blissmorgan. Entries tagged with work

Good mornthing! I managed to make a shower fit into the time that is normally just enschoolenation prep for the Spawn. And then I got my hair to do The Thing by accident. And then I found my eyeliner pencil sharpener. I’m cautiously going to declare, even though it is currently not even 8am, that this is A Good Day.

My good vibes. I give them too you. ::makes woodleymotions toward you through the internet::

Here is a selfie, because I have not done one here in a while, and I like the way I look and want you to have the chance to enjoy it as well:

First week of full time work is going well, so far! We will see how it proceeds in the second half, however. My first three days are a standard 8:30 to 5 workday. Thursday through Saturday are a 10 hour day, a day off, and then a 6 hour day. That will be the part that will take the most adjustment for me, I do think. I'm happy to have Fridays off - it makes driving the lads to the Spawnfather easier, and I can have a day of legit rest after the long day because everyone else is at school or work.

One thing I am having to figure out is how to rejigger the housework. There is a lot that I would just kind of do when I felt like it, because I had quite a bit of time at home. Now, though, I don't have so much home time, and I don't want to jam all my houseworkery into my day off. This morning I started a load of clothes once Youngest was up and out of bed (the washer/dryer unit is in his bedroom, poor kid), and am going to shuffle them into the dryer and start another washload before I head out to work. I'm thinking I may be able to start a routine of a load or two a day that way, get caught up, and then set up some sort of schedule for everyone to get laundry done in a timely manner without unduly invading Youngest's space in the process.

I am also with less maker time and, while I am adjusting to the heavier work schedule, I've been making practically nothing. What sit-down time I have had in the evenings I have been mostly dedicating to playing WoW and watching Better Call Saul; I've burned through all three episodes of the latter, though, and my brain is increasingly itchy to write. I've simply been unable to settle on a character/plot idea. I don't like this feeling, this mental pent-up-ness. This energy goes sour if I don't find something to pour it into.

I need to write something, for me as well as for my Patreon folks. And I'm due for a Drunkblog soon. What's good in the streaming services right now - any cult classics? Weird horror? Hallmark-stylie holiday movies? I'm planning on doing the next DB over in a channel on my Discord server. Ping me when you want an invite to the server, because it's a nice place for both synchronous and asynchronous chatting.

There's a special channel just for the Patrons.

Anyway, time to go do the thing what makes me the money, and at this point I think I will pick up breakfast/coffee en route.

Hello, Blisstopia.<3

Mood good

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You know what my social media totally needs? Another post talking about social media!

In brief, everything is in wild kerfluffle right now.

In not so brief but list-oriented format (with links!):

Google+ announced to be shuttering by August 2019
Google Hangouts rumored to be closing down, although initial reports have been amended to say there will be a migration from Hangouts to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet
Tumblr is going to ban adult content as of December 17, and in the run-up to that has deployed some sort of supposed porn-detecting algorithm to flag posts that is in fact flagging everything, from innocuous cartoons to sand dunes, to regular fully clothed selfies and Mark Rothko abstract art, and even in the most laughable instance of all it flagged Tumblr's own text-only announcement of the impending change.
Facebook made a community standards policy change last month that essentially bans any mention whatsoever of sex or sexuality, and has started removing posts that mention sex in any way

So much is changing, and some if not all of these changes have me and thousands of others rethinking where we can comfortably post content we enjoy and interact with other folks without being afraid of an unnecessary ban-hammer. I came to Dreamwidth, and plan to keep sticking with the place. I will be creating a Blisstopia community sooner rather than later, so that folks can be social there. I have a Discord server - ping me for an invite, because it's a really decent place for both group and individual chatty goodness. I'm Bliss#0337

I'm on Twitter but I don't use it much.
I'm on Instagram, but mostly have just been using it as an easy way to push photo-based posts to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, so I don't know how much longer that will be useful.
I may make a PIllowfort account if a lot of folks from Tumblr go that way, but it's still very much in development and I'm hoping they come here instead.

WHEEE, CHANGES!

In other news, there are other changes in my life. Most notably, I am shifting from a part-time-technically-scheduled-for-less-than-twenty-hours-but-working-close-to-thirty position at work to a full time position. I am excited not only because I got my review at the same time, so this change is coming with the related small pay bump, but because my boss is really thoughtful and dedicated to working with my particular situation and needs so that the job doesn't interfere with my home life. To that end, I am going to be Closer Girl Extraordinaire! I'll be able to get all the Spawn up and off to school, and then head into work. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are going to be regular 8-hour days. Thursdays I'll be starting earlier and ending later, making a 10-hour day, because Saturday is only a 6 hour day. Fridays being a day off is awesome not just because it leaves me a chunk of open weekday time for any needful things that need doing during traditional business hours, but also it's a day off when the Spawn are at school so I get some built-in time just for me every week, AND I will still have no problem driving the lads to the Spawnfather's place on alternate Friday nights.

In related good news, my little pay bump is retroactive to when I should have had my review back in the beginning of September, so there will be a nice little chunk of change in my next paycheck for that. Given the impending $winter holiday$, plus the work my car needs done, the timing on that honestly could not be better.

Meanwhile, I have a workfriend who has made the overtures toward being an outside-of-work friend, and I could not be more excited. We have had some very similar life situations/experiences, and seem to kind of be in the same social interest place right now. To wit: "want to come over and have some wine and crochet and watch horror with me?"

A WORLD OF YES.

So, I still need to make the call to get the car worked on. I need to do Christmas shopping. I need to find me a kittycat to come be my buddy.

But I have a job I enjoy and am good at, at a place where I like all the people and they appreciate me and understand the value I bring to the job. I'm making enough money to pay my bills and start saving, the impending car repairs that will be eating all those savings notwithstanding. I am reasonably healthy.

And I gave myself the gift of a little bit of World of Warcraft time, so maybe come find me in Azeroth? I'm Bliss#1599 there.

Hello, Blisstopia.<3

Mood okay

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discord,
good mornthing,
holidays,
talking about the internet on the intern,
tumblr,
where's bliss,
work,
world of warcraft

I’ve been taking on a lot of extra hours at work, which is good for the paycheck but man am I a tired Bliss some days. Today is not technically a workday, but I still had to be up at six to wrangle 2/3s of the Spawn for enschoolenation.

The other Spawn has an appointment in the city, to which I will be escorting them through the rain and fog. They will be cranky about the weather and yet resigned; it seems always to rain when we have to go into town.

I have been doing a lot of crochet this month; the dragonfly scarf is easy, beautiful, and satisfying. I need to scope out my yarn stash for suitable yarns to enscarfenate. Right now my project is the Aleatha shawl in crochet cotton; the main body is green and the very broad border is white. Daughterchild says I should weave red ribbon down the center to make is Christmas colors. XD

I’m doing a little writing, and hopefully should be getting back into posting regular stories on the Patreon sometime soon. This week and last were more for other people’s projects; I edited an erotic short story for Sorcha Rowan that both made me squirm and laugh, and I get to look over some of a Nobilis Reed story soon, which is going to rock because his stuff is always fun.

Last Night Me was looking out for Tonight Me, and set up turkey stew in the crock pot with leftover Thanksgiving Turkey, fresh veggies, barley, and some spices. SALM has class tonight, so it’ll be nice to have dinner done and ready when we land from our travels.

His grandmother passed last week; I don’t think I posted about that yet. He got to visit her the Sunday before, though. They had time for I love yous and goodbyes and tears; there is sad, but there is no wailing or teeth-gnashing. There is contemplation and gentleness.

I should get dressed and get moving, however reluctantly, into the day. I comfort myself with the knowledge that the bed will be full of warm boyfriend again tonight.

Hello, Blisstopia.<3

Mood awake
Location Kitchen

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How to start a day: Make coffee, get kids to school, rediscover an indie musical artist who was just getting started last time you listened to them and plow through all their new-to-you music on Youtube, get antisemitic anon hate on Tumblr, fix glittery nail polish.

Yes, really.

We are barrelling toward the end of October - Halloween is coming, as is the switchover from the Nightmare Fuel Project to NaNoWriMo. I still have not settled on what I'll be focusing on for NaNo this year. I might try to pull out an old novel and see what progress I can make it, or I might just sit down and write [s]porn[/s] erotica every day. Or create some new fairy tales. Or more horror. Or or or.

I'll figure it out when I get there.

I learned some interesting things yesterday, including that Bosslady thinks I've got the chops to advance pretty quickly within the organization. I'm mulling over the ups and downs of more scheduled hours and higher associated wage versus maintaining the part time level and continuing to attempt to make something happen for myself in the field in which I actually studied.

Still waiting to hear about the loan. Still driving my car as little as possible, and with the windows open.

Are any of you going to be doing NaNoWriMo? If I run writing group chats on Hangouts or Skype or something, possibly even simply in posts on here, would that be valuable for you or distracting?

Hello, Blisstopia.<3

Mood calm

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I feel like something is off this morning, and I cannot put my finger on just what that off-thing might be. Is it because we are getting into the gloomy days of mid-fall, and it has been overcast and raining? Is this just the psychic sludge of worrying about how to afford my car repairs, and how to keep my car from giving me CO2 poisoning until I can do so? Is it the approach of Halloween, and the accompanying stresses of making sure all the Spawn are prepped, making sure I don't fail out on posting Nightmare Fuel Project image prompts? Is it the rapid loss of connection and community that I am experiencing as I firmly step away from G+ and find myself doing so in a very different direction than many of the people that I have been in daily or near-daily touch with for the better part of a decade?

Perhaps, as I look up at that paragraph, it is all those things.

Yesterday when I got home from work I rearranged some of the tall black kitchen shelves closest to the window (like the ones you can see over my shoulder, but on the other side) so that there was room to put up the plants I had brought in. The rosemary and fern are still doing just fine. The baby spider plant looks iffy, and I think I might need to brutally prune back the wilty parts of the big spider plant so that what few strong parts remain will really be able to make it.

On the work front, I had the experience this week of, for the first time in a long, long time, being in a group of people going in together on a thing. In this case, we all chipped in $5 toward buying Mega Millions tickets, because it had reached $1.6b, and even if half of that went to taxes and it got split 8 ways, a hundred million dollars would change my life forever. Alas, we did not win. One of our customers pointed out (and rightly so) that it makes more sense, if one is going to lottery-gamble, to do so when the pot is not so high, on the idea that when it is big far more people will buy tickets, and more of them, which greatly changes the odds of any one ticket having the winning numbers.

I was thinking this morning about how the lottery is kind of like a Go-Fund-Me where the beneficiary is a surprise.

There's a little time before work, and maybe I should spend it tidying up, but instead I am going to see if I can find some writing/roleplaying options here in the Dream.

Hello, Blisstopia.<3

Mood contemplative

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Last night I went over a new friend’s house for game night with him, his wife, and two other folks I had not yet met. I was Very Nervous, because STRANGERS! but I was also Excite because Gaming And New Friend(s)! We played Oregon Trail: The Card Game, which I have played a few times before and none of them had ever played. We watched a How To Play The Game video before we got started, and they giggled about how much the guy says essentially “Y’all gonna die,” and then noticed that the official instructions basically said the same - that if at least one of you get through 50 Trail cards to the Willamette Valley card, you win the game, but more probably the game ends when everybody dies.

Two people died of snakebite. One person died of I think Typhoid. And two of us made it to the end! WE WON! We were flabberghasted and delighted.

It was also really nice to go out to do a thing, and have everything totally fine and taken care of at home. No phone calls in the middle of things, and in fact no actual trouble that needed handling; SALM is a good Bonus Parent, and got all the Spawn to bed without issue. And he is Awesome Partner; he encouraged me to go have fun with people, and there was no resentfulness or any sort of sense of debt incurred when I got home. He’s glad that I’m maybe building a little bit of meatspace community, and he’s looking forward to when he can do that himself. I’m looking forward to that, too.

I must note before I forget the layers of scents on me, because they are so GOOD together:

Roadhouse from BPAL: Truck stop sleaze. Weedy dandelion and hops with a whiff of tobacco and hemp and a swirl of booziness.

Windward Passage from BPAL: Breezes blowing off of the waters of the Caribbean: marine accord, seaweed, and bladderwrack.

Susanna Dean from SailorZeo on Etsy: Her happy ending is receiving a cup of hot chocolate sprinkled with nutmeg. Her scent has notes of chocolate and nutmeg, as well as rose for the ka'tet, musk, and moss

I do not work today. This is the first week in a long time that I have not been asked to take on any bonus hours; the woman I was largely covering for on her maternity leave is back, and so they aren’t asking me to come be there and do the thing. This is inauspicious, given the large probable vehicle bill that I need to save up for. I’m nervous and a bit unhappy about this timing. On the other hand, the vehicle still runs; I can save a little and get the brakes done, and then save like WOAH and get the exhaust taken care of before annual inspection in May. Assuming I don’t get the loan I applied for, that is. Jury’s still out on that one.

But not being at work today and tomorrow is weird, and sort of.... disconnected feeling. I am going to spend some time being useful around the household - try to clean up the living room one day, and the kitchen the other. Today I started in on laundry, and am glad this was a load I was at home while it was running because it was off balance. I ran into the room and tried to rebalance it. I did it ass-backward and made it worse, and in the process of trying to steady the laundry robot (we have a stacked single-unit, dryer above washer) it rocked so hard that the nearly-full family size laundry detergent container came crashing down from where we keep it atop the machine. I just barely managed to put my hand up and....not catch it, really, but slide-slam it down onto the lid of the washing machine. It would have hit me right in the head otherwise, which is a scary though. What if concussion? What if knocked out and then the already rocking laundry robot fell on top of me?

It does not do to dwell on the awful things that did not happen unless I am brewing them up to write into a story.

I have laundry to sort and fold, and also bunches of yarn to sort through. I need to bulk-destash, and start figuring out what to do, project-wise, with what remains. Otherwise it is merely clutter.

But so much of my headspace today is concerned with the fact that I do not have a kitty and this is Not Right. I need a kitty. Does anybody know anybody whose kitty made some new kitties that need home? I have a home in need of a kitty.

Hello, Blisstopia.<3