The Dark Knight Rises shooting

As yet we have no motive. I have lots to say about this horrific tragedy but at this time I don't feel it's right or necessary.

Suffice it to say my thoughts are with the victims and their families. My prayers are for all affected. This is a sick, sad, wrong tragedy in our fallen, broken world.

Heartbroken today.

Shooting at the Dark Knight Rises

Why?! WHY?! I just want to know why someone would open fire in a movie theatre that is going to be predominantly filled with young people. Summertime and a midnight screening is teenager central and someone is going to go in there shooting? I honestly can't stand this world tonight. This is my home state. It breaks my heart that this happened anywhere but especially here. This is the world we live in. I am just sick over this and can't stop thinking of those injured and the families of those whose loved ones will never come home again. Praying for all of those affected. Praying no one I know was there. This is just sick, sick, sick.

I got up to feed the baby, who is going through a growth spurt and checked the time on my phone only to see this report. Now I can't get back to sleep and I have no one to talk to about this insanity; I vocalize to process so here I am bogging about something horrific as my first blog in months.

This is so vile. Reports are that children, even babies may be amongst the dead. I pray it isn't so. I pray the reports of 14 dead and 39 injured are overblown amounts and that no one is dead and the injures aren't critical. This is just awful.

Blog changes

It has come to my attention that perhaps I'm not being clear enough about Gage and his "diagnosis" (for lack of a better word). I believed when I was writing about Gage and his prognosis that I was making it perfectly clear that his prognosis is great, it is possible that he will outgrow all of this, he does not have a technical diagnosis at this point as he is too young, etc. Apparently that was not clear enough, and some see fit to behave as if Gage having delayed speech, and the possibility of very minor sensory perception issues make him less of a "normal" two-year-old. Let me be the first to say, there is no normal. BUT, as two-year-old go, Gage is right on track with the exception of speech. He should be treated, loved, and accepted like any other two-year-old. Just because he doesn't speak yet, it doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy everything every other kid his age does.

We will continue to do what we need to do in order for Gage to continue thriving. But I feel it's best if I no longer make it public due to how clearly I'm being misunderstood. If you want Gage updates, email me. I'll share what I feel is appropriate. For the time being, all posts tagged with or mentioning Gage, apraxia, and sensory perception are being pulled. As I have time to weed through them pull specific parts out that I'm comfortable reposting, I will.

I'm sorry it has come to this, but I refuse for Gage to be labeled in a way that paints him in a negative light. He is too awesome of a kid for this level of misconception.

And now, the world outside of Gage

This post will be about something other than Gage, haha. So it'll probably be short since things are kind of revolving around him right now.

Sorry for any grammatical errors I may make in my posts; I'm reduced to posting on my phone because my computer's display is pretty much dead. I'm working on getting it fixed, but it's proving to be sort of a pain. I tried to just adjust the cable, but ended up making the display worse, so I guess I just ruined the cable. I'm not much of a computer hardware repair person. My brother will be handling the cable replacement as I'm too nervous to attempt again.

If you know me, and my cell phone history over the past couple years, you know I've had a string of Droids that I have had a love/hate relationship with the Android hardware. I love the operating system, I love (most) things about the phones, and I love the customization aspect. I don't love the fact that I've had four different kinds of Droids in a couple years, and probably done in the neighborhood of 13 warranty swaps altogether. This makes me frustrated. Most recently, I had an Incredible 2 that just stopped working. It bricked itself, basically. It was very frustrating in that I had a terrible loaner from Verizon and they made the process a pretty big headache. The manager was trying to be helpful, and really pushed me to accept an iPhone. I'm not too sold on Apple in general, but it was hard to ignore their talk of the iPhone reliability. I told them I would give this replacement Incredible 2 a fair shake, and see how it worked, then I would consider going into an iPhone (this would be a free switch, obviously.) I have been really happy with everything about the Inc2, love the size, feel, etc, but not the uncertainty. So I really hoped this one would be IT. And I've been having pretty good luck with this Droid... Til yesterday and today, when I've started having random restarts. Sigh. Looks like I may end up swapping again. I'm nervous about going to a whole different OS, though. Anyone have any iPhone experience? Love it/hate it?

I'm getting excited and nervous for baby to arrive. My shower is this weekend, my mom is generously gifting me with a pregnancy massage this week, and today marks 40 days til I'm due. We also have maternity family pics on Sunday morning, so I'm really excited about those, too. I have my last ultrasound next week, when I'll find out if she's measuring as big as my stomach is. I'm stoked and a little freaked out about that, too. I'm way sick of being pregnant, but I don't want to see her early. So I'm just eagerly anticipating mid-April.

I guess that's about all for now. I'm tired and my back hurts, and if my crazy son will ever sleep, I will too.

Why do companies behave this way? Bank of America...

Bank of America, oh my gosh. They are quite possibly the worst company to deal with that I've ever encountered. If you remember, or you've been reading back, our house in Albuquerque had a mortgage on it that was bought by BofA one week or so after we bought the house. We have never been huge BofA fans, but when a mortgage company buys your mortgage, what is there to do but deal with the fact that you may not like the company that bought it? Unless you want to continuously re-fi, that is.

Anyway, I called BofA way back in September because our credit reports still show that we own the property in Albuquerque, despite its closing in March of 2011. They said that file was still open because it was showing incomplete, and when I explained that there was no way the sale was incomplete as someone else CLOSED on the house and LIVES in it, she said she'd forward it to the managers, and they would close it out. (I posted about all this on Sept 30). She also told me they would send me a letter verifying that the mortgage was closed. I gave her our address at our apartment as they had our PO box on file, and we don't have anything going to the PO box anymore, as we haven't had it since September. And then, we waited. And we waited some more. Nothing came. I called again in early February, because I'd begun doing our taxes, and found out that we needed some tax forms relating to the sale of the house. Apparently they were non-essential, but I did want to enter them into TurboTax anyway. The person I spoke with said the forms had gone to the PO box, and they would resend them our current address. They told me they couldn't be faxed or emailed, and that I could expect the forms to be mailed in 15 days. Seriously? Wow. But ok. So we waited.

A week and a half, maybe two weeks passed. I knew we were still a little early, but we had seen NOTHING from Bank of America. They'd promised a credit dispute form, too, and that hadn't arrived despite the fact that it was promised in 5-7 business days. So I called back again to ask why we hadn't received our forms, and to find out what address they'd been sent to.

When I called, I got immediately routed to the delinquent mortgage department because of the short sale. That dept told me I had to speak with customer service and that he'd transfer me. He also gave me the phone number. As I sat on hold awaiting transfer, it dawned on me (I'm a little slow) that the customer service number he had given me was the SAME one I'd called in on. Apparently putting in our information when prompted automatically directed me to delinquent mortgage. So after my transfer, and explaining the whole situation AGAIN, I was told that I needed to be sent to customer service. I was starting to lose it. I told the rep to put me directly with someone, not reroute me because I didn't want to be in an endless loop. She direct connected me. The rep I spoke with advised me that everything had indeed been sent, and that I could expect it anytime. I asked what address. Can you guess? It was the PO box. Again. Then I REALLY lost it. I became the phone jerk that everyone who has ever worked in a call center hates, only without the swearing. (Side note, most reps in call centers actually love it when you swear at them, because most companies mandate that the rep can hang up on a caller that gets profane, so keep it clean.)

I told her I'd given the updated address twice at least, more likely three+ times, as I'm fairly sure I gave them our new address when we moved, and also our closing paperwork all had our new address on it. I told her that the person who now holds our PO box has returned mail to sender after opening it, so I know for a fact that our personal info may be compromised. I told her that I wanted the forms expedited, and I wanted to see them within the week to my current address. She promised that I would see them in 3-5 days, and that they would send them right away. She was apologetic and helpful, and I am a little slow honestly believed that this time, we would get the documents. That was Monday. Friday came, and we didn't get anything. Saturday came, and we didn't get anything from them. 3-5 days? Come and gone. So today, I try to call them. Guess what? They're closed for President's day. Seriously.

I am so fed up with their crap! I've got to call first thing tomorrow morning, and MAN will I be an unhappy camper at that point. I actually am right now, but there's nothing I can do about it. I guess my next step is asking for a manager right off the bat, which is not something I love doing, but seems necessary in this instance, if they've sent another round of documentation to a PO box that we haven't had in 5 months, have repeatedly advised them of, and can't get them to accept. I don't understand what's so hard about changing an address. I do know one thing though - I will not be pacified this time. I want a fax or an overnight of this paperwork. I'm done screwing around here.

The moral of the story is, avoid Bank of America at ALL costs!!! They will screw you repeatedly. But you probably already know that, since even the government doesn't trust BofA. How are they still in business? Sigh.

(Site note: I've got some personal updates that I want to publish, but I don't want to overload you when I haven't posted in a month. So I'll put those in a couple different posts. Just wanted to rail on BofA here for a minute because I'm so frustrated I can barely stand it!)

Progress!

Well, I have made no progress on keeping the house organized yet. I've been trying really hard to keep up on cooking each night, boxing leftovers, and baking bread (we go through bread FAST.) So it's a start. I did manage to dirty just about every dish, plate, bowl, utensil, and measuring cup a few days ago, leaving me with three loads of dishes to do. I've been working away on those; my energy level is pretty laggy because of this pregnancy.

Tonight I made homemade pizza for the first time. I made the dough, the sauce, and did not make the cheese, haha. I'm not really that ambitious. I used mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, and topped one pizza with bacon and left one cheese. The sauce/cheese ratio on the cheese was a little better; I think it'll take me a few tries to get them just right. Also, my lack of pizza stone or pizza screen left the bottom a little less crunchy than I would've liked, but it was still delicious. Next try, I will take the pizza off the pre-heated cookie sheet halfway through the bake to crisp up the bottom. I don't want to spend the money or space on a pizza screen right now.  My kitchen is already so full of cooking things that I don't have places for all of them; I can think of things I could use a lot more frequently than a pizza screen, too. Brian liked the pizza so much he said he had to force himself to stop eating it and Gage ate most of three pieces. I liked it a lot, too!

I also baked bread today, and tweaked my recipe a little to allow for using honey in place of sugar. Since I use a good bit of wheat flour instead of straight white like the original recipe, I'm looking forward to trying honey wheat. I've FINALLY gotten the hang of the loaf! I figured out the last part of the puzzle was the loaf shape. Not just shaping it, but actually using a technique that would allow the bread to rise into the perfect domed loaf. The last two batches of bread I've made have come out PERFECT and I'm so proud of having finally mastered bread baking, especially at altitude. It brings me great joy to feed my family this beautiful, preservative-free bread that I've baked myself. And the ingredients for ... oh, I don't know, approximately ten or twelve loaves of bread cost roughly what two loaves of bread laden with high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and lots of stuff I can't pronounce. That makes me happy.

We ate homemade food every night this last week, and hopefully will continue into the weekend. We've got loads of leftovers; red beans and rice, chicken stuff I made, pizza. I've got eggs for breakfast and pancake makings. So we should be able to easily continue our ban on going out through the weekend, which is always our hardest time for eating at home. It's just so easy to run out and pick something up when we're feeling lazy.

What a nice evening, with home-cooked food and good company. Brian got home, the second pizza was almost done, and it was almost 80 degrees in our apartment. Between being on the second floor on a warm day and having a 500 degree oven running for close to 30 minutes, it was warm. We opened up the back door, and let the cool evening air in. Gage was in a fantastic mood after eating so much pizza, and we cranked up the Railbenders on the stereo. Good times.

Pregnancy update... the baby is sitting so much higher than Gage did. She's already up in my ribs and it's pretty uncomfortable if I sit after eating in certain positions, because I feel like a gastric bypass patient with a stomach that can't contain the amount of food I just swallowed. And it doesn't take overeating to hit that point, just sitting in the right position. I have a feeling I'm going to be feeling pretty crowded by April! Also, I think I may experience the belly button pop this time around. Gage was so low, my belly button never even came close to popping out, but this time, I'm already stretching out in that area. Fortunately, I have no swelling like I did with Gage, and I haven't gained anywhere near as much weight, so that's all good news. I'm sure looking forward to not being pregnant anymore... in April.

Can you believe it?

TheAutoMomma blog has been up and running for a year today. I've learned a lot over this year of blogging, and been a little surprised that I've stuck with it, even though I've had some times where I haven't done much writing. I love having this outlet, and I hope you enjoy reading. If you do enjoy reading, please follow/recommend me to your friends. Also, if I don't know that you read, leave me a comment and say "hi!"

I'm going to keep working on bringing my post counts back up again, also, so look for more content in the coming weeks!

Thanks for reading. I sure am glad you're here.