Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A Funny and An Update...

The Funny: A dear sweet friend of mine brought to my attention that it's been over a month since I posted something on my blog. I know. I'm horrible. BUT, the funny part (at least it was funny to me) was when she said (bless her heart) "Are you on an amazing vacation?!" HA HA HA!

The Update: For those of you who know what I'm up to, you probably laughed too. No, the reason I've been 'hibernating' is because of tax season. (You'll probably notice that I'm posting on 4/16---the day after taxes are due.) I've worked at a CPA firm for the last three tax seasons (the first two seasons in Idaho and this one in Oklahoma). Obviously, we've been busy. So, therefore, that means that I've had no life, I've been TIRED and CRANKY (to put it nicely), I'm greatly appreciating TODAY! No deadline for 6 more months. That means that there won't be too much craziness around work for probably 3-4 months. However, we do prepare payroll and payroll reports for several clients (I think we do around 45 or so) so that means when the end of June comes around we'll be preparing 2nd quarter reports (due in July) and so it won't be completely boring around here. -It actually hasn't been for quite some time for me now. Each week I "man" the front desk and phones and do all the little stuff that goes along with that, but I also prepare 3 weekly payrolls (2 of them are salary employees, so it's pretty much a click and print type of deal) and then the other one is for a company that has around 60 employees (give or take depending on the week). Yeah, they do payroll WEEKLY. It might sound horrible, but actually, I've come to enjoy it. Especially my 'contact' person at the company, whom is one of my new best friends, even though she's old enough to be my mother (this doesn't matter to me one way or the other, I'm just painting a picture for you), lives at least an hour away, and whom I've NEVER met in person. I've only talked to her on the phone, but it's really nice. Even when she's having a crummy day, she still makes me laugh and I enjoy talking to her.

Anyhoo...... a couple weekends ago Jordan and I planted some plants (some flower bulbs, tomato plats, a red pepper and a green pepper plant, some squash and some zuccini. I'm not too optomistic about the squash and zuccini because of where we had to plan them, but I am being optomistic about the tomatoes. -Hopefully we'll get enough that we can make (and possibly can) some salsa this summer. I'm hoping the weather will STAY nice for a little while though so everything can have a good strong start.

Here in Oklahoma, tornado season has started, and apparently lasts through the summer. Luckily (I've learned) we live in an area that isn't really hit by the tornados. We live on the East side of Norman, south of Main Street. And, apparently a lot of the really bad weather (SEVERE thunderstorms and tornados) usually hits a little town called Moore that's north of us. We have gotten some serious thunderstorms, but nothing to really do damage. We did have one storm last week that we got about 3 inches of rain from. Jordan was at home and he called me up to tell me that the garage was about to flood (the back porch/cement area is pretty well level with the garage door). Well, it didn't flood. A little water got in, but it wasn't anything really bad, and only came in about a foot into the garage. So, we lucked out there.

Back in December we had an ice storm hit the area which caused serious damage to trees, etc. around here. A lot of people's power was out for quite a while, trees fell on houses causing serious damage etc. We were lucky enough not to lose power. That was good because Chase & Meghan were literally days away from having their little Kate and their power went out. Meghan's mom was in town for the birth, so they all stayed with us 3 or 4 nights. They went into the hospital to have the baby on Friday (she came around 10:00-10:30 that night), and they ended up having their power come back on that day too, so they were able to bring their new baby home to a warm, LIT house. Anyways, we had some damage to some trees in our back yard. Here's what they looked like back in December right after it all happened.


Here's what the trees looked like on 4/27/08. I made sure Jordan was in the pic (mowing the lawn) so you could see just how big the trees are.


I know what you're thinking, why is it still out there like that??? Well, it's still out there because our LAZY landlord still hasn't taken care of it even though he said he would back in December.

Anyways, just thought I'd let you know that we're still alive and kicking out here. Hope all is well with all of you, and KEEP posting! Even though you haven't heard from me, I DO check most all of your blogs DAILY to see what's going on with you and your families!!!

2 comments:

The Despain Gang said...

Bummer about not having the fabulous vacation I was hoping for you. I didn't even think about your job--dumb of me! I forgot all about tax season because Jeremy does our taxes as soon as he gets all the paperwork--like no later than March 1 we have everything submitted. One year we got all the papers fast and we got our tax refund check before April 15. Anyway, I loved the update and am glad to hear you're surviving this crazy weather year. It has been so cold here; well I should say off and on cold. It will be beautiful and 75 degrees then the next day freezing at high of 40 degrees. It's nuts, but I guess that's part of spring. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has various aged friends. My best friend in Long Beach was a wonderfully sweet and hilarious lady that had children my age. She and I still try and keep in contact; age doesn't matter once you're an adult. :) Good luck with the garden; I'm so excited for you; keep me posted. I'm planing my flower beds right now but yesterday it SNOWED! :( So, that put a damper on my plans. I also have a vole problem in my lawn. Yes, Vole not mole problem. They're similar but smaller. I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of them without killing them--we'll see how it goes. Well post those pics of your tree! Love ya and thanks for the update.
-Melissa

The Despain Gang said...

Okay WOW! I didn't realize my last "comment" was a book. Sorry about that. Anyway I wanted to tell you that your tree is amazing! It is sometimes scary what a storm can do!
-melissa