deadbeat.

that's a lot of red.

remember that to do list i told you about?

well let's pile on some more things to it shall we? just as i thought it was almost completed.

son of a....

things got really interesting yesterday.

our landlord, who is a wonderful talented and amazing human being (NOT), has found himself in some financial trouble. which does not translate into awesomeness for us. not even in the least. not even a tiny, minuscule, minute, wee bit.

fantabulous.

side note: i do not like ray lamontange. realized that about 10 seconds too late. thanks for nothing pandora...i kid, i love you, please don't ever stop playing your delicious music to me.

now where were we? oh yes, deadbeat landlords.

financial trouble you might ask? well. the list is long and obnoxious so i won't bore you with the details. and poor darwin has to take the brunt of it...

mainly because i like to scheme our power bills. listen, i am all about paying my bills, especially when they are delivered in a timely manner, and are full of things that i have purchased/used. now i get cranky when i am asked to pay for things that i did not break/purchase/use. (ask darwin about the new land rover some time, he can tell you how perturbed i was about that one...)

so we have this long standing feud with our LL about our power bill (LL=landlord). so we moved into our shop in the middle of august, but were fully in september 1. so now. here's the fun part. he hands us a power bill dated...wait for it...july-august.

um no.

not relavent, but funny nonetheless.

so we pay it, because LL has no money, because he apparently spent it all on floozies and michelob ultra (that is not true, well it could be, but i have no proof of that...except the mich ultra...). i then deduct that bill from our rent check. seems logical, no? not to redneck LLs.

darwin calms him and explains it....which only requires about 10 minutes of breathe, but about 3 hours of actual time spent, because you know you have to listen to LL bitch and moan for approximated 2 hours and 50 minutes....

i proceed to do this on all our rent checks...poor darwin must endure this each month.

well let's stroll right along to april...that tactic didn't go over so well. and by so well i mean not at all. LL gets all uppity and in darwin's face about this deduction maneuver i use. he says i quote "if you don't want to pay the rent, then leave."

second favorite quote: "she's (me) your problem. i got rid of mine a long time ago. you can deal with her." why thank you for thinking so highly of me mr. LL.

well played sir...looks like we will be leaving. ASAFP. emphasis on the F.

"later boners"...always sunny in philadelphia. 

so new task...find somewhere to go.

happy spring to us. i think we may have found the solution, but it is going to make april even  busier than that awesome 2 page list.

ciao.

gif source penguin
gif source

the proverbial fan.

remember that time i told you that darwin was going out of town and it was time to get all of our ducks in a row as to ensure things ran smoothly and there were no crises (yes that is plural of crisis and yes i realize that it looks stupid) that i would have to handle.

well. we all know how that usually turns out. shit hitting the proverbial fan. and yes, you guessed it. shit.hit.the.fan.

that sure is some nice manure you have there good sir.

as i told you before, we had a big job that we shipped out a week ago. we were so happy that we got everything done on time and delivered without too many surprises. well, SURPRISE. they under-ordered or someone missed a take-off section. neither here nor there, but they were short material.

guess who got to solve that dilemma? if you guessed me, then you are correct.

want to know what involved solving that dilemma?

-schlepping heart pine
-reschlepping heart pine
-selling my soul to millwork
-reselling my soul to millwork
-bombing around kennesaw while my soul was at millwork
-SOOOOO MUCH CAFFEINE
-getting home at 630 on a friday
-getting up at 6 on a saturday
-finding out the finishing guy has a chest cold and you are now in charge of finishing 500SF
-praia rolling in compost heap waste
-showering off compost heap waste
-trying not to vomit while showering off compost heap waste
-schlepping more heart pine
-breaking into a 5 gallon container of velvit oil (crow bar and screw drivers involved)
-lining up over 500SF of heart pine (over 10' long)
-crouching around wiping on velvit oil
-trying not to die of velvit oil inhalation

you know the usual.

and you know what made it all worth it? well aside from satisfaction and pride: getting to do it all again today.

i really should add heart pine schlepper to my resume (right under fork lift extractor. i should also really come up with more glamorous names for these things.)

now comes the fun part. selling my soul to millwork again tomorrow to get 650LF of walnut run so that i can finish it tomorrow so that all this material can ship out wednesday morning bright and early.

wish me luck.

ciao. 


**picture

commander in chief.

i realize it has been a hot minute since my last post, but no i did not get taken in the rapture. i am still here, never fear. i will always be here. i currently am playing commander in chief at work. it is becoming pretty routine for me these days. one thing i will say that is beginning to drive me insane is when you ask someone to do something and it gets overlooked for whatever reason.

just to give you a bit of insight into my day: i have to handle most everything technical and darwin does more of the hands on. i as well do the hands on, but i have to make sure and keep the company legal, out of jail, etc. etc. etc. so some days i am on the phone with customer service explaining to them that no i am not the account holder, but they most certainly want to deal with me rather than the account holder...usually i can bully my way, but sometimes...

such as darwin's health insurance. they cancelled it, because they forgot to log a payment. and i was pissed, because there was no warning, just a letter stating it had been cancelled. SPECTACULAR. i call them and explain to the poor operator girl that she better straighten this out. she says and i quote "well, mrs. crawford, since you aren't on the account i cannot do anything further without speaking to mr. crawford..." a. i am not mrs. crawford. b. if i was mrs. crawford and i gave you all the necessary information to prove i was calling on behalf of mr. crawford, what on earth does it matter. c. i can promise you, you do not want me to go get "mr. crawford." she insisted on speaking to mr. crawford....didn't end well for her. led to talking to supervisors and darwin adding me to the account so that i call and "chew out the peons." (his words, not mine). fantastic...i love chewing people out.

another fun one that i have been dealing with is the bank. i can deposit money, write checks (and have darwin sign them), manage our money, pay our taxes, and so on, BUT i cannot do anything that involves taking money or talking to anyone about something that has gone wrong because i am not a signer on the account. totally fine by me, it's darwin's company. except when quickbooks decides to ruin my day. it has a nasty habit of ruining things for me. if it didn't tell me how to pay taxes, we would be a straight cash business with no quickbooks - that's how much i hate it. well it decided to electronically pay our federal taxes after i clicked it not to. apparently that just means it doesn't file the paperwork, but it doesn't inform you of that. i go on my merry way paying taxes and printing all the checks. then wham i get an email from quickbooks 2 days later saying the electronic payment has been processed. SAY WHAT! easiest way to ruin my thursday.

i call quickbooks. that poor man. i yelled at him and almost cried. i am not proud of the things i said, but he sent me over the edge when he said there was nothing quickbooks could do. here was my answer to that - so, you are telling me that you can take money away from me without my knowledge, but you have no way of returning it to me? that makes perfect sense. i really appreciate your absolute lack of help in this situation. it gives me great faith in quickbooks. really really does. - he apologized and this was my consolation prize - well when the check goes through and you've double paid i can help you sort that out when you pay your taxes for the next quarter. - oh gee that's just fanfuckingtastic.

i go to the bank to see how i can possibly repair this so darwin doesn't kill me. he tells me to do whatever i need to do, but he cannot and will not go down to the bank to straighten it out because it will not be a pretty sight...none of my usual bankers are there who know me and could help me out. so this woman tells me that i can't actually do anything because i am not a signer on the account....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. she gives me a number for darwin to call to get the whole mess straightened out. so he gets it straightened out finally. but the irs was not happy about receiving a check that had a stop payment put on it....ooops.

moral of the story. if you are in charge of running someone's life, make sure you are the signer on all things important...

ciao.

crisis. management.

i do a lot of crisis management around here. i've learned to expect the unexpected or at least fake that i expected it to be coming. doesn't matter how ludicrous it is, someone will undoubtedly ask for it and you have to be on your toes. it makes for an awesome day.

take last week for instance. darwin decided that he wanted to be beach bum and leave me in charge of the company. -that rat bastard - so naturally, i said whatever and went right back to what i was doing. fast forward to the middle of the week, when darwin then tells me that i am in charge of this huge order that has to go out friday, and if it doesn't then we've lost a huge potential client. no pressure or anything....after wrestling with the freight company and finally getting that straight i figured i was in the clear. WRONG. they screwed up the pick-up date and thought it was the day that i started scheduling everything, not friday. son of a...we moved onto round three with the freight company. dot: 0 freight: 2. not good odds. i did however bully my way to a victory. it wasn't pretty and i was almost in tears, but i won.

friday rolls around and everything goes according to plan. so i am sitting pretty. i have managed to get all the ducks in a row and darwin isn't even town. amazing. i log out of work early, because i mean darwin is at the beach, so there is absolutely no reason for me to be there, and proceed on with my weekend. monday comes and everything is still kosher, the delivery is on time. tuesday hits.....cue impending doom music....i am at darwin's house (my new home office...pretty swanky) and i get a frantic phone call from the people who are receiving the material...uh oh...

the freight carrier decided that they weren't going to actually deliver it on time and were holding the material hostage. PHENOMENAL! so i race to work. call the freight company, get passed to about 80 gajillion people before anyone figures out what the heck i am talking about. i have to make up a release form - no, if you are wondering, there is no standard release form from the freight company, go figure...- and fax it off to the world of faxes and hope for the best. made for an exciting day and it was only 930.

the problem with crisis management is that once you solve one, it's then a waiting game for the next one. the other problem is that you can't hunker down and wait for the crisis - that would be a terrible existence - so instead you mosey along with your day/week/month/life and then wham blindsided by another crisis. i unfortunately don't usually get the month long respite, or even the week long for that matter....

ciao.

i'll find you....

big fat bully. there i said it. i HATE being bullied. anyone who knows me knows that badgering me, cornering me, and most of all bullying me are a sure fire way for me to just ignore you and not talk to you anymore. i hate it, i hate it, i hate it.

now people around the shop (customers/vendors) think that i am easily bullyable (not a word, but whatever). quite the contrary, i am not easily bullied. i will stand my ground, mark my words. yesterday, however, was not one of my finer moments. i was already on the verge of a mental breakdown, and customers just were not helping. i am under strict orders to get payments in by certain times. usually, i am really good at this. i just ex-girlfriend style call. i annoy myself with how many times i call...so i must clearly be annoying you. yesterday was just not my day. i was tired, cranky, and cold. probably the worst threesome for me right there. i just didn't have it in me to fight. so i went unpaid and left the shop at 3 on the brink of tears. just because i am a girl, i am blonde, and i am pretty (i'm taking liberty here to say that i am), does not mean that you can smooth talk your way out of a bill, and that my pretty little head will just completely miss what happened. WRONG. i like my money, and i like being able to see it. don't do the whole wink and nod. you're not a puppy, i'm not falling for it. that doesn't make the look and the chat i am going to get from darwin later easier for me. JUST PAY YOUR BILL. we are a small company, we need that money. i need that money. just give it to me, it's not that hard. it stresses me out and i don't do well with stress.

moral of the story, pay your bills, be nice to the people you purchase things from, they are doing their best. and for goodness sake do not bug me 8000 times in one day where your stuff is. i told you i would let you know by a certain time and i will. geez...don't use my ex-girlfriend tactic, that's just rude...ha.

oh, i have an older brother. i know how to hold my own....don't test these baby fists of fury. and i most decidedly probably faster than you, so don't try that one either. CAUSE I'LL FINDDDD YOU...