Friday Five!

I always hated office birthday parties. For me, I mean. If others wanted to have them, fine. But I used to request that my supervisor NOT include me in the birthday of the month pool. They'd have a cake at the monthly staff meeting and then congratulate everyone who'd had a birthday that month.  The birthday boy/girl got to choose the kind of cake.  I repeatedly said I prefered to keep my personal life personal, and it was uniformly ignored every year.  I was not sad to leave that particular office.

I hate to admit it, but I actually don't care about the birthday's of the other people in the office.  And I'm perfectly fine with them not caring about mine. 

Exactly. We were not "one big family" or "best friends" - we were there to be paid money to do a task that the employer wanted done. If they no longer needed the task done, we were out the door. We had no other intrinsic value in the workforce.

I also used to hate "team bonding day."  I didn't/don't need to "bond" with my coworkers. I'm there to do a job (or was) and gave an honest day's work for what they said was an honest day's pay. If someone else was falling behind and I could help, I did, because I'd expect that in return. (Probably got that from growing up in a rural area, where generic social cooperation could mean, without intending to be melodramatic, life or death sometimes.) The work "meant" nothing. And contrived social "things" were simply time sinks.

Yeah, I'm an antisocial luddite. 

At an old job, we had a day a month we'd get cake and fruit and celebrate all the birthdays that month. You could chip in $10 to participate at the beginning of the year. Over the summer they'd do 2 months since there were so many people on holidays. It was a great system, no one excluded and it was entirely opt in.

That would have been better. Mine was I was stuck having to be at that monthly staff meeting, and then had people asking "how old are you then?" and other personal info that was really none of their business. "Old enough to know better" was the stock answer, but some people persisted. That's kind of a downside to Southern California culture - people do not tend to respect boundaries.

That would have been better. Mine was I was stuck having to be at that monthly staff meeting, and then had people asking "how old are you then?" and other personal info that was really none of their business. "Old enough to know better" was the stock answer, but some people persisted. That's kind of a downside to Southern California culture - people do not tend to respect boundaries.

Ha ha!  I’ve asked how old you are!  Ooopsies!

Nooo, that's ok!  It's different when you're stuck around a boardroom table! 

Ha ha!  I’ve asked how old you are!  Ooopsies!

I'm guessing 51 because of the symbolism of the dice avatar.

hahahahahah.

Nice try.

Did you all miss me?  I'll go ahead and be a rebel and do my Friday Five a little early!
1. My allergies hate me and Scotland right now
2. I've just read a great book of Scottish WWI Poetry
3. I've just joined the community orchestra!
4. My daughter has adjusted so well to going to school here again
5. Did I mention I missed you all?

3. I've just joined the community orchestra!

Oh, wow!  Community orchestra sounds awesome.  What do you play?

My five:

1.  I bought some frozen cod and haddock filets last week, and two nights ago, we had fish and chips.  Crispy batter, fluffy-crunchy chips, peas!  It was amazing, and that was just from frozen filets!  I have no need to eat out ever again.

2.  My husband's 'new' (he's been there over 5 months, now...) job is the greatest thing that's happened to us since we found our house.  He "had" to take most of this week off as compensatory leave because they require him to start setting up his work station a few minutes before that start of his workday, and shut down after his day ends, and all those extra minutes add up.  So he's had the last three days off and we still have all of his holiday leave available for holidays (like my birthday week coming up at the end of this month).

3.  We have been doing a lot of tedious-but-necessary things in the workshop, and it looks like utter chaos in there right now. BUT we now have compressed air on demand, dust extraction ducting is in planning (we have The Machine but not the ducting for ready extraction at every tool so we have to wheel the extractor to the tool we want to use), we built 16 drawers and installed them under my husband's too-high-for-me workbench, and we finally secured the worktop to my too-low-for-my-husband workbench.  And in the midst of all this, I've been playing with ideas for things to make...

4. In a little bit, I'm going out to the workshop to see how my experiment turned out.  If it's as good as my previous tries, I will be putting something really pretty (but small and light!) into the parcel.

5. I am so happy with life right now that sometimes I think I'm going to explode.  We bought our house and endured those 20 months of utter BS, knowing that some day it would pay off (we didn't think the pay off would take quite so long, to be honest, but whatever).  And now, here we are!  And it's better than we hoped.  I mean, if you overlook the state of our house.  But we have turned this into a home, all the same.  And some day we'll make it pretty.  And build a kitchen.

Edited to add a bonus one:  Blizzard party plans are coming together.  Really pleased to know that KoD will be back from Japan on the new date we've settled on.  I think everybody who might want to come will be able to make October 27th.  My husband and I can be there by about 5pm (turns out he does work that Saturday, but he's off evey Sunday, so we can stay as late as we want -- overnight, possibly).

3. I've just joined the community orchestra!

I love this so much.  High five, fellow musician.

JFKimberly, did you use your deep fat fryer?

Happy Friday!!!
1.) This week has dragged.  Boss is onsite too. I am not going to survive him I think.   

2.) Been having lots of extra band rehearsals and all day rehearsals this weekend as we work hard to get ready for the National Brass Band Championships next weekend!! 

3.) Spent my afternoon yesterday knee deep in statistics and doing engineering maths and I was happier than a pig in sh*t.   

4.) We're getting a delivery of already seasoned wood for the winter tomorrow. Luckily, I cleaned out the garage last weekend so we have space to stack a fair bit inside so we don't have to go out in the cold all the time.  Weeee, the excitement never ends.   

5.)  Started a new weight lifting regime two weeks ago and I can feel it working already.   

Orchestras, fish n chips and happiness. Friday is off to a good start

1. We had a really nice dinner at Green's Steakhouse for our anniversary. I'm glad after I asked he took a half day at work, because as soon as people started filling in I was struggling to breathe. But since we were done it was fine for me to run outside while he paid.

2. We went to the garden store last week and got everything needed for tidying the garden. And a catnip plant. And I learned my cat doesn't like fresh catnip! But she loves it dried, so I'll just have to periodically trim and dry it for her.

3. I've been studying for my theory test and some of the questions are so off the wall. But hopefully I pass on the first try!

4. I love the instant pot. We bought an insert that let's you cook 2 things at once, and it let me make my husband's curry much hotter than mine! He was happy to use some of the chili plant I bought a few weeks back.

5. They fixed the tooth I cracked a few weeks ago on Wednesday. My teeth are fine, but my jaw is still swollen from the novacaine injections. Hoping that gets better soon!

2. We went to the garden store last week and got everything needed for tidying the garden. And a catnip plant. And I learned my cat doesn't like fresh catnip! But she loves it dried, so I'll just have to periodically trim and dry it for her.

Catnip and catmint (which is what I am guessing you bought at the garden centre) are slightly different things so that could explain why she's not so excited by it.

https://difference.guru/difference-between-catnip-and-catmint/

4.) We're getting a delivery of already seasoned wood for the winter tomorrow. Luckily, I cleaned out the garage last weekend so we have space to stack a fair bit inside so we don't have to go out in the cold all the time.  Weeee, the excitement never ends.   

Oh, you did? Good for you!    I worked on mine and thought of you! I've got a long way to go but at least it's a start! 

Catnip and catmint (which is what I am guessing you bought at the garden centre) are slightly different things so that could explain why she's not so excited by it.

https://difference.guru/difference-between-catnip-and-catmint/

Interesting! I'd never seen it called catmint so that explains the difference.