Job related, mostly

Song of the day: “Reaggaeton Lento” by CNCO and Little Mix. Seriously silly video, but luckily it is only the song that is stuck in my head this morning, and not the actual imagery. Hah.

Right. Another day another blog…a little on the late side, considering the happy new year one doesn’t really count, does it?

Well, let’s get started then. What all has happened since the last real blog. Nothing really awesome, or anything. Life is going steadily as is, without too much excitement on the most part, thankfully. First off, the job.

I started on the job on the first day of the second week of the new year. Was tossed out there blind, not a clue what was going to happen early in the morning when I got a message on my phone asking if perhaps I wouldn’t mind starting my first day during an emergency. Someone was ill, and someone couldn’t come to work due to strikes at public transportation. Gotta admit to being a little blurry that early in the morning, blinking like some sort of zombie at the screen, but agreed, of course (got a hard time to say no, remember) to be there within an hour and a half.

Admittedly I was a little nervous. Hadn’t been introduced to any new colleagues yet. Didn’t know the setup. And had no actual idea what the heck my real job description was, other than general catering…which can basically mean anything from cash register work, restocking shelves, prepping food, serving food and clean-up, or so I discovered on my first day.

Luckily my new colleagues are a friendly lot, with enough patience not to get too snappy whenever mistakes are made….and there were plenty of those that first day, considering it was actually rather busy.

But anyways, we are now more than two weeks in, during which I have worked at two different locations and I can stand the work well. It is not nearly as heavy as the sauna used to be. If you call that a 100%, I think I’d call this a mild 60% in regards to physical and mental effort. Sure, there is a lot of stuff to keep track of, and to learn, but that is only a matter of time.

The thing I like the most about this job, so far, is that I can just stop thinking about it when I get home, and focus on something else. That wasn’t the case before. It would be on my mind, I would think about it, dream about it and basically be busy with it ten hour a day, or so. Hah. Much easier if you can just leave work on-site and get down to more important stuff when you get home.

Though my first couple of days at work involved me wearing my own clothes (uniform was late arriving) the uniform did arrive in the end, so I am now in the possession of a variety of aprons, shirts and trousers. The latter of such horrid material and design that I was forced to order proper pants online that were actually wearable. Much much better to wear cotton, rather than the icky polyester that made me sweat like a racehorse under 10 minutes. Grrr.

What else? Well, my birthday came and went. A year off of 40, the supposed big four-oh…which means exactly nothing, if you think about it. Seriously. I feel no different now than I did at 35, or thirty for that matter, except that I’m a little less stressed these days. Considering I have set certain goals going onward, using age as some sort of guideline I am actually rather curious about the whens and hows. I mean, just look at the now. Had anyone told me five years ago that I would be in the Netherlands, getting publisher, working, socializing and what not, I’d have laughed in your face.

But I was talking about my b-day, wasn’t I? Yeah. Well, I invited a handful of friends and we all went out bowling for the night. Had planned on just an hour, because, let’s face it, I hadn’t bowled since that one afternoon when I was six or seven, and who knew if it was any fun…but it was, and one hour turned into two with loads of laughter, talking, bowling and more laughter. It was a lot fun, and definitely worth repetition.

Except for me slipping in those wonky bowling shoes. Don’t know what the heck happened, but navigating through the restaurant to get to the bathroom, I did a nice little skid. Not a problem…then. But seriously, the next day, my knee was twice its normal size. Darn loose joints. Was pretty bad for several days, especially since I had to get back to work, but then, one evening, something popped (back!) and since then the problem has been lessening. Yay! By now I can walk around without pain again, just some remaining pressure while the inflammation is taken care of by the ol’ bod. Jeez, sometimes those loose joint tick me off, I tell ya.

Been faithfully doing qigong, naturally. Even during the whole knee problem (for as far as it was possible) I kept up, for which I will give myself a small pat on the shoulder “good Sammie”.

Which reminds me…In regard to eating meet, I haven’t been so good. In fact I forgot for quite some time, until the day before yesterday when I finally got around to eating a small part again. Bad Sammie! Seriously, I should know better, in particular since I’ve been tired a lot again. Grrr.

The normal stuff have been continuing on as usual, naturally. Cleaning house, cooking meals, doing groceries, but there was a car repair, due to the engine suddenly starting to stutter. Had to do with the spark plugs, so they were all replaced. Would have been nice if we could have figured that out ourselves, because we could have saved ourselves quite a buck, but what the heck, the darn vehicle works again, and needs to have a big checkup next month or so.

There was a rather massive storm in the Netherlands this week. The first night (wasn’t even that bad yet) the window in the guestroom got yanked out by the wind, ending up toppling down the roof and smashing on the parking place in front of the house. Seriously. Startled me silly, considering I was taking a shower across the hall at that particular moment. Thought: WTF. Someone smashed through the door, or something. There wasn’t. So, dressed in a wet bathrobe and a deodorant bottle in my hand as a weapon I looked a little silly. Hah.

The storm made driving to work a bit iffy. Due to many accidents on the highway, I was pleasantly rerouted to smaller roads. But the winds. Oh my. There were times it felt as if I was floating over the road top. But anyway, arrived safe and sound, so no harm done.

The book is gradually progressing. First indication of publicity efforts has come and gone, which is nice. Moving along, thankfully. Especially now that the whole editing process is over. Makes me so curious how the rest will go. What the plans are. Who is going to do what. You know, all that stuff of which I know very little. I know that as an indie published author I should know more about advertising and such, but I still stand with what  I always said: I’m a writer. If I were a good sales person, I would have chosen a different career. As it is, I am just hoping they will point us in the right direction, and sling us in…hopefully in the proximity of the bestseller lists. Haha. But we’ll see.

Had a dentist appointment. There were some starting holes, according to my photos, so we’ve been stretching the treatments out because I don’t have dental insurance…or did I mention that before? Anyway, he did a couple, but I have to get back because one of the fillings keeps hurting me. The whole jaw feels sore because of it. Grrr.

Kitten was very unhappy with us. Decided to give her a deworming treatment, meaning an early morning pill on a semi-empty stomach. She was not amused, and went around us in a wide circle for a full day before she forgot.

Made another cat door. This one in the garage door. Until now the cat litter box was in the mud room, but she really likes using it, meaning that it smelled most of the time, so we decided to make her “toilet” in the garage…especially since we dry our laundry in the mud room.

Kitten is not happy about that either, but such are the breaks, for as far as I’m concerned.

Her present favorite spot is under the stairs, in case you’re wondering.

That makes for full circle in the house. First upstairs in the second guest room. Next came the extra office chair in the living room. Then the kitchen on the sill between the fresh garden herbs. Then a dining chair. Followed by the spot under the stairs. Soon she’ll be back in the living room. Hah.

Gradually starting to work more on the new book project. The prequel to the coming feature. The “how it all began” story, which is fun to work on. Sometimes I marvel at how long I have been working on this particular world. I mean, I started it back in ’98 with a somewhat loose concept of “what would happened to a small group of survivors of a sect’s child army, once they grow up?”, and here we are. The first one at the brink of publication, with the prequel worked out, but still in need of some serious tweaking. It is very exciting.

Cooking wise I haven’t been doing much experimenting lately. Between work, socializing, writing, visiting Tenant (she’s doing okay, albeit a tad lonely and momentarily bothered by a severe cough) the usual daily grind, there just isn’t much time. Although yesterday I made a rather lovely mashed potato sauerkraut mix with a load of sweet and sour chili in it. Hah. It was yummy, and filled with vitamin C...good thing too, considering big brother seems to be developing a cold. Poor guy, especially since he is on-duty at work this week, and won’t get off until next weekend.

Did some doodling with paints lately. Nothing major. And nothing really worth showing, but it was nice to do…especially when I don’t have the energy to do anything serious. Also been doing some sewing. Nothing quite as fun as the quilt, but just necessary stuff, like taking in pants, fixing underwear. You know. The basics.

Also worked with my plants. Really need to get some bigger pots, because some of them are just growing out of bounds again, poor darlings. Just yesterday I got some new soil, so now all I need are the pots.

Found a rather nice rug for the living room. So now the ugly green one is in the kitchen’s dining area, lighting up the ugly brown. Haha. Same goes for the actual kitchen where I put one of those light Sisal rugs that helps loads. But anyway, the shag-rug in the living room is almost silver in color, and big enough to hide most of the ugly red carpet there…see how that works? Ugly floors everywhere, but rugs hiding that fact in most cases. What can I say. It makes things a lot easier than having to put in new floors…not that I won’t if the opportunity ever arrives, but for now, this is the easiest way.

My cheap phone finally arrived from China. This means the annoying time of adjustment is there again, but at least it is no longer constantly malfunctioning, like the old one. Seriously. Turns out I missed several calls, which were important. But anyway, that should be okay now.

Gonna have a dog over for a couple of days again, which should be nice…if not entire convenient, considering my work week. But anyway, he’s a friend’s and the company will be nice.

T will be coming over in March. Yay! Her friend is getting married then, so she will be here for that. Meaning I get to see her again…relatively soon after her last visit. Looking forward to it.

And that about sums it up for today, I’m thinking. There are sure to have been things that happened during the past few weeks, but since none jump out, I don’t suppose they were interesting enough to share. * wink *

Happy New Year!!!

Happy 2018, all! Hope that the year will be splendid, with good health, many adventures and at least one wish coming true. 

Merry Christmas!!!!

Song of the day: “All comes down” by Alan Walker and Noah Cyrus. Cute song for sure.

Well, another blog has arrived.Not as long since the last one, but still, I should have been by sooner. Had planned to, but then on several occasions when I had planned to post one, something happened. The editor got back to me with the book. I was sick. Had to work. Always something isn’t there. Anyway, am here now, so let’s see what’s been going on.

First off…if all goes according to plan, we finished the final EDIT of the book yesterday. This was copy edits, so cross your fingers, toes, legs, and anything else that you can think of that this is it, finally. The Copy edits weren’t nearly as traumatic as before. Really basics, like missing words, grammar rules and formatting stuff, so it was done in just a few days. Yay. Got everything ready to send it before the last deadline and happy about it. Time to actually get to the end product, right? Actually had fun during this last one, considering we got to linger (if only a moment) on particular scenes we enjoyed writing.

Here a teaser of the cover...

Had my dinner party the other day. Had planned on a buffet party, but since so many folks turned out to be unavailable on the date, I decided to shift that to a later date (maybe a book party, some time next year, right?) and make it a dinner party for those that had already agreed to come. 

We were with a total of eight + a 1 year old, so it was a nice full evening involving plenty of food (spent about 5 hours on cooking spread over 2 days, so it wasn’t too much work) talk and laughter. Had a nice time, and everyone enjoyed themselves, I think. Had invited littlest brother as well, but he had an unplanned overtime session at work, so the only way he could have made it was to go straight to the station and travel our direction, and still be after eight…an hour after I had planned for dinner to start. The snacks would have tided us over for sure, but still, what with the baby there, stretching it out that long seemed unproductive, so we agreed he’d come the next day for a dinner of left overs. Hah.

Had prepared an elaborate dinner (was afraid I had cooked too much, of course) with hors d’euvres of toasted vegetable bread with herbal butter, small zucchini pastries and a rather sturdy butternut  pumpkin soup. We followed that up with a colorful salad, involving grilled mushroom and  pumpkin seeds and a dressing of choice. Next was the main course of a leek quiche with sweet potato mash garnished with grilled peppers and onions on a bed of raw arugula. Only to end it all with a freshly baked apple pie with whipped cream. Needless to say, everyone was thoroughly stuffed, and I wasn’t left with an excessive amount of left overs. In fact, I had exactly enough left to feed three people the next day for when littlest brother came to visit. Yay!

So all in all, it was a lovely evening, that lasted way longer than planned with everyone not leaving until eleven in the evening, and one guest even spending the night. Considering I had managed to spread the actual cooking out over a couple of days, I didn’t even have a massive clean-up afterward. In fact, two dishwasher loads, carrying chairs and tables back to their original sports and voila, things were all back to normal. I would call that a success!

My new job is official. Finally got and signed my contract the day before yesterday. Will be working for a big catering company, on several locations in company cafeterias, so that will be a nice change from the Wellness branch. I get to mess with food, maybe even express myself creatively in the future, since the manager promised that they try to stimulate creativity in their employees. We shall see how that goes. The company policy does look promising, since they aim for vegetarian since that is on the overall better for the environment, they do not make excessive amounts so there won’t be a lot of waste, and they try to focus on the veggies of the season, which all sounds good to me. They will be serving mostly lunches, which will include sandwiches, soups, salads and other finger food, so that should be fun at the very least. I will be starting in the first week of January, so who knows, the next time I write, we’ll know more. Haha

Spent a couple of days at my dad’s to help out painting his new place. There was a bit of a rush going on there, considering the new floor was going to go in the following Monday and they would have preferred to have the paint on by then. They didn’t make that, but at least the primer had been put on in 90 percent of the house. I had counted on being cold for a couple of days, but it wasn’t. The house needed to dry asap, so the heating was on high, meaning that within an hour everyone was sweating like a racehorse. Hah. Such a long drive, to and from, but it was basically the last time I could actually help, so I didn’t want to cancel.

Luckily by that time I was no longer sick. A week earlier would have been a lot less handy. Was sick as a dog, I tell ya. It all started as the sniffles, with a terrible runny nose, that didn’t seem to get worse than that, only to suddenly sink a day or two after I thought, “Hey, it is getting less bad,”. So there it went, a nasty little cough that stayed high up in my lungs rather than deep down below where I feared it would go, due to experience. Kept up my qigong during the whole thing, which includes several exercises for the lymphatic system and the immune system, which think helped keeping the cold’s damage to a minimum. I do know that normally, in the past, even as short ago as last winter, a could that sunk in my lungs would have been a disaster for a full two weeks, instead it took me 3 days to get over the worst of it. Yay.

There were quite a few cleaning sessions due to the dinner party, of course. Can’t have the house a mess if you get visitors, duh. So walls got emptied of spiderwebs again, floors vacuumed (had done the windows just a couple of weeks ago, thankfully) kitchen and bathrooms scrubbed, and everything tidied. And it looked good. Made relaxing on the night in question a lot easier.

Had to have the car fitted with new brakes…which costs a friggin’ fortune! Added to that, we had to have the yearly check, so the day before the appointment I spent cleaning the inside of the car. Got a cute mechanic so having a pigsty for a car really isn’t an option. Didn’t get to the outside, but considering it is winter and all cars are dirty anyway, I didn’t mind all that much. Instead I washed the thing today and it looks splendid for Christmas dinner with the family down south. Yay. 

Regardless, the car got through the yearly inspection without much trouble, so we’re all set for a year, thankfully.

Helped out at the store again a couple of weeks back, which was fun. Sorted out the majority of the top floor, which had been such a mess lately that they weren’t able to let customers up there to roam about. Not good for business that. Anyway, got most of that done, so I hope that this is now less of a problem…I should probably ask. Totally forgot. Hah

Did find a rather good 2^nd hand office chair. My old one was starting to give in to the demands of time and use, so it was a lovely find at the gift shore. Really a rather fancy one, and considering a lot of my work involves sitting at my desk, a good chair is rather vital.

Am all set for this year’s Christmas presents. Found one for everyone that I needed one for, except littlest brother, who I find difficult to find something for, so in the end I decided to make a quilt. Much like I used to back in the day. Used mostly recycled materials, Jeans in this case, so the quilt is in only blue hues. Worked out rather well, despite it being a pain in the behind to make because most fabrics were stretchy, but to different degrees, it made making it all straight rather difficult. Did finally manage so I hope he likes it.

If he doesn’t I’m going to take it back and give it to someone else, or maybe even try to sell it. I’ll let you know how that works out.

Also made myself a quilt. Nothing near as fancy as the quilt, but at least one big stretch of fabric (makes the bedroom look way more dressed I always think) that I’d had lying around for more than two years already, exactly for this purpose. Love my sewing machine for sure. Was nice doing some other activity than working behind the computer. It had been so long.

Lastly I went visiting friends the day before yesterday (a couple that weren’t able to come to the dinner party) and spend the evening there playing with the dog and two babies. Was different, and fun in its own way, even though by then the edit wasn’t done yet, so I didn’t make it too late, and went home in time to finish another 40 percent of the manuscript. Hah

And that makes for today’s blog. There are sure to be things I forgot to mention, but that’s no surprise anymore, is it? Anyways… Wishing y’all HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! And that the past year gave you everything you’d hoped for the last time ‘round!

A nice job!

Song of the day: "I miss you" by Clean Bandit feat Julia Michaels. Love this song. Although it is not the nicest chorus to have stuck in your head like an earworm. Doesn't mean that it isn't a nice song, though.

So, what all has been going on then? Quite a bit, actually. My cleaning job ended, thankfully. Not on a bad note or anything, it just wasn't for me what with the new management. Did my notice month, said my goodbyes to the best colleagues, keeping in touch with some of them, and went through all the motions of getting a new job. And I did. Two in fact. Yep, you heard it right. I got two. One's a little less fun. Prepping buses. It is all about gassing them up, dragging a broom through them, putting them in a wash street and then parking them for use the next day. Not exactly challenging, brain wise, but different at least. Hah. This one will be late at night in the weekends. Gah. I know. And it's a cold job in winter, too, considering everything is outside, so if it rains, I'm pretty much scr**ed. The one plus is that I can wear my baseball caps again. I missed those babies.

The other job I got today. Yep. I applied for this catering job weeks and weeks ago and thought it wasn't going to be anything after not hearing from them for all this times, but then last week I suddenly got a call where they asked to meet me. Which was today. Went for a chat at one of their steady location. A company cafeteria, where I was talked through the procedures, what they did, what they were looking for and so on. We discussed terms etc, and considering they had four applicants the manager was going to call me around Tuesday with their decision. So, I went back to the car, thinking it had gone reasonably well, and wham, suddenly my phone went with the manager asking me another question or two before suddenly saying: "how would you like to start next week." To which I assured her that would be splendid, naturally, meaning that I have another job. One that I actually look forward to. And a non-cleaning job to boot. I was afraid that was never going to happen. But it did, so, YAY!

Will have to choose one or the other at some time, considering having two jobs like this will cost me a humongous amount in taxes (40% of one salary), which is not something I much look forward to. Grrr. Bloody taxes. I think I'm just going to use the next month or so to figure out which one I like best and then make a decision.

What else? Well, some stuff with the book. Again. Which got so bad due to contradicting messages that we just made a joint decision to postpone the publishing date by a month. At this point it's a relief, really. There was so much pressure building up that it became clear that it wasn't all going to get done in time.

Did get a peek at our future cover, which is gorgeous! I'm teasing, I know, but they did a wonderful job on it. As soon as everything is sorted out I'll post it here on the blog, of course. I'm curious what y'all will think.

What else. Got another inspection of the house, which was thankfully okay. Was really worried about that, especially because due to edits I'd been so busy that I didn't get a lot of time for cleaning. Got the basics done in time, and we managed to chop away the weeds outside before the inspector came, so all ended well in that regard.

Cooking. I tried a new dish I'd been thinking about for a while. Really nice. Involves white cabbage, carrots and leek, fried in a dry rice with spices, sambal ulek and scrambled eggs. It almost tasted like eggrolls, I tell ya. Added to that I baked tiny nuggets of my chickpea meat substitute and they went together splendidly. No baking recently, much to my regret. Except some bread, but that doesn't really count, does it? Also messed around with some other recipes, of which a couple are ending up in my collection of recipes. I really do need to start packing them all together in the recipe book soon. Got quite a collection going already.

Dratted car is going to have to go in for new brakes and disks, which costs a bloody effing fortune, naturally. And money is already tight this month. Doesn't help either that my phone fell and stopped working, so now I am messing about with Big Brother's old (also broken) one until I can find something affordable. Stupid weak phones. Can't even accidentally drop your phone on the concrete in a puddle so the glass cracks all over. Grrrr. Haha

Came down with a cold last week. Every congested and I had a light fever, but I thought I'd won the battle, having the darn bug under control, only to wake up this morning and feel that it had travelled down my thrown *insert a string of swearing here* I was doing so well. So now I am drinking hot toddies with turmeric. A lot. Hoping that it will help some. Grrrr. I better. I got a couple of cold evenings ahead of me at the bus job, and then off to my dad's place to do a few days of painting in his new house. Will be the last chance I've got, considering work for the catering is going to start next week. Just need to get this friggin' cold under control.

Went to a party of a former colleague a couple of weeks ago. Which was lovely. Got to see a lot of former colleagues and friends, enjoyed some of the food (meaty stuff didn't go down well…ehm, well, not at all actually. Had to carefully eat around the meat chunks in what was otherwise a lovely soup. Haha. Am afraid our host didn't know that we're mainly vegetarian) drank lemonade (I was driving so big brother could have some beer) and basically just chatted with folks and admired wedding pictures and the new house. A lovely evening.

Have made some tentative attempts at starting on a new book project, but considering the process of the one that is getting published constantly interrupts, demanding more time, doesn't help much. Maybe some day I'll fully explain how the whole process went, it's a doozy, but for now I want to stay positive and keep looking toward the future, so it will have to wait. Hah

What else…I'm not sure. Starting to draw a blank here. Very frustrating. Finally caved in on finding decent pants at thrift stores and ordered some jeans online. Such a relief to have some pants that are in one piece available at will. Was down to one favorite pants (you know what I mean, right. For some reason you end up with that one pair that you just keep wearing and wearing until it is ragged and you can't anymore *sob*) but now things are much easier. Yay. Good thing too, since I needed something neat for my job interview yesterday. Had on black jeans with an eggplant purple sweater. Some creole earrings and hair up and, surprise surprise, I looked halfway decent. *wink*

There were groceries to be done, of course. When is that ever not the case. Wouldn't it be grand if you only had to do groceries once a month…I know, I know. If that were the case I'd probably complain about having to do it once a month. Why not twice a year?! Hah. I'm whiny when it comes to groceries, aren't I. Let's just say that I like it that less is spent when you go to a store less. Somehow, no matter what you do to prepare, you always end up doing spur of the moment buys, and they are evil, I tell ya.

As for what more…blanking! Blanking! Have been giving my plants some extra attention. The poor darlings had been neglected a bit during all the rush edits, work, job applications and whatnot. They're all looking a lot better now. Added to that, I've been working on making new ones, which is going well. I always like having some extra little plants that I can use as gifts. Some of them are just so easy to "clone" and so cute once they get started…can you hear how I am basically treating my plants as pets. I do. I also talk to them FYI. What can I say. I love my plantsies.

Also doing some proofreading for other people on the side, and content writing for blogs, so I keep busy, as usual.

Religiously doing my qigong. Not giving that up now that I have finally conquered the evil Plantars Fasciitis and can actually be on my feet all day without wanting to burst into tears at the end of the day. Which reminds me. I have to do my session for today still. Yikes!

So that's it for today. Not going to blab any more useless stuff here. As soon as I've got something nice to share, I'll go on and on and on about it. I promise.

Gotta go!