The Saturday 7

1. Well I survived another week at Once Upon. I finally got trained this week to do all the basic tasks . . . and I kept thinking I should've gotten an easier job. When I went to Meijer today, I was a little envious of the cashier who just had to scan each of my items and then push a button for me to swipe my credit card. In case you didn't know, Once Upon is a children's "consignment" store. I don't think it's truly consignment, because we straight up buy the clothes from customers and then resell them. Newbies like me don't have much to do with the buying part. But I had to learn how to put the clothes on hangers (each size and style has certain specifications: small hangers for size 0-4, larger for bigger. Clip the legs up on the hanger for pants of a certain size and pajamas of a certain size. Leave them long for other sizes. Make sure the hangers are pointing the right direction. Clip the pants sideways on the small pants, but shorts of all sizes are clipped the same way. Except some of them go on large clear hangers, and some of them go on small white hangers. It's different for certain sizes and between boys/girls.) Then I had to learn how to hang the clothes on the rack behind the counter. In size order, but also in order of tank tops, t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, shorts/skirts, pants, one pieces, two pieces, dresses. And then by color order within each section. White, pink, red, orange, green, blue, purple, tan/brown, grey, black. Most newbies also have to learn how to "ticket," which is just applying the price tag, but it, too, has some specifications that must be met. I knew how to do that already, because I've done it with Niki before. I felt pretty good about my ability to do all that after two 5-hour shifts this week. But then on Friday, they threw in the register. And that has been the hardest yet. At least when I make mistakes with the hanging, someone will notice and fix it . . . or it goes to the floor messed up, which annoys the backstock manager (Niki), but isn't a huge deal. On the register I have to deal with actual customers and actual money. And it's the most complicated part yet! Nothing like my days of running the register at Dollar N' More. Then, I typed in the price and the category. Hit subtotal. Take money. Make change. At Once Upon, I have to type in my personal passcode, separate the clearance from the regular priced merchandise, scan each clearance barcode, press a certain button to pull up the discount window, apply discounts. Scan the rest of the merchandise. Ask if the customer is a part of our rewards program. Try to hear them tell me their phone number and type it in correctly. Then type it in again on another screen for some inexplicable reason. See if they have any more discounts and attempt to apply them. Get back to the main screen, choose cash or credit, type in the amount correctly. Make change if necessary. That doesn't even begin to touch what I do if a customer comes in to pick up the items they gave us to sell. Seriously, it's all so complicated and I'm feeling a wee bit overwhelmed. But I just keep telling myself what I've said from the beginning - if all these teeny boppers can figure it out, so can I. And the only way to get better is by practicing!

2. The worst part about working at Once Upon, though, is that it hurts my back so bad. The first couple of weeks, I was doing projects for Niki that allowed me to sit down once in a while. But this week I worked my entire shift on my feet, and it's torture on my back. My feet hold up better than I expected them to, which makes me think my shoes are doing their job, but I don't know what to do about my back. I've been icing it every night when I get home, and keep hoping that it'll get used to the new abuse, but I'm not feeling very optimistic.

3. Ok, enough about work. This week was unseasonably cool, so we didn't do much swimming. I did a lot of soccer camp prep, we played with cousins at Niki's a couple times, and we all signed up for the summer reading program, so we've been reading a lot to rack up points. Lena has been really into Judy Moody, I've been forcing Levi to read some easy readers - mostly about monster trucks and Hot Wheels cars, and I read another 5-star book: When the Day Comes by Gabrielle Meyer. It's such a refreshing premise for Christian fiction, and it was done so well.

4. I went into that book blind, knowing only that everyone who reads it loves it (in my facebook reading groups). I was happily surprised to see that part of it is set at the beginning of WWI. I've been re-watching Downton Abbey, so it was easy to picture the dresses and the dinners and the "manor life." I realized that despite my love for the series, I never actually watched the Downton movie, and then I heard a rumor that there's going to be another TV series, so I decided to re-watch the whole thing. I first watched it while I was on maternity leave after having Lucy, and the theme song immediately brings me back to my couch in the Cedar Springs house and little newborn Lucy. It's bittersweet for sure!

5. Yesterday, our neighbors across the street had a garage sale. As we were walking over to it, Levi said, "I already know what I want to buy." I knew exactly what he was talking about: a Power Wheels vehicle, and I told him, "No way, Jose." He continued to argue that he wanted it, and I said, "It's going to be way too expensive." Somewhat jokingly, I added, "If it's $5 or less I'll buy it for you." Levi marched right up to that vehicle, took one look at the sign, then shouted back to me triumphantly, "It's $5!" 🤦 At that point, I was sure it didn't work, but our neighbors assured us that it worked fine and held a charge. Their son just never used it and they wanted it out of their garage! I actually couldn't believe how cheaply they had priced everything. We got a slip n' slide for $1, brand new-in the plastic frames for ten cents each, and barely worn Nike, Adidas, and Sperry shoes for 50 cents each! Levi has been in his glories, cruising the neighborhood in his new truck. Nova has a super nice one that Levi is always so envious of, but I never thought he'd be able to have one of his own . . . He doesn't care that it's old and janky. It runs and he loves it.

6. My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in 2021, and we had big plans to go on a family vacation together. But we could never find a date that worked for everyone, we couldn't find a place we all liked, and a bunch of us weren't in the position to spend a lot of money, so it kind of fell to the way-side. But my sisters and I have still been talking about it, and we've gotten serious in the past couple of weeks about making it happen. This week, we booked an amazing house in Florida for January of next year!! It's still up in the air whether everyone will be able to come, but the house is big enough to handle all 27 of us, and we're praying it will work out for us all to be together. I'm sooo excited, but I made the mistake of telling my kids about it - and showing them pictures of the house we're staying in. Levi especially is beside himself with excitement. He keeps saying, "How am I going to wait 7 months? Why did you tell me about it already?!" Lol. As much as I'm looking forward to it, I'm not in a hurry to wish away summer. I feel like it's already going too quickly and I want to cling to every sunny, warm day we have!

7. Only one pic and a couple of memes this week.