Category Archives: randomness

random ramblings of Yours Truly.

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Excerpts from my Teams Chats

It occurred to me recently that one big reason why I don’t blog about the day-to-day stuff so much anymore is because I share these things as they happen with my work-BFF over Teams, my long-distance-BFF over iMessage, or my husband.

So, here’s a recap of some of the things I sent to N over the course of last week:

Tuesday 10/8 8:39 AM:

So, on my home laptop, I’ve been beta testing a productivity app called Foreground that logs all of your app activity (locally only!) and lets you categorize it and tag it as productive, neutral, or distracting. The full release just dropped, and I bought it with my beta-tester discount and installed it on my work machine. 🙂

What’s interesting to me is that [our manager]’s swag at 5 hours of actual work time per day is currently pretty spot-on for me.

I only have one day of data, but I think this is going to be a good reminder to find something productive to do while my [Power BI semantic] models are taking 15-20 minutes to refresh…

Wednesday 10/9 10:52 AM:

Can I also mention that I still hate when people keep their entire signature on replies, so that their sig is literally ten times as long as their one-liner email?

Friday 10/11 8:10 AM:

Connor became aware of “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” so I found a supercut of just scenes with that line to show him last night. He thought it was much more hysterical than I thought he would. 😄 And now I have the Diff’rent Strokes theme song stuck in my head this morning.

Friday 10/11 8:50 AM:

Yesterday at Krav, one of the karate moms who had joined Krav but been absent for a while came back to class. Her new baby is now 5 months old, so she’d ready to come back and train again. There had been a little bit of turnover in class since her time away, but not enough on its own to justify the fact that she kept wanting to be my partner ALL THE TIME. Which was awesome for me — made me feel like she knew I was a safe space. 🥰

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Solar Eclipse 2024

Our school district decided to give the kids the day off for the solar eclipse on April 9, trading it for some other previously-scheduled teacher workday. I was glad for that, since the timing of totality in Northwest Ohio would have put the the big event happening near the end of his bus ride home from school.

I work from home, and Aaron works nights, and the path of totality was such that we could get a minute or so of Total Eclipse action right in our back yard, so there was no need for us to fight traffic and crowds.

I didn’t even need to dig out the eclipse glasses I saved from the partial eclipse in 2017, since Connor’s school sent home a few pairs with each student. Funny… that eclipse happened on Connor’s last day of pre-Kindergarten, and the idea of watching the next eclipse with a 12-year-old Connor in 6th grade was just mind-boggling.

But here we are.

The darkness that falls during a solar eclipse is so fascinatingly still. The weird lighting before and after totality reminds me of summer thunderstorms, in a way. Totality, though — seeing the sun’s corona shine through the black of night at 3:15 in the afternoon was amazing. I absolutely understand why some people become eclipse-chasers after experiencing totality in person.

My iPhone 12, of course, wasn’t equipped to photograph the eclipse in any sort of meaningful way… but that didn’t stop me from making the attempt. It’s just my knee-jerk reaction to these kinds of experiences in nature — I want to document it so I remember it forever, even if the documentation is a blurry, blown-out similitude of what I saw with my own eyes.

The solar eclipse was amazing. A+ would watch again.

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Been There Before

It was late Sunday afternoon when the Mustang pulled into our driveway. At first, I thought it was a contractor for a delivery company, but it turns out it was a young lady whose car had broken down.

Once she realized her car wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, she knocked on our front door and politely let me know. Since the temperature wasn’t much above freezing, I invited her into our home to wait for her tow.

It probably came off cringey instead of empathetic, but I told her about the time the transmission on my first car started acting funny. I was a good half-hour from home, and this was long before cell phones, so I ended up using a nice retired couple’s home phone to call my aunt for advice on what to do.

As I was telling my story, I could tell it wasn’t really having the effect I’d been hoping for, so I stopped rambling, gave her some space by the dining room window where she could watch for the tow truck, and went into the other room to continue folding laundry.

My aunt’s advice to me, once I finally got through to her, had been to accept the quart of transmission fluid the nice couple had offered me, pour it in, then drive home by way of every BP station I could find, using the gas card my stepdad Tom had given me to get another quart of transmission fluid at every stop along the way. I did manage to get to within a mile or so of home before the transmission fluid top-up method stopped working, and I was forced to leave my car at a local (non-BP) gas station and just stick a For Sale sign on the windshield. Eventually, a young man and his dad bought it off of me for $50 with the intention of fixing it up for the demolition derby at the county fair. Since the transmission only ran in reverse at that point, and that’s how they roll at the demo derby, it was a win-win for everyone.

Anyway, I hope that the young lady whose car happened to give up the ghost in our driveway finally got to go smoke with her friends. She certainly deserved some chill time after the weird evening she had, sitting in some Gen-X lady’s dining room waiting for AAA.

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Morning Brain Dump

Sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee beside me and a cat draped around my shoulders.

Just got back from having blood drawn in preparation for an endocrinologist appointment later this week. It didn’t take long at all — half an hour, including drive time — but I’m now feeling much more awake than I usually do at this time of day. I suspect it’s the combination of having to drive myself there, being outside (albeit briefly) in the brisk darkness of early morning, and having to interact with other people in person.

As soon as I hit Publish on this quick check-in, it’ll be back to the usual routine of working from home.

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A Solo Evening In

On one Friday each month, the karate dojo hosts a Parents’ Night Out. Sometimes it’s a video game night. Sometimes they plan a Pokemon trading party. Sometimes it’s a Ninja Ball tournament. But sometimes — like tonight — it’s a Nerf War, where kids bring their Nerf guns and the dojo supplies a massive amount of standard Nerf bullets.

Connor’s not always interested, especially as he’s now one of the older kids — but he’s always up for a Nerf War.

For the price of our usual “Fun Friday” pizza delivery, Connor gets to hang out at the dojo, shooting his Nerf gun and eating pizza, while I get two and a half hours of “me” time.

As drop-off time approaches, I always daydream about how much I’ll accomplish during those two hours alone. Maybe I’ll do some sewing, or declutter my storage spaces. Maybe I’ll do some weeding, or catch up on all the things I’ve been meaning to blog about. Maybe I’ll do an evening of digital detox — no phone, no laptop, no TV.

That never happens. None of it.

First, what happens is dinner. Sometimes I order out, or sometimes — like tonight — I scare up something simple for myself from the freezer or the pantry. My iPhone keeps me company while I eat, and continues to keep me company for a while after that.

Then the realization dawns on me: two hours is not as much time as it seems, especially at the end of the day, and even more so at the end of the week. If I’d planned a little more carefully, I could have knocked off a few tasks — as it is, though, it might be a better use of my time to sit in the sunroom and enjoy the sounds of spring. Feel the breeze. Watch the sunset. Calm my judgmental inner voice.

Yeah, that sounds good.

By then, the sunset has reached the cotton candy phase of blues and pinks, with a turquoise backdrop. It’s time to put my Mom hat back on and go pick up my Nerf warrior.