Christmas vacation!!

It’s day number two of my Christmas vacation. Christmas eve was great since I had a whole day, and evening, with the family. (It is SO nice to be away from work and all of the horribly messy people.)
Today, we got up and checked out the stockings from Santa and opened gifts. We headed to church, ate lunch and took a nap. I then proceeded to cook a Christmas dinner. Ham is great.
We are looking forward to this week as we visit with long lost relatives and the regular ones too.
Merry Christmas!

Magic Words

Target makes a huge deal about the phrase “Can I help you find something?” We are supposed to ask everyone that we see, “Can I help you find something?” We have to say the phrase on the phone, over the walkie-talkies and especially with the customers (whom we must refer to as “guests”).
Anyway, I was doing my job yesterday… asking everyone… “Can I help you find something?” One lady said “yes” and pulled me to the side. She explained that she was a secret shopper. She then continued to give me a certificate which entitled me to a $50 Target gift card… just for saying those magic words “Can I help you find something?”
Pretty Cool. It’s nice to be caught in the act and recognized for actually doing my job.
(I was the only one that she caught yesterday. Good for me.)
That $50 immediately went towards Christmas shopping on my 15 minute break. But it was great while it lasted.
3 more nights of work… "Can I help you find something?"

Countdown to Christmas

Alright, I’ve heard the cries of my fans. (Well, just one.) So here goes…

If I can make it through four more nights of work…
It’s been a retail nightmare for me the past few weeks. We’ve been working till 2am!! (I won’t worry my readers with my “How everything rises and falls on management” speech…but I think you can imagine.)
My 20 hour week has slowly morphed into a 35 hour week and I am reaping all of the benefits. Such as:
-a ritual caffeine break
-getting significantly grumpy by midnight and plotting ways to break out of the building
- singing Christmas songs on the cold ride home
- 4-5 hours of sleep
- trying to pull myself together and get things done before feeding the kids lunch
-taking my routine afternoon nap. (this plan was developed so I wouldn’t fall asleep at other tedious times of day)
-Fixing and eating dinner.
-heading out the door to start the process all over again.


Talk about the “hustle and bustle” of the holidays! Can’t wait until Saturday!! I’ll have nine days off at Christmas to travel and spend time with family. Really looking forward to it!

"The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful"

There was lots of freezing rain here last night. This morning the guy on the radio announced that the list of closings was officially longer then ever before. Amazing what a little bit of frozen water can do to us all.
Good thing that I went grocery shopping last night… AND bought a snow shovel!
The kids and I are staying home today and completing the Christmas tree. I have saved the glass ornaments for last.

I have never been a huge fan of wood stoves but I am married to a man who, I think, was a lumberjack in a previous life. We always manage to buy houses with those big ugly stoves. Luckily, the one that we have now is in our downstairs family room in a brick area that is designed for a stove (and not smack in the middle of our living room like our last house).
So… I came to town yesterday and walked into a 51 degree house. I fired up the wood stove and the temp rose about 20 degrees in just a few hours. I have to admit that it’s been a nice thing to have on these cold days. It’s cozy in here AND our electric bill will be very reasonable this winter.
Perhaps I was married to lumberjack in a previous life…