New Beginnings

So my 72 year old Dad is getting married.

I am really happy for him. He is marrying a woman that our family has known for years. She lived in our neighborhood growing up. She and her husband were my parents best friends for a long time. They would go camping and do other things together.

Once the decision was made, they decided to get married quickly. Next month. I guess when you are in your 70's and have known each other for over 20 years, why wait? I told my dad he moves pretty quick for an old guy!

Although I am really happy for my Dad, I had to do some fresh crying over my mom. The two things aren't really related, it just made me think about the reason that my dad is able to get married again. She has been gone for 5 years now. I can't believe it has been that long.

I'm happy they will be together and will be able to keep each other from being lonely.

Here's to new beginnings. Cheers Dad!

Your name is Count what?

What is the fascination with vampires? I don't know.

I loved reading the new Twilight series and am really liking the new Moonlight series on TV. They picked a great guy to play this vampire. My daughter says he is exactly how she pictured Edward Cullen from Twilight. My hubby likes the Blade movies, although mostly for the martial arts that Wesley Snipes does.

Vampires are intriguing. The thought of being strong, agile, beautiful, and eternal. Very appealing. The whole drinking blood thing, not so much.

Here is a vampire from the past. I saw this, along with Boo Berry and Frankenberry at the grocery store. I didn't think they even sold this stuff any more. We never ate this as kids. We were Cheerios and Wheaties kids, but I remember the commercials. He is pretty goofy as vampires go. You can even dress up as Count Chocula. This is not the attractive and appealing image that I think of when reading about Edward or Carlisle though.

If you remember The Electric Company, from the 70's, there is a great vampire sketch with Morgan Freeman. Picture him in a casket full of bubble bath, holding a bath brush. He sings a song called "I love to take a bath in a casket". We watched a reunion show, with our girls, where they played it. Our girls thought it was so funny. We occasionally hear it sung in our house now.

I prefer showers. Although I do like a good soak every now and then. Mainly in the hot tub. I wouldn't like taking a bath in a coffin. I think I would be too afraid of the lid closing on me. Just a tad claustrophobic.

Look into the Crystal Ball!

Ok, so I don't believe in that sort of stuff, but was at a friend's blog and she pointed me to The Amazing Death Predictor.

My death prediction was so amazing, I had to share it.

At age 90 you will fall from the fifth floor window of a hotel
while under the influence of Robitussin DM.

What do you have to look forward to?

Everybody's working ON the weekend!

Today was my big payroll day. The day I get timecards turned in and compile everything for paychecks. On this day, nothing else but payroll gets done.

When I started this job in January, I was doing just accounts payable (paying bills) and payroll. Now I am the Accounting Office Manager too. We have increased the number of people in our company (my department has doubled from 6 to 11 with one open position) and we have added contractors in to the mix. Not only that, but contractor payroll has just moved to weekly instead of twice a month like everyone in house.

My work load feels like it has doubled along with my department. We aren't, however, at the point where I need a new full time payroll person, so I still do it.

We have weekly team meeting and I just finished having one on one's with everyone in my department. I just finished creating job descriptions for everyone in the department and turned them in to HR. That is the part of my job that I love. The people part.

I worked 108 hours these last two weeks. (nope, salary, no overtime) Yes, I went in on both Saturdays to do some catch up. The interesting thing is even with all that time, I am still behind. I feel like I get caught up, just in time for payroll, to get behind again.

There is a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel though. I hired a couple of new people in my department and once they are trained and take work off of another guy in the department, he will take over some "accounting" stuff that I am doing. Hallelujah!! That would be the least favorite part of my job. Bank statements. Ugh!

Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I love my department and have an awesome boss. I am just crazy busy right now.

This Saturday, I have a massage scheduled. No work for me this weekend. I think I am ready for a little relaxation.

It's official!

I'm a slacker. According to my brother anyway. It has been a lonnng time since I have posted. My daughter is threatening to take away my privileges.
I figured out why I haven't been posting though. It isn't that things have been dull and boring.

(I got a promotion at work, we have been to several more concerts I could tell you about, daughter turned 16, kids are back in school, husband put up the mother of all radio towers in the back yard)

It isn't that there isn't anything to post about. The problem is that when I spend 8-10 hours in front of the computer at work, just about the last thing I want to do when I get home, is sit in front of the computer again.
So, I need to figure out a better blogging schedule, because I do miss it.

I wonder it misuse of company time and all that applies to blogging??

Clapton - 'nuf said!

Thursday night our family went to see Eric Clapton in concert.

Talk about an awesome concert. Robert Cray opened up for him, playing about 40 minutes. We waited about 20 minutes for them to re-work the stage and then Clapton came on. He played for 2 hours. He did a lot of songs from his Cream days and ended with some of his bigger hits. Layla, my favorite Clapton song, was awesome! He even did an "unplugged" segment in the middle of the concert. He ended with "Cocaine" and everyone was yelling it out with him.

The guys in his band were awesome too and I thought it was really neat how he allowed each of them to get some front time and some recognition. Real talent on that stage.

Besides having a wonderful time with the concert, we had a great "anti-drinking" learning experience for our girls. The beer was flowing that night. The guy behind us was drunk before the concert even started. At one point in the concert he wanted to start stomping his feet, so he went out to the stairs (we were aisle seats) folded his hands out in front of himself and started doing that Russian sort of kicking dance. His poor girlfriend was so embarrassed the whole night.

There was a girl the next section over and a couple of rows down basically having her own little rave. During "Wonderful Tonight" she looked like she was going for the "big-O".

Since beer was flowing, it was being spilled a little, and being drunk all around us. My girls, who aren't used to it, were getting a little nauseous from the overabundance of beer aroma. I happened to have a purse sized Shalimar and spritzed a little on them to smell. After I spritzed them I said "remember this when someone tries to get you to drink!"

The people sitting next to us on the row, two couples in their 40's and 50's were having a grand old time too. They went for beer refills several times during the concert. During the last two songs one of the guys was up, just dancin' and swingin' his arms. He turned and looked at those of us who happened to be sitting and yelled "What's wrong with you people!" My family all thought "We aren't drunk!"

Anyway, a good time was had by all (some a little more than others) and we were able to expose our girls to some great music, some different experiences and had a fun family outing.

Some things I've learned

As you know, I recently started a new job, hence, my lack of posting. Things have been going well and I really like my job. I have great people to work with and I have learned a ton of things. I would like to share a little of the wisdom I have gained so far.

1. Don't be afraid to ask for help.
2. Take good notes.
   
3. Thank God for back ups!
4. The IT Guy is your friend!
5. iPods are great when the country station gets turned on at work.
6. Good friends are priceless!

Now to elaborate just a tad on these things.

1 & 2. I was hired to do something I have never done before. A/P and Payroll. I had 3 weeks, with the person who was going to train me, to learn everything I needed to know to do my job successfully. Thank heavens she was patient with me. I definitely asked for help, asked a ton of questions, and took a ton of notes. I still refer to them. - I even bought a cute notebook to put them in. May as well have fun while you are doing it!

3. Someone wanted to know how much personal time they had. They happened to call while I was in the middle of working on a report and finishing payroll. Since I am so good at multitasking I decided to pull up the spreadsheet and tell her quickly. Best to get it done now. Well, when I clicked ok to open the spreadsheet, up came a blank page. Huh? I closed Excel and reopened the file. Blank spreadsheet. Then it started to dawn on me and panic set in. I thought "Don't tell me I just did what I think I just did!" Instead of clicking on the "open" icon I had clicked on the "save" icon and saved a blank spreadsheet over the personal time spreadsheet. OOPS!!

4. My friend the IT Guy, having nightly back ups, saved me from my own stupid self.

5. I love the people I work with. Really great people. Generally we have on a generic radio station that doesn't offend any one and plays pretty lame music that you can listen to in an office. Occasionally though, the country music station gets turned on. Other than rap (ugh) about the only type of music I can't stand is Country (in all it's varied forms). So, when that station comes on, I get out the iPod. My coworkers check on me to see if I am doing ok. "Yep," I say, "I have my iPod earphone in. I am doing alright!"

5. Now that I am working full time, I rely heavily on my good friends. They take my girls to and from school. One does it full time, but when she can't, I call on other good friends to fill in. I tell them how much I appreciate them doing this for me, but they probably can't fathom how important it is to me. They are taking precious cargo (what a way to talk about my kids, eh!). It is such a stress relief to know that my girls are safe and taken care of on their way to and from school.

All in all, my new job has been a huge learning experience, a lot of fun, a huge lifestyle change, but fairly uneventful (except for #3).
I am really enjoying going back to work. Now if I can just justify the cost of a maid, life would be bliss!

Tags: new job, iPod, IT Guy, friends, Domestic Goddess, blog

Change - the only thing that stays the same.

Well, it has been a while since my last post. First off, thanks to everyone who contacted me to see if I was still alive.

Needless to say, the past two months have been busy.

In December I learned that my part-time-work-from-home job was going to transition to full-time at the office 1 hour away. I said thanks but no thanks. So at the beginning of January, I started sending out resumes to see what was out there. My forte is Administrative Assisting. So it is amazing, and a bit funny to me, that the job I started last Monday has nothing to do with that. I am learning how to do A/P and Payroll.

Now, I have no experience in accounting. I mentioned that in both interviews and on the phone setting appointments for the interviews. I actually applied for a posting of Administrative Assistant/Auditor for the accounting department. I learned that during my second interview, with the VP of Finance (whom I would be working with), he decided that I would get bored with that job and he wanted me to take the A/P Payroll job that they hadn't posted for a replacement yet. I guess that my Goddess-ness shone through enough to make them want me anyway. So, I have three weeks with the gal I am replacing to learn everything I need to know how to do.

My head is so full of new information it is really amazing. (thank heavens for Excedrine!) I am pretty comfortable with everything I learned last week, which is good, because payroll starts now. That is the big stressful part. Fortunately she will be there through two payroll's to help me out. Yeah!!

Anyway, I hope that things will settle down enough that I will be back permanently and be able to visit all my bloggy buddies - because you have been missed!

Think happy payroll thoughts for me!