So, yeah, I had a day off work today. If you'll recall, I had to use some of my ETO hours because I was about to max out. However, for those of you who have memories like mine, my plant has a policy that if you get perfect attendance for the month, you can earn two hours of earned time off -- or ETO. It's pretty much the only bonus -- if you can even call it that -- we have left.
We used to get much better bonuses. Even our perfect attendance bonus was better. Back in the day, it was the equivalent of a day's pay every month. I told Demi-god that once, and he said, "If they brought that back, I'd never miss another day of work!" This thing they have now isn't really much of an incentive, though. As one of my coworkers pointed out, you have to get perfect attendance for four months just to get one day off. And of course, they cap at 24 hours, or three days. Mine would max out at the end of this month, so I had to use some so I could keep earning more. I picked today just at random.
By the way, Demi-god was late Tuesday morning. Oh, his truck was in the parking lot, but he wasn't in the work area. We were all like, "Where is Demi-god?" Only we used his real name, not his blog nickname. I said, "Maybe he fell asleep in his truck." Someone else said, "No, he's probably in the bathroom."
About 4:15, he came wandering in...he'd fallen asleep in his truck. Then Wednesday he wasn't there at all. We were all saying, "Did he oversleep?" We were hoping that was all, and nothing had happened to his kids.
He came in Thursday morning and told us, "You don't want to know where I fell asleep this time." The story is, he'd gotten up at 2:00 AM to get ready for work. He went into the bathroom and sat down to make a deposit into the porcelain bank, and the next thing he knew, it was 4:30 and his wife was waking him up. He started to come to work anyway, but she said, "I don't want to get that phone call telling me you were in a wreck because you fell asleep driving to work!" and made him go back to bed.
I can't really say as I blame him. He's got two small kids, ages 6 and almost 1, and his wife works the 2-10 shift at her job. He's home with the kids all evening, so he doesn't get much sleep. I feel for him, because I remember those days from when Cody was little. There would be weeks on end that I would only get 2 to 3 hours of sleep per night. I was working second shift then, and I had one babysitter who would put him to bed at 7:00 every night. I begged her to keep him up later, but she wouldn't. He'd be up bright and early at 5:00 AM, and was too young to understand that I needed my sleep, too.
All that to say, I took today off for the sole purpose of using up some of my ETO because it was about to max out. I didn't really have any big plans for the day, other than to get my new mortgage account set up at the new bank. They bought out my old bank, the one I have my mortgage with. It was pretty easy. All I had to do was enroll on the website, and they already had all my information.
My main project for the day was to find this little guy a home, which failed miserably.
When I first got him, I posted in some of the local groups, and had three people say they wanted him. Not a single one showed up to get him. This morning, I packed him up and took him up to Walmart and sat in the parking lot for like three hours, but no takers. Then I took him to the vet, because every time I go they have a cage full of kittens up for adoption. But no, they said they don't do adoptions, and they wouldn't euthanize a healthy animal.
By that time, I was hungry and needed to pee, so I came on home and put the kitten back into the dog kennel. After taking care of the two previously mentioned issues, I went back to Walmart sans kitten and did my weekly shopping. I didn't really need that much this week, but had to wander through the garden center anyway. There I saw a bumble bee on a flower, and snapped a photo for you.
While there, I bought some plant supports for my zinnias. Once the frost kills them off this November, I'm going to empty that bed and remove the liner from the bottom. Then I'll dig out the red clay underneath and re-fill it with good soil. That way, the zinnia roots will be able to go deep and may provide more stability to the plants.
I keep saying I'm going to film a garden journal for you, but whenever I get ready to do one, it starts raining. Eh, one day I'll get it done. Hopefully before first frost, but no promises, OK?
Speaking of rain, I'm glad I went ahead and bought that larger clothes horse. I have it set up in the spare bedroom, and even with it raining, I've been able to get most of my laundry done today. I have the afghan that the cat puked on drying on it right now. It's probably already dry, but I'm done with laundry for the day. I'll get the rest tomorrow. And maybe one day, we'll have enough sun I can move the clothes horse out into the sunshine and fresh air.
My second project for the day was to start cleaning out and organizing my shed. Alas, that was also a failure because of the rain. Maybe tomorrow, since I'm not going anywhere, I can get out there for a few moments. I'd been debating for years on whether to rebuild the existing shed or tear it down and put up a pre-fab in the back corner. Here lately, I've been leaning toward rebuilding the existing shed. It definitely needs a new roof, but the slab and frame seems solid. If I can get a new roof and external walls up, that would be a start.
Instead, I decided it was time to up-pot my tomatoes, since the roots were starting to come out of the bottom of their seed cells. I put them into some old Bonnie pots that I saved from plants I bought at Walmart, which ought to hold them until it's time to put them into the regular bed. This time, I used an idea I got from Ben at Grow Veg, and put a coffee filter in the bottom to stop the dirt from washing out the drain holes. I don't see why it wouldn't work.
Once they were in their new homes, I brought them inside and put them under the grow light to recover from transplant shock a bit before putting them back into full sun.
I don't know when we'll get more full sun, though. They're predicting rain all week. On the bright side, maybe we'll get out of drought conditions finally.
The not so bright side is, by the time it's dry enough to mow again, the grass in my back yard will probably be waist high. Good thing I did the front when I did, or it would be in the same state.
I reckon that's all I have for today. I think I'll go make some popcorn and watch a nice documentary.
Laters.
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