Karebear Central

We had the appliance guy come by today to take a look at the dishwasher–he said its pretty much a goner. So we went to Van Vreedees and bought a dishwasher. Andy had done some shopping around and we decided on a Fridgedare–I guess you can just run the top shelf which I think will make Andy do the dishes more frequently. The kitchen is his domain!
Funny thing though, in the grate of the dishwasher when the appliance guy took it off, there was bill for Younkers addressed to the old owners of the house. The funny part was the bill was from 1999! Don’t think they need that 8 years later.

You know the saying, when it rains, it pours–its pouring here.  Andy was making dinner tonight (Boca burgers and fries) but first was emptying the dishwasher.  When he walked downstairs to get the Boca out of the freezer, he yelled for me to come downstairs.  The dishwasher is now leaking.  So we either need a new dishwasher or we need new tubing.   He thinks a piece of glass may have fell into the tube and maybe that’s the problem. 

I really need something to calm me down, something like AbsoluteCalm. It just adds onto the stress of having to get a new garage door and then maybe a new dishwasher. It is nice to find a stress reliever that is all natural –plus no side effects. Not only that, it has no addictive elements which is something I always worry about when taking medications. Every day comes with something stressful, either a bad inquiry at work or maybe I need to do a little speech—which is the one thing in the world I avoid with a passion, or my husband just irks me the wrong way. It would be so nice to have something calm me down in minutes. I sometimes let things get blown out of proporation and get way to stressed which causes lack of sleep which causes fights between my husband and I. So really I need something to help my marriage! Winning the lottery would help a lot, but the more reasonable answer would have to be Absolute Calm.

Since my hubby is having a boys weekend in Chicago this weekend, I am having a girls weekend, kind of.  I have done some shopping, some blogging, some cleaning and plan on doing some movie watching later tonight.  I was smart and had Netflix send some chic flicks that I knew Andy wouldn’t enjoy for this weekend.  Who needs cheap hotels when I can stay home and relax with a good bottle of wine, a good movie and book and the cat?

This weekend, my mother surprised me.  We have a wedding shower in a couple of weeks and she told me to mapquest it!  That she remembers the name of Mapquest and said it right really shocked me.  My mother lived on a farm and never really learned how to use a computer.  My sister and I wrote down instructions on how to turn the computer so she could check her email, but that only lasted a few months.  I was shocked when she pulled out the Mapquest name and then she turned back into the mother I know.    She then said Mapquest or G.P.A.  (She meant GPS).  Gotta love her!

My company offers a wellness account. Basically you do certain tasks and receive money for doing them. Some stuff is quizzes or volunteering or tracking something like fruit and water intake. Basically you can earn up to $250.00 a year. My company will reimburse us for health related items. One of the things on the list is the Wii and Wii Fit. Since I just looked at it yesterday, I nonchalantly brought it up to my hubby (who works at the same place I do so we could get $500 total if we did everything). Since I met him, he’s been dead set on not having video games. He doesn’t want our kids (which are non-existant at this point) to be video gamers. But he surprised me last night and said sure. We normally buy shoes or clothing or weights or a treadmill, but we have all that stuff now. Since he said sure, I’m going to start looking for the right price. A free (essestianlly) Wii sounds like a good idea to me.

My husband wants to wait to have kids until we are debt free. (House and car and student do not counted as debt though.) For now, I am letting him think that he’s in control.
But the problem is, for anyone knows me, if I have paper money, I spend it. For some reason, I am much more cautious with our credit cards. Since Andy and I consolidated our credit cards and debts, our credit card offers have started to actually be reasonable. But our interest rates could stand to be lower. Andy always likes to be on the lookout for balance transfer credit cards with 0-3.99% on the life of the card. We recently got that offer and automatically snatched it up. With unexpected expenses (like the garage door), we need to have credit in order to help us out, and want a low rate also.
Creditcardclubs.com is a great site to visit if you are in need of a credit card. It is nice to be able to have a one stop shop to find all the offers and find exactly what you need. With gas prices going up weekly, it seems like it is a great idea to get a gas card. Or if you travel a lot, an airline rewards card. You earn miles while using the card. I would love to use that excuse—Honey I have to spend money so we can go on vacation! Hmm, maybe I will talk Andy into looking into these!

Today at work, during the normal talking about what we were doing this weekend, I was complaining to one of my coworker’s that my hubby and I are going to a wedding this weekend. I was griping because my hubby is standing up and other the couple getting married, we really do not know anyone at the wedding. (Side note: At all my friends weddings, I made sure that Andy was sitting with people he knew, but I guess that’s what women do.) My co-worker said she also had a wedding too. She asked where and when I told her, she’s like OMG–we are going to the same wedding. So now I have peeps to hang out with. Turns out her hubby’s mom is the groom’s mom’s best friend. It truly is a small world.

When it rains, it pours. You can it so many different ways, but it really seems like when one bad thing happens, more follow. To start with, this weekend is mondo busy. We have a wedding that Andy is standing up in, my friend’s rummage sale, my friend’s going away party and my sister is in town. Let’s just say, we don’t have much time to spare. Last night, Andy and I loaded up our car with stuff to bring to my friend’s rummage sale–basically stuff I just want out of our house. My parents stopped by to help us bring some tables over and we were just about ready to go. I realized that Andy had forgotten the hangers, so I ran back to the garage and opened the garage door. I grabbed the hangers and hit the button to close the garage door. That is when it all went to crap. Something happened with the garage door that caused it to go up and then down and almost collapse on itself. Andy came running and stopped it, but the damage was done. We got the garage halfway down, but then couldn’t anymore. We decided it would be smart to get my car out too.
So we took the rummage sale stuff to my friends and Andy left me there while he looked for someone to help him with the garage. (I actually requested to stay because he was a bit cranky–plus my friend is moving back to Cali in 2 days, so it was nice to spend time with her.) Luckily, Andy does have a really good friend in the groom of the wedding because he took time out his busy schedule to help Andy close the garage door. It is closed now, but we now have to get a new garage door.
This morning while Andy showered for work, I searched the web for garage door prices–which aren’t easy to find. But a garage door is expensive–well actually its more the installation–but it’ll hit us a little in the pocketbook–almost a grand. I want some fractional ownership in that. It’s about the same price to put up the door as the actual door.
Then, to make matters worse, the arm rest in the Prius broke. We already called and made an appointment for that for Monday. But I am hoping the dust on the sensor was the first of the three, so now our bad luck is gone.

Every year we watch Hell’s Kitchen, I really hate that the contestants are so single minded.  They always forget to work as a team and instead work as individuals.  You’d think this being the 4th or 5th year that the contestants would finally learn. This year, I have seen the worst of it in Jen.  She was purposely not being a team player when her team needed her.  Not only that, they did a vote between the four of them to see who would be the two going up to go home.  They said they could only vote for a person once, and it looks like Jen voted twice for Christina because Corey did not vote Christina and neither did Christina, but somehow she had three votes.

I think Petrozza is going to win. He has always played as a team player.  He hasn’t won many challenges, but he still is a good chef and good team player.

I hope I always am able to keep my identity. Recently, my husband has been getting a lot things in the mail that make me think that we need to start watching our credit cards and such for identity theft. He’s been getting a ton of Medicare mailings (he’s 29.) Identity theft is getting more and more frequent and can ruin a person’s life.
According to an article I read on lifelock’s website, it stated on a national average, identity theft went up at least 1%. That is scary how easy it is for someone to steal another’s identity. It is nice to know there are companies like Lifelock that will help take care of its customers. They make sure credit card companies put fraud alerts and have the customer’s name removed from pre-approval and junk mailings. That is a really nice service. It is nice to know there is someone looking out for you, when you don’t have the time or really know how.
It is nice to be able to be a customer of a company that is working to protect their customers, but you can also join their team. They are always looking for good people to join their team that love a challenge. Check out the careers link if your interested!