I'm Baaaaaack!

So it's been a bit since I've been on here.  I don't promise posting daily but will do my best.

I had my first blog pretty much fleshed out when suddenly we experienced a 6.9 earthquake.  I don't know yet if they are calling it a new quake or an aftershock from the large one a few days ago.  The strange thing is that there have been numerous ones over the last few days, yet this was the only one we felt at our house.  It was a fairly long one and wasn't one of those nice rolling ones, it was a pretty big shaker.

So that's it for my returning blog.  Lots to talk about and, hopefully, lots of good information coming your way soon. 

The joys of starting the new year

The one thing I really hate for the start of the new year more than anything is cleaning up all the paperwork from the previous year and get all information together for tax time.  I think I dislike it more than putting away the Christmas decorations.  My method is to put them into manila envelopes with a description on the outside.  I then put them into the typical banker's box for storage.  Then when the required saving time is over, I pull them out, shred them and re-use the box and the envelopes.  As long as I'm up to date on my filing, it can go pretty quickly.  I think because I work with paper all day long, I dislike having to at home.  So that is what this weekend is dedicated to, getting my old paperwork put away and ready for the new year.

Do you have any special way of keeping your files stored?  How long does it usually take to get things in order for the new year?  Or are you one who puts it off until tax time comes around?

Day 2

Really tired so this will be a small, short and sweet blog tonight.  How do you work your storage of essentials when you have a very small space to sew in?  My sewing room is my bedroom.  It consists of my bed, a small dresser, a folding 4' sewing table, things in boxes under the bed, shelves to hold bolts, shelves to hold books and printing material, 2 skinny pattern walls.  Soon I will have another table that will hold the t.v., embroidery machine, serger and hopefully my featherweight.  I have thread racks on the wall, a curtain rod holds all my hoops for hand work and push pins are wonderful to hang you scissors within easy reach.  This is all in an 11'X10' room, not counting the closet which also holds many items.  And I still have a ton in storage to fit in.

How do you make the most of your storage space for your sewing?

New Year's resolution

Lets get this started and see how long I can last.  As I said previously, I am going to try to add 1 new thing per day.  If I miss a day, the next posting will then have 2, etc.  Many of you are possibly already familiar with some of these but once in a while you can learn something new, which I love to do.

For today, I would like to share the following link   http://www.earthporm.com/  This site has some absolutely gorgeous pictures and also some good articles.  It's one of those sites you want to save and spend hours looking at some of the places they feature.  They can really soothe the soul when needed.  And who knows how they may inspire you creatively.  I would love to hear what you think about it.

Out of the 20 hours I have worked this week, I have spent about 16 hours trying to figure out how to work Office 2010.  I was given a new computer on Sun, and to be able to do my job, I need to work with Office all day long.  Of course nobody seemed to have a clue and just about everyone familiar with it likes it just about as much as I do.  Thanks to a wonderful tech at headquarters, who remoted into my computer, we were able to not only figure out how to work it, but also found a couple of issues that may not have shown up for days or even years.  Again, fixed.  When they start taking nominations for employee of the year, which is broken down to different departments and locations, he will definitely be nominated.  We did have a couple of good laughs as I pointed out some things on the monitor to him and he had to remind me that just because he was remoted in did not mean he could see where my finger was.  :)  So tomorrow I will teach 2 others and give them the necessary forms and start catching up on the work.  It sort of got behind while I was out for two months.

I hope everyone had a great and safe New Years and aren't suffering too much today from it.  Until tomorrow, have a good night.

Another day under the belt

I made it through another day at work.  Again, most of the day was spent trying to work.  One of the supervisor's told me to find out the status of my work order and I was told the best that the help desk could figure out was that it was being looked at.  So here I am, 15 hours later, and I still can't do my work.  I called the help desk regarding a totally different issue and after a bit of thinking, we got the problem solved.  Since the gentleman had been so nice I just sort of asked him if he knew anything about how to do the mail merge from Excel to Word in Office 2010.  Surprise!  Wonders of wonders and working together we were able to no only figure out how to do it, but we fine tuned it and it only took about an hour.  I actually set up 3 files today.  It was a very good feeling to end the work day on.

There is still a few hours left of 2013.  Once again, I will probably be asleep well before midnight.  The last place I want to be is either on the Strip of Downtown with all the drunk idiots.  I prefer to wake in the morning knowing where I am with no hang over.  What are all your plans?  Have you made any resolutions?  I try to make only 1 each year and to make it one that I truly have a chance to acheive.

So to all out there, I raise a glass to the end of 2013 and a great start to 2014.

First day back to work

Well, I survived my first day back to work in 2 months.  I am really wondering how.  I arrive there at 6:00 this morning to find out I have received a brand new computer. Nice.  I call our IT to setup some of the forms needed for me to do my work.  Simple.  Then I find out we also got our Office upgraded from 2003 to 2010 and nobody seems to really know how it works.  For the next 5 hours (no, I'm not kidding) I got my email running, found out and fixed a co-workers dual monitors that were backwards, went through over 300 emails just waiting for me and finally got 1, yes I said 1 file, set up and a free label download downloaded, which IT had to do as admin and it took them almost 30 minutes.  The next 5 hours was all about trying to make the mail merge work again.  It didn't.  So in 10 hours, with approximately 50 files waiting to be set up, I managed 1.

Now there is something that needs to be said here.  The IT/ATAC position at my office has been opened 3 times in the last couple of years.  Until this last time, I never made it to the interview stage because "I was not qualified".  This last time it was open, without changing my application, I suddenly get interviewed.  But I didn't get the position.  The person who did was very upset to find out they were supposed to know something about computers.  ?????  So I continue to get the ones in my department working  without the additional pay, because I am not qualified to do it, just so we can do our work.

Whatever possessed me to even imagine things would be different?  And do you know that some people actually saw me at work for the last 2 weeks?  I don't know what they were drinking or smoking, but it sure wasn't me.

Let us know how your day went.  It always helps to lift the spirit to hear good things from other people.

How time flies

I am still trying to figure out why the few things I do are seeming to take all day now.  Today I went grocery shopping, made banana nut bread and a pineapple upside down cake, laundry and a little play time on the computer and it was suddenly almost 7:00 p.m..  And that exhausted me!  I still have a batch of cookies to make tomorrow and then we are going to my daughter's to do Christmas with them.  As much as I want to go back to work, it'll be hard, I can't just lay down if I'm not feeling well.  So slow and steady will be my moto for the next couple of months.