My PINK .22 Rifle, complete!

What can I say, my husband is the BEST!

Ever since I bought my pink BB GUN to shoot the squirrels that eat my flowers I have wanted a PINK .22 rifle to shoot ground squirrels in the country. My interest in a .22 began Spring break 2007, (my first spring break working at BSU) when I went to Paisley OR to visit my good college girlfriends! What was our main activity? Shooting ground squirrels! It was a while ago, but I am pretty sure I borrowed my father’s .22 rifle for the weekend. (While mom was saying, you’re really going to send your GUN with her?) Before this weekend, I hadn't shot ground squirrels since I was a kid! I had forgotten how fun it was! I am sure my company made it even more fun.... gosh, we had fun that weekend didn't we ladies!?!?! Pictured is Dana Withers, me, Katie Williams and Kellie Frank (Davis). Love these ladies!

Between then and our wedding, I hadn't shot any squirrels, other than my new found hobby of shooting the city squirrels that eat my flowers. Don't worry, the city squirrels simply get "zapped" by the BB GUN, no damage is done other than a scurry!

After receiving a large amount of Cabela's bucks for our wedding (yes, we asked for Cabela's bucks along with Home Depot Gift Cards) we bought a .22 rifle for me. However, Cabela's doesn't sell PINK .22's, we had to buy the gun first and then buy a pink stock! I told Jordan that a pink stock is what I wanted for my birthday. I know my birthday is not until August 12th, however, I will be reunited with the lovely ladies above this weekend in Paisley OR. Dana Withers is getting married and this weekend is her Bachelorette Party! Yes, Katie and I will be arriving early to spend some time with our Bride-To-Be and shoot squirrels! So, I am sure you are putting it together, yes; I asked Jordan if I could get my birthday gift early so my gun would be "pimped out" for the weekend! If it was going to be pink sooner or later, why not sooner?

Do you think the squirrels are going to be scared?
Above, gun as purchased, below, gun after my wonderful husband bought my birthday present early!

The Pioneer Woman

At my Bridal Shower, Tiffany asked me if I had the cook book, The Pioneer Woman, I told her no, I don't have it and didn't think much of it. With the wedding coming up and everything going on, I am actually surprised I remember Tiffany asking me if I had it.

Then at Melissa Maag's Bridal Shower a few weeks ago, she received it as a gift and Tiffany asked me again if I had it. She and Alisha went on and on about how wonderful it is and how impressive this woman is. After arriving home from the shower I investigated! I believe I do need to purchase her cookbook, but in the mean time I have been cruising her blog.

While cruising her blog I saw this recipe
and thought I must try it!
I tried it last night and it was WONDERFUL!
I modified the recipe a little, instead of putting basil and garlic through the food processor, I bought a jar of pesto sauce, and instead of buying a block of Parmesan and grating it, I bought a packet of shredded Parmesan cheese. I also added some sun dried tomatoes that we had in the fridge and I must say they were a nice treat here and there.

While the pasta was boiling I heated the mixture up on the stove, it was a quick and easy side dish to our dinner! Jordan asked, What do you have going on over there!?!? I said, it's a surprise!

Once everything was heated up and the Parmesan Cheese was melted I tossed it with the pasta!

When ever I try something new, I always ask Jordan, What do you think? Does this qualify for a "make again"?

He said, "Make again, I could have this every day of the week!"
Thanks to the Pioneer Woman, I have another "make again recipe"! I must agree with Jordan, it was delicious and I think it would yummy warm or cold!

Me, Bridezilla, NEVER! Okay, once!

This is a long post, but trust me, it's worth the read!

Wedding Flower Trama:
Part 1:

As most of you know, my Aunt Donna did our wedding flowers and she did a FABULOUS job! We ordered our 600 roses from Costco and they were beautiful roses at a GREAT price. Donna originally ordered 500 roses (100 white and 400 red). After I told mom she could be in charge of the flower decisions, she and Aunt Donna decided they need 100 more to do a 2 arrangements on the alter and 2 arrangements in the entry way of the church.

Great, no problem! Donna had already ordered the 500 roses and were having them delivered to her house in Ontario so she could prep them and get started. However, she wasn’t going to have room in her car for 100 more so when mom ordered them, they were to be delivered to our house in Boise. Perfect! They were to arrive on Wednesday, 3 days before the wedding. I didn’t go to work on Wednesday as our 100 roses were to be delivered by Fed-ex at 10:00am that morning. I had all the curtains open, cleaning the house, waiting for the delivery! I wasn’t feeling well that morning, felt like I was coming down with a cold, so my plan was to get the flowers and go to the Urgent Care Center for some drugs!

Waiting, waiting, Fed-ex truck, where are you? Oh, there you go! Drove right by our house. I went outside to see if the driver was going to make the block, nope, sure didn’t! Waited, waited, no Fed-ex truck. I logged onto Fed-ex.com to find my flowers DELIVERED AND SIGNED FOR BY A GIRL NAMED KATY! WHAT? Are you kidding me? I was instantly pissed and upset! All I could think was they were delivered to the WRONG house and some girl (or bitch) scored 100 roses! I was thinking I was going to have to go DOOR TO DOOR!

I calmed down and thought logically, I called 1-800-fedex, explained that I didn’t receive a package but it shows delivered and signed.

Fed-ex: “Sorry”

Me: “Sorry? That is all you are going to give me? The package was 100 roses for MY WEDDING and somebody better do something about it because SORRY isn’t going to cut it!”

Fed-ex: “Oh, okay, well let me take your number and see what we can do. I’ll call you back.”

30 minutes went by and I couldn’t take it any more so I call Fed-ex back.

Me: “I called about 30 minutes ago about a miss-delivered package.”

Fed-Ex: “We are working on it”

Me: “Can you just give me the address where it was actually delivered?”

Fed-ex: “Yes, ______ address.”

Perfect! I go to googlemap.com to find that MY flowers were delivered to a FLOWER SHOP on VISTA near our house! I quickly grabbed my car keys and was off to the flower shop.

I told myself walking in, be nice, be nice, don’t yell! Good thing I was telling myself that!

Me: “Hi, (to the first person there, now mind you it is Wednesday before Mother’s Day, there are LOTS of ladies working this day) are you the owner?”

Florist: “No, how can I help you?”

Me: “Well a package of 100 red roses were to be delivered to MY house from Costco but they were delivered here and signed by a lady named Katy.”

Florist: “Katy is back here, follow me.”

I told Katy how she signed for 100 roses that should have been delivered to a Karen Vickery. While I was explaining the situation I was trying to stay calm.

Katy: “I was wondering why we got an extra 100 roses when we didn’t order them.”

(I was ready to come unglued…are you kidding me? They knew they didn’t ORDER THEM? UGH!)

Me: “Well if you didn’t ORDER THEM you might want to check the ADDRESS LABLE BEFORE YOU SIGN FOR THEM.”

Katy: “Sorry, we get lots of packages, too many to check.”

Me: “What? Too many to check! You need to check before you sign because if I hadn’t figured this out I would have been OUT 100 ROSES FOR MY WEDDING.”

Yes, by this time my voice is being raised. I wouldn’t call it yelling, there is no doubt when you’re yelling in my family!

Katy: “Here I am sure they are yours, take them.”

By now she just wanted me out of the shop.

Mind you, the box is OPEN, 1 bundle is in a bucket, the others are about to go in the bucket

Me: “No, find the lid to the box that says Karen Vickery so we all know they are mine.

Katy: “I am sure they are yours.”

Me: “I am not leaving without the lid to the box that has my address on it.”

Katy search and searched, the other ladies are staring at me and I am standing my ground! She finds the lid and puts the bundle that was out back in the box.

Me: “How do I know that is all of them?”

She explained how they are in bundles of 25 and there are four bundles.

As Katy handed me the box, Katy said: “You are welcome.”

Me: “I think you’ll check the address of your next delivery and if you don’t you should.”

As I walked out of the store, I said to the woman whom I first spoke to when walking in, “You might want to tell the OWNER to train her employees to look at addresses before signing for packages!”

Another employee: “WOW!”

I decided the “WOW” wasn’t worth a snap, so I left with my box of 100 roses.

Part 2:

Are you thinking, how can this story get any better? Well it does, it actually gets better TWICE!

I take my flowers home, call a few people who knew about the lost flowers to let them know I now had them. I put them in a bucket of water and was off to the Urgent Care because I am still not feeling well.

Waiting in the waiting room you’ll never guess what happens……

A woman comes in the door “My friend is in the car, she cut her finger and passed out on the way here, I need help getting her out of the car!” The woman turns around and is wearing an apron with the logo of the flower shop which I just left!

The woman says as our eyes meet “Oh, it’s great to see you again!”

Me: “Did Katy cut her finger?”

Florist: “Yes, she was a little frazzled after you left!”

Me: “I hope she is okay.”

They brought Katy in, she went right into a patient room to see the doctor, cutting in front of me of course! She was fine, at least that is what I was told. I finally got in to see the doctor and of course the man I saw just gave Katy stitches, I think he didn’t want to help me. He said to me “You’re going to be sick on your wedding day!” I just started crying, could this day get any worse? I BEGGED HIM FOR DRUGS, explained to him that I know my body, etc. and I’m only going to get worse…. He finally agreed to give me drugs but didn’t want to.

So I leave the doctors office, get my drugs, go home, prep my roses following Donna’s instructions (after she said to me, Dan’s not there yet? Hahaha…. She had to settle for me doing it!). After my roses were prepped I had an appointment for a 90 minute massage! I needed it more than I ever thought I would when I made the appointment.

The flowers were great, the wedding was fabulous and I thought I was done with this flower shop for the REST OF MY LIFE….. NOT!

Part 3:

Three weeks after our wedding we received our disc of photos from our photographer. (He and his wife left for vacation shortly after our wedding and were gone for 2 weeks). I get the disc, quickly post all the pictures to Facebook and then took them to Costco to get a double set of the pictures, 1 set for Jordan and I and 1 set for my parents (Tina just wanted the disc, don’t worry, I called her and asked what she wanted).

Yesterday, June 2^nd I picked up our $170 worth of prints during lunch and I don’t look at them until I get home from work. I start looking at them and HALF of them are HORRIBLE! Dark, discolored, washed out, etc. I put them right back in the bag and headed to Costco. I know our pictures are GREAT! I’ve looked through them online about 100 times, there must have been something wrong with Costco’s printer or paper. Again, I think to myself, I am going to get more help if I am NICE! The photo people were great, looking the photos with me, at first they said “It was your photographer.” I just about started crying, and said “Our pictures look GREAT on the computer, can we investigate, it looks like the ink in your printer was messed up or something.” They agreed to look into it. They started messing with their settings and the paper and realized the problem was their mistake. They started to reprint the WHOLE set. Meanwhile, the photo people had our wedding photos spread out across about ¾ of the Costco Photo counter.

Before I knew it, another Costco customer says to me as she is looking over my shoulder, in a winey, bitchy voice, “Oh, who did your flowers? I know we didn’t!”

I looked at her a little surprised, first of all, are you really looking over my shoulder and looking at my wedding pictures and COMMENTING on something?

Me: “My aunt did them”

Lady: “Oh well I own _____ Flower shop on Vista, but she did a good job.”

YES, SHE is the OWNER of the FLOWER SHOP THAT TOOK MY FLOWERS! I paused, thought, almost passed up the moment but couldn’t resist!

Me: “So you OWN the flower shop that signed for MY ROSES which then led to Katy cutting her finger?!”

Lady: “That was YOU?! Do you know how much that is costing me? She had to have minor surgery, physical therapy……”

As she is YELLING at me, truly YELLING, and getting closer I thought this bitch wants to fight and argue with me right here! The Costco Photo people are looking at me like, What’s going on? As she is yelling at me, I’m not looking at her but looking at my photos and say “Well, you might want to train your employees to LOOK before they sign for packages.”

Lady: “Do you know how many packages we get? I would have to hire someone FULL TIME JUST to do that!”

Again, I am still looking forward at my pictures, ignoring her and this is also pissing her off more. I thought if she gets any closer this lady was going to regret it, but I stood my ground and ignored her. She then said “I hope your wedding pictures are ruined because of your bad karma for causing Katy to cut her finger!”

Me: “Actually, my pictures are fine, Costco’s printer was messed up and they are reprinting them now.”

Again, this pissed her off MORE! She continues to yell at me and I continue to ignore her.

She finally walked away! WOW, she wants to tell me I have bad karma, what about you lady, looking at someone else’s photos and COMMENTING in a negative way!

I never thought in a million years this flower shop would come back into my life! I know I’ll NEVER step foot into that store again, unless they have a package that is mine! If you want to know the name of the flower shop, just email me and I’ll let you know, I would encourage all of my friends to NEVER go there.

As my mom said “A full time employee to check labels would be cheaper than a workmen’s comp claim.”

Lesson of the story, if you ever sign for a Fed-ex, UPS or any other type of package, check the label to be sure it’s yours!