Keep fighting for what’s right

 Yeah I’m that girl that returns things that don’t belong to me and at all costs is honest to a fault. So I expect the same in return.  This company doesn’t know me.  I don’t like being taken advantage of  I work too hard to let a corporation steal from me.

It’s exhausting and yes my time is worth more but…. If you keep letting corporations do this they’ll just keep making more money. It’s a bait and switch to give you an “emergency pizza” that is free and coupons to use and then after you hit “place order” they disappear. Only you don’t know it because the email doesn’t come for 10 more minutes and by then you’re in your way to pick up the pizza. I’ve been fighting this $21.49 + tax over charge for over a week now.  I’m prepared to complain to the attorney general if I have to. I’ve called the local and corporate Dominos 3-4 times, created 3 tickets and I only get told they’ll have someone from the franchise call. But it never happens.   Keep going. #dontletthemsteal #keepyourmoney #stealingiswrong 

Cooking together….couple time

 I love toying with flavors and I’m pretty good at it. God love him he tries hard but he needs to stick to recipes. He was wanting to put tomatoes and everything bagel seasoning on the sushi bake.  In his defense, he thought when I put furikake on it I was putting that on instead.  

He always offers to help me. And I know he means well but unless I don’t have enough hands to do it all I feel like I have to explain what I need in such depth it’s easier to do myself.  I generally like to be alone in the kitchen except cutting up onions.  And I’m the messiest cook so I also have to clean up.  No one deserves to clean up after I cook  

#sushibake #cookingtogether #funwithcooking 

Find sparkle

 

I’ve spent the last week being sick and trying to recuperate. I haven’t taken more than a half a sick day in awhile let alone two in a row. This thing was rough. 

If you actually know me you know I’m a little insecure about body image. I’m modest anyways but several years ago after a few years of daily prednisone for 6 months at a time, I gained 35+ pounds and shut down my adrenal gland. I was on them for breathing issues. Long story short I went off to regain control and it took until now to lose 25 lbs of the weight. Covid helped me and the doctors and my bosses realize that something in the building was causing a lot of them. Likely just exacerbating my existing terrible allergies. I have season, indoor and chemical allergies but when I can’t get a break during the cooler months because the irritants are indoors I can’t get over it and I had resorted to daily albuterol and getting sicker. I was getting better because I was able to remote work after we all realized what was happening.  My new job is in a different location and is fine.  I didn’t expect another building to have the same problems obviously.  Then came this cold and I was put back on higher doses of steroids.   I’m not yet where I want to be yet but getting closer, but have already gained a few extra pounds from the meds.

I finally could get, comfortably, back into my comfy old sweater dress that I’ve had for close to 10 years. (Excuse my worn look this was after work, dinner and dishes.) I went to the break room to warm my lunch and a couple of slightly older women were talking. I wasn’t listening and with my ears still clogged couldn’t have heard anyways, but when I turned to walk out they told me how they were saying they wished they had a figure like mine. I so needed to hear that today. This is what I to needed to hear to keep trying to get back to where I want to be and just to feel good about myself in general.  

Thank you for the compliments ladies and this old outfit is staying in the rotation.  This now makes me feel good and saves money!

 #complimenther #makeherfeelgood #maketheirday #recycleoutfits #bringbacktheold

Happy New Year, start fresh

 

Had a quiet, but great Christmas. Very happy kids in our house and great time seeing family. 

Starting off the New Year right. Are you??

Happy New Year’s Eve!!

Walk into next year right, starting tomorrow. What better day to make a change in your financial habits, health habits than now?!  

Get organized. Keep a target date on your phone calendar to check if your car needs an oil change or tire rotation. Make sure your tires don’t wear prematurely or your car doesn’t die because you decided not to care about these small maintenance things.  The same goes for your body. Make that well visit appointment. Most are free!  Make sure there’s not something you can deal with easier now rather than cost you more financially or your life in months or years.  

And your finances!!  Go through them for the new year.  If you haven’t already done it, set up a separate savings for your car insurance, Christmas, annual taxes, life insurance premiums…anything that doesn’t get paid monthly so you always have it to pay with!  

I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years and have taught my kids the same.  It assures you you will have that money when it’s needed which makes Christmas and New Year a lot more enjoyable when you don’t have a pile of credit card debt like everyone else and no money to pay all of these things.  

I’ve done this through thick and thin.   Through is having to deal with health crisis and therefore not having regular income, new additions to our family, you name it. I say I still don’t know how we got through some of these times but this was a lot of the reason.  

Quickly add up all of those things that come due every so often. Divide the total for the year by 12 and that’s how much you need to have your bank automatically transfer to your “special” savings account every single month.  It’s that easy. Then if you happen to get one of those bills and it increases, down the road divide that increase by 12 and have that much more added to your transfer.  If you can’t afford this monthly then look at what you have that maybe needs sold.  You’re paying yourself first this way. Yes you can pay your car or home insurance monthly but it increases your premium to do so. This pays you for it monthly so you can pay the insurance company every 6 months or annually. Whichever costs you less!

Sit down. Make a concerted effort to rewrite your financial picture.  Stay on top of it. This is a resolution that will literally pay off!

#budgetnow #domorewithyourmoney #stretchyourmoney #moneysavingtips

Merry Christmas to all

 

We did our Christmas lights night. This time we decided to be a little interactive and yes we wanted an actual pic with the big Elf on a Shelf at a home and tree lights at a local business.  Brian threatened to leave us because we were taking too long and people saw us. lol. Then we watched our annual review of Elf so we could laugh at the same parts we do every year. 

Have a great holiday with loved ones. 

None for Santa

 

Santa doesn’t really need these so we made plenty. Chelsi made puppy chow and then we made sugar cookies for everyone to help decorate. That got old in a hurry. While they did that I made KitKats.  Then while still finishing up the sugar cookies we mixed up the monster cookies. If you’ve made them then you know how large ONE batch is. I think I baked just those for over 4 hours. The started around 830 am and finished just after 6 pm. Such a long day but we gifted some to neighbors and have gift bags made up for coworkers too. Plenty more treats for Christmas. Monster cookies were the best by the way and we will not do sugar cookies again. 

Time for transition

 

Getting warmer.  Literally the afternoons in my office finally warm me up daily. I spend the morning with a lap blanket because it’s a chilly 71°. 

But I’m also warming up to the change. I’m settling in a little more everyday. Most of the time if you’re relatively doing the same type of job and just switching organizations it may not quite feel like the adjustment I’ve been feeling. Mostly I think I’ve realized that I was used to very strict rules, lack of trust unless you were in certain circles, and not feeling like you’re adding value to anything real. Meaning your job doesn’t necessarily equate to seeing positive change to people the organization is serving. And don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t because of my direct supervisor. I’d felt and experienced this throughout my 21 years there and he protected me from it to the best of his ability but it was embedded deep in the politics of the organization. Now I’m realizing I didn’t know any different and just accepted it. 

While I’ve had fleeting second thoughts over the past several weeks and days of doubting myself, I’m learning to spread myself out and trust myself more.  I’m learning that my job does add value as I’m seeing programs change as my team members develop data charts to show progress of programs that I consulted with them on. I’m learning to treat my staff the way I always wanted to be treated by my managers over the years. I’m learning I can be treated like an adult and my team and I can be valued for what we do, not who we are; and not be overlooked. 

I hope to keep learning all of these new programs and be a good manager to my staff to develop them and their talents. I want to finally have a positive impact and make a difference. Something I’ve always wanted. 

So tomorrow I keep pushing and reading and getting up to speed as quickly as possible.