Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday!

Here in MN its snowing. I put my foot down and told Mo that he cant work tonight because Im worried about the roads after watching the news. I almost regretted it after he got bored and wondered into the kitchen and started getting all up in my cooking space poking at things.

Last year when I was living in WI and he had businesses up here in MN I closed my store at 9pm and drove 6 hours to spend Thanksgiving with him (it should have been 4 hours but I got lost). We had frozen pizza from a gas station because Mo had no idea that EVERYTHING closed for Thanksgiving and it was the best we could do. Mo also didnt read instructions on the pizza and he broiled it. I drove home around 10pm to get up and open my store at 4am. That was... memorable.

This year Im determined to actually DO Thanksgiving. I havent really celebrated in over 4 years because for one reason or another I was always alone and last year was such a fantastically hilarious disaster, I just feel Im due.

Tomorrow I plan on making a Lime Beer Chicken, Stuffing, and a variety of roasted vegetables.

Today, to prepare, I made Red Stuff. I first had it at my step grandmas house. Its something that goes with EVERYTHING. If you do it right it is the most fantastic mystery dish ever. While my family treats the recipe like a family secret in all honestly its probably one of those dishes that was put on the back of a box a long time ago but never caught on.

I know this because I lost the recipe in our move and managed to google it.

Its basically Jello, bananas, strawberries, pineapple, and (I love the reaction I get here) sour cream. It sounds weird but it is one of very few things that I actually crave during the holidays and love making for parties.

While you can google the recipe and it seems pretty straight forward there are little things that you need to do beyond what any recipe says to make it perfect, which Im not sharing unless your family or I really like you. Otherwise (as my mom found out) it turns into a goopy mess.

Does anyone have any holiday favorites they like to make?

Not worth the money..

Well, I wanted this to be a non-rant place, but a random citizen has asked so I shall update!

I work at a chain makeup/lotion store. I have worked a total of 6 days. My title is Part Time Assistant Manager. That means I get keys to open and close the store, I dont get insurance, and my pay is only slightly higher than minimum wage. All I was going for in the job area was a reason to get out of the house and have some time around other people in this strange new area. Mission accomplished.

The manager is really nice and hes funny but he doesnt manage.... or maybe he does when Im not around. I honestly cant figure out what is going on. The numbers in the district show that the store Im working at is the second in the region but I dont understand why!

Sat was just filled with all the things that pissed me off about working at the store.

Next weeks schedule they had me opening alone (I have never opened before) and closing alone on Black Friday (thats just mean).

It was actually pretty busy so I spent the whole day running around greeting, helping, and checking out customers...while the manager and another sales person gossiped and texted.

Anyone who was difficult the manager actually ran away from and pretended to be very busy straitening a shampoo bottle in the corner till they left. Then he would come up to me and say "Im glad you took care of them cause I would have flipped out." Not like I had a choice in helping them or not because his tactic of pretending they werent there wasnt making them go away!

When one regular customer who always causes a head ache walked in everyone started acting like they were invisible to the point where when I loudly asked "What is the free thing they get for his coupon??" right next to their ear they IGNORED ME. I threw my hands up in the air and yelled "Are you FREAKING SERIOUS!" grabbed the first thing next to me and handed it to them as the free item. I have no clue if it was the right thing and Im sure I had to do something in the register but no one corrected me.

At the end of the night a girl I have never seen before came in and it was announced that I would be reteaching her how to close. I have only closed once and no one told me if I did that right or not either. She didnt just need a refresher... she really didnt remember much of anything.

Ah yes, and the first time I closed I couldnt get the safe open after trying the combination for an hour. I called the manager asking if the combo was wrong and he gave me the same instructions. It didnt work so I just left all money where it was and left.

Sat the manager told me he found the official instructions and put them by the safe. They were the exact opposite of what I was given...twice. When I mentioned this to the first person who gave me the combination she very seriously and accusingly said, "Well, why didnt you just try the opposite of what we said?"

...aaannnd I quit.

New job

I decided to take a part time job. I needed a reason to get out of the house and meet new people because as much as I love Mo, we were spending WAY too much time together and for the sake of our relationship, that needed to stop.

So I took a part time job at a lotion/makeup place in the mall. Getting the job was easy. Right after I quit my last job where I was managing a chocolate store I found out some major company drama went down and almost all the managers in my district walked out and started working for this lotion/ makeup store. The new district manager of the lotion store was a friend and fellow manager at the chocolate store so she was more than happy to find room for me.

My first day was... frustrating.

The manager is a very nice guy but seemed to get bored with the idea of training me after 20 mins (my first shift was 9 hours long). He did a quick overview of how to open, had me fill out the new hire paperwork, had me watch a couple videos, then gave me an overview about what was stalked on 1 wall.

That was it.

I spent the next 6 hours walking around in circles reading some labels, asking if there was anything I could help with (no), and trying to look over the shoulder of whoever was checking a person out (didnt help, buttons are small and no one seemed interested in showing me how to do anything).

Best comment of the day, after a lady checked out she gave me a very sympathetic look and said "Good luck!"

Upside, I was told there will be cake tomorrow. I'll put up with just about anything for free cake.

Pumpkins!

I thought I would share my families pumpkins.

Mo's very first Pumpkin!

My Little Big Planet pumpkin (only one kid got it)

My little sisters puking pumpkins... BIG hit.

I did another little pumpkin as a Harry Potter tribute cause my mom said someone should.

Moms "Derp" Bat.

Craiglist probably would have been less expensive.

I always miss the real crazies!

Mo still has a few days left until his extended licence expires so when he got a call at 7am I stayed home to keep the bed warm.

When he got home he had a face of half horror and half confusion.

He said, "Your never going to believe this. The woman just called for sex. Like she was livin in a movie or something."

The woman called for a locksmith saying she needed to get into her house. When Mo got there she was wearing a nightie and told him her bedroom door was locked. It wasnt.

She kept trying to touch him too.

In the end he not only pissed her off because he told her to back off but also charged her $50 for showing up because she was annoying.

...A few months ago I missed a visit to a real illegal Mexican whore house too.

!@#@$

Pretty sure this is what my cat thinks about for most of the day... she always looks mad.

First Date

Its hard dating foreign types.

(The comic didnt go beyond drawing on paper and scanning because every computer that I had photoshop on has died a horrible death. Here is crossing my fingers we can work a new computer in the budget for me before Hanukkah. )

The prices reflect our blood pressure sir.

When we get calls from people who are locked out of their cars in front of a business they never give us an exact address to their location. I dont know what they google or who they talk to that seems to know their location but it never fails that we will always end up a block away calling the customer trying to figure out which parking lot they are in.

Last night was no different. Around midnight we headed out to a guy locked out of his car and the address he gave us was to the back parking lot of an office. We called him up to get a better idea of where he was but the only thing he could manage to direct us with was "go towards the mall". I didnt see a mall anywhere around us.

We pulled out of the parking lot and headed in a direction that seemed like it would lead somewhere with the customer still on the phone. He was spouting out more vague building descriptions then suddenly said "OH! See the cop!"

I looked up to see the cop flashing its lights behind me.

We werent doing anything wrong so normally there wouldnt be a reason to panic but Minnesota has the most screwed up system for people who have just become residents of the state.

We had just bought the van and instead of going to the DMV and getting the new title and registration we were told they would be in the mail eventually.

I had just switched my licence (and had to take my written drivers test over to get an MN licence) but instead of them handing me a new licence they snipped a corner of my WI licence and handed me 3 yellow pages and a receipt then told me to bring them everywhere with me and I would get my ID in the mail eventually.

So instead of just pulling out my licence, registration, and proof of insurance we panicked trying to pull together 15 sheets of paper and all Mos paperwork as well, cause you never know how snotty they are going to want to be.

The officer rolled down her window and told us to follow her to the guy locked out of his car.

We blew out a collective sigh of "Thank god" and "Im going to hit the customer".

Sailor Mars- Make up!!

Sailor Moon was the first Anime I ever saw. I LOVED IT! I loved it so much that I built webpages dedicated to the site helping Americans find the translated Japanese. If I had never seen Sailor Moon my geekiness probably wouldnt be as high at it is today (I might have been set back a few years... only a few considering in 2nd grade music Darth Vaders march was the first thing I played on the plastic recorders they gave us.)

For this Halloween I had to dress up as Sailor Mars!

I made this costume for under $20 (not including the wig) using only a hand held cheap sewing machine. I actually know nothing about sewing so I had some help from Mo who learned to sew in the army. He did the gloves, and the poofy parts on the shirt.

Here are some pictures from Halloween:

My girlfriends dressed up as Codex from the Guild and Morticia.

I have no idea who the guy dressed up as Cloud was but he looked awesome so I had to take a picture with him!