The Big Employment News

I have worked two shifts already. The first shift, I trained on the register. Today, I trained on the sales floor.

The orientation and training so far have been outstanding. They've clearly communicated expectations and set forth the basics of this store's culture in the orientation, and my training for actual tasks and jobs has been good. The people I've trained with have not only taught me how to do what needs to be done, but have also explained the why of how we do what needs to be done. I really appreciate that! It helps me learn, and by gum I'm determined to succeed at this job!

I see a lot more people I know at this store than I do at my previous job at Mia Cucina. I also see a lot more people I know at this store than at my very first retail job. It's something about the demographic.

I am so, so thankful to be working! Remind me to never, ever complain! (I worked near a Super Complainer today and it was so unflattering to her and such a downer for everyone near her.) And besides, I have nothing to complain about.

Anyway...so far, so good.

Saturday Chores: 5:17pm

Accomplished:
~vacuumed all the moldings (eeew)
~vacuumed behind the dryer, while I had the vacuum out
~mixed two cake mixes, and made 2 doz. chocolate/vanilla marble cupcakes
~2 layers of a chocolate/vanilla marble cake ready to be baked

Saturday Chores: 3:06pm

Accomplished:

~Both beds made up
~All sheets organized
~Load of whites in dryer
~Curtains and tablecloth out of dryer
~Tablecloth back on table
~Curtains to be put up after I vacuum the cobwebs from the moldings
~Nearly all dishes washed
~Lunch eaten (with Ian)

To do:
~Iron
~Vacuum Cobwebs
~Put curtains back
~Fold laundry (several loads!)
~and more

Saturday Chores: 1:41pm

This time, I did some Daily Chores before I started the timer for my Fifteen Minutes:
~Set a sinkful of dishes to soak. (In order to do this, I emptied a sinkful of dishclutter, scatter it with baking soda, scrubbed it out, rinsed it out, and filled it with hot water, soap, silverware, and glasses.)
~Started the washing machine. I have to wash my new red shirt for work on Monday*, and I don't want it to bleed into all my clothes, so I...took down my red curtains and took off my red tablecloth which are all verrrrrry dusty(!) to wash together.

Then I started my timer and began my Fifteen Minutes of Work to chip away at the Guest Bedroom Quest:
~Finished organizing all my sheet sets. I have a set of Queen sheets, two sets of Full sheets (one of which is on the Full bed), two sets of Twin sheets (one of which is on the Twin bed**), a flat sheet and two pillowcases for a Twin bed, and a set of flat and fitted sheets (no pillowcases) only for a Twin bed.
~Put all these organized sheets into the Linen Cabinet.
~Made up the Full bed, but have yet to pillow it up.

In the rest of this break (which is long, because this post is long), I am going to do the following:
~have a glass of water (I'm verrrry thirsty!)
~check the washer
~wash the dishes and set more to soak
~and then get back to my Guest Bedroom Quest using my Fifteen Minutes at a Time Strategy.

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*More about 'work on Monday' later!
**This is the very Twin bed that was mine in my single days. Yes, I moved from a Twin bed to a King bed when I married. Some of my friends slept in Full or Queen beds when they were single-but-not-at-home-anymore, but I decided not to. I never wanted to become accustomed to sleeping in the middle of a large bed ('hogging' the bed) before I was married. Anyway, we still have this Twin bed, even though Ian and I sleep in a King bed now.

Saturday Chores: 1:09pm

Accomplished in the last 15 minutes:

~made up twin bed
~found pillow, put two pillowcases on it (because its tick is cheap and plasticky which is uncomfortable throughout the night)
~pulled all sheets out of linen cabinet in order to organize them
~organized my full sheet set and put components into one of the pillowcases
~went and got paint cards and safety pins, cut one of the tan paint cards off the strip, wrote "FULL" cutely on it, and safety-pinned it to the pillowcase-bag

Liveblogging my Saturday Chores: 12:40pm

I'm waaaay behind on my chores. My housecleaning is suffering!

My strategy is to work for 15 minutes at a time (a manageable time period) and then take a 5-minute break before I get back to it. I'll post during the 5-minute breaks to let you know what I've just done.

Accomplished since 12:26:
~packed one more box of Christmas decorations

Small list, I know--but I'm trying to pack things well so that next year, unpacking will be a little more streamlined.

I have 3 minutes left of my break. I'm going to look at one of the links in my link lists and see what there is to see.

Ta ta for now!

It's getting to be a habit. This is my 3rd post with nothing but linkage.

This Modesty Heart Check will be useful to me when 1) I start teaching middle schoolers again or 2) I ever have daughters.

So will this three-part series on modesty. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

I can't get out of bed in the mornings, and this list might help!

I'm going to browse through this list of organizers.

Motivation to do those chores I hate (I hate all chores, so this ought to be good).

I like this take on the marking of time.

Here's an organizer's take on setting goals.

The same organizer writes about evening routines.

Aaaand for fun: here's a dude who travels around correcting typos in public places. Hooray!

150th post...not what I intended it to be, but turning out to be a pretty good post after all.

I found the digital camera Ian won when he test-drove a car a couple years ago. I also finally found the box it comes in. So I took some snaps of the spring flowers and trees and had this wonderful post all written in my head. I was going to premiere photos (my own photos, that is) on my blog. I was going to talk about how delightful spring has been here in the South, and how the dogwoods are all blooming now, and most of the redbuds are still holding on, while the cherry blossoms are mostly done, and the pears are totally done blooming but still inspiring happiness because the bright fresh greenness of the leaves is so...so...ahhhh. The whole of spring just makes you go ahhhh, while filling your eyes and mind and memory with every day's effort and showing forth the very best of Spring.


However, when I uploaded my photos, this is what I saw:

(From left to right: view from the window where I sit and blog (those white fluffs are the neighbor's dogwoods); view from the top half of that same window; purply purple iris ; tulips (the only two around).)
Hm. [That's the sound of disappointment.]


So that terrible foe, covetousness mixed with jealousy, reared its ugly head and is threatening to ruin my day.


Here's an antidote to that insidious enemy, sin:

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me...You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything else that is your neighbor's." --Deuteronomy 20:2-3, 17 ESV*

And as more antidotes, I'll share some verses that hit me yesterday during church services. Read the footnotes for explanations.

"My mouth with speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever." --Psalm 145:21 ESV **

"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." --Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV ***

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*This command means I cannot covet others' blogs, layouts, ways with words...I cannot covet their personalities, their descriptive ability, their readership, their skill and ability. I won't covet because covetousness reflects a heart of discontent with the resources that God has given me. And after all, he has given me good gifts: the best of all, that he rescued me out of the land of slavery. I will not put any gods before the Lord, no matter how subtle.


**Caught my attention because after the psalm lists all sorts of reasons to commit to praise, the psalmist verbalizes a commitment to praise the Lord.


***Caught my attention because though I memorized Ephesians 4:32 when I was in 1st grade (we sang a song to memorize it...yay for Scripture memory for kiddoes!), I'm reading it again, seeing that in context, it's even more meaningful. The preceding verse gives the inverse of the positive command: "Don't do terrible things x and y; instead, replace that trash in your life with the good qualities a and b."

A Lovely Tea

I had tea Wednesday at a lovely tearoom (something about the Britishness of having tea makes me call it a lovely tearoom, even though I don't actually talk like that) with a new friend who's just about to graduate. She is an MK and spent a lot of her growing-up years in England, so a lovely tearoom makes her feel at-home-ey.

Anyway.

She gave me the best compliment: "I told people I was having tea with you, and I told them 'Oh, she's like my big sister.'"

Yay! I'm someone's big sister.

Psalm 98 (selection A for singing)

Oh sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The LORD has made known his salvation;
he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the
nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD!

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!
Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
before the LORD, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.

It's a good one to sing. You should try it some time.

Sabbatical

Hey, reader(s), I'm going to take a blog sabbatical. At least a week long.

Early Mornings

I'm still not a morning person. I don't like to get up, I'm not good at getting up, and those people who get up with a smile (didn't Cinderella get up with a song in her heart and a spring in her step? you know, with the birdies singing all around her?) make me a little mad.

Coffee helps. So does my husband, who gets me up ever so nicely. And he's persistent.

I have an 8:00 class at Covenant. My very first class ever (10 years ago!) was an 8 o'clock, and I remember thinking that 8:00 am was terribly early--terribly early!!!--and that the professor would understand if I nodded off during class.

Hah.

This morning I saw a classmate nodding off. Seriously, the bill of her baseball cap was resting on the desk. (That was a trick I would have pulled--wearing a baseball cap to class--if I'd had a baseball cap. I didn't, and still don't. Trust me--I'm not a hat girl, in much the same way this girl isn't a hat girl.)

Anyway, it just makes me think--these last 6 years post-college of getting up for a job have really taken the edge off that. Here are some factors that have helped:
1) The accountability of a job. People depending on you to come in--and a financial penalty if you don't come in.
2) Coffee. I should have had a coffee pot in college. Then I would not have fallen asleep in my 8 o'clocks.
3) Getting up earlier than 5 minutes before you need to. It may have been 10 years (10 years!) since my first ever 8 o'clock, but I still have the strong urge to get back into bed (oh, bed, I love you!) for an hour after I get out of bed. Plus, it takes me about 30 minutes of uprightness and consciousness to become truly alert. My brain has to shake out the last of the cobwebs.

If only I had known these things in my college days. Although, to be honest, I probably would still not have gotten my carcass out of bed in a reasonable and responsible manner.