Sigh of Relief

                                                                             Source: sunsurfer.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

As I mentioned yesterday, I was really sad and disappointed that I even had to suspect that things had gone south with the whole fundraiser.


HOWEVER...

I received an email from Jen this morning letting me know how sorry she was that she hadn't been in communication with me in the past month or so.  She's had some unfortunate things happen in her life: death, floodings and a crashed computer.

Here is what she said about the fundraiser:

The fundraiser I held for you, brought in $600 in sales. I make 25% commission and I told you I was going to give you 66% of my total commission. I have decided that I am going to give you 100% of my commission, which gives you $150 to put towards your IVF/adoption fund. I know it didn't turn out to be a lot, but at least it is something.

The winner of the Demi Purse was Nicolasa M. from NH. Nicolasa has already received the purse, because all orders were completed, shipped and received. 

As far as those that didn't receive their orders, I now believe it was only one person and that's being figured out between the two of them.

In the end, a HUGE sigh of relief that there was a reasonable explanation and I can continue to trust in the goodness of people out in the world.

I want to thank each and every one of you that participated either by making a purchase or by sending us your prayers!  You mean the world to us!!


{Sorry, not sure what's up with the spacing.}

Women of Faith

Women of Faith is coming to Seattle!

Awhile ago, I got an email from Book Sneeze asking for bloggers to apply to go to Women of Faith and blog about it.

Because I've never been to a Women of Faith conference before and have heard only good things about it, I jumped right on it thinking that there was NO WAY that I'd be chosen.

BUT, I WAS!!

I'm SO very excited!


{Wishing that Natalie Grant and Angie Smith were going to be there, but still excited to see everyone that will be there nontheless!}

Because I haven't been before, I really don't know what to expect.

I know there will be crowds of people.

I know there will be great music.

And I know that there's going to be amazing speakers such as Lisa Weltchel and Brenda Warner.

SO, come October 28th & 29th I'll be enjoying myself at Key Arena with my BFF and a bunch of other amazing people!

I'll be Tweeting and Facebooking about it all!

Will I be seeing you there?  Let me know so we can meet!!

I Don't Even Know What To Say, But I Need Your Help!

I'm SO upset about this and completely disappointed that I even have to say anything negative about this.

If you remember, someone contacted me in July about holding a fundraiser for our Infertility Fund.  First, it completely caught me off guard and shocked me because I was surprised that anyone would ever want to do something like that for us.  Jen seemed so sincere about it saying that she herself has been dealing with infertility and after someone had held a fundraiser for her, and it did so well, that she wanted to do the same for other infertility sufferer's so she became a Thirty-One consultant.

I held off on responding to her for awhile.  I talked to Kyle about it and I thought about if this was something that I could put my pride aside for.  I'm not someone that asks for help easily and especially when it has to do with money.  But I figured that because the fundraiser had participants making a purchase for something that they wanted, with a percentage of each sale going towards us, and it wasn't participants just handing their hard-earned money over to us, that I was willing to let someone do this.

The fundraiser went for just under a month.

During this time, I was in contact with Jen by email.  She sent me some stuff to post here and on Facebook as well as ideas of how to get the word out.

I thanked her for doing this for us and she said that she wanted to help in any way she could.

On July 26th, Jen responded to one of my emails saying sorry for the delayed response but that she'd had her egg retrieval and wasn't feeling well.

On August 1st, I emailed her because I wasn't able to see the Hostess log-in information and she responded saying that she'd fixed it and also let me know about how participants could get 15% off.

On August 17th, I emailed her and asked her how much was raised and when she'd be able to let me know who won the Demi bag so I could let you all know.

On August 18th, she responded saying things had been hectic because her grandmother died so she was going to try to get the last orders through that night and then she'd get me the information.

On August 29th, I emailed her again asking for the details once again.  I've had people asking about it and I wanted to update everyone.

On September 11th, shortly before we left for vacation, I emailed once again asking her what was going on because I haven't heard from her in almost a month.

I still haven't heard from her.

I feel that at this point, I've been played or something.  I have a phone number for her that I'm planning on using this week to see if I can get any further with her that way.

Some people have contacted me saying they haven't received the orders that they placed.

I'm having a really hard time with this all.  The last thing I wanted was to have well meaning people placing orders through this person and company, thinking that they're helping us to fulfill our dream of a family, and then not receive their orders!  The funds for us is secondary to how I feel about the rest.  To me, it has nothing to do with the money and everything to do with all of YOU that thought you were HELPING us!

SO... IF YOU PLACED AN ORDER THROUGH JENNIFER YOUNG FOR OUR INFERTILITY FUND, AND DIDN'T RECEIVE YOUR ORDER, WILL YOU PLEASE LET ME KNOW?

I'm planning on calling Jennifer and if I don't get anywhere with her I'm going to call Thirty-One headquarters and see what can be done from their end.  I need all the information I can get from you all, though!

I'm SO SORRY that it has come to this!  I'm embarrassed and horrified that someone would play on my emotions and the emotions of everyone that cares about us!

Home Sweet Home

On the way home.

Well, we're home from our long and wonderful vacation to hot, rainy and muggy Florida.

We landed about 7:45 last night and got home around 10pm {Shuttle Express dropped us off at my inlaws and then we had to take SIL & BIL home - thankfully they live just 4 minutes from us}.  Today we picked Chewy up from our friends {and his sisters} house.  He was so excited to see us and so ready to go home.  He's been sleeping all day.  I think being with three kids and a dog for 12 days wore him out.

I've been catching up on my DVR.  It was 98% full!  Yikes!  BUT, I think it recorded everything I had set so I'm thankful for that, as obsessed with tv as I am. LOL

Our trip was SO wonderful and we had SUCH a GREAT time!  I want to tell you ALL about it!  But I have a few other things to post about before I can get to that.  Plus, I have about a million pictures to load.  I'm working on the first day right now and there's 579 pictures!  Yes, I'm snap-happy! =)

It's good to be home and I look forward to catching up with all of you!!!

Getting close to home!

Vacay

{No idea who those people are.}

I'm on vacation right now.

I have not abandoned my little ole blog.

Even though it seems like I have, right?

Today is the first time I've been able to get online in about three or four days because there is no internet where we're staying.  Kyle was able to get his HotSpot activated so now I'm able to sneak on for a few minutes.

We've been keeping incredibly busy and having the time of our lives!

Traveled by planes, trains and automobiles.

We've walked many, many, MANY miles.

Sweat?  Yeah, we've done our fair share of that, too!

Rides?  Check.

Getting photos taken?  Taking a million and one photos, too?  Check.  Check.

Family drama?  Oh boy, that's snuck in as well.  {When there's eight of you, that's bound to happen!}

Food, food and more food?  You bet!

The part that isn't so fun, which isn't that big of a deal, is that we're in a time zone that is three hours ahead.  So, it's fine in the evening but in the morning, it's brutal!  Basically getting up at 3am "our" time and then having very long days.  But that's what you're supposed to do on vacation, right? Get no sleep?  If so, we're certainly accomplishing that!  Today was the first day that we got to "sleep in".  That was till about 6am PST.  Here it is 11:45pm though but really my body thinks it's 8:45.  Tomorrow morning we're going to be getting up at "3am" in order to get to our next park when it opens since it closes early.

SO, I gotsa get to bed but I just wanted to check in and let ya know that I'm still alive and kicking!  Just away from home making memories to last a lifetime!

I'll try to sneak on again, but I make no promises! ;0)

Fundraiser Reminder

Hey Peeps!

Life has gotten away from me!  I'm sorry this isn't a post about all that's been going on.  No time for that right now.  And we're going on vacation.  The airport shuttle picks us up at 2:50 in the morning and today is jam-packed with last minute things, plus I'm still working today.  Ahhhh!!!!

I DID just want to remind you though that there is an AVON fundraiser going on right now, even though I haven't said much about it {see above}.  If you would still like to place an order, it needs to be done by Sunday the 18th.

{Thanks Google!}

For more in-depth information on this, refer to this post.

Thanks Friends!!

Ten Years

{via}

It's been TEN YEARS since the 9/11 attacks.

Very hard to believe because it seems like it was just yesterday.  It is still so fresh in everyone's minds.

I was recently engaged, and living with my mom.  We were getting ready for work.  We worked in Seattle at the same company so we rode the bus together every day.

I was in the bedroom and my mom was in the bathroom, both doing our makeup.  I was watching the news, as I did every morning while getting ready and they said that there had been a plane crash.  A plane had hit a building in New York.  I told my mom to come and watch the news.  Here we were, across the country and just thinking it was a fluke.  Then as we were watching, we saw the second plane hit.  We were mortified and so confused as to what was going on.  Shortly after that, we had to leave to catch our bus.  It was all that anyone was talking about on the way into Seattle.  The rest of the day was a blur as we went about our lives with conversations of what was happening in New York going on with people we came in contact with throughout the day.  I worked in a bank branch so I spoke to a lot of people that day.  When we got home, we were glued to the tv watching the coverage.

Watching all the coverage on tv this week has brought it all flooding back.  We will NEVER, EVER forget all of those innocent people that lost their lives on that day 10 years ago.

Where were you on this day 10 years ago?

It's My Day!

Source: marleinoverakker.com via Bridget on Pinterest

Source: love-the-day.com via Jenelle on Pinterest

Today I get to work.  Yeehaw!

{Hoping to avoid an awkward conversation with the mom of my client.  Crossing my fingers!}

Tonight, we'll be going out to dinner with the inlaws to celebrate mine and my brother-in-laws birthdays.

I saw my dad and all that part of the fam on Sunday and we'll see my mom for my birthday on Wednesday.  So, it's really a birthday WEEK instead of just a day. Yay!

Hope you all enjoy my birthday! ;0)

Frustrated

                                                                          Source: google.com.au via Michelle on Pinterest

I work in home healthcare.

Currently, I have three different clients that I work with.

When I go to their homes, the client uses what is called Respite hours to cover the hours that I'm there.

The clients have evaluations done every year, I believe, to determine how many respite hours they're going to have.

When I started working with my Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday client, they had A LOT of hours to use up by the end of August.

Generally speaking, I'm with her those three days a week from about 8:30/9:00am - 4:00pm.

This week, I went "away" with them overnight.  I got to the cabin at 9:45am and I left at 5:03pm the next day.  I was told by my boss that I could get paid for two 16 hour periods in a 48 hour period.  Some rule with the State prevents me from getting paid for the whole time I'm there.  She said basically I'm not getting paid to sleep.  Whatever.

On my way home on Wednesday, I talked to my boss and I told her when I left so that they could manually put my hours into the system since I didn't call the number I usually call to clock in.  Our final conversation determined that I'd get paid from 9:45am till midnight and then from 3:00am till 5:03pm when we left.  So basically I'd just not get paid for three hours.  I could deal with that.

Today, I get a call from the mom of the client telling me we have a problem.  That she doesn't have enough hours to cover me, the other caregiver and her oldest daughter that is also a caregiver for the month.  She said that the client went to bed at 8:30pm on Tuesday and that I wasn't responsible for her during the night.  Ok, whatever.  In my opinion, I was STILL THERE even if I didn't sleep with her and take care of her.  So now, I'm going to get paid 10.25 hours for one day and 9 hours for the other.

I should also mention that through this company I'm working for, they don't reimburse me for gas and I drive two of my clients around a lot {and it was about an hour each way to go to this cabin on a lake, can't remember how many miles}.  The mom of my Friday client gives me gas money although I guess the clients aren't allowed to reimburse for gas so this mom calls it "fun money".  I don't understand it but again, something having to do with the State and DSHS.

I'm just really frustrated.  I already get paid next to nothing for taking care of people that aren't able to care for themselves and now I'm not going to get paid for all the hours I was there because the client 1) doesn't have enough hours to cover me and 2) doesn't think I should get paid for the hours I wasn't by the clients side.

Another thing that I'm frustrated about is that with this company, I was told that I'd be able to get health insurance for myself after I'd worked 84 hours and I'd be able to keep it as long as I continued working 84 hours a month.  I've been with this company since March and I've definitely worked 84 hours and I continue to work MORE than 84 hours a month, yet I still don't have health insurance because they've been switching companies!!

I need a new job.  One that pays more.  One that gives me health insurance for both Kyle and me.  And one that doesn't require me to drive clients around without getting reimbursed for the gas I'm using!