Chop saws and fingers.

I can do this. I can fir-in and put up a piece of sheet rock and mud it and sand it and accomplish filling in the hole in the bathroom wall where the old, rusty medicine cabinet used to be. I am quite capable, have done projects like this many times before but it has been years. I find myself hesitating, procrastinating, full of self-doubt and fear this time.

I am tempted to turn to my soon-to-be-ex and ask him to help but at the same time want to be self sufficient. What if once the divorce is final and the house is sold, I am able to buy my own house instead of rent? I will need to do repairs myself, without him to rely on. I definitely won't be able to afford to call a repairman in for every little thing. Getting this house repaired and ready to sell  is the perfect opportunity for me to get my hand in and practice/learn to do repairs myself.

I grudgingly get myself to the home repair store, with a list of supplies in hand. I am hoping to find a replacement medicine cabinet that I can just neatly plug into the existing hole instead of having to sheet rock over the problem. No such luck. Apparently the size the old medicine cabinet was is no longer a standard size, sheet rocking it must be. Fortunately they now sell quarter sheets of sheet rock so I don't have to wrestle with a heavy, awkward full sheet. I still have plenty of mud and sheet rock screws at home but need a roll of paper tape. I might as well also pick up a white GFCI outlet to replace the tan one the electrician installed. A tan outlet in a white wall won't cut it. I return home with the supplies.

No more excuses. It is now time to begin. I take careful measurements in preparation to cut the 2 X 4's I am using to fir-in the hole. Now to try and gain access to the chop-saw on the work bench in the garage. (Who will get the chop-saw when the property is divided?) No projects have been worked on here for years and the surface of the workbench is now strewn with things that have never been properly put away. I attempt to put the items away but find that most of the items are potential debris instead of things worth keeping. Parts left over from past projects, items possibly needed later, an over-supply of materials. Who will take these items along with them once the house is sold and the property is divided up after the divorce? Who wants to bring all this unneeded clutter with them? Not me. I grab an item and look at the garbage can but just can't bring myself to toss it in. If we weren't divorcing, the items could remain. Throwing it out is confirming that my marriage is over. I can't face dealing with it right now although it will have to be dealt with soon.  I end up just pushing the stuff out of the way and plugging the saw in.

Instead of buying an entire 2 X 4 from the home repair store, I find long enough scrap pieces in the pile set aside to go to the dump. The pieces I am using will be salvaged from some old saw horses. I spread the legs apart and position them under the chop-saw blade. Just touching the chop-saw brings on a little fear, it's hard not to realize how easy it would be to chop off my fingers along with the wood. The saw horse legs want to close as I position one of the legs under the blade. Where are my fingers? Could my hand slip under the blade as I wrestle the leg into place? Satisfied with the positioning of the wood and my fingers, I grab the handle on the saw, squeeze the trigger and the saw roars. Now my fear is mixed with excitement, a little adrenaline rush, as I bring the blade down and it chops through the wood without effort. I measure and chop and have my stack of 2 X 4 pieces ready to go. I notice I am covered in sawdust and like it. I am a woman doing carpentry work and am proud of myself. My fingers are all still intact and the chop-saw is a loved instead of feared tool again.

A home becomes a house

Calling my place of residence a home really doesn't fit anymore, it has become a house instead of a home. The impending divorce has seen to that. In my mind a home is a place with love and security, a house is just a structure to be lived in. Now that the atmosphere here is full of the coming divorce, the love and security are gone. My home has turned into a house. All the memorabilia everywhere is now just clutter. The comfy couch so good for a nap is now just an eyesore that should go to the dump. As I enjoy sitting on the patio or looking out the window at the pleasant view, I am all too aware of the fact that my time doing these things is soon to end.

This place I live will soon belong to someone else and I look at it as a relater or prospective buyer will see it. I catch myself occasionally wanting to add another little quirky flourish to the place but than remember it is more or less not my place of residence anymore. Instead of decorating by adding more little personal touches, I need to get busy and take down the ones that already exist. I need to make my home generic, which is another reason it has become a house.

Repairs long procrastinated must now be done with no time to waste. The longer it takes to get the repairs done, the longer my soon-to-be-ex and I must live together, dragging out the divorce. I found it hard to design the new tile shower stall for someone else, not for me. We are finally replacing the old oil furnace with a nice new efficient gas one for someone else to use. What curtains would a prospective buyer like, to hell with what I like. The new flooring must be generic, something without my personality involved in it's selection. We are finally fixing the broken ice-maker in the fridge so someone else can use it. The list goes on.

The money we are using to do these repairs is from the equity in our house. The more of it spent, the less chance my soon-to-be-ex and I will have of possibly buying a house when we split. We may each have to rent if neither of us can come up with a big enough down payment for a new home of our own. All this money we are spending so someone else can enjoy this house is money out of our pockets robbing us of the possibility of getting and enjoying a house for each of us. I am fixing this house up so someone else can enjoy their own place, cutting my own throat as to my being able to have my own place to enjoy.

For these reasons my house has become a home, a loveless, insecure and generic place to reside.

Enjoyables.

There are several things I used to enjoy doing but have slowly lost the spark to continue. I want these things back, they were important aspects of who I am. Without "enjoyables,"  I feel like I have no identity, they were me and now I have let them go. These hobbies and interests made me the complex, individual I was and had self-respect for.

Biking. Drawing. Dog training. Walking my dogs. Doing needlework. Being outdoors. Music. Playing video games. Out with a friend. Skateboarding. Creating web pages.

As I list my interests, I see that I still do have a few, some of the above list contains things I still feel a little enjoyment doing. Listening to music is a main-stay for me. My IPod is shuffling away through a list of alternative music as I type. Playing video games still offers me escape from reality. Going out with a friend still feels good.

Sadly the two that matter the most to me have gone away. Those two are drawing and my dogs. These interests slowly turned from being fun to being shoulds. Being an artist who doesn't do art anymore I feel is a waste of a life-my life. I was given this gift and I am not using it. I miss my creations. Owning three working breed dogs and not working them is completely unfair and stresses the dogs. They have no other joy but to bark at the window at any little sound, which is a big annoyance.They need a job which training and competing was to them.

I want to explore these two lost loves more but to keep this blog a reasonable length, I will continue this topic in two additional blogs.

A peaceful Black Friday.

Black Friday has come and gone and I found it actually to be kinda a let-down. The big chain I work at opened at 4am but my shift didn't begin until 1:30pm. Those who began work for the opening were in on all the excitement of the insane crowds with lines of people waiting to get in running all the way around the stores expansive parking lot. By the time I came to work the tide of people had began to dwindle.

I was really looking forward to the adrenaline rush of working on Black Friday but I missed out on it. When I first took my place at a cash register, we were no busier than on a normal Saturday. As my shift progressed towards closing time, less and less shoppers came in till we had slowed down to a crawl. I guess all the Black Friday shoppers had done most of their shopping during those early hours and than went home. It seems the store I work at had anticipated this slow down because we weren't over-staffed, they had scheduled less workers for the later shifts in the day.

The only thing that was different for me working on Black Friday verses any other day was the attitude of the shoppers. Instead of the stereotyped idea of the shoppers being impatient and grouchy, all that came through my register behaved in just the opposite manner. They were smiling and asking me how I was surviving the day, if things were going O.K for me, how had business been? They waited patiently if I had to get a price check on an item, remained smiling and not squirming. I had put on my thick skin for the day in anticipation of short-tempered and impatient shoppers so was completely taken off-guard by how friendly they all were. I'm not exaggerating when I say "all," I only had one complaint from one shopper the entire 9 hour shift I worked. I couldn't even begin to count all the caring concern I received instead.

My experience was probably different than others who worked that day, but I can only speak for what I dealt with. I'm sure it was a different story for those working back in electronics or out on the sales floor. My Black Friday adventure turned out to be boring and peaceful with nothing but sympathetic shoppers coming through my register.

Now I'm fifty-something.

Today is Thanksgiving and also my birthday. I am now 51 which means I have to say I am "fifty something." Yuck. I still only feel about 30 and am often told I look "very good for my age." Yuck again, reaching an age where people tell me that.

Besides making and eating a ridiculously big Thanksgiving dinner with my son and eventual ex, I have taken care to make my birthday a special day for myself. I bought the video game, "Fable III," my son paid for half of it as his gift to me. I plan to rip that open and play it for hours today. I made myself a cheese cake, it looks like it turned out yummy and I know I will over-indulge on that. My dogs even gave me a gift (thanks eventual ex) which I have yet to open but looks like another video game I was wanting, "Fallout New Vegas." I also received a card from my Folks I have yet to open which my Mom told me includes a check that I am to spend on a trip to the coast for a couple of nights with a friend or two.

Today is looking promising.

Being graded as a cashier.

When I first became a cashier, I didn't realize I would be "graded" on my performance. Cashiers at the big chain retailer I work at are rated on our speed and how many credit card applications we get. Where I work, these statistics are actually posted on a bulletin board for all to see. We are either graded "green" which is good or "red" which is poor. 

How many transactions each cashier has had for the week is the basis for seeing if on the average we are green or red for our speed and credit card applications. I often service around 1000 customers a week so I figure that means I average anywhere from 100-250 customers coming through my register a shift. This depends on how long my shift is and how busy we are.

After completing each transaction, the speed score pops up on the register, telling us if we were green or red for that transaction. A big problem with this speed rating is that the timer doesn't stop until the transaction is completely finished meaning that if the customer is slow, it affects our score. When a shopper stands at the register and re-evaluates each item in their cart to decide if they really want it, our score will probably be red. Often a customer will search for exact change in the bottom of their purse or pocket, again slowing the transaction down, meaning the cashier will probably get a red score. It is an unfair rating system, cashiers obviously can't control how dawdling a shopper will be. Unknown to the customer, we cashiers are quietly grumbling inside as they take their time because of the ticking timer. I don't want to feel this way, I would rather be able to enjoy a little banter with the shopper but am pressured to move them along. I try not to dwell too much on my speed statistics,  I am always O.K in this area.

In addition to our speed we are also monitored on how many credit card applications we get. This is basically more a matter of luck than a matter of how good our salesman skills are in my opinion so I  try not to dwell too much on this. The amount the transaction is for and the manner in which it is paid determines if the prompt will come up on the register telling us we must offer the store credit card or debit card to the shopper. For those customers who stop and consider the offer, we are supposed to push it, trying to sway them into getting the card. A person is either going to want a card or not, our asking is usually not going to change their mind one way or the other. This is the most disagreeable aspect of my job. I'm not a big supporter of credit cards and know that some of these people applying have no clue of what they are probably doing to their credit score by applying and being turned down. I usually get the preferred amount of applications, averaging about 2-5 a week. 

Even though these areas of our performance are monitored, no one has ever said anything personally to me about if I am doing O.K or not. We are just reminded as a general group, that we need to keep our scores green. Our scores will not get us a raise or lead to us being fired. I feel being rated is just another degrading aspect of my job.

Working Retail during the Holidays.

Working in retail during what is referred to in the business as the all important "4th Quarter," is quite the experience. This will be my second time working in retail during the holidays so I have some idea of what to expect. It is an exciting and stressful adventure.

The big chain store that I work at skipped Thanksgiving and went straight to Christmas, having the store entirely decorated and set-up for Christmas the very day after Halloween. There are big, gaudy cardboard signs and ornaments hanging from the ceiling throughout the store. Red and green is everywhere you look. Special seasonal items are out on the floor such as more jewelry in little Christmas gift boxes, sweaters and socks, the usual fare.

The shoppers are already buying it all up like crazy, confirming that all this Christmas hoop-a-la was not set-up too early.  People are buying the artificial Christmas trees to display in their homes now. Toys, ornaments and Christmas themed tableware are rolling down the register belts. Parents can be over-heard saying to their children "maybe Santa will bring that for you," the famous line allowed to be used this time of year to appease a child.

The only relevance Thanksgiving has to the holiday season when working in retail is to be the day before "Black Friday." Our store is closed on Thanksgiving but our workers work so late into the night before Thanksgiving to prepare for Black Friday that they are actually working in the wee hours of Thanksgiving day. I wonder if other countries have Black Friday or if this is strictly an American phenomenon?

Being a cashier on Black Friday and up until Christmas may be the least difficult of the positions to work in the store. I stand safely behind the counter, just rolling people through. Other employees are out on the floor, victim to high-strung shoppers looking for particular items while trying to keep the quickly depleted shelves stocked. I feel especially sorry for those working in the electronics and toy departments where the most popular gifts are located. I suppose apparel is also a rough place to work.


Cashiering during the peak holiday shopping season does have it's special issues. I get a lot of parents sneakily handing me items and asking me to get it into a bag without the child who the gift is destined for and who is with them, seeing it. I am the last person the shopper sees so I have to listen to a lot of complaining about items they had wanted not being available. I have to try and decide when a shopper tells me that an item cost less than it rang up as if they are just trying to rip the store off or if the item didn't get calibrated into the register at the proper price. Should I adjust the price or call the Head Cashier over to do a price-check which means everyone has to wait?


I was surprised when I worked last Holiday season, especially on stressful and insane Black Friday, at how for the most part shoppers were pleasant and patient. Again I think this is an advantage of being a cashier because the employees I spoke with who worked in electronics had many impatient and angry shoppers they had to deal with. Only time will tell what the demeanor of this years shoppers will be.