Archive of Marcia's Musings February 4-10, 2002
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Just One
All it takes is for someone (and even more than one is the better) to say something like: "You look younger in those pictures with straight hair". Ba-bing-- I'm there!! With another birthday fast approaching, the last thing I want to do is look my age so there I went: off to get my hair straightened.
For those of you who have met me, as curly as my hair was, it is now extremely straight!! Wow!! I can't believe the difference!! My hair had layers cut into it about two or three months ago and, because of that, I actually look like my hair is thin, too. I think that's a good thing-- now at least I look like I have a "normal" amount of hair like everyone else.
By birth, I have straight hair-- my mother had curly-ish hair and my brother got a little of that; us girls got my dad's straight, thick hair. I've been getting perms for a little more than twelve years so I have never seen my hair long and straight until now. Totally a weird feeling, let me tell ya!!
Interesting Situation
On Thursday, I went to the website of one of the national sewing chains and found an item that I wanted for use with my quilting. It was priced at $11.99, on sale for $10.96 on the website. I called the store and asked if they had it in stock because it would save me the time of shipping it to be able to buy it at the store. The girl checked and came back to tell me that they didn't have any in stock.
Since I had a coupon for 40% off that was going to expire today, I stopped by yesterday on my way to the hair appointment. I went to look for a couple of things, but not for the thing that I had asked about on Thursday. As I approached the quilting section, what should catch my eye? About 100 packages of the things that I had asked if they had in stock so that I didn't have to buy them on the website. The shocking bit? They were priced at $5.99 in the store!!!
Yep, I was a little ticked and, when I got to the registers, I asked how long they'd had those items in stock. The manager told me that she stocks them all the time-- they never run out because they are very popular. I asked if she ran out on Thursday and she said that they hadn't run out, completely, in more than a month!! Yes, I was a little surprised and displeased and said so. She was surprised that one of her staff didn't know what I was asking for to go look for it and assured me that it wasn't a ploy to make me buy it at the higher price on the website.
I assured her that I wasn't going to buy it from their website at the $10.96 because I'd found it at another supplier's site for $8.99-- yesterday, when I got home, I cancelled that order, as well. Hmmmm, I guess you can't just do regular comparison shopping based on phone calls to brick-n-mortar stores for web stuff. It does pay to go in person to check it out but what a pain!!
Binding On!!
I've got the binding sewn on my wall-hanging and am going to be doing the hand-sewing on that today. Who knows, maybe I'll have it done by nightfall!! That'd be fun, wouldn't it? Then I can show you a picture of it instead of talking about it!!
*******
No, I never made it back here yesterday but then anything I had to tell you then, I've told you now. Its all the same thing, don'tcha know?
Have a nice day-- maybe more later if something exciting happens!!
Saturday, February 9, 2002Grand!
Wasn't the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics grand? Really cool!! For the most part I enjoyed them but, I have to admit, it got a little long in the tooth about 9:40. (a little over two hours into it) so I left and played a game on my computer for awhile. Then, when Sting came on with Yoyo and through the end, I went back out to watch it. The actual torch lighting was like WAAYYYYY coooooollll!!!
As far as our watching is concerned, we won't watch all that much of the Olympics-- a little ice skating and I'd like to see the new "skeleton luge" runs because that sounds pretty cool, too. Other than that, I don't get that excited about it partly because I don't know very many of the names and don't know who to follow. Oh, well, feel free to make up for what I don't watch, okay?
Da Plan
The Plan for today is to get my hair straightened-- I've become far too thrilled with straight hair but, with the perm in it, it is too hard to get there. My hair stylist told me that it was possible to "reverse" my perm by putting another perm solution over it so that is what we're going to do today. After that, its more sewing of course as I've only cut the binding strips not sewng them together, let alone on the wall-hanging.
So with that, I'll maybe be back later but, if not, have a nice day, a nice evening and a nice night!
Friday, February 8, 20026:40AM
That's what time my day at work started!! Mike, the contracts attorney that normally handles the Northeast, and I had a conference call with a sales rep and district manager from my region and a customer: the end user, purchasing, and their two attorneys. That call was scheduled for 7:30 but, the last I'd heard from Mike, we were going to be at the office at 7 to call our sales rep and DM to discuss the strategy, etc. Well, Mike neglected to tell me that he got in touch with the sales rep and DM on Thursday so we didn't need to come in at 7. Oh, well, what's a little sleep lost on this job, eh?
Anyway, we had the call at 7:30 and by 8, we were off the call-- Mike did an outstanding job!! It was a little like watching a spider trap a fly-- he really handled the parties on the call. It was cool to watch and, it is because they didn't have a leg to stand on but, they had to try. If we backed down, for any reason or didn't even come up to the line, it could save them millions so they had to try. My hat was definitely off to Mike on that one-- wow, that was cool!!
I had another call at 11 that went okay-- but nothing could match the excitement of the first call of the day. The second call was on the negotiation that has been going on for over a year. We (the sales rep on that deal and I) have decided that it must be Canadian banks that are difficult to work with and not capable of resolution. We had made some exceptions to the transferability language for their use and now that we've given that to them, they don't want to make it easier for us to track the software when they go to move it. Hmmm, terribly frustrating!!
Anyway, after that, the rest of my day was made up of drafting language for a schedule and an agreement-- aren't you glad you asked? (I told you my life was boring!) After getting to work prior to the crack o-dawn, I decided that I could leave work at a decent hour, too. I came home around 4:15 or so and took Sally for a walk. Since Brian's back went out, she was glad that I did, too-- we took a long walk which she wasn't crazy about but she sure does enjoy the time!!
Tonight I'm going to end up crocheting and watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Brian and I really enjoyed that the last time so we're looking forward to it again.
You take care, thanks for coming by and have a nice evening!
Thursday, February 7, 2002I'm trying!
Okay, so I've been thinking that I've been boring ya'll silly lately with the posts that I've been putting up here.
Sorry.
Between being tired and then, being untired but not having anything to talk about, there isn't much to "report".
So things I haven't remembered to tell you about lately:
1. The early part of February is always a celebration of sorts for Brian and I-- this past weekend was the end of our fourth year of living together. We're now into our fifth year so, yes, we're looking at major fun-ness and cool-ness for us. That means that come May 30, we'll be at our 4th wedding anniversary and the beginning of our 5th year of marriage. Doesn't seem possible-- seems like only yesterday but, yet, we've been through so much together already. The fun part is yet to come though so hang on, sweetie!!
2. It is raining again in Silicon Valley-- man, I do hate the rain. I don't hate rain as much as I hate snow or cold weather (including temperatures that dip below freezing) but, I don't like it. I like warmth and sunshine-- I don't even mind humidity too much compared to rain, snow and cold.
3. Sally, our dogter, is cute and adorable. I haven't mentioned that since Sunday so don't yell at me!! She has really begun to adjust to the point where I get the big sad puppy-dog eyes when I get ready to walk out the door in the morning. Man, I don't know how people with kids do it-- leaving them at a daycare would kill me!! I suppose there is a lesson in life for everything and, in this case, God didn't let me have kids out of fear that I'd throw rawhide at them on the way out the door to work in the morning.
4. My life, as I know it, is boring. Here I am on Point #4 and I've already run out of things to tell you. Its actually not so much that it is boring as much as there are things that we aren't at liberty to discuss in such an open forum at this point. Or, we could tell you but then . . . yes, you know the rest of the story on that one, don't you?
*****
That said, I'm back at it tonight-- doing my usual.
You have a nice evening doing . . . whatever it is you do most often.
Wednesday, February 6, 2002Make-Up Time
Well, when you're out for two days at a seminar, things really get stacked up!! I came in and had an agreement to modify for a particular customer's needs, there were a bunch of phone calls to return, other documents to review, conference calls to set up-- you name it!! Busy day but it was fun to get back into the swing of things.
I found myself, a couple of times, using the tactics that I'd learned in the seminar-- afterall, that was the point of sending me, right? It was fun and I pointed out to the people to whom I was speaking that I just saved them $895 and two days at a conference. Yes, the checks are supposed to be in the mail!!
We have one major catastrophe started by a sales rep out of the Virginia office-- conference call with their attorney and ours on Friday. Should be lotsa fun, don'tcha think?
Thiiiiiissssss Close
I'm almost there-- I'm almost finished with my wall-hanging!!! I spray-basted the last of the edges and quilted the inside border. I've just got the outer border, hangers and binding left to do-- I'm almost there!!
Next after that (probably next week some time), I'll quilt the class project but I can't do the binding on it until I get to the class. That's supposed to be the next lesson, even if I have already done it on my wall-hanging.
After I finish those two things, I'm on to the cushions for our patio set-- I'm actually looking forward to a "straight" sewing job! Then, again, I'm also looking forward to the next quilting project, too!! I'm just having too much fun, I think.
Off again . . .
Brian is outta here for the night at a geek meeting. Gee, what will I do?? Well, so far, I'm making turkey soup which will be combined with different pastas or rices later, cooking just the veg and meat tonight. Beyond that, there's always more quilting!!
Have a nice evening!
Tuesday, February 5, 2002Back to Work!!
The negotiation seminar was much better today in that it dealt more directly with things that I deal with on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, it was still "aimed" at the buying side of negotiation but, after playing the "Seller" in two or three roll-play games, it gets old and in the last one, I finally asked to be the "Buyer". The cool part of this last negotiation game was that it used real money-- I made $15!! I only gave up $7 which, as you may have guessed, was very good!!
Tomorrow, however, it is back to work in the real world. I have to admit that I missed being at the office-- yes, I know, it has long been established that I'm a sick puppy (move along, there's nothing new to see here). There's lots of stuff happening-- nary a dull moment when you're away for a day or two, ya know?
Tonight's Agenda??
Email from work, and home and then, on to the wall-hanging. I'm going to use the spray adhesive that I bought on Saturday to finish out the "quilting" part of it so it should go a bit easier.
'Nuf for tonight-- I'm feeling a bit over-loaded on educational bits, I think.
Have a nice evening!!
Monday, February 4, 2002Long Day!
The negotiating seminar is going well. It is giving me a different perspective because I'm the one who is usually "servicing" these people. It is a room full of buyers and me, the only "selling" contracts person. Interesting dynamic, let me tell ya! It is interesting and I'm learning a lot, as well, which is a good thing and, frankly, the whole point.
I've got a little homework tonight and, if I have time, I'd like to get some sewing or crocheting time in tonight-- simply because I'm feeling the pangs of withdrawal!! I stayed away from quilting and crocheting as promised yesterday even though Brian told me I could do anything I wanted to do. I spent the vast majority of my time either sleeping or cuddling with Sally. (Do you remember when we first got her and she wasn't any good at cuddling? She has vastly improved, let me tell ya!! She's such a cutie!!) Yesterday morning, I screwed up my neck which has given me a new perspective on turning my head and, frankly, gave me incentive to not try to do a lot yesterday.
While this is a short post, it'll have to do as it has already been a busy night that appears it will be getting worse. Bear with me and we'll get through this week-- then, I'm taking a few days off from work for much needed R&R. How about that: twice in the same month!!
Thanks for stopping by and have a nice evening!
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