Jakandy Bennu

Facebook has Tetris. I’ve completely been sucked in. We have a bit of a competition going around here…

It’s official. Our house went on the market today. Jake got an email from Realtorchick letting us know that it was up and running.

It made me smile. And then I got kinda squishy inside. This isn’t the first house that I’ve owned. That one had it’s own kind of place in my heart (being first real house..but that’s all)

Even being my second house, this one holds a special place in my heart.

I wasn’t wanting to move to Oak Ridge from west Knoxville–not yet at least… and my ex talked me into it (kinda…well enough, I suppose) And we found this house.

It’s the first house I ever fixed up for myself. Wall colors, furniture, etc… and that was fun. And it was mine. It was so neat.

But then again, it never was a home. We had a Christmas tree up once in 5 years. We lived here. We co-existed here. The house wasn’t getting what it needed. It has a soul. It’s 65 years old. It was just waiting.

Time moved on. Things changed. “Our” lonely house turned into “my” lonely house….

….. and now it’s a very happy Home.

Last year, I sat on the back porch of this house and I was proposed to. On my porch. At my house. With my critters sitting at my feet and his critters tucked into bed down the hall.

This house has been a home since then. It feels happy. Jake and I have combined forces on home projects and made it “ours”… we sit on the back porch every morning and have coffee and watch the dogs play … and the bats eating their morning bugs. And we’re happy here.

But it needs to be a bigger house. And it can’t be (well, physically yes…financially a bad move)

It’s kinda neat tho… that Jake and I will venture into the home buying field together… and find our next house together. I’ll be sad to leave this one, but it’s the next step.

And I’m very ok with that.

Yep. I do retail. That means I get to serve the public. 90% of the time, I love it. It’s different everyday and it’s a challenge. It’s also extremely rewarding to know you have loyal customers (some for 9+ years). They followed me from the Knoxville store to the Oak Ridge store. It’s kinda neat.

Yesterday (most of this week, actually) was one of those days that all the stoopid people were out. I don’t know if it’s a high-pressure system coming through…or the weather change. Every other person that needed assistance yesterday was “having a bad day”… and, evidently, it was all my fault.

example #1 - phone call

lady: “do you have any parrots in stock”

me: “no.. we don’t sell parrots”

lady: “well…that’s not true, I bought one this week”

me: ”are you sure it was this store? the biggest bird I sell is a parakeet.”

lady: ”not the bird. a PARROT F-I-S-H”

me: ”oh..sorry. I misunderstood. You just said parrot”

 lady: “well, i’m talking about the F I S H”

me: “yes. we have those” …

lady: “that’s what I thought…i’ll be down later (click)”

example #2

“this instant fence is marked for $329.. is that correct?”

“yes. it is… ”

“weeelll.. on your website, your selling it for $299…why is it more expensive in the store?”

“our website doesn’t have items for sell on it…just information about our stores”

“this is PxTxMaRT..right?

“no, maam…this is PetSuppliesPlus”

“I guess I need to go there then… (eyes rolling– and out the door)”

(I could have told her that the prices on their website are typically NOT the same as they are in the store, either….but she didn’t give me the chance… hope her drive to Turkey Creek was eventful)

That was just yesterday. On Friday, we had two classes from the OR Pre-school come to the store for a field-trip. They’ve been learning about pets this week. It was a total of 16 kiddos, broken into two groups with at least four adults tagging along. I had staff giving the tours and show-and-tell with the critters. I was running the store. There were probably a total of 30 people in a 12,000 sq ft store…with 7 aisles and 4 rooms.

A little lady (late 70’s) was checking out at the register and said “oh- you’re the manager… you all shouldn’t be doing this during business hours. It’s very distracting and loud in here. I’ve had a terrible experience in here today.”

She was the only one who fussed. All my other customers who shopped during the 2 hour visit were smiling and enjoying the immense excitement flowing through the store. It was a happy morning around here. And the SMILES… it was awesome.

I apologized to the angry little lady. But OMG…people need to get over themselves.

Today is Safari Day at Wildcat’s school. We’re just missing some binoculars… (he did put some shoes on before he left)

Tuesday was Safari Shoe Day… Wildcat got to sport some pretty cool SPIDER SHOES! Yes…I know. The spiders only have six eyes… I ran out of buttons.

(hee)

What a month…

It seems like it’s been one thing after another. It’s “normal,” but a break is nice every now and then. Like this last Sunday…we had no plans or ambitions…no “have” to-do’s. It was great.

August ran rampant. My brother was waiting on the job stuff to go through with DODes… extended family health things (in both of our families), school starting, Labor Day camping, never ending home improvements lost a manager at work, trained a manager at work… and dot, dot, dot

September…

yep, it’s half-way through and it’s socking-it-to-us just as much as August did. We’ve decided to try and sell our house (and all THAT stuff that goes with it), my baby brother is expecting his baby girl VERY soon, my dad is having surgery at the end of the month, my aunt decided to ride-out “Ike” (she’s ok), jobs are CRAZY right now…

And we’re taking a trip to Texas.

Yup. We’re going on our honeymoon a trip to Austin (a very good friend is going with us YAY!…so Jake said it can’t be our honeymoon). Our destination: Austin City Limits Festival

It’s going to be great. And the drive is going to be cool. Yes. I said DRIVE. Other than gas prices and the stupidity of it all … it should be a good road trip. Jake’s never been to Texas. We have two routes in mind… both with good things involved.

The Dallas route will take us to see my BESTEST friend in the world from college, that I wish lived closer. We see each other every 3-5 years and try and stay in touch as much as possible. From single and crazy to being moms… we’re running the race together. I just wish I could see her more… aaaannyway.

The Houston route will take us to see my favorite aunt. She just rode through Hurricane Ike. I don’t know what the coast of Lousiana and the gulf coast of Texas look like right now…but we may find out. I haven’t talked to her in person since the hurricane. I know she’s ok. And I know her house is ok. But I DONT know if she’s wanting house-guests next week. So-don’t know. I’d just HATE to be in Texas and not see my aunt. She rocks.

We’re very excited. The schedule of bands is sweet. Friday, we’re planning on seeing Vampire Weekend and Hot Chip at the Festival…and Gnarls Barkley at Stubb’s that evening. Saturday… we want to see the Black Keys… and… BECK! Ooooooo! I can’t wait!!

I’m sure we will fill the days between these concerts with some other awesome shows. We’re on the lookout for new stuff to listen to all the time.

The kids are staying with friends and family. The dogs are boarding. The cats… umm….well, I’ll work on that…

Everything will be covered. And we’ll be on a ROAD TRIP! hee…

I can’t wait. I need the break.

We’ve been laying around all day. The sky is cloudy. It’s warm and humid, but there’s a cool breeze blowing. Fall is on its way. The boys are playing. We can hear Wildcat singing tunes on the other end of the house.

Ate a big breakfast together, drank a pot of coffee… We were napping by noon.

It’s been a wonderful day.

So, we upgraded wordpress today, because we’re doing some housekeeping stuff, but we’re too damn tired of doing housekeeping stuff on the house to do, well, house housekeeping.  Or something.

I think we’re scheduled to do that this afternoon.

So, anyway, if its broken, you should probably contact your IT department.  They’ll put a ticket in, and it’ll get submitted to somebody that will probably forward it to somebody else, and then maybe fix it.

Or something.

Our puppy is having an identity crisis. My Doberman thinks he’s a Boxer.

I have a good baby-black eye to show for it.

(He did a lovely “shake” for his dinner…right at my face)

I love him dearly. I just wish he knew how big he was.

Sheesh.

Well.. we’ve decided to try and sell the house. For lots of reasons…not important right now. There is no urgency, there are no demands being put on us (other than the pressure of getting it ready to list- but we imposed that on ourselves).

We’ve been working on odd jobs. Cleaning up the yard, mulching, scraping peeling paint off the ceiling and repainting…repairing the door jams in the kitchen where we had to remove them to get our new, awesome fridge into the kitchen, and… we took the wallpaper out of the kitchen and painted the walls.

See?

Wish I had done it years ago… I think I love it.

Bell’s out of town tonight, and the first night we’ve been apart for a goodly little while.

And I had spaghetti.

So, here ya go.

I love you, lil Bell!