So today, Tom and I celebrate 17 years of marriage and look at how far we’ve come. It’s hard to believe we are 18 and 21 in that photo (and no cracks about the hair – that was high fashion in 1993!).

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve been through the best and the worst of times, but we’ve always managed to do it together. Someone asked me last month how we manage to stay happy together and it’s not an easy question to answer. I think the big thing is that we laugh together – a lot. We laugh at ourselves, each other and at our own inside stupid jokes. If we are angry, we usually say what we have to say and move on – agreeing to disagree. We argue, but usually about stupid stuff.

More importantly, he lets me win a good bit. Hey, he’s not stupid, right?

Happy anniversary, Tom. Love you, babe!

I was going through Cassie’s backpack for tomorrow (taking out her lunchbox that she forgot, was getting ready to scold her for forgetting) when I came across the below. (I didn’t even mention the lunchbox… cuz… well… awwww… she gets a pass today)

It says:

February 12, 2010

Dear mom,

Happy valentines!!!!! I love you so much. You help me make my lunch. You are my hero always.

Love,
Cassie

So, today is Valentine’s Day. Tom and I’s first date was in December of 1991 and we got married in 1993. It’s 2010. No, really. It is. I checked. Cuz… yeah.

I won’t tell the whole sorted story (no, I wasn’t pregnant, that came 7 years later) but we got married the day after I turned 18 and a few days later got on a plane and moved from South Carolina to Hawaii. How my mother didn’t smack me and tell me I was the stupidest child on the face of the planet… well… I don’t know. Obviously, it wasn’t a mistake, but I think back to how badly it could have turned out. I mean, I was a kid, he is just a few years older than me. WHAT were we thinking? Oh yeah, we were in looovvvveeee… *laugh* And yes, we were. Yes, we are. But still… I wonder…

I am the luckiest woman I know though. All these years later, and we’re still together, still in love – moreso I think, still write silly little notes (although instead of paging 143, I text it to him now and then), we still argue (never about big stuff like, always little stuff – like brands of mustard – you’d think we would have figured this out by now, right?), we still laugh, we still cry…

But I also look back over the past 17 years in awe. How much our lives have changed, how things morphed several times over the years. We went from being nearly dirt poor living in Hawaii, to being pretty well DINKs living in Hawaii, to being happily living DINKs living in Austin, to having two of the most beautiful and wonderful children in the entire world, to… well, where we are today. And everything in between. I remember his face when I told him I was pregnant (no screaming “but you were on the pill!”) the first time. I remember supporting him through the closure of his business and him supporting me through the treacherous growth of mine.

I remember my mom telling me when I was kid that I am so darn independent. She’s right, but I’m also very dependent on my husband, who really has been through everything with me. In some weird way, we kind of grew up together. I mean, I was 18, he was 21 when we got hitched. We made some really stupid mistakes, but we managed to get out of them together. We made some really wise decisions (and let me take credit for them) *laughing*

My point? I do look back all those years ago and wonder… what would be different if I hadn’t decided to get married? Would we still be together? Would we have grown apart? Can you even have a relationship that spans 6000 miles? I honestly don’t know. We were probably too immature to have made it work, if I’m being honest. I don’t regret even a second of it though. Tom is the love of my life and I don’t know what I’d do without him.

To you, Tom, thank you. Thank you for being persistent (3 months just to get a date!). Thank you for making me feel special, for making me feel like I am the most important thing in your world, and for making me laugh (gosh, I hate this part!). Thank you for sharing in our own little weird private jokes, for always being there when I need a shoulder, for always chipping in when I think I may be on my last ounce of sanity, and for always supporting my weird “yeah, let’s do this!” ideas. Thank you for picking up the slack when I drop it, for fixing things when I break them, and for laughing with me when we both screw up. Thank you for being you, for who you were, for who you are and for who you will become. I promise I’ll be right there with you for the rest of our lives.

(okay and to make a sappy post even more sappy, I thought about tacking on Have I Told You Lately That I Love You by Rod Stewart since that was closer to 1993, but Stand By Me… well, always makes me think of my hubby)

(Oh, and this is a good version of Stand By Me too. Love John Lennon’s version and this video is so well put together, check it out)

Tom and I really like RecipeZaar. He likes to cook, I like to take photos so it’s something we can do together. The past several months have been a bit crazy and we haven’t been doing anything consistently. Imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up and a recipe AND photo of ours made the front page. Check it out RecipeZaar. What makes it even more special is that it’s actually one of my mom’s recipes – her Tomato Based Beef Stew. Super yummy!

I know most of you won’t know who this is, but trust me when I tell you that he is probably one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. On Sunday, I saw a Tweet from my friend and colleague Shawn Powers that simply said “My house burned down”. I was hoping this was figuratively or some weird Linux thing I don’t understand (hey, it happens more often than you’d think!). But no. His house did burn down. He, his amazing wife and 3 girls (ages 12, 10 and 9) are okay. The family pets did not make it. I cannot even begin to imagine how you recover from this. He and I work together (virtually) with Linux Journal. He’s a funny, yet caring gentleman who would give you the shirt off of his back. So, I’m here asking you.. if you have an extra dollar or two sitting around in your paypal account, can you pass it on to his family to help them get back on their feet? I’m writing this on Sunday to post on Monday – he hasn’t asked us to set this up, Linux Journal just did it – we know there are things they are going to need that he hasn’t even thought about.

So there ya have it… my plea for a friend This money goes directly into his paypal account, bypassing myself and the Linux Journal crew completely. My thoughts are with you and your family, Shawn. If you aren’t able to contribute, you can always stop by his blog with thoughts/prayers/whatever. I know he appreciates just knowing we are thinking of him.

You can give by clicking the button below or by visiting the donation site directly at http://helpshawnpowersfamily.chipin.com/

I also wanted to add a note here about the power of the internet. See that total up there? Is that amazing or what? I remember back in the early 90s when I was using a BBS, my mother asked if I considered “those people on the computer” my friends and I told her yes. She asked how I could call someone I’d never met my friend. She understands a little more now since she has email and works from home via internet, etc. BUT…

Yes, you can make wonderful friends virtually. I’ve met Shawn once. We had dinner together with a group of Linux Journal people and then walked around downtown trying to find a place to do some remote video thing LJ was doing (I have learned to just nod my head a lot). But I still consider him a friend. No, maybe more like a big brother. I look up to him and I know that if something ever happened to me, he’d be there to beat those mean people up! I also have a stinky little Internet brother too, but that’s another post for another day (love ya, Justin!).

In the meantime, help if you can… you can follow Shawn and find out his status by visiting:
http://www.facebook.com/shawnp0wers
http://www.brainofshawn.com/
http://www.natuba.com/shawnp0wers/
http://twitter.com/shawnp0wers

Earlier today I shared this on Facebook, but figured I’d give the full run down of “what the heck” I meant…

~My husband and I have the weirdest conversations, “No, the dead lady, the one that we think really is dead this time… she’s the one having the roof work done”….. “OMG, did you see her outside? I’m pretty sure she did really die this time.” (yeah, that’s a long weird story)~

So yeah… what? Early last year, Tom told me that the neighbor behind us had died, he had talked to someone out in the yard and that’s what they said. We talked to her a few times when she was watering her grass or whatever, but we weren’t “friends” I guess. I said “oh, how sad” and on we went… about 2 months later, I get up on a Saturday and look out the window… the dead lady is watering her grass. Apparently, she’s back! So I go wake up Tom, who comes into the kitchen and we’re staring at her. He’s saying maybe it’s her sister, but no, it’s her.

What the hell, right? Zombie neighbors!

Apparently, her husband died I guess and she was staying with family. Um… okay.

So… late Summer Tom once again says she has died,  he talked to her son who comes and mows her lawn (and can I say that I hope my son one day loves me enough to come mow my lawn and do nice stuff for me *ahem*Jamie*ahem*). I’m not sure if I believe him and if that zombie bitch comes back again, I swear I might go stake her.

Um. I’m kidding. (Mostly)

So yeah, the house is not “the neighbor behind us” – it will always and forever be the “not really dead lady’s house”. Gah, I hope my kids don’t hear us saying crap like that. Now to get one of my friends to buy it LOL

This is a little disjointed, but I’m writing this late at night, so….

I sometimes forget how lucky I am to have the husband I do and the kids that we have. I was reminded of that recently. A few of my friends are going through divorces or out of work or having other problems in their lives/marriages. It seems to happen this time of the year and they always say “it’s been a long time coming” but I’m always surprised.

I lost a bookkeeping client last week. It kinda sucked, but they are bringing in someone in-house. Maybe a good thing for them (although I know I could probably take on all of their accounting myself and really do a fantastic job, but they don’t want to do that yet). I have faith they will be back. It’s probably the biggest compliment, but most of my clients come back to me in time. Maybe that sounds conceited, but it really is true. I love it when they do because nothing makes you feel better than that happening.

But my point is that that client leaving is going to leave an income hole. We’ll be fine, don’t get me wrong and I’m sure other clients will come along, but still. It’s always a little “oh boy, here we go!” when it happens. I know part of it is me. I need to get back out there and concentrate on marketing. But… we’ll be okay. I have other clients. I have clients that would rather cut off their big toe than stop working with me. I am working on a new business website and reading the testimonials really cheered me up. I’ve been with some of my clients since I opened my doors back in 2002! That’s trust and mutual respect.

But our family is lucky. We aren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we live comfortably. We’ve always had jobs or money coming in. Some months are better than others, but we’re okay. Tom and I have an amazingly good marriage. Yes, we have our arguments, but they are usually minor or silly. I love owning my own business and the freedom it allows me (well, except for January when I hate everything about it *laughing*). We have 2 great kids who get along pretty well. And i know if something happens we’ll still be okay. We’ll figure it out – together.

But, for me, I feel incredibly lucky because I know in 20 years, when the kids are on their own, Tom and I will still be sticking it out together. We work on that, on staying connected, talking, doing things for each other (little stuff that lets us know we’re in this together, like a text message – or my personal favorite – Tom will put my blanket in the dryer while I’m in the shower simply so I’ll have a warm and toasty bed to get into after my shower). He’ll take my car and fill it up with gas simply because I absolutely hate pumping gas. I’ll make him a cup of coffee when he’s working on a lesson plan for his volunteer stuff at school. But most of all, we say thank you. Maybe I’m deluding myself and we’ll be one of those statistics in 5 years, but I honestly don’t think so. I cannot imagine life without Tom. I met him when I was 16, married him when I was 18. I’m now 34. I’ve know him, literally, for over half of my life. We joke around, we laugh, we make fun of each other and ourselves, we make inappropriate comments, etc.

Tom’s been a little down lately because he’s still looking for a teaching position. It’s the middle of the year, so they are pretty sparse. Like I told him, he’ll get one for next year. Until then, we’ll just keep trucking on. If something comes up, he’ll apply for it and I feel confident the right job will find him soon. He also wants to go back and get his Master’s degree – and to that I say “go for it”. I’m so proud of him for figuring out what he wants to do and finding a way to make it happen. His degree is in business marketing, not education, so he had to go through extra classes and alternative certifications. That, my friends is dedication.

So, this post really is for Tom. We’re lucky, honey. Stop stressing out. Enjoy the time you spend volunteering and substitute teaching. I think it’s way more important for you to live in the moment. The kids, the teachers, the administration – they all love and adore you. You’re a shoe-in when the right job becomes available. Until then, enjoy yourself – we’re going to be fine. We always are

To everyone else – BUT if you hear of someone looking for a bookkeeper, you should absolutely send them my way! *laugh* (http://www.offassist.com) I’m always looking for good, quality, clients.

So, just random stuff because I just felt like posting something…

To get Jamie to do those pictures for my mother-in-law, I promised him I’d give him this thing that came from the Something Store called an iGroBot. Whatever. But it’s kinda cool. It recently got so tall he had to give it a hair cut. Yes. Bizarre. But he loves that thing. We keep it on the kitchen windowsill where it can get plenty of sun. Too bad my actual grass outside doesn’t grow this well!

We decided we needed a fun night out last week. Something we all do together, no phones, no distractions. So we decided to go to hibachi (see my review of Nagoya). We had such a great time. I think we’ll have to do that once every other month or something. Cassie used to be afraid of the fire and stuff but she was all about this time! Yay! I like because it’s fresh and lots of veggies. Tom likes it because he can get good-tasting steak – and well know that Tom is all about the steak. Loved it!

In other news, we are playing with the idea of going on vacation for a MONTH this Summer. Do I have the guts to do it? Will be able to find a family to stay a week with us each of the weeks? Hmmm… I would, of course, have to work during it, but spending a week in a house at the coast sounds so nice… now we are just warring over going back to Rockport (my vote!) or going to a house ON the beach. We’re split 2-2 right now. Yeowch!

So, Sprint finally resolved this… how it was resolved is kind of interesting. I was emailed by a supervisor in the equipment fraud department Sunday night. I think one of his people saw my Facebook complaints and contacted him and he emailed me assuring me he’d make sure someone handled it.

By 8:10am, I had a $250 on my account (I guess $50 for my trouble). I must say that once I got someone’s attention (too bad it had to be someone NOT in customer service) they took care of it right away. And everyone that’s contacted me since made sure to apologize for their error. In that respect, they’ve treated me very well. BUT – I have to wonder why it came to this. I mean, I spent hours emailing and calling and posting to social media places as well as their forums to get their attention. It shouldn’t work that way.

So – the reason they charged me an early termination fee is because I shut down the PHONE NUMBER that we reassigned to the older phone. Apparently, Sprint assigns lines of service the phone numbers and not serial numbers. I really think that’s ridiculous, to me, I’m doing away with an old phone, not a phone number. I could have easily ported my number to another carrier if that were the case. Instead, I wanted to stay with Sprint, keep my number and continue on about my business. I hope this is one practice they will look at in the future.

BUT the bottom line is that their customer service reps, supervisors, and retentions department screwed up. I wish someone would have told me somewhere down the line that I was getting hosed in that deal *laugh* Instead the retentions guy was all happy have a solution for me.

Such is life, I suppose. At the end of the day, I’m happy, but after 14 years of being a customer, I still can’t help but feel a little slighted. I mean, this was only over $200 and it was their mistake. There were several times in the past that something to do with Sprint actually WAS my mistake and I paid for it without a problem. I am very happy that they took care of it for me though, just sad that I had to make such an internet stink and throw a social media hissy fit to get it done.

I still remain a loyal Sprint customer… however maybe slightly more wary…

Update 11/16 4pm: Sprint finally did resolve this – the story is HERE (shorter this time, promise!)

Update 4:30pm: I realize it’s a weekend so I probably won’t hear back from anyone at Sprint, if I ever do, but so far this is the other actions I’ve taken. At this point, it’s more of a matter of principal. I’ve posted about this on Facebook (with some really interesting conversations going on too) and Twitter where a Palm developer responded. I also called and left a voice mail at the Consumerist’s Sprint whatever line. I also emailed a link to this blog post to dan@sprint.com, customerservice@sprint.com, sprintcares@sprint.com, ecare@cc.sprintpcs.com, and customer.servicenet@sprint.com (amazingly enough, none of them bounced and I got a standard “we really do care and someone might actually read this one day!” from the dan@sprint.com one). I’m simply not going to pay that $200. The had THREE different chances to make sure I knew not to change that number. I’m a 14 year customer. Will Sprint let a 14 year customer who is always singing their praises go over a $200 mistake that they made?

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Update 3:00pm: So,  I chatted with some poor guy at Sprint online customer service… I’m not sure that he understands that the $200 wasn’t something they would have charged me if the CSR people would have handled this properly in the first place.  So, it’s not like they are missing out on my little $200. So, they are willing to lose a 14 year customer over $200 that THEY made a mistake on and wouldn’t have gotten from me in the first place if they hadn’t, in my opinion, lied to me by omission? I love it. Chat transcript HERE.

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I’m so annoyed right now. Back 14 (?) years ago, we signed up with SprintPCS. They were brand new in Hawaii and we needed those newfangled cell phones. Any time I’ve ever upgraded my phone, I’ve never had a problem. I call them up and they make it happen. Back 10 years ago when we moved here to Austin, we brought our Sprint phones with us. Again, never had any real problems. Seriously, I’m constantly singing their praises (My AT&T friends will even tell you, when their service goes down I’m all “neener neener” at them). They’ve never messed up a bill even. In FOURTEEN YEARS. They usually are 2nd only to Amazon in customer service.

Until June. Tom had been dealing with this horrible Palm Centro that just never worked right and the face was chipping off and it was just a bad phone. But it was to the point that it never synced or worked right so we had to get rid of it and get something reliable. We could have paid the $50 or $100 (whatever) and gotten it replaced under our warranty (yes, we are those people that pay for all the extras, extended warranty, roadside assistance-I’ve had to use it twice and it ROCKS by the way, etc) but at that point we were considering either moving to an iPhone or getting him a Pre. I had gotten my Pre previously and he really liked it, but I was within my 30 day period so I could easily return it and we could move to the iPhone. No problem. I don’t really LIKE the iPhone, but with his phone being in the shape it was, I knew I could deal with it. But we both really really liked the Pre. It’s a fabulous phone and it was Sprint – who we trusted.

BUT… they wanted him to pay $800 for the phone when he went up to the Sprint store. Um. No. So, I called customer service to talk to them about getting out of his contract and returning my phone since it was under it’s 30 day thing. It would have cost us probably $200 to get out of his phone at that time. But no, they didn’t want to lose a customer of 10 (well, 14 really, but I guess Hawaii billing is separate?) years so off we went to customer retention (which I had dealt with before because they didn’t want to give us the same deal they were giving new customers on a Treo). They were great. Eventually the guy told me that what I needed to do is go get a NEW line of service with a new Pre and make the Centro an emergency phone (or drop it in a drawer because frankly it didn’t work!). It would cost me $60 for the 3 months left on his Centro contract because we could add a shared line for $20 per month so he even credited my account for that $60. I just needed to call and cancel the phone in 3 months when the contract was really up. Awesome. I was loving Sprint and again singing their praises and enjoyed my Palm Pre (in fact, I love this phone, it’s the perfect phone for someone with a mobile life/business). Yippee. We all win. Right?

So, last month, I called them up to cancel the phone. No problem, they did it, they didn’t say anything about fees or anything. Voila. Easy. Again, I’m telling everyone I know how cool Sprint is. But today, my phone was doing something weird so I called Sprint to ask for help (ended up being able to fix it myself while on hold) but the lady said “oh, and to update you on your balance, it’s $360″. Um. What? I thought maybe they hadn’t gotten the payment I sent on the 27th, but no, they had gotten it. Weird. So the lady opens up my account and tells me that I have a “termination fee”. I’m lost. What termination fee? We aren’t leaving Sprint. We are super loyal, ask Time Warner or Bank of America or State Farm or, hell, ask Sprint! But apparently, that phone I canceled? They want to charge me because I added the line in June. WHAT? No no no, I canceled the CENTRO not the Pre.

But apparently they don’t show it that way or it connects to the phone number (because I switched the phone numbers on the phones when we got his Pre). I’m still confused and no one can answer me as far as why they are charging me. The customer retention dude told me this was all a done deal. I was a very happy customer. So, I call back and tell this same story to 3 or 4 people. Until I get to customer retention where he basically tells me “too bad”. Um. What? I didn’t do anything wrong here! I did exactly what YOUR department told me to. He then tells me that this was all in the terms of service. Yes, I know that document. I’ve seen it in various forms for the past FOURTEEN YEARS. But I assumed that was handed by customer retention or didn’t apply because we were canceling after 2 years with the Centro. He didn’t mention it at the time, the lady who I switched the phone numbers with said nothing, the lady who I canceled the phone with was VERY nice and didn’t mention it. What? I’m basically yelling at this poor guy, it’s not his fault, HE didn’t lie to me, but it’s not fair. I didn’t do anything wrong here, I just followed the rules they gave me. What?

So, here I am where I was in June. Only instead of $200 to get out of Sprint, it will cost me almost $600 to drop my “other” 2 lines. Which, quite frankly, I’m considering doing because I’m SO angry and so disappointed that the Sprint representatives were allowed to lie to me like this.

The problem is that I love the phone and am not a huge iPhone fan. But at what point do we as consumers say “enough is enough”? I guess I might be able to jailbreak the Palm Pre phones and move them to another carrier? I guess I have some research to do and figure out where to go from here. But I really really am upset. I don’t like being lied to. The worst part is that this whole thing could have been avoided back in June if they had just told me this up front. I could have made the decision to pay the $200 or not. The way they handled it now, I have no choice because NO ONE was honest about how it would be handled.

What’s interesting is that Palm is also losing a huge fan out of all of this. I’ve been using Palm products exclusively since they were, well, fancy moleskins! *laugh* And what about the investment I have in the Pre phones? I have 2 touchstones, 3 car chargers and tons of other accessories that yes, I BOUGHT FROM SPRINT STORES. I could have bought them online cheaper, but no. I go to the store because I know if there’s a problem, they will fix it. No questions asked. Easy. Done deal.

Heck, in fact, last night I was talking to a friends boyfriend telling him how fabulous the Pre is and Sprint is. ARGH! What? Am I now supposed to do like everyone else does with their phone plans and switch every 2 years? Does loyalty mean NOTHING to these folks? I joked when on my 10th anniversary with Sprint, they sent me little grip guards for my phone. It was funny, but it was a small “thank you” that meant something, at least I thought they recognized customer loyalty. Apparently not.

Sigh. Now what? What would YOU do? I really want to know… I don’t think it’s fair of me to break down and pay that $200. If I had known it in the first place, maybe. But at the same time, it seems silly to pay the $600 to get out of them all together, but they lied to me. And putting my trust in any company for 14 years and then being lied to, well that hurts.