Let's wrap up July,T shall we???

This week... this week... this week.

WELL.. firstly I've decided to embark on the knowledge of music. Which I'm excited about. I want to know the ins and outs of all the bands that have been since back to almost the 1950s. Names of members, influences, etc etc. I want to be a music nerd!! So, wish me luck with that. I'm not entirely sure where to start, but since I grew up having to figure out the different meter times in Tool songs, and having to call out the names of bands to songs playing on the radio (thanks Dad!!) I think I have a good start. That's my random bit of excitement of the day.

I was the boss this week at work. It was an interesting experience. No one really enjoyed taking direction from me, especially when I kept having to yell at a few employees for talking to each other more than taking an interest in customers. I had to take down all our sidewalk sale tables from Seafood Fest. That was intense. We got 21 boxes of shipment I had to put away on shelves. And I had to find another person to work when Charlie, one of my house mates, decided not to show up for work one morning. It was kinda stressful. He showed up, just an hour late. Ah well... it was a good experience, and a fun three days. It was a good insight into what my boss' have to deal with on a daily basis. Maybe someday I'll become permanent manager, but that is still a little ways off. :)

Paco, my doggie for now, and I have been taking long walks every day. Some days it's a jog, others just a brisk walk. 2-5 miles mostly. It's hard!! But it's good to get back into the habit. Being in shape always makes me happier and healthier. As we roll into fall and cold season I figure I should be as healthy as I can be! He wakes me up every morning and I put on my running shoes and reluctantly head down the driveway. He gets so excited for the exact same walk every day, it's unbelievable. But since I always tend to forget and leave food out that he gets to when I get home I figure I need to get him back into shape before his owners get home and see how fat he's gotten. I try.

I did get my film back, but didn't have a chance to go use the scanner. I'll try to get it done some time this week. We'll see. There are a few good pictures, although I was not to happy with most of them. I'm working on setting up my shots more than just point and click. I'm supposed to think more, says Joe my favorite camera store helper. So, we'll work on that. Remember say "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" tonight right before you fall asleep and then "hare, hare, hare" the first thing when you wake up and it will bring you good luck for the entire month. Just don't say anything in between the two. Guaranteed method of having a rockin month. Any night that's the last of the month it'll work. So since tomorrow is August, which I cannot believe, it's the night to do it!!!!! Don't forget.

Next week will be a rockin blog. Promise!! Ta.

ze update of ze week, July 12-18, beginz a now!

Well hello there loyal friends, family, and people who know of my blog. This week was quite a good one! Let me sum up!

Work:
I got a raise this week! Yup, it's true, my compensation went up one whole dolla this week. My boss, Lanne, called me and said, "I hate to have to do this over the phone, but Jen you're keeping everything together, spirits high, sales higher, and we really appreciate that. So, we're going to give you a raise!" NO WAY! Plus it was prorated, which means for the past two weeks I infact had been making a whole dollar more!

The boss' are all going out of town for 5 days, and Lanne has asked me to be the boss for 3 of those 5 days. I will get paid 2 dollars more an hour for those 3 days. Everyone knows my cell number and if there's a problem or if someone calls in sick or if an ever so angry customer comes in and asks for the manager... that's me! I solve problems, sell shoes, and keep employees on track! I'm excited. We all know I'm a bossy pants, so this is quite fitting for me! We've also been doing a lot of spring buying for next year, which is fun getting into it. I now have a say in all our brands, so it's cool to see everything that comes in and out of our store from start to finish.

Every month at Market Street Shoes we have a different local artist bring in 10-20ish pieces of their work. We hang the pieces and sell them on behalf of the artist. This way customers can come in and see what art we have at that time, and artists get a chance to be seen and expand their stardom. My boss' offered me a chance to be an artist of the month. I have to get some pictures together, framed, and everything, but sometime in the next few months I will be the artist at Market Street Shoes! We have art walk the second Saturday of the month each month where all the shops around Ballard who take part in the local art have a grand opening party for those artist. People can walk around and see all the new art and enjoy refreshments and of course shop! I would be mingling with people and talking all about my art! It's going to be so awesome. I'll let you all know when it happens. :)

Anyways, work is going really well, and I plan on staying at Market Street Shoes for a longgggg time. Which is nice, having a little niche, somewhere I know I belong!


Cookies:
My last day at cookies was in fact yesterday! I know only work one job. Which will be nice. Two days off a week once again! Woot woot! I'll have time to start shooting a lot of photos again, time to do my laundry, and time to take at least one nap! I'm pretty excited. Knowing me though, I'll be bored with two days off with in a month and on the hunt for something new to keep me busy, I foresee another second job in my future, but we'll see! It was a little sad walking away from all the cutters at the end of the day, but all in all, it's nice to get out of that tiny little shop! So small!

Life:
Life's a boring one right now. I'm not really doing a lot for just kicks. I did go see batman at midnight last night with my friend, her boyfriend, and a few of his friends... random combination, I know! But it was really fun! The people sitting next to us almost got into a fight with the people sitting next to them because they stole the seats which were already saved. It was pretty classic. Almost a fist fight, over a batman movie! Now that's entertainment. We turned to the side, popcorn in hand, and watched the excitement go down. They were yellin at each other, over seats!! Haha, we all just laughed about it after.
I am running again, well jogging really. I'm getting in shape, it's time to make that happen. The dog which I'm watching loves it, he's getting such good exercise. I go home every night after work, suit up, and haul my sorry rump out for a half hour ish jog. It makes me feel like I've accomplished something with my day, besides getting up, going to work, comin home then doing it all over again. Other than that, not anything is going on!!!

Pretty sure I had a few other stories to tell you, but I cannot think of them now. I always have things happen and I think, hey I should write this down so I will remember it come blog time, but then I say to myself, nah, this is so good, I can't forget it! well.... I forgot it. I'll start writing things down this week, promise!

Peace yo!

ps... sorry no new pictures. I will be going in to get 7 rolls developed this week though, so get ready... they're gonna be AMAZINGGGG.

July number 5 all the way down to July the 12th! Read it and weep. Not really...

(A picture of me and my good friend, Elise. We declared it Croc day at work and decorated the snot out of a couple pairs. We wore them all day, it was fun)


Hello one and all. And welcome to this weeks ranting and raving. Sorry I didn't get the blog up on Friday, I went to work on it but discovered our internet to not be working!!! Eek, a worst nightmare for some of us. So I ventured over to the apartment next door and then remembered that the computer genius of the house and actual owner of the wireless internet was out of town, FOR THE WEEK! AHHHH. So, I unplugged, replugged, begged, yelled, hit, and whined for almost half an hour to no avail. We were officially an internet free zone. Holy cow, it was a rough 24 hours there. Then tonight upon arriving home from work, I sat down with our router and had a heart to heart. I explained I needed to write my blog for all the people out there, and it listened and thought and decided that one day with out internet was bad enough. I unplugged the cord, plugged it back in, and well there you have it, I'm back in business. And let's get this show on the road! You people getting all sidetracked with silly internet stories. We have bigger fish to fry.


In all actuality, we do not have bigger fish to fry. This week was a very slow week. Our shoe store was taken over a few months ago by a camera crew to film a commercial for an organization that has set out to try and clean up Puget Sound. The commercial was finally finished and airs on TV every now and again, but thanks to technology can also be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWCMJagRtUg now if that doesn't work, go to www.youtube.com then search for "mudup shoe store" it will be the first video to pop up. That's the shoe store I work in!!! It's not the greatest representation, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like at least! I thought it was pretty cool that out of all the shoe stores they wanted ours. Yay! Go us! We're an eco friendly store, and a lot of people up here respect us for that.(A Polaroid I took awhile back at Alki point in south Seattle)

My roommate, Autumn, and I made a trip to Ikea this past Monday and got a few more pieces of furniture in hopes of organizing our tiny apartment a little bit better. We got new drapes that make up the walls of her room, these ones aren't see through, so now more than ever it's like a room. We got some shelves and a new TV stand and reorganized the living room. The couch now actually faces the TV, and it's made a lot more space in the middle of the area so it actually looks like a living room now instead of just the end of a hallway. I also got a big shelving system for my bedroom so I could put away all my art supplies. They've been in bags in the corner of my room since we moved in, so it was nice to slide them all into drawers and have an organized corner. I'm working on the rest of my room, but I'm still back and forth so much with house sitting and all that I usually live out of suitcases. I keep trying to convince roommates and friends to organize my room and fold my clothes for me, but no one has taken me up on that one yet. :) $5 to anyone who wants to help!!!(Another Polaroid from Alki)

Well, obviously if I'm telling about Ikea and reorganizing I really do not have anything to talk about, so I will end it there. I hope all is well with all of you. Remember if you have any questions you need answered and are away from the computer text chacha and ask them. The number is 242242. I get paid 20 cents for each question I answer, so the more people who ask questions the more I get to answer and the more money I make in my spare time. The idea is to try and just work one job instead of finding another one when I quit Cookies. We'll see what happens. Have a good week everyone. And I'll try to catch up with you all again next Friday.


Love, Jen

June 28th - wait wait JULY!!! what what!! July 4th. Happy America.

Why hello there my most loyal blog fans. How are people this week? If you feel it necessary to answer that question feel free to email, call, or just text me. But really it's just small talk before I get into the nitty gritty... I've been mulling this whole blog over in my head all day before I sat down to write it, as to make it as witty as possible, but now that I'm actually sitting here I've lost all I had to say. It's just gone. And I used a lot of words ending in "itty" in this paragraph. That's just not normal.

My weird/cool/funny/random news of the week:
Ever heard of ChaCha? Well, I have. It is a semi new company that offers answers to pretty much almost any question via text message. Here's how it works... you, the questioner, racks his and or her mind for a question. If you cannot seem to find one for our walk through of ChaCha I'll go ahead and pose a fake one. You, the questioner, want to know if it will rain in the southern part of Spain on July 7th. So, you take your phone and text ChaCha. The number is 242242. You would type, "Will it rain in the Southern part of Spain on July 7th this year?" The text is received by a ChaCha guide, who then researches your question on reliable sources online and types up the answer and you get a text on your phone letting you know if rain is a go or a no so go on the 7th. You can also call ChaCha 1-800-2ChaCha give the automated service your answer, it is then typed up, sent to a guide, who finds an answer, and then texts it back to your cell phone. It's cool because it's a real person on the other side. You can even text them and ask for a joke or story or whatever you want to text. SO! I thought it would be fun to become a ChaCha guide myself. I just log in whenever I have time, and text messages come in, I find the answer, and then send it back!! I'm excited to get started. I'm in training, but hope to start tomorrowish. Anywho. I thought it was pretty fun. I hope I'll get some exciting questions, and if any of you ever need an answer you know who to text. ChaCha!!

Cookies:
I put in my notice at Cookies last week. The 17th of July will be my last week. I'm kinda sad because I enjoy my boss, Caryn, and it's fun to get to know all the crazy little ins and outs of cookie baking. Actually all I've really learned is that tweedy bird sprinkles don't sell, red and black gel dyes turn bitter if you put too much in, and although I love the cookie cutters in the shop buying them with the intention to one day actually cut dough with them is not all that practical. Anyways. I told her I would work random days if she wanted the time off in the future, so she was pretty happy about the whole thing.

It's a heat wave in Seattle this week. It started Friday, and went down hill until Monday, it's still kinda bad but not as bad. Market Street Shoes is like a sauna. Friday I thought I wasn't going to make it, Saturday I was laying at the bottom of the stairs saying my final farewell, and Sunday I was completely delirious trying to smile and grit my teeth at the customers who kept telling me it was ridiculous I expected them to buy shoes when it was too hot to even breath in our store. By Monday I was much smarter clad in a skirt and tee, hair pulled back, and I realized that I was wearing an outfit I'd always wear down to the lake at Hebgen! It was like I was up there with all you, but only in a shoe store instead of in a tube.

This past week I went to the skate park with my uncle Ram. We went quite early so it was all older guys. It was fun running around after them all yelling, "stop doing the tricks while I'm winding the camera! -- No! I said stop, not keep doing it! -- wait wait, that one doesn't count I wasn't looking! Guys, come one work with me here!" Anyways, after shooting 7 rolls of film, realizing a group of 45 year olds were way more in shape than me, running back and forth a gazillion times, throwing 1/3 of the photos away, and showing off a small sum of about 5 photos to my friends, I scanned in a few and put them up here for you. Now you can at least glimpse some fruits of my labors. I hope you enjoy! For those of you with Facebook they're all up on there for you to look at. Enjoy.


Well folks, this is a short one! I'm sure I could come up with something else, but I'm watching Arrested Development while typing, so my concentration isn't all that great.... whoops!! Happy 4th, I hope you all saw fireworks. Sadly the only I saw were on TV, it's tough being a working/house sitting gal in the Seattle world. :) I miss you all! Talk to you next week.

Love, Jen, of course!