So this happened

A few weeks ago I had my car broken into while eating at Max’s Wine Dive in the Montrose area.  I had parked on the street behind the building because I am too cheap to pay for valet. Haha. :)  Big mistake though because they smashed my back window in because they are assholes.

I walked to my car to find stuff in the driver’s seat and thought it was weird.  It took me a minute to realize that I didn’t leave anything in my seat (never do) so why would it be there?  Then I looked all around my car but didn’t see the smashed window until I walked to the other side (it was dark and my windows are tinted).  My entire window was on the ground.  It had been smashed but the tinting made it stay in one piece when they pulled it out.  They unlocked the front passenger door and rummaged inside.  Everything was out of console and glove box was strewn about the car, making my car look even messier.

My car is usually a mess inside because honestly 1.  I am just a messy person (stuff not trash) and 2.  I travel a lot.  I live on the East side of Houston, I work on the West side of Houston and I am in both the South side and North side of Houston frequently (North side more though).  I am always traveling to babysit for my niece or going out with friends so I leave a lot of stuff in my car because I need it and it isn’t always easy to go home to pick something up.

I know I need to put everything in the trunk but that’s messy too. LOL.  My trunk has my emergency car kit, my 72 hour bag, and a lawn chair.  I really just need to organize it and I am working on it this weekend. 

What did they take?  My (new) gym bag with my $200 running shoes, my favorite sports bra, workout clothes, and some of my favorite jewelry:  TWO pairs of Kendra Scott earrings plus this awesome beaded disco type necklace that I got so many compliments on (see this link for picture).  Sad day. :/

They also took a beautiful purple snake skin type leather bag that I got at a silent auction (I bid on it JUST for the bag) that had some papers and a Beth Moore bible study.  There were some Mary Kay cd’s in there too.  Just to make light of the situation (because you have to in dark days) I said “Well, they are either going to learn about Mary Kay from the cd’s or Jesus from the Bible, either way they are getting something great out of it”.  LOL.  God knows who will pick up that Bible study, either they will or someone else will when they discard of it.  

Luckily my friend who had gone out to eat with me had not driven too far when I got to my car had stayed with me while I called the cops.  The cops never came and couldn’t give an ETA as to when they would be coming so we just cancelled the call after about an hour of waiting.   They didn’t take anything of too much value so I didn’t file a police report.  I didn’t have electronics or anything in there, just some of my favorite things.  While we were waiting for the police we saw another car drive off with its window smashed too.  I guess the losers got multiple cars that night.

The next day I went to get my window fixed.  It cost about $90 plus about $25 for the window tinting.  I got it fixed at Uni Glass which was wonderful to work with!  I highly recommend them.

So moral of the story:  1. Thieves are assholes who need to get real jobs and contribute something to society.  2. I learned to not keep anything in my car.  3.  Don’t go back to Max’s Wine Dive even though it was a good place to eat.  I don’t want to take another chance of something happening because the area isn’t very safe.

Weekend Happenings

This weekend I almost got another Bucket List item checked off, but no such luck.  I bought tickets to the Best Damn Food Truck Festival, but it turned out so awful that I requested a refund on my credit card.

It all started great, but quickly turned south when we got there.  I picked up my friend Tracie and her friend (who is now my new friend) Jennifer at Tracie’s house.  I had bought two tickets online because the FB group said that they were about to sell out, but Jennifer did not have a ticket.  So we made a sign in the hopes that someone would have an extra ticket for purchase. 

We got there and had to pay $12 to park.  I completely understand that you need to pay to park, we just weren’t expecting it since it didn’t say it on the website.  When we got out of the car, Jennifer immediately started holding up her sign and as luck would have it, two girls saw it and told us that they had just thrown away two tickets!  Jennifer and Tracie went trash digging (the papers were on the top) and got two tickets for free!   We stood in line for about 30 minutes and finally made our way in the parking lot.

It was really hot so we went to get a drink right away.  You weren’t allowed to bring in any drinks, so we had to pay $5 for water.  Rip-off city.  They were selling beer and soda for $8 but since it was so hot and we couldn’t bring anything in, we had to pay it. 

We got in line for a food truck but they ran out of food.  We got two samples (two trucks=20 minutes line each) and then three consecutive trucks ran out of food.   That’s right; three different trucks all ran out of food in a row as we were standing in line for at least 10 minutes each.  We got a grand total of 3 samples in the hour and a half that we were there.  They were all small samples instead of the ‘ample’ amounts that were promised.

We weren’t expecting huge samples, just more than one bite!  We paid $36 each ticket for 3 small samples.  That’s $12 each!  For a sample.  Between the long lines, hot sun, no shade, no tents, no place to sit, small samples, and truck that ran out of food, we were done.  When we left, 11 trucks were out of food and they still had hours left to go in the ‘festival’.  We read comments on their FB page that others were just as unhappy as we were.  Some of the food trucks themselves said that the organizers had sold 3,500 tickets but only told them to prepare for 1,000 people.  How does that math work?  

Needless to say, the comments (from everyone) on FB are not good.  People are demanding refunds and tagging the media to get involved.  I googled the event and found the group organizer named Sean Jaehne.  Apparently he did the same thing last year and is even trying to get a Kickstarter campaign to back him to make this his full time job. LOL.  Yeah, right kid. 

After we left the festival we went to Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner and then Sprinkles cupcakes for dessert!  We were planning on going inside but we parked in the back and found the cupcake ATM on accident!  Yes, there is a cupcake ATM at the Houston Sprinkles location.  You just tap the screen, select the cupcake you want, swipe your credit card and out comes your cupcake!  Super cool.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging in my pool and going to my favorite church!  They are organizing a school supply donation so I went to Walmart to buy school supplies for it.  I miss buying school supplies!

I also changed my toenails to Clowning Around theme from Jamberry!  They are so stinkin' cute!  My sister loves bright colors and her toes looked super cute when she bought them, so I had to get them too.

And my nails to Puppy Love!

Rough Day

Last Monday was a rough day in my little world.  This happened:

It all started at 7 am when I woke up and took a shower.  The lights had started flickering while I was in the shower and even turned off completely at one point.  I got out of the shower thinking not much of the lights flickering because it had happened before and the maintenance said it was just a loose wire and easy to fix.  I figured I would call the maintenance later that day and tell them it was happening again.

So I was starting to heat up my breakfast of leftover chinese food (yes, I eat whatever leftovers I have for breakfast) and the microwave wouldn't turn on.  I checked to make sure it was plugged in (it was) but it wouldn't work.  About this time is when the washing machine started 'popping' with a power surge.  I ran to my neighbors house to see if anyone was home and when I got back the washing machine had started to smoke and you could see flames coming out of the bottom.

I called 911 and was told not to try to put out the fire myself and to get everyone out of the building.  I ran upstairs and was banging on my neighbors doors to get them out and everyone was coming out in the pajamas.   I had tried to call the apartment maintenance, but the line was disconnected when you try to call the emergency maintenance.  Luckily, my neighbor across the way works in the apartment office and was able to get the manager from the office.  The manager asked if everyone had been notified to get out of the apartment and I told her I got everyone out and she asked about the other side of the building.  OOPS!  I didn't even think about them.  Technically they are my neighbors and attached to my apartment, but for some reason they didn't even enter my brain to get them out.  I felt really bad, but luckily no one was hurt.

Firetrucks (about 3) and ambulances (1 or 2) started arriving.  They opened the windows and smoke started pouring out.  Luckily some very cute fireman were able to contain the damage to only the laundry room of my apartment.  There is smoke damage on my stuff, but nothing was damaged beyond repair.  Well, besides my washing machine.

On the bright side, no one was hurt and I got to see some hot fireman at 7:30 am. :)    I am just lucky that I was awake and at home during it or I wouldn't have an apartment.  I was going to stay at my parents house the night before, but decided to go home that day instead.  God kept me safe!  The fireman said that in about 10 minutes everything would have been gone.  Crazy!!!

After they got the washing machine out, they had to cut out sheet rock that was too hot.


My apartment complex is paying for the washing machine, so I didn't have to make a claim on my renters insurance.  I had to wash my clothes many times to get the smoke smell out.  The apartment complex also send someone over to clean my apartment.  I thought they were just going to clean out the soot and stuff from the laundry room and kitchen, but they cleaned the bathroom too!  Score!!!!

The important thing was that God knew what was going to happen and kept everyone safe.  I can replace stuff, but you can't replace people.  One of my biggest fears when I had Jabba was that something like this would happen and I wouldn't be home to save him.  I can't say 'luckily' that he had already passed and I didn't need to worry about him too, because oh how I miss him, but he is safe from flames in Heaven.

Open letter to owners of luxury cars

Normally I try not to post stuff like this on my blog, but today people deserve it!  After this rant, I will go back to my regularly scheduled posts about running and my life, but today dumb people are going to get a talkin’ to.

I am also talking to the owner of the Black Mercedes SUV that almost ran me off the road this morning on my way to work.  

Begin Rant:

Dear Drivers of Luxury Vehicles,

Let’s have a chat.  I have wanted to say this for a long time, but I have kept my mouth shut to keep the peace.  Today, not so much.  I am going to just let it out.

Paying $50K+ for a vehicle does not mean you own the road, you just own a piece of medal (or fiberglass) on wheels.  However, it does make you an idiot for paying that much for something that DEPRECIATES in value.   The road belongs to ALL of us.  I don’t pay taxes and tolls for you to not pay attention where you are going and take me out when you cross over 4 lanes.  It does not mean you can almost run the other vehicles off the road because you decide you are better than the rest of us with our Toyota, Chevy’s, Honda, and Hyundai’s.  Even if you think you ‘deserve’ to drive a nice vehicle you don’t deserve to treat the rest of us like crap and be a bad driver and almost hit us.  It doesn’t work that way. 

It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman; learn to freakin’ drive your car!  Just because you might be able to afford to pay for my stuff when you decide to hit it, doesn’t mean that you should continue to drive like a bat out of hell.  No!  If you must, take a driver’s education course, they aren’t that expensive!  You obviously can afford one because you paid a ton of money for your car.  Oh what?  You don’t have time because you are busy working to pay for your car?  Well, the rest of us would appreciate it if you would take the course because it would get you off the road for 3 hours and we could get some peace on the road.

So please, the next time you climb behind the wheel of your all leather vehicle of death please remember that the rest of us would like to live a long and prosperous life and we do not appreciate being run off the road.

Sincerely,

Stephanie (and the rest of us ‘regular’ car drivers)

End Rant.