Progress

Natalie's mouth, gums and lips, are healing up just fine and thanks for the well wishes!

I believe I've made a friend or that I'm in process of making said friend. Went to lunch (croque monsieur) today with Laura from the shop and then went shopping for some items that are necessary for clean living.
A 'my little pony' video is playing in the background, so really, how do you think I'm doing right about now?  It's worth it though, because I've got my girl singing along with it and it's a really high, upbeat soprano's song. I think Natalie's singing baritone right now.
Might post more videos because of the lovely responses (thanks Lauren, Dan and Moms)

Natalie's booboo

The dentist said everything looked fine and that it'll look like this for a week or slightly more.

hurrhurrhurrdurrdurr derp and accidents

Just for fun. And just so you know, I had no idea the camera was filming me at the time. But I don't know why I did it or what happened that made me do it.

Natalie had an accident today at school and tomorrow we're/I'm taking her to the dentist. I was told that she was running and tripped. She fell on her mouth which caused her teeth to cut her upper lip and she's got bruising on her gums. Dan has tried wiggling her teeth and he says they're solid and not moving. What I find funny is how the St Oswald's staff treated me. They were absolutely great with Natalie; they treated her as best they could and gave her a push up popsicle while she waited for me to come get her. But with me, they kept asking if I was okay and telling me not to worry because Natalie only cried for two minutes. This makes me think that they've had many experiences with hysterical parents. I think they were fair surprised by the non-reaction from both of us. Well, this has happened before. But I did think that if I had just kept her home today (since she did throw the biggest tantrum yet this morning) she wouldn't have gotten hurt. Dan said to me that that way lies madness. And upon reflection, I'm inclined to agree.  At least it wasn't a broken clavicle. So, we'll go to the dentist, because we aren't dentists and I want to take care of my kid and the bruising on her gums does worry me. But oh my goodness, does she look funny, bless her!

Pinnacle here I come

My Search Story

Click on the above link (words in orange)...I've created a video and it is hopefully on YouTube. You can find me as mbrueokie. Or you can try searching for the video titled 'journey of the okie'.

Whatcha think? Do any of you have a YouTube account?

Usefulness

I was useful today. The work-study kids are out of the shop and there were no other volunteers working today.

I also applied for two jobs that are to start in January. One had an application deadline of today and the other has a deadline for the 15th. My CRB and FBI background checks are still in play so I've not been called by the supply agency yet. Got my national insurance number this week. I'm looking forward to being useful in that capacity.

Global terror alert

Do you think the terror alert was raised globally because I went out on Saturday? I did let myself go a little bit louder than usual.

Welcome over here!

I got fed up with my blog dot com site because it appeared as if it was a malicious URL. I will be posting here from now on.
Love to all.

September 29: Blog dot com recently has been giving me more trouble than I care to deal with. Just going to the main page usually takes me two or three tries. I’ll get the error message: 502 Bad Gateway. So, if this continues much longer, I’ll be using a different blogging site. Here’s your headsup.

Have been without consistent hot water for close to a week now. Plumber and landlord came today and it was determined that a certain part was needed but not one that the plumber had with him. So he’s coming again tomorrow to fix it.

We decided to go ahead and buy the seven West Wing DVDs. It was a deal we couldn’t pass up: £40 is a really good value for what it provides.

At the shop, it is getting down with drama. I don’t know where to begin. So let’s start with the Sale Rack. The shop manager, Leslie, put together a sale rack out of the men and women’s clothing that was out-of-date. To explain, each item gets a date that tells when it is to be pulled from the shop floor and be ‘ragged’. “Ragged’ merely means that it is bagged up and sent to some lalaland place where they make stuff out of rags. The shop has target sales to make each day, month, year. I think the daily target is somewhere around £200 and the yearly is £100,000. So, at one point, Leslie realized the shop wasn’t consistently making the daily target and came up with the idea to do a sale rack. This happened shortly after I started in mid-August. The district manager came last week for a quick check and to do exit interviews with the, for lack of better phrase, work-study kids. More on them later. So the sale rack was dismantled for the duration of her visit and after she left, it was immediately put back in play. I find out today that Sarah, the district manager, popped in unannounced and saw the Sale Rack. Leslie got chewed out. So here’s the situation: the shop in Durham is actually making target because of the Sale Rack. The other stores don’t have a Sale Rack and aren’t making target. And now we don’t have the Sale Rack. Shall we make target? Oh no we shan’t. And there’s supposed to be three paid positions at this store site but the powers that be are only allowing one, Leslie’s position as manager.

October 4: Russian Hat Man came in the other day to browse the bric-a-brac. He ended up buying a porcelain goblet with a mermaid as its stem. He was wearing fatigues and the red star on his hat was covered up by the flaps so I can only assume he was incognito at the time and buying something was just his way of diverting my attention from the NINE PIECES OF BLING!!!  When did he get number 8???!!!

Saturday October 2nd: Saturday night was the going away night out for the work-study kids and I was invited to come. Only one kid showed: Emma. But it was really great anyways! It was the four of us, Emma, Leslie, Laura, and  me. Girls night out or as they say here, night out with the lads. Lemme tell ya, I totally held my own with these hardcore northern England gals. I could’ve kept going but they had to catch buses.

Sometime last week: I get news about a family member that’s been really not well for a while. Can I just say that I’m not altogether that happy with the manner in which the information was doled out? I can’t wrap my head around a lot of what I got told but suffice it to say, I’m not in a position to be of any service. I get the feeling my rank in the family is still somewhere around the base of the proverbial totem pole. I know why information is withheld, I just don’t understand why it is this way.

So, the perception of Americans by Britons is thus: Everything is bigger over there. Case in point: Kev from the pub. He’s a nice man we’ve met here and he’s been to the US a few times, Florida in particular. And he was majorly impressed by the size of liquor stores. Here, there is only one liquor store and it mainly sells wine, really. Here you can get liquor and beer and mixers in the supermarket…but no big liquor warehouses. Kev was amazed by the stock of Wild Turkey available for him to browse.  Another case in point: Emma from the shop. She’s a fairly bright gal but was under the impression that we Americans like to do Halloween in a big way…Thanks be to Hollywood. She thought we decorate to the hilt the streets and houses with all sorts of harvesty, Halloweeny things. I could be wrong, but I told her that in certain places, maybe, but as a general rule, no.

And so dear reader, are you decorating for Halloween?

The winner of the Car-Naming-Contest is: “Dimples” by Grandmother Susan

Runner-up: “Eeihck” by ChrisnMeg

Honorable Mention: “Skittles” by Des

Candy is ready for you provided you EMAIL me your addresses in the near future.