Wendy Inez Stanford Lawson

You Are Enchanting and Artful

You are very charming... dangerously so. You have the potential to break a lot of hearts. You know how what you want, how to get it, and that you will get it. You have the power to rule the world. Let's hope you're a benevolent dictator! You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals. You are balanced, orderly, and organized. You like your ducks in a row. You are powerful and competent, especially in the workplace. People can see you as stubborn and headstrong. You definitely have a dominant personality. You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in. You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising. You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are incredibly wise and perceptive. You have a lot of life experience. You are a natural peacemaker, and you are especially good at helping others get along. But keeping the peace in your own life is not easy. You see things very differently, and it's hard to get you to budge. You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong. You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know. You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are loving, compassionate, and ruled by your feelings. You are able to be a foundation for other people... but you still know how to have fun. Sometimes your emotions weigh you down, but you generally feel free from them. You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life. You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you. At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself. You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Blogthings: Quizzes and Tests and Memes, Oh My!

In the midst of all the drama…

It seems right now we are wading through a lot of problems. Some of it is tenant related, we are yet again faced with a tenant wanting to break a lease in winter. Some of it is work related stress – my new role requires managing people who don’t have the same work ethic I do. Family stress – unfortunately not all parts of my family get along. When home, work, and family stress collide all at once – I feel like I’m going to implode. And I don’t feel comfortable airing all the details on my blog – we all have issues, mine are not unique.

So I thought I’d try to focus on the positives and “tie a knot and hang on.”

I’m really blessed to have two wonderful supportive parents who have taught me responsibility, God, and family are all important priorities. My work ethic comes from them. They are amazing people and I’ve been blessed to see them through both the eyes of a child and the eyes of an adult. I love you Mom and Dad!

I’m really blessed to have a wonderful supportive husband. We are opposites in so many ways but I love to be able to “see” the world through his eyes. Our conversations are always eye openers – I’d like to think we help each other grow. I get to see things from his perspective and he gets to take a look at my perspective. We’ve certainly grown – at the beginning of our relationship – we’d have to agree to disagree a lot. Most recently we talk, talk, talk, until we have a united front. Even though we may not “agree” we form a united plan and work the plan. We’re getting better at being a team.

I’m really blessed to be employed in a position I both enjoy and enjoy sharing with others. My teaching background has come in very handy as I help my team and answer their questions. It certainly is not a job for everyone. I do customer service for health insurance – you know us – we’re the big bad insurance company who only wants your money and doesn’t pay your bills? Luckily, the majority of my calls actually do have positive resolutions – most things are fixable. I’m looking forward to this year really doing some added training to bring my crew up to snuff. I will get to attend a leadership conference in the fall that will bring me to MN and I can spend some time with friends while I’m there on business. And my company is large enough so when we move south I should be able to transfer to another office.

I’m very blessed to have an extended family all over the world – and being able to stay in touch on line helps keep me connected. Both Mom and Dad come from very large families and I have over 100 first cousins. Facebook is a family affair for me. It’s so nice to be able to “hear” how things are going. I wish we were all closer.

I am blessed to have two cute kitties – Momma and her daughter Sissy. Momma the strong alpha female is roly poly and runs like a rabbit kicking both back feet at the same time. She doesn’t have a real “meow” – just sort of a croak. And Sissy is skittish – any little noise will send her running. She’s lean and lanky and quite a crooner. She’ll sing for no reason at all.

I am blessed to have a roof over my head. While dealing with the fourplex can be stressful, our living expenses are less. The building pays for itself and most of the utilities. What we pay here is less than what we’d pay in rent somewhere else. But I’m beginning to wonder if the stress is worth the savings.

There are so many other things I’m thank for – working with great people, having a running car, running water, heat, lights, internet, books, computers, TV, a piano, and so on. I want for nothing. God is good. We will get through this rough patch – I know we will. And I know we’ll be stronger on the other side.

So that’s it – I’m tying my knot and hanging on.

TGIF, what’s going on?

Wow, where to begin?  Work?  Family?  Landlord?

 

How about family.  Mom and Dad are in Texas for a few weeks having a ball.  I just have to share it was quite a crazy few week getting Mom’s oxygen all lined out.  Airlines no longer provide oxygen in flight and there is a specific list of FDA approved devices.  The online rental companies charge you almost half of what it would cost you to buy one for just a 2 week rental.  I might as well sell them a kidney.  I have to offer big KUDOS to two local businesses. 

Procare Home Medical in Anchorage went above and beyond.  They had one device in the “acceptable list” they were willing to rent on short notice.  (Short notice because Mom and Dad had to wait for PFD’s to buy their tickets about two weeks before leaving.)  Not only did they step up with short notice, they ordered and rented us 2 extra batteries for a total of 4 to meet the other FDA requirement – batteries to last 150% of flight time.

Once we had Procare on board, Internal Medicine Associates, Mom’s lung doctor had to complete the Delta Airlines Physician statement and return it me the same day so I could get it to Delta within 48 business hours of Mom’s flight.  A big shout out to nurse Deb, “You are simply amazing, thank you for putting up with all my calls and doing the form twice so it was all A-OKAY.”

The weekend before Mom and Dad flew out, I helped Mom make sugar cookies and decorate them to give to Procare and Internal Medicine Associates.  It was so cool and so much fun.

So Mom and Dad are in a warmer climate, loving up on their kids, grand kids, and their one great grand child.  I miss them so much.  But I’m so happy – Mom had never met 2 of those grand kids and the great grand child.  I can’t imagine.  I wish we were all closer together.

Okay, moving along to landlord.  Same.  Repair this, renovate that, collect this rent, post that notice, pay that bill.  Enough said.

Work – wow, work seems to dominate most of my life right now.  But I received news today they are pulling back some of my responsibilities in one of my two jobs.  They are adding some staff to the Express Desk and then I can pull back and just be back up for this team.  This will allow me to really focus my team lead responsibilities at my site.  I am very excited, I never thought I’d be excited to be “downsized” but it’ll be nice to do the work of one person instead of two and half.

And December is going to be weird.  You see I have 80+ hours of PTO to use – my company has a “use it, or lose it” policy.  And in the dual role I had, I really could not take a lot of time off – there was always an excuse.  Well no more excuses and I have 10 days off in December, every Thursday and Friday off – so I have 4 three day work weeks with 4 four day weekends.  How cool is that?  Lots of time to have fun around the house.  Yeah! 

Okay enough update for now.  Love to all my family and friends.

Life, no work balance right now…

Right now, work has taken over.  I’m not sure yet how long this is going to be like this.  The prior company I worked (company R for privacy) before we were assumed by a larger company (company M) discouraged overtime, staffed appropriately, and did not ‘bite off more than they could chew.’  Company M is short staffed and is too departmentalized, not unlike any other large company. 

We do have a crew of customer service reps in training so hopefully after this batch hits the floor we’ll be in a better spot.  They should be done training soon, then I’ll retrain them.  October is a big client’s open enrollment season and I’m a key player in troubleshooting and calling customer’s back.  I love what I do – I love making sure member’s know their insurance benefits so they can make the most of it and I love helping on the back end when something did not go as planned.  But I have to say, I’m tired of having more work than I can do.

My best friend’s Mom used to change jobs every 5 years or so, now I understand why.  It’s easy to get burned out.  I guess I need to find that place in side myself where I can leave work at work, work be damned, and be home when I’m home.  It’s why I left teaching, so I could have a home life. 

What have been up to?

Or what have I not been up to?

Well – this last weekend was DH birthday weekend.  Thursday after work I went present shopping.  I already had in mind the few items hubby had asked for – an Indiglo Timex watch.  Wal-Mart will match any other store in Alaska, but not their own website.  Their manager explained this is due to shipping costs.  But Best Buy will match their website prices – now if we could only get Wal-Mart to step up.  So after perusing Wal-Mart and snagging some spare flip flops, a card, cinnamon muffins, tissue paper and a large decorative bag – I was done there. 

They didn’t have the cast iron reversible grill / griddle I was looking for – so I headed over to Sportsman’s Warehouse.  I snuck in the out door five minutes after they had closed and were trying to get their last minute shoppers wrapped up.  I knew exactly what I wanted, headed straight to the cast iron, grabbed my reversible grill / griddle and checked out.  I headed home and bagged everything up.

When I got home, I made up the muffins and started to help hubby on his computer – little did I know, behind my back – he ate up all the muffins before I even had the chance to glaze them.  They didn’t even last until his birthday Friday.

So Friday, breakfast – cheese pizza – hubby’s favorite food.  Open presents.  Remind dear hubby one present is in the mail and will arrive in a few days.  Computer power supply arrives in the mail.  I swapped the power supply that vents out the back with the supply that was venting into the tower.  We used the spare supply in DH’s old computer.  I reinstalled a fresh copy of Windows XP, reinstalled all the drivers, and now we have a spare PC.  DH enjoyed his pizza and video games and presents.  Saturday DH was coming down with a cold that he so kindly shared with me – we were down sick through Monday – but it still was a cuddly weekend.

I had time to play around with Linux – I downloaded Knoppix on a boot CD and was able to use it to determine hubby’s hard drive in the old machine was viable, only the Windows was messed up.  I downloaded Ubuntu for my laptop and partitioned my drive – I now have 2 operating systems to choose from – I just got carried away in the idea of free software.  The whole concept of a free operating system and free software is a kind of cool thought.  What a busy weekend.

3 day weekend turned project weekend

With hubby on call… weekends are hard to plan.

So this weekend turned into fixing some drywall and re-caulking the tub in apartment #3.  Thanks again Dad for the help!  We got them a shower curtain with a liner – and gave them instructions on it’s use.  We tightened up the fixtures and put a rubber gasket between the tub faucet and the wall.  We applied a thick bead of caulk around the tub.  I painted the drywall patches today.  We also put some caulk around the chrome circle around the spigot.  Apparently water was getting into the wall with the fixtures and causing ‘rain’ in my bathroom.  Hopefully – this will keep the water where it belongs – in the tub.  Next weekend – replace the bathroom fan.  Apparently the other one broke a few months ago and the tenant removed the motor thinking to replace it but they never told us it was broken.  Hmmm…..

Hubby’s computer was freezing – so I downlaoded “speed fan” and found out his GPU was over heating.  Apparently the graphics card fan was not working.  So I researched and laid out the options.  Option 1 – replace the graphics card fan, cheap but we have to wait for delivery of the part and no guarantee the cards not damaged.  Option 2 – replace the card and power supply.  Option 3 – replace the computer if the cost of repair is about 1/3 of the cost of a new computer.  We chose option 2 and went shopping for a new video card.  Hubby chose a middle of the rode card, little higher than what I was recommending but certainly not top of the line either.  It’s perfect for his needs.  Only glitch – new power supply vents at the bottom rather than the back – my mistake.  I’ve ordered one that vents from the back and it should be here in the next 3-8 days.  We’ll swap it out and put this supply in a spare tower we have that used to be hubby’s computer.

And to top if all off I modified a molle vest for dear hubby.  The US military molle vest we found online doesn’t fit my extra large guy.  The only part of the vest that is not adjustable is the hips – so I split it in two places and added straps and buckles to the hips now adjust too.  I broke 2 needles and it ain’t pretty, but it will hold up.

Only thing I didn’t get to was the lawn mowing – the rain moved in too soon.  I could use a nice quiet weekend with nothing.

Accomplishments…

Saturday we, Mum and Dad and I, tackled a project I’d been waiting to do for a year.  Last year Dad and hubby built lofts in the landlord storage shed so all the wasted ceiling space could be utilized.  It more than doubled the space of that closet.  Well I had bought the lumber to do the same thing to our other storage closet but it did not get done last year.

After our mini camping trip on the Fourth of July weekend, with all the camping gear out of the shed and the BBQ grill out in the backyard – it just seemed like the right time.  Half the stuff was already out of the storage shed.  So Dad and I with Mum supervising tackled this project.

We used 2x4’s to create a loft area, laid down some plywood pieces we already had in there across the 2x4’s and moved all the floor rubber maid containers and boxes into the new loft.  We ran out of 2x4’s so we resorted to two 1x4’s together about 18” inches from the wall going across the back wall to create a niche for our winter tires to stand up vertically rather than laying on the shed floor.  We’ve got some extra tires from our previous vehicle we need to get rid of or repurpose, but all the tires are now more easily accessible.

There is now a whole lot more space for the BBQ grill and camping gear and everything we use most often is so much easier to get.  Woo hoo…

We also mowed, weed whipped, and Dad brushed all the dried moss of the storage shed roof – thanks Dad!  And today to celebrate – we went to the movies!  What fun!