Memory Lane

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I received a very nice email yesterday from a woman who found me by Googling the Bollio stamp by Judikins. (Hi Shari!) It's a long 4-sided rubber stamp that looks like a squared rolling pin. I had to see what she was looking at so I Googled the same thing and found my old Gallery that I'd created for a previous incarnation of this blog, back when it was called an online journal. It felt like a walk down Memory Lane so I thought you might be interested in seeing it too.

We had our (almost) traditional Thanksgiving at Gretchen's yesterday. A fine time was had by all. Steve went with his mom to his brother's house and Nick is in Iraq, so it was just Mom, Dad, Simon, Paul, Gretchen and me. This year we tried the turkey breast purchased from Boston Market. Delish, so moist and tender, with no waste. One breast serves 6 so we bought 2 - gotta have turkey leftovers. Just heat and eat. It was wonderful.

Computer update. I'm slowly adding software - having trouble with a couple so I'll take it in to work on Monday so the IT person can help me. For instance Microsoft Money can't find a dll file. I have plenty of other stuff to do but Money was the one program I really wanted to get going so I could get caught up. And I really freaked yesterday when it looked like it crashed the same way it did originally, a week ago. But it automatically uninstalled the offending program, leaving everything else in tact. Whew - dodged that bullet. You might have heard me hallelujahing.

Steve bought a 60" high definition TV the other day. Oy vey, this thing is huge! He has pretty poor vision so he's always wanted a big TV - that's the logical justification for it. The other part is it's just plain cool. Simon hooked up the components for us yesterday - except for my beloved Tivo which he'll do today. None of the diagrams in any of the instructions (for the TV or the cable box or Tivo) show our configuration of cable box, VCR and Tivo. He'll figure it out - he's good at that stuff.

I was telling Dad yesterday that when we bought our last TV, a 40-something inch I think, it looked pretty big but we got used to it in a day or so, so I suspected the same would be true of this monstrosity. After our Thanksgiving meal yesterday, I was the only one home so I decided to veg in front of it and work on some paper embroidery pieces. Before I fell into a tryptophanatic stupor, I realized the TV had gone from being the giant fireplace of the room - to just a TV. And that high def is all it's cracked up to be. Like I said, Steve bought the TV, but I came around to the beauty of high def when I stopped in a pizza place the other day and they had Rachael Ray cooking in high def. The picture was so clear, I could count the calories from across the room. I'm sure high def will become our normal in no time too. That part is still a novelty at this point.

Meanwhile, I tease Steve that I'm just fine with my 13" black and white with the coat hook antenna in my studio. I'm kidding of course - it's color, with cable! - but while I'm enjoying his electronic choices, I could never bring myself to spend my money on that stuff. But it's his money and makes him incredibly happy. And I get to watch it. What's not to love about that?

I'm off to work in a few minutes. One of my long-standing pet peeves about the company I work for is that we're open the day after Thanksgiving. It's the one holiday each year that would otherwise be guaranteed to give us a 4-day weekend since it's always on a Thursday. Our Call Center has to be open, but the rest of us - I don't get it. It's the owner's preference. Over the years it's dwindled to maybe 10 people out of 50 in our building show up, for the morning only. I used to feel guilty taking it off because that meant someone else had to work, but always resented having to work it myself. The interesting thing is since becoming a supervisor a couple of years ago, I found myself insisting the staff take it off - encountered with zero resistance of course and I (more) willingly work it myself so they can do that. It feels like a gift I can give them, which makes it palatable to me. Even as recently as last year, I wasn't sure what time I should leave but today I'm going in with the notion that I'm leaving at noon, on the dot.

Last year I brought breakfast treats for everyone - like I said - 10 people, maybe. This year a friend of mine is bringing some stuff in for us. Last year I used the morning to paint the stall in our ladies room. We'd taken it upon ourselves to redecorate the room last year. The Building Dude (yes, that's the official title we've given him) painted the walls and the stall a lovely French Blue for us. I found some beautiful hydrangea print fabric that Jen sewed into a skirt for the sink. I hung a flag on one wall and added a fake plant, baskets, stuff like that. But we decided we wanted the stall wall & door a shade darker than the rest of the room. Since the Building Dude didn't seem to think that a priority :-) I painted it last year's day-after-Thanksgiving. It was fun - and looks great. Makes me happy every day.

This year I plan to reorganize my desk. I'm a very neat & organized person but this year has probably been my busiest ever, that professionally and personally, I find myself working in what I consider disastrous conditions. If you told me I'd be able to function, with piles of paper scattered all around me, I wouldn't have believed you. So this weekend, at work and home, I plan to get things back to normal. My old normal.

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