January 2025 - Fires!

In January, LA burned. 

Okay, not all of it, but good portions of it thanks to the dry weather and extremely strong winds. A few people I know did lose their homes, but no one I’m super close to. The fires did get very close to one friend I know from my home town. 

Naturally, this made for a lot of long stressful days. 

Early on, one of the smaller fires was sort of near my condo. The evacuation warning zone was a couple of miles from me. 

There was one fire about half a mile from me one night. Part of a building about half a mile from me burned. The fact that this is all that burned with how strongly the winds were blowing is a testament to how excellent the firefighters are. 

The third week of the month, everyone who reports to my director was in our office in town. And a new fire broke out north of town. It made parts of the meeting very chaotic as people were going to gather things in case they needed to evacuate. Fortunately, everyone and their stuff was okay. But we did cut the last day short.

I was glad when the month ended with the fires mostly out and a little rain to help. Fortunately, it was a minor blip for me, but lots of people are going to have to spend a long time recovering from this.  

November 2024 - Visiting Family for Thanksgiving

 Wow, it’s been a while. I really should post something besides puns, right?

I’m sure it’s no surprise that I went home for Thanksgiving. I mean, I always spend the holidays with my family. It was a smaller group this year since some of the extended family that often comes couldn’t make it for various reasons. 

But we had a great time with those who were there. The food was delicious and the games we played were fun. What else do you need for a great weekend?

Sadly, I had to come home the Sunday after Thanksgiving since I had to be back at work on Monday. It was fiscal year end. 

What was a surprise was that I pretty much had my condo decorated for Christmas before Thanksgiving this year. I always say I’m going to do it, but I actually did it. Considering how busy things were when I got back between work and the rest of Christmas, I was so glad I got a jump on it. I’m not sure it would have happened had I waited for after Thanksgiving, but this way, I got to enjoy it for all of December. 

September 2024 - Going Hybrid

 Sadly, September saw a change in my life I wasn't at all happy about.

After four and a half years of working from home, I had to go back into the office part time.  We are officially hybrid, which means we are only in the office Tuesday to Thursday.  But it is such a change.  I'm really struggling to figure out how to fit everything else in my life into my evenings.  Something I didn't really struggle with before.

We have some flexibility in our hours, which is wonderful.  But with when I get home, it means I am missing about an hour out of my evening.  That's a hard change for me.

But the thing that doesn't make any sense to me is that not everyone is back in the office.  There are entire departments that are working from home still, I'm guessing due to space.  Plus, those who have moved out of the area since March of 2020 or been hired in other areas when we were told we were all going to be fully remote that aren't having to come in.  I get that last group - those who were promised they wouldn't have to move.  I'm glad they aren't being forced to move now.  But I do feel like we were lied to.  But for those who are still in the area but not having to come back to the office?  Yeah, it infuriates me.  Especially since all of our meetings are still over Teams.

But I am thankful that we still get to work from home two days a week.  They are by far my favorite work days.  I know most companies are requiring everyone back into the office five days a week, so I'm sure that is coming at some point.

February 2024 - Catching Up

Well, I managed to get behind again, didn't I?  Let's work on catching up.

Honestly, not that much happened in February.  We started out with weather in the 70's, but wound up getting lots of rain.  Fortunately, no flooding in my garage, which was nice.  Did miss some running because of the rain, which is a Southern California problem.  But before that started I got a nice afternoon of ultimate Frisbee.

I did my taxes on my President's Day holiday and wound up owing this year, which was a bummer.

The bigger bummer is that I got sick at the end of the month.  Sick enough I would have taken time off work if I weren't working from home.  I might have if nothing else had been going on, but I got sick at the end of the month, which was quarter end, so I plowed through.  I did see a doctor, and it just seemed to be a cold.  I was negative for other things.  Of course, I'd managed to give myself pink eye as well.  Got drops for that, which cleared it up.  The rest slowly ran it's course.

Starting 2024

I finally did it!  I got all caught up.  I'm hoping now that I'm caught up to stay that way.  As part of that, I'm going to be using the beginnings of my Sunday/Monday posts over on Carstairs Considers over here, too.  I might pop in with other things as well.  We'll see.  But at least I want to keep that much on top of things here.

(And a reminder that if you landed here after I left a comment on your book blog, you probably want Carstairs Considers.)

I had a quiet New Year.  Church Sunday morning, and then a quiet day at home.  Yes, I stayed up until midnight.  Actually, I stayed up until about 1 AM.  There were some fireworks, but none of the pot banging and yelling that we often have.  I was awake in time to watch the Rose Parade live, too, which doesn't usually happen since it is so early here in California.  And you tell I'm not a morning person?

No, I haven't started undecorating from Christmas yet.  That was on my agenda for the weekend, but it just isn't going to happen.  Honestly, I think I'm going to struggle to get the two reviews written I need to write and the others edited.  All I really want to do is curl up and veg.

Let's see, what else?  We got the month closed at work without too much in the way of surprises.  It's nice that it wasn't fiscal year end this month.  As much as I had having to deal with that around Thanksgiving and then into December, it's nice that the December close is fairly quiet.

My cough is getting much better.  It's still there sometimes, but not nearly as bad as it was even a week ago.

My life group at church met Saturday morning to clean the church.  After that, I stopped at a local nursery and picked up some pansies for my planters.  Hopefully the wire I have in them know will keep the squirrels from digging them up, although I did see one sniffing around the box a couple of hours ago.

April 2023 Part 1 - Home for Easter

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

At the last minute, I decided to go home for Easter weekend.

I barely made it up in time for the Good Friday service on Friday.  Okay, so I had stopped and gotten dinner when I got into town, but I pulled in the church's parking lot about two minutes before the service started.  Actually, considering I drove several hundred miles, I'm pretty happy with that.

Anyway...

Saturday, I played some ultimate Frisbee with my brother.  I've cut back on how much I'm playing, so it was nice to play with that group.  As a surprise, someone I've played with in the greater LA ultimate community has moved to the area and was there.

I then hung out at my brother's house for a while.  We met up with our parents for my nephew's baseball game.  After dinner, I went back to Mom and Dad's to help them get ready for the next day.

After church Sunday morning, Mom and Dad hosted Easter.  My uncle came over (my aunt was sick), and a family friend was there as well.  It was a fun day.

The downside is that I was two days behind all the rest of the month.  Seriously, I finally caught up with everything that I needed to do on the 30th of the month.

January 2023 - Caribbean Cruise

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

I started out the year on a fabulous note - I got to take a Caribbean cruise!

I'd been eyeing a 10 day cruise for a while that looked like a great list of ports.  I wasn't sure it was going to work to take the time off for it, but everyone at work took one some extra tasks so I could take the time off and go.  Well, there were some things I didn't do, but they weren't essential like the rest of it was.

Anyway, the cruise was round trip from Ft. Lauderdale.  The only bad part was my flights.  I took a red eye and arrived very early in the morning, with a couple of hours to kill in baggage claim in the morning.  My flight home was late, and I killed multiple hours sitting in the airport again.

But the rest?  It was fabulous!  There were three sea days, but the rest of it, we were in ports.

One highlight was stopping in Puerto Rico.  Since I signed up at the last minute, all the excursions for that day were sold out, but I reached out to a friend I'd made online who was living there.  We'd never met, but we had a fabulous day hanging out.  He and his wife showed me the island, and I'm sure I saw more of it than I would have with an excursion.

I did have excursions at the other stops.  One was a botanical garden, which was pretty.  I did paddling at two of them.  The paddling through the mangroves was a bit of a challenge due to the guy I was partnered with, but eventually we figured it out - sort of.  The other paddling went much smoother.  And I went snorkeling in St. Thomas.

I also made some friends on board the ship, which helped keep those days from being so long.  That was my issue with the Alaska cruise I had taken back in July 2022.

I was not ready to come home - especially since I came home to discover there had been an issue with some of the files that were run late the week before, and I had to fight people to get them run my first day back, meaning I got delayed in logging out.  Welcome back, right?

And, I've been pointing out duplicates in the cruises I was taking.  This was a new ship for me and a new destination as well.  However, I had the same cruise director as that Alaska cruise.  She is great, so no complaints, but I found it very funny.

November 2022 - Home for Thanksgiving

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

Yep, still wanting to catch up here.

Obviously, Thanksgiving is the big thing that stands out for most people when it comes to November.  And I went home for Thanksgiving.

It was a bit of an odd Thanksgiving since my niece and nephew were sick on the day itself.  But they were better before I left so I did get to see them.  And, I've got to say, their attitude about it was probably better than mine would have been even now.  I would have had a bit of a pity party even though I understood what was going on.

My sister-in-law had family in town for the weekend, and it was fun to get to see them as well.  Plus my uncle and aunt came out for the day.  It was a big group, and laughs and hugs were shared.  We had a great time.

Unfortunately, with how fiscal year end fell at work, I had to leave Sunday instead of taking Monday off work.  And that means leaving super early to miss the worst of the traffic.  Hopefully, I can actually take Monday off this year and enjoy that extra day.

October 2022 - Jury Duty

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

October 2022 saw me facing something not that fun - jury duty.  It had actually been several years since I'd been called, although with the people I talk to who have never been called, I wonder why they pick on me so much.

Worse, this was Federal jury duty, so I had to go down to downtown LA that day.  With morning traffic, I left very early so the trip down.

I'd actually originally been summoned back in March, and I was supposed to be on call for two weeks (seriously, two weeks?  That's insane!), one of which was when I was on vacation with my family.  Then I got rescheduled to the summer, but the judge wanted people who were vaxed and boosted.  So I got pushed back a third time.  Almost had it around Thanksgiving, when I would have been out of town and then things would have been crazy at work, but they switched me to October to finally get it over with.

I was seated in the jury box almost immediately.  When the morning ended, we had all introduced ourselves, but no one had been dismissed yet.  The afternoon started, and we were slowly working through the challenges.  Fortunately, I was one of them.  I don't know what I would have done if I wasn't since I don't have the time to take off for this kind of thing any more.  Seriously, I had worked the Sunday before (after church) to be able to go.  I just have that much work to do these days.

Ironically, that was the first day we'd decided to come back and work in the office since we were sent home in March of 2020.  So I drove up and stopped by the office to say hi to people and meet our new co-worker in person.  He was the replacement for the co-worker who left in August, but he didn't wind up working out.  Still, it was a nice end to a day.

Plus, since I was sent home early, I beat the traffic driving back.

I had such a big smile on my face when I was sent home that day.

August into September 2022 - Crazy at Work

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

I meant to come back with another post before this.  But that's how life is going these days.

So, where was I?  Oh yeah, back in August of 2022.  Right after I got back from my Alaska cruise, we found out that one of my co-workers was taking an promotion and leaving our department for another one.  That left a huge hole in the department since she'd been there for years and knew her job forwards and backwards.  Unfortunately, a lot of her job fell to me on top of what I was already doing.  Since August is a quarter end month (thanks to our slightly off fiscal year), that meant things were extra stressful and extra crazy.

Just how bad?  I worked 19 days in a row the end of August and beginning of September, including all three days of Labor Day weekend.  And that was just to get us through the stuff that had to be done for close.  I (sadly) wasn't ahead after all of that.

They did hire someone pretty quickly, but he didn't work out.  Fast forward to April, and we finally have a replacement, who is working out well.  In the meantime, we had a temp, who was fantastic.

Fortunately, things seem to have gotten a little better after that.  I mean, it is still crazy, but not that crazy now that I have some feel for what I am doing.  But it is very hard to take time off.  I took two days off in April, and I didn't really catch up until the end of the month.  They've been good about letting me take time off (as you'll see as I keep updating), but there's just so much work before and after any more.

Christmas 2021

What do you know, Christmas was a month ago, and I still haven't blogged about it.  I guess that is because I am still trying to process what happened....

Kidding.  I'm kidding.  I had a fabulous time.

As usual, I drove north for the holiday.  I headed up on the 23rd.  I needed to use some vacation time, so I took that day off.  Christmas Eve, we got together with some family friends I hadn't seen for a while, so that was fun.  Then we went to my family's church for the Christmas Eve service.

Christmas was the usual of going over to my brother's house for the kids to open their presents, then everyone coming to my parents house for dinner.  My uncle and aunt came over, and a good friend of my mom's was there as well.  It was a fabulous day.

I was up there for another few days since my job gave us the week off between Christmas and New Year's.  My brother took a couple of days off as well, so we got to spend lots of time together as a family.  We play games.  We went to the redwoods and a beach.  It was a nice visit, and I wasn't ready to come home.  Especially since I had to work one day we were off.  Too much work to do to truly be off a week.  Job security, right?

Labor Day Weekend

I am fast hitting burnout.  I don't know that Labor Day could have come at a better time for me.

It came right after a busy quarter end at work, a quarter end that was busier than we'd seen in a while since business is finally picking up post COVID again.  It was rough, and I was burned out.

Saturday, I had to get out of the condo, so I headed down to Santa Monica and the beach.  Yes, I just sat on the beach and read most of the time, but it was so nice to be able to do something like that outside the condo for a change.

Sunday was the usual - church and ultimate Frisbee.  We had a very small turn out for ultimate - only four of us.

Then came Monday.  My friend who hosted the BBQ for Memorial Day hosted another one for Labor Day, so I went over there and hung out with his friends again.  And I had another great time.  Again, it was nice to be out of the condo and just relax around other people.

As much as I do love working from home and have no desire to go back to the office again, I do find that I enjoy social contact more when I am out.  It makes sense in a way - you are around people you know and like and are choosing to be around.  Not to say that I haven't made friends with co-workers over the years.  But it isn't the same.

Checking In

I'm getting really bad about updating this blog, aren't I?  Of course, it's hard to come up with too much to report.

I'm still working, and still working from home.  A little bit of the office will be opened in July, but it sounds like we won't be back in the office with any regularity until fall some time.  Personally, I don't want to go back.  I've gotten very spoiled working from home.  I love it!  Yes, there are times I wish I could talk to someone in person, but the rest of the time, it's nice to be able to do my own thing without being distracted/interrupted.  I do still think that training someone new would be harder virtually than from home.

Last time, I had mentioned my church was going to start meeting in person again.  That's going well.  We are outside under a tent.  Some weeks have been windy, but it's been good overall.

I've gotten to see my family a few times in the last couple of months.  They came down this way in March - my parents to visit me, and my brother and his family stopped by when they were headed down to San Diego.  Then I went up in April to visit them for a weekend.  All of those visit were nice.

Can't think of much else to report.  Hopefully, things will open up again soon, and I will start to have more to talk about again.

Crazy Busy at Work

 I've let it go almost another two months since I last updated.  Part of that is because there isn't much to report.  And part of that is because I've been super busy.  Yes, at the same time.

Day to day, or course, there isn't too much new to talk about.  I'm staying home and working from home like so much else of the world right now.

But work has been very buys.  November 30th was fiscal year end at the company where I work, and we had a lot of work to do to get everything ready for that deadline.  Fortunately, they did hire a few people back, and it was nice to have the help we wouldn't have made it otherwise.  But it still required lots of work on my part.  Having said that, I didn't put in nearly as much work as others on my team did.

We made it!  Now to rest for a bit before the next round of crazy busy at work happens.  Because I don't think it is going to truly slow down any time soon.

Update

It's been HOW long since I posted here?  Wow!  This is going to be my worst year yet at keeping up to date.

Of course, part of that is because there isn't much to actually report.  Like most of the world in 2020, I've been hanging out at home mostly.  Back in March, I started working from home.  I've been at my kitchen table for work ever since.  This is the first time I've been working from home, and I have found I like it.  Even though I had a small commute to begin with, (at least by LA standards), I definitely enjoy not having to drive too and from work each day.  It can be frustrating getting help from co-workers in a timely manner at times, and files don't load quite as quickly, but those are the only real frustrations.

And I'm still working.  I have to keep reminding myself of that fact.  I'm working for a company that has really been impacted by the shut downs, and there have been massive layoffs.  Everyone but me in my sub-department of accounting was laid off at the end of June.  I was shocked about that since I have been here the least amount of time.  But I'm the one they chose to keep.  I have a feeling it has to do with what I handled.

Part of me is honored by that, but part of me isn't sure I want the honor.  With so few people around, it is hard to make sure everything gets done.  And they aren't cutting us any slack and still expecting us to produce the same quality work they did before.  I get it, accounting and numbers are important, but on the other hand, it's just so much work to do.

I'll try to get back to updating a bit more often.  Not that there is much going on on a day to day basis, but I will try to find something.

New Job!

It’s been almost exactly 13 months since I lost my last job.  I was laid off when my company was bought out and my job moved to Texas without me.  During that time, I’ve worked two different temp jobs.  The first one didn’t work out, but the second one did.

In fact, this was my first week as an official employee of the company where I’ve been working for the past 9 months.  And I’m thrilled.  This is a company I’ve wanted to work at for years.  I’ve applied multiple times, but never heard anything back.  When I took the temp job, I was hoping this would be a way to get my foot in the door.  And it was.

I’m frustrated that I am just now earning vacation again, but other than that, I’m very happy with the rest.  Benefits have already kicked in.  I am getting a raise over my last real job (not to mention both temp jobs).  And I really do like my co-workers.  This is a job I intend to be at for quite some time.

And the best part is, it’s still in town.  The other side of town from where I work, but still, it is so nice not to have to leave town during commute times.  I don’t know how those who do it manage.  The year and a half I did it was more than enough for me.

Party! Party! Party!

I've been in the partying mood for the last week and a half.  Holiday parties that is.

I started off back on the 2nd with the Sisters in Crime/Mystery Writers of America party.  While I'm not a member of either group, an author asked if I wanted to go as her plus one since her husband wasn't interested.  I did this last year and had a great time, so I did it again this year.  There was a 15-word short story contest, and great food catered by Stonefire.  Just a chance to talk with several different authors, which was a lot of fun.

That Thursday was the official holiday party at my job.  It was in the evening near the office, so I hung out and read to kill time before attending.  I intended to stay about an hour and a half or so, but I wound up staying until they shut it down.  While I wasn't drinking, like most people were, I did eat lots of food.  They just had appetizers, but I had more than enough that I didn't need dinner.  They had some nice prizes.  I didn't win anything, but someone in my department did.  There were carolers, although the DJ was so loud, he drowned them out.  And there was karaoke in one room as well.  My record of not singing remains intact.  I got to talk to a couple of friends who work here as well as hang out from people in my department.

Speaking of my department, our holiday party was Tuesday this week.  Again, I got to have Stonefire.  (That's bragging, not complaining.)  It was during lunch time, so it wasn't anything elaborate, but it was still fun.  A little trivia contest and a few raffle prizes in addition to the great food.

Job Update

I’ve almost abandoned this place, right?  Not on purpose, of course.  I’ve just gotten lazy about updating it.

Which is ironic since I wasn’t working for two thirds of May.  However, I have finally been able to start at the job I was waiting for.  It’s a temp job with the possibility of getting hired on.  I’m filling in for someone on medical leave, and since I was out on medical leave myself earlier this year, I fully support them keeping the job open for the person.  (Plus, it’s the law, of course.)

I haven’t been here quite 2 weeks yet.  And I’m in the middle of my first close.  So far, it seems to be going well.  I haven’t had to stay as late as I thought I might, which is wonderful.  And I love my commute – across town again.  That’s one of my biggest desires in a job is not having to commute south of town.

We will see how it continues to go.  I’m hopeful it will turn into a good situation for me to stay permanently.

Keeping Busy

Wow, it’s been about a month since I updated this blog.  I should fix that.

Not that there is much to talk about.  Things are winding down at work.  We have completed our last close, and we are now working on transitioning everything over to the new company.  Then we’ll be packing up the office.  That last close was crazy, but things have finally leveled out.  I don’t expect any major crisis to come up from this point.

I’ve been getting back into running.  After all, I’ve got two mud runs coming up in June.  My longest run was just over 2 miles on Thursday.

Well, until yesterday.  That’s when I went back to ultimate Frisbee for the first time since before my surgery.  I played most of the time they were playing.  I was definitely getting tired, and then my hamstring started to bother me.  I’d injured it in the fall, and I had hoped that it would have healed while I was off the last couple of months.  I should have stopped sooner, obviously.  I’m a bit sore today, but not too bad otherwise.  Hopefully, it will heal enough not to interfere with my running and with beach league, which starts Saturday.

Other than that, I’ve been keeping busy.  I went to Glendale Centre Threatre twice in one week, once for Godspell and once for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  I got to see Aladdin when the Broadway touring company was in town.  I got to hang out with Dave Duron for about an hour, a friend I haven’t seen in over a decade.  And I visited my friends Luke and Sarah this past weekend and their new daughter.  All of them were great times.

Back to Work – For Now

My surgeon gave me four weeks off to recover, which means that I was back to work on Monday.  I was rather tired that day, but I’ve been doing better sense then.  It’s good to be back, although I miss all my free time to read and watch the Olympics.  I was watching a whole lot of the Olympics.

Tuesday morning, I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon.  She is thrilled with my progress over all.  She told me to wait another couple of weeks before I start any serious exercise again, so I have to wait to start training for my mud runs, but they are definitely still on the agenda for this summer.  I was having a small problem with one incision, but that seems to have been resolved now, too.

While I was out, my company was sold.  I actually knew this was coming since they’d announced it back in October.  The sale itself is what went through at the beginning of this month.  While I was out, they also announced when I and my co-workers will be let go.  So I am back to work, but only until the end of April.  Fortunately, I am well, so I can now concentrate on finding a new job.

I’m glad God is in control because the last few months have been very stressful.