Tuesday, August 31, 2010

a little whining

So.

When I had a Livejournal account many moons ago, I always started out my posts with "so". I can never thing of a way to start entries. Also, when I look back on those posts, this blog, even written journals, it is filled with I's. I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me. That's totally okay, it's a blog. Even though I have an awful headache, I felt the need to update this beast. Mostly because things are changing, my thought process is changing, work is changing, and hopefully soon will can get the ball rolling on a whole life change.

Let's talk about work first. I am miserable there basically. I hate to say that because it has always been so important to me, enjoying my job. I always said that the day it was not fun, I would quit. This was also a time that I never imagined I would be working there for more than a couple of years. Almost 10 years later and I am still asking "would you like whipped cream on that?". Yeash. The thing about this particular store is how much I absolutely cannot tolerate regular customers. Everywhere else, those people are your saving grace. People you get to know, people you like, people you can joke with, people that make it worthwhile. Here, I honestly have not made more than 2 or 3 personal connections that are honest and real. That is really pretty sad seeing as how we see hundred of people a day and most of those people we see every single day. I don't know their names. There is something about this store that brings in the most insufferable crowd. I hate to say that because the tips are somehow amazing and the hardest part of my job is people pleasing, I should not complain at all. There are people here that bring me to the edge of a rage stroke every day. I am not sure why it is so different, it just is. Maybe because it is a moneyed town. All I know is that I am ready to move on. I have thought of my job as my comfort zone for so many years so when I say enough is enough, it is pretty extreme. I know that all jobs are filled with stress, I just want stress in a different setting. same shit, different outfit.

That pretty much factors into why my whole thought process and life outlook is changing. I hate to say this but when I was younger it was almost as if stuff just happened when I needed it to. When I needed a job, I went to a place or 2 and BOOM, job. I would not have gotten it had it not been the holiday rush to be honest but it happened none the less. I wanted to move up in the company, I moved up a tiny bit. This wasn't a situation of "if you put your mind to it and work really hard you will get what you want". Right place, right time, position offered, I accepted, and it was good. Moved. The opportunity to move up again, took it. Easy peasy. Want an apartment? There it is! Want a boyfriend that you actually like? There he is! Things just happened in my favor. I am not saying I am lucky by any means. Trust me when I say that things were not awesome. Trying to learn to manage a remote store with all new people, not really knowing what the hell I was doing was not fun. Trying to live on my own when I kind of didn't know how to run my life was not fun. Being in a long distance relationship was not fun. The point I am trying to make I guess is that my way of thinking is very skewed by being so fortunate in the past. I was able to move up so quickly and easily at work because it was a time when the company was absolutely booming and could not build stores fast enough to fill the "need". The "land of milk and honey" days. I was able to find a nice, cheap apartment because it was the middle of nowhere and of course it is going to be cheap and easy to find! No work was ever involved in finding a place so in my mind, it would always be that easy to find a 10 ft ceiling, 2 bedroom apt for 300 bucks because that was all that I knew. When I decided to transfer to Asheville, I honestly thought that it would be so easy for me to move up. I told my district manager my plan for transferring and he warned me of cuts happening across the board. Stores closing. I moved and had to go back to the bottom of the ladder. I honestly thought I would work a few weeks, get supervisor, few more weeks ASM, before the year was out I would have a store. Yeah right! I didn't even get placed in a store for over a month! Everyone looking for that spot to move up and they had been waiting forever. Depressing. Even more so when the pay cap was put into place and I had to take a pay cut and say goodbye to any raises. it has been 3 years since I have had a raise. Personally, I lost any motivation to move up after about a year. I do feel like I failed in a sense. Still at the beginning after all these years.

I am learning that nothing is going to just fall into my lap. It is a really hard lesson for a lazy, apathetic, and unmotivated person such as myself. I am whining, totally aware of that.

ugh, I didn't mean to go off into that direction when I started this post. What I meant to say was that we have new people at work that are changing the whole dynamic of the place, a lot of people I work with that I just love love love are cutting down to practically nothing because of other (better) jobs and I will not see them as much. I will only see the people I am indifferent towards. Oh goodness, I sound like a complete jerk. Honestly, I just need to vent and this is the most convenient place to get it all out.

So. Life. I am putting a little organization station together in my head that will hopefully get the little things in place so that we can work on the big things. If that makes any sense. Really it all goes back to organization and follow through and the 2 of us are the worst at both. The end. This paragraph makes no sense. The Excedrin migraine is kicking in and I feel like I just had a ton of coffee. I did have a lot of coffee today. The addition of the excedrin is just bonus caffeine. FUN!

Let's talk about something that is a little more fun. On the subject of setting goals and follow through, I am trying a little experiment, just so I can really put myself in situations of having that deadline and really kicking its ass. I am going to put together a few goals, maybe in list form, some small, some large and a time frame to complete said goals. Some of these ideas swirling around in my head kind of sound like one of those "30 before 30" lists but I seriously don't want to get into that boat. That would just be a big cluster mess of awful. I just want to constantly have something to work towards. The first is going to start and end tomorrow when I go get my license renewed. Easy. The next will also end tomorrow with the completion of another quilt top. honestly, I am over pressuring myself to finish and entire quilt from cutting to binding. I feel like if I wait till I have the money to get the batting, backing, and binding, I am limiting myself. I would rather have a few tops waiting to be finished than have ideas swirling in my head that I can't cut and sew because I have to wait till I finish one that is already started. I say this after I wrote a whole paragraph about not accomplishing goals, I totally get that. Shut up.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

here's a bad picture or 2







I started this one a few days ago. I have a stack of near perfect black, gray, yellow, red, etc. blocks that are ready to be triagularized (real word) on the side that I will get to someday but the scraps from said squares inspired these wonky, buggy, strange blocks that I love love love and want to focus on for a little bit.







This one I put together for Justine's baby girl, Evelyn Rae from a top I had just finished.