Painting, remodelling, work and shingles...

So… Today I have the day off! Last night, I pinky swore with Lisa (figuratively, not actually since, sadly, we are in two different states) that I would do two things today… 1) update my blog since I haven’t for… 2 ½ months? And 2) Not go to work today. Not going to work sounds easier than it is… Especially if you know my family… We all tend to be workaholics, whether we want to be or not… But I’ll tell you more about work later.

As you may or may not have known, at the end of October, I had a few days off of work and was planning on repainting my room. I moved most of the stuff out of my room, then before I moved the rest, I decided I needed to pick a paint color before I started moving the rest of the stuff out. Picking out a paint color is a lot harder than it sounds. Looking at a color chip is always a lot different than what the color looks like on the wall… Also, any color I put on the wall looked especially yellow or green and just not right… Come to find out, testing colors on lavender/purple walls is harder than it sounds. Apparently purple is one of the colors that will bleed through other colors on the wall… So finally, after consulting TJ, painter extraordinaire, I got a color-block primer, and started testing colors, again, but by then, my weekend of time off was over and that was as much painting as I was able to get done… I was hoping to post a picture of it, but forgot to upload it when I had Amanda’s laptop… So… I’ll put up some pictures of that when I finish, I’ll put pictures of the whole process. Back to my room, Dad said he’d paint it for me, I just have to finish getting my room ready to paint. I’m hoping that if Monday through Thursday (Thanksgiving) of next week I do a little bit everyday, I’ll be done by Thanksgiving… Then maybe, hopefully, while I have some long days at work for Black Friday and Saturday, Dad can paint my room for me… We’ll see what happens! I’ve actually picked the color I want… Hopefully I’ll get it all together and completed soon and be able to post some pictures of the whole process and my hopefully soon to be newly painted and rearranged room…

I’m not sure why I decided to redecorate my room while the house was being remodeled, but I did… The main floor and my bathroom are starting to come back together again… Finally… The wood floors are all laid on the main floor, the cabinets are in, the appliances have been delivered. We’re waiting on the granite counter tops now for the kitchen, and a bunch of other stuff I’m sure… The tile has gone down in my bathroom… Hopefully soon, that bathroom will be back in use. I’m hearing it’ll be done about the first weekend in December… I guess we’ll see! I’m not so much looking forward to having to move out of the house for three or four days while the floors are being sanded and stained. I can’t wait to finally have a kitchen again… Be able to make some scrambled eggs in the morning when I want! I know, it sounds silly… How weird is it hat I really just want to make scrambled eggs and toast in my kitchen? I’m not really sure why scrambled eggs are what come to mind, but for some reason that’s the first thing I want to make in the kitchen…

Moving on… The bulk of my life right now is all things work. So I’ll tell you a bit about everything that’s been going on there… Thursday we had a huge corporate visitor come and walk our store. Dave Eske, a Kohl’s vice president/territorial manager, as well as our regional manager. Our store has been really busy the last few weeks preparing for this visit, and especially this last week… This past week we have been down to the wire, so I got a bunch of overtime… From Monday to last night, Friday, I’m guessing I have somewhere around 57 hours… A good bunch of that coming from an overnight I did on Wednesday night… Going into the store at 3:30pm, and finally heading home Thursday morning around 7am.

I don’t know how much I’ve told you about my job, my responsibilities and all of that, but part of my job is getting associates exited about credit and decorating the break room… Believe it or not, this is one of my favorite parts about my job… Every month I get to think of a new credit thing to decorate the break room with… It’s something that I get to think outside of the box, be creative, decorate, do something different than the everyday norm. Okay, I admit sometimes it’s hard thinking of new and creative things to do every month, but there are other months that I come up with something that I think is really good and just hit it out of the park. This is one of those months! Below are some of the pictures I tool of this month’s break room… I took some inspiration from Amanda… She loves fall, and I wasn’t ready for Christmas, so I took fall and ran with it! I love my tree this month! This is the part of my job I love… Being creative and having some fun.



So… My final update for today is a story about my leg… Yes, my leg. A week or so ago, on the inside of my calf, I started having this weird/painful sensation. I kept feeling pain, varying from a punch of pin pricks to a cutting/stabbing sensation. I kept looking at my leg where it hurt, but there was nothing there. So I kept ignoring it, then would look there before I went to bed and see if there was anything there, or if I was just going crazy and imagining things… After a couple of days of that, I had a red, bumpy rash appear where I had been having the sensations. I kept having the sensations, but there was so much going on at work that I just kept ignoring it… I’d look at it at night, take some ibuprofen for the pain, and just kept working. Finally, Thursday morning after my over-night, I was finally able to see mom for the first time this week. The rash was getting worse, was still painful, and I was afraid I was going to be right about what it was… but I wanted to get another opinion before I went to the doctor if I was wrong and it was just something like hives. So, I showed it to her, and she, unfortunately, confirmed what I was thinking, as did Amanda… Shingles… So, while I really wanted to sleep, I called the doctor and made an immediate appointment… He confirmed what we were thinking and immediately put me on a steroid, an antiviral medication, and gave me lidocaine patches to help with the pain. He asked if I was under any stress… Apparently that’s often a trigger of shingles…

I don’t want to whine… it’s no fun though! I still have a while before it’ll go away, and I don’t know how long the pain will last… So I’ll just keep doing my best and going along… It just couldn’t have come at a worse time! I’m just gearing up for my 2 busiest months, especially now that I’m a manager… I’ll make it through though. :o)

As I always say… I’ll try to update more often! And just know, if you try and call me, and I don’t answer, don’t be offended… It’s just a crazy time for me! I’ll try and call you back, or send a text at the very least. Lots of love!