SO MUCH has gone on this week! Mostly having to do with work. First off all, I finally got my Staff Discount Card. They want us to wear Store 21 clothing for our uniform, and we get 40% off for uniform, and anything else in the store 30% off. So I went in on my day off, shopped for and got 4 long-shirt/dresses to wear for a uniform with wooly tights as it gets colder(cause lately I’ve just been wearing thin leggings, a skirt, and a ‘California weather’ top. SO as it’s been getting colder, I’m starting to freeze. So now my uniform and comfort requirements have been met. I also got a Winter Coat at Store 21 for about fifteen pounds. It’s a nice teal blue pea coat. I’m sure you’ll see pictures of it later on; when James and I can get out to do something for a day, when we’re both off, I’ll probably wear and you’ll get to see pictures and a blog of whatever we go out and do (we’re thinking on our next day off we’ll go to Carphilly Castle, which is supposedly the largest Castle in Wales—it has two moats! WOW!—but we have NO idea when our days off will coincide).
Besides James working like mad (just to give you an idea, last week he worked 51 hours, while his workmates clocked in at between 30-40hrs per person last week), I’ve been putting in more hours at work. My original schedule this past week was Sunday: 11am-4pm, Wednesday: 11am-3pm, and finally, Saturday: 2pm-6pm.
Sunday, I did my shift. Then Monday morning I get a call asking if I could come in because someone was sick. While I was at work Monday, I looked at the schedule and saw they added me for a shift Tuesday(3pm-6pm). But then Tuesday morning I get a call saying that one of the girls hadn’t shown up for work, so they wanted me to come in earlier, as early as I could, and do her shift as well as mine…putting me at 1pm-6pm instead of 3pm-6pm. Same thing happened Wednesday morning when I got a call at 8:30pm asking if I could come in as soon as possible because Louise, another girl who was scheduled to work 8:30am-5pm, was sick. So today I ended up working an 8 and a half hour shift. I’m quite pleased that work likes me enough to put me as their first-string call-in-relief, as opposed to the other girl who was hired for temporary Christmas contract—Katrice.
The rest of the week went as planned. I finally got a lay-in Thursday and Friday, which I took FULL advantage of because I’ve been getting a cold lately, so I slept in until 1 or 2 then took it easy the rest of the day—ate soup, pumped up on OJ and cold tablets(for running nose, which was all I have, but it could’ve gotten worse if I didn’t take it easy). It was nice to have a lay-in, considering that the previous 3 days I’d been woken up by my phone going off and work wanting me to come in early, forcing me to get up earlier. For me, interrupted sleep is horrendous, but it’s worse now that I’m married….James likes to go to bed SUPER late(earliest he’ll go to bed is between 11pm and midnight). Because of his late shifts, he’s used to going to bed late, but I’m not on a regular basis. And it’s hard to go to sleep without him, because for one thing, I like to cuddle to sleep, and for another, even though out flat blocks most of the outside noise, the floor of our living room(which is right above our bedroom) is not double glazed, so I can hear ANY noise going on upstairs. If he moves on the couch, the couch squeaks, which makes the floor squeak, which I can plainly hear. If he gets up, I can tell where he’s walking because the floorboards creek. Etc..etc..etc. So, If he gets a late night, that means I do too, unless we BOTH have to get up early in the morning, then I insist that we both go to bed early, but that doesn’t happen much. Trust me, If I knew I was going to be called in to work earlier, I would’ve made him get an earlier night, but I didn’t, so those 3 days my sleep was interrupted AND cut short.
That combined with not having a Winter Coat until Thursday got me a little sickies. Anyways, enough about me ranting about sleep…
Some good news/gossip around Store 21, is that we’re hiring for 2 new positions. One is a Store Manager because Alice, our current store manager is also a REGIONAL manager for the company and has been pulled away from our store lately to work on regional matters. So, along with Josie, our other store manager, they’re thinking they might need someone temporarily to fill in when Alice goes away, and the position may turn permanent if Alice gets offered a full time regional manager position, which looks semi-likely. The other position is another Sales assistant(like me) who would ideally replace Tilly, one of the regular girls who just quit. We need the extra hands for Christmas, but I’m hoping that if I do my best and can be considered the best ‘new’ addition to the team (over Katrice, and whoever they hire now), then I might be able to take Tilly’s permanent position instead of whoever they’re going to hire.
All this is important and relevant to me, because as some of you know, after Christmas(meaning Boxing day, Dec 26th), I may be out of a job because that’s when my contract with store 21 is over. Having Tilly quit means there’s possibly a spot for me available to join the team full time, but rumor has it that after Christmas they MAY NOT be keeping on that many people. Chances are if they had to choose one of those positions to keep on after Christmas, it’ll be the manager, and not the Sales assistant. But, all fingers crossed, if they are keeping on a Sales assistant to replace Tilly’s spot full time, then It’s looking like I’m the best candidate so far. Wish me luck....James and I could use the money in the future.
As for everything else that’s going on, life in the flat is pretty good. Our rent just came out the other day and we’re slowly realizing how expensive living is. We’re making due with what we have, but if I don’t get more and more hours towards Christmas(which i’m not too worried about because they said we’d get more hours) or I don’t have a job after Christmas(which IS more likely to happen—me getting let go), then we’re going to suffer. We have loads of money put aside, but that might only carry us on living expenses until February at best. So, I’m REALLY hoping I can find a full time position ANYWHERE!
Oh! The other exciting news is that last Saturday I got a call from James(who was at work) at like 10am, asking me if I’d like to come into the hotel and help the chambermaids. James figures his dad remembered that I offered to help the chambermaids if they needed help/were short handed some days, and thought he’d be nice and ask James if I wanted to come in. Confusing, I know...But anyway, I DID come in and helped Cheryl and Corinne clean the rooms for 4 hours! The hotel was fully booked and the other chamber maid was out or on holiday or day off or something, so they needed an extra hand. They taught me how to do simple stuff at first like short-sheet the beds, empty the trash and clean all the dirty tea mugs/glasses. Then when I finished that in all the rooms they let me watch them do one of the rooms (finish cleaning and refreshing the room) and then let me help clean, fold the towels, make the beds, etc. Just in case they were ever short-handed again and could call on me. I know I’m not going to get a full time gig there being a chambermaid at the Kings Head, but it’s nice to know that I’ve learned something that could make James and I a little dosh(cash) on the side if I’m free and I get the call. Don’t know how much I got paid for my time working there(James clocked me in and out on his time card, so it’ll just go into his wage statement), but I did get paid for my efforts.
Another thing I wanted to talk about was Matilda the Musical. The Original Cast Recording of the musical FINALLY came out a few days ago and I couldn’t wait to get it. It’s so good. Seeing the Musical in Stratford last time I came here was a fluke—we barely got to the SOLD out theatre in time for the show and lucked out on getting tickets because some people hadn’t shown up on time, so we got them! Since I’ve seen that show it has easily become one of my favourite ‘Broadway/West End’ Calibre Shows, right up there with ‘Into the Woods’, and ‘Spring Awakening’. And ever since seeing Matilda I’ve had the songs stuck in my head, whether I knew the lyrics or not. Now that I’ve finally bought the soundtrack I’ve been listening to it and all the feeling that I felt while watching the show came flooding back to me.
The Show is exactly like the movie Matilda, but there are sub-plotlines and themes that weren’t as expressed in the movie. For instance, the tradgic story of Miss Honey(with her parents dying and Ms. Truchbull taking over their house and becoming Jenny Honey’s ‘guardian’ is paralleled in the Musical by Matilda periodically reading a story in one of her books about an Escapologist and an acrobat who have a daughter that, when they tragically and mysteriously die, is given to the acrobat’s sister—a mean and evil wicked person who throws the little girl into a little cottage and locks her away forever.
And there are such great Themes in the Musical about childhood wonder and excitement, embracing being special and unique(Matilda’s abilities), facing adversity(grown ups, being different), and overcoming the odds. It’s honestly an amazing musical. It excites you, makes you want to laugh, makes you cry, makes you want to overcome adversity and prove your worth.....It makes you feel like a kid again. Honestly, if you can, hop on youtube and search it. Go on itunes and listen to the music. It’s SO GOOD. Songs that I really love, and you don’t really need to know the storyline around them(except from watching the movie, and vaguely knowing the movie plot) are: “Naughty”, “When I grow up”, “Quiet”, “My House”, and “Revolting Children”.
Well that’s enough of me rambling about my favourite things. There’s just one more thing I need to talk to you guys about before I go.
IF YOU DON”T READ ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS BLOG, AT LEAST READ THIS NEXT BIT!:
This year I’m taking part in something called NANOWRIMO. It stands for National Novel Writing Month(which is in November). It’s something I found out about online from youtubers, and it’s sort of an online community thing. The goal for the website is to encourage new writers, but also just to keep people reading and using their literary skills as writers. Whether people do this for fun, or to actually publish fictional works in the end, I think It’s a great program.
Basically, anyone can do it. All you do is sign up for free on the NANOWRIMO website. Then from November 1st until Midnight November 30th you write a 50,000 word (something like 175 pages) fictional novel. The website is just to have a support group of people to keep you going, keep you writing, and you upload your ‘counter’ everyday, that shows how many words you have written so far. At the end of NANOWRIMO you upload your novel to the website for ‘submission’. The Forum leaders of NANOWRIMO check your novel to make sure there are 50,000 words without any cheating(repeating the same word 50,000 time, etc) and you get a completion certificate. There’s no other real prize, except for the knowledge that you’ve written a 50,000 word novel, which is an accomplishment, but if you want to upload your work and your progress throughout the month, you can.
The reason I’m telling you this is because NANOWRIMO says that if you tell people that you’re writing a 50,000 word novel you A) have a support group, B) have a group of people ‘counting on you’ so you feel more pressure to write and get it done because ‘all eyes are on you’ to succeed or fail, C)people will be more understanding when you ignore them during November.
So that’s me! I’m doing NANOWRIMO, so this very well may be the last blog you see until
December. Please accept my sincerest apologies, ahead of time. Thank you and goodnight!
EDIT: Oh! One last thing. We’re at Alice’s doing laundry, and I’m uploading this blog, and there’s one little development I wanted to share with you before I disappear forever (for November).
For the past month everyone has been moaning about ‘how are the bunnies going to keep warm in the hutch during winter?’ To better explain, I have to describe how the hutch was: There is a series of 3 open metal cages against the garage. One is used for tilly, the outdoor dog, and 2 of them are used for storage. They have proper wooden dog kennels inside the cages, but have been out of use for a while and sort of disintegrated. When the bunnies and Guinea pig came to the house, they needed a place to store them during the night, so they cleaned out one of the wooden ‘hutches/kennels’ that were used for storage, and put the animals inside. There’s a little ‘doggie door’ in the wooden hutch that was uncovered, and the rabbits could get through so for the time being they just placed a wood board in front of the hole, blocked it with a rock so the bunnies couldn’t get out.
Up until now, the make-shift board holding the bunnies in had been fine, but now that it’s colder and the wind is getting through the make-shift board ‘blocking’ the hole, isn’t really blocking anything, except for the bunnies getting out. So, for the past month I’ve been hearing “We should board up that hole properly”, “We should get something for the bunnies...a new hutch so they’d be warm”, “we should move the bunnies into the garage. They’d be warmer in there.”
And I’ve even chimmed in saying “Look, all you need to do is get a tarp, they’re cheap, and just chuck it over the kennel to keep the rain, wind and snow out”. But so far.....no one has done anything but talk. So, Thursday on my day off, while I was in town, I stopped at a DIY(Do it yourself) Store to ask if they had some tarp. They did, so I bought one. And Tonight, first thing when we came to mums, I took a spare bit of wood(that would cover up the whole in the hutch/kennel COMPLETELY, screwed it into the kennel, made a few friendly winter adjustments inside to make sure nothing could get in or out, and covered the hutch/kennel with the tarp. EASY PEASY! Weeks of talk....and Something finally gets done—and we don’t even live here anymore! Anyway, I just wanted to share that new development, and maybe now, they’ll stop complaining about Winter and the bunnies getting cold.
