The RidicuList

Spence often watches Anderson Cooper's 360 show on the news and during his show at the end he gives the RidicuList of the day. It is basically ridiculous things people say and do.

Many of my family and friends have asked what my full time job has entailed this fall. First I'll describe my job:

I am an employee at Artco here in Rexburg. Artco is paper and stationery company. Artco has contracts with many other companies who have websites and catalogs selling cards, announcements, invitations, and many other products. Artco prints and carries all of their products. I work in their call center above the production lines representing two companies.

One - The National Wildlife Federation.
and
Two - Pear Tree Greetings.

The National Wildlife Federation puts out catalogs selling Christmas cards, ornaments and lots of other products where 85% of the money goes towards the wildlife. These customers I deal with are nature lovin', tree huggin', granola eatin' type people, who are mostly over the age of 65.

Pear Tree Greetings has a website selling TONS of different cards to choose from where you can personalize them and add photos. These customers are mostly wives and mothers getting their Christmas cards ready to send out to relatives. Usually around the age of 30 and 40. There is one important thing you need to know about Pear Tree. It is an online order only, which means the customers have to place the orders online, we can't create orders for them, we're only there for customer service problems. There are two different boxes they have to check before they can submit their orders stating that the cards will print EXACTLY how they appear on the screen. But, they just seem to want to blame someone else for those mistakes made on their card. Which becomes me! Hooray!

I work full time taking orders, dealing with customer service problems, and assisting people in any other way.

But, this job is no walk in the park. From 8am to 5pm I am talking constantly (besides my break) with people on the phone. While most of the calls are pleasant, there are certain calls that DRIVE ME CRAZY!!!!!

Now, you may  be wondering why I started out talking about Anderson Coopers RidicuList. Well this is why:

I have made my own RidicuList. It is a RidicuList for my Artco job. There have been a few special people who have made it onto my RidicuList, and they will never know. Here are their famous words.

My RidicuList

1. A Pear Tree customer received her cards and the photo had the date printed on it. You know, those ghetto orange dates printed on the photos from non-digital cameras. "I assumed that you would take the photo date off the picture! I need new cards printed!"

-How could we magically take off that date when it is printed on the photo?

2. Pear Tree Greetings: "I assumed you would fix the blurry photo I added onto the Christmas card! I need new cards printed!"

-Well, the photo that you added was taken blurry!

3. Regarding a 40% internet deal for the first 1000 Pear Tree customers who ordered online on Cyber Monday. "But I would have been one of the 1st 1000 customers to get 40% off! I would have been on my computer right at 8am to order my cards! But I got busy doing something. I need the 40 percent off!"

- Um...no ma'am...you can not have the discount because you WERE NOT ONE OF THE FIRST 1000 CUSTOMERS!

4. A National Wildlife customer trying to print out her confirmation email: "My printer only printed the 1st page of the order confirmation. But there were two pages to the confirmation. What do I do?"

-Um...print the second page too. What do you want me to do? Come and press the print button for you?

5. A grumpy Pear Tree customer: "Your website is HOR-I-BLE! H-O-R-I-B-L-E. I'm WILL NOT BE ORDERING FROM YOU!"

-Well that's fine, it doesn't bother me that you're incredibly rude self won't be dealing with me. Bye!

6. A National Wildlife Customer who thought she placed an order with us over the phone, but we didn't have an order under her name: "You are stealing from me! I'm calling the police!"

-Um...ok, but I'm not sure how the police is magically going to make an order appear in our order system.

7. A National Wildlife customer who simply wanted to stop receiving the catalogs in the  mail: "Over the past 2 years I have collected 10 lbs of mail from you...TEN POUNDS! Do you know how many trees you are cutting down and do you know how many animals lives you could be saving by taking my name off the mailing list!" He goes on for a good 10 minutes lecturing me about trees and animals.

- Do you know sir that you wasted two years of your life when you could have simply called the first time you received a catalog and gotten your name removed from the mailing list?

8. A National Wildlife customer: "I need to know what your federation is doing to help the tragedy in Ohio, because obviously you haven't done enough or these animals wouldn't have died. I want you to personally do something to help these animals because you are the National Wildlife Federation." 20 minute lecture about the politicians and how they don't help animals. And all the animals are dying!

-Luckily I had watched the news the day before and heard about the man who let out all his exotic animals and then commited suicide.
-Well ma'am, I just work for the catalog. But I will let my boss know you are concerned...NOT! What am I suppose to do about these animals in Ohio???

9. A National Wildlife customer: "I was wondering if you could take away the shipping charge from my order?" Me, "No, I cannot take off the shipping charge." Her, "Well if you aren't going to do that, then I'm cancelling this order, goodbye!"

-Ya, because we are personally gonna pay for UPS to personally deliver your order to you. HOLY COW PEOPLE!"

As you can see, my job is full of characters! Some just simply feel entitled, others are clue-less. But it can be a little ridiculous. Sometimes it is hard to keep my calm, but I just have to take a deep breath and deal with these characters in a professional way. But what I really want to do is stick my hands through the phone and shake them up a little.

Well, now you know what I deal with everyday. Customer service jobs...gotta love it!!!!!

All I can say is......only 13 more days until this job is OVER!

My "belt it out in the car" song at the moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_yTphvyiPU&ob=av2n

I love the sound of Lady Antebellum. They're kinda country but not too twain-y.

When I drive to work each morning this somehow is ALWAYS on the radio station here so that
means I get to work on my vocals and sing this at the top of my lungs!

Oh the joys of driving alone in your car :)

The Gulliver's Travel

My family (The Gullivers) came to visit this past weekend! We had so much fun catching up and showing off our little town of Rexburg and our little apartment. My parents brought my little sister, Niki, along for her to see the BYUI campus and shop for modest prom dresses. Here's a little summary of what we did together.

Thursday we visited our cousins in Idaho Falls, ate dinner at Cafe Rio, visited Spence at his choir practice, and talked the night away.

Friday was spent shopping with my Mom and Niki. After a long long day...we were successful finding modest dresses and a LOT LOT MORE! Spence had to work all day and my Dad had a ranch inspection for one of his customers here in Idaho. When the  men came home we fixed a huge spaghetti dinner and spent the evening cheering for the BYU cougars and St. Luis cardinals because they were both playing at the same time on TV! Fun stuff!

Saturday we hiked at Grand Targhee, window shopped in Jackson Hole, visited Mormon Row and gazed at the Grand Tetons. We ended the busy day eating a delicious meal at Applebee's.

Unfortunately they had to fly out on Sunday morning, so we said our goodbyes and Spence and I spent our Sundays busy as ever after they left.

Here's some pictures showing the fun we had:

My Dad thought it would be fun to take pictures as my short legs tried to jump on this truck.

Sisters :)

The ladies

Showing off her cheer leading abilities.

Us trying to be like Niki.

Group picture!

Gotta love the Tetons! Such an awesome view!

My lovely parents.

We were a little scared after reading this sign.

The winning picture taken by my Dad.

Such a fun weekend! Thank you Dad, Mom and Niki for visiting us and making such a fun weekend!

Miss them already!

Craft time!

I am now hooked on Pinterest. There are just so many cute ideas and delicious recipes that I can't help it! Because I have been ooing and awing over all the creative things I've found on Pinterest, I have been dying to do something crafty. So, with the help of an idea off Pinterest, I decided to make a fall wreath. But I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Here's how I did this easy and cheap  Argyle Wreath:

Materials:

Foam electrical wiring tubing (Ace Hardware - $1.50)
Brown yarn (Walmart - $1.00)
1/8 yard of yellow and green flannel (Walmart - $0.62)
Thin orange ribbon ($0.69)
Buttons (the extra buttons off two different jackets - $free)
Duct Tape
Hot glue gun

Step 1: Form the tube into a circle and duct tape it securely. Put duct tape in various other spots along the wreath where you can hot glue the yarn once in a while to stay in place.
Step 2: Wind the yarn around the whole wreath shape. (It takes a while, but once you have the rhythm down, it goes pretty quickly. Hot glue the yarn down on the duct tape once in a while to maintain a tight wrap.

Step 3: Cut out diamonds in both the yellow and green flannel material just big enough to cover the width of the front of the wreath. Hot glue them down every other color to cover the whole front side.
Step 4: Wrap the orange ribbon around the wreath crossing over the diamonds. Once you've gotten to the end, flip around and wrap the ribbon the other direction, this makes the argyle design.

Step 5: Make fabric flowers how ever way you want. (I cut out a strip of fabric and do a basic loose stitch along one of the edges, then I bunch up the material and form it into a circular shape and secure the back side. It forms a simple flower shape.) Glue buttons onto the flowers, then glue the flowers onto the wreath.

Step 6: Fasten a ribbon to the top and hang on your front door.

If you look closely, my tubing is a little lop-sided, so I covered that part with the flowers. But I don't think most people will notice that it is lop-sided. :)

It was fun and easy! I also made homemade Banana Streusel Muffins. It was a great Homemaking day! :)

The Simple Joys in Life with my Husband

Yesterday I got off work two hours early and surprised Spence at work. He was happy to see me because he was going to walk home. We took a lovely nap on the couch and ate a delicious lunch. It started raining and we just felt like doing something out on the town.

We got in our car and the first stop was to Subway to get fresh hot chocolate chip cookies. Three for a dollar! Then we took a drive around town in the rain. We love just taking drives and talking about life. The conversation was centered around our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and how it has been in the news lately stated by several that we aren't Christian. We talked about how a lot of people still don't know a lot about our church and we wished people could truly see that we are followers of Christ and we pattern our lives after Christ. It was a great conversation.

Then we headed to the dollar theater to catch the showing of Harry Potter 7. We saw this last Harry Potter movie at the midnight showing but hadn't seen it since. For some reason the cash register wasn't taking any cards and they asked if we had cash. Well, lucky us we didn't but said we would run to the Wells Fargo down the street. It was raining cats and dogs outside though. So we RAN AS FAST AS WE COULD. Spence pulled me along WAY faster than I would have normally run. We dodged raindrops, cars and people and made it back to the theater in a jiffy.

As we were watching the movie I realized that I must have fallen asleep for about 20 minutes during the midnight showing and I had missed the whole explanation about practically the whole series! I turned to Spence and I said, "Now I get it!" (Yes, its true, I stopped reading the books during book 5). No wonder I was confused at the end of the movie last time. I was glad we saw it a second time.

It was a great date out on the town with my wonderful husband. Although it wasn't anything big, it was so much fun. I loved taking a drive, I loved running in the rain, I loved the great conversation, I loved holding hands during the movie. It was so much fun!

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is my oldest sister, Heather's, birthday!!! She is THE BEST oldest sister. She's always there for me. We can talk on the phone about nothing but not get bored. She is a great mom of my two adorable nieces. She is an amazing photographer and I can't thank her enough for taking beautiful wedding pictures for us. I love her so much and am so grateful that I have her as an example.

I love you Heather!!!

P.S. Heather is excited because for her birthday my brother-in-law got her a puppy! Enjoy your new dog Heather!

My Go To Meal When We're Hungry

Everyone has those food dishes that they make over and over and over. For me that dish is usually either stir fry or fried rice. It is cheap and quick and easy. My recipe changes every time because I use the veggies that I just happen to already have in my refrigerator. Both Spence and I love it. It's healthy for the most part, just a little olive oil and soy sauce. Here is how I made it this time.

Jamie's Chunky Fried Rice:

1 green bell pepper
1 cup baby carrots
1/2 medium sweet onion
1 cup frozen sweet corn
1/2 TBS fresh grated ginger
1 glove garlic, minced
2 eggs
1 Turkey Kielbasa sausage (This sausage has practically no fat and is still delicious.)
Soy sauce
Black pepper
Chili powder

1. Cook either white or brown rice in a rice cooker, or stove top.

2. Meanwhile, cut all the veggies and sausage into very small pieces. Mince the ginger and garlic. In a big frying pan or wok heat olive oil. Add veggies, ginger and garlic. Add pepper, chili powder and soy sauce. Saute until they begin to be soft. Add the sausage to brown. Continue to cook until the veggies are soft and cooked fully. Take off the heat and set aside to stay warm.

3. Scramble two eggs and either cook in the microwave or in a small fry pan. Cut the egg up into little pieces. Add the egg to the veggie sausage mixture.

4. When the rice is done, add the rice to the pan with all the veggies, sausage and egg. Add soy sauce and more black pepper to flavor the rice. Add ginger powder if you need more ginger flavor. Mix all together until combined. Pour all of the fried rice into a bowl and EAT UP!!

Identity Crisis

My Dad blessed our lives last year by giving us a car for our wedding. It was a wonderful gift and we can never repay him for it.

It is a 2005 Ford Taurus, nothing snazzy, but it runs great and can hold TONS of stuff in its trunk. 

Her name is Tauri (original, I know...).

During the time I had the car up at school before married life it had a California license plate. I was proud of that California license plate. Up here in Idaho you don't see too many and it let people know that I was a California girl! I rocked that license plate.

After our wedding we lived in Utah for a while and needed to get our car registered. It was a sad day for me. I had to rip the California license plates off and stick on the Utah plates. Spence was happy about it. Me, not so much. Tauri went from being a California car to a Utah car.

But we didn't stay long in Utah and now we're back in Idaho going to school.

It's that time of the year again for us to register our car so today we headed down to the DMV to get our car registered. What does that mean??? Idaho license plates! It may not seem like a big deal to all of you, but to me it kinda is. I was sad all over again. Tauri now has gone from California, to Utah, to Idaho plates in about a years length of time. Man, she must be confused!!! Where does she belong???

As we walked out of the DMV, Spence and I looked at each other and Spence said, "Poor Tauri" and at the exact same time (no joke) we said, "She must be going through an identity crisis!" HAHA! It was so funny! We were both thinking the exact same thing.

So Tauri, you are no longer a California car...you are no longer a Utah car...you are now an Idaho car, HOME OF THE FAMOUS POTATOES. Until the next state we move to, that is.

She's been a great car :)

Sorry about the nasty bugs on our dirty car. 

No more Utah car for the Utah boy.

My baby sister is all grown up

Today is my little sister, Niki's, 16th birthday! Where has time gone? I can't believe she's 16 and she'll be driving soon! She'll be going on dates and having so much fun!

Niki and I have always had a great relationship. We always have silly blonde moments together which makes for a LOT of inside jokes. ... This one's for you Niki - "SPOOOOOOPY!!!" (Niki will understand this and be busting up laughing, I know it!)

Niki has turned into such a beautiful young lady. She is such a people person and always has a great big smile on her face.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIKI! I love you so much! And am so proud of who you have become. I know we'll always be great sista-friends :)

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Today was another "Let's practice being a homemaker" day! Hooray! That means...yummy food!

First of all, Spence and I made a trip down to Idaho Falls to go grocery shopping at Winco. It has the best deals on food. Among all our groceries, I found a deal on a package of 2 whole fresh chickens for $7...yes folks, that means each chicken is only $3.50. What a steal! You can't even buy a small package of lunch meat for $3.50.

I needed a good oven roasted chicken recipe. So I went to my trusted Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. You can't go wrong.

Herb-Roasted Chicken

Prep: 20 minutes Roast: 75 minutes Stand: 10 minutes

 

ingredients

• 1
  3-1/2 to 4-pound whole broiler chicken
• 2
  tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 2
  cloves garlic, minced
• 1
  teaspoon dried basil, crushed
• 1/2
  teaspoon ground sage
• 1/2
  teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
• 1/4
  teaspoon salt
• 1/4
  teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning or ground black pepper

directions

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Rinse the inside of chicken; pat dry with paper towels. Skewer neck skin of chicken to back (see photo); tie legs to tail. Twist wing tips under back. Place chicken, breast side up, on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Brush with melted butter; rub garlic over chicken.

2.In a small bowl stir together basil, sage, thyme, salt, and lemon-pepper seasoning; rub onto chicken. If desired, insert a meat thermometer into center of an inside thigh muscle (see photo). (The thermometer should not touch bone.)

3.Roast, uncovered, for 75 to 90 minutes or until drumsticks move easily in their sockets and chicken is no longer pink (180 degrees F). Remove chicken from oven. Cover; let stand for 10 minutes before carving. Makes 4 servings.

4.Herb-Roasted Chicken and Vegetables: Before roasting chicken, in a large saucepan bring lightly salted water to boiling. Add 1 pound red potatoes, quartered (or halved, if small); 3 carrots, halved lengthwise and cut into 1-inch pieces; and 1 medium turnip, peeled and cut into 1-1/2-inch pieces. Add to boiling water. Return to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes; drain. Add drained vegetables and 1 medium onion, cut into 1-inch chunks, to the bottom of the roasting pan around chicken. Drizzle vegetables with 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine and sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Roast as directed above, stirring vegetables once or twice during roasting. To serve, place chicken on serving platter. Arrange vegetables on serving platter around chicken.

I didn't have all the spices the recipe called for. I just used sage, lemon pepper, salt and black pepper. And it was still scrumptious as ever!

I thought it turned out great for my first roasted chicken. I plan on using the bones and left over to make my own chicken broth. Homemade chicken noodle soup here I come!

"What shall we call this place full of stones that are yellow?" ... I know! - YELLOWSTONE!!!

My father-in-law came to stay with us a few nights while he did some home inspections for work in the area. We, last minute, decided to spend a day at Yellowstone while he was visiting. It's pretty pathetic, but living here in Rexburg, Idaho we are about an hour away from Yellowstone, but Spence and I have never been since we've lived here. The last time I was in Yellowstone I was a silly little teenager camping with my family. And it had been many years since Spence had been also. We were excited to go.

We first arrived at the beautiful lodge near Old Faithful. This lodge is so old and so cool inside. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like it is made from tree trunks connecting together forming a very cool tree house look.

Then we headed to lunch at a cute little dinner down the road from the lodge. We sat at the bar watching the cook prepare our food. It turned out to be a bad idea because we were starving and watching your food cook is torture! We had burgers and delicious bbq pulled pork sandwiches! yum!

Then it was time for the show. We waited for about 20 minutes for Old Faithful to blow. Spence took advantage of the nice soft and comfy walk-way to take a little nap.

Old Faithful is always on time.

Then we headed to the Yellowstone Grand Canyon. It is breathtakingly beautiful! It was a steep but short hike down. With the sun setting, it was a wonderful sight.

My father-in-law. Jeff.

We had a great day overall. Beautiful scenery. Great company. Life is good! (If only I could find a job...But that's another story)