Vive le Weekend!

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Albeit a short weekend, it’s still a day off! As of this moment, I have 37.5 hours left before I have to clock in again. About 14 of those hours will be spent sleeping. How much can I do in 23 hours? For starters: this blog post!

There are so many things I need to get done. One might think that just because you have time off work, you must spend all of that time doing personal things that need to get done. I protest! I think it’s important to spend at least half of your time off doing things you enjoy doing as well. I enjoy being lazy resting. I just worked 11 days in a row, including 50 hours in the past six days. I think some rest is not only well-deserved but downright necessary!

I have a couple of movies I bought for $1.99 each at a nearby Blockbuster that’s closing. I plan on watching at least one of those. I also must give my seriously neglected camera a workout. I long to create a new piece of jewelry, too. However, you can’t force creativity to happen in a small window of time. So that may not happen … unless I watch movies at the same time. I do enjoy multitasking!

The main things I need to do are office related (including taxes). After working so much, personal office work is the last thing I want to do, though. :roll:

Nope! Twenty-three hours is just not enough time! Once a new manager is in place and the new staff is put on the weekend schedule, I think I might press for a full 4×10 work schedule so I can have my Sundays back. Having a full two days off in a row is more important to one’s mental well-being than I realized.

Vive le weekend!

A Letter to Waste Management

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Dear Waste Management,

I feel that it is arrogant of you to expect us to place our rubbish cans perfectly for you to make it easy for you to do your job only to have you place them lazily in the street behind the very cars that you don’t want blocking the cans in the first place. That’s just rude!

I saw that you almost skipped picking up a neighbor’s trash this morning because her car was blocking it. The poor lady came running out of her house waving her arm and yelling, “I’m moving it!” Yet, two weeks ago, you placed our cans so that they completely blocked our recycling bins from view of the recycling truck. Therefore, we were overlooked and have almost twice as much recycling out this time. I say almost because we ended up tossing a lot of recycling in the normal trash the last two weeks because our bins were full!

For the record, no, I don’t feel your job is easy or unimportant. However, when you show such little respect for us, how are we to show respect for you?

Sincerely,
A Homeowner Tired of Your Laziness

Here is what they do with rubbish cans when they’re done (and yes, I like saying “rubbish”)

There is room on the wide sidewalk on the other side of that mound of snow you see.

Impending Doom | A Blizzard’s a Comin’!

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OK – so maybe not this much snow is coming, but it’s supposedly a slow-moving system, which makes predictions extremely difficult. Currently, they predict 6-12 inches by us and 12-24 inches over the plains.

It seems unbelievable right now, though. I was just out braving the grocery store (not because I was in a panic with a nearly bare pantry – I just wanted sushi, soda, and some snack foods), and it’s a mild 42 degrees. Due west and northwest, the mountains are beautiful. Mountains to the southwest are a different story … obliterated by snow clouds.

What will tonight and tomorrow bring? Who knows! As usual. We could get a manageable 6 inches, or we could be buried under a foot or more. Our neighborhood is on the line between Winter Storm Warning and Blizzard Warning. :D I’m ready! I’ve got plenty of work, movies, games, and food to keep me busy.

Rethinking Goals and Schedules

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After two (or has it been three?) weeks in a row of mandatory five hours overtime with a max of ten (and of course, I do the full ten), I decided to take my full day off yesterday and not start before my scheduled late start time today. I didn’t even touch my own computer in that time. Refreshing and relaxing!

Experiencing that feeling made me want to rethink my goals and schedules. To get everything done, I generally multitask or switch gears quickly several times per day. My goal of five blog posts per week is now ridiculous in my head. I mean, who am I posting for? Why is it important to gather “followers” to my blog? What self satisfaction do I really get from that? I’d like to think that someone out there finds helpful information in some of my posts, but often, I post to ramble. So my goal is now modified to three posts per week. My weekly photo self assignments has been modified to at least twice per month.

Finally, I’m still pushing for a modified work schedule. The 4×10 (four ten-hour days) schedule is becoming more popular and has been mentioned as a possibility for the department I work in as well. Since I work two half days per week, I’ve suggested a twist on this for myself: 3×10 + 2×5. So five hours on Sunday afternoons and Wednesdays, and ten hours on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays with Thursdays off. Then I would still work the first Saturday (ten hours) of each month in exchange for the preceding Monday off. Ten hour days may sound like a lot to some of you reading, but I’d rather get work out of the way like this and get an extra day off to relax and feel more like this…

P.S. I clocked in today to find that we now have mandatory overtime of TEN hours overtime this week. It’s a good thing I already worked an extra two hours on Sunday. :)

Patience & Perseverance

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Good things come to those who wait. I usually doubt that or at least wonder exactly how long we have to wait for those good things to finally come. The statement came true for Josh yesterday. He had been searching for a used car and saving money. There’s this one dealership that’s great for working with all sorts of credit (even lack thereof), but the one car he thought about test driving wouldn’t even start on the lot!

So we went across the street to a Mazda dealership to check out their used pre-loved cars. It turns out that they have a first-time buyer program. Who knew?! After some tense phone calls the next morning, they finally gave in and met his price. He finally has his own brand new car – a Mazda 3. He actually has TWO cars now. We have to figure out how to arrange everything in the garage to get the MG Midget to fit until he figures out what to do with it. The HOA will only be so patient, I’m sure! Plus, I want the driveway space back since there are so many cars on the street by evening taking up parking already. :O

Phishing – Run From the Hook!

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Don’t be a victim of phishing scams. If you allow yourself to become a victim of phishing, then don’t place the blame where it doesn’t belong. Phishers will create very official looking emails and web pages to lure you to enter your security information. DO NOT click links in these emails or enter your security info! ALWAYS go directly to the company’s website yourself to be sure you are on the right page. Check the URL at the top of your browser, too. Most login pages will begin with “https://”

Here are some good reads to arm yourself with knowledge:

Phishing: how to outwit the fraudsters
How Not to Get Hooked by a ‘Phishing’ Scam
After Epsilon: Avoiding Phishing Scams & Malware

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about phishing.

If you have to contact the company that you thought sent you the email with the link, please don’t harass them and accuse them of being at fault. They are trying to help you. A simple “thank you” will do nicely. :)

 

Choices

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Who we are is largely shaped by the choices we make. The beauty of it is that we do make choices. Even when nothing is chosen, we have made a choice not to choose! If we choose this instead of that and end up with undesirable consequences, does that mean we made a bad choice? Not necessarily. From such choices comes experience and knowledge. If we choose that instead of this, does that guarantee desirable consequences? Not always! This may work for one, and that may work for another. Perhaps in reverse, the opposite is true! You just never know.

Some readers may choose to assume they know what triggered this thought process. I doubt they’d be right because my mind is a complicated place. I’ll never tell! :)

1/22/12 UPDATE:

After thought … Often times, a person is fully aware of the consequences that may follow a choice they make. Yet, for reasons only they need to understand, they make the choice anyway often causing consternation among observers. So observers, take heart! For it is the chooser’s choice to suffer the consequences and work through whatever they need to work through to get to their ultimate goal. Sometimes it’s beneficial for a path to a goal to be longer. ;)

Knee Pain

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I’ve always had this feeling that whenever somebody complains about something hurting, they’re perceived as whiners and just need to get over it. So I generally don’t complain too much about pain or make a big deal of it. Instead, I try to push through the pain without making a lot of noise about it.

I’ve mentioned my knee pain before, then I just let it go. It started late September, and I thought it was finally starting to do better. That was until I walked around the zoo yesterday and regretted it later that night and still today. The same spot on my left knee, low and to the inside, KILLS! It’s worse going downhill or down stairs than up.

I will eventually go to the doctor. I’ve been once before. I’m pretty sure it’s chondromalacia patella. They sent me to physical therapy, where they discovered there were many things I couldn’t do because it caused more pain. It was a waste of time and money.

To really see what’s going on, they may want more than an x-ray (affordable with insurance) like an MRI (not-so-affordable even with insurance). If they find that it’s not something easily fixed with R.I.C.E. and physical therapy and can only really be relieved with surgery, that’s also not-so-affordable even with insurance! We just finally got out from under monthly payments on medical bills. I don’t want to have to make them again. I would feel guilty putting yet another expensive burden on our already tight budget.

That’s not the worst of it, either. The pain is one thing, but the frustration over the resulting limitations is another. This affects my photography as it limits my motion. I like to get down low for angles not normally seen. That’s now extremely difficult. I like to get out and go places that require a lot of walking. Yesterday proved that to be painfully regrettable. I can easily see how people who suffer debilitating injuries can become depressed. :(

So, yes, this knee pain I have is having a pretty big negative affect on me. I try not to complain about it, but I’ve been stuffing it down for so long that I had to let it out here. IT HURTS! It’s not an excuse to get out of things, which should be apparent by the fact that I try to do things in spite of it. It’s not a ploy to get pity attention because I loathe that type of attention. I’m just tired of trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Now that I got that out of my system for the moment, maybe I can get back to my regularly scheduled programming … work, work, and more work. :P