Life, Love, Kids & the Red Sox

the newest killer trip

heidipetz — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:38:59 +0000

So yesterday I went with a friend from work to walmart to check out the new “price matching” they will match any advertised price after all the reward bucks, etc. Which means a lot of savings and also you don’t have to get money towards a future purchase as part of the deal. I didn’t have a lot that I needed to get but I wanted to check out how this worked. My co-worker who is the leader of our work couponing cult bought what would retail to about 300 dollars and left for 42 and change. I was just looking for a very small deal with some coupons that expire this week.

so with 4 bottles of dawn soap, 4 bottles of body wash, one toothpaste, one bottle of shampoo and conditioner, some butter (no coupon reg price 3.18) and a cars2 operation game

grand total out the door before tax– $5.67

clip clip

heidipetz — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:10:58 +0000

So around the first of May I was at work and talking to some of the girls that coupon, Sundays tend to be a little slower and it gave them time to coupon. Then the two girls that are most into couponing became my carpool and that is where this story begins!! I have become a crazy ass couponer, I don’t get out of the grocery store for .08 cents with $1000.00 worth of stuff, but I am super serious about my coupons and getting things as cheap as possible. I started clipping and organizing and learning all I could about how to maximize my savings. I have found that even though I will never save 90% on food (mostly because CA does not double coupons) I can save 90% on all our non food and save a ton on food as well. The good thing is for us that we are not super picky about things like toothpaste, brushes, soap, deodorant and other stuff so it allows me to buy what is the best deal and what I have the most coupons for. The other good thing is that my wife has an oversized laundry area so I have consumed most of it with my stockpile of stuff. I would say that on average I am saving 85-90% on all of our toiletries and such and 50-60% on food and it has made a huge difference for us!!

Here is a small peak at the stockpile

In this picture there are 18 bottle of body wash, 5 bottle of all soap, 6 shampoo bottle, 6 conditioner, 10 hairspray, 3 shaving cream, 2 hair gel and 1 bounce dryer bar for all of this I paid about $40 dollars the retail cost is about $245.00 and will last us for quite a long time if need be. So now I will only need to buy what is free or almost free to replenish as the deals come up. The thing people think is that it takes a lot of time, for me I do most of it at work in slow time and find all the deals and match-ups online. I have all the stores I shop at within 3 miles of my house and my co-workers and I will do it a lot on lunch if we want to go pick up a good deal. So for me it is not anymore time consuming than any other hobby, this one just saves me money!!

It does take a little time to organize it all but I think it is well worth the money, even Julia gets into it with me, she clips coupons on Sunday with me and loves it. When we are at the store Julia will ask if we have a coupon for something and then if not she just puts it back, it is a game for them and I think we all have fun with it!

two steps back

heidipetz — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:54:11 +0000

So I have been pretty fortunate to have a job that I love, one that I looked forward to going to and one that made me feel good about what I contribute to my little world. I have to tell you that the world of first responders is not nearly the Law and Order and CSI that people think it is, but it does have moments where it can stress you out. I will say that I have discovered the complete misuse of the 911 system and that people sure love to talk crap about police (ie 3a with a gun) but when you need us, oh wow do things change. People will yell at me and say that there is never a officer around when they need one but they are the first person to talk about cutting the department and giving us 3 day a month furloughs because we are overpaid and not needed. The public are like teenagers, the attitude changes with the wind.

I have gotten my share of calls that make me have trouble sleeping at night and it is even worse because sometimes we never know the result of the calls we take, we get info and pass them on to who can help them most. Yesterday I got a call that a son came back from being out at the river with his dad and told mom that his dad jumped off the pedestrian bridge and never came up… 5 hours ago!! He waited 5 hours to come home and tell her, or anyone and then when the fire department wanted her to put her son on the phone to help them figure out exactly where he went into the water he told his mom “I already told you im not talking to them”. Mom is hysterical, son was apparently drunk and who knows if Dad was dead or alive. We started air support to help search the river and then found out from a local hospital that he had been transported hours ago for major injuries. WTF? I will say that very little surprises me anymore about people. I mean here were 2 calls from yesterday– one dialed 911 and said that he needed to follow up on an accident report from last week when he hit a deer in another part of the state… complete misuse of 911// one called the non emerg line after he past something 15 min ago to let me know that there is a wood board at eye level hanging over the fast lane on the freeway and he said ” I really feel like this could decapitate someone, but I am not sure it is an EMERGENCY” I thought… hey sir if that was your head rolling around on the frwy would you upgrade it to an emergency? LOL People are crazy and unpredictable.

So now to my two steps back, I am almost 18 months into my journey here and I feel like I have got it down, I love to work busy radios with lots of officers on it and a lot of busy radio traffic. I felt like there was nothing they could throw at me that I could not handle. I could multitask with the best of them and even though I type pretty slow still I could handle anything. Then they decided to get a whole new system for the center. That is when work fell apart. Now no one likes change, especially when you do something and it works and you are a master of it. But they decided to get a new computer system that had this great new mapping system and then a dispatch thing to go with it. The center is a mess, people are a mess and it has taken me to a point where I hate even going to work. I am hoping in time it will get better but so far it has been a failure, everything that took you one step before takes you 10 now, the ability to multitask is pretty much gone and things work only some the time, with no explanation why. In one day my computer froze 3 times, more than the last 18 months combined. Even though our old system was old, it worked and worked well, we were good dispatchers and call takers and we were fast, now… were so slow it is painful. Not to mention that the screens are so small we can’t even read them. If a unit comes up for a registration or drivers lic check, in the past I could create a stop log and run both and get them read back to him in prob 30 seconds, now I am lucky if I can do it in 3-4 min. Now what you have to realize is that 2-3 extra min is an eternity on a radio. There is so much traffic, we have to dispatch units to calls, run stuff through dmv for them, enter vehicles into the system, help them with follow up, not to mention take 911 calls as well. Also if you are on a radio and you are not talking the units seem to think that you are just hanging out waiting for work, so they will come up with something. 30 seconds is forever as a dispatcher! So now the dispatchers are pissed and frustrated, the officers are irritated that nothing works and everything is taking forever and everyone is just done. It sucks that the 1970 DOS based system is so far miles ahead of the 2000′s windows system but right now we all just want it back.

I hope to get back to a point where work if fun again, but all I know is one day I was a really good dispatcher and the next day I could do the most basic tasks at all. So I fully understand why people who have done this for a lot of years literally got up crying and walked away. It is a mess, a big ass mess.

vacation

heidipetz — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:41:41 +0000

So this week we leave for Vacation, so happy that it is coming up. We need it, all of us, just a break from the norm. There has been so much going on over the last year and we have not had a chance to just get away and be a family. I started my new job, our best friends and their kids moved across the country, I have changed shifts every month for a year, we got pregnant, then miscarried, we have been to the bottom of the bucket with our relationship, we have a daughter who is at a very challenging age and is testing us on a daily basis, and we have decided that we will need to move again in May. So this year has been rough and hard and tiring and I think we are ready to just get away and be a family. To share in some amazing moments with the kids and to be in a place that is all about family and fun. It also gives us the chance to spend time with our nephew and our family. It has been a year since the kids have seen their Grandma and Papo and they are looking forward to that.

My wife being the planner that she is and me feeling like the kids need to be able to explore Disney at their pace, we have compromised, she is planning a few things to make sure that the kids get to see certain things, but she has agreed that letting the kids determine the pace is important so we have found some middle ground.

We are going to be gone for a little less than a week in Orange County and then back for a relaxing weekend at home. I have two weeks off and I am going to take the second week and chill at home with the kids, maybe do somethings around town. I am also going to work on getting things prepped for moving! I am really looking forward to the break from work and from the chaos that comes with my job and the day to day grind at home.

I just want this trip to be about relaxing and watching the kids enjoy being with family and friends and being at Disneyland. Not to be stressed out and in a big hurry. We will see how that works out.

Stuck like glue

heidipetz — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:11:27 +0000

So in the spirit of my music posts, I heard this song the other day and it was a song that I have heard a hundred times, but this time when I listened to the words they struck me and felt at home!

Stuck like glue by Sugarland

Absolutely no one who knows me better
No one that can make me feel so good
How did we stay so long together?
Everybody, everybody said we never would

And just when I
Start to think they’re right
The love has died

There you go making my heart beat again
Heart beat again, heart beat again
There you go making me feel like a kid
Won’t you do it, do it one time?

There you go pulling me right back in
Right back in, right back in
And I know I’m never letting this go
I’m stuck on you

Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, stuck like glue
You and me baby, we’re stuck like glue
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, stuck like glue
You and me baby, we’re stuck like glue

Some days I don’t feel like trying
Some days you know I wanna just give up

When it doesn’t matter who’s right
Fight about it all night
Had enough, you give me that look
I’m sorry baby let’s make up

You do that thing that makes me laugh
And just like that

There you go making my heart beat again
Heart beat again, heart beat again
There you go making me feel like a kid
Won’t you do it, do it one time?

There you go pulling me right back in
Right back in, right back in
And I know I’m never letting this go
I’m stuck on you

Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, stuck like glue
You and me baby, we’re stuck like glue
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, stuck like glue
You and me baby, we’re stuck like glue

Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, you almost stay out
Two stuck together from the ATL out
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, feelin’ kinda sick
Just a spoon full of sugar make it better real quick

I say, whoa-oh, whoa-oh, whatcha gonna do with that?
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, come on over here with that
Sugar sticky sweet stuff, come and give me that stuff
Everybody want some

Melodies that get stuck up in your head
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, up in your head
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, up in your head
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, up in your head

Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Stuck like glue
You and me together, say it’s all I wanna do

I said there you go making my heart beat again
Heart beat again, heart beat again
There you go making me feel like a kid
Won’t you do it, do it one time?

There you go pulling me right back in
Right back in, right back in
And I know I’m never letting this go

There you go making my heart beat again
Heart beat again, heart beat again
There you go making me feel like a kid
Won’t you do it, do it one time?

There you go pulling me right back in
Right back in, right back in
And I know I’m never letting this go
I’m stuck on you

Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, stuck like glue
You and me baby, we’re stuck like glue
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, stuck like glue
You and me baby, we’re stuck like glue
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, stuck like glue
You and me baby, we’re stuck like glue

heidipetz — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:45:46 +0000

LOVE

heidipetz — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:34:55 +0000

firework

heidipetz — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:30:09 +0000

I think sometimes we have very little awareness of what is going on around us, not what we see or try to see, but what is actually going on. I know that there has been a lot that I have not seen and have not chosen to see and once it was put on a platter in front of me it is a mass of emotions. Feeling of failure, fear and a sense of “what now”. That moment had so much power for me in my life and was very life altering. Not in ways that I can even explain, or in ways that I would want to explain. Just to me I found a fork in my road and one that I had so much time and reason to consider before choosing, and I know with all certainty I have made the best choice for who I am and where I want to go with myself. I have not really had a clarity like this for as long as I can remember and a sense of peace in my heart. This last while has been some of the worst and hardest moments of my entire adult life and I would not want to relive any of them, but I know that every moment of pain and hurt was a process that I had to go through. I am not in a perfect place, but i feel like I am in a place that is good and positive and will take me where I ultimately want to go. I have always loved music, but it has never been a “passion” like it is for some people, you know in the car, the elevator and the club, was about the limits. Lately I have found a place for it and a way to feel like it better expresses my words sometimes than I can…. today this is my song

Firework–the Glee version

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind
Wanting to start again

Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards
One blow from caving in

Do you ever feel already buried deep
Six feet under screams
But no one seems to hear a thing

Do you know that there’s still a chance for you
Cause there’s a spark in you

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

Cause baby you’re a firework
Come on show ‘em what your worth
Make ‘em go “ah, ah, ah!”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y

Baby you’re a firework
Come on let your colors burst
Make ‘em go “ah, ah, ah!”
You’re gonna leave ‘em falling down down down

You don’t have to feel like a waste of space
You’re original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow

Maybe a reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will glow
And when it’s time, you’ll know

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

Cause baby you’re a firework
Come on show ‘em what your worth
Make ‘em go “ah, ah, ah!”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y

Baby you’re a firework
Come on let your colors burst
Make ‘em go “ah, ah, ah!”
You’re gonna leave ‘em all in awe-awe-awe

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
And it’s always been inside of you you you
And now it’s time to let it through

Cause baby you’re a firework
Come on show ‘em what your worth
Make ‘em go “ah, ah, ah!”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y

Baby you’re a firework
Come on let your colors burst
Make ‘em go “ah, ah, ah!”
You’re gonna leave ‘em all in awe awe awe

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon

bumpy roads

heidipetz — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:19:58 +0000

So things have been challenging to say the least on the home front, a lot going on time wise and Kim and I have been struggling a lot trying to find a path that is positive and good for our relationship. Without getting into details, we both have lacked some trying over the past while and have really let our relationship slip to bottom of the pile. Everyday has been a struggle recently and these have been some challenging and emotion filled days. I have realized so much over the past 2 months. I have had so many “ah ha” moments and have really started to see so many things in a different light. I have also had some of the worst moments and days of my life, days that I wanted to curl up in a corner and hide and that is usually NOT who I am. I guess for me it has been the shittest way to realize some of the most important things about me, my life and my feelings.

I have realized that first and foremost I love my wife very much, I have no interest in living a single day without her. I have realized that as much as I have “tried” in the past, I really have not tried nearly as much as I could and should. That it doesn’t take doing something huge to make sure that we are nurturing the relationship and that we are showing love. I know that I am more in love with my wife than I ever probably realized. I also realized while all of our failures are not on just me, that I have not been half the wife I should have been in the last while. I have not tried, done or listened as much as I needed to and for that I feel so crappy. When things get hard it is easy and natural for me to do a lot of sweeping things under the rug, digging my heals in and when all that fails, avoiding the situation and hoping it will go away. But that is not working for us, me or Kim and I am working on changing that. Kim is also able to better understand why I do what I do and how she can help me avoid all that crap. It has been a very good experience and I think we have gained a lot from it. We are not where either of us want to be, but we have turned the ship in the right direction, now it is just time to keep sailing and hope that we get there.

So this week I ended up taking an extra day off to go with my regular two, so that I could have 3 days off. Kim had to work, but we were able to have 3 evenings together and I would have to say that they were all awesome. It was needed in so many ways, and being able to have that time was great. Dinners, chilling out together after the kids went to bed and just talking about anything and everything. It was nice, and easy and real and was something that I loved every minute of it. Our schedules work great for the kids and our pocketbook, but not so great for “us”, but it is what it is right now. It just felt good to make the most of the time we had.

I love my wife and my family and I am in it to make us as strong and we can be and to create a path that makes us both happy and makes our family thrive. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do. It took me 28 years to find her and I won’t let her go without a fight, a very large fight.

Bring it on home to me

heidipetz — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:42:02 +0000

You’ve got someone here
Wants to make it all right
Someone that loves you more
Than life right here
You’ve got willing arms that’ll hold you tight
A hand to lead you on through the night right here
I know your heart can get
All tangled up inside
But don’t you keep it to yourself

When your long day is over
And you can barely drag your feet
The weight of the world
Is on your shoulders
I know what you need
Bring it on home to me

You know I know you
Like the back of my hand
You know I’m gonna do
All that I can right here
Gonna lie with you
Till you fall asleep
When the morning comes
I’m still gonna be right here
Yes, I am
(Ooooooooooooo)
So take your worries and
Just drop them at the door
Baby, leave it all behind

When your long day is over
And you can barely drag your feet
The weight of the world
Is on your shoulders
I know what you need
Bring it on home to me

Baby, let me be your safe harbor
Don’t let the water come
And carry you away

When your long day is over
And you can barely drag your feet
The weight of the world
Is on your shoulders
I know what you need
Bring it on home to me

Oh, bring it on home
Yeah, bring it on home to me
Home to me
Oh, bring it on, bring it on home
to me

You’ve got someone here wants
To make it all right
Someone that loves you more
Than life right here