Hi ladies,

Angie - I know just what you mean about the weight, and I'm so glad you got the book! We're here for you anytime you want to talk about it. Weight issues have plagued me most of my life - from the time I first got overweight at age 10, so I for sure can understand your thoughts. Not sure if I mentioned this but Dr. Phil's ideas are what got me serious about losing. His "either do it or don't" speil hit a nerve. WW is what I did, but his no-nonsense philosophy hit home. Another play done with again! Which one will you be involved in next? Have fun in Sylvan!

Marti - the population in is between 150-200 according to the postmaster. I guess that depends on if anyone had a sleepover or not, lol. But I live between that town, and one that has about 25,000 people. Still small, lol. Come and visit me, and I'll take you to Amish country, which is about 30 minutes (yet a whole world) away.

Julie - OMG, shoo fly pie! My mom used to make that eons ago, but quit when she was diagnosed as diabetic. Wonder why, lol. You didn't want to eat that if you had a cavity, right? Yay for the Slim n Tone, you're doing so well!

Kim - the festival sounds like so much fun. I'd love to visit the northeast someday, especially in the fall. I think you're going to do well handling the food, because you're planning ahead. That's what always gets me through. Even if you don't know exactly what will be served, you can allow so many calories/points for that meal.

Mary Kate - hope everything's going well for you and that you get some rest this weekend. Where are those Disneyland photos?? Can't wait to see them.

Robin - Hi, come back in and tell us what you've been up to, ok?

Neal and I had a blast today. It was so relaxing to get away and have a "date" with him. I did very well at the restaurant - you guys would be so proud of me! Plus, we ran into some friends and that made it nice, too. The best part is - my knee didn't hurt all day. Woo hoo!

Have a good evening. <-- to you all.

Michelle - you were posting same time as me. So glad you had a good day with your family. Is she your only sister? And you're doing well with the exercise, which is great! I'm a homebody, too. Love to take little trips, but not be gone too long. A good vacation for me is 5 days tops, lol.

See you later!

Hi ladies...just popping in to say goodnight.

Was a rough day at work...we were just about to leave, when one of the girls I'm training -- very sweet, very mild mannered -- got an absolutely horrible call. The woman was not mentally stable, and literally SCREAMED at the girl for half an hour, demanding answers and then yelling at her when she tried to answer. For ten minutes of the call, the poor thing kept trying to tell the lady she would get a supervisor for her to talk to, but the lady kept screaming non-stop, so loud that I could hear her clearly even though the rep was wearing a headset, and I wasn't able to do anything about it. I finally told her to just calmly tell the woman she was going to put her on hold to transfer the call to a supervisor -- and the woman continued to yell as she hit the hold button. She was shaking as she typed up the required info form before transferring the call to the supervisor queue. I felt so bad for her. A call like that can make or break a rep. People tend to go into customer service because they are friendly, they know how to be nice and treat people with respect, and they like helping people. *sigh* I hope she comes back to work on Monday.

I have WI tomorrow morning at WW...hope I did ok this week, but I'm not feeling very confident. Right now, I'm exhausted mentally, emotionally, and physically. Things will be better in the morning after I get some sleep.

Katie--I had a call like that the end of April. The problem had been taken care of and a second person called--she went off on me for a very long time and unfortunately I am where the buck stops. My other coworkers could hear her clearly and I had to switch from my headset to a handset to be able to hold it further from my ear. My one co-worker started passing me notes to just hang up. That was probably the worst call that I have gotten in the 11 plus years there. I could tell you more but for the most part our customers are friendly.

Good morning...

Michelle, that is something I had always wished I could do...go shopping with my sister and my daughters...lol Alas I have sons and my sister is a shrew.
I don't know if I am a homebody,,,I go in spirts,,feel the need to be home. then there are times when Im HEY lets go do...
Everytime I see your avatar I feel this urge to paint again,,,but Im so rusty now...arghhh I went to Micheal recently, and saw a class on miniture babies. I guess they are made out of clay...the babies look a bit scary like old men without clothes...*shudder ok after that happy thought maybe I'll look into a different class to take.

Jane, have you been taking Aleve regularly? And you have been resting it right? We don't have Amish here we have Hutterites, but they dont' have a town that you can go check out. They actually sometimes knock on your door trying to sell you stuff, eggs/chickens bread.
Im done plays,,,none,,,no more,,,nada,,,finished,,,wahooo! Im freee~! My big plan is not to do any,,,just possibly usher every so often to see my friends and see the play.

Katie, oh man lets hope shes made of stronger stuff and must realize that is not the norm. Ive had a guy do that awhile ago,,,didn't really blame him,,,we hada union strike in another province and in that whole sector no one was getting beer. For those store owners thats a bad thing,,,its their lively hood.
Yesterday I had a guy call,,he started swearing and carrying on about not getting a credit he was suppose to have received by now...like that girl I kept saying I was going to put him on hold,,,he just flipped. I don't tolerate rude behaviour, so I told him that is enough he will have to stop swearing or he will be hung up on. I found the credit,,(he spent it 2 weeks ago,,,duh!) BOY was he a different man after that,,, he comment after? Thanks Hon. ARghhh Well that sure made up for being sworn at...lol butt head.

Jules what is it that you do?

So last night went and saw a play that was wirtten by friends called Eve. It was their version of Adam and Eve. I thought it was fantastic, the songs they wrote made me so emotional. I am hoping they will record it. Got home late but still read the first part of the 3fc book. We are driving to Sylvan today and plan to read while Monte drives.
Im already feeling in control,,,Im one of those people that needs to have a clean home and desk,,vehicle. I cleaned my vehicle yesterday,,,just need to pull out the Q tips...(the console is gross, lots of coffee spills)
Almost finished all the Aladdin wash,,,6 loads of harem pants..lol

So now I have all three books,,,Going to go through the 3FC (its new and I can't wait) then Dr. Phil,,,and Bill Phillips.
Im already conciously not eating the junk...wanted a frosty on my way home from the play,,passed Wendy's but kept going... Drank a half a glass of milk,,a huge glass of water and then snuggled up with my book. Tonight will be hard,,,cake,,food and drinks. Think I will grab a huge coffee from Tims when we get there....or water...

Good morning ladies,

Michellle - I was lucky enough to have 6 sisters. No brothers, though. Six weeks is a long time to be gone from home. I don't think I could make it.

Katie - aww, so sorry about what happened to your young rep. I hope she shows up Monday. Like Julie says, most people are nice, but you get some who make you want to just hang up. How was weigh in? Hope you got some rest.

Jules - I know you're an office manager, but what kind of company is it?

Angie - lol, your laundry is so different than most. Not many of us are washing harem pants, lol. Hey, come down here and you can go shopping with me and my DDs. Yep, I've been babying my knee so it's not hurting when I go to FL. Way to go on passing up the frosty. Every little step like that adds up. Bring your box of q-tips and work on my car too, ok? lol

Marti - is this your weekend with Jhanai? Hope you're having fun.

The concrete part of our front porch is poured and will be ready for us to sit on this evening. The roof part will be added next week, and should be done before we get back from FL.

I've been cleaning and took a little break to tell you hello, but I better get back at it.

Have a good day!

Hello ladies,

Marti - kids grow up too fast! Katie has lost weight, too, and as put a red rinse on that beautiful blond hair. But it's her hair, lol, not mine, so I stayed out of it, lol. Do you and Jhanai do any scrapbooking anymore? I thought I would get some done last winter, but I didn't, and now here it's almost summer.

Michelle - we leave Wednesday AM for FL. I'm so excited to go and see Katie again. She's been working at Walt Disney World, on the college program for 4 months. It's been a great experience for her, and she'll miss her roommates and coworkers, but she says she's ready to come home. Sorry your DD has to put up with the rudeness at work. What the heck makes people act that way, anyhow? Is you headache better? Hope so.

The weather was so pretty today that it was hard for me to stay in and clean house. I kept wanting to go out and play, lol. Grass is coming up where Neal planted it, and it looks like green whiskers, lol.

Do you remember the Serenity Prayer? I've been thinking of that in regards to weight loss recently. Today's been a good day, foodwise.

Have a good Sunday!

Happy Saturday, ladies

WI this morning, gained .7 lbs, oh well. This week I will concentrate on getting my water in again. I can see it made a big difference compared to last week. Think I've also been drinking more diet soda, so I'm going to try to limit that this week, too.

It was an incredibly busy day -- went to Walmart and bought a new BBQ grill (since our old one had rusted through in a spot and we tossed it), and some bright pink double impatiens for the front flower bed, which is too shady for many plants. A cat looks like it has been using the flower bed for a litter box in one area (ugh), so I cleaned all that out and planted a plant that is supposed to repel cats, dogs, and other animals along with the impatiens; hopefully that helps. Then I pruned my roses (black spot had been attacking the leaves), sprayed them with an organic spray for that. Went to the bank, paid the mortgage, washed my car and vacuumed it out, went grocery shopping. Grilled salmon, chicken (for Tim, he hates fish), carrots, zucchini and mushrooms w/dill seasoning, and corn on the cob. Seedless watermelon for dessert Noah mowed the lawn, so that looks better. Whew! I'm beat. And I still need to clean the kitchen and throw in a load of laundry.

Ya know...I've been thinking about that horrible call yesterday. I kept trying to tell the trainee to just tell the lady she was getting a supervisor and to just put her on hold even though she was yelling. But the rep wasn't really able to focus on what I was saying because she was being screamed at by a mentally ill person -- no exaggeration, the lady was saying absolutely bizarre things. If anything like that happens again, I will tell the rep to quietly say (even if the person is yelling and isn't listening or paying attention to her), "if you continue yelling and won't let me speak, I can't assist you and will have to release this call" -- and if the person keeps screaming, then I will have her hang up and just note the account that I gave her permission to. Normally we are not allowed to hang up on customers, but that was just ridiculous.

Michelle, sorry to hear you've been headachey. Maybe if it rains there it will clear the air some and help your allergies?

Marti, when will you be in SF? How long will you be there? Are you staying near Fisherman's Wharf? I love SF...we took my oldest son there in January when he was home on leave. The Alcatraz tour is really cool, if you haven't done that, or it's fun just to take the bay cruise under the Golden Gate.

Angie, scary-naked-old-men-looking-babies??? I almost fell out of my chair!!! And then Tim said, "Hey don't knock it, some of us are a whole lot of fun!" Well...he's not THAT scary-looking... I think I've actually seen some of those that were made to look like sleeping baby fairies, and they were pretty neat. No more plays? Well, maybe for a little while, but I bet you can't give them up entirely...it's in your blood And good for you for resisting the Frosty

Jane, bet you're looking foward to seeing Katie again! We still have yet to make it to Disney World, even though we are total Disneyland nuts Have the last week of September off work, but don't think we can afford any major trips then. Did I mention we have subterranean termites under the concrete in the backyard? Will be about $1200 to treat, but can't risk that they will damage the house. There goes the rest of our tax refund, but glad we had the $ for it.

Here's the link to my Disneyland pics:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kateothelamp/my_photos
On the same page as my Ireland photos...

Have a good night ladies,

To answer everyone's question we have a small office that handles calls direct from customers, calls direct from stores and we do all the entry. I get to do credits and problem solving--which I actually like to do. There was a director above me but during a downsize they moved him to another position so I am the supervisor of the area. I actually finally managed to calm that woman down and now she is actually nice when she calls and asks for me. There was one woman that one of the other reps was getting nowhere with and was very rude--I got the call and she said that she had mailed a check but we had no record of it--I basically covered everything the other rep did and asked for her to find if the check had been cashed and if it had tell me what number we had stamped on front of it. SHe went off on me and hung up. I gave it some time and called back and got the husband I explained that I was calling back because she was so upset and he said that he had found that she never wrote the check and was now embarrassed--I told him to tell her things like this happen all the time and she actually called the rep back the next day to apologize, she was having a bad day and was sorry to have taken it out on her. Luckily we don't usually have anyone cussing or swearing.

Well, I am sitting here drinking my coffee and then I am off to finish mowing and do the last load of clothes--it's amazing how little DH and I have now that the kids don't live here. DD did bring a couple of small loads out. Did one while she was here and then left another for me to do along with some whites. I just added her whites in with ours since I alwasy have a very small load of them. Not sure what else we will get into today.