Passed My Test!

I passed my Serve Safe Exam! Yay!!! What a relief! I've been studying off and on for a few months, started studying more seriously a couple weeks ago, and then this past week was studying a LOT. I spent the majority of Thursday ( our day off) studying since my exam was on Friday morning. I guess it all paid off though because I passed the exam with a 95 pecent! I have not missed testing at all. It's something that I've never really liked about school.  I think I get test anxiety! I ended up taking this particular test @ Ivy Tech in their assessment center. They sure don't make the process easy. One of the ladies there was taking everything sooo seriously.  You could tell that she's a very by the book person.  She barely even cracked a smile at me when reading the directions.  They wouldn't even let me take any water in.  I have this thing about having water nearby, so hearing this kind of triggered a bit of anxiety within me. haha So I asked if I could come out of the testing room and get a drink of water if need be and she told me no! I"m just like, "what?!" haha So I'm stuck in this tiny room with bright lights, I swear they had the heat cranked up in that place, with no water, they wouldn't even let me have a pencil and paper? I was really feeling a little trapped. I could feel myself starting to sweat and the claustrophobia setting in.  I had an 'oh crap' moment so I just started whizzing through the questions. I figured if I was going to have a panic attack, I may as well get this stupid test over with first. I think I finished the test in about 20 minutes! Now the test wasn't overly complicated, but there were a lot of numbers/lists to memorize and I'm horrible at that, so I was taking it pretty seriously. Plus, I took the  manager version, so it included more info.

Anyways, since that's over with, I can  now move on to other things! There is a never ending list, so I'm sure I'll find something to focus on! ;)

We are hiring five new employees @ the wally. So this should get interesting! haha One of our original employees, K, is leaving. :( I'm pretty sad about it. :( She and her friend, H, have been with us from the very first day.  We're kind of going through a transition it seems.  Another employee, A, left bc she had a different summer job opportunity.  We got rid of another employee because she just wasn't working out. Now K is leaving. We have a couple of people who will be leaving for school in the late summer. We're getting a whole new staff and I don't know that I like it. It's so hard to find the right people! I never realized that staffing would be one of our biggest obstacles! It's a bit frustrating!

Monday was Memorial Day! Was kind of a strange day since we basically worked all day. lol. Went and bought some food--hot dogs, chips, potato salad, pie, pop, etc. and set it up @ work for the employees.  I made some hot dogs in the crockpot and everyone seemed to love it! So that was pretty much our party. lol. It was a rainy day, so I guess we really weren't missing out on much. But still, I would have liked to have spent it with my familia.  I sent D and Larry off to watch a movie and worked in the office all evening.  It finally quit raining around 9pm and we saw a full rainbow! So that was pretty cool!

Okay, well I had better get busy. Going to head to work soon. Happy Saturday! :)

A Day Off!

Well, hello again! Two blog entries in less than two weeks? What's going on? haha

Today was our 'day off' ! I never used to understand why my mom and dad would have such a difficult time relaxing when they were home from work. Well, it's now beginning to make sense. :) Even on our day off, D and I ended up doing work related things. We dropped a box of yogurt off @ the shop, then took some paperwork up to the city regarding our permit for an outdoor seating area.  We then went looking for Ross Park ( located in West laffy)  and spent the afternoon hiking in the woods.  D has been wanting to go mushroom hunting. One of our employees sent us a picture of a morrell mushroom that she and her family found and he's been wanting to find one ever since.  haha  While we didn't find any mushrooms, we *did* have a fun time hiking through the woods.  The hiking trails were barely existent so it was almost as if we were really lost in the woods. haha There were a ton of trees down and the path was overgrown, so we were climbing over fallen logs and being slapped in the face by tree branches. I will be extremely surprised if one of us doesn't have poison ivy or a tick. On our way back to civilization, we stopped by a public entrance to the Wabash river, which was pretty cool.  I had actually never been to this particular neck of the woods before. I really enjoyed it!

After our adventure, we stopped by a local Mexican grocery store to check out their produce and then headed to HuHot for dinner. I love this place---it's a Mongolian Self-serve Grill where you create your own stir fry and watch while the grillmaster cooks it on this giant turntable. My favorite part is that it's pretty healthy! We then stopped by Hobby Lobby to look for a few things and headed home.  I've spent the majority of the evening working on housework and updating the wally facebook.

Here are a few photos from our day:

@ The beginning of the trail

We climbed over that giant log

A cute little stream!

Near fishing spot

Dinner!

I've finally had a chance to start uploading some pictures from my phone to my flickr account. So I will now be able to post some of the ones that I've taken over the past few weeks/months. But it will have to be another day because I'm getting sleepy!

Night, everyone!

Waffles! :)

Well, I'm back! I know I've been MIA for the past few months, but it's been so CRAZY with everything going on @ TPW that I just haven't had any time to update.  It's hard to believe that we've been open for about 4 months already! Things are slowly coming together with the staffing, decor, paperwork, etc. We're definitely more organized than we were @ the start, but still have a ways to go.  D's brother, Larry, has been here since late February. He's helping us out by managing in the mornings. We've also hired a couple people to clean over night so that our regular employees don't have to stay so late. In the beginning we were staying there sooo late. We wouldn't get out of there until at least 1 am and then we would have to get up and be there early in the AM. We were working day and night! We're still working a lot, but actually can go home and relax and then have a good night's sleep!

Our regular night time cleaner is only available  M-F, so we've been looking for a weekend cleaner. Finally, found one that we're trying out on a trial basis. This was her first weekend so we had a late night last night and then again tonight. We didn't get home until 4:30am yesterday, but got out around 2:30 tonight.

We're starting a new feature called "In the Spotlight" where we interview a different employee every few weeks. One of our employees, Luke, is a budding videographer, so he's helping us video tape the  interviews and we'll then post them on FB. Tonight was our first interview! I wasn't expecting to be on camera so much, I figured the focus would be more on Haley, so I found it a little nervewracking. I'll be interested to see how it turns out!

Well, I just finished eating some waffles and I think I'm going to head to bed. I've been obsessed with these waffles called Eggo Mixed Berry Thick n Fluffy. They're so good that I eat them without syrup or anything! Yuum!

Okay, well Goodnight, all! :)

Turkey Day!

Well, it's been about 22 days since my last post so I supposed it's about time that I update. :P  Things have been extremely busy the past few weeks. We're up in in Rensl for the holiday weekend. Had a really nice Thanksgiving @ Aunt Mary and Uncle Chris' house on Thursday. The Stewies weren't able to make it because Uncle Gary was sick, but everyone else was there.

We had so much yummy food: turkey, ham, pheasant that my dad made, mashed potatoes, gravy, yeast rolls ( my fave!), stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, stuffing, deviled eggs, pepper bread, green bean salad, cranberry salad.

Waiting to eat!

Praying for the meal and saying what we're thankful for!

Giganormous stuffed bear that Aunt Mary and Uncle Chris got for Baby Jack!

Time for dessert! @ the bottom of the picture is Lachlan's bday cake--a turkey cake. haha Aunt mary sent Uncle Chris to get a cake w/ a picture of a turkey on it and he got this one instead. hehe It was pretty cute though!

Today we slept in and then worked on some TPW things.  Went to dinner w/ Mom and Dad and the Hannons. Then we came home and put up the Christmas tree. A week from tomorrow is December 1st! Hard to believe!

Let's see, what has been happening. Have been busy w/ TPW of course.  The drywallers were in there last last week and finally finished on Tuesday.  We hired someone to do the tile and they started early Wednesday morning. Hopefully they will be finished by Monday.  After that, we need to start painting.
 I'm getting  a little nervous because I want to be organized, but with some things I feel like they are just being thrown together. It's all happening so quickly, but at the same time it has been taking forever.  

Larry flew back to LA a week ago Wednesday.  We drove him up to Midway in Chicago and went to Ikea while we were there. I love that store! I wish there was one in Indy! Anyways, Larry should be flying back this next Tuesday, but this time he will be landing in Indy.  So that's good.

I'm really excited for Christmas this year.  I am enjoying the feel of the holidays: the sound of Christmas music, the feel of a warm fire in the fireplace, Christmas decorations in the stores/mall, the spirit of the holidays.  Maybe I'm noticing and appreciating everything so much more because last year was really strange, or maybe it's just because I'm getting older. I'm not sure.  But I've noticed that I am beginning to really appreciate the smaller/simpler things in life.  It's kind of nice!

Didn't really do much Black Friday shopping.  Did order a camera online-- as an early Christmas gift. Also, happened to be at Walmart this evening and there were still a bunch of DVDS that were on sale.  So I bought a few! And that was my Black Friday shopping.  I typically have little interest in the BF shopping.  It brings out the bad in most people and I really don't care to be a part of it. Plus, I HATE how stores are opening on Thanksgiving day. I don't really care to support this and decided not to do any shopping before Friday unless it was online. I used to work retail and I know how horrible it can be to work during the holidays in general.  I don't think it's a good practice to require employees to work on the holidays unless absolutely necessary. Now I can understand working @ a hospital, a gas station, etc. But for actual stores to be open full force-- I think it's distasteful. 

My camera broke a couple weeks ago so I haven't been able to take as many pictures as usual.  I've been trying to snap some shots w/ my phone camera, but they aren't very good quality since my flash doesn't usually work.Here are some photos from the past few weeks, some of them are from before my camera broke, some of them were taken w/ Jennica's camera, and some are from my cell phone.

Well, I'm unable to upload any photos to my blog @ the moment. Looks like I've used up all 1 GB of space and will have to upgrade if I want to upload pics directly from my computer. I guess maybe I can upload them to flickr and then copy the link, but that sounds like a lot of work! :P

Maybe next time! Night, all! :)

Hello, hello!

Another week has flown by! It's now November, which is hard to believe! Even though the week flew by, it seems like progress has been kind of slow.  Things @ TPW are creeping along, but hopefully next week they will be ready to start drywalling.  This week they've been working on electrical and finishing up plumbing.  We've been trying to figure out the solution for a water heater.  We were going to go with a tankless heater, but found out that it would require to much electric. So I guess we're going to probably replace the current 6 gallon with a 30 gallon.  The plumber was trying to charge an arm and a leg for something pretty basic so I think we're going to take care of it ourselves.  The current tank is mounted in the ceiling.  We will need to build a platform for this heavier one.  So that should be interesting. 

Once they finish w/ all the drywalling, then we have to get to work.  Things that we will be doing ourselves include:  laying down the laminate wood flooring, laying down the ceramic tile, installing the walk in cooler, installing drop in ceiling, all the painting, tiling on yogurt wall.  So yeah, lots of work! And when I say "we", I mainly mean Diego and Larry. :P I will try to help as much as I can, but they will probably end up doing a lot of it.  Which is fine, because there is still a TON of other things that I need to do.  We're also trying to make some bottle cap tables to go w/ the booths.

Last Saturday, we met with our interior signage guy, Cullen.  I'm really excited to be working with him! He will be helping us w/ all the signage and bulkhead decals.  He is also open to helping us w/ any interior design work that we may have for him.  This is great news, since I have been struggling a bit with some aspects of the decor since we lost our previous designer. Interestingly enough, his girlfriend is from Rensselaer and I think I recognized her from grade school.  I think she was a grade above me. Small world! They seemed like great people!

Anyways, other things going on @ TPW:  the sprinkler people were there yesterday making additions/adjustments to the system.  They will come back to finish up once the walk in is installed.  The sign person called and it sounds like the outside sign is ready! We met w/ a glass guy on Wednesday to get a quote for sneezeguards.  Hoping that the countertop people will get measurements next week. The upright freezer was delivered this week as well as the undercounter freezer and refrigerator. We picked up the wood grain ceramic tile and purchased the tile for the back area. (We still need to pick it up though!) Ordered a bunch of bottlecaps for the tables. We need over 1200 of them!

Also, this week:  on Sunday we went down to Conner Prairie to the Headless Horseman ride. It was pretty fun! I remember going there so many times when I was young, so I always have good memories associated w/ it. On Tuesday, I had Jennica ove for dinner and then we went w/ her to campus to practice her speech. On Wednesday, we met up w/ M&D @ TPW to look over some things and then they came over for pizza.  They hung out while we carved our pumpkins.  They helped answer the door for trick-or-treaters and then we watched the "Icabod Crane" cartoon.  Had a fun time! 

Today we spent the entire afternoon cleaning out the walk in cooler.  It was a huge job, but it was a beautiful day! Perfect weather for working outside! I was supposed to hang out w/ Kendra today, but we finished up later than planned and we were kinda beat. So I'm gonna try to reschedule .  We ended up going to Terranyaki Grill for dinner.  We went there for the first time last week w/ Rena and Christoph. It was really good so we decided to go back this week. It's pretty affordable too. Afterwards, we went to Meijer to walk around.  I saw so many things that I wanted to buy! lol... Actually, alot of the things I wanted were kitchen related or for organization.  I'm trying to get more organized, but even basic things seem so pricey. 

Anyways, I think I'm going to go jump on the elliptical here in a bit and then head to bed. Well, maybe I"ll watch some "Gossip Girl" beforehand. haha I have been hooked on that show! I've been watching a couple episodes every night before bed and I've gone through all of Season 1. 

Before I sign off, I'm going to add some photos from the past week or so.  I dropped my camera again last week and so it's been really off for the past week.  I think it finally took a dump today.  So I don't know how I'll be taking pictures after this. Hopefully these won't be the last pictures that I get to share.

H

Dr. Smoothie sent us some sample smoothie mixes.

We tried a bunch of them out.

10/17: We had one of our yogurt machines delivered to help us w/ the measurements on the yogurt wall.

10/18: Dad came down for a meeting w/ our contractor. Mom came down with him to do some grocery shopping.  Afterwards, we went to lunch @ Bob Evans.

Dad talking to someone about Larry's truck.

Pendant lights from World Market. A little more mustard-y than I thought they would be.

Possible yogurt  cups stand?

My Snickle Poo! Such a cutie patootie!

Saturday 10/20: @ County Line Orchard

We met up w/Courtney

Love this barn!

Yummy donuts! They have apple cinnamon and pumpkin

w/ larry

w/ me

@ the pumpkin patch

Sisters!

Me and D

Larry!

Moi

Sister!

aww what a nice picture! This was M&D's first time @ the orchard/pumpkin patch!

Trying to find the perfect pumpkin

haha Dad was showing off!

D had his hand full of pumpkin

Larry decided to help! hehe

See the moon in the background?

We were some of the last ones in this big lot..It was really open and flat land, so we decided to take some photos!

larry! Lovin' Indiana! hehe

Brothers!

D and me

haha the crazy coopers!

Group shot!

haha!

Fight Scene!

Wow, either I'm super pale or Mom's extremely dark!

After we got back to Rensl, we went to eat @ Schmidy's and then decided to have a bonfire. We went in search of fire wood at like four or five different stores, but never did find any.  We ended up using branches and some old wood we found around the house.

10/21: Mom made cinnamon roll french toast, Dad made breakfast tacos, and we had donuts. What a feast!

I love Fall in Indiana!

Working on the lighting....

I typed out a giant list of lighting for the contractor. in case our diagram was hard to read.

Bulkhead over the window

Checking out the progress @ TPW. D looks pretty tired here. I think it was pretty late @ night.

Thursday 10/25: We drove down to Lebanon to the countertop place and then drove to Indy.  The place where we got our yogurt machines at was having an open house so we stopped by to check it out.

We got to see their showroom and at some free food.

They had our machines lined up in the warehouse.

Cutouts for yogurt machines @ TPW.

Well, that's it for now! Hope you have a great weekend! Thanks for reading! :)