Category: work

These Eyes…See Weird Things

Time for a ramble! The things my eyes have been seeing…and not seeing. First off, my eyes are on my mind. Yesterday was my annual eye doctor appointment, which I generally view as all those annoying things I have to look at so that I can later have lots of fun looking at frames. I do so love me some eyeglasses frames, and Helen and Gloria at the Far West Optical Land of Fancy Frames are happy to indulge me. (I know there are fancier frame shops in the area, but you could never get me out of them.)

Yesterday, though, the new-to-me young man who did the preliminary stuff was all solemn, and informed me that my exam counted as a medical one, so my vision coverage wouldn’t accept it. He was really worried I couldn’t pay, or something. I never could get it out of my mouth that I had enough in my Flex account for it.

The exam took 1.5 hours! Mostly Barbara, the eye doctor/friend from church, was looking for some drusen in my eyes. However, she could not find them. I had no idea what the big deal was until I looked it up and found that drusen are the first stage of macular degeneration. They are also fatty deposits. Probably my recent diet change has positively affected them. Yay, I’m not going blind.

Future eyewear. The orange is more of a coral and according to the gals, made me look like Sharon Osborne.

Also I picked out some new sunglasses and regular glasses, and got a good deal on them (a rare thing in this place). The sunglasses have Liberty of London fabric in them, though Helen kept calling it Lloyd’s of London. It gave us all a chuckle. I do enjoy that place.

Other Things My Eyes Saw

I’ll just share this one other thing that made me laugh. I was trying to get holiday pictures taken for our real estate and personal assistance services companies today. No one dressed for it (because I hadn’t asked them to), so we held our packages from the float.

It was really, really hard to get us looking good, but Mandi got some really funny candid shots of the Hearts Homes and Hands team. I cannot un-see them.

I’ll be putting the GOOD pictures up on Facebook, but here is the Hermits’ Rest Enterprises team looking as good as we can:

The real estate team

And here is the HHH team:

Doing our best. I could perhaps have found a more flattering ensemble, but, hey, it has a donkey on it.

Holiday greetings from us all!

Ha Ha! Today Didn’t Suck!

What do you know! A group of people determined to have fun despite setbacks CAN do it. My little department at work is like that little engine that could in the kids’ story. We just keep on doing good stuff and having a mostly positive attitude.

My house looked so good.

We had three people with sickness or sick children, but ended up having a lot of fun at the little party we had at the Bobcat Lair house this afternoon.

Maggie shows off the yeasty rolls.

It helps to have a pro party planner on the team. Maggie chose a great caterer who brought a traditional holiday meal to the house, while we did appetizers and desserts. I picked out decor items. It ended up so pretty!

People actually wore their hats.

And I just wish I could make green beans as good as theirs. Yum. I managed not to overdo carbs, too! But I enjoyed myself!

Jen dressed tastefully but festively. I screamed Christmas.
We ate at the table to thwart the dogs.

The best part was our white elephant exchange. We encouraged fun and funny gifts, and for a small group we had our share of great ones.

Beautiful sardines. Jason said he’d eat them.
Marlene says, “Hmm,” about the Mac and cheese

In the food department, Anita and I found a sampler of sardines. And Maggie brought a dozen Velveeta Shells and Cheese. There was a hilarious game of Golden Girls Trivial Pursuit and one called Kenny G Keeping It Saxy. That got stolen a lot.

Vlassic loved his new buddy Craig.

Vlassic was the most popular boy in the room. He hardly barked at all, and only stole one giant cookie. I’m proud of my dog.

Pickle got into the love action, too.

What I enjoyed most from the humans was seeing all of us relaxed and happy. I work with some very smart and humorous people. It’s sure good to enjoy each other and get to know each other better. It helps that we could all talk together, because there weren’t too many or too few.

Our second annual group photo!

Book Report: Can We, Should We, Be “Happier Now?”

They started a book club at work, where everyone is to read some self help book. Even though I had to miss the first meeting, I have been dutifully reading Happier Now: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Embrace Everyday Moments (Even the Difficult Ones), by Nataly Kogan. Kogan is a Russian immigrant who founded the “Happier” app, which I used for a little while then got nothing out of, because no one else I knew was using it and I probably didn’t quite “get it” at the time. Still, I figured this lady would know something about happiness, since it was her job.

It’s certainly a cheerful-looking book!

I was dubious about this book, to start out with. After all, I’ve read plenty of self help books about learning to love myself as I am, embrace my imperfections, and be kind to myself. I have said more than once that Brené Brown saved my life and that I should re-read The Gifts of Imperfection annually. Her books are how I became the much-less neurotic Suna who writes these blogs.

I told myself that, since I have already turned around my negative self-talk (I scare myself sometimes when I find my inner voice saying stuff like, “I feel great!” or “I’m happy today.”), I really don’t need another book on this topic. Of course, I conveniently forgot that I vowed to read books on this kind of thing yearly, to remind myself of how I want to be in the world.

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TEAM: It Sorta Has “Me” in It

Well, apparently I did NOT have an original thought on this topic.

How many times have you heard the saying that “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’?” More than enough, I’m sure. It hints that we should all be selflessly working together to achieve our organizational goals, a thing that totally goes against the annoying American worship of independence, yee haw.

I admit that I have always wanted to be a member of a team. Gosh, if only I wasn’t small, chubby, and extremely slow, I could have even been on a sports team at some point in my life. But, though I was very accurate at kicking and throwing a football, girls couldn’t play on those teams (and my distance sucked). As a young adult, I was politely asked to stop participating on my husband’s volleyball team, because they were actually competitive. Sigh.

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Building Things: Floats, Chicken Coops, More

Hiya hiya (a brand of knitting needles), everyone. I’ve been trying to write this all day, but I can’t complain, because my lunch hour, when I often write, was pleasantly filled with a nice conversation and lunch with my friend Melissa. We had one of our usual hour-long regurgitation of the highs and lows of our lives since we last saw each other, which was way more fun than sitting at my desk typing!

Harvey supervises the painting of our giant wooden Hermann house.

Yesterday was an equally full day. Kathleen and Chris made it to Cameron Saturday evening, so we set out to do on Sunday all the things we’d originally planned to do over the whole Thanksgiving week. Not everything got done, but we sure did a LOT. We’re really grateful to Chris for how hard he worked.

It’s starting to take shape!

Saturday we started out working on our float the the Cameron Christmas Parade. The good news is that we already have a truck and a trailer, so yay. And another good thing is that a marvelous invention, the battery-operated Christmas light, has enabled us to light the float without putting a big ole generator on the back of the pickup.

Vlassic is dubious about the quality of my tree construction. Hey, it’s worth every penny of the $30 they paid for it.
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Hugs-giving OR What Are Your Traditions?

Apparently the DOG tradition is “Thankstuffing” according to the Bark Box people, who sent us a nice stuffed turkey toy for Vlassic to destroy.

Admittedly, I am one of those people really uncomfortable with the traditional US Thanksgiving origin story, especially since I have ancestors who were there on both sides of that particular piece of history. Probably most of us who are descended from the early settlers in the US are like that, since the settlers and the people who were already there seemed to hook up a lot when they weren’t attacking each other. As with most historical eras, I have a feeling that there were people who were good to each other and those who were not. Anyway…

The cactus in the kitchen window also wants to celebrate. Ooh, Aah.

…what I do like about Thanksgiving is the idea of an entire day to remember to be thankful for the abundance you have, your family, and your friends. That’s what I celebrate every year…that and delicious food, especially my oyster cornbread dressing and my orange/ginger cranberry sauce. I could probably get through the day with just those and a baked sweet potato.

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Who, Me? Hypochondriac? Paranoid?

What in the world would lead me to say this? Well, things have just been a bit…unbalanced this week. I’ve felt a little “off” all week, and have done some really goofy things that aren’t like me.

This is the can of delicious water that didn’t want to go in my mouth.

The biggest example is suddenly forgetting how to drink a beverage. I was sitting in my living room, watching television or reading, and I was really thirsty for that cold, fresh lemon-flavored water I’d gotten out of the refrigerator. So, while still focused on my other task, I picked it up and briskly poured it into my lap.

That certainly surprised the dog. But, really, I forgot how to put a drink to my lips? It’s like my body had a glitch. Of course, once that happened, I’ve been alert to any other motor-skills issues, so when I trip and almost fall on a tiny raised part of a sidewalk, drop what I’m carrying, etc., I think, “Oh no, I’m getting some disease.”

Vlassic took to his (my) bed to recover from my oddness.
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Killing Two Birds with One Stone: learning for all my jobs

I’m still at the annual Master Naturalist conference, and enjoyed getting recognized for achieving 250 volunteer hours so far. That does pale in comparison to the dude who achieved 10,000 hours. But I’m proud I got so much done in just two years.

I did this. So did a lot of other people!

I’m also proud of myself for signing up for a few of the more administrative sessions today. I did one on doing social media for your group and another on leading effective meetings. The networking in both was great, and much of what I learned will help with my other jobs, since they also involve social media and leading meetings.

This book was my door prize. It’s much smaller than it appears to be. There is loads of info in it, though.

The tidbits on dealing with folks who disrupt meetings and in how to actually get things done in meetings were invaluable.

Naturally I got books. I’m me. One is on things that are invading Texas and the other is on things that are in danger of disappearing.

But wait, there’s more

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Book Review: Going Tiny

I am sharing a book review I wrote for Hermit Haus Redevelopment, because I think some of my readers here would also enjoy it.

The little book I read is called Going Tiny: Failure + Opportunity in the Future of Affordable Housing  It’s written by a guy named Davis Richardson, who is apparently the age of my youngest son. But, he’s more ambitious or more lucky. Anyway, his age is a real advantage in this book, and his perspective is just what I needed as I looked for books that gave honest assessments of how tiny homes REALLY would work in communities.

I don’t usually write the same thing in my work and personal blog. This time, yes. Why not?

I really enjoyed this charming and idea-packed little book!

If you are a professional book person, you have to ignore some of the obvious signs of self publishing, like random blank spreads in the middle of chapters, and headings even on the first blank page. I also get a little irritated trying to make out the legends on his illustrations, which are in his charming but hard-to-read handwriting. Really, though, you should focus on Richardson’s words, instead, which are written in a colloquial Millennial style that I enjoyed.

Richardson is an architecture student who decided to build a tiny house on a whim, and learned a lot of lessons about building them and (more important to me) what you can DO with them the hard way, by his own experience. Lucky for us Hermits, he did all his learning in Austin, so the examples he gives actually apply to us. What a handy coincidence!

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What? Capitalization Rules Don’t Fascinate You?

We love to do research

My friends, my colleagues, and I have a rousing good time whenever one of us is stumped by a spelling, grammar, or punctuation rule. (Have I mentioned before that I am an editor/tech writer by day?) The amount of gusto with which we throw ourselves into figuring out the right answer has got to look funny to passersby at work (luckily at home no one can see us).

Recently, there have been a few capitalization questions that have come up, mostly because we are revising some old content and adding new headings. Every once in a while something looks “funny” to one of us.

Even coffee doesn’t help you sometimes.

Luckily, we solved most of the first mysteries by going to our preferred style guides. Microsoft disagreed with Chicago Manual of Style on hyphenated words in sentence case, but since we are a software company, Microsoft won.

Thus, Hyphenated-Word Capitalization Looks Like This

Continue reading “What? Capitalization Rules Don’t Fascinate You?”