Thursday, March 31, 2005  

Some former kids who worked at my old store came to visit me at my "new store" yesterday and brought me fresh fried cheese curds!!! LOL So cool. (I wrote a song about cheese curds that ppl are used to me singing...)

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This will sound insensitive, but I can't wait until the name "Schiavo" is no longer in the news. Pro life people made their point, but man, MOVE ON! (I had no opinion on that whole matter so anytime anyone brought it up i'd just walk away or turn the station.)

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Jessica is gone from Idol. Good - she was not idol material.

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Can't wait until inventory is over... They took away our $$ bonus incentive this year (i would have double-bonused bc i'm a shrink guru) and so i don't care if we pass or not. I don't think we will pass - but it's too late to really fix much now. I came to this store too late to make much of a dent in our numbers, tho i think most of the counts that are wrong are coming directly from our shippers and there are some major gaps in training at the point of sale at this store for some reason people don't know how to simply scan and ring merchandise. Someone like me in logistics can do the best job at everything i do to ensure data integrity and it only takes one or two cashiers who don't ring properly (like using a "quantity" key, or not scanning each ream of colored paper, which is a different sku) to really screw stuff up. The undending-ness of my job makes life... ummm... hopeless sometimes.

And if that wasn't enough, they have me and another weakling girl scheduled for two overnights next week to baby-sit the floor cleaners strip&wax project and what will us too girls be doing??? BUILDING A STEEL FIXTURED WALL ON THE **^&^%%$$%^ FURNITURE PAD! For pete's sake i can barely lift the beams let alone build these fixtures with no directions. Someone tried to walk me thru it yesterday and my eyes just kind of glossed over. I tried and i prayed and i manipulated all i could, and i could not get the men on my staff to change me out of that schedule. It will be fun to say the least. I think God is preparing me for if/when i go open some new stores this year or next. You build them from the concrete up - steel 'n all. Girls or not. LOL

Oh wait, that's not all. I have one more thing to gripe about - but this will be more interesting than bad. So inventory is Sat. night which will go to about one or two a.m. - possibly we will be done by 12 if i run it right. But it's daylight saving and i have to get up and be to church by 7:30 a.m. bc i'm teaching & singing this week!!! JOY! NO SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol

So i call that "suffering for the Lord."
:)

   [ posted  @ 12:27 PM | ]

What do you think of the new layout?

Kind of like jumping off a cliff to your doom: that's what changing a blog template feels like. But since it's not freezing cold anymore, I had to take the santa hat off and then decided to see what new blogger templates were out there. This one was easy enough to just plug in so i'll see how i like all the pink, etc. I miss Jon's header already.

Good Friday

Went to Celebration Church last night for Good Friday with my friend Isaac and it was actually really good. Lowell Lundstrom is still kickin' it for God - he's so with it. If you didn't know, he had a stroke last year, so he walks just a little slower, but he's still the same evangelist he always was and their church is growing leaps and bounds. [I feel terrible but before i knew he had a stroke, and that is why he was walking kind of hunched over, i made a mean comment that he reminded me of Ozzy Osborne. yikes! sorry!]

I would not pick Celebration to attend regularly bc my church rocks the planet, but it is a nice change of pace. And it has great theater seating and sound, so they do really well to incorporate a lot of things in the service that you won't find in a traditional church. Also, it is fun to sit on the sidelines and we try to pick out how many Lundstroms we can find in the audience. Dang they all look alike and they are everywhere. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They have had this church for only like 8 years and have just built this building in the last 2 or 3 years and already are ready to expand it. Good things are happening there.

They did a re-enactment of the crucifixion, but i hope it does not sound evil for me to say the guy they had playing Jesus was quite overweight and OLD. But it was gory like it needed to be. The service ended with just a spotlight on the (badly bloody) cross and a recording of someone singing "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross" and that was it. The lights faded to red, then black and then no one dismissed us. We just knew it was over.

INVENTORY

My store's inventory is one week away. We are not ready. I am mad about it. I feel like not really trying harder because for some reason there's no $$bonus$$ this year if you pass inventory, and only one out of the other 4 mgr's seem to care like i do. I won't be breaking my back this year to try to pass, that is for sure. Besides, i will probably not be at this store long-term. Horrible attitude.

Do you know how hard it is to cut out 7 minutes from a sermon?

The rest of my day will be spent getting ready to teach next Sunday (worship pt. 2; John 4) and i'm at 31 minutes as i've timed it twice today and have to trim about 7 more minutes worth of stuff... not sure how to do it. Have to pray about it more. I could go on and on and on. Whoo hoo.

   [ posted  @ 11:31 AM | ]

Am. Idol thoughts

1. Anthony - I don't know what they heard in the studio. This sounded horribly out of tune at home here.

2. Carrie - Amazing. She's got to win this.

3. Scott- my 2nd favorite --- however him taking off the glasses/hat was dumb.

4. Bo - Good song choice (time in bottle) He did okay.

5. Nikko - A forgettable performance. He's good tho.

6. Vonzell - Pitch problems. Don't like her.

7. Constatine - Hilarious song choice. Gotta give him points for that one. He has fun up there.

8. Nadia - She's gotta go.

9. Mikalah - She can sing, but her vowels go from what should be just one sound to about 5 sounds. This is bc of immaturity. She can't win.

10. Anwar. This guy freaks me out. I don't like his face. He reminds me of a plastic doll that has the hinged legs. I also think of him as the straw-man in Wizard of Oz. He won't win either.

11. Jessica - I love the song TOTAL ECLIPSE She did a good job with it. That's a hard song to pick pieces of it you want to reduce down to one minute. First time i was ever impressed with her.

   [ posted  @ 7:13 AM | ]

In Brazil & Loving It

We sent 40 of our students and our entire student ministries staff to Brazil on Friday and all the updates that are coming thru are so exciting to listen to. They developed a web page and a hotline you can call at anytime to hear updates, and i'm so excited for them to come back. There are two teams down there: one in Porto Alegre and one in Rio de Janeiro - both doing similar but different things. One is building a skate park and ministering in schools (in that country you can share the gospel freely in public schools, they welcome it), and the other is helping launch a church on the beach. At least that is my understanding.

They will be home on Monday -- and since 1/2 of my band is down there, i can't wait for them to get back and give their report personally. Missions is something that i have a huuuuuge passion for right now - something i'm learning a lot about and also getting ready to go to Africa in summer of '06. I'll be getting my passport next month!!!! It was kind of weird to go to band last night and see the "closed" sign on the part of the building that the student ministries occupies. It says it will be closed until Tuesday March 29th. Awwwww.

The 20th Is Over

For two months I have anticipated March 20th as the day i would take over the jr. high "EDGE" church service and finally it's over & i can breathe. I had a lot of help but it was a lot of fun getting behind a microphone and pulpit again - putting all the tech slides together and teaching God's word. The kids had a lot of fun, and my old pal Steph from River of Life came and helped me lead the singing. She'd never been to my church before. When she walked in to the balcony (where we sit) she said "wow i've never been to a church service this big before." So the whole time during "big church" (what we call the main service) she was in observation mode. It's kind of funny bc we have about 100 kids in jr. high (7th, 8th grades) and that's almost double what her entire church is over where i used to work! haha

Now i just am preparing the sequel to my talk, which will be April 3rd. I was asked to speak for 2 weeks on Worship. We don't have EDGE on Easter Sunday tho. So the first time, I spoke on the following outline:

1. created to worship
2. choose to worship
3. creative in worship
4. connected in worship

(I built a caution cone to build those ideas, and also had a drama that i wrote taken from a story in Tommy Tenney's "God Catchers" book.)

Next time we'll be taking a trip to Sychar, Samaria to observe a drama regarding the Woman at the Well (John 4) and talk about Jesus being THE WELL and how worship is a process of emptying and filling. It's from that that i will develop two main points: worship is far far far more than music or song: it's a lifestyle of giving honor to God.

[When you squeeze a sponge, the only thing that can gush out of it is what is inside of it; what gushes out of US when we are squeezed? It's either praise to God, praise to man, or praise to ourselves.]

Work is fine

We have yet another new store manager at my job. At this point in my dealings with this company, none of this shakes me or moves me or concerns me. I just go on about my business and basically do what I'm told. I don't have a lot of respect for store managers, just because they are being trained (in our "new" company) to be very hands-off and only step in when something is outta whack. We are 11 days from inventory, and altho it's my project, and i don't think we are anywhere close to being ready, there is not much i can do about it. I am just coasting there. The gas prices are up to $2.09 now and so that is a little strain on my commute, but what else can you do?

Well, I could buy a bike i guess. Imagine me biking up Hwy 101. LOL

In my blue shirt & khakis.

lol

   [ posted  @ 6:42 AM | ]

"How embarrassing"
Part III


Yesterday a customer (who was hot but not single) came in to work who i had dealt with last week regarding a Brother multifunction machine he purchased just less than a year ago. He did not have the box or a receipt, but he said the manufacturer wanted him to pay for the repairs under their warranty and i had told him even tho he didn't buy a replacement plan from us that we would see if we could help him IF we had the same machine still in stock. It was busy at the time and he told me we were still carrying it, which i doubted bc Brother just came out with a new line in October, but I said there were some things we could do, but he had to have his receipt.

Well yesterday he just was gutsy and brought it in and put me on the spot and i knew right away we still didn't carry that machine, plus he didn't have his receipt. However, he treated me with respect and was patient with me bc i was the only key-carrier in the building at the time and it was hornets-nest busy in the store and to solve his problem was going to take a lot of work. I told him since he didn't have his receipt and didn't buy a replacement plan i was under no obligation to take care of him at all, however, our company policy is to always say "yes" to customers so i decided to help him pick out a new printer and we'd give him the discontinued clearance price credit on the brother machine he brought in. By the way, never buy a Brother multifunction machine... they are too new in the market and just aren't built to handle the jobs people send their way. [On a side note, someone screwed up at our corporate level bc we lost our marriage to Lexmark - probably the best performing machines that are made right now, and also have better consumable costs... all i can think of is someone was having an affair and it ended so the deal ended LOL!]

OK so anyway, we go thru all of this and to do a return without a receipt, i need your drivers licence.

The guy's last name was G-U-T-E. I was in such a hurry and he was being so kind, but i could see he was watching me type all this in and i was trying to go so fast.

I typed in his first name

And then typed in C- U - T -E

And caught my mistake right away and i'm sure i blushed a little bit and then corrected it right away. He didn't say anything but did end up buying a replacement plan because i told him there's no way we are supposed to take this discontinued machine [bc it's basically like we are throwing away 100$ - we will not get credit from the mfgr for it.] And he understood that i was breaking about 10 rules to do it so he bought the plan.

Well that's all. I'm going to go crawl back in the cave now and read some Freud.

   [ posted  @ 6:04 AM | ]

Made this great dinner last night late when i came home. I got the recipe off leancuisine.com, which by the way has a huge host of very good recipes and the user-reviews are very honest and helpful. I did not cook the brown rice with it bc i was so hungry after a long day and was half way thru this recipe before i remembered i had to make some. When i do the left overs, i'll make cook the rice to serve with it. You should try it! P.S., I used up my Kohl's gift card on this 13" t-fal skillet which was 37$ so then i had enough money left over to buy a bowl i wanted to match a serving platter i had, and a very new big coffee mug (which i didn't need bc i have too many already but it's huge and beautiful) so there's the end of that story! OH, and i had to pass up the Coca Cola plates and mugs that were on sale... totally don't need those but kind of wanted them for my collection. They were called "Tailgaiting."

Link to the recipe.

I used regular soy sauce which was fine. I would probably add the full 1/2 tsp. of ginger because i like things a little more spicy or flavorful.

   [ posted  @ 5:36 AM | ]

Nikko's back. Hallelujah. He's good. He has my vote, along with Carrie & Scott. Was not too impressed with anyone else last night but by the time i got home to watch it, the voting lines were closed. I also think Nadia did pretty well.

Got the following in an e-mail FWD and thought it was good enough to post here.

Mother in law...

A man, his wife and mother-in-law went on vacation to the Holy Land.
While they were there the mother-in-law passed away. The undertaker
told them, "You can have her shipped home for $10,000, or you can bury
her here in the Holy Land for $150.00. "The man thought about it and
told him he would just have her shipped home.

The undertaker asked, "Why? would you spend $10,000 to ship your
mother-in-law home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and
spend only $150.00?

"The man said, "Jesus died here 2000 years ago, he was buried here and
three days later he rose from the
dead.

"I just can't take that chance."

   [ posted  @ 6:29 AM | ]

Favorite Spam Subject Line Of The Day

"Jesus wants you to save on your mortgage."

amen.

   [ posted  @ 1:55 AM | ]

Nikko's gone.
I cry
I cry

   [ posted  @ 6:49 PM | ]

And for last night's idol i got home too late to vote but i still say Carrie Underwood is the winner. Unless she does something really terrible at some pt. to screw it up.

amanda: too old. she did a good job tho. Just looks like she's in her 30's.

janay: i have to admit i think this girl is cool but she's a terrible singer and cannot win. She sometimes looks terrified, but i think she's trying to do a "cool look" and it comes out like she's standing in the firing squad.

Jessica: i just don't like her.

Mikala: Holy Barbara Streisand. I can't spell, but she did pretty well. She can't win this, but i do like her. She also reminds me of Joey's agent on "Joey." haha Jennifer Coolidge is her real name i think.

Nadia: too old. Did see a lot of Tina Turner in her tho.

Vonzell: also too old. I don't like her either. Well, she's only 20 but i just don't like her.

   [ posted  @ 5:38 AM | ]

My vote for Idol last night went to Scott, Niko, and Mario. The rest can go bye-bye as far as I'm concerned.

   [ posted  @ 9:24 AM | ]

Went up to the Powerhouse last night (at church) and got to play with Steph again. Gee it's been like 2 years since we have played together. Dang. She's going to help me lead worship on the 20th since i'm teaching that day, and she's really improved her musical abilities in the last few years. She's now the lead worshipper at River of Life, and from all i hear, she's doing great. It's cool to know i trained her from the beginning.

Then i had to get her back here and then i drove all the way back there (Heather, one of my bass players came with along for the ride) so we could go over more music. It got to be a real late night and my fingers hurt so bad from playing for hours at a time. Plus i played for a few hours at home before i even went in there.

Anyways, the Powerhouse has really become a community magnet, so they've had to crack down on a lot of things and make a lot of room. There's a lot tighter security now and you have to have an i.d. to get inside. There were hundreds of kids there - none i'd ever seen before, just kids from the city who wanted to come hang out. The non-church crowd. What a great opportunity. It's been a long time since i went to hang out there on a Friday. I'll have to try to go more often.

The last few weeks i've just been wrapped up in prep for the 20th when I'm leading the whole jr. high church service since Pastor Craig and most of my team will be in Brazil. I've still got a lot more prep to do, but i do have a decent amount of help. I'm so thankful for a great church.

Going to dinner and a Cheri Keaggy concert tonight w/ a friend. I've got to pick out either long or short sleeve shirt. Hmmmm.

And then poof back to work tomorrow afternoon. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

   [ posted  @ 1:04 PM | ]

Had band practice last night & we went to CHIPOTLE baby it was so yummy!!!

So i had to tape Idol, but here are my thoughts after watching it:

The first half of the guys just sucked in my opinion, and i thought they were the better group vs. the women last week.

1. Mario - I really want to like this guy. He's adorable and fun. I just didn't think he sang any of the notes in tune. I think Mario can win this tho.

2. Anwar - Painful. Whatever they heard in the studio was not what i was hearing at home. He did great in all the previous weeks but his pitch was off and i can only take so much of him flailing around bc he's so big. I'm not a fan of his.

3. Joseph Murena - He looks too old for this and he also looks like a washed up soap opera star to me. I do like his voice tho, but he just doesn't look young enough.

4. David Brown - Don't like this guy at all. I don't like how he looks. His voice is very forgettable to me. I can't even really remember what he sang like zzzzzzzzz

5. Constantine - I HATE THIS GUY! I never liked him. He's butt-ugly, his screaching during this song was horrid. This is not 1993, he's too old, he can't win. What kind of record would he put out? I imagine he'd be like Richard Marx or something. Just nasty. I don't even think he's got a good singing voice. I totally agreed with Simon that you could find him fronting any rock band in any bar anywhere. He's nothing special.

6. Scott Savol - Like i told mom, close your eyes and don't worry about his appearance, this guy's got one of the best voices in the competition. I don't know if tonight was necessarily his best performance. But i really like him and think he could win. I would be very surpised if he was voted out anytime soon. I do think he looks fine in glasses and with a little more facial hair. He's a sweetie. Mom calls him "pig boy" LOL!

7. Travis Tucker - I figured out who he reminds me of... Peter Parros from As the World Turns. DO YOU AGREE OR DO YOU AGREEEEE??? I think he looks just like him. It's been bugging me and finally i figured out. I love Travis' smile. I don't think his voice is strong enough to win but he did a good job. I liked the dancing.

8. Nikko Smith - I'm a big fan. I think he's got what it takes. I loved the song. He puts everything he's got into it. He's bordering on the "too old" for me too, but I hope he stays in this. I look fwd to hearing more from him!

9. Anthony F. - I was a fan. This song was a bad choice in my opinion "i want to know what love is." He's got too much of a church soloist voice. Not really pop. A Clay-Clone sort of but i don't think he has the same vocal abilities as Clay. He is cute tho.

10. Bo. GO HOME BO. I don't know why the judges like him so much. He looks like's 37 and drives me nuts. I didn't think that American Idol was about finding the next "rocker." I just don't like him. I will admit he can sing okay, but let's get him doing some other genres and watch him fall apart.

That's it :)

   [ posted  @ 5:27 AM | ]

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