Learning and Growing Together

I haven’t forgotten about you!!!

CMWB — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:16:38 +0000

Sorry it’s been so long. I’m sure you all know how crazy life has been. You heard about the work horror stories leading up to Christmas and it finally hit hard. Two weeks of 60 hour work weeks and very few days off. But January is here and there is nothing better than an empty mall. We do the same amount of sales in one day of January that we did in half an hour in December. Ahhhh.

So Christmas was great as usual. This year Husband and I couldn’t make to Christmas eve church because of work so we went to Christmas day mass for the first time. It was a nice way to start off the day but the service was a little more cut and dry. Not as much music and quite a few old folks.among other things, I got an awesome watch the tells the tide at any beach around the world and Husband got tools. We both got some great gift cards that will come in handy for the house.

I’m too lucky

CMWB — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:10:50 +0000

As I have been working unbelieveable hours, my husband has taken this house by storm. We painted the bathroom together on Tuesday, my one day off this week. But today. I went to work very early and came home to a fixed toilet that we had JUST discovered was leaky, a freshly caulked tub, a fixed shower head (it was hanging off the wall), a perfectly painted bathroom (he painted over the mess I had made on the ceiling and he touched up all the trim), a new bathroom hutch (which he bought from ikea therfore requiring him to assemble it) and last but not least he touched up the vanity with fresh wood stain. We then hung a picture above the toilet and voilà. A beautiful bathroom that is no longer hideous red. I feel bad that all I do when I come is sleep, but he has been so wonderful. Oh yeah, i also cracked the bathroom countertop when I hung the mirror back on the wall last night and I didn’t notice until late tonight. Husband noticed right away. Did he say anything to me about it? Was he mad at me? Nope. Nothing. When I found it tonight he just goes “yeah, it’s ok.” what a keeper.

So Wishy Washey

CMWB — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:53:32 +0000

Last you all heard I was excited about the interview which could lead to a big promotion at work. Before that I was sick of the crazy hours. Well, we are back to that. Saturday was a 2pm to midnight then I came home, slept a few hours, and was back at the store at 7am Sunday morning. I worked 7am to 11:30, again came home to sleep, and went back to work to be there from 4pm to 1am. Tomorrow, Husband works 8am-5pm and i work 2pm to midnight again. As I have been driving back and forth, only being at home to sleep, and missing my husband as he is already sleeping every time I get home, I still wonder why this is my life. I do still enjoy the work when I am there, but these hours are not what I wanted for myself or for my Husband. I know I just need to make it three more weeks and it will be better, but it’s very hard. I keep asking God why and in my head I think about how on earth I can pay for grad school so I could teach college. I hate wishing away the holidays so that work can get back to normal. Please send up prayers for clarity, direction, hope and perserverance.

Ahh, the birthday story

CMWB — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:31:13 +0000

So I worked on my birthday because it was easier to have December 1st off then to have to the 30th. After work we went to dinner and had pizza. December first was a great day though. Husband and I slept late and did some house stuff we had been wanting to get done. Then we had lunch at Jasons Deli, which was yummy. We left for Callaway Gardens and enjoyed the ride there. Once there, we went straight to the “birds of prey” show. We sat outside which was a little chilly but we were accompanied by a bus full of senior citizens. We were actually the youngest people there by at least 40 years. Anyway, we saw vultures, owls, and hawks fly on command and the show instructor gave us lots of useful information. Including: we should put up a post on one of our trees for a red tailed hawk to come and live in our backyard. Why, you ask? So the hawk will eat all our mice!!

After the show, we went to the butterfly conservancy. The butterflies must have been sleeping because we only saw a few. The ones we did see though were impressive! One has wings that look just like the face of an owl, and one had spectacular colors. We saw lots of cocoons so that was neat as well. After that, we had a few minutes to go to the vegetable garden. It was huge!! Most everything was dead of course, but the signs were still up so we enjoyed reading about the different veggies they had. Neat little fact: most of the veggies go to the Callaway Gardens restaurants! Which is where we went next. Since I love country stores, we chose the Country Kitchen within the country store for dinner. I had country fried steak, mashed tators and gravy, and green beans. Yuuuummm. We had an awesome view from what seemed to be the top of Pine Mountain while we ate. Next it was time for the days main event-Fantasy in Lights. We stopped by the Christmas village for hot chocolate and got in the car line to see the lights. I haveto say, they are much more spectacular that lake lanier islands. They had music going along with thiers so we had the windows rolled down, the heat up, and a beautiful light show. It was also like half the price of lake lanier so I would highly recommend going. The light show lasted a long time and we saw some great things. It was a wonderful birthday :).

Tomorrow i’ll go to my parents for continued birthday celebrations.

I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about my birthday at Callaway Gardens!

CMWB — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:58:09 +0000

More to come!

CMWB — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:15:51 +0000

The mouse has officially moved out since it has been a few days and no sign of droppings or touches on the traps. Christmas decorations are up, and we bought a new item for the living room to hold pictures andsome of my seashell knick knacks. So the living room feels homey. We also bought a nice winter centerpiece for the kitchen table so that has made that area nice. We started work on testing the first cabinet for painting. It has been cleaned and primed and we will run the first coat of paint over it this weekend. I am also about to call the handyman to see how much he will charge to put in the bathroom fan so we can begin work in there, and I will also call my cousin to come and look at the tree in the backyard that my dad was nervous about. A house is so much work!

Husband is off all weekend and we are working totally opposite schedules next week. If I open, he closes and vice versa. His off days are Sunday and Thursday (as usual) and mine are Monday and Friday. Scheduling is the main reason having my own store would be such a wonderful thing. I know some of you can relate because your husbands work long hours, or out of town, so I know you know that it gets difficult. I think it works out to where we have 1 morning and two nights together. We both stay up late so we always have that time together when most of the world is sleeping and we are up, but we can’t get go out during those times or go shopping or anything like that. Whenever we have opposite weeks like that I always just look forward to getting my schedule for the following week and hope that we have a day off together that I can look forward to.

My blowdryer has been broken for a few weeks now and I have basically been surviving on air-dryed hair. It has lokoed OK, but a little frizzy and it flips out like crazy at my shoulders. It’s a nice look for a day or two, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I bought a new blowdryer. Usually I buy the little ones, not like compact size, but little. Usually they have like retractable cords or they fold in half, the ones that are obviously meant for traveling. I like them though because the nozzle is small. With the larger nozzles, I always hit myself in the head! I must be a careless hair dryer. The dilemma though, in shopping for a new blowdryer, is that I have always wanted one with a diffuser so I could wear my hair a little more wavy. But they don’t make diffusers for small blowdryers. So this time, I did purchase a normal size hair dryer with a diffuser. And I hit myself in the head with it yesterday when I used it for the first time. Great. I may be buying a second blowdryer….

Now that I have bored you to death with my blowdryer story, I’ll tell you a little about work. My store manager is feeling overwhelmed with everything and yesterday she left the store basically a mess the night before the district manager came at 10:30 AM. Hopefully DM knew that I wasn’t set up for success the night before so I felt like she wasnt blaming me for everything that was wrong. Husband said I don’t have anything to worry about because a good DM would HAVE to know that the mess was not something I could have created in and hour and half. I still felt like it made me look bad though. She did mention the kids clothing store one more time and said that line is very visual so she wants to make sure I’m grasping the new visual concepts the company is throwing at us….I guess that’s a good sign right?

Well, I’ll let you know how the tree and bathroom situation work out!

So Yeah. We Had a Mouse in the House.

CMWB — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:47:05 +0000

And I was the one to find it. He scurried across the kitchen floor after we had gone to bed but I got up to get a glass of water. His furry grey behind made it all the way from the pantry to the cabinets and I screamed the entire time. As if I wasn’t having a hard enough time with this house and getting used to it, I had to see a mouse in it. Husband searched the pantry and the kitchen for the mouses’ entry hole and finally found it on Friday night. On Thursday we set out traps with peanut butter which didn’t seem to appease the mouse. He touched one of them enough to set it off but didn’t get caught, stole some peanut butter and left a bit of it on the floor, and then left one little dropping to clue us in that he was still here. Finally on Friday, Husband found a hold from the crawl space to under the dishwasher where he found tons of mouse poop to prove that was his hideout. Husband sealed the hole and the traps haven’t been touched since. Our guess is that the mouse was in the crawl space when Husband sealed the hole therefore blocking him out of the house. Either way, it was an awful experience and it has pushed me back a few steps in my getting used to this place. I have actually been a little depressed lately because sometimes I feel like I just hate this house. I still don’t think it’s clean enough, I think about that stupid previous owner all the time, and every day I find more things that need touching up, cleaning, or changing. I wasn’t expecting this because I liked this house when we were in the process of buying it, but now….I don’t know. Husband is trying so hard to make this place work for me and I think the mouse set him back a little too. Instead of picking up some projects over the past few days, he had to deal with the rodent.

In other news, I have started my holiday shopping and have gotten through about half the list. Still a few more people to buy for and I hope to get it done soon. I don’t like having holiday gifts looming over my head.

Maybe They Do Make Me Work 18 Hour Days but It Is a Great Company To Work For…

CMWB — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:52:35 +0000

Well, I know I’ve been complaining about my job for a few days. And I know I talked about starting to think about looking for a new one. But let me tell you about yesterday.

Yesterday I started my day at an Atlanta charity to meet up with Atlanta metro area coworkers. There were some store managers, some part timers, my district manager and some assistant managers. We were meeting to hand out coats to those in need as my company donated 100,000 coats to charities around the country. Our local charity got hundreds of them. They were so excited to have the coats and to have us help. We helped people Ty on coats and figure out what size they needed. They were really nice black puffer coats and everyone was thankful. When I saw how many coats my company donated I felt really good about working for them. It was boxes and boxes of coats, hundreds of dollars, to help Atlanta’s less fortunate. So we ended up running out of large and extra large coats and so most of the people that were lined up to get one had to leave. Company employees will get to go back next week to help hand out the rest of the coats as the charity will be calling in other non profits who specialization in children. The coats aren’t technically kids clothes but the ladies were Junior sizes and there aren’t many full grown men that wear a small or extra small. I was glad for that because the whole time we were there i was thinking of my Reading Program kids and how much they would love new jackets. I asked if they would be calling My Sisters House (the charity I work with) and they said yes :) I probably won’t be able to go back next week but it’s nice to give other company employees a chance to give back.

After the coat drive I headed into work with my DM headed to my store also. I had already talked to my store manager about talking to the DM about the new childrens store my company is opening in my mall in the spring. I was hoping to talk to my DM about interviewing for the store manager position when the time was right. Well, my DM gets to the store calls me outside to check out our windows together. I get out there and she goes “So how about the childrens store opening in this mall?” I was like, “funny you should mention that, I was going to ask you how you were planning on filling the store manger position. Do you think you’ll be using current employees or hiring from outside?”. She then said that she was assuming I would want to interview for it. I said absolutely I do! She told me I would have to interview with the Regional manager and the vp of stores but that interviews will start in January. She said they are opening locations in my mall, in mall of Georgia, town center in cobb and locust grove. She said there is alot of opportunity for me. She then said that something I would need to work on is….I have to add that at this point I’m expecting her to say something like, I need you to work on scheduling or hiring or finishing your level 2 training or something like that. But no. She said “I need you to work on helping your store manager find another assistant because we wouldn’t want to leave her in a pickle.” She wants me to find my replacement! So. I am excited to interview, and I’m confidant she wants me for the position! It was a great day. Oh yeah, and I got a “Bear Hug” for my floorset which gives me a a $5 of coupon (on top of my discount) and a chance to win $2500 dollars in a company wide raffle. What a day.

I have an exciting weekend coming up with dinner with friends on Friday night, shopping with cousin and her little lovey on Saturday and then The Rockettes with Ma on Saturday night. Wahoo!

Instead of Learning and Growing, I’m Teaching You About Bizarro World

CMWB — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:23:16 +0000

In some other life, I would like to be a History Channel historian. The people on that channel seem so happy, passionate, and excited about history! And they are also so very not-goodlooking. How refreshing to get up and go to work and not do your hair, not put on makeup, and still do what you love and end up on tv. When your not on TV, your researching. How fun. Husband calls this other life “bizarro world”. I like to come up with bizarro world scenarios.

In other news, I am hungry all the time. It really has become quite a burden to never be satisfied. I’m always thinking about food. Even after I eat, I’m almost always hungry. And I have gotten so used to eating sweets that I feel like I need some sort of dessert after every meal. It’s a wonder I’m not 300 pounds people. A true wonder. Maybe I’m living IN a bizarro world right now! Maybe in real life I’m fat and I wish that I could eat and eat and eat and not pay the consequences…hmmmm….

Yesterday was another 15 hour day. 7am to 11pm. I was scheduled 7-5. Ha. I should have known. It’s so difficult to be at work that long. It’s irritating Husband and it’s wearing me out. Half the time I don’t even know what takes so long. Then I waste time trying to figure it out. I still pray and ask God why. Why I’m here, why I couldn’t find another job. Why the easy 9-5 job had to be snatched away. Why I couldn’t find a stable company to work for to begin with. I worry about starting a family with this job. Not that we are thinking of doing that anytime soon but you all know I’m a planner. How am I supossed to think about ever having children and working 50 and 60 hour work weeks??

Anyway, now you all know what’s been on my mind as of late. Bizarro world, food, work, and family.

Working overnight is reason enough to think about a mew job…right?

CMWB — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:10:33 +0000

Finally! A day off. I slept way too late and then I paid bills and (finally) changed my address for all my stuff. That’s how crazy work has been people. I JUST changed my address. We still aren’t totally done with the other apartment either. We need to prime the walls we had painted and we need to take the ceiling fans out. We have until the 20th so we are really just kind of being slackers.

I also went to a Government and Nonprofit career fair at Georgia State today. I do like my job, but staying until 6am or 4 am and working 18 hours straight is a little out of my comfort zone. So Husband and I decided it might be a good idea to just put some feelers out. Anyway, the career fair was basically uneventful, unfortunetly. It was supposed to run from 12:30 to 4 and I got there at 3. About half of the employers had left! I guess they were tired or maybe there wasn’t a good turnout. I didn’t get to meet anyone special or hand out any resumes, the only employers I spoke to told me to go online to apply. I did get some interesting new government websites to try and find jobs with though. Also, Make A Wish was there and they have some great volunteer opportunites that I’m hoping to get involved with after the holidays. They have volunteers partner together to help make the wishes come true. Other opportunities include being a liason between the family and the organization etc etc. I know I’ll barely be able to make it to the Reading Program throughout the holidays so I know I can’t add anything else until January. But hopefully in 2 months the Make A Wish volunteering is something Husband and I can do together. It was nice to be on GSU campus today. It reminded me of the classes I DID enjoy. And that awesome feeling I had when I was about to graduate.

Husband and I got samples of primer and paint to test on a cabinet! We are going to try and get them white. They are currently dark brown. The people at Lowes didn’t seem to think it would be a problem so hopefully it will work out. They are nice solid wood cabinets and we don’t want to buy new ones. In other news with the house, we still need to buy a second media tower for the living room, an oven, and a cabinet for the bathroom. The media tower is easy, it’s from walmart so we just need to order it. The bathroom cabinet hasn’t been easy to find. Well, I have found some I like… They’ve just been around $800… Gotta keep looking…the oven we are going to make sure we can get the cabinets white first.

I’m off again on Friday and husband switched his day off from thursday to friday to spend it with me :) so sweet.