Thickening Skin

I did not realize that July 21st was going to be my last day at the funeral home until that moment that Brenda and Laura both wanted to formally "talk to me for a minute." Something was wrong, and I was fairly certain that it was going to end with my services were no longer needed. On the bright side, I'm eligible for rehire, but I realize that is a piece of paper designed to make future employers not think I was a terrible employee when I wasn't. The problem with funeral homes is that office personnel are not needed if the business is too slow. Emporia may not be big enough for two funeral homes, but I guess it's not my problem anymore.

Related to this, I now have a bottom layer of blue-green parrot-esque hair. The top was supposed to be purple, but my hair refused to take the purple dye at all. So I'm not nearly as exotic as I wanted to look.. When I get upset, I dye my hair, and I saw this as possibly one of the last opportunities I may have for doing something insane with my hair for quite awhile. My friends were also providing free dye that they could not or were not going to use, so there is that as well.

On the positive side, Flat Earth Hobbies is slowly crawling to its feet. We have Tsunami Con in Wichita in November which will be our official debut. We should have at least one flagship table completed by then. Two of the general partners will be at Gen Con next week with one of our dice trays and some of our business cards. We've been to one of the farmers markets at Emporia thus far selling some things that are "on target" with our preferred audience and some that are just for the farmer's market crowd to try and raise capital, but we're going to be a bit more regular throughout the year trying to practice our display skills.

I start my training as a graduate assistant this week. Nothing was said about my hair when I brought up dress code, so we'll see. I may get told to dye back to a natural color, but that's fine. Classes start back a week from tomorrow. For good or ill, they are both online again.

The North American Collegiate Hearthstone Tournament 2 has been interesting so far. I advanced because of a no show, fell in the second round, but there's now talks of redoing round 2 today and going through round four by 7 tonight. I am glad our usual Sunday gaming with friends is cancelled today.

John is enjoying his new job and we are finally starting to get ahead because of it. I worry all the time that everything is just going to fall apart but I don't tell him that. He worries enough without my help. I am getting tired of being the bounce back queen, though. Some smooth sailing would be awesome. Just for a little bit.

The Next Step

I mentioned in last week's blog post about the 3D competition for the entrepreneurial business idea. My team (#20) was one of the top 20 selected for the semi-finals. Amusingly, I found out about it from a professor yesterday morning. It was several hours after the announcement hit the radio stations and the local paper before teams were notified by the college. After all, the university needs the good publicity. I'm feeling a bit better about our business venture which do intend to start this summer, whether or not we win prize money from the competition. We have a couple of dice trays in process at the moment, although I don't anticipate that we'll get into table or larger furniture construction until summer. Anyway, I think we stand a really good shot of getting first place then going on to compete against winning Kansas State University teams from the K-State Learn competition. (3D and K-State Learn are essentially the same competition.) 

In other related news, I've got another 2, possibly 3, semesters before I am done with my MBA. I'm not looking forward to repayment, but I'm definitely excited about the prospect of getting back to work at a more full-time basis. I like the funeral home, but I suspect my time there is going to be limited to another year at most.

 Here's what my entrepreneurial team watched last night while we celebrated with spicy fish tacos, grilled pineapple, chips and salsa, with some Apothic White. Enjoy your weekend! May it be full of happiness, laughter, and enough sarcasm to mess with the weak minded as you go about your day. 

The Lazarus Hand

Despite staying up late last night, my body decided that 6:30 in the morning was the best time for me to get up on a Saturday. Related to this, my mind decided to write a story in dream form while I was sleeping which I feel led to the early release from slumber.

This gem of a future novel, which is tentatively titled The Lazarus Hand, is being told in first person by a snarky teenager the summer before she goes off to college. I blame Jim Butcher before sleep a little for Mallie and her unfortunate circumstances. Still, I think some of you will be excited. It is a fresh young adult project after so long of avoiding the genre.

Instead of working on my team's competition proposal for the Dream It, Design It, Develop It contest at ESU, I am writing out chapter one this morning. I have a feeling that I might be shaking up the Zombie Warhols for this one. We might meet today if I have time. I still have two assignments that are due today. One's done. One's partially done, but it's a group project so I can't do it all anyway. Waiting to hear from my teammate about noon to wrap things up.

Believe it or not, I've not even had a cup of coffee yet.

Here's a short (unedited) sample of what I've managed thus far: 

Waking up before noon, the day after the semester ended, seemed like a shitty way to start my last days of freedom before college and true adulthood. That is just what happens when your adoptive parents are Satan Incarnate and Mistress Hades who thought work built character and resumes at the same time. My groggy brain did not appreciate a wake-up call of nine in the morning after I kept a Call of Duty session going until about three.

 Missing an interview might mean that Uncle Mark's farm awaited me for yet another summer. Among those joyous chores would involve shoveling horse manure and repairing his barn. I didn't mind taking care of his horses, Lucifer, Peanut, Margot, Silver Tequila, and Callais, that much until Peanut had one of her moments where she tried to live up to Lucifer's name. Ever been bit by a horse? On the shoulder? Repeatedly?  Follow that up with the perennial favorite of an equine kicking manure in your general direction and you've got the genteel actions of a pissed-off Peanut.

I do not know for the life of me why I thought working for a funeral home sounded like less work. Maybe on some egotistical level, I thought it would be a great conversation starter when I moved to Tulsa. Like most people who have never been in a funeral home, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. (c) 2014

This is an urban fantasy and it's not a recap of my experiences at work by any stretch of the imagination. (That would not be legal.) Obviously, I will be drawing on elements of "what usually happens..." without going into unnecessary details or specific cases. The funeral home is more of a catalyst setting for certain things to happen. The title is a bit of a clue.

I don't necessarily seeing Mallie as being an immediately lovable character, but she has some issues to work through besides what life throws at her. She's not exactly a sweet person. At the same time, if young adult novels are mostly following the hero's journey, the protagonist should not be hero material at the start of it. He or she has to find ways to become that person.

Thanks for any comments, thoughts, well-wishes, etc.

Have a great weekend!

Forecasting Friday

I have spent entirely way too much of the past two days playing in Microsoft Excel doing demand forecasting. It's not that it's that difficult, it's just making sure that the software doesn't mess up the formulas. I'm looking into chaos undermining computer accuracy in forecasting and planning in the supply chain for my research project, so that's appropriate, I suppose. Or at least, it's worth a laugh or two.

Maintenance is doing fire extinguisher checks throughout the complex so that's what I'm getting to listen to at the moment. I can hear them pounding on every single door in the complex. It's a good thing, because I had forgotten and the path to the fire extinguisher was still blocked so mad scramble to shove everything out of the way. We need a bigger place, that's just all there is to it; that's not to say it's not going to be a pain for the next couple of months until the move.

Ran across this video by way of Kotaku. Evidently a guy in France cosplays as Sonic in public in rather destructive ways. Video is really not safe for work and, if you guessed it, probably not something you want to show to anyone much under the age of 14. However, it's good for a slightly inappropriate chuckle or two. I claim no responsibility for anyone who tries to mimic these shenanigans, but if you do... make sure a good friend films them and uploads them to YouTube.

In other news, John is still waiting to hear back from the interview on Monday, but we are fairly positive. The apartment cleaning bug has hit a bit early around here, which would be fine if my husband would stay in one room of the apartment. He keeps popping over to see whatever I am doing, which has made me take a break from trying to run numbers in Excel. Still, as you can imagine, I'm really hurt about taking a break.

Last night's employee meeting offered a nice change of pace. It is not very often that I get to see all the other employees, so that was a nice socializing event, as well as a reiteration of policy. Let's face it, we all need reminders from time to time. 

Grad School Semester #2

So, after my experiences last semester, I am down to just three classes, all of which are online. Some of my desire for the online classes was related to the hours at work. Now that I have less hours at work, I have even more time to focus on my class work. Only two of my classes are going on right now. The third doesn't start until the second half of the semester.

I am under doctor's orders to eat better because I've not been getting enough 'good' cholesterol lately. No matter how pithy our food budget is at times, I have to stop eating like a carbohydrate-obsessed freshman. No excuses. Hey, at least I stopped putting sugar in my tea. I am also down to two cups of coffee per day on most days that I drink coffee. I've started enjoying hot tea again on occasion. Some days, I need to not rile myself up which is one of the negative things coffee will do to me when I'm already annoyed or upset. In other news, however, my blood pressure is awesome, no reasons to be fearful of my glucose levels for type II diabetes, and my weight is slowly going down. Although it did fall 40 lbs over the course of three weeks when I hadn't really done anything except stop stressing as much. Yep, I bloat when I'm running on pure adrenaline due to fear/stress/etc. Isn't that an awesome defense mechanism?

I've actually starting taking fish oil pills at my doctor's advice. How crazy is that? For the most part, though, as long as I eat properly and keep active, I'm pretty healthy despite weighing more than I should.

As I have said before, I love working at the funeral home, but learning some personal and political attitudes from coworkers made me more than a little uncomfortable this week. Especially I'm not exactly sure how the topics were reached or deemed appropriate for work and my boss was part of it. I know I'm the square peg in the round hole when it comes to the majority culture in Kansas. I believe that everyone has the right to believe as they wish in America, but I think, especially in a work setting, you should keep your weird religious,  political, and paranoid messy thoughts to yourself. Especially if you start the sentence with "This is going to sound horrible, but I believe..." Yes, it does sound horrible, because that was a horrible thing to say about other human beings. (I'll leave the meat of the conversation to your imaginations.)  In some ways, I'm ashamed of myself, because I kept quiet. The sad truth is that I cannot afford to lose the job right now, but it certainly reminded me that perhaps I need to keep looking and striving for better opportunities. The sad part is, my boss had all my respect up until Monday. It's slightly diminished, but I still feel like I can put those feelings aside to work as hard as I can while I am work. That's pretty much my work focus until I move on to better things.

Codeacademy has been my new 'go to' for refreshing my HTML skills and eventually building up my repertoire to include some web programming. Programming is just something we all need to know for today's job market, so I'm going back to the basics. If anyone has any better or further resources, I would be grateful. My goal is to have a much stronger skill set once I am done with my MBA. I'm still plugging away at my rudimentary Japanese at times as well. (Not nearly like I probably should.)

Here's to a good half-week of classes! Congrats to everyone who is back in school right now. Some of you probably have been there for awhile already. I hope to have more regular updates to the blog this year. It's not exactly a New Year's Resolution, but, I had so many other plans for this blog that I've not yet implemented. 

Making Death Sexy

My husband's ancestors were fairly recent immigrants to the United States from Poland and Germany; as in early 20th century. Since we both work at a funeral home, I had to give him some grief when I read this article about a Polish coffin casket maker that has been advertising their merchandise with the use of a calendar with naked models posing with the caskets.

Death has never been so sexy.

The Catholic Church in Poland is up in arms at the disrespect being shown towards the deceased. I would agree, but I can also respect the mindset of the business owner who is attempting to pull the caskets away from being seen as "religious symbols" rather than the products they actually are. Let's be fair... you can buy caskets from Walmart. That being said, naked ladies draped over caskets sounds more like a necrophilic wet dream than something appropriate for the sensitive funerary industry. In particular, Poland is over 90% Catholic; lack of respect for the tendencies of your current market is not only insensitive, but foolish from a business standpoint.

First Monday in December

First things, it's probably no surprise that I lost momentum on Sunshine the Morning After. It has been busy at the funeral home and the last few weeks have been inundated with group projects, final papers, and preparing for exams. Grades, sadly, are a bit more important that indulging in my writing. At the same time, I feel like I got the start of an idea for what may be a decent book. It just needs some work.

Secondly, we have reached December. Today, temperatures are going to reach into the 60s. By Thursday, we will have snow. Welcome to Kansas! I am just happy that any potential nasty weather is happening after I have to take my evening exams this week. Other than that, it is December. You can't really complain about the cold without sounding silly when it's so close to the winter solstice anyway.

My husband has picked up another position, this time at a gorgeous pub. The hourly pay might be less, but it's more than enough for what we need and I imagine his tips will get decent as he learns more about tending bar. It's a good place for learning about running a small business as well.

I am trying to get a little bit of review time in before work. We are both going in to help decorate the mortuary and participate in the lunchtime holiday employee party. Then I have to get hubby back home so he can get to work on time. It's going to be an interesting day.

Sunday is our big holiday memorial service that we do for the families whose loved ones have passed on. After some ESU music students unprofessionally cancelled two weeks in advance of the date, I believe we are still trying to find replacements. My funeral director is stressed and I can already sense the frantic mood that will take over this morning.

It's going to be a fabulous day! Kansans - enjoy the warm weather while it lasts. For the other Kansans who don't like warm weather... don't worry, winter (and snow) is coming.

The rescue and other things

My Monday started off with a cat rescue. No sooner do I step outside with my carpool buddy than we hear a very loud serious of meows which ended with a small kitten running towards us from another building in the complex. We took her to the police station only to find out she was Lily, a shop cat that had been stolen from a local pet store about a month before. I am glad that she made it home safely and the story had a happy ending. However, I am dismayed that we have the thieves that would steal a cat living in our complex. I hope whoever was responsible is caught.

Tuesday was just a blur of accounting homework, the respective class, and exhaustion.  But it also involved two accidents involving cars and buses. One car hit a school bus on the west side of town. A minivan hit one of the city buses on the east side not too far from where I live. My husband saw the aftermath on his way to work.

Today was our graveside service and the hearse had to be jumped before leaving the funeral home. It died again out at the cemetery. We still have the black electrical tape covering the bullet hole in the side of the hearse. I think we finally got the police report although I doubt they put forth much effort to find out who was responsible. Maybe insurance will be satisfied and let us get the stupid thing fixed. It's not going to do much for the internal problems which evidently have been going on since the hearse was purchased a few years ago.

Whoever has taken over for our regular mail person refuses to step foot inside the funeral home and leaves the mail back at the garage door. This also means that our mail is not picked up by the postal worker.  So that meant an extra trip.

I'm super exhausted, I suspect partially from the Benadryl. I don't know what that ornamental plant was, but I could have done without being scratched on the face by it. My skin reacted rather unfavorably. It's been a bit of a crazy midweek but all I have left are two simple assignments and prepping for the exams next week. It will be lovely.

I can't imagine what else is going to happen across the next four days. Is it really only midweek?

Obituaries in the News: Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick

Johnson-Reddick's obituary which reportedly came from her surviving children, was printed in the Nevada's Reno-Gazette Journal on Tuesday. The text of the obituary, which has since been pulled from the website, is as follows:

Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick born Jan 4, 1935 and died alone on Aug. 30, 2013. She is survived by her 6 of 8 children whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way possible. While she neglected and abused her small children, she refused to allow anyone else to care or show compassion towards them. When they became adults she stalked and tortured anyone they dared to love. Everyone she met, adult or child was tortured by her cruelty and exposure to violence, criminal activity, vulgarity, and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit.

On behalf of her children whom she so abrasively exposed to her evil and violent life, we celebrate her passing from this earth and hope she lives in the after-life reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty, and shame that she delivered on her children. Her surviving children will now live the rest of their lives with the peace of knowing their nightmare finally has some form of closure.

Most of us have found peace in helping those who have been exposed to child abuse and hope this message of her final passing can revive our message that abusing children is unforgivable, shameless, and should not be tolerated in a "humane society". Our greatest wish now, is to stimulate a national movement that mandates a purposeful and dedicated war against child abuse in the United States of America.

If this came from the surviving family, her six children, then it is the official obituary. Because this was done online, it is difficult to say that this was genuinely done at the request of the survivors. I understand RGJ's stance on pulling the obituary until further details could be known, because this currently could present an issue of libel if the allegations are false. I am somewhat surprised that it was not caught prior to being printed. It should not have seen physical print without verification from all the surviving family members. A death notice would have sufficed instead. I've not seen a negative obituary come through the funeral home, but I'm not entirely sure how it would be best handled. 

A Final Show of Humor

It isn't that uncommon for people to write their own obituaries long before they pass away as a template for family members (and/or funeral home staff) to add to or tweak as necessary. I do not know if that is what happened in the following instance, but it's a nice change of pace to see some humor in an obituary. While there is a little bit of a chuckle, it is still respectfully done and well-written.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dispatch/obituary.aspx?n=scott-e-entsminger&pid=165695591&utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer41fb6&utm_medium=facebook#fbLoggedOut

I think I would appreciate some sort of joke being in my obituary, but I wonder how most people feel about this idea of silly obits.What do you think?

Who Shot the Hearse?

I realize that sounds like it ought to be the title for a cheesy mystery radio play, but it's no joke. Someone shot the funeral home's black hearse while it was in a garage. It's been a bit of a running gag amongst my friends for some time now that if it sounds like gunshots, it's fireworks, but the reverse is also equally true. I know that some people shoot guns because they are celebrating; it's one of those strange customs I will never fully understand. But this really sounds like someone just maliciously shot our garage. I haven't seen it yet, but my husband is supposed to be sending me a picture in a bit. He and  our funeral director are on the road to a service out of the state. I believe black electrical tape was used to hide the bullet hole. The police report has already been filed, though, so we shall see if anything comes of the EPD investigation.

My sister, in more positive news, has made it out of her surgery and seems to be doing just fine. I hope this is the last once she has to have in a while. She needs to get her anxiety about her babies moving out and going into the world under control or this is going to keep happening. Yes, severe anxiety can cause problems that require surgery. Public Service Announcement: Don't let your anxiety build to the point that you need surgery. Find ways to lower your negative stress levels and learn how to relax. It's not nearly as hard nor as painful as going through organ damage that requires surgical repair.

You would think I'd learn that I cannot take a vacation without weird stuff happening in my absence. I don't think I'm allowed one for awhile now. I will be glad to get home tomorrow, although I'm somewhat dreading the state of the apartment since John said he still needed to clean tonight. I have been reassured that our plants are still alive and he ran a load of dishes last night, so that's something. Still, I can't say much. I've been a bit of a bump on a log here mostly focusing on studying my financial management, doing writing sprints on Scrapping Cinderella, playing on FB, and watching movies.

Writing obituaries

Today News published an interesting article entitled Thieves ransack homes of families attending funerals that, at least on one hand, might make you lose faith in humanity a little bit. Thieves have been targeting families who publish their obituaries in the paper with basic information as to where they live. It is really rotten that someone would exploit people at one of the weakest times in their lives.

As part of my position, I help families write obituaries. I'm not going to say that everyone "should" go through a funeral home, but we protect everyone's privacy with due diligence. Even when it comes to something like writing the obituary. I never insert the location of surviving family members. Close friends and family will know where you live. Otherwise, the funeral home is always more than happy to forward on any mail related to the services. It's a small part of what we do for other members of our communities.

Having someone housesit during the funeral is an excellent idea especially if you are traveling out-of-state. Smaller communities might not have to worry about this threat, but I would still consider it. It will allow you to have a little less stress during the grieving process. A lot more goes on with funeral arrangements than most people realize, but having to worry about whether someone is going to try to steal from you while you are attending a service should never be a factor.

Camp NaNoWriMo preparation update

I definitely got behind on my world building, but I'm not surprised. It's summer. More work hours, faster paced classes,the impending GMAT, visiting friends, and the allure of a reopened pool have been daunting my plotting efforts. However, I have been jotting down some ideas here and there, which is the important thing.

I also am trying to brainstorm for a writing contest, so there is that. I have more time on the writing contest than I do for Camp NaNo, however. I'm thinking I might focus more on an outline for my novel and character development than the traditional 30 days of world building. This might be a fantasy but it's dark with a crazed serial killer mystery thrown in to the mix.

That's it for me this morning. I have to prepare to run a funeral home office in a little over an hour for another nine hour day. I really do love my job; almost as much as I love writing.

Back to the Grind Spring 2013 Edition

I have been so busy with getting back to the school that I've hardly been maintaining the blog. Working at the funeral home has become far less stressful with our new funeral director. But my time has become crunched between the business classes, work, and the normal every day things that just suck the life out of 12+ hours of my day. I'm going to try to get back on a regular blog schedule in the upcoming months as I make the transition into an MBA program and try to figure out where I am going with my thirty-first (31) year on the planet.

Next week is all about apartment gutting. Goodwill is going to have an enriched inventory by next Friday. On next Thursday, I get to welcome a good friend back to the area (Roadtrip to KC! Woo hoo!) and then go straight to a training meeting at work that evening.

But I just have to say: playing an evil Dungeons & Dragons campaign with my friends is an event to be witnessed. I think I laughed so hard, I almost started crying at one point. Here is an interesting video I watched this week about people who play D&D that looks at some of the (possible) psychological benefits from playing the game.

So Many Changes

No surprise to any logical thinkers out there, 2013 arrived without the world ending. Or if it ended, it restarted without a hitch and with none of us any the wiser for its death. As far as apocalypse predictions went, this one was not nearly as fun as the rapture. I would have loved to have seen more pictures of the sort of people who had randomly disappeared and left their clothes behind.

Women might wish the world had ended if politicians and religious leaders keep pulling the same old bullshit they have been. Men who love women probably should feel the same way, but I have seen that for too many men, we are still some foreign creature that is somewhat human but not quite as human as they are. The heart of the problem is that people need to stop taking other people for granted regardless of biological sex, chosen gender, sexual preference, religion or lack thereof, nationality or ethnicity.

And for the love of sanity, can we please stop allowing churches and other religious groups to run countries, especially this one? That's why America was founded in the first place if people would bother to remember their bloody history. I love the land of the free and the home of the brave, but so much of America has lost that rebel, independent, spirit. Where's the outrage for that?

I suppose I'll stop politically ranting for five seconds. I'm just honestly heartsick for what has happened to my country.

Our former funeral director left and our new one starts this week. The rest of January is going to be a time of awkward transitions. We have a new funeral director who just moved to town and is going to be working with me tomorrow. With any luck, I'll be enrolled in my classes for the semester by Friday and pursuing some formal business administration training.

And in case you think I really haven't been writing, here's a tiny sneak peek from something I'm tentatively calling Deadly Nightshade:

"Belladonna Goodfellow pushed herself up from the floor slick with blood. Her head throbbed, her vision swam, and her thoughts came out as exclamatory clouds in her psychic coffee. Bent almost at the waist she swayed back and forth towards the front door and pushed her way to freedom."