Jeans and Sneakers

First and foremost, I’m happy to finally be able to post a picture of a finished object!!  YAY!!  Today I’m wearing my very own Forecast sweater.  It’s come out beautifully, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Things in other quarters aren’t so great.  I quit my  job today.  I was trying my very hardest to not walk out, to just deal with the crap they were giving me, but every person has a limit, and they found mine.   I’m not going to go into juicy detail, I’d rather just put it behind me and get moving forward.

I’ve been all over job boards all morning.  Now is NOT a good time for me to be unemployed.  While I do have somewhat of a plan to try and work for myself (again, no statyous this time though), I need time and money to get there.  Time, I now have.  Money. . .well isn’t that always the issue.

Things have been moving along slowly, I still have no washer and dryer, due to an unexpected dentist visit that pushed back the appliance plan for two months.  The kitchen, however, is pretty much done.  The only thing that might change in there is Turbo’s little area, as we’ll be downstairs most of the time after it’s finished, and he should be where we are most of the time.

Other than that. . .we’ve been watching A LOT of Star Trek: DS9.  I never really got into the show, but now I’m hooked.  I think we’re on season 5.  We’ve got Voyager cued up for when we finish.  Woot.

Baking has been awesome in the new oven.  I haven’t burnt one thing yet.  It’s so nice to have an oven that properly heats your baked goods and stuff.  :]  I found a recipe on Monday for homemade potstickers, and I think I’ll try them tonight. . .now that I don’t have anywhere to be in the morning.  :[

That’s pretty much it, I paid this month’s bills, so hopefully I don’t have any breaks in paying for stuff.  Wish me luck on the job search, I’m going to need something to help me reach my ultimate goal.

So, at my job there’s been rumors of the company taking money out of warehouse employees paychecks, to make up for losses in inventory. I found out today that the rumor is true, and they did it last paycheck. The thing is, the losses may be inaccurate, as noone is checking the numbers manually inputted when stock comes in. I don’t work in the warehouse, but that comes as no real consolation, what the company is doing is wrong and illegal. I’m not sure I’m totally comfortable working for a company that has no problems cheating its employees out of money.
Job listings are looking pretty grim though. There’s one job that looks pretty good, but I think it’s actually a scam. I’m starting to get frustrated, I know what direction I want to go in, but it looks like I’m going to have to stay here and deal with the distractions the company is making. They promised me they’d get me trained in graphics, but the courses they’re willing to pay for are a joke. They’re being consistantly shady with other employees, to the point that some people have quit and other people are considering leaving. I just need to get my shit straight and bounce up out of here. I am not looking to make a career here, I don’t trust them.

Today was a looooooong day.  We woke up early to go look at a car, which ended up being a waste of time, as the lady who posted it up for sale neglected to mention or show that the car clear coat was peeling and in one spot there was body rot.  Nice.

I got to work and after a while my boss asked me to come in and she offered me a counter to my resignation letter.  A very good counter.  I told Rob about it and decided to call the new job guy at lunch to see if he could give me any kind of idea of the growth opportunity with his company.  To make a long story short, he gave me a very different impression of him from the first one I got, and I’m not taking the new job.  He told me today that the pay would be less than he told me on Saturday, and that’s just not going to fly.  So tomorrow, I tell my boss I’m staying, and start learning my new position.  From the sounds of it, my boss has plans for me, and they’re not too shabby.  Though not entirely art related, but they’re trying to get some graphic art stuff in there, so we’ll see.  Worst comes to worst, I’ll keep looking for a different job.

I skipped the part where the banker got back to Rob and said that the mortgage approval came through this morning, and they’re hoping to close by the end of next week.  :]  January will be our last month in this stupid house, and then we’ll be in the new one.  We couldn’t be happier or more excited.

And I think I’m going to buy a small xmas tree tomorrow.  :]

I’ve finally gone and done it.  Yesterday I told my boss that I was done working for him.  He tried to get me to come in today, but I knew that if I did, he’d just keep trying to get me to keep coming in.  I put my foot down, and I’m loving it.

This morning I woke up at 9am, took a shower, and cooked myself breakfast.  I emailed back and forth with my mom about her giving out my business cards, and generally bummed about on the internet.  Eventually, I’ll start the doll whose deadline is Sunday, but for right now, I’m enjoying my house.

I’m in the kitchen right now, the windows are open, the sun is pouring in, the breeze is blowing through, and I can hear the birds chirping.  It sounds like a corny setting, but it’s really great.  There’s no phones ringing, no customers yelling about where their plumbing supplies are, no coworkers ignoring my questions of where the customer’s plumbing supplies are, and there’s food EVERYWHERE.  I might go for a bike ride later.  I might not.

The used carb came in the mail yesterday, and Rob went right to work switching what needed switching.  We started bolting it up last night, until the sun went down and all the mosquitoes came out.  We’ll likely finish it today, and then hopefully my car will be driving around.  :]

My business cards also came in the mail, hence me giving some to my mom.  They’re totally awesome, and I fully intend to buy more.

Ahh.  Monday, the last week of work.  But wait, let me get to that.

First I want to say that screen printing is a lot of work!  We did somewhere around 3000 shirts between Saturday and Sunday, Saturday having 3 people and Sunday only being two.  It was good hard work though, the kind you can get into and then let your mind wander without effing anything up.  I don’t think it’s something I could do all the time though, at least not in a commercial setup like that.

Ok.  Back to today.  So yes, after working through the weekend, today is Monday, and waking up early felt like a slap in the face, since I haven’t had the weekend time I usually do to recover.  Sleep in, etc.  But I managed, getting out of bed by telling myself, “It’s ok, it’s your last week.  Just hang in there until Friday and you’re golden.”

And off to work I go, with a semi-smile on my face.  Problems don’t seem as bad, because I know that after Friday, they’ll be someone else’s problems.  Until around 2:30pm, that is.  When my boss asked to talk to me in the back conference room.  Until he said that he thought he was ok with letting me go, but in fact, he’s not.  That in fact, he’s willing to give me a raise, and less work to make me stay.  He’ll be gone for the rest of the week, and he wants me to come in on Monday to tell him my decision.  Fantastic.  Another friggin week to stress out and bounce back and forth in my head about how I don’t want to stay but I *Should* stay.  :[

I have no idea what I’m going to do.  I thought this was already settled.  I really want to just not have to go back to the customers, and the return policies I disagree with and the plumbing and the boring and the no music during the day and the no lunch break.  But then again, I have this car and I want to do stuff to it, and that’s going to require money, and I need to get the bridge for my tooth, and blah and blah and blah.

…..

Fuck.

Well.  I went back to work today.  Everybody seems to be disconnecting from me.  That’s kind of funny.  My boss called me into a meeting and said that he thinks it would be better for my last day to be this Friday instead of next Friday.  I said fine.  We both know I don’t want to be there.

I hung out with my dad and his gf this weekend, and he made mention of his best friend’s daughter, who runs her own business doing silk screening.  He said she’s always looking for someone dependable to work with her, and that he wants to introduce us.  I’m all for it.  I’ll have to bug him to get that going.

I’ll have considerably less money now that I’ve got one less week of actual paycheck coming to me. . .things’ll be tight but I think I can manage AND get my car regged and everything.  Plus once I get my car on the road I can sell my other one.  Things are happening quickly.

And I’m pretty not stressed.  This weekend we worked on my car a little bit and I beat Zelda.  We also watched some effed up movie called Closer, which is a testament to the reason I’m so glad that Rob found me.

The weather’s getting nice again, after a cold and partially rainy week end and weekend. . .it’s nice to see the sun again.

I’m off to watch The Magnificent Seven and knit my mom’s socks some.

So 24 hours ago I was absolutely convinced that quitting my job was the right thing to do, that I’d be nothing but miserable there, and I pretty much thought that my boss would try to convince me to stay again, and not accept my letter of resignation.

Well we had a little chat today, and he was more than reasonable, and he said that he understands how I feel  (though I kind of wonder about that with some of the questions he was asking) and that he respects my wishes, and that he’s going to start interviewing people next week.

I left the meeting with a good feeling, because even if he doesn’t understand why I felt it necessary to leave, he’s not pissed off at me, and I’m more than certain he’ll be a great reference.  But now, about two hours later, as I’m thinking about how probably by the end of the month, unless something spectacular happens, I’ll have no steady source of income.

I mean, that was supposed to be the whole plan right?

I know.  I’m supposed to take myself seriously, try and find a part time job at least, but seriously try to get out there and sell these dolls I make.  But holy crap!  Just sitting here thinking about the prospect has me shaking in my chair.  I got home and started thinking ‘well maybe I’m just retarded and the job isn’t really that bad, maybe I could email my boss and tell him I’ve changed my mind!! I really do want that car, and. . .’ But I know that’s just the Friday in me talking.  Just because right now it’s the beginning of the weekend and for a whole two days I don’t have to even think about waking up early and spending 9 hours in a cold office with people who make it hard to conversate.

Come Monday, I’ll probably be ecstatic.  And maybe I can actually do this.  But from my current Friday point of view, it’s terrifying.

In other news, all knitting endeavors have gone on hiatus while I try to get this damned doll done.  Of course it’s the damned doll at the moment because I’m worried it’s not going to be good enough, but we’ll see how the thing turns out.   I’m not even done with the shaping yet and I’ve still got the painting to do, and I wanted to mail it out tomorrow.  I should stop blogging and get cracking.

So.  ever since paying off my debt in February, I’ve been considering quitting my job.  Thoughts of non steady income trying to work for myself and thoughts of endless days behind a desk in a cold room with chodes for coworkers battled ceaselessly.  At two different points, I met with my boss, first with a written and signed letter of resignation, and then later, to re-evaluate the situation.   It ended with him saying we’d talk again in a week or so.

That was over two weeks ago.  He hasn’t tried to talk about it, and continues to act like I never tried to resign.  For the past two weeks, it seems like my job has been trying everything within it’s power to make me quit.  And today, it wins.

I still retained some iota of courtesy, since I did not pull an old me and walk out, never to be seen again.  But I was somewhat cowardly in that I did not confront my boss face to face as of yet.  I had kind of planned on it, but he left work way early today and made that impossible.  So I put my updated resignation letter in an envelope with a note saying that I was going to try to talk to him about it today, and put it on his desk.  He’ll get it before I even get into the office tomorrow.  And have a whole hour before seeing me to think about it.  And this time, if he doesn’t take me seriously, then perhaps courtesy will go out the window, and a little bit of old me will resurface.

I sent my resume to a person looking for a person to do basic stuff on their own 1 or 2 days a week.  Hopefully I’ll hear back from them.  Just to have SOMETHING coming in.  I gave my last day as June 1st, with some flexibility, if they hire someone and they’re not good enough or whatever.  But most likely June 1st.

I started the woman’s doll and it’s going good.  I’m using a bake-as-you-go technique that lets me perfect things in pieces and prevents me from effing up parts that I’d previously perfected while working on a differnent part.  It’s working out well.  I plan on mailing him this weekend, which means tomorrow night will be entirely doll time.

I was going to do more today, but planned parenthood killed my evening by making me wait for around 1-1/2 hrs. to see the dr. for my annual girlie visit.  The good news is I’m gonna try some low dosage bc that might not leave me all depressed.

And on the knitting front, things have been going slow.  I turned the heel on my mom’s second sock, and I have to finish it by Sunday.  A couple of attempts at the lace panel on Honorine have been ripped out, since I kept messing up the pattern, and then I totally messed up the join part. . .I’ll have to take my time with it, after the doll and socks are done.

Other than that, there’s an rx-7 meet this weekend, and I was looking forward to scouting for a 1st gen, but now that I’m really, really quitting, I shouldn’t be looking into getting a new car.  Bleh.

I met with my boss today, and I’m definitely keeping the job.  He wanted to know what the major things that had to change were, and I told him first thing, the hours are killing me.  Then we talked about everything else, and when we got to the end and I decided I was staying, and we shook hands and I forgot to ask about the hours again.  So when we got back out to our desks, I immed him asking about the hours.  He said I can start coming in at 8:30.  I was hoping for 9, but I’ll take it.  I feel like an ass though, and I’m going to moreso when I come in tomorrow at 8:30.  :[  Oh well.

I’m such a chicken though.  All day I was thinking about how I can get a job at a bookstore part time, and how I could do this and this and that to make more money, and have some free time, and enjoy the weather. . .and then my boss asks to talk and I chicken out and tell him “of course I want to keep the job, it’s a great job to have. . .”

Ugh.  Oh well.  At least I’ll not be broke or whatever.  I really hope that I won’t be miserable all the time.  :[  I’ll try not to be anyway.  I told Rob that now that I’m in it to win it so to speak, I really want to get my 1st gen RX7.  He said to save up like $1500 and we’ll start looking.  I’m probably a big idiot for doing this, but who cares.  I want what I want, and if I can’t quit my job and have less money, then at least I can have a reasonably priced used car that I love.  So there.
I’ve been knitting this sock for my mom and it’s like the neverending ankle cuff.  I’m not amused.  I’m even more not amused that I’m going to have to do this a second time.  It’s taking forever.  I should start thinking up a pattern for my sweater.  I have to look into sweater yoke construction.

I had a really cool idea for socks that I hope to do someday, I just don’t want to say anything about it yet.  And for filler, here’s a sock progress picture, (it’s from Saturday though, and I’m further now):

Sometimes it just seems like it would take an impossible effort of will to sit down and organize my thoughts. Let’s play with bullets.

• Earlier this week I was at work and convinced that I was going to put in my two weeks on Friday. Not two hours later did my boss call me into a meeting and gave me a raise. I’m still not happy there, and I still want to quit, but the world is a stupid place and I’ll hang on to the job longer now because a) I’ll feel guilty for quitting directly after they gave me a raise, and b) Having more money, especially when you just seriously cut down your monthly bills, is always nice.

• Sweater delivered. And it fits. We went out to dinner last Saturday night, and I met the gf, we had a nice time.

• I’ve had a lot on my mind, but now that I’m here writing, I can’t seem to remember any of it.
• I’ve been breaking out on my face hardcore for a little over a week, and it’s pissing me off. It’s only times like this that I feel really vain and stupid.
• I ordered my rollerskates.
• I got a Sidekick3. That’s what the test post was all about, I now have mobile blogging capabilities, with pictures I think. Rock
• I’ve been escaping after work in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in the pages of The Dark Tower book 3. They both make fabulous diversions, and so, I haven’t done anything at all towards trying to figure out how I can quit my job and actually make some money somehow, other than vague thoughts of maybe getting a part time job. I haven’t even REALLY looked on Craig’s List.

Hopefully having the sidekick with me will help me to get some thoughts down that I usually just let float away to wherever thoughts go when you forget them.

Yesterday I went to karaoke with my mom again, but the atmosphere was totally different. I was getting a bad vibe from most people, AND I sang like crap. I left early.

I’m almost at the turn of the heel on AJ#2. I’m hoping to have a new pair of socks by Monday.

Next Saturday Rob, Wyn, my mom and I will be going to see Phantom. I’m pretty excited.