24 Jun

Psst… Have you heard?

I spent the last two years working for the government at the U. S. Patent Office. The work environment was loosely structured – to say the least. Each group had one supervisor and about 19 examiners. The examiners ranged in GS level, which mostly meant pay and a small about of added responsibility. There was one support person for the entire group. As a whole, this environment led to a united group of examiners who mostly only had their supervisor to complain about. In retrospect, there was plenty of socializing but almost no office gossip, especially anything malicious or backstabbing.

My current job in a corporate setting is much different. I am a patent agent in the legal department. I have the lawyers above me and various admin staff below me. I don’t really “belong” with either group. It has been suggested that I not mingle too much with the admin staff or people will treat me as one. However, I am routinely asked to do things like file and check over things – admin tasks in my opinion. I decided to go my own way and I hang out with the girls – who are much more fun than the lawyers.

Then comes the gossip. Some of the laywers love to gossip – sometimes about the admin girls. The girls like to gossip about the lawyers. I have heard some crazy conversations lately. One of my favorites is about an admin and the lawyer she supports. They do not get along to say the least. I recently went to lunch with her and she spent most of the meal talking about people we work with. However, she also tells me she doesn’t like to get involved in other people’s business and doesn’t like to gossip. There was recently a big ordeal when she didn’t want to do some work asked of her by the lawyer. At this meal, she speaks of another admin who isn’t a team player because she only does what is asked of her and no more. I was sitting there wondering if she was listening to the words coming out of her mouth. Hello?!?

I must admit that work is much more interesting with all the little subplots going on, but I also feel the need to tiptoe around. I sure don’t want to be the one everyone is talking about.

16 Jun

Addicted? Most Definitely

I happily lived without cable for three years. I would occasionally download a tv show off the Internet, and I did watch a ton of movies, but I didn’t miss tv. There was no show to watch every week – no worrying about missing an episode. Nada.

Then Wade and I got married, and he convinced me he needed cable for football. I didn’t really care one way or the other – at the time. Now I wouldn’t be too happy to lose my cable or my TiVo. I love TiVo – I program in the shows I like and don’t have to worry about the VCR being set correctly or having enough space on a tape. It didn’t take long at all for me to become caught up in every single “popular” tv show – from the WB, to ABC, to reruns on the Sci-Fi channel. The problem is now I seem to watch every tv show – Roswell, Lost, Alias, Gilmore Girls, Charmed, Medium, 4400, Numb3rs, One Tree Hill, Will & Grace, Sliders, and so on. Well, thank goodness for summer. Most of the shows take a break, and I can focus on other things – like movies!

Last night, my friend Josh put together an outing to see Batman Begins at the IMAX theater. Wade and I met some friends for trivia – where we lost badly – and then we headed to the theater. The movie was awesome! It makes me sorry the older ones exist. This new one provided some great backstory and had very cool fight scenes – well what I could see of them. Because of the super large screen, and my particular seat, most of the fight scenes appeared to be a black blur with one man (Batman) left standing at the end. The only issue I had with the movie (don’t read ahead if you haven’t seen it) was the dissipation of the toxin. It was used on various people in the movie and once exposed, they didn’t recover unless they received an antidote. Before Gordon and Batman manage to stop the vaporization of the city’s contaminated water, quite a large number of people are exposed – both in the Narrows and in Gotham. Then suddenly everyone seems better. Oh well, I definitely like movies that have bigger issues.

And now my most exciting news. I have tickets to an advance screening of Serenity! This movie is based on a canceled Fox tv series – Firefly. Jamie Richey introduced me to the show after it had been canceled. I watched all of the 12 episodes in two days – my addictive personality peeking through. Then Wade gave me the DVD set for Christmas and I discovered a couple of unaired episodes. The sale of the DVDs showed the network and the creator, Joss Whedon, the show’s tremendous following.

A movie script was written and finally picked up. All of the original cast members are in the movie – a wester sci-fi set 500 years in the future. It is the story of a crew of misfits and renegades aboard a spaceship as they travel far out in space. The movie was initially going to be released in May, but it was decided Star Wars was too much competition. The release date is now September 30th, but there have been a couple of advance screenings in select cities (Atlanta included), next Thursday is the third. I have tried to get tickets, but have always been too late – until now. A friend of a friend actually went to the theater and got us all tickets – I can’t wait!!!

05 Jun

Horsing Around

Wade and I have made quite a few trips to Memphis and Paducah lately so we decided one more wasn’t too much to ask. My dad was hosting a Harper Family Picnic and I wanted to attend. I got off work early on Friday afternoon just to beat traffic so of course, we hit traffic. We did get into Paducah in time to eat at El Chico – my all time favorite Mexican restaurant.

All day Saturday was spent at my dad’s house helping get ready for the picnic. There were fresh strawberries to cut, ice cream to make, and tables to set up. We got all of that done early enough to go for a horseback ride – Wade’s first. We debated which of the horses was the safest for Wade to ride and finally decided on the Arabian, Mia. None of the horses are regularly ridden so they tend to be a little head strong in the beginning. My dad rode Beau and I was on Trigger – my huge Palomino. Both Beau and Trigger need a strong hand and vigilant eye in the first lap or two – they tend to want to buck. We had a good time riding around the farm and Madison loved running behind. She tried her hardest to keep up, but couldn’t quite do it. She got a little close to Trigger and quickly learned to avoid her back hooves. The picnic was a lot of fun and old albums and family trees made their appearance.

Wade has been trading my fix-it projects in exchange for certain home cooked meals. We recently finished redoing the kitchen table and Wade wanted fried catfish for payment. I have never cooked catfish so I decided to go to an expert, my mom. My grandfather loves to fish and always brings home catfish so Mom’s had lots of practice. We invited my grandparents and Wade’s grandparents for lunch after church. It was great to see everyone and Wade seemed to love the food. My grandmother even brought some dishes she wanted to pass on to me. Then we stared our 5 hour drive home – yuck.

03 Jun

The Joys of Renting

I am ready to buy a house. It will be nice to have our own space and be able to paint and remodel, but the biggest reason is the absence of a landlord. Although everything seems to work out in the end, I have never had a great renting experience – especially with a house. All of my rented apartments have been through large companies so in the end they return deposits and don’t charge for normal damages. They also have the convenience of having a full time maintenance staff.


Renting a house is a whole different story. Wade and I decided to try to find a house to rent in Atlanta after we got married. We had decided on what we were willing to pay and looked around to see if it was feasible. We found a cute little yellow bungalow in Midtown Atlanta. The landlord seemed really nice and even agreed to give us a discount on rent in exchange for repairs on the house. That was perfect for us! That way we could change things the way we wanted, be reimbursed for materials, and get the cute little yellow house. We should have realized we had a problem when it took weeks of phone calls and some strong words to get the money for the repairs. I don’t think we ever had a phone call returned in less than a week and never on the first call. When it came time for our lease to end, we asked if we could go month to month until we decided if we would be staying in Atlanta. After much waiting, remember he doesn’t return phone calls, our landlord finally said no and he was raising rent by $300 a month if we wanted to sign a year’s lease.

Wade and I decided this was ridiculous. We quickly found another house that was bigger and closer to my work. Our landlord now returned phone calls because he wanted to show the house and make sure we weren’t there. He eventually found a tenant, and ended up only raising rent by $100 a month from our discounted rate. I did warn the prospective tenants I met about the lack of communication between landlord and tenant.


Because of our previous issues, Wade and I were a little concerned about getting back our security deposit of a month’s rent. We cleaned and cleaned and patched holes and painted. We made an appointment with Rob so that we could go over everything with him and fix anything he noticed. He said it looked great and he would mail us a check in a few weeks. Right. At the end of a month, the time to have a check specified by the lease, we began calling him. Of course he didn’t answer the phone. Wade mentioned that he would be looking into court proceedings if we did not have our check by the specified time. Now Rob calls back. He leaves a message saying “You didn’t get my note? You know where to reach me.” Wade called him back and I have no idea what he said, but it must have bothered/scared Rob. (Rob is taller than Wade but physically intimidated by him. I have seem him shake when Wade uses a stern voice.) He called back and said he was mailing the check that day, certified mail. The funny thing here is he wouldn’t tell Wade how much the check was for and he told Wade if he called again he would be in violation of some law.


To make a long story longer, we got a check in the mail for the full amount. We laughed to see that the check and the letter were backdated to comply with the month deadline, but of course the postmark on the envelope told the truth. We have deposited the check and are hoping it clears. As well as we can figure, Rob is overextended financially (he owns a house and has two rental houses) and probably just didn’t have the money. If he had just told us this, we could have worked something out. However, did he think we would just forget about the money?

Our current landlords are wonderful and we don’t anticipate having any problems with them. However, I think our next location will be in a house of our own. I had at one time thought leasing property would be fun, I have definitely changed my mind!

02 Jun

Woof Woof

This past Christmas, Wade gave me an IOU for the dog of my choice. Wade’s dad is a vet and we decided to take his advice and look for a Brittany Spaniel. I quickly decided I wanted a liver and white – I personally call it chocolate and white – Brittany. Wade’s dad also suggested we wait till it was warm outside so that house training wasn’t miserable for us. That was excellent advice. We picked out Madison and brought her home in March.


Since then, Wade and I have become those people that obsess about their dog. As much as we try not to, we find conversations and activities center around Madison. When we decided to go to Birmingham, Alabama for a country concert, we suddenly had to worry about Madison. She couldn’t be left alone for 8 hours in her kennel. Oh well, we have decided Madison is the best dog ever and we’ll just be those people we used to make fun of.

My gallery has random pictures as she grows. Her estimated final weight, according to my veterinarian father-in-law, is about 40 pounds. That’s not really important one way or another except that Madison is a true lap dog. I’m starting to have trouble picking her up as it is.

01 Jun

Back Story

I am going to explain the title of my site simply because I like the story. My dad and Buddy Upshaw have been best friends since they were teenagers. They both went to the University of Kentucky and eventually settled in Paducah, KY. Buddy married Mary Anne and they had two sons – Ben and Matt. My dad married my mom and they had my sister and me. The four kids were born in three years, and I grew up thinking of the Upshaws as my second family. I am sure it was pure chaos when we were all together, but I only remember it as fun. My mom began referring to us collectively as “toadfrogs and elephants”. Over the years we have all accumulated numerous toadfrogs and elephants in various forms.

As our families have grown, we have simply added to the collective “toadfrogs and elephants”. This picture was taken last Christmas. The back row has Matt and his boyfriend Jason, my husband Wade and myself, Ben and his wife Stephanie. Melissa is sitting on the floor. She is getting married soon so next year’s picture will have her husband and we’ll have doubled the original number of toadfrogs and elephants.