Corporate Ladder. Literally.

Another bonus to the new job.
When you have one of these in your windshield:

You don't have to put all your McDonald's coke money into one of these:

Also, this has been sitting in our office for a couple of weeks now:

No one's taking credit for placing the sign on it, but for some reason I have a strong urge to climb it...

A heavy duty mistake

When I woke up this morning my main goal was to get Christmas put away.  Good-bye decorations, good-bye lights, good-bye tree.The day had a different plan for me.
The Man got a phone call from a framer buddy.  Was somebody else framing the basement on the house West had just finished? Because that's framing faux pas.  If you just barely finished framing a house and they want the basement done, that basement is yours.
No...
Why is there a new pile of of lumber on the lot?
Turns out that when West ordered his lumber for his new house, he got distracted enough that he had it delivered to the lot of the house he'd just finished, not the lot that he was starting.  A difference of roughly 25 miles. *sigh*
West needs to start the new house in the morning so he needed to get the lumber moved stat.  The kids were in school and I had the day off so I decided to tag along so he didn't have to do it alone.  I figured I could help him out so it wouldn't take him so long to do it.
We get there and we load up the truck with as much as we can.

Not too shabby of a morning's work if you ask me.  That's a lot of lumber to move by hand!  We headed to the new lot, talking about our house remodel ideas when about half way there we hear...

and this picture is after we had tossed it from the middle of the road to the side of the road. 300 boards. Now that we've loaded the truck, and now tossed it all out of the middle of the road, we get to load it again.  Good thing we had our good karma paid up because a few awesome guys pulled over and helped us restack all of this into the truck.
We slowly proceeded the rest of the way to the new lot without another mishap and breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled up to the curb. 
A guy came by and looks at me, and then looks at the truck.  "He's not going to make you move all of that is he?"  He thought he was being cheeky.  Dude, you have NO idea.
But no, this time, I didn't have to move it.

I have to say that West and I are a good match.  We both do some pretty stupid things.  I'm just glad that West's mistakes are a lot bigger than mine are.  Literally.  This one was really heavy!

Of course I had to look up "malfeasance"

This weekend my Brent-Dad gave me this:

He said, "this is so you can look up words and terms and know what the lawyers are talking about when they say things like 'malfeasance'."
It now sits on my desk at work with the medical dictionary that my boss provided me with.  That's the beauty of working in Medicaid Fraud, I get to learn not only about the law side, but the medical side, and the police investigator side.  I feel like I'm getting the best of all worlds here.
The best thing about this dictionary is that it has my dad's name and address in it.  So it's a hand-me-down.  And if you know me, then you know I love hand-me-down stuff from my family.  I feel like I'm always saying to West that something belonged to my grandma, or great grandma, or grandpa... you get the picture.  Especially books.  I have a lot of old books from my grandparents.
And now I have one from my dad.
I think he's proud of where I'm taking my life.  I don't think I'll ever out grow wanting to make my parents proud.

When I grow up I'm going to be...

I picked my circus up from being with their dad on Sunday night.  This means an hour and a half drive (just the one way that they're now with me), which means some interesting conversations.
We started talking about what they want to be when they grow up.  I have this need to stay abreast of their thoughts in this area, because I know I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to be, but for some reason, they were just thoughts.  I never really believed that I would or could actually become a marine biologist, or a zoologist.  Do I regret that I never saw them as more than dreaming? Most definitely.  So now I listen to what my kids want to be and start suggesting things they can do, even now, to start down that road if they want.  I'm not pushing my kids, the decision and pace is completely up to them.  It's just my job to show them how to make those dreams reality, that those ideas of what they want to do, have practical steps to them, and don't have to be just thoughts of "what if" in their heads.
Cas wants to be a Chef.  I've told her she needs to think about culinary schools for college then. At 11 years she's already making dinners at home.  She can fry eggs, make spaghetti, taco meat, and she's my right hand girl when I get busy (*ahem* side tracked) and have to yell out, "Cas go check on the..." insert whatever may be on the stove.  I think the next step is to help her create the menu and shopping list and start broadening her skills to something that requires a few more steps to them.  We should look in to extra cooking classes for her also.
Brynn wants to be a veterinarian.  Her game plan is to call a couple of the vets or animal hospitals near our house and see if they have a volunteer program and what the age for that might be.  She wants to volunteer with simple things like cleaning cages and kennels.  The idea behind this is to get on familiar terms with the vet and the staff, and then as she gets older she can work in the office of the animal hospital while going through school.  It gives her an in for internships and references to begin work too.
Tayler doesn't know what she wants to be.  Maybe a nail technician.  Or work at Walmart.  We obviously need to work on this a little bit.  What appeals to her is the customer service.  We'll have to think on this a little more.  Maybe it's wrong of me, but I'm not okay with my daughter saying she's going to grow up and work at Walmart.  Not that there's anything wrong with working at Walmart, not by any means.  An honest job is a good job plain and simple.
Cali very confidently told me, "Mom, I want to be a vet too.  But not a vet for animals.  I want to be a vet for people."
"A vet is only for animals, a vet for people would be a doctor."
"Oh.  Well I don't want to be that then."

At least she's not setting her sights as a cashier at Walmart...

Dead body stench? No problem.

Yesterday I had lunch with four investigators, two lawyers, and a paralegal. I now know how to get rid of (or deal with?) the stench of a dead body that has been there for a few days... you know, something every girl should know.
Everyday I'm fascinated with the path my life is now turned to. And I know I've only been working with the AG's office for three weeks now, but already I'm trying to decide which direction I should move with it. I'm definitely staying with it. The stories are fascinating. The cases pull me in. The people I work with are incredible. I might aim to replace our paralegal when she retires. Maybe I'll go through training to become one of the investigators. Maybe I'll do both!
It's amazing to be a part of it. It's amazing to see how good life can be. It's amazing to see, continually, how far my life has come. And I'm not even done with it yet.

One last time

Have you ever done that? "I'm waking up at 5 a.m. for the last time. I've cut my last check. I'm logging out of this system for the last time. I'm clocking out for the last time. I'm driving this commute for the last time..."

But I haven't said good bye to my friends at Burt Brothers for the last time. They can't get rid of me that easily.

Ron Burt (owner) told me he wouldn't say this for just anyone, but he's leaving the door open for me. If I need to come back, he'll find a way for me to do it.

I don't think I'll be needing to go back though. I'm going to rock it at the AG's office.

Still, when he said he doesn't usually miss his employees, but he was sure going to miss me, it brought tears to my eyes. Maybe I don't want to admit it, but I'm going to miss them too.

How sweet was Chance the receptionist to give me this?

I loved lunch with Tina and Kelcey (thanks Wendel!). And I may or may not have shed a tear or 50 with Tina when she gave me a card with a wonderful note in it.

The thing is, I have walls. I know I have walls. And I know why I have those walls. We won't get in to that right now. But once I finally let someone in, they are a part of my life forever. I am fiercely loyal and forever grateful that they are there for me. Tina is one of these people. I may or may not miss her, actually, I'm leaning towards may not. Because I'm going to email her everyday and I'm pretty sure we're just going to have to hang out now that we can't be at work together. You get kind of attached to someone after spending most of your time with them for the past four years.

Skeleton candles are better than flowers any day

I've been going through a process for about a month and a half now. Well, longer than that, but we'll just start with a month and half ago. I'd been watching the state website for state government jobs (that's where the "longer than that" comes in...). I have a good, steady job with Burt Brothers. They've been really good to me. But accounting isn't where I wanted to be. Now that I had solid footing from recovering from my divorce, it was time to take me life where I wanted it to go. So I watched the state job postings, being very particular and selective in the things that I applied for. Applying for jobs online is kind of harsh. It's almost like a dead end. You answer the questions on the screen and then.... nothing. You don't even know who you can contact after the application is sent. And most of the time there's no word after you click the send button. Though I did hear from one job posting, telling me that state jobs get about 300 applicants per posting and they'd let me know... they never did.

Well GUESS WHAT! After applying online for a job at the Attorney General's office, I forgot about it. Brick wall online applications do that to you after awhile. But then I got an email. A mass email sent to only 25 people asking for an actual resume to be emailed in. So I did. And then I was contacted again for a typing test. Which I bombed. I CAN type. But not on that day. I was raving pissed. West went out mowed the lawn for a really long time after I got home on that day. So I forgot about that job.

A week and a half later I received a phone call asking to set up an interview for me. Really? I mean, really?

And I ROCKED that interview. Rocked it. We laughed through the whole thing. I was getting ready to go on a cruise with my family (more on that tomorrow) the following week and figured I would hear from them when I got back if I got a second interview. They called me two days later, the day before we left on vacation to let me know they wanted to meet with me again when I got home. We left for our vacation, had a fabulous week, and on Friday while waiting in LAX for our flight back home, the director of the department called me to talk about some things. He wasn't going to be there for the second interview and wanted to talk to me. West was impressed that he'd taken the time to call me. I met with the rest of the interviewing group on Wednesday and it went well but... I was so nervous. I came home and mailed a Thank You card to get one more jab at it.

Today they called my references and by 10:30 a.m. I had a voicemail from them on my phone. By 10:30 they had called my references and done a background check and now I had a voicemail to call them.

I got the job.

I got the job.

I got the job.

I got the job.

I got the job.

And now I can work closer to home, for the same amount of money, with better benefits, a retirement plan, paid holidays (as in all holidays, as in I can't start in 2 weeks on Oct. 10th because that's Columbus Day, duh. I get paid to stay home on Columbus Day now).

Do you know what he said to me? He said I wouldn't have enough time off accrued in time for me to take time off around Christmas so he'd have to figure out a way for me to work from home.

I can be OK with that.

I drove right after work to pick up the girl circus from their dad, and when I got home...

Have I mentioned how much I love my man? Because I'm pretty sure that skeleton candles are way better than flowers. And I'm not even being sarcastic. L.O.V.E them.

Smelling like a dad

Most dad's have a job where they come home with a particular smell that will remind their children of them for the rest of time. Well, maybe not most, but some I guess. The receptionist at work loves the smell of oil, as her dad is our Valvoline rep. I didn't grow up with my birth dad, and my step dad was a firefighter so I don't have the smell factor for my dads, but I know West comes home smelling like sawdust. Aside from the time of day (or rather night) when my head hits my pillow for the night (oh sweet bliss), coming home from work is my favorite time of the day. Home. Husband. Circus. Heaven. My circus runs to me yelling "MOM!" and they wrap their arms around me and I hope they never grow out of this. And then they take a deep breath. This part I hope they DO grow out of. "I love the smell of tires Mom, it reminds me of you." *sigh* I do accounting. But I do it for Burt Brothers Tires. And I do it in their warehouse. You know, that great big giant building where they store all the tires for the stores. Mom's aren't supposed to smell like tires. Maybe I should get a job at a craft store, at least then I can come home smelling like cinnamon pine cones.

"You might be a redneck" and "Here's your sign"

So I'm sitting at work. Crunching numbers. *sigh*. I'm thankful for a job, I'm thankful a job (though truly I am). When the owner of the company came up to me and started saying, "I have these tickets that are really good. I mean, I really wanted to use these, I begged for them. I'm thinking you and Tina (who sits next to me, crunching other numbers) should really take them..." at this point I'm thinking he has tickets for the upcoming "What Women Want Expo", I've been given them before from my work. The TV stations like to hand out random tickets to companies, and being as I'm one of three women in the building, the Women expo tickets usually land in my hands. But he continues, "I begged for these tickets. I mean I really begged, and I really, really wanted to go but some family stuff came up and now I can't." OK, I'm getting a bit confused but he has my attention. Finally he spills the beans, he wants to give me his tickets to Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Larry the Cable Guy... in a suite. "There will probably be food in the suite," he nonchalantly states.

Frankly at this point I'm bouncing in my chair, "are you serious?!?" Tina on the other hand, has never heard of them. She lives in a Hispanic box. She knows who George Lopez is though, just went and saw him in Wendover actually. Don't ask her about it though, the slot machine wasn't nice to her. I text West, he's clearly as excited as I am: "No Way!!!!!!" I've never been in a suite before. It was AWESOME. There was a fridge full of drinks, a heat plate full of mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce, popcorn, cookies, and pizzas were delivered. Our seats were on the first row of the suite's balcony, but now having been through the experience I would think that I would prefer the top row of the balcony. You're already above the stage (at least in the Energy Solutions Arena), but on the front row, I feel like I can't keep squeezing past people to get back up in to the suite. If we were on the top row, then we can enjoy the goodies of the suite freely. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not complaining. What a fun experience! Tina and me: I'm in love with Bill Engvall. Not really in L.O.V.E but he's by far my favorite comedian. He came out and opened with the things he's decided NOT to do anymore. Like text. If the good Lord wanted it to take him 15 minutes to say "what's up", he would have given him a stutter. Jeff Foxworthy told stories of his family, which he explains is clearly where he gets his redneck jokes. Like when his grandma didn't want to stay in a Motel 6 because it would be "uppity", and how his 8 month pregnant cousin got married, and then got in a car with her new husband, and instead of driving off, began spinning donuts in the front yard.

My favorite part of the whole night was when they were all on stage together, bouncing off each other's words. I laughed until my stomach hurt. It was hilarious to watch them make each other speechless with laughter. Maybe in my next life I'll come back as Jeff Foxworthy. Or at least the guy who gets to be the opener for them :).

Work party at the Bee's game

I have to say that I was very blessed to find my job. This summer they did a cool new thing and had a company party and BBQ at the Bee's game. Wendel Burt got to throw out the first pitch. When he told me that I replied, "you better hope you can at least get it to home plate." He laughed and said, "no kidding!" My ex was being particularly difficult this weekend and after giving me less than 24 hour notice on Thursday with a text "can I have the girls tomorrow to Wednesday" and my replying in so many texts because he kept arguing with me that we did have this company game we were going to. He told me to make the girls choose, which I don't think was very fair of him to push on them. On top of that Friday I had a family reunion to go to, a cake tasting for a wedding cake I was making, Saturday we had the game, and Sunday I was talking. I absolutely had no way of meeting him on such sort notice. I volunteered to meet him Sunday after church with all four kids, for as long he liked, but he needing to be... well... anyway, made the kids choose. Three decided, with much difficulty, to go with him, and he had to come all the way to get only three. Seems to me it would have been much easier to just work with me rather than try to be so demanding and rude.
But off that tandem and on to the real reason for this post, the game. It was fun to be able to talk to all the people from all the different stores. I work in the corporate office and only usually get to interact with all the guys at the stores over the phone. It was a beautiful night and I enjoyed showing off at least half my family any way :).

Underwear necklace

My co-worker, Tina, grew up in Riverton. I grew up in Magna. Tina is amazed that I had never before heard of inmates making necklaces out of sting pulled from their underwear. Wait, what? They do that? Gross. Sure they do that. Tina's husband sent her one. Wasn't that romantic of him? Of course, it was years ago... How talented are they to be able to take string (did I mention that it was from their UNDERWEAR) and create something such as this (the picture shown is actually Tina's necklace from her husband that she brought in to work to prove to me that this practice actually occurs. I refused to touch it) to trade for things they need? They don't get a lot of money so how lucky are they to be able to do this. And I'm pretty much assuming, that after learning from Tina that they are issued new underwear every day that this had to have been made from used underwear since he had to be actually wearing that days underwear when he made it? Or not I suppose... I wouldn't think that growing up in Magna would qualify me to know the ins and outs and habits of inmates. I can't say I've ever actually even known anyone at any time who's done time. My dad was a guard at the prison for six years... I called him. He didn't know about it. I called up my sister Kristin who is a guard at a county jail, she had. Huh. Tina was floored and amazed I hadn't heard of it. Quite frankly I'm not apologizing for my ignorance on this particular subject.

Maybe in my next life I should be a Postal worker

"Thank you for calling Burt Brothers, this is Stephanie."
"What kind of deals do you have on snow tires right now?"
"This is actually our corporate office, what store can I transfer you to?"
"Which ever is closest to 84103."
Dead silence on my end of the line as I sit with a befuddled look on my face. More stumped at the fact that he some how felt that to be a perfectly logical answer than the fact that I had no idea where that zip code was located exactly. I think I heard crickets somewhere in the back of my empty brain.
He interrupts my struggling silence with, "That's Salt Lake..."
Back on track, "Do you want the Sugarhouse or Cottonwood store?"
I have since learned there are 13 zip codes for Salt Lake city alone.

The witching hour is upon us

I showed up to work early on the Friday before Halloween only to discover there were TWO Keith's in the building. Keith is the warehouse manager, and Joe, here, is one of the warehouse guys. Joe claimed to be dressed up as the scariest thing he could think of. Next year, all of us in accounting think we should ALL dress up as our boss, Tom.

The witching hour is upon us! I was extremely pleased with Casidee's and Tayler's hair:


Cleopatra:

They all picked out funky fake eyelashes this year. I'm impressed that they all actually ended up wearing them all evening long.
Midnight fairy:
Pink Witch:
Vampress:
Our next door neighbors had a "party" where we all met up to trick-or-treat in a huge group, and then swap candy afterwards. When I walked in the door sans costume Annie (a bumblebee) chewed me out and let me know that under no circumstances was I getting through the night costumeless. We quickly transformed me into a witch. Tay and her BFF Marin:

Cali and her BFF Emily (who also happens to be Marin's sister):

We didn't get to see Jayme and Sean because they spent most of the evening with their mom, but they dropped by West's and he got pictures for me. Ninja and kitty cat:

My fabulous new toy (Happy finally legal to Jr)

Because I'm such a graceful, and genteel individual... my phone is cracked and falling apart up the yin yang; the only thing holding it together is the rubber cover (which is not only great for holding the phone together, but bounces when I drop it so... bonus on that one!), and my camera screen became cracked making it quite the guessing game when taking pics. I'm surprised I've done as decent as I have. But alas... when taking pics of Jr's birthday work celebration my poor picked on camera (I'm sorry! I have it out for small gadgets!) decided it had had enough of my abuse and therefore decided to stop focusing for me. *Gasp!* I've been surviving with my phone camera. Apparently my phone is either a lot more forgiving of the abusive relationship, or just too insecure to get out like the camera...
Blurry pics of Jr's "finally legal!" 21st bday at work. I insisted on 21 candles (come on! she made ME blow out 30!). It was a good milestone birthday year for the two of us.
R.I.P. camera-that-I-bought-from-Kimmy-for-full-price-because-she-bought-it-and-then-wanted-a-different-one-and-then-didn't-even-give-me-the-software-for-it-so-I-got-RIPPED-off! Hello my lovely new itsy bitsy, water proof beauty (I'll be buying a bullet proof, steel toed case for it the first chance I get)! First picture taken with it:
Appropriate, don't you think? I just might frame that one.

Utah Jazz Vs Minnesota Timberwolves

The perks of working at Burt Brothers Tires. Free Jazz tickets, behind the basket, row 16. This season Ron Burt was nice enough to send Jr. and me to two games. The first game we got one ticket each (of the four), but the second time we each got two, so I took West, and Jr took her friend Brennan. Have any car needs at all? Call you nearest Burt Brothers! :) I couldn't resist.We were trying to take a self shot, so Brennan said he would take it for us. He cut Jr off!We did a much better job ourselves.

Jr and Brennan.

The game was the typical back and forth game, with the Bear's antics on the time outs. The Jazz was ahead pretty much the entire game, until the last bit when the Timberwolves pulled ahead by two points. From then on it was a frantic rush with the ball flying between the two hoops. By the last two seconds the Timberwolves were up by one, and Jazz called a time out.

They threw a shot, which happened after the time ran out, but it bounced off the rim anyway. Final score Jazz 102 Timberwolves 103. Still, what an amazing game to be at. The energy was high and it was fun to be a part of.