Less Hustle More Coffee

George and I had an excursion on Saturday – one in which time has not allowed me to share yet. It appears that not one, but all of my hobbies are being taking away – eaten away – one by one but at least this day was replaced by some fun. I’m forcing this entry in today to discuss at least an hour of my Saturday, although really I’m robbing time from my video editing this morning. The rest of our excursion (The Hermitage) will have to come for another day.

We began our excursion day out Saturday by eating at Jose’s Sandwich Shop in Hermitage, TN.

It’s way more than your average sandwich shop – it’s Venezuelan sandwiches. I want to go back again and get the “bowl” – pictured in the window above.

I did not eat all of the plantain. But I love plantain. The entire thing was so good. The beef, the sauce inside, and the ingredients were fresh with the lettuce and cheese. I don’t think people realize what a gold mine this is. It was so good. And the lady that was running it was so kind.

Oh look, the “bowl” is on the card here. That is what I want next time. Also I the same strip mall there is a hot chicken place, and Italian place and a Mexican place – none of which we have been to. So our summer bucket list (when I get time to work on it) will include these restaurants we’ve not been to.

Our day out was fun and hopefully on the weekend I will get some time to do my Hermitage entry – The Hermitage – Home of Andrew Jackson as opposed to the town of Hermitage which is in between Mount Juliet and also Nashville. It’s really only about 10 min away (the town) and The Hermitage is about 15-18 min away, closer to Donelson side which is on the very far out East side of Nashville area.

Thank You

Thank you everyone that left comments for Cody and Katy on the loss of their doggie, Findlay. She reads the blog and my heart has just been so heavy with this. I know how they feel but they had expected to have this dog until she was old -at least, so it has been a shock to lose a very important part of their family. You were kind to leave them a message (previous entry) and I appreciate you all for doing that.

Puppet Lives

Looking at this photo made me laugh this morning. I was thinking that these puppets are the stage of my life. Which finger puppet is Sonya wearing at this moment? Let’s name all the puppets! The Work Puppet? The Homemaker Puppet? The Care-Giver Puppet? The Family Member Puppet? The Blogger/Writer Puppet? The VLOG-er and/or Video Creator Puppet? The Traveler/Excursion Puppet? The Project Puppet? The photographer/videographer “wannabe” puppet?

What you say? There’s only five puppets there and several are missing and not enough to go around? Yes! My thoughts exactly! That is why it’s my life, lol. At least we can find humor in the situation.

Can someone say “Bless Your Heart!” lol I need a heart blessing! I like the brown one on the end. It looks most like a dog. The black and white one could be Maisy and the black one “Little Bit”.

Here’s What’s Going On In My Head, My Heart, and Life

• We are planning another Excursion for Saturday – mainly because we have a couple of gift cards to a particular restaurant so we are headed out to go to some areas we like nearby that area. We’ll start the day at lunch somewhere and then shop and explore our way until dinner. We have contacted our friends and plan to join up with them at some point.
• My arm is better but….. I’ve decided it is hampered by lifting heavy things, doing a lot of data entry, and or blogging and writing. I do think I hit my elbow hard enough a few weeks back to have a hairline fracture as that still kinda hurts but it’s healing. I will mention this to the doc in July that I’ve had trouble with my arm. It feels better after a rest and the elbow only hurts if I lean on it like elbows on the table. So I just don’t lean on it. Icy Hot works wonders for when the muscles hurt. I do think I have a cyst developed on my right wrist just from years of working that muscle from typing. The knot on my lower arm I have determined that is where my arm rests against the table or desk and creating a dent in my arm making a knot of sorts form next to it. It’s almost like a callous inside my arm, lol. Hard to explain but basically a dent in my muscle making the sides against the dent bulge out. Am I making sense? Again, I’ll show the doc all the knot spots. I don’t want surgery and I don’t want pain meds and honestly really don’t want anything. I just really need rest more than anything.
• I’m trying to work on a couple of projects but time not giving me any of itself to work with. Everything I do is stolen time away from something else. For example work yesterday was a 10.5 hour day with 45 min commutes on each end. I left in the 6 pm hour and got home in the 6 p.m. hour. So my personal time was gone. I ended up doing my video editing because it was nagging at me in my head to do it last night while George cooked, and I really needed to be working on other things. Dinner was ready before I got through working on the video edits.
• I am wanting to convert cable but with me it’s a whole research thing b/c I want it to be right. And I have not had time to even *think* about it. I’ve at least made a list of what all I need to do: get a current cable bill, talk to Comcast, see how much various streaming live TV services are, check out the Hulu box and Live TV and check out YouTubeTV, etc. I’m just so confused.
• I am going to get my REAL ID also and get that out of the way. I don’t want to wait until winter or 2023 close to the deadline or it’ll be packed or snowed out or whatever. I have to call and get that set.
• I have to call and set a GYN appt. I’ve not been in several years and I think it’s worth a check out.
• I want to do the Summer Bucket List.
• I’d really like to do a few things on my Winter into Spring Bucket List to be able to check them off. If I could find about 3 hours of time.
• I need to get a car wash with mud all over my white car, lol. After work I’m too tired to stop or have other things that need doing worse.
• We began looking for doggies yesterday on a PetFinder website. I’ve downloaded three apps for it and mostly they pull in the same dogs. There is one I can’t get out of my mind but she gets carsick -extremely car sick, it said. I don’t think that will work but —her face. Oh she is so cute. Anyway that is a start.
• My desk is snowed under with ideas, projects and to do’s.
• I was able to get a refund processed for our recent tow when my car broke down. Yay – progress at SOMETHING
• I’m taking Mom to Cracker Barrel tonight. George is going to stay home and work on his music project. He too, has been fussing over no time to do things. He’s been wanting to work on his winemaking also but that has been put aside for quite some time. I mean, we basically have given Mom all of our free time last year and a chunk this year. So our interests are few and far between when we get to spend time with them.

I’m trying not to be overwhelmed by the things I am not “getting to” and by not getting any days off or at home for like – a month. So I’m claiming Memorial Day as a stay home day with NO plans. I think company will be in town but we will have to plan time on other evenings. Memorial Day. It’s mine! For Sanity’s Sake! I have all of the PTO’s spoken for. A lot of it comes toward the end of year – at Thanksgiving, Christmas prep and shopping – when I really really really will need it and then rolling over some into ’23 so I have some at the beg of the year to use for that first quarter before I’ve accrued any yet.

The Time Thing….I Think I Have Figured it Out

Sorry to fuss about time so much but I’ve determined that until our schedule gets ironed out enough to be able to cover all the things I need and want – I will continue to vent about it. It’s a continual struggle that doesn’t go away until I get time for what I need to be a complete person and human being. It’s always something I’ve vented about when I feel life strangling me.

I’m just not willing to give anything in my life up. So each part of my life will continue to screw up the next part. I can’t give up work (yet), can’t give up caregiving, and refuse to give up things I like and want to do as that is a part of who I am as an individual. I refuse to give up going to church as I do think it’s important as we have started back.

One thing I can do is track my hours at work and cut back to 40 instead of working upwards to 50 (or more some QE weeks). I mean with expenses going up and me having a time problem and my income probably not going up I can cut back on my hours to at least give me some time back and it’ll just have to be what it will be. That will make my value go up per hour – even though I’m salaried. I doubt I will go by that during a quarter end month. Hmmm..if you work a snot load of extra hours over 40 during QE one could actually do less than 40 during the other times – not that I will do THAT but that is what would be fair. But I at least should cut back to 40 then.

I leave sometimes early for doc appts but I’ve been waaaayyyyyy far over compensating for those times by coming in early, staying late, forgoing lunches, and working extra during quarter end months —- and I need to manage my work time more to have more of a life balance. That is really the only place I can steal time from right now and it’s not really stealing – it’s taking what is rightfully mine back! :-O So that is the only logical answer I can come to. It’s the place that is sucking most of my day. So there ya go. Tracking starts today. :-). I’m so glad we had this talk! lol. I love coming up with solutions.

THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN