various activities

Well, we did get a new car last week.  We went out Friday night to go buy some books for Chris' mom and next thing I know, Chris is pulling into a car dealership.  I was a little cranky because I was too tired to go car shopping and we weren't planning on going until this Saturday.  Anyways, we ended up test driving a 2008 Nissan Maxima which was decent enough but way too expensive.  We ended up going to the nearest Ford dealership to test drive a Ford Fusion since there was one in Layton that we were interested in but didn't want to drive all the way up there if I didn't like the Fusion.  I was a little irritated because the second you get out of your car at any dealership, they are already in your face.  I wanted to walk around and look first.  The salesman that helped us was pretty nice though.  We test drove a 2008 Fusion since they didn't have any used ones.  I ended up liking it and to make a long story not so long, we bought it.  We traded in both our BMW and Range Rover which they gave us $9300 for (boo hiss), this was actually more than they originally offered us at first by almost $1000.  They also are going to install leather on the seats since that was going to be a deal breaker for me.  Ford was doing  0% financing and we also got a $500 rebate as well.  Interest sucks!  I remember when we were paying for the Range Rover and $100 of the $500 payment was going to interest, and that's with 6% interest.  One interesting thing that we found out in the process is that I have a higher credit score than Chris.  Ha ha!  This was no surprise to me since I've always had better credit, but he had his hopes up.  (Chris is saying "only by 6 points!")  Anyways, it's a good feeling to have good credit.  I ours are in the high 700's.  Enough about that, so far I don't have any complaints about the new car, except maybe the new car smell, it makes me a little naucious.  Here are some picks of the new car.

A few things that I like are the fact that you can put the front seats back and still have room for people in back to have leg room.  In the BMW, it was a tight squeeze.  Also I now have a 6 disk changer which I didn't have before.   This comes in handy when I'm listening to my books on audio, I can load 6 in and don't have to fumble around when one disk ends while I'm driving.

My interior is a dark charcoal grey.  When they do the seats in leather, it'll be black, they didn't have a shade of grey that looked like it matched as well.  

Last week I had an episode with a teacher who had placed an order of 20 books for a summer reading program.  Apparently our Community Relations Manager, Courtney had placed the order and told her that they would be in the week previous.  I ended up answering the phone call since Courtney was out of town.  Since the books were not in the store yet I had to call and see what the status was on the order.  Well, it turns out they couldn't find the order and said it would take 4 more days to get us the books.  Bad news.  So I had the pleasure of telling the lady.  She blew a gasket over it telling me that I ruined her summer reading program.  Actually, she screamed that I ruined her summer reading program.  She also went on to say how mad at Courtney she was for not returning her calls or emails and that nobody could tell her sooner that the books would not get here on time.  She also went on to say that I was a poor store manager for doing business like this.  I explained to the lady that I never claimed to be the store manager who wasn't there at the time.  I was getting mad that this lady was yelling at me for 15 minutes and wouldn't let me get a word in to help her.  I told her that I didn't appreciate getting yelled at for something that I had no knowledge or control over, when I was the one trying to help her.  This caused her to yell at me some more about how she wasn't yelling at me, and she was upset that "I" ruined her summer reading program.  I told her that if she would calm down for a minute then maybe I could help her and tried to explain to her that we could try to collect the books from the other stores.  She wouldn't stop.  Finally I told her that she could talk to the assistant manager.  While I briefed Dan about the situation so he wouldn't get blind sided by the raving lunatic, she hung up.  A little while later the phone rang and it was someone else at the school.  Dan told them that we could collect the books from the surrounding stores and have them by the next day.  He said he could hear the lady screaming in the background the whole time.  Dan spent several hours driving around Salt Lake collecting the books.  Turns out, the next day, (I was off) the lady comes to pick them up and said "I wanted paperback", when she originally ordered hardcover.  Courtney had to drive around Salt Lake collecting paperback.  When I got back to work Courtney apologized and said the lady blows a gasket regularly and there had been previous incidents with her.  We had also received the original order of 20 that had been placed after all.  Then the other 20 that the warehouse was sending was on it's way since they couldn't find the original order, plus the 20 that we had collected makes 60 copies of one book because of this crazy lady.  I'm scared for the children she teaches.

Monday and Tuesday, we had a job fair at work.  It was crazy, there were several people coming in for jobs.  It was very time consuming since we had to filter everyone who came in and do interviews, then call their references before they could get a second interview by our Store Manager.  The only thing that I didn't like about the process is getting all the phone calls from the people we didn't want to hire.  Annoying.  Luckily we got about 14 people hired and some more possible candidates.

Today I was off and decided that I'd make a trip to Ikea instead of cleaning our house (which really needs it).  I bought a few random things for the shelves and bookcase that we had bought on Memorial day.  Here are some pictures.

Here's the bookcase that we bought.  I just threw all our DVD's in the baskets and CD's in the floral boxes.  The boxes are cardboard with lids and are a last chance item 2 boxes for $2.49.  I also bought the white candles.

I saw this chair for $15.  The bad thing is that the chair cover I got didn't fit.  Opps!  That's the thing about Ikea the names on things are oh so similar but not the same.  I got it since we don't have a piano bench.

  

Here are the shelves we bought.  I had to buy some stuff to put on them.   I bought various vases and used fabric as art.  I also have our latest family pictures up.  There's also a sign that says Hansen that Chris' brother in law made.  I'm not sure where we're going to put it yet so it's also on the shelf.

More fabric as wall art.  I put it up in our main bathroom since it still has bare walls.  That fabric was also $1.99 a yd.  In case you wanted to know.

Chris wasn't too happy when I told him I spend $250 on random stuff.  Hey, stuff adds up fast in there.  Believe it or not, I did show self control and put several items back.

The People of Sparks, by Jeanne Duprau

This is the sequel to The City of Ember that I talked about before.  This book wasn't as good as the first book.  It mainly deals with the people of Ember as they adjust to the "real world" after they escape from Ember.  Sparks is the town that they come across.  The book follows them as they live together and conflicts arise.  Nothing much happens until the middle of the book when things finally start happening.  The people of Sparks feel like they are burdened with the people of Ember and are scared that they will run out of food.  The people of Ember feel like they are being starved and aren't used to the changes.  Things end up coming to a head at the end.  We also learn that the real world has been pretty much destroyed.  There is no longer electricity or cities.  People have learned to live off the land again.

The Prophet of Yonwood is the third book in this series.  It is actually a prequel to the first two.  It takes place in the world before the disaster in a small town called Yonwood.  The main character is Nickie.  She is a young girl who goes with her aunt to help sell her great grandfathers house after he has died.  The town is in the midst of religious hysteria because a local has seen a vision of the future where everything has been destroyed because of the political conflicts that are currently going on.  The woman ends up in a trance like state and is basically unconcious.  People in town begin calling her the prophet and begin taking her mumblings as commands from God.  Things like singing, and dogs are banned.  The book follows the happenings as they get more and more extreme.  This book was better than the second one but a little weird since it had more of a religious tone to it.  The funny thing is that they attached metal bracelets to "sinners" that constantly gave off a humming noise so that everyone knew you were a sinner.  The sins were outrageous of course, like having pet snakes.

Like I said before, they are making a movie of these books sometime this fall.