Kitteh

Jason and I had a fun afternoon after class. We had lunch at Subway and then went to B&N where we each got a couple of books.

He works at 5, and I have class 6 to 9.

Ugh, tomorrow is 7 AM to 4 PM though. But I don't work on Saturday! But I'll be volunteering with a student organization to kick off Native American Heritage Month on Saturday, so I get to eat bison, yay.

Oh, I'll have to go buy Delainey's birthday presents Saturday morning!

Since I know some people have been asking...

We are, indeed, working on thank-you notes.

No, I cannot give you an exact day they'll all be mailed off.

Believe me, we are infinitely grateful for all that anyone did for us during our engagement and before, during, and after the wedding itself... and we do plan to write out that gratitude on paper. We just really need to find the time to finish all of it first.

That is all. Well, probably not really. But that's all for now.

Nothing of note has happened in the last few days.

That said, I like this Vera Bradley pattern, it's called Puccini:






I've been drooling over the big tote bag and the wallet in the hallmark store in Carbondale for like three weeks. Sigh.

Hey!

My buddy Mike Morrow clued me in to something; our red-velvet big-cupcake and small cupcakes-wedding-cake craziness was featured on an awesome-cupcakes blog! I know it doesn't mean much, since it's a small blog and whatever, but it's nice to see!

http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2008/08/giant-red-velvet-wedding-cupcake.html

I thought about sending the blog owner the picture of all my family working so hard making those cupcakes the night before... faces blurred for privacy, of course. ^_^

Indeed.

Some grumbles at work still. There's a definite undercurrent of everyone being very tense about the hour-cuts. The managers don't like it, but there's not much they can do.

I'm, uhm, vaguely displeased about something completely inconsequential I noticed just a couple of minutes ago, so I'm going to stop here and cut it short.

I could talk about politics...

But I've made this place a sort of politics-free zone thus far, and it's kind of working out for me. So I won't talk about tonight's debates here. Heaven knows we'll be hearing each other talk about them everywhere else, haha.

Uhm, am I enjoying my job? It's okay. I mean, it's a job. As a member of generation McJob, I never necessarily expected to have a job I would actively enjoy all the time or even be something that is a dream job. That kind of security doesn't really exist in today's business world.

Today, I had a couple of people who used to be regulars at Christopher & Banks recognize me and ask why I had left. I explained to them that I wanted to work at a place where my bosses weren't crazy. The first woman (who I actually know on a first-name basis thanks to her being such a regular and who, by the time I left, refused to let my assistant manager help her if I was working, she insisted on having -me- help) grinned at me and said she thought it had been something like that, and it looks like it's business-as-usual when it comes to all the bad environment, that it's still going on over there.

The second lady laughed and said she wasn't surprised to hear it.

So whatever you make of that.

I like the job in general. But really, I'll like anything that pays me according to what they expect me to be capable of.

The downside: wal-Mart is cutting hours. I volunteered to cut my shift in half on Monday because I wasn't feeling well and the day was just -groaning- by, so I'm not eligible to be sent home involuntarily this week, but they're sending home people all over the place, and there's a lot of grumbling going on. Gossip and mayhem. So we'll see. So far nobody really knows me but the TLE guys (the department Jason's in) and they knew me from before. So I get to hear gossip without necessarily having to be -involved- in it.

Which is nice. I mostly just nod, agree with whoever's speaking, and go back to eating my pop-tarts.

I get my first paycheck on Thursday! Yay! Jason is trying to decide what to do now that he's been offered enrollment in Wal-Mart's insurance plan. I'm still insured as a student, so that's at least being dealt with, but we're trying to decide how we feel about Wal-mart's insurance. It's not great, it's not really all that -good-, but it is something. And I'm not sure anyone can afford to turn down even the slightest hand-hold at this point.

things on my grocery list: frozen pizza, pop-tarts, yogurt-covered raisins, meat, coffee beans, flavored syrup
Things I want to buy if I have extra money: some new shoes and blue jeans.
Things I just want to buy: beads for jewelry making, clasps. I'm making most of my own jewelry now. If you're interested in seeing pictures of any of it, let me know, but I'm not sure it's necessarily the best stuff ever.

Question

So I've got some readers... in any case, -someone- is looking at this thing other than me, haha.

So I have a question for everybody!

What magazines do you subscribe to, if any? I'm subscribing to Real Simple now and probably one of the weeklies once we get a little more disposable income (Time or Newsweek).

But I'm curious: what magazines do you guys receive? If you don't get magazines, do you get the local paper or a national one? I don't know. I'm just curious as to what paper media everybody's reading.

If you don't know how to comment (I know I've got a couple of people who read who don't use the internet much), just click on the link directly below this that says "0 comments". If someone else has commented, that 0 may be a 1 or 2 or something. When the next window opens, there's a comment box to the right. Type your comment in that box, then click the choice that says "anonymous", then "publish your comment".

Thanks!

ballroom blitz

Every time I hear "ballroom blitz" on the radio, I remember my sister's wedding.

Wired

Watching the election closely, watching the economy even closer, working, and school are pretty draining. Bah.

I got reprimanded today for accidentally charging someone for peaches who had actually bought nectarines. They look the same in the bag, seriously. Oh well. And things got kind of crazy. I maintain that when you half-train someone through computer programs that don't really explain everything, then toss them on a register and expect them to just figure it out on their own, some mistakes will be made in the first month or so. Just hoping I don't get customer complaints, as sometimes I get a little hectic.

I mean, things are going pretty well. 95% of the time I do it perfectly, but that 5% can catch you up. Jason's doin' good. He had to do a boring tire meeting in Herrin today during worktime.

I'm always amused at people who are just offended when the cashiers aren't like jumping for joy to get to check people out. Seriously, this is my job. I get paid to be here. But I'm not always a bundle of joy, especially not early in the morning. Thankfully, most early-morning Wal-Mart shoppers aren't that joyful either.

I had a bad day. People were really kind of either indifferent or mean, with only a few exceptions. I had enough people check out on their cell phones without ever once even looking at me that I was actually starting to feel like a faceless machine.

I had a few people who actually, when checking out, asked if I was feeling okay or said that I looked a little down. I explained to them that I hate feeling like customers don't even see me, that I don't exist except as a cipher for money and checks and credit/debit cards. And they took the time to chat with me a bit, and that really kind of saved my day. Otherwise, I would not have left work in anything remotely resembling a good mood.

But I did! And I'm still in a good mood. We're making pizza. Yes, it's 11 PM and we're making pizza. I've got painting to do, Jason doesn't have to get up in the morning, and pizza is awesome.

Tired

I have officially done a full week at the Big Blue. I'm a cashier up front; so mostly I'm your check-out girl. What this has taught me, more than anything else, is that people really need to be nicer to the cashiers at Wal-Mart. Seriously. We have NO CONTROL over whether or not you find something you needed... we're not even allowed to help deal with departments. We cannot leave our register unless it's a dire emergency. So if you had trouble finding the exact stroller you wanted? Don't take it out on the cashier; she can't do anything about that, literally anything at all.

They stuck me on a register by myself all day for the first time on the first of the month, which was horrible. SO MANY PEOPLE. And all of them with at least 100$ worth of stuff, and all of them arguing and angry and bickering...

Today, not so bad. People were mostly quite pleasant, even if everyone seems vaguely obsessed with reading my name off the name tag.

Only had a few nasty people. Like when I had switched my light off so I could finish up with my final customer and go home (I was riding the clock on time and had to get out of there or I'll get written up- Wal-Mart is strict) I had no less than FOUR PEOPLE try to get into my line. When I pointed out the "Lane Closed" sign and my light being off, TWO of those people tried to get me to make an exception "just for them".

So... another piece of advice. If the cashier won't "make an exception" for you, it's seriously not because we don't like you... we're probably just running out of time to clock out. Please do not take that personally.

I am vaguely surprised at how deeply unpleasant people are to cashiers at the Big Blue. Huh.

Well, I know that I from now on am going to double my politeness and friendliness to cashiers when I am there off the clock.

Jason has terrible shifts this week... lots of until-10 PM shifts. Ugh. And only two days off. But oh well. Wish I got days off.

We got Iron Man! And we are happy. And lots of food. We had Taco night last night, which was basically awesome.

We're still fighting the flea problem, but it mostly seems like there's not too much we can do without hurting Leium or the cat herself. So we're working on it. SHe's flea-collared, the house is sprayed repeatedly, we're keeping cleaner... so cross your fingers.