12.28.08
Posted in daily life stuff at 9:23 am by Shari
Oh, my gosh… last night was the first time EVER that I could go shopping with the baby girl, we could both pick out lots of clothes IN THE SAME STORE, the go to the dressing rooms and keep trying things on, show them to each other and decide if we should get them or not. How fun is that?
Normally, it would be her taking me along and I’d watch her try stuff on, or very rarely, I’d go to one of the few plus size stores and she’d have to watch me try stuff. Now that I’m in XL’s, I can shop in some of the same stores as she does!
And, I got a top to wear for the new job!
So Christmas - It was pretty quiet. We went to Mom’s and saw the baby girl there. We also visited w/ my younger brother, Brian, and his family. Went to church on Christmas eve, went to Brian’s for b-fast on Christmas day and had dinner at Mom’s place. Mom and Shaun seemed pleased with the things I made them. I did take pics of what I did for mom, but haven’t taken them off the camera yet, so that’ll be another post.
The new job starts tomorrow. I’m trying to have low expectations. I’m anxious, though, about what it’ll be like, what the environment will be like, if I’ll be able to find a place to walk during lunch, etc. For the next couple of weeks I’ll be working there days and then 3-4 evenings and Saturdays and probably some Sunday’s at JA’s. Once I know how they do the scheduling at Sutherland, I’ll have to start working up new schedules at JA’s to work with the Sutherland schedule. It’ll be an exhausting few months, for sure.
Time for a shift at JA’s today so I can have next Saturday off.
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12.17.08
Posted in daily life stuff, knitting, wls at 4:24 pm by Shari
It’s almost Christmas - a week from today we’ll be getting ready for church about now. Am I ready? NOPE… but I’m getting there. Lots of knitting I want to get done, but there’s lots done too. I have a short term goal of Sunday for all of Chuck’s family - take it all to Mary then and she can distribute for us during the week. Then part of my family isn’t until the 3rd of January, so I have some breathing space (despite the news below that starts 12/29)
I was just upstairs trying on some of the many clothes I’ve gotten from friends recently. Yesterday I came home with 2 black trash bags of clothes. Unfortunately a bunch of the tops are short sleeves and big enough to be questionable as to whether or not I should keep them for myself right now or not. Still, there’s a number of tops that will be great for right now. Also a couple of prs of slacks that looks like they’ll work. Then there’s the bags I got a couple of months ago that I wasn’t quite able to wear at the time and they’re mostly looking pretty good right now.
One reason I need to go through clothes right now is to sort out how many “business casual” outfits I can come up with since I just got a f/t job and that’s the dress code. Most of what I’ve been wearing is too big or jeans, so not appropriate. Much of what I just went through is dresses and/or too light weight for the season. The jumpers are fine, but I know myself and know I’ll want to mix it up with slacks as well. I have a pair of black cords that are too big but mint condition, so I’ll take them in a bit so they work for me. And the pair or two of slacks from yesterday’s haul. I’ll go with what I have for the moment, see what the atmosphere is when I get there and sort out what else I need to do to update the closet.
It was good to find that the clothes that didn’t fit are now fitting. My weight hasn’t wavered much these last couple of months, but everyone keeps telling me I look like I’m losing - I guess it’s moving around or something. Just today I FINALLY saw a shift in the scale, so maybe I’ve started to shift past a plateau.
So the job - it’s doing tech support for Turbo Tax users at Sutherland. Money’s not great, but it’ll be consistent. I totally feel like I can do the tech support/customer service role. I’m not super crazy about the idea of some mandatory 6 day work weeks, some weeks of mandatory 10 hr days, blackout weeks that include a weekend that I was hoping to get away to visit the baby girl and the fact that the schedules will include times anywhere from 8am until midnight, in the city, 27 miles from my house. But hey, it’s a job and that’s important.
Tonight is support group - always a good night for me. I’m hoping the schedule on the new job isn’t going to interfere with that too much. There’s so much uncertain until I get through the 2.5 wk training period and see the first schedules, but I’m going to make it work. Apparently the schedule will change, but have some consistency in several week blocks, so even if one month is out, hopefully the next will be fine. Can’t sweat it though.
Wish me luck!
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12.06.08
Posted in odds 'n ends, Crafts at 9:26 pm by Shari
is here. Click on the play button and go to about 5:50 into the piece to hear about the food bank he works in. I liked this better than the AP article that I posted last week.
I’ve been working on Christmas gifts. Won’t talk too much about them here just in case any of the recipients are reading… I’ve settled on a “same for all” for the nieces and nephews - a fairly small project that I’ll wrap in see thru cellophane and let them choose their own.
I’m also making some reusable giftbags to wrap other gifts in. I’m using this tutorial, and probably making some of my own changes to it. The first one, my test drive, worked out really well. I’ve decided, though, rather than sewing them right sides together, turning and topstitching, I’m going to serge the 4 sides of the 2 square pieces, then do the rest on my regular machine. I think it’ll turn out great. I picked up red and green thread so I can do a 4 thread overlock that’ll be red on one side, green on the other. Should be cute.
The leftovers (I’m starting with fat quarters and there’s scraps) will turn into criss cross coasters (tutorial here) I should get 1 coaster for every 2 bags I do… I’ll probably commit a fat q or two to just coasters though so I can have a couple of sets to show for my efforts. I had bought a set of 20 fqs a while back - all in burgundy/deep green/gold - perfect for Christmas but not Christmas fabrics per se. Got a great price - it was clearance and I was able to get it on double discount day, so I scored 20 fq’s for 7 bucks!
Today I did a birthday party again and we (again) did a sculpey photo frame project. It’s turning into a nice project to do, so I’m going to make one of them up for display. I’m torn between doing it in a very cohesive manner or doing it so each of the tiles shows different ideas of things the kids can do on theirs. Probably the second is better to give them more launching points. I did this frame as a demo and use it to show and share the idea, but we don’t do the antiquing and we use a smaller frame. I also bring in a bunch of other rubber stamps and Wilton Fondant cutters so they can make letters and shapes to layer on their tiles. Our biggest problem is getting them to cut tiles to accurate sizes, so I’m working on ideas to make that happen better. Anyway, it would be good to have one in more kid-friendly colors and the size we’re using to make it more appealing to both parents and kids.
One fun thing that we do when we do this party is to have each of the kids make a bead (or two) so the birthday girl (well, so far it’s been girls) gets to string a bracelet on memory wire and go home w/ her frame as well as a gift that everyone contributed to.
Here’s another fun project with Sculpey that I demo’d awhile ago that gets lots of good comments. And next Saturday I’ll be demo’ing this one, which turned out adorable as well.
Well, it’s time to put some time in on website work so I can pay a bill or two this month.
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