I don’t know how my e-mail gets so out of hand. I check it every day, usually multiple times. I mark as spam anything thing from anywhere I don’t want to see again. I pay my bills when the land. And yet, ninety-two freaking e-mails not counting the ones I had looked at and hadn’t answered yet. The feeling I had when I deleted everything? Priceless. Because THIS time I’m going to keep on top of things . . .
What made you happy this week?
I did a work observation for the first time at another site and it was mentally taxing in a way not even university exams were. And that it went well is a relief. It’s amazing how I’ve gotten so used to stress over the years that I don’t know that I am anxious until something is over.
I’m happy that I had this experience and learned something new about myself.
At my 2-week appointment after foot surgery, the doctor told me how to slowly decrease pain meds and to slowly increase activity. Also, I saw before and after x-rays that astounded me (what? A normal foot instead of a monstrosity).
On the way home my husband said, “Wine?” I instantly dropped the Tylenol and aspirin and decreased the Advil dose. I ate at the dining room table that evening and am eating lunches and dinners there. The second night after the appointment we drank wine.
I’m feeling better!
Wine makes everything better. This message brought to you by the woman who is about to have wine.
I have a nice chunk of vacation coming up starting this week and that makes me very happy. As I got called an evil liberal pop tart at work yesterday by a customer, (I wear a mask to work, apparently that is enough) I think that I am ready for a break from the public.
So I have lots of plans for my time off, to be productive and lazy by turns.
Pop tart?
I get the evil liberal because that’s just standard, but pop tart?
Yeah, I don’t know. I keep misremembering the line and calling myself a donut… Channelling Faking It, maybe?
I’m taking some time off too, totally fine with avoiding people!
I have just finished my birthday week vacation and enjoyed most of it immensely. I went hiking, met a friend for lunch, bought myself the latest Mercedes Lackey book, picked up Indian food for my birthday meal, and got a pedicure. The only downside to it…it’s over, back to work and reality tomorrow!
Happy birthday week!
It was my birthday too this week but I didn’t think of it as my birthday week which is a shame as I worked late on my actual birthday…
I am definitely going to have a birthday week next year!
Happy birthday belatedly to both of you, Rouan and LN!!
I’ve got over 17000 unread emails. I will never catch up.
I shoved all my old emails into year folders over the summer. It took ages but now once I have dealt with an email, I put it in this year’s archive so I never have many emails to deal with and I will delete the yearly folders when I don’t need to keep them anymore.
Bliss!
Me too. Sometimes for Christmas or my husband’s birthday I will delete a couple of thousand.
Due to a doctor’s appointment, I was out of the office while contractors messed about with an order that was supposed to ship, and caused hurricane levels of drama and stress. SO glad to have missed it, the one phone call hearing about it was quite enough!
I am enjoying my stripped back Halloween decorations – since i don’t think I will get many (any?) trick or treaters this year, it’s not worth putting up things that can’t be seen from the road, but the lights and skeleton look good, and I will put up the giant inflatable spider when the grass has been cut for the last time, so that will be a bonus. As will spending an hour or two taking it all down, instead of……. 4?
I’ve had tackling my email on my to-do list for the longest time. I have 403 messages, 38 unread, in my inbox, but that doesn’t count the messages in folders—I have 160+ unread messages in them. I need a better system. And although I’m tired and feel like sitting today, I don’t feel like sitting at my computer going through email.
On the happiness side, yesterday I planted a sedum that was taken from my grandmother’s. I’d kept it in a pot for way too long, and finally just planted it. Hoping it does well in its new spot.
We had strong winds yesterday and rain overnight. The good news is that 3/4 of all the leaves that were already on the ground have been blown elsewhere. The not so good news is there are still leaves on the neighboring trees.
Got ahead of myself for Working Wednesday by cleaning the top half of the refrigerator. The bottom half, the freezer, will be a project. Looks like I’ll have to take everything out to remove the baskets in order to clean the bottom. I’ve got the time but not the initiative.
Speaking of the ground I get confused when reading that someone in a house refers to something fallen it has fallen on the ground what happened to the floor? Random thought!
I saw Hamilton again yesterday.. Same production, different town, but (a) much closer seats, which really helped, and (b) they had FOUR ASL interpreters there! I normally go for the ASL shows at this particular location and the two ladies that do it are really great, but they brought in two guys from the SF show and KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK. They acted it out SO well, it was REALLY fun and funny and I kept cracking up and elbowing my mom to keep telling her to look at their faces (they had permission for masks off during the show). I was amused at how during “Say No To This” the girl doing Maria’s parts was like, affectionately rubbing his arm and being more seductive than what was going on stage. (I am wondering if these two are dating/married or something, actually?) The same guy did both Alexander and King George and clearly he was having a GREAT TIME doing that. It was the best show I’ve ever seen.
Other than that, I’m still using up vacation time and I got permission to have a four day weekend (I usually can’t take Mondays or Fridays off these days but got permission to get two Mondays). I don’t really have plans but will probably jus loaf around since I spent yesterday driving for like 5 hours to see this show and come back.
Managed to get my haircut on Saturday. I really needed to get that done because I have so much to do next week (mammogram, dog to the groomer, 3 meetings, minutes and covid booster). The following week is not as bad.
I did get jury duty postponed to December, which, oddly, is much more convenient than November.
Lots of crows around. I really like seeing them when I walk Pixie.
What’s more, the odds on jury duty in December improve, because no one really WANTS to schedule a jury trial then. Let us know how that works out!
I walked at one of my new favorite spots and saw a Northern Flicker, a Black Swallowtail caterpillar, a plant know by the wonderful name Hearts A’ Bursting with Love AND a beaver dam!
I am not a World Famous Author, so I don’t need to deal with nearly the volume of email as Some People I Could Mention. Amazon acknowledges an order? Tells me it’s shipped? DELETE unread. It’s arrived? DELETE unread. Advertisements from… anyone? DELETE unread. Fan mail for an old story? Read and reply, immediately. THEN delete.
I used to keep all those on-line orders, because the Commonwealth collects tax on un-taxed internet purchases. But Amazon started taxing for me, so I didn’t need the records. Deleting that saved a lot of space.
But what made me happy this week was interpreting “I am intrigued on the picture book conversion. Hard?” as a request for instruction, and unleashing the Inner Nerd to produce a tutorial. Whee! I suspect I’ll work on that tutorial and… turn it into an eBook! Then I’ll have to figure out where to put it so anyone can download it. Before that, it needs improvement. Lots and lots of improvement. And illustrations. Lots and lots of illustrations. 🙂
While I was in a Good Mood, I added to my Kindle Library: Fool Me Once: A Tarot Mystery (Book 2). I liked the first one enough to get the sequel. A couple of Gin‘s books, Two Cats are Better Than One and One Cat for the Road. I hope to be able to report their completion come Thursday. 🙂
We are still finding places for the motherlode of stumps that the wonderful tree people cut for us. One group is strictly for Mr. Fluffypants to lounge on and do paw washing or mouse stalking from. Two are combination waterbowl and seed/peanut feeding zones, and our latest one is a marvelous waist-high seed stump confection with perching sticks soaring up from the center. It’s circling the gravestone of my best-ever cat, so if his spirit is hanging about, he will have a lot to look at.
As I was sweeping autumn leaves off the patio to use in a winter tree nursery patch (the behind-yard neighbors cut down a lot of the overgrown hedge between us, and their new fence doesn’t hide us from their windows nearly as much as the old hedge used to), it suddenly occurred to me that everyone on this site can be experiencing different seasons simultaneously: some of you are watching snowdrops and daffodils, some are wandering about in the fog or sunshine of clement places, and others like me are anticipating colder weather and longer nights. The thought made me mostly happy but a little dizzy — same world, different worlds, sort of thing.
Happy whatever, everybody!
Happy whatever, jinx! (Whatever is my favorite!)
My phone’s weather app is set to give me weather for Oslo and for Christchurch NZ as well as a wide range of places in North America (from Florida to northern Alberta). All places where people I know either live or travel to regularly. It gives me that same round-the-world dizziness.
I live in Christchurch. I can tell you the weather forecast at this time of year is pretty much ‘prepare for anything’ every day!
It was a good week. Attended book group after a 2 month absence and my first board meeting for community garden. Second last big school project is done and last one is half done. The warm weather seems to be coming to a close but it’s mid-October and haven’t needed sweaters or heavy jackets yet.
It was a fairly crappy week, but today I got to go with my bestie Ellen to visit my goddess-children (Nate, 13 and Sophie, 14 and how the hell did that happen) and my friends their parents. The day started out pretty badly, when Ellen got a massive flat on her way to meet up with me, but we left her car where it was and went anyway. Took the kids to Animal Adventure Park (where April the giraffe used to live), which is one of our summer traditions (yes, I realize it is the middle of October, it almost didn’t happen). Made the kids and us happy to go and see all the amazing animals, and made mom and dad happy to have a house free of sullen teens for a few hours to get things done.
The weather had turned cold overnight and spat rain occasionally, but we still had a great time. When we got back to the house, we were treated to homemade pasta and sauce made from tomatoes from their garden. A lovely day, other than the car, which turned out to be something of a disaster, but at least didn’t keep us from doing what we wanted to do.
Happiness this week was a visit with grown son. Not only did we get to relax, talk, go for a walk, and celebrate his dog’s birthday, but he brought me a big shepherds pie casserole, which means for at least the next week I won’t have to play the nightly “what should I have for dinner” game.
Yay!
We set a move date! We can’t buy since job hunting is still on but I’m getting out of this neighbourhood, city. And since job hunting at his level doesn’t take much time per day I’m drafting him.
The dismay! Mostly he writes for fun, he can “get so much done” without the bureaucracy around an actual paid position. He still will, I’m not expecting more than I do and that’s 2-3 hours a day, max. But him helping means me staying on track. 4-6 hours, we might even be done well in advance of moving day. Pleased.
And my brain is willing to work on this subject again. I thought of 3 improvements to our space this morning before breakfast. I had been having trouble caring about easily fixed messes. Today I woke happy, enthusiastic, and even energetic
GDs came for a visit yesterday. We baked cookies and made scones. The girls sell the cookies to the neighbours. Best neighbours ever. Will reciprocate when their grandchildren come selling their goods.
R was composing a song while G and I made the scone mix. She is Hilarious. She doesn’t take piano lessons just plays whatever sounds good then writes down a few words. At the big finish she was contemplating what words to write. I asked her if she had written joy yet. She informed me she has just finished it; it is called The Song of Joy. They brought me happiness and joy this week.
And I made another pie with the all butter pastry. Best crust ever. A pie with figs, raspberries, blueberries, and thawed rhubarb from the summer. Just threw in fruit I like. So good if I don’t say so myself. Happiness is baking again.
It made me happy to decline a freelance project that was going to give me a coronary, to know I had enough sense not even to begin. Also got a haircut and spent time with a friend who said nice things to me, as she always done, affirming life decisions and direction I’m going. Also, that I sent Stanley Tucci’s new memoir, Taste, to a friend who loved it, as I did.
I had a long phone call with a distant cousin whose birthday was Saturday, always good. He’s looking for a brand of ethically sourced chocolate topping for ice cream, an interesting challenge.
The yearbook is almost done, except for the last few tweaks — so-and-so DOES have an email address; her name is spelled Georgi, not Georgia or Georgie as in previous submissions; one lady has died — but at 97, as Emma Lathen said, a display of shocked grief would be inappropriate. As soon as we work out who the current members of Flagon and Trencher are, I think we’ll have it. [For Flagon and Trencher, you get to prove descent from a colonial tavernkeeper. On the east coast, the chapters adopt surviving colonial taverns. On the west coast, the members invite everyone to the bar for a drink . . . .]
Partner and I spent the weekend in Wellington, to go to an exhibition of surrealist artworks. It included half a dozen works by Dali, which was just wow.
Question: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Fish.
And on Sunday we walked about 7.5km through a predator-proofed bird sanctuary, which is helping save NZ birds from extinction. It’s got saddlebacks, which are smallish, loud birds. We got ringside seats to a bird fight: two of them wrestled each other to the ground and rolled down the slope in front of us, a tangle of orange and black wings and claws and beaks. That was an amazing privilege, considering that in the 1960s, their population was a few hundred birds on one tiny island. Now there’s at least 7000 across dozens of sanctuaries. Seeing these two made me very happy.
The happiness just keeps coming! We went to IKEA and I bought a wonderful desk stand to keep my headset organized: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lanespelare-accessories-stand-60511362/
With it, I’m able to keep all the irritating cords and plug sections of the darn thing from slipping off of every surface I’ve been resting it on when not in use.
And – bonus! – it looks like it was modeled on some Marvel superhero’s hand, which amuses.
I’m looking at my earphones, hanging on the top of a clipboard stowed vertically. They’ll have to stay there, when not in use. Horizontal surface for an articulated hand is just not on. To get more horizontal surface – there’s no wall space available, either – I’d have to dispose of a lot of Rubbermaid containers, which would break my collector’s heart.
I thought it looked modeled on a Terminator. 😉
Storage is so site-specific, isn’t it? I can’t reach any walls from where I sit, so I have no way to attach anything vertically. And cleaning (in the sense of cleaning specific surfaces like floors or walls or counters etc.) is one challenge, but organizing storage is so much more complicated. Do you need the thing occasionally or constantly? Is it utilitarian or decorative? Obligatory or sentimentally dear? Tiny/loseable or huge/ungainly? Or just uncertain, which applies to so many things.
It reminds me of Ben Grimm, I think. Thing hand.
I agree. Site specific. Two of those Rubbermaid containers, 1 tall, 1 medium, sit on the floor to the right of my chair. The medium container holds all my prescriptions and some similar items. The weekly pill dispenser sits on its lid. The tall one (not the tallest) contains my blood pressure kit (a push-button sphygmometer to measure BP and Pulse, daily) and my Glucose test kit. Since I use them daily and I’m lazy, they stay near me instead of on their shelf. Strangely, this did not free up shelf space, just slightly rearranged.
The wall whereat the chair used to sit, in front of the window where now blows my air conditioner, that wall has mounted three baskets full of tax papers and files. No longer convenient to seated me, but still useful. Above them is a mail caddy and above that is a 4″ fan, now off. I’m not sitting under its breezes, y’see.
I suppose it could be Thing’s skeletal hand. If someone yells, “IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME!” I would not care to be struck with it.
I thought that I was the only person who had so many emails every day! What a chore to go through and delete all the ones that I don’t want. That makes me happy when it’s finished too.
Another thing that made me happy this week was re-reading The Cinderella Deal. I enjoyed it very much the first time, and even more this time, a year later. I’d like to know what happens next, of course! So many characters that I came to care about in the story, and I hope that someday their story also gets told.
I got some productive writer business done this weekend, so I’m happy about that. Also the trip to see the aged parents is this week; I won’t enjoy the actual travel, but it will be very good to see them (it’s been 3 years) and also my sister & her wife will be there. So: happy. 🙂
Coming very late to the party this week, but seeing our NT Chief Minister clap back at Ted Cruz made me VERY happy. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/michael-gunner-hits-back-at-us-republican-ted-cruz-over-nt-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/8434e20c-cb4d-46fa-8109-d26097c05832 I really don’t know how you put up with that man.
Also my second Covid test came back negative, so as long as my third test is clear I will be allowed back into the out on the 25th. Hooray!
Many happies. Video chat with my too far away oldest nephew. But he looks happy and I got to meet his girlfriend.
Two plants that I seeded too late in the season are flowering for me anyway and a third just might make it before the season really ends. If you are feeling philosophical, I think there’s a message in that.