New Job

People have been asking how the new job is going... it's going.  Any new job is tough at first; having to learn new inventory code, new systems, new processes, new names.  It's never 'easy'.  I tend to be pretty hard on myself and set my own standard pretty high... so I get frustrated easily.  I need to let off myself and just know that it will come to me.

Now... that being said, that's just the job portion.

My own personal schedule has changed so much, and I am really struggling to find my new schedule.  I used to get up around 5am and get dressed and head right to work.  Now I get up around 7am, but I don't have to be to work until 9am.  Also, I'm used to coming home and unwinding with my kitty for a bit before Steve got home.  Now I get home and Steve's already here.  Not that it's a bad thing coming home to him, I do love it, I just need to adjust to that is how it is.  My kitty isn't home lonely looking for me, he's already been loved.

Not to mention, I work Friday's now!

It's just hard.

I'm a creature of habit and I'm used to my schedule... now I have to adjust and re-figure that all out.  I could NEVER EVER have a work schedule that I had to wait from week to week to see what my hours were going to be - I don't know how some of you do it.

Anyhow - just wanted to update everyone... I'm getting there with the new job... overall, I'm just happy to be sleeping better and be happier that I no longer have to deal with the bullshit that was my other employer.

Moving On

I think I've made it clear in my blog that I'm unhappy at my current job.  I've been applying and handing in my resume EVERY.WHERE.
I've been on a bogus interview or two.
I never gave up.

Over the last two weeks I've been communicating with a company 12 miles from my house.  I had a first interview, then I had a second interview.  Then they asked me to come in for a couple of hours, paid, to get a feel for the company and see if we'd all be a good fit.

On Monday I received an email, asking me to come in to discuss a job offer.

Today, I gave my 2 week notice and my last day with this company will be Nov. 21st.  I begin a new journey on Monday, November 26th.

I'll still be doing office/administrative work.  It's still a small company.  I'll have to start working on Friday's - which.. will be interesting.  However parts of me feel like giving up 10 hour days will be a welcomed change.. .then the other part of me says '10 hours only seems long because it's such a miserable place to work'.

Oh well.  It's a necessary change.

Today, I told my favorite co-worker, Bob.  I cried.  He cried after he walked away from me.  We are both so miserable here, we are each others only saving grace.  I feel so awful to be leaving him alone in this - however.. I have to do what is best for me.

Bittersweet.

The timing is perfect.  Tomorrow my mom and I leave for a long weekend (Th-Sun) in La Jolla, CA (just North of San Diego).  I plan to relax and hopefully catch up on some of that sleep that I haven't been getting for a few months now - only I'll be sleeping on the beach instead of in a bed :)

Another day..

Did you have a good Memorial Day?  A nice and needed day off for most people, I'd assume.
We had a busy one - on Saturday I went with Shannon to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater to see Hairspray!  It was so much fun - and my first time to the Chanhassen!  I had a blast and it was good to finally catch up with my cousin since she had been married almost a month and I hadn't even heard about her honeymoon yet!

Sunday we spent the hottest day of the year (so far) at the Twins game - sweating.  The Twins lost... yada yada.. tell you something you don't know, right?  It was so stinky muggy outside and our seats were directly in the sun - what a day!

boyfriend and me at the game.  This picture made it on the big screen when they show fan pics!  I almost peed I was so excited!

Monday we went up to my aunt and uncles new lake home in Lindstrom, MN.  It is about 50 minutes from our house and it's a perfect place for them to live happily ever after together!  My aunt made pealla - yum!

Now it's Tuesday - I'm at work.  Sadly, 4 days wasn't enough.  I still hate it here.  Like, before I even walk in the door I hate it here.  This morning I walked up to the door to find this:

Yep - it is what you think it is

a dead bird... on the sidewalk.

Then... the company we share the building with has some very nice people who work for them - all of whom talk to me when they walk by and ask me how my weekend was and ... well, I feel like they genuinely care about knowing this stuff and that it's not just 'office talk'.  Even though a minute of conversation with them is not enough to make me feel less lonely, I'll take what I can get.  One of the guys brings me this:

Rhubarb Custard

I'm a sucker for anything rhubarb.  It was the nicest thing anyone in this building has done for me.  I'm super emo lately too, so it almost made me cry.
I was talking to my dad this morning - he called me at work bright and early - and just talking to him about how much I hate it here and other things like Father's Day... I was tearing up.  After I got off the phone with him, I had to go into the bathroom and I just bawled for a couple of minutes (no one else was here yet, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry).  I'm not preggo, don't worry, just emo about a lot of aspects of my life right now.
I was laying in bed last night, not able to fall asleep and I just started to cry... then it dawned on me that I haven't had a good cry in some time.  It felt good, but as soon as I realized it, I stopped.  So that was lame.

On a brighter note: I have lupine in my yard.. I think I've told you this - here are a couple pics:

Purple

Pink

The plant with the pink flowers has several more flower stalks growing, so I'm anxious to see how it all comes along.  Lupine HATES to be transferred/transplanted... so far, I feel like they are doing okay.  Fingers crossed.

I have my camera today, so hopefully I'll get some New York pictures up?  I wouldn't bet on it... OR it might just be a post of pics... unedited.

Other than that... I've got nothing.

What do you expect?!

Quick, super quick, like stealth little ninja quick... update on my life.

We made it back from New York - New York City was simply amazing!  Just as I expected.  I do have pictures, and I will post them (I know you've heard that before, but I really will!!).  Steve loved it, he's obsessed with the Subway system there; can't say I blame him.  I'll most more on that once I have my pics on my computer.

I changed offices last week - I still work for the same company :( but because we are merging with another company, we are rearranging some of the office staff - myself and my co-worker, Bob, moved our spaces to Elk River.  Which is about 20 minutes closer to my house!  My commute is now 15 minutes!  That is about the only bonus of that.  I just moved down on Thursday of last week, so I have really had much time to soak it all in... but the one thing I have noticed already is that I'm super fucking lonely.  Before I sat in an office with open walls and we could talk (work or personal) whenever we wanted, now I'm all alone in a little space - well here, let me snap a pic with my phone:

So, that view is what you see walking in the front door - I sit behind that desk.  excuse the mess, I just moved ;)
To the right, is the offices of the company we are merging with - to the left is the offices of the company we share the space with, also a vendor of ours.  Straight back (to the right of the desk) is the bathrooms and a door to the plant/warehouse.  I also sit right next to the lunchroom.
ALL ALONE.  People walk through randomly, say hello, and carry on.  I really feel like I'm going to go crazy - before I could hear every conversation whether I wanted to or not.. now I don't even get to hear people talk about what they had for dinner last night :(

Moving on... what else has been going on?
My #2 niece, Cayden, turned 2 at the end of April - she's a fricken doll.
My bestie, Pam, is getting married at the end of June, so lots of stuff going on with that (showers, bach parties, etc.) - all the planning is going super awesome, finally!
It's our last week at Kettlebells this week... talk about an ass kicking!  Hey-Zeus!
Steve and I will celebrate 3 years on June 1

That's it for now.  Just wanted to check in and let you know I'm alive!

Irate

Ever notice how irate is spelled?  Break it up and you have I Rate - which I obviously don't - which makes me irate.

I figure it's better to post a stupid cryptic message here then put it on blast on facebook or twitter.  I'm fucking pissed.

I really need to get a phone call soon.  I probably should apply for some jobs today...

Happy V-Day

So this post is going to be more random than anything else... but being that it's Valentine's day, I will say I hope you have a great day, whatever you decide to do.  Steve is going to make me dinner - salt roasted salmon with my favorite broccoli side dish and sticky rice.

Second, some replies to the comments from yesterday.  To those who took the time to say anything at all, thank you.  It may not have helped my day fully, but I promise that I smiled at each of the comments.
@Krysten - I am excited for Baseball season, I'd be more excited if I had cable AND if we had a promising team.  That being said... I'm always excited to see Joe "Lips" Mauer in any form.
@Dana - I'm so glad you liked the wine!  I was able to try that same wine a couple of weeks ago and thought it was really good too!  The whole line of wine from Cupcake is pretty stellar (and inexpensive)!
@Gringa - I replied to you personally.  I am excited for New York and Chicago - I've been planning those trips hard core over the last few weeks.
@Lo - I'm jealous that you can walk to Target Field!  On top of that, I'm so sorry your place got broken into.  While I try hard not to be one of those 'woe is me, let's have a pitty party' - I do believe that no matter how positive a person tries to be, we all encounter bad days.  I'm thankful for so much in my life and I hope that I didn't come across as ungrateful.

Okay, some of the reason why my day was poopy yesterday?
Not only am I sick and tired of dealing with the same shit day after day at work, it's even worse on a Monday. I try to wake up on Monday's and be fresh and new, ready to tackle a new week.  Yesterday I woke up the same way... but it was quickly turned around by the bullshit at my company.  My favorite co-worker, and one of only 2 people that I still like and enjoy at this place, told me a new way to think - while it may help for the time being, I'm still holding in all my true frustration.  He told me to do my job and not worry about the other stuff unless it directly and negatively affects my job.  It may sound like common sense but the 7 years I've worked here have been much different where everyone is involved in certain things.  Especially considering I know the office admin job better than the person that was given the position.  I don't know how you can plan for the future without knowing how things currently work.  It's extremely frustrating.

Also yesterday, Steve told me that he had some bad news - which is never good to hear.  As it turns out, his boss did some further research on our first class tickets and Hawaii is too expensive, so Continental US, Alaska, and Mexico are still options but Hawaii is off the table.  I'm super bummed about that.  I don't want to sound selfish, but I know I'm about to, so deal with it.  The thing that makes me the most upset is the fact that we went a month not knowing if Hawaii was included but would have understood if it weren't... then we are told it is, sowe get excited and I start looking into stuff and talking with my travel agent... and now it's not.  I just wish she would have looked into it BEFORE telling us we could go.  I'm super bummed and disappointed - we had our hopes beyond up.
Now to redeem my selfish thoughts - I know we're still getting a free first class ticket to somewhere, and I know we'll still have a great time... I just have to get over the bummed feelings and start thinking about something else.  The other part of that is we don't know where we want to go now... hard to get excited about something that we don't know.. ya know?

I went to the gym after work yesterday, thinking people always talk about how a good workout helps them feel better, maybe I can apply the same thought process - well... I don't think it worked because I was still bummed last night when I got home.  However, I have decided that the gym isn't so bad as long as I don't go there expecting to push myself to my death.  I always assume I can pickup where I left off 3 years ago, and I can't, and that's okay.  I have to start somewhere.  Yesterday I did 20 minutes on the elliptical and 20 minutes on the treadmill.  40 minutes of cardio at any pace is better than 40 minutes on my couch, right?

Steve and I made a Pinterest Recipe to take to my brother's house over the weekend, the pinterest link is no longer working, but I was able to find the same recipe here (the photos on this site are less exciting than what I pinned):

Bloomin' Onion Bread

1 unsliced loaf of (round is preferable) sourdough bread
1 pound Monterey Jack cheese, thinly sliced
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup finely diced green onion, including white part
2-3 tsp poppy seeds

Directions:
Using a sharp bread knife cut the bread going both directions.  Do not cut through the bottom crust.
Places slices of cheese between cuts. Mix together butter, onion, and poppy seeds.  Pour over bread. Wrap in foil the entire thing in foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Unwrap. Bake 10 more minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Lastly, As I sit here thinking about a new job and working on my resume, I'm forced to think about how to remove myself from searchable social media.  Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.  I've decided that once my resume is out there, I'm going to deactivate my facebook.  I think it'll be good for me for many reasons - who couldn't use a break from facebook.  It'll also assure any potential employers not be able to find pictures of me with my boobs hanging out (not literally, just the cleave) and photos of me being bombed off my ass at any given point.
Twitter is less of a big deal to me, being that I don't post often and there are no photos of me on there.  I'm not sure if I can just disable the site for a time being or if I have to delete my account... if it's the latter, I'll probably just leave it.
My blog... I've worked extremely hard to remove my blog from any mention of my actual name.  Being that I work with family and I'm also friends with the same family on Facebook and Twitter... I don't have any of it linked.  I'm not an anonymous blogger, obviously, but unless we're friends on facebook, you won't know my full name by reading my blog.  Just the way I want it.  I really need to log out of my google account and do lots of different searches to make sure of this.
All of that being said... I still plan to make my blog private once I submit my resume.  Which means, I think, that if you want to keep reading, you'll need to make sure you a) let me know b) give me your email address and c) I think that email address will need to be the one you use to sign up for a google account.  I need to look a bit more into this, but I think that's how it'll work.  It's going to be a pain, but hopefully I'll get a job right away and it won't have much of an impact on you, the reader.  I do appreciate you reading and hope you'll continue to do so while I have to take some action to keep my privacy.

Peace out for now...

Oh Hey!

When was the last time I blogged about anything of importance?  Seems like I've posted some random crap over the last couple of weeks just to have a presence in the blogosphere!

Continuing with that today....
I need to make a resume.  I don't have one.  I haven't had to apply for a 'real' job ever.  My current job was a very informal interview; my aunt hired me over a lunch at Panera.  I'm in my 7th year here and I've learned so much that I can add to a resume.  My jobs for the 4 years before that were at shoe stores, selling shoes.  Before that, I did home health care for elderly people and before that I worked at a Target store, first as a cashier, then moved to the service desk (returns, how fun!) and then I moved into the cash office, which I loved!  The Target cash office is basically taking all the tills from the registers and counting the money to make sure it matches the reports as well as wrapping bills and wrapping coins to deposit all the money!  OMG, I LOVED that job!
Anyhow... I need to build a professional resume.  I have little idea where to start, I'm soliciting help!

I'm sick again - twice in one month.  My stress level is weakening my immune system - this is absolutely ridiculous.  I'm at home today, being sick.  It's a sore throat this time.

We've got some snow in the past week, but yesterday is was in the 40's and the next few days are going to be the same, so the snow will be gone soon.

Here are some photos of what I've/we've been up to in the last few weeks (I'm on android, so I don't have any fancy camera effects on my photos like those of you with instagram):

Homemade Onion Rings!  yum!

Homemade cupcakes!!!!

Monster Trucks!!!

Natalie (Pam's little girl) sleeping on me at a baby shower of a mutual friend.  I love this little girl!

AYCE Crab Legs at a new restaurant in Anoka

The piece I painted at a pottery shop with a group of about 17 other women for Diva Night

The Inside of the same bowl

Cheesecake from Manny's - the biggest piece of cheesecake  in the world, short of giving up the entire cheesecake (that's Steve's hand, for size comparison)

Orpheum Theater for The Lion King!!!

the chandelier at The Orpheum 

Other than that... I feel like we've been watching a lot of movies lately.  Yesterday I came home from work and watched Horrible Bosses and Bad Teacher I have Little Fockers lined up for today.  Steve and I watched Mission Impossible last night, and recently we've watched V for Vendetta, and a few others I'm having a hard time coming up with.
I'm might see what else is available at redbox when I go to return my movies today.

Lastly, one of my best friends, Pam - you may remember her from the shower I threw back in September and the adorable little baby Natalie that I'm pictured with above - well, her and her man, Nick, are getting married and it looks like they're about 95% sure it's going to be on June 30th!  I'm so happy for her!  She already has her dress and her shoes, so everything beyond that is just simple!

Day 15 of Birthday Month

My birthday is TOMORROW!
I don't work on Friday's, so today is my last of work for the week, my co-worker, Bob (we have a mutual admiration club at work), he came in this morning with these:

How many people do you know that have co-workers who bring them flowers?!  Like I said, Bob and I are like peas and carrots - or ... it's more like he's my work dad.  I never let him forget that my birthday is coming. He gives me shit, I give him shit... we get along the best of anyone.

Zoya nail polish has been having these #FlashPromo deals on Twitter for the past couple weeks... it's dangerous.  That's all I'll say about that.

I'm going to dinner tonight with Kristi, Dana, and Heather.  We're actually going to the place my brother just started working at.  I'm excited to try a new place and see the girls!!

I'm excited to get my present tomorrow!

I'm excited for my party tomorrow!

As for the first class tickets we won - we don't know where we want to go yet.  We don't know when we want to go - I'd love to go to New York City in the summer.  I'd love to go to a beach in the winter.  I'd love to go some place I've never been.  The couple things we do know: we want to go somewhere far enough to make the first class flight worth it, we also know that it has to be reasonable enough to afford a hotel and a car if the location calls for our own transportation.  LOTS to think about - SUPER exciting!

That's it for today - I'll be back tomorrow so that you can wish me a happy birthday, okay? ;)

Day 6 of Birthday Month

First, I updated this post to now include this photo:

Fondue Group on Saturday

Second, things at work suck.  The 2 owners are in the middle of negotiations for a buy out - actually... they just started talking about it and it's supposed to be done by the end of the month.  It also means we're hiring a new accountant to take the place of the one owner that is leaving.  Turns out it was between 2 people - a guy and a gal... the guy got the job.  So, once this deal is done and final, I'll be the only girl working in this building.  Let me tell you how NOT excited I am for that.
My job is growing some, nothing radical, which is good and bad - good because it means I have less to learn in the short amount of time left.  Bad because it means if I get a raise, it's not going to be huge.
I really want to get vulgar and bitch about work on this entire post, but I really don't want to look back and ever be able to remember the way I'm feeling this week while being at work.

Day 6 of birth month brought freezing cold temps - the one time I looked it was 19° - neat, eh?

On a positive note: Jersey Shore starts in January.  I know, it's mildly retarded, but we all need our thing, right?

We had Heggies pizza for dinner and my mom brought over a couple of lobster tails for us (for another night)... can't wait to enjoy those!

Steve and I are both December babies - and we're both on Benihana's email list - which gets us each a $30 credit to eat there during this month!  They can't be used together, so we have to go twice... bummer.  I swear I probably will gain 15 pounds this month alone!

It was a pretty boring Tuesday overall - the highlight was getting another light hung:

Close up

It hangs behind our TV where there is this odd little space and it's super dark back there... not any more it's not!  Not only that, but I decided that for my actual birthday, rather than going out downtown and spending a bunch of money and making other people spend a bunch of money, we're going to have a few people over at our place.  So getting this lamp hung is just what we needed to create some perfect mood lighting.  I'll post more about the party in a day or two - Steve made me invitation in Photoshop, and they are amazing!

Day 5 of Birthday Month

What do you expect from a Monday?  My work day started out shitty, my work day got progressively shittier, my work day ended shitty.

It was not my ideal rock star birth month day.. I said I was going to rock this month out but sometimes that's just beyond our own control.

The plus side of the day?

After dinner, Steve and I went to his parents house to raid their Christmas ornaments to find the ones he wants to keep forever and hang on our tree.  Steve's mom is a giver, and by that I mean, she tries to give everything away... and she has a LOT of stuff to give!  LOL, it's pretty funny... I swear she offered us everything from a grape to the entire Christmas Tree!
We did get a pretty snowman that lights up and has glitter running through him:

Steve's parents have a train track on the upper part of the tree, it runs in 2 minute cycles

The outside of their house - all red lights, it's pretty bomb.

ugh, so i guess that got blurry, but that's the beginning stages of their tree, blurry.

now to go through and find a place for everything else we got! :) 

The super plus side of this day is that my grandma is out of the hospital and back home.  I didn't blog about it this weekend because it just didn't feel right.  She's not out of the woods fully, but she lives in an assisted living complex, so she has plenty of help around.

She hasn't been feeling well, so last week my aunts took her in to the ER (based on her past, they thought the ER was a better and fast option of being seen) - turns out she just needed a 'tune up' as the docs call it.  She has some fluid building up around her lungs - typical of someone her age with the conditions she has (heart and lung disease).  Well the docs wanted to keep her a bit longer to try and figure out why her shortness of breath became so much worse in so little time... turns out she had some blood clots in her legs that spread up to her heart and lungs, so her heart was working OT to try and pump.  The heart looks good (after several heart attacks in the past 5 years) but she is now on blood thinners and needs to start being more active all while being careful not to fall.

Again, not out of the woods, but well on her way to 'better'.  My gma is one tough cookie - I've never seen a woman in the hospital with so much spunk and desire to live, she's 87 years old and still giving it all she's got.  

It seems for the past few years in December, she's been giving us a reason to appreciate family during the Holidays.  A few years ago in December she had her first heart attack... another one the following December.  Last year she all of the sudden couldn't hear  - some drops and shots later, she can hear as well as any old lady.

This year we have this whole blood clot thing to deal with - not ideal, but it could be worse.  

Sometime I plan to write a whole post about my grandma, maybe I'll do it this month.  I have a lot of dirt on her as she is more than willing to share all of her life stories with her children and grandchildren.  

For those of you who believe in a higher power or who believe in the power of prayer, maybe just throw in a word or two for my gma, would ya?

Random v.11.6

• Want to hear something super awesome but super lame at the same time?  I deleted my account with myspace yesterday.  LOL.. yeah, I still had one.
  
• The smell of Cheetos reminds me of being little - on Sunday's we'd go bowling as a family.  I'd always beg my parents for the 10 or 15 cents it took to buy a bag of Cheetos from the vending machine... so ever since then, opening a bag and smelling them takes me back to the bowling alley.  It's one of my favorite smells, my favorite memories, and one of my favorite snacks.
  
• I've deleted the link to my bog from both Facebook and Twitter - the cons of working with family (who have both) and having many changes at work make you want to write angry blogs.
  
• I'm left handed.
  
• I love Mexican food; I want to travel {back} to Mexico and try the authentic stuff!
  
• I'm turning 30 in 37 days; on a Friday.  What should I do that won't break the bank?
  
• I want to marry Steve and spend the rest of my life with him (I think of this every time Beyonce comes on singing "Single Ladies").  I'm also head over heels in love with the guy!
  
• I don't want kids.
  
• I want to take a trip!
  
• I have a Type A personality
  
• I'm addicted to Facebook lately.
  
• The single most popular image on my blog is this one:
  because people Google the exact words "Fish with Arms"  What goes on in this world?
  
• I posted on facebook a couple weeks ago that I went to the ATM to deposit a rebate check and I didn't need an envelope, it just took the check, scanned it, and told ME how much it was for.  Neat.  Last night I went to Old Navy and was given the option to have a printed receipt or have it emailed to me.  I'm already on their mailing list (for coupons)... so why not?  The world is advancing... and I fear as I approach 30, I'm not ready for it.

That's all.

Random v.10.9

Can you believe it's been since May that I've posted a blog with a random title?!  Last year in June I was up to volume 12 of randomness.  I'm kind of disappointed in myself.  Not enough to care though ;)

I had to do some manual labor yesterday, which I'm not entirely opposed to, because I am capable of doing it.  The sucky part is what that labor is.  I had to count hardware (nuts, bolts, screws, oh my!)  Ugh.  Inventory at my work sucks balls.  It ruins my nails and hurts my hands like you wouldn't believe.  Plus the boys here are so unorganized, I spend half my time re-organizing, only to have it destroyed again within a few weeks.
Crap.  The point was not to bitch about that... the point was that I was away from my desk all day aka away from my Google reader all day.  I came into work this morning to 35 unread in my reader!  WTF are you guys doing to me?  Maybe its my own fault for following so many blogs?!  Either way... I'm working my way through peeps, I hate having unread things in my reader!

As of late, I'm constantly paranoid about getting a migraine.  These stupid things have taken over my life, even though I haven't had one since the end of May (knock on wood, please), I think about them all the time.  {PS. I love google docs, its a friendly place for me to keep track of my migraines}

TV
Big Brother - it's begun.  It's my summer love - so far I don't know who I want to win.  Hell, I don't even know who I want to make it one more week.
Breaking Bad - Thanks to Tivo, I only have the season finale left to watch.  Does anybody else watch this show?  It's simply amazing.  If you're going to start watching it, start with season one... the character development is unbelievable.
Jersey Shore - is going to start soon... I'm such a sucker for this ridiculous show.  Their way of life intrigues me.
Glee - So late on this one... but I just finished the first half of season one.  I don't know how this aired on TV, but on DVD they have released what is called "Glee: Season 1: Volume 1" which consists of 4 discs.  However just looking that up on Netflix it appears they are releasing discs 5-6-7 in September that will be part of Season 1: Volume 1.  Then Season 1: Volume 2 has an unknown release date. I'm very confused.  Either way, I'm obsessed with this show.  I love it more than words can describe.  I should look it up on Hulu and see if I can get caught up that way; anyone else know of a way to watch Glee for free to get caught up?

I'm in love with my new phone.

This weekend is the Worldwide PhotoWalk - it's not too late to sign up for your city.

This weekend my baby niece is being baptized.  She is a little angel.  I love her.

On Wednesday night I leave for Duluth, on Thursday morning we will journey from Duluth to Bayfield, WI where we will take a ferry over to Madeline Island until Sunday.  I can't wait to be there again for a long weekend.  I love that place.  Oh, happy days!

That's it for now.

Random v.10.8

**OK... first, a few highlights of my weekend.

1. The boyfriend and I made Duck Carnitas (basically tender juicy duck meat in a tortilla with cheese and verde salsa) - they were good!  We think we overcooked the duck, just a bit though.  I'm pretty sure we'll be trying this one again.  I will take pictures of that one, maybe.
2. I got tickets to see Wicked (for the 3rd time).  Pre-sale tickets went on sale Friday and Steve said he wouldn't mind seeing it... YAY!... so we went and bought tickets :)
3. I signed up a few months back to do the Minnesota AIDS Walk.  The walk was on Sunday morning and I did it!  6.2 miles in about 2 hours :)  Great success (thanks to all who donated!)
4. The Twins {finally} beats the f'n Yankees AT Yankee Stadium on Sunday afternoon... it was pure bliss and my voice hurt so good after Jason Kubel hit his grand slam!  In your face A-Rod, {fag}!  I don't care if it's only one win against them, it's breaking a losing streak and proof that it's possible.  The fuck sticks (Yankees) come to Minnesota next week... not only will they be jealous of our AWESOME new stadium, but they'll be swept (hopefully!)  GO TWINS!  that is all.

**This Census job I'm doing... it sucks.  People suck.  I don't get paid enough to do what I'm doing.  I think it's almost done.  (I've discovered these feelings after seeing how little the paycheck comes out to be... after what I've had to do to receive it)

**Do you type using the home row?  I don't.  I'm not sure how I ended up getting away from it or if I ever had it to begin with... but I type in my own way and when I try to use the home row... I get all messed up.  That's messed up.

**I'm a jealous person.  Are you?  I hate it... I wish I could change it.  I can't.  I generally find myself having feelings of anger mixed in with my jealousy.  That makes it worse.  I don't know how to break myself of these feelings.... I wonder if there is a class I could take....

**Last, but not least... if you haven't already, CLICK HERE, and tell me what you want to see.  I'm slowly (and I do mean slowly) working my way through the requests (and Magpie, you'll have your answer to why I sleep on the couch within one of those posts)...

photos via we♥it

Census

I'm slowing getting you updated on my life... I won't be joining in the Fill in The Blank Friday today, because the theme is books and I've read maybe a dozen in my entire lifetime.  I just don't think it would be fun for anyone to read on my little ol' blog.

So... In my last post I introduced you to my new niece, Cayden Taylor.  She was born one week ago today, so I posted about her before I told you about my week of training... because, well... I like to do things out of order as they are important to me.

I'm an official Census worker; government employee.  Last week I had to attend training Tuesday through Friday.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be... it was just a lot of anal paperwork rules and things of the sort.  It is the government, after all.  So my job is like this: I am free to work up to 40 hours a week if I so choose, but expected to work at least 20 hours.  I am assigned x number of 'cases', which are housing units that did not send in their Census questionnaire.  I have to go to the assigned address and fill out a questionnaire with them.  If no one is home, I leave a note telling them to call me, if they don't call, I go back.  It's a very easy seeming job until you come across the house where people are uncooperative.  People say they sent their in, and maybe they did.. but I've been assigned to the address for a reason... so, maybe they didn't.  Maybe it got lost in the mail, maybe your husband didn't mail it like he meant to, maybe you sent it after the deadline.  Who knows, all I know is that I'm at your house for a reason, so don't give me a hard time.

Several people have expressed their concern for me, a lady in her late 20's (OMG, that is not an easy thing to say late 20's, ugh)... going to door to door.  The Census Bureau has been very supportive to all of us stating that if, for any reason at all, we do not feel comfortable (dog, scary man, screams coming from inside the house, etc.) that I am to leave and make a note of why I left so they can determine if they should send someone back.  So I feel okay about it.

I've gone out a few times now and, in all honesty, it's the getting out of my house that is the hardest.  I get nervous.  People are NOT patient, or at least that is why I've come to believe about people.  The form I have to fill out with them is long and extremely cumbersome.  It takes 10 minutes, on average, to fill it out.  It's a tri-fold 8.5x11 sheet of paper, front and back.  So I feel like I'm a pain in their ass, and I am.  I just need to remember that I am there to do a job, and it's not my fault their form wasn't sent in or counted.  Once I knock on the first door it is a huge weight lifted and all the rest is cake.

So now, the only downfall of this is that, if I'm expected to work 20 or so hours, I need to get out some during the week and some on the weekend.  How do I incorporate my gym schedule into my newly busy work schedule?  I didn't make it to the gym at all this week, and that upsets me.  I really need to make it there at least 3 times a week.  I don't know how to do that yet.

That is all for now.

Random v.9.11

**UGH... Do you ever just want to get away, run away, escape life - even if for just a weekend?  Of course you do, you wouldn't be human if you didn't.  It never solves any problem (assuming you have a problem to escape), it won't allow you to get anything done (assuming you're running from backlog), but it gives you the feeling of rejuvenation, it makes you forget 'real life' for just a few days; who doesn't want that?!
I feel like I say this a lot in my blogs (with no luck)... but if anyone has spare dollars laying around, taking up space in your sock drawer, or earning too much interest in your bank account... I'd love to take it off your hands for you - we can work together and figure something out.  Promise, I'm generous.

I've been researching Vegas all morning... not cheap.  Maybe I'll look into Philly next, I've always wanted to go there.

**How come when you go to McDonald's, Burger King, or any fast food place and order a burger with only ketchup, or plain or anything where they take things off... you don't get a discount?  They charge for extra this and extra that, but if you want less than what you get for full price... you still pay full price!   I'm in outrage!

**Don't ask me how I feel about this Brett Favre stuff... I'm not following the story, although I do know he had surgery and I do know the Vikings are giving him a time limit to decide what he wants to do... but again, I'm not following it.

**The day before I went to Missouri, I posted this on my daily photo blog, after work that day I got a ride in that car.  It was my first ever time being in a Chevelle and it was one of the most exciting things I've ever experienced!

**Also surrounding Missouri - I decided on my 20+ hours in the car that I do in fact like the smell of skunk.

**My hours have been restored at work, I'm thrilled!  Last week I actually worked overtime... we are swamped!  Who knows how long it lasts, but for now it's good... so we roll with it!

**I've decided that it's okay to eat Chicken Wings, the real kind, on the bone.  Steve and I have kind of been on a kick as of late, normally we hit up B-dubs and eat our faves.  Last week we ate the wings at Kieran's in Minneapolis, they were super tasty... I like dry wings a lot I'm noticing, over wings full of sauce.  We also went to Serums in Anoka, they have tons of wing spices/flavors, I ate one sauce with 3 peppers next to it - OMG my mouth was on fire!  I managed to get 2 of them down... then didn't really taste anything else after that! :)  I should be photo blogging about all the wings I've been eating lately.
mmmMMMmmm... now I want wings!

I think that's it ladies and gents... How is life going for everyone else?!  Lots of summer plans?

Random v.9.6

I really only have a few short things to say here, so listen closely.

1.) If you've been paying attention you know that I've been trying to venture into the world of spice... slowly.  Last night I went to Esteban's in downtown Anoka with Steve to dive into yet another experience in spice.  Esteban's was a well established Mexican restaurant in Anoka for MANY MANY years, then closed for reasons unknown to me; they have now reopened in a new location just blocks from where they used to be.  In the past, sitting down at a Mexican restaurant for me would be a Margarita, chips, and fajitas minus the peppers - it was time to try something new! Steve ordered a shredded carne chimichanga and I told the waitress that I'd have the exact same.  The kicker here is what came on top of it - Queso Diablo Sauce... yikes!  My shit mouth was on fire... but I didn't hate it!  I ate the whole thing and enjoyed it much [except for the wicked fully belly afterwards].
Kristi, this would be a great place to review as I know you love Mexican food and they don't have a website up as of yet.  Cute little place too!

2.) Check out the progress I've made on the Scavenger Hunt... I'm closing in on my last few things and I'm pretty sure I have ideas for each of them!  I'm updating it almost daily and every other day at the very least... so keep checking; don't make me be a nag.  Exciting stuff here... I've neglected my blog while doing this, but it's okay, because I'm having so much fun doing this!  I can't wait to, hopefully, find another Hunt!
2.5.) Also check out my Daily Photo Blog - 365 Days of Hope; I've been updating that about every other day and I'm loving that I started it!

3.) Someone in the US ripped off our design for one of our motorcycle trailers at work... I will absolutely not link to their site because I don't want to advertise for them.  Pretty much our own fault, but do you have any idea how much it costs to get a product patent?!  It's crazy expensive... Here is a link to Matrix Motorcycle Trailers (Rover and Quest), in case you'd like to see them.  Pretty crappy though... they are making a fiberglass model, which is a lot less durable.  Our trailers are made of TPO, which is a blend of plastic and rubber, making them virtually indestructible.  Our cost is more, but sometimes you can't go cheap, if you want quality!  I wish that other company nothing but failure, you shouldn't steal other peoples hard work!  Phooey!

I'm out; Happy Hump Day!

Working Hard For My Money

Let me first start of by telling you a little bit about the company I work for.  I work for a manufacturing company, Matrix Manufacturing Co., we are a plastic thermoformer.  We have a proprietary line of products which include small cargo trailers to tow behind motorcycles and small vehicles along with a line of trailer accessories for snowmobile trailers and landscaper trailers (we obviously design our own website too...).

Matrix is also a custom job shop, so any company can call us and we can make any part for them, as long as it's a vacuum formed part.


Let me explain briefly what Plastic thermoforming is (aka vacuum forming).  Not to be confused with injection molding, plastic thermoforming is a process where we take a flat sheet of plastic, clamp it into a frame and it goes into a huge oven on our machine.  Different parts have different requirements, so it can be in the oven for 60 seconds up to several minutes (depending on the size of the sheet and thickness of the material).  Once it comes out it gets paired with a mold that has tons of tiny little holes in it and the vacuum begins to run, sucking the plastic to the mold and forming a part.  It then cools for the required amount of time, comes off the mold and out of the machine, where our machine operators take it out of the clamp frame and route it, drill it, cut it, etc. depending on the specifications of the part being made.  It is then stacked on a pallet and shipped out to our customer.  


Without getting too far into detail and completely losing you here... I digress.


Over the last couple months we have been extremely busy with a custom project.  We were contacted by an advertising agency, who was working with a health care company, who in turn is placing this product in one of those very well known discount department stores (think the competition of Target), asking us if we could make a kiosk for them. We generally don't do assembly as a whole... we run the parts and, as mentioned above, route, drill, etc. ... but not actually assemble; that is what this company needed us to do.  Matrix generally runs one shift and we generally have about 11 employees.  For this project we were, at one point, running 3 shifts (which means 24 hours a day people were working this), and had up to 20 employees.  It was a crazy mess of chaos around the entire building.  We were making upward of 900 Kiosks for this company (Hundreds of Thousands of dollars in invoices for these things)!!  In all, we formed around 22 pieces out of plastic for one kiosk, then assembled each piece together, then assembled the kiosk in whole, which included adding the customer supplied parts and boxing it for shipping.  We hand loaded each kiosk into a truck to be taken to a different warehouse and stored until they were ready to be delivered to those discount department stores.  


We've never really had critical deadlines at my job... generally speaking we make a couple hundred parts for any of our customers and have a day or two give with a due date.  This project had to be done and all of those kiosks had to be out our door by Monday, October 27th, 2008.  We met the deadline!  


Here is a picture of the finished kiosk in the store ready to be used: 

The chairs were provided along with the signs, brochures, and a few other little parts.  It's a pretty neat little thing; the top and the front of the Kiosk open up to store the signs and chairs, the table you see folds down so it is flush with the side.  When all is said and done this Kiosk is completely portable as one little box!

Things are finally getting back to normal around work.  We just ended our 3rd shift (which was 10p-7a), we're back down to a manageable number of employees, and we've made all the Kiosks we have to make... for now.  There is rumored to be another order in the making, hopefully the deadline won't be as crucial, and we are in the process of quoting another kiosk type project for them.  So, for a small company in an economic crisis, we are extremely busy!

It's nice to have the job security, but those crazy times make it hard.

Anyhow - a small glimpse into what my company does, I work in the office; my job is to do whatever it takes to get the machine operators everything they need to do their job, along with some other things like AP, AR, Payroll, etc.  This project was one of those things that you can't wait for it to be over, but it's so huge for our company that you also want to remember it.  I'm posting this blog not only to give those reading some background on what I do, but so that I can remember it for years to come.