Bad Weather, Carpet Repairs, Car Repairs, Requests from Mom, Northern Latitude Dinner Party, Amazon Returns, and Everything Else

Hello everyone. I’m here! The January claw fingers hath laid its clutches upon me. It has been dreary, dark, stormy, snowy, cold. I have been elated, excited, happy, content, energized, sad, busy, tired, sleepy, and lethargic. So that pretty much describes the last few days since I posted last. Nothing major going on. Just life itself. And if you know my life, that is quite enough. By Friday I’m exhausted. I figured I should pop in so you’d know I’m still swinging from the branches! Although I am pretty sure I fell a couple of branches below and hit my head on a limb on the way down. 😉 lol.

Updates as to What is Going On

Again nothing major but here’s an update.

Dexter.

He got to go to Doggie Daycare on Thursday and had a blast. We love being able to check on him during the day. And I was glad to see they quickly get all the dogs inside when a storm was coming. It’s easy. All the dogs simply follow the humans. Within 20 seconds they are all in, maybe less.

He stays absolutely tired and worn out for about 24 hours once we get him home. I think doggie daycare is his version of running a major marathon. He runs and plays all day. I wonder sometime if it is good for them.

We started feeding him more food as he looked like he was getting a little thin. Of course we always feed him extra when he wants it or seems hungry. But for starters, that is, I began with MORE food in the bowl within the past week.

The Weather.

Typically in January we get severe weather within the first week – sometimes it is the last week in December. It seems the cold and warm air chooses our area here in TN as well as other states around us to have its battleground. We have had rain, hail, and luckily (for us anyway) the storms with tornadoes were south of us.

Then the snow moved through but it’s been really warm so it didn’t stick and the temps have been just enough for flurries but not bad for the roads. So no problems today with work. I kept a check on things because I did not want to get stuck at work. And I have made it home before the temps drop below freezing because some of the roads are wet. Mostly are dry though or have ruts, so I think everything will be fine. But there is nothing like getting home and coming into a warm house.

I set the temp from 67 to 71 on my phone so it would be toasty when I come home. I think George and I play tag on the temp. Anyway, I try to remember to set it back when I get to work and then lower it at bedtime. So I’m glad to be home tonight and super happy that it is Friday.

Carpet Repairs

The carpet place returned George’s calls but they are playing phone tag only they have not called back this last time and the ball is in their court. We have been pleased with this company and we are not asking for anything unreasonable. We just need someone to come and do a repair – we are willing to pay of course because it’s Dexter’s fault. But I am disappointed they have not called back again. I’m letting it go til next week. I expect to hear that we have a plan. Because they don’t want me to have to call. My Momma will come out in me! She takes notes and takes names! She never forgets a wrong. (Remembering countless conversations where she has remembered the sins of everyone in her home town. No wonder everyone walks on egg shells, she knows too much. lol.) But yeah, don’t make me have to come over there to get this carpet fixed! I’ll be a woman on a mission for sure.

Car Repairs.

So my car needed an oil change and George had us take it to Christian Brothers. They have done good work for us before. The good thing about them is they are quick to get it done. But I think they might be high. We have some really good repair people locally and some of them are soooo good that they have quite the demand and they just can’t get to it timely.

So George told them to check it out and see if it needed anything else as we have not done any fluids, tire rotations, etc in a long while. So they came back with recommendations and are doing a lot of things to it. The total came to $800: I think it was tire rotation, alignment, oil change, brake fluid, transmission fluid, and I forget what else. I thought $800 was high for it all though. I was like, you mean I don’t get new tires out of it – just fluids? lol. I thought $500 was more like it. But George says everything is going up, including the labor, parts, etc. So anyway, we got that done. It does drive better, I tell ya. Much better. It needed some attention.

Mom.

Mom seems to be doing ok. She has been hanging in there with our busy start to the new year. We have mainly seen her on Sunday’s. At some point this week – the second week of January, she sent her list of demands – by text. It’s things she had mentioned during the holidays but of course then was not the time to do them as we didn’t have the time. Not that we have it now either.

But, she gave us a list of having a work day over there and having George to hang curtains in one of her rooms, hang curtain rods and curtains in another room, and taking some stuff to Good Will. She’s been buying the things over time and just waiting for help. I was kinda thinking of waiting til spring but she has a list in her head of New Year goals just like we do. We’ve been so busy October through this month really, that I was hoping for some “hibernation time” before the extra demands came.

I called her and said, “I got your text about having a work day”. I said, I wanted to let her know that we needed to “ASK George” to see if he is feeling up to doing that. He’s had some issues with his ankle and has been to the doc and has been wearing a brace. So I wasn’t sure what all he could do as far as lifting and moving around on ladders, etc. I didn’t think it appropriate to just tell him he is going to do it, so I told Mom I would ASK. Asking is so much better than demands. On any day.

So I asked to see if he could do it or if I needed to try and help Mom find someone to do that kind of thing and he said sure he would do it. Then we discussed whether to do it on a precious Saturday or Sunday. We agreed we would rather do it on a Sunday after church instead of Saturday because if we do Saturday then we go two weeks before we get a day at home to do our things (b/c we work M-F and have church on Sunday). We agreed we would not do it all at once but project thing at a time. Because in all honesty. One day a week at home is not good enough to get all our stuff done and be able to have a little bit of down time. Hell, what am I saying – there is never much down time, you STEAL it from whatever pocket of time you can! Work week is no good for repairs after we have been gone from 6 in the morning to 5 or 6 in the afternoons.

She also asked me to make a mid-week store run for pet food, but didn’t need it til Sunday when we will be going to the store anyway, so I told her we’d have to wait because who wants to tote pet food back and forth and keep up with it and try to remember to take it to her. No let’s keep it simple as we can and not complicate anything any further than it already is.

So she has a toothache and I offered to take her to the dentist but she wanted to try sensydine (spelling – sorry I’m not looking it up- lol) first. She said she tried ordering it on that CVS site but that she spent over an hour putting things on there that she needed and lost the entry. She said just to order it and even pay shipping if need be. So I ordered that from Amazon and paid $2.99 extra shipping to have it at her door b/w 4 am and 10 am this morning so it would be there when she got up.

At work I got a notification it had arrived. So I texted her so she could go retrieve it. She texted back “not there”. I said “uh oh, let me see where they left it then”. It looked like the porch area in her subdivision but they left it at the wrong house. They left it at Nanny and Poppie’s house – whoever that is.

So yes, I had to call Amazon and ask them to resend, b/c I didn’t know if “Nanny and Poppy” would be nice enough to drive it over to Mom, or if they even could. I also told them I wanted a refund on the $2.99 because if I was going to get it normal time, I would not have paid $2.99 and they are going to reship it and have it there tomorrow (2 days later instead of a day later).

They were nice although I’m pretty sure I was speaking with a “Tom” from Asia somewhere.

Work.

So work is going well. I’ve actually enjoyed being there. My office is cozy and my work space is nice and enjoyable. I enjoy the work and I’ve been able to make progress further into it than I have most quarters. But we are at the point that it’s going to slow down because I have to wait on others for data before I can go too much further. That always makes me late. But I’m getting used to having to do this every quarter. My big thing is just trying not to sweat over it. But I’m getting as much done as I can.

We have to answer on a call now on Tuesday’s if we are behind or if we are needing anything to do our jobs in our department, or if there is anything as a company that needs addressing. It’s a pretty swift move for our execs to do this to see what’s really going on. However, I wonder what one does when they are waiting on something from their boss when they are on the call too. Who is going to throw them under the bus? I’d rather just blog about it, lol. I should say “just go read the blog”, lol. I have no intentions of throwing anyone under the bus because we are a team. But instead of putting a person behind it I’ll probably just say “here’s the data I need and when I get that I can go forward”. But yes, it really puts people in a bad position – if you are trying to answer honestly. I always prefer the honest approach, and I’ve always been honest here too. It is what it is. People are often unliked because they simply told the truth or exposed a deficiency. It’s happened before.

I’ve worked over some this week – but only by like 30 min here, 20 there, 10 here. Across the month it adds up.

Mom doesn’t have an eye appt this month so I don’t have to work the long Tuesday’s this month. It was moved to February, so I will work longer in FEB to cover those, by doing my hour per day.

No this is NOT my set up – just a photo from Pexels – free stock for us on WordPress. But I have began setting up my video footage from December and January into files to begin working on. I even filmed a bit yesterday. I will be starting on this this weekend for a goal of having an upload next Saturday. This is a major goal for me this next week. I need to get back in the habit. It’s been busy getting the new year kicked off. But this is my main hobby so I want to make sure I have time for it. So wish me luck as I set off into a new and different way of doing things. I’m trying to schedule some specific vlogging topics and then add/merge our life into it. It’s going to take a while to get into the rhythm.

Northern Latitude Party.

Ha ha. OK so we are having our Northern Latitude party tomorrow. We are having our foodie friends over (they are really like family). And we usually dream up a theme and since it was January we decided to make it a Northern Latitude party. I called it Northern55, but whatever. So all the countries closer to the North Pole, we decided to have foods from. I will take pics tomorrow and show you what we dreamed up for this party. I’m making my dessert tonight.

Hello Fresh.

We skipped a week to save some $. And we will be doing this from time to time. However, they sent us this in an email, thanking us for last year. That was nice. I’ve had this for a couple of weeks but forgot to share it. 162 meals is a lot. lol

Two Damaged Mugs from the Dishes set.

Two more mugs arrived and I am anxious to see if they are in tact. The box is here but I’ve not opened it yet. Thankful though they were so nice and didn’t waste any time.

It’s the Little Things.

So, we have a couple of sets of silverware because one set was never enough. I bought this expandable bamboo organizer on Amazon as a part of my reward money. It will expand to fit the size of your drawer. I love it. It greatly has improved my mood of my kitchen. lol

Yellowstone.

Well that is about enough of an update except to say that it’s been busy with all the above, and pretty much exhausted, but we have watched Yellowstone and we have 1 show left. So for an hour I sleepily watch it and have done pretty good about not falling asleep. I have had a bit of a time getting good sleep this week. (Noise, arm going to sleep, new weather alarm went off at midnight, full moon, Dexter moving sleep places during the night, and thinking about the murders in Idaho that I have been following, giving me the newbie jeebies.) But it’s Friday night. I’m excited for the weekend. Lots to do. And I need to make my dessert. Will share more soon! Might be tomorrow or Sunday.

Take care and what you doing this weekend?