Well, That Was Exciting

I almost made it.  Yesterday, I mean.  I almost made it out of the plant, but no...my supervisor stopped me and said, "Can you come in at 5:00 in the morning and work on [getting line 7 caught up]?"  

Tired as I was, I'm not one to turn down overtime, especially after I'd told him earlier in the day that I was trying to work as much as I could so I could actually afford to retire someday.  But that's a different conversation for a different day...

So, up I got bright and early this morning, and in to work I went.  It was just me and one other brazer who'd come in early.

When I got to the department, it looked like it had been hit by a tornado.  I mean, it usually does, but today it was worse than normal.  Nobody had put their work up, or cleaned up, or even confirmed their parts in the computer. 

After a brief moment of grumbling, I said -- more to myself than to anyone else -- "I wonder if they sent second shift home early or something?"  

My coworker heard me and replied, "Yeah, they did."  She then told me that her husband (who also works at the plant) had gotten a text from a friend of his who works on second shift.  Seems one of the big JP Hunt trucks had hit and destroyed a utility pole with a transformer, knocking out the electricity to the whole plant.  It was pretty obvious it wouldn't be a quick and easy fix, to they cut their losses and sent everyone home at 10:30 or so.  

She then told me that the electricity people were out there all night working to get the power restored, and didn't get it back on until about 3:00.  It's only a temporary fix, because they just rerouted the line to another utility pole.  They're still going to have to come back out and set a new pole, and put up a new transformer.  

After that, the rest of the day passed pretty much without incident, and the supervisor said we were caught up enough we didn't need to come in early tomorrow. 

In other news, I got a flyer in the mail today for that weight loss program I did a couple of years ago.  I'm thinking about going through it again, because I didn't do so well the first time.  I mean, I lost quite a bit of weight -- nearly 30 lbs -- but I started gaining it back even before I finished the program.  Now, I'm almost back up to what I was before.  

I just don't know, though.  The program didn't seem very realistic -- at least not for those of us who live in the real world. I suppose it's OK for people who sit at home all day and can drop everything and eat a meal when they reach level three, but for people who work and can just tell the boss, "Hey boss, I'm at level three hunger and need to go home and cook a meal", not so much. 

Besides that, I get tired of feeling like I'm obsessing over food all the time.  I get tired of having to pick and nibble when I want to just relax and enjoy my meal.  And after a 10 hour shift in the factory, I'm too tired to "walk the dog, even if you don't have one."  

I don't know.  Still, it's free, and better than nothing.  Maybe I will give it another shot. Maybe this time, I'll do better, and it'll stick.  

On a completely unrelated note, I started eating my gingerbread house.  When we were kids, we had a record telling the story of Hansel and Gretel.  When they found the house in the woods and started eating it, the old witch would say, "Nibble Nibble little mousey. Who is nibbling at my housey?"

Now, every time I take a bit of my gingerbread house, guess what runs through my brain...go on guess. 

And finally, I'm sure you will all be pleased to know that this cat of mine finally has a name.  Eve.  Or Evie.  

It's short for Evil Incarnate.  

"Yeah, you're going to pay for that one," she says. 

It's Official!

 I have officially lost 20 lbs!  

That was my initial goal, but I'd really like to get back down to around 135.  That means I have 6ish more pounds to go.  Then the real work begins -- keeping it off!  That's where I've always struggled, because I simply get tired of never being able to eat what I want, when I want to.  As a result, I'll say, "Just this once," which turns into "Just this twice" and before you know it, I'm pigging out on junk food.  Let's hope I can stay strong this time. 

I got some bad news this afternoon.  My neighbor to the East, Mac, came over and told me he and his wife are moving out.  There were ... um, issues with the landlord, none of which surprised me a bit.  Remember a few years ago when the one I called Tomato Man asked if he could plant tomatoes in my yard?  For those of you new here, you can read about him here:  Tomato Man.  Well, Tomato Man is Mac's landlord, and he wasn't taking any better care of the house than he did the tomato patch.  He was wanting Mac to fix things up at his own expense, but wasn't reducing his rent for it.  Long story short, Mac was going to buy the house, and they'd agreed on $80K, when all of the sudden Tomato Man upped the price to $95.  So, they're moving out.  

Which means I'm going to get two new neighbors --that house, and Mr. Clark's house across the street.  There is no small trepidation there.  I just hope they're quiet.  And leave me alone for the most part.  

But the whole reason Mac came over was to give me a business card.  He's a mechanic, and said any problem I had with my car, to give him a call and he'd fix me up.  He's a good, honest man, too, so I know he won't try to rip me off. 

Before that happened, I was getting a post all ready for you about my flower beds, so here is what you were going to get:  

Look!  I have marigolds!  

I'm so excited to see them blooming after I thought they were going to die.  I guess from now on, I'll be putting them into containers, because it's working.  And here is the long awaited photo of my petunia. 

My lantanas are starting to come on as well.

I finally got around to replacing my Texas flag.    

My old one was looking pretty bedraggled.  My brother and his family had sent me one for Christmas, so I finally got it out and hung it.  Now I need to replace my American flag, because it's also looking a bit faded. 

And finally, never leave your popcorn alone with cold lemonade. 

Or maybe we're supposed to eat it alone.  I don't know...

*Yes, this was an actual notice posted at work.  

Could It Be?

There I was at work, just a working away, when Some Front Office Guy (formerly known as The Boss Who Must Not Be Named) walked by and asked, "Are you sorry you lost your Stalker?"  

Because yes!  Stalker started his new job yesterday!  At long last he is gone!  Could it be that after ten long, interminable years, I'm finally free of his harassment forever?  I certainly hope and pray it's so!

So I said, "Child please!  I was singing Glory, Glory Hallelujah!  all day long yesterday!"

The department has seemed so much calmer and more relaxed without him there.  But I am wondering how long he's going to last in the lab, since they didn't really want him either.  He thinks everyone out there is so in love with him, but he'd totally delusional about that.  The only one who loved him is that one front office guy who pulled some strings and got Stalker the job in violation of company policy in the first place.  Only he's not there to cover Stalker's butt any more.  Man, I wish I could be a fly on that wall. 

By the way, one of the brazers went home feeling sick last Friday.  Today, I found out she has the COVID again.  She's already had it once, so that was a bit of a shocker. 

Well, I've had my new cat for two weeks now, and she finally seems to have settled in to her new home -- so much so, I felt it was time to move her out of Cody's room.  I bought her a little automatic feeder and put it into the utility room.  

Kindly ignore my unmopped floor.  Trust me, when you work ten hours a day, six days a week standing in a factory, the last thing you want to do when you get home is mop.  

After I took the picture, I remember I'd also bought one of those vinyl mats to put her bowls on.  And I'm not going to take another one.  Which reminds me, I desperately need a new camera.  But that's a different post for a different day...So, I figured the auto feeder will be good for when we go to Texas next month for my mother's memorial service.  We'll only be gone a couple of days, and that will be  plenty of food to hold her.  I'll still have to board Jesse, though.  

Whew! All this talk of moving has made Cutie tired.  She crawled into her little house and took a nap. 

While I was in the store -- I was there getting my oil changed -- I wandered into the garden center.  These last couple of years, I just haven't been that much into planting my flower beds.  I think it's the long, long hours catching up to me, and I'm not getting any younger, you know.  But look!  They actually had bluebonnet seeds this year!

I don't think I'm going to plant them in the same place as the others, though.  I've discovered my yard slopes wrong, both in the front and back.  The yards slope towards the house, so any time it rains, the water collects right there -- where I've got stuff planted.  If I ever win the lottery, I'm going to hire some landscapers to fix that.  Right...

So, now I'm trying to decide if I want to build a flower bed out of some of the plastic edging I still have, or maybe paint an old tire.  The other option would be to dig out that old fire pit behind the fence and fill it with garden soil.  I think that might work out best, because it's already there, and would have good drainage.  It would be a lot of work though, because I'd have to dig out all the ashes and garbage, and other crap the previous owners burned in there. 

The biggest problem is, the time of year I want to get out and do this kind of stuff is also the time of year when the plant is driving us into the ground like dogs.  

Let's end with a little good news.  It's been a month since I started my weight loss program, and I've lost 10 lbs.  Yay, me!

Batten Down The Hatches

 When every single meteorologist in your news feed is warning you of this, you might ought to pay attention. 

Or as my old dad would say, "Batten down the hatches, she's a gonna blow!"  

Yes, I am smack dab in the middle of that red area.  I have my plan in place, and my weather radio programmed....I hope.  I've never quite figured out if I have my county in there right.  I don't know how to check, and I don't know how to re-set it.  I guess we'll find out. 

I'll be checking in regularly, just so's you all know I'm safe.

Well, today was the first day of my weight loss program.  I've finished watching all the videos for the week, and the basic principles seem to be very similar to the old Weigh Down Workshop program, but this one seems to be more complete.  At least as far as I can tell.  

I'm going to have to figure out how to adapt this program to my work schedule.  One thing already is throwing me.  They said most people eat breakfast out of habit, not hunger.  So, you shouldn't eat as soon as you wake up.  You should wait until you're truly hungry -- or what they call level three*.  

I can't do that.  I can't just walk away from my brazing stand and go sit in the break room for 25 minutes, leisurely eating a full breakfast.  If I don't eat before I leave the house, I don't eat until lunch time.  That's a long time to go-- from 5 AM until 11 AM without eating.  I mean, I can carry a granola bar or something, but that's not a meal, not like what they're talking about.

Then there is lunch...in the Naturally Slim program, I'm not supposed to eat until I'm at level 3 hunger.  The downside is, if I'm not at level 3 when lunch time comes, and I don't eat then, I don't eat until I get home.  It's the same as with breakfast.  I can't just go to the break room and eat when I get hungry.  I eat when the company says I eat, or I don't eat.  

Again, I can snack, but that's not a meal. 

One more thing, they want you to slow down and take your time to eat.  A meal should last at least 25 minutes.  Kind of hard to do when your lunch break is only 18 minutes long. 

It's going to take a lot of figuring out, but for now, I've got storm prep to do.  

Excited

 I have a Kindle app on my phone.  

I usually like to read during my lunch break at work, on the Kindle app on my phone.  This week, I'm reading Johnny Tremain...on my Kindle app on my phone.  So, there I was reading away, Johnny Tremian on my Kindle app on my phone when I heard a call over the loudspeaker. 

"If anyone has lost a cell phone, it's in the [temporary staffing agency] office. "

I quickly reached back and checked to see if my phone was in the pocket of my jeans I normally keep it in, and felt a brief moment of panic when I discovered it wasn't there...all the while never missing a word of the book I'm reading, Johnny Tremain, on my Kindle app...on my phone...

I don't want to talk about it. 

After much deliberation, I finally decided on a pattern for the sock I'm knitting.  The problem I'd had was the yarn is self striping, and the colors are pretty bold.  I was afraid any pattern would get lost in the bright colors.  I can't wear plain stockinette socks, because of my absurdly skinny ankles.  They don't stay up.  I almost settled for doing 2 x 2 ribbing all the way down, but wasn't too thrilled with that option, either.  One evening, I was looking through one of the books my friend sent me last week, and that's when I saw it.  It's so simple, I wonder I didn't think of it before. 

A garter rib.  

It's plain enough that it doesn't get obscured by the colors of the yarn, but interesting enough that it isn't....plain.  I'm actually almost excited about this one. 

I'm also excited about what I saw coming up in my front flower bed:

If it is what I'm hoping it is...

What I'm not too excited about is my weight loss program.  I was hoping it would be different, but after watching the first few videos, I'm not so sure.  Now, I've only just begun, and haven't even finished the first week's lessons, but what I'm getting is...no breakfast, nothing but water to drink, and only two meals per day.  Yeah, no wonder you lose weight.  You're starving all the time!

I'm going to try to stick with it a little longer, but I don't see it ending well.  Eh, maybe it'll get better as I go along.  

But I doubt it.  

Well, Poop!

 All day yesterday, I was so excited.  I was looking forward to coming home after work and starting my weight loss program.  At long last, the interminable work day ended, and home I rushed.  I booted up my computer and logged into the website...and there it was at the bottom:  "Your program starts March 15th"

Well, poop!  

I knew that.  I don't know why I thought it started this week, but it looks like I'm going to have to wait until next Monday.  Oh, well, it'll give me a chance to eat up the last of the Christmas cookies I'd taken out of the freezer.

Speaking of, at my last dentist appointment back in August, Dr. Moody told me I had a tooth that was "ditching out."  It was one I'd had a crown on since I was 19, and though I'm not completely sure what ditching out is, the long and the short of it is, he said I'd eventually lose the tooth and there was nothing at this point we could do to stop it.  

Eventually happened Sunday.  But what does that have to do with Christmas cookies?  This:  I was eating one when the tooth finally came loose.  Honestly, I think I would have lost it sooner if the dentist hadn't put a post into the root when I had it root canalled and the crown replaced back in 2007.  Ish. I suppose I'll have to call the dentist and get my partial updated.  Right now, I'm thinking I'll wait until the pandemic is over.  I mean, it's not like I can do any more damage, right?  

I probably ought to get him to remove the root, too, but I keep holding out hope that one day I can afford to get implants.  Sigh...why couldn't I have been born rich instead of lovable?

All righty, then...

I'll tell you one thing I need to get better at, and that is keeping up with household chores during the work week.  Stuff like washing dishes, doing laundry, sweeping.  That sort of thing.  When you're working 10 hour shifts, it's so easy to come home and say, "I'm going to sit down for just a minute, then get up and do..." whatever it is I need to be doing.  But before you know it, it's bedtime, and I haven't done anything.  So, stuff gets put off.  I need to stop that, so that my day of rest can actually be a day of rest.  Instead of catching up on housework, I can watch movies and knit.

While we're on the subject of knitting, I finally cast on that ball of yarn I'd pulled out of the closet last week.  

I don't know why, but for some reason, I'd decided I needed to knit an entrelac scarf out of it.  I got this far, and realized it just wasn't going to happen. 

Asking myself, "What was I thinking?"  I started ripping it all out.  You know, I didn't think acrylic yarn would felt, but this stuff did.  OK, it wasn't true felting, just a bit of pilling, but it grabbed that yarn and would not let it go.  Alas, it didn't take long until the yarn broke.  

 Frustrated, I just threw the whole thing in the trash and went to bed.  

After a somewhat mediocre night's sleep, I thought better of it, and pulled the knotted up yarn out of the trash basket --  it's mostly candy wrappers and yarn scraps in that one -- and got back to work on it.  With a little time, a little perseverance, and more than a few unwholesome words for which I had to repent, I got it all untangled and wrapped into a little ball. 

It was at this point I copped out and cast on my old standard Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf.

One of these days, I'm going to find a new scarf pattern.  

Today is not that day.  

 

I Got In!

 I got the email today.  I got in to the weight loss program!  

I'm still not quite sure what it's all about, but from what I understand, they'll post several brief videos every Monday, and I can watch them at my convenience during the week.  They're supposed to teach me the skills I need lose weight and keep it off, without counting calories or eating bland, boring food.  We'll see how it goes, and I'll be sure to keep you updated.

I had a pleasant surprise earlier this week.  I looked across the street at my neighbor's yard, and the jonquils are blooming!   

It's finally starting to feel like spring.  Even so, I've been buying up the fake firewood from the clearance aisle just in case.  It was Easter Sunday last year when I lost electricity for 4 days, and it turned cold the next day.  Thank goodness for my neighbors who gave me some leftover firewood.  I'm ready for it, this time around.  But hopefully, I won't need it.  My governor is fond of saying, "Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and expect somewhere in between."  Sound advice, if ever I heard any. 

I guess that's about it for today.  I'm still getting used to having to get up an hour earlier, and my brain just feels numb, so I won't be boring you any more tonight.  

But I can't leave you without your Texas History moment: