same_sky | Entries tagged with produce

It's rather official now--my days are no longer filled with produce for the forseeable future. Dad called Carolyn today and she came into work; they're planning on bringing back another load of Amish crap possibly tomorrow. Those two things combined really make me feel unguilty about leaving them in the lurch. Carolyn thinks it could be something that they sprayed on the vegetables.. whatever it was, it was still there earlier today when I stopped in.. I can taste it, although I didn't stay long enough for any major effects. It feels funny to be not working. I'm really going to try to give it at least a week or two before I start complaining about boredom..

I'm sort of wondering if I should go to an allergist. (That's a word, isn't it?) I probably won't, though. I'll probably just worry about it and look stuff up on the net until I'm deathly afraid of walking into the store again for fear of a major attack leading to hospitalization or even death (I have to admit that the possibility has crossed my mind more than once.) Thus the problem will be fixed. No exposure, no reaction, no freaking out, and then I'll forget about it. And maybe, dear readers, I'll even stop writing about it eventually. Don't hold your breath. (ROFL! Hold your breath.. that's funny, considering the situation. Gahh, I'm such a dork.)

I made the breadwinner a chicken casserole tonight, since he specifically mentioned wanting an unspecified casserole a while back. I had to ask permission to use that phrasing.. M hates the word "breadwinner" and will freak out if you say it in his presence. *grin* I'm just getting used to my role as a housewife again.. *cackle* Anyway, it was decently good, but it was much more.. prepackaged than I normally care for. It's something a couple of my cousins make quite a lot, and M does like it. Two boxes of Stovetop, a can of cream of chicken and cream of ~~celery~~ chicken (they didn't have celery at Walmart and I didn't want to stop at a grocery store just for that..)

I got sidetracked today with errands, and then I didn't get back until later than I expected due to meeting up with my parents and such, but tomorrow I'm going to try to get started on productivity and self-improvement.

I finished the next-to-last round of my doily. I'm soo looking forward to getting that done and blocked and finished. (Note that I didn't say that I'm looking forward to finishing and blocking it.. I think I'm ready to move on.) Tatting-related eye candy for the day: Tatted Table Center. I cannot comprehend the amount of work and time that went into this piece. I've seen a few examples of large projects that really would have been better left to another medium, but this is quite lovely, I think.

We're the current high bidder on this: Ebay shuttle. I don't have a snowball's chance of getting this for $31 (current bid) but it sure is fun to pretend. :) It's extremely easy to become a shuttle fanatic when one starts tatting. I've managed to not get into collecting shuttles (way too much money in it) but I wouldn't mind having a few nice shuttles to show off..

Maybe I should get into selling crap on Ebay. I don't really understand the System, though. It doesn't make sense. Why is Ebay still such a big thing? Most of the things I'm interested sell for more than they would sell in other online stores, plus there's less security (it's one thing to trust that Amazon will send you the stuff you pay for, it's something else to assume that every single person with an Ebay ID is honest.) As my dad put it, it's a seller's market, and that makes it pretty fun, I guess. I just don't understand who the people buying are. Every once in a while, I get in an Ebay mode and walk around the house looking for things to sell. I have not yet once found anything, though, so I suppose I'm not going to be one of those people who get into it full time. And also, something that bothers me about it is that it's ruining flea markets. Now people overprice their junk, thinking that hey, I saw something just like this go on Ebay for this amount and if I don't sell it today, I'll just sell it there and get all kinds of money, which won't work because most likely, the item that they saw sell was in perfect condition or a rare version or something.

But anyway. I went to the store today. Throat began to swell, and the longer I stayed, the worse it got, so I finally left after half an hour. I guess I'm officially on a vacation from work then. Today I've been doing the normal day off stuff. Tomorrow, I think I'm going to try to get back into the things I had set for myself as goals just before I started at the store. I want to make a concerted effort at my Swedish and work at various technical skills and write a book. I think that was my plan. Also, I want to tat more. I have this feeling that I might be adding more needleworky stuff into my craft regimen soon as well. And I want to be a better housekeeper and cook nice meals again. Only I'm supposed to be cooking light meals now, which limits the selection. Especially when you consider that my other goal lately has been cleaning out the cupboards of all the stuff that sits there unused. I guess I could go defrost some chicken and throw some rice in a pan. Hmm.. think I might do that, actually.

In any case, M will be on his way home from work and I have clothes to fold, so I'm off for now. I've been quite computer-productive this afternoon, with balancing the checkbook and catching up on emails (

courtesy has to bitchslap me into line every once in a while to keep me reliable.. *tease*) It's time I get up and reward myself with.. housework? Eww. :)

I'm waiting for M to get home from Ken's and I'm not entirely sure what to do in the meantime, so I naturally thought I'd post. We're heading to Lexington this afternoon.. we're going to Jenny and Andy's house and then off to dinner with them or something like that. Jenny is a Swedish graduate student at UK.. she's been living here for a few years now and recently got married, so it seems she might be in it for the long haul herself. As I said to her, I have such a partiality for Swedish-American couples, for some reason. :) We met her at the midsummer picnic that the Scandinavian Heritage Association held back in June.. it was the first visit for both us and her, and the three of us were at least twenty years younger than most anyone else there. I think they were quite pleased to see young people there all of a sudden. In any case, we've talked on the phone a couple of times and sent a few emails since then, but now we're going to meet up with her and her new husband, which sounds like fun. You know we don't go out much. *grin*

I suspect M will be more than a little excitable when he gets home, as when he gets here, he should have a fully complete mandolin. He asked Ken (who builds Silver Angel mandolins and happens to live twenty minutes or so from here) if he would do the last bits for him.. something about grooves in a nut and adjusting the bridge to the shape of the mando. He's been gone a couple of hours now, though, so I suspect they've started talking. M was hopping up and down earlier, thinking about the completion of his mandolin. I must say that I'm intensely impressed with him and quite proud of his accomplishment on this mandolin. It looks even better in real life than in the pictures, and he's worked so hard and has done such a good job.. particularly if you consider that he's taught himself completely and didn't even have a terribly strong background in woodwork. I think he certainly does now, though. :)

Dad called to see if we would go pick up his truck from the repair shop earlier (this place actually happened to be on the way to Ken's.) M had just headed out of the driveway, so he came back and we met at the store to get the keys (and so I'd be able to get home after I brought the truck back.) We were there for five minutes or so, and I could tell that my parents had done a LOT of cleaning in the store to get rid of whatever the problem was, including mopping and all that. I couldn't feel the smell of what caused me such distress yesterday.. but two minutes after I left, I could feel my throat tightening and a sort of metallic taste in my mouth. I didn't notice a strange taste yesterday, but I was reading stuff online last night and that was mentioned. I don't know if I'm suggestible or if I just didn't notice it or if it didn't happen at all yesterday. Anyway, I had to go in for another five minutes or so when I got back to give the key and the bill and all that, and I ended up coughing and my eyes were "looking funny" and my throat was doing its thing, so I really don't know what I'm going to do about the whole store thing. Obviously I can't be there, but I never expected to stop working in produce because of it. Eh. As good of a reason as any, I guess. *laugh* It seems to be related to the Amish stuff they brought back, but for all I know, I've suddenly developed an allergy to.. pears, or whatever. Hmm.. I guess I could test that by running down to the other produce market and browsing for a while. I might do that tomorrow. Right now, my throat still feels like it has a lump in it.. not that it feels hard to breathe, it just aches. I had that all day yesterday. Sleeping for twelve hours seemed to help, though. :)

I'm quite sure you're all going to get tired of hearing about this allergy thing. It was really scary, though, and it's obviously still a bit of a problem for me. I figure you'll get over it. And M--shush, don't say it. *whop* Funny how you don't even have to hear it to know what the spouse is going to say to any given thing, isn't it?

I made my parents an anniversary card last night and dropped it off earlier.. they seemed quite pleased. Oh, hold on, I'll show you. It was pretty simple, but I thought it turned out pretty well. Created in Photoshop completely from scratch, no template. The film strip I borrowed and edited, but I don't remember from where.

Remember I mentioned the Amish auction the parents went to? They bought boxes and boxes of stuff. When I stopped in yesterday, I started coughing right away and my eyes were burning a little bit all day long.. I ended up taking a twenty-minute nap to rest them. I didn't think much about it until this morning. I got to work and my dad was late.. his truck broke down in Huntington so he didn't leave there until after eight. Anyway, within ten minutes, my eyes were burning and my throat was actually tightening and closing-ish (not in a life-threatening way, but noticeably swollen and uncomfortable.) I was getting a little freaked out about it, but I finally opened both doors and it got a little better, and it got worse when I was in the back room with all the stuff. I came home for lunch.. when I went back, it was even worse than before. Might have been because I was obsessing about it by then. My chest started feeling tight and by the time they got back from lunch, I was sitting outside trying (and failing, a little bit) not to cry. It felt like I had been just about to cry all morning, with the burning eyes and tight throat, and you know you can't feel that way for hours without finally breaking down. Then my parents came back and saw I'd been weepy, and I left for home and by then they were feeling a little bad. Then Mom called to check on me, and I made her mad, and so this afternoon has pretty much sucked. Now my eyes are tired in that post-crying way, and my parents are upset with me. Great.

But at least I finally stopped crying. And at least I can breathe again, and I have the rest of the weekend off and I'm home almost four hours early. I wish it was all over with already, but I can't feel too bad about leaving. I need to breathe more than I need to get paid, and I would think my own parents would understand that. It certainly wasn't my choice. I still don't know what I was reacting to. They bought some very hot peppers.. banana peppers called infernos... but I really don't think that was it. (I picked one up and inhaled on it for a minute to see if it got any worse, and it really didn't seem to at all.) It was just so scary. I guess I should call the store and let them know that I can breathe again and I might go try to take a nap for a few minutes to try to fix my burning eyes. I don't know how we'll get rid of the problem if we don't know what's bothering me, but I guess I don't have to worry about it until Monday. I will not stay there unless whatever it is can be found and gotten rid of, though.

Eeek! Big spider! Gotta go kill it! (No, I'm not at all worried about my karma.)

I'm now officially a friend of myself. It feels so silly it hurts my teeth. It's all

totte's fault. He's back to reading my friend's page instead of his own, but he doesn't see my entries on the page.

I wrote a decent entry about the day earlier, so I'll try to avoid rambling on for pages. I'm not sure where my energy came from today, but I worked at one thing or another for twelve hours straight today, excluding meals, and felt quite alright. I'm pretty much done now, though.. my back is protesting. :) After dinner, M and I peeled and sliced about ten or fifteen pounds of peaches and froze them. We're extremely pleased with ourselves over this.. it's much more domestic than the normal way of things in our household. You would think that since I work with produce all the time, our quality of eating would improve. It's actually quite the reverse.. we now eat what's just about to go bad, often what's too bad to sell. These peaches are the ones that get removed from the box for bruises or soft spots or other undesirable peach behaviors. They get peeled or given away about once a week, which means that there are typically a bunch of them going bad in the fridge at any given time. These weren't too bad, though, so I thought we might as well give it a go. Not sure what we'll do with them, but I'm seeing ice cream in our future. :)

So. Yeah. I'm glad I worked today.. I would have regretted switching days later on in the week. I'd probably be regretting it just about now, actually. Anyway, that's all I wanted to add. Took some pictures but can't be bothered with transferring them. No one noticed M's beard, by the way. It's pretty funny, really. :)

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Bob Dylan - I Want You

Sleepy. M has been begging to put me to bed for at least half an hour. This might have been because I was asleep on the couch, actually. I went to tat, ended up eating popcorn with him and therefore unable to tat without washing hands, and then next thing you know, I was asleep.

It's the heat's fault. The job sucks on the best of days, but now it's hot and soo humid. It's oppressive in that don't-want-to-step-outside-ever kind of way. Anyway. One might imagine that since I work indoors, obviously air-conditioned, this wouldn't be a problem for me. Unfortunately, we only have one little vent for one great big room, so it remains hot in there when it's very warm outside. Most days of the summer, it hasn't been an issue.. it's cooled the place down well enough. We've had a cool summer, though, and now that it's actually hot and humid, it just doesn't cut it. It's so stuffy in there, and while I have a fan behind the counter, it just irritates me after a while. I knew it was going to be a great day when I had the a/c on in the car at 8 am, and indeed, it was freakin' hot all day long. It started being quite uncomfortable at around 1, and by 6, I felt like I'd had a low-grade fever for five hours. It's just so.. persistent. Plus the counter is now next to two refrigerators, which doesn't help matters. And guess what happens when it's hot? Produce frickin rots! And bananas, they ripen extremely fast, leaving a bin full of brown speckly bananas. This also hasn't helped matters. Anyway, I've felt fairly useless this evening. I've been tired, had a headache, and my eyes have felt swollen. And I was cranky for the first half hour after being home. I suspect the casual reader couldn't tell that I'm not cranky now.. :)

Now I don't even know if LJ will be bothered to post this silly thing, because our connection has been extremely defensive tonight. Defensive. Odd word to have picked. Oh well, defensive I said, defensive I must have meant. Anyway. Oh, yeah. I'm down to every other week now with my chiropractor. I don't think he was really thrilled with that, but he wrote it on my chart after I pointed out what he had said to begin with versus what he was saying now. I try not to be confrontational about such things, but I don't have it in me to go once a week for the next eight months, sorry. I really should get around to doing some exercises, though. Really.

Oh, right. One more dream mention.. last night, I wasn't Courtney Love anymore, I was Buffy. Only I was also Blade. But there were no vampires in the dream, although I was having sex with James Bond (who was Magnus. But Magnus was also my ex-boyfriend, in a different character.) We were stealing this artifact of some sort from the bad guy's house.. only I had seen the movie we were in (only it wasn't a movie, it was the situation the movie was based on.. funny how time works) before, so I knew how it ended, and I kept making jokes about it and then I'd have to start all over. I had to stop running around at some point to participate in a trampoline contest, though, with a bunch of high-schoolers.

I really worry myself sometimes. I left out the funniest part of said dream because it was inappropriate for publishing on the internet. You know what's odd, though? I never once saw the Buffy show. I did see the movie in the theater--at the Trail, for my familiar-with-Morehead readers. I thought it sucked so unbelievably badly--and I was like, twelve, so you know it had to be bad--that I simply couldn't believe it when they started making a television show. Of course, you're talking to the girl who watched Dirty Dancing when it aired as a television series. Not for very long, mind you.. it was worthless crap, but I still thought it was very very cool. My dear sweet husband bought me that movie on DVD last weekend, btw. Haven't watched it yet but we will soon.. I would actually hate to think of how many times I've seen that. I watched it once or even twice a day for several months, for one thing, when I was around 11. In retrospect, I'm not really sure it's a movie I should have been watching. I didn't even get the whole abortion thing for some time. Speaking of which, if anyone hasn't seen The Cider House Rules.. well, what the heck are you waiting for?! Go rent it! The book was good, too. Very different, though.

Whoa. This post turned out much longer than I expected, as I was planning on going to bed after the explanation of crankiness. I think I'll go to bed now instead before I launch into some other meaningless piece of drivel. Night night!

Current Mood: tired

I don't think I mentioned how my mother abused me at work last week. It was pretty funny, in retrospect, because there were three intelligent human beings involved in this accident (of course it was an accident, but I've been teasing her about it ever since) and two of them were mothers. Moms are usually a little less prone to this sort of foolishness, but not this time. I was standing at the edge of a dolly in the back room and my mom was on the other side of it. My aunt, sitting on the couch, says, "Take her for a ride!" Mistake number one. Then I step more fully onto it and hang on. Mistake number two. And then my mother proceeds to lift me in preparation for this joyous ride. Major mistake number three. It went way too far down, and I started trying to get off without hitting the floor. Mom says, "I've got you! I've got you!" because she thinks I think I'm about to be dropped. I, however, have had all my weight transferred onto four spots on my legs where the bars go across the back and am eager to get up. They were properly sorry for getting me hurt, but I think we all felt a little dumb because we should have known better. If we'd seen one of the kids doing that, we would have yelled at them until they stopped. I ended up with a really ugly knot and dark bruise on my right leg, but I think I'll probably be alright. :)

( Read more... )

Current Mood: hungry

I'm transferring some pictures in the hopes that at least one of them will turn out for the Curves theme. I kind of doubt they'll be anything special, though, as they were taken in desparation tonight, and indoors to boot. I wish I had a kid, I could take a closeup of some sloping body part (neck, back, etc) and it would look all kinds of artsy. I don't think Magnus will let me reproduce just for a photography challenge, though. Big meanie.

I'm so very tired. Thursday is our statistically slowest day at the store, but it was also raining all afternoon. Soo.. we rearranged the store. We moved the cash registers and checkout counter to a new location and added some shelves and all sorts of things. We'd like to expand into the non-perishable category of food products.. laugh. Seriously though, we're adding a convenience-store type of grocery selection to one corner. Mustard and mayo and ketchup and pickles and toilet paper, that sort of thing. I think I'll like it better over there in general. There's a better view of the store, plus I'll be able to actually hear the television, I think. And most of all.. we're going to put a desk back there with the computer! No internet connection planned, but at least I'll be able to do some stuff. I can write novels! Design things! Play with Photoshop! And who knows, might get dialup eventually. My dad would love to be an ebay junkie, but there's still the issue of tying up the business phone line. Still. I'm pretty happy about having even an unconnected computer. As Brad pointed out.. I could always play the Sims or similar. ;)

Hmm, it kind of worked. I took a break to look at pictures and tinker with them enough to submit. It's not one I'm extremely happy with, but I've had a lack of curves in my life lately. I thought about trying to get a tasteful boob shot, but it was kind of harder than planned, so I ditched that idea. Don't think M would have liked it anyway. Not all that sure I'd have been so keen on the idea either, at that, but I certainly fulfill the role of curvy. Anyway. Photo.

Getting close to bedtime. Night night. :)

Current Mood: good

Wanna go to bed. I'm creaky, achey and sleepy. No clue why I'm insistent on staying up a little longer. I guess it just doesn't seem right that a grownup, who can go to bed whenever she chooses, would choose to be there before 10 pm. :)

Today was alright, though long. I'm still feeling bitter about the job, but not so depressed anymore. There were no stupid bitches pestering me about nectarines, which always makes my day just a little brighter. People really suck.

( Produce sucks, too. )

Anyway. Guess it's time to go sleep for as many hours as I possibly can in preparation for my day off tomorrow. Really not in the mood to spend part of said day off at the chiropractor.. but that's a story for another day. Sleepy now. Night night.

Today was hugely busy and I'm extremely tired.. but the good news is that we have a nice three-day weekend. Unless we end up working on Saturday. Really don't wanna, but that's another story. Seems like a lot of people will be cooking this weekend, and a good deal of beans will be had by all. You know what's insane? We lowered the price of the beans $.20 per pound today. They've been at the previous price for a couple of weeks, and people were pretty much just paying it and moving on with life, even though it is admittedly quite high. (Produce is having a hard time in general this year.) Anyway. We lowered the price.. and more people complained about it today than before. Customers are dumb.

A physical therapist was in the store today, and my dad knew her and talked to her for a minute. She wasn't his home health therapist, but she came out once or twice.. or something like that. She said that it was always good to see people out and about much later to see them moving around so well. I guess I might not have mentioned, at least not recently, that my dad was in the same car wreck that killed my brother. He came very very close to dying as well, and it brought tears to my eyes when they were talking, suddenly feeling grateful that I still have a wonderful dad and remembering a few things suddenly from that year.. the feel of his foot on my arm when I did his physical therapy exercises in the afternoons, the smell of sterile gauzes and sickness, and the echo of a stranger's voice asking derisively how people get themselves into such a shape, as if anyone would choose such a thing. What a miserably unhappy time that was, and how lucky we all are just to be alive. Anyway, that was perilously close to depressing, so I'm moving on now. :)

We're apparently going to see some sort of Swedish singing group on Sunday. Apparently, it's a 50-voice Swedish youth choir from Hassleholm, in southern Sweden. They're on a three-week US tour and have agreed to include Lexington as part of it. This is all in the newsletter we received at the midsummer picnic that was stolen and then mailed to us by Jenny. :) The other Morehead member of the association called the other night to ask if we were attending. Magnus said that we weren't sure, which greatly surprised him. He called again tonight and Magnus said that yes, we were going. The response? "Oh, good. I have your tickets here." We need to go pick them up tomorrow.. laugh. Confident, wasn't he? :) I have no clue what kind of music, or what kind of event, for that matter, this will be, but I guess we'll see. It's at a church. I guess I should look for something ncie to wear.

I thought I might have something else to ramble about, but as it turns out, I'm too sleepy to imagine what it would be. Hiya to

starlon, one of those funny mud-type people. Night night, folks.

Current Mood: tired

Today's Father's Day in the US, and we finally got caught up on Mother's Day at the same time. We took the parents a computer as a combined gift. Too bad we gave Angie our spare monitor. :) Anyway, I think they were reasonably pleased. At the very least.. it's better than a gift card to somewhere, right? :) Speaking of gift cards.. we now have the $200 gift cards from JCPenney. (Magnus got them through points from an online training thing at work, if you don't remember.) The program didn't end when it was supposed to, though, so he's still actually accumulating points.. we'll see how much we'll end up with. (This is a major source of excitement for bored boys at work.) It's pretty neat, but the problem, of course, is that we don't really want to buy anything at JCPenney. Troublesome. If we'd known we didn't have to spend the points right away, we might have used them for something else, but we thought that the money-equivalent would be the best use of what we had to spend at the time. Anyway. I certainly won't complain. We're thinking about using the money to buy Christmas presents. Isn't that boring and responsible of us? Ugh.

Hateful Old Man apparently came in yesterday to the store. He came in once before and told me that the place had sure went downhill since it changed hands. This was just a week or two after they bought the place. Yesterday, there was a much more direct attack. He bought some tomatoes. Mom asked if that would be all and he informs her that that was all he could find fit to eat, that the stuff we had wasn't worth taking home, as it would just have to be thrown away, and again mentioned how the change in ownership affected the place. Dad told him that he was trying his best to keep good merchandise, and the old man has the balls to say that he wasn't doing a very good job. Ahem. There are two interesting things about this conversation. First of all, we're getting our produce from exactly the same people as Cliff did... except that Dad keeps on them about sending fresh stuff and actually drives several hours to get the best stuff at least twice a week himself and fruit is finally coming in season. And what's more.. when they bought the place, most of the stuff wasn't in the best of shape. Every day, you need to go through the store, looking for rotten things, and at first, I was pulling out boxes of stuff directly from the shelves ever day. Now, except for the peaches and pears (which go bad overnight) I tend to just find a few shriveled apples now and then. We've changed storage methods so that stuff looks better and lasts longer, and suddenly this guy comes out of nowhere saying that things are WORSE than they were when we took over? I don't understand what people like that get out of doing things like that. First, to be so blatantly talking out of his ass and not knowing a single thing about what he was saying, and mostly.. why the hell did he stop? We're not the only place in town that sells tomatoes. ;) I can think of at least five other places off the top of my head within a five mile radius. So why take time out of your day to come in to such a horrible place just to be mean to someone? It doesn't make sense. It's counter-intuitive. (Actually, it's not really counter-intuitive, but in our household, "counter-intuitive" is synonomous with "fucked up". That's due to a comedy act by Sabrina Matthews. If you haven't heard her, it would be worth looking for an mp3.. she's one of our two favorite comedians, along with Lewis Black.)

Now, on to my scrapbooking project briefly. I posted this in the comments of my last entry, so I might as well link to it here. If you look at them, be kind.. these are just the first three layouts that I've done. Digital scrapbook layouts. Shaping up to be a fun little hobby, and well, Magnus and I like them, at least. And Harvey. Harvey loooves my scrapbook pages. I have a cute picture of my niece edited and ready to go in a layout, but I'm not sure when that'll happen. Annoner day. Wednesday. Right now it's time I go off to bed. *sigh* Wish it was Friday again.

Current Mood: good

I'm so sleepy, but I don't really feel like going to bed yet. Same old story lately. I'm going to give myself seven minutes to write this and then I'm off to bed. I don't know why I picked seven minutes. I also have a habit of setting my alarm clock to an odd time. I never set it for 6:30 or even 6:40.. it always has to be 6:42 or 6:37. I wish I required less sleep.

I got keys to the store today, and tomorrow I might have to open by myself. Do you have any idea how early the produce world begins? Dad goes to Huntington (maybe to Cincinnati tomorrow) some mornings to pick up stuff. You get better stuff, typically, if you go yourself, and you save the $20 delivery fee. He leaves town at 3 in the morning when he goes and is back by 8. Anyway, I'd like to go with him sometime, but the probability of me waking up that early is slim to none.

Argh, didn't mean to get into that, and now I only have two and a half minutes left. Oh! We're going to a picnic next Saturday evening. It's hosted by the Scandinavian Heritage society in Lexington. Magnus called to talk to the president (I think) about it all tonight.. he found out about it when visiting one of the horse farms on a service call thing with work. It could potentially be a lot of fun.. or boring. I have this fear that we'll be too young to fit into the group, but I don't really know that for sure. I guess we'll see.. I'm a tad on the nervous side. Meeting people makes me nervous. Maybe I can pretend not to speak English. That would be hugely funny. Man, my sense of humor is seriously lacking tonight. Mom and I want to send my dad a fruit basket for Father's Day.. stamped with a label from Papaw's Market (the competitor). rofl. Lame, but funny. And now I'm two minutes over my journal time, so off I go to bed. If I can drag M away from his monitor, that is. :)

Current Mood: tired

My feet hurt. Today was better than yesterday, though, which relieved me. There was no banana yelling, at least. I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed because I was dreading another day like yesterday, but I realized after an hour or two that I wasn't feeling so grumpy, which was good. (Thanks for the comments, ya'll.. you made my day a little better, although it feels very cliche to admit it.) Of course, it helped that this morning was incredibly slow, so it's not like I had to talk to people or anything. I was very amused by the fact that the produce I had sold by 11 in the morning was less than the amount I'd paid out (to the bread guy and the chip guy). This was a little unfair because we sold a lot of bread yesterday and the chip guy doesn't typically come in very often, so the paid outs were much more than usual.. plus I'd sold some plants and other non-produce stuff. It was still funny, especially since we were much busier in the afternoon.

Two of my completely unconnected LJ friends are in Paris right now. I find this rather funny, since neither of them are French or anything. Neither of them invited me, either. *sneef* And a mud friend is heading to Barbados for four weeks this summer, and she didn't invite me, either. I think that's highly unfair. Course, I'd settle for a vacation to West Liberty (extremely boring town in an extremely boring county an extremely boring 45 minutes or so away) at this point as long as it involved an indoor swimming pool. Magnus and I are pretty particular about that point. We don't stay in hotels with no indoor pool except in emergency situations. This is sometimes challenging, as we're also stingy. ;) (A *sneef*, btw, is somewhat similar to a *sniff*, only cuter and more playful, with a touch of irony thrown in. You know, I should probably write a list of actions so you poor people will know what a sneef (or other weird *thing*) consists of. But not tonight.)

Oh, and our internet connection is still sucking a lot. If I'm slow at replying to something, like yesterday's comments, for example, that'd be why. Well, part of why. My daytime connectivity is also extremely limited. Meanwhile,

totte is just now getting his computer (new computer! Yay! Happy birthday* baby!) set up. He says that I should tell

paradisecowgirl that he'll get around to interview questions soon. (*Note that his birthday isn't until July 2. We do early presents.)

A lady with three kids came into the store today. She did a bit of her shopping, and then was about to head outside to get a couple of plants. Just before she went outside, she stopped and said, "What's your name?" I told her and she said, "You used to come into the grocery store to see me when you were just a little girl! Your grandfather would bring you! You were so sweet!" I knew immediately who she was then, though she went on to tell me her name. When she came back, we talked a little more.. it was extremely neat. She worked at IGA at the time, which was just down the road from my grandparents house. I vaguely remember being crazy about her, though not why or any specifics.. as she said, my grandfather would bring me in every day just to see her. She asked me all about how I was doing.. and when she left, she said that she would have to stop in more often.. I had come to visit her at the grocery store so she'd have to come see me now at the grocery store. :) It was pretty neat.. although she looked a little disturbed when I told her that I'm 24. *grin*

I wanted to work on my scrapbooking project, but I'm not going to have time, I bet. It's nearly 11... tonight was sort of busy with the new computer and cooking dinner and stuff. Maybe tomorrow. *yawn* Night!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: crappy 80s music from the Vice City game M's playing.

I'm feeling anti-social and grumpy today. I did not in any way want to work today, but well, I had to and stuff. When I wasn't working, I felt all guilty and stuff about being home all day and squandering a college degree. Now I'm still squandering the degree, but I have to work all the time and never have time for all the fun things I want to do. Tell me again why this is a good thing?

I also got yelled at by an old man today. Apparently, I did not bag the bananas to suit him. I never realized that there was a particular skill in bagging bananas, but seemingly, there is, and I do not possess it. Of course, no one else complains about my banana-bagging skills, so maybe I should have just refused to sell him any bananas at all for being mean. And while I'm griping.. what's with people who come in and ask if the corn/cherries/nectarines/peaches are any good? What the heck do they think I'm going to say? "Nah, man, that stuff is crap. Go buy it at Kroger."? I hardly think so. Those plums are paying my hourly wage, by golly.

Anyway. Moving past produce, if I can. M went to Wally World to get a few things, and I couldn't bear the thought of seeing any more people, so I stayed home. I'm rather anti-social, by nature. I'm really fine with that, now that I've realized it and can work with it. But when I wake up in a don't-even-talk-to-me mood, it sucks tremendous amounts to work in retail. :) People wear me down after a while. So I'm thoroughly enjoying the silence at the moment, and my next stop is the couch with a book. And I'm going to pretend that I don't remember that I have things that need done.. for at least an hour or two. :)

Current Mood: grumpy

Couldn't post this last night due to internet suckiness, so here it is.. yesterday's entry.

I think I'm finally caught up on the interview stuff. If I missed something, then it's cause I'm ditzy, not because I'm trying to be rude. This has been fun, but coming up with the questions has been hard!

I have to be home tomorrow afternoon for the cable guy to come out. M finally got fed up last night at our fickle internet connection and called to gripe at them. We have a connection.. sometimes. It'll work fine for three minutes and then be out for five minutes, on for sixteen seconds and off for fifteen minutes, on for an hour, off for twenty minutes. (This does not make LJing any more reliable or any easier to use!) The tech said that there was an 80% packet loss at our end, and neither of them seemed to have seen this problem before. There's no rhyme or reason in it, and there's certainly not a consistent speed. It only does this occasionally, to make things harder. Sometimes, it'll happen for a while.. say, a couple of weeks, and then it'll clear up and work okay for months. They've been out to the house before for this issue, and usually they either a) don't show up b) come out, replace a cable or other hardware part, say "It's fixed!" and leave without solving anything or c) come out, look around and say, "Hmmm. Seems to be working now." and leave. That's why I'm annoyed about being home tomorrow afternoon. (Slightly annoyed. It will be nice to have the afternoon off work, but I won't get paid for that time, of course, which is not so great.) If they would actually fix something, I'd be glad for them to come out, but they're not going to. Gee, aren't I pessimistic tonight?

I was going to look for and then link to an entry I wrote last year relating to this subject, but I can't, of course, because we don't currently have an internet connection. It was pretty funny, though, because three days after we had been stood up by our cable guy, a customer service chick called routinely to ask if we were satisfied with our cable service call. Rofl. She got an earful, let me tell you!

Today was exceptionally slow at the store, but I wasn't bored, which made it all good. I hate the afternoons, usually, cause there's nothing much to do other than wait for people to come in. I spent much of the day stringing beans. I really don't mind it, and I really like having something to do with my hands. We had a bunch of leftovers.. beans that got rusty or generally didn't sell. I strung and broke 13.26 pounds of green beans today... a lot, in other words.. especially considering that I don't even like beans. I did have some help, but I did the majority alone. M can't believe how well the beans sell. People are obsessed with the 1/2 runner green beans. We had pole beans last week, but they barely sold at all. They're somewhat high ($1.59/lb), and people seem to be completely oblivious to it and cheerily buy large quantities without flinching at the price. I, on the other hand, don't pay $9 for steak, much less vegetables. Oh, well.

You wanna know what's weird? Apples. Apples are weird. Did you know that we're selling last year's apples? Apples aren't in season yet, so what we get in has been stored somewhere, somehow, for the winter. And the weirdest thing of all is that when we get a fresh box of good apples, they're typically very fresh. Firm, pleasantly scented, nice color. But they're months old. My poor, overworked brain has a difficult time wrapping itself around this apple information. And speaking of apples.. people, stop asking me if we have June apples. We don't. When we do, we'll probably put them out in the apple bins instead of squirreling them away in the back where no one can buy them but the special people who happen to ask for them. This has put me almost almost in the mood to write the next installment of As the Produce Turns, but I'm really more in the mood to end this post and get ready for bed, and besides, I hate to ramble about fruit all the time. Anyway, g'night folks!

Current Mood: sleepy

This whole selling-fruit-to-old-people thing loses a bit of its appeal when working nearly full-time. Argh. Now all I can see when I read that sentence is "loses a bit of its apple peel", which is vastly suitable but I really need to stop thinking about produce. It's not healthy. I dunno. It's certainly not I went to college for, and it's certainly more physical labor than I particularly enjoy, but it's certainly provided me with something to do. And sore feet. I could live without the feet thing. And the aching lower back, as well. But beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. This morning was actually kind of fun. Dad and I, left to our own devices with no delivery truck in sight (no deliveries on Tuesdays or Thursdays) rearranged things. It would probably be a waste of time to explain what we changed since no one has actually seen the inside of the store anyway, but it was fun and it certainly looks better.

Weekendish Goals

Updates for client. With luck and inspiration, that will get done tomorrow afternoon.
Send thank-you email regarding my birthday to in-laws. Birthday was May 4. Bad daughter-in-law. I did allow it to return a read receipt, though, which I thought was nice of me as I never ever do that.
Certain other swedish email to certain other person, but I refuse to even mention it again since I've been so slow lately. Have practiced my language skills very little lately, what with working and being extremely lazy. Hard to stay motivated, especially here on this side of the globe.
Check immigration process. We need to file for removal of conditions for M's greencard this summer. I think it's in July or so, but it's time for me to do my brush-up research to make sure I've got it right.
Tatting project. I'm getting tired of the silly doily already and it's not even done yet.
Cut hubby's hair. I'm reminded of the time stewlis was explaining to her husband that I cut Magnus's hair. In mid-sentence, she looked at him, hesitated, and then added, "Well, she used to, anyway."
Bake something. I've just felt like baking lately. Zucchini bread is a possibility, although I've also been thinking about conventional bread and I bought the almond junk for semlor. The chances of actually baking something, though, is relatively small. I usually talk about it for a while before putting anything in the oven. Oooh, I have chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge. Maybe that counts as baking?
Make CDs. Backups. And other perfectly legal stuff.

There's some question suddenly about what might happen to our steady source of income, which is mildly worrying. Just thinking about the possibility of change can be somewhat stressful to people as hung up on security as M and I are, but for various reason, it wouldn't be a real problem. (At least not unless he was unemployed for quite some time, which is, of course, not part of the equation.. I can only worry about so many things at a time!) The most disappointing thing, actually, is the possibility that this job is not what we thought it might be (a career similar to what he had in Sweden.) But at this point.. the question might turn out to be nothing at all, so we're not investing too much time in worrying over things. I don't worry about money, as a rule, actually.. I'm not very good at it. ;)

Current Mood: tired

I'm rewarding myself with a productive break.. writing in my journal. The excitement is unbearable.

I had today planned for catching up on everything. Tuesday night, we ordered a pizza, dismantled two large desks and carried them out to the shop (with some well-timed help from Cousin Brad) and put together both of the new desks. I even got my computer arranged.. I actually had a fifty-foot long telephone cable back there that I didn't need in the slightest. Amazing.

I worked yesterday, which was not at all fun, as I felt generally tired and run-down, plus feeling the effects of my chiro visit. I had an achy back all day, and then to make it worse, I had a headache in the afternoon. I was quite proud of myself for not taking a painkiller, actually. Working at the produce store often requires lifting and pulling on heavy boxes. I was afraid that if I made the pain go away, I would do entirely too much of said work and make it worse for today. I had a vegetable dinner planned, but by the time I left, I was no longer willing to stand on my feet any longer than necessary. My hubby took me to Pasquale's, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was unusually hungry and thirsty all day yesterday.. my mother suggested that my sugar was out of whack. There's a strong history of diabetes in my family, and while I've never displayed any signs of it, I'm built like the ones who get it. I do check it every so often, though, and I try not to eat quite as much sugar as I would otherwise. We watched Good Eats at 9, and then I willfully fell asleep on the couch. This was the dumbest thing I've done all year.. I woke up with a headache from hell. I was very nearly in tears from it. My lovely, wonderful husband massaged it almost completely away.. which I suppose confirms the notion that my headaches are mostly about my weird neck. All gone this morning, too, which I'm profoundly grateful for.

Anyway, so today the plan was to get started on all the stacks of things we removed from the other desks and find new places for it all. I have made some small progress with this. We're going to need to buy cool desk organizer stuff, though. I was wasting a bit of time this morning, thinking I had plenty of time to work on it and do some other housework. Seems that's not gonna happen, though. Dad called me at 10:30. Carolyn wrecked her car, flipping it over and stuff on the way to work this morning. She's out at the hospital and they're doing tests to see how she is.. she's at least somewhat injured, but is able to talk to them and stuff. No one knew anything else when I talked to Dad. Anyway, he was wondering if I'd come in to work for a few hours this afternoon. I told him to give me a call this afternoon or I'd call him.. I'd really like to get some of this stuff done first. Mom is leaving town, taking my aunt to a doctor's appointment in Lexington, so he'll be by himself all day, and my dad is notorious for doing a lot of errands and popping in and out. :) I have a sneaky feeling I'll be working tomorrow, too. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The money is nice, at least. I'm just trying to get some more work done here before I go down there.. hopefully I won't need to go for another hour or two, but I suspect he'll call me before I've made even close to enough progress in here!

Current Mood: okay

There's so much work in the produce world! I sort of figured that today would be slow.. it's been incredibly rainy and thunderstormy pretty much all day long. Usually, when it rains, we do less business. Today turned out to be one of the busier days we've had. I sold one woman $125 worth of plants. I cannot imagine buying so many plants! It's ridiculous, in my opinion, but no one asked me. Which is good. I like selling stuff, especially $125 at one time.

I really hate dealing with all the plants, actually. And is there really so much difference in two varieties of tomatoes or cabbage? This one man came in today looking for an argument. He hounded me into lowering the price of a cabbage plant by 50 cents. I normally wouldn't have done it, but at that point, I would have paid 50 cents to make him go away. I think he felt a little bad, though.. apparently, him and Carolyn argue about such things all the time, and he thought I was upset. Actually, I was a little upset, but not really because of the 50 cents. I just don't like it when people get so confrontational about stupid things. How do I know that this cabbage plant was the variety of cabbage that it says it is, because it's in a box with two other kinds (in rows) and how do I know that no one has been out there moving things around without us noticing? Calm down, people! It's just cabbage!

I don't mind the work too much. I'm kinda overqualified to be a cashier, but it's not keeping me up nights or anything. Now that I've done it a few times, I don't mind the mornings too much. I don't care much for getting stuff out of the fridges and putting it out, but it's getting easier. I don't mind going through the bins looking for rotten stuff, though it can be extremely gross. Today, especially, because they didn't really do it yesterday, so the stuff had an extra day to spoil. Actually, Monday is an excellent day to shop at Gilliam's Produce.. I remove stuff by a stricter standard than say, someone who's paid $600 to a delivery person earlier in the day. ;) I even kind of enjoy putting up stuff when the delivery truck comes, and putting together delivery orders for sending out (we deliver to some businesses) can be fun. What I HATE is the afternoons. I've finished the previously mentioned stuff, and while there's always plenty of stuff that I could do, most of it is either extremely icky (cleaning up rotting produce) or vague (straightening up). It's just so boring when you're between customers.

I could tell a couple of customer stories, but I'm ready to move past the produce. I was there for ten hours, followed by dinner and computer time, so I don't have much else to add. I think there will be some reading on the couch now.. we have a tin roof and it's raining pretty hard. It sounds soo nice. I love the sound of rain.. I even have a rain CD that I listen to. It's brilliant for destressing. My hubby found it for me.. I won't say how or where, but I thought it was very sweet. :) Our connection kinda sucks tonight anyway, so I'll try to catch up with my lovely friends tomorrow. :) Night!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: rain

I'm so tired. I made fun of Magnus and his "cushy office job" on Friday. I work hard from 8 am to 6 pm (today until almost 7) and he works from 8:30 to 5, sitting around an office all day. Woe is me. ;) Seriously, though, this produce market stuff is for the birds. You simply wouldn't believe how much work goes into it! Carolyn (the woman who came with the store) decided she wanted Friday and Monday off. At least I have my working in for the week, though! She only works four days a week (no overtime available at Gilliam's Produce!) I could actually work three days if I would.. they would very much like me there on the weekends, I think, so they could have a real life. I don't want to work when M is home, though. Anyway, working one day a week sort of pays for my insurance, which is really what I said to begin with that I'd like to get out of it. I have something to add to my week, a little extra money, and I get tons of produce stories. Not very GOOD produce stories, necessarily, but still.

I guess I should talk about produce again, actually. Remember I mentioned previously that one should never drop rotten fruit? There's even more to the story, it turns out--one should never EVER squeeze it. Yuck. It's simply incredible how fast stuff goes bad. If you get disgusted with your local grocer because there's a moldy grape in the bunch.. try to take pity on them. This morning, for instance, I checked all the grapes, and then while putting things up this evening, I saw (and removed) a grape that was completely white and furry. I watched Mom go through apples yesterday; today I pulled at least twenty out of the bins. There's just a lot of stuff to work through! We've been putting stuff on a reduced price table. I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth the effort. The tomatoes sell, and to a lesser extent, the green peppers and corn, but for the most part, it just sits and languishes. People don't like to think about the produce sitting around for days, I think. But it really hurts to watch perfectly good food (minus a few spots) get thrown away. Of course, we do get a lot of requests for our scraps. People want to feed their rabbits. We certainly have plenty to give them.

Apparently, I'm not really in the mood to discuss the ongoing saga of As the Fruit Turns. That last paragraph just ended up as boring babble, but I went to all the trouble of typing it so I'll just leave it as it is.

Moving on from produce somewhat.. We had the most excellent dinner tonight. Magnus says that we must be getting old because we enjoyed this so much. I boiled some new potatoes and fried some cabbage and served it with (garlic cream sauce) pickled herring (which I tried but did not like and certainly did not eat) and cucumbers. We didn't have any dill, though, for the potatoes. It was a very simply meal and the most satisfying thing I've had in ages. We'll probably have it again very soon, likely this week if not tomorrow. I'm thinking about making the basil chicken thing that

carrieb wrote about sometime this week. Maybe. If I ever get to the store.

And Some Catchups..
I mentioned it in the comments for that day, but I just remembered that I didn't say outright that my grandfather turned out to have a cold/flu thing, not a heart problem. I didn't want him to be sick, obviously, but very glad that it was that and not something worse! He's just fine now. And I also want to add that I was just rambling the other night when I got into people who say they're too busy to mail. It's just a mild pet peeve, certainly not directed at anyone in particular and also not something that really bothers me except when I think on it. I realized yesterday that the only person I'm actually waiting for a mail from is

paradisecowgirl and she was probably thinking, "man, what a bitch!" when I wrote that. *wink* And furthermore, I've neglected to mention how extremely proud I am of my dad, who's lost 55-60 pounds in the last few months. :) Yay Dad!

Current Mood: tired

Two weeks ago, I commented that I couldn't imagine the 80s styles coming back. I can see a certain coolness to the 70s sense of style, but the 80s? Worthless! Today, of course, I noticed that my very cute new hairstyle is not all that far from the feathered back hair of 1984. *laugh* It's quite different, but not completely dissimilar.

I've been very busy today but it doesn't really look like I did a whole lot around here. I fixed Brad's computer this morning, and this afternoon I spent hours working on price signs for the store. A LOT of price signs. I'll have more to print, but I need to take these down and get them up so I know what's missing. I went from Dad's price list, but there were some things that just weren't on there. I'm not entirely sure what I've gotten into, because you know, prices at a produce stand kinda change a lot. Perfectionist that I am, I also had to put cute little fruit clip arts on the sign to match the product. I need a life. Anyawy, I also printed twenty each of two different kinds of business cards. (Different designs, different content.) And a page that proclaims that we accept EBT cards. (Food stamps.) We don't, actually, yet, but we will be able to as soon as they (the state, not the parents) get around to activating it. I got to use my paper cutter, though, so I'm happy.

Tonight was even more busy. We had a very nice dinner out, because we didn't have any food. We then went to set up the computer for Brad.. but couldn't get the internet connection working.. so will probably have to go back and install a new modem tomorrow or soon. And we did the grocery shopping! Kinda unexpected, since we didn't leave Brad's until 9, and they live kinda far out.

Oh, and I plucked my eyebrows today and cursed men. I realized I was being illogical because there's not a single man of my acquaintance who cares if I have excess hair above my eyes, but it felt good at the time. :) Man, that hurts. *grin*

Current Mood: sleepy

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June 2015

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Under the Same Sky

Entries tagged with produce

"What kind of salt was that again, AB?"

Ebay.

Happy Anniversary to my mommy and daddy!

Bleh

Dork.

Heat sucks.

Ramblings about work.

Pictures, potential good news about work

Unexpected produce rant.

Weekend!

Sunday night

Rambles.

Life.

Grumpy.

Thursday night

yawn

Unexpected turn of events for the day

Tired, tired, tired.

The normal ramblings, some fruit-related material

Monday night

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June 2015

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