~ Officially Winter ~

My one-day job

Could I spend six and a half weeks applying for a job and finally get it, just so that my first day of work brings me 'in town' the exact day necessary to apply for the job I wanted in the first place... 

to walk in in cowboy boots the next day and get accepted at my dream job???

God works in mysterious ways!

This is the story of my one-day job.

          So I applied to PictureMe!, a little photo place at the Wal-mart in our nearest city, Marshall.  It was right after the miscarriage, and I felt like I needed something new to keep me busy and some outlet of getting out of the house and seeing people!  What could be better than taking pictures of darling little angels, getting to work with kids (which I love) and learning more about photography?  Excitedly, I left for my first day of work, dressed in professional black and white!

          Soon I learned, however, that most of the kids coming to get their pictures taken have never been spanked in their life, and all their poor exasperated mother can (will) do is scream empty threats... There's not much to the photography due to it all being set up and automated already; mostly it's just about sales.  I was told it was ok to lie to customers... anything to sell that super-expensive premium package!  I noticed a few other things about the work environment - that I would be working alone once fully trained and you don't actually see that many people; just stand in the shop alone and make many phone (sales) calls. :P  Training would take about 4 weeks, with two weeks left for me to work to finish out the season... that seems real practical, doesn't it?  Several more things, like lack of good communication/sense of caring among managers to employees (they are all long-distance because they oversee many locations), showed me that it's a broken system.  And basically your job is always on the line if you don't make enough sales. Oh yes, and it would be impossible to get time off at Christmas (a previous commitment to visit my family) because this is the busiest time of year!

          In my lunch break, I went out to the truck to eat my sandwich and decided to drive over to the new Pizza Ranch building to see if they had the date of opening up yet.  I had been watching for it, and for a "now hiring" sign since before it was even a building!  When it was just a sign in the ground saying it was the future home of Pizza Ranch, I started checking, every time I was in town.  I saw the roof go on.  I saw the boxes of chairs stacked outside and I saw the chairs being carried in.  But the apply now sign never came.

          So in the meantime, I had applied for another job.  And gotten it.  And today was my first day of work.  And it was my lunch break.  AND A SIGN WAS THERE!!!  They were going to be open the 21st of November!  No hiring sign.  Must have somehow gotten all the workers they needed already.  But maybe Ben and I could take a date there when they opened!

          I saw some activity inside, so I decided to check it out.  I stepped inside... it was all newly decorated - I had forgotten it was cowboy themed!  And there were all these smiling girls behind the counter, in some sort of training.  *sigh*  THIS was an environment I wanted to work in!  

          "What are you doing here?" I wasn't really sure actually, I knew my chance of applying was over and I was just so excited to see it I guess.  "Came for an application?"

          What?!  Still hiring?  "Um... Yes, actually!  Could I pick one up?"  I asked.  The guy handed me some papers and asked if I wanted to fill it out there.  Remembering I was on lunch break and didn't have much time (and still hadn't eaten yet) I asked if I could bring it in tomorrow.  No, that wasn't good enough.  It had to be by tonight if I wanted any chance!

          So I rushed out to my truck, wolfing down my sandwich as I hurriedly scribbled out names of references and such.  I had just enough time to run it back in (right away - hopefully making a good impression) before making it back to my other job just in time!

          I sat down to more video training and realized over the rest of the afternoon that this job really wasn't for me.  (See issues above)  And to top it all off, the volume could somehow not be changed on their computer so I had to hold my headphone like 1" away from my ear for hours on end!

          I went home in tears, super stressed, pessimistic and distraught over if I could even survive working at this job.

          Ben was so good at trying to help me, and we set some boundaries and conditions for if I would stay at that job.  It was a long first day.  I had a horrible headache and no peace.  I couldn't eat any supper.  I dreaded going back to work tomorrow, and I never wanted to walk into Wal-mart again.  I was sick.

My $2 .25 happiness

I really like the colour orange.  Not florescent glow-in-the-dark sort of bright orange, rather the fall-ish dusty, deep, rich orange.  The shade that looks good with my brown hair.  The determining factor in me using Blogger instead of Wordpress (once they changed to the new simple-with-orange-accents dashboard.)   The flowers for our wedding...  Background colour of my blog, anyone?
Maybe that's the real reason I liked emergency lifeboat stuff so much on the ship!  

Orange... Lifeboats

Lifevests

EPIRB

SART

Liferings

And the orange "black" box.

Everything related to life-saving for an Abandon Ship was ORANGE!!!  So I loved my emergency duties!  (Ok, there's a slight chance there was more to it than that, but I'm trying to make a point here!)

So when I walked in the store - our dear Wal-Mart of course, seems as though we rarely shop anywhere else; you know it's bad when you recognize all the different greeters no matter which day you go - and saw these beautiful round autumn decorations.  They were ORANGE!  It was love at first sight!  And this 10 pound (4.5kg) piece of happiness cost only $2.25!  A smashing deal, in my mind!

  

...And my dear husband bought one for us! :D

~ Happy Fall! ~

P.S.  I call it my "get-well" pumpkin because I went to the Dr. yesterday (yes, I am sick - dysuria and cystitis), am now on antibiotics (Ciprofloxacin), and am feeling much improved even today!  Feels so good to 'not hurt'!  And I was feeling good enough so we could carve the pumpkin!

Fall

This is the combine by our house!  (See the 'Ben and Naomi' pines?)

This is what it looks like all around us these days!

Everything has changed to fall colors (i.e. brown)!

It is so beautiful outside these days!  There is a warm wind from the south teasing us with Indian Summer... the constant hum of the combines harvesting day and night (mostly beans and soon the corn)... the leaves changing color, rustling in the wind and falling, and the sun glinting off the leaves and sparkling between the trees in our forest grove!  I have the windows open today for the wonderful refreshing air, and I feel very European! :)

Dinner!

Actually, that was yesterday's dinner!  Tonight we are having something special that Ben will really love! :D  (Hint: he likes seafood!)  I've got to go make it now, so this is me signing off! ~NSS

Fettuccine Shrimp Alfredo  Shhhh...!  Don't tell him! ;) 

When the combines don't cooperate...

Ben called to tell me the farmers were combining the field by our (new) house.  (This goes to show that the driveways are SOOOO long - and anyway the grove of trees blocks the view - that you can't even see it from the house!)  This was important because I wanted to get pictures of them combining, our house in the background, etc.  I'm getting into photography a bit lately and I need things to take pictures of.  On empty gravel roads running between lonely fields there's usually not much to take pictures of.  That is, until harvest!  Now there was activity... and I didn't want to miss it!  (I was later informed by one of the farmers that it will continue for one to two months - I didn't need to hurry.)  However, I didn't want to miss this picture; the combine by OUR house!

So I went out, middle of the day (interrupting my normal schedule for the day - isn't that how it goes when you're a photographer?), direct sunlight of course being the worst type of lighting (as a general rule for photography), to capture a documentary photo.  Because under these conditions it wasn't going to be photographically amazing, but it would give a glimpse of life in the country!

Just my luck.  The combine was NOT cooperating.  Apparently harvesting the beans was of higher priority than being the perfect subject for my Nikon D90.  He was at the far end of the field doing a great job of just that - gathering those beans.  And totally ignoring me.

*sigh*

Which leads me to a great rule of photography I learned today:  

When combines aren't cooperating, become your own model!

Or, find something else.

Direct sunlight is not the best, but this one (below) turned out kind of cool!

Later in the day I happened to be driving by on my way somewhere, and (like every good photographer) had the camera with me, and all the combines were out for the perfect photographs!  So in five minutes I got shots I'd been waiting for for over an hour! :P

Pictures of the harvest to come in the next post!  

My favorite room in the house

See our new skylight?  We have two of them in so far... a special project we worked on when Grandpa Berge was here on a Saturday!  They let in so much light!

This is what the upstairs looks like right now:

The guys working hard!  This is the master bedroom:

And now, my favorite room in the house!  The ATTIC!  The other day I brought my books and studied  while Ben worked on putting in the floor... the attic is the best because of the 'porthole' windows, interesting roof lines, skylights, and the open overlooking railings (yet to come)!  I'm so happy that there's now a floor so it's easier to be up there! :)

I'll leave you with this parting shot of my hardworking hubby!