Winter!!

Wow, it's been a very long time since I wrote on this dumb thing. I mean my blog. I guess I'm not the best at writing consistantly eh?? Not too much is new. Just a different job at Target (again, they never keep me in one place), I only have a month left before I go to Utah, Paul comes home in 18 days or so, I have my school loan all ready and I have an apartment in Utah. Other than that I'm just trying to survive this frigid winter. We've already got a ton of snow and for the past 3 weeks it's been above 25 once, most of the days are below 10, usually around 0 if we're lucky. Yuck. But hey, there aren't any mosquitoes!!

Christmas was good. We got a Wii from my brother, so that's fun. Except that I always get too into things and it makes me sore. :P My brother Andy came home for Christmas with his wife Stephanie, which was very cool.

From left to right: Mom, Mary, Dad, Minerva, me, David, Nick, Andy, Steph

Frog Point

Nick came over on Tuesday and we took Mary and Pippin to Frog Point with us. We just went for the fun of it, Mary came because she longingly told me how much fun it would be when we were leaving, and Pippin because she's a big fatty that needs exercise.

The ancient playground they have there was to be a good place to take pictures! :)

Finally Salesfloor :)

I forgot to mention that the pricing job at Target was just temporary, while they got me switched over to salesfloor. I'm now officially a salesfloor person and it's much better. My only complaint is how I never really know what to do. Like with cashiering, I always knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I kinda of assumed it would be like that though so it's all good. It was funny the other day because I was in charge of five phones in the store, and I didn't even know where they were or how to answer them really. They briefly explained how to do it, but I never actually did it before I was in charge of them. And of course, it's been a little difficult because I'm so used to tuning out the calls, because I've never had to answer them before. I'm getting it, though. Supposedly sometime this week I'll actually be trained and put with someone so I can learn how things are done. Which will be very nice...

The Price is Right

That's what I make sure with my new job at Target. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder a few weeks ago, and cashiering seemed to be making it just get worse and worse till I really couldn't do it anymore. I'd asked to be moved to the salesfloor a while ago so it would be able to heal, but they sure took long enough to move me out of cashiering. It's not quite the salesfloor, but it's definitely better. My hours are 6:00am to 2:30pm every day, which is a little early for me, but manageable. I get up at 5:00 and that gives me about 15 minutes to get ready and go. Basically what I do is put up new prices, put up signs for sales, mark things that are on clearance, and just make sure things are coming up at the right price. It's a party, I tell you. I really like getting off at 2:30. I was kinda tired when I got home today, but hopefully it won't take too long to get a little more used to the hours. I also went to the chiropractor today, and he smacked me around a bit, which definitely helped my shoulder. I guess a tendon was out of place, and that's why it hurt so much. He told me to try not to reach behind me while holding heavy things, and that's exactly what I'd been doing as a cashier. Good thing I'm not anymore!!! :D It's funny though, remember what I said before about how they don't really train you there at Target? Well they did the same thing to me again. One lady told me to work with this other lady, and she said not to give me my own work just yet but to just show me everything today. Well guess what I had within ten minutes? My own work, in another isle. Everything went fine except when I thought the isle went to the back wall when really it went across the back wall too, so I missed some sale things I was supposed to scan and see if they needed to be taken down. But oh well, I can just blame it on the lady because she should have been there. I wanted to ask her to make sure, but I assumed I was because that's how all the other isles went...but yeah, I had no clue where she was. So other than that it was all good. :)

The Great Kitchen Renovation

After having lived in this old farmhouse for almost 15 years, we decided it was time to change the kitchen floor. Actually, I decided it was time, and started tearing it up when my parents were gone. :) They knew though, that I was going to, so it was all good. My mom was very much ready to change it. Who wouldn't be? After all, it was ugly, split-pea-soup green, faded, cracking, peeling, etc. etc. etc. Just gross. Honestly, it doesn't seem to be a horrible looking kitchen in general...but I do think that it looks somewhat better in the pictures than it did in real life. Maybe just because you can't see all the details of the grossness. So, I invited Nick to come over for a couple of days and help us tear it up, which he did willingly. I think the willingness was more just wanting to be with me rather than wanting to tear up a kitchen floor, but it worked. And he only broke two or three of our tools.

Valley Fair!!

The weekend before last, I was lucky enough to get Friday and Saturday off to go to Valley Fair with Nick and his family. It was the last week that the water park was open, so we really wanted to go, but for a while I thought I might not be able to go. My time off request was denied because it was the week of UND's opening something-whatcha-ma-call-it for freshmen, so a lot of people wanted it off. The lady in charge said I wouldn't be able to get it, and she felt really bad about it, but there wasn't really anything she could do. So I asked around, and begged around, and I finally found someone who would work for me on Saturday. Then later on, as I was getting slightly more desperate, I asked one of my supervisors about it and she was able to find someone for me. I was incredibly lucky.

Anyway, I had a great time there. After my first roller coaster ride I was sort of dizzy and and didn't feel terribly good, and I was afraid that maybe I wouldn't take to roller coasters quite as well as I thought I would. After a few more times though, I got used to feeling like my stomach was ten feet behind me and had a lot of fun. I even went on the roller coaster that goes upside down and on the power tower - the tower that takes you up and drops you. It was intense. We were there from 9:30am, before it opened, till after 10pm, when it closed. Luckily we didn't have to eat the nasty fair food, we brought sandwich fixings and ate in the truck instead.

After we rode roller coasters for a while, we decided it was way too hot and that the water park would be a good idea right about then. There was a sweet water slide, with a tube made for four people. We found out that the bigger the people in the tube, the higher it went around the corners. Jared and Nick tried to get it as high as they could, nearly flipping themselves, along with Becca and me, over. Then it started to rain and the wind picked up, so we decided to go back to the roller coasters. Overall, it was most definitely worth $26.95.

The next day, on Saturday, Nick and I went to the Mall of America. We basically just wandered around the whole time looking at random things. I guess that's probably what most people do there though. We did find some pretty sweet clothes...that we didn't buy.

Yesterday Nick and I celebrated an amazing year of dating. We were pretty lucky to both be able to get the day off. We went out to dinner at a nice place in downtown Grand Forks and we both decided we are both way too immature to eat at fancy places. I think we're too immature for a lot though, to be honest, which is part of the reason why we have so much fun together. We went to Sander's and got steaks. Nick's was so incredibly rare though, he poked it with his fork and it bled. Both of us hate sending food back, but there was definitely no way he'd eat it. Or that I'd let him eat it, for that matter. It was that pink. After he asked the waiter if it could be cooked just a little longer, he joked that he should have said he needed a new steak because he poked it and it mooed at him. That was basically what we were like all night. It also didn't help that we couldn't pronounce half the things on the menu, and if we could we probably didn't know what they were anyway, so it didn't matter.

Nick also got me these sweet roses!!!

Just another day

I don't really have anything exciting to write about. Just another long day at work. Actually, it really wasn't all that long at all, only 3:00 - 10:30. Lately all my days have seemed terribly long though, for some reason. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that all I do is robotically slide hundreds and hundreds of items across the scanner, it's just getting old. Or something like that anyway, I don't know. I got to be a breaker the other day, which is much better. Then you get to bag, give people their breaks, pick up hangers and abandoned things, and I even got to be the all-important operator for half an hour and answer the phone. It's interesting when they teach you to do new things there...because they really don't teach you anything. They very briefly go over what you do, then expect you remember it all without any help. So yeah, I had a bit of trouble trying to transfer people to other places in the store when they called. But, oh well. It's good experience, I think.

A few days ago I had an older lady come in and hand her credit card to me, and ask if it was the right one, because she had an older one and a newer one. I was like "uhh...I can't really do anything with your card till you're trying to pay with it." so she tried to pay with it, and of course it didn't work. I told her to either call the 800 number on the card, or ask guest service about it, since they know more about that sort of thing there than I do. She got all mad and asked how long it would take, and if I could just do it, and all this stuff. I basically told her I really couldn't do anything about it, and she paid a different way. Some people are a little strange though. Since when do cashiers fix credit cards that don't work?
Anyway, that's my rant for tonight. I think it's time for bed now.

So you're Canadian, eh?

For some reason or another, the past few days at work have been bombarded with unusual influxes of Canadians. It's a running joke that Canadians always try to hand the cashiers their credit cards instead of running in themselves in the credit card machine the way they're supposed to. One lady came up to me, trying to hand me her card and I told her to use the card reader...she said, to no surprise of mine, "Oh, I'm supposed to use that thing, eh?"

I've met a couple of weird people in the past few days as well. One was weird enough to convince the head people there that I needed to walk out with security. This younger guy came up and bought a small grill, the kind in a box that you can make hamburgers in, or whatever you do with those things. We were just chatting about it, you know, regular small-talk. Right? He left his grill there, which I thought was pretty funny since we'd been talking about it. He came back less than an hour later and asked if he'd left it there. I brought it out from under the counter and gave it to him, saying I was glad he'd come back to get it since he'd already paid for it and everything. A little while later, I heard over the walkie/intercom wherever I heard it, "Becky, 2280, Becky, 2280" which means "You have a call at the front desk." However, there is another Becky that works there, quite a bit higher-up than me, so of course I assumed it was from her. After my break, as I was leaving the break room, a couple of team members came up to me and told me they needed to talk to me about something and asked if I'd helped someone with a grill earlier that day. I said I had, and they got really serious and looked at each other nervously. Of course I was slightly terrified, I thought I'd done something really wrong. They said something about finding a back room to talk in, and I couldn't stand the curiosity, asking what happened. Apparently this guy was trying to get a hold of me and ask me out for a drink that night, hence the call at the front desk. They were afraid he was going to come after me, so they made me walk out with a security guard.
I guess there are two things I can learn from this. One, Target is going to protect me from creepy guys. And two, don't make small talk with younger guys.

Almost a Hero

So I tried to donate blood today. Last time I did, which was also my first time, everything went perfectly...except when the needle slipped a little bit after they put it in and caused me horrible pain for about 2 1/2 minutes. But I was done in less than 10 minutes and felt fine. I went today to a little dump of a town 10 miles from my house in a creepy looking gray building (I'm always afraid the nurses are actually vampires, this didn't alleviate my fear at all). After I got inside, they asked me all the dumb questions about my mom being in Mexico, and jammed the needle in my arm. It really didn't hurt at all. Unfortunately, something went wrong and they couldn't get the flow right. A lady who was more experienced in the matter came over to help, and she tried to move the needle to get a better flow, but pulled it out instead. Of course, my arm spurted blood, got everything all messy, and that was the end of it. They were going to try on my other arm, but ran out of time.
I'll save lives next time.

How to be a Great Customer

• Don't try to put your gift card into the credit card machine. It won't work. (Unless it is a credit card-type gift card, which will have a magnetic strip on the back.)
• Never, ever mix produce sold by weight. Even if it's the same price. Just don't do it.
• If your apples don't have stickers on them, make sure you know what variety they are so the cashier will be able to look up the number.
• It's nice if you smile every now and then. Everyone has bad days, but just try to be a little bit friendly.
• Compliments go a long way. If you liked something the cashier did, you should tell them! Cashiers have to put up with a lot of crabby people every day, and a compliment will help immensely.
• Don't get mad and pout if the cashier doesn't say hi to you, and refuse to talk to them first. They see hundreds of people every day, and sometimes start zoning out. They might need a kick. (Not literally, of course.)
• We all know that at Wal-Mart, you so very rarely see this, so it's difficult to remember if you regularly shop there. When there is a cashier standing at the front of a lane and the light is on, it means they're open and ready to help you. Don't stupidly ask if they're open...just smile and say hi, they'll know what you want.
• Similar to the previous one, don't walk up to a cashier waiting at the end of his or her lane without making any sort of eye contact. It's just...awkward.
• We all know this is difficult sometimes, but please try to not have an entire cartload of things, and put them on the belt all mixed up. Sorting even just halfheartedly will make the whole thing much faster and easier for everyone.
• This is also difficult, but do try to make sure your things have tags. This is for your convenience. If something doesn't have a tag, it will only take longer to get you through.
• People tend to bunch up at the closest open lanes. Try walking another few feet and seeing if the other ones are less busy.
• Don't ever take out your anger about prices, quality, what isn't in stock, or your mother-in-law on the cashier. They're like robots, they just ring hundreds and hundreds of things up every day. They really don't know anything about the store. If you have a problem, find a manager.
  
• If the cashier makes a mistake, such as missing a coupon, double scanning an item, etc. etc. etc., and the transaction is done, take it to guest service. That's what they're there for. If it's not busy, go ahead and ask the cashier if they can fix it. If they can't...guest service is your friend.
• If you have a discount or coupon you want to use, don't run your credit card until you know for a fact that the coupon or discount has been applied to your purchase. Voiding credit card payments is not fun. Again, if this happens, it's probably easier to just take it to guest service. They're pretty good at that kind of thing.
• Don't talk on your cell phone while you're checking out. Especially in one of the following situations: your credit card doesn't work, one or more of your items don't have tags, or you have a large transaction.
• If you forgot something and need to run back and find it, offer to do it on a new transaction and let people go ahead of you. Especially if it's going to take more than a minute to get it.
• Please, please use the sticks placed near the belt. They mean "this is a separate purchase from the person in front of me". You have no idea how confusing it gets when 3 people, who look like they're together, come at the same time and dump all their things on the belt, and then get mad when you try to ring it up together. Just use the sticks.
• If you like reusable bags, great! But don't load your cart to overflowing, dump it all, shampoo, meat and veggies all mixed, on the belt, throw 20 bags in the cashier's face and expect him or her to get it all sorted and bagged quickly. It won't happen. The best thing to do is offer to help fill the bags yourself. And sort your stuff while you're putting it on the belt.
  
• If you want paper bags, don't wait until the cashier is finished with plastic. If you remember too late, either fix it yourself, or forget it. An exception is if it was a small transaction and the store is not busy.
• If you want to use a check, please either fill out the parts you can before the total, or write it out very quickly. However, if you're very old and slow, take your time.
• Many people like to pay the exact amount of cash that is due. This is great, however, if it takes more than about 15 seconds to find the right change, just forget it. Take your change to the bank if you have too much.
• Don't ever, ever put anything like money, coupons, or other very small, flat objects on the conveyor belt. Even more importantly, don't blame the cashier if they get sucked in. Those things are automatic. No matter how we try to stop the belt in time, sometimes we can't. It's not our fault.
• If there is a large orange and black sticker on your item that says "non-conveyable", don't put it on the belt. Especially if the cashier looks very small. Leave it in the cart, they'll scan it there.
• If you have ten of the same flavor of pop in large boxes, just put one on the belt and tell the cashier how many you have. Same goes with anything else moderately big and/or heavy.

*NOTE* There are exceptions. Mistakes happen, and no one expects you to be perfect. These are only general guidelines.

Yay Fireworks!!

I ended up not having a bad fourth of July after all. I got $12/hr that day...and we got out an hour early, a free pop, and after that some friends from work and I got together and watched the amazing Grand Forks fireworks show. It was cool, but last year, I went to the Pyrotechnics Guild International show in Fargo, and ever since then, all fireworks have been a little lame. That's okay though, it was still fun. Especially when those of us who are a little more immature had a race to see who could roll down the hill the fastest, when the fireworks were over and none of us wanted to go home. Actually it was a dike, not a hill since those don't really exist in Grand Forks. But close enough. (I won, by the way.) The pictures there, they were taken with my phone...so they're not the best quality ever, but you have to admit they're pretty good for a phone. :)

Happy Fourth!!

It won't be terribly happy for me because I have to work from 3:30 to 11:00, but that's okay. I'd rather make money than get a million mosquito bites attempting to watch fireworks. At least, that's what I tell myself. My family had our celebration last night so that I wouldn't miss it. We made some pretty freaking awesome dessert, and if that was all we had it would have been fine with me...because yeah, it was amazing.


Yesterday I decided it would be a good idea to take the dead chipmunk Dumb Baby had so kindly brought us, and skin it. Why I thought it would be a good idea, I'm not completely sure. So I got my brother outside with me and that's what we did. I'm only going to post one of the 50 billion pictures he took, because it's the only one that isn't really gross.

Blog...?

So I'm pretty new at this whole blogging thing. I've always used computers a lot but have never done a blog. I think it's going to drive me crazy that I can't change certain things about the layout, but...whatever. So as just a bit of an introduction, I'm 18, living at home, working at Target, halfway done with college and trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I'll probably move to Utah in the next few months and get a license in cosmetology, then come back here and finish my degree in Psychology. I have the most amazing boyfriend in the world, and those of you who think I'm wrong...umm I don't know, but you are because he is. We have two cats, one called Fattycakes and the other is Dumb Baby. We have a few other animals as well, but those are the only ones worth mentioning at the moment. Maybe because they have the coolest names. You have to admit, they are pretty cool names. I have five siblings, three older brothers, one little brother and one little sister. That's about all I have for today though. Now that I'm done with the boring stuff...here are some sweet pictures:

Amazing boyfriend (and me)


Fattycakes
You gotta admit, this cat is awesome.