Things I Learned from My Temp Job

It's officially OVER. I survived the temp job. Here are some things I learned from this experience. (Notice how I even included a photo of myself AT THE END OF THE DAY. Nice limp, greasy hair and greasy/sweaty complexion.)

How to Distinguish Tourists from the Locals

• They visit the very upscale mall directly after spending the day at the water park(s). (Mall Attire= swimsuit and cover-up or swimsuit with towel wrapped around waist)
• WHITE PASTY legs and arms (imagine HEAVENLY WHITE) with tank top, short Daisy Duke shorts, and Universal/Islands of Adventure pass hanging around neck.
• Wearing a plethora of CHARACTER Apparel (ICK).
• Fanny pack or OVERSIZED Backpack instead of Gucci, Coach or Prada handbag.
• Busting out with the WINTER PARKA upon entering the mall. (Tourists aren't used to the cool air conditioning . . . they mistaken it for the 20-30 degrees below 0 weather they left behind up North).
  

What Not to Wear 101

• Disney Character Apparel from head to toe when you are in your 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. (It's obnoxious and embarrassing when my not even 3 year old daughter wears her Princess shirt. The embarrassing factor increases by 1 million for every year past 5.
• Swimsuit and cover up in an UPSCALE mall.

What to Wear 101

• A bra if you are size C or above. Especially if you are a DD or EE. Please do the gals a favor and strap them in when going out in public.
  

What Not to Say 101

• No tank you. We ain't do nuttin. It good. (This coming from a gentleman DRESSED to the hilt in $625 designer jeans, $250 designer shirt)
• Nope. We are in a hurry. My wife is going into labor. RIGHT NOW. (Coming from a husband that has made at least 3 trips back and forth to his car with Pottery Barn Kids merchandise)
• Neiman Marcus (It's Neiman's) or Bloomingdales (It's Bloomies). Thankyouverymuch.
  

Most Common Visitors to the $10.99 a pound Candy Shop in Bloomies

• Frazzled upscale moms

Least Common Visitors to the $10.99 a pound Candy Shop in Bloomies

• The bratty upscale kiddos that are making the upscale moms FRAZZLED.
  
• Or is it the nanny or NANNIES that had the day off from caring for the kids?

Disclaimer: As mentioned before, I have NO PROBLEMS with people that have lots and lots and lots of money. More power to ya. But, I will repeat what I said in an earlier post. Money does not necessarily buy class.

Thank You, Temp Job and Temp Job Employer for helping me to raise funds to travel cross country and attend Women's Conference at BYU and Blogapalooza 2008.

Independence Day

Scene: Ramirez House 7:00 A.M.

Sarah: (Entering SLEEPING Parents' Room)
Mami, I gotta go potty. Can I go pee? Come on mami, come on.

Sleeping Mami: Yeah, Sarah. You can go to the bathroom. Go by yourself and come get me when you need help wiping.

Sarah: O.K. mami. I do it myself. I gotta go mami. Go pee. Bye-bye mami. Go to seep. You go to seep. Close your eyes. Um . . . K?

5 minutes of SILENCE and PEACE so sleeping mom can continue to SLEEP.

Sarah: Uh-oh mami. The toy-et is seeping. It go night night. It go wshhhh . . . . . wshhhhh . . . and it don't go bye-bye. Um . . . K mami? Ya gotta come on! Come on!! COME ON!!! Hu-wee!! Hu-wee!! Ya gotta wake up. It wake up time. It da moe-ning. O.K.?

Happy Happy Birthday Heather Dear

Please go here and wish my darling sister a Happy Birthday. I love you sis! See you in 5 days!

A las escondidas (Sarah-style)

Sarah loves to play hide and go seek with her friends. Tomorrow if I remember, I'll get a picture of the tree where they do their counting. Sarah loves to have a turn. This is what it sounds like when it's her turn to be "it":

Sarah: One, two, fwee, fo-wa, fife, six, seben, ten, wev-en, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh . . .

Reason #999 Why "Stay at Home Moms" Should Stay at Home

Cristian worked from home today. When I got back home this afternoon from teaching Kindermusik and Silver Sneakers, I noticed Sarah's clothes for the day still perfectly laid out where I had left them this morning. Hmmmmmmm. Cristian usually doesn't pick out clothes, so I thought it was strange that today he decided to mix it up a bit and choose Sarah's outfit. Come to find out, Cristian sent Sarah to Yasmin's house in the same clothes "I had dressed her in this morning". Translation: She went to Yasmin's house wearing her PAJAMAS. The same PAJAMAS she has worn 5 nights in a row. The same stinky pajamas that she WILL NOT LET ME PUT IN THE WASHER. Nice. That would be my kid. Trailer park trash-a-roo. I'm over worrying about what others will think about me or my mothering skills. They already know I.AM. LOSING.IT.

Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven

One of my favorite religion professors at BYU, Brother Benson used to always say "sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven." I sure hope he is right. Because I have been living through HELL the last several days as I have worked a side job to help pay for my trip to Women's Conference at BYU and Blogapalooza.

I have been working at Mall at M*lenn*a. This mall would be the equivalent of the shops on Rodeo Drive. It's very very upscale and very very posh. And very very out of my league. Has it been worth the $17 per hour, six- hour days standing on my feet in the hot blaring sun (surveying the rich and famous or rich and not so famous)? NO. WAY. I would never in a million years do this job again. But I keep thinking . . . if it weren't for this side job, there would be no Women's Conference and no Blogapalooza. So . . . let's think about the positive. These are the things I have learned my first three days on the job.

• Lots of money does not buy class.

• Bloomingdale's east parking lot (facing Ikea) is THE PLACE to park. Instead of having 50,005 cars waiting for the one available parking spot that is at the main entrance . . . there is only 1 car parked there with 50,005 empty parking spots.

• Speaking of parking . . . if it's 2:59 p.m. and you are supposed to clock in at 3:00 p.m. for the job . . . that front row parking spot is not necessarily The Secret's law of attraction working in your favor. It's most likely just a DUMB BLONDE that has bypassed the valet park barriers and taken one of their primo front row valet parking spots without knowing. But don't worry. I can attest that your car will not get towed if parked in the prohibited "Valet Parking Only" area for 6 hours . . . especially if it's a 2000 Ford Windstar van.

• Did you know that the going rate for 14 cinnamon bears from the candy bar at Bloomingdale's costs $3.41? (Yes, it would have been much better to be PATIENT and wait for the trip to Utah where I could probably buy 5 pounds of cinnamon bears for that price).

• A $905 pair of designer heels is truly AFFORDABLE since the same pair costs DOUBLE that in the U.K.
  

I'll post some other things later. I had so many good ones as I was working my shifts. I kept thinking in my head "I've got to blog about this . . . I've got to blog about that".

Dear Dad (A.K.A. Padre),

We had a busy Spring Break. Remember the project we never got around to when you visited last April? Well we (Hermano Castillo) put the caulk stuff in all the stucco cracks. We also made a big giant Costco run ($390.00). Now that we purchased one of everything at Costco, the cracks in the stucco have been repaired and our leaky roof has been fixed, we are definitely ready for a rainy day . . . and for hurricane season.

Would you like us (Hermano Castillo) to paint over the caulk . . . or should we save that project for you? Just let me know and we will either take care of the painting immediately . . . or wait until you can come and do that project for us. What would a trip to Florida be without projects????? Also, we offered to pay Brad for his services. Since fair is fair, we will also put you on the payroll for projects completed at 8XXX D.V. Lane.

Also, just wanted to let you know I have been missing you a lot lately. On Saturday night at 9:00 p.m. I was thinking about you, and my van must have been thinking about you too. My van veered towards the gas station and stopped suddenly in front of the gas tank. When I pulled out of the gas station, my gas tank looked like this:My gas tank hasn't looked like that since you filled it up last. I'm used to seeing a little bright light with the arrow pointing to the letter E. What does that silly E mean anyway? As you can see, we are ready for hurricane season. Now the only thing we are missing is the good chocolate chips from Guittard Chocolate Factory. Will you please check your freezer and see if you have any chocolate chips left? It's really hard to make good chocolate chip cookies when I don't have the good chocolate chips.

Lovin you,


Your Favorite Daughter (emphasis on the FAVORITE since Heather, Anne, and Rach will be reading this letter too)

Heidi

Dear Brad,

It's been almost two years since you visited us. That means two years of projects have been waiting on hold. According to Tino and Mateo, Uncle Brad is the only person in the world that knows how to fix things. Here's a little list of things you can now cross off of your "To-Do" list, since they were already done. You can thank Hermano Castillo next time you come to visit for doing "your" work.

• Put Tino's baseball ceiling fan into Tino's baseball-themed room. (I know . . . when you installed this fan two years ago, we had NO IDEA the boys would no longer be sharing a room).

• Install Mateo's ceiling fan.
• Put two recessed lights above piano so Friday evening piano students can SEE their music better. (Now they will have to fess up to not practicing and can't blame it on not being able to see their music because it's too dark).
• Fix the holes in the wall that are in the garage. OOPS. (I've driven too far forward one to many times and knocked the lawnmower and Cristian's other yard stuff into the garage walls).
  
• Fix the roof leak.
• Take out drywall/insulation in Cristian's office and fix whatever needs to be fixed from the above-mentioned roof leak.
• Put orange peel stuff back on the walls.
• Repaint the walls.
  

Next time I'd rather pay you to do all this work. And PLEASE bring Heather, Abbie, Mia Mia and Max along too. I've heard they are really good helpers.

Love,

Heidi
(Your favorite Sister- in -Law in the whole entire PLANET)

Spring Cleaning

At the very very very last minute, my friend and I decided we would participate in the community garage sale. I pulled everything out of the back of my van (all the stuff that was going to be dropped off at Goodwill). Of course I was so busy selling all my JUNK that I didn't have a chance to take pictures until after we had cleaned up about 99.9% of the stuff. Why do I not remember that garage sales are a lot of work? And why do I not remember that it is NOT worth the time and effort? My friend made $100+, Tino made $40.xx and I made a whopping $16.00. We couldn't figure out why there wasn't too much traffic in the early morning hours (7:00 a.m.-8:30 a.m.). Hello . . . the HOA forgot to OPEN OUR GATES. Gates were opened at 8:45 a.m. That means I could have had another 1 hour and 45 minutes of extra sleep. Oh well.



P.S. NOOOOOOOO the stroller was not for sale. No the folding chairs were not for sale. No the scooters were not for sale. No the Little Tykes table was not for sale. No the box of Christmas decorations, patio table, or end tables were not for sale either.

FOR SALE . . . SOLD AS IS

Tino has a favorite t-shirt he got last year. He wears it ALL THE TIME. It says : "Sister for Sale. Sold as is. No refunds." I just did a quick little search on the internet to see if I could get one of those t-shirts as well. Except it would say "Daughter for Sale." My parents sold my sister Heather to the gypsies when she was younger (according to Heather). To this day, I wonder how we ended up getting her back. Oops . . . I digress. Unfortunately, the gypsies only hit Florida when it gets colder up north. I don't expect to see any gypsies until at least around October or November. And that's a very long time to wait. Any takers?????

A couple weeks ago Sarah learned how to get the child proof locks off the inside of her bedroom door. This means she comes to visit us multiple times throughout the night. According to her behavior therapist, we need to: A. Continue to return her to her bed/room each time she comes in to sleep with us. B. Let her cry it out as we are holding her bedroom door closed.. C. Put a gate at her door so she can't get out of her room. (But how long will it be until she climbs over the gate OR falls and cracks her head open on the tile floor as she is trying to escape???) We've tried options #A and #B.

Last night Sarah DID. NOT. SLEEP. O.K. so I guess she took a little nap from 10:30 p.m. until 12:15 a.m. I then heard the pitter patter of little feet walking through the house to get to our bedroom. I took her to the bathroom, walked her back to her room, put her in bed, etc. 2:00 a.m. I heard the pitter patter of little feet again. I was so tired that I drifted back to sleep and figured I would ignore her . . . that lasted until 2:15 a.m. (She was complaining because she wanted me to hold her and because she wanted to go watch Disney Channel NOW. PEASE. (Anybody catching anything wrong with this picture other than the fact that A. It's 2:15 in the stinkin' morning and B. We haven't had cable or satellite with Disney Channel for 2 years . . .) This little pattern repeated itself at 3:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., 5:15 a.m. Finally at 5:30 a.m. I stumbled into the family room to find a Dora video, make chocolate milk, and told her DO. NOT. COME. INTO. MY. ROOM. ONE. MORE. TIME. She came in at 6:15 a.m. and said "Mommy, wake up. Time to get up. Open your eyes. Get outta bed. NOW. . . . PEASE."

I've tried to sleep in her room with her. But she is such a noisy sleeper. She has MULTIPLE night awakenings and each awakening is VERY LOUD. If she's not screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs, she tosses and turns and shouts out who knows what. Maybe more speech therapy will help with her articulation so I will at least know and understand what it is she is shouting out while she is having these awakenings.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. At least if I had a newborn there would be an excuse for my sleepless nights, BUT this is OUT. OF. CONTROL. I am very tired, very cranky, very crabby, which turns me into an out of control mother the following day.