Category: Work

Plantain Sandwich, Finger Puppets of My Life, and Figuring Out my Schedule

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Life, Productivity, Work11 Comments
Plantain Sandwich, Jose’s Sandwich & Grill

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.

George’s Pepita Sandwich, Jose’s Sandwich & Grill
Peeking into the Inside of a Plantain sandwich

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

Finger Puppets at The Hermitage gift shop

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

Breakdown, the Big Tow, and the Impossible Work Time Crunch

On By BackporchwriterIn Life, Uncategorized, Work8 Comments

Quick pop-in here. After my dentist cleaning, I was turning left into Chic Fil A at the main intersection when my car started bucking a bit, and then stalled out. I was able to start it and get out of the intersection and it stopped again on the mall road, started again, stopped again at Chic Fil A, and finally started again to pull into a spot and out of the way. I mean, if you are going to break down, do it in front of Chic Fil A.

I went in and ordered and made the table my temporary “office of crisis” while calling George, the auto repair company, the tow truck. While talking with the tow truck driver as to how and where to settle up, he asked where I heading and said he could drop me off at my house after we dropped off the car. That was nice. I gave him a $20 for the ride home. It was more than an Uber would have been for that short of a distance, but kindness needed to be rewarded for this kind person who probably was not supposed to do that and also had a line up of people afterwards.

When I got home I took the old RAV4. Close to 300,000 miles on it so I DO NOT want to drive far in it, but it started so I took the chance to driving it to work. Mom messaged me at work after seeing my stories on Facebook about it and told me to come get her car after work. So I did that.

My chevy equinox that was towed, has about 102,000 on it already. But she can go a long while yet, maybe. It’s supposedly only $670 to fix which includes oil change, fuel cleaning, and having to relearn the computer – retrain it. I didn’t know a car had to learn how to drive all over again, but it does now with the computer. So they have to drive it some and re-teach the computer. Weird. It was a timing solenoid – I do not know if I’m spelling it right.

Photo by Yahya Hasan on Pexels.com

So I popped in here real quick but I cannot stay. I was given the information to do unemployment reports finally with about a week to do them all in and already that is not enough time. However, even if I had been given them early with this month’s interruptions and extra work and not getting to stay over as much due to life responsibilities, I’ve just not had much of a chance. So it’s likely I will not finish on time. So I’m going in early today too but I get off early half day (hours already worked as I go in early every Tuesday to cover it). It’s Mom’s eye injection today that she gets monthly. Next week it takes about 3 to 4 days to do the payroll job and then on Thurs and Friday I usually have some payroll responsibilities but in the afternoons is when I get returns done. So that means I’ll have some time next Thurs and Friday but I have upwards to about 50+returns to do and that is not enough time. I normally get unemployment returns to do the 3rd week of the month and transport the last week but getting it all at the same time. I left home early Wednesday as I’d done all I could do while waiting on the info.

I won’t be able to work this weekend. We will be taking care of some of Mom’s things/needs, taking care of the car situation, packing for next weekend’s trip so I need to get laundry done. We have some appointments that we need to for personal care and dog grooming that I made for the weekends so it wouldn’t impact work, and we want to go to church. So there is no time to work this weekend and of course we are gone to Knoxville next weekend. So I can’t work the weekend due to these other responsibilities I’ve committed to – which are family and I’m not changing them as they have all been scheduled in advance for my off time. I’m struggling with this “too much” work to do at the last minute but I am getting too old to worry about such nonsense any more – especially when it’s not set up for success. I’m going to do my best, and yes- I’ll throw extra hours at it, and I will do what I can, but I tell you right now, it won’t be finished in time. Unless there is a miracle. It just will be what it will be. We are down to the wire and there is only so many hours and only so much of me to spread around to all the duties and all the things and all the people and payroll and returns. It takes more time to do it than I have been given. And that is that.

Enjoy your weekend. I have started the next video. It’s late fall and I filmed us making beef bourguignon! Take care. Maybe a post sometime this weekend. I will pop in as I can this next week. This is just nuts.

Fabulous Easter Weekend / Slammed for Quarter End / Our Busy Schedule

On By BackporchwriterIn Family, Food, Work12 Comments

Good morning! I’m in a terrific rush this morning but wanted to pop in as I see that people are popping in to check for new blog entries. It’s quarter end and I’m all out of time and having to use my morning blog time to get in extra work time. But my heart melted when I saw the regulars were coming on to look for a post. So here I am for quick update. Thank you for checking the blog the last couple of days.

We had a fabulous Easter Sunday. It was everything I’d been wanting a holiday to be – even if it was just the three of us. Katy was regularly sending pics of their day and that made my heart glad to see River. He had some cute pics which I’ll share at the end in the “Meanwhile in TX” section.

We went to church, had Subway at Mom’s. We went back to our place and spent the afternoon shopping. I bought some clothes (capri pants) and we went on line and ordered Mom’s patio furniture. George is going to have to put together not only my office filing cabinet with shelves unit that came in but also her patio furniture has to be put together. So he is lined up with not only regular work, commute, yard work, but keeping all us chics happy with our maintenance needs. Bless him.

But I was happy with the meal, and it was a pleasant and happy day with no arguments, no demands, and no fussing, nothing fell apart, nothing bad happened, and everyone was in a good mood including myself. So I’ll take it. Got a love a family holiday with no drama and no crises.

So the TOP deal of the day for me is getting quarter end (QE) accomplished. I’ve been leaving work (I say early but it is really on time) for the last couple of weeks as we have had appts and things going on. But it’s the last two weeks of the month and I have a huge chunk of quarter end left with no Saturday’s that I can work. Most of my progress toward QE is done on Thurs and Fri afternoons after my regular duties are done for those days. And well, this Friday is Mom’s eye appt. Saturday is Fancy’s trim so I can’t work then. And the last weekend of the month would be ideal to work but we are going to Knoxville and have had that planned since February and I’m not cancelling it just because life tries to run us over! It will be what it will be. So I’ve been going in early and staying late to try to get in some hours. The problem is that the payroll side has also been busy and we had the Holiday off. (You never really get the day off do ya? I mean you do but you see me making it up this week right? It’s all a scam, LOL).

But I checked my blog expecting to see that everyone had gone on about their lives and wouldn’t have gotten an alert and that my numbers and visits would be low. Then I saw the analytics and I realized people were stopping by to check for a post, I had to pop in. So I thank you for that.

I’ll be back eventually and am enjoying a little break from blogging. I DID change the picture though. I considered changing the blog format but really it’s the picture that needing changing most of all. While I’m taking a break, I’m considering what it is I really WANT TO DO, when it comes to blogging and also the videos. I believe I have determined and decided that I will continue both. I enjoy both, but I may have to reconsider the structure of both, the timing and the content. Being away some from both is helping, but it also makes me a little miffed that I’m not getting to do things I love for at least two weeks.

Many rob Peter to pay Paul when it comes to money. We do that around here with “time”, as you know. It has usually hampered my video time but now even the blog time is getting blown to smithereens. By doing this very blog post at 5:30 this morning instead of getting dressed and being on the road, is an hour I’m likely going to be behind in getting QE finished.

I sent George the schedule as he wanted to do a couple of things this month. I’m not sure we’ll get to do much. Here is our/MY schedule for April and May and some of June. This is on top of work and church and what is not scheduled is things like grocery shopping for us and for Mom – things like that. Mom and I also want to get our toes done and I want to do it this week but there is just not a good time because I’m working late in addition to going in early. Yes burning the candle at both ends! I have to QE done by end of the month! And then everyone always gives me their stuff at the last minute to do unemployment returns and transport’s returns. And then there is Oregon whose returns are a bear. And a lot of them too. Even if I’d been given the data on time to file them I’d have not had time in the month yet to do them. ::sigh::

So we are busy people and so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to pop in – until April is over. But I’ll do my best while trying to juggle. This month blog and video time gets robbed. It all gets robbed from somewhere and it just goes around in a circle stealing time from the next thing. And try as I may not to blog about time or how busy we are, I end up doing it anyway as it’s the main thing that is going on – we are just chasing our tails around….period. So why not blog about it.

Meanwhile in Texas

This one is my favorite!

Ok over and out so I can get ready and rush off to work. Crazy life we lead. But I’ll be back at some point. Hang in there with me!