This is where I bitch.

So update, been a while.

I moved to this position, in charge of the online order database for the POD department, about 8 months ago now. I left two very capable women in the Collection department. However, the more experienced one is now moving off to the Twin Cities for a new job for her husband. The newer woman isn't quiet to the point where she can train new people. They asked me to split my time between current job and training / shadowing the new Collection Project Managers. One guy is moving internally and we'll hire a third. I will have to get up to speed on all of the projects the person leaving has going on, refresh my memory on how to do that job, and figure out a training/shadowing plan with the new people. I'll probably be doing this for 3-4 months. Stressful and adding a lot to my plate, because it's not like my current job will slow down, but it's another sign of the company's trust in me. And I am wrapping up my latest initiative in my current job, so as long as I don't start a new one, I have some time.

Along with this, the Wear house manager we had hired 6 months ago was let go last week. So I'm taking on some of his responsibilities. They might hire a replacement, but not for a while so we can see if we really need one.

They did reward my willingness to take on all of this with a nice raise, so I'm happy about that.

Otherwise I've been doing art for the Teen Wolf Mating Games fest. It's a 6 week fest, with a new challenge each week. Plus there is a bonus challenge and you get points for voting on the entries. At first I was stressing out about it, both because of the deadlines and the competition part. Seeing some of the art (it's mostly fic) and feeling like a looser because it's better than mine. But I've moved past that, realized it's all for fun and if i can't get an entry in, while it causes my team to loose points, nothing is riding on it, this should be enjoyable. Plus I've met a ton of awesome new online friends.

Other things are figuring out the summer vacation plans and when I can go north to see Laura and her family. Otherwise just trying to keep the weekends fun. Paul and I are exercising and eating healthy again, mostly so he can be fit for seeing his family in California this summer. And I'm really, really missing volleyball. The gay club here has put in two courts and the gay league I was in plays there now. Next summer I'm dropping softball (we've played all of 1 night in 5 weeks due to rain) and doing that instead.

It's been an interesting week.

I took Tuesday off form work to wait for a home gym to be delivered. Paul has less time to go to the gym now with school, so this is an option for working out at home. But the gym was in three packages weighing over 300 lbs. I did not want to have to pick it up from the front office. So I waited at home all day for it, then put it together that afternoon. The morning I was able to get a lot done on my cousin's bakery website and do updates for next year's Milmaids Bowling tournament website. (Thanks to my friends who took a look at the bakery site.)

Wednesday I took a half day off work for my first day at Barnes & Nobel. It was fine, half off Starbucks is going to be a bad temptation. I have my next shift then next Thursday. I'm liking the "borrow a book" policy, so that workers can be up to speed on new books coming out.

Thursday we had a really bad storm. It rained like 2 inches in like 2 hours. I left the apartment at 5:20ish to go to work at the mall, not raining. By the time I was at the intersection to get into the mall, 20 minutes later, it had rained so much that the water was up to the headlights on the cars, you couldn't see the medians and there were cars stalled everywhere. My car sputtered a bit, but I made it in.

I tweeted a pic

Friday my car started acting up. After about 5 minutes of driving, the engine temp would sky rocket, topping out around 290F. I left early from work and took it to the shop. It turns out the water on Thursday had gotten high enough that it reached my cooling fan. The fan speed combined with hitting the water cause all three fan blades to sheared off, sending them flying into my radiator, and putting a hole in it. So today I am car-less, Paul brought me into work, but flood damage is covered by my car insurance, so it should be fully covered. Waiting to hear back.

Might need a ride into work on Monday though.

All though this was work. So stressful and busy there. Huge project with a looming deadline. We are making good progress, but I'm not sure we will finish in time. Going to have to put in some hours form home this weekend.

Tonight we are off to a house warming party for a co-worker of Paul's, which will be fun. I also have a growing list of art to work on, need to get on that, ASAP.

Not feeling very well, mentally, at all. As I said on twitter, I feel like an elephant is sitting on my head.

It started yesterday when I was pulled over by a cop and got a ticket for not coming to a complete stop at a light before turn right onto an on ramp. Paul wants me to go to the hearing and try to get the points deduction reduced. And I should. But I don't expect the judge to do anything, they never seem to. And I don't really have the energy. We'll see, it's a few weeks off.

I'm also not really enjoying D&D as much anymore. Mostly my character is boring and in-effective. The one thing he's good at we never run into. Most of my abilities hurt the other players, if we are next to each other, and combat seems to be crowded all the time, so I can't use a lot of the powers. And I don't feel very involved in the plot. It's probably just me, I've never been a very strong or forceful player. Just sucks that the one fun thing we do a week isn't. Maybe volleyball (if I can play) will be fun again.

No movement on the house. No change in work.

Maybe I need to start looking forward to seeing Laura and her family this summer. Just so there is a light out there somewhere to move towards.

Last weekend was pretty fun, at least Saturday night.

Plan B, one of the gay clubs in town had an under ware party with Andrew Christian, the under ware company. Paul's favorite model was there, and being pretty popular overall, there wasn't much chance he'd be back in town, like ever. So we went, had some over priced drinks and he got a ton of pictures with Colby Melvin (the model). Colby is actually dating another model, Brandon Brown, who was there as well. Paul and Brandon bonded because they have the same necklace from Tiffany & Co. and everyone who see the necklace asks why it says "TACO" on it (it's really T&CO). Paul also got the calendar of Colby that I got him for Christmas signed.

Unfortunately we stayed out waaay to late (like 3am) and I had to get up at 5am to work at Best Buy, so that wasn't as fun.

Here is Paul with the four models that were there, Colby and Brandon are in the blue under ware on the left. Colby is shorter.

Paul went into the ditch yesterday on the way to Whitewater. The roads were horrible and there was no fault of his on it. When he called me his car wouldn't start either. So I looked up a local tow truck for him to call and then headed over there. Took twice as long to drive there as it should have. Then I hung around in Whitewater making sure his car was in good enough shape to get home. Spent most of my time in the UW library.

Today was thus catch up on emails, but I really didn't have that many.

More freelancing opportunities on the way as well. More on that as things get finalized.

Seems like everyone at Best Buy is jumping ship, so I'm not sure if my hours will go down like I'd hoped. Kinda burning out with the three jobs.

Paul interviewed at Mallats for an accountant position and got it. Which is awesome. They are just starting the accounting department up, so he gets to be in on the ground floor, set things up like they should and has the potential for tons of advancement. Plus he will have a job in his field on his resume.

It was a long weekend, I'm quiet happy to be back in the office sitting down.

On Thanksgiving we picked up the UHaul truck and with Ben's help got all of the furniture we think we want to keep over to the apartment. Took us one trip, about 2.5 hours, which was nice. Then Paul and I unpacked and organized, until we went over to exairian's for TDay dinner. Trevor's parents were over also, and it was a really nice dinner and time.

Black Friday was crazy. I didn't have to start until 9am, which was nice to get to skip the crazies. But it was a 12 hour day and pretty disorganized. I also didn't have to help restock, another plus.

Saturday was actually worse, because I was so tired from Friday, and still had a 9 hour shift. The food Best Buy had catered in was great though. After work we went over to Blythe and Trevor's again, this time for drinking with Wendy and Drew, who are up for a bit. Nice to see them, but I over did it on the gin.

Sunday was rough, as I'm pretty sure I was still drunk when I got into work. And that moved over to a hangover. Also they had me at the front of the store for a while being a greater. Not the best of situations. I spent most of the day as a dedicated cashier in our department, which isn't bad, really.

This week looks a bit busier at Omnipress, and I'm hoping that I can get over to the house and clean, as it is not in any shape to be shown to buyers.

Next weekend is the Omnipress holiday party, which sounds great. I'm hoping Best Buy doesn't change their mind about letting me out early enough to go to it.

This week looks to be slow again. I'll probably hire myself out to other departments again. Sunday was pretty productive. I got a lot of house chores done and picked up some things needed for the new job at Best Buy.

We ended up using my birthday gift certificate and went to The Tornado room to celebrate Paul's last day at Walgreens.

Tomorrow is gonna be busy with trying to work as much as I can, vote and still make the employee intro at Best Buy.

And my back really hurts from dealing with the leaves in our yard. I will not miss that.

The future is kinda scary right now, with all of the potential changes. Also, with working more at Best Buy, Paul and I won't be seeing each other nearly as much.

First, happy birthday to my man. I wish I could spoil him as much as he deserves.

Second, I don't think I've actually talked about the current D&D game much, if at all. It's fun. I'm not DMing, I'm playing. exarian's husband is running it. He had this game going for a few months, and at some point with hanging out with them Paul and I mentioned that we'd be game to play. His group had shrunk a bit with one guy, Ben, off to do military training for a while, so we joined a month ago or so. It's nice to play at a table again and not be running it. It's fun to play with with Dana and Shawn again. It's been a blast playing with Tony for the first time. And I love seeing Paul get into the group with smack talk and joking.

I re-speced a character that I had been playing online before this game. It's a Swarm Druid, and he's pretty fun to play. It dose take some finesse with his abilities to control the enemies and not damage party members. But it just takes some planning, which is a nice change for D&D.

It has been a very busy week. I've been mostly setting up emails for my clients in our system and making reports. Everyone is asking for one last thing before I'm out next week. Though today I'm down to just one person I need to worry about.

Tomorrow I fly out at 6AM for California. I work there tomorrow through Wednesday and then get back Wednesday night. Hopefully I'll have time to hang out with my cousins Amanda and Kelsey. And I'll get to explore and see the area a bit, as I've never been there.

I'll miss the boy and the puppies. But I'm kind of excited. However it will probably be like 10 hour days.

Kinda of a general update.

Last week/weekend Paul and I ripped up the carpeting in the living room. It makes the place seem much more clean and open than when it had the shag carpet. The floor needs work, the previous owners decided to paint things on it before putting down the carpet, so there are lines from painting trim and circles of paint from the bottoms of buckets. We aren't going to tackle that yet.

Last Saturday we went to Ikea, my first trip there. Crazy big. Took all day. We got a few odds and ends and have some plans for renovating a few of the rooms in the house.

Work has been a roller coaster of business. Monday I was here for 12 hours trying to get everything done. Today I don't have much to do (of active work, there is always busy work to get done).

We are finally registered for softball. Time kinda slipped by. I think we pick teams in two weeks. And I missed the last few weeks of volleyball for some impromptu date nights. Now that is off for a few weeks before Summer session starts.

I have lots of art projects lined up. No pressing deadlines, so it's been hard to force myself to do them. When the due dates get closer I'll be able to get my butt in gear.