Less Hustle More Coffee

Good morning! It is Saturday morning as I type this with an excellent cup of hot coffee at my side in my favorite “Blue Lobster” mug from Maine! I have noticed the leaves changing this week. I vow every year to slow down and enjoy it. As I rushed out the door to work one morning, backing out of the driveway, I suddenly realized the “time is now”. I got out of the car and took pics and a video. It’s not as pretty here as it is at work. I’m not sure what makes the difference. So I also stopped there and took pics of the fire redness in the leaves.

It seems I’m out the door at sunrise and home and sunset.

Cloudy morning on the way to work complete with bird splat on window view, lol. Gotta love a reality blog right? lol

A Triangle in the sky formed by planes going across the sky. Of course I took it as a sign of change. Triangle = Delta = Change. Ooops you can see the reflection of my white board through the window.

Sunset on the way home.

Leaving it behind as I travel East toward home.

Another glimpse looking West getting off my cloverleaf exit at Mount Juliet.

It has been a quick minute of a week this week. I could hardly grasp that it was really Friday. Much accomplished yesterday with cleaning up from quarter end – meaning neatly packing up the reporting materials and prepping for the next one with worksheets and getting them ready to go for the next one. I also began getting everything ready for the next payroll quarter that starts in January. What does that mean? Tracking excel sheets where I have to track the numbers of employees for each state on the 12 of the month for unemployment reporting, making labels for all the tax sheets and payroll records where I have the w/e dates and pay dates. Saves me from having to write it about 30 times – just pop a label on it, and makes it easier to read and find when doing returns. I also placed the request for the files for our 2021 withholding and unemployment tax files. I also made out my 2021 calendar already with all the Friday pay day requirements for each payroll – certain days of the month require commissions to be paid for sales folk, auto allowances to be paid another Friday. Some paydays require holidays to be entered, some we deal with the fuel expense once a quarter for the sales folks, and then we have every other week is a salaried payroll in which I need to make sure I include their withholdings and deductions as a part of my records for tax filing and 401k uploads. So the calendar is set for 2021. I use my down time (not a lot of it) when it’s not quarter end or month end, to do prep work to make the quarter end easier and to catch up on what got behind during the quarter end. It works out about right on the time line. So it felt good to get started on some things I needed to get done and get ready for. I had to box up some 2019 records to make room for the current records. All that will go to storage. And we are about half way to the next quarter end lol. Time is flying by. By the time you get through with one, caught up, it’s time for the next one.

Dinner has been good this week. We’ve been busy a lot at night. But George fixed a pork roast one night.

And beans and corn bread! YUM.

We love this skillet! It’s my bacon skillet. But it makes excellent corn bread.

George gives Roger some much needed loving. He’s just an old doggie now. We have decided not to even take him for the next grooming. Just not sure we want Roger nor the groomer to go through it. He’s so uncomfortable and moany and groany and whiney when he’s not happy. He is more and more intent about being where George is. He seems happy at home because he is used to it, but he gets lost, stares at walls, stares into space, looks for George in the wrong places, trips and gets hung on our shoes, table legs, falls and wobbles over. And his back legs splay out when he walks on linoleum with his back legs not strong enough to stand up on the linoleum at times. We know our time with him is limited.

I don’t like to think of it coming but sadly it is. He is just a very elderly dog.

All week we have worked hard, we have done chores, we’ve planned some, we’ve done health insurance webinars, made weekend plans, made Christmas plans, made plans with friends, made to do lists, ordered Christmas gifts online, and have really been moving forward with plans/life despite the rage in coronavirus.

None of us knows what tomorrow brings. We are making plans and sometimes plans have to change but for now WE ARE MAKING PLANS. And it’s just been a busy little week of doing all that plus keeping up with the house and the dogs and ourselves.

So Friday night, even though I needed to be doing a ton of other things, I grabbed a hot tea, a blanket, and caught up on a few of my YouTube shows. It’s just what my soul and psyche was needing. I love our little den with the BAT (Big A$$ TV). It’s perfect for our day’s end.

So Katy’s shower is today and we’ll be going to a virtual shower and spending it live with my SIL and BIL Susan and Kevin. We will be celebrating Susan’s birthday after the shower.

Here’s our peeps right here, a photo of the last time we were together:

This is an angle I rarely get to see, the sun coming in through the sun room. Saturday’s it is so pretty. The sunroom is usually closed off these days as the evenings have been too cool. You can see the leaves changing. I keep fresh quilts/throws on the love seat there – I really need those stair step kind of a quilt rack to put it on. Where you can put 4 or 5 on it. I will grab in there and get the next one when it’s time to wash the current one. As always there is system for everything with me. LOL.

So for the next week or so the focus will be on Thanksgiving – cleaning the house, getting guest bedroom ready for Mom, listing and obtaining ingredients needed, and when to cook what and who is cooking what. George is hoping to secure the smoked turkey soon from Aldi. Christmas gifts, ordering is important. I have asked off for a vacation day in December. I had one day to burn so I wouldn’t lose it. Will still have my 40 to use in January – it will be 40 by then. So that felt good knowing I would at least have a day to do “something” toward Christmas.

I also want to work on the next LessHustleMoreCoffee YouTube video in iMovie. I’ve started it but have to stop long enough to make some strides toward our holiday goals so I don’t get too stressed. I will get stressed, but trying not to. We already have almost booked up our Saturday’s. We are really looking forward to getting the days off after Christmas. lol. It’s b/c the weekend falls that way. So yeah, looking forward to that down time after all the rush.

A lot going on in my office it seems. It doesn’t look as messy from a distance so that is good. I’ll be sitting here doing some orders and making some plans.

And “Christmas Corner” is expanding as gifts are starting to be purchased. It’s so exciting! And I guess I should get up and get started on the house and getting ready! I am going to wear makeup today. So excited! lol.

I’m leaving you with Mr. Turkey! George said he liked Mr. Turkey! Made my heart glad. That is what he is there for, to make us smile! I love a bit of holiday flair and so glad to find him.