Inking My Thinking

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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Posted in Living! |

November

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?

Tags: craftiness, having to do with work, this post contains pictures | Posted in Living! |

I am why we can’t have nice things.

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.”

Tags: babbling about nothing much at all, i love my husband, things around the house, what i did with my day | Posted in Living! |

Job update

November 3rd, 2011

I am going to take the job offer to transfer to another department in the company. I’m feeling very comfortable about the decision — though also really anxious and nervous and all those feelings that go along with that. It’s still hush-hush because it hasn’t been posted on the jobs board yet, so the process is that the deparment offering the job has to put it up on the boards, take applications, do interviews, and I have to go through all the official hoops in order to get from here to there. Absolutely soonest it could happen is a month, but it’ll probably take at least until the beginning of the year. Though I might start going over to the other department pretty soon to start learning what’s going on and all of that. I haven’t had a chance to really speak with the guy who offered me the job other than to tell him that I’m interested — so I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more information once I’ve had a chance to talk with him.

But I wanted to let you all know as soon as I’d made my decision.

Tags: having to do with work | Posted in Living! |

And that’s it for October

October 31st, 2011

Oy, a week gone already?

Okay, since last week, my back has gotten a lot better. Of course, Justin’s back has been killing him in a completely different way, but he’s been sitting on the heat pack. We’ll go back to the chiropractor’s office again tomorrow.

Work has been nuts, but it’s only going to get worse as we go through November. And more on that later, probably.

I did not, however, work on Friday because we had a party here that evening and Justin and I spent the day getting ready. I’ll do some pictures at the end. A bunch of geeks we know get together every month or so to play card games. We switch between who hosts, but it was our turn this time, and it was a whole lotta fun! I cut a ton of bats out and hung them from the ceiling. Justin wanted to dress up as Count van Count from Sesame Street, so I dressed up as Countess von Backwards (I’m not making her up) complete with the purple skin and all. Can I say? That was a lot more trouble than it was worth.

Anyway, we had Indiana Jones and a cowgirl, a Valkyrie and a dead Norse warrior, a couple renaissance girls, a hippie, an Arabian prince, and a guy who said he was Jimmy Buffett but who just decided last minute to come to the party. And we had lots of food, played Gloom, roasted marshmallows and told stories over the fire, and had, all in all, a really fantastic time.

Meaning, after all that, on Saturday Justin and I were completely zonked and didn’t get out of pajamas all day. We showered and put on clean pajamas. I spent the whole day reading a library book that was due. And that was it. We didn’t even get around to cleaning until after church on Sunday. And then we had friends over again on Sunday (sort of a recurring event) and we played a game of Munchkin with them.

So much of last week was spent getting ready for the party. I spent a lot of time cutting out bats and getting the house ready. It was definitely worth it because a lot of people, even kids trick-or-treating tonight, commented on how great the house looks. But it’s a relief to not be working on that today.

Anyway, stepping back to talk about work for just a minute, we’ve got six or seven projects in the works for November, so it’s going to be crazy busy. And add to that, a job offer was dropped on my lap today and if I say “yes” the guy offering it would want me to start transitioning over to it as soon as possible — like next week. It’s an other department at work and it *sounds* really exciting, but I haven’t decided yet. And the guy offering it asked me to not talk about it, but I think he meant not talk about it AT WORK and I’m pretty darn sure none of my coworkers read this. (And if they do, they haven’t said anything yet, and I don’t expect them to start now.) I have to let him know by the end of the week, so you’ll all know as soon as I decide, too.

And now pictures from the party!