I am sooooooo glad that I stopped the Target job two weeks early. This week I was able to complete my shopping, catch up on a lot of much needed sleep, and (today alone) I wrapped all of our gifts, got the lasagna started for tomorrow, cooked the sausage for our Christmas morning breakfast, baked a pumpkin and apple pie, and got everything else organized for both tomorrow and Saturday. Seems a bit bizarre, I know, but I even took care of sorting out some bottle of spirits that we have at the house. When mom and dad moved to Rice Lake, they had a fairly large selection of spirits sitting in their basement that ended up sitting in my basement! The evening, I started going through those bottles, as well as the ones that I had on hand, to make sure we have enough for the coming celebration. I'm thinking some of that might make it over to Rice Lake next weekend in the form of Brandy Slush.
So, I learned something interesting working these seasonal jobs: by the time Christmas actually gets here, you're ready to move on! I've been hearing the same taped Christmas songs over and over and over in the stores, and putting out decorations and toys, etc. for people to buy. Lately, though, we've started to unload merchandise that will come out after the Holidays and it makes me want to move things along already.
The job at Target was during the day and I worked the sales floor and did back-up on the cash registers at the front of the store, in the pharmacy, and in electronics. I had to listen to screaming children all the time and, frankly, I wasn't that keen on the management team there. Some of the other workers were great, though. All-in-all, I'm glad I wasn't offered the opportunity to continue that one as it would have negatively impacted my unemployment to turn it down. I like being home during the day time. I like sleeping late, I like going shopping during the day if I feel like it, and I like being available to see the kids if something comes up.
The job at Kohl's is an entirely different thing. It's in the middle of the night (10-6 or 9:30-5:30), which is fabulous for a night person like me. I love the whole team that I work with and I even like the job itself, which changes periodically. Usually, we're unloading and unpacking a truck of merchandise and getting it ready to go out on the floor. It's fun to see the new stuff coming through, and there is a lot of activity so the times passes quickly. Also: no customers and no screaming children!! There are other times when we're actually stocking the shelves out on the floor, or working to do the price changes and marking things down for clearance. Let me tell you: I do a lot of "shopping" while I'm working at Kohl's. Sometimes I can actually set things aside as I work, and other times I just go back at break and set them aside. That's another thing that's really different from Target: at Target, the "guest" gets first shot and the employees can't shop before the store opens. Of course, I did it anyway and set aside some things for Maggie on Black Friday, and scored some pretty good deals myself over the four weeks -- including my new Dyson vacuum cleaner.
Anyway, I worked at Kohl's on Tuesday night (the only night I'm scheduled this week) and I filled out some papers to close out my seasonal gig (an evaluation) although I'm scheduled 3 nights next week as well. Then, I was also asked to fill out a form showing my interest and availability in continuing. Surprising myself, I found that I was interested in continuing the job (at night) on a part-time basis and hope that they offer it to me. I really like working there once in a while, and I'd love to maintain the employee discount! I still have a great deal of unemployment to draw on, too, so combining them would stretch the unemployment longer, I think.
Observation: I'm surprised at the number of Christmas cards we got this year where people didn't buy the Holiday stamps. Not a big deal, I understand, but it was a bit surprising to someone like me who obsesses over things like that.
Observation #2: I really like my new glasses. I've been noticing that I grab my glasses quite frequently to read labels, etc and decided that I might want to think about wearing them on a semi-regular basis instead of just stashing them in my purse for when I go to the movies, etc. I spent quite a lot of money on these glasses -- almost $600 for the frames and lenses combined -- and that's a lot for me. Generally, I spend $200 or less on my glasses, but decided to go with designer frames since they're going to be part of my wardrobe. They're turquoise and brown (which sounds weird, I know, but they look really great), and I have gotten quite a lot of compliments.
Observation #3: I think I now need a half-size larger shoe than I used to take. I guess my feet are getting flatter or something because my regular size (9) generally pinches my toes now. It's amazing how many times I've lost my toenails over the course of my life from wearing shoes that are just a bit too small. I also learned that, when you plan to walk a great deal (like a marathon), you need to go up a half-size. Learned that the hard way after doing the Fox Cities Half-Marathon and losing the toenails on both big toes.
Observation #4: At the risk of sounding extremely unoriginal, I can't believe how quickly time passes. As I was putting up my Christmas decorations, I was looking at a small quilt that I made (originally as a wall hanging, now it's used under the centerpiece of my table) and remembering when Robin and I took the class where we learned how to make them. On the back of the quilt, I was smart enough to put a label with my name and date. I was shocked to see that I had made it in 1990 -- twenty years ago!
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