• Finish getting R—’s trip to Denver set up with the travel department
• Get the food set up for A—’s lunch presentation to the big-wigs
• Finish linking the cells in the Excel workbook with the source document
• Work the math out to figure out the hours spent per department on this project last week
• Follow up with several people regarding deadlines for projects due this week
• Figure out how to ship that box back to the supplier
• Get a hold of S— in finance and get the right account charged for that event
• Get the standardized template out to the guys for updates on their tasks
• And more…

My hand is doing much better.  All the symptoms from yesterday are gone except for a little tenderness around the wrist joint and the burn actually hurt today — it didn’t yesterday and maybe that should have told me something…  Anyway, it’s much better today.

Mom, please feel free to call whenever you’d like!  I usually have people over one evening of the weekend, so you’d need to call before 6 on the weekend.  Otherwise, call after 7 and I’m usually home by then.  I can email you a more detailed example of my schedule if you’d like.

The biggest part of my day today was spent coordinating a lunch for the directors and VP over the project I’m working for.  I set up the meeting last week.  I ordered food for it yesterday.  The meeting was scheduled from 11-12 and lunch would be provided.  At 9:45 this morning, my boss told me he thought they were going to move the meeting up from 10 – 11 and did I already order the food?  Oh.  Well, he’d call me in 1/2 hour and tell me what to do.

Half an hour later, the meeting was back on schedule and I went to Zaxby’s to pick up the food.  Three trips back to the car and a hefty charge on my corporate card and I was back in my car and on my way to the building with the meeting.

I am very thankful that I ran into someone there who helped me unload everything from my car and then the woman who was helping me get this organized told me where to set up the food.  My boss was already in the meeting and didn’t know where the food was going to be set up because there was a last minute change about where that was happening, so I had to step into the meeting and motion to my boss to let him know where it was.

And then I waited to make sure that everything would go smoothly and that no one would steal the food and that people would know where to find the food.  And I waited.  And waited.  And watched the food get cold.  And waited.  And listened at the door of the meeting to make sure they were still in there (2 doors to the room).  And waited.  And an hour later, they made it out of their meeting.

I’m running the math on how long I think all those things took and I’m off somewhere, so maybe it wasn’t an hour, but it was definitely long enough that the food got cold.  And that was not the impression that I wanted to make on the VP and all the directors.  Not that I had anything to do with how long their meeting took at all.  But, like I told Justin when I called and ranted to him about this, it doesn’t matter one bit whether or not it was actually my fault.  It matters if the directors and VP think it was my fault.  If they think I could have done something to keep the food warm long enough, then that’s the impression that they’re going to have, accurate or not, and there’s nothing I can do about that.  And it’s very frustrating.

Anyway, the important people got their food. And then  I got my food.  And then the rest of the people who were in the room where the food was set up got to eat anything they would like because it’s just rude to make them all smell Zaxby’s for a couple hours and not let them eat any.  The directors/VP came back through to grab a final cookie.  And then I cleaned up the mess and took the leftovers back to my desk, where a handful of people were made very happy at the opportunity to eat the leftover salad and cookies and cold fries.

From start to finish — I left my desk at 10:30 and made it back to my desk after 1:00.  Nearly 1/3 of my day was spent fussing with food.

And yet I still managed to get almost everything done off my list I wrote up yesterday as well as a bunch of things that weren’t on the list.  And that might just explain why I’m so stupidly tired when I get home sometimes.

I haven’t felt like writing much lately.  I feel kinda bad about it because I know some of you come here every day to check if I’ve put up anything new.  But I just can’t get myself to write anything lately.  And it’s not that things are quiet — things are pretty busy, actually.  I have plenty of things that I could write about.  I just haven’t felt like I could open up the website and put anything down in words.

Are we done with winter yet?

Okay.  Update.  Randomness one paragraph at a time.  In no particular order.

Yesterday I accidentally burned my arm while doing my ironing.  I have a burn about 2 inches long on the outside of my right arm.  And when I went to bed, it was rubbing on the bedding, so I asked Justin to help me put an Ace wrap around it, covering the cotton swabs, covering the aloe, covering the burn.  (Don’t blame him for anything that comes after this — it was my stupid idea).  I woke up this morning and discovered I’d cut off circulation to my hand overnight. My hand was numb and tingling and swollen up so much I couldn’t make a fist and the knuckles on the back of my hands were little dimples.  It was possibly one of the freakiest things to wake up to see attached at the end of my arm.  I removed the wrap and started rubbing my hand and making fists to try to get the circulation going and by the time I got to work, it was considerably smaller.  Now, this evening, it’s back to normal size.  It’s not redder than my other hand anymore either.  But it is still a little tingling.  I went to talk with the nurse over lunch and she said there’s no permanent damage and it’ll right itself eventually.  But when we get to the store next, I’m buying gauze and medical tape and not wrapping my arm like that ever again.

Now that I’m working this job and I have more flexibility with my schedule, I’ve gone back to the four 9-hour days and 4-hours on Friday.  This means I get out of work at 4:30.  This means I can make it to the yoga classes held at the other building on Monday and Wednesday.  Which means I’m going to FREE yoga TWICE a week.  And it’s wonderful!  I missed yoga.  I find it interesting and humbling how much I remember about the poses and how much I’m not able to do them compared to when I was doing this more often and how I can do some poses without too much trouble but others are completely impossible for me right now.  Case in point:  Half Moon pose, modified so my hand is on a block instead of on the floor, I can do almost without falling over.  But Cow Face pose?  I can’t even get one leg over the other, not to mention trying to get my hands to grab one another.  Just getting seated to do that pose is impossible.  But I’m getting better and I’m getting stronger and I just have to give it time and keep working.  Plus, on days when I’m not doing yoga, Justin and I are trying to get out to go running, which will also help.

I’m irritated at my doctor and my pharmacist.  I called in early last week to refill two prescriptions.  One of them I got without much trouble.  The other one was out of refills and had to get called in by my doctor.  That was Tuesday.  They finally did that today.  And when I went to pick it up, the insurance won’t cover it until she calls in to explain why I’m taking it.  It’s for restless leg.  I’m taking it so I don’t kick Justin out of bed at night and cover his legs in bruises.  So I paid full price for 5 pills and I’m calling my doctor again tomorrow.  I actually went over to my doctor’s office on my lunch hour today to hand in paperwork to get my prescriptions moved to an online pharmacy, which will (I hope) make this whole thing much more streamlined.  I tried to get her to fill out that paperwork BEFORE CHRISTMAS but she didn’t get it done in the 10-day window that the paperwork required.  So I had to do it again, take it over, talk with the receptionist who told me that they could do it for the prescription that they renewed today (done before the current month’s pills are gone) but they’d like to wait until the other prescription is out of refills.  The whole thing is such a mess.  But at least we got Justin’s meds on the online thing and set up with automatic refills and hopefully won’t ever have to deal with him having to threaten malpractice to a doctor for not renewing his antidepressants.  That was not a fun day.

I have friends over every weekend now — we make dinner and watch Dr. Who.  It’s WONDERFUL.  The friends thing.  Dr. Who is good, too.  But mostly the friends thing.

We had a bunch of people at the house on Saturday a week ago.  Another game night when we open the house to whoever on the game group website would like to come over.  We had 8 people over, I think?  We played Apples to Apples and introduced 4 people to Munchkin for the first time.  It was a blast!

Things that are on my list of things to do at work tomorrow:

• Finish getting R—’s trip to Denver set up with the travel department
• Get the food set up for A—’s lunch presentation to the big-wigs
• Finish linking the cells in the Excel workbook with the source document
• Work the math out to figure out the hours spent per department on this project last week
• Follow up with several people regarding deadlines for projects due this week
• Figure out how to ship that box back to the supplier
• Get a hold of S— in finance and get the right account charged for that event
• Get the standardized template out to the guys for updates on their tasks
• And more…

Things on my list of things to do at home:

• Write thank you notes to Mom/Dad and Grandma.

But for now?  TIRED.  And going to bed.

The sun is rising earlier in the morning tomorrow than it did today and that makes things just a little bit better.

Also, there are windows in the building where I work now.  I can actually see the sunlight!  The windows are all northern facing so there’s no actual direct light at any point of the day, but there’s LIGHT.  And that is so much better than working in the white-walled, grey-cubicled, florescent-lighted box where I used to work.

The guy I used to work for contacted me yesterday to do a quick document review because he was seriously under the gun and needed help.  So I took an hour to look it over and get it all set except for the signature he’d have to get and the actual finalization of the physical document.  I work with his wife now (have I mentioned that before?) and she told me today that he was so thankful for the help.  She mentioned (to him) that I seemed really happy and that she thought that I enjoyed having more to do.  (At which point he got concerned that he shouldn’t have bothered me, which was silly because I wouldn’t have helped if I didn’t have time.)  But it made me happy to hear that she thought I looked happy.  I am happy!  It’s just good to know that it shows.

I am thoroughly enjoying my new job.  The days go by so quickly!  (Except for the meeting today from 9 – 11:45.  That was long.  And I didn’t understand half of it because they kept using acronyms that I didn’t know.)  My boss wants me to be there on Fridays so I’m back to my 9 hour days on Monday – Thursday and 4 hours on Friday; for this week anyway, while he decides if that’s going to work for him.  It’s either that shift or I’ll do overtime every single week to put in time on Fridays just because he wants me there that day.  We’ll see.  It’s tricky for me to actually excuse myself from my work at 4:30 (getting there at 7am) because there’s so much to do and people aren’t expecting me to be leaving at that time.  But I LOVE leaving at 4:30.  I get home before I’d usually get off work previously.  It’s still light out!  (Are you sensing a theme?)  Justin and I have gone for walks in the afternoon/evening because there’s time and light (LIGHT!).  My evenings are so much longer with just the addition of that one hour!  If I can talk my boss into this, it’s going to be AMAZING.  Plus, there’s a yoga class at work on Wednesdays at 5:00 and if I leave my building by 4:30, I can get to the main plant, change clothes, and get to the class.  Did I mention it’s free?  And that some of my previous coworkers (who I miss) are also in the class?

Of course, tomorrow I might have to go to a meeting from 4 – 5pm so I’d not make it to the class, but hopefully that won’t happen all the time. I went last week and it was SO FUN and I hurt for days.

My tailbone still hurts, by the way.  Guess how much fun that was in my 2 1/2 hour meeting today?

But other than the hours and the windows in my building, the work is just so much more interesting.  I still have so much to learn, but I’m starting to get the hang of things and starting to get these people organized.  They’ve really gotten disorganized, especially since their admin left back in November (November?  It’s kind of ab blur… ) and there’s been a lot of catching up to do for everybody.  Today I got people to start scheduling the overtime they’re planning to do over the weekend (if any) and start working on the reports about what they’re working on for the boss.  I learned how to order food for a big meeting that’s happening next week.  I found a ton of information for a bulletin board that I’m supposed to maintain.  I learned a lot about a schedule that we’re going to build and I’m going to maintain.  I sent a bazillion emails about a bazillion different things.  I sorted out items for a spreadsheet that will need to get tracked to make sure the items get done on time and reported to the right people.

I don’t sit still all day!  I get to help people.  And organize people.  And, okay, some of it’s annoying (trying to schedule a meeting with 14 people for 2 hours when there are only 3 conference rooms that really work for that many people, unless I want to put them into rooms that hold twice that many or make them stand the whole time, is SUPER ANNOYING) but most of it is interesting and challenging and I’m happy to be doing something that matters to people instead of staring at drawings and editing a book of information that no one cares to read and has the same information over and over and over again for each airplane.  My replacement started yesterday — she had orientation so I haven’t heard anything about her.  But maybe I’ll drop her a line tomorrow.

Anyway, today was a mix of hectic mixed with patches of “so what should I do now?”  Calling to get someone to fix the copier, emailing someone else to get toner cartridges for the printer, calling to get my phone number transferred over to my new desk, calling again to ask why only people in my building were able to call, setting up a meeting and calling people to make sure they’d be able to come to the meeting, and then getting an email saying that another meeting is being held at the same time involving most of the same people.  I’m going to let the boss figure out that one.  But I should probably still set up the coffee he asked for.  So far, it’s a lot of administraive assistant-type work, but I’m confident that it’s going to be a lot more than that.  Super admin plus!  I can order coffee AND plot all your tasks into Excel and Project and explain all about your resource issues!

I have a lot of tasks to learn:  they’re tracking a lot of information in a lot of different places and I have to figure out all those places and who needs what information and by when.  Having the boss away this week is actually going to be really helpful in that since I get to focus on what everybody else needs in the quiet of his absence.  After his return, things will pick up pace a lot.  So everything I can figure out this week will make next week so much easier.  Which is obvious, but still.  I’m glad it seems like I’ll get a quiet week to roll into this job.

Here’s hoping that my cold will finally go away so I can concentrate on the work!  And it’s be really fantastic if my tailbone would let me sit down on a chair like normal instead of sending spikes of pain up my spine.  Sitting without pain and not coughing up a lung, doesn’t sound like too much to ask, right?

Good luck on your first day tomorrow, Nathan!

The unintentional thing about that is that I’m here this week – one of a very short list of employees in the office this week – and then I’m out on vacation for 2 weeks.  So I’ll work this week and then when I come back from vacation, I’ll start my new job!  Talk about short notice! 

It makes for interesting compare and contrast to my previous job in Toccoa.

When I quit my job in Toccoa, I gave them a 3 months notice.  And when I left they still hadn’t interviewed anyone to fill my position.  This job:  They’re hoping to offer someone the job later this week.

When I quit Toccoa, there was a huge amount of guilt laid on because I was leaving my “ministry.”  Here, people have told me to do what I think is best for my career.  They’re sad to see me go, but completely supportive.

It’s exciting and terrifying.  And I’ve got a couple days to try to wrap up all my projects, get word around to people who work with me on different projects, hand off the 5S program to someone else, and try to write up a manual explaining how I do a lot of the things that I do.  And I’ll miss the people who I work with right now, but I’m looking forward to a new direction.

Anyway, I’ve been in a terrible mood and things haven’t been going great, so I’ve been keeping my complained grumbling to (mostly) myself (and Justin and my friends Becky and Julie) and not airing out here.

But!  I’m heading into a busy weekend, so I figured I’d do the typical quick dump of information so you can know what’s going on.

Recap first:
Thanksgiving was great!  6 people for dinner, 8 people around our table, card games, fire in the backyard, pie, chatting with friends, it was AWESOME.

It took us three days to clean up after that – Friday, I didn’t get out of pajamas.

Monday morning, I ran something over in the dark with my car (I’m blaming the guy in the truck with his headlights right in my back window) and got a flat tire.  A gentleman stopped to put on the spare for me, and Justin and I took the car to the shop, where we got 2 new tires, the alignment fixed, and the fuel system cleaned out.  And I stayed home the rest of the day, which was GOOD.  The car is running much better now and I needed the extra day off after all that mess.

Wednesday and Thursday this week I worked 11 hour days to get an extra hour of work done for the department trying to sweep me away from my current department.

Yesterday, the job descriptions for the jobs competing for my attention went up for applications, so over the weekend, I have to apply for one and write a resignation letter for the other – sort of assuming that I’m going to get the one that I apply for since they’re both, apparently, desperate for my attention.

Today I’m working to make up for the hours I missed on Monday and I have A LOT of work to get done.

New stuff!
Today after work, Justin and I are going to a Christmas party/game night at a friends house in Beaufort.  This time, I’m not going to leave our house keys in Beaufort.

Tomorrow, we’re going to get a Christmas tree from the same tree farm we’ve been going to for the last 4 years or so and we’re taking our friends Becky and Julie.  Our friend Elizabeth is meeting us at our house after she gets of work at 5:00 to help us decorate it.  Julie’s making cookies.  Justin and I are making dinner.

Sunday, we’ve got church, an online game with friends in the afternoon, and then we’re probably taking Elizabeth out to IHOP for one last hurrah before she moves away.  She’s been looking for a job closer to her family since we met her a year ago and she finally got it.

And then I’m back into my work week.

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!

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.

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?

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