Vacation Over

Yep, my mini-vacation, part of spring break, is over. I’m back at work tomorrow. I’m just hoping that work will be quiet due to spring break.

BBQing

This afternoon our office closed shop early and headed to Bushmaster Park for a BBQ. I think a good time was had by all. The little kids had the playground to romp in, the adults had good food and great company, and the dogs, including my new dog Duke, got to do plenty of wrestling and roughhousing with each other.

Too High and Too Scary

I’m watching one of the episodes of the documentary, New York. This one shows the construction crews building skyscrapers, including the Chrysler building. Jiminy, those guys had nothing but their balance to keep them up on those girders! Yikes!

Making it Through the Week

What a crazy week. The start of the semester at NAU always throws me for a loop. I work in a tech support department that assists NAU faculty. It’s been insane this week. Due to our budget cuts we’ve lost some of our student worker help and that means a lot more work for us full-time folks. Thus, a crazy week. We made it though.

I stayed in bed until noon today — a well-deserved sleeping in, if you ask me. I only had one thing to deal with today and that was cleaning the house. I was having visitors. Paw Placement was coming over for a home visit. I’m adopting a dog named Duke and this was the first visit to see how Duke got along with my dog Spencer. It went well — no fights, no growling, and no unseemly behavior. Spencer wasn’t a love puppy, but he wasn’t obnoxious. That’s a victory to me.

Now I’m just sitting back in my clean house, watching some of season seven West Wing episodes. Hey, I made it through the week, I’m allowed to relax.

Family Fun – Let them Eat Cake and Being a Kept Woman

Went to Phoenix area this weekend for the “quarterly” birthday party. That’s the four-times-a-year party where we celebrate the birthdays that occurred in the quarter. This time it was actually a “halfly” as we combined the 2nd and 3rd quarters, as we never could get the parties scheduled to meet everyone’s availability.

Held at my nephew Jason’t house, we swam (finally got to wear my new swim suit), played Apples to Apples (my brother Steve beat us all), and watched the chocolate cake plop into my niece-in-law Maria’s lap. Don’t ask, it was definitely an accident. Of course, nothing stops my family from chocolate cake — we ended up eating it anyway.

Today I stayed longer so I could join my niece in watching Gigi, the 1958 musical. She found the first part a bit of a bore (just like the character Gaston), but once the romance part began she was into the story. There are some adult themes, so explaining the concept of “mistresses” or “kept women” to a 10-year old took some clever wording, but the word “sex” was involved, which dismayed my niece. She was relieved that Gigi ended up marrying Gaston, as that is what people in love should do.

A good weekend with family. Now it’s a week of crazy work as the semester is about to begin. I really think that I would rather have a chocolate cake in my lap.

Looking Out the Window…Sighing…

…Is it the weekend yet?

Pay Raise Equivalent?

I’m looking forward to July. A new fiscal year begins at work and more money will be showing up in my paycheck. No, not because of a raise, but because I can stop taking leave without pay (sort of like furlough time) to help our department’s budget survive the cuts.

I may still have to do furlough days in this next fiscal year, but our department head has said we should hold off until we know exactly what the university policies will be regarding furlough time.

My paycheck going back to what it used to be is a good thing. It’s almost like a pay raise… a rather sad one.

Vacation Over

I must return to work tomorrow. I really enjoy not having to go to work, but I’ll suck it up and set the alarm and head off to the office tomorrow.

Cooler-n Hell

I’m feeling so good! I have a four-day weekend starting tomorrow, got some stuff done at work today, and I managed to do tonight’s Crossfit Workout of the Day (WOD)!

Okay, so I didn’t quite do the workout. My pull-ups are basically hanging on the pull-up bar and jumping up to get my head somewhere below the bar — hey, but I felt it in my back and arms! Um, and my lunging walk was not a thing of beauty, but I did it!

The weather should also stay nice this weekend. So, things are just feeling “cooler-n-hell.” In honor of this feeling here’s a video of Ray Wylie Hubbard singing “Cooler-n Hell.” And yes, it’s one of those “let’s show as many hot babes in skimpy outfits” kind of video, but the song is one of my faves.

Snow Day!

The 12 to 20 inches of snow we received since yesterday has led to a snow day. Whoo hoo! Hey, I grew up in Phoenix and the concept of closing school and work because of snow was a foreign concept to me. But I like this concept! Too bad I never got to experience this when I was 10 years old.

Heading Home Early

I’m here at work, but not for much longer. The big snowstorm is beginning to dump a chunk of snow on us. I’d sent out an email to co-workers announcing that I’d be leaving by 3:00 due to weather wimpiness on my part. Then the administration at Northern Arizona University, where I work,  announced it would close at 3:00.

Whew! I’m not the only weather wimp.

Good Week; Bad Week

The Arizona Cardinals winning the NFC Championship was phenomenal. Seeing Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th president was great. Feeling healthy and active is exceptional. Unfortunately, the week hasn’t been made of just those things. Some things are sucking the big one.

My mom refuses to be active. Hearing that she is getting weaker and unable to do much is hard to accept. My poor sister is feeling so down as she is the sibling taking care of Mom. There’s still hope that Mom can discover the will to do what needs to be done to get herself active again. We’re hoping.

The other bad thing? Budget cuts. Arizona is hurting badly. As an employee of the state of Arizona and working at one of the state universities I don’t expect much from our state legislature, especially now that Janet Napolitano left to take charge of the Homeland Security. We now have a governor who is liking many of the other conservative yahoos in our legislature: a tax cut aficionado and higher-education hater. The announced budget cuts to the state universities total $600 million over the next 18 months. Lovely.

Our department could have possibly survived those cuts with lots of belt-tightening, but what really hurts us is how we are funded. Most of the funding is based on a program from state sales taxes. Arizona’s economy is spiraling downwards and the projected funds are disappearing fast. To make ends meet we are voluntarily cutting our hours. So instead of a 40-hour a week paycheck, I’m now getting a 38-hour paycheck. We’re now hearing that we may have to do something more drastic. It could end up as a non-voluntary eight hours a week cut. Goodbye discretionary funds for fun.

If we have to do it, I can go back to scrimping again. It just pisses me off. I’ve been working hard at getting some old nasty debt paid off and I’m not close, but I’ve made tons of progress. Now I’ll have to cut back on the debt payments, which means a longer time frame to pay them off, and living without a large amount of savings. That’s all I want — more than $1000 in my savings. I want to put more towards retirement too. Of course, I’m lucky. I have $1000 in savings, a regular paycheck, a financial plan, and I’ve seen that debt go from five figures to four. There are no debt collectors calling at all hours, no maxed out credit cards, no children to clothe and feed (though the way I keep losing weight I’m going to need some funds for clothes in smaller sizes!).

Anyway, good week; bad week. I like the good, hate the bad, but life is more than just a lifetime of average weeks.

Fun Friday

Mom made it to the doctor’s office so she can get some blood sucked out of her for lab work. I tried to buy Mom a wing chair today but the JCPenney Home Store doesn’t have furniture available to bring home. You have to order it for future delivery. I’ve tried to do some work from home and it’s been a challenge.

Anyway, that’s all past and now I can relax…until Mom needs dinner.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad. I did stop into Borders and did some book browsing, which always calms me down. I even found a few books that looked interesting that I bought for my Kindle. Now I just have to go put my feet up and do some reading. Now that could qualify as fun.

Here’s a video that also looks mighty fun (you can’t go wrong with Fred Astaire…or Rita Hayworth):

So Much for Work

I’m back down in the Phoenix area taking care of my mom. Silly me. I had planned to do a lot of work from my sister’s house today. It didn’t quite work out that way. Between Mom’s physical therapy visit, grocery shopping, sundries shopping, fixing lunch, picking up my brother-in-law’s SUV at his office (they’re all heading off to Disneyland) and driving it back to the house — yeah between all that — I didn’t do much work.

Tomorrow looks no better. Sigh.

Jeez! Another Snow Day!Yes! Many Exclamation Points!!!

What a great week to nurse a cold. Work is canceled again today. I even planned to go in as I’m feeling better. They started with a two-hour delay, but eventually called it. I gather the roads are nasty.

All I know is that my niece and her family better be happy. They are visiting Flagstaff starting Saturday until Christmas Eve day. Lisa so wanted snow so her kids could play in it. Well, Lisa, you got your wish. I hope you will enjoy it. I, unfortunately, am the one shoveling the snow every day. I also need some groceries. Humph. Maybe later today. Still, it’s a snow day! Whoo hoo!