In Other News...

I turned 32 this past weekend.  I had some sweet lil kids bring me birthday gifts to school.  I guess they just paid attention to the birthday calendar I have in my classroom and were thoughtful enough to bring me something (I sure didn't announce my birthday...it's not as much fun when you're in your 30s!).

The husband and I went and saw "Dark Shadows".  My husband got a little snippy with the refreshments worker.  I guess it was because he caved and donated a dollar to the Children's Miracle Network at the ticket counter, and then the refreshments chick kept trying to get him to upgrade his popcorn, upgrade his drink, and donate again to the Children's Miracle Network.  He tried to tell her that he already donated at the door and she mentioned something again and he went off about already spending $20 for some popcorn and 2 drinks and something about squeezing him for every penny he's got and so on.  It was mildly embarrassing, but I could totally see his point.  (Oh, we did enjoy the movie...but I love all Tim Burton and Johnny Depp films!)

After the movie we went to eat and drink beer at BJ's Restauarant and Brewhouse.  I love their California burgers!  Then after that we went to Ganache and got a few delicious cupcakes (instead of a birthday cake).  I am in *love* with their chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.  They have a peanut butter ball in the chocolate cake, and then are topped with the most delicious peanut butter icing.  To die for!

Then my present was the new Charlaine Harris "Sookie Stackhouse" novel, "Deadlocked".  I read it in a couple days.

All in all it was a good day.  I'll leave you with a picture of what 32 looks like. :)

I have the worst luck!

I thought PayPal was supposed to be the most secure service in the whole entire world.  I switched to pay my Netflix through PayPal after I had my debit card number stolen again.  That's all I really use it for, besides the occasional eBay purchase.  So imagine my surprise when I came home from work yesterday and checked my email on my phone and saw that apparently I had sent around $2,500 in donations overseas to someone going by the name "Rick Ross" while I was at work.  The subject for all of my donations..."wheezy".  Really?  REALLY?! 

PayPal had emailed me after the 4th "donation" had been made to tell me they had limited my account and I needed to change my password and gave instructions on how to dispute any transactions.  So I pulled up my laptop to take care of all of this, and of course my internet was out!  So you better believe I ran back to my car and drove 100 mph back to the school so I could use a computer.  I got everything changed and reported all the transactions.

Now it's a waiting game.  The 5 "donations" I did not authorize are pending out of my checking account...so yeah, someone who gets paid once a month got more than her monthly paycheck taken out of her checking account balance today. Yay me. PayPal has temporarily credited my PayPal account for 3 of the 5 transactions.  I am waiting to see if they credit me for the other two.  "Rick Ross" apparently refunded me for one of the $655 "donations" he stole, but that's only showing up on PayPal at this time and not my checking account.  He apparently has 7 days to prove those donations were valid.  The investigation PayPal is doing can take up to 10 business days.  My account may not be fully refunded for up to 30 days.  My bank said just to let PayPal handle it.  I. HATE. WAITING. Especially when thousands of my dollars are involved.

It also pisses me off that someone has nothing better to do than steal money from people who work hard to earn it!  It's not easy being a teacher.

Oh, and a google search revealed that the real Rick Ross is a rapper with a charity.  But that charity is in the United States, NOT overseas.  And when I went to his website, there was no PayPal button.  And I doubt an official website would use Hotmail.  Who actually uses Hotmail anymore???  I'll tell ya who...thieves.

Oh, kids

Teaching is definitely never dull.  I have a student who spends the whole class period talking, so his work rarely gets completed unless I can sit right next to him and keep him on task.  Well, that is near to impossible when you have 19 other people in a room who are needing help as well.  So sometimes he has to come see me during his PE time for me to help him get caught up.  He came today so I could work with him, and of course he started talking like he always does, and we got off on a tangent about missing pet posters around town and how much he wished his mom would let him go around and look for these animals so he could earn the reward money.  I was telling him about a cat that our neighbor had lost and was offering a $500 reward for, and then he suddenly says, "Ok, we need to focus and get back to work."  I wanted to die laughing!  I have probably told him to focus and get on task about a million times this year, so to hear him tell me that just about cracked me up!