Take That Time and Appreciate

Today I e-mailed an old teacher to tell her about my job’s Teacher Appreciation Day.

I’m so excited about this one!  My seventh grade Social Studies teacher is one of my favorite people of all time, so it delights me when she come into my job to shop for school supplies.  She still remembers me after all these years and I just love her, always will.  My job had penny sales recently, so I tried to let her know about those whenever I saw her, but I definitely wanted her to know about Teacher Appreciation Day too.  Just in case she doesn’t come in before then, I tracked down her e-mail address and sent her the details.  This is definitely one of my favorite activities of this project so far, just because I adore her so much.  It makes me really excited to do something for her, so hopefully she checks her school e-mail over the summer!

Edit: She replied and told me I’m the best! Eee!!

Call It a Loan

I’m writing today’s a day late and backdating it, ain’t I fancy!  Today I helped my mom figure out student loan business.  My parents take out their own loan to help cover most of my college tuition, and my school changed some of their requirements for it this year.  It was just paperwork junk, but neither of us really knew what to do, so we worked together on it a little bit.

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I was awake for a whopping nine hours yesterday, so sadly this is basically the only thing I accomplished at all.

Cover Up

Today I swapped hours with a co-worker.  One of the girls I work with couldn’t work three of her scheduled days next week, so I happily flopped schedules with her.  I have nothing else going on, so I never mind working for other people.  We also swapped some shifts for next weekend since I asked for the days off and never got anything back: no approval, no rejection.  We’re going to Myrtle Beach, so right now I have Friday and Saturday off.  Hopefully once the Sunday schedule comes out, I won’t be on it and won’t need to switch anything else!  That would be pretty perfect.  (So it won’t happen, natch.)

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On weekdays I only work in the afternoon and evening, since I don’t have a car and need a ride back and forth.  My mom drives me over once she’s out of work, when the car is free.  I was able to arrange a ride for this morning so I could cover my friend’s shift though, and it actually worked out really well!  I like working in the mornings because it feels like it goes by faster, and the day went as well as it possibly could.  We’re supposed to average one rewards card application per hour, so since I worked seven and a half hours, I needed about eight applications.  I got 16 on my own, 20 total after co-workers added a few.  There’s talk of moving me to the morning shift for my next two weeks before fall semester starts up again — rides are being arranged, and it would be more hours, more money.  Can’t beat that!  I’m not a morning person but it would probably be a good routine.  I’m taking a 9 AM class this semester (woe) and getting up is going to be killer, so this is probably a very good thing for my lazy ass.

Dry Spell

Today I took my mom’s laundry out of the dryer.  I know that’s really dull, but she was having drinks outside and having a good time, so I took care of it so she didn’t need to come inside.  I also helped her make cucumber salad as a side dish for dinner, nom nom nom!

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Anna, a fellow Kiva donator and one of my favorite people in the world, has a new blog! She’s chronicling her time as an English teacher in Japan and I think that’s really exciting. Anna and I have been friends for six years, and we have one of those great friendships where it’s okay if you fall out of touch for a little while because you can always pick things back up ASAP. Even though she’s going to be even farther away than she already was and we’ll totally NEVER MEET UP AGAIN, she’s the best and I’m so looking forward to her blog!

Smile Like You Mean It

Today I complimented, complimented, complimented.  I like doing this because people usually brighten up over it pretty immediately, and that’s a fun thing.  It’s pretty effective when you’re working retail too, let’s be honest!  I told people I liked their shirts, their dresses, their rings, etc.  It was all true, and people usually don’t offer up things like that, at least in my experience.

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Big love to Bri for telling me the blog inspired her to buy lunch for her pregnant co-worker!  That is so nice, I love it!

Rack ‘Em Up

Today I rounded up carts in the Target parking lot.  There were a couple of carts abandoned near the handicapped parking spaces, even though there was a cart corral pretty close by.  It’s so freaking rude when people leave them out like that, and even though they hire people specifically to put them away at Target, it still must be annoying to trek all over the parking lot for stray ones.  So I grabbed the ones nearby and put them away for the cart collector!

Bummed

I honestly don’t know if I did anything nice for anyone today, and that’s one of the many many things I’ve cried about tonight.

I guess I built today up to be so great, nothing could actually compare to it.  I went to this salon that had amazing reviews, and I told the girl I wanted a bob and more blonde highlights.  The cut looks great, and the color is nice but not really on me.  As it was drying, I was squinting at the color without my glasses on and I was like, “Huh, that looks pretty brown.  Like, really brown.”   Then she told me she added lowlights, which I didn’t know about, and that’s okay because I gave her a lot of freedom on this.  It just feels really brown.  It’s a nice brown, a nice auburny kind of color, but it’s brown.  It looks muted and for the $120 I spent on it, I don’t love it.  I tipped her $20 and I don’t think that was enough, but I don’t love it and I don’t know.  This is petty but I’ve cried over it a lot.  I feel bad for screwing her, but I’m bummed about the color.  Hair grows back and whatever, it’s not that, it’s just a lot of money for something I don’t love yet.  I don’t know.

It’s been a long day.

Dolla Dolla Bills

Today I sent someone coupons for my job. At my workplace, you can recycle ink cartridges for $3 each if you’re a rewards card member. Whenever someone wants to turn one in and decides to forfeit the rewards money, I pretty much get to decide what to do with those cartridges. My theory is that they shouldn’t go to waste! Today I had to assign two unclaimed cartridges. Usually I give the excess to my friend Dorina, but since she’s out of town for a month and I didn’t know when the coupons would be sent out, I gave them to the next name I thought to search for in our rewards system: Amy Poehler’s mom. She’s a teacher so maybe her class can use $6 in My Workplace money!

Hang Time

Today I met up with a friend from middle school and high school. This doesn’t count as a literal good deed — I’m totally not saying hanging out with her was charity! I’ve known Katie for ten years now, and even though we go to college together now, we see each other maybe every six months. We lived in the same freaking apartment complex this year and still saw each other about that often. She asked me last night if I wanted to hang out today and usually I’m pretty anti-social, but I said yes and we had a really fun time today. Maybe this is a good deed for myself? I don’t know but it was just a lot of fun, we had lunch and went to Target, and we shopped for underwear and sleepy pants. I don’t ever do those kinds of things, so it was really nice.

I’m happy today and it’s a really good feeling!

Give the World a Coke

Today I took my mom out for a Vanilla Coke, which is more significant than it sounds, honest.  One of the best soda places in our area is Circus, this super dirty little fast food hole.  You try hard not to think about how nasty it is.  Their french fries and flavored Cokes are amazing.  She took me around to look for a couple of hair salons, so she deserved a treat.