Author: erinreeve

Sales meeting today…

I feel so completely inadequate when I look at other sales reps. I think that I’ve probably told all of you this in person, but if you had asked me last year what jobs I absolutely never saw myself in, sales rep would have been #2 on the list (following truck driver).

Granted, inside sales is different from outside sales. But I just don’t think that I have the personality for this. I suspect that my own hesitation is being a hindrance though, as everyone was familiar with my personality before they asked me if I was interested in this job.

That said, I still don’t like meetings.

in love with my shampoo

(I spend an average of about 3 seconds coming up with these blog titles, if you wondered)

I was perusing my shelves yesterday for a new book to read (finished Good Omens and I highly recommend it), and instead of finding a new novel I decided to pull out some poetry books I hadn’t read in a while. One, White Horses by Billy Collins, had this poem – “Aimless Love” – which I had forgotten is my favorite Billy Collins poem. So here it is.

Oh but I also wanted to say — I splurged on some coconut milk shampoo and conditioner last weekend; every now and then I get a whiff of my hair and I’m pretty sure I’m in love with it. (Same goes for my tomato leaf hand lotion. Mmmmmmm.)

AIMLESS LOVE

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

– Billy Collins

The coffee is disappointingly weak this morning. I might need more.

I have plenty to say. Let’s see.

Amanda got married on Saturday. I ended up spending Friday night in Joelton, along with a good chunk of the bridal party and Amanda’s family. It was an enjoyable night (maybe not so much for her family, but the rest of us had a blast). The wedding was simple and beautiful and I’m really happy for Amanda and Tim. I feel bad for skipping out on the after party on Saturday night, but the thought of drinking more alcohol was making me want to throw up, and I was just completely peopled-out by that time in the day anyway. So I went home.

Emily stayed with me Saturday night so she could wait until Sunday to drive back to KY, and we got Cracker Barrel for breakfast which was the most human interaction I had all day. After she left and I got back home, I did my best to ignore my phone and focus on Astrud (if you want to know, and I’m pretty sure none of you actually do, I spent most of the day hunting down the 24 Stones of Barenziah and then finding the crown; kind of anti-climactic, but the crown is very, uh, bright and shiny anyway…).

So that’s your extremely condensed version of the weekend. I would go into more detail…but I don’t really feel that it’s too important anyway.

Made these fruit tarts last night and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out. I just made a basic cream cheese filling, but made a honey lavender glaze which I was afraid was going to taste too much like lavender. Personally though, I thought it was perfect.

fruit tarts

good things

so far —–

1) one of my customers has started buying packaging materials from me! I’m not sure if I’ve stressed just how small my accounts are, but they are all VERY SMALL. so this is kind of a big deal.

2) Anna Laura sent me a really nice email yesterday that made me feel really good. (thank you!) I should send nice emails to people more often. sometimes I get stuck in my head for long periods of time I think.

3) I hope no one reading this works for AT&T, because I recently changed my plan such that my cell phone and Uverse bill total around $100/month. this is possible because I’m still on a family plan even though I just have one phone on it; when they canceled Matt’s line, they did not cancel my plan. eh heh heh heh.

4) planning to drive down the Natchez Trace tonight to look at stars. this is the kind of thing I need to do to get out of my head more.

5) even though it shouldn’t matter as much as I let it, I do have people in my life who like me and this makes me very very glad.

Babies and Bridesmaid Dresses

Sarah is 7 today – which, granted, sounds like a long time. For whatever reason though, seven years feels pretty accurate to me. It’s been a looong time since that morning in 2007 when I woke up with cramps and had a baby 12 hours later.

blog - sarah 2007

I hope so many things for Sarah, and one of the biggest of those hopes is that she won’t ever feel rejected or unloved by me. I’m not sure how best to communicate those things to her, but she’s only seven so I think there’s time. I hope her parents put in a good word for me.

I feel like I’ve been a member of the two most popular clubs in the world, but that I somehow have relinquished my membership – or had it revoked. Which leaves me feeling more separate than otherwise since I’ve been on the inside before, but I’m not anymore. This goes for being a mother and being a wife. And it’s really annoying.

That said, I did hang out with Katie and Elliott some this weekend which served as a reminder as to why I don’t have kids. Every time I think that I maybe kinda possibly do want little human dependents running around, I just have to remember back to what it’s actually like to have small children underfoot (and your responsibility). Though when I think about Sarah, obviously she would have been a charming exception to this rule. I assume.

sarah with a moustache

Anyway. I could keep going. But. The thing about the whole situation with Sarah is that (and I’ve said this before, so apologies) I know I made a good decision. I know that she has a better life than I could have given her, and that her parents have better lives because she is in them. And that makes me feel good.

In other news. Here’s that dress for Amanda’s wedding.

dress on me

I went and got a lacy cardigan thing instead of the grey shawl (below). Cropped my face out because I had just gone hiking (before going shopping) and my hair looks horrible.

dress w lace

I’m REALLY hoping this looks ok with the rest of the dresses. I feel like it’s a tad too dressy. The other bridesmaids were ordering dresses that seemed on the “nice” side to me (I mean, it IS a wedding) so I wanted a nice dress that I actually liked. Which is why I got this one. We’ll see, I guess. Going to have to get some wedges to wear with it as the wedding it outside (no heels) and the dress is mid-calf length. Even though I’m tall, without heels, this dress makes me look pretty short and squat.

afternoon blogging

Being around lately is making me feel pretty blah. That’s kind of a gapingly broad statement so I guess I should clarify that “the norm” isn’t cutting it at the moment.

I’m thinking that my ability to do a job well has little to do with the enjoyment that I get out of doing said job. I didn’t much enjoy restaurant management – though granted, there were a few parts that I liked. I actually kind of liked customer service. I enjoy being able to help people with problems or questions, and even though I don’t particularly like talking on the phone I didn’t have a problem overcoming that in customer service. I know I’ve been griping about this sales job for a few months now, and I know that I keep saying that I’m not making any decisions about changing until I can get an idea for how much more money I’ll be making. But they don’t even know how they’re going to be evaluating the bonus situation which is EXTREMELY demotivating.

So I’ve spent an embarrassingly large amount of time today trying to find a bridesmaid dress for Amanda’s wedding (which is a week from Saturday). Did you guys know that you are really supposed to order things like bridesmaid dresses several weeks in advance because they tend to be custom-made? Ugh. I didn’t. So I found this one (below) which is just a regularly-sized dress and in stock and I paid for 3-day shipping. That way, if it doesn’t fit, I can go to the Green Hills Mall. Which is exactly what I did for Anna Laura’s wedding.

dress

If it fits, I’m sure you’ll hear about it. If it doesn’t fit, I’ll probably complain about that as well. We’ll see! I don’t know if 3-day shipping means that it’ll get here Saturday, or Monday.

OK. I’m going to stop being unproductive and start being productive. I cannot wait to get home and play Skyrim tonight though. (Got my Breton character Astrud up to a level 100 in smithing AND in enchanting last night, so going to have some fun with dual-enchanting some dragonbone stuff.)

Blech.

I have somehow waited until the absolute last day to get my emissions test and renew my tags. Oops. This is what you call “Don’t hide the registration renewal letter.” I accidentally remembered it last Friday. Thankfully, I do have time to renew them, though that doesn’t mean I won’t necessarily get pulled over until the tags come in the mail. Blech.

Had a good weekend overall, which is not why I’m writing. I’m writing because I so much prefer this over making phone calls. If I don’t get a huge bonus after this quarter, I’m going back to customer service (or finding a job working at Cheekwood – damn that would be awesome). Only a huge bonus would make up for how much I dislike my job now. On top of not liking to talk on the phone, I also feel kind of guilty trying to upsell things like Styrofoam. I know that I’m making SOME progress but it’s really hard to be motivated when I am so not motivated by things like money. I really do not like being annoying or being pushy at all, and in my experience, sales reps are almost always either annoying (nice usually, but still annoying) and pushy.

I went to Home Depot yesterday and got three different kinds of basil, and six different succulents. I now I have basil growing in my library, and succulents scattered throughout the house. They’re looking pretty cute. When Joel was staying here, several plants ended up dying because they were in the library and not getting watered, so now I’m feeling much better about my houseplants. Cleaned the kitchen/living room yesterday as well which always help me feel good.

I took a couple of pictures of my new terrariums but they look so-so (the pictures) and I’m not posting any.

In lieu of spending any money this week, I think I’m going to re-dedicate myself to exercise – whether it be hiking in the evenings, or staying home and doing DVD workouts. Much cheaper and more gratifying in the long-term to do this.

Sometimes I think I blog because I don’t want to bombard people with random and unsolicited texts. Especially at 8:30 in the morning. And the reason I’m hesitant to sent that kind of text all the time is just because if I don’t get a reply, I feel sad. So this is better since I don’t really expect replies (though they are welcome and cherished).

Anyway. So I was able to knock out the lawn and the laundry from my to-do list yesterday. Didn’t dye my hair though, which is OK. It’s not like it really looks bad. It just doesn’t look red.

This morning though, I’m realizing that since the weather has gotten hot, I’ve gained some weight. Because instead of wanting to get up on a weekend morning and go hiking, now I just want to stay in bed with the a/c on and the fan blowing directly on me. I guess it’s not all THAT hot in the mornings, always, but still. I should really get over my aversion to hot weather though, as long as it’s just going to keep getting hotter.

The thing I learned the most from my solo hiking expeditions this spring is that I can certainly turn off my brain and just get stuff done without thinking or being miserable. With hiking, all I have to do is move one leg in front of the other. With yoga, I just have to be still and breath. With cleaning the kitchen, I just have to clean the damned kitchen. So I’m sure that I could overcome this hatred that I harbor for hot weather. It’s just going to take some umph.

That said, I can’t exercise tonight anyway because I have dinner plans. And gaming plans the day after. But maybe I’ll get up Saturday morning and go to Beaman Park. Maybe before it’s too hot. I’ll just have to remember to bring a bottle of water.

To Do List

Today.

I need to…..

Mow the lawn. Each time I plan to do it, it rains. I have the worst timing.

Laundry. Towels AND clothes. I’m about to start drying off after showers with a hand towel.

Dye my hair. My drab brown roots are showing. Dyeing it will definitely make me feel better about it.

In unrelated news, hung out with my Russian friend last night and watched this movie called My Joy. It’s an apt but misleading title, as the movie is anything but joyful. I really, really liked it though.

So yeah, that’s all. Mostly I wanted to record the to-do list so that I’ll be more likely to do it all.

Summer is quite officially here.

As we all know, summer is my least favorite season, and in fact it is one of my least favorite things in general. Instead of mowing my lawn last week when I had time, I waited until Friday; unfortunately for my lawn, it rained Friday afternoon. So no lawn-mowing that day, or the rest of the weekend for that matter. Sure I could have done it at SOME point over the weekend. But……meh. My neighbor’s yard is about as bad as mine, so I’m not too worried about it yet. (If he mows today though, it’ll make my grass look about 200% higher, though.)

But really who cares about how frequently (or not) I mow the lawn?

I had a productive weekend despite my ambivalence toward lawn care. On Friday, instead of taking care of the lawn, I cleaned and re-arranged the furniture in the library. This was BY FAR the best thing I did all weekend. Joel’s stuff had been scattered all over the floor until Friday, and because clutter like that make me feel bad I was just keeping the door closed. But that made me feel bad too because I love that room!! So, since I haven’t heard from Joel in, oh, like, a while, I decided to put all his stuff into the closet and make the room usable again! OH it looks so much better. I should have taken a picture or two. Oh well.

So having that room clean motivated me to clean the rest of the house (sans garage). Did general cleaning stuff on Saturday some (while also hanging out with a friend that afternoon, then seeing Elvis Costello at the Ryman that evening), but the thing that really makes the house look clean is that I mopped the floors yesterday. This may not seem like a big deal to people who mop their floors regularly (as I believe one is supposed to do). The linoleum in my kitchen is the most stupid color ever (white) and at some point I just gave up trying to keep it white. I could not believe how filthy my mop water was yesterday after mopping it, though; nor could I believe how white the linoleum was.

Anyway! After cleaning up a couple of friends came over to hang out. Which was nice.

I’m on the up-swing socially, which just means that I’m feeling less introverted than I was a few weeks ago. I guess this makes me feel better about myself. Though other things do that too — like cleaning my house and getting exercise. (Which hasn’t been happening as often as it was before the weather got all blastedly hot.)

Here are a couple of pictures to make this entry more interesting. I find that visuals help, even though these aren’t really related to anything I’ve blabbed about yet.

1) Ryan came over with the kids last week (?) and this is a picture of Jared blowing (?) a bubble. Pretty awesomely huge bubbles.

2) Went to Brewhouse with Philip last week and took a picture of my cheese fries. Oh SO much cheesy carby goodness.

3) Did I mention that I’m in Amanda’s wedding next month? So all the bridesmaids (minus Amanda’s little sister) went out last Wednesday and this is three of the five of us. Had a great time even though I ended up leaving shortly after taking this picture. Highlight of the evening: having our tab comped at Cabana’s by Amanda’s boss, and using that as an excuse to buy this fucking awesome copper mug (embossed with “Tito’s Vodka” or something like) which is not pictured.

photo (2)

photo (3)

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