Yes, patience really does pay off…

oOooOOooo.. I just remembered that this Friday, my first raise in like, three years goes into effect. We were notified last week of what our raises were, I just forgot to post about it.

I'm pretty impressed, management actually decided I was worthy of more than a 4% raise this time. (that was the last raise I got, in Spring 2001) They also wanted to make sure those of us at the bottom of the barrel in pay were brought up to par with our colleagues if our performance warranted it.

They decided mine did.

10%

Needless to say, I was quite happy. I'm happy that I'm no longer one of the lowest paid and hardest workers in my department, while others who were paid more did considerably less work than I. Not to mention sloppier work than I.

Although not everyone got that.. There were those who got maybe 2%, but those were mostly the ones who were paid at the top of the salary tiers, and were the slackers. They were not happy about that, but what can you expect if you get paid almost $30K more than the people at the bottom of the barrel and you do about 80% less work than those at the bottom?

Yes, that is how wide the spread was between me (as well as the others paid the same as me) and the highest paid person in our department (management excluded). Roughly a $25k-$27k difference. How sick is that? Now it's probably like $20k-$22k difference, but still, too much in my opinion.

No rest for the busy-body…

I have a rather busy day tomorrow...
I have to wake up early to be down at the Joann's where the lady who is putting the sleeves on my dress works, sometime after 10am, so that I can try on the dress with the sleeves barely sewn on to make sure I like how they look before she permanently attaches them.

Then I'll be returning home to do a little housework, as the Bug Man is coming on Monday morning.

Then I'll be heading over to my future MIL's house to meet with her and Josh's SIL to work on the flowers for the wedding.

Then on Monday I'll be getting up early again to be down at Arizona Mills to meet Josh's SIL so she can show me the dress she's thinking about buying for the wedding.. (she's a bridesmaid), and that will be at 10a since she has to be at work by 2:30p on the other side of town.

That will make four days in a row I've had to wake up before 8am to get things done. Yuck. (Hey, I normally sleep until 10:30a.. so anything before then is early for me!)

Yesterday I woke up early to take the VUE in to have its brakes checked. Bleh. I'm so not a morning person. 😕

For the women’s clothing size-challenged…

This is just a measurement I took from an old pair of pants I have, that I haven't worn in a few years... size 10.

The waist measured 28 inches. I measured a second pair, a pair of jeans, and it was also 28 inches. However, I measured a "size 10" pair of jeans made by Lee, and those were 30 inches.

Basically, women's dress & pant sizes are not universal, even amongst different manufacturers in the U.S. And dress sizes don't always match the measurements of pant sizes, either.

Billy Blanks will <strike>kiss</strike> kick my ass…

Holy crap I'm out of shape.
And I was just doing the first instructional video, where he demonstrates the basic moves!

(/faints)

just a deluge of comments..

I'm still getting comments on this post, about the problems we've had with our Saturn VUE.

So far it's numbered at 8 comments, and I did that post back in August. Six of the commentors have also complained about their VUEs.

Since August our VUE hasn't given us much grief, other than the mysterious "clunk" noise that we still hear while idling with a foot on the brake that the dealership can't seem to hear. I think we've had a few more door tightenings (the inside panel & arm rest on the door wiggle & squeak after a few months of use), and they finally redesigned the bug deflector so we got that put back on.. (it used to attach with double-sided sticky tape.. now it's attached with clamps) But otherwise, we've had no major issues since last summer. *knock on wood* Let's hope it stays that way.

We don't have the VTI transmission so we're not experiencing some of the same issues that a couple of the commentors are complaining about. But with their complaints in mind, we'll probably steer away from getting one with VTI transmission when and if we decide to upgrade to a newer model (which probably won't happen until their hybrid comes out).

purchased: one dress

I bought the dress, after taking Friday off and going to a couple more bridal stores with Josh's mom. We had found one dress very similar to the one I had set aside, but it would have cost nearly three times as much as the one I ended up getting (after all alterations and including the shoes & slip).

Now it is getting sleeves added to it, using the scarf that came with it. I hope it looks okay using that material. The seamstress who will be doing the sleeves is supposed to call me before she permanently attaches the sleeves so I can try it on and give the go ahead if I like what I see.

Next on the list of things to decide upon: party favors and the cake. Oh, and shoes to go along with the dress!

purty flowers…

I am anxiously awaiting my order of silk flowers & other supplies to arrive so I can start making the bouquets, the flower girl basket, and all the corsages and boutonnieres. I got the first box yesterday. The place I ordered from was in California, so it only took two days to get here. The other place is in New York, so it should get here by Monday.

I'll be enlisting the help of Josh's mom and probably his sister-in-law as well.

My colors are lilac & pearl... So I'll be using cream white colored roses and lilac/white colored orchids, and cream white & lavender carnations. The carnations are for the fathers', brother's and grandfather's boutonnieres.

I know the point of a flower girl's basket is to hold flower petals for the flower girl to throw on the ground as she walks up the isle, but frankly, I don't think anyone is going to feel like cleaning up the mess of that, so I plan on making the flower basket like mine was when I was a flower girl... basically a bouquet in a basket. I may even paint the basket with white pearl acrylic paint (it's currently light straw colored).

Which reminds me... I need to get a small foam core for it. I got the basket already but forgot the foam. Oopsie.

Anyway, I'll be sure to take pictures when they're all done and post them in my photoblog when the time comes, so everyone can see our handywork!

decisions to make…

I went dress window shopping on Tuesday with my fiance's sister-in-law. I found two potential dresses at a store in Arizona Mills, and another at a bridal store in Tempe. The two at the store in AZ Mills are white (a color which I'm not favoring since I'll be borrowing his sister-in-law's veil and it is ivory), and the one at the other store is... not white, and not ivory. And it's not technically a wedding dress (but neither are the two I found at Group USA.. they're bridesmaid dresses)...

Obviously I am not having a completely "traditional" wedding. I don't want a long train, and I don't want anything that is 8 feet in diameter at the hem and poofy. A little poof is ok, to hide my hips. But not poof as in ball gown poof. Yuck.

This is a daytime backyard wedding (one reason I don't want a train.. nothing to drag along the ground), so dress type & color is technically flexible.

Anyway, it's a nice dress for its "type", it fits well, and would take sleeve modification fairly well, I think. Thing is, I want to be absolutely sure I want it before paying for it, because it's non-refundable. The longest that store will hold it is Saturday night, so I scrambled to ask my boss for tomorrow off so I could do some more window shopping tomorrow in case I find another dress like it, but maybe in ivory.

I have some pix taken with my camera phone if you're interested in taking a peek to see its color. I'll have to e-mail them to you if you want to see it, so Josh doesn't see it before the big day. ;o)

If you want to check it out and give your opinion on it, let me know in the comments and I'll forward a couple of pix. Thanks!

Real geniuses, they are…

I am referring to the lovely folks at my webhost.

Our sites were down for about a day, as Josh explains it, because our main domain had expired.

They had administrative control over the domain, and just let it lapse without notifying us?

Domain renewal is a yearly thing, everyone knows that (or bi-yearly, or whatever). But that's not something I'm going to just suddenly remember out of the blue... Oh yes, I think one of my domains is about to expire, I shall set about to renewing it immediately! Yeah. Right.

And they claimed it is not their responsibility to notify us of the impending expiration date.

Um, excuse me, but are you not our registrar??

I haven't seen the charge show up yet, but it was probably just run today. If I see it show up, I'm contesting it. I shouldn't have to pay for their incompentency.

Here’s a nickel, buy yourself a clue…

Ok, this schmuck doesn't deserve one freaking penny of his lottery winnings if he's THIS stupid...

I mean, honestly... why in the WORLD would you need to carry that much cash on you? And leave it in your car?! What a 'tard.

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