Top 10 Reasons to Visit Hutchinson

I started this a long time ago, but never posted it. With my impending trip home next weekend -- and the fact I haven't posted much lately -- I decided to take a moment post just a few reason why Hutchinson, Kansas is a great place to visit (even if I don't have a desire to ever live there again).

Underground Salt Museum – this actually isn’t open yet, but if you have connections, you can tour the salt mines themselves. My sister-in-law works for a company called Underground Vault and Storage where they store all sorts of items and documents for both government and private companies. My favorite is the movie vaults because they store all the original film for most of the major production companies. And it’s not just the final cut version of the movie, it is every footage of tape that they filmed. Because its climate controlled and very secure down there, it’s a very logical place to store these kinds of things.

Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Museum – If you’re interested in space travel, it’s a pretty interesting place to visit. Unless you get car sick easily, you will also want to take time to visit the Omnidome theater while you’re there. You actually feel like you’re moving.

Kansas State Fair – It’s your typical fair full of everything a fair has to offer (including the mullets). Our house is less than a block from the fair grounds, which is nice because you don’t have to pay for parking, but bad because you wake up every morning to the sound of the car races and you’ve got all kinds of weird characters walking through you’re yard and looking in your windows.

Anchor Inn – By far the best Mexican food in town. It started out as this little hole in the wall family restaurant that has now expanded multiple times to be able to accommodate their customers.

Prairie Dunes Golf Course – I’m not a golfer, but the 2006 U.S. Senior Open will be held there and the 2002 U.S. Women’s Open was held there. I guess it was a pretty big deal because people were renting out their houses to the women in the tour while they were there.

Dillon Nature Center – Nothing too exciting, but it’s very peaceful and a nice place to go if you want to get away for a while. Also the site of several of our family pictures.

NJCC Basketball Tournament – Probably one of the biggest things to take place in Hutch every year (which is pretty sad). I loved tournament time though because I would make a ton of money babysitting.

The Hutchinson Zoo – not as exciting as it sounds. No lions, tigers or bears, but plenty of livestock, snakes, and prairie dogs. Doesn’t take long to see, but a good way to waste some time on a nice day.

The “burn off” sites – Hutchinson had a problem with pockets of gas from an underground reserve building up under the city and they would explode. It blew up 2 businesses and a trailer park. So now when you drive through town, you occasionally see a pipe coming out of the ground with flame coming out of it so they can burn off these pockets of gas.

My mom (sorry, not link for her) – For those who have gotten to spend time with my mom (especially in her house) you know she is the Queen of Hospitality. She’s a great cook and will feed you all weekend and make sure you have everything you need. Definitely worth the trip. I like visiting Hotel Mom.

My Sentiments Exactly

Good Morning

This is exactly how I feel every morning, but it felt extremely relevant today! Have a good one.

Just Rambling

So, I'm just going to share my frustration at the moment. I just wrote a check earlier today for an obscenely large amount to the specialist who is trying to fix my jaw. Why am I having problems with my jaw? Stress. What stresses me out? My job. Not that it's a bad place to work, but I have to put in way too many hours for what I'm paid. What also stresses me out? The fact that I'm going to have to get a second job to pay for the specialist who has to fix my jaw because of the job that stresses me out, yet doesn't pay me enough. Oh, and have I mentioned that I've been working so many hours, I haven't had much time to spend looking for that second job?

So, the logical answer would be, get a new job. I've thought about it - a lot. What I've discovered is that I want to work for myself (seriously). I've got a couple of ideas of how to go about that, but they're going to take time (which I don't have an abundance of right now) and money (did I mention I don't have that either?)

So if anyone would like to donate $3,310.75 to the Stacey's Stress Fund, I'd really appreciate it.

What is this World Coming To?

Maybe you've heard the news. Brad & Jenn are splitsville! I know that the end of celebrity relationships is not an uncommon thing, but I really thought (or at least hoped) they were going to last. There is still the optimist in me that says, "this is just a separation...maybe hope is not lost." As much as this bums me out, there are at least 2 other celebrity couples that if they split, I would probably give up hope in the human race:
1. Clint Black & Lisa Hartman-Black
2. Brad Paisley & Kimberly Williams-Paisley.

Really, what is this world coming too?

Bulletin Day

I am never a fan of bulletin day. Friday’s are supposed to be slow days. Not for me. Friday is bulletin day at my office. The day that can make or break my Friday night (and sometimes my entire weekend). To the average bystander, printing the bulletin probably doesn’t seem like it’s that big of a deal, but if the copier or folder breaks down, it can totally put the rest of the day into a total tailspin. Today was one of those days. It was probably the daddy of one of those days.

I won’t bore you with the details, but for the last year and a half, I’ve been working on the process of putting together a new bulletin. Trust me when I say there is a whole lot more that goes into it than you could ever imagine. This week has been really stressful trying to prepare for today. Trying to make sure that everything went off without a hitch. Test runs were done yesterday to make sure everything was set up and running correctly. Today should have gone pretty smoothly.

I started the bulletin early to make sure we got it done in time. It should have taken us 3 to 3 ½ hours max. It took us 5 ½ hours. The new paper didn’t work well in the copier. The copier was having problems, the folder was having problems. I ended up spending my day sitting by the copier pulling off the bad copies as they came out and fixing jams. And what was really bad, was that it was taking every bit of will power I had to not break my new year’s resolution (to stop saying “crap” and “sucks”). Instead, I stomped my feet and yelled “I QUIT” a bunch.
As a result, I’m sitting at home Friday night trying to get caught up on the work I didn’t get done today instead of doing something fun like laying on my couch watching TV.