settlin' in

I tried to write a blog post the past few nights, but my mind was in a very dark place having just come off a two-week vacation.  It was back to grind Monday.  It was (and still is) dreadful trying to catch up to the normal level of behind as far as the work goes.  At the same time, everyone has moved into his or her new office.  I’m still getting things situated in mine.  People have hung pictures and gone out and bought beautiful plants and lamps to make their offices look personalized and really quite plush.

Years ago, we all had offices with real walls and real doors.  The furniture was old, but it was our space and we could shut the door for privacy which was always nice.  Then came the joint venture.  We partnered with another company.  After three years, they bought us out.  When there was new ownership, the powers in the corporate headquarters came down and declared it was not fair that we had offices while our counterparts at headquarters sat in cubicles.  They spent money to tear down our walls, they shipped in old, discarded cubicles from headquarters, and crowded us together leaving scads of empty space on our floor that they were paying for anyway.

Long story short, the engineering group is expanding and needed our unused space.  Because all of us IT folks in our location are old and within just a few years of retirement, Engineering plans to take over our offices as we leave the company.  They paid to remodel the whole area back into offices.  Hallelujah!  Now we have offices that are much larger than what we had in the first place.  All the furniture and carpet is new.  They look great!  It’s wonderful to have quiet again (it’s been 10 years of constant noise and distraction).  Even better than that, we can shut the door when we want to have privacy.  It almost makes me feel human again...sometimes...almost.

So, today was a hard day, but my new office is comforting.  I rearranged furniture to make better places for my plants.  I have more shelf and file space than I can use.  Imagine that!  The father of a man in our office has a berry farm.  The man brought in 10 cases of blueberries to sell.  I bought a whole case of them just because the price was excellent, they were picked last night, and they are just lovely berries grown right here in my county with no herbicides or pesticides.  Excited with my purchase, I texted my family and told them the good news.  Someone texted back that more than half will rot before we eat them.  Emily texted back – “Mom, are you on crack?”  You know what?  I don’t need anyone’s approval to buy blueberries.  I made a lovely blueberry crisp tonight.  It's yummy, f you very much.  Someone said he will not try it until he has vanilla ice cream to put on it.  Erin still hasn’t tried it.  Emily said she wasn’t interested (she won’t eat any cooked fruit).  That’s OK.  It means there’s more for me.  Tomorrow evening, I will make some muffins.

12 pints = 1 case of blueberry heaven

big berries!!

Also tonight, I bought a squirrel feeder, hung in out of Gracie's reach, and filled it with peanuts.  It's kind of cute - it looks like a little porch swing.  The squirrels will empty it quickly when they discover it.  Squirrels are good entertainment for Gracie and our cats.  Jack rarely ventures out of the house but loves to watch birds and squirrels from the living room window.  Poor Jack.  His tumor is as large as it was before his surgery.  There is nothing more to do for him, except wait.  

squirrel feeder