Author: Anne S

… After my venting yesterday, I had a good night’s sleep, and felt much more able to ignore the aggro of yesterday … I was so drained, I hit the hay at 8.30pm, so got a full 8 hours sleep last night yippee. I also called Mum and moaned at her for a full hour, so that also helped get it out of my system … much to my disgust she thought the stories were quite funny hmmm. I have to admit, some of the calls I get really ARE funny as they’re so downright outrageous … and I can usually smile through them … but my patience ran out yesterday after having two full weeks of the same aggressive attitude. And to top it all off, my first call of the day today was yet ANOTHER one – thankfully it was at the start of the day, and the rest of the day was a challenging time, but more mentally than emotionally, so I was quite perky at the end of the day (I just LOVE a good mental challenge!).

Thanks so much for all the positive comments – have to admit, that joke is definitely well suited to “any” working trade/group! I wish I could share the ‘actual’ stories with you, as you wouldn’t believe some of the rubbish we get … and some would give you a serious giggle!

Anyway, the good news is that I finally got my latest stitching in the mail tonight – both my Batman logo and my Biscornu exchange package will soon be in transit to their relevant destinations – yippee! That’s a huge relief … I don’t know whether I like this commitment stitching malarky!! (wow, there’s a bit of my English heritage coming out haha) – it’s really hard to juggle your time!

Only one more 6am shift left this week, then two 10am’s – I have Sunday and Monday off this week, but spending part of Sunday doing a charity walk for Breast Cancer. Work even donated us t-shirts to wear if we signed up … the entry fee is $24, but I think it’s a really worthy cause, and my stitching time that I’m giving up will be put to good use ;P Then on Monday I need to get my scissor fob ready for my StitchNZ exchange (if I haven’t managed to do it before then) … leaving my Mail Art exchange left – but that might be a challenge to be met in NZ while I’m visiting Mum (don’t think I’m going to have time to fit it in before I fly out, as that D-day is only 11 days away now). When I get home, I’m getting back into my rotation – regardless of what my schedule is like … I’m getting a serious urge to get back to my ‘normal’ stitching – so my rotation will look like this in order of stitching (the only thing I may change is to have two focus pieces – Dolphins Domain and Bordeaux Mystery Sampler):

• Focus piece (1) – Dolphins Domain
• Smalls/ornaments – last Christmas ornie RR, and Bunnies in my Garden SAL
• Charity blocks – Racing cars and Dragon
• Canvaswork – Jen’s Jems
• Focus piece (2) – Dolphins Domain or Bordeaux Mystery Sampler
• UFO (mystery) – yet to be decided
• Smalls/ornaments – Christmas ornie with WFBB, and Bunnies in my Garden or Strawberries So Faire
• Mirabilia/L&L – Winter Queen
• Focus piece (1) – Dolphins Domain
• Band Samplers – Bordeaux Mystery Sampler or Le Jardin Silk Sampler
• Finishing items – flat-fold (snowman) and Bunnies in my Garden (hopefully)
• Smalls/ornaments – Strawberries So Faire
• Focus piece (2) – Dolphins Domain or Bordeaux Mystery Sampler
• Kits & Classes – (undecided as yet)
• UFO’s (chosen) – Nature’s Resting Place
• Quilting/Stumpwork – (might use for extra SAL slot if necessary this rotation)
• Free choice – (undecided as yet)

… but the following joke pretty much sums up my feelings today after being yelled at for 3/4 hour over something totally outside my control – it was a pretty good day apart from that … but this stupid call had me working an hour past my finish time, and I really didn’t need it … so now I feel fed up and cranky (as well as being tired, which doesn’t help!) … I’m so sorry that I can’t put in writing a guarantee of something that is the procedure of a totally different company to me, that I don’t even work for … I’m sorry I don’t have a crystal ball to see what the future will hold tomorrow or next week … I’m sorry I don’t have a magic wand to ‘make everything better’ … I’m … just … plain … “sorry” 😦

I don’t know what it is anymore, but complaints these days are getting more scarey and more irrational to deal with – it’s like the crazed Postal worker syndrome has got out of control and become a communicable virus. We don’t give out surnames anymore due to personal safety issues – and it’s really frightening and nervewracking to have personal threats made against you. I just implore people out there to think twice before attacking a customer service representative – think about it rationally before making that attack … yes, I agree that there are valid issues that sometimes crop up, and we all make mistakes, and for that a customer service role means trying to fix things … but there are certain things that are outside our control – take, for example, the weather! My employers, nor other companies, are not directly responsible for weather problems – cyclones and hurricanes are not something that are planned just to upset everyone’s plans … so please don’t threaten us personally if things are disrupted – yes, we want to help you, and do our utmost to rearrange things for you, but we did not personally make this happen! And please don’t get upset at me personally when you need to take 22 people on transport that only has 20 spaces for someone to sit … 22 does not go into 20 spaces, no matter how hard you try, so there’s no point getting aggressive with me, I can’t conjure up 2 more spaces out of thin air! Can you tell how cranky I am tonight?? I’m really sorry, but I need to vent … it’s like there’s a full moon out, and has been out for nearly two weeks – I’m more than happy to help out and fix things that have gone wrong, but please be rational with things people!!

The reason I also apologise in advance to any of you, is that there are religious references in the following that may offend – it is in no way meant in offence, but rather as a joke – and I was reminded of this joke as I was driving home muttering to myself … and this is one way for me to vent and get it out of my system … I promise to get back in my box now and shut up … (but I’m sure anyone in customer service can relate to what I’m saying!)

LAST NIGHT WHILE I LAY SLEEPING,
I DIED OR SO IT SEEMS.
THEN I WENT TO HEAVEN
BUT IT WAS ONLY IN MY DREAMS

BUT IT SEEMS ST. PETER MET ME,
THERE AT THE PEARLY GATE.
HE SAID, “I MUST CHECK YOUR RECORD,
SO STAND RIGHT HERE AND WAIT.

I SEE WHERE YOU DRANK ALCOHOL,
AND SWORE QUITE OFTEN TOO.
FACT IS YOU’VE DONE MANY THINGS
THAT A GOOD PERSON SHOULDN’T DO.”

“WE CAN’T HAVE PEOPLE LIKE YOU UP HERE,
YOUR LIFE WAS FULL OF SIN.”
THEN HE READ THE LAST OF MY RECORD,
GRASPED MY HAND AND SAID, “COME ON IN.”

HE TOOK ME TO THE BIG BOSS,
“TAKE HIM AND PLEASE TREAT HIM WELL,
HE’S WORKED IN THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY, SIR.
HE’S HAD HIS SHARE OF HELL.”

I’ve been as busy as a beaver today, after wasting almost the entirety of yesterday! I spent almost the entire day searching for a round robin choice for my upcoming RR, and have got a couple of options, but nothing that jumps out and says “stitch me!”. It was nice to chat to Mum for a couple of hours as well, too, yesterday – I have to admit that because I spend the entire working day chained to a headset/phone, I abhor spending time on it when I get home … Mum’s pretty much the only exception to that – and she usually works out pretty quickly when I’m not in a chatty mood haha ;P

I managed to fit in a bit of laundry yesterday, but really did waste the entire day with nothing to show for it … so today I tried to make up for lost time! I spent the morning putting out my clothes on the clotheshorse, then sat down to chart out my Batman logo etc for my quilt block, and starting the stitching – didn’t get too far, but I’ll do a bit more tonight, and hope to have it finished and in the post for Wed/Thu this week. I also made a big saucepan full of stew, so that’ll keep me in evening meals for a couple of nights, and no more cooking needed for a while yippee!! I also popped up the road and bought some groceries, and did some photocopying at Officeworks. Now I’m back home again, and just waiting for the stew to finish off, then I’ll be back in the recliner again snuggled under a lap blanket, doing some more Batman stitching, and watching TV. Because my Batman logo is quite narrow, I decided to pad out the block slightly, and designed my own Batman outline in backstitching. I doubt that any of you will have any use for it, but feel free to use at your will – this was purely out of my own head, so there’s no breach of copyright etc 🙂

Rightio, off to get set up for stitching for the night – as you can see, I didn’t get much achieved this morning, so I need to get a bit more done tonight – mind you, I’m on 6am shifts all week this week, so I need to have an early night … perhaps 2 more hours of stitching will be it today …

Yep, today has been a great day for me, and the result is that one parcel is sitting in my work bag ready to go to the Post Office tomorrow – my Melanie’s Exchange from the SBEBB is going to be winging it’s way to it’s new home tomorrow … it has a fair way to travel, so I thought I’d send it straightaway. It feels great to have one of my deadlines met … the other one is “almost” there, but I forgot to buy the buttons for my biscornu (8-cornered tuffet pincushion), so I couldn’t put the finishing touches on it. I have to say it’s turned out to be HUGE … oops! Definitely bigger than I anticipated it would be, but it looks OK – hopefully the recipient won’t mind it being so huge! I certainly don’t have time to stitch another one! That means it will only take about 10 minutes to finish off once the buttons are bought, so that will be another parcel that can go out in the post probably on Monday – yippee!!

So, this weekend I’ll be concentrating on my Batman logo – with any luck I’ll get the whole thing finished over the weekend, as I have no other commitments for a change. That will be a huge sigh of relief you’ll be hearing when that final stitch goes into that quilt block! Anyway, it’s now after midnight, so time to call it a night … thanks for your quick responses on my decision about the Bordeaux Sampler fabric – I think you’ve all talked me into it, and I’m going to use what I already have. I think it helped to have the vote of confidence from you that it was a good decision 😀 Thanks heaps & heaps for that 😀

Hope you’re all having a good week … I managed to read a couple of blogs today, but haven’t been commenting – I refuse to mark any feeds as read until I’ve read them, though … and hopefully after this weekend and having the pressure taken off from my deadlines, I’ll be able to get back to blogging daily again 🙂

My last lot of visitors have moved on, and I have my wee flat to myself again – it was a wonderful wonderful visit with them, and so nice to see them again. If I wasn’t going back home again next month for a visit, I would have been extremely upset to see them go last night – they’re some of the closest family friends we have, and I’ve known Tracey since she was a toddler … it almost feels surreal that they were actually here in Melbourne, though. We ate waaaaay too much over the last two days, and managed to help keep the St Kilda cafe economy afloat, having breakfast and coffees out etc. I tuckered the poor things out on Friday, as we enjoyed our time in St Kilda then Queen Victoria Markets – we were supposed to go out for dinner to Lygon Street (the Italian quarter) at their request, but by the time dinner came they were too exhausted, which I totally understand … so we just ordered pizza and pasta for home delivery, and sat and had a couple of drinks and caught up.

Yesterday we indulged ourselves in an antipasto feast with items we’d bought from the markets – hummus, tzatziki, spiced capsicum dips, three different pesto/nut dips, Turkish pide breads and crackers, semi-dried tomatoes, caperberries, artichoke hearts, dolmades, and bell peppers stuffed with fetta cheese … it was glorious! Only 3 weeks to go, and I’ll be seeing them again, which will be wonderful.

They kindly brought my L&L charts over with them, so I can sort through them and work out which ones I want to put up for trade etc – I’ve decided I need to be realistic and get rid of those ones that I know I’ll never ever stitch, and most of the angels come into that category now.

I stayed away last night up the coast at a suburb/town called Seaford – where I enjoyed the company of friends Bernie and Ali from work … Ali out-did herself with dinner and we had cheese and crackers, salami and olives while supping white wine, then we had braised lamb shanks and mash for dinner, followed by a fresh plum tart, all washed down with a couple of bottles of red wine … we could hardly move after all of it, but it was a wonderful night of girlie chat and work gossip 🙂

I’ve come home to seeing 412 unread posts in my blog subscription list – I may have to just gloss over some posts and not comment on everything in order to catch up … I hate doing that, though. I do have to admit to reading everything, even if I won’t be commenting, but hopefully I’ll be able to catch up during the week by doing a bit each day. In the meantime, though, it’s time to get my laundry etc done – the weather is very wintry today with a lot of rain and grey cloud, and the clothes will take quite some time to dry, I think, so better hurry up and get cracking.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend 😀

I managed to stitch for an entire day again today, and got the front of my biscornu completed … I’m struggling with what to do on the back – I was originally going to echo a lot of the front design, but it’s taken me two days to get the front finished – and literally all day today – so I’m starting to change my mind, or I’ll never get it finished. Today is my last free day for stitching for a while, so I might have to leave it plain just to meet the deadline 😦

Back to work again tomorrow (it was a public holiday today for ANZAC Day), but it’s only a two-day week for me this week, as I’m taking Friday off work to pick Glenn & Tracey up from the airport – then on Saturday they head off somewhere else, and I head up the coast for the night … hence no stitching planned for the weekend. Then next week I only have Mon/Tue to work as a day shift worker, then it’s back to real shift work again. I have to admit, my body has loved having the regular bedtimes and hours, and mealtimes, but it won’t be long before it’s getting assaulted by weird hours again … my bank balance will be happy, though haha.

Seeing as I still haven’t got stitching piccies to share again, I’ll post yet another photo from my collection … there aren’t many left to share now, as my photo collection is back in NZ – it would be nice to have some of them here … perhaps I’ll have to pick up some more on my visit home next month 🙂 This photo is of one of my favourite flowers – frangipani, taken in Fiji a few years ago 🙂 This flower will always bring back special memories of my time in Fiji – I have a silk version of frangipani flowers on a tall stem in a glass vase here, as well as a painted plaster of paris type ornament (just one big flower) … one day I’ll eventually get around to stitching my Just Jude XS kit too … one day ;P