Monday, April 13, 2009

Well today is a very wet and rainy day! A temp in the low 40’s to high 30’s, over cast skies with fog, blowing a constant 15-20MPH. All the snow from last night is being melted away by all the rain, so it’s really slushy outside on the boardwalks. The dogs don’t like this kind of weather and were very hesitant about leaving the porch, but they had to do their thing – all we have to do is bring out a ball to throw and they will all go running out to chase it, then finally find their potty spots then run back inside!

The walk down to the office was wet and slippery. I managed to make it without slipping with the rain and wind beating on my back the whole time. The office can be closed today in observance of Easter, but I decided that I’d come in to get everything I needed to get done finished up since the office should be quiet since most people are expecting us to be closed. My mom was already in the office- she got the cash out for the store and was collecting time cards. Once I arrived she went back home. She had all the time cards collected up already so I started on payroll first, then got the charge slips entered in the book. I had some people waiting for their payroll checks, so once the checks were done I cashed their checks for them. I started on some hotel billing, and then Eva yelled up to me that it was lunch time. So I drove her and my other neighbor, who was shopping and had a good amount of groceries to take home, home on the 4-wheeler – the ride sucked, headwind right into the rain (which stung my face).

For lunch today I boiled up some eggs and had an egg salad sandwich – quick and easy!

The ride back to work was easier, since the wind was at my back again. I got down to the office and had a couple people waiting for their payroll checks – since they heard I was open and the checks were done. I also had a couple of the City employees come up and cash their checks. Most people are soaked from all the rain outside. A couple people showed up in full rain gear (maybe they were working…)

There was mail yesterday and I happened to get a couple more of my eBay orders in. I also got a birthday gift from my hubby – he let me go shopping at Sephora… so I was excited to see that box come in!! I also got in a really cute pair of heels – my aunty Alice said they look like Barbie shoes… LOL! Maybe I will take a picture of them and post it. I think they are super cute, and they are actually comfortable! Hard to find heels that don’t hurt your feet! I wore them most of the morning here at the office and during lunch and they felt great! I hate shoes that push on parts of your foot and create blisters, or when it pushes on your toes and they “go to sleep” or shoes that at the end of the day you wish you picked comfort over fashion, I find myself doing this sometimes because some shoes are way too cute not to wear, even if you feet hurt a bit… I find that I wear cute shoes when I travel, and my DC’s are my year round footwear for here in Akutan (well flip flops in the summer on dry days!)! That is unless I’m going out in the skiff then it’s Extra-Tuffs (boots).

Well I happened to get a pretty good amount done in the office. I am happy that I was able to come in and get caught up a bit on paperwork in the spreadsheets and get the hotel billing done up. I had Sarah from Story Corps call in to pay for the lodging for Sharon and Kristine. I let her know that the big room that they were doing the recording in was donated by the Corp, so they only owed for the small rooms that they occupied while they were here. So I charged her card and faxed all the receipts back. I am pretty happy with my copy of my story. I have yet to hear my dad, Uncle Darryl and Uncle Chris’ stories! I know they have copies at the library, so I can always go check them out when I want (as long as they still have them).

Well the weather last night was bad enough with the white out conditions and wet snow that the satellite dishes must have been coated thick enough that all the channels went out and we had no cable. Today the internet seems to be dragging along… at least I don’t use anything that depends on the internet (well for work). Personally I hate when we don’t have internet… sometimes the phone company goes haywire and we can’t make any outgoing calls off the island but we can still call locally – it’s always great to have the internet so we can still “connect” with the outside world. Some of the people my parents age always talk about back in the day when we only had like 1 mail boat a month and we didn’t have phones, internet, cable TV or really anyway to contact the “real world”. And how they kind of wish that it was still like that today… not sure why they would want that today. I guess one reason why is the “younger” generation today is really into the electronic age – with our iPods, cell phones, computers and video games. How we want to eat at places like Pizza Hut, Dominos, McDonalds, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell and all those other fast food place that we’re exposed to on TV. Just having cable TV in general exposes us to so much… and I don’t think the older generation likes watching us grow up with all the stuff that they didn’t need to get where they are now kind of thing. I just think they don’t want to accept the technology that we are learning because they don’t understand it?!?! I don’t know exactly… but that’s one way I look at it. If you think about it… we’re actually a lot farther behind than we thought – well than Hollywood thought. Because I remember like 10 years ago people predicting that by this time (well 2010) we should all have human sized robots living with us and helping us. I don’t think our robotics is that great… and if it is… then maybe it’s because we as humans don’t trust a machine that can think on its own like that…. I wouldn’t know….

Well this afternoon I felt pretty productive and was happy that I was able to get a bunch of work done for our auditor, who happens to be flying out here next week to finally get our audit done for the Corp! We’ve been having such a hard time trying to find someone else, since the person we used to use retired and stopped doing it this year – left us hanging a bit and we had to scramble to find someone who could do our audit for us. We finally found a company that can take on our work load and send a couple people out to look through all our records and what not. So happy we finally got that ball rolling! They were happy that I was here to get some paperwork they needed faxed back out to them! Happy I could be here to help! I guess they were having problems flying out and back on a weekday, so I suggested looking at the weekend schedule… and they found flights no problem! YAY, better to have them come sooner than later… if they couldn’t fly out next week their next opening to fly down would be sometime next month… so I’m glad they found roundtrip tickets for 2 people!

Well anyone who walks in the office is soaked from the wet rain/snow mix that is heavily falling from the sky. I had a couple more people come up to cash checks. I even had a couple Trident employees come to cash their checks; sometimes though we have people who don’t like the 10% check cashing fee and walk back out. Has to suck to be walking thru all that crappy weather just to decide not to cash your check and walk back to Trident… I guess it isn’t really that cold though... my thermometer says 48F, but it feels colder than that!

Marylil, her and her husband were running the Safe Harbor Church (Trident’s Church) for the past couple months, and their permanent replacements have come in. (Which is another reason why we had that potluck the other night). She came up to my office and brought my mom and me a blooming Easter Calla lily and she also gave us these Daily Inspiration books. She and her husband Vince are leaving on a boat tonight. It was really cool to be able to get to know them; they were a pretty awesome couple and fit in great with our community. I hope the next couple (who I heard has 3 kids to add to our school!!) is just as awesome as they were!

Well I got us everything I need to make us cheese burgers for dinner tonight. I love making burgers on my George Foreman grill!

I hope everyone had a great Monday and an even better Monday Night!! Much luv and until tomorrow TTFN!!