10 Most Memorable Events from 2009

Revised

1. My Graduation in May
2. Grandpa's Death in February
3. Grandma's Death in December
4. Heart Surgery after my 22nd birthday
5. First family vacation in over a decade
   
6. Obama became the first black president
7. Gay marriage was banned
8. Got my first car in March
9. Started my career in August
10. The Swine Flu N1H1 Influenza started, killed and threatened thousands
    

Remodeling My Room Pt 2

On Thursday night my parents and I went on a little field trip to Nader's La Popular just to look at bed frames and I ended up buying one! It caught my eye right when we walked in. It is a simple dark wood queen headboard. My dad built and fixed the bed frame Friday night and I got to sleep on my new bed when I got home from work that night.

Things left to do:
Paint the room
Sand the night stand and stain it to match bed frame
Buy big frames
Buy alternative down comforter
Buy duvet

We'll see how money flows and how quickly I can get this done.

Jon's Poem

"I insist my love is endless
and when we kiss
we experience bliss"

Jonathan the FSO

Yesterday night Jon came over to spend the night and as he was kissing my neck I began to cry. Tuesday was Jon's last training session and today is his graduation. As proud as I am of him for getting placed as a Financial Services Officer and everyone fighting to have him at their branch, I am also very sad.

Because he had training every week or every other week in LA, I was able to at least see him then. But now that he is placed and the training is over, I don't know that I am going to get to see him that often. Especially with my crazy schedule and his branches wanting him to work on Saturdays. Arrrrggg

What can I do? I don't know how many weekends I'll have off and if he'll be off those same weekends as well. I'm just really bummed at the way 2009 is ending. Things are not happening the way I wanted them to end, but I guess everything happens for a reason - I just have to wait and see what that reason is. As for now, today is my only day off this week and I won't be off again until next Thursday. I can't wait for the holidays to be over.

P.S. At least we'll be able to spend part of Christmas together.

Remodeling My Room

Since Jonathan and I decided to live at home with our parents for another year, we decided to go ahead and buy what we wanted/needed to be comfortable in our "room". I want to paint my room and buy a queen size bed, Jon wants a new 42"+ TV.

On Saturday my mom found a mattress factory in the pennysaver and my parents went to go look at it. Their prices and quality were amazing. I ended up ordering a custom made queen, double sided, firm, orthopedic mattress with 25 years of warranty for only $330. The place looks like a hole in a wall place in L.A. but it is 100% legit. I think they may even be a distributor to furniture stores and department stores. For anyone looking for a mattress, the place is called: Dream and Rest Mattress, it's at 5901 S. Vermont Ave. Los Angeles Ca. 90044.

Now I'm in the process of looking for a headboard. My dad says there are a lot of places in L.A. where they make furniture and we might even be able to custom order one if we don't find something I like. Hopefully we're able to find something soon, I really want a bigger bed soon. My dad is going to build the bed since we want to keep the rolling bed underneath my bed.

I want a headboard similar to this one, I already have my big pillows, I need to buy an alt down comforter, a duvet, bed skirts, sheets, pillow cases, etc... I pretty much still need everything, except the mattress!

Good and Bad news

I feel like I'm slowly making progress at work. I have been there three weeks and I feel like I have been there forever. Every day I tackle something new, something physical, so many things unexpected, it's like everyday is a new a week.. or even a new month. At least I don't feel as overwhelmed as I did toward the beginning of last week. I have gotten organized, I am beginning to meet some goals, I've been making headway with staffing, attendance, and communication with my team.

When good things happen, there is always that little something that makes you still worry. Well this week it wasn't something little, it was something big. My dad found out his company is moving to Arizona and he, and all my uncles and cousins who work there are losing their jobs of 15, 20, even 30 years, within months. My parents are beginning to plan, cut back, and hold off on things. It was a little depressing because it's the holidays and they just spent so much money on Angel's and Evey's Christmas presents on Black Friday, and my dad finds this out last Monday (The Monday after Thanksgiving). I am so thankful to God that it is "just" that. When my mom started the conversation on Monday night, she scared me, needless to say that I am very thankful that both of my parents are healthy, that my brother and sister are healthy and that my boyfriend and his family are healthy. There are just so many new cancer and N1H1 cases everyday that it is becoming scary.

The economy is wearing a lot of industries out, the housing market is still low, and even though it is a good time for us to buy a home, we're going to have to wait. The economy needs to improve, please improve. I hope my dad finds a job soon. They were really worried about health insurance and Angel. I was shocked that I didn't panic or worry as much as I would have when my mom told me, I guess in part I was a little relieved to hear my parents were healthy and I was relieved because it's something I can definitely help with.

I love you papi. I'm sorry your job is ending but we are all here for you and we will all support you and take care of you!

My loves <3

Pac Ten Standings

*picture taken from: ESPN
Before USC beats UCLA I would love to post PAC 10 standings and show that even though we haven't had a good season, we are at least better than USC!!! If you can't beat them, join them (as losers, hahaha)

Next Week Cal plays Washington. GO BEARS!

This Thanksgiving...

This Thanksgiving will be memorable.
I just got out of work after working a 15 hour shift preparing for Black Friday (my team will make it's goal and more... $100 grand in our pocket).

This Thanksgiving I am grateful.
I have a loving, caring, supportive (sometimes a little too over protective) family and boyfriend. I'm very thankful to God that he allowed my mom to visit her mom one more time this year because he cancer is getting stronger and stronger. Thank you to Mi Tio Beno and Ana for all their support and care they provide my grandma with. I'm thankful for the health of my family and myself - my parents have scared me this year with their illness, I hope my mom's ball in her breast is truly "just liquid," and thank you for a quick and healthy recovery after my heart surgery this summer.
I am also very grateful for the opportunity to attend and graduate from UC BERKELEY; for having a job, a car, and no bills; for my fabulous and funny friends, for the amazing people I've met and have worked with through my short career at Macy's; and I'm grateful 2012 is just a movie - if that were to happen in real life, I would freak out just like everyone on the screen did.

This Thanksgiving I would love to rest.
I am tired, my feet hurt, and just thinking that I have to wake up at 5:30am on Friday to go to work makes me more tired. (Thank you God for not letting me open on Friday!)

This Thanksgiving I am also a little sad.
I wish Jonathan and I could have worked something out with each other and our families to spend Thanksgiving together. We waited too long to plan and now it's too late. I don't think I'll have enough time to bake cookies, shower, do my hair, get ready for Friday and the rest of the week because I wont have a day off until the following Friday, and drive back and forth to Palm Desert for Thanksgiving and on top of that drive at night. This is definitely a time when I hate the long distance part of our relationship. I was willing to give up Christmas Day with my family so that we could be together Thanksgiving here and Christmas there but things don't always work out as planned. (I'm actually a little confused because both holidays are huge get-togethers with big meals days with my family and not his - this is a small black dot in our relationship we haven't really discussed... we'll wait and see what happens NEXT YEAR)

This Thanksgiving I learned something about life...
Cherish life, enjoy the beauties of the world, learn to include vacations when planning your days, months, and years.
My parents always saved and currently don't have much debt, however this year was the first time we took a family vacation in 12 years. We managed to go to Puerto Vallarta right after my graduation and before my heart surgery. My siblings and I did not know how to vacation, we didn't know what to do with so much time, we were not used to having one thing planned right after the other. Thank you mami and papi for our vacation, I hope you keep your promise and at least you get to travel more frequently.

Thank you 2009 for amazing memories. I know 2010 will be filled with many more adventures and surprises.

"Ballin' on a budget" 2 year Anniversary!

Jonathan was supposed to write about our anniversary as a guest writer... but he didn't make time, and still hasn't written it. It's Monday November 30th. I'm mad at him for this past weekend.

"only a miracle can save the bears" - espn 1982

Three days left 'til The Big Game and I can't help but mention The Play.

On November 20th, 1986, Stanford was getting praised for their last minute comeback with a 35 yard field goal. But the Bears came back with a 6 seconds left touchdown.

1982 Cal vs Stanford ESPN Classic

"The Bears have won!! The Bears have won!! Ohhh my god!! The most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heartbreathing ... exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football. California won the big game over Stanford!"

What on earth is heartbreathing? I hope he meant breath taking! because it really was whooooo hooooo!!!




Watch Video on YouTube

November what?

November 17, 2009

-Today was my 2nd day at 519 as the Men's GSM and today was the November Biggest One Day Sale (preview day). I feel like it is going to be a lot harder to try to get know my staff as we are in the middle of holiday.

Good luck to me!
But on another note
-Our two year anniversary is coming up!!! Jon says we shouldn't do gifts. He says he just wants to plan the whole weekend. I'm really excited about it because this would be the first surprise he would keep and that would involve more than just staying in a hotel! Thank you baby for two amazing years! Can't wait to see what this weekend is going to be about?



... and the Big Game is also this weekend. Nov 21st at 4:30pm GO BEARS!!!!

Approaching 6 Months After Graduation

Today is my day off and since I got sick yesterday, I've been in bed all day. I started to think about everything I've been doing since graduation and what I would like to be doing. What do I like? What can I do?


I would love to:
- pick reading back up
- get re-involved with my community
- be a wedding planner/event planner on the side
- learn to use photoshop to create event stationary
- learn photography

What have I been doing:
-I bought some books, yet I've noticed that I don't really make time to read because I'm either doing laundry, cleaning, too tired or I'm talking to Jon or my family.
-I've also been spending a lot of time budgeting and creating excel spreadsheets to track my spending and my savings (i love excel)
-I've been reading wedding blogs, looking at new dyi ideas, finding creative ways to save money on your big day

What are my priorities?
- giving back has always been a passion, with my limited time and holidays around the corner I've decided to donate 2 Operation Christmas Child Boxes. I've completed the boxes and I just need to drop them off
- I want a hobby- hobbies and keeping myself busy

*wedding planning was very fun when I was helping Karla! Who needs a Wedding Planner? *photography would be fun, but where do I take pictures? I would need a better camera!!!
*

- I want to save money to buy a house, have a nice wedding, save for Grad school and prepare an emergency fund

What Can I do to get there?
- Operation Christmas Child is a good start, I'm also going to email the Chair of Que Tal and get involved through work
- I can start carrying my camera with me everywhere and see if i can take some good snapshots with what I have now
- I might need to wait a little longer on the reading since I'll begin to work 6 day work weeks and longer hours during the holidays
- Continue to save, probably start a Holiday Shopping Strategy to make sure I don't over spend on things I don't need.

Sad Halloween

Halloween 2009 sucks.

I closed today and I open tomorrow. My boyfriend is out partying, my sister has probably been drunk since the crack of dawn, my parents and Angel went to a Halloween party and went trick-or-treating, and I had to work. A lot of associates went home early because they were "sick", and it just so happened that it was mainly moms with young kids at home or our younger associates who wanted to go party.


Today is really haunted.

• We didn't make our sales goal nor did we hit our loyalty for the day, week, or month (today is end of week and end of month)
• The lights in the men and men's shoes department kept going out
  
• USC loses BIG TIME to Oregon and Cal almost lost to ASU

Another sad Halloween goes by. I actually have not celebrated/partied/gone out for Halloween since my sophomore year in high school. I've either had to work or I've had midterms to study for or work on for the next day. I guess I'll get to enjoy Halloween when I have kids, if at all...

Halloween sucks... I hope Angel at least gives me candy.

1st Assignment: Young Mens and Juniors

Today I got an official offer from the Assistant Store Manager, to become the group sales manager for Young Mens and Juniors beginning on October 12th. It wasn't what I expected, I didn't have to sign anything and we didn't discuss salary. It was a quick one sided 5 minute conversation. I shared with my juniors staff that I will be staying with them and they were excited. I also spoke to the mens GSM to arrange a time to walk the floor and discuss employee opportunities.

Nancy Gonzalez: Young Mens and Juniors GSM

CAL v. USC Weekend

What a tomato filled weekend.

Statistics:
Last time Cal went to the Rose Bowl: 1959
Last time Cal won the Rose Bowl: 1938.
Last time Cal beat USC: 2003, 34-31 in 3 OT's
It's looking like 2009 is not the year for Cal to beat SC or go to the Rose Bowl.
Cal lost with an embarrassing 30-3 final score.

Besides losing - the rest of my trip to Berkeley was fun. Even the drives up and down were fun, they were probably my favorite - getting to spend time with the guy in the red shirt! (and counting tomato trucks)

Thank you so much Evey and Adri for letting us stay at your place! You guys are so kind!

I got a chance to see my sister, my roomates, and my friends! Although the tailgate made me feel a little old, it was nice seeing everyone again!


After the game, on our way to Evey's and Adri's, Jon and I passed this house with this sign outside. It was too funny, I couldn't resist not taking a picture! Go Berkeleyans!

Tightwad Hill was definitely an experience, although Jon and I do not ever plan on watching the game from there ever again, we definitely got to at least experience it! This was the 2 year anniversary of our love tailgate when we met for the first time.
My faith is still alive and I'm not giving up on my Golden Bears. We can do it. We'll do it. We'll beat USC again, sometime.

Recent Accomplishments

Yesterday was my Coaching THISIT project presentation. I was extremely nervous but it was a great success!

Saturday, during my Girls Night Out event (which was not as big of a success as planned, $6.1/$8.8), my store manager asked for a sneak peak of my project. He asked me to restructure several of my line graphs and specifically asked for bar graphs. I tried working on it at work on Sunday and Monday but I was helping aother GSM with zone and Monday I was scheduled zone as well. Monday morning I was freaking out, Marc's idea was more confusing and hard to follow. Thanks to Jonathan (who always saves my life) my graphs were easy to understand and pretty.
All the MTMs and GSM's where there, SM, ASM, DVP, DDHR, L&D, HR, even Anthony and Eric came. I had a full room. I felt my voice shaky. I'm not sure why - I knew my slides, I knew my powerpoint, I had notes, I had already practiced. The good thing was that everyone liked it, people laughed, and it's over!

They had a cake for me in the end, which was really cute and really nice of whoever thought of that, picked it out and all!
THANK YOU!
I also found out I am getting my first assignment at Del Amo 511!! I don't know what my world will be yet but I'm getting one!

Picture from Flicker RXSQ

Some side notes

• Jonathan and I may be going to Berkeley for the weekend to watch the USC v. CAL football game
• I read an amazing article on DJing Your Wedding With An IPod it's a must read!
  

Redesigning THIS Room

This room was a complete mess when I first moved in. Everything looked like it was just thrown in the room. Angel's messy desk and huge chair were always on my way, the bed was flipped and toward the wall. I was using a stool as a night stand. Things were bad. This weekend I decided I needed to live in a less cluttered place. My parents took Angel's desk and chair out, Jonathan and I moved my bed around, took my nightstand out from inside the closet, bought a lamp and started to put some of my frames up (instead of my mom's non-matching ones). I think I'm still going to put her pictures up on the wall but I'm going to buy matching frames for them. I wish I had before and after pictures. I want to wait and see if my parents do buy a queen bed that way I can just buy a comforter for that, if not, then I wont invest in that. I'll just save my money. I am thinking of buying a comfy chair though. I want a place to sit and read or just use my laptop without having to sit on my bed. We'll see what I find!

P.S. My presentation is tomorrow and I'm beginning to freak out a little because Marc made me change several things, one of which I don't agree with... he wants me to change my line graphs into bar graphs, which is counterproductive because it does not show the upward trend!!! ahhhhh I can't wait until I get placed!

GREYS Tomorrow! ABC 9-11pm

Grey's Anatomy 2 hour season premier, September 24, 2009 at 9pm on ABC

Overwhelming week closes with love

I broke down on Thursday after the webinar at work. I felt so overwhelmed and behind on my work. A GSM was there when I started to feel that way and he suggested I talk to HR which definitely helped. On Friday, I did as much as I could to catch up, I uploaded 2 journals, spoke with our facilities manager, called Jacob Stoner and set an appointment with him, I called Art twice but he didn't answer, I made an appointment with the Receiving Manager for our shipping/receiving portion, and I also sat in conference call with my mentor. The only thing that I didn't get accomplished that day was my two hour time slot already set aside since Sunday to sit and talk to my mentor about my project.

Today I'm going to talk to Marc again and give him a list of things I need to do so that he can help me set appointments with my DM, DP, and DVP. I have to go out and set an appointment with the security manager and so far and so on. My presentation is a week from tomorrow so I've been working on it here and there but I feel that with all these appointments I'm not going to have enough time to "coach" which frustrates me MORE... arggggggg

Anyhow, this weekend was my first full weekend off and I got to spend it with Jonathan. It was as peaceful as it could get, we cuddled, relaxed, watched HGTV which made us want to move in now. And of course it makes me want to move in ASAP because I hate parting. Although "distance makes the heart fonder," I can't wait til there is no distance! I miss him. I'm going to try my hardest to save as much as possible, because I know he has his loans and car to pay off, I need to step my game up.

This is week 8 of my program. This month we celebrate our 22 month month-aversay. This year is hopefully the last year we have to travel to see each other.

Places I'd like to visit

I've thought about the new chapter in my life and incorporating traveling to it. I would like to commit myself to a list. I've always been tast oriented and like checking things off from a list, hence making a list of places I'd like to visit would probably work out!

• Costa Rica/Panama
• Chile/Argentina
• Dominican Republic/Puerto Rico
• Greece/Italy
  

What is my next puzzle piece?

Today I stopped by Leibner's 6th period English class, and I walked in when he was asking about the "meaning" of a "puzzle piece" in respect to a person's life in his lecture. It brought back so many memories. He mentioned how one person, one book, one event can change a someone's life and add a different piece to an ongoing puzzle. Little events can change the form of your puzzle. You also want to have several pieces to your puzzle, with multiple experiences and interests. Someone with few puzzle pieces can be easily figured out and be boring. It's all about giving meaning to each event and putting them together to form this never ending puzzle with pieces that come along the way. The puzzle is forming without a box with a picture to tell you what the puzzle is supposed to look like in the end because there is no end. You have an idea of what the form is once you have one or two pieces together to work with, but once that part is completed it's up to you to add a new piece and continue the puzzle.

Right now my puzzle has several general pictures. It includes Carson High School, UC Berkeley, Political Economy, International Corporate Law, Berkeley High School, Stiles Hall, AmeriCorps LBSA, Law School/LSATs, Macy's West (SF), Friends, Family, Jon, and currently Macy's Inc. But what is my next puzzle piece? What do I want? What am I currently looking to do besides just working at Macy's? What do I need?

I feel that during high school and college I was always super involved in the community and giving back and that's something that I am currently not actively doing. I would love to be involved again, I just need to figure something out with my schedule. I also need to commit to myself that I will begin to travel. I put that off in college because of my relationships with guys and now I want promise myself that I will begin to give myself vacations to learn, explore, live, and experience new puzzle pieces.

Macy's ODS

Today was extremely hectic. Macy's Friday Preview Day to the One Day Sale Saturday was a hit with the $10 off from 9am-1pm coupon. There were points during the day where I was even ringing, luckily we had a handful of on-calls start today which helped us with ringing and sizing rounders. I had one in juniors and I saw another one in lingerie. Too bad for them for starting on a one day sale, but at least they came in handy to the store. Juniors just needed $6 thousand dollars to meet plans for the month for the week, when I left at 5:45pm we had 5.7 in.

I'm just a little disappointed with the staffing changes Macy's is making. I've lost a total of 6 people since I've been here. Who is going to work in Juniors???

Tomorrow is Jonathan's birthday but because of this One Day Sale I have to work both Saturday and Sunday :( I'm sorry baby. I love you

Cal Football Schedule

Cal won its revenge game on Saturday against Maryland, 53-13!!! This Saturday, we play Eastern Washington at Cal at 2:30pm, which I don't know much about therefore we should win!

GO BEARS!

I'm Sick

Friday I was feeling so sick at work, I had a runny nose, drowsy eyes, a soar throat, headache, cough, and chills. All these symptoms scared me. The exec assistant even gave me an H1N1/Swine Flu information form. After work my mom and I rushed to urgent care and I was able see a doctor after an hour wait. I was diagnosed with: OTITIS MEDIA, NASOPHARYNGITIS, AND PHARYNGITIS. What is all this? Well, it's an ear infection, acute bronchitis, and tonsillitis/strep throat.

Saturday was college football kick-off and Jonathan and I stayed in watching his game, my game and others. Doctor said bed rest and luckily I didn't have to work on Saturday. Sunday I went into work but my mentor sent me home so I can get better, I actually feel like I got worse, my body was aching, my throat hurt more, and when I woke up on Monday I couldn't even move. I was in pain. Since I'm missed work, I worked on my project all day in bed, I'm also planning on working on my journal.

My test results from my saliva culture is still not posted online, I hope I get better soon.

On another note, I want to share some family pictures from Veronica's get-together.

my grandparents are in town!

Mi abuelito Chava (Salvador Gonzalez) and mi abuelita Licha (Hildelisa Gonzalez) are back in Los Angeles and this time I actually get to visit them and see them!!! Unfortunately for Evey, she only got to see them one day. Thank you Evey for taking your camera!

I'm so lucky to have a job

Today I met a girl who just graduated from Cal Poly and she was starting as a signer, working from 6am-3pm for minimum wage. I felt bad for her because she already has her degree. At the same time, it made me place a stronger value on MY degree from the best public university in the country. This feeling was confirmed later in the day when I found a picture of my store manager wearing a Cal cap. When I asked him if he was a bear too he said no, but he would much rather wear a Cal hat and with more pride than wear a hat from his own school.

Can you think of how I felt? I felt proud, accomplished and honored! I felt like the luckiest person! I wanted to yell out - I GRADUATED FROM UC BERKELEY!!!

Later when I went to go see my grandparents, my grandpa told my dad outside that he was proud to see that my college degree was paying off with a good job and that he loved my car and license plate!

I was reminded today THREE TIMES of how lucky I am to be able to say I AM A CAL ALUMNI. GO BEARS!

P.S. I'm considering Accounting Online Courses: http://lahc.edu/classes/fallsched09.pdf

How You Know You Are No Longer at Berkeley

This list was written during finals week in May by Landy and Me. I just found it hidden in my OneNote pages. Thought it would be funny to share it!

1. You wish you were still in college
2. You don't run to catch the bus
3. You don't need to memorize bus routes or schedules
4. You can't get Thai, Japanese, Mediterranean, Italian, India, Mexican, Healthy, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese foods; Pizza, Intermezzo (salad on salad), Crepe's, Frozen Yogurt, or have so many Café's within a 1 mile radius
5. You're not willing to stand during football games , you're just sitting down
6. You don't spend holiday's at the library
7. Weather and work stops you from going places
8. Can't stand steamy, very tight humid parties
9. You're not at a donut shop singing at 2am with bums for your friend's birthday (Mariah Carey, We Belong Together)
10. You are not easily convinced to follow strangers to a bar and play frisbee with them when you have work to do
11. Your furniture matches and it wasn't from your "ex-boyfriend"
12. Most of your meals don't consist of chicken and pasta
13. You're not on facebook all day everyday
14. You don't have many random moments
15. You're at work doing work instead of working at lakes, parks, or memorial glade
16. You don't carry around a towel, frisbee, and a nerf football
17. You don't talk about laundry without thinking about lingerie
18. Can't nap during the weekday's
19. Weekends are no longer 3-4 day's long
20. You don't go to banks to get quarters to pay for laundry
21. You don't get as many discounts
22. You don't get confused for a high school student
23. When you're asked where you're from it just means ethnically, not where you grew up
24. People don't go around asking "what's your major", "what year are you", "where do you live"
25. You don't move once a year
26. You don't ask people to take off their red shirt
27. You don't shop at Dollar Tree for your necessities
28. You no longer get 4 weeks off for Christmas, a week off for Easter, nor three months to celebrate 4th of July
29. Spring Break doesn't exist
30. There are actual penalties for skipping work, unlike skipping class

*The first one was changed.
This list may continue as time goes by, but hopefully we'll be able to contribute a "what you don't miss about Berkeley" list.... which probably wont be long and just consist of papers, midterms and finals.

First Paycheck : End of Second Week

Rachel: Who's FICA? And why does he get all my money?

I officially received my first paycheck as a trainee with a career ahead of me. With all the meetings, trainings, and interviews I think I have genuinely received a great vibe for the job. I love my co-workers, Del Amo 511 has an extraordinary team, I would not change anything about any of them. I love the fast paced atmosphere, it's so fast-paced that I'm a tiny bit scared of falling behind with my trainee assignments since there is so much shadowing to be done. Aside from having a crash course in EIC/CIC and SOS with the Scorecard, I have learned a great variety of on-the-job tasks, such as mainframe programs, the reminders and DML's, I have participated in 2 black box walks and a retention board meeting, I have a led a rally, pulled my numbers up in time for POD, I've learned how to manage schedules and I've even had time to role play with my associates and observe them long enough to hand out a Thank You For Being Outstanding Card. Today I was part of a Fine Jewelry Trunk Show, put on by Iber Hoja Diamonds. I'm learning a lot about everywhere and everything, up and down. Last week, when my mentor was the zone manager, I assisted in a call from Women Shoes where the customer was returning a pair a shoes without a receipt and with a previously returned CRL. I was surprised at how calm I was during the entire situation (except when I was heading toward shoes because I was nervous). Nonetheless, the customer was a Spanish speaking customer who did not understand very much English and was in the middle of this dilemma. I was able to return the pair of shoes after locating the CRL history and calling the credit card company, she left the store happy with a new pair of shoes that she bought after a hundred thank you's for being patient with our team.

One thing that concerns me is Junior's business. We're not getting much traffic down there and that is affecting our numbers. Although it is the responsibility of the girls to interact and sale to the customer, it is impossible to sell to people who aren't around!!! I really hope that our Back To School event this Sunday will bring our numbers up, as well as our Friday and Saturday Preview and One Day Sales.

For now - I'm off Saturday! and it looks like I may be off Tuesday and Wednesday and from there I don't get a break until the Friday after training at the SouthBay Galleria, yikessss!

P.S. I received around 250 compliments on my dress and make up today! My dress was purchased at RTW Suits a week ago and I purchased 2 more suits today! I am slowly building a wardrobe! Now I need colored shoes :)

Updates Updates Updates

• 1 Month and 1 day after Heart Surgery: I feel great! My heart has not gone at 220+ bpm in this past month, my HUGE bruise is gone, my wounds are closed and the scars are minor - almost unnoticeable! Although Kaiser gave me a hard time I'm glad Dr. Baik and Dr. Kangavari rescued me.
• 1 Week after my First Day at Macy's: I like it! Everyone is so helpful and nice, I already feel a bond with most of the GSMs and MTMs in my store and with Christina the ASM. I have yet to meet the SM Marc Allen, but I meet him tomorrow morning. I'm alittle worried because I feel like my first week went by so fast and I haven't had enough time to cover everything in the binder under the first week!!!! YIKES
• Wardrobe: I need more work clothes!!! Not joking. I went shopping last Friday to try and find clothes and I bought 2 dressed and a shirt, but that's not enough I need more clothes!
• MONEY: I can't wait to get paid - I am super excited to start planning my multiple saving endevours for a condo! yay! C'mmon moneyyyyyy. Just want to share Jonathan's favorite financial blogs that I'm beginning to read: Dual Income, No Kids , Budgets are Sexy, and Personal Finance Advice. I'll eventually start following stock, meanwhile I'll stick to budgets and advice.
  

Executive Development Program Trainee

Work is crazy, fast paced, and filled with so many smiling people, I really like it! First day I was really excited to see Anthony and Eric and hear Drew on the conference call because I didn't feel alone. I realized I am training in the Macy's where the district offices are located, which is perfect! I can get more face time and hopefully more opportunities will open up. First day was mostly meeting people and filling out paperwork. Second day was more exciting. I was able to see the fast paced aspect of the job, I got to sit in meetings, observe my GSM coach, participate in a retention meeting, observe Del Amo's POD meetings, and so much more I can't name everything. Today I have a late shift and tomorrow I'm off, this is probably the only strange part about my job (to me) that I'm going to have to get used to.

These 10 weeks are very planned and seem like they will go by really fast. I've been really nervous these past couple of days because I feel like there is so much I need to learn and do and I don't have enough time to do it all.

After a week and a half I was feeling more comfortable in Concord, I hope this takes less. So far the people I've interacted with, except one, have all been really nice and helpful.

Weekend Getaway: Santa Barbara

Thank you so much Jonathan for a romantic, relaxing, peaceful, funny, random weekend at Santa Barbara. So many changes coming this week, Jonathan getting a new 2009 Honda Accord thanks to the CARS Cash for Clunkers Program. I get to meet Jonathan's family this upcoming weeked and I start working at Macy's on Monday! I'm pretty excited for what the future holds!

Puerto Vallarta: Jungle Tour

Saturday's Jungle Tour was really fun as well. We learned a lot about the native plants, fruit trees, the animals and many random facts about other living species. We also got to go on another tequila tour where I got lucky because the tequilero's wife's name was NANCY... need I say anymore :) It was a different kind of 4th of July celebration for us, but really fun!