Carrie’s Blog

Hey all. You may recall my previous post in which I purchased a shiny new (to me) elliptical machine. I’ve been faithfully using it *almost* every day for 30 minutes. That half hour gets me about 3 miles and it makes me sweat like I have never sweat (sweated?) before in my LIFE. There are days when I am not even halfway through and I hit a brick wall. Just as I’m about to step off and take a break, a song usually comes on my BBerry that gets me re-motivated. I was going to share this one song with you all, but I figured I could share the whole 30 minute playlist that my Blackberry comes up with on “shuffle”. I *do* skip quite a few songs - today the Berry thought I needed heavy doses of Amos Lee, Eminem and The Killers. It was pretty reluctant to play anything else.

Motivational song of the day: ‘Till I Collaspse - Eminem
More perfect timing could not have been had! I was at about 20 minutes when this song came on and I thought for sure I was DONE. When the song came on I didn’t recognize it. I looked at the title and I had to laugh because that was exactly how I felt. This song got me through to 24 minutes in the blink of an eye!

Oops - post in progress. Trying to figure this playlist thing out.

I’m down NINE pounds! Yay!! It’s been about six weeks, so I’m totally happy! I bought an Elliptical machine off of Craigslist today, too - it was only $75. The guy had put it together totally wrong so they thought it was too hard to use. Well, I took it apart and fixed it and it works beautifully - and it’s practically brand new with the stickers still on it! Bye, bye gym membership!

Wow - how long has my website been down? I just went to update and I had to spend the time fixing my site instead. Looks like when I updated the Thumbmonkey.com website last month, I overwrote my own website accidentally. I suppose if I updated more than once every six weeks I would have noticed that my site was gone, huh?

Remember last November (sounds like the opening line of a song, no?) when I applied for the Sales Manager position and got denied? No? You can refresh your memory with this post if you care to: My Non-Promotion. Well, after I was done crying and stomping around and being ticked of in general, I decided that I still wanted to work in that store and that I would apply for the job in a different location just to get a foot in the door. Ref: Am I a glutton for punishment?.

So guess what happened? The girl that got the job I originally applied for - the one I was so upset about - is leaving! My first thought was a bitter, vindicated sort of “I told you so”. My second thought was of applying to fill her position. It was my goal all along to be in that store as a sales manager - when I took the job I have now, I did it with the intention that I would move back to my old store A.S.A.P. But… I’m not sure that is still a direction I want to take! I kind of LIKE working in the kiosk. We are doing really well in our sales numbers and that makes me more money. I also really like my team, and they have only known me as a leader, never as a peer like some of the people in the other store. They are also quite new so they are an impressionable bunch. For 3/4 of them, I am the first experience they have with a Sales Manager in my company. I don’t have to override anything they were taught by anyone else, I don’t have to override the stubbornness that can come with years of service, I can inspire in my own way with a blank slate.

It’s funny how much can change in such a couple of months.

So, you guys remember JPL, right? He has a web show called “American Nobody” and this week’s episode of “Idol Recap in Crappy Pictures” was HILARIOUS. You can find it right around the 2:30 mark in the video. I LOVE how Simon looks like Frankenstein.

http://www.americannobody.com/

I just ordered my weekly groceries online. They will be delivered to my house tomorrow evening sometime. I went through Peapod and the delivery fee was only $7! I always thought it would be much more than that. My grocery bill is actually about $50 less than what I’m used to spending at the store every week. I’m guessing it’s because ordering online sort of takes away the impulse buys. I’ll let you guys know how the experience goes…

Just a quick note about the new dog: so far she is wonderful! Very mild-mannered, very affectionate, she listens pretty well. She had an accident sometime last night, but today has been accident free so far!

Well, I brought Lizzie back last night. I brought everything that was hers - her doggie bed, her bone, her harness, everything. Tammy told me I could keep it if I wanted to, but I told her I didn’t want to look at it every day. She said she would keep me posted and I really really hope she does. I want to know when Lizzie is adopted so I know she is in a good home. I bawled like a baby my whole way home. Man, I felt like an a-hole.

So, we are starting over now. We are getting our carpets cleaned and starting with a new dog. A dog named Roxy that we have already found at another shelter, actually. She’s a puppy, but according to the shelter she is already house trained. Of course, the shelter said she was already spayed, too, and that turned out to be a big fat lie. They don’t spay/neuter the dogs until they are adopted. I guess they don’t want to nurse dogs after surgery if they don’t have to. I understand the concept, but what’s with the lie on her petfinder profile, then? I didn’t expect to have to nurse a dog after surgery, either, but I’m not given a choice due to the dishonesty in their posting. Not to mention they are also not up front with you on the cost!! If you read their organization info website, they state the adoption fee is $90. In fact, you can read in depth about the adoption process at their own website. Come to find out AFTER I fill out the adoption forms that - OH! By the way… she needs to get more shots after she is spayed. That will cost you ANOTHER $100 before you can take her home. And NO, your own vet can NOT give her the shots. It has to be OUR vet.

So, what can I do about this? I am going to pay it because we want this dog. $190 is not a big price to pay for dog, especially from a rescue. But, WTF people? The way they do business is very dishonest and I don’t want to let that rest! I seriously want to contact someone about this. Any advice?

I know it’s been forever since I’ve written anything… I’m a terrible blogger, I really am. I’m a great blog reader if it’s any consolation.

The big news going on in my house right now is Lizzie. She will be leaving us on Thursday. We just can’t handle her anymore. This dog pees all over our house - even in our BED! We’ve tried and tried to house-train her and we have not been successful. My house smells terrible and it’s totally embarrassing. Ted and I went on a getaway for the the weekend and when we came back and walked through the door, the smell just smacked us right in the face.

I called the shelter and told them the situation. The lady who runs the place - Tammy - said she would see what ideas she could come up with. She suggested taking Lizzie back for awhile to get her house-trained. Although this sounded like a nice gesture, I am not confident that it will work at all. And what would happen then? Would she take her back a second time if it didn’t work? And what about the poor dog going back and forth? And my own kids? Ugh. No. So, Tammy kind of dilly-dallied around for a few days. I’m not sure if she was trying to come up with a creative solution or what, but finally I just wrote to her and told her to take the dog back. I told her I don’t want a different dog, I don’t want my $200 adoption donation back, I just want this dog out of my house so I can breathe again. She agreed to meet me on Thursday.

So now, every time I see Lizzie’s little face I feel like a jerk. I couldn’t help her. I tried and I failed. And she is the sweetest little dog and she loves me so much - it’s hard. You should have seen her after we went on our weekend getaway. She had to be boarded at a kennel (our dog sitter won’t take a dog that pees everywhere) and when we went to pick her up she went insane when she saw us! You have never seen a dog this happy before! And my kids - they about hate me right now. My son cried himself to sleep the other night over this whole thing. He is devastated about losing this dog.

Ugh. I feel like the jerk of the year. This sucks.

This is seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I love this girl.

Our dogs were sleeping in the bed with us last night and Ninja was actually sleeping right between Ted’s legs for awhile. About 2:00 am, my hubby starts shifting around and I hear him mumble almost incoherently: “Ugh, you have to get out from between my legs.” And then about five seconds later he follows that with a sleepy sounding “That’s what she said.”

I died laughing.

Buttercup - everyone knows this song. Man, it was fun when he sang this live! There is a better audio version here, but embedding was disabled.

This is killing me… he is going to be here in a couple of weeks and I don’t have the money to buy a ticket. UGH this SUCKS.