Ahg!!

So I had a very irritating phone call this week. I was sitting at someones desk fixing their computer, when the main phone rang at work. The receptionist was away from her desk so I decided to answer the phone. There was a man on the other end of the phone that asked about a particular sale of almonds we had done. He wanted to know if the almonds had been pasteurized. I remembered the sale, and told him that they had been pasteurized. Then all of a sudden this lady starts telling me off. She was really upset that the almonds they purchased had been pasteurized. She told me that it was ridiculous to pasteurize them because almonds don't have salmonella, they only get it through the mishandling of almonds. She said that salmonella came from livestock, not almond trees. She inferred the almonds would only be contaminated when they are processed and if we didn't have clean processing procedures.

I almost wanted to tell her that she didn't really know what she was talking about. Where does salmonella come from? It can come from birds, snakes, lizards, and other creatures. What do we have out in the almond orchards? Snakes, lizards, birds, coyotes, jack rabbits, gophers, squirrels, mice, rats, ect. True I haven't heard of cattle or sheep in our orchards, but I can't imagine that mice and rats are any better than cattle.

Then she had the nerve to tell me that she had looked up the "law" and knew that we could sell her under 100 lbs and it didn't have to be pasteurized. First, there is no "law" for almonds to be pasteurized. The almond industry has voluntarily implemented pasteurization requirements on all domestic loads. Second, only sales at farmer's markets and at roadside stands will be able to sell almonds that are unpasteurized and only up to 100 lbs to one consumer. Third, the sale that she was part of, he had purchased 2000 pounds. So he wouldn't have qualified for that exemption. Even if he did, we do not have a roadside stand, nor do we sell at a farmer's market and so we would not have sold him unpasteurized almonds.

Anyway, she was mad because she wanted sprout-able food and now she had 100 lbs that had been treated for salmonella. She didn't want that because she was trying to eat healthy and now our almonds have been chemically treated for salmonella. I wanted to tell her that our almonds aren't organic, and have been produced with the help of chemicals.

I did tell her that we don't sell retail, and this sale was done as a favor because he was one of our bee keepers, and we only do these sales for our contract laborers and other vendors.

When she hung up the phone, she was still frustrated with the situation, but she had calmed down a bit. Ahg!! What a way to start off a day.

So today at work I heard some disturbing news. First if you actually like almonds, you may not want to read this. :-)

Every year we have to sell/dispose of inedible almonds. These can sell for about $.20/lb. They are not fit for human consumption, however, they can be used for animal feed, primarily cattle. We will usually sell the inedible almonds to the oil stock people who will press the almonds to get the oil out of them. So, yes, this is where almond oil comes from...it comes from almonds that aren't fit for human consumption. So why is the oil okay? I have no idea.

What makes an almond inedible? First I have to explain a little about almond harvesting. When the almonds are ready, we will shake the trees to drop the nuts on the ground. Then the almonds are swept into nice neat rows. This is so we can continue to water the trees during the 1 1/2-2 weeks the almonds are drying on the ground. When the almond falls on the ground, more than likely it is still in the hull (the green fleshy part that is similar to a peach), as well as in the shell. So for a time the almonds are on the dirt. Finally they are swept up and brought to stockpiles to sit for a while longer, or they are immediately processed. While the almonds were on the tree, they were susceptible to disease or insect damage. When the almonds were on the ground, they are once again susceptible to insect damage. When the almonds are brought in, if there is a high moisture content, then the almonds are susceptible to mold.

Mold does make an almond inedible. Insect damage is actually another story. There is such a thing as good insect damage and bad insect damage. I have never bothered to figure out the difference, and bad insect damage is considered inedible. There are other things that make an almond inedible, but for this story, I don't need to go into them.

Sometime after we finished the season in February, mold was discovered in some of the bins. This is something we deal with every year. The normal course is to open up the bin to air it out and to stop the growth. Then the almonds are sold as inedible. However, when we dispose of inedibles, there are certain guidelines we have follow in order to not have to pay an assessment on those pounds. So, allegedly one of the foreman discovered the mold and decided to close the bag on the bin a bit tighter instead of airing it out. His theory was to make the % of inedibles higher so we surpass the guidelines by a lot when we disposed of it. However, too much mold makes the almonds a total loss. He apparently didn't know this, and so when he finally let us know about the 50,000 lbs, it was too late. So today we had to bury 50,000 lbs of almonds.

I was a bit disturbed to know that someone made this type of decision without running it by management. I don't think we would have closed up the bins if we had known. The second is to know that we had 50,000 of moldy product in the same vicinity as good product. I understand that it is in closed plastic bags, but I can't see that this would be a good thing.

Anyway, it is done. There isn't much I can do at this point. The ABC employee was at work today to witness the destruction of the almonds, and now they are gone.

Rio

Well the golden, golden retriever passed away. No this wasn't my dog, but Lynn and Jason's dog. They had the dog for about three years. She was a great dog, she was really sweet. Phil and Sam were able to beat her up. Both of my cats are de-clawed, yet either one of them intimidated and beat up Rio. Whenever Rio came over to my house because I dog sat, I would have to pick this 60-70 lb dog up and put it on my bed in my room because she was afraid to come in my room because of my two cats. It was kind of funny. Also, I can just see Rio walking around with some stuffed animal (or not so stuffed because she pulled the stuffing out) around in her mouth. She was a really cute dog. She loved to swim. Lynn and Jason had a pool, and we would throw balls out into the pool and she would cautiously get in and then get the ball. Whenever we were in the water, she would have to be where ever we were. One time she had been in the water too long, and she was getting tired. It was like she swam over to me and expected me hold her so she wouldn't go under.

She was one trial dog though. One time I dog sat for her and had left my journal on the couch. On the fourth day of my dog sitting, she decided that she wanted to eat the purple fuzzy cover off the journal. She left the rest of the journal intact, it was the cover that she went after.

Also, she had had a couple of major surgeries while she was a puppy. She had allergies, she had the Valley Fever (only a slight case), allergies to many different kinds of normal dog food. She was one special dog.

Good Bye Rio, may you find a field of fuzzy covered journals and a mountain of stuffed animals in heaven!!

Dentist

I have to find a new dentist. I have known this for a couple of months, but am not really sure where to look for one. The current dentist I have is a referral. There are two reasons why I am leaving this dentist. First, I want to say that he is a very nice person and has a great bedside manner. His office is clean and efficient and his staff are very friendly and helpful.

With this said, every time I have a cavity filled the dentist has to give me multiple shots of Novocaine in order to complete the filling. It is like he doesn't give enough in the beginning and so when he starts to drill, I feel it. I immediately let him know and he will then give me another shot. I have had to do this a couple of times in the past. In February, I had another cavity and went into to get it filled. He shot me up the first time and we waited about 10 minutes for it to take effect. When he started drilling, I immediately let him know that I was feeling it. So he gave me another set of shots and then started back on the drilling. By now, my eyeball was starting to feel numb, and I could feel my neck starting to go numb, but yet, I still had problems. So he had to give me a third shot. This time I felt him go under the tooth and I jumped. He said something like that was the nerve that hadn't fallen asleep yet. So then he started drilling again. By this time, I figured that as long as I wasn't going to scream or hit him from the pain, I should just grin and bear it. My thinking was I would rather have a few moments of discomfort in the chair rather than have him continue to dig around looking for another nerve to hit with his Novocaine needle.

The other reason why I need to change dentists is that he is no longer in my insurance PDP, and so it won't be fully covered.

I am now having a problem with one of my teeth and need to find another dentist, but am not really sure where to start.

Cake Decorating

So last week I signed up to take a Wilton Cake Decorating class. I figured that it would be best that I start taking classes. This would be the second cake I am making this year that is for an actual event I really don't have anything to do with. The first was a Sweet 16 birthday. Next month I have a wedding cake to do for a friend. She came up to me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I would do her a favor. I wasn't really sure where she was going with this, considering she is the choir pianist, and she has asked me to fill in for her a couple of times. I am not really good at the piano playing, so I was hesitant to say yes to her favor. Then she mentioned that she had heard that I do cakes and wondered if I would do her wedding cake. I told her that I am not that good, and I didn't want to ruin her big day by not having a perfect cake. She then told me that this would be her second reception and that she would already have had her perfect cake during the first reception in Phoenix. This reception was for the Bakersfield area, and it would be more for her husbands family. She didn't care if the cake was perfect. So I agreed. Shortly after that, I decided to go check out Michael's to see if they had a class I could take. I felt that since this is the second time this year that it would be good to take a class on cake decorating so I would feel more comfortable when asked to make a cake for friends.

I have taken a class before when I was about 15. I can't remember what it was really about. Also, when I was 12, my Grandma B. decided I would learn how to decorate cakes. She brought me to the lady that decorated cakes in the Albion, IL area. I sat with her one afternoon and learned a few things. She gave me a cake recipe that I tried a couple of times, and wasn't ever successful at making it. Anyway, a box cake is just fine. So after that lesson, we went back to Grandma's house in Chicago and she took me to the Wilton store and purchased some cake decorating supplies for me. Grandma was always trying to get us grand kids to learn new things. She taught me how to crochet, and taught Diana how to cross stitch. Ever since that time, I was in charge of making all the b-day cakes for everyone in the family. At this point, I really am not a cake fan. However, I do like cake batter. Every time I actually made the cakes, I wouldn't eat a piece. It is kind of funny that I would cook it, but couldn't stand eating it. I guess there are worse things than not liking cake. :-)

Sunday School

So I was able to teach the lesson in Sunday School this weekend. Mike had called last Sunday and asked if I would be in town. I never leave....in fact, I really don't go anywhere. That is sad. I think I need to start figuring out some vacations for myself. Anyway, so I was able to teach on Mosiah 18-24. This was about Alma (the elder) and him teaching the Nephites that were in the wilderness with him. He then was able to baptize them. Then it went onto what happened to King Noah and how he was killed according to the prophecy. Then it went onto King Limhi, King Noah's' son, and how he was a just man and that he lived in peace with the Lamanites for two years before they attacked his people. Then it was how King Limhi's people escaped and met up with the people of Zarahemla. Then it went back to Alma and how they had to suffer the consequences of their past sins even though they had repented by then, and had been living righteously.

The lesson went pretty well. I did bring cookies to give out when the lesson seemed to get stuck. In order to have a successful lesson, you need to have plenty of participation. During the last 15 minutes, the attention seems to wane, and you need to have something that brings their attention back. So I had hid my cookies and only brought them out when I wasn't getting the participation I needed. It worked pretty well. However, I think I would rather just stick to teaching in Relief Society. It is a bit less intimidating.

I do think it is funny that people thought I had brought them the store bought Lofthouse sugar cookies. I actually had made them. They just didn't believe me. :-)

Shopping

Well, I really am not a fan of shopping at stores. I rather buy it online and have it delivered instead of facing crowds and pushy sales people. However, a friend asked if I would go to the outlet mall in Tulare with her and her roommate. I decided that I really had nothing better to do and it would be nice to get out of town. I realized that it was a long weekend, and kept thinking the traffic coming back would be horrible. However, since I wouldn't be driving, then it couldn't be so bad. So we got there, and I looked in a few stores. I am getting kind of excited as I lose weight. I am able to fit into sizes that the cute stores have. My regular store, Lane Bryant, is starting to not have clothes small enough to fit me. While that makes me happy, I am a bit sad because I have found plenty of cute things in that store. So the three of us shopped for about four hours. I thought that we were never going to finish. Just about before we were going to leave, we stopped in at the Rocky Mountain Fudge Factory. It smelled so good. However, I looked at the things behind the counter and none of them looked like they would satisfy my chocolate craving. Plus, I have told myself that if I have been good all week, I would be able to give myself a serving of my favorite chocolate candy and not feel guilty for eating it. So far this has worked. I know that I should not be rewarding myself with food, because that will get me back into the bad eating habits that I have, however, I want to be able to eat some sweets and not feel guilty because I am breaking a diet, or that they are high sugar or fat. So I think that is okay that I can eat it once a week, in moderation, and I shouldn't feel guilty for eating a serving. :-)

eBay Strikes Again!!

So I have mentioned a few times that I have an eBay habit. Quite frankly, it can be pretty bad. For some reason I went onto eBay on Friday night to look for something to help me make a wedding cake in a few weeks. I never did find it on eBay, however, I found plenty of other things. Before I realized what had happened, I had bid on enough things that if I had one, it would have been a whole checks' worth of cake things. I can't believe that I had done it. I resolved that if I was outbid on the items that I wouldn't go back and rebid on them. So far, so good. I have lost three of the eight auctions. Still there are five more to go. Even though it would be nice to win the auctions, I do not really need the stuff, nor should I be spending so much money on cake supplies. It isn't like I really do cake decorating for a living. The really funny thing is that when I go online to make small purchases, it can take me a couple of days of doing research on the product as well as making sure that I get the best deal before I would buy it. However, when it comes to eBay, within a couple of hours, I can bid on several hundred dollars worth of things and not do any research on the stuff. There was one stained glass book that I looked at online for about a year before I purchased it. I kept thinking that I wasn't sure if it was worth the $30. When I finally broke down and bought it, I loved it. So why do I have a hard time buying a $30 book, but I can plunk down several hundred dollars on cake pans or other supplies that I may or may not ever use??

Contacts

I have had contacts before, but decided that should get some more. I have been meaning to do this for a while, but just hadn't got around to it. Last Thursday, I went in for an eye appointment and got a trial pair. First, I am happy to say that the prescription didn't change much in the 5 years since my last exam. My eyes had been changing by a 1/2 step every two years, so this made me happy.

The Dr. said that I should look into Lasik. I told him there was a side-effect I wasn't sure that I could handle, and so I haven't done it yet. He understood, but tried again to convince me by saying the lasers have become more advanced, and that with my eyes, I would be a good candidate.

He also mentioned that I have flat eyeballs. What? It's one of those things I didn't know, or hadn't thought of, and can't believe he would tell me that. I guess that it is better than bug eyes.

This reminds me of a dentist I had that commented that I had short teeth. Again, What? They look normal to me.

Crazy doctors and their ideas of normalcy.

Ahh!

Yesterday was Stake Conference. Our stake is so large that we all can't meet at the same time and we hold two separate meetings on Sunday to cover this. My current ward was assigned to go to the 1:00 o'clock session. There was a 9:00 am session as well, and I decided I would rather go to that one. My regular Sunday meetings start at 1:00 and I really like to start earlier. So I got up and ready and got to the stake center a few minutes before it started. It's not like I needed to be there really early. I don't need to save a whole row or find 5 seats together. As I walked in, I saw the wife of one of my co-workers. I smiled, waved, and continued on to my seat. My seat was right on the aisle, this way I would be able to make a fast escape when it ended. I am not one to hang around. I really can't handle crowds of people. Small crowds are okay, but when we have 500 people, I get a bit claustrophobic.

Anyway, I noticed Cassie standing to the side of me after a few minutes. She is four and the daughter of my co-worker. She has come into work a few time, and every time, I pick her up by her ears and talk with her. She apparently likes me. :-) She wanted to sit with me. She was such a good girl. For the first 5 minutes she sat so still and quiet. I can't believe that someone would sit that still and quiet at 4. I then pulled out a pen and paper and she drew for about an hour. Then I handed her my keys and she looked at the different key chains I had. I only had two, but she looked at them for about 10 minutes. Then she sat on my lap and hugged me and I rocked her for about 20 minutes, before she turned to me and asked if she could go back to her mom and dad. I said that was fine. I really like that she wanted to sit with me.

Kids usually don't like me, so it was great that one wanted to.

Picnic

Yesterday we had the company Family Farm Fun Day picnic. This is really the pre-harvest kick-off. We used to hold a picnic during work hours for the employees in July/August depending on when the harvest would start. However, someone had the idea to open it up to whole family. This has been a great idea, and this was the fourth annual picnic. The first year we held it, it was in August and it as 103-106. I can't remember what it really was, but boy it was hot. This year it was unseasonably hot and it was 101.

I have an allergy to the sun, so I always put SPF 50 sunscreen on and that usually works and I don't react. However, I think I was sweating too much and the sunscreen came off. I didn't realize it until it was too late. However, everything is fine.

I was in charge of the dunk tank. It was great. I had a list of 5 people to dunk. There was one that didn't show up for it, and another that decided at the last minute that he wouldn't be able to do it until really late. However, it turned out really well. I had picked one person and he was such a good sport. I probably shouldn't have picked him because of his age, he didn't really seem like he was up for it. However, he was a good sport and went in several times.

Our boss has been against a dunk tank since we started the picnics. However, this year I asked him in front of everyone if we could have one, and he looked at me like I was going to be in trouble, but replied that it didn't matter. So we took that as a yes and got started. I was careful and didn't ask him to sit for it. I knew that wouldn't go over very well. However, at the picnic, he was almost one of the first people to come up and throw balls to dunk a co-worker. He missed with all three balls, but then ran up and hit the mark with his hand anyway. The guy that was in the tank had brought a water gun and was shooting everyone. So of course he squirted the water at the boss. At some point the guy ran out of water and went to fill it up in the tank, but leaned too far forward and fell in. That was unexpected, but funny.

There was an elderly lady there that didn't speak any English and she was mad at me. I couldn't figure out what she wanted, or why she she kept trying to take the winners tickets out of my hands. I kept telling her I didn't know what she was saying, and I turned to the kids that were there to translate and they told her that she would need to throw the balls to win a ticket. Finally after about 4 minutes of her angrily gesturing at me, I handed her a ball and showed her how to throw it, she did, I handed her a ticket and then she walked off. I still am not sure what she wanted.

We had a party crasher that brought along his 4 or 5 year old daughter. They hung out at the dunk tank and kind of took over. That was fine because it was over at that point. I had heard of party crashers showing up at the park parties, but didn't really believe that it would happen. Oh well. It was amusing.

Then it was time for the pinatas. I hadn't volunteered to help out with this, but somehow since I had helped last year, it was assumed and I just pitched in. I did learn from last year, and made sure all the kids were back far enough and would yell stop if the kids got to close. That would either stop the running-candy hungry-kids from dashing in, or at least the wild swinging at the pinata. I can't believe what happens when the pinata breaks open. Kids can't be slow. If they are slow, they won't get anything.

All in all, I think the picnic was a hit. Kudos to Carmen for the planning and preparation.

Phil

So I have changed how I have been feeding my cats. In the past, I left them a big bowl to eat from and when they were finished I would give them a new bowl. However, Sam is getting fat, and I am not talking PHAT. So I have switched back to giving them the 1 1/2 cups of dry food a day to eat. However, this is not really working out so well for me. This morning I woke up about 4 am because I heard a noise and couldn't figure out what it was. When I finally got up, I realized it was because Phil was eating the leafy greens at the top of the pineapple on the counter and had knocked it off and it fell to its death on the floor.

Then around 5:30, Phil was trying to knock me out of bed. He kept head butting me. Just as I would lift the arm he was trying to get under, it would give him more leverage and he would push harder. I couldn't really figure out what he was trying to do until I got up this morning and realized they were out of food. For the past week or so, Phil has been head butting me in the morning, and I am now realizing that it is because he is hungry. It seems that Sam the fat cat has been eating all the food, and then Phil is going hungry in the morning. Phil is the skinny cat, and so he doesn't need to lose any weight. However, I guess that he will just have to push Sam out of the food dish when Phil gets hungry. :-)

Well, today I went with the guys. We had a class up in Fresno to learn about Letters of Credit. A couple of months ago I had received a flyer concerning classes put on by the CITD about International Business. It had about 8 classes that would be given every other week from 9-1. Most of the classes I wasn't interested in, but felt that someone from work should attend. This would help us learn about what we might need to change or update on our contracts and shipping documents. I have been interested in learning more about letters of credit for about a year and a half. I got interested in them after attending a seminar put on by Bank of America. It seems that we could actually make some money from this if we would put a little time and effort into this. So with this class I learned a little more. I would be interested in learning more, but it seems that I would only get what I want to know from talking to my banker. So I probably need to schedule some one-on-one time to discuss the possibilities with our bank. It is interesting to think that we could give 180 day terms to a customer, yet sell this note to our bank at a discount and get paid within 7-10 days of the shipment leaving our facility. Of course if the customer is getting 180 day terms, they would pay a premium for this, and this should more than cover the discount we would have to take to sell the note to the bank. Then we would still make a profit on the difference in the premium paid by the customer and the discount we paid. Interesting, huh? However, there are a few catches to this. One of them is that our bank needs to be comfortable with the issuing bank and that they are willing to assume the risk of the payment. This is where I would need to talk to our bank to see if I can get more information.

Guardian Angel

The wells' water pump went out sometime on Wednesday night, so when we came into work on Thursday, there was no running water. Work brought in some port-o-johns, and made them available for us. They also said that we would be able to use the company vehicle to make a trip to Wasco if necessary. On Friday the water was still not working. The other women in the office were refusing to use the port-o-johns, and felt that they needed to leave early to go home. After listening to them complain for a few minutes, I got the keys to the Explorer and told the boss that we were going into town and would be back soon. We climbed into the car and headed off. Someone needed to purchase some baby shampoo and so we decided to go to Rite-Aid. It probably has the worst bathroom in Wasco and the port-o-johns at the farm would have been better to use. However, we didn't know that until we went to use them.

After everyone was done, we loaded back into the car and headed out of town back to the farm. After we had just stopped at the last light and started to go, I was the second car and there was no one behind me. Since I was driving a company vehicle and there were other people in the car, I was driving differently than if I had been alone. I was a bit more careful and wasn't hot rodding. Not that I really do that anyway. I had let the truck in front of me get about 200 feet in front of me. Just as we came up the small hill, I noticed another truck entering the intersection and looked at the truck in front of me. At that point I tapped my brakes because I realized that the truck entering the intersection wasn't going to get across in time. He wasn't going to clear the truck in front of me. Luckily, the truck in front of noticed in time and slammed on his brakes. Because of the distance between the truck and me, I applied more brakes to allow for a safe distance just in case. It seemed as the truck in the middle of the intersection realized he shouldn't have been there and sped up a bit. This allowed the truck in front of me to narrowly miss the other. I let off my brakes and sighed a bit of relief-crisis averted. Then all of a sudden the truck in front of me veered left. It was a hard left and it was so hard I thought the truck was going to roll. It crossed the other lane of traffic and headed towards the grove of almond trees. At this point, I knew he was hitting dirt and was off the cement and wouldn't be able to regain control. I hit my brakes again, grabbed for my purse to give to the lady in the front seat and told her to call 911. Just as I said that, the truck straightened out and paused a moment and came back across the road into our lane like nothing happened and continued on his way.

That guy really has a guardian angel. He first missed hitting a vehicle that shouldn't have been in the intersection, then he lost control, and in my opinion almost flipped, then he narrowly missed hitting trees and spinning more out of control on the dirt. He is one blessed guy.

That could have been me, but would I have been alert enough to see the truck entering the intersection, or even would I have been able to gain control of the vehicle before hitting something or someone? It just makes me realized that someone is out there watching over me and making sure that I am aware of my surrondings.

Finished another one!

I bought a small beveled glass kit of of eBay (previously I have admitted to my eBay habit).

So this week I decided to finish putting it together. Just because it already came pre-cut didn't mean it actually fit together they way it came. Since these are all bevels, there isn't much that I can do to change it. However, I moved some of the bevels around. Nothing special, just tried one blue one where another blue one was. Anyway, when it got down to it, I only had to make a small adjustment to one of the blue bevels. This is my 7th real project. I say real because I don't consider the ladybugs a real project. I am going to give this one to Mom for Mother's Day. She will like it. She has this thing about blue and pink/peach. Her front room is painted with peach wall, she has peach/pick carpeting, and one blue accent wall. I think she will like this. You can't really tell that this stained glass panel has peach in it, but it does. I had started on my next panel. I am not sure about that one. There are two many small pieces. I am already a bit discouraged since the pieces are so small that it is hard to cut out details on them. However, I will try to do this one and then see if I want to do a second of the same window. I have a small plate that I designed the window around and when I was done designing, I went and bought a second plate. We will see if I will use the same pattern of if I change it up a bit.

Happy May Day!

Well today at work I got a nice surprise when I showed up. Olga nicely stated that we had no water in the building and that it might be a couple of days before it was restored. They were bringing the Port-O-Johns in from the field. However, I don't like to use them. I would rather drive to town when I needed instead of using them.

Another thing, I sort of got put in charge of the Healthly Living program at work. This might be because I announce to everyone what the current challenge is. For instance for the next two months, the challenges are to eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables and also to exercise 5 days a week for 30 minutes. Since I reminded everyone to sign up for this because they can earn themselves a bit of cash, they now ask me if this or that counts as a vegetable serving. Anyway, it doesn't matter I guess. At least they are eating vegetables.