Well, Poop

Yesterday, I was at work, just a working away, when the dispatcher came into the brazing department and gestured me over.  He tossed a piece of paper in my general direction and took off the other way as fast as he could.  Once I saw what was on that paper, I understood.  It said Tubing department is scheduled to work Saturday.  

Immediate outcry ensued.  "What??? We gotta work Saturday???  I can't believe they're making us work Saturday!!!"  And I'm just over here thinking, "Why are you acting like you've never worked here before?"  Buuuut.....Just before we got off today, Group Leader Shark came and said brazers would be off.  

They're putting in a new system, and it's going to take a bit to get it all up and running and organized.  However, until they do, we've had precious few orders to braze up.  I can't recall a time when I've been so bored at work.  Wait, yes I can.  Back when I was on second shift, I spent a bit of time as a quality auditor -- which involved mostly standing and looking all night.  I'd get so bored, I'd put my auditing tools down and work on the lines.  I hated that job.  

Anyway, today, I only brazed 90 parts.  Normal is 250-300.  I'll be glad when they get this all figured out.  I know some of those people can stand around all day talking, but me, I've got to have me some work to do.  

Well, we've had our first positive COVID diagnosis in the plant.  It's a girl on second shift.  He called her name in the meeting, but I'd never heard of her, and didn't know who she is.  They sent her home, and everyone in her department has been quarantined.  I'm wondering how she made it into the plant to begin with, since they're taking everyone's temperature at the door.  Obviously, that doesn't work, so they can stop anytime.  But they won't.  It makes them feel better.  Unearned Moral Superiority, is why Bill Whittle calls it. 

The Big Man Up Front -- and New Boss will heretofore be known on this blog -- has decided to make wearing masks mandatory.  He's just waiting on corporate headquarters to approve it.  He's been trying to do it for weeks, but hasn't gotten approval.  But now, he probably will.  Sigh...It won't stop the virus from spreading, but it will make him feel better.  And only him...

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate my job?  

Let's talk about something more pleasant, shall we?  Small businesses are hurting right now.  Lots of them have gone under.  I said I was going to use my stimulus to help some of them out, since I'm still working.  I can't help much, but I can place an order every now and again.  This time, it was my friend Leann.  You've met her before. Several times.  

This is her newest yarn set, dyed strictly for the pandemic.  It's called We The People.  

Here's a better picture of the mini skeins.  Aren't they pretty?  I love the red, white and blue ones.   

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this yarn yet, but I wanted to help her out.  I can't afford to buy all of her stuff that I want, but I couldn't pass this one up.  Here is a link to her shop:  Forbidden Fiber.  Do go and check her out.  She's got some truly gorgeous stuff there. 

Oh, and here's how the Zoom Loom squares are going.  

My, Becky, you certainly wove a lot in the last two days!  No, I didn't.  I cheated.  I found the strip I'd already started sewing together weeks ago, and simply joined it to the new squares.  I'm not sure how big I'm going to make this thing.  I'll figure it out as I go.  

Finally, I received this beautiful card from Cyndye.  

Her cousin is painting them to earn a little extra cash.  I might just have to put in an order, mighten I?  

Random Thoughts Of A Sunday Afternoon

1.  It's been warm enough lately, I was able to put some of my houseplants back outside.  There is still a chance of a late frost, even though this has been a very mild winter, so I'll have to keep an eye on the weather.  My dining room looks so much bigger without them.

2.  I cleaned off my kitchen cabinet.  I almost don't recognize the place now.

3.  When I started trying to learn to play the piano, for some reason, I picked Saturday as the day to evaluate myself, and decide if I was ready to move on.  I don't know why.  It was a completely arbitrary decision.  Nevertheless, Saturday is the day.

4.  Yesterday, when I turned my book over to a new page, I saw this not at the top of it:

It says, "On pages 144 to 159 are seven very popular selections that you have the knowledge and ability to perform."   I quickly flipped through the remainder of the book, and sure enough, no more lessons!  Once I've learned to play these few pieces, I'll be done with book one!

5.  On a whim, I dug out all of my level one books and started playing stuff from them.

6.  I'll probably take a break from lessons and just play a bit for fun for a while.  There's lots of songs in these books I haven't even had time to look at.  The bad news is, I've pretty much stopped playing my guitar.  I just don't have time.

7.  In the midst of all that piano playing, I managed to finish another charity hat:

I'm way behind last year's totals.  I'd better get busy.

8.  I bought some stationery a week or so ago.  A few days later, I bought some washi tape from a completely different company.  This weekend, I wrote a letter to my Australian pen pal, and on a whim, put some of the washi tape onto the envelope.  They matched so well, I had to take a picture and show you.

10.  How is everyone handling the pandemic?  Do you all have enough toilet paper?

11.  I'm hearing now that it may have been here since last fall.  Remember a couple of months ago when I felt so awful and dragged down, with a deep cough that just wouldn't quit?  I always cough this time of year, due to dry skin and allergies, but this was different. It was dry, but it was deeper and much harder than I normally cough.  I was seriously wondering if I had lung cancer or something.

Now, I'm beginning to wonder if it may have been COVID-19.  After all, they say (and by "they" I mean legitimate medial professionals, not politicians or an hysterical news media) that 80% of those who catch it will have very mild symptoms, or none at all, and will brush it off as a common cold.

12.  The nice thing is, in the last two days, I've had two friends message/text me, just to check on me.  I feel so special!

13.  Now, if you will excuse me, I've got knitting to do and a movie about some white headed shanty men to watch.

Ugh...

It seems the older I get, the tougher these time changes become.  All I wanted to do all day is to sleep.  But I couldn't.  We had 4 brazers out again today, and I know three of the four are going to be out all week.  I'd had some vacation scheduled for this week, but I decided to show Group Leader Shark some pity, and I cancelled it.  Well, all but one day.  My car has been nagging me for an oil change, so I kept that one day to go and do that.

While we're on the subject, they've got a new way to put in vacation time.  You have to submit your days through the new computer system they recently installed.  I don't like it.  I talked to one of the supervisors today about my frustrations, and he said he didn't like it, either.  Part of the problem is they just stuck it out there and didn't even show anyone how to use it.  I guess they thought we'd figure it out for ourselves.  Eventually, enough people complained that they put up written instructions near The Boxes, but gee, couldn't you have done that before? 

What I don't like about it is, you can't look at the calendar and see where your scheduled days are.  I don't mind submitting my day off requests through The Box, but I want to be able to print out a list of all my days that have been approved, and how many days I have left to schedule -- like I used to be able to under the old system.  Not having a printout of my days feels too much like flying blind to me.  And if there's one thing an INTJ does not like, it's flying blind.

Anyway, my Supervisor and I had to do a bit of a song and dance to get my days off cancelled.  He pushed the wrong button, then had to call HR to fix it, and when I checked 30 minutes before the end of the shift, it still showed my vacation days in there.  I asked Supervisor, and he said just come on in tomorrow, and we'll get things worked out then. 

Recently, the county came and dug out our ditches along this road.  No big deal, except that the next time it rained, half my yard slid off into the ditch.  Last weekend, when I was at the store, I bought some of this edging stuff and hammered it into place. 

Eventually, I hope to get enough to span the whole yard, then I'll start building up the dirt behind it.  Part of the problem is the county sprays poison in the ditches a couple of times a year.  That kills the grass, and without any roots to hold the dirt into place, there's nothing to stop the erosion.

I didn't have this trouble before I moved into this house.  I have a sneaking suspicion someone on the road is calling them out to come do all this.  And I have a sneaking suspicion I know who it is.

Yesterday afternoon, I got out and mowed my yard.  I was going to say cut my grass, but at this point, it's all weeds.  It's supposed to rain off and on all week, so I figured I'd better do it while my yard was reasonably un-squishy.  While I was out there, I noticed my roses were leafing out again.

I thought I'd killed them last summer by cutting them back too hard, but yay, signs of life!  There is still a lot of dead parts I need to get out of there, and I was going to get started...then I noticed this:

Can you see it?  Right there in the middle.  See it?  It's a bird nest.  That brought all my plans to a screeching halt.  I tried to get a picture of the nervous mama bird, but she was too flighty.

It's a mockingbird, by the way.   State bird of Texas.  Just a little bit of home in my back yard. 

OK, it's the state bird of Mississippi, too, but that's not the point here. 

Moving right along...

Last week, I got my tax return, and went on a little bit of a spending spree.  The items I bought on said spree have begun arriving.  First up, this lovely stationery.

It has matching envelopes, as well, but I don't like them.  They're lovely envelopes, but they open on the ends instead of along the top.  They'll mail all right, but it just seems odd. I also bought some more washi tape. 

I'd never even heard of washi tape until I began finding pen pals on the Global Penfriends website.  A couple of them mentioned it, and several of them use it.  I got some at Walmart several weeks ago, but their selection is very limited.

Amazon to the rescue! 

They had almost too much of a selection, and it was hard for me to choose.  I suspect there will be more in my future. 

In the meantime, anybody want a pen pal? 

I Only Thought

I only thought I was going to have a bad day.

It all started when I got there, and it looked like a tornado had hit my brazing stand. Seriously.  My parts trays were flung hither, my header bin was no where to be found, and my buggy was thither.  It took me something like 20 minutes just to put my work station back together so I could start my job.

I finally got that done, and started setting up an order to braze.  Aaaand one of the adapter tubes was wrong.  I took the paper to the dispatcher and re-ordered the part, then set the order aside and began setting up on another one.  Aaaand...

You guessed it.  One of the adapter tubes was wrong.  At this point, I told Group Leader Shark, "Yeah, Imma be heading on back to the house now.  I can already tell what kind of a day this is going to be." 

I'm glad I stayed, because after lunch, the day got a whole lot better. 

Just before 2:00, the rumors started.  I wanted to believe it, but didn't want to -- just in case it wasn't true.  I even said so to one of my coworkers.

"If that's not true, we're all going to be so crushed." 

But, then, they started calling everyone up to the training room for a meeting.  And that's when they told us.  There was someone here from the home office in Dallas.  He told us was that there has been a change in leadership at the plant.  Without going into all the gory details, basically there were some differences of opinion regarding leadership style.  The home office had counseled the person that his style needed to change, and when it didn't, they decided to change him.

We filed out of the meeting, and went back onto the same shop floor, to the same work, at the same brazing stand...but the mood of the entire plant had suddenly lightened. The Boss Who Must Not Be Named was positively glowing.  I can't say as I blame him, because he'd borne the brunt of the -- um, less than pleasant -- style of leadership. 

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get up and go work every day for a boss who acts like he hates you?  No, I don't mean "doesn't appreciate" you.  I don't mean, "takes you for granted."  I mean actively hates you -- as in would just as soon see you dead.  That's what we've been dealing with for the last two years.  Well, NO MORE!!!! 

Hallelujah!!  Can we get rid of my Stalker next? 

OK, moving right along to the post I had previously planned for today.

Yeah, this is my New Year's Resolution blown already.

I had said I wasn't going to buy any more until I'd used up the ones I already had.  In my defense, they were on clearance.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Oh, and there has been knitting.  I finally got my new yarn knit into my blanket.

It turned out a lot prettier than I'd thought it would be.  It's the turquoise and gray one in the center.  I still need to knit a square into the other blanket, though.  Maybe this weekend.

I think I've created a monster.  Yes, I ordered more stationery.  But look, this set had matching envelopes!

And since Valentine's Day is coming up, I thought I needed a heart stamp.

Now, I just need someone to write a love letter to...

Paper!!

Today was one of those days.  Most Mondays are one of those days, but today was even more one of those daysish than Mondays usually are.  The morning seemed to go by very quickly, but after lunch the day put its brakes on and...just...dragged.  Said dragging day was made even worse knowing what was coming for me...

See, I've been on a letter writing kick here lately.  If you've read my blog at all, you no doubt have figured this out.  I'd bought some nice parchment type paper.  No, it wasn't real parchment.  It was just regular paper dyed -- or printed -- or however they do it -- to look like parchment.

As I was writing a letter a few days ago, I looked at that paper and decided it just wasn't parchmenty enough.  Naturally, I did what any red blooded American would do.  I went online and ordered some parchmentier parchment paper.

I spent the whole day -- that whole twelve hour shift -- at work just knowing that package of parchmentier parchment paper was going to arrive today, and I wasn't going to be able to play with it until after I got off.  The closer the end of the shift got, the more time seemed to slow down.

At long last, that interminable day finally terminated, and I went flying out of the plant, shoving people down and running over little old ladies in my haste to get home to my new parchment paper.

OK, not really, but saying I calmly walked to my car and leisurely drove home isn't nearly as exciting.

Arrive home, I finally did, to find my package of paper stuffed carelessly into my mailbox by a mail carrier who didn't seem to care, because it's not her package of parchmentier parchment paper, so why should she?.   I wrestled the package out of my box, flew into my house, then ran out back and flung some corn in the general direction of my deer, and at long last I was ready to open the envelope and revel in the parchmetier parchment paper I'd ordered.

And there it is.

Is that not the parchmentiest of parchmenty parchment paper you ever did see?

Of course, it's not real parchment, either.  Just colored to look like it.  However, it is good, heavy weight paper -- almost card stock.  I can't wait to get to writing on it!  Hmmm, now who should get a letter next?

Why, yes I do get ridiculously excited about such things.  That's just who I am. 

In other news, I finished the hat I was working on.

Personally, I think I like the orange with the camo stripe better.  But that's neither here nor there.  They'll both keep someone's head warm.