Christmas is coming...

November 28th:

We have managed to survive BLACK FRIDAY...I went in at 5am, at least I didn't go in at 4am like some of my counterparts! We opened our doors at 6am - no one got trampled, but it was a mad dash to the Electronic and Toy departments for the deals. I hid in the CD aisles, as no one was going to head there - at least not first thing. We got numerous credit applications back at the Electronics counter and even more Extended Service Plans as a team we did what our store management expected of us. At 11:30 I went and found our manager to ask if I could go home (things had slowed down and I was bored). He looks at me and asks, "Who will cover your area?" I laughed at him and told him that ten people back in Electronics should be able to handle it without me! I got to go home, so did Jason...he took a nap and I broke out my Christmas tree! It's brand new, right out of the box...my mom gave it me as she got a new one last year from the Christian radio station. It took me awhile to get it all fluffed out and then even longer to get it all decorated (I was done by Sunday afternoon). I also worked on Marshall's quilt a little bit - got all the segments sewn together, now I just have to put those pieces into squares and try to be completely done by Christmas (we'll see if that's possible or not). Here is a picture of the tree all lit up at night, isn't it beautiful? I can't wait until there are gifts under it, it will look even better then (not that I will be getting much for gifts as I had a big birthday - I got a Wii and that ate up much of my allotted Christmas gift fund too).

National Smoke Out Days...

So, mom came on the 8th, she got here at 10:30am and we just caught up, etc. until it was time to go see Marshall. We left my house at 12:30 and had been in the car about 7 minutes and my cell phone rings...it's Tammy (Philip's girlfriend), "Where are you?" I know that I'm not late because we had until 1:00 to get where we were going..."I'm on my way". Big sigh of relief, "Can you stop and pick up Kat (Philip's mom) and the mac and cheese?" Sure why not...we had to do this because the Rec Center that we were going to was not open for our event and they were frantically calling everyone to come let them in! We got to the center safe and sound by 1:00 and then we all stood around until someone came with keys - the lady who booked it forgot to write it down and then took off to Florida for the weekend! The football banquet was a lot of fun, trophies for all the kids and a few got perfect attendance awards too (practice and games) - Marshall got each...good food from Sticky Fingers (BBQ), and the sodas/cake were donated by grocery stores (the kids sent thank you cards to them). After the banquet Marshall, mom and myself went out Christmas shopping - I got all the cousins ornaments, and am almost done with the rest of my shopping too (I know you all hate me)! Then it was home to order pizza and work an Marshall's essay. He had an essay due the previous week and decided not to do it and as a courtesy the teacher gave him the weekend to do it - awfully nice of her! It was the "National Smoke Out Essay" he had 4 questions to answer and it was to be a minimum of 200 words. What fun he and my mom had as the only non-smokers in my house coming up with all sorts of ways to "discourage" people from smoking. :-)

On the 9th we kind of lazed around most of the day, went to the mall and out for lunch then finished off by watching the newly released on to DVD "Kung Fu Panda". It is such a cute movie, this was my third time seeing it...but adorable just the same. Mom left with Marshall at 5pm and made her way on to the farm, I finished being lazy and got to bed as I had work the next morning.

The 10th and 11th were trying days for me at work. Our team member who had went out for surgery was back and it was difficult to get her back into the swing of things, especially since we have changed some things since her departure. Hopefully, the rest of this week and next week is all it will take to get everyone settled back in. Today is the 12th, I woke up this morning at 5am and immediately went, "What's that smell?" I looked out into the living room and it was hazy...I asked Jason if he had lit a fire or something - no. Checked Natosha's room, nothing. So definitely coming from the living room! The fire log we had lit last night had smoldered all night from the inside out - not hot enough to go up the chimney so it came into the house! I took a pail of water and poured it into my fireplace, picked up the log and threw it outside, broke into a few large pieces and sure enough...the inside was charred, but the outside was barely touched! Needless, to say - the AC unit fan is on as is every exhaust fan, so it sounds like I'm sitting in a tornado or something even as I am writing this. By the grace of my 5am wake up call we are all fine, throats and eyes a little dry, clothes and furniture smell funny but we are all okay!

Final Football Game...

Monday, October 27th was the last football game of the season. The Giants (that's us) versus another team from Indian Land (where Marshall lives)...both teams scored two touchdowns a piece, but we still ended up losing. That's right the other team scored on both of their conversion attempts - making the score 12-16 in their favor. Our coach gave a real inspirational talk after the game about how we are a young team, and that next year we will have older, bigger more seasoned kids on the team - I didn't realize how many youngsters we had. There were 10 nine year olds, 9 eight year olds, and the rest of the team were 10 year olds...most of the 8 and 9 year olds hadn't played before! So, the fact that we won any games is a miracle - we won two of our preseason games and we also won the Jamboree game (if you look at one of my earlier posts, it says that we lost) - coach explained that the other team at the Jamboree scored the last second winning touchdown with 12 guys on the field, but no one caught it until the play was over and done with...so, we would've won if they had called a penalty on it - no instant replay in pee-wee football?! Banquet is November 8th, and then it's right into wrestling - which thankfully only has practice once a week and one tournament on the weekend (easier to concentrate on homework). Marshall is enjoying himself in all that he does and is still healthy - no broken bones or severe bruises even...

Football update...

So, I know it's been awhile since my last post - but it has been really busy recently (both at work and home). Just got back from Marshall's next to last football game of the season - once again we lost :-( at least it was close: tied at nothing until OT and then each team was given 4 plays to score from their own 20 yard line - the other team scored a touchdown and we didn't! This has been a disappointing season, we did well during the preseason - but it has been a different story the rest of the season. There has been a few close ones like tonight and a few blowouts as well, this was their best played game - the line held their opponents better tonight, created holes at times - we even caught a pass! Next Monday will be the last football game and then it will be on to wrestling...which he did last year, and enjoyed so he is doing it again this season of course. November 8th is the banquet for the football team, where they get trophies and other awards...we are all hoping that one particular child doesn't get MVP, as he doesn't deserve it, but evidently the coaches are scared of the kids mom so it may happen as the coaches vote for the award. Hopefully, we can make it through the banquet without some of the other moms trying to take on this other one (she's a big woman, but not with much speed - so they could probably do it if needed)!

Work has been more of the same...we got out by 3pm today and hope to do the same the rest of the week, and not have to work on Friday. I have a project to do to help the rest of the store understand clearance and the importance of it - I hate speaking in front of groups of people, even people I know really well...so this is a personal challenge for me as well. We will be slowing down now that we are nearing the holidays, until about 2 weeks before Christmas, then we start getting busy again. I welcome this time of year as it allows me to really dig into what I'm supposed to be doing on a daily basis and just don't have time everyday to do it to the fullest extent like I should. Nothing else new here, I'll post again maybe after my weekend with Marshall if we do anything exciting? We'll see...

Keep us in your prayers:

So, it's Wednesday - September 24th. Please, keep me and the rest of my team in your prayers the following weeks as we will be short a team member...the senior member of my team is going in for knee surgery this coming Monday! She has two large tears and one small one as well, and they are finally going to fix it after years of problems. We expect her to be out for a minimum of 5 weeks, and possibly longer. I know that we will survive at Target but it will not be easy...I only hope that she will be okay. We all wish she could trade in her family, no one wants to take her to surgery, or bring her home afterwards - check in on her over the next few weeks, etc. I feel like I should get her some home cooked meals for her freezer - maybe I will see if a few of us want to do that for her. The sad thing is her son lives with her - and he is currently jobless, so even though he is mooching off of her for everything...he will not get up off of his butt and help her out when she asks for it! It makes me extremely glad to have a family who would do anything that they can to help me out if I needed it...

Weekend with Mom and Marshall September 12 - 15:

So, my weekend started with me getting out of work at 10, then I went to get two tires on my car (the other two will be next check). After a chat with mom I found that she was staying Friday and Saturday night...we never discussed how long she was staying! Mom made it here by 4:30pm and then Natosha, my mom and I went to the mall. We walked around until we were starving, off to get some dinner (we went to Chic-fil-A), then...dessert! We went for ice cream to Bruster's - so rich and creamy, with a big assortment of flavors (you never know what they will have, if they run out of one flavor up goes a different kind, very cool). Mom got cappuccino, Natosha got a "dirt" cup, and I got mint chocolate chip (I have also had their coconut chocolate chip, and chocolate raspberry truffle, very good!). Jason finally made it home from work and we all retired to bed soon thereafter (midnight).

Saturday was an early day - up by 8am, and off to see Marshall at his football Jamboree! That's a picture of him in his uniforn after the game was over - it was a mere 20 minutes but exciting nonetheless. They are the Giants, but they wear purple and gold (go Vikings!)...they are one of three teams from the Indian Land area, and have three preseason games, and five "real" games. Got Marshall after the game and "surprise" he was spending the night too! I really need to get better at tracking who is spending the night at my house and when...home for lunch (fresh corn n the cob - from mom, cheese stuffed chicken breasts, and mandarin oranges). Later that day mom, Marshall, Jason and myself went out for dinner to Ruby Tuesday's - hungry for salad bar. We came home and got in 2 rounds of "Farkle" - it is a dice game where you roll six dice to try and score 10,000 points in order to win! First time for both Marshall and Jason, and about 12 years since either mom or I had played...

Sunday was a short day with Mom, as she had to run off and see one of her friends before she headed home. We hung out and played "war", "go fish" and I flipped through my quilt block book, as I have fabric but no solid ideas yet. Marshall and I played on the Wii for a little bit and then it was time to take him to Target (so, mamaw could take him home).

Monday was 10 hours at work, ran to Subway for a quick dinner for the house as we had a football game to get to. Natosha and I went to see Marshall's first preseason football game (we won 12-8)...they don't kick point afters - they have to run it in for 2 points. We scored 2 touchdowns, but no point after - and the other team scored 1 touchdown and the 2pt. conversion afterwards. Lots of screaming and yelling, I think it is called cheering? Lots of fun regardless!

Week of pricing hell...

First off a little background: during a normal week it is me and three other women doing pricing at our store we average on a week 15,000 individual SKU's (one style of shirt in one color in one size is one SKU - each style has 4 to 12 colors and each color has 5 sizes - you do the math)!



Monday, September 1st: So, today we had another girl join our team (Natosha, my roommate). She worked out quite well and picked up everything very quick. We did all of Mondays normal work plus most of Tuesdays work as well as we had a huge amount to do Tuesday and needed to get ahead as much as possible. Finally, time to go home we got in at 6am and left at 4:30pm!Needless to say I went home and took a nap, woke up at 10pm had dessert and went back to bed after a shower.



Tuesday, September 2nd: Today we went in at 5am - barely 12 hours after we had left the day before (today we had 6 of us on the team, we were joined by one f our regular helpers). We started in Back-to-School, marking down everything but backpacks and lunchboxes (those will go later this week). Five hours later we were done and headed over to Stationary, to further markdown all the scrapbook items. Just to give you an idea of the enormity of this undertaking - just one style of ruler had 352 units that's 352 stickers - supposedly we should be able to put 120 stickers on in an hour - so just one ruler could've taken 3 hours to ticket (it took less than an hour). We finally got to go home at 3:30pm - that's another 10 1/2 hour shift. Went home took a nap and then got up for some dinner and went back to bed.



Do you see a pattern here? Wednesday was a shorter day we worked 6am to 3pm (our normal schedule is 6am to 2:30pm). Thursday was another long day as we were trying to get as much of Fridays work done early (very big day) - we got out around 4pm. Back in on Friday at 6am and we managed to just make it out before we would've had to gone to lunch (by 11:45am). All told for the week we got time and a half on Monday (for Labor Day), and then on Tuesday we received shift differential an extra $1.25 an hour because we went in so early...we had worked over 42 hours by the time we were done (myself and my original team), the others got close to 25 or 35 hours for their time with us, not including what they worked elsewhere in the store on other days.



We made it through it just fine, and no one killed anyone - an accomplishment for all of us!

Recent Weekend with Marshall and Jason...

So, on Saturday, August 30th I went to Marshall's football practice - it appears as if he will be a right tackle (for those of you who don't know that's 2 positions from the center)...he and the rest of the line will be playing ironman football (that's when you play for both the defense and offense). We went and got some lunch at Subway after practice. Jason (boyfriend, roommate) finally woke up, so we went to the mall as we both needed new shoes for work. We were able to bribe Marshall into going shopping because we promised him that we would all go miniature golfing after we were done. Thank goodness we didn't keep score, all of us cheated and I was losing badly after the first few holes - I did better on the back 9 though.

Sunday, August 31st was another eventful day with Marshall and Jason (this is highly unusual as Jason works the weekends I have Marshall - but he was on vacation this past week). Picked up Marshall before 9am and we went to go grab some breakfast at McDonald's but the drive thru line was backed out into the main road! Burger King it is...it really didn't matter. Hung out at the house watching Cartoon Network waiting for Jason to get up and start his day - we went and put new wiper blades on Jason's Jeep and topped off the fluids in my Saturn! Off to the driving range, what fun! Jason hadn't picked up a club but once in the last 5 years and I hadn't used one since 1992 (senior year), and Marshall had never used a real club before - I'm glad there weren't alot of serious golfers out there :-) Marshall blew through his bucket of balls in half the time that Jason or I did - so I shared with him (the motherly thing to do, I know). Lots of fun...home for a late lunch and then I brought him back home around 5pm. Picked up a few things for dinner and made chicken lasagna (I used cream of chicken soup as my sauce though instead of marinara, or alfredo), came out really good and then off to Waffle House for my weekly Sunday night trip with Jason (just to get out the house and sit around and chat with no distractions - like laundry).

Work update...

So, after reading over my previous posts I realized that you may not know how work has been going for me...it is going great. I have won over my co-workers (all of them)! I am still in charge of the pricing team and we have downsized a little bit - when I started we had four others plus me, now it is just four of us. Our stores volume has decreased a little bit since we have two new stores "near" us - one 2 miles down the road, and one 7 miles away - not to mention the two older stores that are just over 7 miles away themselves! Of course, it is in an area where new construction is ongoing and they don't want to drive far to get what they want...even though in this neighborhood they could all afford to drive further if needed.

Recent photos...

This is my "new" haircut - I actually got it done in March, but it still looks the same, just longer (I can pull it back into a ponytail already). People at my job can't believe how fast my hair grows, neither can I! Hopefully, the next picture of me to get posted will be a smaller version of myself, but it is very slow going.

This is my baby boy, Marshall...he's hardly a baby anymore. I can't believe that he's already 9 and going into the 4th grade this year! He looks like this all the time - sometimes his hair is a little shorter or a little longer, but this is normal. He too is experiencing a little too much weight, and has kind of put himself on a "diet", don't freak out...he is simply making smarter food choices for himself and making sure he is playing hard most days.

Well, wish us all luck with our continued endeavors - nothing else new going on here, still living in Charlotte, still at Target, still divorced...see some things really do stay the same.

Going green or die trying?

July 30th, 2008:
Been almost 13 months or so and I apologize, it is difficult without realiable internet, but I'll try to do better. So, I'm trying to go green...at least not use any more plastic bags! The amount of bags I go through every week is unexcusable especially since I work at Target...access to them is crazy. After my mother sent me to this website PoconoRecord I went out and bought some good sturdy reusable bags (from Target of course) and now I use those or, I don't get a bag at all. It was really disturbing to see that one of bags looked like a Target bag stuck up in a tree. It's a slideshow and it took a while to download, but it was well worth it. This is the actual address of the slideshow: http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016