Terra's Crazy Life

House & networking -
find me over at www.facebook.com
terracruz at gmail dot com :)

Yes.... I am.
You see, I do not know the real beginning of this story. I will have to begin with where my nightmare begins.
Monday am, I swing through Jack in the Box for a coke. Swipe my atm.
Monday afternoon is insane @ work & after I run a few work errands I swing through the Mc Donald's drive through. The guy in the drive thru window tells me my card was denied. {okay, whatever, he hardly spoke English, I figure he probably can't work the machine}.  I paid with cash. That was a 2pm.\
Monday around 4:30ish I try to pay a bill online with my debit card & it's denied.
I remember McDs.
I check my bank online.
Balance seems right... there's money in it.
Run the debit card as a atm not a credit & it goes through. :)

That night I talk to Jose about it & he goes to bank website.
He notices what I overlooked. $400 in pending transactions.
And the fun begins.
A call to the bank reviles that my atm card has been shut down due to suspicious activity. 2 $200 charges at JC Penny's in the mall the next town over.
I get my card canceled. New one ordered. Fraud claim filed.
The CS rep told me there were quite a few charges that tried to come in Monday afternoon that they declined.
Go to the bank Tue afternoon & fill out the paperwork.
Lament about it..... and figure that's the end of it.

It looks like someone sniped my card. I never let my card out of my sight - here's an interesting story about what crooks do to get your atm info.

Tue & Wed morning I checked the account online & all was fine. Jose goes to the bank Thurs. am to deposit his check & get some cash back & he can't. There's no $$$ in the bank. More charges went through last night. Charges that they made Sat & Sun before my card was turned off so they let through. Causing my bank to go into the red. And piling on overdraft fees... because you know they paid them! 

It wasn't all bad. I did get the original $400 deposited back into my account late this afternoon --- & I promptly dropped everything and ran to the bank to get what was left out of it ---- before the damn bank let's someone take that.

Lovely, isn't it?

Too much. And no time to complain that too much is going on.

Mari's 1st backstroke in a swim meet can be found here.
We had our 1st meet of the season today and we won! Cam's thrilled. We only won 1 other meet in the past years & it was a meet we missed because he was barfing.

Cameron turned 10 this week.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I only have a few photos... I wanted to do a photo shoot with him in the afternoon but he came home in full blown tantrum mode and it' since slipped my mind. The few photos I did get are crappy. My camera lense was DIRTY! :(

He had another pool party last weekend. He got tons of books! He called it a library!

We were at the pool bright & early this morning. 7:30 to be exact. The kids were in the water by 8 am.
They had a blast.
Cameron's thrilled he knocked 8 seconds off this best time from last year in Freestyle.
Mari's happy she made it across the pool without stopping both in freestyle & back. I'm proud of both of them.
I didn't get many photos.... seems every year I take a ton & all they do is collect dust. There are only so many different poses/layouts you can do with the kids diving in the pool photos. :)

However, I would like to share this one of Mari -her 1st time ever going off the starting blocks. You can see we need to work on that dive in.  She's doing great off the deck in practice --- no so much here. LOL!

Friday afternoon my pal kept the kids after school with her while she worked at the scholastic book fair.
My other friend brought the kids home and was full of apologies. Then I saw them. Plastic pointer fingers on sticks. Weapons. Thanks Diana! I've been refereeing the kids all weekend -  They've used them as butt scratchers, nose pickers, swords, ticklers, guns, bug swatters, dog torturers - & those are just a small sampling of their uses.
Hey- at least they're creative.

Look at Mari!

#11 for all of you keeping track!

We bought ourselves a little something goofy!
For him:

And for her:
Aren't we geeks! :)
But we'll have comfy feet.
Summer here we come!!!!

Happy Cinco de Mayo all!

Just what is normal?
I dunno, really. But school is back in! The kids are happy. I'm happy.
Work is crazy. Too crazy. But at least I'll survive until next payday! :)

Things have been crazy --- so let me update a little bit.

• The kids are about to start STAR testing. The state's mandatory No Child Left Untested test.
• Swim practice is in full swing. I'm such a bad mom- I do not have any photos yet.
• Mari's busy making a top 10 friend list. {I am doomed- I tell you. Doomed}
• Cam's at a playdate with a pal from school. New friends. Very. Very nice.
• There are 5 more weeks of school. OMG!
• 36 days until Cameron is 10. Double OMG!
• The dog has settled in well. If we stay on top of her she will go potty outside all the time. If we slack -we will find a turd in the tub & pee on the bathmat.
• I have a secret shopper assignment Monday with the dog. We are evaluating a local vet. I get a free check-up (up to $100) & $25.
  
• I made $15 in an Amazon coupon for doing a website evaluation the other morning. Made me late for work but hey! it's free $$!
• Mari's Heely's arrived in the mail today! {photo to follow}
• My SIL's baby shower is in 2 weeks. I need to make her favors. OMG! She wants personalized candy bars. I think I'll buy a program online & whip them up. I hope it's not difficult.  I have visions of me up all night the 18th desperately trying to get the program to work!
  

As promised- Mari in her new kicks!

Cameron had his art show opening Friday night at a local coffee shop.

Sorry the photo is a little dark - I didn't edit it yet.... I thought he looked rather cute & you can see his kissing giraffes photo behind him.

A little about the event.

And another photo to share -

The teachers are still on strike.
I just got a recorded phone call from the principal asking up to send our kids to school because they will begin using the practice STAR testing booklets. I don't care about the state standardized testing. I'm no fan of no kid let untested... so I don't care about the end results. But I know a lot is riding on these test results. This is a bad situation just getting worse.

Cameron asked me to make him a quilt. I agreed but had him design the whole thing. He calculated how much fabric I need and the quilt layout. I think he enjoyed it. It was a great math life skill lesson.
I think I will draw Mari's and have her design hers too. I wonder how she will do.

I'm off to cut more black flannel squares.

The baby blankie all done.
I'm going to start one for Marionna soon.

The teachers are still on strike.
The district is seeking an injunction to send the teachers back to work.     Thank God.   I'm hoping they can get back to school Monday. They've been out of school since the 4th!

Last night I was driving back from swim & the guy next to me hit a wild turkey - the bird deflected off his bumper & hit the side of my van with a big thump! There were feathers everywhere. The poor bird was flopping about the road. I really felt bad for that ol' bird.  Thankfully, he didn't leave any guts on the van. Cam was out of the van & quick to inspect once we got home. There was just a feather in the windshield wiper groove...

Hmmm, I think I'll have some turkey mignon & baked potatoes for dinner tonight.