Viruses

Well, as you know, viruses have been going around. Fortunately, we haven't gotten any in our bodies but I did get one on my work computer. Apparently it is spread through Instant Messenger. I got a an IM from a co-worker telling me to check out a link butI couldn't get the link to work so I just ignored it. Later others of my co-workers told me that they couldn't open the link that I sent them. I hadn't sent any messages . . .

Seems that our company has a nasty virus and so I had to surrender my laptop this morning when I came into work and have been working on a loaner while they wipe mine clean and (hopefully) get all my personal stuff back from the hard drive - including all the settings (I would hate to loose all the "favorites" that I have for Internet sites) I don't know that I could find them all again. They are mostly work related that I'd have a hard time finding again).

My biggest frustration today has been that the loaner computer has the newest version of Microsoft - Microsoft 2000, I think. It looks different and I can't find a thing. It takes me forever to do something in Excel that used to take a nano-second. The other bad thing is that they are converting the whole company over and I was hanging on tooth and nail to the old version. I think that they are going to convert me without my input! Such a sad day!

Tag . . . you're It

I've been tagged. Here goes.
5 fears, 5 joys, 5 obsessions/collections, 5 surprising facts about you. Tag 5 people.

5 fears:
That I might be having twins (no, please no!)
Falling (I have this reoccurring dream . . . horrible feeling, falling)
Loosing my job and having no way to pay our house payment
Dilated and numbed eyes at the same time(I tend to faint)
Scott dying

5 joys:
My husband
My dogs
Reading
Singing
Chillin' with mom and dad

5 obsessions/collections:
Books
Checking my friends' blogs every day
Weighing myself
Shoes
Spaghetti

5 surprising facts:
I still say Diet Coke is my favorite drink even though I have been "on the wagon" for years
The only bone I've ever broken is my pinky toe
I'm 32! When did that happen? (that fact is surprising to me at least)
I don't like to brush my teeth - I do it. . . (but despite that I've only had 3 cavities)
I hate running. I want to like it - you know, that runners high - but I really, really don't

I tag:
Linda, Barb, Leslie, Samantha, and Linsee

Tomatoes

Linda and I tried our hands at bottling tomatoes last Friday. I have done it once before and I called my mom beforehand for pointers. I found some late season tomatoes and unfortunately, wasn't able to buy as many as I would have liked since he would only sell them for cash and I only had $15 on me. We blanched the tomatoes, skinned them, cut them in quarters and filled the bottles. After a teaspoon of salt, we put them in the pressure cooker. We let it go until the pressure indicator dropped down and opened the lid to find - all the lids were off!
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It dawned on me that I hadn't put the rings on. Mom didn't mention that specifically and I obviously didn't think it through. In fact, when I was putting the pressure cooker lid on, I did wonder at how those lids were going to seal down when they were just kind of floating on top! It's the miracle of the pressure cooker - right? Dummy!
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We thought that we knew what to do now but Linda had to leave shortly so we didn't want to wait for the pressure cooker again. We got out the steamer that Linda used with her sis the week before to do pears. They did the pears without rings so following suit, we put the tomatoes in sans rings and let them go. After 30 minutes, we opened them up to find that some lids sealed but others were off.
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In the end, we determined that rings make sense with all canning processes and we shouldn't just listen to the advice of others when what makes sense to us says otherwise - we are fairly logical girls, but got distracted by tradition. What was that story about cutting the ends of the roast . . .
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In the end, we ran the batch through three times. Scott keeps teasing me about all the work we did so that I could bring home a whopping 3 quarts. I'm sure they are the best tasting tomatoes ever! I can't wait to make spaghetti sauce from them. Next year I'll buy my tomatoes earlier in September and find them cheaper and do a ton - and I'll remember to use the rings!

Groban sings TV

I heard on the radio yesterday morning that there was a medley of TV show theme songs done by Josh Groban at the Emmys. It was pretty funny but mostly, pretty impressive that he could do all of that! Lots of notes to learn and it certainly shows his versatility!

I'm not a huge Groban fan (sorry) but I know that Sarah is so - this is for you!

Welcome to Parenthood

I am really, really mad! I started paying for voluntary short-term disability a few years ago. It didn't cost a lot and thought it would be wise. In August, someone from the insurance company came and presented to us for an hour about this ST disability benefit. It covers a 13 week period at 60% of your salary and kicks in after you have taken 2 weeks of vacation or sick leave. A great deal! After leaving the meeting, we were all talking about how we can take 15 weeks of maternity leave!! On the take home sheet, it lists pregnancy as one of the covered "illnesses". Later, it actually has a big section about pregnancy that states "we see pregnancy as an illness". The representative of the company answered all sorts of questions from pregnant women in the room about this and assured us that pregnancy is covered. I was thrilled. I could take off three months after the baby is born and still get paid enough to cover our bills.
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Well, come to find out yesterday, "pregnancy" doesn't mean "maternity leave". Apparently, there is an exception for maternity leave and the insurance company thinks that you are back to normal after 6 weeks and so, you take 2 weeks vacation and then they pay you for 4 more. Here I thought that we had such a great plan - I was thrilled! And now, someone has decided that after 6 weeks, mommy's and babies don't need more time and she can go back to work.
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I'm not mad that the coverage isn't better (though I wish it were), I'm mad because the representative deliberately withheld this information from us. He kept saying "pregnancy is covered" and I think he knew all the time that he didn't mean maternity leave even though that is what we were asking about. I looked through all the information from this company about ST disability and nowhere does it say that maternity leave has an exception attached to it! I have no patience for deliberately withholding information and misleading people when you know otherwise!!! I had this discussion yesterday with 4 or 5 ladies at work who all were mislead like me and are very disappointed to learn that they have to take time off without pay in order to stay home a little longer. I suppose I'm lucky because I know early on and can save up some money but some of these ladies are delivering in a few weeks and are just now learning that they can't take as much time off as they thought. And, they are going to have to talk all the vacation they have for the entire year and use it, so they hope that the baby doesn't get sick any time after being born, or that they don't want to go on a summer vacation!
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I complained greatly to my HR department yesterday about it. I told them that it's not their fault (they didn't know about it either) but that they need to be very sure in November at open enrollment to tell everyone that maternity leave is limited. It's not fair to let us believe we are getting one thing only to have it be taken away! And if they ever invite that representative back, I want to be there to call him on the carpet!
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So, that was my crappy news yesterday that got me all riled up. Well, that and then the discussion led to how insurance is going from 90/10 coverage to 80/20 as well as adding a high deductible (they were throwing around $2,000). I suppose I have to wait until November to know for sure. If only I could have had this baby in December where there was no deductible and it was 90/10. Crappy, crappy, crappy!!! Welcome to parenthood right? I think I'll ask my doctor to prescribe bed rest for me in January so that I can get that short-term disability benefit that I've been paying for! If I can't get paid to take time off afterwards, maybe I should take it off before!

One more

Since I am adding pictures I've taken that I like, I wanted to add this one taken at girls camp this summer. I'm not really sure why I like it so much, and maybe nobody else will but I really do for some reason.

Taking Credit

I haven't written for awhile and now that I bashed on everyone else for not updating their blogs frequently enough, I figure that I'd better write so that I'm not a hypocrite!

Yesterday I sent some pictures to a friend of her family that I took at the ward youth boating activity a few weeks ago. She was really impressed with them. I wish that I could take credit for them being great but I told her it was the camera and Picasa. Do you all know about Picasa? It is a free, photo-editing software by Google and I use it to lighten up pictures, crop, reduce red eye, sharpen images and straighten photos. I think that it makes my pics look much better. So, I do give credit to the software and my good Nikon D-40, but I am proud of my pictures from the event nonetheless so I'm including a few that I really liked. (caps are below the pics)

This is Logan, the YW 2nd counselor's son

This is Tony, Logan's Dad

This is Penny, our Beehive class President

And this is Liz and Aubrey (I believe they are singing "Defying Gravity" from Wicked)

Pain in the bum

Oh my goodness am I out of shape! I went with the young men and young women from our ward on a boating outing on Saturday. The air was cool but the water was surprisingly refreshing! The other leaders convinced me to try knee boarding on boogie boards. What a fun, fun things that it! I love that you get to ride with 3 or 4 other people and laugh and laugh and laugh! The other great part is that if you biff, there isn't too far of a fall down to the water. On the flip side, your face is much closer to the water so if you accidentally catch the front of the board under the wave, you head face first into the lake and about half the body of water seems to find its way up your nose and down your throat!
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I have found, however, that I must be grossly out of shape. Last weekend I waterskiied and my arms and back were sore but that was all. After the knee boarding, I can barely stand to sit down for all the soreness in my legs and bum! And then, there is still the arm and back soreness too from holding on to the rope. I suppose I need to get out a bit more!

The Grass is Always Greener

Would you look at that - we have grass!!! Our neighbors' property values will now go back up a little closer to what they were last summer when we ripped out the yard! There is still a lot to do to make the flower beds look nice but great progress this week!
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The grass was delivered on Tuesday and unfortunately, after having taken a lot of time off for Labor Day Weekend, I had to work on Tuesday. I got home at 7:30 just in time for Scott and the three godsend neighbors to tell me that I had impeccable timing - they were done! So, now we have a lawn and sprinklers and only have left the small park strip up the West side of the house. We would like to plant a bunch of trees there so maybe we'll go with bark or rock or something else than grass. Who knows.

Labor Day Gun - I mean Fun

Yeah, that's me with an M-15 (or at least that's what my co-worker said it is since an M-16 is illegal to own). Over the last weekend, we didn't go out of town but we wanted our Labor Day weekend to feel like a vacation so we packed our days full of activities.
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On Friday, we headed to Park City and straight to Jordenelle Reservoir for boating. Our friends brought their Sea Doo boat and we played around on the lake for the afternoon. I attempted to water ski and did get up for a bit but some crazy, not nice boaters kept cutting too close to our area for our comfort and so we had to move to another part of the lake. Once I got back into the boat though, I didn't want to get back into the 70 degree water. So, not much skiing but I did have a great time just tooling around in the boat.
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After we got back and showered we headed to the Real Salt Lake game. 2-1 in favor of Real! Good show boys.
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Saturday morning we slept in and then headed to Tooele to shoot guns. Scott has a few hand guns as well as a few shotguns and a rifle. Dan has several guns as well. I told Scott that I don't have a problem with him owning guns but if they are going to be in the house, I want to know how to use them so I won't be afraid of them. I also want him to teach my kids to be used to them and to be comfortable with them so they won't be too curious. I worry about curiosity. I liked shooting the handguns but the bigger ones were a little heavier and made me more nervous. I am glad that those long guns will reside in a gun safe and I don't' have to worry about them too much! I'll stick to the smaller handguns. I did really enjoy going shooting even though it was really, really hot!
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After the range, we headed to play 9 holes of golf. Linda and I are new to the game and the boys are more seasoned. I was afraid that it would be too hot but by our tee time at 4:00 it had started to cloud over and there was a nice breeze. Not too many people were at this particular golf course either so we could take our time. I really enjoyed myself which is good because a few days ago I played terribly in a work tournament (more about that some other time). I'm glad to know that I could be a decent player and that bad day I can chalk up to the fact that I was using men's clubs! And can I just say that golf carts are so worth it. Why anyone would choose to walk the course I just don't know!
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After a dinner at Red Lobster we toppled into bed. The sun sure takes it out of you. We had a great weekend and I am so grateful for my friends for dragging us all over when we probably would have just stayed home bored. Instead, we had a full weekend and then Sunday and Monday to relax at home. The 5 day weekend was perfect and I was sad to come back to work today! It's 2:00 now, do you think I can go home early? Shouldn't you ease back into a full day's work?

hand puppets on steroids

Holy cow, this is really cool! Take a look.