Heather, Fire Chief in training.

I am back from my blogging sabbatical. I know I have been missed. I was not gone on my own free will, mind you. I was blog-absent due to the fact that AT&T had a fiber cut south of Jackson that affected my work. In layman's terms (because I asked) that means no internet. My question is this: someone please tell me how people functioned at work with no access to the outside world? It was, for lack of better words, awful. But I woke up this morning with a great feeling that the world wide web will be back in business when I got to work and alas, it was.

So here I am. Pull up a chair and grab a cup of coffee; I have plenty to share.

1) Trey and I have a house guest. Sophie, you ask? no. She is our daughter. Mice? Don't be silly. We have an actual human being staying with us for 5 weeks. My friend, Morgan, whom I went to school with from kindergaren - college has moved into the Skaggs' home. I only wish that I had a picture from us when we were in kindergarten that I could share.. We wore big bows in our heads back then. Anyway, she is in physical therapy school in Memphis and is doing a clinical at none other than Forest General Hospital here in the burg. Last night we painted our toenails, drank Merlot, and cooked baked chicken and rice. We also rented a girly movie and then watched Age of Love. It is like living in the KD house, only quieter! Trey I am sure loves this, evident in the fact that he visited a friend last night until about 8:30. WELCOME, MORGAN, TO THE 'BURG!

2) I was told yesterday that I was in the wrong profession. Let me back up. About a month ago the fire chief on campus asked me to design the fire plans for our new Residence Halls on campus. I thought this to be a very strange request to be given to the Marketing/PR girl, but I ask no questions here: I just do as I am told. So they sent over the floor plans from the architect and told me to make the fire plans. I am talking I had to decide where to put all fire extinguishers, pull stations, deisgn the escape route, etc... I told this man that I knew NOTHING of the sort and had no expierence in anything fire safety except that you should "STOP, DROP, and ROLL" if ever on fire. He told me I could do it. So I did. I deisgned the fire plan for one wing on one floor of our new building. This took FOREVER. literally. I didn't even understand what all those markings on the plans were, I was just designing a fire extingusher and placing them on the floor plan as I saw fit. Rules? Regulations? Knew nothing of them. I was totally
BS-ing my way through this. But I did my first plan and sent it over to Fire Safety for them to review. In the meantime, during our staff meeting I was letting them know that the fire plans were taking longer than I imagined. My boss looked at me funny: "YOU are designing the fire plans?" Uh, yes sir, as directed by the chief. He then proceeds to tell me that if there was a actual fire and kids got all burned, we could be held liable because, well, a young inexperience marketing manager decided where all the fire ext. should be placed. SCORE! I was off the hook. It wasn't a fun project anyway.

Fast forward to yesterday when I recieved a phone call from the fire chief:

He told me that I was in the wrong profession: I SHOULD BE DESIGINING FIRE PLANS WITH ENGINEERS/ARCHITECTS. I had to fight my urge to die out laughing.
He told me that he could not have done better after 30 years of training.
I told the nice man that I completely made it all up as I went and that according to my boss I was not to do it anymore for liabilty reasons. I should concentrate on actually marketing and PR. His response? "Darling. I got your back. This fire plan is immaculate. I will call your boss today.
CRAP! All this time I thought I was pretty good at designing websites, recruiting, publications, etc...when all the while it was a Fire Chief that was my calling.

I just hope they have cuter uniforms when I take over.

3) Trey and I went to TJ MAX the other night. He was bored after approx. 10 minutes of me searching through candles and lamps. (the possibilties are really endless at such a store). So he announced that he was going outside for a walk. I assumed since this store was conveintly located next door to an ice cream shop that he would walk back in with something fattening and covered in chocolate. No, my friend. He walked back in about 10 minutes later with a cup, two pieces of paper, and a huge smile.
While it is true that TJ Max is the neighbor to the ice cream place, it is also the neighbor to Shoe Carnival, the most ANNOYING store in america. Are you familar? They ask questions over the intercom and people fight over the answer before spinning the wheel to claim there price. For starters: I HATE CLOWNS and all things carnivalish. Anyway, my husband played their games for at least 10 minutes, feeling pretty proud of himself. He beat out 9 and 10 year old girls who were probably really looking forward to that 10% off pair of shoes. But no, Trey in his full competive self claimed victory over these pre-teens, thus resulting in a 15% off purchase of some shoes. Thanks, hun.