The Crud...

Up to Friday I had managed to avoid all things sickness. Every single person at work has had the crud. I thought I had avoided it. I was free from the possibility.

Then Friday...

It hit hard.

I had to sit through a 5 hour studio session (they're usually 2 hours) and as the session went on my throat started hurting more and more. By the time I got home, it was real.

Saturday morning I had to run into work and knew as I was leaving that I'd not be there too long since I was starting to feel like death warmed over.

By noon on Saturday I was done for. I felt like C-R-A-P.

It went down hill and I slept most the day on Sunday after meeting friends for brunch club. Which does no good when you can't taste anything.

I stayed home from work today and "worked from home" but did a lot more of just sitting in the chair feeling gross.

Alas, a friend was in from out of town and I had to meet her for Mexican food. It felt surprisingly good to get out. Who knew Mexican food could fix the crud?

I'm not "fixed" and am just feeling a bit better. I've heard tales of this crud lasting for weeks...especially the cough. And I can tell by today that the cough has every plan to settle on in for a month or so.

I have too much work to do to be sick...and ironically work is probably the reason I am sick.

On the bright side, two new employees started last week and we've hired one more. I'm hoping we get headcount for one more developer and we should be set for a month or so. Once I get them trained I can start to rebalance the work load and in doing so find some peace.

A girl can dream...

March Sunday Dinner: Kiss me, I'm Irish

I mean...twice in a day. I've written twice in a day! When has that EVER happen? Of course you may not hear from me for another month, but...there you go.

Tonight was my March Sunday dinner. And of course the theme was Irish. Last year I did Guinness Stew, previous years I've done corn beef and cabbage. This year it was all about the Shepard's Pie. Well, ok it was cottage pie because I didn't use lamb, but we'll just pretend.

I made two different types of Shepard's pie and may or may not have confused the recipes while cooking them. They both turned out fantastic and I didn't take a single photo.

We had soda bread (courtesy of a red head).

We had Scottish Eggs (or Irish Eggs as we called them tonight)

We had a corn beef and sourkraut dip that was fantastic.

We had a green salad (spinach). We didn't see any green veggie in Ireland...

We had fruit.

And we had chocolate cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream frosting.

Oh and we had Irish Whisky and Murphy's Stout.

All that equaled these nutty people...


Can't wait to see what next month will bring...Right now the theme is Bite Size Meals.

We also decided we might need to have a literal Sunday dinner. In other words, if I was going to make cornbeef.  I'd make corn and beef.  The Pantry Goat said she'd make mac and cheese. Literally, a bowl of macaroni and a side of cheese.

this one might need some thought.

Passive Aggressive Behavior...

I have serious issues with passive aggressive behavior. I just don't understand it. I don't understand a lot of things, and when I don't I try to figure it out. All too often I just can't wrap my mind around things that just, logically, don't make sense to me.

And this is one of them.

I can understand, a little, this behavior in children. It's a coping mechanism I'm sure. They don't know how to communicate well enough, so they don't.

But adults acting like this just drives me bat shit crazy.

If you've got something to say. Say it!
If you're pissed at me, don't beat around the bush. Tell me. Help me understand why something I did, pissed you off. That doesn't mean I'll necessary stop - I mean I have my own issues there. But be brave enough to talk to me.

I could spend a lifetime guessing at why someone is mad, disappointed, sad, etc at some action I took. And more often then not, I'm probably wrong which then spirals into me getting more and more angry about whatever the situation may be.

As I've aged I've started realizing that so many people I know are "afraid" to talk about what's bothering them. So they do weird little shit to avoid it and somehow, miraculously, I'm supposed to figure out what 1) I did and 2) how to fix it.

How does that make sense?

So go ahead, be mad. Be bothered. But please...also... be an adult.

Oh, and the irony isn't lost on me that this entire post is passive aggressive.

You're welcome!

Its so hard...

The thing that sucks the most about Mom not being with us anymore are the times that I have good news to share. Or, of course, the times I want to gossip with her.

This week I found out that I will be being promoted at work. It's been a long time coming (and will likely be 2 months) it's still very exciting for me. All I wanted to do was call mom. She'd be proud. She'd happy. She'd ask what my raise was. She'd make a comment about how I could afford to come down more often.

I write letters to Mom on a regular basis. It started as a journal, and then it just kinda shifted into a "Dear Mom" greeting. I have a journal full of letters to her. It gets it off my chest, but it's not he same.

So the promotion will be as a Director of Professional Services. Basically the job I've been doing for 2 years, and a little bit more. I'm so excited, and a bit scared. It'll be fine and I'll be fine.

In like a lion...

March, that is. As I started to write this I couldn't believe it was March. What the heck happened to February?

When last I wrote I was in the middle of the Landlords putting in new countertops. What a mess! I had dust in places in this house that I shouldn't have dust.  Sooo messy. The countertops look good. I'm not a huge fan of granite or of a "waterfall" look, but this is nice. It'll definitely help their resell value. Next steps are the back splashes - coming soon. And ultimately the floors...no idea when it's coming.

The Landlords have mentioned they plan on selling in about 3 years. I've loved living here and really wish I would have taken them up on the offer to buy way back in 2009. Almost $500K difference in price between then and now. Now I absolutely couldn't afford this. Oh well.

They do plan on buying, potentially, a place up north and have asked if I'd like to rent it. We shall see. They're good Landlords and I'll have to move north anyhow...things are so expensive here. I'll miss Redmond though. It feels like home to me.

Redmond is the place we moved to when we moved to Seattle in 1986. Redmond is the place we came back to when we came back from Saudi. It's just home.

I was thinking about what "home" means to me now. "Home" was always where mom and dad were. And when dad passed it was where mom was. Now that mom is gone, I'm really wasn't sure what I should consider home. I guess "home" is where the people who love you the most are. So "home" is here. There's something equally sad and comforting in that thought. Sad because I miss mom so much and comforting because I have people around me who do love me and would help me through anything. For that I'm grateful...and also now crying.

Sheesh.

In other news, Scotland is less than 100 days away. In fact it's...**does quick math**  91 days.  Ninety one days!!! I haven't done exactly what I had planned by the time we head to Scotland, so I'd better get on it. I've also not done any real research. I do love my travel research. It makes me feel like I already know what the trip will be like.

And with that...I need to get scooting Meeting the Niece and Blueberry for lunch today. And the maybe a little scrapbooking and then a little work (Ugh).