It's MAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wooohooo!

Finally. I am now 2-ish days and 23 working hours away from Disney. I have 8 tomorrow at the hospital and 16 at home. Then I am leaving....on a jet plane...I really hate that song.

I am somewhat packed. Translation: I threw all the junk I had stacked in my room into 2 suitcases, hoping I remembered everything we need. Very un-Steph-like. I am fully expecting that someone in my family will find themselves in Orlando with no underwear.

Our DIS croc friend, Flower, has arrived. We went and bought her a pretty blue collar with a bell and are getting her info on a metal tag so she has something sturdier and more permanent. Yes, I am a little nuts.

I made arrangements today for Jerry to feed Freak while we are gone. I am about to confirm our shuttle pickup.

Yes, life is good right now and I am ready for vacation. Now, I promise I will TRY to update this with pics while we are in Florida. John has to do a paper for school, so the posts may be short, but I would like to try and keep my friends updated as to what we are doing down there.

Note the TRY. lol But I do think I will be far more post oriented when I am sitting out on my balcony at Old Key West in the evening with my laptop.

Hopefully, I will get one or two more posts in before we go.

Overnights are bad when you are 35.

Well, I started my first overnight 12-hour shift at the hospital. It is going on 3 am and I am about to go face down.

But I think I will manage.

Later this morning, I have to stay up until 10 am to check Mom in for her flight. She is in California staying with my brother and I volunteered to do her online check in. I am also picking her up on Wednesday after working all night tomorrow night too.

Otherwise things are going just swimmingly. I went out to lunch yesterday (Sunday) and had a terrific time. Better than expected.

As far as the pre-trip stuff, I am still making the packing lists and getting things together. I will update later in the week!

The week definitely improved.

This week has not been the complete hell fest I expected. I guess when you have low expectations, it is hard to lose.

Tomorrow I get to go out with my probably my favorite person. So I am going to get some sleep.

I promise I will post an update...I actually managed to get quite a bit done this week!

I loathe my job today.

Today sucks. I am working this morning and not one of the reports I am typing is from my primary account. They are all junk reports, which anyone who is an MT knows are reports with static on the phone line, mumbling, bad English, etc.

So this means I am busting my ass to make any money today. Meanwhile, someone must have worked OT this weekend and lucked out by getting my primary. I am scheduled for 30 hours on the weekend because I figured even though they are shitty hours, at least I will get my primary account.

HAHAHAHA!

If this continues up until vacation, I am putting in to change my schedule to 8-4, Monday through Friday, and they can bite me.

I did get an email from a company interested in wooing me away from my current employer AND one of the other secretaries at the hospital is thinking about getting another job and asked me if I wanted their job, full time, at the hospital. I am seriously considering both. I have been with my current company for 3-1/2 years. I have tried to be loyal, but this is getting ridiculous. I changed my shifts around to when they told me they really NEEDED me. And now at those times, I am typing crap. We have service areas. The stuff I am getting is not even IN my service area, it is from some other one. So why the HELL did they NEED me to work on Sunday morning?

Grrrr. I think the crankiness is setting in from working all these hours. At least I know the 36 hours at the hospital this week will be pleasant. The 34 I have left to work at home?? Probably not so much.

We are at 22 days! PRE-TRIP REPORT #1

Well, we are 22 days from our trip to Disney. Our Magical Express tags arrived at the end of March and there was much rejoicing. That quickly ended, though, when I told Johnnie he could not have the tags. Then there was much bitching and whining.

My annual pass voucher came a few days later, then Johnnie's ticket from Undercover Tourist (I am upgrading him at the park to an AP). Again, much rejoicing until he could not get his hot little hands on either one.

I found out I can buy the tickets from UC and then upgrade them, so we will be doing another order for Mom, John, and Gainey. Then, after a day or two at Disney, we are upgrading to DVC APs for everyone but Mom. Since she does not live here, she has to get a full price AP. Still a savings for her, since she will be using it in May, October, and next March.

I called DVC today and made sure our names were all correct on the reservation, added the dining plan, and requested a crib for Johnnie. We are staying at Old Key West and I cannot wait. I have wanted to stay there since we bought into DVC, but kept getting overruled. Not this time!

I also emailed Animal Kingdom concierge today with our list of reservations for our trip in October with all the kids, Mom, and Avis.

It has been a busy week. In addition to my normal 40 hours of typing, I worked 3 days at the hospital. That is going very well. I absolutely love the job. The nurses and aides I work with are fantastic and really, everyone at the hospital is extremely friendly. The job is pretty easy. Sometimes busy, but nothing I cannot handle.

Last Sunday, Johnnie woke up with retractions. We tried a nebulizer treatment, but he was retracting again within a half hour. So, I packed him up and took him to the ER at Children's. Avis was off, but they took good care of him. He had 2 double albuterol and Atrovent neb treatments and a dose of prednisolone and the wheezes cleared up. He had to take 4 more days of steroids and we got him a supply of albuterol for the neb here. Next week, I have to take him into his pediatrician for a followup and to get a script for an inhaler with a spacer to take to Florida just in case. Poor guy. I really think they are going to eventually diagnose him with asthma, but since he is only 3, they won't do that for a while. He is doing much better, although still coughing a bit at night.

I finally found out what to do with the 3 huge Rubbermaid totes of Gymboree that the kids have outgrown. The stuff is almost all like new and we have so much. I thought about a garage sale, but we are so far out in cow country that I didn't think that was a great idea.

Well, there is a HUGE consignment sale on April 26th and 27th at the Hamburg Fairgrounds this year. I applied to be a seller and was accepted. I have to drop everything off on the 25th, with tags and hangers and looking pretty and ready to sell. So that is the project for the next week for Gainey and I. We are going to sort, wash, and hang all this stuff. I am also selling the double stroller that we used ONCE and Johnnie's high chair, which looks like it just came out of the box. The sale is not a bad deal. I get 60% of all my sales, I MUST price everything over $4.00 (so with things like onesies, they say group a couple together to make the total over $4). If I volunteer 3 hours, I would get 70%. Considering I am working 78 hours the week before the sale, and working 64 hours and packing for FL the week after, I decided to just take the 60% and be happy. They also deduct $10 from your final total for fees, which is fine with me. If you live in Western New York, they have a website for the sale:
http://www.mothertimemarketplace.com/

If you want to go shop, all the info is there. If you want to sign up to sell, please drop me a comment or email and I will give you my seller ID# (I get credit for referrals!).

I am going to print out some flyers and take them into work. I am pretty excited. Hopefully I can make some decent money on this. I should. Everything is in really great condition, some of it looks like it has never been worn at all.

I have also started my lists for packing. When I pack, I make 170 lists of stuff to pack. I check it off. Then I make another list and recheck that I have it all in the suitcases. There is a method to it all. I have a huge packing compulsion, most likely exacerbated (LOVE that word) by my fear of flying. It gives me something to obsess about other than dying. I am sure a therapist would advise me that it is not healthy. I am sure I don't care.

So that is where we are now. Packing lists have started....my bed is covered with the shorts and T-shirts I pulled out for packing, and I am working my ass off.

Mom left yesterday for Burbank, CA to see my big brother. He works at Warner Brothers and refuses to visit Buffalo in any month other than July. So she just goes to see him. She is there until the 23rd of this month, then back to work for a week, then she is leaving with us on May 4th for Disney. And I think she is loving every minute of it!

I think this qualifies as Pre-trip report #1! I promise I will try to make more than 1. Now it is back to work and watching Sam Brown's Disney Favorites on the Travel Channel with 1 eye and listening with 1 ear.

Tomorrow I have to go to Kmart to get the hangers that the very nice Michelle from KMart Customer Service is saving for me to use at the consignment sale. Gainey and I may start our sorting this weekend, as well. Courtney is here this weekend, so I may try to put her to work too, although I am sure that will just involve much eyerolling.

I have also decided the laptop is definitely coming to Disney and I am going to try to do live reports and even include pics!! Woohoo for me! How that will go is anyone's guess, but I think I can do it. I am going to park my butt out on that nice big Old Key West porch everynight with the laptop card and blog. I think!

Until next time......

A Croc in the World October 2007

This is very overdue. I should have posted these in about November. But being me, I am a little late! Flower is a DIS boards croc. She is passed from family to family and makes trips to the Disney parks. If you are not a DISer, please bear with us and enjoy the pics. If you are a DISer, I am sorry I am such a slowpoke.

We picked up Flower from the desk at SSR, where Jason had left her for me. We almost had an incident, as they could not find her at first. Somehow, her box ended up in the Fed Ex pickup pile. But the great ladies at SSR searched until they found her. They rock!

Johnnie and Flower do a dance to celebrate!

Riding the Mickey bus!

We took the monorail over to the Poly. We reminded Flower to "Please stand clear of the doors!"

Flower helps Gainey pick some pressed pennies while we wait for our table at O'Hana:

Waiting, waiting, waiting......

Yay!! Our turn!

Flower enjoys the Pineapple Bread. YUM!

One of many rides on Small World (note DH's look of joy):

Riding the People Mover. Not the TTA. The PEOPLE MOVER. =oD Mr. Morrow, Mr. Tom Morrow, your party has arrived from Saturn.....

Johnnie and Flower taking a break in Adventureland.

Time for the Barnstormer!

There it is Flower, the famous Haunted Mansion!!! (insert dog howl here)

Patiently awaiting Spectromagic, our favorite parade:

Flower and Johnnie enjoy a yummy breakfast at Crystal Palace.

A group shot near the Tusker House:

Waiting patiently for the bird show to begin at AK:

We get ready to go on the Safari and see some crocodiles!!! But they were not out that day. Poor Flower.

Flower checks on where she wants to go next:

Flower had a picture with a long-forgotten ancestor. Or maybe not, I am not all that knowledgeable about the dinosaurs.

Johnnie decided to get in on the act:

Of course, we had to ride Small World again. Flower was on that many, many times. If we scarred her in any way, we apologize.

Well, that is our picture montage. I did have some more, but I had my camera set on "bad picture, but battery saving" mode, so they came out too dark or just bad. Fortunately, we will have Flower again in May, and I promise to make sure I have the camera set correctly!

Buffalo sucks and I work too much.

So anyway, it is freezing here. It snowed on the first day of spring. Isn't that nice??

I ended up taking the job at the hospital. I have been training and will be training for the next month plus, since they are cross training me for 3 departments. Needless to say, I am doing 40 hours at my full time job and 25-30 training. Per week.

I am normally a pretty mellow person. Working 75-80 hours a week makes me a bitch. Just a little FYI. My blog posts, if I even get to make any, may be a bit on the rant and rave crabby asshole side until about the end of May.

One bright spot: VACATION!!! We leave May 4th for a week, so I do have a break in there. I won't think about the fact that I am taking the laptop and possibly a few hours at job #1 with me. Of course, I take it every time and usually end up not doing any hours. So I am not completely insane.

I am going to make a feeble attempt to start a pre-trip/trip report on here to let you all share in the joy of getting ready to take everyone to Florida while working like a dog.

Our May trip is going to be me, John, Gainey, Johnnie, and my mother. Tom is on the fence, since he brought me home a lovely 21 in English. And not because he is bad at it, but because he would rather do anything other than homework. If his report card is better, he goes. Otherwise, he stays here with his dad and waits until October to vacation, since I can't pull the kid out of school when he has a 21. Ugh.

We are hoping that he steps up, though and gets his work made up and his grade up. He is really good with the little ones and we really like to hang out with him. He is a great kid...I am biased, of course, but he truly is.

Court has decided to give living with her dad a try. I okayed this experiment against my better judgement, because they both wanted it and Jerry IS her dad and he is a good dad, so he deserves a chance.

So she is not attending the May trip this year. She IS, however, going in October, even if I have to drag her ass there. LoL

As we progress over the next 40-ish days, I will make every attempt to entertain you all with a pre-trip/new job report. Then I will try to do a "live" trip report from Disney, as I will have the laptop with me. Get ready...I am sure it will be gripping.

And lastly...my strange story for the day:
I had a call on my cell phone from work (the transcription company I work for). I listened to my VM to see what the hell they wanted. It was someone I don't know, asking for a lady named Nancy. But it was MY employer. I just thought it was quite a coincidence that they called the cell phone of an employee looking for someone else. Especially since corporate is in New Jersey.

Now time to finish working job #1 and get to bed so I can get up, go to job #2, come home, and work job #1 again!!!

I am off Wednesday. Lucky for me, Courtney dropped off her laundry so I won't get bored.