Winter? Is that you?

Winter came back to Mississippi for one last hurrah before giving way to the suffocating heat and humidity of summer.  Some parts of the state were even under a frost advisory Sunday night.  I was a little nervous about my outside plants, but it only got down to 41° here, so they were fine.  

Still, that was enough to make it mighty chilly at my work station. 

I'd almost put my winter hats and scarves away for the year, but I was thankful I left them out a little longer.  I needed them this week.  It warmed up pretty quickly after the sun came up, but for a minute there, those winter clothes felt really good.  

I hope I haven't messed up with these little seedlings, but I've already started putting them outside in the afternoons.

 I don't know if it's something with the specific variety of cosmos, but they are thin and leggy as if they weren't getting enough light.  So, out into the sunshine they go.  Also, I still haven't figured out why some of the plant cells dry out so much faster than others.  I'm thinking I might get some of those grow sponges and try them -- along with different varieties of seeds to see if they do any better under these grow lights.  I don't know.  This little system got really good reviews on Amazon, but I'm not having much luck with it.  

The sunflowers did well, so maybe it's just these seeds that are struggling.  

Oh and I may have done something very foolish last night...And what was that foolish thing I may have done?  I ordered another one of those raised planters.  I've enjoyed the one I have so much, I've wanted another one ever since I got the first one.  Well, this week, I finally got my Amazon rewards card paid off, so I splurged a little.   I think I'm going to put this one beside the car port.  It'll get better sunlight there.  

In other news, my place of employment has struck again.  See, I've worked out there for 29 years, and for at least 28 of those years, it's been company policy that if you work a 10 hour shift, you get an extra ten minutes at lunch. Back in the day,  we got both a 30 minute lunch and a ten minute break, but they took the extra break away several years ago.  

OK, let me step outside my story for a moment to give you a little background.    Back during the pandemic, the Big Man Up Front that we had back then split us up into two different lunch breaks.  One was from 10:40 - 11:00 and the other was from 11:05 - 11:25.  Sometime last summer, the powers that be decided that since the pandemic was over, so was the need for separate breaks and everyone was going to go to lunch from 11:00 -11:20, the way it was before.  

That's what we'd been doing ever since then.  But for some reason, yesterday Group Leader Shark seemed to forget all about that, and told us that lunch was from 11:05 - 11:25 and made us stand there working like a bunch of doofuses while everyone else in the plant was going to lunch.  

Later that day, one of the brazers stopped Cuz and asked him.  He said that GLS was wrong and that we were supposed to be going to lunch at 11:00.  I said, "Can you please make sure she knows that?"  

So that was yesterday's drama.  

Well, today when I got back from lunch, she came over and told me "We don't get 30 minutes any more."  Nobody seems to know who decided that, or why, but suddenly after 28 years...someone has a problem with it.  I said, "Then I'm not coming in at 4:00 any more!"   To which she replied, "You have to!" 

Which brings me to my next question:  Why do I have to come in at 4:00 when everyone else over there she told, "Come in when you feel like it.  4:15, 5:00...whenever you want to..."  I don't know, but I'm going to talk to ...a supervisor about it in the morning.  I don't even know who our supervisor is now.  

I swan I hate that place so much.  I'm already counting down the days until I retire, and it will probably be a lot sooner than anyone thinks it will.  

Funny, they can get all bent out of shape over 10 minutes, but they can't seem to keep my Stalker away from over there.  They seem to think that's funny...

You know what I think is funny?  That they can't figure out why nobody wants to work there!  Oh, but they're playing that creepy weird music every morning!  That's supposed to solve everything, isn't it?  

And finally, just so this post isn't a total waste of your time, here's hat progress. 

I've started the crown decreases, and should be finished soon.  But for now, I'd better get to bed, since I'm the one that HAS to come in at 4:00.