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My fortune
This is the fortune I got from my fortune cookie this afternoon:
Today, your mouth might be moving but no one is listening.
Wordless Wednesday: Zoe & Maisy
Photo taken by my husband.
AuctionAds: Increase the bid on your site’s income!
Oh yes I did
Last night I had about 6″ chopped off my hair. I love it!
I have clearly lost my mind
I have clearly lost my mind, and the evidence is that not only did I suggest we get a Wii game system this morning, but then I also made Zoe leave the house without brushing her teeth so that we could get to Best Buy at 9:56 a.m. and stand in line for the 10 a.m. opening, thereby ensuring that we’d get one of the nine Wii’s that they were releasing today.
Yes. I stood in line.
For a game system.
We were seventh in line, and there were nine Wii’s. And I felt like we were in The Amazing Race when the Best Buy Guy opened the doors and allowed us to enter and get the coveted Wii. However, instead of rushing through the aisles like crazy lunatics, we walked in an orderly fashion to the Wii Table, where we were then handed our prize. $249.99 of pure fun. But then we had to buy another game control, and nunchuck, and of course we had to get the MarioParty 8 game. And while we were there we got an AM/FM tuner for our receiver, which has sat in our entertainment center for the last 10 years completely useless. Then we bought speaker wire so we could finally hook up the surround sound ceiling speakers that we have in our family room.
End total at Best Buy? Jeez are you nosy! I’ve already wiped it from my memory so that I don’t randomly convulse into a seizure, but the three of us had to sign a legally binding contract with the Household Budget prior to standing in the Wii line whereby we agreed to not eat dinners out until October. With the ‘extra purchases totalled in there’ I’m hoping we’ll be so used to not eating out that we should be able to make dinners at home easily into 2008.
And I had to give up my splurges on $25 bottles of wine.
Like I said, I’ve clearly lost my mind.
Yodeling
Remember yesterday when I said we could have a dance party out in the shop if we wanted to? Well, it’s 2:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon and I can hear the music out in the shop from my office. It’s yodeling — to the tune of The Lone Ranger.
Folks, I’m at a loss for words.
I don’t know which is worse, The Lone Ranger? Or the fact that it’s yodeling.
14 years
Today marks the 14th year I’ve been working in the family tool and die business. Wow. I don’t think I’ve done anything consistently for 14 years, this may be a first for me. Congratulations to me!
Things have really changed since I started working at “The Shop”, for instance, we didn’t have email 14 years ago. We phoned everything in to our vendors and did a lot of faxing to our customers. And the fax paper? It was one long roll of glossy paper, not single sheets like we have today. We wrote out our purchase orders by hand! And our shipping tickets too. The invoices were typed out in Microsoft Word. Fun times.
Since I started we’ve upgraded our computers, machinery, and the shop scheduling program many times. I still answer each phone call within the first three rings, and if you’ve called before, I know your voice. We don’t have caller ID, and we don’t have voicemail. I sometimes wish we had the voicemail, but our customers like the fact that when they call us a real live person will answer the phone.
I can read blueprints. And I do math. Every. Freaking. Day. Even though I swore that I’d never do math again after I took college algebra for the third time and finally passed the damn class. I informed everyone that I’d estimate everything mathematical from then on. (Shhh, the math thing is our little secret) I even know how to figure out how much a piece of steel weighs by the dimensions, and a piece of aluminum too. I have no idea what an insert is though, and I’ve been ordering them for oh, about 14 years now.
All my employees can thank me today for getting my dad to lay off the radio station rule whereby we were only allowed to listen to three pre-determined radio stations. He even used a paint marker to make lines on the radio to make it easier on us. Yeah. I thought he was kidding (he wasn’t) so I constantly broke that rule until he finally gave up. Now we can have a dance party out in the shop if we so choose. I, of course, choose to sit at my desk and listen to gospel music all day. Kidding! I listen to my ipod. I listen to everything from an audiobook, to a podcast, to whatever the free New Music Tuesday download is.
Since I started working there I’ve gotten married, graduated from college, had a baby, bought two homes, moved countless times, gone on many vacations, and most recently gone back to graduate school. There was a two year period of time where I brought Zoe to work with me practically every day. That was probably the best perk of my job.
Here’s to me (this is where you hold up your coffee cup and make a toast), 14 years on the job working side by side with my dad, mom, and brother, sometimes my daughter, and sometimes my brother’s dog. I’ve got the best job ever, but I’d still be willing to win the lottery and not have a job at all.
I’m just saying.
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