Less Hustle More Coffee

The morning had quite the slow start in many ways. I had absolutely zero energy to get out of bed yesterday morning – so basically I drug myself to the chair and sipped coffee. I began to come to life and began my morning slowly. I made myself shower and get dressed, although it was comfortable sweats and a warm shirt. And then made myself some breakfast. I opened the blinds across the house to be able to see the grey world outside, with it’s ice storm approaching nearby. We only had an advisory and with a few slick bridges and entrances and exits to the interstate. I was thankful I had a laptop and could stay home and didn’t have to drive in it. We were right on the line b/w ice and rain at 33 degrees most all day. There were some pretty bad wrecks across town and across the US with the worst being in Fort Worth. Thank goodness we were not in that, but we’ve been on those interstates many times and it’s scary even when the weather is sunny. I found my set up to be safe and secure and was so thankful to be home.

My office set up yesterday took a lot of effort, some of which I just did not have, but I finally got the monitor hooked up from George’s home office. It was a heavy son of a gun. I really need to have one here I can just leave in the spot. Thank goodness I already had the keyboard and mouse. But if George had worked from home yesterday, I’d have been w/o a decent monitor and my laptop is so small, I’m not sure I’d have been able to get much done.

Once I got it hooked up, my home internet went down. Geez. I had called IT b/c I didn’t realize it was our situation as I had been on the internet moments before to do my blog entry. But then I realized I could not access our server b/c our own internet was down. Once that came back up I could get in. I began answering emails. Of course the one day you are not in the office is the one day there are massive requests for w-2’s for those that moved and forgot to alert of their new address. Massive, well not really, but instead of the occasional one or two it was more like six or seven. Oh well, everyone has until what April 15th? So one more day to wait is fine since it’s February. I’ll tend to those this morning when I get there.

Other than that it was a quiet day email wise. I began entering the w-2’s I have to manually enter for Oklahoma since we don’t have the software or ability to meet their upload criteria. So I entered for an hour and a half and then something happened, I’m not sure what, it happened so fast. I think my fingers touched the touchpad on my laptop or something, the website disappeared that I was entering in. It was gone. Somehow I closed the website by mistake when my hand hit the touchpad and when I brought the website back up, my hour and a half of data entry was gone. I was only about a minute away from saving it. I was going to enter two more people.

I was so mad that this happened that I had to walk away for a few minutes. Sometimes it just seems that life fights everything and anything that you try to do. It was lunch time anyway. I wouldn’t have stopped at that point though as I’d had a late breakfast of egg and toast after my shower (which actually brought me to life), but I stopped and fixed pop corn as I was getting slightly hungry. I watched a YouTube show and it helped me to get away from the anger for a few minutes. I dreaded going back and trying to enter all the data again. The hardest part was entering all those over again that I had just entered. Once I got past that I felt like I’d made progress but otherwise it was just a wasted morning. I recalled how much I despise working from home when you only do it once in a blue moon. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. IF you did it every day you’d have all you needed and a proper set up for functionality. As awkward as it was, I did manage to get a bunch done in the afternoon. It’s a bit tedious so I stopped at 4:00. I think I got in about 60 or so.

Then I stopped and watched more shows, did laundry, and George came home. He went to the basement to paint some. He’s working on a room downstairs in the “storm cellar/storage area” in the basement to keep it from moisture and make it look nicer I guess and brighten it up. We called it the “spider room” before. You definitely want to look closely before you grab boxes in there.

Anyway around 6 p.m. while he did that I entered a few more w-2’s and then packed up my work area and took George’s monitor back to his desk and rehooked it back up. It was my day to cook dinner as I had a recipe to fix that was quite different, but it was quick.

I sautéed onion in a deep skillet, added ground beef. I mixed up mustard and molasses (yep you heard right) in a bowl. I added a can of tomatoes to the ground beef and onions as it cooked on the stove, then I added in the mustard and molasses mixture. And added a cup of rice, that was uncooked. And let it simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes. You have to test taste to make sure rice was done. It needed about another 8 minutes. I probably turned it down lower than it was supposed to but as the liquid left the dish I was afraid it would scorch. I probably opened the lid too many times, and interrupted the steam process but I was NOT going to let it stick. It turned out pretty good. I like that idea of throwing things in a pan and adding a cup of rice and letting it simmer for a one pot meal. We can do that with other variations for burger meals. Not bad at all. As George says “I don’t go back for 3rd’s for something I don’t like”. I had accused him of not liking it as he doused it with hot sauce but he does that with everything.

We began watching Brigerton on Netflix last night. It was just ok. I guess I’m not enthralled with the characters so much. Perhaps it will be propelling a bit later but for now, I think I’m just tolerating it. Have you seen it? What are you watching that you enjoy? We are finished with Yellowstone and also Virgin River. All were very good.

I made my bed yesterday since I was having to look at it all day. This is where I’ve been sleeping quite successfully and I am happy with that decision to sleep here. It’s helping me to get more sleep away from the Roger scenario and the loud George snores. I also am not waking them up when I get up which is about once a night now instead of two or three now that they are not waking me up. No one slept in that scenario.

I have to use this room for my work office since the blue internet cord (ethernet) seems to provide a better set up. Otherwise the internet is in and out a lot it seems when connecting via VPN. It was in/out anyway as it was. Plus it’s better to have a separate work spot b/c otherwise I’d be interrupted with personal notifications and such from my own office and I’d be longing to do other things. I’m disciplined enough not to succumb but I would still be longing to do other things.

So all in all not an unproductive day but not as productive as if I had been at work. The ice system actually petered out as it hit our area and other than a few icy spots most roads were ok. But for most of the morning it had threatened our area and the news team had said it was going to hit Mt Juliet. But it never really got bad here other than a few icy areas on bridges/exits to interstates. It did just to our north. I was just thankful I made the decision not to be in it. I’d have been on the radar all day wondering if I needed to go home yet. At least I had peace by being at home. Then I could worry over w-2’s instead, LOL.

So my tiredness went away and energy returned somewhat after I had that egg on toast. I felt better as the day approached that I was not getting or did not have “the dreaded”. I think my body was just worn out as it usually does from all that we have done and tried to do since the holidays. I have always pushed through the busy-ness of it and once the busy-ness calmed, my body crashed. I think that is what it has tried to do this week. I’ve been tired all week but yesterday was a different tired. I hit a brick wall.

I felt a little tired when I got up today but not like yesterday. I think my consoling factor is that tomorrow is Saturday. Now we have to decided if we are going to do our Valentine’s celebration. As little as we have ice/snow here, it is making me mad that it has to mess up work and also plans to get out and do something. But I’m trying to be patient. I mean what else can you do? It is supposed to be icy tomorrow and when you see 133 car pile ups in TX, you realize you don’t need to be out in it. I mean most people in Nashville cannot drive appropriately in sunny weather. So I hate to go across town even in rain much less ice/snow events. So we’ll look at the weather but considering cancelling and going on a better day.

I’ve also tried to circumvent the snow storm coming this Sunday night into Tuesday. I had offered to go in Sunday and do payroll. But we would have had to have everyone prep early for that. My bosses said not to worry about it that it would be ok and told me not to come in Sunday. So there’s that. I won’t be there Sunday and I’m glad NOW because it’s going to be really cold Sunday and I’d rather have my day off anyway. That decision made and now what’s left is to hope that Sunday through Tuesday’s snow storm does not bring the 1-3 inches as expected, b/c I don’t and won’t drive in snow unless the road is entirely clear. I don’t do rut driving either in snow.

I offered to get her done so there would be no worries but it was declined and so now it’s up to the weather and God. And will be what it will be. And hopefully payroll won’t be late. Used to be George would get me there, but now he does not go in that direction, we also have difficulty getting out of our neighborhood now that we live here with the hilly streets, and I think his views of driving in the snow at this point have changed a bit. Not worth messing up cars or getting killed yourself b/c you can’t control others or even icy situations sometimes. So if it snows, I’m pretty stuck here and won’t be heading out in it. And if I’m at work and it starts snowing, I will pack up and go home and endure any ugly fallout from it. So wish us all luck. Safety first right?

And that is all she wrote for today. I think we have black ice possibilities out there today so I’m taking my time and letting others beat the roads down before I head out. I’m considering taking side roads which will no doubt take longer but it will be slower and safer I think than the interstate. I’m definitely not leaving til the sun comes up good. If there is even going to be sun. I doubt it. We live in a grey world right now.

I guess we will get through this period of time and one day spring will come. I had asked for some warm weather but God has chosen to send frozen precipt instead. It’s his timing, not mine. I have bathed the payroll situation in his hands for next week. I wish he’d move the dates of the storm. I’ve offered to get it done in advance of the storm. I’ve done what I can to help control the situation. It would not be successful to do from home since I don’t have a printer set up and there are places where you don’t have a choice to print to PDF. So anyway, I’m trying not to worry about it. It’s out of my hands. I just try to plan in advance to get rid of barriers and control it so things happen on time but now it’s all out of my hands since my offer was declined, so may prayers and a bit of luck be with all. We’ll see what happens.