wonderment

Since both September and October passed with just one post, I’ll say that my early September post about not expecting a post daily was accurate. That said, I do have an excuse for at least September….

Not that there’s anyone who might read this who doesn’t know already, because I think I have zero readers these days, but… I’m pregnant! (With a girl, due at the end of April / early May, just in case somehow you don’t know that.)

And I felt like crap for most of September. All day long. For 4 weeks. I was seriously doubting how the human race has survived for so long, wondering why anyone would ever have more than one child (because obviously you don’t know that “morning sickness” is a completely insufficient term to describe that, so you don’t know what kind of hell you’re setting yourself up for), and also questioning the sanity of every woman who has ever told me that they “loved” being pregnant.

My boss knew, because I felt cruddy and also needed to eat constantly to keep the nausea away, and I was pretty sure she’d put 2+2 together real quick anyway. But other than her and a very small number of people out of necessity, no one knew, which meant pretending to not feel like crap, at least during the work day. At home, I could complain all I want, and I did, and Prince Charming let me and did everything he could think of to help me feel better.

At any rate, blogging clearly wasn’t first and foremost on my mind. Plus there were quite a few big projects that kept me busy at work, which was really good because the busier I was, the less I could think about myself. (The other side of that coin? Weekends, which are typically very lazy at our house, were the worst, because I spent way too much time thinking about how I felt. We tried to keep busy though, which helped.)

And now we’re here. And it’s November. I’m pretty sure I had something I wanted to say before I started talking about being pregnant, but I have *no idea* what it was. Some days are like that.

I have completely offended one of my team members by putting the kibosh on Boss’s Day (which I personally hate, but that’s actually beside the point). We had a team member who used to love this holiday and we went along with it because it seemed really important to her, but she retired, and I thought we were done with it. Someone decided to bring it up again though.

Because I know my boss well, and was able to think about her actions toward us in the time that she’s been here as well as her reaction to previous Boss’s Day events, I was pretty sure she didn’t like the celebration. (She doesn’t do much for holidays, birthdays, or even Administrative Professional’s Day, and has told me that she prefers to support and reward us on a regular basis for our hard work, not wait until a prescribed date, and she follows through on that.) And because I have a good relationship with her, I just flat-out asked her how she felt about Boss’s Day. And she told me she doesn’t like it and doesn’t want it to continue.

So, being the good employee that I am, and wanting to respect my boss’s wishes, I email our team to let them down as easily as possible, while also being very firm that this needs to not happen. And there has been zero response, which means that at least one person is ticked.

And I’m not even sorry. Our director is retiring next month after 13 years of dedicated service and has requested NOTHING in terms of a party, lunch, treats, anything, and while that is difficult, we have to respect that. Above all, this is about respecting someone’s wishes. It’s just icing on the cake that it’s a thing I hate.

There’s another blog-a-day for September, and I’m just going to be honest… that’s not going to happen. I could set it up and try, but given what I already know my schedule holds for the rest of this month, I think I’d be setting myself up for failure.

Next week I have two more days of leadership training, and then we have a new staff person starting at work, and I will be her primary trainer. This is good; the previous person who held this position ever so briefly had two of us, and I think it got confusing really fast as to who had taught her what and there were probably gaps in her training. And the person before her, I trained. So I can train the new person, absolutely, since it used to be my job to do this work. But, that means a lot of time is accounted for already. Conveniently, I don’t have a ton of projects right now, and since we were unexpectedly short staffed, I have been able to delay some projects too. So I’m not stressed about the quantity of work or anything. But I also recognize that I probably won’t have time to sit here and blog. And as much as I try, I never remember to do it at home. So that’s that.

We have been spending the last week renovating the overhead storage in our garage. It’s one of those super weird projects that makes me question our sanity a bit, like when we spent a few weekends remodeling the stairwell. Don’t get me wrong – great projects, super functional, and aesthetic as well. But who does that? In the comments, I want to hear about the weirdest thing you’ve remodeled or renovated in your abode. (We spent the weekend before that redoing the lighting in our furnace room. Another weird project.)

A time you took a stand.

Either I don’t do this very often, or I do it in ways that aren’t connecting to this phrasing, or my memory is failing me. I’m coming up with a lot of bubkis.

It’s Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend – I’m not going to force myself to come up with something. Sorrynotsorry.

But hey, it’s the end of August! I made it! Sure, a few of the days were posted late, and sometimes I ignored the directions, but they all got posted. I’m going to miss having the writing prompts, and am not sure how successful I’ll be at continuing to blog, but I’m going to give it a shot. Wish me luck!

What do you collect?

I collect pennies and quarters (I have those books with the spot for each variety). It started with wheat pennies and state quarters, but grew a bit.

You could also say that I collect fabric, yarn, wine bottles, buttons, and various other things for potential crafting, but I wouldn’t strictly call those a collection – they are to be used, not kept.

A photo of you making a ridiculous face. Be silly!

I’ve got a few funny poses, but not very many funny faces. Can I interest you in an awkward smile? Silly cat pic? No? Seriously, y’all should have taken me up on the silly pose offer. Or bad hair.

Since I’m at work, you’ll have to do with what I can find in my archives on Flickr.

Write a letter to your favorite grandparent.

No letters. This takes way too much time and emotional energy. But I can tell you some of my favorite things about each of my grandparents.

I’m a lucky girl who has a bonus grandparent, and at 40 still have a living grandparent. I know I’m incredibly blessed that I got to have most of my grandparents around for as long as I did.

My dad’s mom died before I was born, and I don’t know much about her, but I think she and I would have gotten along splendidly.

My dad’s dad was very much like my dad, often reserved, but he had this habit at Christmas of impatiently picking at the corners of the wrapping on his gifts, unable to wait for his turn to open the next one. He still did this up until the end, and he died at 97! Imagine still being excited about Christmas gifts at 97.

My dad’s dad remarried and so my bonus grandparent came into our lives. She is warm and loving, though she can also be quite … opinionated. She says that everything is “neat.” She tried to talk me out of becoming a teacher because “middle schoolers are awful” (she drove a school bus for years, so, yeah, from her perspective, they probably are awful).

My mom’s dad died when I was fairly young, and I don’t have too many memories of him, but I remember he called my sister and I Sassafras and Sarsaparilla, played the washtub bass (maybe? I think), and was kind to us.

My mom’s mom passed away recently, the spring of 2017, and she was a firecracker. She was poised and had high standards, but had some fire in her too. I feel like I knew her the best out of all of them, though I still only knew her as a grandmother and not as a person. I miss her the most, but I frequently bring her with me on days when I need a little more strength, by wearing some of her jewelry that I have.

What fall TV shows are you excited about?

So we don’t watch live/broadcast TV anymore (except for the morning news), so I don’t usually keep track of what’s technically on the air. I’m more excited for June, when the new seasons finally show up on Netflix. And I really don’t know what’s new or continued….

I’m currently enjoying “Anne with an E” and “The Gilmore Girls,” and need to get back into “Jane the Virgin” too. I just finished “Drop Dead Diva” which I don’t recommend – well, the first season or two are good, but definitely not worth watching all the way through.

I’m anxiously awaiting the next seasons of “One Day at a Time” (the new one) and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” I highly recommend both.

Describe your typical Sunday in a gif or emojis.

I chose to use Bitmoji.

This weekend was far from typical, as we have house guests with children staying with us.

Stamps is not coping well, but there’s not much to be done about that. Brunch in a little while, then probably power washing after they leave, and some gardening too.

No idea what to meal prep, but probably something to use up some beans and cucumbers, as the fridge is starting to fill up. I’ve got off-site training this week and was encouraged to bring a lunch, as the cafeteria lines can be long at peak times. Should be… interesting, if nothing else. Gotta find some time to do the last of the homework for that too, as there was no time at work Friday.

What’s your favorite season and why?

All of them except for winter, and I’m working on not hating winter.

Spring is so lovely in the flowers and green and hope and possibility.

Summer is full of sun (so many daylight hours) and warmth and growing things and excuses to relax.

Fall is cozy and crunching leaves and pumpkin spice and apples and all of the best colors. It’s probably my favorite, but I have a hard time dealing with the ever-decreasing daylight hours. Everything else about fall is perfect.

Best decision you’ve ever made.

Moving to Minnesota, hands-down. To be clear, the worst decision I ever made was taking the job that got me here. I don’t regret it, but it was not a good decision for a multitude of reasons. It’s the example of why I don’t usually make personal decisions based on logic and reason, but feeling (on Myers-Briggs, I’m an ISFJ, and that F is for Feeling). But I digress….

That job aside, moving here was still the best. My sister is here (which is why I actually moved here), my mom has moved here now, I’ve made friends, I met and married Prince Charming…. I have no regrets, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. (Except in February, when I’d rather be someplace warmer, which is just about everywhere else.)

Throwback Thursday. Tell us about the year this photo was taken.

Ah, 1980, a year I don’t remember, except that it’s the year my beautiful sister, Alison, was born. This picture would be from probably late August, as she was born mid-August and stayed in the preemie unit for a while (don’t know how long, but there’s a picture of me visiting her there, so at least a few days I’d guess). I also know that when my parents brought her home, Dad walked into the house carrying her, and I took one look at the two of them and burst into tears, or so the story goes. I don’t remember that, obviously, I was only 2.

Did any else remarkable happen in 1980? A quick check of Wikipedia says that yes, lots of important things happened, like boycotting the Olympics, the first use of the word “yuppie” in print, Reagan getting elected, and the murder of John Lennon.

Write a letter to the person who has hurt you the most.

At this moment, it would be really cathartic to do this for someone who has left us in the lurch at work. But, I don’t blog about work (mostly), because I’m not stupid.

I would like to talk to the squirrels who have been digging around the seeds I just planted for the fall crops. I am NOT happy about that. Peas, arugula, radishes, and spinach – hopefully these varieties of spinach and radish will turn out better than the last ones, which 1) got some wilt/mildew disease, along with both attempts at chard this spring, or 2) produced very few actual radishes, just a bunch of red roots that looked nothing like radishes and were too skinny to do much, but there sure were a lot of leaves….

We are drowning under zucchini, beans, cucumbers, and jalapenos right now. And I harvested a bunch of cilantro and parsley, and made up chimichurri sauce, so I’m having a delicious spinach, steak, farro, and cucumber salad for my lunch this week.

The basil and dill have died, though, perhaps succumbed to the heat? They were looking sickly, so I pulled them, and planted peas for Prince Charming in that space.

In related news, we converted a cabinet in our furnace room from storage to a drying space for herbs. Drilled a giant hole in the side and installed a fan (that makes more noise than we think it should), which runs at a pretty low speed and is drying the 5 large bunches of sage that I hung in there at an alarming rate. (That was only about 1/3rd of the sage plant – the rest is still in the garden!) I’m hoping the removal of some of the herbs and cutting back of others will allow the remaining ones to thrive, particularly the lavender and rosemary, which have stayed rather small but would dry very well if they got big enough. I wonder if either of those will be a perennial here in Minnesota.

And then since we were working in the furnace room, we decided to improve the lighting situation in there, so we spent an evening pulling out a bunch of telephone wires in the ceiling to make space for more electrical cables, and have been slowly working on installing new lights. I’ll have pictures when it’s all done. There’s also some empty conduit to remove…. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the ceiling in a less-than-effective way (or at least not as simple as it could be). Yes, we’ve lived there nine years with the telephone cords just chillin’ in the ceiling, despite having never had a land line. Our house is a work in progress, and that has not been a priority. I mean, I still haven’t painted the living-dining room, and I don’t like the color it was painted when we moved in. And the kitchen…. One cannot do all the projects at once.

Now I need to go see if I can make sense of an old database that I redesigned about 8 years ago and is still a hot mess… cleaning up one’s old messes is a special kind of fun.

What weird things do you do when no one is around?

Talk to myself, sometimes under the guise of talking to the cats. Sing loudly along with the music. Dance badly. You know, the same stuff everyone else does when no one is looking.

An interesting dating story

Hmmm…. Having not gone on that many dates in my life until I met Prince Charming, it’s a fairly small pool of events to pull from, and most of them are not very interesting.

There was one the summer of my junior year of college, when I was living on campus and there was a weird love rectangle (there were four of us, paired up wrongly, in short, but the long version is way weirder, anyway…) and the first date I went on with my soon-to-be-boyfriend (and soon-to-be-ex) was to see Saving Private Ryan, which was a terrible first date. After exiting the theater, we decided to postpone the second half of our date until another time (which we did – that’s not what did our relationship in, that was him hooking up with his best friend, who was not part of our love rectangle, so was it a love pentagram? that sounds ominous for sure).

Once in high school I went on one single date with a guy I’d been crushing on, only to find out several hours into the date that he was quite boring and we didn’t really click, so much so that I don’t actually remember what we did on said date, I only remember him dropping me off at my house and trying to politely tell him there would never be a second date. Later that year he asked me to prom; that was a “no” from me.

Prince Charming and I had lots and lots of dates, but they’re all already chronicled here, or at least the fun/interesting ones. We occasionally still drive by the spot of our first date, which was the Caribou Coffee on Grand Avenue in St Paul (because I could walk there, car-less as I was at the time). After coffee, we walked up and down Grand for a while, eventually ending up at Cosetta’s for pizza. He dropped me off at home, and the rest is history. Who knew a cup of coffee could be so life changing? (He doesn’t even drink coffee!)