A Meme of 5

I was tagged by Rose for this meme.

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

1) What were you doing 5 years ago? Five years ago I was living in a very small town in Montana, I was recovering from surgery and trying to get up the nerve to live on my own.

2) What are 5 things on your to-do list for today?: Get online, eat, change the sheets, do some laundry, go to work.

3) What are 5 snacks you enjoy?: buffalo style chicken breast strips, ice cream, bananas, popcorn shrimp, chips.

4) What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?: I would buy a house for me and for each of my sons. I would donate some to charities for cancer and for children's hospitals, I would quit my job, I would set up trust funds for my grandchildren and my young stepson, I would give my sons some money to invest in their futures.

5) What are five jobs you’ve had?: Building grain bins, waitress, bartender, cashier, customer service manager.

I am tagging: Mae, Lisa, Craig, Hillbilly Willy, Wayne

Greatest Love

I've been tagged by fellow blogger Mae

To whom or what you give your greatest LOVE and why?

It should go without saying that I love my children and grandchildren, unconditionally.
I also love my boyfriend and his son unconditionally.

But my greatest love? Well, that is for myself. This is not narcissistic.

A few years ago I was in an emotionally/verbally abusive marriage. From my ex, I learned that I was a worthless human being. I learned not to stand up for myself, I learned that I wasn't capable of doing anything right no matter how hard I tried.

With the help of my online friends, that I have mentioned in another post on my blog,
I slowly came to realize that I wasn't worthless and useless. I began to love myself and I was able to break away from the abuse.

I have learned that if you can't love yourself you can't truly love another, or truly be loved by another.

I have learned that to love yourself you must forgive yourself for the past. You can't forgive others if you can't forgive yourself.

I have learned that to love yourself you must accept yourself for who you are. Once you do that you are more able to change those faults or habits that you may not be comfortable with, because now you have accepted that they are a part of you.

I have learned not to let anyone bully me, because I am just as important as the next person.

I know that I am not perfect, and I know that I do not have to be perfect to be worth being loved by another.

I have learned that when you love yourself you don't need an outside influence or another person to make you happy because you can find happiness within.

So my greatest love goes to myself and it is the source of the love I feel for everyone else and everything else that I love.

Corporate Control

I work for a major retail corporation. Awhile back the corporation decided that their computer program was better able to judge how many associates needed to be scheduled in the stores, than the managers that work in the stores.

The managers were told that the computer would be making the schedules and that changes couldn't be made. I'm told that the computer bases the scheduling on last year's sales for that day. The computer isn't programmed to take into account events that are happening in our area, it doesn't seem to be programmed to 'know' when it is a weekend. It doesn't 'know' that we may have had bad weather on a given day last year that affected the sales.

As a result of this, on the weekends there aren't any floor associates scheduled and very few cashiers. Many nights, including Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we have only 4 cashiers after 8:00 pm, there have been nights where there were only 2 cashiers scheduled. We are expected to give fast, friendly service, and not have lines, with 4 or fewer cashiers. Most nights, and always on the weekends, there aren't any floor associates to call up to run register in the case of lines. There aren't any floor associates to help the customers that need help in the different departments.


I have to wonder if the computer really does schedule according to last year's sales because, all summer long, every night we have the camp councilor kids in, 4 to 6 vans of them from the different camps in our area, plus the tourists and our regular customers. The computer is not scheduling for this, even though it is a yearly occurance.

None of this makes any sense to me. It is my opinion that the assistant manager that works over each area knows how many associates they need at any given time throughout the day. They know when events are in the area and how many extra people they would need to compensate for the extra customers. They know when it is a weekend.

In my opinion, a person should be making the schedule not a computer. Maybe it works for larger stores in big cities but it doesn't work for smaller stores. I know that the customer shopping experience would be greatly improved if we had more people scheduled than we do, especially at night.

Online Friends

Several years ago someone told me that you can't really be friends with someone that you have never met in person.

That person was wrong. I have a group of friends online that are much better friends than those that I have known in person. We have shared each others ups and downs we have supported each other in life changing decisions and I can say that these friends truly care about me as much as I care about them.

Here is an example, in 2003 I was taken by ambulance to the hospital 50 miles away because I couldn't breathe. I was hospitalized for pneumonia, my right lung was completely full and they had to do surgery to be able to drain it. I almost died. Not one of my real life friends came to see me or even call the whole week and a half that I was there, but my online friends called every day to check on me and cheer me up. They took turns and kept each other informed, and those that were Reiki practitioners sent me Reiki daily.

In 2004 when I decided to move across country to be with a man that I had never met in person (but had known online for 2 years), they supported me in that decision and I was lucky enough to be able to meet some of them in person for the first time. BTW, we have been together for 4 years. I am not advocating moving across country to be with someone you met on the internet, I was fully aware of the chance I was taking.

Some of my online friends have chronic health problems. I send them Reiki, I look up information that can possibly help them, but more important, I try to be there for them as well as for all of my friends as they have been there for me.

Just because you have never met a someone in person doesn't make them any less of a friend than those you know in person. Think about it, what makes a friend?

Kudos to all of my online friends out there, you know who you are.

Work

Yesterday afternoon I got to work and found out that the closing CSM quit yesterday morning. What happened to 2 week notices? I don't close, I only work as late as 11:00 pm. I can rush and get everything, meaning the CSM duties, done by 11:00 and then management has to be available to come up front if the cashiers need anything. It's just very difficult on a Friday and Saturday night to be the only CSM, because we are busy and a single CSM is running constantly and usually in three directions at once.

I am also alone tonight and I get out at 10:00. I haven't figured out how I am going to do this. There is no way I can get the registers pulled by 10:00. I can get the front ones but not the outlying and the self checks, they can't even be pulled until 10:00. I'm hoping that management has called one of the other night CSMs to come in and help.

Wish me luck.

Summertime songs

Hi all, I got this meme from my blogging friend Rose I thought I would give it a try.

“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.”

Most of my 'feel good' songs are silly little songs that I learned as a kid, and most of them I don't know the proper title or where they originated but here they are. I used to sing them with my boys now I sing them with my 8 almost 9 year old stepson.

7. Here Comes The Sun (The Beatles)

6. There's A Hole In The Bucket

5. I walked Around The Corner

4. Boom Boom And It's Great To Be Crazy

3. Take Me Out To The Ball Park

2. You Get A Line And I'll Get A Pole

1. Tweedle O Twill

I don't expect anyone to even know most of these.

Like Rose, I'm not going to tag anyone, but if your interested in joining then please
copy the instructions and pass it on.

Oh and go ahead, open your mouth and sing just because it feels good.

My first award!

Thank you, Rose DesRochers World Outside my Window for presenting me with this E is for Excellent blog award.
Although I'm not sure that I deserve it or why she gave it to me, I am very pleased to have received it.

Rose posted that "Shannon at ProjectMommy.com started this award ring in January." and I feel that credit should be passed on.

Now I just need to come up with 10 bloggers to pass it on to.

Once again, thank you Rose.

Procrastination

Today is my day off. I went to bed last night with the thought that I would get up this morning and write something interesting in my blog. LOL! Now it is 4:03 pm.

I have managed to find all other kinds of things to do instead. Now, it wouldn't be bad if they were productive things but they weren't (I just finally got to the laundry). I have a half finished oil painting that I could've been working on, but wasn't, another procrastination.

So what have I been doing with my time today? I surfed the web a few times, I watched a little TV, and I played a computer game, a couple of times.

I wish I could figure out why I procrastinate. It isn't like I don't enjoy painting, or writing in my blog, because I enjoy both of those things. I can understand not getting excited about doing the laundry and housework they get done because they have to be done. I'm lucky too, because my boyfriend is great about helping with the household chores.

When I was growing up my mom taught me "never put off until tomorrow what you can do today". The older I get the more I put things off though. Am I the only person in the world that does this? Sometimes I wonder about that, my boyfriend doesn't procrastinate. It probably drives him nuts that I do, although he never says anything.

Well, at least my procrastination helped me to get one thing done. I don't know how interesting it is, but it's written.