Good morning/afternoon, Mumpers. First order of business today was a call to the oncologist. A few days ago, I discovered a mass and swelling towards the back of my neck. It definitely does not feel like a lymph node. Because I can’t see it (location and poor vision), I took photos of both sides of my neck. Definitely there, bigger than I’d envisioned, and doesn’t look like a swollen lymph node, either. I’m hoping I’m just being a worrywart due to the breast cancer two years ago. After all, I saw the oncologist just 4 months ago, and he felt my neck then. Still, can’t figure out what else it could be. I have an appointment next Tuesday. It seems like a long time to wait, but he’s only in my town two days a week.
Shoe, I think you should call the cat Shoe. Or maybe Schubert, if you want to get fancy, and Shoe for short. Of course, then you couldn’t tell him to Shoo, or he’ll think you’re calling him. So maybe not.
Moooom, as always, I’m impressed by how much you get done.
MetalMouse, glad the foot is doing better. Though it seems a sure thing, hope the COVID test is blessedly negative.
Glad you have an appt. I certainly understood the worry though. I’m 10 years out from uterine/cervical cancer and I get terrified with each and every lump and bump I find. Mine all turn out to be lipomas, completely harmless and very common. Always a relief with the drs. pronouncement. I’m🤞🏼for a lipoma for you too.
I can’t keep the MMP’s straight, so I answer both.
I wanted to paste this again for Butters : I had to self-evaluate for years. This is the key lesson I learned: when I was honestly reflective, using whatever scale they devised, I got mediocre ratings and piddly raises. When I decided that I was going to sell it hard, I got a much better review. By sell it hard, I mean I gave myself a top rating in every single category, and used examples to prove my point. The response was “we can’t give you 5’s in everything. it looks bad.” I did get a much better review than before and a bigger raise too. My advice - over the top and sell it hard. You walk on water and the place would fall into the sea without you.
Mooomm re: bathtime. Bubble bath, new toys, some of that colored soap/crayon stuff they share. Also ask questions: too hot? too cold? too bright? no shampoo? bad smell? Toddlers can develop sensitivities and that may play a part. Maybe the bath was too hot one time, so now she’s scared. Maybe she doesn’t like the way the soap or the shampoo smells, maybe soap got in her eye. Basically, make it fun again and don’t force her to do the parts that bother her. There’s time to work back to that. One final trick: ask her either or questions. For example, do you want your bath with bubbles or with mr. boat? Do you want Grandma or Mommy to give your bath? She chooses, but “no” isn’t one of the options. It helps give her a little sense of control, and that can help.
My news: lightning + California summer = bad. We have fires everywhere. I’m going to post a “Breaking News” thread next.
The neighbor sent me a text asking me to take him to the ER. By the time I saw the text, he was already there. I’m waiting for him to call and I’ll bring him home.
The dogs are bugging me, they want to go to the park. I really don’t feel like it. I knew if I took them a few times they would start to expect it everyday.
Agreed with it all. Let her think whatever happens is her idea. Just always offer two choices you are willing to live with. With my grandkidlet she is afraid of water poured over her head for shampooing so she invented floating on her back like The Little Mermaid with her hair floating in the water. Worked fine, I just want her hair to get wet and then rinsed. Her mom found some big tablets we tossed in the water that turned it various colors. We would say: “Do you want red or yellow?”. She’d say, “both!” and think she had gotten away with something. We could have cared less as long as she got bathed. They were these:
Crayola Bath Dropz 3.59 oz 60 Tablets (Pack of 2) Amazon
With my kids (centuries ago) I used to not let them do something I actually wanted them to do, until they would beg me to ‘let’ them do it. Worked a lot of the time.
I also figured out that is no law that every kid has to have a bath every night. Shrug. Maybe before you take them to the doctor, but otherwise “meh”. Never got a citation for bad mommying because my kid didn’t eat their carrots or go to sleep by a certain time.
A fair amount of behaviors I ignored until they went away. Ignored enough, they usually do. I used to call it catch them being good.
I think my daughter figured that out. It’d what she does with her daughter now. My sons have declared they aren’t planning having children, at least not ‘homemade’ ones. Scared what to make of that.
Moooom, does she have a bath tub toy animal like a duckie? Pretend Duckie’s telling you he doesn’t want a bath. Enlist Roxie’s help: why doesn’t Duckie want a bath? Is he afraid? Why is he afraid? You and another toy animal convince Ducky it’s OK. Fill a sink with an inch or two of water. Duckie is very brave and asks Roxie to put him in the sink. Then he has a great time! He quacks happily.
Don’t do this just before bath time. Do it earlier in the day. Then repeat a little while before bath time. Repetition helps the story sink in, plus it’s soothing.
At bath time, use the same story but with the bathtub, which already has water in it. Ducky invites Roxie to come on in and play.
The bathtub is very big to a toddler. The sink is smaller and so is Ducky. Roxie can identify with Ducky and gain a sense of control.
This is the tactic that worked with my daughter. She was also terrified of getting her hair washed, but that’s another story for another time.
Girls are special. Most notably in their SCREECHING abilities. I let overlydaughter have two friends over today to while away the hours while I work and they played a game of sardines, which is kind of the anti-hide and seek. One person hides, the others find them and hide with them until the last person finds all of them. And then they apparently scream. A lot. Oh, well - she’s entertained and I’m doing a public service for the other two moms in our quarantine bubble, who are also working from home. And it made it actually easier listening to the two IT guys I was on a call with. They were having a battle of anal-retentiveness and one of them went off on some diatribe about precision. At least I didn’t have to listen since my eardrums burst about an hour ago.
Where is my brain? Right now I have 315 hours with 11 pay periods left in the year so I shall earn another 88 hours. That is 403 hours. I can only carry over 240 so that leaves 163 hours. It is a smidge over a month at five days a week I need to use. Using some this week. New guy has already put out an email stating there will be no carry over so send him a plan for the rest of the year. Pfft. I will be irking half days for an undetermined amount of time so will use some like that. Day after election and the four day Thanksgiving week. I can guarantee that I shan’t lose any but I can’t lay out the rest of the year for him.
I got push back from my eval from the business director that was acting director. He called me yesterday and questioned what did I do that was outstanding this last year. It was all I could do not to say “well I put up with your ass all year”. I told him just like I told the new guy that I had hardly been there. He said you’ve been closed for 5 months and I told him plus I was out a lot with hubs in and out of the horsepistol. Told him the same things I had written and he said “so you did your job”. Acted like the entire pandemic is my fault. I reminded him of a few things and told him I should not have even been asked to do my own evaluation which he agreed with. I told him I told new guy I didn’t feel right about it and to do what he wants. In reality he should have just changed it to highly sat or even sat and given me the 1/2 percent but instead he majorly pissed me off. So me not being able to let things go, I called him back and said “you are actually going to hold the pandemic against me?” He hemmed and hawed. I think the entire thing is about giving me a meager raise when I just had 5 months paid time off with the exception of some hours here and there. A couple pay periods I actually irked like 20 hours.
I am cool with no increase and I don’t need a time off award but don’t blame me that we were closed. I didn’t make that decision. Needless to say I am still ticked off about it.
It will be interesting to see how all that shakes out. Three more years but 6 more would be better. I don’t know that I can do it.
Anyway I am off now until Moanday and shall try to forget about it.
My half day yesterday day was 1/2 hour too much and today was almost 2 hours over. I had to email the boss to see if he had approved my leave for Tomorrow and Firday. He wrote back approved. I guess I should be a mind reader too. No way was I not going to be there had he not approved it. The right thing would have been for him to let me know as soon as he got the leave chit so I wouldn’t have to bother him. I am in a very pissy mood. Missed my nap today. Need to win the lottery but gotta play to win. I am dog tired and haven’t done a thing physically.
Ok no more bitching. I am now back off to see what youse all up to. And a hug for Pearl.
I know a lady who lives in northern California and she posted on her blog yesterday about all the lighting-started fires popping up in her area. Extra stress because she lives not far from where the Camp Fire was.
This afternoon one of my co-workers who lives on the other side of town from me had a lightning strike in her front yard. I didn’t get any of the storm she got. Mountain weather: if you don’t like it, go five miles away. The clouds are threatening and thunder is rumbling, but no rain yet.
Cats, your weather description is exactly what I have right now. Plenty of thunder and dark, but no rain at this moment. Debating if I should go out and check the mail or not…and I did, got a few drops on me but no downpour yet.
Butters, they used to ask me an annual plan for ‘use or lose’ after I go to the 8-hr. per pay period bracket, then had me update it when we got near the holidays. Take your leave time that you earned, and keep pressing the boss…sounds like a couple supervisors I remember–not too fondly…
And, except for a short nap, that’s about as exciting as it gets here at Casa Rat. All y’all take care now.
Glad your foot is doing better metal mouse. I hope your COVID test is negative.
Irked, found another issue that is going to be problematic with the new system. I reconciled the first location count yesterday and had to re-do it today when only two teeny parts were in need of an edit because of movement in the location. And this was one of the smaller locations. Oh, well.
Bills are paid, supper is et and I’ll chill and catch up on some correspondence this evening.
Howdy Y’all! We laid in provisions and made and et sup. That was pretty much the extent of the day for both of us. We definitely got the hang of retirement here at da cave.
Hippie retirement is da bomb! Just think, in about a month you can wake up, look at the clock, and decide whether or not you want to get up. 'Tis marvelous!
the weather today went from hot and muggy as hell til about 3 then we had about a 45 minute tstorm the powers flashed off about 4 times and now its back to sunny but its cooled off and hopefully its cleared the air because if i have to smell something burning any longer im gonna spew , its actually making me queasy … its been a week and i don’t think the fires out yet …
And im giving me a gold star for restraint cause when dot first posted about her treatments my first thought was to link to various songs in the first dozen or so ramones albums which would been totally tasteless …
Home from irk, to a houseNOTful of kitteh-caused destruction. I left the basement door open so they could have space away from each other (Nikki is very upset about this usurper) and came home to a living “Basement Cat” meme LOL but at least shit wasn’t knocked over.
He’s a very well behaved little sprite!
Now if I can just convince Nikki to quit growling incessantly. She’s upsetting herself into puking, poor grumpy little thing.
Got another chicken boobie in the oven, perched atop more root veggieS plural, thankyouverymuch. I got smart about this whole nonsense with the tiny sink and my roasting racks - and swallowed some environmentally friendly ethics - and bought several disposable aluminum baking pans.
I’m actually really looking forward to dinner, since it won’t come with a side order of dirty- dishes angst.
Tomorrow: we purchase a collar - a reflective or perhaps even glow-in-the-dark kind, so we do not sit upon the kitty - when we pick up human Rx, and introduce the Little Monkey to 1.) wearing a collar, and 2.) getting teeth brushed.
Oh, well.
