Surprise! I’m here this morning! I just wanted to pop in with a few updates. We are very excited that we were able to get Mom to Lowe’s and she ordered her fridge and washer and dryer. The fridge arrives Saturday the 13th and the Washer and Dryer on Dec 1. Not bad in today’s world. She was able to get the ones she wanted for the most part. She bought a fridge like ours that has the little see through door that opens up within the big fridge door. She was happy! I will have to do her laundry for a couple of weeks.
We were going to come home and have hot dogs but George suggested we go out for Pho as we’d not taken Mom out to try Vietnamese food. In Mom’s head, I know she was thinking “Good Grief” and she admitted she wasn’t sure when she saw the place. But I suggested the Orange Chicken and it was perfect for her. She loved it.
So the place had nice relaxing music and a nice little vibe. The decor seemed to say “Happy Everything” as it was decorated with Halloween, Fall, and Christmas, and they admittedly said they had decor left over from Valentine’s Day sitting around. lol. The food was excellent. George and I got a Singha Beer from Bangkok.
We had several appetizers including the egg roll or spring rolls and chicken satay. This place had both Vietnamese and Thai food.
It was all delicious. And they do an amazing amount of take out. There was a constant stream of people picking up to go orders. I ordered a ginger salad, because I love them so. Their lettuce was the freshest I’ve seen anywhere in a long time. I also selfishly had ordered hot green tea also. I drank both my beer and the tea and loved it! ;-). Better than getting a 2nd beer right?
Can’t you just see the freshness of this lettuce? That was really good to see. I’m so tired of bad lettuce. Things are taking longer to ship and the store’s goods are just horrible these days. So I’m not sure what their secret is, but I loved it. I could eat there every night. I would have Ginger Salad and Pho or Chicken Satay or Orange Chicken, lol. Every night! I had a bite of Mom’s and it was awesome! We must go back soon!
Here was my Pho. It has rice noodles, chicken, scallions, red onion, probably basil and bok choy. I couldn’t eat it all. The broth was an amazingly good flavor. The waitress said we got the last of the Pho last night.
It was a happy place.
We needed happy.
Back home, with our first freeze of the season at 30 degrees F, George put Little Bit’s box on the front porch. He was in it when we got home, lol. It’s not the most pleasant looking thing on a front porch but he will be warm there. Don’t worry, when it gets much below freezing he comes inside and stays in our basement which is probably 50 ish to 60’s as it gets heat from the house. The box is a little dusty it seems. Or maybe it’s the shadows/light. I didn’t notice that being that way last night. Anyway, it has a warm blanket inside. I need to put another one over that one though b/c I think he will get his claws stuck in the threads of this one. I need a thin little baby blanket or something to put over this one. We’ll get him fixed up.
Mid-Week Update
Traffic was horrible yesterday. I’m not sure why. I was running behind and hopped on the interstate. I got to work by 8 – barely – but it was very slow. I really enjoy the back roads but if in a hurry I have to go the interstate as it shaves off about 10 to 15. Sometimes the back ways can be slower than normal but I just enjoy the more pleasant pace of the back streets. I don’t have to worry about as much.
So today is my Friday. I’m off tomorrow for the closing. We have a full day lined up. We have to go sign up for the water – that was the only thing Mom has to do in person. And I need to go get my police report from where someone stole my identity. They are only open during the hours I’m at work so I have to go do that. And Mom will have a few errands. We need to get our plan on tonight so we don’t have any problems tomorrow about what the plan is – if you know what I mean.
We also brought the grout sealer for her backsplash and also for the granite. And we got the shelving paper. So I’m sure we will start on those things first. Snoksred suggested the chair – not to forget it til the furniture arrives. Thank you! Yes, we will need to go put that in my trunk tonight. TWO chairs, and maybe a little cooler with water. We also have to program our own house keys and we have to figure that out. I’ve never in my life seen such a thing. There is a tool you use and put the key in the door and program it to the lock. So how do we know someone has not already done this and has a set? Weird. And where are those garage door openers that were missing? Can someone get in now? Or will they be reprogramming the new set? I have no idea how that works! But what if some construction worker our there still has the openers and can get in?
Also anxious to see the place with the grass added. I’ll be sure to take pics in the upcoming days with our progress.
Garnishments Process at Work
Work is coming together with me getting month end done. I only have two or three more states to do. And I need to work on garnishments today that have come in. I never get garnishments unless it is a busy time for me. Then it’s like someone turned on the magnet – “hey Sonya’s busy, lets send all the garnishments now”. lol. They take a while to set up as there are a lot of components since we do our own payroll. The employee gets a copy, you usually have to respond to the company or agency, you set up some of them in excel if it’s a true garnishment and you do a percentage. If it’s child support, it’s good b/c usually you can set it up as a deduction to come out every week, but a lot of ours have to be figured as a percentage with EACH payroll. So I have garnishment tabs on each person. Also you have to keep up with their balances so you know when to stop the garnishment. So I have a tab for that too. Then I have tabs for the actual “cover sheet” that goes with the check showing what the garnishment is covering so the agency knows who the check is for. I also have a little half sheet cover sheet with the A/P code that I use when I run the actual garnishment checks. I have to enter it in the A/P system every Thursday to create the checks. So I have to set up the garn agency as a vendor in the system before I can even do the check run. And I have to put work sheet reminders in the plant payroll folder so I actually remember to figure the deduction and enter it in the system for the employee’s with percentages. After payroll I go in and zero it out so I can start over the next week. There is a lot to it but I have the system down. Then of course after payroll I have to do a reconciliation spreadsheet to make sure what comes out of payroll is matching what I’m sending on the checks and for TN I actually have some that I pay online. If it’s one child I pay on line. If they have three to five different child support payments to varying custodial parents I usually have to do during payroll because it’s certain percentages of the total that go to each parent, up to a certain amount. Anyway it’s all very detailed. I think I have two or three new garnishments to set up today.
Growing To Do List.
So I have quite a to do list of itty bitty things that need to be done. Last week was carefree at home as I working on Quarter End but this week it’s all built up and now I don’t have time to do any of it LOL:
- Order Christmas things on line that Katy wanted
- Change George’s sheets
- Work on Christmas Planning (what the heck to get everyone?)
- Update my Apple Watch. It won’t do the last update for some reason and it says it should when I look online. But I’ve not had time to reboot the watch. So maybe I will try that.
- I think Mom has some internet orders she wants me to do.
- Finish the next video before I do the upgrade the Mac to Monterey. I don’t think it’s any big deal.
- I kinda want to go to good will and look for more jeans. I don’t want to spend a fortune on new ones!
- Audible credit is out – need to download another book
- Need to update my wellness company order with some changes
- Want to make whole grain bread. Just something I want to try. 😉 I bought the flour and we have the yeast. But ain’t nobody got time for that these days.
Challenge Update
I had to give up making check marks on my sheet for my challenge. It’s all pretty much engrained into my head what I need to do. It’s just been too busy to keep up with the check lists. I’d get two or three days behind. I quit actually tabulating my ounces of water. I would try but by afternoon just had to quit trying to keep up with it. Too much else in life. But I did it long enough to engrain it in my head. I think the goals will stick strong. I won’t be perfect at it but at least I’m significantly better and more disciplined at water, movement, helping others, not eating dessert every night but stretching it out to 5 to 7 days at least. The hard part has been embracing Whole Foods. And that is mainly b/c I live with other people, who don’t or I allow stress and time to blur what is important. But I try to make as good of a decision as I can. It’s been a wonderful challenge despite those that have joked by saying I’m a cheater or tried to sabotage the efforts in some way. Most of those folks who have done that, do not seem to have any desire to improve their own situation in such manner so it makes it easy for them to jab at me who does want to improve and quite frankly, has improved! I’m proud of myself for taking it on and for improving 50 to 75% in many areas! Yay me! lol I will celebrate my efforts. The challenge is NOT over yet. Quite frankly – it’s a challenge to develop good habits so it’s kind of a funny thing – it just sort of morphs itself into reality. I mean why would I want to go backward and stop doing these things? But I can see where some challenges especially if you are doing some specific things like “no sugar” or “studying a certain subject for a period of time” would not go on forever. So anyway, I’m calling the challenge a success and kicking the checklist to the curb. I like the rules I created for myself and I’ll stick with them. But I am going to do another improvement challenge in 2022. It will be little more specific and targeted. And that will truly be a 55 day challenge from beginning to end.
And so now I’ll probably be back Saturday morning since I blogged today. I’ll let you know how closing went and what all we are up to in getting her ready to move in.
It makes my day when I hear from you…