Numbers

Since I work with numbers all day long I thought I would continue the trend

and give you some numbers.

1. the number of work days I have left this week
2. the number of miles I did on the treadmill this morning

while watching a werewolf movie.
3. the number of cups of coffee I have had today
4. the number of pots of coffee I made today –

it’s Friday we are all a little lethargic in the office today.
5. the number of times one client called me today
6. the number of hours of sleep I got last night
7. the number of times I checked my personal email today
8. the number of toenails I currently have painted
9. the number of emails I got from Rachel today
10. the number of times I have heard the Jonas Brothers

3D movie discussed on the radio today
13. the number of hours I spent with my co workers yesterday
27. the number of overtime hours listed on today’s paycheck
3364. the number of copies I made

(yikes I have now single handedly killed half of a tree)
10156. the number of rows in the spread sheet I am currently working on.

Mistakes Mistakes

Today I nearly made a MONUMENTAL mistake. Or rather, I did make the mistake, but thank goodness a coworker caught it and saved my life. I was attempting to mail a check to the Franchise Tax Board and in so doing, I somehow managed to address the envelope to the Franchise Coffee Board. It was not until the envelope was sitting in the outgoing mail tray that someone saw it and asked where the Franchise Coffee Board was that I realized what I had done.

Now you are probably wondering how something like this happens, I obviously had coffee on my mind. But really Rachel is the one to blame. You see just moments before this incident I was reading this email that she had sent me.


Hi Mands,

Can I just tell you what has happened in my day thus far:

I just need to vent really quickly…my day has been a fumbled mess and I DEFINITELY left the apartment with about 2.2% of my life together.

Here is what has happened thus far:

1) I couldn’t find 2 vital pieces of my outfit this morning, thus I tore up my closet trying to find them.
2) My hair fell apart and is barely holding together in a little ponytail.
3) The cap was stuck on the top of the hairspray…how does that even happen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4) I was running late all morning
5) The coffee this morning was way too weak, and I almost had a breakdown as I sat in my car with miserable coffee.
6) I had to stop at Starbucks and get coffee and a banana.
7) I didn’t make enough breakfast and I was starving by the time I got to work….10mins. after the banana I’m still starving.
8) I sit in a budget meeting for 1.5 hours starving. As I’m sipping my tea in the meeting it suddenly spills all over my green shirt. Lisa stops the meeting to acknowledge the spill, Jane jumps up to get paper towels, and I break down in laughter at the ridiculousness of my day.
9) Still starving after the meeting and go to eat my lunch....it smells disgusting because the lettuce went badL. I try to eat around the terrible salad…but it’s a soggy, gross mess…..
10) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHh, it’s been such an off day…it’s got to get better.

I realize these are all very small things….but they have compiled to create a funky very strange day! I’m about ready to laugh at it all…I just had to vent really quickly….oh man….bring on the weekend!

rachel


I guess that I got more distracted by her email than I thought, it was rather comical, I do believe I was laughing out loud.

Phantom Of the Opera

Four years ago my dear friend Jeni was introduced to The Phantom of the Opera. It was love at first sound – along with many viewings of the movie Jeni like to entertain us with interpretive dances to the music. Here is a video of one such performance.

Saturday we had the pleasure of seeing The Phantom at the Pantages. It was a great deal of fun – even from our not such great seats up in the nose bleed section. Although I must say that Angela, Jeni and I have voices that rival Christine Daae herself. Lets just say that our version of “Think of Me” could stop traffic.

And The Winner is................

I would like to thank those who participated in my Oscar Challenge. I enjoyed watching the telecast while tallying everyone’s ballots. No one quite pulled into the lead enough to beat me; but I may reward you all with prizes just for participating.

Here are the results:

Third runner up with 7 out of 24 correct is……………..Angela
Second runner up with 10 out of 24 correct is ……..…Mom
First runner up with 12 out of 24 correct is ……………Jake

From Flood to Flame

Last night, or rather early this morning, Rachel unsuccessfully attempted to burn down The Penthouse. I am proud to say that for the first time since I have been crowned “emergency coordinator” my life saving instincts kicked into gear……………although maybe a little delayed.

Around 2am this morning I awoke to the smell of burning marshmallows. It smelled like we were camping – not a good thing when you are indoors. I looked over and saw Rachel sitting up in her bed; so I asked her if she also thought it smelled like something was burning. She replied as nonchalantly as possible “oh my rice pack caught on fire.” My response “WHAT?!?!?!?”

Let’s take a step back here for a minute. Rachel has a rice pack, which may as well be a security blanket, as it is always on her. She is continually cold – her rice pack (a long narrow pillow like object filled with rice) keeps her warm. Now those of you who are not familiar with rice packs should know that one makes a rice pack warm by placing it in the microwave for a few minutes, and then it’s warmth continues on for hours.

Last night she managed to ignite her rice pack while it was in the microwave – successfully filling the apartment with the thick smell of smoke. Upon smelling the smoke I was instantly worried that the smoke detector was going to go off (ours is on the sensitive side, we have managed to set it off a few times in the past) which was basically the last thing I wanted to hear at that hour. I bolted out of bed to assess the damage. Rachel was swift at dousing the flames and placing the singhed rice pack outdoors. Really, I did nothing. I frantically wandered the apartment, turned on the ceiling fan and reduced Rachel to uncontrollable laughter.

In one week we have gone from a leaky roof, to an attempted arson. I think the worst part is that this is not the first time that I have seen Rachel do this (she may be a closet pyromaniac). Two years ago when we lived in the Tropicana apartments at Biola, she did the same exact thing, only that time she left some serious burn/melt marks in the microwave. Thankfully our microwave made it out unscathed.

I have decided that not only does this rice pack need to be officially retired (really Rach as if leakage, which left trails of rice all over the apartment was not bad enough – the burnt hole should really be it’s death) it should be considered a lethal weapon.

Meet My Friend Oscar

Wowsers, it’s been a while. Sorry about that folks this has been a busy busy week. Well that and the fact that I have not done anything really blog worthy – no crazy mishaps this week. So I am back with a little contest for all my readers out there.

Sunday is one of my favorite days of the year………………The Oscars!!! Therefore, I give you The Oscar Challenge. You can follow this link to get an official Oscar ballot. Complete your picks and either post them in the comments section or email them to me mandyfloch@gmail.com. Come Sunday evening if you get more right than me I will give you a prize.

It’s as simple as that – and the best part is, there can be more than one winner, all who beat me will be rewarded.

(All entries must be received by 3pm (Pacific Time) Sunday February 22 – you do not need to send me the whole ballot, just your pick for each category. The winner(s) of The Oscar Challenge will be posted here immediately following the television broadcast)

* In case you were wondering it stopped raining on Monday and they were able to fix our roof. WAHOO! We are now leak free – although I did notice last night that we have a pretty gnarly water stain on our ceiling now.

Start Building an Arc, the Flood is Coming

This morning when I awoke, I thought I had slept through a tornado. Rachel’s bed had been moved –to the middle of the room. Weird. I didn’t think much of it at the time and off to work I went, in the pouring down rain. I once again had to jump the puddles that greeted me at the bottom of our stairs. And I am happy to report that with a little bit of maneuvering I did manage to make it all the way to my car without losing a shoe in a puddle.

It is amazing how quickly you can get to work on holidays, there were absolutely no cars on the road. I arrived in world record time. All was grand until……………………….I received a text message from Rachel informing me that our roof/ceiling was leaking. The leak was nicely dripping down onto her bed, hence the change of location. Now the best news about this whole thing is that due to the rain (roof repair men can not work in the rain) it shall not be repaired until Wednesday.

End of excitement, there is nothing else we can do other than wait for the repair men, right? Wrong! I told my coworker about our leak and now she has taken it upon herself to be way way way too concerned about the situation. Either that, or I am just way to mellow and unconcerned with it. She keeps asking me for updates on the leak. Now she keeps telling me we have to call and complain until they put us up in a hotel or empty our apartment, since we can not under any circumstances stay in an apartment with a leak! When I laughed at that, she told me that if I, Rachel or Angela did not do so she was going to call and pretend to be our concerned mother and complain.

Ok people, do tell me what you think of this situation. Which of us is taking the appropriate course of action: the women of the Penthouse, who are waiting 2 days for repairs or my coworker, who wants to complain until we get better treatment? As tenants are we entitled to rights such as a hotel room or another apartment to sleep in? Or are we just expected to tough it out and hope nothing gets ruined until the repair men come and fix our problem?

What would you do?

My Valentines Day Surprise!

As you all know yesterday was Valentines day. And how, you may ask, did I celebrate? By working. SO MUCH FUN! Not. It was a rather slow and boring day at the office. Just as I was starting to pull my hairs out one by one, a coworker told me there was someone at the door that needed to be let in. As you may recall from some of my last posts, our building is very secure - on Saturdays the doors and elevators are locked and you need a pass card to operate them. Therefore, it is my job to escort all people from the front door to the office.

I was surprised when I reached the front door and it was Jake and Hannah. Yay! They came for a nice surprise visit. They got a first class tour of my office and introductions to all of my coworkers. They were surprised by the classiness of my office - evidently they thought I worked in the ghettos.

Check out the lovely flowers and candy Jake gave me. Yup - that vase is full of CANDY!!!

Wowsers check out how ridiculously excited I look.

Lookie here a great visual aid- this is my desk, where I now spend 56 hours a week, and where I write most of my blogs. Oh and if you look closely you can see the great Norman Rockwells that plummeted off the walls in the Great August Earthquake.

Friday the 13th

This morning was CRAZY! Like really abnormally so, for once it was not only me having issues it was the whole Penthouse. I could come up with many reasons as to why we had a difficult morning, like lack of sleep, but today I am going to go ahead and blame it on Friday the 13th. Normally I am not a superstitious person, but really I am certain that is what was to blame for all of today’s “incidents.”

Lets start at the beginning.

We planned to start the day off with a Penthouse Valentines celebration…………..therefore we had to arise earlier than normal. My alarm blared to life at 6:30am and I was instantly confused as I had not heard Rachel get up already. I knew I was tired, but really was I so tired that I didn’t hear her? Enter incident one, Rachel accidentally set her alarm for an hour later than she wanted, therefore making her miss her morning workout. Causing me to all too willing stay in bed a few minutes longer.

Then we got back on track things were moving smoothly. We were all getting ready when I discovered incident number two; I had definitely put my shirt on inside out. Once I righted that situation I decided that since it was a day of celebration we needed music, so I kindly offer turn on some “Thanksgiving Eve” music. Here by giving us incident number three, how many people can really mix up Valentines Day and Thanksgiving?

Michael Buble now playing – it is officially time to celebrate Valentines Day. We were now ready to sit down to our delightful breakfast of doughnuts and coffee. As we were dispersing the coffee into our “Love” mugs when incident number four occurred. Some how in the midst of all of us pouring our coffee Rachel’s lunch flew out of the fridge and came to an explosive landing on the kitchen floor. There were noodles, lettuce, and all kinds of goodness EVERYWHERE! By this point we were all beyond the point of repair, laughing way too much – basically the only thing keeping us from rolling on the ground was the mass amounts of food that was now littered there.

A quick sweep later we are finally all in one piece sitting at the kitchen table enjoying breakfast when ………………. Rachel spilled her coffee. This situation was quickly righted as she was wearing black – which conveniently does not show coffee stains.

It was touch and go for a while, not knowing if we would make it though the rather tumultuous 45 minutes, but somehow we survived and still had time to celebrate with a little Valentines Day Love.

Hopefully the rest of the day will not be quite as eventful.

The Case of the Missing Valentine

I finished making my valentines Sunday, and I must say they might be my best ones yet. On that happy note I planned to send out the ones that needed mailing the following day, however I was one stamp short. Major bummer. Ok new plan I was totally going to mooch 42 cents of postage from work. Probably not the best plan but I was gonna do it none the less.

I placed all of my valentines in my bag Monday morning and off to work I went. Upon my arrival I quickly dropped them in the mail drop box on my way up to the office. Obviously with it being Monday morning my brain was not operating in full yet. I accidentally dropped the card with no postage in with the mail. Shoot!

What happens to mail that has no postage? Who knows……….will they return it to the return address, even when that is not the location it was mailed from?

I didn’t want to risk my lovely valentine disappearing, so I went back downstairs to face the mail box. Here is the unfortunate thing the box is rather a small door approximately 1.5 ft square which then opens to the vast dark hole below. Now the door itself is quite high, sometimes people ask me to place their mail in for them, as it is probably about 5 feet up. I open the door (which opens outwardly) and place my arm down into the black hole and proceed to fish around for my envelope. Silly me I thought that since the envelope was red it would be easy to find, however I overlooked the fact that with my arm down the hole I would not be able to see what was in there. I had to continue the hunt by touch only.

After a good couple of minutes the awkward position that this search required was getting quite uncomfortable so I decided to call it quits. Mission failed.

I quickly came up with a new plan:I left a lovely note, on bright orange paper (I had to make sure it was seen) that explained the rather dire situation I was in to the mail carrier, and asked him to call me upon his arrival to take the mail –so that I could come down and retrieve my lost valentine.

10:30 came and went (the time when the morning mail pick up occurs) and I got no phone call. I went back down to the mail box to see if maybe he was running late and what did I find? Scrawled on the bottom of my nice note was in big letters NO.

Evidentially our mail carrier was not in a particularly helpful mood that day. Needless to say I was not pleased. Now my valentine is lost out there in postal land and I have no idea if it will ever see the light of day again.

Sorry Linds, it was yours. I don’t know if it will ever arrive in Arizona.

CAMERON!!!

Don't look so surprised Cam, you knew your face would end up on here today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BRO!!!!

Basically A Celebrity

No this title is not referring to myself. I have not made it to celebrity status……………yet. But Jake sure is climbing the ladder to super stardom quite quickly these days. You better watch out next week he may be splashed across the cover of all the tabloids, next thing you know everyone will be sporting is signature hair do (which I might ad, I helped maintain, as I performed the last haircut……..anyone in need of my AMAZING hair cutting skills?).

Two weeks ago he was just your average Biola film student, but now that has all changed. He is now friends with the celebs…………you might recognize him with Brad Garett below. And yes that is a legit picture, not a wax figurine.



And more importantly, he is now listed on imdb, which is my favorite website of ALL time. Seriously, it is amazing you can find out anything and everything about any movie ever made. If I could only look at one website for the rest of my life that would probably be it – no exaggeration. It feeds my obsession with movies quite nicely – if you ever wonder where I get all of my random trivial movie facts now you know. But being listed on IMDB is like making the big time – not just anyone can make it.

Here is the link if you want to check it out.

Congrats Jake, that is really like the coolest thing EVER!!!!

The Gavster

Gavin had his first official photo shoot, and he is just way too cute. Of course I did not want you all to be deprived of quite possibly the cutest child ever............so here are some of my favorite shots.

Sorry

I would like to issue a formal apology. No I was not caught doing drugs like Michael Phelps nor am I caught up in yet another internet photo scandal like Miley Cyrus. Instead I was caught having poor grammar and spelling skills. Evidently my posts have just been getting worse and worse in these areas as I have been having editors coming out of the woodwork, kindly alerting me of mistakes I should change.

Now I would like to remind those readers who struggle with my mistakes to refer to my very first post ever, as I informed you all that this blog was not for the faint of heart or grammar minded. With that said I officially apologize to all of you who read my writing and cringe at all of my mistakes. I am sorry. I have made the appropriate changes to see that this type of thing never happens again.

You will be happy to know that I have now enlisted the help of a full time editor. As such I would like all comments, criticisms and error messages regarding writing mistakes to be sent to klholtz@gmail.com, attention to Lindsey, she will see that the necessary changes are made.

Could We Get A Little Professionalism Here?

As of this week I find myself doing things at work that I am yet again unqualified to do. I shall just add to the ever growing list:
1. Emergency Coordinator
2. Coffee Maker (I am only unqualified by a certain coworker who says I make it too strong)
3. IT………….I fix all computer and programming problems (or rather the people at the 1-800 number tell me how to fix them)
4. Interviewer, that’s right I am hiring a part time employee. Emphasis on I, as in me.

Now, at first I was rather excited about the prospect of hiring a new employee to assist me. Naturally I was imagining it going down somewhat like my own version of the Bachelor. I would find the 25 most attractive, funny, qualified men to interview and then pick my favorite, I mean the most qualified for the position. And if I just so happen to fall head over heels for the new hire so be it.

So, then reality set in and I realized my boss wanted me to hire a high schooler, “they're cheaper”. I called one local high school and had them post our job listing in their office. That one little ad has turned my life upside down. I average about 12 phone calls a day regarding the job. No longer do people call our office to get their taxes done – it is all about getting hired.

Now, tell me, how does one weed down the 28 and ever increasing prospects when there is no application, the students have no resumes, and better yet no work experience? They are all basically the same. Enter ingenious idea, a coworker and I put our heads together and created a questionnaire for the many inquirers so I can then weed through them and pick only the very best for interviews.

I am currently still in the process, 3 interviews down and 2 more tomorrow, and really they are all the same. There is not one single thing that makes one stand out over the other. But that really is another problem for another day.

The real issue at hand is that there are many people out there who are unemployed and ever searching for a job, and I feel that it is my duty as a now hiring employer to alert the masses of “Mandy’s tips to getting hired.” A what not to do if you will, things that I have learned this week, that if done will guarantee you NOT getting hired.

1. Wear jeans and a t-shirt to your interview
2. Not knowing the position/company you are applying for or at
3. Include smiley faces on your resume/questionnaire
4. Say "like" more than 25 times in a 10 minute interview
5. Give out your email when it includes your name and any of the following phrases: iscoolioooooo@yahoo.com, flyguy947373@hotmail.com, kissface@gmail.com and so on.

Really, is it too much to ask for a little professionalism?
I am still a work in progress in the interview skills department, anyone have any suggestions on killer interview questions?

Day One

Yesterday was the first official day of tax season in my office. Basically that just means the first day of overtime. Now I have been working here for just over a year and a half, going on my second tax season here. So I should be an old pro right? Let’s just say that I forgot a few somewhat important things.

I know that when the clock strikes 7pm you are required to sign in and out with the security guard. This is the very reason I try to leave by 6:55 to get a quick exit. Everything was running smoothly, I shut down my computer and hoped into the elevator. Upon my exit I double checked with the security guard that I was still good to go without signing out. I was off. I quickly crossed the lobby giving myself a mental pat on the back for surviving day one of extended hours when !!SMACK!! Next thing I knew I was sprawled out on the ground surrounded by the contents of my purse.

After picking myself, and all my stuff up off the ground I had to face the glimmering eyes of the security guard and the 2 other late workers that had congregated around me. They were all trying really hard not to laugh at me, as the security guard kindly reminded me that the doors automatically lock at 6:30. Seriously people this is not the pentagon, do we really need to take such extreme security measures?

I learned my lesson the hard way, but hey I don’t think I will be forgetting that the doors lock at 6:30 any time soon.

Bernard

So this post is a few days late (as the event in discussion occurred Friday) however I figured it is better late than never. Especially since someone, I won’t mention any names *cough Ashelyann cough*, was giving some not subtle hints that they were not feeling the blog love.
I tell you when you create a blog that people enjoy reading – it comes at a price. Everyone wants to be your friend all of the sudden, they want to make sure at one point or another they get mentioned. It’s rough. And since I know the person this post is directed at is reading this I would like to take a minute to point out that you have in fact been included in numerous past blog posts, even ones including pictures – so there. I will however, try to be the bigger person in this situation (as I am in most) and put your poem up here anyways, I would not want you to feel left out – like I did when you did not include me in your group emails.

Ode To Bernard

Today you are going under the knife
Thank goodness for nothing that is threatening your life

Bernard well, he had a good run.
But lets face it, he just was not much fun

You have nothing to fear,
No reason to even shed a tear.

Bernard will be gone in the blink of an eye,
Soon all that will be left is to say goodbye.

Now for a fun little game: Where’s Bernard? It is played just like Where’s Waldo, take a nice close look at this photo and see if you can spot Bernard.