Upcoming Project...

I swear I border on being a hoarder. It might be in my genes. My paternal grandmother kept everything. That might have been a generational thing though. I love shopping on clearance and feel like I've won some sort of a game - I'm weird like that. I recently procured one more thing that I don't need but somehow couldn't pass up. There was a lady who lives in our development that was moving and had several things for sale that she sent out in an email the entire HOA. To make a long story short, after a week, anything that wasn't sold she said she would take $25.00 for.

What did I buy?
A Lane cedar chest.
Yep.

It's nothing fancy but it is in decent shape and it's solid wood. The top is upholstered in a blue fabric that has seen much better days but re-upholstery is a fairly easy fix - well, a fairly easy fix for the person I pay to do it. Ha ha!

It's sitting in the formal dining room right now and the wood just so happens to match the furniture that belongs to Ken's parents. It's not really in the way but is just kind of sitting there until I decide what to do.

I kind of want to try my hand at refinishing it and making it "in style" - whatever that is. I'm not really a trendy person but I found these two pictures on the internet of refinished cedar chests and LOVE them both.

I would take the hardware off of mine and make it more plain and then go and junk it up with the wood embellishments that can be glued on.

See how ADORABLE these wood embellishment things are ?!?!

We'll see what I end up doing with my cedar chest. Used ones sell on the internet for $150.00-$300.00 Mine is nowhere near worth that, I'm sure. But I am also sure that it is worth the $25.00 I paid for it.

Wish me well on deciding what to do with it and then actually doing it!

A few end of 2014 things...

I didn't take very many pictures over the Christmas break. I wish I would have taken more. But here is a little catch up on what happened the last few weeks of December...

On New Year's Eve, my older brother Clint got engaged. I had a feeling he was going to do it but he wouldn't talk about it with me. He's been dating Olea for about 3 years. She has 3 boys so once they are married they'll have 7 kids together. Wow. 7. That will be a big adjustment for everyone. We REALLY like Olea. She is good for my brother and truly loves him. They don't have a date set yet but I'm glad they're planning a wedding.

Clint chose the ring all by himself. It is beautiful!

I didn't decorate much in Texas. I put a few things on the mantle. I found the 'Believe' banner at JoAnn's Crafts and Fabrics. The paper on it is all layered and I thought it was so cute. I picked it up on clearance for $3.00. Ken doesn't like the whole banner look but I do. He was a good sport and even helped me get it centered.

I also made Snowman Soup for my students. When I taught in Utah, I bought gifts for all of my students but the other teachers at my school in Texas don't do that so I don't feel like I can.

I put together a little bag for each student. There was a little poem on the back too. I felt like it was something I could give them that wasn't too "gifty".

We did Secret Santa at work again this year. Last year I had a teacher on my team and I got a different teacher on my team this year. I gave her the worst gifts all week long - we do one gift each day so I made sure to annoy her with stupid dollar stuff from Wal-Mart. She was mad! We eat lunch as a team so it was fun to hear her complain about her Secret Santa during lunch. Everyone felt sorry for her that she had such a terrible Secret Santa. I got her dud gifts because if I gave her what I had for her she would have known it was from me. On the last day before the break, I took my real gift into her. She was surprised (and embarrassed from having complained so much) that it was me. It was a really fun way to do a Secret Santa. Here's her REAL gift... stickers, treats, notepads, a DJ Inkers clip art disc, and other things she had on her list.

Ken put up the Christmas tree in Utah before we left from Thanksgiving. That way when we got to Utah on December 23rd, the tree was waiting for us. Ken did a great job on the tree!!

We had a great time in Utah and were able to see Ken's family, my family and a few friends (not as many as I would have liked). We woke up to a white Christmas (yay!) and had no problems on the drive to or from Utah. We were so glad to be home and be with our family for the holidays!

A little fall, y'all...

Fall is my favorite season!

Here in Texas, it's not very fall-ish. It's still hot and humid. I don't have many fall decorations in Texas, most of them are in Utah. I pulled a few things out last week to add a little bit of to the house. It's not much but it makes me feel like there's a change in the air. 

Here's the mantel. Just a few pumpkins...

I found this lantern at Pier 1 Imports on clearance for $11.00. It was originally $45.00 - I love a good decorating deal!

I got a wicker and glass hurricane vase and filled with little mini pumpkin filler that I found there as well. I'm going to use the same lantern and hurricane and change it up for Christmas. Maybe fill it with little shiny glass ornaments?

I LOVE candlesticks!!

The dining room buffet got a few things added to it.

It's not much but it's nice to have fall colors around.

I had this little black lantern left over from a visiting teaching handout I gave to my sisters a while ago. It's kind of been kicking around here and there. I filled it with the last of the Pier 1 pumpkins and added it with everything else.

Just a little peek into the tiny bit of autumn that we have!

Phone bill fiasco...

Before we moved to Texas, we decided to alter a few things at our Utah house - mainly bills. Ken and I reevaluated some of our expenses and decided that we would change our Utah home phone and internet to another company that could save us more. 

We called Century Link Qwest and got a quote from them. The guy we worked with got us a good promotional price on the land line and wireless internet. As soon as we 'finalized' everything with him and hung up, I realized there was a problem and called back. Of course, any time you call into a call center you never get the same person as before.

I spoke with a woman this time and explained to her that I had just gotten off the phone with another representative and he had set up our new plan. She got into their system and looked at things and told me that he had set everything up wrong. She seemed like she knew what she was talking about so I spent the next 30 minutes on the phone with her redoing our previous plan into a new, correct one. 

Ken and I had told her that our current phone company was charging us $73.00 and change for unlimited long distance, caller ID, voicemail and high speed internet. Since we were leaving the house, we wanted to get a basic phone plan - no long distance, no caller ID, and no voicemail. Bottom of the barrel phone plan along with wireless internet.

Lucky for us, there was a great promotion.

She crunched the numbers and put everything together and got us to about $45.00/month including taxes. We gave her the green light, disconnected our previous service and all seemed well.

Right off the top we had to pay a $240.00 fee which covered a new modem, installation fee, and the first months phone service. I wasn't too thrilled about having to buy their modem but in the long run it was going to be saving us half on our monthly phone bill. She signed us up for auto pay and that was that... until this week.

I got an email from Century Link letting me know that my bill was overdue. Ummmm... auto pay? I got online to look at my statement and the amount due was $139.27. This was AFTER I had paid the $240.00. This made no sense to me at all! We had had phone service through them for exactly two months and three days. How on earth was is that much?

I looked through the bill and there was an outstanding $51.95 charge for the remaining first month AND a late penalty fee. Remaining? I had already paid $240.00. There was also an $81.98 charge for the next month. WHAT?? So when I did the math, we were paying $379.42 for 2 months of service on a phone that has NO EXTRA FEATURES??

I made a phone call.

Well, I actually made two.

The first call into Century Link was a disaster. No matter what information I gave the representative (account number, phone address, billing address, etc.) she couldn't find us in the system. Ummm...

I hung up and called the other phone number on the bill and spoke with someone else. She had no problem finding our information. I warned her right off the top that I was pretty upset and needed my bill clarified and straightened out. First thing first, I told her that there was NO WAY I was going to pay any late fee when my account was on auto pay. She told me my account wasn't on auto pay but that they lady who set it up only did it as a one time payment. I reiterated that I WASN'T going to pay a late fee. She happily took it off. 

She went through my bill with me and brought a few things to my attention.

1. The $240.00 initial fee was for the modem and installation only.

2. We owed $51.95 for our first month, which was now overdue.

3. The remaining balance was $81.98 for the month of September.

4. The lady that set up our 'new money saving plan' made promises that weren't happening.

Remember how it wasn't going to be about $45.00/month including taxes? Nope. All wrong. No one was sure why the original representative quoted me that price. The lowest price it could be with taxes was $81.98.

No deal.

I kindly told the helpful girl that I would like to cancel my service because I left my former telephone company for Century Link to save money, when now I was actually paying almost $10.00 more per month.

She connected me to a manager.

He and I went through the same conversation that I just had with the other representative. Surprisingly, I kept my cool but was very clear that I was unhappy and wanted to discontinue service. I also told him that I had spent $380.00 for set up and two months of service on a phone with nothing more than a dial tone and internet that no one was using. He offered me a "vacation rate" which would be half of the monthly amount - about $45.00 a month with no service going into the house.

No deal.

He connected me to the company's "Loyalty Department". I spoke with Nick.

Nick and I got to go through the entire song and dance again with me explaining what had happened and that I wanted to disconnect my service with them. Of course Nick apologized and said he could see if he could get me a better deal. He offered lowering it all to $60.00/month with taxes but I just told him to go ahead and disconnect. I was done.

Nick upped the ante. His new offer?

$5.50 charge for next month.

$16.00 for the month after.

$27.97 (including all taxes) for 4 months after that.

$35.97 (including all taxes) for 8 months after that.

Deal.

I made sure to write down his name and a confirmation number - just in case I get to go through all of this again next month.

I paid the outstanding $139.27 today so everything is back at zero. We'll see how the next bill looks. I was on the phone a total of about an hour. If the new "we want to keep you as a customer" rate stands, it was worth it.

The moral of this story? The squeaky wheel gets the grease and it's much easier to deal with a cell phone. I'll let you know what next month's bill is.

Where we are now...

It's amazing how things can work out sometimes. It's amazing that Ken's parents happen to own a home in Texas that they don't live in. It's amazing that my work and Ken's school is a reasonable drive from the house. We're very blessed for how this has worked out.

Since my mom and dad won't be able to come visit due to my dad's health, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures for them. Here's where we're living!

It's a cute house in a cute neighborhood. In fact, if anyone asks where we live and I tell them the name of the development, everyone knows exactly where is it and tells us how lucky we are to be there. Here's a little peek at our street.

It's still nice and toasty here. I snapped this last week. It's the middle of September and it's 102 degrees outside. The water parks are still open.

Ken and I went to Home Depot last week. It was so weird to see all of the flowers and plants for sale. They're fully stocked. In Utah, all of the plant shops are closing up.

I need to take some interior photos and photos of the yard at the house. I'll be more diligent to get some updates on the blog!

We made it to Texas!

 We headed out of Utah on July 31st. My two brothers Clint and Brian came along with us to help drive and unload. The trip from our Utah house to the Texas house took just under 20 hours. It was a lot of sitting. We had Tank in tow as well. He's never been in a car for that long and I was worried he would panic but he did really well overall.

Here we are driving through southern Utah.

I switched off driving with him a few times. We had a great time visiting and with each other.

More of the view.

More of the view.

Being in Utah = orange cones and no one working on anything.

We did pass by some beautiful scenery.

Here I am riding with my older brother Clint. He and I had some good chats too.

We all stayed in Albuquerque the first night. Ken and I had this wonderful view from our hotel room. It cracked me up!

 Tank did pretty good in our hotel room. He was a little bit confused with what was going on but stuck to Ken like glue.

After leaving Albuquerque we continued driving on to Texas. When Clint found out we were going to pass through Amarillo, he wanted to stop for lunch at a steakhouse he had heard about. He'd seen a program on t.v. about this place and really wanted to stop. So Clint, Brian and Ken all ate at The Big Texan.

Since I absolutely refuse to ever leave Tank in the car with no air conditioning, he and I spent a little one on one time together for lunch.

Here we are sharing our Sonic food together.

After lunch we all met back up and continued to head on toward our new home. Tank was doing SO WELL when all of a sudden I felt something hot. Yep. He peed all over me. It's hard to see in this picture but I had to change EVERYTHING except for my bra. Too much information but it's true.

We all stopped at a Wal-Mart so I could make a quick change of clothes and get back on the road. Here are Ken and Tank navigating our drive.

We got in late to the house and Clint and I ran to Wal-Mart to get a couple of things. We all crashed about 2:30 a.m. and took a little nap because a few people from our new ward came at 8:00 a.m. to help us unload. We were exhausted and hot but we were grateful for the help!

Everything got brought into the house.

We also went over and unloaded everything into my new classroom. I've got to find a different route than how the GPS took us or I'm going to go insane from all of the construction on the freeway. I'm afraid a lot my classroom things will be coming back home because my room is super tiny compared to my classroom in Utah. I'm not sure how I'm going to get situated at school or where I am going to put anything. One more concern on my plate.

Clint and Brian flew home on Friday. It was a super quick trip for them but we would have died without them!

We tried to go to church today. We got up, got ready, got in the car and programmed the address to the chapel into our GPS. It's only 6 miles away but after being led all over the place for an hour with no church in sight and me in tears, we finally went home. The GPS was having us make u-turns on the freeway. We ended up making big circles. The address we were given is wrong. I am really disappointed we didn't make it today. We'll see if we can find the chapel sometime this week so we can be there next Sunday.

We're still in the process of getting everything unpacked. I'll post pictures when things are all in their place. I'm hoping my shell shock wears off and that I can feel settled. Right now EVERYTHING is super overwhelming. Ken is a trooper and is non stop unpacking. As you can tell, I'm blogging. Yep. I can't face it right now.