I Don't Have That Job Anymore Thank God

I was just looking back through a lot of my poetry stuff and I realized that it had been a long time since I'd written anything, and that some of the most recent stuff was literally from the time I tried out being an insurance rep. That didn't last very long, and I think I honestly will need to consider future job offers with a lot more scrutiny since they literally talked me into signing into their pyramid shaped company and telling me I could make my own hours but they thought they could train anyone, and they were wrong. Not everyone is meant to be a salesperson, and I am certainly a great example of that. >_< I hate pretense. I hate following a script. I hate putting on a show in order to convince someone of something they wouldn't have thought of in the first place. I thought I could believe in the importance of having insurance policies, but that wasn't enough, because I had to sell them, too, and that takes more than just "I know people out there are driving around without an insurance policy on them or their partner and their kids are not going to be provided for financially if something happens to them." 

So now I'm a nanny again—I really like it, and that's a good thing, because it isn't easy. This baby isn't even 5 months old yet and he's already exceeding 20 lbs. He's so tall/long and he eats so frickin much! But mostly he's heavy. And holding him takes *groan* upper body strength. T_T But if I'm honest, I'm happy that's the biggest of my worries. His parents are my cousins, I love hanging out with them, they're wonderful people and it's a blessing to be close by them, and I don't know what I would be trying to do as a career if it hadn't been for the chance to nanny for them. Sure, I'm not charging them the rate I would have charged a stranger I was contacted by online, because they're family. But it's worth it to me, in so many ways. 

Anyways, I just wanted to update my blog so that the first thing anyone saw wasn't the "I got a job in insurance!" anymore. I won't be posting any photos of the baby for privacy's sake, but lemme tell ya, he's the cutest chumpey to ever chump, I say. Gah he's just so cute. x)

Here's the latest poem I've written, I think the inspiration came to me when I was clicking through Spotify and saw some of the old playlists I used to love that brought back a wave of memories.

Tinge

It comes from nowhere 

It's the faint, burning prickle 

Springs behind your eyes 

Bidding you stop and wonder 

Why your breath caught in your throat. 

—ACB 3.24.2022

New Job as insurance benefits rep!

10:50 AM - Yooo it's been a long time but I'm posting again! I kinda just want to do some writing to clear my head after being sleepy and having a second cup of coffee after an hour nap on the couch and realizing I really need to get myself up and running so I can get this stuff done.

So I started working with an insurance company called AIL, the local branch here in Ohio is SSBH, and I've been working on getting into this job for a month now. Yeah. 

First, I had to get the state insurance license, and that course took me almost 2 weeks before I completed it and then signed up to take the exam as soon as I could. Luckily, I passed (only needed a 70%, and I got 77%, whew), and from there I also had some waiting to do before my orientation or training could start. Then, they gave me the script that everyone memorizes, and that's currently where I'm at in the process. I have my final script check on Monday at 9am, and I'm scared I won't get it done. I know I can do it, I just have to make myself do it because it's going to take hours of just plugging away at it.

So I'm getting over my self-conscious embarrassment of needing to read and repeat this stupid script (it's fine, it's just annoying to anybody who doesn't need to learn it) when Alex is home, I know he doesn't mind because he wants me to start this job just as much as I do, but I ask him to close the office door whenever I'm working on it just because it helps me a bit. So that's something I need to get over, because I literally have just today to work on it, and he's home today so it won't be the "I'm home while he's at work so I can be as focused and loud as I need to be without overthinking it." 

But I can do this.

I'm gonna start working on it here after I use the restroom (second cup of coffee is kicking in lol) and then maybe I'll update this post with how it went. If I don't pass my final script check on Monday, I will have to wait 3 weeks until Brandy's training is finished so that Sky can start training me at the beginning. Brandy's starting on Monday, so I need to be ready, too. oof -.-

Coffee in my veins

Hey it's been a while!!! 

These days, I've been home most of the time, but my goal is to start back up at work again this week. The reason I stayed home from work in the first place (I'm working with Shipt so it's up to me how much I work or don't work) was because I ran out of my meds and it took about 3 weeks to get all of them refilled. That long without them took a hard hit on my mental health. And it wasn't just my adderall that I ran out of, which would have just sent me back into sleep-all-day-without-energy-to-focus-on-work-or-anything, but it was my antidepressant too. I shoulda gotten back into the groove of things sooner than now, but that's in the past now and I'm just gonna focus on getting up tomorrow on Monday and getting my coffee, meds, breakfast, and being dressed for a day of shopping down in the part of town that gets more Shipt orders in the morning. I think that I'm going to also get something ready for Alex to eat for lunch so that I don't feel tied to coming back at that time so that I can cook him something. 

Lol, Lily is staring at her shadow on the carpet floor... 

Anywho, tomorrow's gonna be good. So during September I decided that I wanted to see how I would feel if I cut out coffee, so I started on October 1st so that I could track it as a month. I made it to the 14th and I was just so drained of everything I needed to do work, and I decided 2 weeks was enough to tell me all I needed to know. I need coffee. After that, I went back to the previous single cup in the morning, but then the past couple days I've been making French press coffee and having a second cup at lunch. I started using the French press because I ran out of normal coffee grounds :P And I've had the special grounds for the French press for a while now, they've just been sitting in my cupboard. And from everything I've seen after having more coffee during the day, it's a lot better, and I've had the motivation I needed to move around and clean the apartment and get things done. I CERTAINLY need to exercise. I've started to become more aware of that lately, and, well, I guess I've finally been able to separate the shame I associated with my general dislike of exercise and failure to meet the expectations of what I should have been able to do physically. My heart rate always skyrocketed whenever Mom would make me work out with her (which was mostly just walking! Speed walking, but still. Also if there was ever any incline, it was instantly a killer for me) and I never made aerobic exercise a routine or habit in order to try to fix this. 

Oh I see what Lily's been staring at!! It's a bug, probably a fruit fly from the bag of garbage I have sitting by the door for me to take out to the dumpster tomorrow...she's hunting it, haha. 

Well :) If anybody reads this, send me a text or an email and let me know how you are doing! I have so much stuff that I need to get better at, and keeping up with my good friends through the internet is one of those things. I just need to establish habits for all of it. Please pray for me, I really need to get these habits in place soon. In a year we might start having kids, and that'll be another thing to learn, so I need to have this stuff down so that it isn't another thing to add to the pile!

Love you all! Have a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll write again before then, but just in case. :)

 

haiku: "artificial"

the days grow shorter
the nights bring the need for these
artificial lights
 

—ACB, Oct 21

Surprise days off :O

Hey =) Positive update on how I've felt slightly stressed with work:

I had a really nice day yesterday when I decided to check my work schedule to make sure I was supposed to come in -- and I had the day off! Praise the Lord. because I needed to take a morning to breathe. and make a breakfast sandwich. from bread that I baked on Wednesday. :)

I even ended up going shopping with Mrs. Broening to look for a new dress for the engagement photoshoot that Alex and I are going to have. I tried on 8 dresses at JC Penney's (lol yes it was a lot, but I at least like to think that I go faster now than I did in the past when shopping with her or my mom.) There were several dresses that I really liked, 2 that I would have bought, but we were just there for one, so I made the choice and maybe I'll go back with Alex sometime to look at some of the less fancy dresses that I had to pass over because of the occasion we were shopping for. :) But it felt good, uplifting to me, to analyze the clothing racks, discover a hint of a nice color behind the blacks and the jewel tones that would just absolutely make me look like a ghost, and to feel like an explorer in the jungle when I'd find the one medium in the sea of X-Small's and XX-Large's. The rare finds in the clearance section. The ridiculous styles that I saw and thought, "You know, I'll just try it on for fun." It was a breath of fresh air and a great time with my future mother-in-law.

After JC Penney's (where we bought the one dress), we tried Kohl's, but I didn't like the way any of the 5 or 6 outfits looked when I tried them on...there were a couple jumpsuits (the kind where it looks like a summer dress from far away and then when you take it off the rack, you realize it's not a skirt but Pants that are just flowy) that I tried on just for fun, because hey, I'm tall, but if there was one that looked good on me, it would be nice (and with jumpsuits you never have to worry about the wind blowing your shirt around). But none of them were a good fit, but it was okay because we already had the best JC Penney option. We just wanted to make sure there wasn't one gem waiting in the Kohl's store that would completely blow the other dress out of the water. But there wasn't, so we kept the JC Penney's dress. *ahem*

At that point it wasn't too late in the afternoon yet, so we talked about what else we could get done for wedding planning while I still had the day off. And I felt super proud of myself for being prepared and thinking ahead and being mindful of the errands I'd need to run/items I'd need to purchase: I had a List. 

(I just really wanted to show some kind of dorky excited gif about how I felt when I pulled that out and had the perfect thing for us to accomplish next.)

And everything turned out awesome: of the stuff on my list that I could look into without needing to choose them with Alex, most of them were bridal accessories.

So I don't know if I've shared this on my blog before, but a while ago when my family was staying with me (after Christmas when I'd traveled with them for several weeks and we were in my apartment while my dad & brothers did some maintenance on my car and my mom and I tackled some wedding planning stuff), I made a list of the aspects of a wedding, and I ranked them by how important of an issue it was to me.

This is completely unrelated but I saw it while scrolling down to find the picture from January that I actually wanted to share, and I remembered it and had to post it so I can laugh at it and share an ADD moment with you...okay...on to the actual topic

This is what Mom and Rickey were doing while I wrote up my master plan on the sweet new whiteboard they'd helped me install on my pantry door. 

Here!! These are all things I need to plan for the wedding, all things that need to be decided on and planned and bought and scheduled and organized, and I put numbers to them all so that I could express which ones were important enough for me to spend more money/more time on them, and which ones I just needed someone to help me make a quick decision about and move on with.

And guess what Mrs. Broening and I had the time to do?

Shoes.

The shoes that I wear at my wedding are a really important part of the whole day, to me, and I was going to make sure that adequate attention was given, ahead of time, to picking just the right pair of shoes so that I would

1. be comfy while standing,
2. feel awesome while dancing,
3. feel good about the shoe style in the pictures, and
4. be able to afford them.

And with the saving that I've been doing lately, I believe the 2 pairs that I had to decide between (I bought both, brought them home, and Alex helped me pick the right pair when he came over, so I'll be returning the other pair on Wednesday) were a great fulfillment of my 4 criteria. I felt great. And now, after showing it to Alex and having the chance to chat about the overarching purpose of shoes (not just to be comfy for one day, but to display the image that we are wanting to impart in our wedding ceremony and the image that we want to look back and remember when we look at our wedding photos for the next 60 years), I feel even better. I guess this is what being productive and accomplishing goals feels like. :)

And then after that, I checked the List again, and ooh, planning & booking honeymoon lodging was on there. Something Alex and I needed to get done together. And we had time to do it. >:D I was on a roll!

And after looking at stuff for a few hours and finding something perfect that was completely in a different area than the state that we had been poring over for the past few weeks (lol), we decided on a spot in Gatlinburg, TN, and Alex went home and booked it last night. ^_^

So I have to get ready to go to work now, but yesterday was pretty great. I just wanted to share the exciting stuff I was able to get done, and talk about how helpful it was for me to actually accomplish something instead of just talking about getting it done at some point (while not having the time to ever get it done, since I was always either waking up preparing to go to work, or was at work and keeping up my energy and motivation to keep working, or home from work recovering from the mental exhaustion that I'm getting better and better at handling now that I've had this 40-hr/wk job for a few months now). 

Things are looking up. I am smiley. Thank you all for your support and prayers for me, and just the little things you say and the ways you make me smile. I love you all, and can't wait to see you soon (at the wedding, or even sooner!)

Bye! <3

-ACS (for now), April 23, 2019

Coffee shop pt3

  

A Job Offer!

"Hey, just wanted to update everybody--I just got out of my interview with The Main Cup coffee shop/restaurant in Milford, and I have a solid job offer!! I'm so excited!!
It's going to be the same number of hours & rate of pay (a bit more actually) as my nanny job that I did during the school year. I could look for a part-time job to supplement it if I need to, after working there for a few months and figuring out what I need. :)
After learning the details of the job, I now know that I am even more qualified and prepared for it than I believed I was at first. It's more food prep than barista, and I'll get to use my ServSafe certificate knowledge. I'm going to be in a learning environment, and I'll get to work with a chef and several other people in a close-knit group in the kitchen. I might get cross-trained on the Front of the House positions as well.
It's really more than I could have hoped for. Thanks for praying :)
It's a coffee shop that's expanding into a restaurant that serves weekend brunch, so the new building is going to open around September 22nd. The manager/consultant who interviewed me said he'd let me know by next week when I would start training, but most likely it will be 2 weeks before opening. So I'll probably start working the first or second week of September."

SO.
FRIKIN.
PUMPED.

I was really expecting that I'd have to spend a lot more time looking for a job before I got one that worked for me, or even a job that would call me back. But here I am, all set to make enough money for rent and utilities and everything I pay for while living on my own, and it hasn't even been 2 weeks since I found out I needed to get a job for the fall. God is so good. =)

--ACS, August 22nd, 2018

Coffee shop pt2

Update — They called me about my resume and wanted to schedule an interview!!

It's not until the 20th, but that's alright. It gives me time to apply to other places, too, just in case that one doesn't work out. I'm so excited!!

Right now I'm struggling with the desire to make it a habit of going to that coffee shop in the mornings, just because I love the atmosphere, and because I want to get to know the people—staff and the regulars—so that if I work there, I'll have them in my memory already.

But coffee is expensive. And I don't know what the pay will be. Their website says that they do Belgian waffles every Saturday morning, and I'm especially interested in coming in for that. They say they go fast, and to arrive early.

It's a dilemma! 😣(Lol I love these emojis, the alternative text for them is hilarious. "Persevering Face" for that one, whereas I would have named it "mfff, ugh" or something lol.)

Anyway :/ How much money can I afford to spend in my efforts to acquaint myself with a potential workplace? I spent like $5 on the coffee that I bought as a courtesy on Tuesday when I went in to ask about applying. Smallest size, too. And it was so delicious. 😋(lol another emoji, this one is "Face Savoring Delicious Food"—very appropriate.)

I'm about to record all my gas station receipts (I just always stuff them in my car's little cubby above the stereo, you know, where I keep my Altoids) from the past month or two, and while I do that, I'll be keeping this in mind. I really want to go back to that coffee shop, but I don't want to be a rude customer who doesn't buy coffee and/or brings their own and uses the free wifi 😬("Grimacing Face", yes yes.) Maybe I can budget a weekly or bi-weekly visit, and maybe they have a cheaper drink option that I would feel better buying. (On Tuesday, it was one of their specialties—a "Purple Rain", a vanilla lavender latte. Sweet hallelujah. I'll need to hope that I'd burn a lot of calories as a barista if I'm gonna work in a place with such heavenly decadence. 😵["Dizzy Face"—I would have called it "Mind-Blowing Excitement" or "Miraculous, Shocking Discovery" or "Disbelief And Ecstatic Realization"]......I think my Adderall and coffee is starting to work, haha. Anyhow. I am definitely going to Planet Fitness today, not only because I'll most likely have the motivation to go and the energy to work out with FIRE IN MY VEINS, but because I was going to cancel my subscription, but realized that I'd already paid for August.)

So yes. I'm excited about possibly working at The Main Cup, and today is going to be a go-and-get-'em day for me I think. I've already begun recording receipts, starting with gas stations and then all the Walmart ones, and I'm about to finish that here in a bit.

Please pray for me as I start a new job in the next month, whether it's at this coffee shop or somewhere else. The last time I got a job in the summer (last year), it was too much all at once and I had to leave after barely three months. I'm doing so much better right now, especially thanks to the Adderall, so I have a good feeling about getting a job this summer. :) Thank you for all of your support, guys! I love you all!


—ACS, August 8, 2018

I'm in a coffee shop

(My email to Neila after she recommended that I walk in and talk to Jim or Jill about applying to this little coffee shop down the road from her counseling office:)

Hey!! I’m in my happy place :)

And Jill gave me a card with their website so that I could send in a resume. She said that they’re having open interviews in a couple Sundays, so I’ll be coming in for that. I ordered a decaf Purple Rain latte (the lavender and vanilla flavor! so good!) and I’m hoping that I can update my resume here and then send it. 

I think I need to upload it to Google Docs so that I can email them a link, since the “Contact Us” page on their website doesn’t have an option for directly uploading files.

Thank you for recommending them to me! It turns out that they’re only hiring 21 and up, so that’s perfect for me. I am very excited and I really hope it works out. I might just hang out in this coffee shop anyway, it has a hipster Christian radio coming through the speakers right above my table and it’s so pleasant and familiar to me. 

Sipping coffee (very, very delicious coffee), listening to the sounds of the regulars chatting and laughing with the baristas…it’s such a nice little spot right now. And I was carrying my Lord of the Rings hoodie, and when I sat down and took out my laptop, it was just a bit chilly so I was able to put it on.

Can I express just how relaxing, invigorating, calming, enthusing, and lovely this is right now? 

Ashley Spence

"The Main Cup in Milford grinds their own their own beans", photo from Yelp!