Quiet Sunday

So, it's finally Sunday. It's my "day off". I use quotation marks because I have to go to work for about three hours tonight for a store meeting...I don't really count it as a day off if I'm required to be at work and they're planning on paying me for it. But for now, I'm not at work. We're doing laundry, and M is puttering about the apartment, putting locks on doors that Linnea has figured out how to open. I'm not sure either one of us knows what Linnea is doing right now...my guess is that she's "helping" her daddy with his further childproofing projects.

Not much has been going on. I"ve been working my azz off, which will be nice once that paycheck starts rolling in. I have to tell my Boss that I'm quitting and going to work for another store...I'm SO not looking forward to that conversation, because I really do love my Boss and I wish almost more than anything that a similar opportunity would open up with her. But she's been promising me such an opportunity since October, and I've hung in there, but I can't do it anymore. Not when I've been offered the chance to be on the management team of a brand-new, high-profile store. Not when the job is guaranteed full-time AND hourly so anything over 40 they're SO paying for; not when the job has incredibly good, incredibly cheap health insurance, not when I'd have access to a 401k and all those grown-uppy things that I had before we moved and then really missed when they were gone. Plus, I know the gal who is the store manager and she and I get along really well. So I'm going. The only thing that would stop me is if BossLady could pull a rabbit out of her hat and offer me the same benies...and I know that she can't, because if she could: she would have done it already.

I'm really not looking forward to sitting down with her and saying, "I'm leaving." I know she'll understand, but it doesn't make it any easier.

On to happier topics.

I'm teaching myself to crochet! Inspired mainly by a desire to have a granny-squares purse (I found a pattern in a book of knitting patterns I bought), and a long-held desire to have this. I first expressed a desire for this about a year ago, and a friend volunteered her husband to make one for each of us. But life happens, and I'm pretty sure that if I wait for a sushi toilet paper roll cover to come from them: I'll be waiting a long time. They've got bigger stuff to deal with than my wanting something to make my spare roll look interesting. And so I'm learning to crochet so I can make myself a sushi toilet paper roll cover. After my first night of study? I learned how to chain (I can make some wicked-cool chains!) and how to slip stitch. I'm thinking that I won't be cranking out that sushi roll anytime soon. Or the purse. But I just MIGHT be able to chain us a gate to keep Linnea in her bed at night.

Spring is in the process of arriving to the Northland. I've busted out my crop pants and tshirts. I've bid a fond adieu to my sweaters. And I'm starting to think of what sorts of flowers I want outside my living room window. We have a flowerbed, and the complex plants flowers in it. But *I* can get one of those iron shepherd's hook thingies and put hanging baskets in the flower bed. I think I'd like to do that, because our living room window is right next to the sidewalk and people tend to park things in our window...bikes, sleds, trikes, strollers. It's sort of annoying. Like there aren't plenty of window-free areas to park their crap along our apartment, they choose to block what little view we have. I'm wondering if putting "schnutz" in the window area would discourage their indescriminate vehicle parkage. Just enough to 1) give us some privacy 'cuz DUDE: stare a little harder when you walk by, why don't you? and 2) make it clear that someone ELSE is using this space. Like the people who live here, and who pay a goodly-sized monthly fee to have this window and scrap of flowerbed.

Is that so much to ask?