Let me just preface this by stating one thing. I intensely dislike cookie dough. Intensely. To the point that I rarely, if ever, even eat chocolate chip cookies that are cooked because half the time, they aren't cooked quite enough to suit me. So when I saw Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough PopTarts at Target, I decided I'd give them a try. After all, they were $1.52 a box and frankly, my best friend loves cookie dough, so she'd eat the rest of them happily if I didn't like them.
I don't like my PopTarts toasted, so I just opened the package and dug in. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. They didn't have the nasty texture of cookie dough in the filling. There were plenty of chocolate chips and overall, I didn't get the normal taste of cookie dough either. It wasn't overly sweet. For me, the fact that I ate both PopTarts without giving them over to my best friend pretty much says it all. They were pretty good. Not something I'd want very often, but they were good.
Next flavor to try - Chocolate Banana Split. Those should prove to be interesting. ;)
I play a bunch of the different apps on Facebook. For example, I play Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, Demon Wars, School of Magic, Sorcerer of Darkness, Barn Buddy, Farm Town, Sweet Shop, Sea Garden, Lil Green Patch, and a few others. Games like Sweet Shop, Sea Garden, Lil Green Patch, and My FairyLand actually help you raise money for causes. However I have to be careful when playing the games. You see, Sweet Shop benefit's St. Jude's, which a friend of mine on Facebook is highly against.
She has a reason, of course. We all know St. Jude's treats children suffering from cancer and they state that they provide treatment regardless of ability to pay. Well, my friend's son had a fever of 106, and the closest hospital was St. Jude's. St Jude's found out my friend did not have insurance and refused to see her son. I mean really, come now. Don't advertise that you treat cancer patients regardless of ability to pay and insurance but then turn away a child with a life-threatening fever of 106 because they don't have insurance. It's not like they went in there asking for a fat burner pill. They went there for a legitimate medical reason! And were turned away!
Now I still support them for their cancer research but I can't help but wonder if there is more to my friend's story than what she told me about it.
About people when you work with them. For instance, I have a diabetic co-worker, I have a co-worker who I kid you not, smells like bacon all the time, and my boss takes diet pills. I knew I had a diabetic co-worker, and the bacon smelling one, but not about the diet pills. All righty then. To each their own. ;)
But I have to say, my boss did say she "dieted" for 13 years before finally giving up on getting those last few pounds off and started taking the pills. According her, she was as big as I am or bigger when she started dieting. And you wanna know how she lost most of her weight? She literally cut everything in half, ate one half and threw the other away. Yes, she threw it away.
She never gave up fast food or anything else, she just simply ate only half of what she would normally eat. And she started walking. So I said ok, we're going to try this. Come this payday, I'm going to get myself some decent walking shoes and get started. I wanted to start walking on June 1, but didn't have the money to get the good walking shoes, and also, I was sick.
Hopefully I can get down to those "last few stubborn pounds" and get rid of this weight.
Ok, one thing I have to say I do very much disagree with at my job is the complete and utter lack of clarification on policy and procedures. I mean really. It shouldn't be rocket science. I provide customer service for a company that provides cellular phones and service for those phones. But frankly, their lack of clarification is just irritating.
For example, during my training class we grilled the instructor - what do we do if we get a call from someone who works in our call center? Answer: It will never happen, but if it does, treat them like any other customer. What do we do if a friend calls in and gets us? Answer: Highly unlikely, but treat like any other customer. Family member? Same answer. We went over and over and over this for at least 45 minutes, giving every possible scenario we could thing of. Answer was ALWAYS the same.
So tonight a call comes in from someone who used to work for our call center. They do not work there anymore, have not since last year. I get the call, I handle it, they want to speak to someone to tell them how good I did. Fine. So they tell the supervisor that they still work for us, etc etc. Supervisor tells me I didn't do anything wrong, but then starts talking to MY supervisor and the ops manager about it. Now wait a minute here. If I didn't do anything wrong, why are you making a big deal out of it?
First off, I knew the person didn't work there anymore - because they said they work on a Mac computer at work. We use HP computers. They also told me things about the iPhone that are not true, among other things. So after work I asked MY boss about it. She said the person left us at the end of last year, but that for future reference, if it appears to be someone who might work for our call center, they need to hang up and call back to get a different call center. Fine. But I did mention to her that it would be nice to have the training classes be told that.
Frankly, I don't know the person, and I treated them exactly like I would have treated any other customer. I spent 2 hours on the phone with this person trying to fix their problem for them. Now I'm still not sure if I'll lose my job over it or not. When I go in tomorrow, I'm going to tell my boss I want full clarification. Did I do something wrong and if so, what will be done about it. I don't want to go in one day next week and be told that I'm no longer employed by my job.
I don't understand why it is that other women feel the need to be covered in makeup and have their hair done just so in order to look good. I hear all the time how women have "let themselves go" just because they don't put on makeup every single day, or they toss their hair back in a ponytail and leave it at that. I mean, yeah, I'd like to find a way to remove blackheads and all that, and I like to at very least have my hair brushed when I go somewhere, but I don't feel the need to put on makeup just to run to the grocery store.
I find that looking natural is the way to be, at least for me. I see so many women who don't need the makeup piling it on every day. Sure it adds "color" to your face, and nine times out of ten, colors that do not naturally belong on your face (really, PINK eyeshadow...um no). Seriously, if you are one of those women who feel they absolutely have to have makeup on, try going one day without it. You might just be surprised at how good you look.
Bring on the summer, a time when it is so much easier to just get out there and get moving! Taking walks is so much easier in the summer. Grab a bottle of water, put on some shorts, a tank or tshirt, a good pair of socks, a good pair of walking shoes, and grab your iPod/MP3 player and head out the door. Don't think about it, don't consider it, just go. Yes, that is just one of the reasons I love summer. I don't have to have fitness equipment during the summer, but it's great to have it during the winter. ;)
I plan on starting a walking regimen, most likely on Monday. It will be around the building at work Monday-Friday, and then around the neighborhood on Saturday and Sunday. I figure I'll start out by moving, then I will start working on cutting back on what I eat. My boss told me that I don't have to give up what I love eating, I just have to eat less of it. She was huge at one time, and said what she did was cut everything she ate in half and either threw away the other half or shared it with someone else and started walking. Let me tell you, we had a "walk Alorica" thing in March and my boss got 2nd place for most laps around the building. When it comes up next year, I want to participate, so I need to get training for it now.
I'll just bring my iPod to work with me, put my ear buds in and walk for 2-3 songs. I'll track how many laps I've made and see what it brings. Hopefully a thinner, healthier me.
When I went shopping for my current laptop, I admit that I did not actually do a lot of looking around. I went to one place, found one that was in my price range and had decent specs and purchased it. I did however have a few things I wanted. While I think netbooks are cool, I decided against one, as they're small. Some companies and stores actually call them "mini" laptops or "minis." The regular laptops are small enough without having to have an even smaller one! LOL
So I got the laptop I've got now. I think it works well for me, but a friend of mine is now looking at the netbooks and planning purchasing one, which of course, makes me want to check them out again. However, I'll probably do my shopping online and see what I can dig up, as I'll actually need to save up to get another computer. But I'm trying to decide if I want or need another computer. I have 2 desktops and the laptop as it is. :)
I was talking to a friend of mine who still works at the hospital I used to work for. I guess there have been all kinds of cutbacks, including discontinuing the matching contribution for the 403(b) plans (like 401(k) but for non-profit organizations). She said she figures next they'll be asking the employees to pay the full premiums for their health insurance or their term life insurance. She's technically old enough to retire, but my friend can't retire because she can't afford to. :(
That's happening to a lot of older people now. They can't afford to retire because their 401(k), 403(b), or pension plans have been eradicated by their employers and Social Security just won't be enough. It makes me going to RedBox and renting movies with a promo code to get free rentals look like I'm just being petty in comparison. But really, I think the ones who are being petty are the businesses that are cutting off their retirement plans and causing people to literally have to work until they die. I understand the economy is in a recession, but come on people...picking on the elderly?
I'm a blog reader. I love blogs. I'll read just about any blog you put in front of me, unless of course, it's about a specific subject that I'm not interested in. You know, things like a nuphedra review, or something like that wouldn't hold my interest very long. But personal blogs? I adore them. I'll read personal blogs all day long.
There are some blogs I read that are just recaps of twitter activity. Some give tips and tricks on better blogging. Some tell you how to use social media such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc to your advantage. And some blogs are just what is going on in the life of the blogger. Other blogs are book review blogs. I'm a book reader too. ;)
So what do you read? Blogs? Books? Magazines? All three?
In this economy, we hear a lot about things like debt consolidation. But you have to be so careful when you're dealing with that kind of thing. You have to know where your debt consolidation is coming from. If you don't believe me, then read this story carefully - it's a true story. It happened to one of my friend's and her husband.
My friend and her husband obtained a debt consolidation loan through one of the umpteen services that showed up at the beginning of this century. They had about $650 a month automatically debited from their checking account, which was then broken down by the company and filtered out to the various bills on the consolidation loan. This worked beautifully until about 2003. Then the whole thing went to pot.
Friend's husband is in the military. He went overseas and she went home to Iowa. While in Iowa, she noticed her monthly amount of money was bigger, but attributed it to hazard and seperation pay for her hubby being overseas, and so did her hubby. They couldn't have been more wrong. You see, they asked me to check the mail at their house in Texas. So I did. And I started noticing statements coming from credit cards I knew were in that consolidation. I kept telling friend that she was getting that stuff, but friend didn't listen. Then I finally opened one of them and read it to her. That's when she found out.
The feds had shut down the debt consolidation service she had used. None of those bills were getting paid anymore. In fact, the service hadn't even been able to inform customers they'd been shut down. Friend found out when she went to the website and there was a message there about it. They ended up in bankruptcy because they just couldn't pull themselves back up.
So please, if you go the debt consolidation route, make sure you know where your loan is coming from.
