alright! alright!! i admit it!! i'm not such a lady afterall.
sitting in this derned chair all day, my bum is now sore. i'm sick to death of being stuck here. cannot wait to have the freedom to move around (and the freedom to wear the shoes to do it comfortably).
am i done yet?
how about now?
ok.. now?
knock knock
who's there?
NOW???
i have worked like crazy the last few days trying to get accesses set up in all of our many systems for the girl who will be replacing me. i've had to knock a few skulls and get a little ugly to do it, but i think the hard part is over and now i'm just waiting for her confirmations to come in. phew!
and this is totally nonsequitor, but can i just say how happy i am to hear that blogger and google are working together now? i am all about all things google. i cannot get enough! i use their email, their spreadsheets, their calendars, their word docs (writely).. and every time i use a new product of theirs i am delighted all over again. so all hail google!
because i'm so ready to get outta here and because i love lists (like in a bordering on unhealthy way), here are the top 10 things i am most happy about with the job change, other than the obvious "i'm working for the Lord" thing:
10. working in the dungeon. okay, i know it's geeky, but i like the idea of working in what was previously the choir room but have called it the dungeon. they've tried to pin other names on it, like the oval office, command central, the nerve center.. but i'm going to see if i can redub it the dungeon. and i'm going to be so close to a bathroom, that i can trail a piece of toilet paper on my shoe all the way to my desk and still have the other end stuck to the roll (well, it might have to be a brand new roll!)! i have never been this close to the bathroom before. this may not seem like a big deal until you're in the middle of a project, need desperately to go, and have to traverse the entire length of the building for relief!
9. people spend lunches together. they have all-staff potlucks once a month (and i won't be the only veg!!), they have a cafe onsite (but i'll be bringing my lunches for the most part), and there is a break room in, well, the dungeon. yay!!
8. working with someone who is so much like me i'm starting to suspect my twin lived afterall.
7. understanding the business enough to come up with ideas. and then have my ideas actually considered. i was shocked.. shocked!.. when i heard an idea of mine discussed from the pulpit. my idea! and they thought it was good enough to share with the church! whoa, dude!
6. getting away from the airs. bankers put on airs. sometimes it's so silly it makes me giggle and the guys want to know what i'm giggling at. how can i tell them i'm laughing at them? how do you say that to someone whose haughty?
5. getting to exercise my creativity again.
4. not having to make this drive!
3. being there when my dot gets home after work. and having had time to shake off work and prepare myself for him to walk in the door and give him all of my attention.
2. feeling like i'm in my element. i've said it before and i'll say it again: you can do something well, but it doesn't mean you like it. i'm going to be honest about something that i haven't said out loud before. when i started this job i said how much i loved it every single day. well, the truth of it isn't that i loved it so much as that i wasn't at the other place anymore. the other place was mean and heartless and you wouldn't dare turn your back on it, i didn't trust my own boss, i didn't trust anyone there! the other place tried to drag me down to its level and many times it succeeded. it had bad air. you breathed it in and even if it didn't contaminate you, it left a bad smell and you could feel it in your lungs no matter how hard you exhaled. i've enjoyed the people here and my boss is certainly one of integrity. but it's not my dream job and it's not my element. i'm not one of them. and i don't belong. it will be good to be somewhere i get things.
1. getting to wear my own clothes instead of feeling like i've stolen clothes out of my mother's closet. well, not really my mother's closet, but some stuffy adult that likes to wear heels and pantyhose and are worried about being proper and would probably balk at even a fake tattoo or the idea of having a bloody mary before noon. and denim? why! i never!!! but, ohhh.. the sweet feel of denim, the flip and the flop of flip flops, long belled sleeves that cover my hands, colorful toed socks, hoodies, corduroy,.. how i love thee.
my bum hurts
how does freedom taste?
the countdown has begun. i have three more days at this job.
the boys took me out to lunch today. we ate at rockfish - omiwerd!! it was so good. we shared a plate of fried pickles and then i had some jalapeno cream soup (i need to learn how to make this) and then a blackened catfish po' boy. i could only eat half the sammich, so took the rest with me for dinner tonight. but we ended up just snacking on fritos and bean dip before going to gary/leslie's for Bible study.
almost during the entire lunch, the boys kept arguing like little kids. at one point i interrupted and said, "ok, you're both smart, you both know you're history, now shut up!" i think they were getting on each other's nerves. it's good that one of them will be leaving for about a week and a half while he and his wife adjust to their 2nd baby! awww!
tomorrow i'll be packing a lunch, then thursday i'm having lunch w/lynn and friday i'm having lunch with the girls. and on friday afternoon our building is sponsoring a ben & jerry's ice cream sundae/cookie event. plus we're having a fire drill and on my very last day at work i will have to clunk down 11 flights of stairs. ugh! i guess it'll give me a chance to work off all the lunches and ice cream.
but then.. oh, the sweet taste of freedom. i hope it'll taste like new york super fudge chunk.
the other day, i saw a man standing next to a truck in a parking lot lifting hand weights while watching the traffic ease by. mobile gym?
the weekend is over. finally.
after work on friday, all of us met at mom's house to help her move. we got started with a few things, stopped for a pizza dinner, then got back to work and loaded up the truck. got it to b&g's and went home and crashed. sat morning we were back at b&g's at 8am for breakfast. then we unloaded the truck, went back to mom's and loaded it back up again with the rest of her stuff.
we headed back up to b&g's with the final load and left mom there to hand off the key to the buyer. we'd pretty much just gotten in the door when mom called. her car broke down. so i headed out the door and right back down to mom's. as i was driving down there, roadside assistance was able to help her get the car out of park so when i arrived i just followed her to the volkswagen place where she dropped it off, i transferred all her stuff to my car, and we took off. they're going to look at her car today to see what the problem is.
when we got back up to b&g's, mom had to take the truck back. she tried calling the u-haul place but no one would answer so she had to take it to the next place further away. by the time she got there she was turning in the truck 30 minutes late and was going to be charged, but told the u-haul lady that she tried turning it in at the other place but no one was there. the lady told her that for some reason that happens quite frequently and so didn't charge us. yay!
we were all so exhausted that we just sorta laid around after that. bubba opened his presents, we had cake and margaritas, watched some movies, and then my dot and i left a little after 10.
after church we were supposed to go to chuck e. cheese for bubba's birfday celebration, but he had been up all night throwing up (and was backed up. ewww!) so we just had tuna salads and hung out for the afternoon. then my dot and i came home and i packed up buh's office stuff outta my front room while my dot mowed the yard.
hopefully someday this week we can take down the desk and take it with the boxes over to b&g's so they can set up their office and we can have that room for furniture that is sitting in our hallway!
it's been a slow process - the putting back together the house, plus adding my dot's stuff. but we are getting there bit by bit. just having the furniture in the correct rooms will be a nice change. we're so tired of having to step around stuff and not get to really move in and feel like we have a home. but with getting buh's office stuff out and having the garage sale this weekend, it's going to make a big difference.
plus! after this week, i'll be home a little bit more as this is my last week at the bank. no more commute to dallas, no more getting up at 5:30, ahem, ok 6am!, no more coming home and not getting to recharge before seeing my dot. i think that's probably going to make a bigger difference than anything else!!
my dot deserves to see me at my best. hopefully soon he will see what that looks like. because i sure haven't been there the last few months!
***
an observation that is never meant as a compliment: you look tired this morning.
a conversation between the two boys moving my mom (after the pizza). after working hard and being tired and punchy, this was, up to that point in my life, probably the funniest thing i'd ever heard:
boy 1: did you just fart?
boy 2: no. i burped.
boy 1: are you sure?
i'm on a budget
last night my dot and i went to the supermarket together and bought some produce and snackies for our lunches. first off, as sad as this may sound, this is one of the best times i’ve had with my dot in a while. we were together, we were on the same mission, and we actually took the time to walk through the market and look at things. we took time. something we have neglected to do for ourselves and for each other.
one of the last dramas i was in was talking about how fast things can start to go during the holidays and i was able to contribute a line which ended up being one i got to deliver during the performance!
so we spent some precious time together at our local kroger picking over fruit (i got nectarines, he got peaches, we both got plums), salivating over the snackies (we ended up getting fig newtons, honey teddy grahams, and fritos scoops), and scoring on a sale on 6-packs of water (10 6-packs for 10 dollars). we also picked up some laughing cow cheese wedges, which was a major expenditure to me. i’d like to get them at costco next time. and we got some extra sharp cheddar cheese (a favorite for both of us) and some triscuits and wheat thins.
i hadn’t bought snackies in a while since we put ourselves on a rather strict spending plan, but as i told my dot yesterday, when i am at work and i am dreaming all day of going downstairs to the cafe and buying some potato chips, it’s time to splurge. they aren’t cheap. but they’re cheaper at the supermarket than they would be at the cafeteria.
for our lunches today, i packed (in boring ole tupperware. i covet you, mr bento. i covet you) leftover black beans and rice from dinner last night topped with jalapeno slices and sprinkled it with konriko’s jalapeno all purpose seasoning, a plum, shelled edamame, 3 fig newtons, some teddy grahams and garlicy pretzel croutons. very yummy, but very potent). i snapped a photo before i packed mine all up. i also added a nectarine (a peach for him) and a carrot cake (he got banana nut) muffin for breakfast
this is the best seasoning.. ever!
the black bean and rice recipe was super duper easy. my belly was rumbling yesterday starting around 3:30 so on my drive home i was trying to figure out something quick and easy. i took a can of black beans and drained the juice into a 2 cup measuring cup, then poured in the juice from a small can of diced chilis and the juice from about half a can of chopped tomatoes. filled the measuring cup up the rest of the way to the 2 cup mark with water and used that to cook the rice with. when the rice was done, i fluffed it, then added the beans, chilis, and the half can of tomatoes. we gorged.
anew
a new life, a new blog.
that's what i told my dot today.
although when i said that i was going to go back, wipeout my old blog, reinstall moveable type, again!, and start afresh. then i thought about it. and said to myself: this isn't what i want. i want a program to do all the work for me. i don't want to worry about programming and stylesheets and troubleshooting anymore. i want to type and hit the pretty publish button and then go have a coffee and danish and not worry about the derned program running properly or locking me out and ne'er letting me back in for 6 months or some other issue that, yes, i've already encountered and spent countless hours immersed in support forums trying to rectify.
so i wash my hands of moveable type and have moved on (or, rather back!) to blogger.
b'sides. everything in my life is so incredibly new and changed right now, the old blog is almost irrelevant. almost. it is my history, afterall. so to that end, i may consider reposting all those years of entries and linking back to them someday. but for now i will content myself with the now and the forevermore.
i am having quite the déjà vu moment. years (and years and years) ago when i first put hand to keyboard to produce my very first blog entry, i was in the final stages of a job about to enter the ministry for the first time in my life. it was september 12, 2000. the entry's title was "on my way out". i was killing time, itching to go. i had a new life ahead of me and it was all i could do to keep from running full boar for it. but i had a job to complete and so i sat there (with an emphasis on the word 'sat'.. my second entry was titled "my hiney hurts") biding my time until they opened the doors and cut me loose.
and now, almost exactly 6 years later i sit at my computer, staring at the screen, trying desparately to remain useful in the final stages of my job all the while complaining that my hiney hurts. just not out loud, mind you. i am, after all, a lady. i am also about to take up the ministry again. and i am about to expand right out of my skin with excitement.
i am also recently married to my dot. my high school sweetheart. my beloved. my heart. we had lost touch since hs and had reconnected may 13, 2003 only to discover to my chagrin that he still made my heart go pitter pat. apparently i had a similar effect on him. and so on july 15 of this year we tied the knot with a backyard barbeque and 70 or so of our family and closest friends.
people ask me now how newly married life is. i am at a loss for a response because, truth is, i do not know. we have both been so incredibly busy i hardly feel married. our house is still not put together since the berry exodus. we still have some of his stuff at his house, which we are trying to remodel enough to sell. i am working two jobs, juggling the old and the new. and we are both volunteers for the revolution venue at our church. we can't seem to get our schedules to calm down enough to actually sit. relax. enjoy.
we're praying for a reprieve soon. until then, we are just trying to keep from drowning.