Chip Off the Old Block

This morning rose bright and early, had my coffee then made a batch of shrimp penne pasta salad.  Decided to work so spent four hours on the computer cleaning up tasks that had been on the sideline for too long.

After work, cleaned up, had some of my pasta salad then headed over to Jordan's as he needed a ride to Walmart.  Being the one-of-a-kind, unique person that he is, Jordan packed a Plague mask and top hat for protection. He also brought along his crab hands but I had to nix that idea as it verged on excess.

We arrived at Walmart, got in line to enter, and the clerk had to confirm he was cleared to go in with his face-cloaking attire. Yep, good to go so we entered and headed to the paint section.

Surprisingly, there wasn't too much of a ruckus as we walked through the store. Lots of smiles, a few thumbs up, and some children who thought he was a big birdy.  When we went to check out, the clerk insisted on Jordan pulling his mask up to ensure he was old enough to purchase spray paint.

To be honest, it was a hoot to experience this goofy event especially during all the wackiness going on in the world. Jordan never fails to make me laugh!!!

Happy Sibling's Day

Happy Sibling's Day and much love to my brothers and sisters!!! ❤❤❤

Imperfect Perfectionism

Thursday was one of those days when I should have called in sick!

Was backing up a co-worker who was on vacation. The producer on the account asked me to put together a whole bunch of data for the client in preparation for binding. Grabbed all the information, prepared the forms, and sent to the producer.  Unfortunately, one of the forms had errors so he sent it back to fix.  Sent it back then he had more changes. Sent it back and he called me to discuss two more items. It was becoming a comedy of errors all the back and forth. Finally breathed a sigh of relief when it was all finished.

However, it put me in a really irritable mood. I felt embarrassed I had made so many mistakes that needed to be fixed. Yep, my perfectionism and ego were raising their ugly heads.  Instead of focusing on the 90% of the project that was perfect, I mentally berated myself for the 10% that needed correction.

This episode made me think of the other ways perfectionism interferes with my mental well-being.  For example, if someone says I didn't email an item or follow up, I spend time searching for the email to prove, at least to myself, it had been sent aka I was right. Why waste my effort on this? What deep-seeded need drives me to prove my perfection?  I'm the first one to admit I'm not perfect so why let these events drive me crazy?

Of course this situation drove me to Pinterest in search of data or words of wisdom.  Found the following which hit home along with affirmations to help my mental state of mind.

All Over the Place!

Lately have taken Stubbs on a few nature walks, including Willow Grove and today a local skate park. We both definitely enjoyed ourselves out in the 72 degree weather.

Just love taking pictures! A few weeks ago Walgreens had a 75% off canvas print special so ordered two 11x14 and three 8x10 of some of my favorite nature pics as shown below:

Willow Grove 

Willow Grove 

Down the street on my way to
work one morning

Arch Cape

Arch Cape

Only conundrom is to figure out where to hang them! They may be displayed at work if and when we return to the office!  However, I did find a spot for my Haiku award:

Marie hauled me out of the house yesterday in order to see invasion of the ants. Occassionally tiny sugar ants will show their ugly faces in the house and they must be immediately dealt with by Marie aka Ant Killer. The ants she showed me were down the alley.

From a distance.

And up close.

Last night the Pink Moon was Mother Nature's event for all to see.  Disclaimer - I did darken these pics so the moon was more visible.

For my usual movie review, watched "I See You" a 2020 mystery movie starring Helen Hunt.  Poor thing lives in Hawaii and she needs to start laying the sunscreen on thick.  For a B movie (shocking as this woman won an Oscar for God's sake) it held my attention and there were several twists.

Kudos to my nephew Matt for running in a viral ultamarathon. Two-thousand participants and he finished seventh! For more info, here's a newspaper article about Matt.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/valleyview-runner-virtual-ultramarathon-indoors-covid-19-1.5524034

When Marie and I took our lengthy walk the other day, we ran across a few tires. Couldn't resist taking a pic of 4'10" Marie in front of them - kind of in the way you place a dollar next to an item for comparison.

Delighted to report that, although makeup and bra have been optional due to obvious stay-at-home restrictions, Monday night found me dying my roots and Tuesday night lacquered on a fresh coat of red polish. After all, there is a Diva persona to maintain!

Saturday Activities Before the Calm

Yesterday battled allergies than jumped into the shower to kickstart my ambition.  Only goal was to stop at the store for hair dye as my gray halo was shining brightly. Marie and I decided we were down for a walk so we threw on sportswear, grabbed our masks, and headed out to Walmart.

It was clear the store is now monitoring the number of customers as they had set up a line for entry. We whisked right in with no wait. My gosh darn mask was giving me fits and kept sliding off my ear which inspired me to pick up some brightly colored fat quarters and cording (no elastic to be found) to make my own masks. That is on the agenda for today.

Recycle bags in hand, we began our March back home. We were just a block away when the sprinkles started. Snuck a peek at my Samsung health app and it said we had walked almost 10,000 steps - over 4 miles!!!  Felt so good made a pact with myself to walk every day!

Grabbed the mail and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a package for me! From Hawaii!

Tearing into the padded envelope, inside was a lovely certificate with pictures, a letter, and a Hawaiin medallion necklace. They were prizes for being selected as one of the Haiku contest winners sent from the chief judge who lives in Hawaii. Wow - so surprised at the beautiful gift and his lovely words.  It was definitely a bright spot in this Covid 19 environment.

Decided to round out our day by ordering fish & chips takeout from the Shell station. Marie has gone on and on about how awesome the fish is from there so I figured it was time to see if it lived up to her boasting. And you know what? It did! Very tasty, light coating, and not greasy.

The final touch to my day, the last accoutrement to top off my Saturday was.......laundry! Yep, finally washing the three loads being hoarded in my room!  You can't appreciate the unexpected and exciting unless you have the routine and boring now can you?

Before heading into bed, spent some time searching Play Store for a sleep app.  Found "Calm" for free. I can fall asleep but tend to wake up through the night. Happy to say the Ocean Waves sound I selected helped me wake up only once briefly.  This just might be the ticket!!

Just A Little Day Drinking

Happy to say work can be pretty fun at times.  Every week the crew in Tacoma have been coming up with goofy videos inspired by and pieced together using the Tik Tok app.  Today I got in on the action.

Here's the final product.

In addition, my team switched up our meeting time today to 3:45 and set it as a Happy Hour Huddle. We all joined in via video link so we could see how we are doing. My beverage of choice was Fireball because that's what was in the kitchen available. I rarely drink so that shot hit me like a ton of bricks.  But it was all in good fun.

On my lunch break made a big batch of dried cranberry, mango, and date granola.

Took Stubbs outside and it appears Spring is on its way.

Now here the weekend is upon us and I only have two things to accomplish - color my roots and do my laundry.  Not much excitement when the lockdown is in place!

Murder Mystery with a Side of Razzle Dazzle

During the imposed stay at home rule, along with work I've been watching a variety of shows on Netflix, Amazon, and a new to me and free site Pluto. My current favorites are British crime dramas and mysteries. Ran across the following movie - London Road - and thought 'that's right up my alley!"  British, Oliva Colman, Tom Hardy, crime - what more could you want? Take a looksie at the description:

And yet, of course, there is more to the story.

Was in it about 15 minutes when one of the characters began lilting his dialogue. Kind in rhyme speak. It grew faster, his words began growing louder and suddenly I realized he was singing! Yes singing!

Continued watching and in between the killing of hookers and arresting of suspects there were choreographed dance numbers, group songs, and solos. It was all too bizarre and definitely not in a Sweeney Todd kind of way.

Ended up exiting halfway through the film. May force myself to finish watching but not now because I'm deep into "Hunters" with Logan Lehrman, Al Pacino, Lena Olin and Carol Kane. Awesome series so far!!!