I think I can...

So the other day I decided I wanted to learn how to knit, like seriously too, most people when they see me crochet think I'm knitting anyways. I've said that I want to learn how to knit for some time and haven't actually done it. Well I'm gonna learn, I went and got a "learners kit" at Walmart and I'm trying to teach myself, it's coming along ok, not as fast as I would like. I picked up crocheting fairly fast, for some reason the only thing that has really caught on with knitting is casting on (getting the beginning loops on one of the needles). I've gotten a little better, and faster, at doing a knit stitch, now if only I could wrap my brain around the purl stitch, which is just a reverse/backwards knit stitch I think I'd be ok, and much happier. I know I shouldn't compare this with crocheting, the only thing that they really having in common is that you use yarn to make things, but after an hour or so of my mom "showing" me what to do I was a granny square making machine. I'll be sure to post a picture of something that's actually fairly normal looking =p

In other news, I got to help with a shoplifting person last night. I didn't actually catch the girl but I was the witness for Ben when he caught her and escorted her back to the LP office. The girl was very soft spoken and fairly complacent when Ben was asking her questions. She mumbled most answers about her knowing why Ben had stopped her and if she had done anything like this. She said she had never shoplifted and didn't know why she had done it and that even though she hadn't done anything like this before she was on probation, which had started in September, for blocking a highway following a DWI. So Amy comes in and gets all the stuff to go ring it up, and the girl tried to to get away with a little over $200 worth of stuff! Then we sit in the room with the girl until the police show up to take over...and that's when all these stories and the turning on and off of the water works. The minute the cop cuffs her she starts telling this story about how she wasn't feeling like herself today because she had just gotten off anti-depression medicine that she had been taking for a few months because her Godfather had died and it was such a traumatic experience for her, and she's never done anything like this and would the cop please just do anything but take her downtown. The cop teller her that it's his decision to make and since she's on probation right now he's going to have to take her down and let the court and whatever to decided, that's when she starts crying, and then stops because he starts going through her purse and asking her questions, then she asks again if she can just pay a citation right now instead of going down, the cop tells her no and the crocodile tears start all over again. It was so hard not to laugh at some of the parts, I mean really? If you weren't feeling like yourself that day and just feeling weird all day long, you shouldn't be out, the cop even asked her why she had come out feeling so weird, she side stepped that question a few times. The he finds her car keys and asks if she has a friend that he can call to come pick up her car instead of impounding it, really nice of him if you ask me. So he calls one of her friends to come and pick up her car and then she asks if she can make a phone call, she wants to call her boss because at this moment he's the only one that could help her, cop says no, she'll have to wait until they get down to the station...and the water works are turned back on. I kinda wonder if she started crying when she was sitting in the police car waiting for her friend to come and pick up her car. I would be completely mortified to have to call and ask a friend to pick up my car because I'd been caught shoplifting, I know I have friends that would do it with no problem...but still, COMPLETELY mortifying in my opinion. After the policeman took her out I got to sign a form saying I was there, and then Ben showed up the video of how Lynne almost gave us away(she had gone into the fitting room to check and see what the girl had left in and when she realized that that the girl didn't bring everything out, she looked like she was landing a plane when she was trying to get Ben's attention about the girl, luckily the girl didn't look back after she walked out of the fitting room) and then I got to go back to work and close on a very boring, very slow night! I'm totally going to have to look in the "Busted" paper and see if she's in it next week or the week after he he he ^_^

Did I mention that it was the chicks 24th birthday too...Happy Birthday...you're going to jail he he he!

xoxo

T

When Bosses Get Back

So the other night we had some CRAZY ass customers come in. The beginning of my part comes in when a VERY nice and honest customer comes over to me and says that she found a yankee candle bag on one of our shirt tables and wanted to turn it in so that nothing happened to it. So I finish folding the jeans that I was fixing and take the bag over to the catalogue desk where our lost and found is. When I get back to the quad there is a couple yelling at Kathy, my manager. The girl is crying and going on and on about how she left her bag somewhere and that it's our fault that it was taken and it was worth $300 (which it wasn't...unless hot topic and yankee candle have gone WAY up on their prices...it wasn't a huge bag, just a small one like what you get and bath and body works) and her boyfriend is going on and on about how it's our fault and we should watch or something like that. So I hear something about a lost brown bag and I ask if it was a yankee candle bag and the girl goes "OMG yes!" and I tell them that I had just dropped it off at the catalogue desk, so they both start to run off when Kathy asks them if they know where it is, and the guy rudely yells "well of course we don't" so Kathy walks them over, and comes back fairly livid because the guy was so rude and both of their attitudes were completely unnecessary. She starts telling us how at first they started yelling and complaining to Julia about how we should watch the fitting room and everything better and then when Julia pointed them to Kathy and the guy tells Kathy that he's been discriminated against ever since he walked into the store, mind you he's a tall skinny white guy that had a goatee and gage earrings...nothing abnormal for Austin. Eventually when they are leaving they come back over and apologize for over reacting...and that's when Kathy politely reprimands them, telling them that going around and making a big scene like they did makes it harder on us and that we take all the found items to our lost and found because it's "not safe" for us to leave them in the quad because technically anyone can walk in and take it.

I swear sometimes people need to take a chill pill, the only reason I would ever start crying is if I'd lost something in a department store like wallet or something VERY important like that, but in the end it's my fault if I leave it unattended, you NEVER leave valuables unattended people will steal them

Whoa customers can be crazy!

First I'd like to point out, if you go to JC Penney to return something nowhere at any of the registers does it say "Returns," at least at our store all the registers can do returns. And second, if there is a long line on one side of the registers and no line on my side it would be good to assume that there is only one line, people don't decided to stand over in a long line for the hell of it, and don't get mad or give me the evil eye when I politely (or as politely as I can) tell you where the line is. Third (and this is old by a few days) but on the bottom of our receipts it has a date in which you can get exactly what you payed back to you if you feel the need to return stuff. JC Penney has one of the easiest return policies ever, as long as you have a tag and a receipt(or the car you payed with) and it's within 90 days of your purchase(it can even be a few days over) we will refund you your money. How hard is it to return stuff within 90 days, that means you basically have 3 months to decide if what you bought is the thing for you.

On a stragley funnier note, tonight Maria and I were checking out customers when Maria gets this lady that WAY too old to be dressing in juniors. She walks up with a bunch of stuff (she's obviously tried on, it has not hangers and is in a very messy pile) and she's wearing just a long work shirt with a belt, and it's not one of the longer ones that are in style...it's something that ones wears when you get out of bead and throw on to go get coffee when at a boyfriends place. So the lady I'm checking out, me and Maria are ringing and whatever when Maria comes across a pair of leggings that aren't ours, she asks me if it's a new brand and before I can get "i've never seen those before" out of my mouth the lady grabs them and says "oh, those are mine!" and then proceeds to put them on, infront of all of us...flashing her underwear and stuff...we all just kind of bow our heads and look away because...what do you really do in a situation like that, other than hold back the omgwtf laughter. The lady I'm checking out mouths '"Oh My God, What the Hell?!" to me and I have no words...I just keep ringing. I mean seriously, why would you leave the fitting room knowing you are missing your pants and then when you find them in the pile of clothes put them on and flash your underwear for everyone to see?! Sometimes retail can be a strange thing to work in!!

Where are peoples brains?!

So Sunday I got to assist our Loss Prevention guy with catching a shoplifter. So I go out to the mall to be with Ben and Terrance when they "catch" her (not like she ran or anything, she came willingly...and very calmly for someone who just got caught). So basically I'm a witness because the lady is being talked to by 2 guys and you know stuff can happen with guys =p. Anyways so they go through the ladies purse and find the dress that she had neatly folded and put in her purse. They fill out the paperwork, saying what she stole and all her info, and she asks: "Well can't I just pay for the dress now because I could loose my job over this?" Ben asks her where she works and she say she works for APD! She works for the Austin Police Department and she thinks it's ok to steal, where the hell are peoples brains these days?! So Ben says no she can't pay for the dress because she'd technically left the store with the stolen merchandise, and that they'd have to wait and see what the police say. So about 5 minutes later Kathleen, my boss, walks in and says that I need to get back out onto the sales floor and that she will stay with the lady and them until the police show up. I'm completely heart broken because I want to know the end of the story, but I go back out. So today I saw Ben and he said that all the police did was write the lady a ticket...for now, but she will probably be loosing her job.

I'm pretty sure that the lady thought I was completely stupid or immature...I mean I was wearing moose antlers and a tail, but hey it was Halloween, it's ok to look kinda stupid ;)

I mean what would you think of an employee if they were dressed like this =p

What A Beautiful Day

With the exception of UT loosing this weekend, which wasn't completely unexpected but still disappointing, this weekend was amazing. Work Saturday wasn't too horrible, got a CA and got a free milkshake, plus I won a drawing for a $5 JCP gift card. Sunday I had off and went to Oktoberfest in Fredericksburg with Heather and Chris, and with some of the most AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL fall weather so far this year! Highlight of the festival, other than the tasty beer, sausage and potato pancakes, was when a cop walks up to me and taps me on the shoulder and asks me if that's a beer I'm holding because I look too young to be drinking. Sorry to disappoint Mr Cop but I'm 3 years over the legal drinking limit. So he cards all 3 of us and reads our birth year out loud, apparently being born in '86 and '85 is cutting it close on being able to drinking.

After doing the chicken dance, cuz we're cool like that, and walking around the grounds we went and grabbed some ice cream, Rocky Road Malt, strangely good!

Got home and decorated my apartment for Halloween, just a few more decorations to put up and it will be perfect!

Survival

I survived!!

Tax free weekend wasn't too bad actually. Other than the occasional pms-y customer and Susie with her holier-than-thou-attitude it was all smooth sailing. I got the special title of "Quad Captain" Friday and Saturday, basically I got to be the mini manager of the Juniors section. I got to boss people around and make the "serious" decisions. Lots of fun let me tell you. Got 5/6 CA's so that's some nice $$ added to my paycheck. Got me some cheap ass camies, $3 each, some blue converse (not the bright teal that I really wanted, but these work well too :p), the coolest jacket/hoodie(it has headphones in the laces and in the pocket has a place to plug in your iPod, I know awesome right?!), and then a summer bag that I only payed 32 cents for...that's right $0.32, gotta love mail out coupons+clearance+associate discounts ^_^

We were provided lunch on Saturday, Jason's Deli, so good! I'd forgotten how good Jason's Deli is! Super stuffed turkey on wheat with chips, a cookie and sweet tea, yes please for the next few lunches! I would totally be ok with 30 minute lunches if they keep buying us this stuff!

Other news...I've made "progress" on Katie's stupid blanket. I've made perfect squares out of the colors I like and I need to pull out the squares that I made that are too big/counted wrong. The lovely Ms. Heather Kinkade ordered 2 purses from me for a couple of her friends. The one that I've completed is for her person and it has made me bring a yucky fabric into my apartment. =p Though Harley seems to like this "O Who?" fabric, she is currently using the purse and the measured fabric as a pillow...doesn't the dog know she's not going for the right school?! Heather has given me permission to experiment and try my hand at adding a pocket to the inside of this purse =D Pictures will be posted as soon as it is finished!

No other new news on this front really, I set up my eye doctor appointment for the end of next month, my small passport external hard drive so nicely lost all my music files and is corrupt and needs a data retrieval that will cost $400+, and I'm headed down to my parents house for a "weekend" (Wednesday and Thursday) for some much needed laundry doing and to get my new HORIZONTAL drivers license!

It's Raining it's Pouring

Haven't been doing much lately. Working is the main thing, which is good, they've been calling me in a lot which helps with the hours and moneyz thing. I've done some nice progress on my mom's blanket, I've got 7 rows of hearts now, it's the nice size of a lapghan, not exactly sure how much longer I want to make it. I'm going to get to 10 hearts and see how it looks, but here's how it looks now:

Katie notified me the other day that she won't be able to pay me the other half of the 150 she's paying me to make her blanket until October...guess what that means for her! She ain't gettin' her blanket until then either!

It's been raining like crazy these last couple of days, thanks to hurricane Alex and his rainbands. This kind of weather makes me want to stay in bed all day long with a good book and just snuggle with the Harley and watch some good tv. I've kinda done that, I've been sitting in bed crocheting with Harley going in and out onto the porch, and then jumping on the bed when it starts to thunder really bad. Then go to work. It's been really good this week, I got really lucky with the rain. Whenever I went in or was leaving it wasn't really raining, it waited until I was safely in the mall or in my apartment. Here's a video I made of the rain today when it was really coming down...yeah I know, I was bored.

Till next time

XOXO

T

Summertime Blues

So I haven't been getting as many hours as I'd like, so it looks like I might be looking into getting a 2nd job, goodbye complete and total social life over the summer *sigh* but hey you gotta do what you gotta do to make rent right? =\

I had most of this week off, Monday thru Thursday =o, so I took the time to go down to SA to see my parents and wish my dad a Happy Father's/Birthday...and do some much needed laundry ;) It was nice, I sat around most everyday and hung out with the puppers and watched the world cup which was really nice. Got some good crocheting done on my friends granny square blanket, I got 2.75 squares done which is pretty good considering each square is 2ft x 2ft ugh! My mom made a comment about it not being completely square, it's my mom she has to criticize, I need to bust out a couple more, it took me about a day or so to make which means I can get the other 4.25 out really fast...and then comes the evil task of putting it together...i need to find the diagram of the way she wants the colors to be arranged...eww. I need to work on my mom's blanket too, I'm about 5(maybe 6...gotta get it out and look :p) hearts in, didn't take it to SA just to make sure that my mom didn't see it. But I think it's coming along nicely, I fully understand the reasons why my mom detest making blankets in the summer, even sitting in an ac-ed breakroom that thing gets damn hot sitting on your lap, but I want it to be done by her birthday in October and when school starts in August I won't have as much time on my hands to work on it.

Sad USA lost to Ghana today, it was a good game, went into OT =( Tomorrow morning Germany plays England, Paul the octopus says that Germany will win, i'll def be getting up to watch it, gotta root for the one team that I like that's still in it!

TTFN homies

XOXO

T

YAY Hours!

So I got a call this afternoon from my manager at JCP, apparently one of the girls that works in the Juniors department called in and quit today, so I get all her shifts for next week, plus the 2 I already had, and I'm taking the opening shift tomorrow! So I'll be getting in about 26 hours next week ^_^

Went to lunch with Mrs. Dana this afternoon, it was Mighty Fine to catch up with her and she liked her purse YAY (yeah I know I'm corny...but he he he =p)

And now a rant, if you don't want to "hear it" don't read it =p. This is just something that's been on my mind for awhile and it's bugging me even though it shouldn't. So here goes...

*rant on*

I decided that I would make a blanket for my friend Katie, well she's paying me to make her a blanket. She's paying me $150, got the first installment the other day, because she wants a granny square and i have no problem making the squares, it's how I learned to crochet, it's the putting it together that I ABSOLUTELY hate to do. So I tell katie to pick out colors, she'd said she wanted maroon and silver/white bc she's up at A&M and all of the suddens she's completely obsessed with the school(and it's not the obsessed that I love my school go team, it's the annoying obsessed like putting down UT any chance she gets and trying to I guess talk/argue me into "realizing" that A&M is so much better than UT. And don't get me wrong I respect A&M it's a good school for certain things, just like UT is a good school for certain things). So she asks me what yarn I'll be using, and I tell her the Red Heart or I Love This Yarn(Hobby Lobby's Brand) and she decides that she's going to go and look at the colors online. 'I love this Yarn' doesn't show colors online so she goes to the Red Heart and looks at all the colors there...then she sends me a PowerPoint presentation of all the colors she wants...I'm like WTF, she went from 2 colors to like 12 and she's sending me all these stupid complicated patterns, even though I told her to pick out of 2. So she finally narrows it down to 6 colors and I think they go...if you're a 7 year old picking out blanket colors, and she sends me a text with a picture of them 1 skein each next to each other and tells me this is what she wants, but what do I think...I tell her that picturing the blanket in my head I don't see it looking very good, and for her to get the picture of what the blanket will look like (she wants 6 2'x2' squares, each square a different color) she needs to go back to walmart and take 3 skeins of each yarn color and block them together in the way she wants...she doesn't want to, she thinks it's going to be fine and that it's pretty going from dark to light/bright to dull-dark again...I just don't see it, but whatever she's paying me right...wrong, she keeps telling me that I need to love the colors too because if I don't LOVE the colors and LOVE the pattern then I won't crochet love into, whatever that kinda bullshit is, by this time it's annoyance going to be crocheted into it. So she see's the pattern that I'm crocheting my mom and asks about the squares to make it, because she doesn't understand crocheting...she has it in her head that anything crocheted is squares, I tell her that it's not squares it's 1 entire piece which is called a filet. She takes this as a 'I can look at other patterns for fillets, so she messages me all these doily patterns, which is usually what filets are used for, and asks me if i could do them but in yarn, or make small squares of them and make them into a blanket. I tell her no can do because you can't really modify a filet pattern to make it smaller and no I don't want to do a filet because then I'll actually have to pay attention and count what I'm doing, and if I'm going to make her a huge blanket I'm not sitting there and counting the entire thing...that's just not happening. So I show her a picture of my UT colors granny square, so she can see the pattern. *this is the part that i just can't seem to let go, I'm fine with the ugly colors and the making of the blanket with "love" and blah blah blah, but this...I don't know if this should offend me and my crocheting skills or if she's just completely stupid when it comes to the way crocheting works and crap* So Katie sees the pattern of my blanket and says she doesn't like it because of all the holes, and i tell her that I can do a filled in granny square and I show her a patter, she says she doesn't care, she just doesn't want a lot of holes in it because she doesn't want the blanket to fall apart when she uses it, and the more holes in the blanket the easier it is to fall apart! I'm seriously considering telling her to fuck the blanket and I ain't fucking doing it. A crocheted blanket should not fall apart with use, maybe in the washing machine or something, but not while using it, unless you take a friggin' pair of scissors or a knife to it. I've never had any of my crocheted creations fall apart or break from use, and believe me I use mine like anything else I have, the only time they get special treatment is when the go through the washing machine and dryer. I know I should just shake it off and put it toward Katie being a complete moron when it comes to crocheting, but it bothers me that she thinks my blanket making skill aren't good enough for the blanket not to fall apart the first time you really use it... Thoughts?

*end rant*

Now off to make a Veggie Burrito, if I make it right I'll be sure to post the recipe on my other blog!

XOXO

T