, you might ask? Because for most companies if someone doesn't answer the phone after a certain length of time you get passed back to the operator! Best Buy? Apparently not.

So I called 1-800-Best-Buy and proceeded to press 2 for customer service, then pressed 5 for whatever else, followed by an obscene number of button presses to get to a live person. Once I finally got to a live body the operator proceeded to inform me that I had to speak to the people at the store where I got the service. Where I was just sitting on ring for 2 minutes...

Once I got to my car I decided that it was time to give Best Buy another call - maybe I just hit them at a bad moment. So I call, press 5, then 3, then 2 (of course) and FINALLY got a live body! Woohoo! And what did that live body say? "Thank you for calling the Best Buy Geek Squad! Can you please hold for a moment?" He didn't even let me get out my "no" before he put me on hold. So I held... and I held... and I held some more. Since the drive home is almost the same as the drive to Best Buy I decided that I would start to drive home and if I hadn't heard anything by the time the routes diverged that I would just go to Best Buy and try to talk to someone in person.

So I drove... and I held... and I continued to hold the whole way to Best Buy. Now one might ask "Erin, how did you know that they hadn't just hung up on you?" Aside from the TERRIBLE jazz-ish-wannabe music, my cell phone continued to tick up the minutes as I sat on hold.

Once I parked, got out of the car, and got in line for the Geek Squad service line I decided it was time to run a social experiment on lower end retail service. So I kept the phone on hold, walked up to the counter and was immediately served by a nice gentleman who was messing with a computer that another customer had clearly left to be backed up.

Now, don't get me wrong. The guy was doing something. The issue I took with the situation was that he was helping the customer who was nowhere in sight - all while leaving another live customer hanging on the phone. I could see my little light blinking on their phone and actually saw one of the service guys walk by, look at the phone blinking, and continue walking straight by. He didn't help another customer... He just walked up to his buddy and started chatting about the day and the other customers they had seen so far.

So I continued to hold on the phone, proceeded to pick up my laptop from the nice gentleman, and walked back out to my car. I held... drove home... and continued to stay on hold. Amazing. They finally answered the phone - 45 minutes later!

The only words out of my mouth? "Thanks for letting me hold, may I speak to a manager, please?"

Jerk heads. I realize that they aren't paid anything and that the majority of the time all they catch is flack, but COME ON!!! 45 minutes on hold without any indication that I'll be helped at all??? No thanks. I'll just take my business elsewhere next time.

Grr.