Scraps of Me …

Today is the first day of training with actual disability claims here at work. It’s been a long 4 weeks of classroom training - which is not my strong point. I don’t do well, as a rule, with lectures. When it comes to learning I am a hands on, figure it out yourself sort of person. So I am really looking forward to getting into the hands on aspect of the training.

Mother’s Day was good at our house. Hubby had to work so the girl child and I went out to eat and to Barnes and Nobles. I got myself a few books and ordered a recipe program from Amazon.  Happy Mother’s day to me. 

Well - off to start my work now.  It’s been a slow start while they get the claims the 14 of us in the class are supposed to work with but hopefully once we’ve got our stuff the day will go by quickly.

D. Robert Pease!

Congratulations to you (and to your son).  Hopefully you’ll post a review on your site once you read the book as well.  Here is to hoping that Holly’s YA does amazingly well.

Thanks to Karen Miller. This video is great!

WANT A FREE COPY OF THE RUBY KEY FOR YOURSELF?  READ TO THE END OF THE POST FOR DETAILS.

From Amazon.com:

Mankind is Sunkind

And rules by the light;

Nightlings are Moonkind,

And rule in the night;

Or there will be war.

Human and Nightlings are never to meet, but when Genna and her brother Dan venture into the old forest at night, they encounter a Nightling slave who reveals a terrifying secret: Genna and Dan’s village chieftain has made a dangerous deal with Letrin, ruler of the Nightlings, offering the lives of his people in exchange for his own immortality.

To save the villagers and themselves, Genna and Dan strike their own bargain with the Nightling lord, but the stakes are even higher. Now, the siblings must embark upon a journey along the Moonroads, and bring back the key to Letrin’s downfall.

To my great joy I returned home from Texas with 2 boxes of books waiting for me from Amazon.com.  I love to preorder!  One of the books I received was The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle.  I followed the creation of The Ruby Key on Holly’s blog - Pocket Full of Words and have waited impatiently for almost a year since her last book Night Echoes was published.

This is Lisle’s first foray into the world of youth fantasy fiction and she jumps in with both feet and splashed me from head to toe!  Page one hooked me and Saturday was completely lost as I read the entire 368 pages in one sitting.  Food?  Who needs food?  Certainly not me or my kids.  Mom hung the do not disturb sign around her neck and parked it on the couch with the dogs curled up at her feet and totally submerged herself in the Night Worlds.

14-year old Genna is spunky and likable, her 12-year old brother Dan so reflects my 13-year old son that I laughed out loud and the Nightling Yarri was easy to love as she fought for her people’s freedom.  While written and marketed as youth fiction (ages 9-12) it easily kept this 35 year old mother captivated from beginning to end.  I happily recognized some of the snippets Lisle posted on her blog during the writing process which is kind of neat too.

As always her world is superbly created and well fleshed out.  Her villains range from hard to hate to tough to love and this adds to the overall realness of her world.  Even side characters are given enough personality that they are integral to the story and not simply fillers helping to increase word count.  The talking cat has such a huge personality I wonder if he could carry his own story in this series.

Speaking of series, it’s my understanding this is part of a trilogy but the story was wrapped up in such a way that you felt like you were finished and not left hanging.  But there were enough doors left open so that you were left looking forward to the next book in the series (The Silver Door).

All in all a fantastic read by an amazing author.  My only regret?  I finished it in one day and now have to wait until June for Hawkspar.  Thank goodness I already have it on preorder.

Do you want a free copy of The Ruby Key for yourself?  Just comment on this post with the reason I should pick you!  Enter by April 30th and I’ll announce a winner on June 1.  The book will ship directly from Amazon to you so make sure you are willing to give me your mailing address if you win.  Make sure you enter with a valid email address so I can contact you as well.  Good luck!

When Paul and I went to Sea World in San Antonio in 2006 our digital camera got fried at Shamu’s show.  We sat in the splash zone and man, we got wet.  Problem was so did our camera.  Digital camera + salt water = broken camera.

When Jen friend, girl child and I went to Sea World last week while visiting Texas I protected my camera well.  In fact when we went to see Shamu I sat by myself far way from the spash zone.

After the show, potty stop.  Cause Jen friend is 6 months pregnant and I drink a lot of water.

Good news!  The $600 digital camera survived Sea World.

Bad news!  My brand new $300 cell phone did not.

See, when I went to the bathroom it sort of…er…well…fell in the toilet.

Come to find out water damage voids the warranty.

I can still text.  Just no incoming or out going calls.  Is this or is this not the purpose of the cell phone.

So I’m looking for a new phone and I’ve come to the conclusion that Sea World and Electronic things simply do not mix.

Today we took a nice long drive in what’s called ‘open range’ country. It’s county roads that runs through private ranches. We were hoping to see fields of Bluebonnets but its just a little bit too early. We did see some amazingly beautiful stuff. Here are a few pictures, click to make bigger. The first is a Bluebonnet next to a stream we crossed.

Here is my girl child smelling one of the last blooming Mountain Laurels

Texas Longhorn:

Some other various beautiful shots from along our route.

It wasn’t all final until midnight last night but we did end up getting a flight.  With the refund from the original tickets it was actually just less than was originally paid.  That’s cool!

We’re in Hartford CT now and so is our car.  A bit of logistics to still work out as our return flight gets us into Albany and our car will be in Hartford.  I checked to see about changing reservations but that’s not gonna work, it’ll cost an extra $200 which is just not feasible right now.

Now that we’re here and happy (and man am I tired cause I was packing until 1 am and up at 6 am to start getting ready) we have to hurry up and wait.  Flight is not until 4 pm and it’s … oh … just 11:35.  I wanted to make sure we arrived in plenty of time.  GPS doesn’t tell you if there is an accident, heavy traffic or predict if you can’t follow its directions and get lost.  Don’t laugh.  I’ve done it.  Gotten lost while following my GPS instructions.

Anyway, we made excellent time and now have time to kill.  Internet access here is free so I’m going to set the girl child up with a movie from Netflix I think.  I’ve got a book to read and some text messages to send.

All is well.  You can all breath a sigh of relief.

So the girl child and I are supposed to leave for Texas tomorrow.  Problem though.  We’re booked on American Airlines.  Yeah - the one that just canceled 1000 flights.  We can get to Chicago but we can’t get from Chicago to San Antonio.  The plans were made through Travelocity and when I called them this evening they don’t have any flights with American available to get us to Texas.  They can cancel the flights and refund the money.  Sucks.

I checked everywhere for other flights tomorrow but they would cost over $1000.00 for the two of us.  *sigh*  Even moving our flights to Saturday would be over a grand.  And if we fly out on Monday it really isn’t worth it.  We are booked to come home on Wednesday.

So I’m waiting for a call back from my friend in Texas to see what we are going to do.  Sadly I think we may have to cancel.  That sucks.  I’d be able to start my training for my new job on time but it still really sucks.

I’ll update when I know more.  Cause I know you are all refreshing the page waiting to see what happens.  LOL

I’ve worked at MetLife for a year and a half now and honestly enjoyed every moment of it. For the first time in many years I not only like my job but the people I’m working with. Right now I work in telephone customer service, on the phone 7 hours per day taking inbound calls from customers who have a short term, long term or family medical leave claim with MetLife. While not a physical job it’s emotionally intense, requiring concentration, the ability to multi task and strong computer and communication skills. I take great pride in my job and ability to do it. Over the past year and a half I’ve won an incentive trip (out to wine country for the day), been invited to a gala to celebrate the successful roll out of a program I helped with, qualified for an overnight trip due to my high performance and gotten some pretty nice financial bonuses due to my performance in my job.

When I noticed a posting for a Short Term Disability Case Manager within the company I applied but debated if I really wanted the position. During my year end review with my supervisor I told her I had applied but it was more to get an idea of what that position entailed, I wasn’t really sure if I wanted it.

I ended up interviewing and be offered the position, which starts on April 14th. My acceptance was conditional on being able to take already planned vacation from April 14th through the 17th. They said it was fine.

Right up until I was offered the position I was unsure I was going to take it. My co-workers are valuable. Very valuable. In the end it was too good an offer - $3800.00/yr raise, a late night until 8 pm only once every few months rather than every week, the ability to work a 7 am to 3:30 pm schedule and the topping on the cake - after training and after 6 to 9 months of excellent performance I get the chance to work from home! That alone would save me close to $300.00 per month.

The people I work with now are sad and excited, same as me.

To wrap things up in my current position I’ve been doing a lot of overtime on a project I had been appointed to. This will be nice because I’ll leave here with a clean slate and I’ll have extra money in my next pay check to enjoy my upcoming vacation to Texas!

That’s right - the girl child and I are headed to Texas on April 10th. We are both very excited about it. It’s kind of a combination visit to to see my best friend (who happens to be pregnant! Yeah!) and to celebrate the girl child’s upcoming 13th birthday. Lots of cool things planned and hopefully I’ll come home with many pictures.

One day we’ll spend at the spa - the girl child’s first time, maybe one day four wheeling through Texas Bluebonnet country, perhaps a day at Sea World (this time I keep the camera dry!) and just overall spending quality time with people I love.

Back to the reports (I’m blogging at lunch from work) and I’ll try to report back after our vacation. Not planning on bringing my laptop cause I don’t want to lug it through the airport. The stupid thing is heavy.

Thanks to the Insane Writer for this fun meme.

BOOK MEME 123

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Got it - “The Dark Mirror” by Juliet Marillier. On page 123 now.

Find the first 5 sentences.
That’s done

Post the next 3 sentences.
“After a little, the chieftain Talorgen spoke once more. “Midsummer will be a test. The gods may show us whether the boy is worthy of the future we intend for him. There will be many claimants when the time comes. If we are certain Bridei is the one, we must plan for what comes next.”

Tag 5 people.
I don’t tag. If you’d like to do the meme just leave me a comment and I’ll come and visit.