MR BACK'S & CO home for repeat offenders Part 2

[deadheadbelle]

Welcome back Cadsmom!!!!!

Congratulations on the upgrade. They musta took one look at you & said "This pampered must have a veranda"

How many margaritas did you drink? I bet you lost count. Did Jordan have fun? How was the food?

Nope, no baby yet for Castlegazer. Well, unless she was born over the weekend & antkim forgot to tell us.

 

[castlegazer]

But my No.1 question is......has Castlegazer had her baby yet?

Hey!!!!! WELCOME BACK!!!!


Thanks for thinking of me - no, I have not yet. I had a calamity of events that kept me from posting this weekend. I did everything in my power NOT to have this baby come right now. I am perfectly happy having her get comfy for another week.

GOODMORNING EVERYONE. I will now go back and catch up. I am terribly sorry about not posting this weekend. It has been awful - sickness, roof leaks, dishwasher repair, cleaning.......... on and on.

 

[castlegazer]

Well we are just about to vacuum out my car and just went to open gym to play. We'll probably watch a movie and I've just begun to plan my husband's 40th birthday. That's the excitement of this weekend.

Wow - that's futile around here at this time of year. I did wipe down my car's interior this weekend and re-set the car seats, but vacuuming - nope, not right now, about as futile as the car wash.

OK - on to more catching up.

 

[castlegazer]

Hi all, I have been busy all weekend.

I do have one annoyance with the new Boards; my spellcheck doesn't work!!!


Oh well, my Vacuum Cleaner has one built into the handwriting recognition system, so at night in bed I have it automatically

Is anyone else completely baffled by this statement??? Hunh????

OK - my story..... So, last year, prior to the snow flying, we put on a new roof. Prior to that we had some minor leaks, knew we had to do something as we had three layers up there. OK, so that's done, its a mild winter, no problems. This last 22 inch whopper followed by the deep freeze apparently has shown us what a totally ****ty job our contractor actually did on our roof. We call him earlier in the week when water starts coming in through our bedroom wall and along our casement windows up there.

He tells us, not his problem, get the snow off the roof (note, no mention of the fact he has a crew that can do this for us). That is not something we can do by ourselves as its three stories up, and well, I don't want my husband to die. My husband tells him as much and hangs up. We go through every roofer, calling, calling, calling. One calls us back to do snow and ice dam removal - they want $1,500 TO DO IT!

Um, well, water is now streaming into our first floor from our second floor and the walls are seeping water everywhere. My front entry closet has water coming down in sheets - I guess we will pay $1,500 to have someone do this for us. I balled my eyes out on Friday night as we got a new leak in our living room.

So Saturday morning rolls around with me thinking about cancelling our 2006 cruise due to this as we have been told not to claim via homeowners because we have had two prior claims and our rates will skyrocket, and we will be dropped from our current carrier.

I get out of bed, begin breakfast, look outside (while still in my oh, too tight nightie stretched over my enormous belly) to see our roofer pull up to the curb in front of our house. He wants in to check on the damage!

Long story shortened a little, he and my husband get in a big fight, he sees we have the contract out on the couch from when he put the roof on, and he agrees ot get the snow off of our roof for free. Can you say someone who knows they are in doo doo. Meanwhile the highway robbery crew shows up, and we have to get them to back off and go away - yet another brawl, followed by promises of having them come back in in the spring to check on the work our roofer did.

Then I have to somehow pull on my bathing suit and get off to swim class and keep my hormones in check and not fall apart there on the floor as some guy with no teeth goes up on our roof and begins hacking away.

Needless to say, this has not been an easy going, relaxing weekend.

My husband has been sick as a dog with intestinal issues, and now is home again with a fever and throwing up. This after being out for most of last week with our son due to snow days. Now what do we do when he wants to take so much time off for the baby??????

Can I just say, always plan to have your babies in the spring or fall - no winter babies, no August babies. This is just terreeeblah, and I have no time to sit and think, oh, how nice it will be with a baby in my arms. Yeah, OK, I wouldn't be sitting thinking that anyways, but I remember specifically sitting last time rocking away in the nursery waiting for the baby to come.

This long saga doesn't even touch on what has been happening at work. I have my last day on Friday, so after that I can relax, somewhat and get my mind around hvaing a new baby at home.

 

[39CINDERELLA]

GOOD morning All!~

 

[deadheadbelle]

castelgazer, I don't know what to say. That just sucks all the way around.

Has the leaking stopped since the snow has been removed?

 

[castlegazer]

Yes, thank God - I should have said that in my post. We are now in dry out mode.

My brother-in-law talked me down from a cliff on Saturday and explained to me that even a little bit of water looks like a lot and we may find that in the end the damage is minimal. On Friday I had visions of my plaster ceilings falling in and my walls falling down. Now with the water ceasing, it looks bad - brownish tar like stains on the walls and ceilings, but the plaster has held together minus the cracks, and I think we will get away with a simple paint job and maybe some floor sanding upstairs. But nothing has to be done immediately.

 

[castlegazer]

cadburysmom, You ARE going to tell me all from the cruise, right?????!!!!!!!

How was it????? The cruise board has been a wee bit wierd lately and there has been a lot of negativity so I want to hear all. How was pirate's night? Were you on Eastern or Western?

 

[geffric]

Welcome Home.. We missed you......................
so did DCL take one lookat your handsome prince and give you the upgrade.. what cabin? tell us all of the details..

 

[castlegazer]

Hey, can I ask you all a non-baby related question???

My husband has been offered a job - he didn't have to interview and he has it if he wants it. Here are some facts:
1) It is managerial and pays slightly higher than what he makes now. Pay would increase slowly like any other state job - yearly increases.
2) It would be secure for at least 6 years - no chance of being fired, no chance of losing it at all.
3) It is a state job which puts him back into the state retirement pension system, where we left our money from our previous jobs therefore ensuring no loss of years "in" - he has 6 years, leaving only 4 more to go to get to vesting - where you get a pension and health care in retirement.

Here is the big deal
4) - it gets him into a pension level at which he can retire at 55 and at 20 years in he will get 80% of his top pay year for the rest of his life.

Now here are the downsides:
1) It is a bit of a 180 from what he does now - he would be in charge of health clinics and health insurance contracts. He has wanted to go back into health care policy work, but this is a bit different.
2) It would be working in law enforcement - we would have to think about putting the kids in private schools, delist our phone number, he would be issued firearms
3) We don't have a firm grasp about what exactly the job entails as there is a major shift in who is running the facility and they are doing a re-org.
4) My husband is considered one of the most prominent policy analysts throughout the state - he would in this job, essentially be pulled away from his contacts and go to work each day doing management of health care clinics.

I don't know if this is enough info to really make an informed decision to help me out, but here is my question, and the question we have been asking ourselves:

Should we at age 34 make a huge career decision like this not based on an overwhelming desire to do the job, but purely for retirement reasons? The pension and the classification would allow us retirement safety after only 4 years on the job. After an additional 10 after that, we are set at a very health pension income yearly.

We decided to make the decision on job merits, but its looking like its hard to get a firm grasp on the job and what it entails, and because its such a radical shift, its really hard to make this decision.

Everyone keeps telling us to take it simply for retirement reasons - opportunities like this don't come around and its being offered to him as a huge plum.

What would you do?

 

[cadburysmom]

Thanks for welcoming me back!

I had the best time.....met the funnest people and as always, ate way too much!

Geffric I blame my weight gain on you as I felt obligated to order and EAT a second chocolate dessert every night, not to mention extra Mickey bars on deck in honor of my favorite Chocolatesista....and most importantly, thanks for urging me to meet up with other DISer's....they made the cruise twice as fun....we had an absolute blast and if any incriminating pictures show up on these boards, all I have to say in my defence is "too many Banana Benders"!

Deadheadbelle That's not to say I didn't have my fair intake of margarita's! Just had to have a few in honor of my favorite Kentucky gal

Castlegazer I can't thank you enough for holding in that baby til I got back and OMG!...so sorry to hear about your roofing problems....hope you dry up soon

And yes, the cruise was awesome....it was different this year as we had a VERANDA cabin way up on 7th deck when we're used to a porthole cabin on Deck 2....I went into shock when they told me....at first I thought they'd screwed up my rsvn when the CM couldn't find us under our original cabin #, then she said "Uh, you've been upgraded.....and quite a nice one at that"...cabin 7112, which was TOTALLY awesome...great location and would have cost us over $2000.00 more if we'd actually paid for it....thanks DCL...WOO HOO!!

But what really made the cruise great was the DISer's we met .....thanks Margaret and DH, Dawn and DH and Laura and Michael, we had such a blast on the Doubloom, incriminating pics WILL be posted...not to mention Mickeyminder who allowed us to tour her huge 2 bdrm suite up on deck 8 (totally awesome with two huge TV's, two full baths and a huge double balcony), needless to say we were all jealous as spit, made my VERANDAH cabin look like a closet

My stupid computer isn't allowing me to upload pics darn it...and I've got some good ones...great blackmailing material for fellow DCL DISer's...heeheehee...or as Oddball would say, jejejejejejeje

 

[castlegazer]

"Uh, you've been upgraded.....and quite a nice one at that"...

That Rocks!!!!!

Rub some of that good vibes onto me, sistah.

I have a Cat 6 already booked, though - thinkin' they're probably not going to upgrade me to anything higher.

 

[deadheadbelle]

It's all about the Benjamins, baby. DO IT!!! j/k.

Um, I dunno. If he thinks he will like the job, then I think he should do it. If he's afraid the job would make him miserable, then it's not worth any amount of $$$.

I'm really bad at advice, everthing I say just sounds so "obvious", so just ignore me. I'm sure the others will have really good advice. It would be nice to know that you have a good retirement plan, though.

 

[s&k'smom]

Welcome back from the cruise, it sounds heavenly. What I wouldn't give to be eating a meal I didn't cook!

Well as for my big idea I'm thinking of doing home daycare as I just don't see anyway around my DH going to school, working and my working plus who would watch DD when not home, DS is getting a home program sometime this year so we would have to be home for that and wha wha wha. I'm actually getting excited to start something new in my life.

 

[cadburysmom]

That Rocks!!!!!

Rub some of that good vibes onto me, sistah.

I have a Cat 6 already booked, though - thinkin' they're probably not going to upgrade me to anything higher.

They might...I got upgraded from Cat 9 to Cat 5 or 4...like everything else, it's based on supply and demand...in any case, I'm sending tons of "upgrade PD" your way

And I'm with DHB on the job offer...sounds awesome but would your husband be miserable for those 4 years? If so, definitely not worth it...those who say they don't bring the "office" home with them are just kidding themselves........but if not, go for it!!!

 

[geffric]

Castlegazer i am a very practical person, so retirement and security are very important to me, especially with baby #2 soon to be outside , I would do the swtich..

cadburysmom did ya rebook on board to the March 25 2006 so we can drain the ship dry of Chocolate??? Did you do Palos brunch?? tell me about the desserts??? Love the mickey bars and scoops for the inbetweeen chocolate pickmeup....

 

[castlegazer]

Thanks everyone for reading my diatribe. We're trying to figure out if he would be miserable doing this job, but we're finding it hard to get our brains around it - its so drastically different, plus no job description as of yet.

His gut reaction this weekend was to say no - now I am panicking that that is the waaaay wrong decision due to the economics of retirement.

Thanks again. I'll let you all know if we make the switch to being a law enforcement family.

 

[cadburysmom]

cadburysmom did ya rebook on board to the March 25 2006 so we can drain the ship dry of Chocolate??? Did you do Palos brunch?? tell me about the desserts??? Love the mickey bars and scoops for the inbetweeen chocolate pickmeup....

Didn't do Brunch, but did Tea at Palo's on Monday to meet fellow DISer's...lots of chocolate desserts offered with tea, especially the wonderful eclairs, super yummy, almost too much to eat,and I mean ALMOST...got to take a swan-shaped "doggie" bag back to the cabin for snacking Best chocolate dessert? Hmmm...let's see....an oldie but goodie...the warm souffle' with chocolate sauce served in Lumiere's is to die for...our waiter caught on to my ultra-chocolate tastes and made a grand gesture of standing over me on a chair while pouring that decadently delightful chocolate onto my steaming souffle' while others looked on with their tongues hanging out

And yes, I did rebook while onboard, but unfortunately, your date is way to much $$ for my budget...had to go with this time, next year, not that I'm complaining mind you, just sad that I'll have to drain the ship of it's chocolate resources before Chocolatesista gets on board

 

[castlegazer]

It would be nice to know that you have a good
retirement plan, though.

You're right, though. Its so hard to imagine saving $1 million each for our retirement (as advised by investment gurus). We are doing better than a lot of our friends in terms of retirement savings, mostly due to having pension accounts, but to think that we could have health care taken care of in 4 years time is pretty sweet. That is a huge deal - especially with the talk from Washington. But would he be in the job long enough to get the 80% pension pay out - who knows. That's some 14 years out and well, both of us have changed jobs every 5 years, so its hard to imagine actually staying in a job - this is a total statement on our generation.

 

[geffric]

Didn't do Brunch, i recommend that next year that you try the brunch.. a whole lovely decandent table of Chocolate wonderfulllllll


And yes, I did rebook while onboard, but unfortunately, your date is way to much $$ for my budget

...

oh I am so sad... we would have had Fun!!!! maybe we can plan a goils trip for a long weekend??? ( wait a minute, now I will have all of the chocolate on the entire ship to myself and not have to share..hmmmm. )