27 posts from 2006

For Christmas I received a copy of Nina Planck's Real Food, a literally fantastic book that takes us back to eating the way we should be- full fat, full meals, all day eating, no deprivation and only feeding ourselves the goodness and naturality that earth has to offer.  Well, reading this thing has taken my breath away, pushed me further in my quest to provide good food for my hubby and me, AND solidified my efforts for my job and my plans for our lives together.  It has been on my mind a lot lately, mostly because I keep seeing signs that I'm doing the right thing.

After a talk with my marvelous husband, we decided that we are still waiting for babies- no more bumping around on the porch, that is.  We are taking a much-needed break from fretting about this crap and instead gettings ourselves into a much healthier existence for future endeavors... :D

On a side note, I think the powers that be at my job will be placing me in charge of the cheese dept., making me the resident cheese monger.  :D  I'm kind of excited about this, as I'll have much more access to organic and unpasteurized cheeses. :D  double yay!

Morning!  Apologies for the late posting, it seems I've been quite busy these last few weeks!  Christmas shopping done, I realize I have much to wrap, though thank goodness for the internet and the little box you can select for giftwrap.  For my inlaws, we have procured a Red Rider BB gun and a Bacon of the Month club membership.  For the Brother-inlaw, an alarm clock that works with his ipod.  For his girlfriend, a sweater from Victoria's Secret. 

*On a side note, I must point out that I'm ridiculously jealous of this girl.  She's twenty-twoish, works as a part-time manager for Victoria's Secret, doesn't drive for crying out loud, still lives at home with her mom and sister, is very witty and familiar with politics. 
Why, you may ask, do I feel a bit old or dumb or marmish while around her?  I hate to admit that I just feel threatened by her youth?  I hope it's not that simple.  I remember coworkers feeling this way towards me at my last job and it was an ugly thing, though I see how they felt now.  In comparison, I like to use and wear recycled things and am extremely crafty... She likes to wear head-to-toe VS and Chloe and is rather cosmopolitan and stylish.  I endeavor, therefore, to shove off my stingy but-I'm-cool-too syndrome.

Moving on, what I really wanted to talk about today was my morning.  It appears as though the gank and I are already playing the parts of our upcoming roles in January.  As of the 15th, I will be a part-time associate at my workplace and full-time maker of our home.  Eish!  I'm quite excited about it, really, and have begun seeing Max as my kid instead of something I have to deal with.  Mayhaps a bit harsh, but how many of you see your kids (pets) like this?

So, Ganks let me sleep in until quarter-of-nine and it was simply glorious to wake slowly instead of hearing the incessant bleeping of my alarm at fifteen minute intervals. I woke to the splashing noises of him showering.  I sort of fell in and out of sleep until he came in to get dressed.  When he left for work, I decided that I would take care of myself first and then Maxie, so I made some tea and sat on the couch eating cookies from last night's Christmas party at one of Ganks coworker's houses.  I added another four-inch section to my mom-inlaw's gold scarf.  I took a picture of Max edging in on my last cookie.  I love the sly look in his eye! 

At 9:41, we left for our walk and made our way through the little woodsy area between the buildings of our apartment complex.  In this area, you seriously have to watch the ground, lest you step in a pile of wet poo.  As we're walking, I spotted this lone green leggo piece.  I would have snatched it up, but it appeared to have a fair amount of nasty stuff stuck to it.  It made a nice impression on me, this pilgrim leggo, as if the universe was telling me my heart is on the right path.  I get so silly about little things like this, as though every day a new scavenger hunt has been laid out for me, guiding my thoughts and plans.

Weeeel, had the talk with my bosses last week on Wednesday.  In my trademark way of late, I handled giving them the goods very poorly.  Somehow I feel threatened by the fact that I am overqualified for them, I have something they need.  I could walk away and solve the problem, but I don't want to.  It's just that the bosses making everything so dang personal and thinking they aren't is not something of which I want to be a part for, say, any longer than I already have or absolutely have to.

So, this is how I have been feeling lately, only uproot a few buildings in the middle so that the load is more at the shoudlers and the lower back region, ah, that'll do it!  That's the ticket- that's my familiar aching stress area.  He's got it balanced, so just outside the picture frame must be lurking some boss-like figures each nabbing and shoving onto and off of his load; never communicating this fact, but always expecting perfect balance, perfect balance, buzz-saw approach to the job... I'll get to why I'm acting so dang infantile in a sec.

At the meeting I could not get to my point. I hemmed and hawed and tripped over my words, blushed, and hammered away and even teared up at one moment.  My damn bosslady had to spell it out for us all, taking out all the emotions like I could not do.  "it sounds to me like what you are saying is that it simply just isn't a good fit for you anymore."  ding, ding.  Why he heck couldn't I say that?  argh.  As my mother would say, 'stick it out, you're doing fine.'

So, on with the boots, back out in the snow to the only all-night grocery.  Meaning that I yanked up my bootstraps and discussed some options.  Lo and behold, it's not that bad.  We decide to get through the holiday season and brainstorm on what the company needs and return to the table in January (after the holiday season) with ideas and options.  I suddenly feel as light as never before!  I feel my old self coming back again, light-hearted and loving life.

This is too good to be true, I feel and think and say.  How I wear my honest heart on my sleeve, though this is not the way of the corporate world.  This is me: Hello Nature Girl!  Let's not play the 'I know something secret and I'm going to use it against you' game.  Let's just be honest, ok?  Fargen, why can't people just be honest.  I say this only because on Saturday, bossman takes me aside to say all the things I knew he was going to say at some point.

Did I really want this sort of honesty?  I don't know.  However much I felt that this change would help us all in the long run (me with less hours at work and them with a better manager) they can only have so many people on the payroll who are good at undefined things.  (Forgot to mention that bossman is a Type-A, overly-confident, self-conscious ass and bosslady is a bourgeois ENFP in Meyers-Briggs, which equals Standard Operating Procedure meets I'm Too Busy Doing Important Existential Creative Shit.) He said that I can market, merchandise and sell the hell out of some stuff, but that anyone can open a store and sell things. They need someone who can run the business.  Completely understanding, no matter the Ouch Factor.  So, isn't it a GOOD thing I threw in the towel? 

While he went about it in a total shit way, I'm sure what he wanted to relay to me again was that this business feeds his kids and that if I wasn't bringing in the dough for them that he would drop me like a hot potatoe.  In essence, don't fuck with it.

Show us something you hold dear.
Submitted by Cindercone.

This is my five-year old poochie, Max.  In all my years of blogging about him, especially the early years, I called him yellowdog, though now I believe he has reached name status. :D 

Max is a Husky-Lab mix, or so they said when he was adopted.  My original ex-boyfriend got him for me as a birthday present while I was away on family business.  My sister was having a cancer scare and I had asked the ex to just clean up our apartment for my gift- I was pretty stressed out at that time.  When I got home, I found that he had not cleaned, in fact I had the distinct inclination that he had in fact uncleaned our apartment until I head puppy noises coming from the bedroom closet.  This was the end and beginning of two relationships- I definitely feel lucky that my side turned out like it did!

He is my babylove and the apple of my eye.  Look at his adorable face!  Most often, he is more Husky than Lab in temperament, as he's got that aloof, fake-out thing down like nobody's business.  He'll come running for you and then swing off to the side in avoidance of a quick squeeze or pat on the head.  He doesn't snuggle those closest to him, you know, only my in-laws!  He's often groaning about wanting to have your attention just when you are busy doing something else... like right now.  What a turkey! 

He is singularly the most difficult and most rewarding thing in my life.  My dad told my sister and I when we were kids that Relationships and Parenting are the hardest and best and he was right!! And now Max is loved and nurtured by two parents instead of one since the gank and I got married.  The gank loves to hike and I'm learning how to judge the trail, so we do more outdoorsy stuff than we used to, which Max loves!  We haven't taken him camping, mostly because it's fricking cold outside, but also because I'm scared that something will attack the dog.  Dumb people!  He's an animal, I'm sure he'll be fine.  But I'm very excited about the possibilities of this and currently take him to the woodsy area behind our apartment complex for our practice hiking.  He loves it!  And he's completely pooped at the end of the day which is every parent's dream!  ;D

So, the dearest thing to me is my dog, Max.  Also known as Pooka, Maxie, littleman, Maximillion, littleboyeeee, Pookieloo, Maxiim and itchybuns.

So, I haven't had any time to hop on here and chat about everything that has been happenings latelies!  argha!  But, I did talk with my bosses about my unfittedness here at flyspecka and did purchase some stuffings for el ganker. will update soon, loves!

So, I'm almost twenty-seven.  But this really has nothing to do with age.  I feel like having babies; lots of babies with the gank.  I feel like not using condoms and not using the fated pull-out-method and letting go of Control.  Babies come when they are supposed to, and while we're not pointedly knocking on the baby door, we're just kind of bumping around on the porch to see what we can scare up.  Passive-Aggressive like.

You see, in my earlier posts last week, we made the decision that I would step down from management at my job to focus more on our lives together.  We're just starting to begin our life for real, instead of forcing ourselves to work, work, work at our jobs and give, give, give to our jobs, we are working at and giving to each other.  The goal here being that we are at least relatively ready when our green light comes alive and we hear those big footsteps coming up the baby hallway to see what's going on outside.

I would have more time to do tons of things!  I can bake more often, which means less going to the store for industrialized foods and more healthy options at home for organic goods.  I can keep track of what we really have in our kitchen so that we don't waste the food we buy at our local Farmer's Market.  And anyone who buys locally-grown produce knows that it doesn't come cheap and that it tastes like food did when we were kids.  I can get our finances under control and attack our debt with some really aggressive payments, instead of feeling like I am so busy, I can't figure anything out but our minimum due.  I can finally figure out how to sew myself the perfect pair of jeans, instead of buying pair after pair that don't work out.

But that's all up in the clouds right now.  At this particular moment, I'm still scared to talk to my bosses about stepping down.  Can you imagine how I will be when in the early stages of pregnancy?  Better add a yoga class to that list up there!  I have been with this company for just over a year- longer than any other employee they've had- and they're still crazyspycho micromanaging.  This may be why they've had such an amazing employee satisfaction rate... It's what feeds their babies, so can you blame them?  I can't, so I hope they don't blame me when I let loose some flood gates of my own.  :D

As for making babies, for crying out loud, this is down the road.  We're also discussing purchasing a home in this area, kind of out in the boonies so that we can have a yard and a greenhouse, though location-wise this would thoroughly retard my ability to maintain almost-don't-have-to-drive status.  But, I can sure get in the habit of riding my dang bike while living downtown, eh?  Yep, I need to get off my ass.  I"m going to go meditate in the shower and pray about the best time to chat.  I'll keep you posted.

We just had a woman and her mom in the shop.  The woman was fine, but her mom, DANG, she had her hair all piled onto the back of her head.  It was held in place by a hairnet and then tied with a black ribbon like old ladies do in comics.  I'm talking about the black ribbon around the front of her head, near her hairline and then her hair was poofed up on top.  Egads!  I longed to take a picture with my camera phone.

dangit.  it's thursday night and we're stuck doing *more* design work for a client.  Gank is making dinner when he should be doing the fricking desi-iiiiiign!  Yeeee!

forgot to mention that the leadholder.com place has already sold the alvin leadholder I wished to get for le gank. 

Dammit!

Last night I dreamt I was pregnant.  In wonderment throughout the night, I continued to touch my hard belly to make sure it was really there.  I was so excited and yet filled with dread at having to tell my bosses I was busy making a baby.  I could not, in good conscience, keep working for them as manager of their small business when such a lovely thing was taking up my entire mind and energy.

The premise of my dream is spurned from my awe at my marriage to the gank.  I continue to be touched by how cherished this partnership between us is, as if everything else in the world falls away- the singular most important thing in my life is my marriage to him.  How valuable is my time with him?  When viewing what time we spend together (which is whatever time we do not spend at work), it comes to about 3 hours each evening, Monday through Thursday, 2 hours 45 minutes on Friday, and 3 hours in the morning on Saturday.  That comes to 17 hours and fifteen minutes.  Sunday, we spend the day together.  In toto, we have less than two days together per week.

One may see why I would like to end my ceaseless hour at work- with an average of 9.78 hour days and 48.63 hours per week, not including phonecalls on Sunday and Monday.  I yearn to work less for others and live more for us. 

We made the decision last night that I would step down from management and work from 25 to 30 hours per week as a sales associate or part-time manager.  I have not come up with a regular availabilty just yet, I'm still working out how I'm going to talk with the bosses.  They say they want to support my goals- ie: if I plan to have a baby within a year, tell them and we'll towards it together.  I am not so sure they will want to support my plan to grow my marriage.

So, what's the best option?  When, in retail, is a good time to tell your superiors what you have decided when it comes to stepping down?  Will they approve or agree?  Will they fight for my position and offer more money?  That just makes me angry, honestly.  Will they fire me with the thought that I will slack and steal from them?  Will they support me?

In all actuality, these questions matter not at all.  I am chockablock full of anxiety when it comes to this news, both

1. because once I make up my mind, there's no going back and no acting like I did previously- I wear my heart on my sleeve and don't like lying or behaving falsely.
   
2. because I am excited about taking life seriously!  What would happen if everyone thought about living the possibilities in their hearts?
   

"There is no doubt in my mind that I am a valued employee; I hear it from you two, our customers and distributors and know that I am a good employee.  I value working with you two equally as much and have professed my love for our product, customer base, and of our magical customer service on many occasions. This discussion I wanted to have today comes about from my beginning to resent my position here at flyspecka as it takes signifigant time away from what I could spend with my husband.  Since getting married, my priorities have shifted and I cannot, in good conscience, continue to manage your store when it is not in my heart.

"So, bosslady and bossman, I would like to step down from management in the next four to six months.  I will stick around to train the new manager and continue to run the store as I do now until that time comes.  I also expect to be treated as a manager until that time comes, at which point, I hope to be considered as a regular employee, 25 to 30 hours per week.

"I hope you understand and appreciate where I am coming from and do not take personal offense, as though we attempt to keep our feelings out of the workplace, this move for me is entirely personal.  Instead, I hope you will respect my honesty."

end quote.  I'll keep you posted.  

eish.