Excitement at Wal-Mart

Sunday night when I went to work at Wal-Mart, I was put at the door for the first hour to give the greeter her dinner break. I have never really liked working the door, and now I don't want to EVER work the door again.

After I had been there for about 20 minutes, a young man walked past me pushing a cart with a small child in the seat and a diaper bag in the bottom of the cart and nothing else in it. Behind him was a man pushing a cart with two children sitting in the open part of the cart. Well, as the young man was leaving, he set off the security alarm and started running. The man behind him was in my way, so by the time I got to the door, the boy was all the way at the end of the parking lot. He had run through the whole parking lot, dodging vehicles, with that baby in the cart. I was sick to my stomach and shaking all over. Then, I realized that although the man behind him had gone a totally different direction when he went out the door, he circled around and met up with him in the parking lot. The two men and three children all left in the same vehicle. Then, I was angry!

I called the security guy (Brian) to come up there and told him all about what happened. He said he thought he knew who the guys were but would check out the security videos to be sure. He told me later that he had seen the whole thing on the videos and was correct about the men. He caught them stealing something just a few days earlier, and they had dared to come back and try again! He said he WILL catch them next time. I hope so!

Busy, busy, busy

I know I haven't been keeping up with this very well lately, but I've been busy. Have you ever noticed that when you're super-busy that's when you have stories to tell. Unfortunately, that's also when you don't have the time to tell the stories. Then, when things slow down some and you have time, either you forget the stories or they are no longer relevant. Gotta hate it when that happens!

As most of you know, I'm working two jobs now, which makes for a lot of potential material to write about on here. (If only I had time to get on here like I want to.) My first job is at Kintronic Laboratories, a family-owned business that creates custom-designed radio tower equipment, mostly for AM radio stations. We have customers all over the country and around the world. I started working here in late 2005 and like it pretty well, most days. I work as an accountant, 4 hours each morning, M-F. I'd like to be full-time, but I guess they just don't need that at this point.

So, I had to go out and get a second part-time job. In the evenings and on weekends, I work as a cashier at Wal-Mart. Surprisingly, I usually enjoy that job more than my first job. The atmosphere is more relaxed, and it turns out I'm a very good cashier. One thing I like about working at Wal-Mart is all the funny things I see people do. For example:

Sometimes, I am at the self-checkout monitor, and that's where I see the funniest stuff. When some people step up to those registers, they should get a message that says something like: "Please step away from the register. You are too stupid to use self-checkout." That would actually apply to most people, even many Wal-Mart associates. One day, an associate was trying to check out before leaving at the end of her shift, and there were at least three other associates there helping her, including an assistant manager. It made me laugh and wonder ... so, how many Wal-Mart associates does it take to successfully use a self-checkout register?

MUSIC IN THE CASTLE

This past Saturday, Tennessee High School held their annual "Music in the Castle" band competition. Vance Middle School held with a tradition over 40 years old by opening the festival with "America the Beautiful" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." It was Sam's first marching-band experience. Although the weather was beautiful with cooler temperatures than what we had been having, it was still very hot in those band uniforms. BUT, those kids looked terrific and sounded even better.

I took some pictures on my cell phone and recorded a snippet. The pictures are below. I was going to share the video as well, but for some reason, I can't get it to play here.

Here is Sam with the rest of the band, practicing in the band room before heading across the street to the THS castle.


Here are the clarinets, trumpets, and trombones while the band is playing "America the Beautiful".


Here they are marching off the field.


Here they are walking back to VMS.

Butterfly

A few nights ago, while walking across the backyard, Sam and I saw a butterfly in the grass.



It didn't move, even though we got closer and closer to it. Sam was even able to pick it up.



He took it over to the honeysuckle bushes at the side of the yard to let it go free, but it couldn't fly. He finally set it down on the ground, and we were both sad that it was too hurt (or too old) to fly. Obviously that was the only reason we were able to get so close to it. I'm just glad that I could get such close up pictures of it. Unfortunately, the pictures do not do it justice. It was absolutely stunning!

Catch-up

It's been so long since I've written in here that I need to catch up on what's been happening.

Sam is still playing the trumpet and loving it. He likes band so much that he has begun talking about making it his career. Apparently he has talked to his band director about it and has come up with a couple options. He is interested in joining the military as trumpet player or being a school band director. Of course, it could be possible to do both. Mr. Hebert (pronounced Ay-bare), the high school band director, comes to the middle school on Wednesdays for band lessons. Last week, he said that they need another tuba player, and he tested the brass players on the tuba. Sam did really well and liked it a lot. Mr. Hebert said if he chooses Sam for the tuba, he can continue playing the trumpet for this year while having tuba lessons on Wednesdays. Sam hopes he gets chosen!

College football has started. Yay! Last Saturday, I watched that awesome game between Georgia and Central Michigan. GO DAWGS!!! Even Pearl got into the spirit of the game in her new Georgia Bulldogs shirt.


The shirt at the store before I bought it



Pearl posing in her new shirt. (Notice the football cookie dog treat in front of her. She gulped it down in about two bites.)



Pearl relaxing under the dining room table after watching the game with me.

As most of you already know, I'm working two jobs now. I'm back at Kintronic Laboratories, working my usual half-days. I really like it there and would love to be put on full-time, but I don't see that happening any time soon. So, I went out and got myself another part-time job. In the evenings and on weekends, I'm a cashier at Wal-Mart. I've been there about 7 weeks now, and so far I like it quite a bit. It's been hard getting used to being on my feet so much, but I really enjoy the interaction with the customers ... well, most of them, anyway.

If any of you who read my blog are on facebook, please add me as your friend, if we're not friends already. Lately, I've been keeping up with that site much more than this one. I will still continue to post on here as often as possible, though.

Have a great day, everyone!!!

New Motto

While out shopping a few nights ago, I saw a display of posters that caught my attention. I showed Scott the one right in front and told him it was going to be my new motto. Although he didn't appreciate it much, many of my readers will completely understand where I'm coming from. Here's a picture of said poster:

Back to School

It's been a while since I've written. I had a very busy summer!! BUT, it's over now, and school is back in session. Thankfully, Sam really likes middle school ... so far, anyway. I think he likes having a different teacher for each subject. Last year he got a small taste of it, with two teachers who each taught half of the subjects. One thing he definitely does NOT like is getting up earlier. Elementary started at 8:10, but middle school starts at 7:30. In order to catch the bus at 6:40, he has to get up around 6:00. That is going to take some getting used to!

Here are a couple pictures of Sam, taken yesterday morning: