A long, long overdue post

Our operating system here at work crashed and that pretty much shuts us all down for working. Luckily, the internet is still up and running and I am so due for giving an update.

The son whom we shall call Ryan and the daughter in law to be whom we shall call Kara had their Stag and Doe last weekend. This is only the second one I’ve ever been to. Way back when I got married they didn’t have them and since my youngest is only getting around to getting married and there is no one on the horizon for my oldest son, they just aren’t something I go too. I buy tickets to some of the younger women at work, but I don’t actually go to them.

It was a fascinating thing to attend. Ryan, or so we are calling him, plays rugby or at least he did until he got sidelined due to concussions and a ruptured appendix. So many of his rugby buddies were there. He warned us in advance they were a strange group. And it turned out he was right when towards the end of the evening they all started taking off their shirts. And not long after that some took off their pants too!! Now you would think that would prove irresistible – a group of young men in their 20’s stripped down to almost the very basics. And it might have except for one thing. Most of them were pudgy!! Really, there were love handles and muffin tops abound. One would think rugby players would be in very fine shape, I mean they are athletes after all, playing a very rough sport. So I was very surprised indeed at the shape of them. I kept looking and looking and looking and looking and looking for some six packs, but I didn’t see one. Ryan keeps himself in very good shape and he may have qualified, but he kept his clothes all on. Though he did say at one time in his life he would have been one stripped down. But it seems marriage has matured him. Thank you to the one we will call Kara!

One game they had that stood out among the many was kind of funny though. The accountant son we are calling Ryan wore one of those barkless dog collars around his arm. For paying a certain amount of money, attendees were allowed to press the button and watch him jump. They tried it out before hand and he said it didn’t hurt, but it did make him react a bit. The fiancé we are calling Kara was in charge of the buzzer, so as to protect him from drunken almost naked pudgy rugby players – for the most part. I think they did pay an awful lot to ‘buzz’ him, but Kara had ultimate control. I tried it once. Goodness knows he needed one jolt from his Mama for all the stress he caused over the years, but mother love won out and while I did press the button, I didn’t or couldn’t press it hard enough to make him jump. But it was quite amusing to watch him jump and issue a small yelp at any given time throughout the evening.

I’ve really become fond of the fiancé we shall call Kara’s mother. I don’t know how to tell other people who they are though. I’ve been trying and trying to figure out what to say. My future daughter in laws parents just seems like such a mouthful.

Sorry for the delay. They managed to fix our system so I was forced to work again. Speaking of work, there are big changes in my work like – BIG changes. For almost a year now – minus the 3 months I was off due to the broken leg, I’ve been filling in for a maternity leave. The other person, the new mom we shall call Rebecca is due back July 15 and the plan was I was going to go back to my old position. But the one we are calling Rebecca came in a few weeks ago to visit and talk to HR about her return date and that kind of stuff. The Supportive Care department is located at the back end of the office so we were the last ones she stopped to see. She was telling us she had been asking everyone if anyone was interested in job sharing as besides her new baby, she has 3 more at home. She loves being a mom and what with having all those kidlets to look after, she only wanted to work part time. A job share was perfect as she would know what days she would be working every day. I had thought about doing job sharing a few years ago but while a number of nurses do it, no Client Service Assistants had (that’s my official title) and I never really did much except think it would be nice.

Well just a few days before Rebecca came in Ryan was explaining my financial situation. Apparently it’s pretty good. When Rebecca said she’d had no luck finding someone, everything just clicked in my mind and I said I would be very interested. I had a number of things to check into first such as benefits and can I still pay into the excellent pension plan etc, etc. But after talking things over with Ryan, it seems things will be fine. I said yes to Rebecca. This way I get to stay in Supportive Care, a department I love working in, I can fill in on occasion in the Access department, the one I came from and also enjoyed. As I slowly started telling fellow employees what Rebecca and I were doing, they started asking what I was going to do with my spare time. Again things clicked into place. Ever since Ron died, I’ve really had the urge, even dare I say it, the calling, to help others going through what we did. More specifically, I’ve wanted to be like an advocate for care givers. I could help them in whatever way they needed it, whether someone to talk to, do shopping for, navigate the system since I work right in the system who better, and any other ways I can be of assistance. But I’m older now and too tired to go out at night. Not to mention I don’t want to lose reading and reality TV time – I’m really having a riot tweeting while watching The Voice, SYTYCD, Game of Thrones etc. And I’m too selfish to want to do it on weekends. So while I had the very strong desire to do this, I did have the convenient time. But now with 2 extra days off one week and three the next, I will have time now. And I’m so excited about this new path opening up.

And I don’t know if I’ve actually come out and made it official, but I’m headed to the RWA conference again this year. Alas, Wendy and I won’t be rooming together this year as she is The SuperLibrarian and RWA has recognized this and she is the Librarian of the Year. But Nath and I are going to be roomies. We roomed together last year at RT so I’m really looking forward to seeing her again. As well I’m totally pumped about meeting up with other fellow bloggers. Wendy and I have both commented that even though we only see each other once a year, it’s almost like I just saw her a couple of weeks ago. We romance readers have such a strong bond. And I mean that for both readers and authors since I’m thinking pretty much every author was a reader first.

While I seem to be scarce here in blogland these days, I have been very active on Twitter. You can ‘specially find me there on Sunday nights blogging about Game of Thrones or on Tuesday nights where I’ve been watching/twittering on The Voice. That Adam Levine should win as hottest judge of a reality show! And then of course on Wednesday’s it’s So You Think You Can Dance. Since I got the IPad I’ve been spending more time playing and reading on it.

So, that’s what’s up with me. I keep writing reviews on the slow times at work and emailing them home, but it’s the next step of putting them on the blog where we seem to be having the log jam.

Anyway – that’s what’s going on in my world. I’m hoping I see some of you in a couple of weeks.