Partway through August, I've only got 1 week left of work and Wendy's, and I'm putting up another little update... cuz so much has happened... well... sorta...
I have started plinking around on the piano again, and have since discovered I can play and sing 1 song. YAY! "Lord, Here Am I" is the song I can play and sing. I also have learned that I can easily hit an E, which is quite the accomplishment for me, considering I'm a natural alto.
In addition, I have picked up 6 of my piano books and decided that I need to play through them and memorize at least one song out of each. Aren't I the ambitious one? *cough*
Also on the agenda, but with a deadline, is making 3 long A-line skirts. A houndstooth, a flannel, and a suade darkish khaki color. I'm excited! I also have a formal I want to make, but we'll see how that goes!
I've also done some music finding and graphic art. Amongst the other more serious songs I found, I found two about food. "Solid Potato Salad" by Nat King Cole and "Homegrown Tomatoes" by John Denver. I made a wallpaper about the Homegrown tomatoes one, which I have put up. I want to make one for "Solid Potato Salad" but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Why don't they make silly songs like that anymore? It's just fun music with silly lyrics that's not trying to push an agenda, idea, or anything else. It's just fun. The world lacks silly fun stuff like that anymore, and I think it's a shame.
Anyway, Working at Wendy's has become slightly interesting. I had to learn how to do stocking and did it for only 3 days, thank goodness! If you've never worked set up for a fast food restaurant, you may not quite understand what all it involves, particularly when you work for a chain that is solidly dedicated to freshness.
The stocking I had to do involved making sure everything in the island in the dining room was full with more to spare under it. Salt packets, pepper packets, forks, spoons, knives, straws, napkins. Then, I had to make sure that there were enough cups, lids, hot sauces, crackers, granola, forks, spoons, knives, cutlery packets, nugget sauces, salt packets, pepper packets, napkins, kids toys, etc. for front counter and T3 (the register where orders are taken and you get your food). Also had to make sure there were enough french fry and nugget cartons too.
The how much, though slightly intimidating, is not quite as bad as the sheer quantity and variety of everything. We have 5 different sizes of cups with 4 or so sizes of lids, 2 sizes of chili cups and lids, between fries and nuggets there were about 5 different sizes of cartons, we have at least 5 different nugget sauces, hot sauce for the chili. For each of the sizes of cup/lid we had to have somewhere between 1 and 3 sleeves of, not to mention whatever was in the rack. And may I say, this was complicated by the fact of multiple half opened sleeves of the same thing that seemed to be a frequent problem...
In addition to stocking there was buns, Frescata bread, chicken drops, and bacon. buns involved untying them, tucking the end under the buns (after setting 2 bags on a tray), and then putting them in the microwave for 30 seconds. I had to do probably over 25 trays of buns. Kid you not. And we used them all! That is how busy we are! I never had to do Frescata, but the gist of it is, you had to put it on a tray, put it in the oven, and then take it out at just the right time. I think I was suppose to do potatoes too... but I never got around to that or Frescata or chicken drops. Bacon I did do, however. That involved taking out these large slabs of bacon, stacked about 5 deep in a pack, peeling the half frozenish layers off of each other, cutting it in half, putting it in the microwave, shaking it (don't ask me why, I still don't know!), and putting it in the sandwhich lines.
All this was to do be done in an hour and a half. How the last girl did it, I may never know. I'm just glad I don't have to anymore! But! I learned, and I am glad for the knowledge.
I have also learned how to cut lemons (which is about the biggest no brainer thing ever. And I am FAST at it too!), how to cut tomatoes evenly at a consistent thick (or thin)ness. I can also do cheese and lunch meat in about 20 minutes. Again, the quantity is what gets ya! I also know how to make Almost all the Wendy's salads. Their secrets are no longer safe! MWAHAHAHA! I also know how to hand food out the window... which is the second biggest no brainer. The hardest part about it is trying to figure out what order you're looking at on the screen. :oD I also think I have figured out how to take orders... I know, it sounds insane that one could work in a fastfood joint and not know how to take orders, but so it is.
So now I'm sitting here with just a week more of work before I'm done for the summer, and I am grateful for having done it. Besides the practical work lessons, I've relearned a few others as well... like "99% of life is just showing up for it." and that people that don't drink are rare and people that don't smoke are a novelty. I also learned that sometimes it's the big biker dudes that are the most gentlemanly. I have one regular (well, I have probably over 100 regulars, but one in particular) that looks like a biker and if you just looked at him, you wouldn't want to mess with him, but he is consistently the nicest and friendliest guy I have in the morning.
I've spent a good deal of the summer learning and sorting through things. It never will cease to amaze me that the things I think I have all figured out are the ones I don't really get at all. The opposite sometimes holds true as well. And again, God has been trying and testing me. First, He showed me that He really does mean it when He says "ye have not because ye ask not" and then He gave me something to try it out on.
My school bill came, I had less than half of it and then by a series of downright God arranged events, the money was there. I had never seen such a thing first hand in my own life before (wasn't much of a chance before), but now I do and I did and I walked away singing His praises.
Something interesting I have observed is that once you learn a lesson, God won't let you forget it by making you practice it. He taught me to take everything one day at a time and now... I'm having to exercise it lest I go mad.
Oh, I beg you all to continue praying, and little more so because Dad does not yet have a job, but there is an interview being set up! PLEASE PRAY! thank you!
Well, this has been my summer thus far. I have a few more weeks left in which I don't forsee anything interesting happening, but then again, I've been wrong before.
So, this year was good. I grew, God worked, and I did things I had never done before. Yes, twas a good year.
