Archive for November, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!!

I hope you’re all having a fantastic day!  We’ve got the turkey in the oven here, the cranberry dressing chilling in the fridge, rolls rising on the stove, and all the rest of what we’ll need sitting out and waiting for the time when we’ll start putting it all together.  We’ve got somewhere around 5 or 6 people on the way over sometime in the afternoon to share dinner with us.  It’s an “Orphan Party!”  All our local friends who have family too far away to go visit for the holiday were invited over to spend the day.  There’s going to be card games and lots of food and it’s going to be a fantastic day!  I’ve got hot cider simmering in the crock pot and cheese and crackers for munching between now and dinner.

I’m excited!  It’ll make up in a big way for Monday and Tuesday of this week — I had to work through a migraine on Monday and  the remnants of that headache on Tuesday.  Not sure what it was that set off my headache, but it HURT, even though I took a ton of meds for it.  And I couldn’t go home because there was just SO much to get done!  And even more to get done on Tuesday.  It was Not Fun.  So when we finished everything late Tuesday, I asked if it was really going to be necessary for me to work on Wednesday, and since my boss said “no,” I stayed home yesterday — slept in, went to the chiropractor’s, picked up a few things from the store, made a cheesecake, and started getting ready for today.  It would have been nasty to work yesterday and then have to do all of that today instead.  So I’m really thankful for the day off yesterday.  :)

And I’m thankful for the free turkey our friend got from work that she gave to us to use for the meal today.

I’m thankful for my wonderful husband who compliments me so well — I make a mess putting the turkey together and he cleans up the mess!

I’m thankful for all our friends who are going to come over today.

I’m thankful for the job options that I’ve been given, even though they’re giving me headaches.

And I’m thankful for all of you!  I love you!!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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Stuff ‘n’ things

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Happy yesterday birthday, Nathan!

Happy today birthday, Justin!

This is why I have to concentrate really hard when people ask me when Justin’s birthday is.  I have to remember it’s not the November date that first comes to mind — it’s one later.  I think I’ve gone over that before.

Today was a really weird day.  I went to work, got a bunch of stuff accomplished as quickly as possible, and then from 9 o’clock until 5:15ish, I worked in another building for another department, learning the ropes from the woman who’s last day at that department was today.  The way it’s playing out, as far as the guy in charge over there would like it to work, is I’ll work 1/2 over there and 1/2 at my current department.  And if/when I take the job there, I’ll keep on working 1/2 and 1/2 until either my current job is filled or a certain length of time has passed.  That way he gets me before I’m hired and my current department gets me after I’m hired and it’s a win-win for both departments.  I might go a little crazy.  And I’m probably going to get a bunch of overtime.  And it’s going to be a VERY strange couple months.

It was fun, though!  The work is definitely stuff I’ll be able to do, and do it faster and better than the lady who was doing it right now.  Mostly just because I’m better at Excel than she is and because I’m WAY more organized.  And the organizing thing is why I’m being pulled into the department because they desperately need someone to get that group of people organized.  I mean, seriously?  Not familiar with lean concepts?  5S?  YOU WILL BE!!!

Probably the most bizarre thing is that the guy who I work with, the guy in charge of my “pod” — his wife is over in this other department and I didn’t know that.  And he didn’t say so when I told him this morning that I was heading over to spend the day with the woman on her way out.  So I got over there and was being introduced as the person helping fill in as possible until the position is filled (we’re not saying that I’m filling it because we want to keep that quiet for now) and she looks at me and says “Kylene?  Like my husband’s Kylene?!  Oh, he’s going to come home crying tonight.”  And she kept giving me sad looks all day long.

He wasn’t at his desk by the time I got back.  And then I worked another hour at my other department getting some things done that had stacked up while I was out.

I have no idea what the rest of my current department thought about me being away all day.  I’m not sure how this is all going to work out, with me working for two different departments.  I should call Dad and ask how he managed it, but I think he managed it by working 80 hours a week and I DON’T want to do that.  I’m excited because I’m not working tomorrow, so I’ve only worked 90 minutes of overtime this week.

Tomorrow Justin and I are celebrating his birthday by going on a date on Hilton Head Island and his birthday present should come by post sometime during the day and the rest of his day will be spend playing Skyrim and I will probably spend watching him play Skyrim.  Pretty, pretty Skyrim.

Anyway.  I’m beat.  It was a crazy day.  I’m going to curl up with my fluffy bathrobe and watch some TV for a while.

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This is only a test

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

And now, a public service annoucement:

On Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 2 p.m. (EST), a test of the Nationwide Emergency Alert System will occur on all radio and television stations. The test will run for three minutes, simultaneously, from coast to coast.

Most people are familiar with emergency alert system tests occurring on their local stations. However, the difference with Wednesday’s test is that it will occur on every radio and television station within the U.S., including Alaska, Hawaii, the territories of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.

It is the first test of this magnitude and the agencies involved have a little concern that some people will not know it is a test. (You may have heard about the panic caused by a radio broadcast of the “War of the World’s” in 1938.)

Authorities are asking everyone to spread the word. Here are specific items they want people to know about the test:

  • It will be conducted Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 2 p.m. EST.
  • It will be transmitted via television and radio stations.
  • Similar to local emergency alert system tests, an audio message will interrupt television and radio programming indicating: “This is a test.”
  • When the test is over, regular programming will resume.

Help spread the word, “don’t stress; it’s only a test.”

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November

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Ah, yes.  I remember this now.  It’s that time of year when I drive to work in the dark and drive home from work in the dark and the only time I see the sun is during that 30 – 60 minutes that I run screaming from my warehouse of an office space and stand outside blinking in the sunlight wondering “What is that big bright shiny thing up in the sky?  It’s so pretty!”  The fact that we don’t get weeks and weeks of clouds down here in the south is the only thing that keeps me sane during these dark months.

Well, it’s one of many things that keep me sane during these dark months.  I’ll probably be writing about the other things that keep me sane over the next couple months just so I keep them in the front of my mind.

Anyway.  Work is crazy.  The guy in charge of my “pod” doesn’t know where I’m at with the job thing — I’ve been told not to talk about it with him — and he keeps trying to present things that might make me consider staying.  I think that’s what he’s trying to do, anyway.  It’s not working very well because it mostly makes me think about the reasons why I don’t like my current job.  Counter-effective?  Ooooooh, yeah.  Plus it’s just crazy because of how the schedule has stacked up and that’s just the way it’s going to be for a little while.

Enough about work!

I had a lot of fun decorating for Halloween and I’ve been thinking of ways that I could decorate for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I did felt leaves last year and I still like the look of those.

Here’s a picture of the ones I did last year — not my picture, though.  It’s from the post where I got the idea:  HERE.

I found this picture recently, though:

And now I’m trying to figure out if I can do that kind of thing.  I’m not sure where I got the picture from, but I think it’s of something someone’s selling on Etsy.  But working with wire isn’t something I’m very good at doing.

Then, too, I’d also really love to do something along the lines of these:

But I have no idea how I’d go about bending forks into a nice loop so I could use them as napkin rings.  But aren’t they cute?!!!  I WANT.  And I want for cheap, like with the unused set of silverware sitting in the office closet.  One of these days I’m going to take out a fork and a pliers and just see how bendy they really are.  And probably end up with two pieces of one fork.  But hey!  Then I’ll know.

How about you?  Got any crafty plans for November?

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I am why we can’t have nice things.

Monday, November 7th, 2011

I hope everybody had a delightful weekend!

Mine consisted of the following highlights:  Watching Justin play BioShock 2, shattering the side of a glass decorative bowl, taking down the Halloween decorations, and watching several episodes of Terra Nova with Justin.

It was a quiet weekend, which was good because Justin’s knee is still bothering him.  He’s been icing it and taking Advil and it’s getting better.  But he’s not able to move around on it a lot yet.

And I had to work several hours of overtime on Friday, putting the whipped topping on the end of a stressful week, so I was perfectly happy to sit on my butt on Saturday, watching Justin play a creepy video game.  We did spend some time getting the house back in order, but then we sat back down again with pizza and watched the first couple episodes of Terra Nova.  It’s a fun show!  It sounded kinda corny to me, looking at the previews, but I’ve been delightfully proven wrong.

After church on Sunday we started cleaning up the Halloween decorations.  I put so much time and effort into cutting out the bats that I didn’t want to take them down right away – but it’s been more than a week and they needed to go.  While working on un-decorating, I accidentally broke the glass bowl that was sitting on the table – it’s one of those rounded ones that we used on the tables for our wedding.  We have a dozen more of them out in the closet, so I’m not heartbroken about it or anything.  But it scared the snot out of me!

I grabbed the edge of it, forgetting that it was full of sand and rocks and REALLY HEAVY, so when I tried to pull it, it gave a loud POP! and I ended up with a fistful of glass shards.  I was standing next to the dining room table, so I shook the glass from my hand onto the table and ran upstairs to wash my hand under water and see how badly I’d hurt myself.  Amazingly enough, I only had one tiny little cut just below the bottom joint of my index finger.  But my heart was racing so fast that the cut was bleeding profusely.  I got Justin to bandage me up because I was too shaken up to do it with one hand, and got him to pull the sliver that I found afterward, and then I just sat still for about 30 minutes until I was calm again.  I don’t know what it was, but it scared me a lot.  I break things all the time, but they don’t usually make me shake the way this thing did.

Justin, wonderful man that he is, cleaned up the glass for me, vacuuming the floor and the carpet and the tablecloth, so I didn’t have to worry about cutting myself during the clean-up.  I could have done it myself, but it works better this way – he gets to feel all defender protective of me and I get to feel protected.  What girl doesn’t like to feel protected now and then by a man wielding a vacuum cleaner?

What’s the phrase?  “No woman has ever shot a man while he was washing the dishes.”

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