Friday, February 27, 2009

President Obama please stimulate me!

I got my pay stub today and was shocked to see that it was 1/2 of what it normally is. I work on straight commission (which I love, since I LOVE my job and have been the top "producer" in my group for at least the last 8 years. I had noticed that over the last few months I seemed to not be as busy as I used to be but really didn't think it would add up to my paycheck being half of it's normal. Right away I ask my manager to set down with me and go over my "numbers". She pulled my monthly numbers for all of '07, '08 and this year to date. And sure as shit starting about last year Sept. I've had a steady but slow decline of about 15 clients less per month. And for the current month of Feb. I'm only at half the amount of clients I had in Feb. of last year. I will start tracking individual clients now and see just who I'm not seeing.
I got a phone call from the surgeon's office yesterday saying that my health insurance wanted a 5 year date and weight. So I called my doctor and had it faxed over right away. This is the 4 week since my meeting with the surgeon and he said I should hear yea or nea withing about 4 weeks. Of course I'm thinking no news is bad news :((((
Our new puppy Lucy was spayed yesterday and she is doing fantastic. We actually had to put her in her crate this evening because she just wouldn't stop playing with one of the other dogs. The vet called today to remind us to keep her calm and NO playing even if she feels like it.
Anyway other than the money stuff, life is really going well. I'm SO ready for spring, please hurry up!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Thumbs up from the surgeon!

I was at the surgeons off for just over 3 hours yesterday afternoon. First I met with the Fellow (who also does some of the follow up plastic surgery), then the surgery nurse and FINALLY the surgeon. It was a great visit with all 3. They were impressed with the amount of knowledge I had about the whole process. :))))
So, now the surgeon will send a letter to my insurance company and then they'll call me to get it schedule. He thought I should hear from his nurse with in about 4 weeks and hopefully be on track to have the surgery no later than April. This of course makes me VERY happy, since this is what I've been working on for a long time.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Agnes interviews her exacutioner

So we have been thinking about adding yet another member to our family for several months now. So after hours online and talking to my "friends in the know" we narrowed our options down to a Standard Poodle. I contacted the AKC and was finally put in touch with local breeder. We did 3 interviews with the breeder (2 phone and 1 at her home) and it was time for a home visit at our home. Now, we had told the breeder about the 2 dogs we already have but that was all we told her about.
The dog we are looking at is a 6 month old extra large brown female named Lucy.
This past Sunday Lucy came over for her first visit with our WHOLE family. So in prepreation for the visit we brought Agnes in the house that morning and let her take a bath in the kids bathtub (she just loves it when we fill up the tub with warm water and let her swim). Usually for the first hour or so she's in the house she does some major pooping and then tapers off and is good for a few hours. She is actually diaper trained but she "puts out so much the diaper can't hold it all". So after her bath we put her in the "pet room" with a portable heater until she drys. Just has she's coming out of the tub Lucy shows up for her visit. It went fantastic with our other 2 dogs and the kids. We were all sitting at the kitchen table with the breeder facing the "pet room" and after about an hour the breeder happens to notice Agnes poking her bill thru the pet gate. Very calmly the breeder says "Now boys! You didn't mention that you have a duck . You do know that Standard Poodles are WATER RETRIEVERS????? Just how attached are you to that duck?" Then she sat there staring at us somewhat gasping. It was SO funny!
I told her that I had done my homework and had talked to 2 different large poodle owners who lived on farms and had had no issues with the Poodles getting along with every one. I felt that since Agnes is in no way afraid of the dogs and would not run from them under any circumstance (the dogs are retrievers not killers) we were up to trying it. So the breeder says " Well let the damn duck out and lets get this over with!"
So we opened the gate to the room and Agnes RAN over to Lucy and bit her on the nose. Lucy let out a small yelp and backed way off. Then Lucy laided down about 5 feet from Agnes and just couldn't stop staring at her. But never got close again. Agnes went over to the back door and pecked to go out. It was VERY funny and was all over with just like that. Before Lucy left we let her go out to the back yard for a potty break and she looked at Agnes (and the 2 chickens) but showed zero interest.
We bring Lucy home for good tonight. Keep us in your prayers!