Tag: Family

Work Dreams, Buy-Outs, Night Outs, and Geeky To Do’s!

On By Backporchwriter1 Comment

Well, I’m loving this weekend! It’s been a great relaxing time. Kinda of a geeky unwinding as we near the end of our extended “hibernation” period. Past Valentine’s Day, and looking toward spring – although no where near it yet, it does begin to feel like life will emerge soon! We’ll be headed into March before long and will have more warmer days here and there, more flowers, and….more plans. The year will fill up fast, if not already getting there.

Having been able to sleep in to 6:30 or 7 instead of the 4 o’clock weekday traumatizing awakening – it’s been great to just sleep in, but on the other hand, you DO lose a bit of time. I’ll take the sleep as it makes me catch up from the loss of it during the week.

Waking up later makes you dream as you are likely to wake up during the dream and can remember it. Last night I dreamed that our work went out of business. And in during the last days of the business we had to volunteer (lol) instead of get paid and we had to move to a church to finish out the work. There were only a few that volunteered (why would anyone do this, lol?). Anyway I remember in the last days George and I (not sure why he was volunteering too) we had to move out the last of the belongings from the church pulpit, as directed by our big boss. (Yes this is weird.). I woke up as I thinking – what are we going to do with all this stuff, where is it going to go and why am I here doing this and where is everyone else? Oh well. Glad again to wake up and find I’m not moving office furniture from a pulpit, and I’m still very much employed. I do know we dream about our fears and also I do know that I have been a part of how many company buy outs now? Let’s see – oh let me count the ways and give my age, lol. In it each time, God took excellent care of me:

  • Cain Sloan was bought by Dillards. I worked downtown, that store was closed and a position opened up in Green Hills for me and it was where I met my spouse. Oh that is a story in itself. Best to not go there. Interesting times to say the least.
  • Cyanede Plastics – I left Dillards in search of better pay as I was “topped out” in that range and that was unacceptable to me – a new boss that didn’t know me was not going to fight for a raise for me like the old one- so off I fled for a better position encouraged by my Dad who said manufacturing held more opportunity – no weekends and better pay. No sooner than a month after landing that position I learned it was being bought by Atlantis Plastics. I learned a lot about manufacturing, safety, and hiring, and exploring the field of HR instead of “personnel”. But Atlantis Plastics closed the Nashville plant about 2 to 3 years in.
  • I went to Atlantic Envelope pretty much before the end of Atlantis Plastics. Both home offices had been in Atlanta so travel began entering my world, my HR experience expanded exponentially as I had worked under the best VP of HR EVER, a lady named Nancy who taught me so much and showed me that I didn’t have to be like everyone else to be successful, that I brought unique skills and unique ways of looking at things to the team. I mention that because I was always comparing myself to others. But I had to learn that it’s ok to be different. That said, about 3 years or so into that – there were changes. We were sold and we were bought out by a guy that bought companies and sold them. We knew we were in for a ride. I knew it was kindof a joke when the owner drove up in a jeep without any kind of license plate on it, and asked us to improve the business by “googling” our way through it. He knew nothing of running an envelope company and was having to do that himself I guess. I believe after that we were sold to another investment firm and then eventually sold to National Envelope which gave us several more years. An interesting survivor story from the holocaust, owner William Unger (his story and book was incredible) we were proud to be a part of our new owner. However, Mr. Unger at the end of his life, retired and his daughters took over the company. The envelope industry became very competitive in an age when internet communication was taking over, and companies like Fed Ex and UPS began using alternative materials like plastic and cardboard instead of Tyvek to do their shipping. National Envelope, unable to keep up with trends, and unable to maintain costs, went bankrupt. Arising from bankruptcy in a remodel circumstance, our plant with its loss of business from Fed Ex, was closed.
  • So on to my current facility which shall remain nameless and since I’m employed there still will not discuss company business. However no company remains exempt from the perils of the normal business world. Change can and does and will happen.

“Job Security is a thing of the past” is something that you often hear people say. I think that is a mistake to allow oneself to think like that. We have often placed ourselves at the mercy and power of our companies and not enough belief in ourselves. Read just about any modern day business book or personal self help book and the mindset of being able to market yourself and your own brand – is key. So regardless of the dreams one wakes up to find, and the scariness of the situation of the end of a job era – one must realize – it’s happened before and likely will happen again. Change is enevitable. God sees us through.

I didn’t even mention what George just went through with Gibson’s bankruptcy and the ousting of all the older crew there – we just cannot escape it – it seems regardless of the size of company or circumstances. However, it’s scary to go through it because we are always afraid of the unknown, but we do need to have faith in ourselves and God. So….dream on. lol

You never know where this blog will go. lol

Well, I have a hair cut coming on and you know I’ve been undecided as to what to do. But all in all – there was really only one or two weeks where I didn’t like my hair. It was a shock at first. But even when I didn’t like it – what I DID like was getting up and not having to do anything much to it. And I began to like it. 😉 So in a couple of weeks I have an appointment and I’m going to go let her cut it again like she did before only maybe not so short. Even if she does, it’ll grow out. I kinda want to let it grow but really I think I have to keep getting it cut short til the color grows out as I’m letting my original hair shine through. I had said I’d wait til 60 but I’m not wanting to put the chemicals in my body anymore. So I’ll keep it short for while longer and then let it grow to bob status again when all the color is gone, unless I decide not to.

Yesterday I had to laugh at the following. I pop in on this family from time to time as I do several places that are my favorites. I snapped this b/c I was thinking this guy was funny in his house shoes. I can’t for the life of me imagine that this family knows they are on line. But anyway. Here ya go. I mean is he not in his underwear? lol. It’s the shoes that got my attention.

So the day went fast yesterday and before we knew it – it was time to go out. We went to Southern Grist, which has very weird and hazy beer – but then not so much. Any I have ever had, I’ve liked there.

We met my BIL and SIL there, Kevin and Susan. And then we all headed over to Nicky’s Coal Fired (same parking lot) where we had dinner reservations.

We ordered an array of appetizers, pasta dishes, and a pizza for the table and did family style so we could taste a little of everything. It was wonderful.

And then we did dessert and espresso.

Grand time had by all.

While there, Susan and I figured out we would throw a double shower for two in our extended family that are having babies! I wanted to do something for Ellen and Justin (Justin is Kevin and Susan’s son and Ellen, Justin’s wife). I was entertaining the thought of how to do a shower for Ellen (who is in the Knoxville area) and Susan had wanted to do a shower for one of the cousins, so we decided to pool together and have the family in (at my house) for June 20th for a double shower – making it easier on the family to come together all at once. So we have a project to work on and I’m glad to team up with someone. Now we can get together in planning mode and decide how to do it – themes, address lists, invitations, food, etc. Looking forward to it. And Susan and I get some girl time in planning. We can meet for coffee or a beer and get our thoughts together.

Here’s a funny for ya. Made me laugh. Something to pull when you have to wait in line:

Yesterday, I bit the bullet and downloaded Pixelmator for the iMac. I did a couple of YouTubes on it to learn about it. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do a lot of making graphics with it using the graphic files. But you can take photos and put text on it and change photos and do frames and it has most of the tools that PSP (Paint Shop Pro) has. Almost the same. I’m just not sure if it will take my PSP type of files. I’ll check it out though and see if it will do the tubes. I really don’t do much of that anymore anyway. I mostly just like to make blog toppers and logos and things and I can still do that. Heck I really don’t even use blog toppers anymore with the current blog. I kinda want to change the way the blog looks but I’m scared to. It took so long to get this one going I’m afraid I’ll mess it up if I change. The problem is that I don’t have a large chunk of time anymore of my own except for a bit on the weekends. lol But I’d like one that you could decorate with the seasons. I miss that. But I like WordPress a whole lot better than Blogger and I get more comments from you guys which really make my day!

Today I also went in and redeemed my Audible card – I think it was my SIL gave me. At first it didn’t want to accept the code. George even watched me enter it correctly. I was about to give up and decided to try one more time and it finally took. So I spent the morning joyfully picking out three more books. They are: Michael Pollan’s “Cooked”, Tightwads on the Loose by Wendy Hinman about a family sailing around out there in the Pacific, and Thomas Sims, “On Call in the Arctic” about a doctor who is called to practice there. Can’t wait. I have several other books in the waiting on the wait list since I found several. So this was on my list and I just needed some time to sort through and find ones that appeal to me. I love the adventures and the biographies. I also kinda picked by buying the more pricey ones with the three credits this card gave me. You get more for your money with Audible versus buying a real book. I think I got three for the price one hardback book would have been. Looking forward to my commute and my ironing time now. 😉

While in there I researched how to delete my former books from audible. I don’t want the ones I’ve read crowding up my library. I’m weird like that. And it doesn’t appear you can share with anyone unless they are in your family on the family plan but they have to have audible themselves. So I just deleted them. I won’t ever listen to them again. Life’s too short. Too many books out there.

So, today I need to go to the store so I’m prepared for the week. And then I need to spruce up a bit and do some more laundry. It’s totally been a weekend of relaxing. I need to wrap our gifts for Christmas with the Irelands and “French nite” – still two weeks away. Going to spend next weekend with Mom though – well Friday night and will head home around lunch time or afternoon Saturday so I have half the weekend to do something. I need to gather my ID’s for the new license thing and try to get that done. I hear it’s really busy with everyone getting their upgrades but I want to get it done soon so I can get it out of my mind. I plan to maybe go at an odd time and do it – like mid morning or mid afternoon and just take an early or late lunch. If it takes two hours – so what – when you think of the time I’ve worked over. I also want to go to Hobby Lobby but that won’t be today! I need to finish getting my phone pics saved on my iMac soon so I can take more pics in Tulsa next month. Need to clear out my phone. Also have some shows to watch. And all kinds of fun stuff to do on my to do list. I love it when I get down to the good stuff.

The good stuff is all the geeky stuff – non responsibility stuff – learning, playing, creating, planning, watching, writing, researching. I geek out on this stuff.

So enough for today. I can’t write away my day! Gotta go be a bit responsible for a little while. What you all doing today?

Haircut Woes and Birthday Joys

On By Backporchwriter12 Comments
Aunt Gwen’s for After Christmas Lasagna

Hey there! I realized since I did my Year in Review post, I had not posted about our dinner at Aunt Gwen’s who we lovingly call “OAG”, for Old Aunt Gwen, when George taught Katy to call her that for fun when she was tiny. It stuck. We had a nice time at Gwen’s. Her house beautifully decorated, conversation always fun, and her lasagna makes me long for the recipe. We did this on the 30th of Dec.

Our November and December has been such a whirl that I don’t know which way is up. It’s been fun, exciting, but I’m worn out. My next goal in life is to get caught up on sleep and rid myself of the dark circles and puffiness under my eyes where I’ve had so much on every to do list that it has hampered my ability to sleep. I think the brain has to have “think time”. And when you don’t get it – you wake in the night doing it. In the couple of days I’ve tried to use my drive time as think time so that my mind can just ramble through what it needs to. I’ve also ignored my to do list since the 1st b/c every moment has had something planned this week so no free time to try and knock anything out.

Why is time always a problem and why do we always try to fill our time up? Are we afraid we are going to be bored?

Mom and Dad

Mom posted a pic this week on Facebook of her and Dad back about when they were first married. I didn’t have that pic. I do now! 😉

George’s ham pot pie

I don’t think I have posted this here. Forgive me if I have. I think I only posted to Facebook but George made this with the leftover ham. It was really good.

Roger and Little Bit’s “Stare Down”

Roger and Little Bit had a “Stare Down” this week. Roger won. The stare down lasted for two or three minutes it seemed. Maybe it was just one or two but it seemed forever. George kept telling Roger to stop it but he can’t hear. I really didn’t think it was a big deal, but I guess George knew what was going to happen. One of them finally moved and the cat ran out and Roger chased him – both going at lightning speed. It was pretty funny. Especially since Roger is so timid and laid back and friendly and often scared of Little Bit in Little Bit’s turf (outside on the porch). Inside, Roger had the lead and confidence and ran him out of the room.

New Year’s Day was nice. It was just a total forget the world, forget the to do list, forget everything day. I did what I wanted – didn’t even do laundry and usually I want to do that. I played on the new iMac – still kinda setting up some things and figuring it out. I will be for a while. I also watched some YouTube shows on the iMac, having brought a comfy chair in and setting up a make shift foot stool. George laughed. I think he was laughing as I was using it as a TV. I mostly think he’s happy I’m enjoying my gift. I also took a nap and then it was dinner time. And I believe we watched Below Deck. On New Year’s Eve we watched a Julia Roberts movie (directed by Tom Hanks and also he was one of the main characters.) I’d never heard of “Larry Crowne”, which I enjoyed even though the ratings reportedly were not as good as hoped.

On the 2nd, it was hair cut day. If this were a conversation I’d say “don’t get me started”. I’ve grown my hair out for many months now to get out of the “feathered” stage and have long layers, so that I could get a different type of cut than what I usually get.

Me, on Ugly Sweater Day at Christmas time.

So I have increasingly had a problem styling the back as it grew, but I liked it long on the top. So I picked out these hair styles below to give to my hair stylist as an example, of keeping it long on the top and short in the back.

My examples of a long layered cut
Me, after Hair Cut
Ya’ll don’t get a big pic of this – I look horrible in this pic!

However, I ended up with a feathered hair cut again like always. I was so upset. I cried when I got home. It took so long to grow the top out of the feathers I had before. I guess I will google what makes your hair grow (in foods) and eat that for two months. lol I would never want to hurt her feelings but I think the stylist knew I wasn’t happy. She left it long in front of my ears like a bob at first but since the top was so short I didn’t like that and had to get her to cut that off. I cut more of it off when I got home. And I’ve never been one that liked the style of longer hairs in the front hanging down like fangs or wings. The long part was supposed to be on top. Anyway, you can’t glue on cut hair so it is what it is.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to look but I did not like the style, so I came home and stuck my head under the bathroom faucet and poured water on it and restyled it. It looked better styled with a round brush to give it body and make it look longer. But it was ruined already. The tears just poured. I think I look horrible with the cut. It makes my nose and cheeks look big. The longer layers distract from that. I had wanted to keep it longer on top like the pictures showed and just have the back shorter at the nape of my neck. I had been so excited for weeks about this cut.

George, knowing he had a crises on his hands the day before my birthday, tried to cheer me up by giving me a birthday card to open that had come in the mail that day. The timing was impeccable.

I don’t “still got it” but at least the message made me laugh. And with descriptives using my middle initials. How sweet. I DO wish I could have that dogs head of hair and start over.

Anyway I look like an old woman that I am I guess – birthday at 57 and short butchy hair cut feathered all over. I’ve a good mind to go ask Rod Stuart how to just spike it up all over and do that til it grows out. I’m at such a loss. But, I’ve got to do something different. But what? Nothing? I guess it just has to grow and I’ll just have to get over it. I have some research to do I guess to try and find someone that thinks they can do this cut. I really didn’t think it was that difficult of a cut. I just don’t want heavily feathered hair like a bird. I want long soft layers.

OK anyway, it is what it is and it will grown and I will get over it, but I cannot control my feelings and I’m very disappointed. I think it’ll take about six months to get the layers on top back down to a reasonable size. I will probably like the cut better in a couple of weeks. Right now it is just so tight against my head that it’s hard to even get any body in it. So looking on the bright side: Getting ready in the mornings sure will be quick. lol And I don’t want to hurt the stylist’s feelings. She is a good person and I can’t account for what went wrong. I just can only account for my disappointment. It was evident by my reaction. I also have decided not to color it again due to where I had that surgery. So I’m afraid it might be seeping in. It seeps in the pores anyway and I just don’t want the chemicals in my body anymore. So I will begin to look old soon. If not already by this cut. I must go back on the shakes in a serious way to get rid of those fat cheeks!

Deer in the back yard upon arrival home

Yesterday – my Birthday was fun. The first thing I thought of when I was drinking coffee is that I would order myself some Cracker Barrel on line and pick it up 45 minutes later on the way to work. Cracker Barrel is 2 min away from my office. I got there in record time but had to wait like 30 minutes. I would have had time to get seated and eat almost. I did have some time to shop and bought a plant. They had some great deals and I needed to get out of there before I bought lots of clothes.

Cracker Barrel Shopping

I did buy the plant. Of course it wasn’t on sale. But it was my birthday and I had blow money left. lol

Birthday Present, Prayer Box

It meant so much to me that Lauren brought over a little gift. Also had conversations with friends Tracy and Mia and others who went out of their way to say Happy Birthday. Of course there were lots of messages from family, nice little messages and texts from church buddies. We have not been in a while since I usually just worship on the go – in the car or office as church takes a 1/2 of a day, and with my psyche, I just need down time. But nice to hear from them. I really didn’t think they had missed us. lol Anyway Facebook was fun. That Story thing was new where people add a birthday message to your story. That was nice. I liked that.

After work I got my nails done and they needed it desperately. They tried to charge me too much though but it was a misunderstanding they said. No problem I let them know it was wrong, lol.

Then we went out to eat Mexican last night at Margarita House. What a crowd. It was good though. Once inside someone dropped a big huge trey of dishes in the hallway. Scared all of us to death as it was really loud. I guess everyone was turning to look at my hair cut and they had a mishap. lol. JK

Anyway, we came home and I watched some of my shows on the big TV. I just needed to zone out for a bit. Had been a long hectic day of looking up over a 100 people’s PTO’s – coding them and having to figure their PTO’s using last week’s report and subtracting out this week’s report which had the last week’s PTO used on it – so I didn’t allow PTO to go through that wasn’t used while our PTO system is “under construction” for the adjustments that take place end of year. Thank goodness next week it should be back to normal. If not I’ll be looking at three reports to get totals, lol. Also keeping a tracking list of the hundred folks that took PTO on the 30th or 31st or both so those can be tracked out of their 2020 totals. So a time consuming day and the more forms I did the more forms that were sent. I thought I’d never get through. Biggest PTO week ever since I’ve been in PR. Didn’t have time to work on tax stuff for monthly, quarterly, or year end stuff. The next few weeks I will have to come in early, stay as late as I feel comfortable doing without people being there. And probably will not have much lunch time just to get through. It will be a busy month work wise. The busiest ever I think. The last two weeks were holiday weeks and they were pretty nutty.

So here we are to the current day of Jan 4th. George and I are going to do some birthdaying at some point and I’ll let you know how that goes. We also do Christmas and birthdaying with my SIL and BIL tomorrow. So much fun ahead. But today I need to go so I can get laundry done and work on the house some. I’ve not had time to do laundry all week – well I could have done it on New Year’s Day but didn’t.

Oh, George gave me $85 in credits for Amazon to order what I wanted. And that along with the $50 Mom gave me, I have ordered some new tennis shoes (two pair), some lipstick (2 colors), and some body wash lotion for winter, and also some cute kitchen dish rags. George took the other $85 for him on Amazon. We split our money back from ordering things on Amazon. I think that is so cool. I bet Target and Walmart wished they had been more successful with their online shopping. I just got tired of them not having what I wanted and they changed to that Shipt program where you have to pay the service. So it began to not be worth it to me anymore. I just buy at the grocery now since I go to buy fresh foods anyway and pet food. I know that Amazon has their own Prime Pantry or whatever, but I’ve still been able to find what I need through Amazon almost perfectly even food at times. I’m not paying for additional services through shopping unless it’s a major thing for me. Amazon is enough. The rest I’ll just go buy in person.

Maisy girl Ready to go to Bed!

She was waiting for me to go to bed last night. And for her “meat treat” from George. She knows the routine. I get up, grab my phone, get water for bedside table, and take her out and they get a meat treat while I brush teeth and wash my face, and then she comes to the bedroom about the time I get in the bed so she can join me. We talk and play a bit and I rub her tummy and she licks my hand for more. Finally when I say “let’s go seepy” She will move over onto George’s side and we snooze.

Snoozin’ was good last night but I did have weird dreams when sleeping in this morning. Anyway better go get that laundry started. Hope I don’t get this long hair caught in anything! LOL