A Much Needed Break

I didn't have to work Friday! Since the powers that be have asked we only do overtime if it is STRICTLY necessary (translation they want you to think: We are starting to wind down and getting to the end of our budget so don't blow it! True translation: You are now going to be donating some work) I kindly offered to take Friday off since I had worked last Saturday. What a good employee I am.

On Thursday morning Arvid hemmed and hawed in the right direction (that even tempered Norwegian can never give a straight yes or no answer) so I told him he had until 5 pm to decide if it was OK. At 4:30 I came in to ask something about my bridge and he said "So your not coming in tomorrow?" And I replied, "That is correct".

I love manipulating my boss.

I had such a long list of things I wanted to do! I told everyone at the RS activity Thursday night my list. One of the ladies asked me how many of those things I thought I'd get done. Maybe 3.

Here it is:
Long Run (check... Friday AND Saturday )
Oil Change (check)
Talk to Bethanie for 3 hours (check)
Visit Melissa (in the hospital... the actual plan was to visit at her house but no such luck. They are upping his meds and he has to stay at the hospital through 5 doses. He did break the 5 day record at home by one day)
Go to the Temple (check)
Go to the Library for Books on Tape and THAT'S ALL. (check)
Walmart run (check.. though I still forgot a few things on that list)
Finish crocheting items to send (check)
Taxes (check.. Saturday)
Mail Package (check)(actually that was my Saturday run... to the post office)
Re pot and deadhead indoor plants (check)
Clean out outside garden (check)
Home Depot run (check) (OK so that wasn't really on my list.. I decided to get some flowers)
Wash Windows ....

So I got everything done except washing the windows! And that might happen tonight. I say might because I bought 2 books last night in celebration. I told myself I would get Brandon Mull's and Garth Nix's new books SATURDAY NIGHT if I got my list done (I had to do Saturday night otherwise I would read them and get nothing done!). Read one last night and am about 1/3rd through the second (I'm actually pretty proud of myself for not reading this morning).

Now I need to get to church. I got up early this morning thinking I could get some stuff done before church but now I'm going to be late. Sigh. People with 10 kids get to church on time and I can't get my little ol' self there on time!

Making A Candle

The last few days at work have been no fun at all. I blame it on the speed of this submittal (2 weeks to design and produce drawings for a 2 span bridge) but in all reality it is completely MY fault I missed two major design changes and made a couple mistakes in my calculations which resulted in changes to the drawings. The hardest part is that Arvid is the one taking the brunt of it since he is doing the QA/QC of my drawings. Even now, while I can have Sunday off, he and the drafters are there now. I offered to come in this evening, but he said I could get done my part on Monday (agreeing with his redlines).

Needless to say the upkeep of my house and person has suffered somewhat (I have spent the last couple evening either laying in my bed, reading in my bed, or sleeping in my bed.. depending on the lateness of the hour that I arrived home). So today after looking around I decided to strip my bed, start the washer, and make a candle (having never made one before).

That's the smart thing to do when ur housework falls behind, right?

First I cleaned out an old candle, saving the metal thing at the bottom, and made a wick. After doing extensive online research about wicks (about 2 minutes) I braided 3 strips of cotton material and painted it with a permanent marker (They said to put some sort of mordant in it to retard the flame... mordant sets dyes so I figured a permanent marker is a sort of dye. This is how my mind works).
I melted some wax in my double boiler (a floating metal mixing bowl in boiling water) and then dumped in the wax.Notice the two colors? I had two colors of wax. This is the candle cooling in a water bath. (The pliers are for pulling the pan out of the boiling water)

And it worked!

I was actually thinking I'd have a post about how not to make a candle, but it's still burning.. even after cooking sauce for lasagna (now there's some comfort food. I haven't had time to go to the store so I needed to make something out of my cupboards/freezer) and writing this post. I probably should blow it out now if I want to stop the two colors from mixing, but I'm afraid the wick will turn to ash and I won't be able to light it again.

Now I will finish making the lasagna and perhaps the world will be OK again.

PS. To top it off Arvid is the one telling me to learn from the mistakes and MOVE ON. The other night I took advantage of his words and said something rather harsh. All he did was say "Jeez!". Talk about making a person feel bad... (I'm such a girl :-) I need to do better. Everyone at work needs a break. Perhaps after this goes in on Tuesday we can breathe more easily since we have the whole of the next 2 months to design our last set of bridges.

7 Wonders of the Day

The Readers Digest mentions a book that talks about the 7 Wonders of the Day, such as finding money in your pocket and high fiving babies. I'm going to make my own list.

My favorite one they mention from the book I'm going to add to my list and I didn't restrict my list to one day.

1. The other side of the Pillow

2. Climbing into clean sheets

3. Getting home from work when the sun is still up

4. Coming downstairs in the morning to a clean kitchen

5. Getting a thankyou note in the mail

6. Drinking fresh made orange juice

7. Sister answering the phone on the first ring

Update: Squishy was back in the hospital Wednesday but he's going home today with new drugs. Lets pray they work.

Goodbye Mop

You know those ads on TV for the Swiffer Mop and the poor old broom and mop get discarded?

Well, when my wonderful sister Emily was here for the Cherry Chub reunion she got me a Swiffer Mop. I used it for the first time the other day (don't judge me.. I've been at work.). Next thing you know....

Goodbye Mop. Too bad there aren't any pink flamingos in the neighborhood for you to hook up with.

PS. I need to add a caviot to a comment two posts ago about Arvid being only 0.28 of an engineer (I might have mentioned something about it at work and Angus kindly offered to give Arvid the address of this blog... I know I know how to keep my mouth shut, but for some reason I fail to use this skill when I need it (ALL THE TIME)). Arvid was/is busy doing other things than helping us 24/7 with our bridges. If you add up all the time he spends at work you will probably get a 1.28 engineer, or more.. probably more like 2.28. I actually feel sorry for him right now because he's the one adressing all the comments for Bridge Package 2, redlining up the drawings, and organizing the drafters. Again I ask... what are those Seattle dudes DOING all day?

Dads Car

I've been at work. Which I'm sure you all don't want to hear about again.

So here is some more info from Christmas.

Dad got a SUPER DUTY truck last year and he is as proud as a jay bird. Just ask him what type of truck it is. SUPER DUTY! It says so, right across the dashboard.

So when Dad saw this sign,
He just couldn't resist.

PS. Squishy went home last Sunday but then he was back in the Hospital Wednesday with another episode. Originally I had written that I hadn't heard from Melissa and was a little worried, but she JUST called me! She said they were back home Thursday because Mitchel was able to stop it on his own. He's had another episode this morning but was able to stop it himself. I'm just grateful she called me cuz I was starting to think the worst. Continue to keep those Bunns in ur prayers :-)

Music Selection

I've had a nice two weeks of getting home at 6pm and not working on Saturday but it looks like the craziness is gonna start up again. A bridge I've been trying hard to keep off my plate has been dumped right in the middle of dinner.

Yes I understand that the Seattle dudes only have 2 engineers while we have 3.28 (Arvid is the .28) and they don't know Nevada's requirements well but they've had an extra 2 months to work on their bridges compared to us as well as having the benefit of the drawings and drafters from our first bridge package (Seattle is in charge of two-span post-tensioned cast-in-place bridges in bridge package 2). The bridge I just got assigned (Bridge 11) is originally from bridge package 2 but was widened (essentially a total redesign of the bridge. Those roadway guys.. forgetting about NDOT shoulder requirements) just a month before the 80% submittal of bridge package 2. Unfortunately, Bob F (the Seattle lead engineer) told Las Vegas Paving he only needed an extra month for the redesign.

YA RIGHT... if they pawn it off on Melanie.

I did help them lay it out initially right after the redesign along with some initial design which I had to change since the bridge was now much closer to the existing bridge, but I was hoping against hope that once Seattle turned in the 80% submittal on their bridge package they could do Bridge 11. Unfortunately, it looks like they need to spend the time between the 80% and Final submittal designing the other 3 bridges they turned in. Apparently Seattle does things a little differently... submits 80% drawings and THEN designs their bridges. Not quite sure what they've been doing for the last 4 months since when Akiko, Tandra and I did the QA/QC on their bridges two weeks ago most of the drawings I looked at had never been redlined by an engineer. This means that essentially I did a redline set, gave it to the drafters to fix, then did another set.. this time the official QA/QC version.

OK, so I might be painting the picture a little blacker than it really is. I just wanted to be able to get started on Bridge package 5. I think I was going to get two bridges (I've already laid them both out for the initial submittal due Thursday. Most of initial layout for bridges is engineering judgement and since I think every decision I make is right, it's easy for me to just go with it. Tandra and Akiko take a little more time cuz they want more engineering in the decision. Question from Tandra:"Why did you use that bearing on the Pier?" My answer:"Cuz it looked like it would work. And it did.") and was excited to be getting the one with the hammerhead peir. Now I have to design and redline drawings for an entire bridge in two weeks time.

Breathe.

Um... Anyone still reading?

Now you know why I haven't blogged about work before. I didn't want to dump on those few people that read my blog cuz I already dump on anyone that will talk to me on the phone. Hopefully this has gotten it out of my system for a little bit.

On to the reason for the title of my post:

There is a new lady that got put in my office (I call it my office cuz I was there first) from Florida (at least I got rid of the loud breather and negative Bob H!).. and she's a talker. I'm sure none of you have noticed but I might be a pretty good talker as well. Its a good thing she came during this respite from work craziness! I'm trying not to egg her (and myself) on but at first it was really bad.

So I've been using my ipod even more because its hard to ignore someone when they are sitting right by you.

However, I've never arranged the music on my ipod so the songs just come in however the computer does it. Yesterday I was listening to "Be Good to Yourself" by Journey and the next thing to come on... "Living Waters" by Hilary Weeks.

Makes for an interesting day.

PS. Baby Squishy is still not out of the hospital. I'm hoping to get an update out of Melissa today... while at work. Sigh.

Creativity Time

This happened after the married families left New Mexico after New Years, ie two months ago. But the pictures are pretty cute so I wanted to share.


I suddenly remembered all my crafty stuff I brought and wanted to do something fun since we were so sad everyone left... so I pulled out my puff paints and we decorated Mom's reusable grocery bags for her. Everyone needs puff painted grocery bags, right?Grandma wasn't feeling very creative so we got out Mom's painting templates for her.

I thought I got some pictures of the finished bags but apparently I didn't. Perhaps Mom will share on her blog our amazing abilities :-)


Then I pulled out my tissue paper and we made flowers. Grandma really got into it cuz it was something she could do without having to be too creative. Can't go wrong with smooshing tissue paper in circles.Even Aaron made one with individually cut out petals.And when Mom got home I made her... I mean she got into the spirit of things and made a flower too. We had quite the bouquet... of which I didn't take a picture. Angela made one from the templates I had that worked out really pretty.

Really, all in all I failed as a blogger this Christmas. But never fear, I will strive to do better! That's what repentance is all about, right?

UPDATE ON BABY SQUISHY: He had an SVT episode yesterday so they are keeping him another couple days to monitor his heart.