You wanted to see pictures of my boring life (LOL) here are some pictures of Thanksgiving and the day after
Living Room is Ready for Guests to Arrive
The turkey shaped butter has become a traditon
All the fixings
Pumpkin Cheesecake and Apple Butterscotch Pie
Front of our house decorated Friday
Got a new Christmas tree this year so it’s much smaller than before so much less decorated, we call it Christmas Light LOL
I’m back home (got back this evening)
As promised here are some pictures
First ones are from the Safari Park
Sand Cat
A scarecrow
You can sorta see the lion
Starting our tram ride into the wilds of Africa (LOL)
A Rhino
Beautiful Park Scenery
An antelope
A camel peeking out at us
Pumpkin Season!
More Antelopes
Well hello there
View from our restaurant “The Watering Hole”
Our fancy Pumpkin Cheesecake
And at this hotel and casino, they have skipped right over the rest of fall and Thanksgiving to go straight to Christmas!
Thank you so much for checking out my pictures!
That picture was my view outside of my window by my desk before I was sent away in 2020. The last day I worked in the office was April 01, 2020. I did go back in June of that year to clear out my desk.
A lot has changed since then. The world, obviously. But more than that they redid the entire office building to take away individual desks. It’s just sort of a free for all now. You can go to any desk anywhere in the building. Nobody gets space anymore to call their own.
They now have free lunch.
My employer would like to encourage people to go in more than they have been. Not every day or even every week, but when they figured out how often I should/could go in a while back it was decided 1-3 times a quarter.
My boss has these things called One on One meetings where he just checks in with you. He emailed me to say he was going to be in the office tomorrow and did I want to come in for it. I said no.
I live about 35-40 minutes away. I hate driving. I said, maybe next time.
I have two co-workers I have never met. One was hired 2 years ago, the other one this week to replace the one that left. So the one who has been there 2 years said she was going in to meet with our boss (and meet him as she has never met him in person, the hiring was all by phone meetings) did we want to go too? She would drive us.
We all live in the same LA suburb. The new hire is her niece (yep nepotism LOL).
So yes, it’s only for a couple of hours for us all to meet blah blah blah. I said yes. Because I know I will eventually have to go. I’m anxious. Because I am. But she will drive. I just need to get my ass to a nearby parking lot and she will go from there.
So my first time back at all since June 2020.
Should be an experience for sure!
Something Stupid is finished, hooray! I literally had to force myself to write the last chapter yesterday as I definitely wanted to procrastinate.
Normally if I was following my own spreadsheet I would be working on the next chapter of Our So Called Life. But since I am getting super close to being finished with The Ghost and Mr. Spock I have decided to skip the update on OSCL for now so I can have another story completed. When we last checked in with The Ghost and Mr. Spock, a magical Christine broke Jim’s curse and he was alive again. Should be an exciting update.
I’ll be getting ready to post the first chapter of cheating Jim after that.
In many parts of the US right now (and Europe too I believe) it’s boiling hot. So far where I live we have been quite lucky to have a regular, normal summer. Which for us in July is mid-to high 80s most days. It cools off into the 60s at night. August and September are usually our beastly months so I anticipate 90s and above for both of those months (we often go that high in October as well).
I’m gone again for a few days this week. Friday the 29th would have been Ma’s 96th birthday had she lived. We’re off to do one of her favorite things back when she was able, which is to go to a casino! HA. I’ll be masked up the whole time as I swear I am literally the last one who hasn’t gotten Covid around me. Should be fun. Fear not the last two Christmas in July stories are already written and ready to go live on their days.
As is the first three flashes for August. I think I have two of those left to go as they will appear each Monday.
This is a good thing as I have a bunch of stuff already planned for August too. Family barbecue August 6 (nieces, nephew, their families). Going overnight up the coast August 13th to one of our favorite restaurants that we haven’t been to in a million years called, Jocko’s in Nipomo, CA (a tiny little town in Santa Barbara County). They serve big thick steaks (this should clue you in that I am not a vegetarian ha). Then I will be gone a whole week to Vegas for the Star Trek Convention. BUSY BUSY August.
The overtime is coming to a close I think. I may have a few hours left of it but I think the worst of it is over. The extra money was nice and I will miss the money but not working all the extra time.
You didn’t get a lot of extra Christmas in July stories and I do apologize for that. But I do hope you liked the ones you did get. Those that follow this blog get exclusive access to those flashes as I won’t be posting them to AO3.
I was in a store yesterday and ta da they already were putting out fall. Yeah I was agog, too. I love fall as much as the next one but sheesh
Back from my trip and here are some pictures for your enjoyment. Tonight it’s off to the cousin’s house
It’s been a while so I thought I’d get some pictures up of May here in So Cal. How long will this last considering we are on mega water restrictions? Who knows.
In other news, I am going to be working a lot of Over Time at work on a project for a few months so that’s going to cut even more into my writing. Sorry to say.
Someone commented recently about me working on Spirk fic on AO3 for pretty much a decade, which is close to true (9 years in August) and though they were complimentary it also got me thinking. How long is too long? I don’t know.
I am super busy at work, came home sick, and there are roofers on my condo making unbelievable noise but here are some pictures from my recent vacay. Had a wonderful time. Thank you!
When we bought our condo in 2006 (hard to believe now) one of the sinks in the master bathroom had a chip. Well, both us and the inspector ignored it.
Until well…years later it became rusted and disgusting. The faucet barely trickled water too.
M looked online at a supply store for a sink to match what had been put in originally and lo and behold found one. Bought it last summer. It’s been sitting in the box ever since until we finally decided we needed to get it done. The old sink was literally putting rust dust everywhere.
Some before and after pictures follow:
Spirk (with a small dose of Pinto) 