Mid-Month Countdown... Initiated

---

Well, today marks the middle of the last month that I will be working my current setup.  And I have to say that I am really going to miss this.  No commute whatsoever, except to the kitchen for lunch and back.  Having the dogs as my constant companions, so that they don't have to be cooped up in a crate for the majority of the day.  Being able to conveniently juggle hours around whatever errand or obligation I have going on that week.  Switching off from work mode to play mode within a moment's notice.  True, there have never been any opportunities for advancement within the company, but that was a con that I was willing to accept, in exchange for all of the pros that I just mentioned.  Not that I'm not looking forward to this new chapter in my life... I'd just gotten really comfortable with this sort of work style, in the past six years since I started working primarily for my dad.  And it's bumming me out a bit that I am going to have to let go of that.

Anyway... I've been getting more into WoW lately... mainly because I've been feeling pretty alone most of the time and it's a way to kill time.  I also need to grind out reputation points with various factions to unlock more aspects of the game, so it has taken up a decent chunk of my time doing that.  Of course it also doesn't help that I spend around 80% of my day actually alone, which started last week, since the hubby's work initiated a major project that's been keeping him there until around 8-9pm every night.  Let me tell you, it wreaks havoc on actually trying to schedule any dinner planning at all.  And this eating-dinner-after-8pm most weeknights is not something that I wanna get used to anytime soon. 😒

Keep Queuing the Nerves...

---

Well.... I just found out that it is going to be yet another full week before I find out the results from the story contest, as I thought it was every week, but it's actually every two weeks.  I guess because the entries are longer than poems, they take longer to judge.  Ugh!  Now I'm going to be anxious for a whole week longer than I thought.  Maybe I'll use that time to psych myself down, so that if (knock on wood) I get good news, it'll be that much more exciting and rewarding. 😆 I'm sure I'll have plenty of cleaning and working to keep my mind off of it also.

Finding that out just kind of ruins my night though.  Haha.  We had a spontaneous change of plans today.  We were going to head up to Sacramento to participate in a march they're having at the capitol building, but opted to stay home instead and work on getting the office cleaned a bit.  We succeeded for a few hours, but then had to break for lunch and got into watching more of The Santa Clarita Diet and haven't resumed since then.  We still have plenty of time, so I'm not worrying too much about it at this point.

We lost track of time and before we knew it, it's 5:30pm and too late to do anything with the pork roast, and he forgot to marinate it anyway... so yeah, another abrupt dinner change tonight.  We had a late lunch, so I figured we'd just have a late dinner, but it's just getting too late to do any prep now.  Still not sure what we're doing but I suppose we'll figure it out soon!  Other than that, not much else to report for today.  😊  Happy Saturday!

Happy Valentine's Day!

---

So first off, I'm not a huge fan of V-day, and we never make a big deal out of it.  I don't ask for flowers or chocolate or for any other "present."  The 'holiday' is just too commercialized and I'd rather save our money.  Although that doesn't stop me from wishing everyone else a Happy Valentine's Day. 😊  This year I was also inspired to create another "poster" dedicated to my now-hubby, which I will include here:

{ Full-view: HERE, if you're on a smaller screen. }

I haven't made one of these since way back in 2012, which explains the "v2" text. (View the first version: HERE)  But I figured we've made lots more memories in the past 6 years, so I should make another one.  I spent last night before bed just looking up my favorite quotes to use and I loved these.  There were others that I wasn't able to use but I'm sure I'll find a use for those as well, in the future.

Anyway... yeah so that was my morning.  We don't have any big plans tonight, though we may have to go out to eat because I just realized that I thought the recipe we were using for tonight's pork roast was an Instant Pot one, but it's an actual slow cooker that you have to cook for hours and the problem is that the roast is not yet defrosted... sooo I will be preparing the marinade once it is finally defrosted, so that we can cook it tomorrow night instead.  Oh well, at least I realized this hours ahead of time, instead of having another spontaneous dinner dilemma... although it kind of still is, because we will most likely have to resort to a quick take-out tonight (not fast-food though). -facepalm-

A Day at the Outlets... & a Scary Surprise

---

So today could have been a really bad day for us.  See... we spent the day out at the outlet mall about 45 minutes southwest of where we live.  We left at around 10:30am.  We did not get home until around 5:00pm.  What do we find out when we pull into our driveway?  We left the damn garage door wide open for the past 6½ hours!!  And the door into our house from the garage was unlocked.  I am so thankful that we live in a nice neighborhood, because everything was still exactly as we'd left it.  We would have known if anyone had come inside the house though, because the alarm was on and we would have been alerted via text message and a phone call if it hadn't been disarmed in time.  But still, that is a scary surprise to come home to... I am just so relieved that nothing happened.