Family Visit and General Update

My mom and youngest sister Amanda visited last week. They flew in on Wednesday night and left on Saturday. Mat was in various parts of Texas the whole time. He left for a conference last Monday and he was asked to stay through the weekend to go deer hunting. He was excited for the trip because he was going to see everyone from the old office plus a handful of people he really likes. Not to mention he would get the chance to kill stuff. His inner man's man really enjoys things like that.

I raced around the first part of last week cleaning house, buying food and getting things in order in general. I also worked while doing it and work as of late has become a weird situation. I'll tell you about it in a minute, I realize I am jumping all over in this post. Anyway, on Tuesday night I get a call from Mat telling me he cannot stop throwing up and he thinks he has food poisoning. He had sent a text earlier at around 8pm telling me he didn't feel well and was going to bed. Apparently he was vomiting every two hours and felt like death. This lasted all through the night and he still didn't feel well on Wednesday morning when we talked. He said he either got sick from the pork (gross) or some fish appetizer that he had (doubly gross). He felt puny through Thursday and I kept receiving pitiful text messages from him. I really felt sorry for him.

I opened the store on Wednesday morning - I usually close and my shift is noon - 7pm normally - since my family landed around 6pm that night. I picked them up and we chilled and ate dinner at our house since it was already late and you know me, I had a little itinerary planned for the next two days and my mom wanted to rest up.

Thursday morning we woke up pretty early and headed to Denver. We chose to go to Denver on Thursday and hang in Fort Collins on Friday to avoid the traffic. And yes, I realize how seriously uncool and old that statement just made me sound. I'm losing my city edge people, I've got to move out of this little town before its too late! Our first stop was TJ Maxx because my mother is a psycho and wants to visit every TJ Maxx location anywhere she goes. The reason is because she is the store manager of TJ Maxx in her small town outside of Nashville. She's in my same boat (sorta) with jobs, she lives in a super small town and unless she wants to commute you take whatever job you can get. She has worked off and on for TJM for 8 years. She started as an associate and they eventually gave her her own store. Anyway, she likes to stalk the merchandise at other locations and compare her inventory to theirs. We went to one TJM and then while we were on our way to lunch in Larimer Square passed another one so we stopped. Ha! Clearly I get some quirks from my mom.

We had lunch here and it was really good. It's a new 24/7 diner that serves gourmet, foodie type food and they had a wide variety on their menu. Plus it was basically right in the middle of our route so it worked. Plus anytime I go to Denver I always try to grab a bite some place new. After lunch we headed to Cherry Creek Mall. It is THE mecca of amazing shopping. I had only been once and it was with my neighbors who are shopping lightweights so the trip didn't last very long. My sister (who is between a size 00 and 0 let me just point out) bought an new wardrobe at the Forever 21 mega-store and my mom and I played make up at Sephora. We checked out a million other stores in between and on our way out hit up the Michael Kors store because they were putting out the spring bags.

Since my mom does work at TJM, she sees all sorts of high end bags. Her store sales are number one in the region and they get more name brand bags than the Nashville stores. I guess those small town housewives have nothing better to do than spend their husband's money at TJM. Needless to say, she is a big fan of Michael Kors and now has gone so far to Google them, find out what collection they belong to and buy them not only from her store but shops online and from the Michael Kors store as well. My middle sister Molly was the first one to get a MK bag from my mom. I was the second. Amanda is the "cheap one" in our family and told my mom never to buy her one because she thinks spending a car payment on a handbag is wrong. I got my first all black leather hobo-esque one last year for my birthday. Then, my mom surprised me with a metallic tote bag at Christmas (because we all know how tote bag obsessed I am). And wouldn't you know it, I was gifted with the bag of my dreams on this last trip. This was a bag that I had bookmarked on my laptop and would occasionally look at but because of the price I actually drew the line and said no, it will never happen. I am greedy and I do like brands but even I have a threshold.

This bag, MY bag, was one of about ten being put on sale to make room for spring. It was slightly on sale and super amazing in person. After my mom bought it for me I felt guilty for the rest of the trip so I foot the bill for most everything else. We women are so weird like that.

Here is the bag in all its awesomeness. This bag comes with a baby skeleton key that unlocks the padlock on the front. Adorbs.

After our mall adventure we headed home and went out for dinner. On Friday we did more of the same: local shopping, eating, and just goofing off. We all had a really good time and were a little bummed when it ended. I need to mention that Kali becomes a super traitor when my mom comes around. My mom refers to Kali as her "grandog" and buys her presents everyday that she is here. Kali even sleeps with my mom when she visits. Un-huh, that dog ain't stupid.

I spent the weekend cleaning and buying food again (it never ends) and Mat called me Sunday morning to say he was at the airport all to find out his flight was canceled. He was flying home from Corpus and apparently there were not a lot of flights going out of that airport that day. He had seriously had the week from hell. He got mad and just bought another ticket from a different airline and flew all day and got home later that night. Now here it is Tuesday morning and he's gone again. I really don't know how he does it.

Back to the job thing. The first week of January I got a call from our HR person saying she wanted to meet with me "in confidence" to discuss something. My first thought was hat I was mean to a customer and they told on me. But no, it wasn't that. I was asked to be the assistant manager at the store I trained at. Karen, the manager of that store is really great and she had asked to keep me at the end of my training. Since there was a true need at the store I was transferred to they said no. Now Karen's asst. mgr is taking an indefinite leave of absence to care for a terminally ill relative and I've been asked to take her place. Karen's store is the busiest one out of the twelve stores. She makes around 10k a week. My current store never makes more than 3k a week. It's so weird to me to think that people spend this much on dry cleaning. But anyway....

I am getting a small raise, a new title and am supposed to transfer stores the week of the 28th. Trashy McTrasher that I currently work with has now taken money from the register twice (only I know about it and I did not turn her in {because I am stupid} and she did replace it, both times, on payday), lost the store two customers from a lack of follow up and a whole bunch of other random sucky employee things. I can't wait to get away from her and I'm pretty sure she knows that and that is why it's become weird. HR gave her a talking to and they hired my replacement and Trashy was told she was now working nights and would have to answer to this new person. It went over like a lead brick. I really do believe the people you keep company with can be a direct reflection on you and I'm not having that. If ya'll ever look at me and think Trashy McTrasher you better say something.

So, that's whats been going on in a nutshell. I'll try to be better and stick to my original plan for 2013 and blog at least once a week. Even I have to make shit up. Just kidding.