Geocaching in Minnesota

I disappeared with the hubby for a few days to Minnesota. He had to go up there for a recertification for his job, so I tagged along. I spent some time with my daughter and a couple other people I wanted to see that I haven't seen for a while. It was great reconnecting with an old friend, my niece and my sister in law. Then, in the evening, after the hubby was done with his classes, we wandered around Maplewood, Woodbury and the Mounds Park area geocaching. We only found 17 of them (the 18th one alluded us!) because our Nuvi was acting up horribly! It was showing the roads as we crossed them, but it wasn't having us turn on several of them that would have made life easier.

We found a series of caches in one of the mall areas of Woodbury and started doing them. Most of them went in order, basically from one parking lot to the next. Then the next one came up on the Nuvi and directed us back out on the main road, down a couple miles and out into a residential area. Once we got into the residential area, there was nothing 'public' there, and it appeared like the Nuvi wanted us to forge out into someone's back yard and trek back up a hill into another mall parking lot. The ordeal took us about 1 hour in all to get out of the residential area and back into the mall area again and continue on. We did find that cache; But then a couple caches later, Nuvi misdirected us again. Some of the caches we found were VERY unique containers and locations! My hats off to b.boudreau, JW&Crew and DOC for their very unique and original geocaching containers! They were AWESOME finds and definitely what we would do for caches in an urban area like that!

While we were out and about, we educated a fellow traveler from out of state about the fine art of geocaching also! He happened upon us, and asked a few questions about what we were doing. So, we took him on a 'find' with us and he was truly intrigued by the experience and definitely plans to check out the sport as soon as he is back home!

Hubby and I had a very good trip! Wonderful time, great friends and family visits and just some 'us' together time! Oh, but its good to be home again too!

Til later!
HUGS!
Tracy

As summer ends...

Labor Day has always marked the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. This year is no different. In some areas, school started last week, on the first of September, but in most, school will not start until September 8th. The beginnings of fall have been in the air for many weeks around here in WI. It seemed like we really never had a full summer at all. It went from winter to spring to fall in a flash.

The part that makes me the most sad as I watch the days fade into fall is there were so many things I wanted to do this summer and never got to do them. I didn't get the chance to take any of the kids to a water park. I didn't get the chance to make good on my promise to Matt to take him to House on the Rock. And I didn't get to spend as much time with my husband as I'd have liked to, geocaching. With fall soon upon us, I am hoping that the opportunity to geocache more will present itself, even with me starting a new job soon.

With the end of something, the start of something new is always around the corner. I hope each of you takes time to enjoy every day and live it to the fullest. Remember, our time on this earth is short and you need to make the most of every opportunity to tell those around you what they mean to you! Don't ever let a day go by where you don't tell people how much you love them! None of us gets out of this life alive!

Til later!
Hugs
Tracy

Do you know what the word 'tips' stands for when it comes to serving?

Some of you know I have spent the entire summer waitressing 3rd shift in a 24 hour family style restaurant. It's been an unusual and strange summer for me at the same time as tiring and exhausting! 3rd shift has always been my favorite time to waitress because you get the best of both worlds in WI Dells then. You get the late night after the waterparks and other attractions close just before bed snacks and desserts crowd and then you get the atypical bar crowd. I have worked this shift off and on for 20+ years in WI Dells and always LOVED it! This year, however, has been a totally different story and without explanation. First has been the come and go crowd of workers that just don't seem to have any consideration for their co-workers. A much lazier crowd of 19-26 yos descended upon WI Dells this year and seemed to think the rest of us 'co-workers' should be at their beck and call and really wreaked some havoc on business by 'up and quitting' or 'getting fired for really stupid stuff' unexpectedly throughout the summer.

Typically, I am the cheerful one that finds ways to make others laugh and feel good about themselves. I am the ever cheerful server that no matter what the day has provided, still serve you with a smile. When you walk into my restaurant, the last thing you care about is that my cat puked on my good shoes just before I left the house to come to work, or that my kid called and needs another $50 to make his rent, or that my husband got home from work as I was leaving to go to work and that I haven't seen him in two weeks because our schedules are not meshing right now. You don't care that my refrigerator broke down again or that my washing machine ate up my apron and forced me to buy a new one. And that's fine, I don't share that with you. That information is reserved for my friends who are much more sympathetic to my trials and tribulations in life, as I am theirs! So, when I walk in the door of the restaurant, all anyone sees is the smile and the cheerfulness that I am about to exude on everyone I come in contact with, including my fellow co-workers who are getting ready to leave for the night and aren't so cheerful themselves now! I cheer up the waitress who had a table walk out on her during dinner because the cook refused to cook a special order for the 10th time! I make the manager laugh at another one of my gawd-awful jokes that I pulled out of my email before work. I flirt with the cook who is waiting for his shift to end and HOPING that I don't give him any orders before he leaves. (I do that so that he's not so grouchy when I put in that last minute order before he turns the kitchen over to my cook who is again, late!)

My brother and I reminisced about the 'good old days' of restaurant work. We both worked the summer of 1986 together at a restaurant in WI Dells. For the 20 weeks of 'summer' (mid April - mid October), we got to see what it was like to make GOOD money! The average server back then, relied on whatever was made during the hectically busy summer season to sustain them through the winter. WHY? Winter in WI Dells is typically very slow, if you can work an entire 6 hour shift and leave there with $100 in tips every day all winter long, its a GOOD thing. Typically, $50 a day in tips is more normal. During the summer though, table turnover is good, and you generally get between $400 and $600 a day in tips, easy. Which means that in a typical week, you are pulling in a good $3000.00 in tips alone, or $60,000.00 for the entire summer! This is GOOD money! Now, let's fast forward to 2009, which we are in now.....

This summer though, I have had a lot less to be cheerful about when it comes to work! First and foremost is TIPS! The term tips, I learned back in the 70s and early 80s, from Little House on the Prairie, when Pa was defending Ma in one of their adventures in tvland! He walked up to a surly group of rabble rousers who were 'hitting' on Ma and told them, "TIPS means To Insure Proper Service and I expect you to treat her with a little more kindness before you leave and apologize to her for your poor behavior" (or something to that affect!) It was a lesson that stuck with me all these years though. To Insure Proper Service is really a culmination of good values, good work ethic and good manners. And I was raised by parents and grandparents that told me at an early age 'Any job worth doing is worth doing right, the first time!' But like everyone, I am only human and I do have some limitations. I am prone to making a mistake once in a while. I am not completely infallible and without fault, from time to time. We can't always be perfect, though I do try my darnedest to come close with my customers. Occasionally, I will forget the creamers when I bring your coffee, or the dipping sauce for your chicken strips and yes, sometimes I will mess up and put croutons on your salad when you asked me to leave them off. Rarely though, do I show up at your table and serve you fries without ketchup (or ranch), and you are not going to have to 'wait' to get syrup for your pancakes, its right there! And usually, if its a special order, I will go out of my way to remember it. I am quick to correct an error though and always apologize and if its a HUGE mistake, yes, you will see a discount at the register, especially if you were particularly nice about the mistake. But, alas, even in my perfect world, there will be the occasional person who no matter what you do, its not right.

These are typically known amongst the 'wait staff' as UNFORGIVABLY RUDE. This would be the group that I have had almost every single Saturday for the past month and a half. The group consists of mom, grandma and two very rude children (mine would have been sent to the car without a meal had they pulled even HALF of what these two children pull on me!) It starts the same every single Saturday "What is your soup tonight?" 'We don't have soup after 9 pm' (and why would you want it anyhow??? Its been on that steam table probably since 6 pm and tastes NASTY!!) "Do you have lemon pie?" 'I am sorry, we are out' (Excuse me, its midnight, and my baker left at 9 am this morning and we have had over 500 people in here since she left and you want WHAT!?!?!) Then we get down to ordering. "I want my eggs just a hair between over easy and over medium, not too well done, but not slimy either and bacon that's crisp but not too crisp and hash browns that are golden brown but not crisp, dry wheat toast, and grape jelly" I want this burger here, without the lettuce tomato and onion, don't make it too well done, but don't leave it raw either and I need just a little of that sauce on the side. "Get me a soda with 3 cubes of ice and a blue straw instead of a red one" Then when I bring the order, "You forgot my 7 pickles on the side with an equal mix of mustard and french dressing" "Get me a soda refill and make it 4 cubes of ice this time" "The eggs have hair in them again, don't you know how to cook?" (no, I am a server for a reason and its not HAIR its a tiny little 'egg string' that happens from time to time when you cook an egg!)

Now, typically, when this group comes in, they are my first table of the night. I work 3rd shift, from 11 pm to 6 am. Once I walk in the doors, I am bidding the dinner servers and managers a good night as they hightail it out the door after their hectic shift! Its me and a cook, by ourselves, all night long and I am left with a cash drawer that typically has around $200 in a variety of forms that usually is only a few $5s and $1s and assorted coins for change. I have ZERO access to the safe to make change for those endless streams of $100 bills people bring in. My general crowd is usually pretty good and either whips out a debit/credit card to pay for their purchases or is willing to hand over a driver's license while they run to the all night Walgreen's to get change to pay their bill. And they are all pretty congenial and cheerful about it. OH not this group! This Grandmother does the same thing EVERY SINGLE SATURDAY NIGHT, she gets testy with me because I cannot accommodate her 'wish' that I magically create change from a $100 bill that she KNOWS from the last Saturday night I CANNOT make change for! I usually get some testy remark, again, that she KNOWS from the last Saturday night, about the fact that we do NOT have Lemon pie or Pumpkin or Pecan (Hey, not sure where you are from, but Pumpkin and Pecan pies are generally HOLIDAY pies, around Thanksgiving and Christmas, not your atypical summer fare type pie! And Lemon, Cherry, Blueberry, Raspberry are atypically GONE after the dinner crowd has devoured it!) Midnight at night on a Saturday night is a horrible time to look for anything special in WI Dells. If you want Soup, Baked Potatoes, or your choices of pie, show up around 7 pm and you will more than likely get it! Don't come into my restaurant at midnight and expect me to have ALL that stuff on hand, when the baker doesn't come in until 4 am, and is gone by 10 am. And don't be upset to find out she only made 3 or 4 of a pie, simply because we have a limited amount of space for holding pies that typically only last a day or two when it comes to shelf life. And I don't understand why after 6 weeks of coming in and being told this, that your memory is so short you can't remember it from week to week after being told 6 times! (I know I am getting old and I know even my memory is failing from time to time too, but usually after I have been told something twice, IT STICKS and is committed to my memory! And guess what??? Since I have had these particular people at least 6 times IN MY RESTAURANT, I not only have committed their faces to my memory, I don't even have to write down their DEMANDS - yeah, not order, DEMANDS, to remember what they want!) I will even promise you, when they come in this coming Saturday, Grandma is again, going to get testy because we are out of lemon pie, don't carry pumpkin or pecan pie in the summer AND try to get me to take a $100 bill to pay for their order. I will even bet you every penny that they leave me, that there will NOT be a tip on the table when they leave!

And that is my other gripe about this summer. People, the servers waiting on you at the average restaurant makes $2.33 per hour (some areas its a little more, but not much..... its definitely NOT enough to survive on) and depend on those tips to make up the difference in their wages to MAYBE bring them up to the current minimum wage. When you stiff a waitress/waiter, it really bites into their income and can seriously cause hardship in their lives. Typically, the average restaurant server waits on approximately 35 tables during an average dinner shift. The average per guest rate for a dinner, with coffee or soda, and a piece of pie is around $12 per person. At 15% per person, that's approximately $1.80 per person 'tip'. Let's pretend in a perfect world that those 35 tables were only 2 person tables, and you got the 15% per person. The average server then makes approximately $126.00 in tips for their 4-5 hour shift, which is good, since for their hourly wage, during that 4 hour shift, they only made $9. So, let's say, that every other person 'stiffed' that waitress/er.... Now that server who just busted her(his) butt making sure you got everything you wanted to eat, PLUS your multiple refills on beverages, while waiting on 4-10 other tables at the same time, just made $63.00 instead. Do you really want to pay YOUR bills, your mortgage, YOUR gas to and from work, on that same $72 this person just made because you felt the need to not provide them with their income??? Now imagine if you will, the 3rd shift server who typically gets around 10 tables TOTAL in a 7 hour shift BY HERSELF, gets stiffed by every other person. You just took my MAYBE $36.00 a night in tips down to $18.00 and remember, I make $2.33 so for my entire night of being completely ALONE and waiting on every single table by myself, plus seating every customer BY MYSELF and running the cash register BY MYSELF, and also cleaning up the ENTIRE DINING ROOM and getting the wait service area clean and set up for the next shift BY MYSELF, I have made a total of $35 for the ENTIRE SHIFT. Break it down, it averages out to $5 a night. Do you know that is WELL below minimum wage???? Would you continue to go to YOUR JOB and do the job, whatever it is you do, if your boss only paid you minimum wage??? But yet, you come into my restaurant, demand that I wait on you, serve you whatever you want, and do it with a smile and expect me to be happy with less than minimum wage for it???? All because you refuse to get change for that $100 bill you KNOW I can't cash and didn't have a seasonal normally only available during the holidays pie you wanted?? Remember, I am the one who cheerfully came in and waited on your butt at 11 pm to 6 am even though I got VERY LITTLE sleep all day long, because one of my kids was sick, or my husband needed my help with something or because I needed to go to a doctor's appointment or some other thing that can ONLY be handled during typical business hours, and I cheerfully waited on your pathetic overly demanding family at midnight, just to have you take a HUGE bite out of my income and make it impossible for ME to make my bills now because you decided I deserved NOTHING for the hour's worth of my time that I spent bowing to your every whim.

By the way, my typical night this summer has been an average of 5 tables. My average 'take' of tips is usually around $30 a night because for the most part, 90% of my customers do tip and tip well. I have a regular that comes in once a week, he orders a burger fries and soda & typically leaves me $10 tip. I have certain people that I can rely on to leave decent tips. Its the 10% of my customers that drive me batty and make me realize "You can't fix stupid". Last night, probably one of my WORST nights when it came to tips. I had three tables total, in my 7 hour shift. My usual $1 coffee drinker, my normal 20% for his bill tipper, and then another table that consisted of 4 adults with two coupons that brought their $48 bill down to $25, and left me a WHOLE $1 in tips, bring my grand total for tips for the entire 7 hour shift to $3.50. If I had been tipped fairly by the table of four, I should have walked out this morning with $10.00. Which, for 3 tables, would have been GOOD money! Last night, definitely made my decision to make this coming Saturday night my last night of waitressing, a GOOD decision. You can rest assured, I will not return to waitressing ever again in the rest of my adult life, because this summer has definitely been a waste of time for me. My very last paycheck, for the majority of the summer, that now runs from the end of May through til the beginning of September is pathetic to look at my 'total accumulated wages'. For the past 16 weeks of working 7 hour nights, 5 nights a week, including my tips and wages combined, has been a grand total of $3217.38. Do the math: $200 a week, $40 a day, or $5.75 an hour. I made minimum wage, but not by much! And definitely NOT near what the wages were back in 1986, wouldn't you say??

Think about that, the next time you are tempted to 'stiff' a server at a restaurant. They are working for their living too!

Sorry for the long vent this time! I just had to get that off my chest! ;)
Til later!
HUGS!
Tracy

Is Your Shampoo Dangerous? - DivineCaroline

Is Your Shampoo Dangerous? - DivineCaroline

Shared via AddThis

First day of school....

I watched today as the kids filed by on their way to school! *sigh* I don't get to appreciate the first day of school any more or look forward to the end of summer. I really do miss some things about having TJ around. The mouth? yes, that I can do without, but I really do miss my baby girl otherwise! I really enjoyed the 'drama' of her teen years; the cute boys at school, the new girl she met today and is hanging out with, the "UGH! Mom, you just don't get it!" while I laughed knowing full well I get it more than she thinks! It's not easy with her now living with her dad, but I will get through this.

*sigh* The first day of school.... and here come the kids home already! Where has this day gone?

Til later!
HUGS!
Tracy

So, I know its been forever...

But if you have me on your facebook, you know what I have been up to all summer, which is WORK WORK AND MORE WORK! I have to work again tonight, but then I am off for the next 4 glorious days in a row before I return to work for the very last three nights of summer in WI Dells. Anyone not familiar with WI Dells, we have open tourist season pretty much from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend and its usually pretty hectically busy. This summer is probably been the worst season I have seen for myself working third shift for tips. The tips I have gotten from each table are AWESOME, but I just haven't had that many customers this year. Most of my nights are more cleaning than anything else.

So, on top of working from 11 pm to 6 am, I have also started my new Gold Canyon business and its really been doing well! If you are not familiar with Gold Canyon, they are just the most AWESOME candles around! Besides lasting forever, the scents are FABULOUS! (ok, yes, lasting forever was a tad bit of an exaggeration, but they do last a LONG LONG time!) And this past Tuesday, I got to meet with the sales director of the company and swap ideas for the coming holiday season! It was an AWESOME FANTASTIC WONDERFUL experience! Lots of free gifts for those of us who attended and some GREAT input from demonstrators that have been in business a while. Go check out my Gold Canyon Website and experience for yourself the wonderful scents and home decor available for the upcoming holiday season!

Since the summer season is soon over with, I will start posting more on my blog!

Til later!
Tracy

Another weekend of Geocaching

We took off early Saturday morning and geocached our way to Muscoda for the Morel Mushroom Fest. For those not sure what geocaching is, its taking a gps unit or two and going around the world (yes, WORLD) in search of hidden items (caches) just for the sake of saying "I found it". Some caches have tradeable items that you can exchange and keep. Some have trackable items where you pick them up, move them along to another cache so that people can track the mileage and location progress of their 'travel bug' as they are called. Some are easy to find and some are more difficult. Tim's and my current challenge is to find the more difficult to find caches. And most of the time, we take an easy one and turn it into a more difficult one by way of not following directions!

We had one such cache this past weekend where that is exactly what we did! We read the description that said "Follow the trail, cache is located within a few feet of the trail". HA! Our GPS unit (the Delorme PN-20, handy little device!) showed we were within approximately 100 feet of said item and the trail appeared to go down a slope that didn't look very 'friendly'. Instead of staying on the trail as we should have, we bushwhacked our way through the woods instead! Tim's exact words to me were "Pretend you are a billy goat!" as we traversed our way down the side of this hill through the woods! Of course, the moment we came upon the cache, we did discover that the 'trail' was right there and not as 'bad' to have followed as we thought!

What was really cool about our day is that we added another state to our caching finds! We now have MN, WI, IL and IA on our list of cache finds. It was a good day! This is definitely our time to spend together doing something fun, getting exercise and the kids all enjoy going too!

Anyone interested in finding out more about geocaching go to the geocaching website and check it out!

Til later!
HUGS!
Tracy