It's started...

Morgan has gone to California for a week. I'll be spending a lot more time at home when "my Mom's in the shower."

I do miss talking about my day, but she's not gone for long. The good news is, you get to hear it.

Got to work at 7:00am. It wasn't worth it to drive 30 minutes home, spend 30 minutes at home and drive 30 minutes back to work.
At around 7:30 I went to McDonald's to get a coffee and 2 hash browns. Then I went back to work and there was still no one else there.

I was really tired so I ended up looking around at some of the Jewish links for Western Mass. It's relatively related to work. I noticed that there was a link to a Kosher Bed and Breakfast in Springfield! Shocking because, apparently it's the only Kosher hotel/motel etc in Massachusetts outside of the Boston metro area. Who knew it would be a tiny B&B across from Forest Park. Of course this is really only mildly interesting as I have no real need for a B&B 30 minutes from my house.

We walked to Celery Stalk for lunch and I got an egg salad sandwich. It was hot, but not as humid as yesterday.

I got my produce box delivery. I'd forgotten to write a check so I paid cash this month. I got: red leaf lettuce, corn, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, beets and a giant cucumber. I was excited. Now I have to figure out what to do with all that food.

I skipped the 3pm stretch break because it was supposed to be 90 degrees. Instead we moved the coffee into my office at work. The coffee used to be in the conference room, but we are loosing the conference room and they will be putting in two old cubicles from across the street. I cleaned out one of my drawers in the filing cabinet. It only had book samples, so it wasn't hard.

We also moved the checks from my office to the new bookkeepers desk. This means I don't have to lock my door every day, so now I won't miss the trash pick up in the morning.

I left at 4:30 because I was really having trouble focusing. Somehow 200 people filled out the online renewal form in the last 2 weeks. Usually only about 50 people per week fill it out. It might have something to do with there being no reply envelopes in the first batch of letters inviting people to renew.

I watched my movie from Netflix. I'm going to send it back tomorrow in hopes to get another one soon. I gave platelets a week or so ago and I started to watch "Yes Man" but I finished with something like 30 minutes left. It's been driving me crazy that I don't know how it ends so that's next from Netflix.

Tomorrow I hope to finish online renewals and finalize everything so we can run US lists. What fun.

Careers again

Well, last year I took some career tests to see what I was best suited for. You can see the results here.

As I've been struggling lately with what I want to do with my life and how I am basically miserable at work I took another free online test.

Here are the results:
1. Construction and Maintenance 100%
2. Manufacturing 89%
3. Administrative & Clerical 34%
4. Transportation 32%
5. Natural Sciences 22%
6. Engineering & Architecture 20%
7. Agriculture & Forestry 9%
8. Finance & Management 8%
9. Health Care 8%
10. Technology 5%
11. Law & Criminal Justice


The best part is the suggested jobs under Construction and Maintenance:

* Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners
* Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners
* Pest Control Workers
* Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers
* Pesticide Handlers, Sprayers, and Applicators, Vegetation


Basically I'm not well suited for the work force.

Donating Platelets

So, I donated platelets today. It didn't great.

First, I failed the iron test the first time so a supervisor had to come and check my iron again.

Second, Morgan was meeting me there to pick up the turkey so it didn't sit in my car for 2 hours. Because it took so long to get the supervisor and do my iron twice I was still answering the questions when Morgan came to get my keys. The nurses wouldn't let her see me because I was behind the privacy shower curtain so we passed my keys back and forth through another nurse.

Third, they were having some trouble with the iodine swabs and the swab kept coming off the stick so she had keep opening new ones so it took a while to get started on the needle.

Fourth, with about 4 minutes left to go I started feeling a little nauseous. So I said, "excuse me, I'm not feeling that great all of a sudden." I'm not sure if you've ever said you weren't feeling well while donating blood. But the nurses pounce on you. All of a sudden there were 4 nurses surrounding me and staring at me shouting things
Nurse 1 pulls the blanket off me
Nurse 1: Pause her
Nurse 2: (tips my chair back)
Nurse 1: Is she paused?
Nurse 3: yes, she's paused
Nurse 1: Cough a few times, it'll make you feel better.
Me: cough (softly as 4 people stare at me)
Nurse 1: Get me another cold pack (as she puts one cold pack behind my neck)
Nurse 3: here you go
Nurse 1: (puts the second cold pack on my forehead)
Nurse 4 (the supervisor who took my iron the 2nd time): How does she look.
Nurse 1: Her color is coming back.
Nurse 4: Can you cough a few times? It will help.
me: cough, cough (still kind of softly as 4 people stare at me)
Nurse 3: Do you want some water
Me: yes, thanks
Nurse 5: I'll get it.
Nurse 1: Maybe some soup would be better. Do you want some soup?
Me: I guess if it's available.
Nurse 5: So, do you want the soup?
Nurse 3: Yes - she wants soup
Nurse 4: Can you do some big coughs?
Me: cough (still kind of softly)
Nurse 4: No bigger, like you're trying to clear your throat
Me: cough
Nurse 1: No, Like this: COUGH
Me: COUGH
Nurse 4: Good, do a few more of those
Me: COUGH COUGH
Nurse 1: Are you feeling better now?
Me: Yes, thank you
Nurse 1: Re-infuse her
Nurse 3: She's re-infusing
Nurse 1: We're just giving you back your red blood cells
Me: Great
....
It went on like this for 4 or 5 more minutes.
Then I went and sat at the table while a volunteer stared at me like I might pass out.
Then I came home. It was awesome.

Winter

Well - I hate winter. It's cold and it's dark.

I can't quite decide if I should move someplace warm and heaven-like: Hawaii for example.

There are surely some pros and cons.

Cons:
-I would be separating Julian and Eloise from their favorite Aunt (we have a special bond).
-The move would be really tough on the pets
-It would be very expensive to come visit.
-The cost of living is higher than it is here.
-I hate packing and moving and unpacking.

Pros:
-It's warm
-I've always been happy there.

Did I miss anything?

Old Credit Cards

One day a long time ago I was looking through my Mom's old roll top desk.
She had a bunch of old credit cards from when she and Dad were married in there in a big stack with a rubber band around them. I was looking through them and they all said Mrs. Dad's name, well, you know what I mean. Most of them were signed that way. But one was signed with her name. I remember very well that she told me that she was being a rebel. I remember thinking that that was crazy! Why wouldn't it just say her name on the front of the card.

It's weird what stays with you, right?