Work

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this summer I was blessed with a job at the state fair. The fair started Thursday, and my shift began at 5pm. In case you forgot what I'm doing, I'm selling chocolate covered bacon, churros, frozen lemonade, and drinks. That is part 1 of my job. But let me back up; there are some things I should mention before I talk about the actual job. Ever since I've gotten back from Maine, my big toe on my left foot has been bothering me. I've mentioned it to my dad briefly a couple times. The pain seriously is not that bad. But Wednesday night I was describing to him where the pain is-where my big toe meets the ball of my foot. He said that he'd had that before, and that it's called turf toe. He kinda laughed as he said that, because it's something that mainly athletes get. In case you're unfamiliar with that, it's damage to the soft tissue on the bottom of the foot where the toe meets the ball of the foot, a result of hyper extension. I looked it up on webMD and it said that it's something that lasts for a few weeks. So I was nervous that being on my foot all the time at work would prolong it, and I didn't have any good shoes that would help keep it in place (most of my shoes are flip flops or have flat soles, and neither help with the pain). I iced my toe Wednesday night, and alternated ice and heat during the day on Thursday, both with no real reduction of pain besides temporary relief.

Also, all of my life, I have been a shy person. Now that I'm older, I'm not really shy anymore, just quiet and not very outgoing around people I don't know. This was another source of nerves. Talking to people and trying to get them to buy things from me, while learning to do the rest of my job at the same time, seemed daunting. I thought I'd be alone at a stand all night, the first night of the fair, and the first night of my job. Suffice it to say, I was a little worried.

Of course, the night went way better than I'd expected. The Lord is so good. It was a case of "when we are faithless, He remains faithful" (2 Tim. 2:13). Here's why:
-I found a good pair of tennis shoes in Holly's closet upstairs, and she said I could wear them. These shoes were really comfortable for standing all night, and the best part-no toe pain.
-When I first got to work, I was a little early. I wasn't sure where to go, but I ran into my friend Amy who also works there. She showed me where to go and overall really calmed me down.
-I didn't end up having to work alone at all.
God knows His children so well, and is faithful to help us even when we forget to ask for help. It's like He answers the prayers that we sometimes forget to pray.

Ok, back to the job part of this post:
Thursday when I started, I was trained by my boss and then began working with a guy named Joey (who, it turns out, went to a rival high school of mine along with Zach and Jordan Stoever) who had worked there last year. Since he was experienced, I was less nervous. After 20 minutes or so, he left and was replaced by a girl named Amanda. It's her first year working at the fair, but she had been working all day, so she had the hang of it too. After an even shorter time of working with her than I had with Joey, I went to a different place, closer to the entrance of the fair, to work with Amy's sister Lila. She is one of the best at that job, and everything went so smoothly. I worked with her for the rest of the night (a little over 4 hours). It wasn't too crowded that night, so there were times where we had no one at the stand, but there were also times where we had several customers. But it was such a smooth night and nothing went wrong. Even better than that, I loved it! I loved talking to all the customers and people watching and spending time with Lila and other employees.

Then yesterday I experienced part 2 of my job: working in the bacon trailer. Now this job is busy. You are constantly making bacon/dipping it in chocolate/salting it/putting it in the freezer/packaging it when frozen. There's never not something to do. It's a small trailer and there's usually three people in there. Toward the end of the day there were even more - at one point there were six of us working in there. It's safe to say that it was pretty cramped in there. I can't tell you how many pairs of gloves I wore throughout my 9 hours there (minus my 30 minute lunch break and 15 min afternoon break). It seemed like we were always running out of room in the freezers. But it never got to the point where we'd actually run out because people came and brought the choc. bacon back to base camp to be delivered to the people selling it. This job was not as fun because I didn't get to deal with the fair-goers and it's pretty monotonous. But I liked that once you got into the rhythm, it went very smoothly.

Anyway, that's going to be my life for the next few weeks-that and sleeping as much as I can, because it's exhausting. I'm definitely enjoying my day off today, and looking forward to tomorrow, because this job is pretty unpredictable. And I love it!!

Mickey Mouse, the best ice pack ever! We've had this guy for as long as I can remember.

Notice his nose is broken...it's been like that for years. Mickey is a great pal when you're injured!

Fireworks Thursday night! The fair has fireworks every night, and since I didn't see any on the 4th of July, I had to take a picture. Excuse the blurriness.

Lindsay and I on her first/my second day of work!! You don't get that good of a view of our shirts, but you get the idea!