Letters of Intent

Has it been a week worth remembering? Or how about a week worth forgetting? Has your calendar been so filled with things to do and places to be that you want to rip the thing off your wall and throw it in the trash? Then grab a letter of intent button from Julie at Foursons and let it all out!!!


Dear Hertz

You suck. 

I'm am done with being nice. 

I hired a car from you for a whole month in Austalia and all I want is my deposit back.  I am really struggling to understand why sending out a cheque for £120 is a problem for a huge multinational Corporation.  I gave you my cash and now you won't return it.  I've had e-mail conversations back and forth with your customer service department who keep telling me that I need to be patient.

Well I think that now 5 weeks have passed I've been patient enough and hope you can maybe understand why I'm losing my temper.  Today I spoke to a complete bitch lovely woman in your Customer Services Team who told me that I should've paid the deposit on my credit card instead of by cash and then I wouldn't be having this problem.  Also that cheques are so outdated it can take you 8 weeks to raise an order for one!! 

What fantastic customer service and what utter bullshit. 

The reason that I didn't pay the deposit on the card was because my credit card company were celebrating Christmas and I couldn't get anyone to answer the damn phone to figure out what the problem was.  Cash was therefore my only option.   I'm so glad that the car didn't break down becuase we would probably of still been stuck there in the middle of the Outback, if this is your attitude!

I forewarned you that if I didn't have a satisfactory outcome by today then I was going to share my complaint with the World via social networking and you either didn't believe me or didn't care.  If this letter makes people think twice about booking car hire through you then my job here is done!!!  I certainly won't be using you again and I shall link this blog to all my Twitter followers and through Facebook too.

I look forward to your reply (or not!!!)

Sincerely
A majorly pissed off customer!

Wordless Wednesday

Apologies and School Trips

You know I try really hard to keep this Blog about me and Chick and my life and not write about things that may offend or upset other people.  However sometimes I forget myself and the fact that I'm not a nameless Blogger and that some of my readers actually know me.  By writing about some topics or mentioning names I have inadvertently upset a very good friend of mine and so I wanted to start off with a big apology and a promise to try not and remember myself in future.

Today my little Chick has gone off on her first overnight school trip.  I stayed to wave her off on the coach and thankfully didn't cry like some Parents.  Having said that I'm really missing her tonight and am trying to pretend that she's just fast asleep in bed!!  The ridiculous thing is that the place they have gone too is literally 4 miles away....not far enough to even begin to miss her.  The house is awfully quiet though!

This is a picture of Chick and her 2 friends ready for the off this morning:

So what am I going to do with the house all to myself?  Well, I went to visit my Grandma and eat cake and watch the Olympics and now I'm in my PJ's with a bottle of wine.  I am going to spend the rest of the evening guilt free on the laptop, drinking wine, watching crap T.V. and eating all the junk food that Chick isn't allowed to eat....who says I'm not Rock 'n' Roll???!!!

Project 365 - The Daily Shoot

I haven't really said much about it here (although some of you may have noticed the links at the top of my page) but a couple of weeks ago I decided to join thousands of other people and do a Project 365.  It basically involves taking a picture every day for a year so that you end up with a photo diary for 2010.  I take hundreds of pictures anyway and this seemed like a challenge that was right up my street, as I would love to take more adventurous pics rather than just plain old holiday snaps.

To make it a bit more challenging for me and to encourage me to stop taking the same old pictures I've been following the challenges on 'The Daily Shoot'.  Today was the first day that I was brave enough to Twitter them a picture that I've taken and I'm so glad that I did because they used it on their site.....aaarrrrgggghhh I'm so excited!!! My pic looks a bit daft amongst some of the other more professional ones but yay me!!!!!

http://www.dailyshoot.com/

Random Saturday Pictures

So I know that JoJo's wedding seems like an age ago now but she just managed to upload the 'official' pictures, some of which are so lovely I felt the need to share:

This is the stunning Bride:

Chick looked like an Angel, which just go to show that appearances can be deceptive!!!!

And this one is probably one of the nicest pictures that has been taken of me in the past 10 years:

Last but not least.....Mr & Mrs Nell:

Letters of Intent

World driving you crazy? Maybe you need to grab a letter of intent banner from Julie over at Foursons.

Dear Mother in front of me at the ticket machine

I can see that you think it's very cute to have your Son feed the machine with all the coins from your purse to get a car parking ticket. I however disagree because:

a) It's snowing and I don't have a coat on (yes, I was in a rush this morning!)
b) I only get an hour for lunch and you've taken 10 minutes of that already, could you not help him along?
c) Did I mention it's snowing???

If you could hurry the fu*k along next time I'd appreciate it!!!

Thanks
Me


Dear Memory

I'm not sure what's happening with you these days but you seem to be losing the plot an awful lot. For instance.....why didn't you remind me that I left my phone on the seat in the car? Did we not learn our lesson when the car was broken into and the Nintendo DS was stolen? Obviously not!!!

I'm only 33 we are far too young to be going down the senile route yet so if you could perk up a bit I would appreciate it!

Thanks
Me

Dear new payroll system

We have spent many hours together over the last couple of weeks and still we barely understand each other.

I'm not sure if you comprehend exactly how much you cost and really all I want is for you to actually do your job for one goddamn day without crashing or causing me more grey hairs.....mmmm okay?

Thanks
Me

Girl Talk Thursday

What would you win the Olympics of?



So I'm guessing my regular readers will know by now that I'm not really the athletic type (apart from the odd Marathon and planning on climbing Mountains!!!!) so what would I win the Olympics of? Well the only two things that I could come up with are:

Silver Medal: Crying at stupid things on the T.V! I like to think that I'm not really a crying kind of person in real life situations. However, put a film on or the T.V. and as soon as anyone is showing any kind of emotion my eyes overflow. On X Factor, when they tell the Families that they are through to the next round and everyone starts crying....you will find me in the corner crying like a girl!!! Last Friday night I watched 'My Sisters Keeper' and it was so emotionally harrowing I had to take a break halfway through so that I could stop crying for 5 minutes!!!!!

Gold Medal: Speed Reading. I absolutely love reading and have mentioned in a previous post that JoJo and I managed to read most of the library in the small Village we lived in as kids. I've always been quite a quick reader but now that I have Chick, speed reading (and bribery) is essential.

When the last Harry Potter book came out my Brother and I had a competition to see who could read the book the quickest and guess who won? Yep, that's right, it was me! Even with a full time job and a 7 year old I managed to read it quicker than him....yee haa!!!! I also managed to read 'Breaking Dawn' in 6 hours.

Reckon you could beat me??? Bring it on!!! So what would you win the Olympics at?

p.s. Actually my gold medal would be avoiding housework but when I write about that it just makes me sound like the slob I am!!!!!

Olympic Fever

So you may have guessed from my post on Monday just how I feel about the Youth of today, except this isn’t exactly true. The teenagers in England get a real bad press for everything from drinking, to sleeping around, to getting pregnant and general all round disrespect and I’m not sure this is entirely fair.

None of the people I know were bad teenagers and most were dedicated sportswomen (nope, I don’t have a clue why they are friends with me either!!) and when I look at all the Teams at the Olympics there is a lot for my daughter to aspire too.

The UK, do not have a fabulous Winter Olympics team, which isn’t surprising considering it does fu*k all but rain in the winter months in England but you know what? The team are trying and if my daughter wants to aspire to anything I hope she at least takes part in the whole ‘it’s not the trying but taking part that counts’.....yes I understand it’s bollocks but it’s good enough for her to understand at the present time.

I love the Olympics.....Summer or Winter. One of the memories burned into my mind is the Summer Olympics from Barcelona in 1992. I remember where I was when I was watching the diving and seeing the back drop of the City behind. I have since been to the Olympic Park in Barcelona and it still gives me goose bumps and is one of the most amazing views in the world.

What I’ve discovered from the Vancouver Winter Games so far? The Luge makes me actually physically seasick!!! I cannot watch more than 5 people from the top without feeling the room spin that teenagers get when they have had too much to drink. Something I don’t understand is how the heck do you discover you have a talent for throwing yourself down a Mountain on a tea tray???

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love the Olympics and every major sporting event that I can watch on T.V. Surprisingly for a non-athletic person I can tell you how old Chick was when Johnny Wilkinson kicked the ball to take England to win the Rugby World Cup. I remember how gutted I was when Gazza cried at the 1990 World Cup in Italy, I remember Rhonda Wilkinson taking our Team to glory in the Curling in 2002. Yes I need to get out more but what great memories!!! What are your favourite sporting memories?

This is what I need!!!

Generally I'm very happy with my life and it just being Chick and I.  This week is half term and due to a complete cock-up I had no child care at all booked.  My brother manfully stepped up and offered to come over and take care of Chick for a couple of days, which is awesome in itself but turns out he can also clean too!!!

So I've decided that actually what I need is a Wife!!!  I need somebody to take care of my daughter, do the housework and generally run the house for me whilst I'm at the Office.  I can only pay in love and cookies but if anyone fancies a new job as my wife then please e-mail me.

Grumpy Old Woman...

.......that's me.  I can't decide if I'm being grumpy or if I'm just having a massive PMS attack but everything is driving me completely insane.  I don't even think it's me.....everyone who lives in my Town is just completely nuts. 

Take this weekend for instance.....a girl pushed in front of me at the bar.  Not the end of the world, I understand that however she blatantly pushed me out of the way and then proceeded to ignore me!!!??  WTF!!

Another incident on the same night.....some stupid 19 year old trod on my foot in ridiculously high heels whilst she was having her picture taken and didn't even turn around to see what had happened until I yelled in her ear that it really hurt.  I then ended up almost getting into a fight with her friend......seriously what is wrong with the youth of today.  There is just no need to be so arrogant and rude and I'm pretty sure that I wasn't like that as a Teenager.

Something else that really wound me up over the weekend and nearly ended up in a road rage incident.  I was driving in the car with Chick doing 33 miles an hour in a 30 zone, through a small country Village and the woman behind me was right up my backside.  Being the grumpy old woman that I am, I slowed down to 30mph and the stupid tart overtook me and swerved back in front of me completely endangering my daughter's life (ok a slight exaggeration.....but still!!!)  Again just unnecesscary behaviour that is driving me too distraction!!

I feel much better for having got all that off my chest!!  Is it me being insane or do all these people sound crazy???So what drives you to be a grumpy old woman (or man)???? 

Happy Valentines Day!!!

I thought that seeing as love is all around today I'd share one of my favourite verses about love:

Love is a temporary madness,

it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.

And when it subsides you have to make a decision.

You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together

that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.

Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness,

it is not excitement,

it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.

That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,

and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,

and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,

they find that they are one tree and not two.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Louis de Bernieres

Internet Dating? Count me Out!!!!!

So, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, I have been 'officially' single for about 10 years.  One of my best friends who I'm sure would love to remain nameless, has been actively seeking a gentleman partner for dates and such like.  She has tried Speed Dating, Internet Dating, Random Men, friends of friends, blind dates and do you know what suited her best?  Absolutely nothing!!!!  For the last 5 years I've used this as an excuse for the fact that there is no point me even trying!!!!

However, I figured that I would secretly join an internet dating site as my favourite American brother met his wife this way and she is full of the awesome....why would it not work for me???  (you can visit her awesome home schooling motherness over at http://www.overactiveovaries.wordpress.com/ but she makes me looks like such a terrible mother that you are not allowed to compare us!!!)  All I can say is that my bro must've had his Fairy Godmother shining on him the day he joined 'cos my matches have gone something like this:

Me:  What I'm looking for: Single Gal looking for genuine outgoing 30/40's man who likes to travel and find adventures!!! I would appreciate an educated man who can spell and that earns equal to/more than me!!!!

(Just to clarify......Yes my grammar may be crap but I can spell when most English men don't seem to be able to......when I'm looking at a future partner if he cannot be bothered to use spellcheck then why the hell would I even bother to e-mail them?  Seriously people how hard is it?????)

Matches: (e-mails) Hey there large lady, Me love you long time....you wanna have sex????

Erm....so yep that's not the kind of adventure that I had in mind and why I'm all done with internet dating and deleting my profile at the same time as typing this!!!!

Baby Steps and Love Hearts

I have lots of things swirling around in my brain today that I feel the need to write about but I'm not sure that I can find the words.  We could talk about how it's Valentines Day this week and I'm officially single for roughly the 10th year in a row but that would make me sound bitter and twisted and that sucks. 

We could talk about how much my promotion has sucked so far except I know that people from work read my blog and I guess it's not very professional to talk about how it's affecting me when I work in HR (I'll just e-mail you all separately!!) 

We could talk about the fact that I'm avoiding Chick's Teacher so she can't tell me yet again that Chick is back chatting.....I'm not a bad Mother (honest) I just get sick of telling Chick to toe the line over stupid stuff that doesn't really matter!!  So instead of all the stuff that sucks let's talk about baby steps!! (Not actual babies before any of you start panicking....my baby days are well and truly over!!)

Today I actually made it to the gym at lunchtime for the first time in about 3 months.  This may seem like a ridiculous thing to be excited about but a) I got a lunch break and b) I went to the gym!!!!!  That's right the Kilimanjaro training has commenced....thankfully I have 10 months to do the training 'cos I would never have made it up there today.  The first 5 minutes on the cross trainer I figured I was doing pretty well.....by minute 15....well let's just say I was looking rather flushed.  Then I thought that I'd climb uphill on the treadmill which again lasted about 15 minutes until I decided that my blisters (from running last week) were so bad I'd have to stop and do weights instead!!!  Baby steps are the way forward and at least I got off my ass!!

So, back to the Valentines Day thing.  I have no problem with being single on this particular day but it's rubbish that I miss out on presents.  These are some of the things I may treat myself to just to let me know how much I love myself and that I am worth it:

 

Gotta lurve me some Krispy Kreme

Shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More shoes!!! No, I don't have enough pairs but thanks for your concern ;-)

Mulberry Bayswater......ok yes I'm dreaming now!!!

So, yep I'm totally worth it and I am obviously capable of buying myself love related presents!! I'll keep you posted on how the training goes!!!

* I have not been paid by Krispy Kreme, Office or Mulberry for the above mentions however if any of them should feel like offering me freebies I will gladly write about them every day for a year!!!!!!

We're so screwed!!!!!

I don't know if you know this about me or not but I'm a complete and utter News junkie. I have CNN and BBC News open on my PC at work all day just in case I miss anything but twice today the news has made me cry. Even though I'm a news freak I only read stuff that I think I can handle and try and steer away from anything that will keep me awake at night since I already have enough trouble sleeping!!! In todays paper there was a story of a man who killed his wife and 18 year old daughter because he couldn't handle the debt his business has got into. Normally stories like this I would skip but foolishly today I read it and the daughter was an extremely intelligent girl who wanted to become a Doctor. Nothing worse than any of the stories we all hear every day but it just seems like such a waste!

Then I accidently caught a news program about the earthquake in Haiti which was so horrendous I sat and cried the whole way through. Yes my t.v. remote does work but I couldn't tear myself away partly I think because I'm helpless to do anything apart from donate money and it seems almost heartless to just look the other way!!!

One news story that has had me hooked this week though is the weather in America. As a good ol' English girl I like nothing better than to talk about the weather but this has been keeping me awake at night!!!! A couple of fellow bloggers live in Washington or similar areas that have been worst affected and they are having to live on the food that they already have in the house as they are stranded. So yeah this is where I got todays blog title from.....if that happens to us? Chick and I are soooo screwed!!!!

Whilst we were in Australia my Brother stayed at my house and one night when he was drunk he took some food out of the freezer and didn't shut the door properly. The whole freezer therefore defrosted and when we got home I had to throw away our whole stash of backup freezer food which I haven't yet replaced. Ok so, the organised amongst you may think that's not so bad, we must have food in the fridge right? Do you want to see the contents of our fridge?????




OK so we have a bottle of vodka, a bottle of rum, a bacardi breezer, some lager, a bottle of wine, a tub of margarine, 3 yoghurts, a bottle of milk, a couple of home made cakes and one out of date ready meal!!!!!! On the plus side I'll be drunk enough not to notice the lack of food and I have plenty of body fat to keep me going for a couple of weeks but poor Chick is definitely screwed!!!!! Let's hope that we can plenty of warning for any major snow storms that head this way!

Resolved

Thanks for your advice yesterday it was a great help. The route Chick's Dad and I decided to take in the end was to let her know how 'disappointed' we are in her. Generally I tend to explode when there is a problem and then calm down and think things through and wish that I would've said different things. As part of my self-development I'm trying to think first before I speak.

We asked Chick what the problem was at school and she really doesn't think there is one. After we told her that we were disappointed in her lack of work and had talked it through explaining what the Teacher had told me we then gave her somoe options. So if she knuckles down, stops her back chat to the Teacher and starts producing work then things can remain as they are. If she carries on with the lack of work then she will be split up from her friends and put in a different group until she sorts herself out.

Really we've left it at that. I don't want to be too heavy handed with her as we have only been back from Australia for 10 days and I'm still struggling to adjust at 33 let alone poor Chick at 7. We've also gone straight back into our usual crazy life of work, school, Brownies, Gymnastics and Daddy visits so it's not really any wonder that she is taking time to adapt. I'm not sure if we've done the right thing but I guess time will tell!!

Again today I had every intention of going to the gym and starting my training for Kilimanjaro but work is still stupidly busy. Today is kind of a fun day as I conducted the new staff induction this morning and this afternoon we have the work Awards Ceremony. It's basically a chance for us to have a lovely meal and drink lots of wine as well as appreciate some of the amazing employees that we have and on that note I'm off to drink some free vino!!!!

School day woes!!!

Generally I really like the school that Chick attends. Some things about it bother me....mainly the snootiness of other Parents but on the whole it's all good. One thing that really annoys me though is that the Teachers never tell you there is a problem until you ask.

Take for instance today. Year 2 parents were invitied to go to the school for lunch with the kids. It was cool to hang out with Chick and her friends and watch them interacting. Chick had a bit of a meltdown last night and mentioned that there was a task she found difficult yesterday at school so just in passing I asked her Teacher how things were going. Apparently they are not going so well. Chick has been struggling to readjust to life at school after being gone for the start of the term and is basically not doing any work. When the other kids give the work in they have completed the tasks set for them and Chick is handing in a piece of paper blank apart from the date!!!

My problem now is twofold. One is annoyance at the Teacher for not bringing it up until I asked and the other is how to deal with Chick. Do I go in all heavy handed and tell her that she'll be split up from her friends until she starts producing work? Do I take away her privileges like having a sleepover this weekend? I don't want to put her off learning for life as I want school to be a positive experience for her but I have to do something to stop ehr completely disengaging!!!!

I know that on the whole she isn't struggling with her work as whilst we were in Oz JoJo and I were doing Maths and English with her and she doesn't struggle at all and in certain instances knows more than us!!! I therefore put it down to the fact that she thinks school is just for being sociable and not about learning!! Any ideas on how to deal with things before tonight's showdown would be greatly appreciated???!!!

Hey There!!!

I am still alive and kicking but the days seem to be flying away and before I know where I am 5 days have passed without me blogging. I am managing to hold on to my holiday mood (just about!!!) which has been helped along by the fact that the sun came out at the weekend. The temperature in England has barely risen above freezing but blue skies go some way to compensating.

Whilst I've been looking at the positives in my life this week I've also come up with a few ideas of what I'd like to do with myself this year. First and foremost I really want to finish re-decorating the house. I can't afford to do the big stuff like replacing the carpets but I figure if I do as much of the small stuff as possible and try and keep on top of the cleaning then things will already appear to look much nicer.

So this weekend I finally repaired the kitchen wall which has been a mess since the Great Kitchen Saga of 2009!!! I filled all the holes and plastered over everything and then painted it all and then hung lots of bright and colourful pictures from all my World travels! I'm very proud of myself for getting it done with no help at all. I will try and post pictures later this week but I'm sneakily writing this at work as my Brother still has my laptop!!

Also I've decided that I will definitely be climbing Kilimanjaro in January 2011 for 'Help for Heroes' I just need to find the initial £350 to get myself registered and then get fundraising. I need to raise in total around £4,000 but I'm pretty confident (at the moment) that I should just about be able to scrape it all together.

As part of getting ready to climb a big hill I'm also going to have to get up off my behind and do some exercise. I had big plans to go to the gym at lunchtime today and start but I was swayed by the offer of a pub lunch....must learn to be stronger and resist!!!! Well that's all for now as I have yet another meeting to go too.....I tell ya something this being promoted isn't all fun and games ;-)