| This week may or may not be doomed. It's too early to tell yet. In 10 minutes I have to go to a kick-off meeting for a "Peer Review" that's taking place Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week. It's one of those internal things were folks from other sites come and check out the stuff at your site. They say it's not an "audit", but since they assign areas for improvement and grade you and give you a score, that spells "audit" in my book. And since I'm the program owner for my site for this particular thing they're auditing, my ass is pretty much riding on the results. I've done the best I can this year, influenced what and where I could, and tried to put systems in place which were not too heavily dependent upon other people to ensure the success of the program. Because that's where the weakest point lies. As in any system. Human glue. It'll kill ya. Well, at least I'll get free lunch for the next two days outta the deal. I'm just hanging on for the next two years. Then I'll have my 7-year anniversary at AcronymCo and be eligible for my Sabbatical. Two months of paid vacation off, with more if I have any of my regular vacation time accrued. Some women I know take advantage of the six week maternity leave, two weeks of paid vacation, two weeks of paid sick time, and two months of sabbatical all at the same time. That's four and a half months off, *paid*. It's almost enough to make me want to have a kid. Almost. We watched "The Patriot" last night. Very good movie, though I caught some scenes stolen right from Braveheart a couple of times. The slow motion "I'm coming at you with my hatchet/axe/sword/pike/gun/pointy object, screaming at the top of my lungs, wild-eyed, with my hair streaming out behind me" shots. The little girl that played the youngest daughter was adorable and heart-wrenching. Even that kid who played the oldest son, who also starred in the teen angst movie "Ten Things I Hate About You", was decent. Since the movie just came out on video, I won't describe it in detail. Don't want to spoil it for you. I sent Viv one of a myriad of (promised) crock pot recipes. I made this yesterday, for the second weekend in a row. Laura's Really Fabulous Crock'd Beef Stew2 lbs stew meat, cut into 1/2 inch cubes4 large potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1 inch cubes 2 cups (or more or less to your taste) peeled baby carrots, halved 1/2 onion, cut into chunks 1 lb whole mushrooms, stemmed and cut into halves 4 cups beef broth (I make it with good ol' bouillon cubes) 2 cloves garlic, crushed seasoned salt/pepper tenderizer bay leaf Worcestershire 1/4 cup corn starch, mixed with 1/4 cup of water 2 cups frozen baby sweet peas (more or less to taste) Mix stew meat in a large bowl with crushed garlic, tenderizer, salt/pepper, and Worcestershire to taste. Use your hands! It's fun, and it makes you "one" with your culinary concoction. Just remember to wash your hands first. And afterward. Allow meat to marinate while preparing veggies. Place all veggies (except peas), meat, bay leaf, and one cup of beef broth into crockpot, mix thoroughly. Pour remaining beef broth over all. Turn crockpot to Low and cook for at least 8 hours, 10 hours is best if you like the meat to break up and mix in. During last 15 minutes of cooking time, turn crockpot to High. Add baby sweet peas and corn starch mixture (to thicken broth), and stir in. Makes a huge amount (servings sizes have not been estimated as sometimes Calvin will stand there and eat it right out of the pot). I guess with as often as I post recipes in my entries, I should make an archive directory of 'em sometime. Yet another project in my list of "Things To Do To Improve Snerkology, Or At Least Make It Less Lame." Speaking of which... |
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Your Mission, should you choose to accept it...
Have a conversation with your neighbor. For longer than five minutes. Try not to complain about the home owner's association. Remember first and last names.
Results From Yesterday's Mission This was probably easier than it should have been for me, but that just goes to show you how I'm a quirky person on a regular basis, so actually *assigning* quirky things for me to do is no big deal. I was at AcronymCo, assisting with a new product introduction on the factory floor. One piece of machinery was giving us a hassle ("us" being myself, a technician, and a planner). We had to wait around for about 45 minutes while the engineer futzed with things. The planner was singing snippets of his repertoire of 80's music. I told him it was helping to drown out the song I had stuck in my head. He asked what it was. I responded "SUNNY DAYS, SWEEPIN' THE CLOUDS AWAY!" People all around the area looked over at me. Undaunted, I continued. "ON MY WAY, TO WHERE THE AIR IS SWEET!" The planner chimed in "CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET, HOW TO GET TO SESAME STREET?" The technician looked at us like we'd grown another head. We continued with a half hour of "Who let the dogs out (woof woof woof woofwoof)", "Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man, no time to talk", "I don't know what color your eyes are baby, but your hair is long and brown...", "Ya put the boom-boom into my heart..." and on and on until we finally got the damned machinery working and could get some actual work done. I am a goofball. Certifiable. Even worse when there's a fellow goofball in the vicinity. Nia of "Out From Inside" responds to November 10th's mission thusly: "I asked my hubby about this, because I know him awfully well, but figured there were things I didn't know. So - the first thing he said is that he never had an imaginary friend as a child. I poo-pooed that, saying that I wanted the existence of something rather than the absence of something. (Besides - I didn't have an imaginary friend either - big deal.) He asked for guidance, and I realized that I didn't know what his first pet was. So, he said his family had a dog named Ribbon, who his brothers got three years before he was born, who lived for 14 years, and who is buried at the family ranch because that's where he liked most to romp. I thought that was pretty sweet, and flogged myself for not knowing what my husband's first pet was!!!" Thanks for your response, Nia!! I grabbed the design idea for the box thingy from Anna.
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