Earlier this year the company I work for was acquired by a larger company. As well as relocating our offices to another city, we’re also bringing on a lot more people. That means a lot of training, and thus a huge overhaul of our training methods. The company that acquired us had previously sold a competing product, but they’ve still provided us with their 102-page training manual they’d like us to replicate for our new training program.

And I mean they literally gave us a 102-page training manual. Not a file, that binder full of paper there to the left, complete with ridiculous amounts of handwritten notes on the back and margins of nearly every page. The first thirty pages or so are mostly useless because they’re an introduction to their company and the previous product, so we have to rewrite that completely to apply to our company and our product. The rest is general sales training and technique that we’ll most likely base most of our training on. However, it still all needs to be typed and formatted. So you know, it’s kind of like writing a novel, except that in place of interesting characters and adventures you have dry material about equipment and pricing and legal disclosures.

Oh, and when I say “we” need to do all of this, I mean me. My aunt – who is also my boss, and that situation works out better than most because we’re very similar and get along far too well for our own good – brought this thing to me on Monday with the instructions to, “You know, type it up and stuff.”

At first I was all:

Then I was all:

But of course I’m working on it, because that’s what we do when we have jobs.
My first day with this binder from the bowels of Hell:

Second day:

Now, on my third day, after I’ve made some pretty decent progress, but I still have a huge amount ahead of me:

Personal

.gifs, Life, Work

So it’s been awhile since I posted anything, and even longer since I posted about what’s going on in my life. In regards to the former that’s because we’ve been getting over a mini-plague in our house. Logan is like a little germ incubator. He picks them up everywhere he goes and then they mutate inside of him into virulent monster strains that attack the rest of the family. As for the latter, well I really don’t do much with my life these days. Making the move to working from home seemed like the best idea ever when it came to helping Logan with his developmental delays, but working from home is a weird kind of limbo. Soon you forget what it’s like to have a reason to wake up and get your ass out of the house every day and all of the things you do when you’re out of the house all day. Like conversations with adults that don’t revolve around your children¹ and not getting sucked into growing and raising crops and livestock on a virtual farm². Everything just blends together, and juggling work deadlines while staying on top of the ever growing mountain of laundry is a feat not even those bendy people from Cirque du Soleil could manage with ease. But I digress, so let’s talk about all of the nothing we’ve done in the last few weeks.

We went to Sweet Frog. I love froyo (frozen yogurt) and there’s a Sweet Frog opening in the shopping center closest to our house, right next to the Harris Teeter where we do the majority of our shopping and the Bank of America where we do the majority of our banking. In other words, it’s very convenient. However, it’s still not open and I’ve had a $25 gift card since Valentine’s Day I’ve been itching to use. We looked up the next closest location and it was down in Woodbridge, rather close to the IKEA, so we went down to Woodbridge one Sunday a few weeks ago. After picking up a few random things from IKEA³ we headed over to the Sweet Frog, only to discover it was also not yet open. Great. So we drove up to the next closest location (which we called to make sure it was in fact open) in Chantilly and had some yummy froyo.

We all had a great time at Sweet Frog. I got chocolate froyo with peanut butter cups and peanut butter sauce. Logan had plain chocolate and Claire picked vanilla with gummy bears. Andrew got some dulce de leche froyo with assorted toppings. He was definitely excite about the dulce de leche. One of the greatest injustices he ever faced happened a few months ago when we were ordering Girl Scout cookies from my cousin’s daughter and there were no Dulce de Leche cookies available. The horror!

We’ve had some warm weather lately and that’s been a lot of fun, the ridiculous amount of pollen coming off the trees in our yard is not. We’re taking the cars through the car washes pretty much every week these days, but thankfully there’s a green car wash that uses ecofriendly cleaners and recycled water right by us. The kids are iffish about the car wash, sometimes it’s exciting and sometimes it’s horrifying. In an effort to help them get over their occasional fear of the car wash I decided to have them wash their bikes/trucks. They really needed it, so rather just having Andrew hose them down I took a bucket of warm soapy water and some big sponges out into the yard for the kids to do it themselves.

Besides random other things I plan to blog about⁴, life has been pretty ho hum here recently. We’re still getting used to the transition from seeing Logan’s speech therapist biweekly to seeing his new infant educator weekly. Andrew’s work hours have picked up, including a hellacious week in April when temps suddenly spiked up to 90° and he was literally gone from 5 am to midnight Monday through Saturday. He worked 80 hours that week, 140 hours in total on that paycheck. Not bad, even though the IRS took 40% of it. Now that the temperatures have cooled again his hours have leveled out, but once summer is upon us it will be back to the crazy long hours and weekend work. Oh well, at least he’s working. Here’s to a hopefully sick free week!

1. Well, at least some conversations don’t revolve around your children. [↩]
2. Curse you Farmville 2 and your adorable baby rabbits! [↩]
3. Fabric for some projects I’d like to do soon, a few kitchen toys the kids picked out, some picture frames, and of course a few bags of meatballs. [↩]
4. May Julep Maven box was fantabulous! Nicole Knepper’s hilarious Moms Who Drink and Swear book! The MMORPG Rift that I got a free two-month sub to from Raptr, which has been surprisingly fun and entertaining. [↩]

Family

Andrew, Books, Claire, Family, general, Life, Logan, Rift, Sweet Frog, Video Games

Memes

blooms, flowers, photo, Photography, Pink, Wordless Wednesday

Have you ever just had one of those days where you felt like you could leave it all behind? Just pack the kids up, get in the car, and head to the nearest airport. We’ll figure out where we’re going and what we’ll do when we get there. I did some traveling when I was young, but I think traveling is one of those things you just can’t do too much, and I’d love to expose the kids to the cultures and people of the world with international travel.

So far they’ve really only visited neighboring states. Up to Delaware to stay at Rehoboth Beach; in Maryland to visit various places on the Chesapeake Bay; through the landscapes of West Virginia to visit friends Andrew and I made out there while in school, and also just because I love the beautiful scenery; in North Carolina to visit Andrew’s father’s extended family while at the lake house on Lake Gaston, also to see my older sister in Durham, and our traditional summer trip to The Outer Banks. We haven’t strayed too far from Virginia, though we have romped all about the state from the southwest to the north, and I honestly just can’t wait until they’re a little older and I can start dragging them farther from home. I’ve mentioned before I need to get Andrew and the kids out to California to visit my mom and family, and of course a visit to Washington state is in order while my twin sister is stationed near Seattle.

If I really had my way I’d love to take the kids to Europe, specifically Austria. Austria is one of those countries that just fascinate me. From the culture to the Alps, I could visit again and again and always be ready to go again. Vienna, the capital of Austria, is an amazing city that would probably take a lifetime to explore, and I think even then you’d still find something new to learn. At least finding affordable accommodation online is a cinch. From palatial to cozy, hotels and lodging in Vienna are available to fit your needs and budget. Hey, since it’s that easy I’m even more tempted to just book a flight and some rooms and get away from the everyday!

Trips

Austria, Travel, Vacation, Vienna

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the Own Nighttime Lip Therapy Review & Lululemon $100 Gift Card Giveaway! I was very impressed with how many entered, and I’m so glad so many people found out about how AH-mazing Own is! So without further ado, the winner of the $100 Lululemon gift card is…

I’ll be dropping your gift card in the mail ASAP Janine! Hope you get to try the Own Anti-Aging Firming Silk Concentrate and enjoy a fab shopping trip to Lululemon!

Thanks again to everyone who entered! I’d love to host another giveaway soon, so drop me a comment and let me know what you’d love to win. Gift cards? Kids’ products? Health and beauty items? There are tons of things I’d love to spotlight here, so give me some ideas on what you’d love to get!

Giveaways

gift card, giveaway, Lululemon, OWN, winner