Sick, sick, sick

My husband gave me a gift which I don't appreciate at all.
All night Thursday and all day Friday he was sick in bed, so much so that I was quite irritated with him.
He begged off going with me to doing a review in Springville so I went alone.
I knew he didn't really want to go anyway so his motives were suspect.
Then about 1 a.m. Saturday morning, it hit me.
It was awful and still is although it's now Monday afternoon.
I have no appetite.
I have no enthusiasm for anything.
Even during my favorite show Sunday night, I was watching the clock to see how soon I could go back to be bed.
Ice chips became my food of choice.
Everything else was too sugary, too salty or took too much chewing.
I'm hoping by tomorrow I can regain some hope.
There's nothing to do but wait.
In the meantime...bear with me.

Paintin' Place

My daughter is living a life under wraps these days.
While her husband toils away trying to paint the whole house, she and the kids are living with furniture covered with tarps and disarray and frustration.
Painting, for some reason, is never as easy as it appears it should be.
You look at these wide open walls and think, "How hard can it be?"

You imagine a roller going up and down and leaving a lovely look behind.
You go to the hardware store and look at the pretty little chips and clean brushes and it really sells itself as a doable task.
Then you realize, before even opening a bucket, that there's a good deal of prep required.
Holes must be spackled and cracks must be filled in.
Outlet covers have to come off and lights must come down.
Every picture on the wall has to be taken off and stored somewhere during the process. Curtains have to come down. Every piece of furniture has to move away from the walls.
The ladder becomes a central piece of interior decoration.
If you're living in the space to be painted, it's like living in a cardboard box on the freeway.
Nothing feels pulled together or serene.
Add three little kids to the mix and it's a major stresser.
Paint gets spilled.
The little drip spots on the tarp covering the carpet get on the bottom of little shoes and tracked through the house.
The baby samples the paint.
I had enough trouble painting one room and made a big mess all by myself during the two weekends Marc was gone to Woodbadge.
I can't imagine adding a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 9-month-old to the process.
So when Kari talks about the situation she has my complete sympathy.
I'm almost moved to suggest she and the three kids move in while Wade finishes the job.
Almost.

Boxes with holes, funny bags

The missing piece

My granddaughter thinks I can work miracles.
So when I answered the phone the other day to find this breathless little voice asking me if I had any boxtops for her, I couldn't let her down.
Apparently, Adell's kindergarten class was collecting box tops for education from cake mixes, cereal boxes and muffin bags.
She had a little chart where she could paste 30 box tops and she only had a few squares pasted in.
"Can you give me your box tops?" she asked hopefully.
Her mother then came on the line. She needed them for school today so if I could find some, they'd pick them up on the way to school in about an hour.
No pressure there.
"Umm, sure. Let me see what I have," I said.
I grabbed the scissors and went about the house checking boxes and bags.
I found a few in my pantry. Bisquick is always good for a box top. So are some cereals of which we don't have a lot.
I headed down to the food storage shelves.
The cake mixes abounded in box tops. So did the dried potato boxes.
The muffin mixes were a gold mine.

The after-party

I clipped and cut and came up with 19 little cardboard squares which I put in an envelope along with some cookies for Adell and her sister.
Adell was thrilled and she went off happily to school, secure in the knowledge that Grandma could come through for her.
I'm now looking at lots of little boxes and bags with missing pieces.
But that's all right.
Now I know what food storage is for.

Here's Ben the man

The cotton Colonial

Add tights and britches

The buckle shoes

Not a vest, a waistcoat

Wait for it

Ben Franklin Haddock

Getting Ben together

(P.S. Watch for a real picture of this character later today)
Marc loves a chance to act, even if it's for free and for an audience of little boys.
So when he got the call to be Ben Franklin at our ward's Blue and Gold Banquet he didn't hesitate.
"Sure," he said. "When is it?"
I'm a little more gun shy.
As soon as I heard him tell the person on the phone he would be there, I started calculating the costs.
Let's see: he'd need a wig, a greatcoat, a vest, a ruffly shirt, buckled shoes, knee britches, knee sox and maybe a kite with a key hanging off it.
I checked on the web, costumes rented at a starting price of $40.
"Oh," Marc scoffed. "That's too much. We can do it cheaper than that."
I figured we'd be scouring the Deseret Industries stores for costume parts or maybe we could luck into finding someone who had the appropriate clothes.
He called around a bit. He has reading glasses that look like little old-fashioned spectacles already.
Someone knew someone who had been involved in the Colonial Days event in Provo.
Somebody else knew somebody who might have access to the costumes from the production of "1776."
Then, last weekend, when I gently reminded Marc that the gig was only a week way, we started to panic.
Nobody had called him back and we had nothing but a fairly free Saturday.
We started off in the direction of Archive Costumes at Hale Center Theater.
They had all kinds of stuff.
The friendly girl helped him with a "waistcoat" (that's different from an ordinary vest, I was told) and an overcoat without a collar. She found him some britches and a lacey kind of scarf he could tie around his neck.
Everything came in his size and was clean and it seemed silly to spend all kinds of time and gas searching the county for similar things.
"How much?" I sighed.
"It only comes to $33," the girl said. "Course you'll still have to get some nurse's white tights at Walmart."
Marc looked at me hopefully. He so liked the look.
I handed over the credit card and we made the reservation.
Then we started trying to find the tights. Several stores and lingerie sections later, we found a pair in his size for $8 at Target.
So we're up to how much now? And that's before he prints off the papers for his Ben Franklin Jeopardy game and finds a cane and a wig?
I'm not sure Franklin would approve.
Isn't he the "penny saved is a penny earned" guy?

They take a reservation...

I was having one of those hopeless conversations with the girl who answered the phone for Questar.
I told her my sad story about how I was getting charged a 77-cent late fee every time I paid my bill even though I was being more and more careful about dropping off my payment early on the due date and even the day before the due date.
I guess I'm on my soapbox.
I've written just recently about how late fees and fines etc. really drive me crazy but I have to rant. When I was assessed a 77-cent late fee in December I looked more carefully at the sign posted on the drawer at Wells Fargo Bank.
It basically told me that payments dropped off after 4 p.m. weren't counted until the next day so I paid the stupid 77 cents and vowed not to let that happen again.
The next month I was well ahead of time but this month I not only have been assessed the late fee but the bill says I haven't paid at all.
I called Questar right up and demanded to know what what going on.
The nice girl said my check didn't clear until Feb. 14, a week after I dropped it off.
Hmm.
I told her I was making sure I dropped it off well ahead of the time deadline.
I wondered if because I closed my Wells Fargo account maybe my bill went into a "When we get around to it" pile.
I asked her what I should do since I am paying the bill in good order but apparently Wells Fargo is messing up.
She had the answer.
"Put a stamp on it and mail it in 5-7 business days before it's due," she said.
I was speechless.
I guess my understanding of what a payment drop is and their understanding are two different things.
They can take a check but they can't process a check. I can drop it by on time but they can send it on whenever they feel like it.
I think my Questar bill just went up by the price of a stamp.

Chasing pennies

I know it borders on obsessive compulsive but when I discover what I think is a wrong billing, an overcharge or an outright financial mistake, it really bugs me until I can get it resolved.
Even when it's to my advantage.
I have to go back in the store and get the 31 cents I was overcharged or return something that didn't get discounted.
I sometimes spend an extra 10 minutes checking the receipt when it just doesn't add up in my head.
Marc usually hides out in the car while I chase down the employee who didn't believe me when I told him/her what I had picked up was on sale.
So when a charge came through my bank account twice for candy I only bought once, I had to pursue justice.

I had stopped long enough at a South Towne mall kiosk to pick up some See's chocolates for my dad and my stepmom for Christmas.
I bought two small boxes for them that came to $19.47.
I had handed over my VISA card which, for some reason, balked.
The girl tried and tried to run the charge through, finally unplugging the machine and starting over — never a good sign.
So, a couple of days later when I had two identical charges for $19.47 for a See's outlet, I reacted strongly.
I looked up the mall number and called See's.
They transferred me to See's corporate accounting who sent me back to the See's store in Draper who knew nothing about my plight.
I journeyed on until I reached a lady who said, "Oh, no! Let me see what I can do."
She called me back later and said their record showed only one transaction. She said I'd have to call my bank.
I called my bank who said I had to work it out with See's.
At this point, burning precious minutes on my cell phone and getting no satisfaction, I mentioned it to Marc.
"Let it go," he said. "You'll never get it back."
That did it. I couldn't give up now.
I called the bank back. They said I could file a dispute claim in writing.
That was in early December.
Today I got a letter in the mail telling me they had researched my claim and determined I had been double billed. They were sorry and apologized for any inconvenience I may have experienced.
Why do I somehow feel like they should have sent me chocolates?