Slicers, sloppy floors & schedules.

I'm starting to kinda settle into the routine of working now. I miss getting to hang out with my hubby on the weekends though. That is still taking some adjusting but I find we value the evenings far more now. Last weekend I worked a couple of really late (and long!) shifts. Going in at 2pm (which means I leave the house at 12:45) and didn't get off until 11pm (or later) and that puts me home after midnight. Needless to say Monday morning I felt like a zombie and was SO glad I was off.

My first day overwhelmed me like crazy but I'm starting to get the hang of things now and it's not as bad as I thought. I've learned all the front stuff like slicing, packaging, and the hot bar stuff. I've learned how to make sandwiches for the fridge shelves out front, and now I've learned how to do the closing routine. It takes 2 of us about 3 hours to complete everything. My favorite part is sloshing soapy water all over the floor to clean it! Lol! I've had some interesting customers, no one extremely rude yet (except a lady that got made because we closed at 8pm and not 9pm like she thought.). Everyone I work with is pretty nice. There are some I enjoy working with better than others but that's just a preference thing, not because they are rude or anything. It's funny though because even though I've only been working a few days total there I can already see the vein of drama that runs through it all. I'm doing my best to stay out of it because I've got enough drama dealing with people in my own life much less the people I work with. Apparently this Wal-Mart has a hard time keeping employees though. Most departments are very short staffed, including the deli until just recently. Everyone at the deli, excluding two people, have been there 2 months or less! Including the department manager. Yikes. I'm taking it a day at a time. By no means do I plan on being there forever but I'll stick it out unless things get really bad. I'd still love to get on a Target or Old Navy but we'll see.....right now I'm just thankful to be earning some kind of paycheck. And I get my first one tomorrow! Yay!

We are still waiting to hear about our home offer.....I'll admit my patience is starting to wear thin. We knew with it being a short sale it could take a little while but we didn't think it would take this long especially since the offer has 2 of the 3 signatures it needs to be processed and accepted. Every morning I'm praying that today will be the day and every day at 5pm I have to swallow the fact that yet another day has gone by without an answer. The "good news" is we were originally told once the offer was accepted it would be 3 weeks before we could actually close and move in. That gives time for inspections, contracts, the bank, and for the sellers to get moved, etc. But we just found out that the seller is moving out at the end of the month wether it's sold or not. Which means that we can probably bump up the moving time, instead of waiting 3 weeks we might be able to close in 10 days or something like that. I'm crossing my fingers for that and that we will hear from the bank within the next week (pleassssseee!!!).

Summer is going good so far. We didn't open the pool up because we didn't plan to be here much of the summer & didn't want to have to spend all the money on chemicals and such for it. Gigi and I still go out and lay out on the deck and she plays with the hose and buckets of water. It's the next best thing! She's adjusting to the new routine of being home all the time and me working now. She loves all the one on one time with her daddy for three days straight! I'm trying to keep her on a similar sleep schedule like we do when she's in school. I'm letting her stay up till 9pm usually instead of 8:30 but then she's up by 7am usually.

Sorry I've been a bad blogger lately. Just been busy and my "creative juices" just aren't flowing lately. I open up blogger thinking I'll post something, stare at the screen for a few minutes then click off. But I still update my Twitter (@alaythea) and my Instagram (@alaythea) a lot so check them out for more current info and photos!!!

Working Girl

So, it's a official. I'm a working girl again. It seems so strange to say that after being home for 6 years. I literally can't remember most of the details about the last place I worked, that's how long ago it's been. I will admit the one great thing about working as a hair stylist was a I could wear basically whatever I wanted and I could have any color hair, any piercing I wanted and show tattoos all the day long. But I guess you make sacrifices when you have to, huh? But yeah, I'm working at the Wal-Mart deli up where we'll be moving. For now it's just Fri-Sun because it's an hour drive up there until we actually get moved. Saturday I had orientation most of the day, Sunday was my first official day in the deli. The first few hours were pretty quiet and I just followed my trainer around learning the basics and getting a feel for the it all and the other workers. After lunch we got really busy and I just had to sorta jump in there and help. It got a bit overwhelming a few times but I held it together and got through it. I mean, you'd think, how hard is it to slice meat and cheese. That part isn't hard. It's all the rules and policies about what you have to do and how in order to maintain proper health regulations that make it hard. Especially when you have 6 people all standing there staring and watching you work. Luckily, I didn't drop anything although I came close a couple of times (those huge hams are slippery!). But I made it. I don't think it all really hit me until last night when I got in bed and I sorta had a little mini panic attack. The thought of going back next weekend and doing it all again and learning even more just sorta overwhelmed me. I know, people do it every day and I will get through it but it's just a lot to take in.

Fab outfit, huh? Seriously, why did Wal-Mart have to pick khaki? It's not really flattering. I like hair styling "uniforms" - just wear black and you're good. I get to wear a hair net and apron, that's also pretty fab. *sarcasm* But yeah, whatev's. It's a job, for Pete's sake. 

The other part of working at Wal-Mart is a lot of history and policies and terms. So on top of learning your job requirements there are also tons of "overall" stuff you have to learn. We have to take all the "tests" every so often to make sure we are up to date on the ever changing systems. It's seriously SO much to take in. And of course my always present fear of failure makes me that much harder because I'm constantly freaking out that I'll mess up. 

The people I work with are pretty nice, only one person my age and I didn't work with him long yesterday. Thank God because I sorta "threw me to the wolves" yesterday for about an hour and we got really busy and I was freaking out inside the whole time. He doesn't really like working the front so he just kept disappearing in the back and leaving me to fend for myself. Eventually I'll learn to cook all the hot bar stuff and make sandwiches, etc. But yesterday I was just trying to figure out where all the meats and cheeses were and where to put them back.....sheesh. I didn't think a job in the deli would be so overwhelming. Luckily, I have four days at home to sorta re-coop and get myself together mentally.

I feel my husband's pain now driving an hour to work (he's been doing it for six years!). It sucks and now I'm even more ready to be moved up there because then I'll be 5 minutes from work! Next weekend I work closing - the deli closes at 8 but then it takes 3 hours to clean so I won't get off till 11pm then I have an hour drive home......whew.

I had to remove my nose ring which makes me so sad. I can show my tattoos but I can't have a nose piercing and I'm not even allowed to put a clear spacer in it. Grrrr. I was really hoping for a job at Old Navy because you can wear facial jewelry there. But they weren't hiring. I do hope that one day I can get a job somewhere a little "cooler" and fun! But for now I'm thankful to have something. After putting in applications for months and months around here and never hearing back actually having someone call and want to hire me was awesome!

And a quick update on our home buying situation - we are still waiting to hear from the bank. The place is a short sale so the process of getting our offer accepted is a little more complicated then just with a regular seller/buyer thing. The deadline to hear from the bank is this Wednesday and we are praying we hear something before then (like today would be awesome!). We are pretty sure we'll get it though - if we don't we'll all be shocked, including our agent. Once it's approved we'll have three weeks before we can actually get the keys and move in.....three weeks. Boo. But at least we'll have an actually date to look forward and not just feel up in limbo so much. 

So that's about it. My blogging has lacked greatly lately - we stay pretty busy and I also have just felt very uninspired when it comes to blogging lately. I still read my blog feed daily I just don't write as much myself. Hopefully I'll be checking in soon to say we're home owners! Woohoo!