Everyday Adventures

I So Needed That!

Everyday Adventures

And by that, I mean an honest to goodness day off this weekend.

I checked a big, huge item off my to-do list at work on Friday so it felt like a good time to start reclaiming some me-time on the weekends. It wasn’t a complete sloth of a weekend since I had to go grocery shopping and had a few design team projects to work on, but I made the most of it!

Saturday morning Todd took Duncan to the dog park so I could sleep in a bit. I was already awake when they left, so I put the time to good use by working on my current knitting project (Interweave Knits’ Washington Square Vest) and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Aside from a quick client call mid-afternoon, that’s what I did for the rest of the day, too, only switching to “work” mode after supper to put together this week’s menu and grocery list, pay bills, etc.

Sunday wasn’t so bad, either, from a non-taxing standpoint. I ddin’t have to go down to Tallahassee, after all (my former boss took a Sunday drive up my way and brought me a file I needed, instead), though Duncan totally wigged out when he found Bob in our front hallway.

Now, Duncan met Bob the day after we picked him up (Duncan, that is). He came to work with me several times after that and Bob was quite generous with the treats and pets. So I think we were both shocked that Duncan not only wouldn’t come to Bob as he stood just inside the doorway but barked his head off, fur raised on the back of his neck, and fear-piddled in the hall as he pulled a barking reverse.

Dude, way to be friendly.

Of course Bob thought it was hilarious and actually told Duncan “good boy” a few times. I’m not sure I agree! I’d like to have visitors over from time to time, our friends and what not, without Duncan losing his ever-lovin’ mind!

My theory is, because he’s never acted this way before, that he was spooked by Bob just “appearing” and that maybe, just maybe, if he’d been with me at the door to greet the visitor he wouldn’t have looked at his like an intruder?

Not sure. But we might have to give all future visitors a few treats to appease the beast.

I Got My Wishbone Wish!

Everyday Adventures

I think the last time I won a wishbone break was when I was 5 or 6 and I wished we could go to Disney World. Little did I know that they’d already planned a family trip for us. So I’m not 100% sure that it counts.

At any rate, a couple weeks back, when I’d picked up a rotisserie chicken for part of that week’s menu, I saved the wishbone on a whim and won the break against Todd. What did I wish for?

A new job, of course.

That weekend I got responses back from two of the jobs I’d applied for, both of which scheduled interviews with me for Tuesday, the 5th; one at 10am and one at 3pm.

Strictly based on the job listings and the brief conversations involved in setting up the interviews, I was leaning towards wanting the 10am job more than the 3pm. But time was getting short so I wasn’t go to be too precious about it: of the 3pm interview led to an offer and the wage was high enough to offset the hour commute (to Valdosta instead of Tallahassee), I would consider it.

The first interview of the day went very well, I thought, and I was shocked when I got back to the car and realized it was 11:30!

I went back to the office and worked for a bit on some paperwork that had come in, planning to leave around 1:15 to give myself plenty of time to get up to Valdosta for 3.

Just as I was getting ready to leave my phone rang, it was the 10am interview offering me the job! I accepted with absolutely no hesitation, then I agreed to start the very next day.

So I went from having a very loose, very flexible schedule to back to full time in the blink of an eye.

The transition has been pretty good, so far, but learning a new job (I’m still bookkeeping, but in a medical setting instead of printing) with new procedures and new programs to learn is exhausting! I’ve come home ready to drop each night. My supervisor assures me that after a week, maybe two, I’ll have adjusted and it won’t be like that anymore. I certainly don’t mind learning new things, but it’s very different to be in a situation where I don’t know what’s going on and can’t be as helpful as I’d like. Again, something that will change in time, I just have to tough it out.

My commute is now only 30 minutes, which is nice, and involved no city traffic at all since I’m working in the boonies now, instead of going into Tallahassee proper. If we were still living in Tallahassee that wouldn’t be as much of a perk, but coming from Thomasville it’s a dream.

For now I’m still working at Graphateria, too, going in on Saturdays to catch up on the physical paperwork (though I’ve brought a few things home so that I can make phone calls on my lunch break during the week).So that’s a jump from working 8-3, 4 days a week, to 8:30-5:30, 5 days a week, plus 4 hours or so on Saturdays.

The change, on top of the heat and humidity, have put me on a rather short fuse this week. Not anger-wise but tear-wise. I’ve burst into tears several times over the last few days for the oddest things and I know it’s the stress (even though it’s good-stress) of all the changes going on right now. I’m really looking forward to things settling down.

While that last bit sounds more like the ‘be careful what you wish for’ sort of thing, it’s really not that. I’m so happy to have a new job, and thrilled that there’s some overlap between the two because it means my finances won’t suffer too much (if at all) due to the change.

The Exhaustion at the End of This Job

Everyday Adventures

Each day when I get home I’m exhausted. Wiped out. Wanting nothing more than quiet and maybe an early bedtime.

I don’t get that, of course, because Duncan needs to go out and I have projects to work on and I really need to be putting the word out about my availability for freelance projects and putting in resumes for jobs. I have other things I want to do, fun things like sewing some tunics for myself from my fabric stash, creating some art, or just enjoying a book.

Why am I so tired? It’s work that’s doing it, sure, but why?

Let’s take a moment to recall that I’m only working 4 days a week instead of 5. And that those days usually end around 3pm (occasionally I’ll be in the middle of something and stay until 4pm, but that hasn’t happened in a while). And while there were a few days where I was clearing out filing cabinets or moving boxes, most days are spent at my desk, clearing up a myriad of clerical loose ends.

Yesterday, for instance, I spent the majority of the day trying to set up online access to the remaining 10 vendors (things like utilities, phones, insurance, etc.). This would not normally be a big deal but things get weird when you’re dealing with business accounts and the various hoops some companies make you go through to be able to see your bills online, much less pay them. AT&T is being the biggest pain, and there’s a weird workaround I have to use for the city utilities because we have 3 accounts and only 2 of them have metered services and, therefore, are fully accessible online.

Minutia is the meat of my day.

I was talking to my friend and accountability partner of the last several (five?) years about this on Tuesday and she, bless her, understood completely. She said that she’d been with companies during shutdowns before and the transition period can definitely be emotionally exhausting. That made me feel less ridiculous and a bit reassured. Validated, even.

And then something in my head clicked:

The business is in Hospice and I’m experiencing a form of caregiver fatigue.

Am I being overly dramatic? I really don’t think so!

I mean, let’s look at it. I’ve known the company was in decline better than most and longer than everyone but the owner–generating the financial reports month after month, there was no way to avoid the truth of what was going on. The blood (cash) flows slower, the memories (clients) aren’t as clear as they used to be.

When the announcement came that we’d be closing at the end of April, that was basically a DNR. There was nothing else to be done, time to put your affairs in order. We notified our clients and vendors. The equipment was put up for sale. We started saying goodbye.

We settled into the hospice period with a skeleton crew of three, doing what needed doing as each day saw the rooms empty little by little. And we wait.

It’s an active waiting, or it has been so far. But like a patient that rallies for a time before resuming the decline, the activity is tapering off and those that are left are in a holding pattern.

Life goes on outside the patient’s room, plans are tentatively made, but everything seems to hinge on when that final breath and the uncertainty of when it will be.

Why don’t I walk away? Leave the room, step into the sunshine, clear my head, and get on with the rest of my life?

For the same reason those sitting at a patient’s bedside for weeks on end doesn’t: a sense of responsibility. There’s still a job to be done and you honor the life that is almost over by bearing witness to it. You do what needs to be done.

I’m not trying to say I’m some sort of saint for this. No, it’s a job and I’m getting paid for it. I’m not completely altruistic. But I am also the person who knows where the files go, how the system operates, and the best one to help see it through. 22 years is a long time to spend somewhere and to just walk away like it’s nothing?

That’s not how I’m wired.

Realizing the parallel between the closing of a business and the slow decline of a person is helpful, though. It gives me a frame of reference and makes sense of the otherwise inexplicable exhaustion. The situation isn’t without a dose of anxiety, either, but at least that was a tab bit more transparent in its source (seriously, I have no idea what next month is going to look like, job-wise, so, yeah).

Old, bad behaviors are surfacing due to the anxiety and the fatigue means I’m not exactly at my strongest, willpower-wise. My eating habits are ridiculous right now (I have little desire for “real food” preferring more than usual the fried, the sweet, and carby) and I constantly want to go shopping (it’s a sad twist that worry over finances triggers my desire for retail therapy).

That’s still in line with caregiver fatigue, as they spend all their time and energy caring for the dying and neglect their own living being. So now that I know what’s going on, I can work with it, around it, and through it. And I can do a better job of taking care of myself, too.

Make Your Own Anti-Bacterial Kitchen Wipes

Everyday Adventures

Last month, when I first shared with you about how much I was enjoying my new post as a Brand Ambassador for Mean Green, I mentioned how much better the Mean Green Anti-Bacterial Multi-Surface Cleaner was. Namely, that it didn’t leave a sticky residue on my kitchen counters the way a certain brand of kitchen wipes did.

But I really missed the convenience of those pop–up wipes and not having to locate both the cleaner and a roll of paper towels when a mess needs managing. (I don’t know about your house, but our paper towels like to go on walkabout on a fairly regular basis.) So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Kitchen Wipes

Making your own pop-up wipes isn’t new or even novel, but it usually involves making your own cleaning solution on top of finding the right container. With the Mean Green Anti-Bacterial Multi-Surface Cleaner on hand I didn’t have to worry about it. And since I had a half-used roll of paper towels and an empty, tall, gallon-sized container on hand I had absolutely everything needed to make these kitchen wipes!

Super Simple, just 4 "ingredients"

Super Simple, just 4 “ingredients”

Gather together:

1 Canister or Plastic Container
1 Roll of Paper Towels short enough or narrow enough to fit inside the chosen container
2 Cups Mean Green Anti-Bacterial Multi-Surface Cleaner
1 Cup Water

Step 1

Step 1

Wedge the paper towels into the chosen container. If it’s a snug fit, I found that twisting the roll, as if threading a screw, helped get everything in place.

Step 2

Step 2

Combine 2 cups of Mean Green Anti-Bacterial Multi-Surface Cleaner with 1 cup of water. It’s not essential to dilute the cleaner since it can be used full-strength with no problems, but I wanted to stretch it a little without decreasing the cleaning power. A 2:1 ratio seemed like a good idea.

Step 3

Step 3

Slowly pour the water and cleaner mixture over the roll of paper towels, saturating the entire roll.

Step 4

Step 4

Put the lid on and let sit for 4-6 hours so the cleaning mixture has time to sink through the roll of paper towels.

jvanderbeek_meangreen_antibac_diy_wipes_step-6

And if I was worried about using too much cleaning solution, the fact that there was only 1/4″ or so of liquid at the bottom of the container after sitting for several hours eased my concerns!

Step 5

Step 5

Remove the cardboard tube form the center of the paper towel roll. By this time it’ll be super-soaked and incredibly pliable.

Step 6

Step 6

Find the first (or closest to it) towel on the roll and pull up. I prefer the rolls with the half-sheets in general, and they come in extra handy for this sort of DIY as well.

Now, the one thing I opted not to do was to drill, cut, or otherwise make a hole in the center of the lid. That’s just asking for the wipes to dry out and I have no intention of making more work for myself. It’s really not that tough to take the lid off and put it back on, especially if it means my wipes stay ready-to-use!

These wipes came in handy almost immediately, thanks to Duncan’s antics, and I even got to use some in the kitchen, as well!

This post has been sponsored by Mean Green Degreaser. As a Brand Ambassador I receive product and other compensation for my participation and posts, but all opinions and experiences are my own.

 

Technology Hates Me

Everyday Adventures

Or, if not, it’s doing a pretty good impression of something capable of hate.

Last week I was making some steady progress on editing and uploading videos to the Crafty Branch’s YouTube channel. Or, well, I was making progress on the editing, I should say, but when it takes 11 hours for a 7 minute video to upload, progress isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind.

I used SpeedTest.net to check out the network, only I don’t know what we’re supposed to be getting, speed-wise, so I have no idea if we’re right or not. I’ll need to do some follow-up with the city on that. And I know that connecting through WiFi instead via Ethernet cables can cut upload speeds, sometimes as much as in half, but before this week I was not having this problem. A video under 10 minutes might have taken an hour to process, total, which makes more sense. Not 11.

One of the other YouTubers I watch, though, was having a similar issue with her daily vlogs–Bumble Bailey–and she was reporting the same activity: the progress bar would show a normal upload time estimate, then it would jump to a higher estimate, then it’d just give up on a time estimate altogether (and I’ve had that progress bar tell me it was going to take 5 hours, before, so I know it can count pretty high). She also said that she had better luck when using Firefox instead of Chrome, so I was going to give that a try last night.

Yeah, about last night.

So I’m watching the Tony’s (which was pretty awesome, I must say) and finishing up the edits for the last Gingerbread Diaries video (you know, the one before Todd’s birthday? In March? yeah, sorry about the delay on that one!) and I set it to export from Premiere Pro (which, for once, had not put up a fight when I tried to insert some simple titles, yay!). Exporting was going very slow, and I chalked that up to the fact that I was simultaneously streaming said awards show via CBS All Access.

After the show ended and I was still only at 14% exported, I figured it was just hung up and I restarted the export. I also set Firefox to install and went up to take a shower. My plan (ah, yes, the so-called plan… ) was to start the YouTube upload this morning but when I came downstairs the export was still only at 88%.

Dammit all!

So, yeah, that video update will be a bit late, and I think Paisley (that would be my laptop’s name) is due for a defrag, etc. I might also need to shift some files onto the external HD to free up space (videos take up so much room and I’ve been doing a lot of them, lately). Of course, this could also be a Win10 issue, as I was upgraded without consent a couple weeks ago, so who the hell knows?!

/rant

In other news, Duncan may not hate me, but he may be back to hating his crate. He’s still doing really well for meals and sleeping at night in there, but being home last week may have set us back a bit since I didn’t feel up to dealing with the barking (I even tried the cans Todd has for ear protection when he uses his power tools and they didn’t block the barking!) so, yeah. He was okay when we went to dinner on Thursday night (for an hour), but when we came home from the memorial service last night, ugh!

We’d been gone 4 hours. That’s a totally acceptable time for him to be crated, especially since we know he can hold it longer than that (as evidenced by his refusal to “go” in the rain that last all damn day the previous week). And he’d been doing so much better with the daily crating, more or less. So we were both disappointed and, frankly, disgusted with the smell that hit us as soon as we opened the back door.

And might I add we’d just given Duncan a bath the night before?

There’s no telling what we’re going to come home to, today. I really hope Todd doesn’t have to hose down the crate tray at lunch (and I even more hope that I don’t have to after work–it’s happened before).

Still, the 10 days off were productive–tech issues and puppy regression aside–so I’m not complaining too much. The job hunt continues (and there’s a story for another day in that), but I’m looking forward to being back in the office, today. I like my routine, after all, and even having those days to do whatever I wanted/needed, I still knew it was a temporary shift so it wasn’t the same as if/when I may work from home full-time in the not-too-distant future.

Here’s hoping for a good week!

~Jenn