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 |  "Clean cup! Move down!" ~~the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney cartoon |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Sometimes in life, you have to pick up and move down the table. A regroup, a fresh start. A clean slate. |
So I did my TEDx entry. It's here: "Invalid Entry"  It is about making small sustainable changes in your life. It's about doing just One Thing a day. It is how I cope with my depressive bipolar times. It is also how I cope with preventing myself from going over board during my manic times. OK...It's just how I cope.  We all lie to ourselves. There are two dangerous times when we lie to ourselves. At the beginning, when we first tell our lie to ourselves and begin to believe it. And at the end, when we stop believing the lie and we give up on ourselves. About a year ago, our kitty Bonnie puked on a bunch of our towels under our bathroom sink. So I pulled all the towels out and washed them. I should note here that we have WAY too many towels for two people. So I washed them all and then promptly folded them and put them into a basket at the foot of my bed. And there they have sat. For. A. Year. We have been using them out of the basket and when I wash towels, they get folded and put back into that damn basket. Over and over. Ad nauseum. And I continued to tell myself the ugly but believable lie that: One of these days, I will clean out from under the sink and put my damn towels back. One of these days. All of the most ugly and believable lies begin that way. "One of these days. When I have the time, when I get the money, when I get this, that or the other." And then you stop believing your lies. And you kind of.........give up that it will ever happen. It begins to feel insurmountable. The idea of beginning the project just feels overwhelming. And that is half the battle. Your attitude. Enter, One Thing. Today I told myself, "Ok, honey. Today, all you have to do is pull 5 things out from under the sink. That's it. Five things." (Midnight, the other kitty has set up home under the sink since it is a big open space and she takes toys in to play in there.) So when I did my one thing of five toys the hell out from under the sink. I did 5 more. Because....I realized it wasn't that hard. Then I cleaned it completely out. Then I checked in with myself. I told myself I could stop if I felt like it, but honestly, all I had to do was sweep it out and put the towels in and I was done. Five more minutes and the whole damn year long project was done. And just like that. It was. Whole thing took me twenty minutes. Twenty minutes. I spent a year avoiding a twenty minute project. One of these days.... What an ugly and stupid lie. All over come by taking the first step of One Thing. And now I don't have the guilt and mental stress of looking at that stupid basket every damn day. Today I am made of win. |
| So. So, so, so. I met with Bill Wednesday. He helped me fill out the right forms, then he personally took them to the right person who entered them. (I love Bill.) She emailed me Friday and told me that my exceptions have all been accepted, now I have to file to graduate in absentia for this Spring semester. It costs $30 MORE dollars to do that. Like these fucks haven't taken enough of my money. Now I have to pay to refile for graduating in absentia. because everything I've ever filed before is expired. No good. Nada. Bupkus. Whatever. That's Monday's problem. I just took some time and wrote an explanation? Apology? to my sister for the almost four year rift we had. Where I told her to basically piss up a rope and never contact me again. We had an ugly break in January of 2011. Over CJ. I more or less had an ugly break with my whole family then. I explained things to her that we never told anyone about that time. And I apologized for the mean things I said to her. I guess today was a day for clean slates for me. I don't know. I feel almost wrung out from writing it all out. Like lancing a boil. I haven't been angry with her all this time. I've mostly felt betrayed by the family. But I apologized for my part in it. The misunderstandings, the ugly words...........all of it. The fact that Hubby has always been painted by everyone in the family as the villain in the piece. A role he has sadly accepted as his due to protect me in the matter. Because that is what Hubby does. Always. Protect me. Even when it comes to CJ. Hubby always takes my side. Even at work, Hubby protects me. Even when he tries to treat me as just another co-worker, he protects me. I work to not make it a problem. To keep from letting it affect things. Now I feel maudlin and depressed. ~sigh~ I'm off to bed. |
| I struggled to get out of bed this morning and then when I did I went and threw up several times. Not because I felt bad but because of stress. I was stress sick this morning. Is that even a thing? Like, a medical thing? I know it is a me thing because it actually happened. It sucked. I went back to bed and just laid there and cried a little. I couldn’t seem to get my shit together. I got a letter Friday. Montana State University regrets to inform me that, once again, I failed to meet the requirements for graduation. Once again. ONCE AGAIN. I just sat in my dining room floor and cried for fifteen minutes when I opened it. It was an almost surreal moment. I feel like the college graduation requirements are a puzzle that are just, somehow, sadly, beyond the scope of my abilities. Like there was a class or a seminar or something somewhere along the way that explained HOW THE FUCK YOU GRADUATE FROM MOTHERFUCKING COLLEGE and I didn’t take it or something. The letter was maddeningly unhelpful in content. They didn’t tell me why or what to do next. They simply regretted to inform me. I mentally regrouped over the weekend and sent a (I felt) very nice email to the department head and my interim adviser asking what I should do and was there anything they could do to help me, please and thank you. My adviser (not really—my REAL adviser is a fuck, Bill is just a really nice professor who has been wonderfully, wonderfully helpful to me over the years) explained why the fuck I can’t graduate and what I needed to do. Apparently the school has instituted a new computer program called DegreeWorks that compares the classes you've taken against the degree requirements and if you have anything that was getting approval along the way because you were deviating from the norm and would normally have been being rubber stamped and pushed through by your (real) adviser, DegreeWorks now makes you file individual exception forms. All news to me. All of it. My adviser never informed me of any of this. I was sailing along like I was just fine. Apparently fucking NOT. Nothing had been filed for me over the years. Not. One. Single. Thing. Bill very kindly agreed to meet with me next week and help me file the NINE exception forms my adviser never filed nor told me to file on my own nor advised me about in any fucking form or fashion. The department head I have been working with? He finally emailed me back to tell me he is no longer department head so basically I was on my own and if Bill was willing to work with me good for me, otherwise, it sucks to be me. It was a politely worded, “Don’t fucking bother me with this shit, you are no longer my problem.” All that on top of holding down two positions at my work which is really three positions. My regular position which is really two jobs and the dispatch position. We finally hired someone for that position, but she won’t start until Feb. 2nd, and when she does start? Guess who will be training her. That would be me. Like I have time for that. |
| I'm home alone in the office for most of the morning. A- the office manager has a crown she got on Monday that is all messed up so she had to go back to the dentist. S- the payroll lady had to take her dogs to the vet. A- left the music on for me. A- chooses our music every day. Well, with my input, she chooses the music. Every morning she says, "What do we feel like listening to today?" And we choose a station that she plays on her computer. Sometimes we do the "office mix" 70s-current top 40 stuff. Some days we do 80's pop mix. Some days we do 70s easy listening. Very occasionally we will do 40s, 50s and 60s oldies. Today we are doing our favorite station, oldies country. We both hate current country. Or as we call it Pop Country. But we love Johnny Cash, George Strait, The Oak Ridge Boys, Marty Robbins, Waylon, Willie, the Statler Brothers, Kenny Rogers. So good. We sit here and sing along to all the songs. Even though neither of us can carry a tune in a bucket. Although we change it if it gets too Tammy Wynette or too George Jones. They break our heart and harsh our mellow.I'm still wearing too many hats at work. I had my monthly safety meeting yesterday. I have stuff on it I need to follow up with, but I have fuel reporting that must happen before the end of the month. IFTA/IRT reporting and the state of Idaho reporting have to happen by the 31st for last quarter. I have to get those in without fail or we pay a huge fine(s). But, I'm still doing the job of the dispatcher which means I have to finish all the invoicing and then run statements on either the 23rd or the 27th. ~sigh~ We did hire a new person, whom I will get to train because I know the job, but she doesn't start until Feb 2nd. So sometime mid Feb, I get to go back to wearing only two hats, not three. Luckily it is the slow time of year. I told A- that if it looks like this new chick has a bunch of problems, we need to not be afraid to pull the ripcord early on her. We ran into a ton of problems because we kept T- the old chick here past the time when we could have done that. There were red flags, but the two of us didn't speak up and say anything before it was too late. It turned out we are pretty sure T- was helping one of our drivers steal from the company.  We can't prove she helped him, or that she covered it up, but it looks pretty suspicious. And she was sleeping with him.We can't even make a non-fraternization rule in the company, though because of me and Hubby. Although he and I are super careful not to have overlapping interests and to be extra transparent when we do things. We have another husband/wife team working for the company, too. They are both mechanics, though, and have nothing to do with paperwork or the money end of things. Mostly the whole affair has created a headache in both companies. (It is technically two companies--a ready mix company and a concrete pumping company. Hubby works for one, I work for the other.) OK, I have things to do, obviously. And clearly I can't multitask since I just hung up on the boss's wife. *facepalm* |
| I hate drivers who can’t understand the basics of road etiquette. It’s like they understand how to operate a vehicle in order to get from point A to get to point B, but that is the extent of their knowledge. They have no basic understanding that other humans ALSO use those same roadways and a certain amount of give and take and share and share alike is required for that to happen. It’s called society. We live in a world where societal rules have begun to break down on basic levels. Take for instance: When emergency vehicles come up on you, either behind you or in front of you, you pull off to the side of the road or just essentially get the hell out of the way. That’s it. That’s all. Get the hell out of their way. They are on their way to save a life, put out a fire, or stop lawlessness. So get the hell out of their way so they can be about their business. Don’t make them go around you or try to figure out what you are doing. Put on your blinker and safely and quickly move to the side of the road. If that isn’t an option (say you are stopped at a light), then edge gently to one side or the other to make a hole for them and sit still until they pass. That’s it. Sit still. Here is another. When you are sitting at a light, pull up sufficiently behind the next car so that you don’t impede the flow of traffic into the left turn lane. Don’t be an asshole when someone is trying to nudge past you into the turn lane and you have left a full car length and a half between you and the next guy. Don’t get all high and mighty and flip them off when they give you the horn. It’s a righteous horn. You aren’t alone on the roads. Be aware of other drivers who also have a right to the road. Yes, yes, it is important to leave sufficient room, but mother of pearl……don’t block lanes! Along those lines. Be aware of more than the traffic in front of you. There are cars operating to the sides and behind you as well. Don’t swerve into lanes like a reckless dick in heavy traffic. Fast lane changes and zooming around trying to jockey ahead one or two car lengths is stupid and causes accidents and near misses and is hard on people’s nerves. Stay in your lane unless you need to change because you are turning and then use your damn blinker so the people behind you know what the hell you are doing. Otherwise, I will give you the righteous horn AND flip you the finger. |
| I'm sitting here watching Hubby kill people on his new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. I get him the new one each year for Christmas. He seems to be enjoying it. There are always minute changes to it: in this one you can jump like an Olympic high jumper, plus there are some gear changes. There are phrases they say over and over on it that I tease him and the dog with..........."C secure!" "Losing Bravo!" "We're losing!" "We're winning this fight!" The dog just looks at me. I'm writing and dinking around on the interwebs. I think later I will clean my kitchen. But only because we don't have any clean forks. Then possibly I will go out in the backyard and schelp around on my snow shoes. I've got three things I want to do this year that I want to work on each week: Write daily, walk or exercise a couple times a week, and once a week take myself somewhere interesting. That's it. That's the extent of my list of resolutions or whatever. A few years ago I did "The Artist's Way" and it was super helpful. I am going through it again. I want to do it and another, more spiritual weekly study for the next quarter. It has some exercises for me to work on, too. I just..........last year wasn't the most difficult year I've ever faced, but I am certainly putting it in the more difficult column rather than the yay! fabulous one. I'd like this next one to start with a better tone. I want to do what I can to help that along. And if that means taking myself on Artist Dates and going for walks, or snow shoeing, then, so be it. I'm cautiously optimistic about this coming year. It ts supposed to be a better one than this past one. Already on the plus side.........I'm not going to school anymore. |
| The out laws arrived last night. I was in bed sound asleep because they (by they, I mean my father in law) insisted on flying in on the absolute latest flight available into the Bozeman airport. And the flight was delayed because of weather. So they got to the house around one this morning. Hubby went and got them. I had to open the office this morning because A- is at a dentist appointment, one of her fillings fell out and then her tooth broke. Eeeesh. That gives me the heebies. I left a note for my MIL on our bar this morning that there was sausage and eggs to make in the fridge. I figure she can work out breakfast for them this one morning. Tonight we will probably go out to eat at their favorite place. (And ours.) It is this wonderful steak house/supper club place out in the middle of nowhere in Logan MT called The Land of Magic. The steaks are incredible and they also have lobster and crab that is to die for. But my favorite is the twice baked potatoes. OMG........so freaking good. Tonight I need to make sausage balls and pigs in the blanket for them/me to have for breakfast for the rest of the time they are here. I was just going to make them up in bulk and let them reheat them and make eggs to eat with if they wanted. Other that that and Christmas dinner, I have zero food plans for them. They are so hard to cook for. Or he is. She would eat dirt if I served it and ask for second helpings so as to not hurt my feelings. I have to run statements tomorrow and I'm nowhere near ready to do so. :/ I should be invoicing out my Idaho stuff, but I'm just........stuck. I need to get on the ball. I'm writing right now because of the way my work station faces. The sun comes in the front door of the office and strikes me in the face right now. I can't read anything off my desk. I can only read my computer screen if I crank my head off to the side like an idiot. I just have to wait out the 30 or 45 minute window until it gets high enough to not be right in my eyes. Maybe I'll go have more eggnog bread from my Christmas gift package from one of my office mates. Ugh. There was also cranberry/strawberry Christmas jam in there. Mmmmm. Or I could raid the cookies A- brought in. I love spritzer cookies. I need to do something but sit here like a slug. |
| New things. T- the dispatcher at my work left to follow her boyfriend down to Colorado where he got a job hauling crude oil near the oil fields near Fort Collins. She left to do dispatching for the company he works for. We were glad to see her go. I don't ill wish her, but she had gotten useless here. She had stopping doing any work except what immediately interested her. The rest she just let slide. So. School is finished for me. Again.  I can't even be excited because I already did the excitement thing last spring. I guess I'm just numb. And tired. And just..........done. So. Now that school is done I'm the full time dispatcher and also handle all the accounts receivable and invoicing, etc, for the concrete pumping business. (I still do all the fuel data entry for both the pumping business and the ready mix company.) And again, I'm sort of numb. I didn't want this position. But, I will do it well. Except I sort of resent having to take it over. I have to carry a cell phone with me and I am on call 24/7. People call the dispatch cell and change jobs or whatever and I have to be able/willing/ready to deal with that. This morning some jackass called me at butt crack thirty and asked the stupid question people always seem to ask. "Did I wake you?" I said, "Yes." I didn't even give him a polite lie. I just bluntly said yes. Cause he did wake me. He laughed but I was serious. He wanted to call my driver because the ready mix company moved the mud time on him. I wanted to shout at him, "Then mother fucking call the driver, jackwagon!!!" But I didn't. I was nice. The other night a ready mix guy called me to double check a time on mud at 9:30. We were going to bed. (We are old.) Hubby is cranky that both of us are now essentially on duty for this/these companies 24/7. We both have phones we can never turn off or be away from. We both are just on call. Always. It's mentally tiring. The pay is good, though. And we need to dig out from under the credit card bills from me being in school. I think that is part of my mental attitude, too. This job has fuck all to do with my degree. Like.....fuck all. It makes me sad. I've looked but I can't find a job in my field here in Bozeman. Now I've depressed myself. I think mostly I want to be home reading right now. Or playing WoW. I'm also depressed that my inlaws are coming to stay for a whole week at Christmas when I wanted to just spend time home alone this year recuperating and chilling. No. Instead I get the mental stress of dealing with my jackass father in law and my early stage Alzheimer's mother in law. I love them both, but I'm tired. I'm worn the fuck out. I want to just relax. I want a vacation alone. Just me and my computer games and my books. Maybe a little bit of time with Hubby. I don't want a week of entertaining and stressing about houseguests. I'm stressed that I'm at odds with CJ right now about this wedding thing. I don't like feeling like this. We haven't spoken in over a week. I hate it. But I'm not wrong. I won't back down. I will stand up for myself in this case. I just will. ~sigh~ I'm just tired. I need a nap and a blankie. |
| CJ and K- her firefighter boyfriend announced their engagement over the weekend. So......yay. She says they are getting married in April. I'm not excited about this. Hubby is not excited about this, either. I don't care about the marriage. Yay for her if she is happy. Go for it. Hubby objects to the whole business. He is one of those fathers who thinks he knows best and that every decision CJ makes is a disaster in the making. K- is all wrong for her. He wants to live and die in Hobbs, NM, the armpit of the world and CJ is miserable there. Why would she stay there only for him?! (This is all according to Hubby.) How he knows all this about K- is beyond me because what he knows about K- is only what I have told him from what I have picked up from CJ. Because we have never met K-. Another bone of contention with Hubby. I don't care about any of that. If K- makes her happy, again I say, go for it. She's 21 years old. Old enough to make decisions like that for herself. Here is my problem. The wedding. She is insisting that her biological father--a man who raped me and beat me--attend the wedding as an honored guest. She assures me that he won't talk to me. Really? That's your concession? He won't talk directly to me? Hubby says if he does Hubby will punch him about the head and shoulders repeatedly. CJ says anyone who "makes trouble" will be asked to leave. And him talking to me won't be enough to be considered trouble. Oh. Well. Thanks for that. Don't go to any trouble on my part, there. I'm only your fucking mother. I'm seriously considering not attending the wedding of my only child. My only daughter because I don't think I have enough........moxie...enough....sang froid to stand and act urbane and witty at a semi-formal function with a man who helped gang rape me. I just don't know if I have it in me. And yes, CJ knows all this. Apparently it doesn't matter because "he's changed." Well apparently I haven't changed enough. Or maybe I've changed enough to stand up and say, "No thanks. I'm good. Even though you are my only daughter, my only child. I refuse to be tortured in this way. Fuck this." |
| Turkey Day went off without a hitch. We had a great meal with great company. It was all very low key. The day was a strange mashup of ultra-relaxed and kinda fancy. I made some sorta fancy dishes: the roasted Cornish game hens, steamed fresh haricot verts, and fresh pomegranate-cranberry sauce. And I made a couple of super simple boxed things: boxed stuffing and mashed potatoes. A- brought these special homemade rolls she did that she and I found on Facebook that look like little pumpkins and then she brought a store bought veggie tray. She also made a fresh raspberry pie. (I had my store bought pumpkin cheesecake.) She took me at my word and wore her fancy sweats and no makeup. We ate off of some Thanksgiving paper plates she brought, but drank sparkling cider out of my good wine glasses. While I cooked she and I also had some mulled cider I made in the crock pot. I used apple cider, fresh squeezed mandarin oranges, pomegranate juice, cinnamon sticks and mulling spices and then let it simmer overnight in the crock pot the night before. It was amazing. The pomegranate juice gave it this wonderful rich tartness. I still have some. In fact, I may go heat up a mug of it now. Yum! The game hens were a hit, too. They are nice because they only take a little over an hour and a half to roast. When dinner was done, I took the leftover bits of them and dumped them and the celery, onions and carrots I roasted them with right into the crock pot and cooked them overnight with some water and made bone broth. So. Dang. Tasty. And so freaking good for you!! This morning I strained the meat and bones and veggies out of the broth and poured it into two quart jars. Then I picked through the bones for all the left over good meat (there is always so much left!) and put that BACK into the crock pot with a little more water, the broth that was left, and fresh celery, onions and carrots. I put it on for 4 more hours and when that is up, I'll put in some wild rice for game hen and wild rice soup. Mmmmmmmm. So many meals out of this one. And so much easier to deal with than a full turkey carcass! I also love the flavor of the tiny hens. So succulent and wonderful. Yummy soup for the cold weather we are going to have the rest of the weekend. I love being able to squeeze several different meals out of one meal. |
| I am not sure if I have told y'all before, but Hubby is a dieter. He diets like a 16 year old anorexic girl. He is a weightlifter and his diets are usually okay healthwise (if sometimes weird in content) but it means that for months at a time, I'm expected (?) to make separate meals for us because I have my own personal food dilemmas. What do I mean diets? Okay, take for instance, the all protein-all the time, holy cow we aren't kidding, diet. What did the man eat? He ate nothing but hamburger patties and eggs. And protein shakes. Vanilla protein shakes. For variety, he puts onions and spinach in the eggs. Two positives about that: One, our boss and his wife have a hobby farm and she raises chickens. We get free eggs. By free eggs I mean at any given time I have between 8 and 12 dozen eggs in my refrigerator. Always. Right now I think I have 10 dozen. I don't keep veggies in my veggie drawers, I just keep cartons of eggs in them. I'll post a photo of it some time. And two, scrambled eggs are the only food my husband knows how to cook for himself on a stove (he can cook food outside on the grill, too). Right now he is doing Isagenix. It is some crazy drink two special shakes a day and then eat like a bird one meal diet. Also take a bunch of supplements. He keeps trying to get me to do it, too. Um, no. I'm allergic to half the crap in those "special shakes." I'm never dieting again. I'm reading Intuitive Eating. That is what I am doing from now on. I've already lost 6 pounds doing it. He can spend a bunch of money and be miserable and hungry and hangry and obsess about food on his own. I'm done fooling with that nonsense. Because of all of that I had planned for him to eat eggs and for me to eat a frozen pizza for Thanksgiving since it is just the two of us. Easy, right? No. ~sigh~ We have a co-worker/friend who because of the weather can't drive up near the Canadian border to spend the holiday with her grandmother and father so she was going to be alone. So big mouth me said, "Why don't you come spend it with us? I'll cook." So tomorrow instead of eating my frozen pizza in my Winnie the Pooh pajamas and playing WoW, I'm going to be roasting three Cornish game hens and making fresh cranberry sauce. I told her we don't dress up, though. I told her if she felt fancy she could wear her formal sweats.  I did buy myself a whole pumpkin cheesecake to eat over the weekend. (Hubby said he isn't having any and A- doesn't like pumpkin flavored things.) The three of us might go see the new Penguins movie on Friday, too. Hubby told me he is going hunting on Saturday or Sunday, though. But K- from work (who invited him) invited me to go hunting, too. Let's see...........traipse through the woods in below zero weather ankle deep in snow or stay home under the covers? I think I'm good with staying home and playing WoW. |
| I play HabitRPG with several people here on site. I am also taking part in NaNoWriMo this month. We were helping each other out with our stories and where we got stuck in them the other day. I realized I need a First Reader. I need someone to send my stuff to and say, "My story isn't working Here and Here. Please advise." I need someone to say, "You haven't sent me your pages today, what gives?" Because I'm crap at accountability to myself, but if I have a deadline that involves someone else, I am pretty good. I need someone to say, "Why have you changed directions with this character?" I have a friend who is a decent Beta Reader for me, but she can't do much on first read except say, "There is a problem with this section, but I don't know what it is." I love her and I appreciate her help, but I want to shout at her, "What?! What is it? Is it pacing? Is it tone? Have I veered off line of my outline? Are my characters doing out of character things? My God, Woman, I need specifics!" Hubby won't First Read for me because Hubby doesn't read. I know. I'll give you a minute to compose yourselves after reading that sentence. Take your time. I read a book a day (that is not an exaggeration). Hubby has read roughly 5 books in the last 20 years. Wait, I think I can name them: Reagan's Autobiography, Bush's Autobiography, Ted Nugent's Autobiography, both of Chris Kyle's books (he LOVED these), and William Shatner's Tek Wars (Not the series, just the first book). I was wrong, it was six books--although he may not have finished the Nuge's whole book or Reagan's whole book. Oh, and he read Carlos Hathcock's biography.........um, I think it was called White Feather. So...7 books in 20 years. (He likes books about people, not fiction.) I bought him Tim Tebow's book, but he hasn't gotten around to reading it. (I bought it 2? 3? years ago.) I think he perused some poker books over the years, too. But that's about it. He wants the movie version of fiction. He doesn't want to read it. I guess he will watch my stuff if they are made into movies. ~shrug~ Anyway. So, I need a First Reader and someone to keep me accountable and churning out writing each week. Someone to turn stuff in to. Someone who understands what writing should look like and keep me on track. A babysitter/sounding board. Because I'm sucktastic and when it gets hard, I give up. I need someone to talk stuff out with and discuss difficult plot points. I need a dedicated writing group. Or something. I guess I don't know what I need. Am I alone with this need? Wanted: One First Reader willing to receive at least weekly emails/downloads of my current writing project, read them, then discuss various difficulties or plot/character/etc. problems I might be having. Must be willing to bug me if I get flaky and stop sending things. Willing to reciprocate in kind. Qualifications: Must be a fellow writer and decent editor although not necessarily of the "final copy editor" variety more of the specific "able to explain to me where the train derailed in this bit of writing" variety. (Things like: your character is going against his own basic character traits, why?; or, you have flashbacked 5 times in 20 pages and done 3 information dumps, that's not kosher.) |
| I tutor Soils and Intro GIS. I did last fall, too. I enjoy both subjects, but the tutees are sometime hit or miss on me liking them. For both subjects, I'm the only tutor available for hire through SmartyCats. (Yes, yes, that is actually what it is called. We are the MSU Bobcats.) But you can still get help other ways. For instance there are 10? 12? TAs available for the Soils class. (It is a HUGE two section class with labs. I think there are around three hundredish students enrolled in it.) But I have three people in my Soils who come see me on a regular basis. I love them. They are excellent. They are also all three Vets. One, I think was in the Army; the other two were Marines. G- looks like he could be on a recruiting poster for the Marine Corp. M- looks like what she is........mother of two small children and one on the way, slightly frazzled all the time. But of the two of them, G- assures me M- could kick his ass and make him like it. Apparently she was in Officer Candidate school when she got injured somehow (I've never really pried, this stuff is just what I've picked up in casual conversations). She also took a bunch of advanced close combat training or something. G- was a sniper I think. He likes to go off in the wilderness and survive on twigs and a bottle of water. They crack me up bantering back and forth. T-, the Army guy, is quiet. He doesn't say much. He is more a drop in. He comes to see me before tests and what not. M- and G- see me twice a week without fail.I set up my tutoring schedule at the beginning of the semester and I don't always look really closely at the calendar when I'm doing it. I set up for every Tues and every Thurs at 6 pm then it auto populates. I went and changed Thanksgiving, but otherwise I left it alone. Fast forward to next week. I just texted M- and G- and asked them since there was no school for Veteran's Day did they want to cancel tutoring, too. I mean........they are both Vets. Surely they don't want to come see me on Veteran's Day? |
| The federal DOT regulates the crap out of the trucking industry. Like I'm not even kidding. They tax the crap out of it and they regulate the crap out of it. One of the things they regulate is time worked. Which on the face of it is a good thing, right? Who wants exhausted drivers driving on the roadways? But the thing is they have come up with a Byzantine set of rules and regulations to prevent tired drivers. You must do this, you mustn't do that. There is an entire handbook (over 100 pages) devoted to nothing but deciphering these rules. The rules are things like: a driver can't operate a commercial vehicle more than 11 hours in a 24 hour period. They must have at least 10 consecutive hours off in a 24 hour period. After 14 consecutive hours on duty, there can be no driving, although the operator can still work. Those are hard enough to do. The one that keeps biting us in the butt, though, is the hard reset. A driver has a 60 hour/7 day or 70 hour/8 day limit for work. That is a rolling limit. Unless they do a 34 hour off consecutive hour off duty hard reset of hours. The hard reset wipes their work slate clean. All limits start fresh for them. Our dispatcher can't get the hang of building in hard resets for our operators. She keeps them on the rolling limits. She tells me (remember, I'm the safety officer), "But I gave him a day off!" I ask her, "How many hours are in a day?" and "Did he have the entire day or just a partial day? Either way, neither is 34 hours long." She just can't get the idea that all days off aren't equal. |
| We have a bulk fuel tank at our work. It holds around 1600 gallons of diesel. Our concrete mixers and concrete pumps fuel up at this tank and it saves us money and time for them to fuel here in the yard rather than going to a gas station. I do the fuel ordering. Our batch plant man dips the tank daily (yeah, we are ghetto, he uses a big stick with marks on it) and texts us an estimate of how many gallons we have every day. 1000 gallons, 500 gallons, 300 gallons, etc. If I get under so many gallons I order a fuel truck to come fill up our tank the next day or whenever it can come. But this is not an instantaneous thing. It can be a while before Wayne the fuel guy can come. Our drivers are supposed to get fuel every day. That usually works out to 25-35 maybe 40 gallons of diesel at a go per truck. That's doable. I can plan for that shit. Twenty trucks a day, 30ish gallons, simple math problem. We hired a new side dump truck driver last week. Apparently no one told him the company policy is, "It costs us nothing to keep the fuel in the trucks. Fueling should be the last thing you do each day." So, I was going over the fuel logs and there it was.....the side dump for 104 gallons. And three days later for 84 gallons. WTF? Dude. I can't order fuel based on you getting 104 gallons at a pop! If I think I still have 400 gallons going into a day and then..whoops, nope, J- got fuel. No bueno, dude. I had to call the batch man and tell him he has to have a serious talk with this dude and tell him what's what. |
| Hubby and I had a blow out the other day about him waking me up by bitching in the mornings. So we have a new deal. He has to be nice in the mornings. So I can start my day on a positive note. I'm not sure what Hubby gets out of it. I guess me in a good mood for the day. I also get a hug before he leaves for work if I get out of bed on time. Yes. Hubby is bribing me to be on time to work with hugs. Sofie is apparently in on the deal because she has been walking all over me as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning. She stomps all over me with her stupid tiny little paws. Then she circle round and steps on my head and sits on my face with her stinky little doxy butt. She'll peer over her shoulder innocently as if to say, "What? Is that annoying you, Mom?" Until I get up. Hubby and I have worked out a trade, I get the hugs in the morning and he gets hugs at night before bed. I like to wake up knowing he loves me. He likes to go to sleep knowing I love him. I've been doing well on my NaNo. Two days in. Two weekend days in. This is me priming the pump. I need to start writing other places again. I need to start just..........writing more. So....here is a tiny slice of my life. |
| Hubby and I went to a Bobcat game today. One of our vendors gave us free tickets and Hubby is super into football, so we thought, why not? It's funny, because even though I've been a student at MSU since roughly the end of the last glacial period, we've only been to two or three games. Mostly because of me. I hate crowds. I burn like a vampire in the sunlight. I wilt like a ten day old daisy in the heat. I whine like a toddler when cold. I have to be fed and watered at regular intervals or I get sick. I can't walk long distances or it triggers my asthma. I have to be given constant access to a potty because repeated abdominal surgeries have wrecked my bladder. I'm a total hot house flower and like Goldilocks my conditions must be just right or I'm awful to be around. (I am also awesome to travel with.  )But today was a gentle fall Montana day, the tickets were decent, and, as I said, we thought, "Meh, why the heck not?" We finally found parking on the far side of campus, which wasn't awful, and we hiked in. We missed the first quarter because we were waffly about going in the first place. But once we got there, the football was decent. It was Parent's Weekend. I laughed and told Hubby he would have to act in that capacity for me. There were over 19,000 people in the stadium. A really decent turnout considering there are only about 50,000 people total in Bozeman-85,000 or 90,000 total in the entire county. Hubby is a sports aficionado. With only a handful of exceptions (soccer, cricket, dog racing, one or two others), he is keen on all sports. But for him football is King. He'd like to coach college football one day. That translates into: Teresa knows way the hell more about football that she really wants to. (It's like concrete that way. After him being in Ready Mix for 20 years, what I don't know about concrete only experts know.) What that also means is that casual fans annoy the piss out of Hubby and amuse the hell out of me. He goes for the football. I go for the people watching. I can take or leave sports. Mostly leave. But the character sketches. Oh, my, the character sketches. It's a writer's DREAM. My three favorite people today were: Captain I Know Exactly Enough Football Terminology to Impress My Girlfriend: This guy was a little sloshed when we got there and then went out into the parking lot at halftime and got hammered. He and the dually impressed girlfriend sat immediately in front of us on the crowded bleachers. He kept calling the plays. Our favorite was when he kept calling for "Play Action!" during what were clearly already passing plays. (Play action is a run fake that turns into a pass play--NOT a pass play that is clearly already a passing play.) We giggled about that quite a bit. He was also incredulous every time a flag was thrown. This guy just couldn't even. He would jump up and throw his hands up in the air and ask everyone seated around us if we could believe what was happening. Hubby had to turn his head to keep from laughing out loud several times because it was actually a really well officiated game. He was probably my very favorite. My second favorite was Mr. I Am So Drunk I Have No Idea What Is Happening, But I Will React Dramatically Every Time the Crowd Does: I laughed out loud several times at this guy. He sat a couple of rows behind us. He. Was. Hammered. But, he tried hard to keep up with the game. The crowd would cheer, this guy would cheer louder, just a beat behind. The play was a fumble? This guy would dramatically groan a second or two after everyone else was done. It was like listening to a tape delay of the crowd reaction on a loud slurred setting. So funny. The third guy only piped up periodically, but I have heard people like him before and I just couldn't leave him out. Coach I Pretend to Know All The Players Personally: This guy. Oh, my God. This guy. "Come on Chad, get in there. Come on!" "Shawn, Shawn, break up the run, break it up!" Like he's on the side line, coaching these guys personally. Knows all about them. Close personal friends with them, he just happened to be doing it all from Section 108, row 14. I don't think he was drunk either. He was just That Guy. All in all a fun afternoon of people watching. I saw lots of babies. Lots of drunks. It was fun. I didn't even really mind the crowd because Hubby let me sit on the aisle seat and we were only on row 3 right next to an exit. It was really good seating for someone like me. And it gave me a chance to brush up on my character sketching. |
| Yay!!!!! So...for those of you who know her from here, Scarlett  is visiting the States. She is currently in West Yellowstone and on Saturday Hubby and I will sojourn down for the day and meet up with her and her hubby. I have only met one other WdC friend in person, Kåre Enga in Montana  He lives in Missoula part of the time so it is a little more feasible for he and I to meet up. That is only about 200ish miles from me. He visited Bozeman and we met. He is delightful.I am super excited to meet Queen Scarlett as we have been online friends for almost ten years now. I never really thought we'd get to meet face to face as she lives in England and I don't even have a passport. |
The following review was left for me over the weekend. Read it and then I will give my two cents at the bottom:  "WDC Power Reviewers Group"  THIS IS A REVIEW BY THE ANNIVERSARY GROUP IT IS A GIFT FOR YOU!  Item Title:Circle of Trust Author:Chewie Kittie Type of writing:otherName Withheld First Impression:Hello Chewie Kittie, thats a cute handle. I would like to wish you a happy account anniversary today. I hope the creativity will flow from your pen like a water down hill. I chose this to review because quite frankly there was nothing else. I understand your fears, as a fellow writer I must say I've thought about that too. but I only put on here things I want to share with the viewers of WDC. My book that I wrote is not here to review because It is for sale. But I understand you are afraid of someone stealing your work. but I don't think most of us writers would want to take credit for something we didn't write. perhaps a kid would use a poem for a class grade or something, but that don't bother me because I want people to share in my work,to read.excerpt from writing:Part of the reason I joined this site back in 2005 was to take my writing more seriously. I feel like I'm not doing that by leaving my port wide open to every Peeping Tom with Google search capability who wants to troll me and make off with my work. I'm also not being true to myself or my writing by preempting possible sources of publication by providing my work for free. suggestions:I saw no mistakes with your writing in this item. sorry you are missing out on the fun of being reviewed often by fellow writers who can sometims add much to your work. conclusion:thank you for sharing this item with me I appreciate it, you keep writing and I'll keep reading God Bless You. My two cents: As you can tell it was my WdC anniversary this weekend. I've been here 9 years. I'm a yellow case. I get how reviewing works on this site. Like......I GET how reviewing works. You read my shit, I read your shit, etc, etc. I try not to be all curmudgeonly about things because reading this, it seems like this reviewer is young. Certainly they seem inexperienced. I'm not making fun of the reviewer (you will note I withheld the name), but I want to have a little group discussion and an "is it me?" kind of moment here. Is it me, or when you go into someone's port and they have shit behind closed folders, do you assume they MEANT to do that or do your review their "Closed for Business" sign and chastise them for having one? Is it me, or when you ARE insisting on reviewing someone who has that do you not even take into account the fact that they've been with the site for 9 years and might actually understand how the system works and is choosing a different path of reading and reviewing? A closed beta group path. Honestly, these random hit and run reviews are half the reason I closed my port in the first place. If I want reviews, I will solicit them. From people whose opinion I respect and honor. Not from people who are only reviewing me so that I will review them. I get that that is how the system works here, but.........and I feel like I outlined it clearly in the closed for business signage..........I'm trying a different path, please don't hit and run review me chastising me for that choice. If you come to my port and want a backstage pass to see my stuff......there is a form for that. I put the link there and everything. But...come on, don't shame me by saying I'm missing out on fun. That's just dumb. |
| Sometimes in life, our dignity is all we have. Illness and age have a way of robbing us of that. I get migraines. Bad, bad, evil migraines. They come in a variety of flavors and intensities. I get the kind that are just a comparatively mild pain. Those are easily dealt with with rest and aspirin. They ramp up from there to the kind that make me vomit and cry with the pain. Begging for it to stop. When I am very stressed I get hemiplegic migraines, which mimic strokes. Those are distressing to my husband but nice for me, because they usually aren't accompanied by pain, just the stroke symptoms. I got the sick kind yesterday. They always leave me with hangovers. I hate that. It is often in voiding our bodies when we are ill that dignity leaves us. I believe the cleanliness of any toilet can be measured by how icky will I feel if I have to be hunched over it, throwing up. Last night, while tossing my cookies, my bladder failed me. I blame a C-Section, a hysterectomy and my age. With my head pounding in time to my heartbeat and my vision narrowed down to a squinting nothing, I had to stumble down the stairs to the washing machine and wash our soiled bathmat in the dark. Crying with pain and the indignity of it all. After that I fell back into bed and thought for sure my night of indignities was through. Only to later throw up in my hair. ~sigh~ On a plus note, after my shower and second exhausting crying jag, I was able to lay down and the migraine went away within about an hour of that last loss of self. They say that we are made stronger by that which doesn't kill us. But I don't know if they meant wetting your bathroom floor like a bad puppy and throwing up in your own hair like someone on a college bender. |
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