Well I went basically from house husband to very Part-time worker to extremely busy person. Our (my aunt and uncle in law) moved into an area of PA pretty close to us and I have offered my services to assist them in anyway needed basically on my days off from Best Buy which has really picked up due to the holiday shopping season (I guess it is the "play-offs of retail"). So I am working 30-40 hours a week right now and then putting in at least 1 or 2 days (10-4ish) on my day or days off. It has been great making some extra money especially during the holiday season, making gifts not have such a big impact and actually adding to savings instead of pulling from it. In the midst of all of this I have also gotten all of my Christmas shopping done, presents are wrapped, only thing left to do is mail out a couple of things. On the tippy top of all of that my computer finally started dying again so I decided it was time to move on and I purchased a new one. I got to use my employee discount and got a printer too (we hadn't had one in over a year) so a pretty good deal. I have also developed a sweet Elmo impression. We got our Christmas tree, a nice little 5 or 6 footer from Lowe's for $16! So that is a quickie little update on where I have been, there was almost a week where I literally couldn't (because of time and computer issues) write so sorry if you have missed me!
Upcoming things:
Last week of Christmas shopping for work so that will be busy.
HUGE possible snow storm coming...20+ inches potentially Saturday.
More days helping out at Aunt and Uncle's after Christmas.
Once things calm down again I should be able to get back into the blog, especially now that I have a functioning computer!
P.S. Windows 7 review will be coming soon
Christmas travels and fun times.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Leftovers
One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is the leftovers! I have found 2 delicious things to do so far this year:
Left over turkey
Honey Mustard
Onions
Saute in a pan
Toast a nice piece of pumpernickel bread (or other nice piece of bread)
Add cheese to turkey (shredded)
Once melted place on toasted bread
Eat as a sandwich or open faced
Add a little extra honey mustard depending on how dry your turkey is
Last night the wife came up with a Turkey Corn Chowder idea that was fantastic and simple.
Basically combine:
Turkey
Can of Cream of Celery Soup
Milk
Picante Salsa
Corn
Just heat it up! We also added mushrooms but you could add some onions or anything really. It was really nice, a little kick from the salsa and crunch from the corn.
My favorite thing to do (which we couldn't do this year) is the Thanksgiving Sandwich:
Turkey
Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Gravy
2 nice slices of hearty bread and you are good to go! We didn't keep our gravy and didn't make cranberry sauce annnnnnd I may have eaten the rest of the stuffing :)
Left over turkey
Honey Mustard
Onions
Saute in a pan
Toast a nice piece of pumpernickel bread (or other nice piece of bread)
Add cheese to turkey (shredded)
Once melted place on toasted bread
Eat as a sandwich or open faced
Add a little extra honey mustard depending on how dry your turkey is
Last night the wife came up with a Turkey Corn Chowder idea that was fantastic and simple.
Basically combine:
Turkey
Can of Cream of Celery Soup
Milk
Picante Salsa
Corn
Just heat it up! We also added mushrooms but you could add some onions or anything really. It was really nice, a little kick from the salsa and crunch from the corn.
My favorite thing to do (which we couldn't do this year) is the Thanksgiving Sandwich:
Turkey
Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Gravy
2 nice slices of hearty bread and you are good to go! We didn't keep our gravy and didn't make cranberry sauce annnnnnd I may have eaten the rest of the stuffing :)
50 States Game
We watched all of the Friends Thanksgiving episodes after the parade, which included the one where Ross wants to play the game where you have to make a list of all 50 states in 6 minutes...sounds easy right? Well I thought so and felt pretty confident and we tried it. Ross is exactly correct by saying you always forget 1 or 2, I had 49 by 5 minutes left and couldn't figure out the last one so as I tried to visualize and go back over all of them I found that I missed West Virginia with about 15 seconds left on the clock. I think you should try it, it is fun and a little bit exciting!
My First Black Friday
As mentioned in the last post, this was my first black friday as an employee. I actually had a pretty positive experience, which surprised me from how unorganized the job has seemed so far. It basically was just a normal day with A LOT more people, but we had a lot more people to help so it evened out. The nice thing was that all the "doorbuster" items were taken before we opened due to a ticketing system, so all we had to worry about was selling the regular computer line (for the most part) because nothing else was on sale!
What I found most amazing was that I guess it marks the first day of people coming out who are actually willing to spend money, the week or so before we had person after person "just looking" but on Friday it wasn't a big deal that nothing was on sale, they were ready! I guess they were probably waiting but figured if it wasn't on sale black friday it wouldn't be on sale ever. There should be a shift now in the just looking policy where people will be ready (for about 4 weeks) to buy buy buy.
This should be my last and only black friday, if you have read other posts about my seasonal job you realize that for now I don't think I'll be going past "seasonal" and don't expect to do it next year. It is nice to have the money but the seasonal aspect just kills all planning for the holiday season, making it even more stressful than normal.
What I found most amazing was that I guess it marks the first day of people coming out who are actually willing to spend money, the week or so before we had person after person "just looking" but on Friday it wasn't a big deal that nothing was on sale, they were ready! I guess they were probably waiting but figured if it wasn't on sale black friday it wouldn't be on sale ever. There should be a shift now in the just looking policy where people will be ready (for about 4 weeks) to buy buy buy.
This should be my last and only black friday, if you have read other posts about my seasonal job you realize that for now I don't think I'll be going past "seasonal" and don't expect to do it next year. It is nice to have the money but the seasonal aspect just kills all planning for the holiday season, making it even more stressful than normal.
Thanksgiving Dinner
It was our first Thanksgiving "on our own" and we did a pretty good job! The menu included:
Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Left Over Pumpkin Bars (from a previous dinner)
Since we did the parade my stipulation was that we would take dinner kind of easy because we wouldn't have as much time to concentrate on cooking things. The stuffing, green beans and dessert were all basically simple and we each had our own things to concentrate on (turkey for me and the potatoes for her). It all ended up pretty good but of course things didn't go exactly as planned. The turkey cooking time ended up being about an hour shorter than expected, so we had to rush the sides and actually ended up eating and finishing the dishes by the time we originally planned to start eating.
The only downfall to our dinner was that the eating portion of the night was pretty short, the typical 15 minute dinner time, since we didn't have a bunch of people we didn't have the normal sit around and chat about all sorts of stuff time. About 4 hours of cooking for 15 minutes of eating and then clean up time. So for a meal like that it was just strange since we are both used to having the big dinners (and for the last couple of years 2 different dinners). Due to my taking the seasonal job we couldn't really go home because I had to work (black friday) at 4 am the next morning, so that is the only reason why we couldn't celebrate with other family...I don't plan on having to work black friday next year!
Thanks to my brother who put his turkey in about 10 minutes earlier than we did for notifying us that his was done super early, otherwise we might have over cooked the crap out of it.
Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Left Over Pumpkin Bars (from a previous dinner)
Since we did the parade my stipulation was that we would take dinner kind of easy because we wouldn't have as much time to concentrate on cooking things. The stuffing, green beans and dessert were all basically simple and we each had our own things to concentrate on (turkey for me and the potatoes for her). It all ended up pretty good but of course things didn't go exactly as planned. The turkey cooking time ended up being about an hour shorter than expected, so we had to rush the sides and actually ended up eating and finishing the dishes by the time we originally planned to start eating.
The only downfall to our dinner was that the eating portion of the night was pretty short, the typical 15 minute dinner time, since we didn't have a bunch of people we didn't have the normal sit around and chat about all sorts of stuff time. About 4 hours of cooking for 15 minutes of eating and then clean up time. So for a meal like that it was just strange since we are both used to having the big dinners (and for the last couple of years 2 different dinners). Due to my taking the seasonal job we couldn't really go home because I had to work (black friday) at 4 am the next morning, so that is the only reason why we couldn't celebrate with other family...I don't plan on having to work black friday next year!
Thanks to my brother who put his turkey in about 10 minutes earlier than we did for notifying us that his was done super early, otherwise we might have over cooked the crap out of it.
I wanted to poop in a tuba
We went into the city to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I am not much of a parade person so in my usual form when I go some where I am not typically thrilled to be I pick out things to make fun of (either the things themselves or by making things up). So during the parade there were High School bands marching and I thought it would be extremely disgusting (and probably funny) if you were to poop in one of the tubas and then see what happened when it was played! I also found that there is a "position" in the marching band which when moving basically has to clinch there butt cheeks as tight as possible and hold there hands at a weird angle at their sides. I did discover later that those people did some amount of conducting but while moving it was CLINCH and MARCH!
The parade had floats with "celebrities" and of course the balloons. Now these balloons were (to me) disappointingly small. I was hoping for some giant beastly balloons but they weren't really too big, some of them were just being blown up by little air machines and sitting on a big cart with wheels instead of flying on helium. The celebrities ranged from some chick from American Idol (who didn't win), the weather guy from Good Morning America and some former Miss America (and many others who were equally "famous").
The only other thing I was curious of was the clowns. There were a couple large groups of clowns including Shriners, that I have to assume were drunk. To be up that early acting like a clown (a poorly dressed clown) you had to have been drinking. I actually decided that I would be more OK with the clowns being drunk (because they weren't great) than them being like that and sober...so in my mind it was funny that they could be drunk that early in the morning!
We might try the Macy's Parade next year, but my stipulation on that is that there is no way we would be making a Thanksgiving Day dinner AND doing that.
The parade had floats with "celebrities" and of course the balloons. Now these balloons were (to me) disappointingly small. I was hoping for some giant beastly balloons but they weren't really too big, some of them were just being blown up by little air machines and sitting on a big cart with wheels instead of flying on helium. The celebrities ranged from some chick from American Idol (who didn't win), the weather guy from Good Morning America and some former Miss America (and many others who were equally "famous").
The only other thing I was curious of was the clowns. There were a couple large groups of clowns including Shriners, that I have to assume were drunk. To be up that early acting like a clown (a poorly dressed clown) you had to have been drinking. I actually decided that I would be more OK with the clowns being drunk (because they weren't great) than them being like that and sober...so in my mind it was funny that they could be drunk that early in the morning!
We might try the Macy's Parade next year, but my stipulation on that is that there is no way we would be making a Thanksgiving Day dinner AND doing that.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Saga Continues....Job Update
Just as I start to think this thing might be turning around I get hit with one of my biggest pet peeves. I was finally given the "blue shirt" which means I am official and mostly done training (for this store it means I have worked there for 3 or so weeks) and an official name tag. I was even given some compliments from some of the management (no big surprise).
And then it went back to square one...
I worked until 4pm (ended up staying til almost 5pm) and then wasn't scheduled to work until Monday morning. I get a call at 2:15 pm Sunday afternoon asking why I wasn't at work? My response: I wasn't scheduled to work today. "Well you are on the schedule now." I wasn't on the schedule when I left work Friday, so someone must have changed something and not told me. "Oh, well can you come in?" Long story short, SOMEONE changed my schedule and NO ONE called me, which is just basic management 101! If you change someone's schedule you should give the courtesy of 1. calling them to see if they can work the shift and 2. if you aren't going to do #1 then you have to call them and tell them it is changed. So when I worked Monday and saw my "supervisor" I asked if he made that change and he didn't really answer but instead asked if any of the rest of my shifts had changed (NO) no apology (not even sure if it was him but I would assume so). If you know me you know I don't miss work, and in this case there was no option for me and I ended up going in (this is the last favor for them).
Tonight I am scheduled (with no overlap of the last person scheduled) to close by myself. Guess what? NO ONE TRAINED ME HOW TO CLOSE, and there are usually 2 closers anyway. So while I attempted to let a manager know and get something fixed about it I ended up working off the clock because someone asked me for help for another 45 minutes and when I was done with her there was no update. So tonight will suck, and since no one wanted to do me a favor then I guess I won't help anyone else out.
My opinions on staying past "seasonal" are back to not staying, I just can't put up with the lazy management style and completely unorganized nature this place has. It isn't worth the hassle for the time, I am still open to it but they really have to prove themselves now.
On an exciting note I applied for a job with the Philadelphia Art Museum, really really interested in it. I will keep you updated if I hear anything about that.
And then it went back to square one...
I worked until 4pm (ended up staying til almost 5pm) and then wasn't scheduled to work until Monday morning. I get a call at 2:15 pm Sunday afternoon asking why I wasn't at work? My response: I wasn't scheduled to work today. "Well you are on the schedule now." I wasn't on the schedule when I left work Friday, so someone must have changed something and not told me. "Oh, well can you come in?" Long story short, SOMEONE changed my schedule and NO ONE called me, which is just basic management 101! If you change someone's schedule you should give the courtesy of 1. calling them to see if they can work the shift and 2. if you aren't going to do #1 then you have to call them and tell them it is changed. So when I worked Monday and saw my "supervisor" I asked if he made that change and he didn't really answer but instead asked if any of the rest of my shifts had changed (NO) no apology (not even sure if it was him but I would assume so). If you know me you know I don't miss work, and in this case there was no option for me and I ended up going in (this is the last favor for them).
Tonight I am scheduled (with no overlap of the last person scheduled) to close by myself. Guess what? NO ONE TRAINED ME HOW TO CLOSE, and there are usually 2 closers anyway. So while I attempted to let a manager know and get something fixed about it I ended up working off the clock because someone asked me for help for another 45 minutes and when I was done with her there was no update. So tonight will suck, and since no one wanted to do me a favor then I guess I won't help anyone else out.
My opinions on staying past "seasonal" are back to not staying, I just can't put up with the lazy management style and completely unorganized nature this place has. It isn't worth the hassle for the time, I am still open to it but they really have to prove themselves now.
On an exciting note I applied for a job with the Philadelphia Art Museum, really really interested in it. I will keep you updated if I hear anything about that.
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