Thanksgiving/black Friday

We had a great time Thanksgiving day. Tom's parents spent the day with us and we enjoyed having them over. It was quiet (well until they started talking about the US government bailing out the auto industry and then Tom got loud hehehe).

Jessica and Brittanie both had to work on black Friday. Jessica said her store wasn't that busy. But Brittanie works for JCPenney and she said it was HORRIBLE! She was 5 minutes early getting in the parking lot but punched in 10 minutes late. It took her that long to find a parking place! When she stepped out onto the sales floor she was stunned. She is very pessimistic, like Tom. But it was worse than she had even thought it would be. There were people everywhere. She also found that people are rude and inconsiderate to retail workers. She said people would pick up stuff and if they weren't going to buy it, they would just throw it anywhere making the sales floor a disaster everywhere you look. She went into the dressing room and it was wall to wall clothes. She started helping a coworker fold clothes that people tried on and weren't going to purchase. She said the coworker was sitting on the floor folding and the pile of clothes was so high that you couldn't see her in that pile. Well while she was folding, a woman asked Brittanie if she could clean out the dressing room so she could try on something. So Brittanie got up and went into the dressing room and found it 3 feet deep on all sides with clothes people tried on and just left in the dressing room, even though there are signs everywhere asking you to put clothes you don't want either hanging back on a rack or if it was folded, it goes in a basket, both of which are in the area in front of the dressing rooms. How hard is that? But not only did people not put the clothes back but they left the trash from their lunches all over the clothes so alot of new clothes got dirty. Brittanie was not happy! She had to ask the coworker who was folding clothes to help her clean out the dressing room. She said when the coworker opened the door, she said "Oh my God!" She couldn't believe it either.

Black Friday also brings out criminals. Brittanie had to work the register for an hour and a half and during that time 4 men came up seperately to return a black dress that they had purchased for their wife, girlfriend, or mom that didn't fit. By the 4th one, Brittanie was suspicious. She told the guy that her computer was messing up (it wasn't) and she had to call a manager. The guy got nervous and didn't want to "bother her because she had lots of customers waiting." But Brittanie had the dress in her hands and insisted. The manager came and Brittanie stepped aside and explained the situation to her so the manager took the dress to the back and ran the UPC and found that the dress was never purchased. So she checked Brittanie's other returns....the 3 other guys who had come up previously to return black dresses....and none of those dresses had been purchased either. So she called mall security and had that customer removed from the store. Brittanie's department is at the entrance to the mall and the other men who did it before him were out there waiting for him. When they saw him being lead away by mall security, they took off.

By the end of her 8 hour shift, she had cleaned up all the dressing rooms and the area in front of the dressing room, which was no small task. She said she felt accomplished but had to admit that when she first clocked in, she wanted to cry because just Wednesday night she spent her entire shift getting things looking great for black Friday. She closed that night and the store was closed on Thursday. So when black Friday started, the women's department, which was what she was responsible for, looked outstanding. But by the time she clocked in at noon on Friday, it was all tore up. She got off at 8 last night and when she left everything looked great. She was afraid of what she would encounter when she clocked in today. JCPenney takes care of their workers that day. They had McAlister's Deli cater food for everyone that worked. She said it was delicious and the JCPenney managers would check on everyone during the day and make sure they were ok. It is an extremely stressful day to work retail.

JCPenney is having another big sale today so they are preparing for round 2. I am sure it won't be anything like it was yesterday but this whole weekend is going to be rough!

Katie quoting scriptures

Katie came home today from school and started quoting scriptures so I grabbed the camcorder and started recording her. Check it out.

How ironic!

A step in the right direction

Day before yesterday Brittanie came to me and told me she doesn't want to do ROTC anymore. She said she just doesn't like it enough to devote 12 years of her life to it (4 in college and 8 after). I told her I was thrilled because it scared me to death that she would get deployed. Since being in ROTC was the only reason she went to USC Sumter in the first place, I asked Brittanie since she wasn't doing ROTC anymore, would she be interested in switching to Tech for spring semester. She jumped on that because since the wreck she has to pay for her own gas to make up for what that wreck is going to do to our insurance premiums. Going to Tech will save ALOT in gas and it is a good school. As it turns out, it also saves ALOT in tuition. USC Sumter is $3500 a semester and Tech is $1625. She has a scholarship of $2500 per semester. So we were looking at having to shell out $1000 out of pocket for the upcoming semester at USC Sumter just for tuition but she will have tuition, books, and fees paid for at Tech all by her scholarship...and even have money left over! So yesterday she applied to Tech. Last night, we were checking out Tech's website and came across this:

ROTC Programs for Midlands Technical College Students

Midlands Technical College has established Cross-Town Agreements with the Air Force, Navy and Army ROTC Programs at the University of South Carolina. Under these agreements, MTC students who meet established ROTC eligibility criteria will be able to participate in ROTC programs at USC while enrolled at Midlands Technical College. Accepted ROTC participants are also eligible to qualify for ROTC scholarships and earn ROTC academic credit at USC. ROTC credit could apply as college-wide free elective credit at MTC.

Students should contact the specific USC ROTC program directly for eligibility criteria, application and general information:

• USC Air Force ROTC (www.cas.sc.edu/aero/ )

• USC Army ROTC (www.cas.sc.edu/army/ )

• USC Navy ROTC (www.sc.edu/nrotc/ )

I was SOOOOO MAD when I saw this! This means that the ROTC guy at USC Columbia didn't know what he was talking about and she could have been going to Tech this whole time. If she would have gone to Tech she would have been living at home the whole time or at the very least in the dorm at USC (the Bridge program at Tech has an agreement with USC that Tech students can live in USC's dorms...no such agreement with USC Sumter) and the whole apartment nightmare would have never happened and she wouldn't have totaled her car on the way to Sumter either!!! I seriously wanted to punch that ROTC dude in the face when I read this.

But anyway, we submitted the application to Tech online and she takes her last final at USC Sumter on December 10th so as soon as they release her grades, she can print the unofficial transcript from the internet and take it to Tech and make late registration and start Tech on January 12th. She actually has friends that attend Tech so she won't feel so isolated. USC Sumter is a small school and most of the people who go there went to high school together so they have established cliques already and she is not a social butterfly to just go up and make friends. So she has no friends at USC Sumter. As long as she keeps at least a 3.0, she will be transferring to USC in Columbia for her sophomore year and the whole nightmare of her freshman year will be behind her! Making the 3.0 shouldn't be a problem because she has very good grades at USC Sumter and they are pretty comparable schools.

Old people "use the computer" game

This would be funny if one of the contestants wasn't just 3 years older than me. grrr

Did you see it?

I was watching Friends at Five today and looked up and saw Katie's picture on my TV screen! I uploaded the picture of Katie on Grandparent's Day to the WLTX.com site and today on Friends at Five Darci Strickland and Andrea Monck showed her picture! They said "This picture was uploaded by one of our viewers, HaveMercy2 and it is of 6-year-old Katie packed up and ready to go to spend the weekend at her grandparents' house, where I'm sure she was in charge!"

Here is the picture that I uploaded:

Katie's K5 school picture

Katie's school pictures are in and other than the fake smile, which is common to both of my girls, I love it! Jessica did her hair that morning and she is wearing the necklace Tom's parents gave her for Christmas last year. This picture was taken the day after her 6th birthday....Halloween day. This is what she looked like at school that day and if you scroll down to Halloween you will see how scary she looked that night. What a transformation!

It's all about priorities

This morning before Tom took Katie to school, Katie spotted some M&M's that Tom had on the dresser in our bedroom. She asked him if she could have them. He told her yes and put some in her hand. She looked down and started picking out all of the orange M&M's. Why? She hates Clemson so much that she isn't even willing to eat orange M&M's. It is all about priorities and she has hers right. She hates Clemson more than she loves candy! hahaha

Keeping it real at the trailer park

These people look familiar to me. Don't know if I saw them at the IGA in Gaston or were these people our neighbors in Gramercy, LA! haha

Busy weekend

We had quite a busy weekend around here....especially Tom. Friday, the new tires for my van were delivered from TireRack.com so Saturday morning, Tom took them to Kar Kare to have them mounted and balanced. He then took my van to Al's Car Wash in Cayce and had it fully detailed. They shampooed the carpets and seats and everything! It looks brand new again! Al's always does a great job. I had them do the same thing to my Jeep before we traded it in and the dealer told me they didn't need to clean it at all and that I added $300 to the value of my Jeep by having that detailing done. When Tom got home, he took the girls to see Madagascar 2. Brittanie wanted to take Katie to see it and Tom wanted to take Katie to see it, so they just all went together. I stayed home and typed. That night Brittanie and I ran to 5 Points and got a latte at Starbucks. When we got home, Brittanie asked Tom if she could paint her room this weekend because she will be working every weekend till the middle of January. So Tom and Brittanie headed to Lowe's and bought painting supplies.

This morning when Tom got up, he got Brittanie started rolling Kilz on the wall and then got her started painting. She rolled as high as she could reach and Tom did the parts she couldn't. Randy painted the trim. She is painting her room white and putting a Gamecock border up (like the one below). She has two windows in her room. The room in her apartment only had one window so she only has one valance. So we are going to order an additional valance and I found a Gamecock lightswitch plate on EGamecock.com so we are going to order that as well. She found black curtain panels at Wal-Mart that she is going to get as well. It is going to look great when she is done!

This afternoon, while we were all in the living room, Katie walked up to Tom and punched him in the arm and said "Bring it on, old man!" She held up her little fists and stood in a fighting stance. It was so cute! He laughed at her and she said it again "Bring it on, old man!" but a little bit more forceful, shaking her little fists. So they had a little play fight for awhile. It was so cute. She is just a little ball of personality!

The few the proud...the dancing Marines?

Our family has utmost respect for our soldiers, especially Marines because of all they go through in order to be Marines. One of my friends sent me this video of Marines having fun and I thought it was cute and showed them having fun so I wanted to share it. (The guy on the right looks like he may be in the "Don't ask, don't tell" program. hahaha)

The first change Obama makes....

The first change Obama makes is to Air Force One. Here is what it will look like when he is done.

GREAT news about the apartment

Last Friday Tom went to Brittanie's apartment complex and had a talk with the manager about breaking her lease. He told Tom that he will try to rent the apartment out for us and that would release us from the lease free and clear. But we still had to pay the rent for November and he didn't know if he could get someone in there as soon as December but felt confident that he would be able to rent it out by January. Sunday, Brittanie got all of her things out of her apartment (except her mop and broom because Courtney used Brittanie's mop and broom to clean up the disgusting mess that was left after the litterbox was gone so it ruined them). She went by Tuesday and turned in her keys and signed the paper stating that she would not be back, which allowed them to legally rent the apartment now. The woman she spoke with had a nasty attitude and told her there was a $350 fee to transfer the lease to someone else and that she was responsible for finding a replacement roommate.

Well yesterday Tom got a call from the complex manager telling him that they have rented the apartment and all they needed was Brittanie's keys because the guy was moving in today. Tom told him she had already dropped the keys off. The manager also told Tom he was waiving the $350 transfer fee. So it is official....the apartment nightmare is OVER. She is painting her old room here at home Saturday and wants to paint the bathroom so that she can use her Gamecock stuff in Katie's bathroom, which Katie is now sharing with Brittanie. She told me she NEVER wants to live anywhere that requires her to have a roommate ever again. I can't say that I blame her. When I was at Louisiana College, my roommate was so nasty that second semester I got a private room in the dorm because I just couldn't stand to live like that anymore. Pensacola Christian College took care of the roommate nightmare because they gave you a list of chores in your room and bathroom that had to be done daily and they inspected every morning to make sure it was done. And at the end of each semester, they had a white glove inspection where everything had to be DEEP cleaned. It was like being in the military. It was annoying but it avoided the roommate nightmare that Brittanie went through.

We are so happy to have this behind us! Now we just have to get through next semester and she will be a sophomore in Columbia. She tried to transfer to USC Columbia but found out that the reason she never got in Columbia in the first place is because they require 2 foreign language units and Brittanie barely passed Spanish in high school so she didn't want her GPA to go down by taking Spanish 2. Brittanie and I hate Spanish. My family is French so she wanted to take French but Swansea only offered Spanish. Anyway, the foreign language monkey is still on her back because she won't be allowed to transfer to Columbia until she gets one more foreign language credit. USC Sumter doesn't have French next semester so she would have to take Spanish to be able to transfer next year. So she is going to go see her advisor and see if she can take French in Columbia like she does ROTC. She wants to try to take as many classes as they will allow in Columbia and keep her trips to Sumter to a mimimum. But she is having difficulty scheduling an appointment with her advisor because her schedule is always full.

This has been a stressful semester and I'm amazed that her grades are as good as they are. If nothing changes in the next 3 weeks, she will be on the Dean's List. She has a B in ROTC (because of her PT scores) but A's in all of her other classes. I sure hope next year is stress free!

The most intelligent guy in America....the election aftermath

It's Katie!!

I showed this video to Katie and told her that this kid was just like her. She told me "I don't call you Lois!" So even she can't deny that she "mama"s me to death! hahaha

Our election from the Irish point of view.

I got this in my email today and it tickled me so I thought I would share:

An email from Ireland to all of their brethren in the States...a point to ponder despite your
political affiliation: 'We, in Ireland, can't figure out why you people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States.

On one side, you had a pants wearing female lawyer, married to another lawyer who can't seem to keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer, who goes to the wrong church, who is married to yet another lawyer, who doesn't even like the country her husband wants to run!

Now...On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate 'Mc' terminology, married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship! What in God's name are ya lads thinkin over in the colonies?

Oh well

My party lost the presidential election but it doesn't sting like it did when Clinton got elected the first and second time because I don't like McCain at all. In my opinion, he is just a Democrat that says he is Republican because he thought that is where the money for his campaigns comes from. Obama spent more because he had more so maybe he should have run on the Democratic ticket and let us have a decent candidate that had a shot at winning.

I work in the healthcare field and I hate to see what Obama's socialized medicine plan is going to do to us. Nothing is free. We will all pay the price for this one.

The only good thing about this is that when Obama's term is over, the Dems will have to shut up about Bush because I predict he will be a bigger disaster than Bush ever thought of being.

I was happy that Joe Wilson won his seat despite the smear campaign his opponent launched. Joe Wilson for president 2012!!!

Brittanie has a new car

After an exhausting week of researching and car shopping, Brittanie finally has a new car. Tom bought her a 2008 Hyundai Elantra from the same dealer he got his Genesis from. It is Regatta Blue. It is a very nice car and she loves it. She drove it last week and fell in love and has wanted it ever since. Tom did an enormous amount of research when looking for a new car for her and obviously safety was his top concern and this car has a very high safety rating. She is very happy. The sales lady who sold us the car told me I could post the pictures of the car from their website because they are coming down tomorrow anyway. So here are the pictures of her actual car that were on the website.She is very excited that she has XM radio now!

She has an auxillary jack for her Ipod.

Happy 6th birthday Katie!!!

Katie has had a 3 day celebration of her birthday. Thursday night, which was her actual birthday, we took her to Ruby Tuesdays (her pick) for dinner. Friday, we sent cupcakes, that Brittanie decorated, to school so the kids at school could celebrate with her.See Brittanie's airbag burn under her left eye? That picture was taken Thursday night. It was scabbed over but she pulled that scab off Friday. So she looks normal now.
Yesterday, we had a little family celebration for Katie's 6th birthday. There was a group effort on the cake as I baked it, Jessica put the frosting on, and Brittanie decorated it. Katie wanted a white cake with chocolate icing and hot pink trim.
Tom's brother, Jesse, and his wife, Melissa, and their beautiful baby, Leah, Tom's parents, Brittanie's boyfriend, Randy, and Jessica helped us celebrate. We had such a good time. She was very hard to buy for this year. Tom took her to Toys R Us to look around and get a feel for what she would like and all she wanted was stuffed puppies. We have enough stuffed animals in this house. Last week I showed her an RC airplane that she could fly and she was excited about that but it was rated for 10 year olds. Tom's dad gave us some advice on a beginner plane that we could get her for Christmas.But she did get great presents. Jonathan gave her a Nintendo DS and two games for her birthday before he left to go back to Germany. Brittanie gave her a Mario Kart game for her DS. Tom and I gave her a starter kit for her DS that has a red case with screen cleaner, screen protector, styluses, headphones, and lots of slots for games and will fit the actual DS in the case. We also bought her a Sonic and Mario at the Olympics game for her DS and a Skip It. Jessica bought her a Nintendogs Pug and a little kit with finger nail polishes and lip gloss. Jesse, Melissa, and Leah gave her an Old Navy outfit (pretty pink long sleeved shirt and denim skirt). Katie loved the shirt especially! Tom's parents gave her roller blades and a Disney Princess protective pack with a helmet, elbow pads, and knee pads. My mom (she mailed hers) and Randy (Brittanie's boyfriend) both gave her money.

We had such a good time playing with Leah, watching Katie on the skates, and watching the Gamecocks put a hurt on Tennessee! It was a really great day!

One of the most intelligent men in America!!