This is hard to write

I want my friends to know, because I'm tired of making myself an outcast with so much unspoken between myself and my friends (whether they know it or not) ... and because Dr. J and I definitely need some serious prayer, but it's still difficult to just put it out there. A few of our friends are aware, but Dr. J and I are doing in vitro this month. Please pray for us, this has been a very long struggle even getting to this place. And since I just gave myself my first shot, we are sure to have a stressful month ahead of us.

I'll be on a lot of medication, so pray that I'm good at taking it and Dr. J is good at giving it. I'm not allowed to exercise, so I need another form of stress relief and I really don't know what that will be. And of course school starts this month (and we have a house guest) ... so it's just a lot. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to take it all on. There is a pretty good chance I'll miss the first day of school, too. So in the next week, I need to get a LOT done in terms of school preparations.

I will try and post some updates, but I (actually we) do ask that you not ask about how things are going. It's hard to explain all of the emotions that you have leading up to and during this process. Most of the time, I'm pretty easily offended because, yeah, most people just say the wrong thing. If I could figure out what the right thing to say is, I'd let you know. So mostly we just ask for prayer.

You know when large businesses think they can screw customers because we are little and they are big?

I feel it my duty to warn others of those companies. I used ABC Distributing (catolog / online) for the first time this past month and was charged incorrectly. I thought it would be straightened out easily but gave up. I was forced to write the following letter to their website.

I am writing to state that I will never do business with this company again and will encourage others to stay away.

1. My billing was bizzare (3 separate charges for a single order), I was not charged the amount for shipping that was stated to me.

2. I looked at items in May, I did not buy them until several weeks later in the middle of June. I know because my car was stolen on June 19 ... I sat down a few days later after having some free time and then purchsed. Your system recorded my order date as May 30. That is wrong. It is bad business to put incorrect information like ORDER DATES wrong.

3. Your customer service rep I spoke to was reading excuses off a paper and kept talking over me. She transferred me to someone to help me with a credit card charge. This person was kind, but told me I should have gotten a refund from customer service.

4. You don't even have 800 number. I had to PAY for this useless phonecall.

5. I like my products, but this is a shady organization that cannot be trusted.

Ok fine.

i was in the hospital last week. so there you have it.

i'm fine, it's probably an ulcer. it was a long irritating and painful day. as you can imagine i'm not the most patient patient.

How on earth did patients ever come by that name? I can just see a bunch of exhausted, unjustly-beaten down doctors lounging at the end of day in a sauna just listening to the silence ... when one lifts his head, cracks open an eyelid and says "you know what we oughta call them ...."

People watching

Is it awful of me to want to take a photo of the middle aged man on the airplane that is wearing tapered (and frosted!) denim jeans with the matching frosted denim jacket?? I so want to post this on my blog. Even better, the set looks newly purchased. He's going way out of his way to remain in his youth.

Closure

At lunch today, we received a certified mail letter from the Sheriff's Dept saying that our car was at XXX Towing. I guess that means it's found.

This past Monday we settled with insurance and have already replaced the car (the new one is grey, instead of red ... sniff, sniff). So insurance owns the car now.

But in any case, we got to see. It was fine. It was found at Big Lots in West Columbia. It's been smoked in and had cigarette butts in the front console, the Temporary Owners didn't take care to keep dirt and sand out of the car, and somehow they broke the rear windshield wiper and had it sitting in the back seat, but other than that, it looked good.

Even the gossip magazine I was reading on the trip back from Dallas were still in the car, and were definitely used. And my iPod was gone, but that was pretty much a given.

So what can we tell about our theives? They are Broadway Showtune / Celebrity Gossip loving smokers that like to buy discount household products probably because they do not bother to wipe their feet before going inside.

Anyway, I knew you all would want to know. I'm praying things are on the way up for us!

Preparations

Dr. J's sister arrives on July 16. Our guest bedroom has a decent sized closet except that it is overflowing with our stuff already.

Here I go about to install some new shelving. I love an excuse to use a drill :) Wish me luck!!

Ivanka the iPhone

I don't name vehicles, but I do tend to name electronics that talk to me. The navigator in my car is Natasha and Dr. J is guided in his car by Ximena.

Having your car stolen brings about many follow up tasks, including yet another 11 hour drive down I-20 to get another Tiguan. One actually was, since we had been contemplating iPhones and my iPod was in the car when it was stolen, we got iPhones for our birthdays / someone-took-our-car-and-iPod.

I never imagined how much I would use this little guy. And as I sat in the car just now for 82 minutes trying to get the Sirius Account transferred from the stolen vehicle to the new one, I had games to play, facebook to check, To Do Lists to modify. I think it helped me not go nuts as I baked in the car ... in July ... in South Carolina. Because since the car wasn't activating properly, I had to get out from under any trees. and sit. and wait. and dehydrate. I didn't know it would take so long or I would have prepared myself with beach gear.

I have found some cool apps though. (Mancala, fuzzle, and I paid $0.99 for Dominoes). And of course a movie trivia app that's very me. There's a grocery list app that I am still debating whether I will use it or not. But this is the first time in 4 days I've used an actual computer. Dr. J has taken to playing on his phone in bed and we no longer talk.

Maybe I should find an iMarriage app so that we can communicate when we are in the same room.