Happy New Year

Goodness it has been far too long since I have been in this space. I actually contemplated deleting this blog but I have a renewed sense of possibility so I am going to see if I can post once a week here for the foreseeable future.

So much has happened since July. I did work both jobs like a mad lady for August and most of September. “Luckily” for me the call center closed on towards the end of September so my 70+ hour work weeks came to a screeching halt. 🙂 The work is now being done by a third party work from home call center. It took some convincing from the call center staff to get me to sign up for this new “opportunity” as the pay is now on a per order/call basis instead of hourly. Since I was burnt out from working both jobs, I have cut my hours at the new PT job in half and refuse to do more than the 15 mandatory hours. Unfortunately the bulk of the hours (10!!!) need to be done on Friday through Sunday. Since it makes no sense to work late on Friday as the calls seem to drop significantly after 8pm I am left trying to figure out when to work on the weekends. I like having my evenings free so early morning quiet times for me. Read that as volunteer hours as no calls = no pay.

The day job is chugging along. Sadly not much has changed given that we are in a pandemic other than we are back to 100% pay. YIPPEE!! We still go into the office every day and I swear we are hiring more and more people. The business is booming.

On the fitness front, I have fallen off and on the exercise bandwagon. Good to know not much has changed for me huh? LOL. With the new year I have recommitted to moving at least 20 minutes a day, every day until the end of March. Today I overexerted myself and went for an almost 5 mile walk. My feet and legs are not happy with me. Tomorrow I have a walk scheduled with my Mom and she likes to be out for at least an hour … at least she walks slow.

Financially, I am doing ok. I still have to firm up my budget for this year and really get serious about finding a new FT job. I have been at my current spot for 3.5 years and the time to move on is coming. Not sure what job searching will really be like in this second wave lockdown but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

My girls are still employed. Most who were offered the option of being laid off took it, so both of them are working at least 30+ hours now doing curbside pick. Not sure how long this will last but the store is on barebones staff so no further cuts can be made without closing the store on certain days or drastically reducing the hours they are open.

Overall 2020 was a year to remember. Not all bad happened. I am not sure what 2021 will bring. I am not holding out hope in the vaccine being the magic cure. Hopefully we as a planet can get our collective selves together and start focusing on what is good for all instead of what is good for self.

Less is more

One of the joys of being home all the time is realizing just how lazy my kids are. The little one is more helpful that the older one. Unfortunately the big one is the one that is home the most. Since I was working 60+ hours away from home I noticed the mess but I was tired and had other priorities. Now that I’m only working 45+ hours at home all day, the mess was driving me to the brink of madness.

So last Friday I had the day off and with the kids in and out of the house. I washed EVERY dirty dish and utensil, then dried them and hid all but 3 plates, 3 bowls and 3 small bowls, 4 little spoons, 4 big spoons, 4 forks and 3 knives. The reduction was not mentioned by either child for some time.  The mess is still there but it is more manageable to me. I am realizing that visual clutter is not my favourite thing and this helps. Having said that I am eating crackers and cheese out of a small bowl as all the plates are dirty or missing. Time to crack down on these two.

Now to get the rest of the house under control.

 

As glimpse of things to come

My youngest, Diva, has agreed to babysit her younger sister for the month of August so she has been staying at her father’s house since the beginning of the month.

She is the one who has been gunning to move out. I’m okay with her moving as her only option at this time is her father’s house. I can’t be the only one to have all the “fun”. 😉 She was not on board before now. Maybe this month will change her mind.

Granted he does not live close enough to her current school that it would make sense to move now. Given this is her last year of high school, she should stay put.

It’s been an interesting time without her. Princess has stepped up a little. She is still slow (by my standards) to react to my requests but it’s getting better. My major complaint was the dish drainer which she is now emptying without any nagging. 🙂 A win in my book.

I miss my little one as she is the one most likely to go for a walk with me which is very nice as we got one on one time and I heard all about her day. I text her now but it’s not the same. 😦

I saw her yesterday when I picked her up from work to bring her home so she could change and then she was gone again.

I’m glad Diva is getting this time with her father’s side of the family. I gently poked Princess to do the same but she was not having it. Guess she was telling the truth when she said she’s not leaving me. *sigh*

At the last minute

My apologies for not being around but life has been rather mundane. I have fallen off the exercise wagon again. Couple that with the grey, rainy days and I have been rather low energy.

Work is chugging along. They hired another person for my department and she is a treat. She was even given one of my accounts that I don’t love. 🙂

There were far too many closed door meetings on Friday and they distributed some accounts of the girl they hired 3 weeks before me. I don’t think she’s thriving in the position. She has a lot of people helping her with one account and things are still falling through the cracks. 😦

I ended up staying late on Friday to finish up some orders since I didn’t want them sitting over the weekend and my manager asked how my work load is. Right now it’s not terribly busy. I wonder which accounts I will get from her. Time will tell if she is still there next week.

Yesterday was the deadline to accept an offer for college. Princess came home last night after 9 pm to ask me which one should she choose… I love my daughter but her last minute actions drive me up the wall. I have been nagging her since mid-March when we realized she did not get into the vet tech program she wanted to.

Anyhoo, it was between library technician and 911 dispatcher. Unfortunately or fortunately our local librarians are about to go on strike over pay and job security among other things, so she decided to not pursue it.

I told her to take a year off and re-apply to the program she wants but she told me, she feels she would not continue her studies if she didn’t keep going. Okay. Whatever works. Luckily nothing is written in stone.

She says she now feels less stressed. All that’s left to do is to graduate high school.

The BFF & I went out again last night. Lucky for me it was an “early” night as we left around 1 am. We went to a 70’s/80’s dance. I feel confident saying we were the youngest people there.  It was an interesting event. I am sure we will not be going to anymore of these meet up groups. She met a guy who is 13 yrs older and deemed him too old but took his number anyway … I will wait to see if anything comes of it.

A great day

I set my alarm for 6:15 am every morning. And every day until today I have pressed snooze, rolled over and gone back to sleep until at least 7.

This morning I told myself you might as well get up as I was not feeling tired. So I went to work out which is what I am supposed to be doing first thing in the morning.

It felt really great to get that monkey off my back. And it is a good thing too as I left work late, then went to pick up Princess from her job interview. She treated me to ice cream since she GOT THE JOB!! WHOO HOO!! We then went to buy printer ink from Staples which was right beside the nail salon that Diva was in. So we picked her up as well.

I went home, changed out of my work clothes and then we went out to dinner with a friend of mine. The meal was nothing to write home about, but it was nice to sit around a table and catch up.

I didn’t get back home until after 9 and I am beat but still smiling as I have leftovers from last night’s dinner to take to work tomorrow for lunch. 🙂 I made stir fry beef using this great recipe from Budget Bytes. It was so good. I didn’t have any rice noodles so I just made rice.

Okay, I need to get into bed so I can wake up and work out again tomorrow. 🙂

Oh wait, I forgot to mention my new work BFF talked to our old department head and she told her that I am learning quickly and she’s impressed with me. 🙂 🙂 🙂 Best news!

Time to clean the oven

So this happened …

The funniest thing is I actually thought to take a pic before putting everything in the oven then decided I’d wait until it was done …

10 minutes later there was a loud bang, similar to what it sounds like when your cookie sheet “pops” in the oven. At first I didn’t move but then I couldn’t help but think to check.

Surprised is an understatement. I had heard about glassware shattering, usually from drastic temperature changes. I took it out of the cupboard, added the ribs and put it in the oven like I have done lots of times before.

Sadly this was the first time I made macaroni pie without covering it in foil first. It cost me dearly. 😦 It hurt to throw all this food out. I was so proud of myself for making the macaroni pie and using up some of the cheese we had, before it was forgotten.

My kids were game to eat it. They were not deterred by shards of glass.

I take this as a sign that the universe wants me to clean my oven. A task that is long overdue.

Life update

The new job is going very well. I still like it. 🙂 There is a lot to learn and no manual to read. 😦 But I am really loving my coworkers … well most of them. There is this one lady who was hired a month before me and all she does it complain about what we don’t have or why doesn’t it work this other way. It’s a little tiresome but luckily she doesn’t sit close to me.

I am still working out. Just not every day. Mondays and Fridays seem to be long days for me so I try to work out all the other days. I really would like to get back to exercising in the morning as my evenings are all over the place. So far I’ve worked late 3 nights in the past 2 weeks. And it really throws my whole night off. I still walk up the 5 flights of stairs and it has not gotten any easier. 😦

I need to get my ducks in a row with regards to meal planning. I have been winging it and eating dinner at 8. Not great. So today I will make ribs and macaroni pie for dinner and some ground beef and rice for lunch tomorrow. There is a Asian Sweet Chili Sesame Chicken recipe that is calling my name. This will be on the menu this week.

I’ve been eating way too much pasta recently so I am going back to no carbs after 2 pm for the next 2 weeks as I have a funeral dress to fit into. I stepped on the scale and it was not pretty. I blame the candy at work. Have to get more disciplined about those useless calories. One of my cousins recommended “The Virgin Diet” which claims by removing 7 foods you can lose 7 pounds in 7 days. There is an accompanying cookbook that I also managed to borrow from my library. So hopefully there is some meal inspiration to be found.

The memorial for my cousin is slowly being put together. There is a committee of 7 planning it out. The venue has already been changed as it was deemed not big enough. The new place is beautiful and on the water. A place my cousin would have loved. Right now the plan is to arrive on Friday and leave on Sunday. Just need my Aunt to okay us staying in her place without her.

My girls are doing well. Princess is waiting to hear back from one school regarding the entrance exam she took 2 weeks ago. She has gotten into 2 of the 5 programs she applied to so far. Diva is still working and going to school and spending like a Hollywood star. I would lecture her, but she does give me a good chunk of her pay so she can use the rest to keep McDonald’s in business if she likes. 😕  Diva did managed to get Princess a job interview at her workplace. So fingers crossed she will get the job and can take a step to becoming more independent.

I think you are now all caught up.

 

They are gone

I woke up yesterday morning to the phone ringing. It was my kids’ father looking to see if we had left for the States. It seems that neither one of my girls updated him. 😦 It is a blessing and a curse that Diva works for his friend. She gets a lot of hours but when her boss needs her, some times she calls her father and he calls us.

When she was told they were keeping her on, it was said that she would get 2 or 3 shifts a week. On Monday she was not on the schedule. She did a little dance at the thought of having the week off. But it was short lived as half an hour later, she was called in to work.

Mid-day on Tuesday her boss called me to see if she could work that afternoon. She was also asked to work on Friday. On Friday she checked the schedule and saw that she wasn’t on it so she thought she had the day off. Not so, her boss called half an hour after her supposed start time looking for her.

That makes 4 shifts last week and she’s working again today.

Anyhoo back to my original thought process.

I dropped Diva off at 10 am and was giving a friend a ride to work when one of my cousins sent me a text asking that I give her a call. Since my plan was to go to my mother’s, I just went there to make the call.

She basically wanted to let me know that my sick cousin’s Aunt, the one also in hospice had passed. While it was not unexpected, it is still very sad.

11 hours later she sent me another text to let me know that my cousin had also passed away. I couldn’t even get the words out to tell my kids. 😥

I was supposed to go out tonight, but after this news it just didn’t seem like a good idea. My girls took it hard but seem to be dealing with it okay.

Another cousin was texting me why I didn’t go out and I realized she hadn’t heard the news. So I called her. I left her in shock as she was also not aware that our cousin had relapsed. Considering she was the one who had a lot of information after the initial diagnosis, I was surprised.

Anyhoo, if the funeral is on the weekend she will come with me.

I really wish I was in MD with my family right now.

I tried to unplug

Well it was not a complete failure but … it did not go as well as I would have liked.

I think having Princess’ BFF here made me … soft.

After we cleaned up, we watched High School Musical 3.  Her choice.  Then my sister came over and the BFF needed to go home and then all of a sudden my house was empty.  With an hour left to go in our unplugged time, my kids and my sister decided to go to McDonald’s and the BFF went home.

Now I am relatively sure that my kids went to McD’s for the free wifi.  And had there not be witnesses visitors, that trip would not have happened.

But we did spend a couple of hours together even if it was not exactly like I thought it would be.

Truth be told the minute they were out of the house, I turned the wifi back on.

**raising hand** Hi. My name is Sunny and I’m addicted to the internet.

Going to unplug

Last Sunday, Carla wrote about being unplugged from the internet for a good part of the day.  While unplugged she got a ton of stuff done.  Way more that I think is humanly possible but then again Carla is part superwoman! 🙂

Anyhoo I thought it was a fantastic idea and am going to try it today from 12 pm – 5 pm.  Maybe eventually I’ll work my way up to longer.

I have been warning the children all week that it was coming so they are not unprepared.  I need to take away Diva’s iTouch as she seems to have found an unsecured wifi connection.

I am not hoping to get more chores done but more undistracted time with my kids.  Just now they really will be off doing their own thing so while I can still exert my will, I will! LOL

Last night Princess’ BFF slept over so she was warned about the loss of the internet.

I’ll be back later to tell you how we fared and