My Quest for Water

Does it sometimes seem like it’s really hard to get everything together and get out the door on Monday morning?  

It does for me.  It seems like whenever something breaks or I leave the house without something I need, it happens on a Monday.  This brings me to today’s quest for water.

Shortly before leaving for work this morning, I filled up my water bottle and set it on the kitchen counter.  Then, I made my PB&J sandwich (one of my go-to choices when I didn’t pack or plan anything the night before) and packed it in my work bag. 

I arrived at work and unpacked my laptop and notebooks, but no water bottle.  It was still sitting on the kitchen counter.  Thus began my quest for water. 

Photo Credit Here

I went downstairs to the vending machine to buy a bottle of water.  

It was out of water.

Next, I walked to another building to buy a bottle of water from that vending machine. 

It was also out of water. 

My next stop was the cafeteria.  

I was finally able to buy a bottle of water!  

The elusive bottle of water!

Tomorrow, I will be double-checking my work bag to make sure I packed my water bottle! 

So, what about you?  Are you more prone to forgetting things on Monday?  

Here’s to the rest of the week being smooth for everyone! 

These have nothing to do with my quest for water, but they're pretty, so I wanted to share them.

Thursday 13: Hi

Since I haven’t blogged in almost three months, I thought a Thursday 13 would be a good way to start back and catch up.

1.    Since cat pictures are always a good way to start, enjoy this one of Caroline.  The bed she’s in clamps to the side of my desk, so she has a comfy place to “supervise” me on my work-from-home days.

2.    Caroline has had a lot of work to supervise during my blogging break.  I got assigned to help another team with a project that had a very tight deadline, so I was putting in some extra hours.  We made it, though, and (fingers crossed) it should be January before I’m dealing with any more super-tight deadlines. 

3.    Charlie does not involve himself in my work. 

4.    Nick and I celebrated our 17^th wedding anniversary in September.  It doesn’t seem like it has been that long! 

5.    Theodore turned one at the end of August.

6.    It’s beginning to look and feel like Fall is really here.  We’ve had highs in the low 70s and lows in the mid-40s. 

7.    I’ve switched to my Fall cards for my buddies with Chemo Angels and Senior Angels.

8.    I’ve been crocheting again. 

9.    I found this tutorial and liked the way it looked, so I made one (with no plan for giving it to any particular person).  I enjoyed making it, and I love the texture the stitches create.  (Note:  I used an H hook and a shorter starting chain for a narrower scarf.)

10. During the decluttering/organizing that we did during the spring and summer, I realized that I have A LOT of yarn I had forgotten about.  I came across this green, which is our neighbor’s (Lori) favorite color.  I asked Lori if she’d like a scarf in that color, and she said yes. 

 

11. When I dropped off Lori’s scarf, I asked if anyone else would like a scarf.  Fortunately, a few people said yes.  I’m almost finished with a pink scarf for one of the girls.  Next up is a light blue one for one of the girls, and a dark blue one for one of the boys.  One of the other boys really liked the original gray one, so I gave that one to him. 

12. We got the cats an ice cream truck (remember how much they loved the taco truck), which they enjoyed.

13. I’m working on catching up with visiting everyone’s blogs and hope to “see” you soon.  

Catching Up

I didn’t mean to go so long between posts, but work has been incredibly busy lately.  I just haven’t wanted to sit down at the computer again after staring at a screen for twelve-plus hours.  But I’m trying to get back to blogging now.

Even Caroline, who loves “helping” on my work-from-home days, is a little tired of the long days. 

 There hasn’t been much outside of work lately, but here are a few highlights.

Of course, the flowers are blooming.

A local yarn shop donated the materials for crocheted Pride pins to our local Pride group.  They asked for volunteers to make the pins.  I only took one kit because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to figure out the pattern.  Fortunately, I was able to do it.  

The most exciting news is that we now have groundhogs living in our backyard.  They are so cute!  I’m aware that a lot of people consider them to be pests and work to get rid of them.  However, they’re not doing any damage, so we’ve decided to peacefully coexist with them.  There has been a lot of new construction here recently, so it only makes sense that the groundhogs have had to relocate closer to humans.  If our yard is a safe place for them, we’re perfectly happy with that. 

At one point, I saw seven small groundhogs and two large ones, but lately, I haven’t seen more than four small ones and one large one at once.  So, I’m not entirely sure how many are currently living in our backyard. 

Here’s a video of some of them eating corn.

I’m working on catching up with your blogs, but feel free to let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments.  

Thursday 13: Cats, Chickens, Flowers, Freezers, and Work

 It has been insanely busy at work this week, so I wasn’t sure I’d have 13 things for Thursday 13, but I do. 

1.    Part of why work has been so busy is that there have been some changes.  I’m working with some people I haven’t worked with before.  I’m an assistant, so I’m always working with someone else on almost everything I do.  So, I was a little nervous about working with different people. 

When you’re an assistant, the people you assist can be the difference between loving your job or hating your job.

I had a meeting with my boss and one of the people I’ll be working with now, and I think we’ll work well together.  I had a one-on-one meeting with another person I’ll be working with now, and I’m pretty excited about some of the projects I’ll get to work on with them.  I think we’ll work well together. 

The rest of the year is likely to be super busy, but knowing that I’ll work well with at least some of the people is a huge relief. 

2.    Mortimer was not the least bit concerned about my job stress.  Doesn’t he look so relaxed?

3.    The free-range chickens have still been coming over for their snacks. 

4.    The chickens next door arrived in two batches.  The original chickens have been there almost a year and the new chickens have only been there a few months.  The original chickens are the ones who run up to meet me for food.   The new chickens are starting to do that, too.  All of the gray chickens, except the front right one, are the new chickens.  It looks like they’ve caught on that I’m the snack lady. 

5.    The smallest of the new chickens still hangs back some, but I’m determined to win her over. 

6.    Feeding time is always a little bit chaotic in our house.  Most of the cats are on different foods.  ALL of the cats are positive that the other cats get better food, so there’s a lot of trying to eat each other’s food.  Charlie and Howard took it to a new level this week.

I’m not sure if Howard went under Charlie, if Charlie went over Howard, or if it was a joint effort.  I feel like they deserve major points for their efforts to eat each other’s food here. 

7.    We’ve had some slightly cooler weather this week; 70s and 80s, which has been a welcome change, but not cold enough to hurt the plants.  I don’t know what these pink flowers are (GrandDaddy (Nick’s grandfather) gave them to me for Mother’s Day), but I think they’re pretty, and I’m happy they’re still doing well.   

8.    The hydrangea is still doing well. 

9.    The roses aren’t in full bloom anymore, but we still have some roses to enjoy. 

10. The marigold is still doing well.

11. I’ve realized that it’s time to work on getting the freezers at least a little bit cleaned out.  Thanksgiving isn’t that far away, and we’ll need the freezer space for when turkeys go on sale. 

12. Right now, both freezers are pretty jam-packed, and I’m not entirely sure what’s in them. 

13. I thought taking and sharing pictures of them might help hold me accountable and get me to focus on working through what’s in there. 

So, here they are in their horribly unorganized state.  (I promise we don’t actually live entirely on junk food/convenience food; it just seems like those things work their way to the top whenever we dig something else out). 

Hopefully, there will be a future Thursday 13 about the progress I’ve made in cleaning out the freezers.

How has your week been? 

To Protect and Serve

This post is going to be a little unusual for me as I usually try to avoid mentioning my work in my blog.  I believe that the best way to keep work out of your personal life and endeavors is to leave work out of your personal life and endeavors.  I’m also a person who always gets pretty upset when there’s a big news story about a police officer, firefighter, or 911 dispatcher doing something wrong.  It’s not that I think these people are infallible; I think that as an overall group they do an amazingly good job in terrible situations.  Yet, the thousands of good things they do every day rarely make the news.

Photo from Wikimedia

That being said, I feel like I need to share something that happened yesterday at work, though I’m not going to share specifics in an effort to keep work and my blog separate.

I work in a secure building on a secure floor.  I’ve always respected the officers who provide the security.  I think they have a hard job, and they do it well.  I can honestly say I feel safer with them being there.  Yesterday there was a person coming to our office for an appointment.  The person hadn’t exactly threatened us; just made comments about whether or not things were bullet proof.  There were no outright threats, but it was enough to make me very uncomfortable, so I let the security officers know about it, largely to give them some warning in case we had to call.

They did so much more than just make a note that we might be calling; two officers came to our office to keep watch.  They came about fifteen minutes before the appointment was scheduled, and stayed a little over half an hour past the appointment time.  The person was a no-show, so obviously nothing happened, but I felt indescribably better for having them there.  I felt safe and protected.

I know my blog doesn’t have a huge readership, but I just felt like this was something I had to share since I complain so much whenever I come across articles or blogs focusing on something police officers have done wrong.  I know they’re not perfect, but yesterday their presence made my life a lot better.