Bragging and Nagging

I have noticed that on more than one occasion Rocky's business trips have dissolved into a bad John Candy movie. I thought we had escaped that trend with this latest trip to Jacksonville. Both his fights were smooth and on time, no luggage was lost, or trains missed. He didn't even get sick this time. He called me when he landed in Atlanta and said he would call me again when he got to his car. After a pretty good length of time he called me back and told me there was a problem. His car keys were missing. He thinks they got left in the security tub in Florida. I need to drive down to the airport to take him his spare set. Did I mention it was 9 at night and the airport is an hour away, oh and that the city of Atlanta stands between me and the airport? Thankfully my parents had stayed the week with us, so we decided to just all pile in their van and head out (yes, that is my parents, both kids, and me). I have only been to the airport a couple of times and even then it was daylight. Dad drove. Even he got a little unnerved navigating the 14 lanes of Atlanta traffic in the dark when we weren't 100% sure where we were going. When we got there it was so crammed with cars that we practically had to toss the keys out the window to him. Two hours and almost 100 miles later, we were all home safe and sound.
Now that I have told the bad on him, I must follow up with the good. Rocky went to Jacksonville to argue a case against Countrywide and try to make them buy back bad loans that they made. They presented 17 loans, 9 were won on the spot, 5 were sent back for further review (at least 3 of those should be wins), and he only lost 3. To put it in perspective, people usually only win about 3. In 2 days he won his client just over $7 million. Needless to say, they were happy. Now if he could just get a bonus of a 1/2 of 1% of what he has won... ah, if only!
Just to be clear, Rocky is the mortgage insurance company's expert witness in the informal meetings against mortgage companies. If the cases go to court he will have to testify, but it is in the mortgage company's best interest not to let it get that far.

My Closet's Closet

The house we live in was once the model home for this neighborhood and as such it comes with more than a few quirks. For example, we have a glass pane door to our garage instead of the usual solid door, also to run lines for our t.v. we had to go to the attic and through the upstairs linen closet. Perhaps the oddest thing about our house is the closet within a closet in the master bedroom. We have yet to figure out what the room was originally used for but the mass of wires hanging from the top seems to indicate it was some sort of electrical storage room. My closet is not huge, but it is a good sized master closet. In the back corner there is a very wide slatted door that opens to a smaller unfinished space. When I say unfinished, I mean only two sides even have dry wall and even that has construction notes hand written on it. it looks like they meant to take a sledge hammer to it and finish out the rest of the closet like normal when the office folks vacated, but I guess they forgot. For the several years I have gone back and forth as to what to do about this closet within a closet. This week I have finally organized it. I put in a large set of plastic utility shelves. Now I can fit all my luggage and a good bit of random junk in there as well as my vacuum cleaner and even my bathroom cleaning supplies that I have been dying to get out of my linen closet.
I do have one tiny confession to make. While I was cleaning it out I noticed that there was a bag in the very bottom. In the winter "Santa" tends to store stuff in there and it seems that a couple of years ago one sack got left behind. It was a very cute flower picture frame for Nix, which I am trying to decide if I should just give it to her lest I forget again. JD took the box for the shelves and turned it into a club house

Brain Overload

For the first time in years, our vacation to Jackson had corresponded with my uncle's visit as well. JD has never really met his Great Uncle Lee and Great Aunt Cathy, so he has been very excited to get to know them. Today we were discussing with him different ways we were all related to Lee. We explained that he was my uncle, my mother's brother, and that Cathy is his wife. It was at this point that JD made a noise something like an explosion and exclaimed, "My head just exploded!" I honestly have no idea where he comes up with these things.
After we calmed down from laughing my mother insisted that I must blog about this. JD piped up again and said "But how do you spell { insert exploding noise}?" Obviously, I have not figured out how to best spell it. You will have to use your imagination.

My Super Power

Although I do not know anyone that can fly or has super human strength, I do know of a few people that have an unusual ability rarely seen. Take, for example, our friend Jim, every time he orders a milkshake at a restaurant their shake machine is broken. I know everyone has had this happen a time or two, but Jim has not had a drive-thru milkshake in going on 15 years or better. He has given up trying to order them. He has even had one breakdown just after the person in line in front of him got their shake.

I had a friend in high school that repelled technology. She could sit down at a computer, not touch anything, and it would start having issues. I was beginning to think she had one of those weird magnetic fields surrounding her. I can just imagine her trying to use one of those self check lines at Kroger. The last time I talked with her the power was wearing off and she was even able to finally send out emails.

My personal super power involves animals. If I ever draw attention to an animal then inevitably the animal picks that exact moment to relieve itself. It has gotten to be a running joke in the family, especially on car trips. Again, I know that this is just something that happens, but with me it is about 9 out of every 10 times. Today's trip to the zoo was no exception. At one point my father told me to stop pointing out animals because he would like to see one that wasn't pooping. The farm exhibit was especially bad. The worst by far was the chimp that took the time to climb a rope over to where I was standing and drop poo right in front of me. Even while we were watching hummingbirds at my parent's feeders this morning I actually saw two different hummingbirds leave droppings. On the bright side, seeing a tiny bird squirt tiny poop tickled Jack to no end. Rocky says they should rent me out to zoos as a natural laxative. All things considered, I think reading minds would be much more fun.

notice the panda poo- that was all me :)

Old Navy Coupon

A few weeks ago I was able to score an Old Navy Coupon for $75 off a $100 purchase. Nix and I had some great mother/daughter time and left with awesome clothes. This week Old Navy Weekly will be having a coupon worth $65 off $100. The trick is, you'll have to be on their site within about 5 minutes of them loading it and then be lucky enough to click on the right hidden spot to find the coupons.

OR

You can got to this lovely blog http://tinyurl.com/nhmjja Who will be randomly giving some away to readers. You get to enter once because you love Old Navy, another time for facebooking it, a 3rd for twittering, and 4th for blogging about it... all in all there are 6 ways to enter you name into this contest, so head on over and comment to her before the 4th.