Less Hustle More Coffee

Good morning! Just a quick hello before getting ready and heading to work.

The weekend sure did go by fast. I feel like I did a lot but as usual did not get very far down the list. At least the winter clothes are up, my hair is cut, and my nails/toes were done, and the laundry was done, sheets changed, grocery run done, and had conversations with family, and so forth.

I had some down time in trying to make graphics in Canva (really a bit difficult if you don’t have the full version). So this weekend I’m just going to get the old laptop out and do what I know to do with PSP) Paint shop Pro. I figure I’ll just have two laptops set up in here, in the office. I mean I love my Mac, as there are so many things I love about it, but I miss PSP and being able to do things quickly. Everything has been a learning process on here. I love it, but sometimes I need PSP! And the Mac with the new Catalina software has so many limitations right now it seems. The App Store has mostly things you have to buy. It often doesn’t have what you find in other devices. Like ZOOM for example. No Zoom! I had to go the Zoom website and find instructions and download directly to my desktop. I still don’t know if I can use it yet. Anyway, I did manage, with GREAT EFFORT and a lot of time wasted, to get just a simple change done to my logo. They wanted to charge me for it and it wouldn’t download so I did a screen shot and cropped it. lol I think I like my PSP better. I’ll use Canva for some things but not having the translucent graphics (paid version only) makes it difficult to do the kind of work I want to do with it. And I’m not paying $12.99 a month. Sorry. If I had a business and using it as a marketing tool I would spend money to make money, but no, I’m not making money off of this blog so “no thank you”. I’ll just crack back open the old laptop. lol

Speaking of…Katy is going to help me do a shower that is coming up. It most likely will need to be a virtual one. It’s in June. I just don’t see that this virus thing is going to let up much before then. However, we will wait to mid May to make a final decision as that is a month out. My guess is that if has let up we could do both – have the event at my house and stream it for those that prefer to stay safe at home. So we’ll see. But I need help so I’ve asked Katy to help me. She is very creative. And I’m better at doing real life showers. I’m out of my realm. Working full time zaps whatever creative mind I can come up with. By the time I get home and get to my weekend – it’s so packed with trying to catch up from the week. That even during the Pandemic, I am stressing myself out. It’s even more stressful at work b/c you have to figure alternative ways of doing things. But anyway, I’m so ecstatic that she has agreed to help me and we are talking next Saturday regarding some ideas. I will get with the Mom to be this week also as this will be getting closer and closer and it is time to work on it.

One thing we did do this weekend is eat well. Would you expect any different? George has done an excellent job as always cooking and he enjoys it so.

I really wanted to do pics with the logo on them – but since it’s not translucent it shows the whole box and quite frankly it doesn’t product a clear image anyway.

But…at least there are lots of free photos on there so I can “collect” some photos at least for use on the blog. Live and learn. I really wish I had NUMEROUS hours to do things like this. And my new interest is making videos on iMovie. I spent some time on YouTube yesterday learning how to do a few things and how make overlays. They used Canva but have the paid version. I’ll have to see if there is another option. However, doing the videos is a whole ‘other layer of creativity. And they take a whole lot of time to do. I’m still trying to find time to do our girls trip. It takes hours to edit. I think it would be fun to have a VLOG. But I think it takes a whole lot more time. And quite frankly not sure my life is interesting enough for that. But if I can do a few things and supplement the blog and do a cross effort of Blog and Vlog – it could evolve. When I retire, I guess that could be my new passion and we could involve our travels. Anyway those are my thoughts on that. And that is where my weekend goes sometimes – and I call it “my best effort at being geeky”.

One thing we always do on the weekends is eat well.

Clay Pot chicken is one of our favorites. Often we have had this on New Year’s Day. It’s really fun when everyone gets their own little chicken. But at Publix it was cheaper to buy a whole chicken and so we went with it. My love for chicken has increased ten fold in the last two years. It’s my new “go to” food and with a freezer full of pork and beef, I really appreciate chicken or fish nights. I was trying to cut back on the red meat when George bought the cow. Everyone seems to love buying the cow. I’m grateful to have had the cow but there was a lot we couldn’t get b/c we needed the freezer room. And quite frankly to me it’s not been as good of a cut of meat as getting it from Houstons, or the store, or eating out. But I don’t want to be judged as ungrateful (though some will anyway), I’m just being honest at the difference and we just have not had a lot of chicken around and I miss it. Those are all my feelings and experiences so I’m sharing it. But yes, grateful to have a good meal and freezer full of food so don’t get me wrong. Facts are just facts whether you say it or not. And here was last night’s meal with Ribs, baked beans and fried okra. I’m hoping I don’t have any issue with the okra seeds? I didn’t think of it til after I ate it.

The storm threat has been looming for several days and I’m grateful that the storms never came to fruition. That happens a lot. More often than not. But of course it did happen here with tornados back in March. So it can happen for sure. Anyway it was a relief that the rain kept the temps down and so ours was not severe.

We were delighted with a FaceTime call from Kate in her Bunny Ears. She had bought that for the kids at school (during their ‘homeschool’ Pandemic period).

Katy fixed a great meal for her and Cody – she went ALL OUT! And while FaceTiming we got to see a snake in their driveway. It was not a poisonous one I don’t think.

And last but not least! What to do with these nails? I just keep painting over them every weekend. Eventually the “dip” will come off. I don’t want to ruin my nails trying to get it off so we’ll do it the long slow way. You can see the ridge. I guess it’s just going to have to be that way. I miss the salon time (in a way). In a way I don’t. I’m just surprised my hair turned out ok.

So the weekend was NOT lost. But I do need to try to get a few things knocked off my to do list other than the regular stuff. I did enjoy some netflixing and YouTubing so fun was had certainly.

And here is the hair cut:

That was a screen shot image crop from a video I did on Instagram yesterday.

Anyway, I better finish getting ready. I’m about 15 min behind my normal time. But that is all I have for today. Probably won’t blog again until Wednesday morning so I can get this Payroll behind me.

I am taking ALL My files back to work today. I found it a bit frustrating last week having had things in two places. I’m taking it all back and leaving it there and taking only what I need for Wed and Fri the days I work from home. Since I’m at work 3 days a week – that will be better then I have what I need there. I ended up having to leave around 2 or 3 on Tues and Thurs b/c what I needed was at home. It’s just not productive going back and forth, but I do love working from home and not having a commute – other than I can’t print anything or scan and the quarters are tight with not a good workspace but we are making it do. I just have to print galore what I need the next day when I get to work.

OH well, one day all this mess will be over.

Ya’ll take care!