Stress

I have come to the conclusion, that I am a spaz. I stress out way too easily and let the silliest things get to me and really get on my nerves. My discovery of this fact, came due to my new/temporary job. Since my last blog, Kristen has gone on maternity leave, leaving me to do her job....by myself. The first day or 2 after she left, I was a little bit overwhelmed because I couldn't quite remember how to do everything, but Kristen was great and let me call her for help. There were a couple days, I'm sure she regretted it, but she never let on to her annoyance if she was at all annoyed. She was very sweet and really made me feel better about doing ok.

The next few days, I was in a little panic to get a few things done. Debbie, the other A/P lady, was getting overwhelmed herself so she gave Kristen/I a few of her vendors to take over. She gave me a stack of invoices about 3 inches thick, so I was worried, I wasn't going to get them taken care of, and eventually they'd pile up. I spent a couple hours getting them all entered and paid, so now my weekly check run load isn't quite as bad.

Then the big stress came....Komatsu America. Komatsu America is kinda like the sister company/owner of my company. Every month, we get invoices from them to pay. These invoices are split up by branch and a check is cut for each branch. I spend the whole month entering these invoices, then once a month, I cut the check. I add all the entered invoices onto my check run, and fill out a spreadsheet with all the information on the statement. There are some invoices that I don't pay, due to machines not being sold, no copies of invoices, etc. I list these invoices on my spreadsheet. After I add all my invoices to my check batch, my total should equal the total of my spreadsheet, after all the not paid invoices are included. When it matches, I have the go ahead to print the check. If it doesn't match, I have to figure out why and correct the problem. So the Friday before Thanksgiving, I start my KA check runs. I cut the check for Vegas with no problem. Then I add invoices for Elko, and my balances don't match. I figured out my error and printed the check. I cut checks for the other branches, and wait to do SLC last. I enter my invoices and my information doesn't balance. I made sure every invoice was on my batch, and everything I wasn't paying was listed on my spreadsheet....still not matching. I went back through and made sure all the amounts were correct....they were but still no match. I decided to ask Debbie, the A/P manager for help. She takes my binder of over 700 invoices to see if she can find the error. At this point, my confidence has gone down the toilet. I got home and just bawled and bawled. I felt so stupid and incompetent by the end of the day, that I was dreading going back to work the following monday. I will sick with panic and worry.

Monday came, and I had to go back to the dreaded evil place called work. Debbie still had my binder, so I worked on other things. Tuesday, I did my weekly check run...Debbie still had my binder. Wednesday, she finally gives me back the binder. She didn't find the error, but did find some things that weren't listed on my spreadsheet so I made the necessary adjustments. Still didn't match, so I went through everything again.....this time I had found my errors! I corrected them, printed my check, had all my checks signed and FedEx'd them to Komatsu America. I was kicking myself in the butt for not finding my mistake earlier, because it was so simple. A little bit of my confidence had been restored. Now, I just have to make sure I enter all the new invoices and hopefully the check printing will go better next time.

Last Wednesday, Kristen had her baby....little Sophie Ann. She was a week late, and started contractions 2 days before and the docs at the hospital kept sending her home because her contractions weren't close enough together. Wednesday morning, Sophie entered the world. Jase, Killian and I went to see her in the hospital that night. What a darling baby girl! I got to hold her, and it just felt so neat. And Kristen was great and explained the experience to me. One thing, I love about Kristen is that she is open and not afraid to talk about things. When Sophie had the hiccups, Kristen let me feel her tummy and I just thought that was so cool. We spent a little time with her, then left because Killian started to act up a bit, but I am really glad we got to go see her. I really cherish my friendship with Kristen and hope we can continue to be friends and grow closer. I can't explain it, but there's something about her that makes me really want to be her friend. I just hope I don't creep her out haha.

To add to that stress, a couple weekends ago, I got in a fight with Jase's mom. We wanted to include everyone on Thanksgiving so we asked her to change her dinner time to an hour earlier so we could spend more time at their house. During the email conversation, she got offended and got mad at me. She didn't say it outright, but I had the feeling based on what she was saying to me. The following weekend, we went to their house to get something, and I could tell she wasn't quite herself. While Jase was outside helping his dad with something, she looked at me with a very sturn look in her eye, and very firmly said that Killian was her grandson and I needed to share. With my emotions on the edge, I started to tear up and walked outside, which caused Jase to ask what was going on. Jase then asked his mother and she went off and started complaining about me. I jumped in and we basically argued for about 20 mins. Turns out she was mad because we were going to more than one place on thanksgiving, and she expected me to pick one place and eat there. I think it boiled down to us not eating at her house alone and then she accused me of spending more time with my family than I do with hers. At that point, I lost it because we do a lot to spend time with her and she was completely over reacting. After a week of calming down, Jase talked to her via email and found out the root of her problem. Jase's brother Chris, joined the army and spent almost a year in Iraq. during this year, his wife, Peggy basically fell off the face of the Earth. She didn't come to any events, any parties, any dinners and moved and didn't even tell anyone. Karen was worried we were going to start hanging out with my family more and forget about her. I assured her that would never happen, so things have seemed to level out. We still went to their house for Thanksgiving and although it was a little awkward, it was pretty calm. It was scary for me to get in the argument with her because it's very important that she like me, but on the other hand, I think it was good for us. I think she realized that she over reacted, but also realized that there was some truth to what I said. We can't drop everything to accomodate everyone so some negotiation is needed to make everyone happy.

Things at home are doing ok. We put up our Christmas lights, our tree and our decorations and our house has a great Christmas feeling to it. I absolutely love Christmas and love lights! And this year, we have a house to decorate and it's a wonderful feeling.

Brittania is still living with us, and still isn't home too often. She seems to go back and forth a little bit with the relationship she is in, and I can't help but feel bad for her. I wish there was more I could do help her, but I think it will have to be something she works out on her own.

Brittania is paying us rent each month, and we've decided to use her December rent to make a CD. Some of you may know, but I love to sing, and every couple years or so, I make a CD for my family. It's good to do around Christmas, because it's an easy way to do gifts for everyone. It's also reasonable in price, so that helps too. I am really excited because I haven't done a CD in 3 years. I also think it will bring a little of my sparkle back. For the past little while, I have been depressed about not being able to sing as much. When we bought our house, one of our goals was to turn the downstairs bedroom into a singing room for me. I wanted to paint it, and set up all my stuff and just have a place to go when I'm sad or angry and just sing. Singing makes me feel so peaceful and it lets a lot out of my soul. Unfortunately, I can't have my singing room right now, but hopefully doing a CD will help me feel like me again.

Well it's late, and I've gotta get to bed. If I don't go to bed by 11:30, I have a much harder time waking up in the morning. Goodnight.