Oh Kent State, How I Detest Thee

I officially have one more beef with Kent State, and it is one that makes me VERY unhappy. David and I found out a month or so ago about this random loan for $1000 that should have been consolidated with our other loans at graduation, but was not. This wouldn't have been such a huge problem if the university had been so kind as to TELL US about said loan, but that is too big a task for them apparently. So all of a sudden they're like "Well, you're 5 months late on your payment"(or something like that) and we're all "say WHAT?" We called them immediately and figured out that it was in fact their mistake for not consolidating this loan with our others. We talked to them and deferred the loan for 9 months so we could get our bearings and then pay it off. However, it has recently come to light that David's credit has taken a nosedive. Why? Because of an insanely large late fee for a debt to Kent State University! UGH! We have always been good about paying our bills and things in order to maintain good credit. We don't have credit cards yet but we think we will get one in the future (and pay it off monthly) to help make the credit even better. Stuff like this REALLY ticks me off. I had a similar experience with my credit when one of the hospital bills from my miscarriage was missed by the insurance company and came to me instead. I had to go around in circles for a week or two before it was finally taken care of. Needless to say, I am extremely peeved at Kent State for all the trouble they're causing.

Apparently my bad day has become a bad couple of days. It it becoming a most stressful and exasperating time and I look forward to a hopefully more peaceful future.

P.S. Kudos goes out to my brother, Jon, for helping me reformat my blog. Thanks, Jon!

My Bad Day

Let me just tell you about yesterday and why it sucked.

First, I had a, well..."conversation" with my friend Kyle Carey. Without going into details, basically it all started when I changed my status on Facebook because I thought it was funny that President Obama decided to retake the oath of office "just in case." Apparently he was trying to have a logical political discussion but he came across to me as arrogant and brutal. Needless to say that conversation did not really end well and soured my mood. From that point on I could not focus on my work (hence my last blog post). I tried, Lord knows I tried, but I barely got anything done. I go home at 1 pm, and somewhere around 11:30 I was able to knuckle down enough to get a little bit done. I was lonely, though, because I was all alone in the office.

My co-worker, Caleb, came in sometime around 12:30. He has class Tuesday and Thursday mornings and doesn't get into work until then. On a normal day we get along great. He's a member of the LDS church, a return missionary, and a newlywed, so we always find something to talk about. Anyway, I'm working on getting these prize boxes put away because as soon as that is done, I can pretty much pack up and go home. So I finish the last of these stickers I had to put on this load of boxes and pick them up to carry them upstairs to the cabinet. Right in front of Caleb's (open) door, I one of the boxes falls out from the stack I am awkwardly trying to carry toward the stairs. He looks up at me and I say "Could you help me please?" thinking that he would at least come and help by picking up the dropped box, but maybe even do the more gentlemanly thing and help me carry them upstairs. All he does it look at me and say "you can do it." I thought he was being funny so I made my sad face at him. He says "don't look at me like that." I stood there for a couple minutes waiting for some help, but no, he says he's too busy, I need to do it all myself. Now I understand that he has been at school all morning and therefore is not where he would normally be in his work at that time because of his recent arrival, but there is this thing called compassion....I can't think of any work I would be doing that would keep me from jumping up to help someone, especially someone who asked me for help. I was so stressed and ready to go home that I almost cried as I put ALL the boxes down, picked up the one I dropped and staggered up the stairs. By the time I came down, though, I was a little angry, so I slammed my door. I collected my things, shut down my computer, and then got the money out of the safe that I had counted earlier that day. I wrote my own deposit slip (which I usually ask him to do) and didn't say a word, because I knew he knew I was angry and was waiting for him to say something. But no. Needless to say, I was hurt and more than a little ticked at his cold shoulder.

So I go to the bank like always, just wanting to go home. To explain a bit, because we are a cash business, we make daily bank drops. Well, I make daily bank drops. There are some days when there is not any money to count, but at least 4 days a week, there is. Although I handle lots of quarters, I handle several thousand dollar bills as well, and these are what we take to the bank (Brinks picks up our coin). I spend 30-45 minutes every morning counting all the money, which involves using a counting machine, and bundling the $1 bills by 100. The leftover 1s are then bundled with the 5s, 10s, and 20s, and this is called the "mixed bundle." When I go to the bank (where they all know me), I give them my deposit slip and the mixed bundle, which they run through the counter while I unpack the other bundles. Then they assume my bundles are all 100, see how many there are, and then set them aside. They give me my receipt and they count the bundles later, calling us if any mistakes are found. I have been with this company since August and they have found an error only ONCE (my very first week). Since then, I have always been perfect in my deposits, and they know that.

So I get to the bank and there is this new girl. She waves me over and so I give her my deposit slip and the mixed bundle as usual. As I begin to dump the other bundles on the counter, she looks at the money like "whoa!" Then Stephen, one of the managers, who happens to be standing right next to her, explains how things are normally done. She then says "Well, it's my cash drawer so I'd rather count them all." She then proceeds to tell me that I won't get my receipt until she counts ALL my bundles (there were about 18). Not only does this mean that I have to sit around and WAIT while she RE-counts all my hard work, but my day was already sucking and I felt a bit of a personal blow because even with a manager telling her that they knew us well enough that X was the policy, even when she KNEW that there was a 99.9% chance that her count was going to be identical to mine, she still insisted on making me sit there and wait. I am ashamed to say that this was the straw that broke the camel's back, and I started crying right there in the middle of the bank. I tried to be discreet about it, sitting in the chair, shielding my eyes with my hand, but the other employees of the bank, they know me, and they noticed that I wasn't my usual self. Stephen (the manager) came out from behind the desk and asked if I was OK. I was so embarrassed! I just told him I was having a bad day and that my co-worker had been kind of mean, blah blah blah. That was the one good thing that happened, because just when I thought no one had any compassion, this guy showed me that there are people who care about other people and will take the time to make sure people are OK.

So I went home, David was wonderful, as usual, but I was just feeling like crap, so I watched Game Show Network for a few hours. Nothing makes you forget your troubles like people jumping around and winning thousands of dollars.

The evening was better than the day; we played Phase 10 Twist with some friends (awesome game, by the way). That helped me find a reason to smile. So overall, the ENTIRE day wasn't bad, but it was tough and it pretty much sucked. However, writing about it helps a great deal. Yay for blogs! Now it's the weekend, so everything is better. David's parents are here until tomorrow, staying with us, but I think that will be pretty fun.

P.S. Does anyone know how to make my blog so the posts are wider and reach to the left side of the screen? I can't figure it out...

I Can't Focus

I'm trying so hard to focus on my work but I just can't do it. My mind is racing with a million different things, none of the which are important, and none of the which are my work...

I'm totally stressing myself out about the dumbest stuff. ARGH! I just want to relax. I feel bad because of how little I've accomplished today. Am I entitled to a day of almost complete laziness?

*sigh*

At least tomorrow is Friday.

FOCA

I received an e-mail from my brother-in-law this morning asking me to sign a petition opposing the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). At first glance it looked like something I agreed with, but I wanted to do more research before I put my name to something. I checked out the website devoted to opposing FOCA, fightfoca.com, as well as other, less reliable sources like wikipedia. I also found the actual bill online and read what was actually presented in Congress. (You can read it here.) I have lots of opinions, but I tend to try and keep them to myself unless asked. (Well, except within my family...they hear me vent all the time, especially David.) However, this is an issue that I wanted to be a little more public about. Hopefully it will be obvious as I discuss this why I feel so strongly.

From what I have found, the Freedom of Choice Act would essentially invalidate all restrictions on an abortion in every state, including those previously found consistent with Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court. This means that any state law about abortion is superseded by this federal law. I'm all for being "one country" and all that, but if a state's voters have decided the way they want abortion handled, it is not the place of the federal government to overrule those decisions. I know for a fact that Utah is an extremely conservative state overall, and has strict state laws about abortion, including mandatory counselling to ensure the mother is aware of the risks involved, both physical and emotional. The voters of Utah have made their choice and I don't see why the federal government feels the need to step in and say that our votes don't matter and as long as our national Congress (which has a liberal majority) and our insanely liberal, pro-choice new president think differently. This new act will allow teens to get abortions without counseling or parental consent. It will allow doctors to perform abortions without disclosing all the risks to the patient, and it will replace all laws about partial-birth abortions (abortions performed after the first trimester). While there would still be restrictions on partial-birth abortions, they would be much less strict.

I strongly believe that everyone has their agency and that women should never be denied the ability to make their own decisions. Having said that, I am very pro-life and feel that as soon as women start playing the "I have the right to choose whether or not I want to have a baby" card, they show their ignorance. Abortion is murder, and I don't care how you want to look at it, when a baby is conceived it is a life. Even if it isn't more than a few cells, it is alive, otherwise it would never grow. Despite what anyone's beliefs are about spiritual matters, you can't deny that anything that is growing is alive. I agree that a woman should be able to decide whether or not she wants to have a baby, but she should make that decision BEFORE she has sex. Aside from what I believe about pre-marital sex, there are many ways to avoid getting pregnant all together. If not abstinence, try birth control pills, patches, IUDs, condoms; there are options. If a woman chooses not to have a baby, she can do so, but if she decides to be lazy or whatever and does become pregnant, I believe that is a consequence of her choice to have sex and not take proper precautions (I do, however, believe abortions are appropriate in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment of the mother). If the mother decides she doesn't want her baby, there are still options. You can leave a new baby at any hospital anonymously, no questions asked. You can give the child up for adoption. I do not see why abortion should ever be the answer.

I think this issue especially hits home because of the trouble David and I have had conceiving. Although we have not felt that adoption is the right move for us right now, it may be in the future. There are so many women just like me who want a child more than anything in the entire world and can't have one. I know women who pay thousands upon thousands to dollars for medical treatments that would allow them to have a baby, and others who eventually have to adopt in order to have the family they dream about. These women would give their right arm to conceive a child, and there are millions of women around them who are willing to kill the child within them because of inconvenience or whatever. If it meant it would save a child's life, I would adopt as many children as I could.

The Freedom of Choice Act would essentially legalize murder as long as the victim was unable to live without the nutrients from the mother. If it's OK to kill babies, it should also be legal to kill any and all disabled adults who cannot live without the help of a ventilator, shots of some kind, or other types of assistance. We should be able to kill all of those elderly people who can't live on their own anymore. See how ridiculous this is? Pro-choice advocates are quick to say that abortion laws are keeping women from making their own choices, but like I said previously, the choice to have a child is there long before one is conceived. Theoretically I have the choice to get up right now and go and kill someone, but does that mean we should get rid of homicide laws because they are restricting my ability to choose if I want to kill someone or not? This really isn't any different except that the victims can't speak for themselves. If we won't stand up for these innocent lives, who will?

Maybe it is coming across harsh, but it really makes me sick when I hear women talking about babies like their disposable when I've been trying for almost 2 years to have a child of my own. I don't mean to offend anyone but I do have strong opinions about this issue. I just feel like it's wrong deep down in my bones and it is not something I can ignore.

Thanks for reading this. I appreciate it.

Jeopardy Deprived

I have to be one of the only people in the country who can't watch Jeopardy. I only wish I was kidding. Let me explain:

When David and I moved to Utah a year ago I realized the way that TV would be different being in the Mountain Time Zone. When shows air in the Eastern Time Zone, they air in the Central Time Zone at the same time, hence announcments like "8/7c". However, they are delayed one hour before they are aired in the Mountain Time. That means that when a show advertises being aired at 7 Central Time, it also airs at 7 Mountain Time, but by then, of course, it is 8 Cental and 9 Eastern Time. Basically what this ends up being is that everything airs "early", at least in my eyes, since I was born and raised in Eastern Time. The point to all this is that Prime Time starts at 7 here instead of 8 like in Ohio. As most people know, Jeopardy airs at 7:30pm Eastern Time. Normally, this would mean that it airs at 6:30pm Mountain Time, but because of standard 6:00 news broadcasts, Jeopardy gets lost. Up until this point, Jeopardy was being aired on KJAZZ, a local station out of Salt Lake that mostly aired Jazz games, but carried things like Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and other UPN shows. It actually aired at 7:30, which was nice because it was something I was used to, although I had to DVR it because of prime time shows airing at the same time.

Imagine my surprise when upon returning from our recent holiday trip to Ohio, I found the phrase "This Channel is Not Longer Available" on my DirecTV guide. I'm thinking, this is stupid. I pay for a satellite and yet I can't get a local channel? How is that? David called DirecTV and found out that some contract that KJAZZ had with DirecTV had run out at the end of the year and had not been renewed. The result? I pay for hundreds of channels I never watch, but I can't get the one local channel I actually watch on a daily basis. Because of the news and prime time issues, no other local channel airs it, and while there are two stations that DO air Jeopardy (ABCE and ABCW), DirecTV can't legally give us access.

Does anything else see how retarded this is? I mean, in general, I am happy with our service and I definitely get my money's worth from my DVR....but this kind of ticks me off. What kind of person can't watch Jeopardy? It's not like they air full episodes online or anything...

*sigh*

Earth, Part 2

Here is my very first post of 2009, woot woot! Hopefully it will be the first of many happy blogs this year. Although I will admit that 2008 ranked higher than 2007 on my list of favorite years, it wasn't really what I had hoped for. I mean, not that great things didn't happen...I started my life as a college graduate and got my first real non-student job--I actually got more than one job. I moved across the country, and had many wonderful things happen that came from that experience...but there was a lot of hard stuff, too. 2008 was the year I didn't get to see my family as much as I wanted. I missed almost everything. I had to hear about important events like what is happening to my mom and brother and sister and our house through e-mail, facebook, blogs, and phone calls, knowing the entire time that there was nothing I could do. I not only went another full 12 months failing to get pregnant, but watched two sisters-in-law get pregnant within a month of each other with no problems, and am currently watching them enter their 4th and 5th months with perfection. I spent about half the year unemployed and watched David spend about that same amount of time unemployed as well, the worst of it hitting right around Christmas. Thankfully, he found a job the day after we got back to Utah and is actually there right now. It's not a dream job, by any means, but it's work, it's flexible hours, and he can work from home. Plus, it's night, and so it's a higher base pay ($2/hour than day rates) plus commissions. It's an inbound sales job, however, so commissions are higher because you're taking calls of people who already want to purchase the product, not calling people who aren't interested. This also means he can work while I sleep and I can work while he sleeps and we can still spend a good portion of our day together. This week he is training in SLC, but by next week he can stay home. I am grateful for this position because it will help us get out of debt fairly quickly. I think I am still going to get another job as well, just to add some extra padding to the bank account for a rainy day. I should hear something within a week or so.

As far as the trip to Ohio goes, it was awesome. It wasn't extensive in the gift department, but I really didn't look forward to anything except being with my family, especially my mom and my brothers and sisters. I wish I had been able to do more because I see so many things my family needs that I want to provide for them. I had big plans that kind of got squashed with David's last job...but I hope I did OK in the gift giving department, anyway. I certainly got some great gifts. My sister made me a scrapbook and it was so cool! There were pictures in there I hadn't seen in years and others I may have never seen at all. It was one of those gifts that meant more to me than anything she could have bought because of the time she put into it. I love stuff like that. It's the kind of stuff I can bring out and show my friends and save to show my kids because they'll be able to see pictures from when I was young. I also got a game from my Mom and Jon, Apples to Apples: Bible Edition, which I haven't played yet but I think it will be awesome. David and I collect board games and this was one we hadn't gotten yet, so we were way excited! Plus, being in Utah, it's nice to have some "Sunday appropriate" games for those friends who just are a little overboard on their ideas...Oh yes, and we got a date box from Andy and Heather full of movie snacks and a gift card to Blockbuster. I can't decide what I want to rent. We've thought about Hancock, is that any good? I think there are some other new releases coming out soon, maybe we should wait for those. Anyway, like I said before, the best gift I got was being able to spend time with my family, eating at Mike's Place, watching basketball games, playing Wii, doing holiday stuff, or just talking. My sibs are my best friends after David and I especially appreciated my time with them this year since I realized how little that time is now.

Then there's still all the drama with my dad. It blew up a little over the holidays but seemed fairly settled most of the time. I don't know...it was still kind of awkward being around him for the family functions though, at least at first. When he brings his girlfriend and her kids and her parents along, though...that just didn't help. I ended up being about to spend a fair amount of time with my dad without my siblings, also, though. David and I went to his house (we were invited and I thought it would be rude to decline...plus, I was kind of curious), and Grandpa and Grandma took us to visit him at work the next day. He also took us to the airport, with a stop at Mike's Place for lunch first. It gave us some time to talk about although the situation between him and my other siblings may not have improved much, I think my dad and I made some progress. I still have my issues and complaints, by all means, but I found as I just tried to enjoy his company and focus on the positive...love him because he's my father and not because he's an amazing example...I could do it. I was kind of surprised with myself but I found I could disagree with so many things about how he is and thinks and acts...and yet I could see a good person in him, the kind of person it's easy to love. I enjoyed spending that time with him, and it meant a lot to me. I learned an important lesson this holiday season; one that I don't know if I can truly explain, but that I can feel in my heart about unconditional love.

Pictures to come, but I'm feeling too lazy to go get the camera right now.