Still Surprising Me (After All These Years)

September 18, 2015 ~ JodiLea

(Hubby did something this month that completely shocked and delighted me! It has been a very long while since this gal has been delighted. I felt like a little girl.
I feel like a new bride because I keep admiring my engagement/wedding ring every couple minutes. It’s so shiny and gorgeous again. It had been broken, dull & diamond-less since 2011 when a prong came loose and the diamond fell out. It happened quietly and I did not know exactly when it happened. It most likely broke at work. Despite my co-workers, the building custodian, and myself crawling around with flashlights like CSI’s, I never saw it again. Until yesterday.

The FedEx guy, Mike, brought hubby a package. Hubby handed it to me and said, “Happy Anniversary”. I had no clue what could be in there, but I was so excited. He was giving me an anniversary present! I can’t remember the last year he did that! In fact, I had not found a gift for him before we were evacuated (the Butte Fire was heading our way), and frankly, I forgot about it.

So, here is this FedEx box, for me, from him. I did not open it immediately. I wanted to savor the moment of having a gift to open. To those who have a spouse that does not express themselves on special occasions (Valentine’s Day, Anniversaries, your birthday…) you know what I’m talking about. To those who are lavished with gifts and attention – never take it for granted!

Okay – now I’m ready to open the box…

Inside, was another FedEx box, also completely sealed.

How strange. Guess what I found in the second FedEx box? No, not another box. It was a UPS padded envelope.

What on earth could be next? After a failed attempt to pull open the envelope, my scissors did the job.

Now, we were getting somewhere! A white, unmarked, little box. I suspected jewelry.

LittleSquareBox

I was not wrong about that – inside was a little reddish velvet ring box.

VelvetRingBox

OMG!

When I peeked inside I saw my wedding ring set, shining like it was my wedding day. Hubby laughed when I asked him to put it on my finger, but I could tell he was proud of himself. The ring would still fit me perfectly, if I could just push it past my knuckle.

I always have had big knuckles on my small fingers and a bit of lotion or soap did the trick. Not today. Since the ring had broken, my arthritis had worsened. My knuckles were larger now. NO!

There was a way to get my ring on and I was going to find it. I iced my knuckle, hoping it would help, greased up my finger, and pushed with all my might. This effort was amusing hubby greatly. I told him I could not get it re-sized to fit my knuckle, the ring would be too loose and constantly spin.

Then I got an idea. You people who know me – stop laughing! It was a great idea, and it worked. What helps with getting something large through something small? OH!

Astro Glide. It still was tough on my knuckle, but I had my wedding ring back! It was 27-years after hubby first put it on my finger. My hands look a lot different now, as does the rest of me (and hubby). Our marriage is also different after 27-years. It is stronger and better, the older it gets. In another post, on another day, I will tell you my theory on why that happens.

TheRingHand

♥ TTFN ♥

Dear Princess Cruises…

September 4, 2015September 3, 2015 ~ JodiLea

Dear Princess Cruises, PrincessCruiseShip

Please STOP sending me those daily brochures & postcards about your next big cruise discounts, or email requests for me to write a review.

Oh, believe me – I wrote my review already. In fact, it was a bit “angry” in tone, because I was.

Now that it’s been over a year, I am calmer. I decided to write a letter (this one) to your Headquarters, with suggestions about things that need to be improved on. If no one tells you these things, then you won’t know what’s going on, and that would be bad for business.

Train your booking agents to know the difference between “Ocean View”, “Obstructed View”, and “Partially Obstructed View”. We paid $600 extra to have an Ocean View and our view was more obstructed than a cruise-mates Obstructed View. This did not start our voyage very happily.

Change your embarkation & security procedures. Hire more people, or something. Standing for three hours (on cement) in a port terminal, waiting for thousands of people to be questioned, scanned and x-rayed was ridiculous! Then, we slowly crept, mostly standing, up the 6 huge flights of scaffolding to the embarkation deck. The delay? Another security check at the ramp. In case we became nefarious between the port terminal and the ship. Or connected with an Arms Dealer we knew in town. Lord knows we had the time, but come on!

Don’t put a couple in a family cabin. We had no kids to sleep in the bunk-bed contraptions, and even when closed, they stuck out of the wall, giving us zero room around our bed. We had to crawl from the foot of the bed to get in. I had more contact with those safety hazards than I did with my hubby. All the “family” cabins must be clumped together because we heard kids day and night. This also did not make us happy.

Please do not get in our faces about purchasing anything. After finally getting on-board ship, we headed over to the “grill” to get food, and something to drink. Along with everyone else in line who missed lunch. As soon as we found a place to sit, we were approached by a crew member wanting to sell us the ships “drink discount packages”. We opted not to purchase it. Eleven times, to eleven different crew members. Extremely tacky, folks.

Coffee and Tea are supposed to be included. However, in the Coffee Lounge, you have to pay for your coffee.

Offer a good quality WiFi if you’re going to have any. $.79 per minute is way over priced for a crappy connection. You should think about providing access at no charge for your guests – like nice hotels do.

Upgrade your speaker system. The Captain gave a ‘good morning’ speech that told about the port city and the day’s weather every morning, so we were told. The hallway and cabin speakers garbled sound so badly that he could have been telling us to abandon ship or something serious. It wasn’t until the end of our cruise that I learned he spoke English.

Do something about all the charges! Make the cruise tickets more expensive and don’t “nickel and dime” us every time we turn around. Our final ‘charges’ were nearly $1,000, and we did not drink a bunch of expensive wine or cocktails. Somehow we accrued $150 of ‘charges’ per day.

I did not feel like a princess, nor was I treated like one.

I hope my review opens your eyes, for the sake of future passengers. However, I will not be one of them.

Sincerely,
Jodi Lea

Last Cabin Waaay at End — We Had the Last Cabin – Waaay at The End

A Wake-Up Call

August 29, 2014 ~ JodiLea

AngelStatue No more calls from J. C. since the one last Friday. Anonymous commented on that –
“It’s all over Facebook. Tons of people are getting this call!”

Oh, Really?

I use Facebook to keep up with friends and family and I have yet to see any mention of phone calls from heaven. Maybe Jesus is only calling those people who need to shape up. This would explain why my friends and family are not getting the heavenly wake-up call. It would also explain why I did.

Out of the 7 deadly sins, at least 3 of them have hung around lately. They are my favorites, and I tend to allow them to visit when I’m feeling sorry for myself, in pain, or weak in spirit. Welcome to my summer…

Gluttony came over first and allowed me to eat whatever the hell I wanted to, when I wanted to. Stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning watching movies that hubby rather not. There are a ton of those kind of movies. It’s amazing how quickly a person can gain 20-pounds.

Pride naturally came over to torture me about not fitting into my clothes anymore, rag on me to start grooming myself again (I have been lax about washing face 2x a day, caring what I looked like and didn’t want to leave the house – i.e. get dressed). Sometimes she (vanity) goads me into action, sometimes she makes me depressed. I flipped back and forth all summer long depending on how much pain I was in.

Last, but never least, Sloth shows up. To encourage what my therapist would call, “The Fuck-Its”. Meaning, you don’t give a hoot about anything anymore, you don’t want to deal with even the smallest things, and just leave me the Hell alone. I don’t want to quilt, or (gasp!) write.

Unchecked, Sloth lures Wrath into the mix. Luckily, the call from Jesus Christ last week stopped the vicious cycle. The thought of having to answer to the Lord freaked me out. I knew I was not taking good care of myself (physically and spiritually), and he would be displeased. He did not even have to say anything over the phone line – I got the message.

Did you get a wake-up call?