Picking My Brain

So after my post yesterday nearly bursting with tinsel and lights and pine needles on the carpet poking into your feet through your socks… after class yesterday I went to my mom’s house. She had mentioned when I was home for my brother’s birthday two weeks ago that she had an early Christmas present for me. So she wanted me to come over so I could open my present.

Now, you have to understand, my family is HUGE on tradition. Certain things just have to be certain ways every year in order for it it be “right.” For example, my grandmother’s house has been decorated the same exact way for YEARS. When I go to help her decorate, I can go through her boxes and can decorate her whole house in about half an hour because I know where everything goes, probably even better than she does at this point.

One of these traditions we have is our ceramic Christmas trees. My grandmother has a rather large one that somebody made for her that she always puts on the table by her front window. The three ceramic choir boys that my mom made when she was little always sing their silent carols around the tree. My mom has a slightly smaller one that my dad had a friend of his make for her. I remember my mom’s routine in the mornings; get up, go to the bathroom, walk out into the living room, turn on the ceramic tree, then open the living room drapes. I loved turning off all the other lights in the room and just sitting in the light from the real tree and the ceramic tree.

Ben’s mother also has one of these trees. Ben also enjoyed his tree, and had mentioned a few times that he would like to have one of his own.

So if you couldn’t guess by now, I was estatic to find a ceramic tree of my own in the bag my mom handed me. You can’t find them new anymore, and the ones that I saw on eBay weren’t quite right. Liesle was there too, and looked at me like I had three heads when I got excited over the tree. “My grandmother had one of those,” she said, and couldn’t understand why I would want something so old-fashioned. I explained the whole tradition, but still still looked at me like I was crazy. I’m pretty sure that by now I’ve convinced her that I am.
So here’s to carrying on traditions. True, this particular one may be silly and old-fashioned, but hey, it makes it seem that much more like Christmas to Ben and me, and it means the start of a tradition for our family. And someday, we will have a whole forest of lighted ceramic trees because I hope to inherit my grandmother’s, and my mom’s later on down the road.

Remember when you were a little kid and you felt like you were going to burst with anticipation over Christmas? Remember willing yourself to go to sleep on Christmas Eve because you knew that not only would that allow Santa to come, but it would mean the morning would be here sooner? Remember the magical feeling you got as you got your first look at the tree on Christmas morning with boxes and gifts piled everywhere and knowing that some magical being came into your home during the night to do that just for you?

Now remember how flat Christmas seemed once you found out there was no Santa? It seemed hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit. It was okay for a bit while Jeremy still believed, but especially after he finally said he didn’t believe in Santa anymore, Christmas seemed like a big let down. The past couple of years especially I really haven’t been in the Christmas mood at all. It didn’t feel like Christmas at all. Just a lot of stressful days leading up to a single day. I had to work right up to Christmas Eve, and most years, I was even working on Christmas Eve. There was Christmas Day, then right back to the daily grind.

Ben and I have gotten our butts in gear this year, and yesterday we started decorating. For the past few days, we’ve been making homemade Christmas cards to send to everybody. I haven’t started my shopping yet, or even made my shopping lists yet, but somehow, I can’t wait for Christmas this year.

I just turned around from the desk to yell at Knitters (who has decided to go into heat again and is spending every moment yowling out the slider windows despite the fact that no other cat is there to hear her) and caught a glimpse of the apartment. The floor is covered in red and green paper from the card-making project. There are little Christmas knick-knacks stashed here and there for the moment until they find their final spots. Through the sliders I can see our big wreath that we hung on them all lit up, as well as our pine garland wrapped around the porch and twinkling with lights. Our stockings are hung already. Playing on the computer a rather goofy choice, a Christmas album done by John Denver and the Muppets. I have listened to it every Christmas for as long as I can remember. It’s cold and twilight outside, but warm and bright inside.

I’m really feeling the Christmas spirit this year. I really haven’t felt this Christmas-y in years. I can’t pinpoint what it is this year that makes it seem so much like Christmas. Maybe it’s the fact that I was in school all semester, and this is the last week of classes until next semester, sometime in January. Maybe because we’ve been in the apartment for two years now and I’ve settled in here.

Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad it Christmastime. I can’t wait to get started on shopping and wrapping! This weekend we’re getting and putting up our tree! I’m going to start baking next week, and our cards are going out tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!!

a. going to be the reason why i never graduate college

b. going to make me miss out on something really great one day

c. going to be the death of me

Answer: I’m really hoping not a or b, but most likely c. I have two final projects due this week that amount to most of my grade for the semester. Granted, I have them put together in my head, but I just don’t have the interest in glueing my butt to the chair and actually finishing them. I keep thinking that I have time, when really, I don’t. My final presentation is due tomorrow in my one class. For that one I actually have the research done, I just have to write it and post my research sources on a blog. (Yeah, I decided to make one specifically for the class, it would be too hard for the prof. to find my actual work among all my other jibberish. Look for the link on the right!) The other is due Wednesday, and I’ve barely started. I have the concept, but now I actually have to flesh it out and turn “pinhole photography” into an interesting presentation.

I just can’t seem to focus on anything lately. Ben and I managed to clean the apartment up great for Thanksgiving, but it’s a complete disaster again. I don’t have enough gumption to get up and do it. I did finally manage to get all of my laundry done yesterday, but the last two loads are still sitting unfolded in the laundry basket on the living room floor, and the rest is piled precariously on a chair in the living room. I still have to switch over from my summer wardrobe to my winter one and return the boxes to the storage unit (they are filling up the bedroom as we speak). I usually fall asleep around 11 in the mornings after I get home from work. I get up around 3/3:30 to get ready for class. I leave at 4 and get home at 9. I promptly fall back asleep until 11 and am back at work by 11:30pm. I can’t even stay awake on my days off. I went to Lauren’s Saturday night and was nodding off there, then went to my parent’s last night for my brother’s birthday and was nodding off there too. I always feel lousy and tired. I can’t find time to accomplish anything.

And speaking of work, here we go again! Two weeks ago we were blindsided with the news that Ruth was leaving our store and we were getting another new manager. This put me in a terrible depression. I had been really excited to get Ruth (our store needed some changes) and I really liked her. But as I’ve alluded to in previous posts, things got really ugly. Nobody was communicating and everyone was letting a bad attitude take over. I was so stressed and depressed because there was no job satisfaction. I was left trying to not only pick up the pieces of my shifts, but the pieces of the other shifts to keep the store going. It was too much for one person, especially with other people purposely letting it fall apart. No matter how much I did, it was never enough to make the store the way I knew it should be. A few long-time employees didn’t even try to make it better, they just tried to make it through and quickly gave up. Honestly, no big loss.

But anyway, things had at least reached a plateau for a while and while they were not getting any better, they weren’t getting any worse either. But knowing that getting a new manager was what started all the chaos in the first place, I was petrified of the new guy. I figured it would start all over again, and this time I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I was literally petrified that first week.

As it turns out, this guy, Jon, may be great for the store. People have returned to their old selves, and I have actually walked into the store for my shift, looked around and been able to say, “everything is done and the store looks good!” PJ probably thought I had lost my mind, but it had been so long since that had happened I almost hugged him when I saw the store. We still have a ways to go, but he’s taking baby steps. He knows how to have fun, but how to be in charge too. He squashes the nay-sayers before they can even start. The only problem is, he’s only here for three months max. Our store is a stop on his way to a promotion to a ’super Wawa.’ At the minimum we’ll have him a few more weeks, he’s being called back into duty by the Army and had to go get his physical this weekend. So I’ll probably know tomorrow when he’s leaving. We need him here for much longer than that. We need him to implement all of his changes, then be there long enough so that those changes become habit and we just do them. If he leaves that soon, I’m really afraid that we’ll go right back into chaos.
I think I’ve realized something good that came out of all the hoopla with Ruth, though. I got pushed around, used and abused those few months. Nobody cared about me or what I needed. The first day I met Jon, I told him exactly what I wanted: off of third shift. I was actually kind of a bitch, spouting off really sarcastic comments and really letting him get the idea that I was not happy. I felt only a little guilt, because I kept telling myself that nobody else is going to stand up for me, so I would have to do it myself. Jon really reached out to me, starting the first day after my first comment. It was important to him to take care of a problem that I had with something right away. He could have waited, let me find out the answer on my own, and offered me no explaintion. But he came over to me within 5 minutes of me saying something and told me the answer and explained why. We’ve got another new CSL in, and PJ who is a great shift runner. Jon and Joe have decided that we’re not taking any more crap from these people, and they actually aren’t!

So I’m left with two problems. There really is only two of us working 3rds right now. Joe will work my days off, but I want off of 3rd completely. The associate that is mostly working with me I don’t think is going to work out. She’s s-l-o-w. She can do the work, she just doesn’t have the hustle you need to work at Wawa. Plus, she’s pregnant, which of course I don’t fault her for, but it seems as if its going to be a difficult pregnancy. It’s already affecting her work. She has shown up for work but then needed to go home at least once a week. At like midnight last night, after collasping in bed dead tired, the phone rang. Ben came and woke me up to tell me that Joe was calling, but he wasn’t picking up. Joe’s message said that she was “vomitting profusely” and he was hoping I could come in and help out. I fell asleep on the way home, and had been asleep for about 20 minutes when he called. I felt really bad for not calling and not picking up, but there was no way I could work over night on an hour and 20 mins of sleep. I know by now Joe is just as frustrated as I am, because he keeps having to pick up her pieces too. But I just couldn’t do it last night.

So obviously the black hole that is Wawa still has me firmly in it’s grasp. I can’t wait until it lets go. Guess I’d better get crackin’ on those finals, hunh?