A Choice Has Been Made

Thank you to everyone who left comments to help me choose one of my photos for the photography contest at work. The theme is "What I Am Thankful For", and must be accompanied by why you are thankful about what is depicted in the photograph.

I had folks in three different places list their favorites, and the winner was the leaf. The text I included with it was:

"The cycling of the seasons reminds me that there is an elegance throughout every stage of life. I am thankful that autumn leaves provide such beauty to the world, in life and in death."

I'll update you if I manage to win this year! :)

Need Help, Please!

There's a photo contest at work, and I have no clue which one I should enter. If y'all would be so kind as to help me out, please scroll down a bit until you see "Jello Flavors" on the right-hand side, and then choose "Photography" to bring up my photos. I'm trying to narrow it down to just one from all the photos I've taken since last November until now. (You'll need to click on "Older Posts" to move backwards in time.)

I'm completely indecisive about which one I should enter.

Help?

Conversation

Co-worker 1: I'm going to be moving into a retirement community in about a month.
Me: One for active adults?
C1: Exactly!
C2: Whenever I hear "active adults", it always sounds naughty to me.
C1: It all depends upon where your mind is at...
C2: I mean, I've only been married 7 years, and if someone said I was an "active adult", I know what I'd think of first!
Me: I hope when I'm living in a retirement community that I'll be an "active adult"!

Well, Whaddya Know...

My work sponsored a contest on who had the best low-fat recipe. I entered in a recent favorite of mine that I made up....and I won. So now I will share it with you. It's one of those "throw it together" kind of dishes, and is fast and easy.

Fill a pan with water, about half an inch. Sprinkle in some salt. Sprinkle rosemary in water. Turn to medium heat, and put in a boneless, skinless chicken breast. Sprinkle poultry seasoning liberally on chicken. Allow to come to a boil; turn chicken over. Sprinkle other side with poultry seasoning. Allow to finish cooking (approximately another 5 minutes). When chicken is cooked through, take out of water and cut into small slices. Spoon some of the broth over the cut chicken pieces.

It is REALLY good. And simple to make!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

When I was a kid, my mom used to torture me by making me take all kinds of vitamins. I thought she was some kind of weird Health Nutjob. Then I grew up, and now I find myself taking vitamins and the like because it makes me feel better. Now my kids think I'm a weird Health Nutjob.

I really hate that manufacturers don’t have to disclose on the packaging that their product contains sucralose (Splenda). I guess since it’s “modified sugar”, the FDA thinks it’s fine to just list it quietly in the ingredients. I have to very carefully read labels so I can avoid it, since all artificial sweeteners taste horribly bitter to me (and give me headaches).

I had a weird dream that something was attacking me in my sleep, but I used Super Cool Ninja Moves on it, and killed the Mean Thing. But I woke up to smacking poor Ron in his sleep. I think I scared the crap out of him.

And then the next night, I dreamed that we had this sleep-over work party. One of my managers said, “I get to hold Suz tonight,” and proceeded to snuggle up to me when we were going to sleep. Weird.

Last night, we went to my parents’ house to pick up our new dishwasher (stupid old one died)(it was only 7 years old!), as my dad very nicely went and found us the Best Deal yesterday with all the sales (Ron and I both had to work). Ron and I were talking to my mom, and she mentioned that we probably wanted to get going. Ron replies TO MY MOM, and I quote: “Yeah, so Suz and I can get home and have some wild sex.” Are you supposed to say things like that in front of your mother-in-law?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday at work, I was a witness to the sweetest Valentine present ever-- Jean's sweet husband hired a barbershop quartet to come to her desk and sing some romantic songs to her. I wish I had my camera so I could have taken a video of the event to share with you. It truly was a tear-inducing moment.

For the rest of us, I direct you over to Blogger Dad's. He wins the GreenJello Jiggler Award again for this Valentine's post!

And finally, I leave you with a picture text message I received from Kayla... she had just finished counting all her money before leaving on a clothes shopping spree:



Kayla: Money. . . My one true love!!!! <3

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

I saw a co-worker eating some “Fruit Naturals” grapefruit. I hate that brand. It is false advertising in a name! Unless, of course, people think that added sugar to their fruit is “natural”.

Beans and legumes are awesome food. I just wish I knew how to cook with them so I’d eat them more. Mostly, I just stare at the packages of dried little beans and say, "Hmmm."

The Post Office just came out with a new, small flat rate box on Jan. 18th. I’m very happy about this! However, I’m not happy that none of the Post Offices around here have any (“Sorry—we haven’t received our shipments of them yet.”). I even ordered some online on the 18th, and they haven’t shipped yet. Yet another shining example of our government dollars at work.

A couple years back at work, a consultant was brought in to our company to look at the viability of outsourcing the IT work. It made a lot of us paranoid. When they left, our company decided outsourcing wasn’t the thing for us. About a year ago, all our printer support was outsourced to a local company. And last week, they announced the recommendation to outsource our 1st level tech support (phone people) to another company. We’re all taking bets on how long we have before we’re outsourced. **sigh**

I think that most adults don’t feel like adults inside. We’re all just children, pretending to be grown-ups.

Washington ruled in my favor. Now it’s Utah’s turn to clarify the support order and fix the mess later next month. Right now, I am grateful for the accomplishment of Step 1 in this long process.

I’m in the process of starting up a new blog that will follow my attempt at losing my ‘muffin top’. More details to follow…

Why I'm Not Posting Much Lately...

I gotta get all this stuff listed on Amazon and eBay... and more is coming Saturday.

Oy.

Nothing (And Yet Something) To Report

It's been a weird last few days. Lots of things happening in my life (Shandy wants to come home to visit for the first time in almost 2 years!)(Joy!)(Having to think about going to court-- again-- next week)($#@%!)(Kayla got burnt out on soccer, and isn't going to do club ball for awhile)(Mixed emotions)(Sick kids)(Not fun)(New part-time business actually going pretty darn good)(Yay!)(Went to Lana and Nate's wedding reception/Halloween party, which I still need to write about)(Fun time!)(Shandy turned 18!)(Am I old enough to have an 18 year old?)(Even though I'm exercising more than I ever have before in my entire life, I'm gaining weight and have a higher fat percentage)(Life is SO unfair)(Attended the last minute *mandatory* budget meeting at work, where we were assured that All Is Well In Zion)(Liars)(Attended nephew's birthday party and scared the crap out of a bunch of kids with my costume)(Bwahahahaha!).

But nothing really to blog about.

Various and Sundry

I had my 4 week weigh-in and fat percentage testing yesterday evening. I gained 2 pounds, and my body fat went up by 0.6 percent. My lean body mass, however, has increased by 0.1. I'm bummed that the numbers don't jive with the fact that my pants are getting loose.

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Claire: "Are you going to eat my brain?"
Sylar: "Claire... that's disgusting!"

I win. I told my kids he didn't eat their brains...

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I think for my future Wordless Wednesdays, I'll just put a blurb at the bottom of the picture to let you know where I took it. Or stole it from. :)

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I'm getting up the guts to talk to the Manager Who Doesn't Like Me to see if he'd be willing to allow me to swap jobs with another guy in our department. This guy wants a higher paying job, and I want to be able to do his job from home. I figure it would be worth the paycut, if I'm allowed to work from home. Since it's not currently an "at home" position, it will take some convincing. Wish me luck-- I'm going to try to talk to him on Thursday.

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And the most amazing news of all: My best friend Carol just found out she's expecting baby #4. What's so amazing about this, you ask? Well, she has some major medical problems that tend to mean you can't get pregnant. And regardless of this fact, plus the fact that birth control obviously didn't do its job, she is now expecting. The jaw-dropping component to this is that her youngest child is currently 15.

Can you even imagine???

I Did It Again

My workplace had a region-wide contest for their new campaign regarding making our hospitals all smoke-free. They wanted slogan ideas for their posters and whatnot...

I had run into a co-worker at the timeclock, and she asked me if I was going to enter the contest. I said I hadn't really thought about it, but she insisted that I should, as I always win contests at work.

So a few days later, I went ahead and submitted a slogan. I guess three other people had already submitted the same thing, and I was told I could try again and could submit as many entries as I wanted before midnight that night.

I decided to run with it, just for fun. The poor PR guy got like 20-30 submissions from me, some of them serious, some of them just for fun. (I think my favorite one was, "Every time you smoke, a puppy dies. Think of the puppies!")

I got a call this morning to go show up for some special meeting thing-a-ma-bob at 7:00am on Thursday to be presented with my award, as I seem to have placed in the top three entries.

Ah, it warms my heart. The type "A" personality part of me just got a good feeding. :)

You Say Po-tay-toh, I Say Po-tah-toh

My kids are always making fun of me because I pronounce the word "measure" differently than they do. I say, "may-zure" and they say, "mez-zure".

So in the cafeteria today, one of the managers was laughing because people were making fun of how he was pronouncing different words. He said, "It's because I grew up in Oregon." Hey, now... I grew up (mostly) in Washington. Maybe that's the missing link...? I asked him how he pronounced "measure". Guess what? It was "may-zure". :)

My official scientific experiment has proven to me that I suffer from "Pacific Northwesternism".

Dang... I should have asked him if he says "law-yer" or "low-yer". In the meantime, I've just resigned myself to saying "attorney" to avoid any further pronunciation embarrassment.

Working Woman

The Black Box has led me to many interesting blogs. I've been currently reading Joe's blog, who (from what I can tell) is a HR guy. This kind of sent me into thinking about the various interesting HR situations I've been in.

Like, when I was newly married, and 5 months pregnant-- "I'm sorry, but I can't hire you for this job because you're pregnant."

Or, upon giving my two weeks notice to the chauvinist computer store owner I worked for, said to me, "You know, the only reason Microsoft would hire you is because you're a woman."

My current manager wrote me up based on what someone told someone who told him what I did. This is also the same guy who tried to dictate what I could and could not do on my lunch break, and also tried to institute a dictated work schedule because I had "missed so much work". (I was off on FMLA for medical reasons, hello....?) He's also the one who delivers back-handed "compliments" like, "Suz was in charge of this project, but it turned out good anyhow."

I keep a comic strip up on my cube wall. It's in honor of the men who somehow think that my skills and knowledge are inferior, just because I'm a woman. Ha!


(Click on the comic strip to make it bigger...)

Day of Caring

Today was the United Way Day of Caring. My department participates in this every year, and it's a good experience for everyone.

This year, our assignment was for an elderly lady who needed yard work done... BADLY.

It took over 100 people 4+ hours to mow, trim, prune, haul, and paint. We filled up 5 community-size dumpsters to overflowing. Her house looked GREAT when we were all done with it. She cried with happiness at how beautiful her home looked.

The sad part? I noticed that all the neighbors in her circle had beautiful yards-- carefully manicured lawns, flowers, landscaping, the whole nine yards.

Why would neighbors allow an elderly lady to accumulate 30+ years of growth on her property, and not help her out? Her lawn was over a foot tall, for crying out loud. Not even a simple lawn mowing, folks?

Life Lesson for the Day

I just came back from talking to a secretary about her computer woes. She was very upset that, once a month, the computer does it's automatic updates and forces a reboot after a certain period of time (after warning them lots of times that the machine needs to reboot).

I listened to her for a good 10 minutes, figuring she probably needed to vent. Then I got a little tired of it, and offered her a couple useful suggestions that have worked in other departments.

She did NOT want to hear it. She wanted to keep complaining to the phone support people, she wants to talk to their supervisor, wants to talk to the head person at corporate who made this decision, etc.

I came away from this encounter today with the realization that I have to be careful about my attitude and how I approach change. Either you fight against what has happened, or you get yourself an attitude adjustment. Looking for solutions, rather than focusing on the problem, seems to make the difference between productive behavior vs. being stuck in the same place.

Biocompostable Products

I'm on the "Green Team" here where I work. I joined it because I'm horrified at the amount of water that is wasted on the lawns here (and spills out to make mini-rivers in the parking lot...). Geez, people! We live in a desert, remember?

Anyway, at our meeting yesterday, some way cool things were used for our luncheon. Check these out: http://worldcentric.org/biocompostables

We ate with forks made of corn starch, and drank from cups also made from corn. In a composting facility, they will break down within three months. Is that cool, or what?

It makes me wonder, though, what kind and what amount of fuel is needed to make these things... I'm sure that the factory that makes these isn't running on solar power. One thing I've noticed about "environmentally friendly" products is that they still use fossil fuels to produce their products, and sometimes it takes more energy to produce the "friendly" product than the old one.

I guess it's at least a step in the right direction. The less chemicals in our food and homes, the better.

Weird Dream

I had this kind of freaky dream last night... I dreamt that my team at work had to be out of town overnight, and that we all had to share a hotel room. The manager (who doesn't like me) insisted that I had to share the one bed in the hotel room with him, and everyone else needed to be on the floor.

I felt SO uncomfortable in the dream. I pretended to be asleep, and when my manager thought I was completely asleep, he snuck his hand over and tried to hold my hand. Later, he tried to sneak his arm around me. Then, he tried to fondle me.

When I got home in my dream, I asked Ron to please go see my manager, and tell him he will beat the trash out of him if he ever touches me again.

I'm feeling very disturbed this morning.

More Chalk Art

Today was the day that my other work location was having a chalk art contest during the employee summer party. I got there later than I had planned, so I only had time to work on a smaller one. I think it turned out cute, although the seaweed with the bubbles does look somewhat like a sea monster...

After I was done there, I had to go to our third (and main) location to pick up some computers. I figured why not make cute stuff at all three locations? :)

I had a lot more competition here, so this one was a bit more involved than my other one above. I still think I like my drawing from last week best-- I did put the most effort into that one. This last drawing was quite large (compare by the size of the chalk on the lower right hand side...), but didn't have quite as much detail as my first one from last week.

I still like 'em all, though! I think one of the most common comments I heard during doing this was, "I didn't know you were artistic!" I guess it's a strange thing when a computer geek suddenly turns artist. :)

I Rock!

My chalk drawing took first place yesterday. Sweet! Now I get to choose from a handful of places where to get my gift certificate to... maybe Mimi's Cafe. I lovelovelove their corn chowder!

Now to decide what to draw for the next summer party-- I support the computers at two locations, and the other location is having their party next week. The girls think I should do a mermaid, but I'm not so sure that would be a good idea, considering the limited colors I have with the kiddie chalk. Ideas?

Jen, the sunflowers are for you!

Chalk Art

Today was our employee summer party bbq out in back of the building. It was a beach party theme, and they had various activities going on. One of them was drawing with sidewalk chalk, and they were offering a $30 gift certificate as the prize.

That was enough motivation for me. :) An hour and 45 minutes later, this is what I finished with. Not bad for using cheapie kid chalk!