I'm still here...

AT&T SUCKS!

For those of you who don't know, we do not have a home phone anymore. I called AT&T two weeks ago to have our home phone (land line) disconnected. The first person I spoke with was a VERY pushing lady who insisted that I keep my home phone. I argued with her that I only made 19 calls last month. Is that worth $38 a month? After 20 minutes of arguing, she FINALLY transferred me to the department I needed. I spoke with this very helpful gentleman (or so I thought). We spent a half hour on the phone. He told me that on June 19th between the hours of 8 a.m. & 8 p.m. our phone would be disconnected followed my our Internet. On Friday June 20th the Internet would be turned back on between the hours of 8 a.m. & 8 p.m. He gave me instructions on what to do when it came back up. I thought what a nice guy. He only gave me these instructions because I mentioned that my aunt works for AT&T.

Friday came around, and no Internet. So I called to find our what was up. The first guy I talked to was asking me questions about my modem and what lights where on. I said, "I don't know, I'm upstairs. My kids are in the tub, and the main computer is down stairs. Why do you need to know this?"

"Ma'am, in order to help you, I need to know this information."

"Listen, I can't leave my children alone. I just want to know what is going on with my Internet service. I was told that by 8 p.m. tonight my service would be restored. If I worked at home, this would be a day and a half without service. Who is going to make this time up for me?"

"I'm sorry, let me transfer you."

"Thank you."

So now I'm on hold. And I get this very pleasant young man, Jason. He asks for my 10 digit account number. He enters it and asks me to repeat it. He said he couldn't find this number. I told him the whole story and asked if my old home number might help him. He tried that number and then said, "Ma'am, I see the disconnection notice, but no reconnection order. Unfortunately, the department that handles these requests is closed in your area. Let me give you some numbers to call and resolve this problem."

Great. More numbers.

I got up in the morning and called the number that Jason gave me. I was dropped twice. The last time I was dropped "Madeline" had asked for the number I was calling from in case we lost connection. I'm still waiting for her to call me back! She put me on hold for 10 minutes. All I kept hearing was..."Please continue to hold." After awhile I didn't hear this anymore. I looked at my phone and it said dropped call. WHAT!!??

I was getting so angry. I called on Sunday just to see if someone would be there to help me. After talking with silicone Sam I hear, "I'm sorry. This department is closed. Please call back during regular business hours." I went in by Noah and said, "Their closed." Surprised he said, "It took 10 minutes to find that out?"

I was irate by this time. I finally called Kerry, my hero. She took the information that was given to me. It took 4 or 5 people to discover that the account number given to me did not exist. Thursday morning I received a call from Stacy. She said she was very sorry for this mix up. It was not my fault. There was nothing else to do but put in a new order to reconnect my Internet. She said she would work on it until it was completed. She also gave me a free month! I should be hooked up by July 2nd. Two weeks without Internet service. Noah is going bizzurk!

So you're wondering then how I'm able to post a blog? We're sitting at Lori's house right now and I'm leaching off their wireless Internet. We came for the BLUFF VIEW JAM. Gabe walked up to Lori and asked, "Where's the party?" He's so fun!

Well, with having no Internet, I was able to pull myself away from the computer, and work on the boy's bedroom wall. I have to say...AWESOME!I did paint the "water" in this week. I unfortunately don't have a picture of that yet. I'll for sure take pictures and post them.

Last weekend we went "nude". For those of you who don't know Lisaisms that means we went to the zoo. We had a blast. Enjoy the new pictures on the side of the posts.

Well, dinners almost ready. David is making steaks on the grill.

Tootles.

The largest project I ever took on...

So with all this blasted rain we've been getting, I figured it was a perfect time to start on the boys' bedroom wall. We're all very excited about it.

I started in on Sunday afternoon, and have been working on it since...during my free time. My right hand is quite sore from holding the brushes and doing so much tedious work. It's a very time consuming project.

This pictures shows Step 1. Outlining.

The wall is about 10' x 8'. Quite large. But the larger the wall the better the mural right? I started out by using an overhead projector and tracing the drawings on the wall. Let me tell ya, you can fit a lot of fish on a wall this size! We have a variety of fish. Let's see, we have sharks, whales, angel fish, "kissing" fish, shrimp, dolphins, star fish, jelly fish, manta rays, octopus, squid, and even a sunken ship.

Paula was sick today, so I came home to be with the boys, so we spent loads of time in their room working on the wall. Gabe can't stop saying how awesome it looks and it's so cute and so cool. I told Gabe that I can work on the wall every day this week because I'll be coming home early the rest of the week. Paula called earlier and said that she was still under the weather, and wouldn't be taking the boys tomorrow, and then the rest of the week they will be at Eagle River camping. So I'll be working on the wall all week.

Step 2: Filling in fish...(This is only about 1/8 of the wall!)

There is so much flooding going on. They just showed on the news houses floating down a "river" in Wisconsin Dells. Three houses fell into the water and were swallowed up by the raging waters. What next. If it's not snow, it's too much rain. And there will be more rain on it's way this week.

They are fishing in the streets of Pewaukee! I just heard an interview with a 13-year old boy who was standing in the middle of the road fishing. That is unbelievable.

Some other news. I'm now on the Alter Guild at church. My first month will be in July. Then I was also asked again if I would like to help teach Sunday School. I so would like to, but I need to give my 100% effort to it, and I can't do that. Sunday School runs through tax season. When you work 60 or so hours a week, that doesn't leave much time to prep for the lessons.

Well, I guess I should call her a night. I have to get up early to get to work early. I have to be there an hour earlier because I leave early in the day. I love my job. My bosses are the best! What other job is so flexible? I'm so blessed! And on that note....good night!

Roller Coaster of Emotions...

This week has been a roller coaster of emotions. I've been excited, let down, worried, feeling angry, and hurt. It's amazing how certain things can make a person feel a certain emotion.

To start off, on Wednesday, Grandma K and Mama came down and we did some shopping. We went to the Dress Barn where I found some amazing items. I bought three dresses! One is this pretty brown/pink spaghetti strap dress with an empire waist...which is my style. Makes me look taller and hides what needs to be hidden. The next dress was a very floaty type dress. Kind of reminds me of something from the 60s era. The last one was a dress for Vegas. I think I found my "wedding" dress. Again this one has an empire waist with a very floaty light skirt. Gorgeous! This made me feel happy and very excited.

On got to work on Thursday, and there was a message from Vickie saying she wasn't able to go out this weekend...the weekend we've been planning for the last month. She didn't want to talk about it. This had me feeling worried and a little let down. If she canceled because she was having issues, it must be a big one. I'm giving her the space she wants. I know she'll let me know what's up when she's ready to talk. She knows I'm here for her.

Noah told me too on Wednesday afternoon that he received a call that his cousin's husband had killed himself. My heart just sank. I asked what had happened. He told me they got into a fight, and he went into their back yard, and shot himself. What? Over an argument? There had to be more to this story...and there was. Ofelia had called last night and mentioned that Alan had gone back to drug use. They got into a huge beat down fight. He thought he had killed her, so he went in his back yard and shot himself. He was 31 years young and left behind two young children. I feel really badly for Nicki. I pray for her daily.

Then this morning as I walked into Piggly Wiggly, there was this older gentleman sitting on a bench. When I got closer he smiled at me and said, "Good Morning." So being the nice person I am said good morning back to him. He started ranting and raving about how corrupt the world is and how I contribute to the corruption. This angered me a little. As I walked through the store I was thinking of something to say to him, should he confront me again. Then I thought better of it, and just avoided him altogether.

I got to work, and told the guys about it. An hour later, Tim said, "Your friend is in a bit of trouble." I thought he was talking about one of our clients. He said, "No, someone just called the police to the Piggly Wiggly at North Gate. There is a drunk elderly gentleman sitting on the bench harassing customers as the walk into the store." We had a laugh over it. I took it as a grain of salt, but he probably offended others. And he thinks I add to the corruption of the world? What about him?

So there you have it. The roller coaster of emotions for the last week.

Please keep Kerry, Kim, Vickie, and Nicki in your prayers. They all need your prayers to help get through their individual "healings".

Love you all!

Conversation with a 4-year old...

"Mama, I'm thinking."

"What are you thinking about?"

"Really cool video games."

"Oh, yeah. Which ones are those?"

"Tanks, Mario Cart, and Star Warses. They're the coolest. I like the other one too, but those are my favoritest. This is the darkest day."

"It sure is. The sun hasn't been out much today, has it? It's been quite dreary all day long, and it's going to be the same way again tomorrow."

"Yeah, it's very nasty out today."

We drove a little bit more when Gabe spoke us again...

"I'm thinking again, Mama."

"Yeah, what are you thinking about now?"

"Games again."

End of conversation.

Isn't it amazing what a little guy can think of? How much he can tell you? Where does this stuff come from? Having conversations like this with my children really makes me feel blessed to be a mom. Just out of the blue he'll say something to me that surprises me, and makes me feel all giddy inside.

Last night I moved Gabriel's bed into Emmanuel's room. Before I had Gabe's bed put together in Manny's room, Manny was sleeping. I'm surprised he slept through all the banging, and hammering Gabe was doing. He was pretending to be Bob the Builder. Such an imagination this kid has.

When I woke up this morning, there they both were snuggled tight in their own beds. How cute. Tonight I need to rearrange it though. It's a little cluttered right now. We're going to move all the toys into Gabe's (now old) room so there is more room both upstairs and downstairs.

Since Gabe is now in the "underwater" themed room, he wants a shark bed. So now I have to look for a bedspread with sharks on it. Great. That should be easy. NOT! I looked for over 2 hours last night to find one, just to price it. No sharks...lots of dolphins, but no sharks.

Last night we had tuna helper for dinner with mushrooms and peas in it. Both boys just love that kind of stuff. I served it with nice warm Pillsbury biscuits with strawberry jelly on. Oh what a fantastic meal. While Gabriel was taking a spoonful of tuna helper he looked at me and said, "This was a sweet idea for supper." Where does he come up with these things.

OK, Brewers are on. Gotta go. Take me out to the ball game!

The most perfect day...

Today was First German's church picnic. The weather was just perfect. The sky was the brightest blue, with no clouds, a slight breeze. PERFECT, along with the church service, the picnic, and the company. I saw people I haven't seen in 16 years! Learned things that made me feel pretty old...and you know what? I loved it all. The PERFECT day.

The boys got to play on the playground after lunch. Fun, fun, fun. Then Gabriel saw they inflated the moon jump thing. For a quarter, the children could jump and jump until they couldn't anymore (or 5 minutes...which ever came first). They both wanted to go in and jump, so I gave up the $.50 and they both went in. I could see Manny was a little nervous and scared. He just sat there and bounced from everyone else jumping. I stood in the entrance of the inflated device and held on the him for a little bit, but he was telling me he was bizzy. In Emmanuel language, this meant he was dizzy. I took him out of the the contraption and held him for awhile, until he wanted down again.

Gabriel on the other hand was really enjoying the "ride". Non-stop until it was time to come out. He said as he was putting his shoes on, "That was really fun." Two completely different children. Just shows how different God made all of us.

After the moon jump, Alayna, Grandma Lynn, Gabe, Manny and I took a walk through the woods to the beach. The boys totally loved it! Manny told me his most favorite part of the picnic as throwing rocks into the lake. They made big splashing noises.

We spent a majority of the day outside today. When we got home, we sat outside and enjoyed the sun. Manny had to get out his chair, and sit with me on our patio. We looked around our yard, and commented on the beauty of it. We really are blessed.

With all the sun I received in the last two days, Mama's hurtin'. I have sore shoulders and back. I'm pretty toasted. I took a nice warm oatmeal powder bath to try and sooth the burning. Noah took this picture of my back. My front looks the same! OWWEEE!

I had a very nice chat with my good friends Mike and Jodi Laurin today. They sound really happy where they are right now. It was just over a year since they moved to Florida. I'm so happy they are doing well, but really wish they would come back. I miss them dearly. Even Gabriel missed his Uncle Jodi.

I saw my girlfriend Erin at the picnic today. She has three little girls, and another child on the way. How she does it, I will never know. She asked if it was noisy at our house. I explained that yeah, it's noisy, but I don't have all the drama so has at her house. We both shared a chuckle.

As Kerry would say, "My eyes are slamming shut." I should probably try and get some sleep. It's going to be along night; trying to find a comfortable position with my nice burn.

Good night y'all.