It’s been very difficult to find time to blog. I often leave earlier for work. The traffic is horrendous if I leave too far past 6:30. And often I’m trying to get to work to get something done and get a head start. So hopefully my morning blog time will sort itself out. Once I get home there is no blog time and I’m in no mood to do it. Until then I will blog when I can. I often blog about work during the work week as that is what is on my mind. I did last week when we had such a horrid payroll week. I originally wrote about it in my last post. But then I turned around and erased it. I never know how people take to such. It confuses me. To me, I write about things that I would tell anyone – including people at work as I just write what is on my heart. But there is something about putting things in writing that just tears the roof off of some folk when they see the truth in black and white and you can feel the trolls gathering around. And that makes me so uncomfortable. I’m writing for me and enjoy telling my daily story. I just really want to be me and be able to say what I feel w/o someone getting all bug eye’d and tripping over the facts. But since they have done it before, I feel they will do it again. You never know when someone is going to be offended that I actually have thoughts too, lol. It’s crazy that one should feel shame at simply sharing their day and what happens within it. It’s a very fine line as to my feelings and how much I can and do share. I feel I’m not in as much of a “sensitive” role anymore and it doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks either as it was my day anyway and I never shared sensitive data- and my day – well -it existed and occurred. I guess I kinda feel like if someone is ashamed of how something is, or how it is happened or how things went or how things work then perhaps maybe one might be so inclined to change it? lol. But I try to be a kind person and try to be me and when I tell a story about my day, I like to tell it as it was. And I have an issue thinking of it from anyone else’s standpoint since it’s my blog and my story. It IS a personal blog and everyone else is welcome to do their own. lol Anyway I could go off on this but I won’t. I just try to tell most of the story and some times have to go back and erase it if I think the truth is too much for someone to handle.
So all that said -I will reword things and post from here w/o going into a lot of harried detail. There were some payroll issues last week – some my fault, in an effort to hurry things along and compounded the issues – some were others fault and it was probably my 2nd worst week in payroll as everything seemed to compound upon one another and was mainly just time consuming, in which the programmer had to be called in – oh gosh! Payroll now is like riding a horse and I’m a bit afraid of jumping back on board knowing how sensitive it is – but I will do it. God tells me I am perfectly capable and managers tell me “it happens from time to time” and I’ve been told despite these things “You’re doing a good job” so I’ll hop back on the horse and “keep on keeping on”. But I managed to catch up and get everything done despite the initial delays. I did have a couple of longer days but most of the week was able to take lunch and then also got to leave early on Friday at 3:00 to go get Mom. All that to say the week was a rough one, but I endured and took us over the hump, didn’t run away and hide, faced it head on and did what it took to make things happen and that is where one’s senses of accomplishment, resilience, humility, and patience come in. Sometimes a system does not always have the bells and whistles to keep some things from happening but I sure do. I realize everyone has human errors but I make it my goal to have zero. And I try and invent ways to fix something – even if it is is on my own, so it doesn’t happen again. I can only control me though. And even that is hard. Sometimes you want to dig a hole and dive right in if something goes wrong and it is your fault. But you do have to realize that sometimes the things you do are easy to happen. For example if for an hour and a half you have entered things for plant 4. And suddenly you work on plant 6. It’s late in the day and you are tired and you hit a 4 instead of a 6 because you have been doing so for the last hour and half – that is understandable but. —-Arghhhhh – you feel so bad when someone has to be called in to fix that! What horror you just created in a split second! You approach the computer with hesitance and think three times before entering anything or pressing any buttons any more. One person said they were afraid I’d think the job is just not worth it. But nahhh, I am pretty resilient. Having been labeled that by another boss at another company – much to my surprise. And another boss calling me “his rock”. I get it I guess. I put up with a lot before I call it quits, lol. It’s like running a marathon. You have to prepare your head game, get in the zone, ignore distractions and all that matters is accuracy and the finish line. And focus focus focus. And that said, I love what I do and I know that God is with me when doing payroll but He has allowed me to make an error here or there and I always learn from it b/c when you do you learn the behind the scenes of what is happening and where things are pulling from. It’s kinda fascinating actually. God has His reasons for things happening. And all worked out despite mine and others errors last week. Mine was entering a 4 where a 6 was supposed to go and then starting another plant payroll before another was closed b/c it had an issue and I was trying to save time. Anyway, it was rough week as I never want anything to cause payroll to be late. And we were NOT late, so we can proud that despite the errors -the TEAM made it happen and that is what I love – being part of a winning team. So hopefully this is a good entry and not considered a bad post. My attitude is full on and proper and only wish the best for us all. No fingers pointing at anyone – as I was told “it happens” and was told jokingly but not really – “try not to let it happen again though for a year or so”. I laughed as I know the person and so all is good. Neither of us wants that to happen again. But let’s just say I was happy for Friday this week. I’d earned a “leave early” anyway. So I left to go get Mom.
So – Mom was very patient. She does NOT like being on the interstate and does not like heavy traffic. I was beyond proud of her for facing her fears to be with us and to trust God to get us back to our house safely. She trusted me to get her through Nashville traffic. And all worked out fine. I’m used to the traffic. Deal with it all the time. I don’t like it either, but I am safe and will maneuver us around. I used WAZE in case it had some changes for us and it did move us around traffic a bit. But it did have us try to make some left hand turns across traffic which I will not do. No left turns for me across having to consider two lanes and a turning lane and the two more lanes coming the other way – 4 lanes total and a turning lane? I don’t think so. No holes to cross in traffic in during rush hour and I am not one of those to hope that everyone stops to let us over. No way! So I went right (I’m a right turns kind of gal) and WAZE just rerouted me from there. That was fine.
We got home Friday night and George had dinner ready – a VERY FINE BBQ dinner.
We have found this BBQ at Kroger. I think they also have it at Sam’s club. It’s really good. We also have found beans we like to go with BBQ which is made by Serious Bean Company.
We like the Sweet and Smoky Chipotle. But these have sent us many times to Walmart – just for the beans!
So we also buy a bag of slaw mix and use the Marzetti’s dressing mix.
I’m sure it’s all kinds of calories? But it makes an excellent plate mate with the BBQ and beans and tastes like we own our own BBQ hut for the evening when George adds his cornbread.
Mhm Mhm, Yep..we KNOW how to do UP a Friday night. And what an EASY meal!
So we all slept good, dogs got along and were good. People got along and were good – lol. Well you know all that is important! And guess what we did? WE offered Mom to watch her Life Time channel b/c that is what she is used to, but she said “Ya’ll watch whatever…” so we watched…….
My SIL recommended this since we were now on streaming Netflix. We are several shows in on the first season and love it It’s very entertaining and YOU DO get to love the characters. And you want to pull for EVERYONE!
I can’t wait to watch more of it.
We also had a wonderful Thanksgiving Meal together. Our menu was fairly traditional. Smoked turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, cranberry, pea and asparagus casserole, corn, dressed eggs, and blackberry cobbler with Breyer’s vanilla ice cream.
It was fairly easy I guess. George made the corn bread a day before to make the stuffing with when he made our BBQ corn bread – he just made two batches. And had made the pea and asparagus casserole so it was ready to go. I made the dressed eggs Saturday. The corn was the corn in the tube, easy to just heat up. The turkey was the Smoked (already cooked) turkey from Aldi and we did regular sweet potatoes – so no fuss – just bake and each person can add the pre made mixture of cinnamon, brown sugar, and ginger, along with butter, as they pleased. We had frozen Mrs Smith’s Blackberry Cobbler and then topped with the Breyer’s vanilla. So the cobbler cooked while we ate and then cooled. We didn’t eat it until way later b/c we were truly stuffed. But I might have had two bowls of the cobbler – oh my. It was so good. All of it was good. And of course George did most of the cooking. But I purposely planned as easy of a Thanksgiving meal as most any other weekend’s meal. George loves it (the cooking) though but it was a pretty easy meal to pull off and we feel our weekend was a real success.
Mom and I had some time on Saturday morning to go get our toes done. I was wanting to treat her to this but she treated me! We had a good time sitting in the massage chairs and getting our toes worked on and foot massages. It was nice.
Mom has showed some interest in finding a place near us. I am thrilled to no end! So I took Mom to look at a senior living place in our town but the cost was a bit above what we think her house would sell for back in Columbia. Unfortunately our town, being close to Nashville, the cost of living is a little more for the same space I think, plus this was a gated community and has a LOT of amenities for the senior living. However, we really liked it a lot. I think I want to move there! 😉
It would be ideal if we had a place with a MOM in LAW unit. I’m not sure what the answer is right now. IN a pinch she could always stay with us, but she doesn’t want that, but of course we will do what needs to be done as the times comes and whatever our options are we will weigh them. I get it- it’s hard for family to live together but it would be easier for us to spend time together and to help her if she had a place up here. Mom is not ready for changes just yet, but it is something to be pondered upon and the options really need to be looked at NOW so we know what directions we can start to move toward in the next year or two or as needed. Will need to think about what the requirements are for her and see what can be done for place nearby place that is sufficient. Have wondered what the cost would be to turn our own basement into a MIL unit but not sure George would be up for that remodel when we can’t even get my blue linolium into a different kind of flooring. I will admit I am about sick of kitchen and flooring here – enough so that I’m pondering if we should move ourselves – lol. However, we have managed to upgrade a few things which have been nice. As much as we use the kitchen it’s sad it’s in such a sorry state as it is. I’m almost embarrassed of it now. I mean our stove top is old and decrepid, the oven and microwave combo – the microwave no longer works and honestly is a fire hazard with it’s blinking spazzo digital issues splashing various numbers across the display haphazardly. Our counter tops are ancient. And again, who has blue linoleum. Many people don’t even have linoleum anymore, lol. But I get it. I know it’s expensive to do those things. But I always hate to do those things when selling the house. It will make me mad if we have to wait and do it to sell the house one day when we could have had it all along if we were going to have to upgrade to sell it. It’s an investment and one we probably need to do at some point to enjoy our kitchen more. I honestly think it’s one reason I don’t like to cook. I’ve never liked the kitchen we’ve been in. It was nice here when we first got here except for the blue linoleum and old counter tops, but the stove and the stove system has since declined and gas is too expensive to redo all the pipes/lines. So we have an old kitchen. And I stay out of it as much as possible. lol
Anyway, all those things to consider.
So another work week approaches. And next weekend we will be going to the Christmas Village to do a chunk of our Christmas shopping. One reason I love it so is b/c there are so many vendors and home made items – things you do not see in brick and mortar stores any more. And I love supporting the entrepreneur instead of paying for middle man services. So many cute things and so many things you cannot find elsewhere. We had great success last year.
I also am off this Friday and plan to go out and do some shopping for George. I think with payroll – my vacay days will be few in December and I’m trying to burn them all as I can. This coming Friday is a good one to do b/c my quarter end is done and month end is done.
I guess that is about all I have to offer up today and I will leave you with pics of the doggies on the weekend. I still have most of my “to do list” from last week (undone) so I will continue to work on that and also will begin our packing for TX. We leave in less than two weeks. I have to pack this upcoming weekend as there will not be much time during the week. I’m so stoked to have a weekend to play with Hubster in Hot Springs and then on to see my daughter! So excited to have that long of a stretch in a row. But have to start the packing now so as to not be stressed next week.
I’m starting to get excited over Christmas for some reason too all of a sudden. There is just not much time to get ready for it. I’m just having to remember it’s not as BIG as it usually is so no worries. We will just shop during the week til we get it done. Hubby and I make good partners going for our Christmas goals. So we’ll get it done. Only I think I’m mainly left to the decorating, lol. I might pick up an extra thing or two for decor. Kinda getting tired of the normal old stuff. Anyway, it should be fun trying to get it all done!
Here’s some pics of the doggies. I will try to post again mid week or so as time allows. Gosh when I do get to blog in 3 day spurts, there is so much to tell! lol
Take care!
It makes my day when I hear from you…