mousme | Entries tagged with work

No, not THAT 'Q' word. ;)

It's a long-standing superstition/tradition working in emergency response (or any kind of call centre), that you should never, ever, comment on "how quiet" it is during a shift, because that's just inviting in the forces of chaos. If you're a dispatcher, it means there's going to be a multi-car pileup or a huge fire or some other cataclysm that will tie up your phone lines and keep you so busy you won't know which way is up right until the very end of your shift. If you're extra unlucky, you'll be stuck handling That One Call and have to stay past the end of your shift, and no overtime is worth that.

So, naturally, we've been having a very, err, uneventful week at work, and one of my colleagues just announced he was bored and then loudly started talking about how quiet it was. Seconds later, the phones started ringing. I can't swear that the superstition is true (the lines have died down again), but it certainly feels true.

I don't mind either way as a rule when it comes to work. A busy shift will go by quickly, and a quiet shift will let me get other stuff done, like reading a book or working on my knitting or what have you. Of course, this week I haven't brought my knitting for a few reasons. One, day shifts are usually very busy, and I am not a good enough knitter that my projects can survive the constant interruptions without suffering from potentially catastrophic error. Two, this week I am taking public transit home from work, and in the winter that is a dangerous proposition for knitting (and I am not a person who can safety knit on the bus, because again, catastrophic error). I had a third reason and now don't remember what it was, but I'm sure it was a very valid reason. ;)

( Why are you taking public transit, Phnee? )

Anyway, all this to say that work as been pretty dead today. I've been slightly obsessively checking my email inbox for a confirmation that my red wiggler worms will be ready today, and it's not looking good, I must say. The email I got did say they would be ready between today and Friday, so I may have a little while to wait yet. It's not that big of a deal--I can still go to Canadian Tire after work and pick up the Rubbermaid bins and the bedding I will need there. In theory one can use newspaper for bedding, but it can't be a colour newspaper, and these days I don't trust the papers that are available in my city not to contain some weird toxic substance in their ink, so I'm getting newsprint paper that's made specifically for packing and has no ink on it whatsoever. It typically is made from recycled paper, so I am hopeful that I won't be fucking over the environment too hard with it. Then I can put together my new worm-friendly environment and have it all ready and waiting for the worms whenever I get them.

In other mundane news, I have to put gas in the car later today. It's at about 1/2 a tank, and given the pretty cold temperatures we're having this week I prefer to keep it at 3/4 or more. Not having much gas in the tank causes a lot of wear and tear on the fuel pump, and also in the winter if you get stranded somewhere or even just stuck in longer than average traffic, you don't want to run out of gas and/or your potential only source of heat in the cold. For those of you who've been following me a long time, you may be amused to know that I still have my blue Yaris, aka the General Service Vehicle: Congenital Optimist, or GSVCO for short. I bought her in May of 2010 and she's still going strong, thanks to Steve the Wonder Mechanic. He gave her a makeover last fall, because she had developed a hell of a rust problem on her driver's side rear wheel well, and also needed her struts replaced. It was an expensive repair (body work is always a bit of a bitch), but he has breathed new life into her, and she's been purring along nicely ever since then. She's nearly 15 years old, has nearly 250k kilometres on her, and has been paid off for nearly a decade. My goal is to keep her as long as physically possible, because she does excellent mileage and I don't want to contribute another car to the landfill and use up even more resources for a newer car, even if it's hybrid or electric. In fact, KK's last car was a hybrid and has turned into the World's Most Expensive Lawn Ornament, because it would cost more to fix than the car is worth, but she still has to pay off the rest of the car loan anyway. Nightmare fuel. I'm sticking with my reliable little workhorse that doesn't have too many fancy computer bits in her until the bitter end.

Anyway, that's today so far. I have to think of something to make for dinner tonight. I've been slacking off on the meal planning of late, which is never a good idea. I will have to start that up again when I get home, and just plan for the next few days and next week while I'm at it. I always do better when I have a plan.

Current Mood: chipper

I absolutely intended to update my LJ in depth earlier today, and instead I ended up adding a few kilometers of pavement to the road to Hell. Oops!

I spent most of today puttering around. I tidied up part of the kitchen and downstairs in general, and the rest of the time I went through my seed stash and not only organized it, but also put them all in a spreadsheet in my Google docs. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but now I will have the information to hand no matter where I am, as long as I have access to the internet and to my Google account.

And then of course more seed packets arrived in the mail this evening. The irony was delicious.

KK got me a meat tenderizer attachment for our KitchenAid stand mixer (which I got on sale a couple of years ago) for my birthday, so naturally I took it for a spin this evening. I don't tenderize meat all that often, but I do whenever I make chicken schnitzel, so that's what I made tonight. After a false start because I still have trouble with the mixer (KK uses it a lot more than I do), we got it working, and I must say it was very effective! Not quite as satisfying as beating the meat with a mallet, but definitely more efficient, and the end result was a much more even slab of chicken.

( Read more... )

It's been a busy time.

Work has been slammed by the simultaneous coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, and the protests and blockades taking place all across Canada against the installation of an oil pipeline on unceded Wet'suwet'en territory by Coastal GasLink. The latter has been incredibly frustrating for me, because, well, you can imagine that the RCMP members aren't exactly pro-Indigenous in their thinking. There is a lot of racist talk subtly camouflaged beneath a veneer of political correctness (the bad kind of political correctness), and it's exhausting. Luckily it's mostly not the people in my immediate office, so at least I don't have to argue with people all day longl

The COVID-19 business is so weird. I remember the SARS crisis from 2003 (also related to a coronavirus), and given what we know--that COVID-19 is a lot more contagious but less deadly--people seem to be divided between panic and indifference, when neither is a good reaction, really. The fact that the President of the US is spreading misinformation as fast as you can say "press release" isn't helping, either. Right now half the people are stocking up on whatever they think are "essentials," assuming all of society is going to shut down (it's not), and the other half are complaining that everyone is taking this way too seriously, that this is less serious than the 'flu (it is not), and that it's all an exaggeration.

The biggest problem is, basically, that there is too much information out of there, and a lot of it is inaccurate: either it's incomplete or downright misleading. So it's no wonder people don't know how to react appropriately. Contrary to when SARS hit, it feels like there's no solid plan in place to manage the spread of this virus, which is a lot more contagious than SARS and the 'flu. It also has been disproportionately affecting the elderly and immuno-compromised, and average people are taking that to mean that it's not a big deal. So you get a cough and stay home for two weeks, so what? Well, those few days you spent while you were asymptomatic, you probably spread it to dozens of people, and some of them will have elderly and/or ill family members. Anyway, I am super annoyed at the "Well, it's not really going to affect me, so why should I care?" attitude.

There's also the problem of unfettered capitalism. Basically all retail and food service employers have exploitative practices when it comes to their employees: very little or no paid sick leave, and the promise of losing your job if you miss even one day of work. So all those people are going to go to work sick: they're going to prepare and serve food, stock shelves, use the cash register. It's going to be even worse in the US, where people who are uninsured or underinsured will simply not be able to afford to go seek medical care.

Bleh. I am not impressed with society these days, not going to lie.

Next time I will post something cheerier, I promise. :)

Current Mood: tired
Crossposts: https://mousme.livejournal.com/1237020.html

Would you look at that? I am back after less than six months! Who knows if I can keep up this incredible momentum?

The best time seems to be to do this from work, even if the mighty and mysterious firewall doesn't like Dreamwidth. I need to try to remember to import my entries to DW later.

Anyway, enough of that. It's been a whole week since I posted, and it kind of feels like I have nothing to say. That's not entirely true, but I don't want this to become a space in which I only complain. I know, that's what I've used it for 90% of the time, why change? But in the immortal words of Jefferson Airplane: "Life is change; how it differs from the rocks," which apparently is inspired by a quote by John Wyndham in The Chrysalids. Trivia, ahoy!

My mother is going to her first radiology appointment on Monday, which she tells me is just a measurement/fitting appointment rather than actual radiation therapy, which she will start a week later. We have agreed to Skype on Tuesday if she's feeling up to it, so I will know more then about how things are.

Speaking of change, that's what I've been trying to do. Whether I've been successful is a matter for debate, for sure. I'm a little depressed at the thought that my life took a downturn after I turned 35, after nearly seven years of progressive improvement. My only serious and stable relationship tanked, I had to sell my house at a loss (and ended up in some pretty serious debt because of the relationship, from which I'm still recovering), and had to abandon my hopes of having children of my own (which I thought I'd have somewhere between 36 and 38). Then I got forced out of my home by the aptly nicknamed Cruella de Froot Loops (thank you to

blackmare for that, which still makes me giggle), and that set me back financially quite a bit, plus vet bills for my beloved but extremely expensive Sergent. Combine this with some regression in my mental and physical health, and you also end up with a house that is, in terms of housekeeping, a goddamned embarrassment.

In short, my life right now looks nothing like what I wanted it to look like, and it's honestly pretty hard to take. I try to console myself with the idea that I am trying my best, but to quote Supernatural: "Well, do the best of somebody better!" So that's what I'm trying now. I am revising a few of the goals I had set for myself, and trying to come up with a plan that's realistic but without setting the bar too low. It's a tricky balance for me, because my brain really enjoys dreaming up things that are basically impossible for me to do, and then convincing me that no, I can totally do them! Brains lie, y'all. It's a problem.

Anyway, since I like to put my ridiculous plans on LJ, I feel that there is no reason not to do it again. Maybe this time I will break the pattern of "post plans on LJ, proceed to then completely fail at plans." (:::ETA::: This turned into something that was less plans and more "thinking out loud and processing stuff.")

( Plans! Plans? Plans. )
Holy Hannah that got long! YIKES. Don't bother reading that, I rambled a lot and it's mostly for my own benefit. Here is the tl;dr:

I want to de-clutter, downsize my stuff, and fix up the house I'm renting.

I want to buy a house by the end of summer, and might be doing so with my friend & coworker, KK.

I'm considering fostering teenagers in the future.

I want to eliminate all my debt.

My job is stressing me the fuck out.

I am looking to change careers, both to get away from my management, and to work in an area that interests me more and has a more reasonable schedule.

I want to improve my mental and physical health, and lose weight. I don't believe that health is directly correlated to thinness, but for me better health will be achieved in the same way that I will achieve weight loss, which is diet changes and exercise.

Ta-da! Done. :)

I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend. Catch you on the flip side!

Current Mood: discontent

Apparently I can access LJ from work, but not Dreamwidth, because the firewall recognizes DW as a blogging site, but not LJ. The ways of the firewall are many and mysterious.

It's been a... not great few months. The last time I posted was in September, I think, and that was shortly before everything went a little bit to hell. I despair of being able to keep up with my friends' posts, too, which makes me feel like the shittiest friend ever. So, you know, sorry for not keeping up with all of your lives! I will try to do better, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

First, the very bad news. I will put it behind a cut because it is very triggery for some. ( Cut for chronic illness, cancer, and attendant stuff. )

So that's what was happening with my mother. In the meantime, I was still trying to juggle mediation training, my masters' classes, and work, which blew up in my face. We were facing another staffing shortage, and I ended up being called in for quite a bit of overtime. The money was nice, but I didn't really want to go in, and it cost me dearly. The short version is that I fucked up my health, and then my sleep got even more messed up, and I fell really, really behind in my classes, so much so that I ended up dropping one even though it meant losing the tuition money permanently. It was either that or fail both courses and flush the entire amount of money down the drain, so in the end the choice was a no-brainer.

The health thing has been weird. Part of it is a flare-up of Menière's (vertigo, puking, tinnitus, etc.), but there were a lot of mystery symptoms, too. My best guess is that a lot of them were stress related.

I ended up stepping down as clerk of First Day School at Quaker Meeting, and I haven't been back since August, for which I feel incredibly guilty. I should go back, but I'm a bit of a shame spiral about it, and the longer I stay away the harder it is to go back. I feel like I let everybody down, and I don't know how I'm going to look any of them in the face after giving up on FDS. Objectively speaking I know it was probably the best decision to make, as I've hated the position ever since I accepted it in 2015 and it stressed me out to no end, but there was never anyone around who wanted to take it up and FDS is too important to let it go entirely, so I just kept going until I absolutely couldn't anymore.

Mediation training is done for now, and I am trying desperately to get some experience, but so far I haven't heard back from the places I've reached out to. I've scaled back to one class this semester, and even there I am falling behind with every passing week. It's a little dishearteneing, but I am going to make a determined effort to catch up. At least I am finding the subject matter really interesting, and since I'm doing this for my own benefit and nothing else, that's what I'm focusing on. The moment this stops being interesting or enjoyable, I'm going to stop.

Work has also been extra amounts of not fun.( Cut for work-related things. )

Work nonsense aside, I am trying slowly to come out of this nearly five-months slump. I am considering asking my doctor to up my Wellbutrin again, and see if that helps. I went from a non-therapeutic dose to the actual minimum therapeutic dose, and that did help a bit, so I wonder if a higher dose might not actually get my brain to cooperate more.
( Cut for domestic things which are not super interesting. )

I don't know if I'll be able to make it all work. Maybe if I can get my act together a little bit, I can at least try to keep track of my progress (if any) here. I keep trying to check in reglarly here, but I keep getting overwhelmed and then not coming back. I have no idea if I can break that pattern. We shall see, I guess!

Current Mood: working

Dreamwidth didn't crosspost this, for reasons which escape me, so I'm doing it manually. Apologies if this somehow ends up posting twice.

( Trigger warning for cancer and death. )
Moving on to stuff that's not about cancer and death...

I've been watching a lot of TV recently. Probably more than is reasonably good for me, but that's actually par for the course. The difference is that, rather than watching it during the down times on my night shifts, I've been doing it more at home. At work I've actually been working a bit more. But in the meantime, at home, rather than do anything productive, I've been watching Veronica Mars (among others) and playing an unhealthy amount of Stardew Valley.

Shockingly, I've been having a lot of trouble managing my time. It feels like I'm juggling too many balls at once (funny story, I can't physically juggle even two balls, I've tried), and so, true to form, I did what I always do when I feel overwhelmed and just kind of, well, avoided everything except the bare minimum of what I needed to do to get by.

The good thing is that I have a puppy, and she needs me to get out of the house every day. I haven't always taken her for long walks, but I have taken her out each day, and I try to work with her on her training each day, so that's probably been the best thing for my mental health. That, and the fact that she is the cutest, sweetest, most loving dog in the universe. It's all very helpful. :)

Otherwise, though, things aren't awesome. I think the trigger for this latest massive avoidance is the extra $1,500 I'm getting charged for university. There's nothing like financial stress to knock me for a loop and make me metaphorically crawl under my own bed and refuse to deal with the world. Is it productive? Nope. Is it my default behaviour? Yep. So, something to work on, I guess.

I'm heading to

fearsclave 's this weekend for some romping around in the wilderness with Peggy, and introducing her to the joys of fishing. Or, more specifically, to the joys of fish.

fearsclave has a long-standing tradition of letting his dogs lick the fish before they get taken back and cleaned (thoroughly!) for later consumption. Hopefully we will have an excellent day of fishing, which means actually catching fish. Not catching fish is still a good day of fishing, but I would really like to see Peggy's reaction to a fish. My guess is that she will go bonkers.

I've got a short list of things I want to get done before I leave on Friday. I'm working on keeping things realistic, because I have a tendency to over-plan and have a poor sense of how much I can actually accomplish in a given amount of time. Apparently that's a common thing with ADHD, the inability to properly gauge the length of time unfamiliar tasks will take. That, and forgetting that you need to plan time *around* the task. Also, I get overambitious about plans when I'm on nights at work. I have hours stretching in front of me, and it always seems like future!me is going to have tons of energy and motivation to do all these things, and in practice future!me is way more interested in catching up on sleep. So I hope I've worked it out correctly this time.

Okay, time to get back to work. These night shift duties aren't going to do themselves.

Current Mood: optimistic

( Trigger warning for cancer and death )

Moving on to stuff that's not about cancer and death...

I've been watching a lot of TV recently. Probably more than is reasonably good for me, but that's actually par for the course. The difference is that, rather than watching it during the down times on my night shifts, I've been doing it more at home. At work I've actually been working a bit more. But in the meantime, at home, rather than do anything productive, I've been watching Veronica Mars (among others) and playing an unhealthy amount of Stardew Valley.

Shockingly, I've been having a lot of trouble managing my time. It feels like I'm juggling too many balls at once (funny story, I can't physically juggle even two balls, I've tried), and so, true to form, I did what I always do when I feel overwhelmed and just kind of, well, avoided everything except the bare minimum of what I needed to do to get by.

The good thing is that I have a puppy, and she needs me to get out of the house every day. I haven't always taken her for long walks, but I have taken her out each day, and I try to work with her on her training each day, so that's probably been the best thing for my mental health. That, and the fact that she is the cutest, sweetest, most loving dog in the universe. It's all very helpful. :)

Otherwise, though, things aren't awesome. I think the trigger for this latest massive avoidance is the extra $1,500 I'm getting charged for university. There's nothing like financial stress to knock me for a loop and make me metaphorically crawl under my own bed and refuse to deal with the world. Is it productive? Nope. Is it my default behaviour? Yep. So, something to work on, I guess.

I'm heading to

fearsclave 's this weekend for some romping around in the wilderness with Peggy, and introducing her to the joys of fishing. Or, more specifically, to the joys of fish.

fearsclave has a long-standing tradition of letting his dogs lick the fish before they get taken back and cleaned (thoroughly!) for later consumption. Hopefully we will have an excellent day of fishing, which means actually catching fish. Not catching fish is still a good day of fishing, but I would really like to see Peggy's reaction to a fish. My guess is that she will go bonkers.

I've got a short list of things I want to get done before I leave on Friday. I'm working on keeping things realistic, because I have a tendency to over-plan and have a poor sense of how much I can actually accomplish in a given amount of time. Apparently that's a common thing with ADHD, the inability to properly gauge the length of time unfamiliar tasks will take. That, and forgetting that you need to plan time *around* the task. Also, I get overambitious about plans when I'm on nights at work. I have hours stretching in front of me, and it always seems like future!me is going to have tons of energy and motivation to do all these things, and in practice future!me is way more interested in catching up on sleep. So I hope I've worked it out correctly this time.

Okay, time to get back to work. These night shift duties aren't going to do themselves.

Current Mood: optimistic

My kingdom for better organizational skills.

Peggy is growing like a weed with teeth. She is still ridiculously adorable. We experimented with puppy daycare, and unsurprisingly she LOVED it, but alas came home with a case of Bordetella (kennel cough). Luckily she's vaccinated for it, which has made it a very mild case, even though it didn't protect her entirely. She's had it for just over a week, but she seems 90% better today, so I am hopeful she will be all better in another day or so. She's been bored out of her skull staying home and resting, and a bored puppy is a puppy that gets into mischief, moreso than she usually does.

( Peggy picspam below the cut )
The rest of my life has been a lot less adorable (although Peggy more than makes up for it). Work is a shitshow. We are incredibly short-staffed, and we are hemorrhaging people, because our management is terrible. I and at least four other people are looking for work elsewhere (some more actively than others). I can't really actively look for work in mediation until I take four courses in Third Party Neutral mediation. I wanted to take them this summer and ran out of money, and NOW the damned Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution is stubbornly offering every course EXCEPT the first one, so I can't even start. Argh. I will also need to have a certain number of mediations under my belt, but I plan on volunteering at the Ottawa community mediation centre and hope that will count.

( Complaining about work under the cut )

Anyway, enough complaining about work. Apart from that, things are going just fine. It's just that work is a huge part of my life, and therefore occupies a lot of my thoughts. I try to leave work at work, but that hasn't been happening in the past few weeks, which is in and of itself a red flag.

The next thing I have to do is figure out how the hell to pay my tuition, because it's $1,500 more than what I budgeted for due to the fact that SURPRISE! full-time students get charged for a bunch of things I don't need, like a transit pass and insurance. I have a car, and I have insurance through work. I am going to see if I can get those knocked off my bill, because holy Hannah that is a lot of money.

I will be back with more Peggy updates soon, I hope! In the meantime, she is back in her crate with her lunch, because she was getting very barky with the cat and, bless her, she is incredibly shrill. So she gets to have a time out with some toys and her kibble and some treats, not that she views it that way. This way, though, we all get a break: her, the cats, and most importantly, me.

Current Mood: cynical
Crossposts: https://mousme.livejournal.com/1235229.html

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

I am working overtime tonight. It's the National Capital, there will be fireworks, and so we're on alert in case someone decides to do something Symbolic and Memorable. It's unlikely in the extreme, but apparently we are exercising an overabundance of caution on this most festive day.

I'm working with a fun shift tonight: my old supervisor and two others. We ordered hamburgers from Five Guys, and one girl brought in 0% beer, which was a cute idea, if not especially tasty. Mind you, I'm just not a fan of Heineken, so maybe people who like that beer would have enjoyed it more. We've decided to do some admin training (both the other employees are aspiring supervisors), and otherwise probably not much is going to happen. I'm pretty grateful for that because, to be honest, I am quite tired today. it's my sixth shift in a row, and my fourth night shift, and I am getting too old for this shit. Still, I could use the money, so here I am.

Currently we're fomenting revolution against our current management. SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION! Or, in our case, we are going to our union and weaponizing policy in our favour. Management have, uh, not exactly endeared themselves to us over the past eight or nine months, and people are getting really sick of their bullshit. I for one need to explore what unionization really entails for me, because I only have a general notion of it. If I'm going to be in a union, then I damned well better know what they can do for me, as long as I'm working here, anyway.

I talked to my therapist about the fact that I can't seem to pry myself out of bed with a crowbar on my days off in order to get stuff done. Even these days when I have to get up early so the puppy can pee, I often putter aimlessly about the house for several hours before I can really get myself to pull my act together and be productive. I was kind of hoping she'd have a magical formula or a cool life hack to make me spring out of bed like a young lamb, full of vim and vigour and ready to face the day! Unfortunately, it turns out that the cold reality is that you can't life hack your way out of chronic sleep deprivation. *sigh* I haven't been getting nearly enough sleep for... well, overall for years now, but moreso these past few weeks. Part of this is having a small puppy who needs to be taken out once per night and then early(ish) in the morning, but mostly it's my ridiculous job schedule, which means I go to bed at drastically different times during the week, and seriously messes up my sleep schedule. My Fitbit tells me I'm averaging about five hours a night, and I am a person who tends to do better on nine hours of sleep (rather than eight), so, yeah, I am living life as if I'm constantly jet-lagged.

With that in mind, one of the goals I have for the short term (and also the long term) is to try and protect my sleep better. It's extremely hard with 12 hour shifts, because on those days it's next to impossible to get even eight hours of sleep. If I choose to wake up at 4 am on a day shift to be able to get to work on time, that means I have to be in bed by 8 pm at the very latest. It's not often I manage this, and I usually count it a "good" night when I get to bed between 9 and 9:30 pm. I finish work at 6 pm (again, on day shifts), so I'm not home before 6:30, and that leaves me an hour and a half to have dinner, take care of the dog, and get anything else I need done before going to bed. So, you know, it's tricky at best. Still, that doesn't mean I shouldn't at least *try* to get enough sleep when I can. I find it more difficult in the summer, frankly. It's hot and very bright during the day, which means sleeping enough before my night shifts is next to impossible (I've had 2.5 hours of sleep each "night" for the past two days, for instance). I am going to have to find some workarounds besides my cute little sleep mask that comes off the moment I turn over in bed.

Starting next week I am going to come back from the hiatus I took from streaming for a few months. Between work, school, computer problems and puppy, something had to give, and I figured it should be streaming. It's the most expendable of my activities. I have been working with an artist and have a fun visual revamp of my channel planned, as well as several improvements to the overall production values of the stream. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things with that.

On that note, it is time for me to get back to work. I shall (I hope) check in again soon!

Current Mood: sleepy
Crossposts: https://mousme.livejournal.com/1234626.html

I ended up not coming back to my post, and now it's Thursday.

I will not, alas, be staying up for Critical Role tonight, because it's 18:30 and I can barely keep my eyes open. Better to go to bed early and watch tomorrow, when I'm fresh. Otherwise I'll just end up nodding off during the show and missing all the important stuff anyway. I'm pretty excited, because Vox Machina are all at Level 17 and above now, which means their story is ramping up toward the End Game of Level 20, and I can't wait to see what Matt has in store for them!

I've been lured into a new video game called Stardew Valley by

fearsclave , who is responsible for so many of my bad habits that I have truly lost count. It's a fun little game, although I'm finding certain aspects a little frustrating. I spent a couple of days obsessing about it, and then I had to work, which generally put the kibosh on most of my extra-curricular activities anyway. I may go back to it tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning, depending on how soon I decide to be boring and go to bed.

Otherwise, life proceeds as usual. I have done no unpacking since the weekend, when my parents visited, and I should probably get on that. Living out of half-opened boxes ain't all it's cracked up to be, but I'm also a terrible procrastinator, and apparently I'm willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience to avoid unpacking properly.

I promised myself I'd be doing more in May, and yet this week I have been a mix of mysteriously extra tired and also pretty busy, video games aside. I'm still not settled into anything remotely like a routine here, inasmuch as I am able to have routines in my life at all these days. There's a lot of upheaval at work again: more people leaving, a couple of new people coming in, but more going than coming, and so now I'm probably going to have to go back to training newbies, which I really don't enjoy. Bleh.

I also am kind of dipping my toe into paying closer attention to hockey. Yeah, I don't understand it either, but there you go. My home team are out of the playoffs ("No, Habs, no!") but my not-quite-home team, the Senators, are still in it for now, so I'm rooting for them. Many, if not most of my online friends are Penguins fans, and although I can't quite bring myself to root for an American team, Sidney Crosby is at least Canadian and is, I must say, pretty magical on the ice. So it's fun to watch my Pens friends get all excited about their boys.

Okay. My brain has officially turned to mush tonight. Time to give it a rest. :)

Current Mood: exhausted
Crossposts: http://mousme.livejournal.com/1229679.html

So, yeah, I really should found that company called "Good Intentions Asphalt and Cement."

I keep telling myself I should update more, and then more life stuff happens, and then I get overwhelmed with how much I'd have to write to get everyone up to speed, and so I just... don't post. Not my most shining moments, let me tell you.

( Cut because of triggers for mental illness and weight/body image issues )

Did I tell you my plans of taking dog training courses and eventually opening up my own business? I think I did. Anyway, the first semester is over, and the theory is going really well. The practice? Not so much. We're observing one of the puppy classes (which is going fine), and then doing basic obedience with our own dogs, following the new curriculum. The problem is that poor Sergent's anxiety levels go through the roof when he's in that class. First he has to sit or lie quietly for an hour during the puppy class behind a board so the puppies can't see him, and that stresses him out (because he can hear the high-energy puppies and can't see them and isn't free to move around). By the time obedience class comes around he's a nervous wreck. On several occasions he nearly pulled my shoulder out of its socket trying to get to the exit, poor thing. Of course, when he's that stressed he can't learn, and having him learn is a big part of how I'm being evaluated. So I have no idea if I'm going to pass this class or not. I also need to take Sergent to the vet, because I think the anxiety is making him chew his paws and his side, but I want to make sure it's just that and not a sign of something worse.

If I do pass, I've decided to skip the spring semester and do the fall semester instead. I've found it extremely punishing on my body and my schedule to do these classes, and I could use the break until September. Not to mention the finances. These classes are extremely expensive. In the meantime, I'm going to educate myself on how to start up my own business, and see if it's something I can realistically do.

Anyway, I have to jet to work. See you on the flip side!

Current Mood: rushed

I don't have a specific topic for this entry, just general catching up and making plans —most of which will never come to fruition, knowing me, but it's nice to dream. It's what my mother calls "building castles in Spain." I seem to recall that has a historical origin somewhere... hang on, I'm going to go look it up. Okay, I'm back (not that you can tell in textual form that I was gone), and the internet was mostly unhelpful, but it seems to stem from Charlemagne's abortive attempt at conquering Spain. So, there you go.

( Feel-good therapy )

( Projects and stuff )

Oh, and before I forget, I saw Ghostbusters last weekend with

toughlovemuse and

owldaughter, and it was amaaaaaaaaazeballs! I can't emphasize how much I enjoyed that movie. It did have some problems, but overall it was fun and engaging, and the women were all fantastic, and there was not one single fat joke in the whole movie! I was sort of bracing for impact on the latter, because of Melissa McCarthy. She's a fat woman in Hollywood, and the price of admission for that is to constantly have to make jokes at your own expense about your weight. I understand that that's how it works, but it doesn't mean I have to enjoy fat jokes. There were none, not even jokes about food apart from a running gag about wonton soup having a bad soup-to-wonton ratio. It was glorious. I have also joined the legions of fans who are super in love with Jillian Holtzmann. She has the most bad-ass fight sequence in the movie:

I mean, HOT DAMN.

She's weirdly not my favourite character, but she's definitely the character I'd want to hang out with/possibly take on a date. She's arguably the most brilliant/mad scientist of all the women, and she is entirely glorious.

If you haven't seen this movie, you should definitely go watch it (unless you are not into this sort of movie at all, in which case you probably won't like it).

Current Mood: good

Three entries in a week! This one is going to be short, but since tonight is Critical Role night, I don't feel bad about it, because I plan to come back with a longer post yelling at all of you about how AWESOME Critical Role is. No, I mean it, there will be yelling/capslocking, and general squeeing. You have been warned!

For those of you who are new to these parts, I must explain that, as much as I would like it to be otherwise, I basically have no chill. So whenever I come across something new that I like, I tend to throw myself into it unreservedly, and yell about it excitedly for quite a long time. (I should probably tag for that. LJ tags, so useful.) It will be easier to post about from home (I am on the stand-alone internet station at work), since I actually went out of my way to find fun gifs of the show, which I never do. You know I have to feel strongly about something if I did that. ;)

Anyway, I have to leave you hanging, because today is shaping up to be a busy day at work. I've been training a newbie since March, and we have another newbie coming in today. I told my boss last week that I couldn't train two newbies at once (my current newbie is... having trouble learning the ropes, alas, and needs a lot of supervision), and he agreed. So naturally yesterday he introduced me to the latest newbie and then was, like, "Okay, I have to go to a meeting, so I'm leaving him in your hands!"

ARGH.

I feel like I should have seen this coming. The newest guy was only supposed to start next week, but here he was, a full week early, being dumped in my lap. I had nothing ready for training purposes, and my other newbie made a pretty big mistake (while I was distracted) which took a long time to fix, and I'm pretty sure I didn't keep all my plates spinning properly yesterday. We'll find out today how much broken crockery I'll need to pick up, I guess. I'm still going to be training both of them today, but at least this time I've had a chance to prepare some material the newest guy can work on while I'm training the other girl.

Time to start pushing that boulder back up the hill. Tonight, a more joyous post about Critical Role!

Current Mood: determined

November has arrived again, with its customary dip in my energy levels. I'm experimenting with being off Facebook and Twitter again, after a successful one-month hiatus in May. This time I'm not enjoying it as much. I took a break in May because those platforms were making me a little crazy, but right now I'm finding that I feel more isolated from my friends and community than anything else. Maybe November isn't a good time of year for introspection. At least in May it's sunny and the days are longer.

Apart from that, my news is mostly good. I got the promotion I applied for, despite the fact that I thought I was by far the least likely of the candidates to get it. Apparently I got a bit lucky. There were four of us applying for two positions. The girl I thought was most qualified got one of the positions. Two guys also applied from outside our section, but one of them withdrew without my knowing, and the other one, by all accounts, had a bad day when he interviewed. He'd applied before and been passed over in favour of a more qualified applicant, and it seems that he came to this new interview with something of a surly attitude as a result. My boss told me that it had showed that I'd come prepared, and that I had done really well, so no one on the interview panel doubted for a moment that I should get one of the two open positions.

So, in short, promotion! YAY! Also, in related good news, fully 75% of the supervisor positions in my section are now staffed by women. Go us! The three of us also get along like a house on fire, so it's going to be so much fun to work with them. I'm excited. :)

I'm also going to be spending the next four weeks training to perform a completely new set of functions at work, unrelated to my new supervisory role. Well, sort of related, but I would have had to learn them anyway, regardless of the outcome of the promotion process. That means four week of an almost bourgeois schedule of working 06:00 to 14:00, Monday to Friday. It will be very interesting to see if I can deal with working five days in a row with only the weekend in between for four weeks. I've been working shifts for eight years now, it feels weird to be going back to a "regular" work day, however briefly.

By the way, we are horrifically short-staffed at my office, and we will likely soon be opening up new jobs (again). If you or anyone you know is a Canadian citizen with a high school education or higher, good computer skills, and a more than basic grasp of French (you need to be functional but not fluent), and you want to come work for some great bosses (myself included, now!), drop me a line! I will send you the application information the moment the jobs open again. :)

I've also been nominated to become the Clerk for the First Day School of the local Quaker Meeting. It sounds more glamorous than it is. ;) Basically it just means I'd be responsible for herding the cats in order to keep FDS running smoothly. First Day School is the kids' program at Meeting, a bit like Sunday School, only a lot less formal. There's singing and crafts and occasionally lessons about what it means to be a Quaker/Friend. Honestly, I'm still learning myself how to be a Quaker, so I feel ill-equipped to be the Clerk, but most of the FDS Committee have been there for years, and they're all burnt out. So I've agreed to take the helm, and two of them will be mentoring me until I get the hang of it.

Technically I'm still an Attender at the Meeting, not an official member. I've started doing some reading to become more informed, and the more I learn the less I feel I know. I think that's sort of normal, at least at first. I don't want to ask to become a Member before I feel like I know what I'm doing. The Religious Society of Friends has had a long and rich written tradition, letters and essays and diaries, and there is a lot of history to go through. I basically know absolutely nothing of the complexity and nuance of thinking that evolved over the centuries to bring the Quakers to where they are today. So, that's one of my current projects right now.

The adoption project has slowed to a crawl while we sort out paperwork. I need to get a police check done to prove that I have no criminal record (yes, you may all laugh now) and no history of abuse toward children or anyone or anything else (go on, laugh harder). Also, even though I've been stable and not medicated for nine years, they want my former psychiatrist to sign off on my mental health. So I've been jumping through hoops trying to get him to answer his damned phone. He's moved to a private practice, and I've already left messages several times. His secretary assures me he'll call back "when he gets the chance," but it's been three weeks, so I'm a little irked. I realise I'm not a current or paying client, but sheesh. Once all those papers are in order, I'll find out whether or not I've been accepted as a potential candidate. If I'm accepted, things will proceed as they are right now. If not, I am toying with a Plan B, which I will explore more in depth if needs be. I'm not thinking about it too much right now, as it involves a pretty drastic life change, which won't happen at all if I end up on the waiting list for kids.

In the interim, I've been spending my free time returning to the gym, playing video games on the computer, and watching probably way too much TV for my own good, even though I've become even pickier about what shows I like to watch. The trouble is that, even if I'm picky, there's still a lot of enjoyable programs available, especially once you have both cable and Netflix. Yes, I caved and got cable, because my DSL internet provider, despite promising speeds of "up to" 30 Mbps, never delivered anything above 300 Kbps, and it was rather frustrating to pay for a service I wasn't getting. So I coughed up extra money for much better internet, and got a land line and cable TV out of the deal, too, which really isn't half bad.

The rest of tonight's plans involve sacking out on the sofa with the cats, the dog at my feet, and the latest episode of Sleepy Hollow (or maybe Elementary, I haven't decided yet). Then it will be bedtime. In fact, it will be past bedtime, as I am now old and boring and am usually in bed by 21:00 these days. Kids, lawn, etc.

How's everyone else in LJ land doing? Let me know!

Current Mood: content

Well, Canada, you didn't exactly vote for change, but at least you didn't vote for the status quo. Many of my non-Canadian friends have congratulated me on having a Disney prince as a Prime Minister, which I think is hilarious. I have my hopes set to "cautious optimism," since the Liberals are basically a centre-right party who are slightly to the left of the Conservatives, so I don't expect any kind of radical change.

I just spent the last four days at a fan-centric convention (no stars, no special guests, just fangirls fangirling about what we love), and it was wonderful but totally exhausting. I spent 12 hours driving yesterday (8 with friends, 4 by myself), and I am paying for it today in very sore muscles and stiff tendons. I'm not looking forward to going to the gym in a little while. It was fantastic to get away and hang out with like-minded people for a few days, though. I have been very spoiled this year in terms of travel, I must say.

I have become a Busy Person, and I don't like it. I'm not sure how to fix that, because I genuinely enjoy my extracurricular activities, and all my errands need to be run, but I still need to fix it because I have spent nearly two months without any alone time. As an introvert, this is making me a little crazy. It's not like I have all that many extracurriculars, either: I have the soup kitchen on Mondays, and Meeting for Worship on Sundays, and that's pretty much the only regularly scheduled stuff I have. It's not like I can suddenly stop grocery shopping or going to doctor's appointments. What has really started eating into my time is my return to my local gym, which, while good for me, doesn't (to me) count as down time. I am working with one of the trainers, and she only ever seems available in the middle of the day, which tends to put a crimp in any other plans I'd want to make otherwise. Anyway, I'll have to give it some thought, and see what I can do. I don't enjoy worshipping at the altar of busyness. It's a social sickness that needs to be eradicated.

The adoption process is going along at a moderate clip so far. I finished my PRIDE training a couple of weeks ago, and had my first home visit around the same time. It was actually a lot less invasive than I had anticipated. I thought for sure that my assessor would poke into every nook and cranny in my home, and so I dutifully tidied the whole house so that it would be as "child-safe" as possible, but she barely glanced into each every room, and pointed out a couple of things I'd need to do to conform to safety standards. So far, so good. My next "home" visit is actually an interview at the Ottawa CAS, and takes place on Thursday. During this bit we're apparently going to detail my own personal history from Day 0 all the way to today. Holy hell, Batman. It will be interesting, to say the very least. I understand why we have to do it, but I think I should invest in some lozenges. I foresee a lot of talking. I still have two classes to take: one on Openness in Adoption, and the other on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. After that, if I'm approved, it's all a waiting game. CAS has a child-centric approach, so what they do is look at the current children in care and determine which families would be a good match for them. So even if there are lots of children in care, that doesn't mean that I would be the right parent for them. Adopting could take a few weeks, or it could take a few years.

Tomorrow I'll be interviewing for a potential promotion at work. The other candidates are all very strong, and all of them have interviewed before (I have not), so I'm not holding out much hope that I'll get the position. That being said, I do interview very well, so I refuse to despair, either. I will prepare as best I can, and that will have to suffice. The promotion would be nice, though, as it comes with a pay increase, too. I'm not hurting for money, but I'm trying to get rid of some consumer debt, and a bit of extra income would go a long way to fixing that.

I've also got a doctor's appointment on Thursday. Partly it's to get a form filled out for Ottawa CAS, so that they can make sure I'm not about to keel over and leave any prospective children orphaned, and partly I want to get my shoulder checked, as I seem to have mysteriously injured it, and it's not getting any better after several weeks.

So there you have it. My life isn't very exciting, but I thought I would update anyway. How is everyone else? How's kicks?

Current Mood: exhausted

I don't think I could possibly catch up on everything that's happened since I last posted here, so I won't even try. That being said, there's stuff coming up that I may want to blog about in more depth, so making a bit of an effort now is in order.

First off, hi LJ Land! I haven't been posting, but I do read everything you write. <3

Anyway, have a bullet-point version of the past few months:

I adopted three new cats in February. It was meant to be two, but then fearsclave was forced to rehome his kitties due to health concerns, and so I got his Maggie as well. Alas, one of the other two cats I got is not integrating into the household, so he will be vacating the premises and going to live with good friends of mine. So far all the cats mostly get along, with some spats and negotiating of territory still happening. Things are settling down slowly but surely.

I am still volunteering in the soup kitchen at Shepherd's (I won't use the full name, because I don't want their media relations people reading all my posts), and have also started volunteering one day a week at their community garden plot, helping to grow and harvest vegetables for the soup kitchen. I still love it, although the work is often physically very demanding.

I went on a trip to Barcelona with my parents in March, which was far too short but truly wonderful. I posted lots of pictures on Facebook, so anyone following me there probably saw them.

The work restructuring continues apace. It is, as I suspected, a PITA, and has resulted in a lot more work being given to much fewer people. Those people are also the ones who are paid the least, not surprisingly. It appears every workplace is the same when it comes to penny pinching: the higher up you are, the less you feel the pinch.

I also managed to escape to PEI for a while this summer, also with my parents. I've joked with them that we've seen more of each other since I moved to Ottawa than in the past five years I lived in Montreal combined. That's not quite true, but they have been making extra efforts to come out and see me (and vice versa!) since I moved.

The past two years of commuting to and from work in Ottawa, as well as trying to run two households on one income, paying for private daycare, and then renovating the house in order to sell it, all took a pretty serious financial toll on me. The short, ugly version is that I accumulated a fair bit of debt in order to do that. So I've been tightening my belt (the two trips notwithstanding, although in both cases my parents were generous enough to pay for almost everything) and looking for extra sources of income. I'm currently trying my hand at being a mystery shopper. It doesn't bring in a fortune, and it's not super great work for someone with anxiety, but I'm hoping it will at least offset some of my monthly bills. Every little bit helps, right? I also need to get my act together and try to sell some of the "extra" furniture that doesn't fit in my new, smaller house.

In happier, not debt-filled news, I have been approved by the Ottawa Children's Aid Society to continue with PRIDE training (Parental Resources for Information, Development, and Education) as well as a home study. The training starts on September 9th, and if all goes well I should be done with everything by the end of October. If I'm approved as a prospective adoptive parents after that, then I get to start the waiting game of being matched up with a child (or maybe children!) in need of a permanent home.

So that's me in a nutshell. I may be using this space to talk about the PRIDE training in September and October, so apologies in advance to everyone who finds that sort of stuff super boring. I promise to put it behind a cut if it gets overly long. :)

I know lots of you have been having a really rough year. I hope you're all keeping as well as possible under the circumstances. *hugs all around*

Current Mood: busy

I have finally hit that wall I was afraid I would hit earlier last week. So most of my energy has gone into getting the dog to and from the vet, running errands, doing some minimal cleaning and laundry in the house, commuting, work, more errands, and a bit of personal writing that is not going to go on LJ ever.

Alas, that means that my actual LJ posts have suffered over the last week, and for this I am sorry. I will simply carry over the project into July and finish off the topics in order.

I have had my arm twisted into going to see the Sunset Ceremonies tonight. I don't really want to go, especially as I won't know anyone there, but it's honestly easier to go than to deal with the person in question's constant badgering and demanding to know <i>why</i> I'd rather spend time quietly in my room than go out in the midst of hundreds of people to see the RCMP Musical Ride. The guy means well, but right now I want to punch him in the face a lot. I don't think an hour has gone by since we started working together yesterday that he hasn't come to ask me about it. Am I going tonight? What about tomorrow? What route will I be taking? Do I want him to show me the best route home on Google Maps? Oh, and don't try to leave right away, you have to go see the stables. Etc.

INTROVERT SMASH. >_<

Anyway.

I'm sure it will be lovely. I've never seen the musical ride, so at least now I'll be able to say that I've seen it.

This is again, not the promised pet post. I may try to write that one on the plane. My first flight boards in about 20 minutes. I've spent the past couple of hours just sitting here at the airport in Moncton, not doing much of anything except futz around with Twitter. I should have spent it writing, or doing something useful with my time, but my brain just wouldn't cooperate.

It doesn't help that my neck and shoulder still hurt like the very devil, which is making even sitting rather uncomfortable. Luckily the Robaxacet is helping, making it uncomfortable rather than excruciating, and in just a moment I will break out the Aleve in order to get me through the next two flights and the rather long layover in Montreal.

In the meantime, I figure I'll start making a to-do list of everything I need to get done in the four and a half days I'll have at home before I go back to work.

Stop by the office early Sunday morning to scan and send in the form to claim my expenses.

Get a couple of new articles of summer clothing for work, mostly tops. I learned this week that my summer wardrobe has passed from being "gently used" to looking shabby enough that it won't pass muster for work. *sigh*

Drive back to Montreal

Call Réno Dépot about the fence installation. I am going to give them an earful about how rude their subcontractor was with me over the phone.

Chase down the guy who's supposed to install the floor, since he's been AWOL for about 10 days now just on giving me an estimate for the job. I am not impressed.

Check on the basement to see if it still smells of cat pee, and act accordingly.

Take the dog to the vet on Wednesday morning for his eye surgery.

Go to U-Haul and buy boxes so I can start getting my own stuff packed.

Start sorting through my things and getting rid of all the things I don't need.

Start packing up my things, probably starting with the books and miscellaneous stuff in the basement.

Find a place in Montreal/the West Island (or hell, even Ottawa) which takes or recycles old electronics. I have random gizmos that don't work anymore coming out my ears, but I feel bad just throwing them out, especially my old, defunct laptop.

Call/text back my real estate agent so we can review where things stand on the house.

Get one more paving slab for the back yard. pdaughter was good enough to put the slabs down during my absence, but I'm apparently missing one, which isn't a big deal.

Do laundry. All the laundry. /o\

Make a new budget for the summer/fall

See my parents Wednesday evening

Walk the dog every day (except for Wednesday) so he won't go stir-crazy.

Go to luvenditti's birthday party on Tuesday! (Yay outings!)

I'm honestly a little worried that I'm going to crash and burn really hard once I get back. I simply don't have time for that, so I'm not sure what to do to stave that off. I've been going non-stop for 13 days now, 11 of which were 12-hour night shifts and 2 of which were (are) travel days. If I get back early enough tonight, I'm hoping a good night's sleep will help.

Okay. Four minutes until boarding. Here I go!

Current Mood: stressed

I didn't have time for the pet post today, so you'll have to settle for a Real Life Stuff kind of post for now.

Tonight is my last shift here in Moncton. It's been a very exciting thirteen days, but I'm looking forward to getting home. They actually are asking for some people to stay on until July 4th, but even if I wasn't done my own unit needs me back. Besides, I have renovations to organise and the dog to take to the vet, and plenty of things that simply aren't getting done while I'm not there.

Sometimes yesterday morning I must have slept funny, because I have hurt my neck in a pretty serious way. It's not as bad as in 2009 when I had to be medicated to the gills to even be functional (I couldn't lie down or do anything other than keep my back ramrod straight because even tensing my neck muscles ever so slightly was excruciating), but it's pretty painful nonetheless. I couldn't find a position to sleep in that didn't pull on muscles in a bad way.

Our visit to the Hopewell Rocks was cancelled due to my coworkers being wet blankets who didn't want to get up three hours early to drive out there and back. Boo. Then again, seeing how much pain I'm in, perhaps it's just as well. I am sad I won't get to see them, though. I guess I'll just have to come back to New Brunswick some other time and see them then!

The shift supervisor of the operators who were on duty the night of the shooting took us out tonight for a tour of Moncton and then for a lobster dinner! It was delicious, but very rushed because the tour took longer than expected. I had to take half of my lobster to go. Still, it means that I have a lobster snack waitin for me later tonight!

Friday night is always busy around here, so it's actually taken me about three hours to write this entry so far. Compared to the quiet nights we had earlier this week, we've had a fair bit of action tonight. Nothing too terrible, no lives truly in danger (which is good!), but someone lit his food on fire (accidentally, this was not meant to be a flambé) in a big apartment building, so that kept us busy for a while.

Okay, make that four hours to write this entry. Eesh. Lots of stuff happening. Lots of custody disputes tonight, and one little kid. "My mom and her boyfriend are fighting and yelling and throwing stuff at each other." Super calm, too. You could tell it wasn't the kid's first time calling. :(

The regular operators are going to start coming back gradually as of tomorrow, so things should slowly get back to normal here. I think everyone is going to heave a collective sigh of relief as life goes on in the wake of the tragedy.

*checks clock* *sighs* Still not time for more Robaxacet. It's the only thing keeping me functional tonight. That and the Aleve I took around 16:00. I accidentally took two of those at the time, not realising I'm only allowed two a day (one every two hours), so I guess I'm stuck for the moment.

So that's the news for now. In 24 hours I'll be on a plane heading for Ottawa, and from there I'll be driving home in the morning. Good times. I'm going to miss all the people I met here, but it'll be good to get back.

Current Mood: sore

Well, it's been 8 straight shifts, and now I'm tired. It's been 96 hours. Three more shifts to go, for another 36 hours of work. I slept right through my alarm today, too. It's a miracle I woke up on time. I have time to slip in this LJ entry now, and if work is quiet I might have more time to write when I get there (Wednesday nights are not usually that busy, but you never know!).

I'm going to stop apologising for being late on all my June topics, because you're probably tired of that particular broken record by now. For the moment I'm going to run to get dressed and get ready for work, and hope for the best.

I just woke up to two messages from the people meant to install the fence. Suddenly there are apparently trees in the way, and they can't install the fence, oh noes! Fucking hell. Of course I am 1,000km away and working nights, so even though I returned their calls I won't be able to do a damned thing about it from here. For the record, there are no trees where I want the fence. I walked around the yard with the guy from the company, showed him everything, and he smiled and nodded and told me it wouldn't be a problem. He asked if they could cut some of the lilac branches on one of the bushes, and I gave him the go-ahead on that. I have no idea what the problem is, and of course no one is answering their phones now, even though when I called it was 16:00 local time. Fuck everything.

In more pleasant news, the local crew of operators is taking us out Friday afternoon for a sight-seeing tour of a local natural wonder called the Hopewell Rocks. We won't be able to take advantage of it for too long, since we have to work before and after, and we need to squeeze in some sleep in that time too, but I for one am really looking forward to something to break up the pattern of work-sleep-work-sleep. Of course, I'll be completely exhausted. Fried toast will look chipper compared to me, since Friday night is my last shift and is generally the busiest night of the year. At least it won't be the full moon or Friday the 13th like last week. ;)

Then Saturday my "late" hotel check-out is at 14:00, which means very little sleep again. Good times. It's not like I'll be able to sleep in when I get home, either, because there will be a million things to do. Even if I stay in Ottawa overnight (I'm supposed to be getting in around 01:00 or so), I'll still have to get up early so I can drive to Montreal afterward. The paving slab project in the yard will have to be finished, then the fence and the basement renos... so basically I'll have four days of non-stop work to do at home before I go back to Ottawa and start my regular job again.

*resists the impulse to curl into a ball*

Current Mood: irate

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Corner of Bourbon & Division

Her Words of Wisdom Scratched Into The Door

Entries tagged with work

The "Q" Word

Paved with good intentions, etc.

Everything All At Once

"Life is change; how it differs from the rocks."

It's been nearly 6 months, time for another post! :P

Bad family news and general minor mental health issues

Bad family news and general minor mental health issues

Where was I?

Another day, another dollar

Whoops!

The road to hell...

Varia

Not quite in a row...

November Update

What a lovely day!

Not really catching up...

A little burnt out...

Almost Done

In lieu of a themed post, a real life update

Hitting the Proverbial Wall