My youngest’s senior year has had the most unavoidable conflicts with other events out of the last 4 years. Weddings, work, other unique events, this weekend instead of going to the park to take homecoming dress pics we have to do my SIL’s surprise birthday party, an hour and a half away from our house, when she lives 45 minutes away.
This shit keeps up and I’ll skip a funeral to make a performance.
According to labour law, if I earn above a specific threshold, I’m no longer eligible for overtime.
HOWEVER - the same law says that people who earn above said threshold also need to be paid for overtime, but this need to be specified in a separate contract, which need to be renewed annually.
Same law also says you can refuse to work overtime, and the company cannot fire you.
Busy working on finding a labour lawyer that can guide me through this process.
Fake sugar here, fake sugar there, fake sugar everywhere…
…and my kidneys does not like it.
Ahh, yes, the ethical insect protectors. The same people who think honey extractors crush thousands of bees to get the honey out of them.
Real honey do crystallize. By this token you will know you’ve got the real deal.
Fake honey will not.
And wtf is vegan honey? Pure honey’s already vegan as it is.
Vegan honey’s probably loaded up with allsorts of crap. Most probably a bunch of artificial sweeteners in water and a touch of colouring and flavouring.
I still got a jar of real Eastern Cape honey, the taste is totally out of this world. And yes, it crystallized.
Honey is produced by animals, therefore not vegan. There’s a pretty big difference between vegetarian and vegan.
Agreed. Note: I’m not upset that these products exist, just that they’re using the word HONEY as a form of trickery.
Christmas this year sucks balls, especially since Mr. TM and I are going to be spending it apart. I’m going to my sister-in-law’s as Christmas Day marks the six-month anniversary of my brother’s death. He’s spending with his aunt as his uncle is still in hospital and will be for the foreseeable future (and that and how his aunt is dealing with it is a whole other level of suckiness I may go into in the future) and he doesn’t want her to spend it alone.
On top of that, I thought we’d agreed not to do presents this year (or to only do one each) as we’re going on a fairly expensive vacation that we need to save up for next year. Cue Mr. TM saying last week “I’ve got all your Christmas presents already” and then saying he didn’t agree to no presents this year when I brought it up. So now I’m a) trying to figure out what to get him, and b) trying to figure out when I can get out to get his presents.
I’m supposed to be off between Christmas and New Years, but I’ll be monitoring my email and probably working a few hours every day because the project I’m on is way behind and I just got hit with a data request for another project that they need sometime in first couple of weeks in January.
I’m tired. Emotionally, mentally, and physically tired. A small part of me wants to tell my sis-in-law I’m going to his aunt’s and tell Mr. TM I’m going to my sis-in-law’s, and then just book a couple of days in a hotel somewhere, turn my phone off, and sleep and read and watch what I want on TV the whole time. But I won’t. I’ll suck it up and soldier on, just like I always do.
I’m sorry things are so bad this year. Hopefully Mr. TM will understand if you don’t go all out on presents. I hope you take some time for yourself before your obligations. If not, make sure to make some time for yourself after.
I have been awake for three hours now because I think people who are looking for shelter are knocking on my door again. I stopped leaving the porch light on a long time ago because of this. I think they’re back to doing it because mine is one of the few houses in the area that doesn’t have a fence around the front. I don’t want to put one in because it will require a major landscape restructuring project.
I realize the people who are looking for shelter have more in their life that sucks than I do. Still annoying, though. Great. Now a headache.
People actually knock on random house doors hoping that people will let them in?
Yeah. Back when the porch light was on all the time due to having to leave at random times if I was on call and for the normal times of it being dark when I left for work and came home, a person knocked on my door after midnight. I think they did it a second time, which is what made me think they’d still be there after I got dressed enough to answer it.
The woman was by herself and no one else rushed forward after I opened the door. There’s was more to it that I don’t remember right now, but she asked if I knew of any “red doors”. A house or other place with a red door is a signal that it will provide shelter, refuge, support for the homeless, etc. I didn’t know of any, so all I could do is just provide general info about places I’d seen several miles away.
It seems to be a case of because they can walk to the front door without going through a fence, they’re taking a chance that mine will be a red door house, even though there’s nothing red about it or the (now always off) porch light.
I don’t begrudge them for trying. It’s just a real pain because if I can’t get back to sleep immediately, my mind gets really active and either turns into a radio station or I start thinking various things. Or, I have to evaluate if it’s worth trying to go back to sleep if I have to get up within 2 or 3 hours.
This morning, I got serenaded with Wang Chung’s “Dance Hall Days” on repeat. (Before anyone asks, taking anything to get a deeper sleep or to quiet my mind would be risky for me.) But I’ve got my drip pan and I’ve taken my nap, so I’m doing better now.
If anyone’s curious, do a search for “red doors meaning”. If you’re also curious, do a search for “hobo signs”, which hobos put in various places to signal what kind of reception you’d get if you went there. If I remember right, hobo signs were in one of the original Sherlock Holmes stories. However, I haven’t come across a sign that means “old stogies here, short and not too big around”.
I can attach the new electrical line along the side of the beam closest to the wall, I thought. It will look all nice and tidy with plastic wire staples holding it in place, I thought. I’ll use expanding foam to seal the pass-through hole at the top of the wall, I thought. I’m doing this right, being careful about it and using 20 amp wiring for extra capacity and will never have to worry about this ever again, so I can put the drywall up, I thought.
What I didn’t think about is how to get at the wiring again without ripping out the drywall. The plastic staples and the sealing foam mean I can’t run new wiring by attaching it to the old wiring and it’s so close to the roofline I can’t physically get at it from the attic.
On the bright side, I never got around to putting the tape on the drywall seams and did such a lousy job over-nailing each panel that it needed to be redone anyway.
We’re in London on vacation at the moment, having just got off our Norway cruise on Sunday. That’s not what sucks - it is and was awesome. What sucks is realising just how out of shape and how little stamina I have. It’s about 3:45 p.m. and I’m ready for a nap! 
I always lose weight when I travel. I don’t snack as much and I spend the whole day walking. It can be tiring, and my ankles usually end up hurting because I’m too heavy, but it’s so worth it!
Oh, the same. Although here in London it’s two hours of walking and then hit a pub to rejuvenate ourselves. And rinse and repeat throughout the day.
Getting in a minor car accident in a parking lot really screws up your day.
Vacation naps are a standard for my wife and I. Or at least a planned pub or tea in the afternoon. Getting up at 6 and going down at 11 requires some extra maintenance on the old chassis.
Shit, when I started posting on here I was in my 20’s. I can’t imagine thinking I’d be saying that now.
Got home from our absolutely amazing trip last Saturday, and both Mr. TM and I have been massively sick since then. Mr. TM was bad enough I had to take him to ER on Sunday night. He’s on the mend now, but still sleeping a lot and not eating much. I just have a really bad cold, but it’s getting better. Today I’m only hacking up one lung instead of both of them.
And, on top of all that, I forgot the password to access my work laptop. Phone help desk (which only works 9-5) and am told that they can’t reset my password unless I’m in the office. 
Thank goodness I can (for some reason) still access the web version of Teams and webmail, and still have access to most of my cloud-based apps so I can at least do some work from home.
