Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief

Ok, I got so sad looking at all the photos of the disaster and devistation caused by Hurricane Katrina. I decided to do what I could to help. I've created a donation page for others who want to help. All of the money that I raise through this donation page is going directly to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund with a direction to dispurse funds to support those who have survived Katrina. The page is here.

If for some reason you don't feel comfortable donating on my page, feel free to donate on the official Red Cross page (located here). If you use the Red Cross page, be sure to select "Hurricane 2005 Relief". This way, your donation has a greater chance of going to those who are affected by this storm.

Thanks for helping.

UPDATE PER DIVAS_ATTIC:

I do lots of Volunteer work with the Red Cross and other Organizations! We Need Volunteers to help assist with all the Victims of Katrina!! If you can give anytime on any day in any of the below listed groups it will truly be appreciated!

I am listing informaiton for those who would love to take time to give back to others in need.

Oh Yeah! All driving time You donate to these locations (travel back and foreth, running errands regarding the charity) You can write the mileage off of your taxes. You can also write off Cash Donations!!

THE HOUSTON FOOD BANK

Thank you for your help with this disaster. Because we are operating under emergency disaster mode, orientation will not be necessary.

Volunteer Shifts are as follows:

Thursday, September 1st
8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Friday, September 2nd
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Saturday, September 3rd
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Sunday, September 4th
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Monday – September 5th (Labor Day)
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Everyone must wear close-toed shoes. Please leave your bags, purses, and cell phones locked in the trunk of your car or at home. If you are bringing a group of 5 or more, please call before coming. Individuals do not need to call in advance. At this time, you must be at least 16 years old.

Thanks!

ONE MORE UPDATE:

This is also a great website for making donations: Houston Food Bank

My prayer.

While all of us have our own personal trials we are dealing with in our lives, I find it hard to focus on myself right now. My life is far from perfect right now, but it could be much, much worse. Tonight I'm saying prayers for everyone in the south who has been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. I pray that you all make it safely back home, that God will give you the strength to face the many challenges you will surely have to overcome over the next few weeks, and that he will bless you with support to rebuild your homes and lives. I am also praying for the soles of those who did not survive the hurricane.

Photos

Over-qualified, WTF?

Ok, so I had an interview today for an Administrative Assistant position with a property management firm making $13/hr. ($27K/yr. and closer to where I want to be salary-wise). It lasted about 1 ½ minutes. It went something like this …

Donna: “So Reagan, your resume looks great. What are you looking for in this position?”

Me: “To be honest, I’m looking for a challenging position with room for advancement with a company that promotes within, because I’d like to stay with a company for the long-term.” Translation: I don’t want to be stuck at $13/hour job for the rest of my life and I’m willing to bust my ass to move up.

Donna: “Well, there’s something to be said for being over-qualified. I really don’t think this is the position for you. I am the Property Manager and there really isn’t any room for advancement with this company.” Translation: The other position besides yours is mine, and I’m not going anywhere.

Me: “Thank you and I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

This was the shortest interview I’ve ever had. And as of late, I’ve had a lot! And, I have NEVER been told that I’m over-qualified. I think she was just trying to be nice because she felt bad that she just made me drive through Galleria traffic at lunchtime to make it to a 1 ½ minute interview that was completely unproductive.

Whatever.

---

I stop by the bank on the way back to the office I’m currently temping at. I deposit 3 checks. The second I drive away from the bank, I realize I have no cash to get myself anything for lunch. I think, “It’s ok, there’s an ATM right next to the deli. I’ll have to pay $2.50 to get a measly $20 to pay for a $3.00 sandwich, when I could have just gotten it for free. But, whatever.” I get to the office and go down to the basement where the deli is that I usually go to. I go to the ATM where I see a sign, “Out of Service”. Crap! I’ll just go into the deli and ask the little guy where there might be another ATM. I turn around, the deli is closed. WTF, it’s only 1:30? "Over-qualified" my ass.

Whatever. Thank God it’s Friday. GAW!

Note to big corporations: Stop sending my help calls to foreign countries!

Something funny I recieved over email last week and just opened with surprising delight! It's as therapeutic as the real thing! Try the manic mode.

Link

---

One of my biggest pet peeves:

My wireless network card on my laptop isn't connecting to the access point in the office in our house. Simply put, I can't connect to the internet on my laptop right now. Very baaaad! I've been trying to get tech support to help me out the past couple of days. I've had to call in twice now to try and get the issue resolved. Hopefully, I'll be connected again tonight. I'm having withdrawal symptoms from mybiggest addictions: Not just the internet, but the internet at all times!

Anywho, the pet peeve that I have about this is that everytime I call in to any tech support or a help line of any kind, I get some technician that only speaks English as a 3rd or 4th language. Please don't misunderstand, I am not prejudice in any way, shape, or form. When I call in to any help line, it means I have no idea what I'm doing. So that makes the issue complicated enough to drive me insane. Throw on top of that, I can't understand the person who is trying to save my life with even more complicated instructions, And THAT PERSON CAN BARELY UNDERSTAND ME EITHER! The call always ends up lasting at least an hour longer than it should. And I always hang up the phone with a pounding headache from yelling my responses in hopes that this person will understand me more clearly (a feable effort).

Now, I'm not blaming the person on the other end of the phone by any means. I'm blaming the big corporations with their already bulging pockets who are trying to sqeeze out even more savings by connecting their stressed-out-helpless-ignorant-customers to someone in another country because it's cheaper than connecting me to someone who speaks English as a first language! I think, if you have to call a help line, you should be able to speak to someone that can understand you and who, most importantly, you can understand. Especially since you are taking instructions from them. So if the customer is from China, he should be able to speak to someone who speaks Chinese as a first language. In my mind, this is a given. But hey, as of last night in trying to deal with this, I've now been driven completely insane!

Slap Your Irritating Co-Worker Day

Today is the official "Slap Your Irritating Co-workers Holiday". Do you have a co-worker who talks nonstop about nothing, working your last nerve with tedious and boring details that you don't care about? Do you have a co-worker who ALWAYS screws up stuff creating MORE work for you? Do you have a co-worker who kisses so much booty, you can look in their mouth and see what your boss had for lunch? Do you have a co-worker who is SOOO obnoxious, when he/she enters a room, everyone else clears it? Well, on behalf of Ike Turner, I am so very very glad to officially announce today as SLAP YOUR IRRITATING CO-WORKER DAY! Here are the rules you must follow:

* You can only slap one person per hour - no more.

* You can slap the same person again if they irritate you again in the same day.

* You are allowed to hold someone down as other co-workers take their turns slapping the irritant.

* No weapons are allowed ... other than going upside somebody's head with a stapler or a hole-puncher.

* If questioned by a supervisor (or police, if the supervisor is the irritant), you are allowed to LIE, LIE, LIE!

Now, study the rules, break out your list of folks that you want to slap the living day lights out of and get to slapping.....and have a great day!

Hexed & vexed.

First of all, Sass & Urbandude, will you please take this voo-doo hex you put on me off!? Within 30 minutes of reading your comments to yesterday’s post, I suddenly got really nauseous for absolutely no reason. I barely made it to the restroom before I got sick. The nausea immediately went away after that so I know I’m not coming down with anything. I don’t know if it was just some silly sub-conscious thing or not, but now I’m so freaked out, I have to pick up a pregnancy test on my way home from work! Again, with the fingers crossed!

Other than that, I’ve had a pretty busy day. I had a phone interview this morning with a great company at an “A” class property. It’s a temp-to-hire position and the pay is right about where I want to be, minus a few cents. Also, the office is less than 10 miles from my house. Sounds like a great fit and I think the interview went pretty well. They’ll be calling potentials back for 2nd face-to-face interviews next week. Hopefully, I’ll be one of those potentials.

I also had a 2nd interview with the same company I interviewed with earlier this week. I think I did a pretty good job of impressing them as well. She said she had to interview one other woman only as a formality since she was referred by an employee of the company, but she is looking forward to calling me on Friday to give me the definite green light. I’m really tempted to just accept the position for the lesser pay just because they were so nice and seem like they’d be really fun to work with. But I’ll be smart about it. It’s also a temp-to-hire for a minimum of 4 months with a very high likelihood of a permanent hire since the company is about to buy two more buildings before years end.

So I think I’m getting much closer to being able to plan my annual birthday trip and our trip to the big apple! Vacations, mmmmmmmmmmm.

Fingers crossed, arms crossed, legs crossed, etc., etc. ...

It’s now almost 3 PM. I couldn’t sleep even for 1 second last night. So I’ve now been wide awake for 33 hours. Funny thing is, I haven't really felt tired all day except for my eyes burning a little. Now that I’m talking about it, it will no doubt hit me like a ton of bricks shortly I’m sure.

Take one guess as to what was on my little mind that I couldn’t sleep at all. Come on, take a guess. It’s easy …

F*’ing eBay!

I’m freakin addicted, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s really weird. It’s not the shopping part of it that gets my mind going. I don't really shop that much. It’s the selling part. And it’s not selling specifically, it’s how I can improve my listings to make people look and want to buy from me, like updating the html to make it look more professional, etc. Weird shit, I told you!

Anyway, I won’t bore you with eBay babble today. I know you all hate it.

I don’t really have much else to talk about though. As I said before, I’m temping for a couple weeks while someone is out on vacation. I had a pretty promising interview yesterday. And they’ve already scheduled me for a second interview tomorrow. My interviewer said they’d be making a decision by Friday. And during the first interview, she kept saying things like, “You’ll see how we do that,” “I’ll show you how to do this later,” and “You will be working with Susie.” She also said, “You have all the right experience that we are looking for,” at the end of the interview. Which leads me to believe that she’s pretty much made up her mind, and my placement just depends on how well I impress Susie.

The only downside to the position is that it only pays $10-$12/hr. Which puts me right f*ing back where I was 7 months ago. Except that at least with this position, I’m in the field I want to be in, doing challenging work, gaining experience for the position I want 5 years from now, with plenty of room for advancement. Simply put, within 1 - 1.5 years, I could easily apply for the next highest position and have no problems with getting it. This would be a great position to get my foot in the door for my “dream-job”.

Fingers crossed, arms crossed, legs crossed, toes crossed, saying prayers tonight (that is if I can fall asleep).

Tag, you're it!

Son of a … LitteFluffyCloud got me! Sorry it took me so long, but here goes ...

10 years ago today
I was doing a lot of things I knew I shouldn’t do, involved in the worst relationship I’ve ever been in, but learning the biggest lesson of my life.

5 years ago today
I was working on a project that would pay for the best investment I’ve ever made, the twins!

1 year ago today
Nothing too exciting. Living the same normal everyday life that I’m living now.

Yesterday
I worked my first day at a new temp job at a company that I’ve actually submitted my resume to at least 4 times.

Tomorrow
I’ll be cleaning my house, taking Enzo to the dog park, probably giving Enzo a bath, and hopefully relaxing a bit before I start the week again.

5 snacks i enjoy
Oh my GAWD!I looooooove snacking! Popcorn, canned salmon, peanut butter on green apple slices, tomatoes/olives/alvocado with ranch dressing, any fruits.

5 bands that i know the lyrics to most of their songs
I don’t know if you’d call these bands since they’re all just single artists, Mariah Carey, Sade, Norah Jones, Alicia Keyes, Sarah McLachlan

5 things i would do with a $100,000,000
I’d set my whole family up with their own homes whereever they wanted to be. I’d give boyfriend as much money as he wanted to start his own company. I’d buy us a few homes in various fantasy locations. I’d donate to a few of my favorite charities. I’d go to school and learn as much as I could for the rest of my life.

5 locations i would like to run away to
Italy, Spain, Brazil, Play Del Carmen, Belize

5 bad habits i have
Watching soap operas (probably the one I’m most embarrassed about), yelling at the TV when someone says or does something really stupid (even though they may just be acting out a part), my addiction to the internet, my addiction to chocolate, fast food

5 things i like doing
Working out, cooking, hanging out with friends, playing with Enzo, spending time with boyfreind, eBay

5 things i would never wear
Flourescent neon colors, cowboy boots, a moo-moo, crimped hair, vintage clothing

5 tv shows i like
Big Brother, That 70’s Show, The Real World, Survivor, The Biggest Looser

5 movies i like
The Wizard Of Oz, Gone With The Wind, Resident Evil, The Godfather, Scarface

5 famous people i would like to meet
Meg Ryan, Madonna, Norah Jones, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie (not together!)

5 biggest joys at the moment
Playing with Enzo, spending time with my gorgeous friends, cuddling with my sexy boyfriend, catching up with my family, ebay

5 favorite toys
Since I’m not 5, I don’t really know how to answer this one. I guess I’ll go with games: Monopoly, Life, Yatzee, Jenga, Pharoah

People to tag
Lunch friend, Jennifer Ewell, Uncle Bob, Plain Jane, Chaos 24/7