Back Into The Swing

It's been a rough week trying to get back into the swing of things -- mainly waking up at 2:30 AM -- after having a whole week off to sleep as late as I wanted to.  I don't know what's going on, but I've been so exhausted.  Heh, I put on the Cowboys game Monday night and didn't even last until the end of the first quarter.  I woke up with 4-ish minutes left in the game, and said I was going to watch the end, but didn't make it that time, either. 

I've been feeling so run down all week.  In spite of that, I managed to stain the rest of my fence today.  Mostly.

I wanted to get it done before the rains tomorrow-- hopefully we'll get some.  And hopefully, it'll settle whatever it is that has got my allergies all stirred up.  One day, I think it was Wednesday, my eyes were burning so badly I couldn't even see.  We won't even talk about my breathing...

But about that fence, I got one coat on the entire inside, and everything to the left of those orange flags has two coats.  I have one more gallon of stain, but I'm the one who ran out of steam.  I might not be able to move tomorrow, but that's one more thing I can almost mark off of my list.  

Except I still have to do the outside, but that will require talking to the neighbors since I'll have to trespass on their side to get it done.  I don't think they'd mind, but still....

Speaking of the neighbors, it looks like they're planning a Halloween party.  They might get rained out, but they moved their car out of the carport and have a table set up there, so maybe not.  

In other news, it's also been a rough week for Trekkies, losing Mr. Chekov and Captain Picard in the same week.  Mr. Chekov was one of my first childhood crushes, along with Mr. Greenjeans.   Nothing romantic, per se.  I was still a bit too young for that, but Mr. Chekov and I spent many hours exploring strange new worlds in my childish imagination.  Someone on FB posted that we now live in a world where there are no more Pavel Chekovs, since the young actor who played him in the reboots was killed in a tragic accident ten years ago.  Almost to the day... 

In spite of it all, I managed to finish the sailor hat to match the scarf I'd knit. 

I got a message from one of my cousins last week.  He's got cancer and has requested I knit him a couple of beanies for when his head gets cold.  I didn't say so out loud, but I was thinking, "You're already bald headed, how much colder are we talking about?"   Anyway, he wants one in orange and one in purple.  Guess which are the only two colors I didn't have?  I ran into town after work one day -- I'm so tired I don't even remember which day it was-- and picked up a skein of each.  

Yes, it looks blue in the photo, but it really is purple.  I've got the orange hat cast on, but haven't taken a photo of it. 

In a bit of better news, the chicken wire on my raised bed seems to have worked well keeping the cat out. 

Look at this!  My crimson clover is germinating.  

So is my bachelor's button.  

I don't know how well you can see, but my second planting is absolutely loaded with tomatoes.  

I doubt I'm going to do succession planting next year, because I don't think they'll ripen before the earliest chance of frost.  We've had them in the last week of October before, and if we got one this year, all of these tomatoes would be toast.  I might have to cover these, even so.  I'm watching the forecast pretty closely, but I think next year, I'll just plant something more cold hardy.  The extension office put out a list of things to plant in October.

Alas, there isn't a whole lot on this list that I really like, and the stuff I do like, I wouldn't be able to eat it up before it goes bad.  The spinach, for example.  I love fresh baby spinach, but don't like it cooked.  Wait, I like it in stuff like spinach quiche, so that may be a possibility.  But a small one, since I'm allergic to eggs.  I still eat them from time to time, but don't want to over do it. 

Abrupt change of subject, despite my lingering fatigue, I got up and walked the Bottomland Trail at the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve.  

I wish I weren't so exhausted after a long day at work, or I'd go more often.  But what with them moving us back to the lines, I probably won't have to.  Back when we were on the lines before, I'd usually end up walking 3-3.5 miles just in the course of an average work day.  That's what we'll be going back to, whereas now, with us close to where we need to be, I only walk 1.5-2 miles per day.  

Someone on FB posted this:  

and I felt it to the depths of my soul.  I remember one time when the brazers were on the assembly lines last time.  I was working on line 2, and neither of line 1's brazers showed up that morning, so the supervisor asked me if I would go work on line 1.  Alas, the other brazer for line 2 was lazy as all get out.  I'm telling you, if she brazed 50 headers per day, she was doing well.  For context, we were supposed to be doing 250 per day, but she was also boinking the group leader, so she got away with it. 

Well, said group leader told Supervisor that she couldn't keep up by herself, so said supervisor told me to run back and forth between line 1 and line 2 all day.  Go do a few orders for line 1, then come do a few orders for line 2....all so group leader's side chick wouldn't have to make any effort whatsoever to do her job.  

 I definitely got my steps in that day.  

Out Of The Blue

 I had a former coworker contact me a couple of days ago completely out of the blue.  

We'd been friends back when he worked out at the plant, but had mostly lost touch when he quit out there and moved out of town.  We were friends on the Book Of Faces, but he hardly ever posted.  Well, he messaged me and told me he was thinking about moving back so he could help take care of his dad and was considering trying to get back on at the plant. 

I had to be honest with him, and told him I would not recommend that place to anyone.  It's gotten so much worse out there since he left.  He replied that he'd heard that from other sources, and thanked me for confirming.  I suggested a couple of other facilities in the area that pay much more and treat their employees so much better, and if I weren't so close to retirement, I'd put in at one of them my own self. 

It's a shame when your work place is so bad you warn people against applying there. 

We chatted a bit more and he was impressed that I still had Slider.  He's the one who gave him to me all those years ago.  He said, "I knew you'd take good care of her."  TBH, I don't know if Slider is a him or a her, but I've always said him and I'm not going to stop now.  Probably because my coworker called him him when he gave him to me.  Maybe he forgot.  It's been 19 years after all...

Speaking of work, I had to turn my alarm back on this morning and it made me want to throw up.  I woke up at 4:00 and made myself stay awake to try to get back into the swing of getting up at 2:30, and boy was I not happy about it.  In fact, I felt so sick about it I didn't really do anything today but watch cheesy Christmas movies, both Hallmark and Great American Family.  

While I was doing that, I played around with AI a bit trying to come up with an autumn picture to use as a thumbnail.  I put the same prompt in:  Create an image of autumn scenery, and this is what they gave me.  

ChatGPT: 

Grok:  

Gemini:  

I think Gemini won this round.  I'd like to be walking down that road myself.  I wish I weren't so exhausted when I got off work.  If I weren't, I'd go walking every day.  As it is, I come home and pretty much collapse.  

In garden news, I forgot to show you this yesterday.  Look, one of my garlics is coming up!  

This is the only one so far, but I'm not panicking.  Garlic really needs a good cold spell to start growing.  Lots of sites recommend putting it into the refrigerator before planting it, which I wish I would have known ahead of time.  Oh well, it'll get cold soon enough.  

I did go out and cut all the green cayenne peppers I could find, but I didn't string them to dry.  I just put them into a Ziploc bag and put them into the freezer.   I also cut a bit more French tarragon and hung it to dry.  That'll probably be all I harvest from the garden for this year, except for the tomatoes, of course.  

And finally, remember how I said I was going to eat up all these canned goods?  

I've made a pretty good start of it.  I ate the corned beef hash for breakfast this morning, and ate the Sweet Sue chicken and dumplings yesterday.  I've used the cream of chicken soup in my squash casserole, and made chicken salad from both of those cans of chicken.  

In an eerie no-such-thing-as-a-coincidence coincidence, a recipe for salmon patties -- sometimes called salmon croquettes-- popped up in my FB feed.  I think I'll make those one day this week.  Then I'll make tuna salad out of the two cans of tuna.  I don't even know why I bought the stuff.  I don't like tuna.  But it's there and we don't waste food.  

In fact, I think I'll go right now and open up that big can of pear halves and make pear salads with them.  I haven't had a pear salad in ages.  

Laters.

Inventory

Once again it was time for annual inventory out at the plant, and once again it was the same old … we had a word for this when I was in the Navy which I will not utter here. 

I want to maintain my PG rating on the blog, you know.  

In other words, everything went as it usually does.  I keep saying people might not hate inventory so much if they would at least pretend to be organized, but they can't even do that.  And I desperately wish they'd give these counters some training!  But no, they just throw them out there and we card writers end up having to train them.  

The poor counter I ended up with...we were inventorying stacks of metal parts.  The way we normally do it is to measure the stack, then multiply by how many parts per inch.  Very simple, very easy, and it's always the same because all of the parts are the same thickness.  The counter I had said she didn't feel comfortable doing it that way, so she was hand counting every single stack of parts...and bear in mind, some of these stacks had 400-500 parts in them.  It took her like 30 minutes just to count the first stack.  By that time, I'd counted three stacks myself and had written up the cards for them.   

Eventually, Uncle Supervisor went over and had a talk with the counter, and things picked up after that.  We eventually got everything done, then I noticed Uncle Supervisor over replacing some of the cards I had written with the green Do Not Inventory cards.  I walked over and said, "You'd think they'd have a way for us to tell which ones we don't inventory before we write the cards.  I asked about it last year, and they said there's no way to know until the computer kicks the cards out.  To me, that's just..."

"Asinine," Uncle Supervisor interrupted. 

Laughing, I replied, "I was going to say unorganized, but that works, too!"  But that's how it is out there.  It's like they try to do things in the most chaotic way possible. 

I think the worst part about inventory is that you can't leave when you're done.  You have to stand around waiting for hours and hours.  I don't know about everyone else, but I definitely felt like I was being watched. 

That is a real photo I took.  I'm not exactly sure what was making that reflection, but it sure looked like a face to me. 

I thought it was funny.  

Crazy

So, I get to work bright and early yesterday morning, and one of my coworkers came up to me and said, "We're staying until 4:00 and it's mandatory now."  But I guess it's only mandatory for some people...but I'm not here to grumble.  Except that's exactly what I'm doing. 

I was so tired when I got home, I didn't do anything.  I went to bed at 6:30, and was practically shivering from exhaustion.  I didn't go to sleep right away, though.  I read a chapter in my book first.  

I keep forgetting to tell you that I finished reading The Oxford Detective Society.  It was pretty good if you like detective stories.  Now I'm reading one called The Baker Of Lost Memories. It's very compelling, and I'm having a hard time putting it down.  

But I was still asleep by 7:00.  Even after reading, and falling asleep watching a gardening video on my tablet...

All that to say, expect blogging to be sparse until common sense returns to the plant.  

Oh, wait...you'd never get a post then!  

In the meantime, look at this.  It absolutely sums up how crazy things have been this year.  I've got a bluebonnet blooming.

In September.  

 Silly thing doesn't realize it's supposed to bloom in March.  

Anyway, I'm almost as tired tonight as I was last night, so I'm going to bed.  Goodnight. 

Hello Again

Hello again.  Yes, I know it's been a while, except for the plunger story which was so funny I had to share it with you.  Truth is, I'm plumb tuckered.  I walked into work Monday morning to see some of the brazers already there working.  Now, if I were like some previous brazers who no longer work there, I'd have stormed off to HR complaining about favoritism.  

But I'm not like that.  I figured if Group Leader Shark wanted me to come in early, she'd let me know.  Sure enough, about five minutes later she came around the corner and told me to start coming in at 4:00 AM.  And we are still staying until 3:00 PM, so that makes for a long work day.  Heck, Wednesday she came around and asked people to volunteer to stay until 4:00.  It's been a long time since I've worked a 12 hour day.  I came home that night and absolutely collapsed.  

You know, as much as I grumble and fuss about getting up at 2:30, there are advantages to going in early -- one of them being that you don't have to walk through that ridiculous metal detector.  The other one is that there is ice in the machines.  My poor countertop ice maker can finally get a bit of a break. 

Of course, my first thought was, "Oh boy!  More money to buy stuff for my garden!"  From the overtime, you know.  And that's just what I did.  Truth is, I've been wanting a yard wagon for quite some time now, and after watching a few gardening channels, I settled on this one:  

It's a dump cart!  That means, I can lift the cart part up and dump out whatever is inside it.  Most of the big channels get a ... higher dollar brand, but I figured this one was good enough for what I needed since my garden is much smaller than theirs.  The channels I watch, I mean.   It has already come in so handy, but more about that in a minute.  

Funny thing, while I was researching the different carts and reading customer reviews, one guy had posted that he didn't get a cart.  He got parts to a cart!  Not only did they expect him to pay for his cart, they expected him to put it together himself!  Oh the horror! 

I didn't find the cart at all difficult put together, but I did break out my own rachet instead of using the open end wrenches they sent with it.  That made it go so much faster.  I'm still learning how to steer the thing, which has made for some quite comical moments. 

The other thing I bought was some crimson clover seeds to use as a cover crop this winter. 

Clover is one of the best cover crops you can plant, because it fixes nitrogen in the soil.  Plus, I think it's downright gorgeous.  I love seeing it on the side of the roads in the spring.  This package has enough seeds that I might plant some in the back yard.  Hopefully it will choke out the creeping Charlie.  The only thing is, I have to make sure to cut it down before it goes to seed -- in my raised beds, I mean -- or I'll have clover coming up everywhere.  

That's fine in the yard, but I don't want it in my veg patches!  

Speaking of, today's project was to get the red clay dug out from under a second round bed so I could get it filled with dirt.  Even though the weather was much cooler than it has been being, I was still drenched with sweat by the time I'd finished.  Then I went and mowed.  And weed eated.  But just the front yard.  The back can stay long.  That's why I got a privacy fence. 

Since we haven't had any appreciable rainfall since I filled the first bed, and we don't have any in the forecast for a few more days, I put the sprinkler on the two new beds to settle the soil.  

Turns out, I needn't have bothered because that lemon balm had such a massive root ball, I ended up having to take most of the soil back out to get it to fit.  When I was digging it up, I discovered that some of the roots had even burrowed below the bed lining in the old bed.  It doesn't have that problem now.  These beds are pretty deep, plus it has clear access to the soil beneath.  Those roots can grow as deeply as they want to.  

The rosemary's root ball wasn't quite as big, but I still had to remove quite a bit of soil to get it to fit.  No matter.  They are both settled into their forever homes, looking a bit bedraggled from the move, but I'm hoping they'll pick up once they get over transplant shock.  I'll get some mulch down soon, too.  Maybe tomorrow.  

That's what I used the dump cart for this morning.  I moved the red clay back into the pile behind the shop, then used it to move the soil into -- and back out of -- the round beds.  I'm so loving this thing.  It's much easier to handle than my wheelbarrow.  

While I was working in the yard, I trimmed back my crepe myrtle, but I did not commit crepe murder.  

I only cut off the lower branches that were slapping me in the face while I'm trying to work in my garden spot.  I left the rest of it growing naturally.  It's had a rough time this year, too, with the drought and all.  Yeah, I was thinking last night that it would be such a good night to sit out beside the fire pit, but we're still under a burn ban.  I guess I could have sat out there without a fire, but it's just not the same. 

And finally, a few days ago, I was scattering some corn behind the fence for all of the critters who eat corn.  We don't turn anyone away.  All are welcome at this table.  Except fire ants, but they don't eat corn anyway so it's a moot point.  

Anyway, I was scattering corn and noticed something a bit odd on the ground.  Looking closer, I saw it was a small rock.  

"Huh?" I mused.  "I wonder where that came from..."  At first, I thought maybe I'd dropped it, but I hadn't carried any rocks behind the fence.  I finished scattering the corn, and was walking back to put the scoop back into the corn bin when it hit me.

It was a crow gift!  I'd finally gotten a crow gift!!

I dashed back and snatched it up post haste, and it is now sitting on my entertainment center in the living room.   

You know you're living right when a crow gives you a gift.  

Success!

There I was at work, just a working away about ten minutes after two, when one of the parts stagers walked by, then kind of did a double take at me.  "I forgot you were staying until 3:00!" she said. 

"So did I!"  I replied, laughing.  Seriously, I did.  I was getting all excited around a quarter to, thinking it was almost time to leave when I overheard someone else say the word overtime.   

"Dang!"  I exclaimed.  "We've got to stay until 3:00!"  And so we did.  Well, the sub brazing department did.  The lines went home.  Most of them, at least.  I told my coworker that if we're going to be the only ones staying over, I'd rather come in early.  

Anyway, work has been kind of interesting this week because the construction crew is taking everything down out of the ceilings. And I do mean everything.  All of the electrical conduit, the phone lines, the pneumatic system, the old air conditioners and duct work -- everything except the sprinkler system.  It looks like they're going to start over completely from scratch. 

The interesting part is that they've been cutting off the electricity to the lighting system from time to time, and we've been working in the dark.  I was over at the computer trying to confirm some work and I couldn't even see my paper to type the numbers in.   It's been fun, to say the least. 

After work, I had planned on running by Another Man's Treasure thrift shop to see if they wanted this stuff I'd boxed up to donate.  Alas, when I turned down the road to go into town, I saw the sign "Road Closed".  It would have been nice if they'd put that sign somewhere you could see it before you turned onto that road, because once you're on it, there is no place to turn around until you get to the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve. 

Turn around I did, and then I drove down through the lake and went to Huckleberry Finds thrift shop instead.  She was very happy to take the stuff, and thanked me for supporting her small business.  I thanked her for taking the stuff, because I hated to throw it into the garbage.  "These teddy bears need to be loved by a little girl," I told her.  She said any time I had stuff to donate, she'd be happy to take it.  So, now I have a place to donate stuff, and there will definitely be more coming as I get more cleaning done.  

This guy never made it into the donation box, though.  

I don't even know where he came from, or who gave him to me, but he's staying. 

This one, on the other hand, I had to dive back into the box and get him out.  

I'd scooped up all of the Beanie Babies without looking and put them into the donate box.  Sometime today at work, I remembered this bison was in there, and said, "Oh no!"  I'd gotten him because my dad loved bison.  He and a Canada goose are the only ones I wanted to keep.  The rest, I'd completely forgotten I even had, so they all could go. 

Oh, and I called the clean up man back.  He said he didn't forget about me, then asked if I'd changed my mind about Monday.  After a bit of clarification, turns out it was just a misunderstanding.  I'd thought we'd agreed he'd come at 2:30, and he thought I was going to call him back when I was ready for him to come.  The long and the short of it is, he's going to come in the morning after he puts his kids on the school bus.  Cool beans. 

Funny thing is, I kind of did change my mind.  When he didn't come, I had decided to wait until today to call and see if he could come early in the morning either tomorrow or Saturday.  It's been so hot, I haven't even wanted to be outside long enough to show him what to get. So it all worked out for the best. 

But this whole thing illustrates why -- at least one of the reasons -- I don't like making phone calls.  I don't feel like I communicate well over the phone.  I'm much better texting or messaging. 

OK, moving right along.   Some of the basil I'd cut down from the planter last week are coming back. 

I totally did not expect that, since I'd cut them down at ground level.  There are two of them showing new growth, so now I'll have tender young basil going in to the Fall.   That's good, because I'd let all of the rest go to flower, and the leaves can turn bitter once that happens. 

And finally, if you have a mind to, keep my friend Edna Who Loves To See Her Name In My Blog in your prayers.  I know she'd appreciate it. 

She's had a rough week.  

Make It Make Sense

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you'll know that work out at the plant has been very slow this year.  We haven't worked a single Saturday so far.  I'd thought then that it was because of the economy, and that we just weren't getting any orders.  

Apparently not. 

Yep, they posted this morning, the plant is working Saturday.  Not me, because I have vacation already scheduled, but the rest of them are.  They gave us an entire week off, and now want us to work Saturdays -- for the rest of the year, from what I hear.  

Not only that, they've started making us all stay an hour over.  I was not happy about that.  I'd rather come in early than stay over, but that's not up to me.  And all of this after they'd spent several weeks sending the lines home at 9:00 and 10:00 in the morning.  

Make it make sense!  

What I heard is that the distribution center is empty, and the powers that be are starting to panic.  Now, for those of you who don't know, I work in a facility that manufactures evaporator coils for home air conditioners.  When we're done with an order, it's loaded on to a truck and shipped to the distribution center, which will send it on to the customer.  The DC is only about a mile up the road, so it's a short trip.  What I'm wondering is how in the world did no one notice that the stockpile was getting so low?  I mean, this kind of thing doesn't happen overnight.  Surely someone should have spoken up before now and said, "Hey, we need to put more coils into the distribution center!"  

By the way, I keep forgetting to mention that two supervisors have quit within the last month.  When your turnover rate among your shop floor employees is as high as ours is, you've got problems.  But when your turnover rate among supervisors and upper management is as high as ours is, you've really got problems. 

Think about this:  We've had five plant managers in the last seven years.  FIVE!  

First up, there was Butterball.  I call him that because he was short and pretty round.  He's the one that took our profit sharing bonus away because he didn't think we deserved it.  Someone in the meeting I was in asked, "Why don't we deserve it if we're meeting the criteria to get the bonus?" And butterball just snapped, "Because you don't!  You just don't!"  He was fired in early 2019.

Then came The Big Man Up Front.  He was fired for embezzlement in...I think it was late 2020 or early 2021.  Word is, all of that COVID relief the government was giving to companies for their employees was going straight into his pocket.  Someone who worked at another plant in the area was telling me her company gave them boxes full of groceries and lots of stuff like that.  We got a paper bag with two masks and a stick of gum.  

He was followed by Mob Boss.  He got that nickname because he always kept his dark hair slicked straight back, and to me, he looked like someone who belonged in the Mafia.  He's the one who told us we couldn't have anything to eat or drink on the shop floor but plain water -- even those who came in at 3:00 and 4:00 AM.  Lunch break is at 11:00.  That's a long time to ask people to go without food.  He got fired, but I don't really know why.  There aren't even any rumors about him.  Nobody missed him. 

Then came The Warden.  He resigned last year and went to another plant in the area. I thought he was going to be a good boss until that one day there was a big fight in the main breakroom at lunch.  Someone filmed it and posted the video to her Facebook.  I guess he got his behind embarrassed, because he went on an absolute tear after that.  That's how he got the nickname -- because he started treating the plant like a prison.  

Now we have Captain Cardboard.  I said I wasn't going to call him that, but it kind of stuck.  Truth is, the man hasn't shown enough personality for me to call him anything else.  He's been here almost a year, and...well, I'm not holding my breath that he stays too much longer.  I've already heard rumors that he's planning on resigning as soon as he's worked long enough to get his signing bonus.  Or some such. 

I don't know.  I guess we'll see...

On a brighter note, I've got spider lilies blooming!  

And finally, I had planned on taking the stuff up to the thrift shops this afternoon, but when they'd made us stay over, I changed my mind.  I'll take them tomorrow when I go to do my regular shopping.  Hopefully someone will take them. 

And just because...

 

Fruit Basket Turnover

We had to go through a bit of fruit basket turnover at work this morning in the sub-brazing department.  What happened was that the one brazer who comes in late every single day but still miraculously hasn't pointed out came in late yet again yesterday only to discover that someone else had set up on "her" stand.  

For that to make sense, I have to explain that we normally have 12 brazing stations.  When they moved us all around, they'd taken four of them out for the time being.  The brazers who normally work on those four stands had to find another stand.  Alas, one of them got on Prissy Butt's stand, and she had to get on a different stand. 

She pitched an absolute wall eyed hissy fit all day long claiming that everybody else was able to get on their "right" stand but her.  This wasn't at all true, by the way.  Only three of us had gotten on the same stands we'd had before, and the other five were on different stands. None of that mattered to her, and somehow in the conversation the other brazers agreed to swap stands to mollify her. 

This morning, four different brazers -- five if you count Prissy Butt -- swip swapped stands so she could have her "right" stand back.  I was kind of glad, to be honest, because she's farther away from me.  I swan, when we get moved back to the lines, I don't know what's going to happen to her, because she's one of those people who can't even wipe her own butt unless someone holds the toilet paper for her.  I feel sorry for whoever ends up having to work with her.  I only hope it's not me. 

On the bright side, I was able to come home and watch new seasons of Halloween Wars and Halloween Baking Championship! Oh, and Heartland is back on Hulu, so I picked right back up where I left off. 

On the not so bright side, still no word from the clean up man.  I think I'm going to wait until this heat breaks then try calling him back.  If he doesn't come then, I'll just find someone else who wants my money. 

In the meantime, I emptied two more boxes out and bagged up some stuff to donate-- mostly stuffed animals, Beanie Babies, and Micropets, plus the fish tank ornaments I've decided not to use in my toad garden.  There are three thrift shops here in town, Another Man's Treasure, The Broken Pot, and Huckleberry Finds.  Surely one of them will take this stuff.   

These two guys, however, I'm finding I'm having a hard time putting them into the donation box.  Their names are Joshua David and Gregory Jason. 

I've had them for forever, but I'm not quite ready to part with them.  

In garden news, not much is really going on with the garden.  While I was waiting for the clean up man yesterday, I tore up a few cardboard boxes and added them to my hot compost bin.  It still needs some more, but I've got plenty.  Maybe I'll get up early Friday and tear some more up before it gets too hot.  

And finally, a little football humor for you. 

IYKYK

Back To The Grindstone

Years ago, I used to have a coworker who when the end of lunch buzzer went off would slap her hands on the table and say, "Whelp, back to the grindstone" every day.  That's kind of how I felt this morning when I had to go back to work.  Boy, did I not want to do that, but somebody's got to pay the bills around here, so out of bed I got and off to work I went. 

Where I found the plant in total chaos.  They'd removed the wall between the front and the back, and had shifted all of the brazing stands around.  Now, you would think it would be common sense to put the same desk by the stand it was with before the moved it, but noooooo.  Apparently they were just plunking any old desk any old where.  

It wouldn't have been such a big deal except that we had all left our tools in our desks...because they'd taken our lockers away already.  Anyway, I was looking for my desk and Group Leader Shark was yelling at me about it for some reason, and I was trying to calmly explain that I needed to find it to get my tools, and she just snapped and started screaming at me.  

"They're back there!" she snapped.  

"That's all you had to say!"  I replied, and I went and got my tools.  I don't know why she has to be that way, but she did it again later.  I was looking for the parts stager to find out where she wanted us to put our completed orders, and Group Leader Shark yelled, "Put them over there!"  On the conveyors.  "Just plunk them down any old where?"  I asked.  But later on, I found the parts stager and asked her, and eventually we got a system worked out.  

The rest of the day passed largely without incident, except that they hadn't even hooked our computer up.  We couldn't even clock in on it, and had to go halfway across the plant to find a computer to clock in.  They called IT out and it took them until about 9:30 to get everything back up and running.   They were having to run cables and hook things up in the connection box thingy on the wall and everything.  

They also had some contractors in the plant taking down all the old A/C units, most of which never worked in the first place.  They pulled down one big piece of duct work and boy howdy there was so much dirt up in there!  Demi-god told me he thought a raccoon had fallen out.  Then he told me his wife wants a baby raccoon as a pet.  He'd tried to catch her one, but the mama raccoon bowed up on him and started growling, so he decided to leave that one alone.  

She also wants a skunk, which make good pets as long as you don't make them feel threatened.  By the way, I think I must have hit a skunk this morning, because boy was that smell strong as I was driving down the highway. 

Anyway, the long workday finally ended, and I came home to wait on the clean up man...who never showed up. Shame, because he had such a good reputation.  At this point, I'm beginning to think it's something about me.  Heck, I even tried to hire someone through Angi a few years ago, and they said they couldn't help me.  I'm going to try to stay positive, though, and hope he just got hung up on another job, but if he doesn't come within the next couple of days, I guess I'll try to find someone else to come get this junk.  Still, it's hard not to get discouraged. 

While I was waiting, I knit a few rounds on my latest sailor hat. 

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Songbird Stripe

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5 mm

You know, this colorway is called Songbird Stripe, but I'm not seeing songbird in this.  I'm seeing some sort of Native American woven basket pattern.  But that's just me.  You might see something totally different. 

And finally, I think I have this jelly making thing down.  

The jar on the left is from the first batch I made -- the one where I chopped the peppers by hand.  You can see they're all kind of floating at the top.  The middle jar is from the second batch.  I'd chopped the peppers in the food processor, but didn't drain them before I made the jelly.  It looks better, but most of the peppers are still clustered towards the top.  The jar on the right, I chopped the peppers in the food processor and then let them drain overnight, and I think it turned out so much better.  The color is better, the peppers are more evenly distributed, and I sound like a total dork, don't I?  

OK, I'll let you go for now.  But I am kind of proud of that pepper jelly. 

Just in case you couldn't tell. 

Really Almost

It really almost feels like Fall today.  Oh it’s still hot, but I’ve got football on the TV, and I made pepper jelly.  

I was thisclose to going and getting my Fall decorations out, but I didn't.  I still have all those boxes of stuff I need to sort through, so I'm going to do that first.  Besides, once I was done with the jelly, I was already sweaty enough from standing over that hot stove and wanted to go take a shower.  

I decided to do something different with my jelly this time.  The other batches I'd made taste really good, but they're a little too loose for me.  I was reading another recipe and that one said to drain your peppers, especially if you chop them with a food processor.  So last night, I got my peppers out of the freezer and chopped them up.  Then I put them into a cheesecloth and let them both thaw and drain overnight.  I got this much juice out of them.

I'm hoping that makes this jelly more jelly like and less sauce like.  But doing this meant I only got six jars instead of seven.  No matter, it's not like I don't already have 14 jars of it in the pantry...

In garden news, I mentioned yesterday that we had some storms roll though here.  What I didn't mention is that we got 1.85 inches of rain.  That's more than we got for the entire month of August.  Well, apparently we had hail, too, which must have happened either during the ball games or after I went to bed, because I had no idea until I checked my rain gauge app.  I'm thinking it was after I went to bed, because I was hearing a strange rumbling noise, but didn't want to get out of bed to check for fear of setting the cat to yowling.  

Anyway, when I went to check my garden this morning, my poor basil had been beaten half to death. 

I went ahead and cut all the broken and snapped stems off and put them into the compost, but there is still plenty of basil left.  Not that I'm going to do anything with it.  I've got tons of it already dried and stored. 

Even before I did that, I got my little spreader thingy and spread weed and feed in the front and side yards.  I really need to get more consistent with doing that, both in spring and in fall.  I do not spread it in the back yard, because I want my clover and my purple deadnettle to grow.  For the bees and things.  

I had to take Marty Mac out of his protective custody so he wouldn't get the weed killer on him, and figured since I had him out, I might as well tidy him up.  

I pulled up the grass that was growing in his pot and trimmed away all the dead vegetation, and he looks a lot better now.  I've been so focused on my garden that I've kind of neglected him a bit.  I must do better from here on out. 

By the way, I filmed another garden journal, but since the book of faces tends to take my posts down when I embed my vlogs, I'm not posting it on the blog.  If you're interested, you can watch it here:  Garden Journal 9/13/26

And finally, a couple of years ago or so, I saw a meme that I was sure I had saved, but I can't for the life of me find it now.  It said something to the effect that a company's culture is best displayed by how your employees feel on a Sunday night, and boy do I feel that today.  After having a wonderful, glorious week off, turning those alarms back on this morning literally made me physically ill.  

I'm serious.  I've walked around all day today feeling like I want to throw up.  The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that one day, I can walk out of that toxic place and never ever go back.  Unfortunately, today is not that day.  

Neither is tomorrow.  But some day...

in 1934 more days...

I'm Free!

I'm free!  I'm free!  At least until September 14, that is.  The rest of the plant will be free as of 2:00 PM today, but thanks to judicious scheduling of my vacation time, I have today off, too.  And as usual, at least one of my coworkers said, "You're so lucky to have these three day weekends!"  And also as usual, I replied, "It's not luck.  I saved my vacation days, and you too can save your vacation days to have three day weekends."  

"Oh, I don't want to do that!" this particular coworker replied.  

By the way, they already started re-arranging stuff at work, and we can't find anything.  "I feel like when they re-arrange Walmart!"  I told my coworker.  They're still determined to put the sub brazers back on the lines, though.  I think they have meetings up front to decide on the absolute dumbest way to do things.  Seriously, every time they have these big announcements telling us they're going to change stuff and it's going to be so much better, all that ends up happening is that my job becomes much harder.  

And they can't figure out why their turnover rate is so high....

Enough of that.  I don't have to think about work for a while, so let's move on to something more pleasant, like my garden.  

It's so much nicer to be able to get up and work outside in the cool of the morning, even though the humidity still makes it miserable.  It has been so hot and dry here lately that I gave all the beds a real good watering.  I probably overwatered some of the beds, but they'll dry out quickly enough. 

While that was going on, I built up the tomato cages on my second batch of plants.  

This will probably be as high as I need to make them, though I can add another tier to the cages if I have to.  All of my plants are struggling in this heat, so much so, I'm considering going ahead and pulling these old tomatoes out and composting them. 

Especially this one.  It's got some sort of fungus or mold growing right at the base.  

I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be there.  I've sprayed it with Neem oil, but it keeps coming back.  

By the way, I was watching a video by The Millennial Gardener about making a hot compost bin out of a black plastic garbage can, and I think I'm going to do one for myself.  What with that, and the composting bag I have, I can make myself a two bay hot compost system, then when the bag finally tears up for good, I'll replace it with another garbage can.   

There isn't much else going on in the garden right now.  It's just too hot.  I gave my lemon balm a good haircut, but didn't save any to dry.  

I've already got so much of it, I didn't feel like I needed any more.  I've been thinking about moving my lemon balm away from the house, so it will have more room to grow.  I'd never expected it to get so big, because it had always stayed small when it was in the planter. 

I may put my cayenne peppers into those beds alongside the house, because they are doing very well there -- even better than the ones in the 4' x 4' bed.  In fact, I'm still getting a good harvest from them.

I might try to overwinter these plants -- the ones in the beds beside the house -- and let the others go to that great compost bin in the sky.  

I've been thinking about planting a fall garden, but don't really know what to plant.  The extension office posted this on their Facebook page earlier this week.  

The things I like most on that list are the onions, but I've already got so many in the freezer, I'm not going to plant any this year.  Garlic isn't on the list yet, but I expect it'll come later.  Even so, I have a bunch of it in the freezer, too.  I like baby spinach, but I don't think I could eat it fast enough to make it worth planting.  I don't know...with it just being me by myself, it's hard to plant for just one.  I'm seriously thinking about making another batch or two of pepper jelly, because I still have so many banana peppers in the freezer.  At least I can give the jelly as gifts.  Heh, my sister has already laid claim to a jar.  

Speaking of my sister, she finally got the headstone for our mother installed.  She sent me these photos this morning. 

She told me not to worry about the weeds, because they'll all be covered with snow soon.  It's already getting down into the low 40s up there.  They plan on doing something in the spring, when the snow melts.  I'm sure she'll send me photos when they are done. 

But I digress...

The extension also posted this list, but pretty much all I'm going to do on this is to put down some Weed 'n Feed in my front yard.  

I bought some last week, and I'm probably going to mow the front and side yards sometime this weekend, then put down my fire ant treatment first.  Then, in a week or two, I'll put down the Weed 'n Feed.  

OK, OK, I know I'm boring you with all of my garden talk, so I'll just say that the last thing I did before retreating into the air conditioning was to plant a couple of my packets of Bluebonnet seeds.  I've got several plants coming up from the ones I planted last year -- either the seeds still in the ground or from the ones cast by the plants that grew.  

Still, I put a few seeds in the bare spots, just to fill in some.  I've got three packets left in the freezer, and I'm thinking about making that bed wider.    It's only about 10" wide right now, and I have a couple more pieces of that edging, so I can extend it a bit.  I'm definitely going to wait until it's cooler to do that.  

Unless I can fit it in early one morning this week.  I've got so much on my to do list, but unlike my friend Marcy, I am not good at multitasking.  My main project for the week is to finish cleaning out that shed so I can call the clean-up man to come haul my junk off.  But I also kind of want to call a handyman and electrician.  However, I don't feel I can make those calls until I've got the first project done.  I mean, what if they all show up at once?  Then I'd be wayyyy overwhelmed. 

Speaking of my friend, I channeled her a bit this morning.  Not on the multitasking, but with the coffee creamer. 

Since she doesn't like pumpkin spice, she associates Hazelnut with Fall.  And yes, I did think of you when I was buying it in the store.  

I know you all know I love my pumpkin spice, but I think this is taking things just a bit too far. 

That fresh pine, on the other hand, kind of appeals.  I think that's because we associate pine scent with cleaning because of certain products that have been around far longer than we have.   I might get some of it next time I go into the Mart of Wal. 

And finally, I'm ready for some cooler weather!  

 I'm getting mighty tired of these 100° + heat indexes!  Bring on the sweater weather!