I hate Comcast

Comcast is the Devil!! I hate them. I know that is a strong word but it is very true in this case. They suck. Let me give a few examples of how they suck.

1. When we first moved to Southaven we ordered the triple play package which included cable, internet, and phone service. We thought the price of $176 was pretty good for all three. Well about 3 months later the price went up to $181. OK not much difference there. BTW this was after it took them over 2 weeks to come hook up our cable. This was during the SEC basketball tournament. I missed the SEC basketball tournament in 2008 because of stupid comcast. The relationship did NOT start well.

2. March 2009-We get our bill. It is well over $200. There is some stupid "change of service" charge on the bill. I call Comcast to complain and get it fixed. I get the whole I'm sorry speech, we will fix it right away. You can pay this amount and that will take care of it. Me-"Can I just go ahead and pay over the phone right now? The Devil-"Sure!! I'll be glad to take your money!" Bill paid by phone.

3. April 2009-We get our bill. It is well over $225. There is a $5 conveniencefee plus another $25 dollar charge added on. I call Satan's team back again. Same speech, different month. We're so sorry, it looks like they added on instead of taking off. And the convenience fee is for paying your bill over the phone. Me-"WHAT!?!?!?" NO ONE MENTIONED THIS FEE TO ME!!!" The Devil-"We will take care of this, don't worry" Me-"Oh I'm worried!"
Bill paid by mail.

4. May 2009-We get our bill. It is well over $250. Same story. Same drill. Except this time I am livid!! I call and completely lash out at the customer service rep who got a little bitchy back to me. I asked to be transferred to a manager. He hung up on me. OK, that does it. I call back, speak to a manager. She assures me she will straighten everything out. I don't believe her. I tell her I don't believe you. She gives me her name and direct phone number. I pay the bill at the local Comcast office. I ask them to pull up my account. She had straightened it out. I still really don't believe it. Bill paid at local office.

5. June 2009-We buy an HD Tivo, get rid of the stupid DVR boxes Comcast gave us. I call comcast to set up a service call for someone to install a "card" in our HD Tivo. The Devil- "Tivo doesn't work with Comcast" Me-"Yes it does." "My neighbor has it." The Devil-"No, Tivo is something that only works with satellite." Me-"NO, Tivo is a brand of DVR. They were the first DVR. I know. You don't." The Devil-"Hold on a minute." 5 minute hold time. "Oh, ok, seems like it does work" Me- "I know." This happened about 3 more times. We got our card on Thursday. Everytime any of us hears the little Tivo ding noises we fall down and worship the Tivo.

I hope someone files a class action lawsuit against Comcast for illegal billing practices and such. I will be right there on that bandwagon. I will take the time and write a letter, send an email, go in person, whatever it takes. Someone needs to put an end to them. We need another cable company in the Memphis area.

I HATE COMCAST!!
Rant over.

Braces!

This is the before picture in the van on the way to the orthodontist's office. Here is the after pic in the van on the way to meet Dean for lunch.

Carlyn selected Maroon and White colored bands for her brackets. And no, I did not tell her to do this. I left it all up to her.

She says they don't hurt at all. Hopefully she will be saying that tonight too.

By the way, I should have gone into orthodontics....the assistant put on the brackets, wires and bands. The doctor came over for about 3 minutes and looked at everything and said....'good job". He was on the computer for the rest of the time we were there.

Our next appt. is May 12th. We shall see how much she has changed then.

Birthday Card by Noelle

One of Noelle's little friends across the street had a birthday on Saturday. Noelle wanted to make him a card. Here is what the first draft said.....

Happy Birthday Kevin,
You are a little mean but it's probably because you live with so many girls.
Love,
Noelle

Needless to say, that draft got tossed!

She also wrote a thank you note to Aunt Nita(she sent Noelle some happies and an Elvis postcard):

Dear Aunt Nita,
I don't want to hurt your feelings but I don't like Elvis.
Love,
Noelle

That draft got tossed as well!

Gotta love her!

Happy Birthday Chicken!

I wish I could be with my sis today! Happy Birthday Cin! I love you!

Facebook is a timesuck! (compliments to Cass)

I have not blogged in forever because I have been on Facebook reconnecting with practically everyone I have ever met in my life. That takes time! 2009 has been a busy year so far. I have started working a prn job. I wish it was part-time or full-time because I love doing what I am doing. I teach MS patients (that's multiple sclerosis, not Mississippi) how to give self injections of a particular medication. I love teaching!





Carlyn turned the big 1-2! We had a few of her friends over for pizza (and almost bowling). She is of legal babysitting age and can no longer eat off the kid's menu.A few weekends ago, Ann Wyndham and Rob came to spend the night with us. Rob was preaching and Ann was singing at a church in Coldwater, MS and it worked out perfectly for them to come stay with us. We also invited JB, Myra and kids over for dinner Saturday night. Yes, I cooked....don't pass out! It was the best night. JB's kids and my kids got along great! In fact, they are begging to get back together again. We are working on that! We were missing some friends though. Mickey and Beckyanne are a little busy right now. Little Sam will be here tomorrow!! I am praying constantly for a perfect delivery for them.

Claire and Noelle playing in the bathroom
Collin on the Stairs (spitting image of his dad)

The Indianola 'kids'

The whole group (Dean, Sandra, Ann, Rob, Myra and JB)

Noelle had a music program at her school for Grandparent's Day last Friday. Granny and Granddaddy came up and went to the program. She said it was "the best day of her life". She has a lot of those!

Well, I have kinda caught up on everything. We are waiting on soccer to start. I am dreading my birthday in 9 days. Man, how things change! When you are younger your birthday can't come soon enough. The big 4-0. YUCK!!

What's going on?

It has been a long, long time since I posted anything here. I have been a little busy I guess. I have been working some flu clinics which I really enjoy and I hate that they are ending soon. I have been to Olive Branch, Southaven, Starkville, Oxford, and will be going to Germantown and Memphis next week. I am really going to have to find something part time in nursing. I just don't want any old job though. I don't really want to work for Maxim next year though. They do not pay well enough. There are plenty of other nurse staffing agencies out there. I just have to find a good one.

Molly had her surgery last week and is recovering well. She was spayed and declawed.

The girls are really busy with school and both have projects coming up soon. They both have Reading Fair and Carlyn has to make a biome. I am tired of school projects. We just got finished with a bug collection. Noelle has 2 more soccer games and she is done for the year. Carlyn finished in mid October.

Dean has been busy at work as well. He is going to Nashville the weekend before Thanksgiving to go to a Titans game with his old college roommate, Tim. They are staying with Courtland Finnigan (starting free safety for the Titans). Tim used to coach him in high school so he asked Tim to come stay with him and bring a friend to go to the game. Needless to say, I am green with envy!

The girls and I joined Cindy and Cass and Granny and Grandaddy in Starkville for the Kentucky game. It was fun despite the final score.

I have not done any Christmas shopping yet. I probably will wait to the last minute again. We are going to make a trip to Nashville in December to see the Christmas decorations at the Opryland Hotel. There is an outlet mall less than a mile from our hotel.

I wish I could say things will slow down soon but you know how the holiday season is!

First win of the season!

The pink panthers had their first win yesterday! They beat the #1 team in the league 2-1. Our record is now 1-2-2. Carlyn had an assist on the first goal. Go pink panthers!

Didn't see that one coming...

I love Clay Aiken, but come on. We've known this for 6 years!! Must be a slow week at People.

Ever heard of...

Today I called Maxim Healthcare in Memphis to try and schedule some flu clinics to work in October and November. This is part of the "make your own work schedule" that Dean and I are trying for me so that I can be here when the girls are here.
I went to a training session in August at Maxim Healthcare and they called this week to schedule me. I was talking to the staffing person at Maxim and she says "Have you ever heard of Starkville, MS? We have a few flu clinics there in October." I said, "Why yes, I've heard of Starkville. I lived there for 18 years!" I am hoping to work at least one of them so I can go to Strange Brew and get an iced mocha. Lordy, I miss those! I've got to figure out if it is worth the travel. At least they pay milage.
Then she says, "Well, I know you've never heard of this town....Indianola, MS." Imagine her surprise that I lived there for 18+ years too! I think she was excited to know someone had actually heard of these places! The clinics are from 10:00am to 2:00pm. That would put me home after 4:00pm. I am not sure if I can work these or not. The girls get off the bus at around 4:00pm.
I may have to stay in the North MS area for now. Stay tuned. I'll let you know how it turns out.

By the way, there are several clinics in Oxford too. Should I put on a brave face and march into he**? Good question.

Kitty ER

I have been letting Molly out at night to chase bugs, etc... Last Thursday night I went out to get her and couldn't find her anywhere. I even had the treats out to try to entice her. I gave up after about 20 minutes of looking and came inside. Then I heard meowing at the door so I let her in. She was limping. I was kind of concerned and noticed a drop of blood on her shoulder. No big deal I thought. I picked her up and looked at her abdomen. LOTS of blood there. Being a nurse, I started to investigate further. She had several punture wounds, mild abrasions and one huge 2 inch laceration. This was 10:30pm. There is no 24 hour kitty ER that I know of so it would have to wait until tomorrow. I cleaned the wounds as best as I could and put her to bed.

Friday morning I woke up and went into the kitchen to fix my coffee. No meowing from Molly. This is unusual. She usually meows as soon as she hears me in the kitchen. My heart dropped. I went to her room and opened the door. She was still laying in her bed. As soon as I opened the door she stood up and stretched. Thank goodness!

I called the vet and took her in at 8:00am. (Carlyn even rode the bus that morning so I could take Molly in ASAP) The vet was GREAT. I asked if he was a Mississippi State guy. His response was "Is there any other school?" I thought, "you are the vet for me!" He shaved Molly's abdomen and looked her over and decided he needed to suture that large laceration. I picked her up after lunch and she did great. She is on clindamycin and has already licked 2 of her stitches out but the wounds look good.

I think one of the tom cats next door got her. He really tore her up. Now I won't let her out of my sight when we are outside. I hate that she can't go out on her own anymore. But I am scared of what that animal might do to her next. I can't afford too many vet bills or losing my Molly Mac.

Lemonade anyone?

Yesterday morning and afternoon the neighborhood kids had a lemonade stand in the cul de sac in front of our house. They had a ball and were occupied pretty much the entire day. They had several customers (mostly parents and neighbors) and made about $12. Of course with 5 of them working the cut turned out to be about $2.50 a piece. Well, it kept them happy anyway. They are already talking about having one next weekend. Fine with me!

6th grade

This was the first year I started to get kind of boy crazy. There was all the "who likes who" drama going on and everybody wrote those notes:

Do you like me? Circle yes or no.


This was also the time that all my friends were starting to wear bras and starting to develop into teenagers. I was not one of the first ones. I was somewhere in the middle. All of us girls talked about who was wearing a bra. All of the boys would go around and pop the bra of any girl who was wearing one.

Sixth grade was still considered elementary school back in 1980. We were the top of the elementary school. The big dogs of IA elementary. On May Day (IA's end of the year celebration) the sixth graders got to crown the May Queen and dance around the May Pole. We had a sixth grade chorus and even performed our own musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (I was the Little Red-Headed Girl).

We would listen to Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown on Sunday afternoons and have our tape recorder on hand just in case we heard a song we liked. When a good song came on we would hit record and hold the tape recorder up to the stereo to record the song.

Sometimes on Sunday afternoons in the fall, the boys would all get together and play football in the vacant lot by the Fletcher's house (Josh Fletcher, Ann Wyndham's cousin). A lot of the girls would go over there to watch the game. We were the "cheerleaders".

I also remember wearing yellow ribbons for the hostages in Iran. I remember wearing those barrettes that you braided a ribbon into. Shoelaces with designs on them. Velour sweat suits. We played Pac Man and Donkey Kong when we went to RollerWorld in Greenville. We played tennis on the Commodore 64 at home. We listened to Leif Garrett and had posters of Sean Cassidy.

Fast forward 28 years. I have a daughter in the 6th grade. Oh. My. Gosh!

She is in Middle School.
She has her own locker.
She switches classes (7 periods a day).
She wants a cellphone.
She wants to go to the tanning bed.
She wants to get highlights in her hair.
She wants her ears pierced. (Thank goodness it's only ears!)
She probably needs to wear a bra. (I am trying to hold out on this one!!)
She downloads music from the Internet.
She is crazy about the Jonas Brothers.
She has posters of teen stars all over her walls.

How did I get here so fast?? Wasn't it yesterday that I was in 6th grade??

One week and 5 days...

That's how much summer we have left. The girls start back to school on August 7th. Don't you think that is a little early? I remember starting around August 16th and getting out around May 19th. What ever happened to that school year?

Also, why must we have "early" and "late" schools? Early schools start around 7:20am and late schools after 8:00am. Thank goodness we are a "late" school. Carlyn starts at 8:15am and Noelle at 8:30am. What ever happened to 8:00-3:00? We all went to school that way and did fine I might add. Why do we have to change things that work? I don't get it.
So I drop Carlyn off at 8:15 and yell "See you at 3:35." I drop Noelle off at 8:30 and yell "See you at 3:15." It just doesn't sound right to me.

Does this mean I am getting old and set in my ways?

The 'guest" in our garage

Dean and I were outside tonight trying to clean out and straighten up the garage. I had the shop-vac out vacuuming up spider webs and dead bugs. Dean was moving boxes around and called out to me to come look. This is what I saw:

That's right a black widow! Making herself at home in our garage. Getting ready to have many, many more black widow babies!

This is a shot right before Dean squashed her and her eggsack. Her web was very sticky and hard to get off the wall.

I just hope she didn't have any friends shacking up with her!

Starkville calls

Carlyn is headed to Starkville this afternoon to spend a few nights with one of her friends. She is so excited! If I offered her $1000 to stay in Southaven this week I don't think she would take it. She and Cat are going to swim at the country club, be creative at Dandy Doodlez, and catch a movie at the Hollywood Premiere Cinema. We are meeting in Tupelo at the mall.

Noelle is sad that she will have no one to play with. I am happy that she will have no one to argue with.

In other news, I have an interview with Olive Branch Intermediate School on Thursday for a school nurse position. I am very excited about this job and would love to get it. I am going to put on some major charm during this interview! The position is a nine month position so it is perfect for me and the girls. We would be on the same schedule.

Mom is coming on Wednesday to stay with the girls (now one girl) during my interview. She was going to take them both back to Grenada with her on Thursday but now it will be just Noelle. We are having a 4th of July get together in Grenada with Mom and Dad and Dean's family. (Cin, you know you want to come!)

I guess there is nothing else exciting happening. I hope Carlyn won't chain herself to a tree in Starkville so she can stay there. We are supposed to pick her up on Thursday. We'll see how that goes.

Happy Birthday.....

to Camden Noelle Patterson. She was born 7 years ago today at 2:07pm. Tomorrow night we are going to see Cats at the Orpheum to celebrate! (Noelle loves Cats)

She's still my baby, I don't care how old she gets!

Heaven on Earth

Enough said.

Good Golly....

Meet Molly!

Molly is the newest addition to the Patterson household. We got her on May 22 from our old neighbors in Starkville. For those of you who know she is Sparx's baby and Fiesty's niece. Sparx was the siamese looking cat with no tail. Molly does not have a tail either. She is very playful and has given me and the girls plenty of scratches all over. She is not as innocent as she looks in these pictures. We are glad we got her. She is keeping us entertained!

Sock Hop

Carlyn's 5th grade class celebrated their promotion to 6th grade with a sock hop last Friday. All the kids (and teachers) dressed up in 50's costumes and danced to 50's music, drank coke floats, hula hooped and cake walked. It was fun to watch all the kids having such a great time. Carlyn and her "date", Logan

Doing the Twist. Carlyn's teacher is on the right in the blue poodle skirt

Carlyn and a few of her classmates
Carlyn and a former classmate (she has moved to Hollywood and appeared in several commercials and movies)

DeSoto Central Elementary makes a big deal about 5th grade promotion because it is their last class in elementary school. 6th grade is in the Middle School. The promotion ceremony was held this past Tuesday. They also had a cookout on Monday. This has been a busy week! More posts to come on that!

Weekend in the Country

This past weekend was Memorial Day at Gore Springs United Methodist Church. My mother's family always gets together on this weekend and goes to church together where they grew up. We also get to spend some time with each other. We were out of Grenada at the site where my grandmother and grandfather lived with their 5 girls. My mom and dad have put a trailer where the house used to be (it burned a few years ago). The kids have a ball out here because they can play in the dirt, build forts in the woods, and swing across a small creek. Here are several pictures from the weekend. We all had a good time (except for the occasional allergy attacks!)

Noelle and Jett climbing on a dirt pile. (Notice Noelle's motherly instinct)

Bobby riding Stone on the 4-wheeler.

Uncle Bob riding 2 more monkeys on the 4-wheeler. (The monkeys in this picture are Carlyn and Noelle)

This is the rope swing across the creek that everybody loved. Stone really wants to go. "My do it!!"

Kate taking her turn.

Uncle Elwood, Jett, and "Uncle Dean" walking back from the swing.

Jett playing with "Uncle Dean" on the dirt pile.

Even Aunt Carole got in on the swingin'!

Had to get the close up shot of this!

Stone's not scared!

Corbin's turn!

And DD!

The peanut gallery.

DD got Noelle!

Climbing (or sliding) down into the creek.

In the backyard, lots of things to do...digging, playing horseshoes, playing in the airstream...etc...
Jett, Corbin, and Stone....planting....watermelons?
Kate and Michael pose for the crazy cousin with the camera.

DD, Stone, Carlyn, Carole, Dean and Noelle at the swing.

It was a fun day and great to see everyone.