I Wish I Had Photographic Evidence

For the past couple of months, I have been temporarily working at Willow Stained Glass Studio. My job mostly consists of sitting around enjoying art and ambient jazzy/classical music attending to customers and selling items. Since I’ve work there, I’ve already acquired 3 pieces. There is another I have my eye on; hopefully I can acquire that one soon.

Anyway, back to my story!

This last week the shop owner posted on her facebook that a chipmunk had happened its way into the shop. There were lots of jokes and talk about how to get rid of the chipmunk. I, of course, assumed that the chipmunk had been “taken care of” when I arrived to open shop on Saturday morning.

However, as I approached the shop, I noticed a rather large crowd gathered around the right side gallery window. They were pointing and laughing and shouting “Oh!” and “How cute!”

Once the crowd saw that I was there to open the shop doors, I was alerted to the small brown mammalian creature nibbling on a Nutragrain (!) bar, sitting on one of the art stands in the window.

I giggled and said “Oh!” and “Well, I guess the little guy got a chance to stay.”

As I opened the doors, a few people came in behind me to get a look at the creature. All of the commotion must have scared it away because out of the corner of my eye, I saw it jump into some bags hanging on a coat rack and then flee across the floor at my feet into the back room.

After the people left (and after lots of “cute” talk about chipmunks), I went on the lookout for Mr. Chipmunk. I also decided to do some damage control.

I noticed the Nutragrain bar wrapper on the couch, tore open by ravenous teeth and a trail of tiny little chipmunk poo on the couch. Yeah. That was gross.

So I went about cleaning up the mess when I found that the chipmunk had also decided to get into some raisins and what seemed to be remnants of some kind of nuts.

Then I found a banana with bite marks in it. Apparently the banana peel was too much for the feisty Mr. Chipmunk.

So after all that cleaning, I had a good group of customers coming in to see if they could get a peek at the chipmunk in the shop. Unfortunately, nobody saw him. Perhaps he boosted some of my sales, though.

When the time came to close the shop, I decided to do some damage control. I took out all the trash, placed the non-hampered fruit in the refrigerator, and ensured there were no other little things Mr. Chipmunk could get into that would cause a mess.

Hopefully when the shop opens tomorrow, there isn’t a huge chipmunk mess everywhere and he isn’t dying of thirst/hunger. Well, he has toilet water if he gets desperate.

And so then the question comes to mind: Did the chipmunk enjoy that Nutragrain bar?

Note to Self

Don’t post Modest Mouse lyrics about backing into cop cars as your facebook status. People WILL worry and inquire.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

I’ve also uploaded a couple more shots of the rainbow to the flickr account.

I just love post-T-storm rainbows.

Needing to Vent a Little

So I thought that me being done with working at ex-job would mean the end to the crap I have been putting up with. I ended up being incorrect in my assumptions. Now, I have thought about not writing about this, but I feel like if I do not vent off some steam, my head might explode. I’m just frustrated, angry, annoyed, etc. Ya’ know?

Yesterday I received my final paycheck in the mail. I open it and come to find out that it is not complete. The company did not pay me for the total amount on my invoice. Why? Because they felt like me charging them the late fees and overdraft fees I incurred from their previous late payment was not “fair” or “within policy”.

You know, when you get your paycheck 10 days LATE and you incur, I don’t know, say, $150 in late fees/overdraft fees, and your contract stipulates you get paid within 15 days from invoice date, you’d think you’d be within your right to, I don’t know, ask for that money. Right?

So when I call B up to ask her about it, she tells me how she fought tooth and nail to get those payments approved for me, and in the end, lost. She didn’t think it was fair, and in the end, only adds to her bitterness as the company is also screwing her over.

Apparently the company’s accounting system had me in as Net 30 pay, which is incorrect. B argued with them over the phone about how my contract stipulates Net 15 pay, but the company kept arguing that their system says Net 30. Well instead of changing it to be correct, they just keep saying, “Well the system says…” I feel like we’re working with a bunch of monkeys. Or crooks. Either way, this does not look too well on their end.

Anyway, one part of me wants to let it go. I want to be done with the trouble. I don’t want to create more trouble. But the other part of me wants to fight tooth and nail to get my money back. This is not the first paycheck that has been late, either. Maybe I’m basing a decision to take action solely on principles, or maybe on bitterness? I don’t know. But the truth of the matter is that I’m not the only one they have done this to, nor is this the first time this has happened to me. Maybe I should try to do something about it so that the next guy doesn’t get screwed over? That maybe the company will realize that what they are doing is terrible business practice and WRONG?

*sigh*

Silly company.

And just to end this on a good note: I am very thankful that I had the opportunity to produce something tangible and (hopefully) of economic value for the company. I am thankful that I was able to meet some great people at that company. If I hadn’t worked there, who knows if I would have met the people that I now have very close relationships to. And now I am thankful for the opportunity to move on to bigger and better things. A new “adventure”, if you will.

“And we’ll all float on OK.”

Jonah’s Butterfly Friends

Jonah received a butterfly garden from Grandma and Grandpa’s Santa for Christmas last year.  You should have seen how excited he was to get this gift.  Lots of jumping and excitement and begging to get it out.  We told him that we would not be able to get the butterfly garden out until spring time because we didn’t want to nurse the butterflies only to have them die in the cold.

Jonah asked about every other week from Christmas until April, when we finally told him that the weather was now appropriate to do so.

We ordered the caterpillars online from the catalogue and they came a few weeks later.

We watched the caterpillars grow and eat in their jar and form their chrysalises.  Once safely inside their chrysalides, we moved them to the butterfly keeper.  We waited patiently for the butterflies to hatch out.

One morning, in May, Jonah came running into our bedroom, “Hey Mommy!  Mommy!  MOMMY!  I saw the chrysalis moving in the butterfly garden!”  So up we went to take a look.  We saw that a few of the chrysalises were moving and about an hour later the first butterfly began to peek out!

After a few days, we had four out of the five butterflies fluttering in the habitat.  We decided to release them when the weather was warm and the sun was shining.  So, for about a week, we kept them inside and fed them fresh flowers and sugar water.  (It rained for about a week straight.)

Then, one morning, the sun was shining and the weather was beautiful!  We let two of the butterflies go before daycare and then waited a couple of days and released the other two.

Jonah and Lucy were blessed enough to have the butterflies land on their fingers as we released them into the wild.

I was blessed enough to get a photograph of one of them before it flew out into the wild blue yonder. 

Enjoy!

P.S. We hope to do this soon again. This was such a positive learning experience for all of us that we will hopefully be ordering more larvae in the near future.

Agh!!!

Okay, so the Deathly Hallows teaser trailer was released and you know what? My husband updated the kernel this weekend and now we don’t have sound on our computer!

You should see me, seriously trying to concentrate on the movement of the actors’ lips as the trailer is playing, desperately trying to understand what they are saying. They are saying something to me and I can’t hear it!

Oh, Harry Potter, why did thou suckest me in???

Edited to add: I fixed the sound myself. I couldn’t stand it. Plus, I like listening to my Pandora station while I am working about the house.

Whew!

As Promised, Another Cake Post

Submarine Cupcakes for a commissioned Navy officer:

This was fun, using fondant to make submarines.  I tried to make the icing look wavy water.  I am not sure if it came across correctly, but I tried.  They were still fun to make and, apparently, still delicious to eat. 

Baby Shower Cake

I made this cake for the baby shower that I helped organize for the mom’s group I belong to.  Again, delicious.  The filling was cookies and cream and it was half yellow/half chocolate cake.

Please note that the bunny, bear, and baby chocolate designs were not part of my artistry.  I used a template from the Whimsical Bakehouse book.  However, I did make umbrellas, diaper pins, and dots with my own hand.  Those were fun. 

Rose-Hulman Cake

Andy asked me to make an RH cake for a barbeque that we were attending.  These were guys that are buddies he made in college.  A rather appropriate cake if you ask me.  I made a cookies and cream filling with this one, too.  (Can you tell I really, really like the cookies and cream filling??)

Note:  The black fondant and I were on speaking terms.  The red fondant and I, apparently, have yet to be good friends.  White fondant and I are doing well. 

Oh, and there was a cut in the cake because I wanted to eat cake and then realized I hadn’t yet photographed it.  Whoops.  You still get the idea. 

You can find more cake photos of these three cakes on my flickr, too.

-Amber

An Answer to a Prayer

Well, it’s official now.  I’m no longer going to be working at the company anymore.  Now to sit back, get a sigh of relief, and think about where I should head to next with my life.

As much as I would have thought I would be complaining here about all the bulls*it that was told to me, I fell immensely at peace and calm.  No, I don’t think what was done to me was right, but this was an answer to a prayer, and for that I am thankful.

I Now Deem You….

Remember DSG?

He is now: GWDMC.

You figure it out.

Ever have a lot to say, but just don’t say it?

Today is Thursday and I still don’t know if I will be working next week.  The guy that was supposed to talk to me about it has left for vacation and I am conveniently without an answer.  I guess my only problem with this situation is that I need to plan for not having a job.  As in, give 2 weeks’ notice to the daycare.  Well, it would kind of suck now if they told me I cannot work next week, but I have to keep the kids in daycare for two more weeks.  Um, hello, people.

I didn’t type much about the woes that we had the last week.  I shall now, since I can type about it without imparting the wrath-of-Amber upon my blog.  My blog doesn’t deserve that.

I was supposed to get paid on Friday the 15th.  I checked the mail and there was no paycheck on Friday.  Now see, this isn’t the first time my paycheck has been late ever since the company moved to a new accounting system.  Receiving my paycheck on time is the rarity.  Andy and I have both been conservatively posting my paycheck later in our budget than I am supposed to receive it.  So when I didn’t get it on Friday, my first thought was “Oh well, it will come tomorrow or Monday.”

But, ah, the kicker.

Monday rolls around and still no paycheck.  I email my boss and tell him that my check is late and that I will not be lending my services until I receive my paycheck.  I mean, I’m not going to work for free, you know?

I later receive a phonecall from our local accountant telling me that my invoice was “lost” by the other accountants.  “It seems they overlooked it and now they cannot find it.  I told them that you need the check ASAP, but they tell me that they won’t process it until Wednesday and it won’t be mailed until Thursday or Friday.”

Which, you’d think, “Hey okay, the check is on its way.”  But for me, that was a  massive problem.  Considering that I have bills due, as I am sure you do as well, it is kind of hard to pay them if you don’t have the money, you know what I mean?

So we tried to stop the automatic payments and move our savings over, but that just didn’t cut it.  We overdrafted our account by about $300.

So I did not work all week because they couldn’t pay me on time.  And you think this company would have business sense enough to realize that since they didn’t pay me by the date they are contractually obligated by, that they’d get their butts in gear and say, “Oh let’s overnight this check to her” or “We will wire you the money tonight.”  But they didn’t.  They just took their sweet time getting me the money.  And you’d think they would realize that because they didn’t pay me on time that I am not working.  And when I am not working, the documentation on these high-priority projects is not getting done.  And if it doesn’t get done, well, then shoot, I guess they didn’t get the work done that was promised to be done.

Now, I eventually got the money on Monday, about 10 days late, but the damage had already been done to our poor bank account.  Luckily, we had a friend lend us a helping hand with making sure that we didn’t incur anymore overdraft charges.  There was much appreciation on our end for such kindness.

And the local accountant has now told me that she will approve my charging my overdraft fees to the company, which would help us out substantially.  I really like our local accountant.  She did everything she could to help me out and make sure that I got paid on time.  You know, when she was the person cutting me checks, it was always on time and signed (ha, another story later, perhaps).  Now she cannot do that anymore, which was unfortunate.  Oh well.

So basically, I know that I do not want to continue with my “contractor” status with this company.  We both agree on that.  I wouldn’t have minded the option they presented to me if they hadn’t decided that cutting my pay was part of the bargain.  At this point, I just want to be somewhere that appreciates my labor and effort.  I want to continue making a positive impact with my life and my work.  I like to have the things I do be worth something to somebody.  And it is nice to have a little acknowledgement every once in a while.