It’s Just One of Those Days…

Posted on by Jennifer GB

Wake up. Go to work. Pick up boys from work. Go home. Sleep. Rinse, repeat.

That has pretty much what my life has been for some time now and I am not that upset about it. It has been calm and quiet. Everyone is well, everyone seems relatively happy. There have been various things like I got a promotion at work which came with a descent pay raise. My student loans were forgiven and the relief that has given me to know I don’t have that debt hanging over my head anymore is wonderful! I believe my husband feels the same way. Office life is pretty good. New job has its stressful days but its the workload that can be stressing, not the work itself. I’ve become pretty good at “leaving it at the office” and not bringing it home. Took me a while to realize that there are no merit based raises and that I didn’t need to do all the things because the percentage raise I would get is the same from year to year whether I was doing excellent or just satisfactory.

I have done something I thought I would never do: I applied to graduate school for a Masters in Science for Rehabilitation Counseling. There is a scholarship that will pay for all the tuition through the state. I talked to several friends who I am very close to and asked their advice on going back to college and pretty much all of them said a free Master’s degree is not something you turn down. The pay increase to become a counselor is something like 20K + a year more than I am making now. I had my interview for entrance into the program the other day. I feel like I totally botched it but my coworkers who are currently in the program said I didn’t and were very comforting. I was pretty upset. I have some really great coworkers. A couple of them wrote recommendation letters for me for my application. They are very reassuring and have offered to help me with schooling and my studies.

Its Friday, work is nearly done and the weekend is upon us. Its time to start the garden and ill be buying many bags of dirt and fertilizer to get it going. Its time to plant peas and lettuce. More later. Im determined to blog more about my boring and every day life. But right now, its about time to leave and there is a glass of Cardbordeaux sangria in my very near future. Ciao!

“Save Money, Get Frustrated, Wal-mart”

Posted on by Jennifer GB

Walmart’s motto “Save money, live better..” doesn’t really hold up. My local store here in upstate NY gives me a headache sometimes and mixed emotions. On one hand, my son works there part time as a zoner in the toy department where he’s been for going on three years. He does his job well and they are good with him since he is autistic. Keeping the shelves neat and tidy fits right in with his condition. He’s paid pretty well for being part time (more than I make an hour which is sad because I work for the State) and he seems to really like it.

On the other hand when I order groceries through them to be delivered, its always hit or miss. Yesterday they delivered an order while I was at work and the kids were home. When I saw the order they left, I realized they’d left out a case of water and ALL the refrigerated items that were on my list. Its not that they were out of them, they just didn’t bring them. So I started calling the store at the local number last night to get some assistance with it figuring I could pick up the items. No one is picking up the phone in the store. Not in electronics, not in deli, not in customer services and of course, not in Pick up/delivery. Now, pharmacy answered and they transferred me to customer service where it rang for five minutes straight and then went to a fast busy signal. I’ve been calling through the morning, since last night, and still no one is answering any of the phones in the store. I ended up doing the “missing items” refund request through the Walmart app on my phone. The total of missing items was $98. Needless to say their customer service sucks balls. Id go elsewhere but I’m not miss money bags and the other grocery stores in the area are more expensive. Delivery is easier because of the hours I work and saves me money because I’m not impulse buying when in the store and usually hungry when I shop (so, so bad). That’s my gripe for right now through I could write about my whiny spouse and him getting upset because one kid has another cold and how he’ll get it for sure, and has only been healthy for about a week in the last three months and how frustrated he is and how he threw a tantrum and went to bed before 8pm last night…but…..well I just did, LOL!

Seriously, I need a week by myself on a warm and sunny beach in Positano Italy with the smell of Amalfi lemons wafting through the air. Someone please get that for me as a present.

Anyway, back to the old grind.

Ciao!

It’s Only Wednesday..

Posted on by Jennifer GB

…and the week is dragging. I so do not want to be at work today and am anxious for the three day weekend to get here. Work is normal…as normal as it could be. Its the busy season with graduations and college enrollments so we have to help out the students with that. Should slow down soon. I need to find a job within a school so I get more holidays off as well as summers and finish at 3pm. This 9-5 stuff is for the birds, LOL! I need to play the lottery and win. Id quit my job, pursue my hobbies and fix up my home with the renovations I am dreaming of doing. But, this is the dream of a lot of people I’m sure.

When I walked into work this morning, it felt like I was only here an hour ago instead of 15 hours ago. When you think about it, I am at work more hours in a day then I am awake hours in my home. I wake at 5:30am and putter around the house, make coffee, eat breakfast that hubby makes me (yes every morning, and Yes I know I am blessed) and get ready for work. Then I maybe do laundry, putter around on World of Warcraft a bit and then leave for work at 8am. I work till five and am home by 5:30 and because I’m old (hit 50 on the 19th of May) I’m usually in bed by 9:30. So, calculate that: 4 hours in the evening + 3.5 in the morning = 7.5 hours I am awake in my own home during the work week. In that time I have to squeeze in house work and chores like, laundry, dishes, cleaning bathrooms, playing with the corgis, etc. I hear in Italy they take two hour lunches each day. I only get half an hour for lunch at my job…and I work for the State! I keep trying to convince my husband to move the family it Italy. He said “the government is so corrupt there”….and ours isn’t?? LOL, in my opinion the food and the history and scenery of the country is worth it. Plus, free healthcare.

Well after ten years I finally got myself a new computer. I was going to build one but hubby found one with a video card that was almost equal to the price of the whole computer and when I did the math, was cheaper with that card then building a new one and using my old video card. So I am now the proud owner of an Alienware Aurora R10 Gaming desktop. Its so QUIET!! My old computer sounded like a hoover vacuum cleaner. I love it. Windows 11 is on it and it looks like they are trying to mimic what a MacBook Pro looks like with the icons in the middle of the bar at the base. Took a little getting use to but I love it. I am even getting into streaming at the encouragement of my youngest, who is streaming his games himself. I made a twitch name: Garavana. In case your interested at all. LOL! He has me learning how to make videos of what I stream/record. Wants me to make a YouTube channel. He’s hilarious. Like anyone would want to watch a 50 year old woman play World of Warcraft! I suppose if it makes me a little bit of money down the road its better than, IDK, trying to sell pictures of my feet? ROFLMAO!

I am starting a new page on WordPress for my arts and crafts. Its an update from my old blog on BlogSpot which is about 12 years old. (old blog: https://theembroideress.blogspot.com/ ) Going to continue it on this new WordPress page, which is still under construction: https://astheneedlepasses.com/ Just have to make it look a little bit nicer. If I could import the old blog I would but I am not that tech savvy when it comes to web sites.

Alright, should get back to work, break over.

Ciao!

Hitting the C2 Mark

Posted on by Jennifer GB

Fifty. 5-0. I turned 50 years old a couple days ago. It’s a milestone. A big one! Though it kind of bothered me a little in the sense of feeling my mortality a little more, but I still wanted to celebrate it..and no one did (I know, sound like a whiny 12 year old kid). My husband gave me a card and bought a key lime pie (I like but its his favorite) but that was it. No candles, no gifts or cards from my kids, no party, nothing. We went out to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant that opened. It was ok food. The mariachi band was quite good but loud so conversation was pretty much out.   I came into work this morning thinking my coworkers would have done something while I was off because it’s what I do to their spaces when its their birthdays (put up balloons, streamers and sprinkle glitter all over the place, card and a gift), but nothing was done except for piles of work on my desk for when I got back.  My boss did give me a card and a Dunkin gift card last Thursday from herself which I hugged her for. I adore her.

So I am back to work today and am depressed. I don’t want to be here. I loved being home. I hate coming in here. It’s a job and the benefits are good but the pay sucks. My kid that works at Walmart is making more money than I am and I work for the State Education department. I think I will start looking at county jobs as they tend to pay more, have more time off and the benefits are about the same. State jobs are…not as good as they are made out to be that’s for certain.

Kids are doing well. The pool is open and I floated around in the sun yesterday for an hour and it was glorious. This is my season.  Will write more later in detail but work calls.

Cheers!

How is it almost July already?!

Posted on by Jennifer GB

2021 has been crazy but not nearly as bad as 2020 was. So, to catch up my readers (all, like 5 of you, LOL) my entire family has been fully vaccinated. My boys went to school virtually the entire year because I sure as hell didn’t want to expose my oldest. who has thus far had clean scans from his cancer four years ago, to COVID. While I would say virtual learning wasn’t better than being in school, the two of them past with only one (my youngest) failing math that requires four weeks in summer school to make up. I’m not chastising him too much because, well, I sucked horrifically at math in high school so, I get it. My oldest graduated high school this year. (OMFG WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE!!??) A week before graduation, they lifted the two tickets per student limit for graduation and opened it to anyone and everyone and made it one big NORMAL graduation ceremony with kids sitting next to one another and no “6 feet apart” (of course masks if you hadn’t been vaccinated). I cried. A lot. My sister and Mom…cried..a lot. He is so happy and proud and went around showing everyone his class ring. Have you ever seen that commercial of the mother watching her son grow up and stating through each scene “if he xxx, it’ll be a miracle” and at the end of it he’s graduating high school and she says, with a tear in her eye “its a miracle”.. Yea. I said that. I live streamed his graduation for those that couldn’t be there and you can probably hear me say that on it, LOL! Five years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer I was fearful I would not see this day. I’m not overly religious but I thank God everyday that he has come through that and I thank all those that prayed through their various religions for him to beat this. It was so touching and heartwarming friends and strangers were praying for him. I’m getting choked up about it now again remembering. One more year and he will be considered cured and be placed in survivorship status and just monitor for side effects of the treatments. And if you are the praying type, I’ll take any prayers you wish to offer on his behalf to make sure he has no return of cancer or side effects. (I thank you in advance)

Work is work. Working remote three days a week, but that goes to two days starting next week and unless something changes, back to in the office fully in August, which I am not happy about. I like working remote. Anyway, still an assistant to a visually impaired woman (who I adore) but apparently my memory issues from a previous car accident make it difficult to remember all the nuances of information I have to remember to enter into the computers when entering plans for her. Bad review last quarter with the threat of letting me go if I cant get the knack of it. That, was a lot of stress for me. I kept it together during the day and when I got home I broke down to hubby who told me not to sweat it. If it comes to that, we’d be just fine. This is why I love this man…one of the many reasons anyway. If it comes to that, I am going to take this as a sign that office work is not my niche. I’ll figure something out. Its not great pay anyway, which you’d think with a state job it would be better. Maybe I’ll take the plunge and do my art fulltime. We shall see. Why can’t I just win the lottery?? This would solve a large portion of my problems. LOL!

We have done a lot of work on our yard. Hubby has gotten the terracing bug and working with stone creating walls and putting levels in our yard and a pond (not quite done yet). We have a larger garden this year. The smaller garden that we started with last year has peas, radishes, lettuce, carrots (which failed but for three, can’t figure out why either) and some stray tomatoes that came up from seeds that had fallen last year. The larger garden has about 8 tomato plants, corn, beans, a couple different kinds of peppers, basil and cilantro. We did ornamental gardening too. Planted a Bartlett pear tree, fig tree, 5 strawberry plants, Japanese kousa dogwood, vanilla/strawberry hydrangea, a couple more lilacs, four rose bushes, a blue rhododendron, another regular hydrangea and a climbing hydrangea near our one fence. I also scattered moon flower seeds around my yard to see how they come up, which probably won’t be till next year but here’s hoping they take in those dingy corners of the yard that have a lot of rock.

Health…gained weight. COVID was not kind and I, like everyone else, baked ALL THE BREAD! Worried about my current state of health I had all that special fasting bloodwork done and while one thing was slightly elevated (thank goodness that was all!), they just stated to make lifestyle changes and get more exercise. So…I’m doing just that. I’ve started doing more, watching what i eat, logging all that goes into my mouth and counting calories. I’m also working out in smaller time bits instead of one chunk of time. I am finding I’m doing more exercise that way and its less boring to do it in ten to fifteen minutes segments than 45 mins to an hour in one shot. I hate exercising. Boring as fuck to me so breaking it up and doing different things helps me still get movement in. One of the things I do is every time I go down to the basement to do a load of laundry, I jump on the bike for ten minutes. Usually gets me about two miles in that time.

Family life is great. Hubby and I couldn’t be happier. Still haven’t gotten our honeymoon yet (five years married this past May) but eventually we’ll save up the money to do it. I’d really like to revisit Italy especially since I just heard they are opening the tunnels under it for the first time for the public to view.

Still knitting socks. Cross stitching things too as that seems to have become a re-budding interest. SCA events are starting back up after over a year hiatus of them being canceled due to COVID. I went to a friend’s elevation for Chivalry a few weeks ago and it was glorious to be in garb again and hug friends I hadn’t seen in ages. The best comment a friend made as he approached me for a hug was “this is going to be awkward” because he planned on hugging long. I laughed, but not awkward at all and it made me so happy. Of course, about 2/3s of my garb was tight due to weight gain but there was a lot of laughter because EVERYONE was saying the same thing “this was the only thing that fit me”. No one cared. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was happy. I missed that so much. I look forward to the normalcy again, which I know is still a ways off. But, its a start.

Alright..back to work. Ciao!

Slow and steady

Posted on by Jennifer GB

So I’ve had some set backs that had slowed me down, one being a death in the family, but I’m getting back on track. As friends are so good at reminding me, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I am happy to say that I have now gone six weeks without drinking a Diet Coke. I know it doesn’t seem monumental but its a step. Tomorrow I’m going to grab my son and walk in the park. My activity level has gone down dramatically since covid 19 started and then I get a desk job. I have to do something and my son wants to join me. He says he isn’t happy with his weight either.

Well, off to bed. I stayed up late embroidering and watching The Abyss. Gnight folks.

Daily update

Posted on by Jennifer GB

Didn’t get tons done today. Got 3 miles walking in. Did a bunch of cleaning and a little bit of embroidery. I have to figure out something to do in the office to get movement in. It was the one thing I feared about taking an office job: the sedentary aspect of a desk job. When I worked in retail being on my feet made me drop a bit of weight. Not the case here. I’m considering a standing desk adapter for the office. Eyeballing a couple on Amazon. My one concern is that since gaining the weight, standing or walking causes low back pain now after a short time of doing either. Stamina is fine. Pain not so much.

For dinner i made long hots with the peppers my sister sent home with us. Peppers stuffed with prosciutto and provolone cheese. Tasty and low carb plus hot spice to boost metabolism. Can’t hurt right? Admit to a half a cup of ice cream…you know…to kill the heat. So tasty!

Well exhaustion is winning so off to sleep i go. CIAO!!

Good Intentions

Posted on by Jennifer GB

Wow. It’s been a while since I’ve written an entry here. So much has happened since January. So…where to begin. Speed update: I have been hired by the NYS Department of education as a support assistant to a wonderful woman who is vision impaired. I pretty much help her out with computer work, reading documents that can’t convert to her special programs like JAWS and the occasional site visit (when things get back to normal from this pandemic). I work from home three days a week, in the office two. Funny thing, she lives a couple blocks away from me so I give her the ride home on the two days we’re in the office.

In March my Grandmother died so we went to the funeral in NJ. Two days later they closed our schools down for the pandemic and thus far we are not going back till minimum October 15th after a reevaluation to see how things look. Then It might be a hybrid opening where K-6 goes to school spread across all the district school buildings and 7-12 distance learns. Since both my kids are in high school, distance learning for them. One loves the idea. The other wants to go back because he misses his teachers and friends.

Yesterday I got on the scale and am at my highest weight of 301. After a bought of sobbing, I got determined. Yesterday i got in 110 oz of water. Walked 3/4 of a mile plus did the stairs at home a lot to do laundry. Got 7747 steps in by the time I fell into bed. Also started using my Lose IT! app again. Today, got up, had coffee and breakfast and then did a beginner weight training video. My stomach got in the way a little for the mat exercises but i modified and still did it to the best of my ability. Guzzling the water again today. Plan to walk to the post office again. Did fine walking except for the low back really hurting by the time I got back home. Since I gain my weight in my torso and have a gut, its understandable I had the back pain. In time, it will shrink.

I figured all this time ive been trying to do low carb and it isn’t working..i need to get off my ass and deal with the pain of my neck injury and work out anyway. I also decided that I can do lower carb but I feel like its not feasible to do it forever. Lets face it: I like bread. Not cheap shit white sandwich bread but good crusty artisan bread. Do I have it often? No. So I figure its ok to have a slice on occasion when its with a nice dinner. Same goes for sweets. I am adopting the moderation in everything mindset. Not denying myself anything just limiting it. I mean come on..its food…its not like I will never have that food again ever so small portion. I know I’ll have it again at some point. Savor the taste, enjoy it then move on. So, Im not proud of hitting that number on the scale but it will not be at that number long at all. I have a goal of losing the desired 120 pounds by my 50th birthday in just under 2 years. I can do this.

Im posting starting day 1 photos of myself. Now you know I’m REALLY serious if I’m willing to show what I look like. I’ll get my measurements later when I find my quilting measuring tape.

Another January Day…

Posted on by Jennifer GB

So I went to a class at the employment center yesterday on Civil Service jobs. Got some good information and came home and read it over last night with a cup of spiked coffee (Bailey’s if you’re wondering). When I got up this morning I looked up the clerical jobs that I was interested in taking tests for to find out today is the last day to apply to take the test. DANG! Thank you powers that be for lighting a fire under my ass. So i spent near an hour filling out three applications, locating my college transcripts and finding my payment history from unemployment so I have proof and can have the test fees waived. I think I’m developing carpal tunnel, lol! I know this path of employment may take a while so I will look for something local till hopefully one of these positions pop up and I am sent a canvasing letter. I have another class at the job center on Government jobs at 1:30 so I figure I’ll run and drop these off before than do my grocery shopping afterwards.

The kids have off this week due to some state testing they didn’t have to take so I am having some fun time with them. I think tomorrow we’ll go see Doolittle at the theaters. There are actually a few movies I’d like to go see: Jumanji 2, Little Women, Underwater…to name a couple. I am a bit of a horror movie girl. Nothing gory like Saw or the like, more like psychological or ghost type movies. Paranormal Activity had alternate endings that had me dashing down the unlit hallway at my previous house and jumping into bed. Yes, go ahead…chuckle. Sometimes I’m a wuss.

We have some snow here on the ground that fell on Saturday last. The below freezing temps have kept it from melting. I am longing for Spring and the warmer temps. Hubby and I have this plan to create a garden off the patio. We have become obsessed with this youtube channel of young asian woman in the South Western Province of China who lives with her grandparents and creates all this food from scratch. Also making household items as well. But I mean, she gets duck eggs from an outside source, has a chicken on her farm sit on them and hatch them. She then raises the ducks so she has the duck eggs to make this recipe. A lot of her videos are spanned over time. Making traditional ink from the soot of tung oil (that one I believe took 2 years). Her most recent one was growing cotton so she could harvest it and make a new mattress cover for her Grandmother. She did the same thing with silk worms and made a comforter and pajamas for her. Anyway the garden she has is huge and gorgeous covered in many varieties of vegetables and flower. We have plans to set up a smaller more modest version of hers. I’m like an addict and get notified whenever she uploads a new video and rush over to watch it. I’ve spread my addiction to other friends too.
( If you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoC47do520os_4DBMEFGg4A) I have been researching what is good to grow in our zone, which is 6. I’m going to start collecting seeds and soon will start small indoor mini green houses to get them to sprout.

Well, gotta run these apps down to the county office before the class. Ciao!

Well, I don’t live in S. Carolina…

Posted on by Jennifer GB

…so I was not the Mega Millions winner.  I still had to come into work today. Balls! Can you imagine the person that did win? One person with one ticket? Holy crow if I were them,  I would not announce publicly that I was the winner, that’s for certain.  Oh well, there is still the Powerball tonight!

Went home last night and did mundane things first before I settled in for the night like cleaned out the entire fridge and washed all the shelves and drawers. Tossed out all old food which now i have to go shopping. Great, right? Then i showered and sat down to do more embroidery on the banner for investiture this weekend and watched the rest of the series on Netflix “the Haunting of Hill House”. Pretty good. Not as scary to me as they were touting online in articles, but it was good. Had a good story line, etc.

Looking for suggestions for another series to watch. Any?