Apparently Weekly

I guess weekends are the best time for me to work on summarizing life.  Good intentions during the week are trumped by the need for some down time and sleep.

A couple months ago, I filled a plant 'tray' with some stale bread crumbled up.  A few weeks ago, I added some bird seed to the tray.  Today, I've been enjoying watching two blue jay mamas gorge themselves on the seed.  They both look bedraggled and skinny so I'm happy to assist them by providing a steady food source.  J. also filled up our bird water dispenser and I've been looking on Pinterest and other sites for ideas to make a water tray for them.  Heading into colder weather will likely bring rain so water won't be as scarce as it has been - well, I mean we're sure hoping for a hugely wet winter - but now, it's still hot (or at least warm) and with watering restrictions, lawns and planters are dry and not yielding much.  I think that's why the birds aren't looking good - incredibly dry conditions limit their food and water options.  Poor things.

I woke up at 6:30AM this morning and got up and started culling out my closet.  It's now 3:20PM and I've carried that forward and worked steadily most of the day on the office and also gathering - have a big box of 'stuff' ready for the charity pickup too.  I need to head back upstairs soon to continue the culling - I'm getting the box of pants out from under the bed that are a size I have decided I will never wear again - and clear my bed so I can get in it early tonight.  I feel tired and probably should have tried to sleep another couple hours this morning but it felt good to get going - and I'm motivated and want to keep on the path I started down this morning.

J. got 15 pairs of shoes out of the entry way closet.  It's become the shoe graveyard because H. takes off his shoes when he comes in the house and eventually, we just stash them in the front closet. There's quite a selection there and yesterday, I read an article online about a young man who's making a small fortune tracking down rare shoes and re-selling them.  I'm tempted to track him down and send him a picture of the shoes to see if he's interested.  H. will appreciate the cash and I'll appreciate having many fewer pairs of shoes in a closet that should hold coats, umbrellas and rain boots.

We don't actually own rain boots but I've always thought they were a good idea.

I worked in the office a few hours yesterday and should have gone in today but I figure it's a 3 day weekend next weekend so if I am unable to get things wrapped up during this week, I still have time. I'm in pretty decent shape, actually - though working on depreciation is always a dreaded task and with all the construction projects we've done this past year, it's a nightmare.  I'm plowing through but..it's a snow plow at times.  I'm supposed to be off this coming Friday for a four-day weekend but I think I will move that vacation day to later in the month - I'm using up the hours I need to comply with the carryover policy but I would rather work through Friday in exchange for hopefully having off at least one full day next weekend.

I really, truly hope I can get things done by end of day Friday but that might be a bit optimistic.  Lots of meetings this week -

Yesterday morning, I happened to check my personal email (not something I do very often) and had a notice from Amazon that my account may have been compromised.  After messaging B., I realized HE was the compromiser - tried to use his XBox to check something on my Amazon Prime account and him logging in from Tennessee created the fraud alert.  I give Amazon credit to know that someone was accessing my account from somewhere I'm not - and I had a hint it was B. when I went to reset the password and the phone number in the 'send text' was his cell phone.  Grrr.  But it's all fixed now.

We may try selling a couple things on the Let It Go app.  Worth a try.  A friend had a garage sale and made a whopping $10 - after hours of work to get things ready and more hours to put things away. It's just not worth all the work - so we might try the latest sell it app and see how it goes.

Guess I will wrap up and keep going on the path to continued culling.

Rare

Rare are the days when I come home ready for a beverage that might make me forget the day but today was one of those days.  It's Friday (yay!) and that in itself is cause for celebration, right?  But really, this day sucked.  From start to finish, it was awful.  You know I rarely say that so...I'll leave the details to your imagination.

Years from now, when I'm re-reading my life, I'm going to ask myself 'what in the world was so bad about that day?'.  There will be no answer - which is true today, too.  No answer.  It was chaotically busy with so many little things - all the big things had to wait and the big things can't wait.  So I'm working tomorrow.  Yay me (not)!

I am so far 'behind' in my life's tales - where to start.

Hello again - it's now Monday.  I'm leaving that Friday missive above to remind myself:  the best way to get over a horrendous day like last Friday?  Have a splendid day like today.  Mondays are categorically a no fun day pretty much every work week - but thanks to the time I spent in the office on Saturday, I had my lists ready of 'what's next' and made good, steady progress all day.  Things that were troublesome on Friday cleared up today - some with a little intervention and effort on my part and others just the way things seem less consequential one day than they did in the moment of the horrendous day.

And the major difference between the two days?  ME!  Friday was a series of hard things that got me on a track of frustration and angst and on those rare days when I can't snap myself out of it, it's just easier to give in and just 'have a bad day'.  But today?  Little things that were irritating Friday were just easily resolved and I just kept on going as soon as the little things were done.

I have four more great days planned for this week and with no meetings (so far) on my calendar, it's looking like a great week.  If I keep on the path I was on today, I should be able to get much of my year-end stuff done and actually take a weekend off.  And in September, I'm off four Fridays - using up vacation to comply with having no more than 80 hours of prior year vacation on the books at the end of September.

Somehow, the TV is on The Andy Williams show - and it makes me miss my mom.  She loved Andy.

I went to Thunder Valley yesterday and what's even more miraculous about the difference between my peace of mind Friday vs. today is that I lost hugely.  The slots were just total crap - I drove home in a huge amount of traffic; the freeway connector between Hwy. 99 and I-5 south was closed so the horrible drive was even MORE horrible and told my hubby in a phone call 'I need a hobby that doesn't result in feelings of self-loathing'.  Time to take up needlepoint.  Or tatting.  I have a cousin who does amazing tatting projects and I'd really like to learn.  I just might!

There's been some HUGE drama at work (which may have also contributed to the dis-ease of late last week) and it amazes me how incredibly stupid people can be.  And how watching the drama play out again on Facebook (well, I'm not watching - this person is so far from a 'friend', I have nothing to do with them on Facebook, but I have other friends who ARE so I hear all about it) is just watching someone make an ass of them self over and over.

We had ribs for dinner and I have the most horrendous heart burn ever.  I've taken meds and nothing's helping.  It might be a long night.  I'd better get going on trying to get some sleep.

Darn It!

I spent yesterday nursing a very painful back issue - whiny, pissy and by the end of the day, convinced I had something horrible.  In so much pain, I just felt nauseous most of the day.  I went to bed with trepidation and not much hope - but managed to rearrange my pillows and slept semi-OK, especially compared to Friday night which was not great sleep all night.

I woke this morning and gave a few minutes thought to heading to Thunder Valley - the Thunderstrike jackpot was > $120,000 and I should have gone - but I decided 'I'll wait and see where it ends up this week'.

And of course, someone won it around noon today - and I think 'damn, that could have been me'.  Oh well.  It will be available the next time I venture up there and I'll have some time to continue to build back up our fun money account.

J. and H. drove to Fairfield today to get a new car for H. - a 2012 Ford Focus - 56K miles, one owner, no accidents.  It's got a slight 'bif' on the front fender but they will come pick up the car and give H. a loaner while they have that fixed in the next week or so.  The car is in excellent condition and H. likes it - and combined with the $1,000 deductible he had to pitch in from his savings, we were only short $652 above insurance - so not bad considering.

I did have a moment earlier this week when I realized that I will be driving the oldest car (mine is a 2009) and even though it's low mileage (just turned to 80K), it still irritates me that I'm driving the oldest car.  We considered using the insurance money to make a down payment on a new car for me but I really don't want two car payments...so we'll wait until we pay off J.'s Camry.  It sticks in my craw a bit but oh well.  It is what it is.

I spent the day doing little piddly things - finally ran the silverware tray through the dishwasher and cleaned out the silverware drawer.  Also soaked and washed my hairbrushes and combs.  Kept Chloe calm while the neighbors had an outdoor BBQ - she barks like a maniac whilst outside doing her business.

Tomorrow is the annual Welcome Back Breakfast and Tuesday is the first student day of the 2016-17 school year.  A friend at work got all testy last week - 'why are people pre-dating things August? Look at this, they dated it August 4th!' and another co-worker replied 'that was yesterday'. Yikes - August did get here really fast.

I'm entering year-end madness which never trails budget madness by too much.  It's going to be an incredibly busy fall and I'm trying to psych up for it.  Not doing great at that (yet) but trying.

J.'s favorite golf course announced they are closing - they can't afford the water to keep the course playable.  It's so, so sad - he hasn't been playing there long but really loves it and it's sad to see a business failing.  Personally, I think it was more than just the water - they've been offering rounds for $18 and that's a clear sign they are trying to drum up business.  J. said 'I'd buy a membership if it would help them stay open'.  Maybe someone will purchase the course to keep it going - hope so 'cuz it's a really nice course and not to far away - as golf courses go.

Gilmore Girls marathon and J. has been uber patient - it's either Law & Order or GG and the L&O's are starting to be episodes I've seen a gazillion times.  Even I say 'no, not again' to L&O lately and that's a sure sign they are overdoing the reruns of the same episodes.  So GG is a nice change AND it's a fun prep for the new episodes coming up in November!  So excited about the show getting to tell 'the rest of the story' that fans never got when the show ended so abruptly.

Happy Monday to all -