Domestic Geek

TODAY WAS MY LAST DAY EVER OF WORKING PIZZA!!!!!!!

I must admit I got a little misty-eyed as I laid my key and uniform on the desk and closed the backdoor as I left. Not because I was going to miss it, but because I was so proud of myself for finally letting go of it. Whatever purpose punishing myself with that job served, I didn't need it any more. Someone said to me the other day that I seemed a lot more confident since I got my design job and gave my notice to quit pizza. I asked Marcus if he got that impression of me also and he said that he did. Yay!!!! I hope this is the first of many positive changes that I'll be making in my life this year.

Marcus and I celebrated my last day by having an evening out together (since I don't have to get up before the butt crack of dawn anymore!). We started out by trying a beverage at Caribou Coffee. Somebody at his work gave him free drink coupons. Unfortunatley, they could only be used at the one that is out on E-470 and Smoky Hill Rd. Quite a trip from where we live! The web site says there is one at Iliff/Peoria. At least Marcus can use his gift card that he was given for Christmas there until they open the one on the corner of Potomac and Colfax this spring (along with a Chipotle). There was a little fake fireplace there that Marcus and I sat by and sipped our drinks. Very charming. The snowflakes on their cups were made of little caribous and antlers. Adorable! It was nice to actually have some deep conversation with him. It's been awhile. Then we had dinner at Qdoba and ended up looking at books at Barnes & Noble. He bought me a little book on CSS. Awwww. You know we're a geek couple. Then we watched British and American episodes of "The Office" and now I have to go to bed. It's almost 10:00, people!

I've made it through the first three books of The Chronicles of Narnia so far. I read this third one this afternoon. I also watched the last quarter of the Steelers/Colts game. I wanted to know who the Broncos were going to face next weekend after they embarassed the Patriots last night. If the Steelers won, Broncos get home field. If the Colts won, Broncos have to play at Indianapolis. I couldn't believe the end of the game, though. A minute and a half to go, Steelers are ahead, they start celebrating too early, they have the ball, Jerome Bettis fumbles, Colts get within field goal range to tie to go into OT and the kicker kicks wide to the right. Phew.

Anyhoo, it's going to take a few days to adjust to my new schedule. I'm sure my body is going to bolt awake at 3am thinking I had overslept. I napped when I got home from work, but I'm so tired still. It will be nice to actually get things done on the weekend because I won't be so freaking worn out. Now that pizza is over with, I can work on many of my goals that I have for this year. The first is a major redesign of my web sites.

OK, I'm off to bed--for a full 8-hours of SLEEP!

So, is it insane that I wouldn't go to bed last night until after 10:30 because if I never go to sleep, tomorrow never comes and I don't have to get up to make dough? Stupid move on my part. I was tired anyway, but for some reason, I could not make myself get in my jammies and get into bed. *sigh* Marcus finally made me go to bed. Of course, when the alarm was supposed to go off at 2:30, there was no way in hell I was going to get up. I think I set the alarm for around 3:30 and made it to work by 4:30. I'm slacking bad, too. I kept going outside to smell the smoke from the fire in Jefferson County. It sad that this dry winter is making the area so fire-prone, but burning pine is my favorite smell in the whole world. I paid dearly for my lack of sleep at the design job today. I couldn't concentrate at all. I did manage to finish an ad, but only one. Well, after a better night's sleep tonight, I should fare better tomorrow.

I was playing with my boss' dog today. She opens the door to the office somehow and comes tearing through the building almost on a daily basis. I chased her outside to go play with her and we ran smack into a grazing deer. Well, not into it exactly, but it was less than 3 feet away from me. That was so cool. I need to charge my camera batteries and get some pictures. There are some really cute black squirrels that run around there that I'd like pictures of, too. It's a good thing they gave me the desk that doesn't face the window, or I'd never get any work done! LOL

Damn, I'm doing it again. No more rambling...I'm off to bed.

One more week and I shall never work in pizza again. While that is terribly exciting, I am totally exhausted.

The walk-in didn't get fixed until almost 2pm on Saturday, so I worked from 2–5pm. I spent today doing catch up—15 batches and I'm still not done. Hopefully, I'll get caught up tomorrow. If I don't, I really don't care! Once again, a little routine maintenance of cleaning the flour dust and crap off and there wouldn't have been a problem. Morons. What's even more stupid is they noticed that the dough was proofing faster and nobody bothered to mention anything about it to me. They just assumed I had changed the way I was making dough. I always leave notes when I do anything out of the ordinary! Losers. Now the walk-in door isn't closing properly. Oh, well. Soon it won't be my problem anymore.

They've hired my replacement. The poor guy is only going to be making $8.50/hr (that's less than half of what I was making) and they're heaping ALL of the prep work, including cleaning, on him. They also expect him to be the 2nd insider during the day (he'll have to answer phones and make pizzas) and get all the prep done in 4 hours. HA! They are keeping it a 7-day-a-week job, as well. I don't know how they expect the poor guy to get two days' worth of dough done to take a day off when they're giving him all that extra crap to do. Oh, well—not my problem, right?

It'll be nice not to waste my weekends sleeping. That's what I did today—caught up my sleep. I had planned on going biking today, but the wind was blowing something fierce when I got off work. I will also get to cook dinner for Marcus every night. I miss cooking on a regular basis. I haven't made many meals in the last year because it was time to go to bed when Marcus got home from work. I'll be home an hour to and hour and a half before he gets home every night. Yay!!!!! Maybe I can keep up on my housework, too. I am so looking forward to having a "normal" schedule. It's been a really, really long time since I had only an 8–5 type of job. I know I plan on doing some freelance work to bring in some extra cash, but that won't be an everyday-have-to-do-it-now type of job.

Today I read the first book in The Chronicles of Narnia that I received for Christmas. I thought I had read those when I was in elementary school, but apparently not. I didn't remember the story at all. Maybe I saw a movie or something when I was younger. I want to finish the books before I see the movie. Since I'll wait until it comes out on DVD, I'll probably make it!

I put a CD up for sale on eBay and this Highlands Ranch bitch won my auction on December 31, but hasn't paid for it. I was worried when her feedback was only a 1 and she had a negative. Turns out she bought the same CD from somebody else before my auction even ended. She didn't have the class to retract her bid from my auction or even email me when I invoiced her that she had no intent to pay because she had bought one already. I sent another email explicitly asking her to inform me if she had no intent to pay so that I could relist then instead of waiting the 10 days I stipulated in my auction and she is totally ignoring me. I am so mad. Now I have to do the whole non-paying bidder, give her negative feedback and hope she doesn't retaliate and ruin my perfect 100% feedback score. I can't even do a 2nd chance offer to the other bidder, because he also bought the CD already. Why do some people have absolutely no class?

Did you guys see The Office on Thursday? I laughed my ass off when Dwight found his stuff in the vending machine. Then the alcoholic chick (Meredith?) had her shirt off AGAIN. Too funny. Man, I LOVE THAT SHOW.

I think Starting Over is new tomorrow. This season is not really growing on me. Allison is bugging the crap out of me. You'd think as long as she's been there, she'd have gotten it by now. I guess not. Oh, well. Supposedly she "graduates" tomorrow and maybe they'll get somebody on there that will make some progress. Thank goodness for PVRs or I'd have totally dumped that show this year.

Looks like the Denver Broncos will be playing the New England Patriots this Saturday for the first playoff game at Invesco Field. GO BRONCOS! I hope people order a lot of pizza and make my last paycheck respectable.

OK, I'm going to wrap this up and go watch an episode of the british The Office before heading off to bed. Since I probably won't have time to write, I hope everybody has an awesome week.

That was a colossal waste of time.

I went to work at the pizza place, opened the walk-in door to see if one of the food orders had arrived (he had placed two-jerk!) and felt no change in air temperature. Bad thing. The thermometer on the cheese rack read 56°F and the temperature in the store was about 62°F. Since it's supposed to be less than 40°F (I don't remember the exact temperature), there was no way I was going to waste my time making dough that will proof too fast and end up getting thrown out anyway. So, I cut some peppers, shot the breeze with one of the food service drivers that I hadn't seen since the end of October, weighed out the sugar/salt cups for tomorrow, then came home. So now I get stuck doing two days dough tomorrow, but not being able to get the full day off afterwards. That sucks. I'm glad that there is only 9 days of this bullcrap left.

On a brighter note, the new job seems to be going well. I don't feel like I made a huge mistake yet. That's a good thing. It will be even better when I'm not a walking zombie because I had been up since 2am doing pizza dough job. I can't wait for the 16th. I am jealous of the company's owner. He's got a lot of money and likes to spend it. I hope eventually he spends it on me (lol). Seriously, the dude has this huge house in the mountians, a separate building to house our offices, a Hummer, a huge camper, dirt bikes for the whole family, a hot tub on the back deck, a basketball court.....and I haven't even seen the inside of the house yet. I have a brand new iMac that was purchased just for me to work on. There's a T1 line. I keep forgetting to take my camera to snap some pictures. I hope this works out because the work environment is really nice.

Marcus found out a couple of days ago that the owner of our mobile home park is selling. That's opening up a whole new can of worries. Do we have to find our home a new spot? Are they going to raise lot rents even more than the ridicuous amount they already are? Are the new owners going to be @ssholes and nitpick every little rule infraction? Are they going to harrass everybody until we get fed up and leave so they sell this land for huge profits because of the Fitzsimons redevelopment? Do they plan on filling all the empty spots with really low class, trashy people? I hate that kind of limbo. Feeling a little unsettled at the moment. Grrrrr.

It's MacDude's (otherwise known as Marcus) birthday today! Go wish him a happy one. He's off of work today and I won't be around, so you know he'll be on the computer all day long!

OK, must go take a shower and get ready to go to my REAL JOB!!!!

Today was a long-assed day, but I'm feeling good.

Only 13 more days of pizza and I still have no regrets about giving notice...front door is still broken, dough bowl was filthy, dough trays stacked higher than I could safely get down, something smelled dead in the walk-in and made me gag. Yep, not gonna miss that place at all. I am going to miss one thing, though. Listening to Rick Barber. I won't miss it enough to get up early to hear him or Coast to Coast AM, though. Oh, well.

I really want to post something significant, but I'm pooped. Sorry. Maybe on Saturday...