12/31/2020

Well, the year is finally, at long last, almost over. I started the day working from home. It was slow, then there was a small flurry of work. My coworker ended up going into the office after all, so she did most of the production for it, which will make my Monday that much easier. Then it just really tapered off. I watched When Calls the Heart and made the gingerbread cake from the mix we got for New Years. My boss decided to call it quits early so I logged out around 2:15pm instead of 5pm which is always a fun treat!

I needed to pick up a prescription and a few other items from Bartells, so we went out while it was still light and walked past the fire destruction from the other day. It's so sad. We walked to the drug store and I was able to get everything I needed. I dropped the water holder of my humidifier the other day and it cracked and started leaking, so I needed to get a new humidifier. I got a great deal, assuming that the humidifier works well!

When we got back we watched some more Hobbit specials before putting in our order for Azteca. It took way longer to get our food but I can't be too surprised and am happy that they're doing so well still. We ate it and are now watching Last Holiday, one of our newer favorites. We might watch High School Musical, our traditional New Year's Eve movie, and back to Hobbit specials. 

This year has been terrible, but there have been good moments too. I made it to the end of the year. That alone is an accomplishment worthy of celebrating! So many people weren't so lucky...

12/30/2020

It was such a slow day at work today! I went into the office and there was only one item in the in-box. I did busy work till about 11am and then came home to finish the day there. My coworker decided to go in in the afternoon to do her stuff so she can stay home tomorrow too. There were some referral jobs, but only one production job, which will be finished up on Monday. I suspect tomorrow will be pretty slow too. Maybe a bit of a flurry as people get the last of their work done, but mostly slow. We'll see if I'm right.

I ended up binge-watching the rest of season one of When Calls the Heart on Netflix while I worked. It's a lovely show. I also had prepped the pork roast for our dinner in the morning, so it made getting it ready for dinner much easier. It's huge and there will be many leftovers for other things like pulled pork and stew. I also cleaned out the fridge this afternoon. It looks so nice now!

We're watching all our tv shows that have New Years episodes, and will probably end with Hobbit specials.

12/29/2020

Well, last night did not end peacefully. Around 11:10pm, I started smelling something in my room, sort of a burning smell, and I thought maybe one of the fans was shorting out or something, so I turned them off and still smelled it. On a whim, I opened my bedroom window to see what I could smell, and the smoke was coming from outside. I didn't get a sense that it was our building, because it was thick enough to have the alarms going off in the building, but it was nearby. I went to the lanai and could see flames shooting into the sky to the left. It was far enough away that I knew were weren't in immediate danger, but I could tell it was the strip mall with our favorite restaurants on fire. The kind of fire that the building wasn't going to survive. I ran and got my sister and then got my n95 mask because the smoke was too much for my lungs. I stayed on the lanai with my mask on but there were a couple times I had to come inside because it was too thick. She ran down to get a much closer look. I wanted to go, but I thought that somebody with asthma, who is still recovering from covid, probably wouldn't be making a good life choice by choosing to inhale copious amounts of really unhealthy smoke. The N95 mask really helps though! I highly recommend one.

We were up till about 12:30am and had to shower and set aside our clothes and my blanket for the laundry cuz it was smoke-filled. We aired the place out as best we could and it took me till about 2am to get to sleep. I was really sad because those businesses are mostly women-owned, Black-owned, and Asian immigrant-owned. They were just trying to get by in a pandemic and now their lives are ruined in the dead of winter, in a pandemic. It's really upsetting. The fire department determined it to be arson, and I'm hoping insurance will help these businesses rebuild, but it's going to be a long time before they're back.

I worked from home today, which was nice. I was able to do the laundry, and we aired the place out some more. I was able to be tired at home without worrying about going to the office and crashing there. It was pretty busy for the most part, but not bonkers, so it was good. I was able to make a proper lunch, and eat it. We decided to change the rest of the week, so I'm going to go into the office tomorrow instead of Thursday, cuz that's supposed to be a deadsville day and won't be worth the trouble. We'll all stay home Thursday. Works for me! I also filled and ran the dishwasher and started a rewatch of When Calls the Heart on Netflix because it's being taken off there at the end of January and I want to see if I can get through it so all I need to do is get the latest two seasons from the library.

I did not do the treadmill today. I'm just too rundown and on the verge of headachy from last night so I just skipped it. I'm so tired tonight! Leftovers for dinner tonight. We watched Ghostbusters 2 and now onto some Hobbit specials.

12/28/2020

Today was the bonkers day I thought it would be at work. It wasn't so bad at the office and I did come home before the end of the day but it built up over that time and was out of control again by the time I got online. I ended up having to stay on an extra half hour to get it all under control. I need to do better with eating during office days because I ended up snacking through the day and my blood sugar was super out of control. But, I got some nice gifts from my coworkers, including a $200 check from one of the court reporters!! I'll have to see if my new phone is smart enough to do the deposit function so I don't have to mail it in.

My other coworker got me a box of chamomile tea for Christmas so I'm trying it tonight to see if it helps put me to sleep! Tonight I made curry chicken and rice for dinner, and now we're relaxing and watching While You Were Sleeping. It's a cute movie.

I had a whole list of stuff on a to-do list but since I worked late, and then was so headachey and my blood sugar was too low, I ended up not doing it. Hopefully I can get some of it done tomorrow. I work from home tomorrow and Wednesday.

12/27/2020

Today was a lazy, indoor day. I did laundry and took out garbage and recycling, and filled and ran the dishwasher, but that's about the most of the chores I did today. I also prepped some cooked chicken breast to make dinner with tomorrow after work.

Most of the day was spent with our LOTR rewatch. We did the third Hobbit movie commentary and then more of the first movie specials. We will have stuff to watch for days!! I also did my blog dish, which I will write about next in my food blog.

I go to the office tomorrow. I am just assuming it's going to be a super busy day since people will have had a long break to get caught up on transcripts and we had a few extremely busy days over the past couple weeks, so that stuff is going to start coming in. I have to think though, that I have the easier job to put the transcripts together and get them out the door, rather than do the electronic side of things and email them out to everybody. It's not fun either way, and my feet will be so sore tomorrow night, but I will work from home the next two days before going in again on Thursday. We do get Friday off, though, so that'll be nice!

12/26/2020

Today was errand day. We had to go get gas, get a refund for my sister for a place that double charged her on accident. Then we picked up a couple doughnuts from Top Pot and goodies from the Greatful Bread bakery in the next neighborhood. Then we went to Fred Meyer. We had some groceries to get, and some decorations and storage things we needed to take care of. We got some really great deals, but it was exhausting! I did not do a walk today because that was enough exercise for one day.

We watched Home and the Boxing Day episode of MASH when we got home and then started on the commentaries for the Hobbit movies in our LOTR watch. I was really excited because my order from Etsy came in the afternoon and now we have a lovely fairy house winter decoration for our tree, and a spring one and another spring decoration to use next spring. I always find the best stuff on Etsy, and love supporting small businesses, so it's a great match for me. 

 

We decided to keep the Christmas decorations up till New Years and then switch them out for winter decorations. I have a box of winter decorations but we are slowly getting some things for our new apartment that has a new configuration. I'm excited about it!

12/25/2020

Well, another Christmas is done and over with! The day started off with breakfast, in which I burned the bacon, and opening presents at home for a bit before going to my parents house for a masked, socially-distanced round of opening presents with them. We stayed around 45 minutes there before heading back home and starting with our LOTR marathon. We have gotten well into the third Hobbit movie so far.

Lunch was tacos, always delicious. After the first movie ended, we took an outdoor walk. It was a bit tougher than yesterday as I'd had some asthma issues earlier and it wasn't quite out of my system yet. But it was nice to be outside again before it started raining again.

I'm wearing my coziest jammies today and my thick socks with dog-faces on the feet. It's nice and cozy but we still haven't turned on the heat here so it gets cold occasionally. Dinner was leftovers from last night, very tasty! I didn't do any baking today, but I will probably on Sunday when I make another one of my blog recipes. I have two weeks to make up after this week so it's going to be Christmas at my place for a while yet. Can't complain about that!