Hi everyone. Long time no see! I'm sure some of you have begun to wonder if I even still had a live journal. I know I've been absent, but these days, if I have five minutes to just check my email I'm lucky. Which a good thing actually. My life is full these days. Full of friends and work and family and .....well....Life!

But I wanted to drop by today and post this link and encourage all of you to go and look at it.

http://30dayhungryman.wordpress.com/

This guy is a good friend of mine and so I'm trying to help him get the word out about this project. In a nutshell he will be eating nothing but a cup of rice a day during the month of June to raise awareness and money for global hunger. He is going through Heifer International to raise the money. But just go read his blog and see for yourself and if you're so moved, donate or get involved in some other way. I've already given money, and I'm planning on donating to our local food pantry.

Sandy

Ok so I'm getting ready to mail out Tori's Graduation announcements and I realize that I don't have everyone's snail mail addy's. We live in such a cell phone/e-mail/LJ/myspace world, that we don't really NEED people's addresses to get a hold of them anymore. BUt when you need them you find that you dont' have them.

So....I'm trying to remedy that. I do have addresses for some of you, but others I'm not sure if I have correct info or outdated info. So here's the deal.

If you want to reply to this message with your addy you can, or if you'd rather send me a pesonal e-mail you can do that too.

sandykjohns@gmail.com is my new addy.

Thanks everyone!

Life is good....and confusing....and busy......

Just two weeks and my oldest son will be 21. Oi!! Just 4 weeks and my daughter will be a High School graduate, well on her way to college. Double Oi! And Aaron.....welll......he's just going to chill this summer and ponder the posibilites of his hair.

My little stint as bartender is coming to an end. I'll probalby still work the catering stuff, but who knows if I'll do any more bartending. Still....it was fun while it lasted. An experience I'm glad I had.

Time is crushing in on me. I have so much to do to get ready for Tori's graduation and college. I have the normal stuff of life to do and I have a marriage to try to nurture. Oi, and again I say...Oi!

It's all good though. I'm learning every day. HOw to be a better mother, wife, sister, employee, friend, worker, Christ follower and just me.

Some day I'll have it all together.

On this day in history a man, an innocent man, died in a way that today we get the word excruciating from.

He was innocent and didn't deserve it. There was someone who did deserve it though. Me. I know, that was 2000 some odd years ago, how could that event have happened for me living here and now in 2007? I don't know. I don't how He knew, but He could see me. He knew that I would be adulterous, selfish, greedy, angry and lazy. He could see me just as I am, the real me, the me that I hide others and even from myself.

But here's the thing.....he wanted me so badly, he wanted me to be in heaven with him so much that he was willing to do this for me, for himself.

He knew that the sins I would commit would leave me unworthy of entering His father's heaven, but that just wasn't acceptable to him. He had to make a way for me to be with him for eternity no matter what.

So....he died to make it happen.

He even knew that I would know this about him and yet mock him for it with the rest of the world. HE knew that I would take it for granted. He knew that I would be embarrassed about it and hide it from people. He knew that I would be ungrateful. He knew that I would even ignore him.

And still....he did it. Willingly.

I soooo don't deserve what he did for me. But after all is said and done, it's not about me anyway, but about Him.

Thanks Jesus. I DO love you more than I will ever be able to put into words. And I thank you every day, but especially on this day for all that you've done for me.

I interviewed for a position as the business manager/secretary for the Interventional radiology dept at the hospital. I'm not at all disatisfied with my job at the hospital at all so I'm not entirely sure why I applied. Maybe I just wanted to think about the possibility of something else even if I ultimately don't decide to DO something else. I guess just knowing that another department WANTS me and that I COULD do something else if I wanted to feels good.

The basics.

It would be 8-3:30 Monday through Friday. No weekends or holidays ever. I'm not sure about the pay yet. It's a pay grade higher than the one I'm at now, but since I've been at this one for 12+ years, it might not actually be a pay raise for me.

It's a new position that's just been created.


Pro

It would be cool to be in a position so new. I could make it my own and I wouldn't have to deal with the "we've always done it this way" attitudes you sometimes get in other places. It would be challenging to have to learn all this new stuff, new computer systems, new filing systems.

Con

though a challenge is great, I've recently taken on the challenge of working for my brother and that has me stressed (not entirely a bad thing) enough. I don't know if I want both of my jobs to be ones that weigh on my brain so much. Right now the work I do is no brainer stuff because I'm so comfortable with it and so used to it. This would no longer be the case if I was doing this new job.

Pro

No weekends or holidays

Con

No weekends or holidays. Right now, I can take a day off during the week and not use my PTO because I can work a weekend to make up for it. That's nice to be able to do that. Also...when I work the weekend, I usually work 2nd shift which gives me a 15% differential that adds a bit to my paycheck. I couldn't do that in this job so any time off I took would have to be PTO.

Pro

This job is 70 hours a pay period so even if the pay was the same, my paycheck would be bigger because now I'm only 64 hours a pay check.

Con

This job is 70 hours a pay period. I've gotten kind of used to having every Tuesday afternoon off and being able to have a whole day off but only using 4 hours of PTO. It's nice. Having to work only 32 hours a week makes it easy to flex my schedule. For instance. If I work an 8 hour Sunday shift, I can take all of Tuesday off and 4 more hours somewhere during the week without using any PTO. This job would be 7 hours every day. bleh.

Pro

I would be wearing scrubs at work so I could come to work in jeans or sweats and it wouldn't matter because I'd be changing into green surgical scrubs at work anyway.

Con

See above. I like clothes. I like my new Lia Sophia jewelry and in a way, it would be boring to always be wearing scrubs. Then again....it would be cheaper.

Pro

Dr Capasso (the one who does 90% of the proceedures there and the one who'd I'd be working the most with) is a great guy. Funny, nice and he's a huge LOTR and Lost fan! He would be great to work for.

Con

I've heard rumors that he's planning on taking a teaching job somewhere. I could take this job and 6 months from now be working for a Dr who's a prig.

Con

My desk would in the corner of their locker room/break room that's not much bigger than the office I'm in now.

Pro

My desk (such as it is) would be mine and mine alone. I wouldn't have to share it with two other people.



WEll....that's about all I can think of right now. The money will be either a pro or a con, but I have to wait to hear about that.

I don't know if they'll even offer me the job, so this might be a moot point. But it's good to consider all of this before hand.

Live Journal has been blocked at work. I was actually suprised it held out as long as it did. They blocked MySpace a long time ago and any e-mail clients like Yahoo, gmail or hotmail. I even have a less obvious e-mail client (TDS) and they still blocked that. Which means I can't check my personal e-mail from work. I can still get incoming e-mail to my work address (sjohns@rhsnet.org) but even that is closely monitored and scrutinized and there are all kinds of filters on it.

But Live Journal had for this long flown under the radar of the IT nazis. But yesterday when I was working I tried to go there and lo and behold...BLOCKED. The reason? Adult content. ::rolls eyes:: Whatever. Fine.

Doesn't matter. The only time I could ever go to LJ at work was when I was working a weekend anyway, so it's no big. But....it does mean that there is even less opportunity for me to keep in touch with you all that way. It's so hard to find the time when I'm at home. But....you all have my work e-mail now and you still have my home e-mail (skjohns@tds.net) so if you want to get in touch with me you know how.

Actually, very soon my home e-mail will be changing to a gmail account.

I have to think of a name to use with that account. Anyone have any clever ideas?

Ok so back in the fall I got a call out of the blue from my brother who owns brio wanting to know if I wanted to tend bar for him this Saturday night. I was shocked and speechless for about a second until I caught on that he wasn't talking about bar tending at the restaurant on the busiest night of the week when I'd never done it before. No, he was talking about me tending "bar" at the Coronado (really awesome virtual 360 of the theatre at this site btw). See, he had just gotten the contract with the Coronado to do all the concessions at the Coronado events. The Coronado is an old movie theatre built in the 20's that the city recently spent millions of dollars to restore to it's grand beauty. Now the Rockford symphony plays there, touring Broadway shows play there (we got to see Jesus Christ Superstar there) and other concerts. So anyway....Paul got the contract and that's what he wanted my help on. Running the concessions there.

That started out to be quite fun and a great way to earn a little play money. I say play money because mostly I would have him put my "pay" into my house account at brio which just made it really easy to stop by there for a drink or a bite to eat without it really coming out of our budget. It was only a few nights a month and it was fun to do.

About a month ago he decided to let go the gal that was kind of running the show for him at the Coronado. It wasn't a "bad" firing, it was just that he had her doing the Coronado and the catering stuff and I think it was just too much and too confusing as to what she was doing. Anyway...so, he put me in charge of the Coronado.

In charge. Take a minute to think about what those words mean. In charge.

Well....I'm still not entirely sure what they mean. I do know that it means that I have to make sure the events are staffed properly which is not as easy or stress free as it sounds. If I staff too heavily then Paul has to pay people an hourly wage that might be over what he actually EARNED on the sales from the show. Not to mention if the show is not busy the tips are meager and end up getting split more ways than is useful.

If I staff too lightly, we get swamped and the customers get irritated and Paul doesn't make as much money as he could have otherwise.

Then there is the stress of having to call and staff the event when everyone's busy and I end up using my friends who've never done this before because I don't know who else to call.

So that's that part of it.

Then there is the accounting. The money. Now I am really good at money stuff. I take care of the bills at home and I use a fairly complicated excel spread sheet to keep track of our monthly income and outgo. I love that kind of stuff actually. I should probably have been an accountant. I think that's why I love my job at the hospital so much and why I've been there for 12 years. I like the organization of it. I love that there is a certain way things are supposed to go and it's my job to get them that way. There are very few gray areas in medical records. There is a particular chart order and certain things that every chart needs to have. That's it.

And with accounting, it's pretty much the same. I am one of those rare people that actually LOVE to balance my check book. I love to find the little error that's causing it to be off and make it balance to the penny. I'm like a hound dog, I'll keep calculating and keep looking till I find the error and make it right.

Now, getting back to the Coronado. One of my responsibilities with this job is running the cash register reports and accounting for the money in the bag as compared to what the tape says should be in the bag. Oi! There is so much that can go wrong. But.....I love to sus out the transposed numbers or the odd amount that doesn't add up and make it all match. Sometimes that's just not possible though because the error is one that occured because the server handed out a $1 change when it should have been 2 or didn't charge for one glass of wine or something like that. Then, that info won't be on the tape and I have no way to figure it out.

This drives me nuts!! I want it all to match up, to come out even.

Then there's the stock and making sure that everyone has it. There are three bars on two floors that we use at the coronado and boy do I get a work out some nights. Up and down...you need what? more water, ok, I'll get some for you from the other bar....what...you're running low on napkins, ok, I'll get you some from upstairs....does this display look ok? WEll....it's not the way I would have done it but it's 15 minutes till the house opens and I don't have the money counted into the registers yet so yeah...it looks great!

It's a thrill in some ways. It's so frantic, but frantic in a fun way. Frantic in a let's see how quickly I can get this done way. It's this rush that when it's over, it's just over and you're just tired.

Now in the old days when I was just a common worker bee, I'd get done working, get stuff put away, take inventory and then head over to brio for an after work drink and maybe a bite to eat. It was nice. Now...I get done, but I'm not done. I have to come back to brio and sit up in the smelly musty office and enter numbers into the computer for about an hour while everyone else has fun downstairs. By the time I'm done with that, all I really want to do is go home and go to bed. It kind of takes the fun out of it.

Now.....you would think after reading this that I really don't like working for my brother. But that's where you'd be wrong. Yeah...there are some drawbacks, but I do like it. It's challenging and I have the potential to really be good at this. It's gonna take some time though.....time to get into a rhythm that fits me. Time to figure out the little things and get a better system in place. But that's what I do best. Show me a broken process and my mind starts figuring out a better way.

Work smarter, not harder.

I've actually already started this process. I sat at the office one day last week and set up the excel spread sheets to keep better track of the stock. When I showed it to Paul and how it works he was impressed. It was something that took a bit of time to set up, but will make it easier to track things and easier to enter from now on.

And there will be other things that I will get done. Things that will change. And...I need to get better at being "the boss" and telling people what to do. I'm too much of a "I'll just do it myself" kind of person. Most of the time I feel like I can do it faster if I just do it myself and then I know it's getting done right. I have to let that go and learn how to delegate more.

I'm not really expecting anyone to read this whole long musing about my little corner of the world. But if you did and you care to comment, I'll appreciate it. If not....well....you're probably as busy as I am and dont' have time to read it. I get that. I sooo get that.

I'm not sure how big this will be so I'll put it behind a cut (if I can remember how to do a cut)

This is Mark, Aaron and I after one of the Performances of Song of Bernadette that we just finished.

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