Plants and flowers and jobs and costume jewelry, oh my

Ah, my first day off in six days. You must realize that even before I was a bum for a year, I was a M-F/9-5 kinda gal for my entire work life. Thus, even working until 6 or 7pm is kind of weird. Working on weekend days is still rather hard to grasp. At any rate, I'm off today and it is kind of blissful, particularly since Steve is off too. First off we headed to an estate sale in the county, with a stop for a misto and a visit with an occasional co-worker. The sale was in a -century modern subdivision that was even better than usual -- it was quite hilly so the houses were seldom on the same level as their neighbors, affording each more privacy. There wasn't a whole lot of interest in the house, but I did get a handful of costume jewelry, a funny photo and the cutest mini TV tray. Here's all the loot on the tray. Should I paint/decorate the tray or leave it in its 'shabby chic' (I really hate that term but it's all I got) state?

Here are close ups of some of the jewelry. I probably wouldn't ever wear these leaf motif earrings, but I was thinking they might each make a cool pendant. The triple blue stone earrings are quite pretty and seem to be good quality. The sword is a swanky cool tie bar. I'm gonna have to think of a cute way to wear it with a scarf or something.


The glorious rain of the past few days has made all my plants very, very happy since I'm not the best waterer in the world. It is a flowery time at our house and I couldn't be happier. I took a bunch of pictures this afternoon, so you get to see 'em. Remember the wee coleus babies? They're growing up into such lovely adolescents!

Even though the rose of sharon births hundreds of annoying volunteer plants every year, I still fall in love with its flowers when they appear. So pretty and tropical.

Combine it with a vibrant orange tiger lily and it's almost too much beauty at one time.

Speaking of the tiger lilies, check out this one:

My blue bellflowers are almost spent as the brown-eyed susans are just beginning.

The hearty hibiscus bush is about six feet tall this year and loaded with buds. Each of these buds will produce a giant, dessert plate-sized hot pink flower. When our iguana, Mitch, was alive, he loved nothing better than to gulp down these flowers. It was his favorite treat.

And last but not least, the herbs continue to grow (I tucked a little coleus seedling in that herb pot and it finally has started to grow!). It is time to pluck a bunch of that basil and freeze some pesto.

So how is work going, you ask? Pretty good. In basically my fourth week of work I've been promoted and gotten a raise, so I don't have much to complain about. It's going to be a totally new experience supervising people, but it seems to be coming rather naturally. We'll see! I just hope I can do it in a way that helps people like and respect me. I know it's possible because I've had those kind of supervisors already. But I've also had another kind that I'd rather not be. It's a delicate balance, I guess. Tomorrow I start work at 5:30am! Is that crazy talk or what?

Tomatoes!

Allison sent me a photo of my tomato plant growing in her garden. Why is Allison growing "my" tomatoes? Because she was kind enough to offer her plentiful sunshine and green thumb to the service of homegrown tomatoes (one of the best foods ever, by the way). So check out this monster of a plant. It is loaded with green fruit. I can only hold my breath till they turn green (and pray that Maggie the dog chases away all the evil squirrels).


In other news, the job is going okay -- there's just so much of it. To be thrown into full time labor after a year of loafing is kind of shocking to my system. All of my other functions are shutting down for the time being. I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed and unfocused towards anything else so I have a sub for my radio show this week and I decided to bail on selling at the Tower Grove Farmers Market this Saturday. Saturday is my one day off in eight days -- even when I worked full time I never worked that many days in a row -- so I need a break and a day with no responsibilities.

What a difference a day (or two) makes

Yesterday was my first shift at my temporary (until October) work home and I was nervous, of course. The store (open only for its fifth day) was super busy inside and on the drive through. The manager barely had time to say anything other than "Hi! Can you bar for me?" and for the next hour and a half I didn't stop making drinks for more than a minute or two at a time. The store manager was totally supportive and encouraging, telling me how glad she was to have me and how great I was doing. Whew, it was nice not to be the 'new moron' any more. Best of all, most everyone else working thought I was a veteran and even deferred to me a few times about how to make stuff! So, all my stress about doing things right and all my sleepness night hours worrying about how many shots and pumps the various drinks have has paid off. This is such a weight off my shoulders. I suppose I have to thank my coaches who hovered, making sure I was doing things right, no matter how much it bugged me while it was happening.

Of course, I don't get to rest on my [meager] laurels for long. Tomorrow I start training to be a shift manager and once again I'm at the bottom of the learning curve.

And it doesn’t really matter if I’m wrong I’m right/Where I belong I’m right/Where I belong

Two things worth noting today (I actually first typed "Two things worth nothing today" -- Freudian slip? ).

First, I was certified as an official barista yesterday so all espresso drinks I serve are now for reals. Ha! to all you suckers who got my "trainee" drinks. I also found out that I will be moving to a University City location until my store is built and open (which will not be until October, unfortunately). I can live with this, particularly since this UCity store just opened a couple days ago -- I won't be much newer than anyone else and I'm not coming in as a trainee, thank goodness. So no hazing by passive-agressive co-workers and I'm staying long enough for people to bother to get to know me. If you're in the area and need some caffeine, come see me at the intersection of North & South and Delmar sometime!

Second, I got an email yesterday from Subterranean Books telling me what I've sold there so far. I put some items on consignment after the last Rock & Roll Craft Show and hadn't really thought much more of it. It's my only retail location but I kind of neglected what I was doing there. Anyway, it turns out I've sold about $115 worth of stuff which netted me around $70. The coolest thing is that Kelly, who masterminds the indie crafts there (plus much else, I'm thinking) told me that out of town bands wandering down Delmar from the Pageant have bought a bunch of my paper cut-out guitar cards. How incredibly cool is that? I totally thought musicians would like them, but they hadn't gone over that great at the fairs.


My point is that, well, a little encouragement (in the form of people actually buying my stuff) goes a long way towards making me feel like I should keep this business up. Not that I don't get emotional satisfaction from creating things, because I certainly do, but I kind of need the financial reward in order to keep sinking a lot of time and effort into the process. So, I'm not done yet.

So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for yooooouuuu

While my working conditions improved tenfold as the week progressed, I'm still quite unsure of where I'll be after my hours today. I have nothing scheduled, nor do I know in what location I might be working. It has been proposed that I stay where I am and start training to be a shift manager. I'm all for this advancement, but it sure would be nice to just exist a bit, post-training, and assert myself in the store so that I'm perceived as something else than a trainee to kick around. I have definitely been at the mercy of the whims of a few co-workers this week and, yeah, I could do without that for just a bit. But I guess I have to take an opportunity when it's offered. At least I've finally gotten paid.

What else is going on? In my misery of last Monday I neglected to mention the fun birthday party for Matt R. last Saturday. We stayed out until almost 3:00 a.m. -- that hasn't happened in months. It was so nice to be able to hang with our friend Amanda, who we don't see nearly often enough these days, plus everyone else there. And Allison, as always, is the most amusing drunk. "Hell yeah, I'm having another gin and tonic!"

Am I using the existence of a job as an excuse to ignore my crafty/entrepreneurial life? Or am I legitimately preoccupied? It's hard to say. I have a show coming up on June 30 but I haven't done a thing new for it. Part of that is that I have just about EVERYTHING I frantically made for Gypsy Caravan so I don't need more inventory. It's also partly that I'm just not feeling creative. Now, if someone wanted to cut endless strips of fabric for me, I'd love to keep making rag rugs. Since the process of cutting the strips is way longer than the process of crocheting the actual rugs, I sort of burnt out on that pretty fast. I do not often enjoy projects that require a lot of preparation. Am I going to use working as an excuse to give it all up? I feel there's the potential for that happening, but I suppose since I'm aware of it, a part of me doesn't want to give it up completely. We'll see if I'm able to get my shit together enough to decide if I want to be part of a show in August. That might be the litmus test.

I'm taking what they're giving 'cause I'm working for a livin'

I thought yesterday would be bad because I went to work with a bit of a hangover and not enough sleep. Surprisingly, things went pretty smoothly even though I was tired. I thought today would be cake. I was wrong. The fact that I'm training at a store I'm not going to end up in has something to do with it, I think, because no one there really cares as they won't have to deal with me after a certain time. Today it wasn't clear who was my coach nor did I have a clue who was working as the floor manager since everyone on the floor except for a trainee works in that position at one time or another. Because I don't know who the boss is today, I'm a little befuddled right from the start. Then the person who (for the moment anyway) is helping me, is hovering nervously, commenting on nearly every movement I make. Which makes me do stuff wrong, slow or both. Then another person (who has been my boss the last couple of shifts) asks me to get something for her that's not specifically what I'm training on. I have the time so I do it. When I'm done the person who is apparently the floor manager today gives me a little lecture about how I wasn't supposed to leave my station. Are you fucking kidding me?

On top of everything else, it's pretty clear that there's something going on that has everyone on edge. I really don't know what it is, but it involves cutting hours and staffing and who knows what else. So, there's a tension in the air. Unhappily, I am very sensitive to the currents of unrest and tension so I pick up on it and I'm doubly stressed. For about the millionth time in my life, I fervently wish I was not such an empath. While it can come in handy in my personal life, in the workplace it's nothing but a gigantic pain in the ass. I'm trying to do my job and mostly everyone is fine, but these waves of pissed off feelings are in the air and I'm fighting back tears because I'm feeling so overwhelmed. Unfortunately for me, once the tears come to the forefront, my face turns red, even if I can hold back the tears. No one said anything though, so perhaps no one noticed.

Then I find out that I don't even know where I'm going to be next week. Let me tell you, I am NOT cut out for meeting whole new crews of people every couple weeks. This is taking just about every bit of energy I have. I feel like I can never get into any kind of a rhythm and I'll always be the new girl/interloper who's not hanging around to be worth getting to know.

And to top everything off, I haven't even gotten a fucking check yet. Haven't even seen a financial reward for all this mess.

I need a lottery ticket. Let me clarify: A winning lottery ticket.

I'm talkin' about a bag of chips youknowhatI'msayin' dog? I don't think you do

On my way home from work I decided to stop by the library. Because I'm totally lazy and because we have piles and piles of books in our house stacked in no particular order, I wanted to check "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" out of the library to re-read because I didn't want to take the time to find my own copy. Alas, all the Carpenter Branch copies were checked out (which actually made me happy that they're all being read). Stymied in my search for Harry Potter, I headed over to the SciFi section and pulled out a couple of Philip K. Dick novels I haven't read yet (Galactic Pot-Healer and The Crack in Space, fyi) instead. I am currently reading Memoirs of a Geisha but, and I apologize to you Allison, I'm really kind of hating it. Anyway, I wanted books that I know I would enjoy. I will finish Memoirs, but I needed something else for the time being.

After the library I thought I'd stop at Jay's for some dinner ingredients. It occurred to me that cold peanut-sesame noodles would be really good for dinner tonight, particularly since dinner will be after 9:30p when Steve gets home. I could make them in advance and they'd be ready to go when I wanted 'em. Plus, they taste really good. I got the fresh noodles and some green onions and lime for the sauce and went searching for a snack. I wanted something crunchy and salty and Jay's has a good number of things in that category. However, many many many of these things have fish in them (e.g. prawn chips and fish crackers) and I'm just not down with that. I briefly considered the Latin chicharrones (pork rinds) but decided that was kind of gross, even though they had that weird resurgence when Atkins was so huge and they were considered a good carb-free snack. I spotted a bag of honey-coated banana chips but that seemed way more sweet than my craving desired. I then saw a stack of bright green bags labelel "Tropical Chips." A closer look revealed that they were crispy, salted plaintain chips. I thought I'd like them but I did not anticipate just how delicious they were!

Thin and quite crisp with just the teeeeeeeensiest hint of that banana flavor plaintains have, these chips are fantastic. Like great potato chips, but slightly sweeter and with a different texture much like sweet potato chips. Highly recommended!

Oh, and Lydia the tortie avidly ate piece after piece of chip, a rather unusual thing. So they're a cat treat too!

New Shoes!

It's pretty sad when my shoe buying hiatus has been so prolonged that I'm excited about a couple of pairs of shoes I had to buy for work. C'est la vie -- I'll take my excitement where I can get it, I suppose. As I had to drive right past the Creve Coeur Skechers store (and stop at the Trader Joe's right next door) for a work-related training, it seemed silly to not take a look, at least. Perusing the selection in the front of the store did not convince me I wanted to spend even $30 on these shoes. I just didn't like any of them. The "work safe" selection was and expensive. I made my way back to the clearance shelves and found a couple of pairs that I actually liked. Not only that, but they were marked $19.97. Score! Then, I noticed the sign saying all these shoes were 50% off the last marked price. Double score! Two pairs of leather Skechers that I don't hate for $21 and change. So perhaps I'm happier at the bargain I got rather than the shoes themselves. Whatever. They're comfy and have nice arch support. Here they are. And it seems that Olive would like her own blog as she keeps inserting herself into my pictures.