Discrimination?

I am pretty irritated right now. I am going to have to vent a little and if I am off base with this then I am sure someone will let me know:)

I was alerted to a new water park opening up in my area. I was informed that they were having a reading program that you could sign your kids up for and they would receive a voucher to get into the park for free.

So I signed up. I filled out their on-line form one for each of my kids. The form asked for our school name. I listed ours as home school. Funny that I had a feeling this was going to be a problem.

I waited and waited and never received anything. Until about a month ago .

I received an email from this water park saying that they had such a great response to their reading program and the vouchers had been mailed out and had to be used by the 3rd of July.

We had not received our vouchers, assuming this was an error, I sent them an email, in response to their email letting them know we had not received our vouchers.

Their response was that they were going to check into it. That was two weeks ago. I just sent them another email and they responded with this email:

We have no record that you signed up. Do you have a copy of what you sent?

That's it. No Dear Mrs. Jones. No signed Mr. Sneedly. Nothing. Just do you have proof that you signed up.

Okay seriously, this is ridiculous. First off they got my email address when I signed up! They sent me an email saying that the vouchers had been sent out! Could they not track that down? Also what is the big deal? Is this really worth losing potential customers? And if you are going to respond to my email at least have the decency to put your name on it so I can respond to a person!!!

I kindly wrote them back, noting some of these facts, as well as asking them if my kids did not receive their vouchers because they were not part of a traditional school, but a home school.

It will be interesting to see how they resolve this. I will be sure to release the water parks name as soon as it is resolved.

Kristen

Won't You Be My Neighbor

Sorry folks this is going to be long.

Had a bad dog/kid/ neighbor experience this week, but was still too upset to write about it until today. Thanks, Joni for helping me to be able to laugh at it all a little.

So Jazzy is a great dog. We lover her very much. She is great with the kids, low maintenance, very protective of her house, super gentle with people that come over. She is a good dog. But she really, really, really loves to run. And be chased.

When we first moved here we had the kids taking her out on a leash because of our lack of a fence. She is pretty smart though, and realized that if Kylee took her out she could give one good yank and be out of here. This caused numerous problems but the biggest was with my dog HATING neighbor. We quickly put up a fence to avoid anymore problems but that also irritated my neighbor.

After the fence a whole new problem came about. We had to somehow teach the kids that if they were going to go out the front door the dog had to be in the yard. So the fence did cut down the running away, but it has not eliminated it.

(This is where any of you who train dogs, and would like to chime in and help a girl out, should feel free.)

So Jazzy runs away a couple times a year. Also, I have to say here that she doesn't love the cold so living here is to my advantage because as long as there is snow on the ground she pretty much stays home where it is warm.

But it is spring now.

So last week Joshi was outside riding his bike with his brother and sisters. And as the good mother that I am I had no idea that they were riding bikes out front. I did know they were outside. I also didn't know that my neighbor had just had her drive way seal coated. I am in the house Josh opens the door the wind blows the door all the way open and out goes Jaz. I run out right after her, but she is gone! I mean gone. Then I hear the yelling.

I look over and there is my neighbor. Yelling at me. Yes, yelling. She is very angry and shouting something about my son, and how he ran his bike over her newly seal coated driveway. Oh my gosh. Of all the things. Of all the people. I look at Josh, who is standing by his bike and say, "Joshi we told you not to go in OTHER people's drive ways." Okay really, we have just told him not to go in her drive way.

But she is not appeased. Joshi is saying something about how he didn't drive in her driveway and she is screaming that he did and she saw him. And she is very upset because his bike got some tar on her bricks that line her drive way.

I apologized. But she just continued on, then got on her cell phone and began yelling at who ever is on the phone about the damage.

Meanwhile, I am upset and really mad at the dog. That is when she says it. "I really hope your dog doesn't come back and run all over my driveway too!"

Okay I can't remain calm any more. I was nice. I said I was sorry. At this point I was afraid to go over there because I didn't know if I could maintain my Christ-follower attitude. So I walked in the house to get my keys to go and look for the dog.

When I walked in I heard my very angry neighbor speed away in her car. I walked back out and went to look at the damage. Okay folks, here is what happened. Joshi was riding down the sidewalk and being a five year old on two wheels probably lost control right around the corner of my neighbors driveway and swerved a little. There was, literally, a twelve inch tire mark on her driveway. A tiny bit of tar on the brick.

I was pretty mad at this point. This is where I would like to stop and apologize to some of my unfortunate friends who happened to call during this time. Terri, Mike, Paula, I would like to say I am sorry for the things I said.

Okay, I feel better.

So I got in the car and drove around looking for Jaz. After two rounds of the neighborhood, and my friend up the street deciding she was going to go and look too, here comes Jaz up the street on a leash with Seth and some little girls.

Seth had found her three entire neighborhoods over and these girls had helped him get her on a leash and walk her home.

I have to say the hardest part had to be the kids witnessing the whole thing and me maintaining composure and teaching through it. I just kept telling them that we needed to be kind to this lady and understand that she must have a lot of unhappiness in her life to get so upset. We talked about loving our neighbors, even the ones who hate us. This was all very hard especially when I was so upset that day, but I also know that the kids pick up on my anger and would mimic it if I wasn't careful.

Mike came home and saw the "damage" and waited for the husband to come home. He has always been very reasonable.

And he was this time too. We offered to have the "damage" fixed and he assured us that the problem was not our tire mark but the bad job the seal coating company had done.

So, she was mad about the lame job the seal coaters had done and not so much about the Joshi mark. But decided to take out her anger on me and my son.

Oh, and one more thing I am also sorry that I hoped for it to rain that night. Which it did.

Kristen

Hair Dresser

I have the coolest hair dresser! She totally rocks. Not only is she completely and totally talented but she is a blast to be around.

I went yesterday to get my hair cut. She actually works in a nice salon, but does my hair out of her home on her days she is not at the salon. Paula has been having her do her hair for years and is the one who set us up.

Anyways, yesterday while she was doing my hair we were having fun and I realized that Paula and her and I need to go out and have a night out together. So I asked her to join us for some girl time and she said she would love it.

All was going fine until I was driving home and realized the implications of this.

Now follow me here. I started to think about going out and then realized that I would have to make my hair look like it does when she does it. What if I can't make it look the way she does, or I am having a bad hair day? Would she be disappointed in me if it didn't look as good as when she does it?

I mean, really, when do you ever see your hair dresser out in public? When I go see her it is usually way over do and it is up in a pony tail.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I think about.

When I tried to explain it to Mike he just looked at me with a blank expression. What does he know though, he's bald and I am his hairdresser!!

So the question is.... am I the only one who thinks this way?

Kristen

Could It Get Worse?

Mike and I got up bright and early, grabbed our gym shoes and I grabbed my charged mp3 player and headed for the gym.

Got there, gorgeous day out by the way, put on my shoes and jumped on my treadmill.

Turned my mp3 player on....

Turned my mp3 player on....

Oh man, it won't turn on!! It chose today to die. It is only a year old. Batteries charged, it just decided it had had enough.

So I got to listen to Married with Children with "old sitcom lady" today. A few minutes into it I just put the sound proof earplugs in and listened to my heart beat.

I did my 45 minutes and figured God wanted me to be quiet for a while.

I came to that AFTER I got over my rage.

AFTER I almost chucked the stupid little electronic thing out the paneled window.

And AFTER I put the ear plugs in my ears to block out the nonsense.

Aside from all that I feel so good. I have a ton more energy and I have even been eating breakfast. Okay, it was just some fruit, but I am eating something which is a huge thing for me, since I am not a breakfast girl. And my jeans are fitting not so snug, so I am happy.

Kristen

Moping

This is lame. I know it isn't right to feel this intense jealousy, but I do.

Mike is at Wicked right now. As I write Mike is seeing the play I've wanted to see since it came out.

It's kind of like me going to see.....Dokken and leaving him home to take care of the children. And I choose Dokken for it's significance. I don't like Dokken at all. I never have and never will appreciate it or want to spend time listening to them. That has always been Mike's opinion of musicals, plays, or theater of any kind. Did I mention I was a humanities/art history major in college?

Yes, I know he didn't chose not to take me with him but it still sucks.

And yes, I am moping.

And yes, I need to get over it and move on.

And I will.

Tomorrow.

Kristen

Sports Insanity

This weekend I went on the mission of trying to look into spring sports. I have to admit i hate this task. I have a hard time paying for and planning for a sport that won't start until May.

Both Kylee and Seth played baseball/softball last year and want to play again. The problem is that we played in a weird league last year, although very good and very reasonably priced, it was also pretty far from our home and with two practices a week and two games a week it was just too much driving for me, and that was before Saturday services started!! i don't think I could do it on my own.

So I looked into some leagues closer to home and I was blown away! What are they thinking? The prices to participate are just out of this world. When did children's sports become a big money making venture? Now I am sure that there are costs involved and I don't mind paying my part but these prices seem ridiculous.

Example- one local league's fees went like this-

100 dollars for Seth to play, 110 dollars for Kylee to play and 180 dollar fund raising/family fee. Apparently if you sell your allotted raffle tickets before the first game you make the 100 dollars back. RRRRight. I can't even tell you how much I am not going to be selling raffle tickets!

This doesn't seem okay to me. What in the world is all this money going towards? They aren't paying the coaches, oh don't even get me started again on the 50 dollar coach gift that is expected of each parent at the end of the season, and the t-shirts couldn't be that much....Are the fields that expensive to maintain and don't our city taxes pay for anything?

That is just too much for a little kid to play a sport. Even if I had 400 dollars laying around I wouldn't pay for this. It just doesn't seem right.

Oh, and the league that is actually in our town is just as expensive, but you have to know someone to get into it. They have such a high demand to be on their league that they don't except mail-in or internet registration. Yeah they expect the parents to line up at some awful hour in the morning, outside because they don't open until later, but if you don't line up early your sweet-ums will not get a place on their precious team. Have I mentioned how cold it is here? Who is doing this?????

So as much as I would love the kids to participate in the team sports this spring unless someone has another alternative for me it isn't going to happen.

Kristen

Group Gifts

Okay I have really been struggling with something for the last couple of days. Here it goes.

Seth and Kylee are about done with their baseball/softball for the year.

And they have had a really great time.

And both of them have had really great coaches.

Okay.

Well a mom from Kylee's team came up to us a week or so ago and said she was collecting money for a group gift for the coach.

Okay, I am still good to this point.

Then she said she was thinking 20 dollars per parent would be good!

This is where she lost me. I was kind of in shock. Now maybe I am behind the times but 20 dollars per kid and their are 14 kids on the team. That just seems excessive. Am I wrong here? Don't get me wrong I appreciate the coaches and think they did a great job. Seth's team is also collecting. But they are asking for 3-5 dollars per parent. That is totally reasonable.

Am I wrong here?

TISNF!!!!!

Is anyone else just completely tired of all the commercials on right now featuring the totally disrespectful and spoiled children and the idiot parents? The first one that comes to mind is for a cell phone company. The mom is tired of paying all the over charges for texting on her child's cell phone....

There are all sorts of problems that I can see with this scene, first the child appears to be maybe 11, she has a cell phone that her parents are paying for so that she can gab with her friends, she has time to send a ton of text messages to her friends, and finally when the child is confronted with the fact that she has been texting too much she is out of this world rude to her mom. She proceeds to argue with her mom and then when her mom, finally, takes her cell phone away she throws a tantrum and leaves the room. Seriously, is this at all a realistic scene. Maybe I am totally out of touch with reality.

Does anyone watch this commercial and think,"Thank goodness there is finally an answer to all my cell phone problems."?

Aside from the fact that the child is completely obnoxious the mother is an idiot. It started a few years ago with the shows that made the dads look like complete morons. Where everyone, including the children, just patted his head and did whatever they wanted behind his back. I thought that was horrible but now to be attacking moms!!

I don't think so.

Kristen