We squeezed all the family except Ananias in my tiny house this weekend including the nephew dog. I don't have a comprehensive post organized in my mind yet, so here's a picture of some of the family playing Wack-a-Mole. It's just as good as going to Chuck-E-Cheese.
It felt good today not eating some kind of sugary delight. Good old hearty leftovers were just fine.
I wasn't lying in my other post about trying to appreciate Christmas music more, but it is the truth that I like the funny ones first. I like a few "normal" ones too. Evidence is below. Gin's list is probably much longer than this.
Since I didn't have to work today and didn't have any guests yet, I looked at the Y schedule and saw that there was a class today from 9:15-10:15 AM called "Reebok Flexible Strength". I was envisioning some stretches and maybe some stuff like jumping jacks, push-ups, etc. So, I went. It turns out that's just a fancy name for yoga. It actually wasn't too bad and had some nice stretch exercises. The instructor wasn't quite as new-age as the other time I took that yoga class. We concentrated on our breathing some, but we didn't stretch our innards like last time. The stretches made my neck feel a little bit better too, so maybe I'll have to make yoga part of my regular routine.
My friends Gin and Avis are avid Christmas song fans, so this December I've been trying to make an effort to hear through their ears and gain a better appreciation for Christmas songs and not hate them so much (the songs I mean) once they get overplayed the first week after Thanksgiving. It turns out I've found several Christmas songs I can appreciate.
Guess what I ate today? Seven year old summer sausage. It's quite the delicacy here in these parts. Not. A friend had given a guy at work this summer sausage back around 2002 because it was shaped like a beer bottle and apparently thought it was cool. The guy at work was a little creeped out by the shaped sausage and put it in his cupboard where it sat aging until now. Apparently he was cleaning out his cupboards recently and found it. After consulting with our resident sausage expert at work who said it was fine to eat, we partook. It was a little dark around the edges and very soft, but the flavor was still good. It was vacuum packed, I'm sure it was fine. Nobody who tried it got sick so far. Here's an idea - now you could serve wine, cheese, and sausage as appetizers at your next party that are all the same age! It will likely become the next rage soon.
Between my house and the Y, there is this ravine that the road dips down into and back out of. The road is relatively steep going both down and up it, and the speed limit is 45. Yesterday evening as I was returning from my exercising at the Y thinking about random stuff and things, I was going at a good clip down the hill, and maybe 30 or 40 feet before I reached the bottom I noticed the Pontiac in front of me had his brakes on. So, I hit my brakes and felt the anti-lock brakes come on. Uh-oh. Not good. The road didn't even look slippery though. I continued to step on my brakes, but I could tell that I was not going to be stopping before the car in front of me did. I got ready to pull into the on-coming traffic lane to avoid the collision, but then noticed there was a car coming, so I swerved back into my lane, waited for the car to go by, and then swerved back into the oncoming traffic lane and made sure there weren't any more cars coming. I managed to slow enough so that my car came about even with the car in front of me. He pulled ahead of me, and then I got back in the correct lane just as another on-coming car was getting close to reaching me. Whew! That was close! The apparent reason for the slow-down was somebody had their car pulled over to the shoulder right by the guard rail. I'm not sure if he had just pulled over or if it was gawkers causing the pile up. Thankfully it didn't ruin my fresh special meeting spirit.
On Saturday, I borrowed a coworker's truck and picked up a door at Lowe's. Getting the door and the receipt, etc. was a bit of a rigamarole, but not too bad. Anyways, after being satisfied with all the paperwork I went back out to the truck, got a ratchet strap from the back seat, and hopped up in the bed to tie down the door before I took off. I hooked the first side of the strap in, and then needed to step across the door to get the other side done. As I stepped across, I felt something give a little bit. Rrrrrip. Hmmmmm.....sort of felt like my maybe-a-bit-too-straight-to-be-straddling-doors skirt might have ripped just a little. I strapped that side in, then went to step back over the door again. Rrrrip a little bit more. It still didn't feel too drastic though, so I bent over to get the ratchet strap thing all tightened down and such. Then I climbed down and got back in the truck. At that point I felt to see how bad the rip was, and it was a bit worse than I had thought. The Lowe's patrons didn't get tooooo much of a show, but I did expose a little more leg than I had planned. Good thing I could head straight home without any further stops. Silly skirt. It was only like 10 years old and had been repaired twice before. This time the rip was big enough (like 4 or 5 inches) that I decided to retire it. It was tough though. Tough stuff.
Finally, here's some holiday cheer for you. Somebody appli(anc)ed himself, and it wasn't me.
God must have thought I needed a little extra help this year. I had the special treat of two woika visitors two nights this past weekend during their special meeting rounds. Besides the obvious enjoyment of fellowship, what I also enjoyed was one of the woika's almost childlike excitement at the prospect of a new adventure. It's fun to see that in a grown lady. We braved the elements to get some pictures like this.
I also picked up a couple catchy phrases from them. When something positive happens, you say "three cheers", and when something not so positive happens you say "oh sick". :-)
As requested, here are the results of my poll on whether I should join Facebook or not. To summarize, the vote ended in a tie. Five people thought I should not join Facebook, five people thought I should, and two were riding the fence. When I started this poll, I was predicting that the majority of people would be giving Facebook high recommendations, so this data is a bit surprising. Since I was in the "no" camp before the poll, I will continue to not have a Facebook account for the time being. This will likely result in me continuing to be very "out of the loop", but it's not like I was really in it to begin with.
I think my biggest reason not to have Facebook is that I'm not sure how I feel about my personal life, my work life, and my past life intersecting. It just seems weird, and I'm afraid too many skeletons would start walking out of their closets. :-)
There is a guy at work who is notoriously lazy, and pretty much everybody in our hardware engineering group knows it (except maybe our manager). You can't really dislike him because he's a very nice guy and went through a difficult divorce a couple years ago, but his work ethic since the divorce does leave something to be desired. He regularly comes in late, leaves early, takes extra long lunches, "works from home", parks in the visitor parking or handicap parking spots when he does arrive because he doesn't want to do the long walk in from the parking lot, and spends a good part of the time when he is actually at work on Facebook, Yahoo! fantasy sports leagues, etc. Sometimes the guys at work make fun of him and compare him to the Fedex busy bee commercial.
So, this guy happened to be gone today, and his cube mates noticed he had left his sweatshirt draped over his chair so that it almost looked like he was sitting there (whether that was accident or on purpose we don't know). They proceeded to add some enhancements by propping the hood up on the sweatshirt so it really looked like he was sitting there. Once other people came to see what they had done, they added additional embellishments like his "hands" and pseudo data on his computer screen. I have to admit, it did look pretty funny. See below.
The amazing thing about this guy is that his work is not particularly good when he does it, and he's been slacking like this for two years with no apparent consequences. It's sort of a mystery how he has managed to go this long doing what he has been doing.
P.S. This is another hilarious Fedex commercial. I may have linked to it before - I can't remember. My favorite part is "like a lawn chair."
The guys in the quad of cubicles next door to ours had a coffee machine in their cube. It quit working, so they took it apart, figured out what was wrong with it, and then they used one of the electronic controls they designed to substitute for the broken part. Now they're back in business making coffee in their cube. I call it the Sahara brew because that's the name of the project that the electronic control came from. This is proof that engineers are nerds, and electrical engineers have a double portion of nerdiness.
I went to Zumba for the 2nd time tonight. There was a substitute teacher there tonight, so it was more low key than last week. My opinion of the class is still the same. It's not my favorite class at the Y, but it's not terrible either. I like the music, I'm terrible at the moves (it's all in the hips you know), but it's still kind of fun. I also went to give moral support to Maggie, one of my volleyball team mates. She loves Zumba class. She's relatively new to town and wanted someone to go with her to class. The thing I find interesting about Maggie is that she's not shy about saying what she's feeling, whereas I'm usually on the opposite end of that spectrum. Every time our volleyball team goes out to eat after a game, she always talks about how she doesn't have any friends and feels strange because she's one of the few people she knows who isn't married. Anyways. BIL-Dan, they played your Hawaiian "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" song at Zumba tonight.
As I'm getting older, I'm also getting smarter. I started the semi-annual house cleaning process about a week ago, and I am on schedule to meet my deadline. The only things left to do are to clean the bathrooms and go grocery shopping before company comes on Friday. This is a step up from waiting until two days before company comes and cleaning like mad until 1:00 AM the night before. I don't know why I hate to clean bathrooms so much. It's not really the grossness factor. It doesn't really take all that long. I just hate it. Some people hate cooking or washing clothes because it seems futile. Cooking and washing clothes doesn't bother me. What seems futile to me is cleaning house.
It's a slow day here in the 'hood, so I'll have to settle for one of my "reserve" bathroom posts. I do have to admit, the bathroom at work where this sign hangs is one of the better-smelling ones. Of course, it might be because there are only two stalls instead of five. I don't use this bathroom very often, which means I normally don't contribute to the scents (good or bad).
OK, I need some advice on etiquette. Following is the situation. I occasionally go to a massage therapist. The massage therapist is located in the chiropractor's office, which is how I started going to the massage therapist in the first place. You are allowed to go to the massage therapist without seeing the chiropractor if you want to. The technical term for the massage is "myofascial release". This is billed to my insurance company (I think - I'm still in the deductible stage though).
I typically do not leave a tip for the therapist. In fact, until a couple weeks ago I didn't know people tipped massage therapists. My question is: Are all massage therapists expecting a tip? I know the ones who work at the spas probably are, but what about the ones at the chiropractor? It seems weird....I don't tip my dental hygienist or the nurse at the doctor's office. If I am supposed to leave a tip, where and when do I leave it? The credit card receipt when I pay for the massage doesn't have a place to add a tip. Do I leave cash on the massage table or something? What if I don't have the correct mix of bills on my person at the time? What percentage of a tip is appropriate?
If I'm supposed to be tipping, I bet I'm one of the most hated customers they have. Really tense muscles they have to work really hard on, and then no tip either. They probably don't put fresh sheets on the massage table and they probably spit in the lotion too.
I ran across this list on Yahoo! news the other day. It's someone's opinion of the eight most addictive foods. I have added my own opinion on this....
Check it out - the new deluxe luxury camp chair that I bought a couple weeks ago. It's a weird color because it was a super savings clearance item on REI. To get a normal color I would have had to pay an extra $40. I have been wishing I had one of these types of chairs for a couple years now, and I finally found the "golden" opportunity to get one. It's great because it's really comfortable, reclines easily, and you can lock the reclining position. Plus, it's collapsible and portable enough that I can take it into my dining room and bask in the sun in the winter when it shines in through the big windows. I've also found it's great for working on a laptop. First you sit down so that you don't jostle the computer too much, and then you can recline.
Also new: I tried the "Zumba" class at the Y today. It's like the pilates of 2009 and 2010. I have mixed feelings about it. First, the things I didn't like: there were a ton of people at the class, and because I got there a minute or two late (I know, hard to believe) I had to stand at the very back where it was very cramped. One benefit to standing at the back is that nobody is behind you seeing how bad your moves are. The bad thing about that is that you're on the edge where the people on the track or the treadmills around the exercise area can easily see you. And, you have to be careful not to accidentally step on to the track while doing your moves. Zumba is kind of a cross between dancing and exercising, and my dance skills are pretty much nonexistent, so I felt terribly uncoordinated during the class. I think my inhibitions are too strong to totally get into the class. However, the great thing about the class is the music. They have some great rhythms and songs. And, of course, it's exercise! I might give the class one more try and see if I warm up to it any more. If I don't, I'll just stick to doing the occasional dance "moves" in the comfort of my own home to Shania Twain blasting from my computer speakers.
P.S. Gin, the music in the class included your "Hey, I love you" song by Michael Franti.
Also new this week: Snow! Yay!!!!
All 5 of us made it on the picture. If you look in the mirror, you can see Dad taking the picture.
The blanket projectSome random thoughts for the day:
A couple weeks ago someone was telling me how they think blogs are egotistical because you think that the whole world might be interested in your life and thoughts, so you feel you should share them. I'm not saying I totally agree with that, but maybe there is some truth to that.
Why do I maintain a blog? First of all, you can blame my friend Melanaway for convincing me to start one. We won't mention how she rarely maintains hers these days. I started reading her blog first and enjoyed the insights into her life seeing how we're friends from college and related to each other. What I'm trying to say is that I thought reading blogs was fun. I also found another college friend's blog (Avis) interesting around the same time. I was content to be a reader for about a year I would estimate. I resisted the peer pressure from Melanaway to start a blog.
Then some of my sneaky friends (Malia was first I think) started requiring me to be a blogger member to comment on their sites, so I had to create an account. I still resisted having my own blog and just had the account. But having the account was the gateway. One lonely Friday night I gave into temptation and made my first "real" post. And the rest is history.
I think I maintain my blog mostly as a way to keep in touch with friends and as a form of therapy. If I don't have anybody to talk to in person and don't want to talk on the phone, I make a blog post. Or if I found something funny and want to share the humor, I make a post. It's also my mini comedy stage. One perk of this blog is that I've become better acquainted with a few people I barely knew at first.
The question is, should I get off the ego-train and quit blogging? Do all that many people even read this drivel? It is a way to keep my family informed of my doings, but I could do that just by e-mailing them daily. :-) If I felt so inclined. Or if I needed some therapy, I could keep a journal.
That is what I was thinking the week before Thanksgiving. When I was home to ND over Thanksgiving I was told in no uncertain terms by my family that I was required to continue to maintain this blog even if I joined Facebook. Whew! The pressure! Oh, and Mow also wrote a nice e-mail last week saying how she enjoys my blog even if she doesn't comment. So carrying on I will be doing.
Speaking of lurking though......if you always read and never comment, please don't take it personally if I meet you and don't respond to you like I know you. It's because I don't. Duh! Lurking is a totally one sided relationship. I don't ask for much from all you lurkers - maybe one comment per year. And of course, you're always allowed to comment more frequently if you want. If you don't want to, that's fine. You're just missing out on an opportunity to share the comedy stage. ;-)
