Random Tuesday Thoughts

I saw a co-worker eating some “Fruit Naturals” grapefruit. I hate that brand. It is false advertising in a name! Unless, of course, people think that added sugar to their fruit is “natural”.

Beans and legumes are awesome food. I just wish I knew how to cook with them so I’d eat them more. Mostly, I just stare at the packages of dried little beans and say, "Hmmm."

The Post Office just came out with a new, small flat rate box on Jan. 18th. I’m very happy about this! However, I’m not happy that none of the Post Offices around here have any (“Sorry—we haven’t received our shipments of them yet.”). I even ordered some online on the 18th, and they haven’t shipped yet. Yet another shining example of our government dollars at work.

A couple years back at work, a consultant was brought in to our company to look at the viability of outsourcing the IT work. It made a lot of us paranoid. When they left, our company decided outsourcing wasn’t the thing for us. About a year ago, all our printer support was outsourced to a local company. And last week, they announced the recommendation to outsource our 1st level tech support (phone people) to another company. We’re all taking bets on how long we have before we’re outsourced. **sigh**

I think that most adults don’t feel like adults inside. We’re all just children, pretending to be grown-ups.

Washington ruled in my favor. Now it’s Utah’s turn to clarify the support order and fix the mess later next month. Right now, I am grateful for the accomplishment of Step 1 in this long process.

I’m in the process of starting up a new blog that will follow my attempt at losing my ‘muffin top’. More details to follow…

Labor Day

My brother Dusty and his family came over to spend Labor Day with us. The cousins had a grand time together, and the adults got in some good visiting time. (Why is it that when you're a kid, adults are SO boring 'cause all they want to do is TALK when they get together, and then you end up doing just that when you grow up?)

Ron and Ana (sis-in-law) talked music-- she really wants his Beatles' collection-- and Dusty fixed a master dimmer switch for me. It's nice having an electrician brother. I'm sure he thinks the same about me, being a sister computer geek and all... :)

We had a yummy dinner of fairly standard summertime food: my to-die-for sloppy joes, chips, red and green grapes, watermelon, and fresh corn-on-the-cob. We all ate too much!

After dinner, we popped in our Heroes DVDs. My brother and sis-in-law hadn't seen them yet... They had to leave after the third episode, and by then they were hooked. :) They took Season 1 home with them.

I really want to get Season 2, but money is too tight right now. Still waiting on Washington to return a "verdict" on the whole child support issue. I hope they hurry... they're killing us right now.

Child Support Problems

Today I had a phone hearing with the Child Support Division in Washington. Shandy has been living with my sister Louise in Washington since January 2007. It was agreed back then that Louise would be completely financially responsible for Shandy, since I knew there was no way I could pay child support for her there.

Well, Louise has reniged on the original agreement, and has sent Washington after me. They've been garnishing my wages since April for $1,000 a month (!!!), which has created HUGE financial burdens on my family.

I am hopeful that things will get worked out soon... we had to rush to refinance the house so we'd have enough cash to cover the period of time it takes to get this all worked out. Not fun. And we have to run stuff through the Utah legal system to clarify the original order, too, since everyone seems to have a different interpretation of what the (limited) guardianship papers mean. It's a royal pain in the butt, as well as being very expen$ive.

Here's hoping the judge will figure out what's what with this mess.