Burning vacuum cleaner...

OK...with the new kitten came FLEAS! Yuck! We have not had a problem with fleas in years...I hate this! So I got some flea medication at Wal-Mart and as I was vacuuming up the disgusting critters as the web site said to...I hear a pop and the cord is on fire! This is in mid-air so I unplugged the cleaner and it stopped flaming and smoked a bit. I put it out in the garage for the garbage. It has served it's purpose...$59 from Wal-Mart three years ago...DirtDevil...I don't need my house burning down! Meggie and I are going out in a few minutes to buy a new cleaner. I would wait a day or two but I can't stand the FLEAS! I studied all of the ads and am checking K-mart first and then Linen and things. There is a nice "Shark" in the LNT ad. There is also a 20% off coupon which brings it into my price range. If anyone has any ideas on flea extinction please leave a note! I might check out flea bombs, but it is 32 degrees here and I can't take my flea bitten animals anywhere else while I de-flea the house...so I think flea bombs are out. I love the kitten but this is getting trying...to be continued...

Money conversion....

Some of the places that my 17 technicians work use FOREIGN MONEY! Eeeek! And then I have to make sure the expense reports have both the American amount and the foreign amount, mainly Canadian and sometimes Mexican. So Bernard (one of my bosses) shows me a website called "x-rates.com" that will convert American dollars to various other currencies. This is good, except now I have to figure out how to look up the exchange rate for the days the technicians were in the foreign country using foreign currency. Luckily only one guy seems to be a regular in Canada, this is good and bad. Good because his paperwork is usually all correct, bad because the other guys don't fill out said paperwork often enough to do it correctly. Oh well, this makes for paid work for moi! I got a gift card and tonight I bought an Amish book. I am going to my room and read my Amish book until Grey's Anatomy comes on at 9PM. I will report on the book after I get into it. Now, I should be finishing the Quantitative Decision Making Report...but the Amish Book is calling me!...to be continued...

Back to work...

Well, it was back to work today. It was really nice to have 4 days in a row off work. I was swamped with work today and I also had to cover the switchboard for 4 hours. I was asked to cover the switchboard tomorrow for 4.5 hours. It is hard to get my own work done when I am tethered out at the switchboard. It is hard to focus on the figures when there are constant interruptions. I finished 6 reports while I was out there today. I am waiting for information from 2 techs to finish 2 more reports. There are 17 techs that I support by reviewing and correcting their paperwork every week. This would be easy if they filled out their forms accurately and completely, but most have mistakes in them and it is my job to find the mistakes and correct them. This would not be too hard except I am constantly being interrupted. Or...I almost get them done and I need to verify information that is available on my terminal but not at the switchboard computer. I should not complain because I really wanted to work where I work, it is just tough being the person with the least seniority and the person who covers the phones for breaks and days off. To be continued...

Christmas morning photo...

Christmas morning...all of the pets were curious about the tree and what was under it. The big green present is the loft bed. The orange corgi dog is "Basil," the black kitty is "Kitten," and the dark corgi dog in the foreground is "Celine"...to be continued...

Post-Christmas Day...

<---Meggie's Kitten At our house we celebrate birthdays for three days, pre-birthday day, birthday, and post-birthday day. We only actually celebrate on our birthdays, but we like the idea of making the "holiday" three days long. So today is "post-Christmas Day" in Debbie's World. Christmas was awesome as always. Now that the kids are older we don't have to get up at 4AM. We all slept until after 8:30 AM. This was not too late since I was up until 1:30 with "elfwork" to finish. After gifts Alex went back to bed and Meggie and I had waffles. I finished wrapping for Kathy's house (my sister), prepared my pasta dish to pass, and took a leisurely shower. After prying Alex out of bed we arrived at Kathy's house shortly after 12 noon. We opened presents, had dinner and pie and visited. The kids and I came home around 4PM, Brian stopped at 6:30 PM with way too many gifts for the kids. The kids and Brian exchanged gifts, we ate snacks, and everyone played "Guitar Hero." (except me...) When Brian went home close to 10PM I was happy to call it a day. Today I worked on my "quantitative decision making" project. It is a huge project that was due a while ago but I got an extension and have to get it in the mail by Saturday. It is an exercise in applying the statistics theories we learned in class. I started the project when I was at my old job, so the project applies to the grant writing business. I will be glad when it is finished and in the mail. It is 3/4 done, yeah! I will be so glad when college is done! Megan and Alex have been assembling her "loft bed" since 5:30PM. This was her "big" present from me. It is silver with a desk and shelves underneath. I think they almost have it assembled. This is good since it is 9PM here and soon will be bedtime. This is the gift that my Mom, Step-Dad and I went out after Saturday morning. We got the last one and was it HEAVY! It weighed a ton! Then we had to get it out of the truck and into the garage, then into the house on Christmas Eve. I will never buy suck a HEAVY present again, EVER! Megan does seem to like it though, so I guess it was worth the effort. While we were out I bought Roger, my Step-Dad a green elf hat to wear since he was helping me do my elf-work. Tomorrow is a work day so I am going to sign off...to be continued...

Shopping like a crazy girl!

Well...I believe I have finished my Christmas shopping. I started and finished in two days. I can not go into the details of my adventure until after Christmas since my family reads my blog. Let's just say after 4 trips in two days success was achieved. I am also pleased with my purchases, yes, very pleased. Since I know my brother does not read my blog I can talk about his gifts. He is into sports, viewing and participating. He likes the Sabres, a lot. He even drives from Rochester to Buffalo sometimes to attend games. And since the logo has changed I thought I would get him a Sabres shirt and cleverly I remembered seeing some nice ones at Sears. So I went to Sears looking high and low and no Sabres shirts, darn! I did find some other items and while backtracking for something I ran into the SABRES SHIRTS! They also were 25% off, so a deal at that! I paid for the shirt and thought I was done. On to WalMart to fight the crowds. While pawing though the older DVDs I found my favorite movie, Rock Star, on DVD for only $4.88. This was a must have! My brother is single and does really well financially and buys a lot of DVDs, usually the Tuesday they are released. I knew he did not have Rock Star, and so I bought him a copy. I hope he likes it as much as the kids and I do. I will shares his reaction in a future blog. I bought batteries for my digital camera and plan to post of photo of the new kitten. Megan has named him "digit" which is computer lingo. I call him "sprig." Sprig like Mr. Edwards used to call Laura in the "Little House on the Prairie Series." To be continued...

Blogging issues...

OK...so I am blog challenged...I have been trying to log back on for 3 days and finally got back on. I did attend my nephew's Christmas play (see photo...) and it was very nice. My nephew was one of the three wise men...but they lost his costume...so he wore the Pope costume! Afterwards there was a feast of cookies and punch in fellowship hall. It was tasty! The new job is going well. Tuesday and today I had to fill in fro someone and worked 8 hour days, on the switchboard! It actually went quite well, although I ran out of work to do. I did some work for the engineering department (my old department) and actually got to see a few drawings. I enjoyed that part a LOT! I am supposed to be getting a new computer in January and start doing some CAD drafting work. I am really excited about this development for two reasons: (1) I need a new computer...the one I am using is a GATEWAY 2000 (ugh!) and (2) I was hoping to get back into some drafting work and maybe even be a little challenged mentally. I took Megan to get a free kitten after work. This is one of her Christmas presents. It is a little yellow kitten and we have already found fleas on the little rascal! Now, she has not been named yet, but I usually end up renaming the cats after they have been named! Like our two othwe cats...Kitallee was patches and Kitten was...well I guess she was just kitten! Anyway...yellow kitten has yet to be named. Megan went to the store and bought flea powder and we will take her to the vet and get a "feline lukemia" test as well as worming and some "advantage" to ward off the flea population. I still have to do my Christmas shopping. I an getting a little stressed about it but have to wait for my pay to shop. I hope I am not as broke next year! More tomorrow...

Another Sunday...

<---my latest stamp set acquired from ebay... Well...it is another study day. I have the homework and case studies to finsih for tomorrow night's class, Personal and Professional Ethics. After this class tomoroow night I will have two weeks off from school and then only three more classes until my BS in Management is finished. I hate when I procrastinate and leave all of my homework until the last minute and yet this seems to always be the case. Tonight I am attending a children;s Christmas program that my nephew John Gabriel is in. I hope I get the "Christmas SPirit" from the program. This year I am so low on fund sthat Iw ill not eb able to do the bulk of my Christmas shopping until payday, Friday the 23rd of December. I also hope to be done with the house refinance the day after Christmas. The refinancing has been a nightmare and has taken almost two months to complete. I guess college attending, part time working may be more of a risk than other people where lending companies are concerned. More to follow...