2/20 What A Week

I don't have a clever title for you today. I'm tired. Not just sleepy tired, exhausted tired. It's been a week. And it's only Tuesday hahaha. It's been a long 7 days since my last post, let's go with that. Let's get started, shall we?

Tuesday last week I took Milo to the vet for normal routine things: heartworm test, general check up, etc. Easy, no nonsense, nothing to worry about, just super expensive as always. We set up an appointment to get him neutered for 2/19 (yesterday), and were on our way.

Wednesday I swear I was on the phone literally all day. From the second I woke up I had my phone in my hand and pressed to my ear all day. Doctor's offices, HR department, my mother, setting up job interviews, my boss, Joanns, checking voicemail from telemarketers. Lord. You name it, I had a phone call about it. I. HATE. Talking on the phone. I have horrible social anxiety as it is, and having to make a phone call to anyone other than my mother, The Boy, or my boss is enough to send me into an institution most of the time. I seriously have to rehearse and script out what I'm calling about, have a checklist in front of me of things I want to say, and make sure I'm in a closed room where no one else can hear me. By the time I had everything done I was ready to crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep I was so tired and stressed out.

Thursday I had to run the last bit of my FMLA paperwork up to my surgeon's office to have that signed so I could be released back to work on Sunday (that's a whole 'nother store you need to get ready for in a few paragraphs). Nothing too crazy on Thursday, just a matter of driving up to the hospital and back during the lunch rush. It's fine.

Friday my mother and I went out for a lunch date and to run a few errands. My parents are going on a cruise next week and she, of course, wants to have all fancy new things for it. We went and got our nails done, she got a pedicure and I went all out for a full set of acrylics (I haven't had them in legit 7 or 8 years, I'm fully on the struggle bus here). They look phenomenal, the gel polish is super shiny and I got a glitter overlay on the tips so they're REAL fancy looking. But the guy that did them did a real half ass job on them and I'm not super thrilled. Similar to my haircut experience from last week, I tried to point out the problems I was seeing and he just brushed me off. I told him they were too long for me, he said they would get filed down as he went (they didn't). I told him I didn't like how one hand looks like it's already a week grown out, he said it would look fine once the polish was on (it doesn't). I said I wanted them more almond/stiletto shaped, he flat out ignored me and said the standard roundy square shape "looks better" (personal preference dude, I say I want something and you should do that for me). After that less than thrilling experience we went to a BBQ place that's a favorite for The Boy and I (which is always amazing), then wandered up to the mall so she could get a new travel purse and wallet for the trip. Came home to the news that The Boy's mother was on her way down from up north for the weekend (she stays with her parents so not really an issue) but she was stopping by for a few on her way through town so we had to speed clean the house and make sure it was good to go. She came in for a whopping 5 minutes (no exaggeration), dropped off a box of stuff for The Boy to go through, and was on her way. Great.

Saturday was an adventure. We decided to go to Ikea for new dishes, and that was a huge mistake. The initial plan (which we've been talking about for ages by now) was to just go and get a handful of bowls that match the current set we have. He's had the same set of dishes for 8 years, they're in pretty good shape, we're just down to 5 bowls out of the 12 he started with. OF COURSE, they don't carry the same color any more. Of course. So we picked out a new set (white and shiny, they look super nice) and went on our way. As we're leaving we start heading a different direction than I expect, which I question and he informs me we're going to see his Grandparents and his mom for the afternoon. All fine and dandy, but my poor brain needs to mentally prepare for that. His brother and the brother's girlfriend are also there, we hang out for a bit and then take a quick trip to a local game store for a quick breather and so The Boy could pick out a birthday present for himself. Head back to the Grandparent's, run through the first 2 scenarios of the game (Zombie 15, it's actually really cool once you understand how to get it going), shove a quick dinner in our mouths, say our goodbyes and head home. Sounds like a relaxing afternoon after the Ikea trip, and it really should have been. I love his family to death, but everyone is very hands on especially when there's something new like a game involved and sometimes my poor brain can't handle the questions and the constant arm/head pats and the asking if I need a drink. It was a long 4 hours.

Sunday. Oh man, Sunday. Sunday was my first day back to work and OF COURSE it was a total clusterf*ck. I will never for the life of me understand why President's Day of all the dumb not real holidays is a huge shopping weekend. It starts off with finding out that HR screwed up my start back date so I'm still technically "inactve" in our systems until the 23rd, meaning I wasn't able to log into ANYTHING except our cash registers. And because it's a holiday weekend, everyone at HR is out of the offices until Tuesday (today) so there was nothing anyone could do. The store was a disaster from Saturday night, on top of being busy pretty much all day Sunday as well, and I was just way overwhelmed. By the time 7pm rolled around I was ready to run out of the store. As luck would have it as well, we're still short a key for our deposit drop box and the keys that were left for me were the set that didn't have the drop box key, so I had to swap keys with the opening manager with the promise that I would bring hers back up Monday morning because she needed them Monday night to close.

Monday morning dropped Milo off at the vet bright and early for his surgery, ran the promised keys up to the store, chatted with my boss for about 40 minutes, and came home to just chill out. I was still super on edge from work on Sunday, and as much as I told myself to not worry about Milo I was still internally freaking out because he's my baby and that's what happens. I spent the afternoon keeping myself busy getting new products ready for my Etsy shop, and doing a successful job of annoying The Boy as he had worked from home yesterday. 4pm rolls around and even though they said pickup was at 5pm I headed to the vet to see if I could grab him early. He was ready to go, so I shed a small tear over the ridiculous bill and loaded the very drugged puppy into the car and headed home. It's been almost 10 years since I've had to have a dog fixed (Radar was a rescue so she was already spayed when The Boy brought her home, and he refuses to have Bentley neutered) and while I feel bad they're in pain for a bit it's so damn hilarious watching them try to get it back together as the drugs wear off. It took him most of the night, and now (Tuesday morning) he's pretty much back to normal.

So. That's been my week. I'm off of work again today so I'm just keeping an eye on the puppy and plugging away at the samples for the Etsy shop with Milo tucked in at my feet while I try to figure out what to make for dinner. Now that I have my Pinterest almost 100% organized (seriously, so many lists! I'm in love), I'm on a mission to actually try the recipes I've saved over the years. We had stir fry last night so I think I might stay on the Asian food kick and attempt some kind of dumping/wanton type thing and see how that goes. My friend Kate has started a blog and is working her way through Chrissy Teigen's cookbook and she posted a recipe a few days ago for Crab, Cream Cheese, and Scallion Wontons that sound super tasty so that might be something I try tonight if it's not too hard to get everything together. Which goes completely against the Pinterest statement I just made, but still. It's a good concept in theory.

Have a cone of shame puppy to make your rainy Tuesday a little better.

2/13 Banana Bread and Botched Haircuts

Not really botched. But just annoying. Backstory: I'm really bad at getting haircuts. Like, I know you're supposed to go every 6 to 8 weeks. My range is usually every 6 to 8 months. That kind of bad. I've also been really bad about staying on top of dying my hair for the last 2 years or so. I put it off and put it off and put it off for months until I find myself wearing a hat every day to hide the 3 inches of new growth that doesn't even kind of match the dyed color. I've been dying it myself for what has to be going on 8 years at this point, and I'm just over it. It's a messy process, I have a LOT of hair so it always takes forever (not to mention mixing and prepping 4 boxes of dye), and it's just not an easy task. I made a very valiant effort to go out and get it taken care of yesterday, and it clearly just wasn't meant to be.

I'm not super picky about where I go to get my hair cut, I've been going to the Great Clips across the street from our house for the last few years now (which really only equates to like 5 hair cuts, but still) and I've never really had a problem before. The girl that checked me in and ultimately ended up cutting my hair was super nice, which was about the only plus. I asked when I checked in if I could have my hair both cut and colored or if I needed to make an appointment for the color and she said that both were fine, she'd cut my hair first though. She sits me down and tells me what they have in their system from the last time I was in, which of course was a solid 8 months ago but I don't really vary my hairstyle so it's the same concept, and gets started. She parts it down the middle, trims off the edges and layers it, then parts it THE WRONG WAY. I politely corrected her, and she KEPT GOING. ON PURPOSE. It's not like she didn't hear me, I was the only one in there and no one was cleaning or making any other noises. I said something again, and she was like "It's okay, it'll sit the same on the other side too." No, no it won't. I'm not experienced in cutting hair except for attempting to trim my own bangs for a few years, and even I know it won't look right if you do it backwards. But she tried to assure me it would be fine, and still kept going. She finishes, smooths some product through my hair, quickly blasts it with a blow dryer, and THEN parts it correctly. It clearly looks like I'm parting my hair the wrong way. Then she says we're all set and walks away to ring me out. I stop her, again, and ask about the color to which she replies "Oh we don't do color services, just cuts and styles." I'm sorry, what? I specifically asked that when I came in and she told me it was fine. And now you're telling me you don't offer a service I asked about that you told me you did have. In her defense, they don't offer color services so that's fine. But when I asked about it up front, she probably should have said something then and not waited until I was done. Now I'm annoyed that I have to go somewhere else at some point this week on top of already being in one salon for an hour today. Sigh.

ANYWAY. Today's domestic adventure is going to involve attempting to make banana bread, but of course because it's me there's a multitude of things that don't work in my favor. I'm using this recipe I found on Pinterest (I've spent a LOT of time on Pinterest while I've been off of work, I'm sorry).

Here's your shopping list:

3 medium bananas (over ripe, you want them to be mushy)
3/4 cup sugar (you can substitute 1/2 cup of honey instead if you'd like)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon (you can use less or just fully omit this if you don't like cinnamon)

Here's your order of operations:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mash your bananas. You want the skin to be almost fully brown so they're mushy, the worst thing in banana bread is having actual chunks of banana. I tossed them in the mixer while I was measuring out the rest of my ingredients.
3. Add your egg, sugar (or honey), and oil to the mashed bananas. The recipe calls for vegetable oil, I subbed canola oil because it's what we had on hand and it's a little healthier for you.
4. Add all of your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and mix until just moistened. I left out the cinnamon since The Boy doesn't like it and I don't think it really makes a difference. You don't want to over mix otherwise your bread will be tough instead of moist.
5. Spray the bottom and sides of your loaf pan with cooking spray, and dump your mix into the pan.
6. Bake for 50-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
7. Remove the pan from the oven and place on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the bread from the pan and transfer directly to the wire rack to finish cooling. The best way to remove from the pan is to lightly run a butter knife around the edges to make sure nothing is stuck, place a plate over the top of the pan and flip it upside down so the loaf slides out and then transfer it to the wire rack.

Here were my issues (not necessarily with the recipe, just with my life). I tried to substitute the honey in place of the sugar, but ended up not having enough honey. I don't know if you've ever tried to dump honey back into the bottle but it doesn't work very well, so I just rolled with it and added an extra 2 tablespoons of sugar trying to balance it out, but I definitely could have used more. Also, because the honey is liquid it definitely changes the consistency of the dough. I don't have anything to compare it to since this is the first time I've made this recipe, but the outer layer of the bread was super tough compared to the inside of the bread and I feel like the honey definitely played a part in that. I like my sweet breads to be a little more dense, and this was definitely lighter and almost fluffy.

2/9 Snowed In Pinterest Binging

I don't actually know how "new" of a thing this is on Pinterest, but as of recently you can make SECTIONS on your boards now. Sections = lists. Pinterest boards are basically a list of things you like, so now you get to make more concise lists within your already curated lists. I love a good list, guys. Lists on lists on lists. My favorite part of planning anything is making prep lists. Grocery lists, planner lists, to-do lists. Lists to keep track of things, lists of things already done vs. things that still need to be done. I've been told a time or two that I'm....ahem...OVER-organized. I fail to see how that's a bad thing.

Anyway. I spent the good majority of my time in the hospital as well as the first few days home sitting on the couch perusing Pinterest and carefully crafting the newfound Sections, and I've picked back up today with the impending snowpocalypse looming down on us. I've been pounding out samples and color swatches and new product patterns for my Etsy store and my brain (and pin pricked fingers) needed a break. I've shifted my focus from creating samples and patterns to creating font color swatches and lurking Pinterest while the embroidery machine does it's thing.

I think one of the only good things about being on medical leave from work at the moment is not having to go anywhere in this ridiculous snowstorm. The Boy has the luxury of being able to work from home almost whenever he needs (or wants) to, so he never usually needs to worry about winter weather traffic. Working in retail, that has always ALWAYS been a concern. You don't get to take sick days or weather days, you don't get to work from home. The mall I work in has (as far as I know) literally NEVER been closed. For anything. Except a select few holidays, and let's be real even those probably aren't guaranteed for too much longer. Even if there's 6 feet of snow expected to drop in a matter of hours, you're still expected to haul your ass to work with a smile on your face. Don't get me wrong, I do (for the most part) enjoy my job. But some days I'd kill for the option to say "Hey, it's not worth risking my life to drive here right now. See you tomorrow."

Still on the Pinterest topic, as I'm organizing and re-organizing the THOUSANDS (no seriously) of pins I have, I'm discovering things I saved years and years ago that either have zero relevance in my life or are just hilarious to me now. I took a break from Pinterest for a few years, I didn't get the point of it for a while and I didn't see the need to have a bunch of ideas saved for things that I didn't actually need. Some days I still think that, but then I see another farmhouse sink and an emerald cut sapphire engagement ring and I'm hooked again.

This is short and sweet-ish today, as I think I've spent enough time glued to my desk and sewing machine for the last week. I'm going to have a few beers and watch The Boy play some video games.

2/7 Post Surgery Ramblings

In an attempt to revive this site yet again, I've discovered not 1, not 2, but a total of 3 different blogs I've used over the years at varying rates of consistency. Or with zero consistency, if we're really being honest here, because it's me and I've never been one to keep up with anything to save my life. There's quite a few gems tucked back in the archives, but I think it's probably for the best they stay hidden there.

In other news, I'm very slowly working my way back to being a normal human again since my surgery. Last night I was able to sleep on my side for the first time in 2 weeks and it was GLORIOUS. I've always been a side/stomach sleeper so to be forced to sleep on my back I feel like I haven't had a good night's rest in ages at this point. I still can't quite get comfortable in bed, I'm probably at least another month away from being able to sleep on my stomach again, but I'm getting there. Slowly. I'm still a little shocked at how well I did bounce back. To be fair though the surgery was incredibly minimally invasive, and although there were still 5 incisions they were all incredibly small. I believe he said 4 of the 5 were 1 centimeter or less, and only one was 2 inches long. The incisions themselves are healing phenomenally with the exception of one at the top of my abdomen, it's constantly getting brushed against and irritated because of where it's placed and I feel like it's never going to fully heal over.

Speaking of never healing over, I'm mildly devastated that one of my cartilage piercings closed up after my surgery. Obviously all jewelry has to be removed for procedures, including ear piercings, and my 2nd cartilage piercing has never quite healed right so in the LESS THAN 36 HOURS it was out, it's started to close up. I'm so sad. The first time it happened was with my knee surgery in 2006, and I was able to "gently" force it back through. (I use the word "gently" very, very loosely. It hurt. A lot.) But this time there was no saving it. When I originally had it done, somehow it was pierced at a weird angle and it's impossible to replicate it to easily put the earring back in. That's probably the least important thing I could complain about, and it'll finally give me the excuse to go get it done again the right way and hopefully have it heal correctly this time.

I've been living in leggings and sweatpants for the last 3 weeks and while it's insanely comfortable, the list of things I'd do to be able to put on a pair of jeans and feel a little more put together is rapidly growing. I also keep having to remind myself that despite being able to bounce back from everything that's ever happened to me physically quite well, I literally have holes in my abdomen that need to heal up. They sliced through ALLLL the layers of muscle and while I'm not actively in pain, it's going to be a while before I can actually do things the way I used to. I'm still struggling to do basic household chores like lugging laundry up and down the stairs (although to be fair, at the rate I normally do laundry that's not a new struggle and those bags are always heavy), and I can barely push the vacuum. It's frustrating to say the least, and there's not much I can do about it yet. I still have about a week and a half before I go back to work, and once I am back I'll still have light restrictions on what I can do which is ALSO frustrating.

Moral of the story: stay on top of your health, kids. I've been living with this.....thing....in my abdomen for lord knows how long, and I knew something was wrong but I just didn't do anything about it until it was nearly life-threatening. I've had problems bending over and pressure in my lower abdomen for a handful of years now but I just attributed it to being overweight and my jeans were too tight, or that the uncomfortable pressure was from my IUD. Nope. Not even close on either part. Had I done the smart thing and gotten it checked out when I started feeling like something was wrong I could have planned the surgery out and made time for everything to fall into place in a way that it didn't inconvenience anyone. But no. Because I was too stubborn, I had to wait until the pain was bad enough to send me to the ER and ended up with an emergency situation that needed to be taken care of RIGHT NOW.

I fully intended for this to be a happy introduction back into the online world, but unsurprisingly it turned into bitching about what's wrong in my life. Again. I guess the good thing that came of this (other than having the....thing.. removed) is I really needed time off from work. I got so burnt out this holiday season and we were struggling big time to fit in everyone's PTO at the end of the season. Not that I can really call this a "vacation" by any means, but lord knows it's been so nice to have some time away from that place and attempt to decompress a bit. My Etsy shop has also been getting a pretty good re-vamp to look a little better and get things more organized both in the listings and pictures as well as offline. So. Y'know.

11/4 It's done.

I've already changed my mind about this year's NaNoWriMo project. If you're surprised you shouldn't be. I should have known from experience that blogging is infinitely harder than noveling, and that's made 20 times worse when you're on a time crunch with a word count to hit.

I decided to pick back up the NaNo I started in 2009, and so far the biggest struggle is keeping my writing style somewhat consistent. Back in the day I actually planned out my writing for NaNoWriMo, and thankfully I still have all of that saved on old hard drives. I have various notes and backgrounds for the characters jotted down, and I actually had an outline saved but looking back on it I definitely didn't even come close to following it the first time so there's no reason to try to stick to it now. A lot has changed in the last 7 years. A LOT. But I can still pretty vividly remember sitting down and writing most of this story, and I can still remember where I left off and where I wanted to go with the story in the near future. There's a lot of plot holes from the first half of it though, and I read back over the whole thing last night trying to prep myself to dive back in and I was visibly cringing nearly the whole time. After the month is over I might go back and try to edit the first half to make a little more sense, keeping in mind what I've already put down for this year's story.

I'm armed at the moment with a (sort of) decent breakfast and a large mug of coffee, with a 3 day weekend ahead of me, and I'm ready to dive into this story head first again. Ask me again in a week how I'm feeling about this though and I'm sure my enthusiasm will be long gone.

11/2 I already want to change my mind.

11/2/2016

Getting a little bit of a head start from what I managed yesterday, giving myself a whopping 5 hours to finish instead of roughly 45 minutes. Day two definitely off to a better start than day one was. Today’s post might be a little bit scattered (well, more so than yesterday), I’m trying to do a thousand things around the house while cranking out today’s word count. Domestic chores for the evening include: making a dent in the literal mountain of laundry piled up in the closet, washing and dying my hair, more laundry, possibly vacuuming, and maybe putting away the mountain of clean laundry (if it ever gets to that point).

And an hour later all I’ve managed to do is wash my hair. I’m really good at this time management thing today.

I literally just keep staring at the screen, tabbing over to other pages I have open, scrolling through Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, whatever I can to do to procrastinate writing this up tonight. The boy is working on a project in his office, trying to 3D print a handheld gaming device of some kind, so that’s whirring and chirping away and making all kinds of noises in the background. I think my game plan of dying my hair tonight is a lost cause. I don’t have the energy to dry it, go through the ridiculous process of dying it, just to wash and dry it again. This is probably why it takes me roughly 6 months (if not more) to dye my hair. I’m just lazy about it anymore. I used to be super on top of it, religiously buying the minimum of 3 boxes it would take once a month just to keep it up, setting aside a full day or evening to get it done, and just knocking it out. My hair is so much shorter now, and I’m slowly trying to grow the black layers out of it so I’m down to just 2 boxes of the same color instead of 3 boxes of varying colors, and I just can’t be bothered with it. Yet I also can’t be bothered with going to a salon and paying entirely too much money to dye the amount of hair that I have on my head.

I almost forgot there was a Wings game tonight, so we can add various hockey noises and rather loud obscenities being shouted from the other room to my background noise for the night.

We’re now at the 10pm mark and I’ve finally made it through the dying process (very begrudgingly on my part, it took a bit of agitated convincing by the boy), and now we’re on to the setting/waiting process. It takes me so long to get through all of my hair that by the time I finish my whole head the spot I started in is really already ready to be rinsed out. I’m a little nervous about this color. It’s a LOT more vibrant red than I was really expecting or ready for, it’s going to be a huge change from what I had. Fingers crossed it doesn’t look completely ridiculous once it’s rinsed and dried.

During my sitting and procrastinating for the entirety of the night, I’ve been on the hunt for a pair (or multiple pairs) of boots that I can wear this winter. I have the hardest time finding anything that goes past the bottom of my shins because my calves are so wide and I hate it. Nearly 90% of the “wide calf” boots for sale top out at 16-17 inches and that’s not even really close to being a “wide” size. My calves are massive from years of dance and marching band, as well as working in retail and running around for 8+ hours a day, 40+ hours a week. I’m also really on a tight budget (who isn’t anymore though), so I don’t have the disposable income to special order ridiculous boots or even “splurge” on a super nice pair that should last me a few years. I think I finally found a few online from Torrid that might work out, bless Meghan Tonjes for introducing me because I’m in love. I’m also super not into driving a thousand miles and making a bunch of stops at various stores and shopping centers to find THE BOOT, so I have my fingers crossed that these two pairs I found will work out well for me. The reviews seem really good and the measurements are pretty spot on with what I need. The only real concern I have is that none of the styles I really like are in stock in my actual size, so I’m going up a half size and just praying that they aren’t obnoxiously big. I don’t mind padding with an extra pair of socks, but I’d rather avoid that if at all possible.

I’m roughly half-way through today’s word count goal and it’s time to go rinse my hair out and I’m completely terrified. It’s so red I don’t know what to do with myself.

Rinsing complete, it’s definitely really red. Really, really red. It’ll be hard to tell until it’s dry how it really turned out but I can’t even fathom torturing my hair anymore today so it’s going to air dry overnight and we’ll see how it goes in the morning. I feel like I’ve gone this super vibrant red route before, but it’s been so long since I can’t remember when it was. It’s so different from what I’ve been sporting for the last year or so. My poor hair is so dry and angry right now. It’s going to need a really good deep conditioning treatment sometime over the weekend or next week.

Also during my sitting and procrastinating tonight, I got a call from the girl closing the store tonight at work and now I’m slightly annoyed. She called to say that she thought I didn’t know that I was opening tomorrow (I did know that), and she thought I thought I was working Friday instead (I didn’t think that). I appreciate the slightly panicked thought, but she is the absolute last person that needs to be reminding me of my schedule. I’m not the one that makes the management schedule every month, but I am the one that puts it into our scheduling system every week. And I’m also the one that creates the associate schedule every week, meaning I’m staring at the days and looking at who is working when for about 6 total hours after it’s all said and done. I know when I work and when I don’t. She’s also the least reliable out of our 4 piece management team, and the only one who routinely is forgetting when she works. Three times in the last two weeks she’s showed up in the morning thinking she opened the store when she was either closing that day or actually off. I guess it’s better than thinking you close when you actually open, or even worse thinking you have the day off when you’re supposed to be opening. I know I probably shouldn’t be so bitter about her, she meant well giving me a call. But seriously. I’m the last person you need to remind about their schedule. I have it under control.

The boy just peeked his head over to my desk and was peering at the screen, I don’t think he’s fully understanding the NaNoWriMo concept or process. It’s kind of amusing. I’m also starting to think I might regret not creating a new novel this year and trying to blog instead. Turns out it’s a lot harder to truthfully speak about your everyday life than it is to make up a fictional story and build characters and a plot line. I’m already throwing around the idea of branching off from the blog project and picking up either something new or pulling up an old NaNo and continuing on. We’ll see. There’s two different stories I’ve thought about more than once over the years while trying to plot out NaNoWriMo, or even just thinking about picking up again in general, and I’ve been really itching to try to bring those back out. Maybe I will make the switch. Although technically that would mean I would have to pick up the slack of the words I’ve already put down. Which isn’t a ton, but 3300 words is not a small amount either. I guess 2 or 3 days in is better than a week or 10 days and deciding to change your mind.

The last thing I’m doing before signing off for bed for the night is mentally preparing myself for all the bills I have to pay out of this paycheck, and I kind of want to cry. I’m trying to budget out for the boots I’m thinking about buying, groceries, miscellaneous things for the house, getting a small jump start on Christmas shopping. But my car payment, both credit card bills, phone bill, and hospital bill are due out of this paycheck. Which is literally my entire check, plus a tiny bit more. Which is ridiculous and definitely cry worthy. Being an adult is dumb. Which is probably why I’m distracting myself from real life by trying to figure out which novel I’m going to switch to.

11/1 Day One: The madness has officially begun

11/1/2016

This should be a shock to absolutely no one that I’m just beginning this post after 11:00 pm on the first day. I’m going to be real lucky if I can manage to make it to 1667 words before midnight. Not only am I waiting until the last minute, but I also have absolutely no idea what kind of topics I want to cover for today. I have a lingering feeling that a large part of the entries I make this month will be complaining and whining about various work related things so I’m not too keen on starting off that way but that’s all I have on my mind at the moment.

We’re barely into November, and we’ve really had to dive into planning for Green Week and the upcoming holiday season this week and I’m not fully mentally or emotionally prepared for this yet. I’m not sure if many other retailers use the term Green Week, but if you’re unaware it’s the week leading up to and including Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Tiny retail history lesson if you didn’t already know how Black Friday got the name, most bookkeeping and accounting is broken down into colors for positives (black) and negatives (red). With the day after Thanksgiving being the official full transition into the Christmas holiday shopping season, companies would see such a huge lift in sales that it would usually be when they would start turning a full profit on the year after expenses. Profit would mean marking things in black, hence the title Black Friday being adopted. Apparently “Green” Friday sounds more appealing and positive to the retail culture, so that term has been adopted by at least the company I work for. We started using the term Green Friday/Green Week about 3 years ago, but after nearly 10 years in retail I still find myself using Black Friday more often than not. It’s fine. Also to be noted I’m never 100% sure that’s the correct/best way to explain that but it usually sounds good in my head so I’m just gonna roll with it.

I think we figured out we need something like 40 total staff members for that holiday week, and we currently have 16 on hand I believe. None of our management team is convinced we’re going to make the goal by that week. We have a little under 2 weeks to hire 24 people, and at least 7 of those hires have to be actual seasonal staff that we can utilize during the entire holiday season, not just for the Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends. It’s terrifying. I’m responsible for making our schedules on a weekly basis, and I’m already struggling to make ends meet there because the staff we have can’t even fill out the hours we’re given every week. It’s not just our store/company struggling though, it seems to be everyone we talk to in any store. There’s only so much recruiting and passing information along that we can do, if you’re not getting applications in it doesn’t make a bit of difference.

Keeping in line with the holiday theme here, this was the first year I’ve experienced Halloween in a neighborhood different from the one I grew up in and also the first time in about 7 years that I’ve been home on Halloween to actually experience it. The last 3 years I’ve been at work because most of the rest of our management team has kids and I’ve never been one to really care about being home since my parents enjoy handing out candy more than I do. Years 6 and 7 ago I believe I was at Wrockstock which put me out of state and nowhere close to being home for that one. I’ve never been great with kids, especially the tiny young ones and somehow I was the one that ended up actually handing out the candy and interacting with everyone while the boy stood back with the dog (who had a costume of his own even though we didn’t bother dressing up) and observed every awkward moment. Tiny children plus interacting with strangers meant a whole lot of weird vibes. We also ran out of candy just about an hour into the evening, which of course was a bummer for everyone involved. I was kind of surprised at the number of kids that still came up and either rang the doorbell or knocked on the door even after the lights were off and the door was closed. We were always taught growing up that unless the house is lit up and the door is open, it’s off limits. Dark houses mean either they ran out of candy or they’re not participating, which is the opposite of an open invitation to come up to the door.

Guys, it’s only day one and I’m already struggling with content. Yes, it’s my own fault for waiting until the end of the night and putting myself on a tight deadline. It’s also my fault for not taking notes during the day of things I wanted to talk about. At least 3 or 4 times today I made a mental note to remember something I wanted to talk about on the blog and clearly my mental notes were absolutely useless as I have no idea what those topics were.

On a completely unrelated topic since I’m already fully aboard the struggle bus, I’ve recently discovered the snapchat video/picture filters other than just the overlays and it’s been a life changer. I don’t know 1) why it took me so long to figure out how to use them or 2) why I find them so entertaining, but I spent a large part of my lunch break today making stupid faces at my phone and saving screenshots of various snaps. I think my friend Shannon was the lucky recipient of a few of the more ridiculous ones. I kind of wanted to touch on social media at some point this month, but I might save that for a different day when I’m not pressed for time. I don’t know why I can talk about various social media related things for ages, it’s not a topic most people care about. But it’s a huge interest to me.

I think I’m just starting to brainstorm ideas for topics this month so I have something to come back and reference when I’m struggling for the day. This coming weekend should be pretty easy for that, I have a 3 day weekend and the only plans we actually have are to go to a concert on Saturday night. Sunday’s post should be an adventure all on it’s own, we’re seeing Yellowcard on their final tour and I’m already prepared to cry like a baby. The last two “farewell” tours I’ve seen have been nothing short of crazy emotional, and I’m sure this one is actually going to be worse than those ever were. I saw Anberlin go out a few years ago, which was an amazing show as it was the first (and obviously last) time I saw them live. Every Avenue was the other one and I’m still not over that. It’s a super sore subject to this day. Timehop is the worst for reminding me of these things this time of year, Every Avenue always did a string of holiday shows at the end of December and they also chose that to be their last tour one year so this was the time of year I would be buying tickets and getting excited about it. Stupid bands and their stupid “hiatus”. I think I angrily tweeted that at some point, hiatus is the worst word ever.

I have two minutes left and still about four hundred words to go. This is probably some kind of foreshadowing for the month to come, barely missing the daily goals. I’m not sure what would be worse, struggling to have a 1,667 word blog every day or fighting to pull 1,667 words out of nowhere and have to create a story out of them. I’ve done the noveling thing every time I’ve tried to NaNoWriMo so this is definitely a different attempt for me. We’ll see how this comes along. I’m already well aware there are going to be a few days where writing anything just doesn’t happen, but I’m going to make a damn honest effort at pulling this out. I’m already trying to come up with bribes and rewards for myself to make it through the month, and I feel like it’s too early for that. About 5 minutes ago I heard the boy crack open a new beer downstairs and that’s all I can think about now. There’s a beer and Anthony Bourdain waiting for me in the living room and I won’t let myself partake until I’ve hit the requisite word count for the day, even though technically it’s past midnight and I’ve already missed that goal. I tried.

We sell a travel coffee mug at work that says “I Did My Best” and I think I need to invest in that for use while I’m writing the rest of the month, if nothing else. The company that makes it also sells a planner and a notebook with the same phrase on it I believe, and maybe a pencil case as well. I never liked it when we first started carrying it but it’s definitely become relevant to my life lately.

At this point I’m just stringing this out so I can hit the 1,667 words I need and get that first badge for the month and feel like I accomplished something before I go to bed. I need to not let this stress me out over the rest of the month, I have more than enough to worry about that actually concerns my real life, but I’m sure that no matter how hard I try to put it to the back burner it’s going to haunt me every day. And with that sounding way more ominous than it should or needed to, I’m done for the day. I’m still jealous of the people that can manage to crank out multiple thousands of words on their first day (although there have been years where I’ve accomplished that), or the people that can literally double the 50K word count during the month (I don’t understand that one at all), but if I can at least hit the basic milestones or even just manage to somewhat consistently put out some kind of content this month I’ll be satisfied I think.