Monday Night Musings

Monday Night!

Glory!

The time has been turnt back, and it is raining cats and dogs and frogs in the ATL.

All during rush hour, no less. Wow.

And what's interesting is that I didn't even go to work today. I had trouble sleeping last night due to not feeling well, so I just called off. No big deal. At least I didn't have to get out in the rain. The most I did today was take out all the trash. And that was this evening and the rain had tapered off a bit.

I also made some cookies tonight. My goal is to make cookies for everyone in my cubicle area. If I can remember their birthday. Lady M had a birthday last week, but she took off. So I will carry her's in tomorrow. She likes oatmeal cranberry. That's easy to remember.

Anyway, I had the bomb Halloween. All ten of the trick-or-treaters that came to my door were VERY happy. Why? Because I had the excellent treats.

Whole candy bars. Packs of cookies. And chips, chips, chips.

To the point that a couple of teenagers rolled up on me. I think they were chaperoning a crew of kids up my street. And they were bouncing a basketball, which was getting on my nerves.

They were the last to come to my door. I let them get what they wanted.

I wanted to add... "Could ya'll please stop bouncing that dayum basketball?"

LOL.

Alas, I did not.

I left that alone. I live in the hood. Let's just say I left that be. I did not need any problems, even though they were very nice young men.

I had a quiet weekend. It was raining, and I stuck around the house. I didn't need anything, and I needed to catch up on my chores and reading.

Now, there was a special episode surrounding suicide last week of Being Mary Jane. I wanted to watch it, as a journalist will be discussing it on talk show I like this week. He had experienced some of the same problems as on the show, and it left me a bit O_o, because this person is so well accomplished. How could he think of suicide? So I wanted to go watch this show. I've never watched it in the past, as I am not a fan of Gabrielle Union. I watched it, and it was great. I didn't know any of the characters, so I decided to snoop around on my Hulu and Netflix to see if old seasons were available, and they were.

That is a GREAT series. I don't know, I never care for any show where there's a black woman who seemingly has everything, except a man, so therefore her life is NOTHING. Who needs that? Such a cliche. But I thought it was well written, that first season anyway. I am halfway through the second season, and it's pretty good. I may try to catch up before the next current episode comes on. If I don't, they cost $1.99 a piece on my Amazon prime. Sigh.  I  bought that one episode on suicide, but I don't care purchase anymore.

I don't know what I have on tap for the week. I hope to see some sunshine. Just a little. Please and thank you.

Song of the week.  "Optimistic" by Sounds of Blackness.



A good positive song. We need more of those.

That's it on this Monday night. I must get up at the crack of dawn and show my face at work. I'm still not sleepy. I will pop some zzzquil on something.

So I can sleep hard... on purpose.

LOL

Quote of the Weekend

Most weekends when I don't have any major plans, I tend to make a to-do list of chores I need to get done that day. There are usually ten items at the most. Any more than that becomes overwhelming.

A decade ago, I read in one of my spiritual books that if you make a list, put a time constraint on the tasks. This has been helpful, but it can be overwhelming. I tend to do that sometimes. It reminds me not to get bogged down.

Today list, made on the first day of November was simple enough. It included:

1. Change both kitty litter boxes

2. Living room -15 minutes

3. Wash sheets

4. Make up bed.

5. Mend comforter

6, Kitchen-10 minutes

7. Proofread LadyTee's class paper before 8pm

8. Drink my water

9. Have a green smoothie for breakfast

10. bathroom-10 minutes

A couple of those things are not really necessary to write down. But let's just say that I picked up this habit from my mother. And I saw one of the things on her list was "drink wine".

*crickets*

Anyway, the above list isn't the subject of this post. I think it gives you a little insight into my days at home though. And this was a particularly bad rainy weekend. Atlanta is set to get 2-3 inches of rain this weekend and Monday, and the sound of hard driving rain on the roof makes me believe that is the truth. 

I have a notepad that I place these to-do lists in. I have 2 or 3, but none of them were at hand this morning. Luckily I have tons of scrap notepads laying around. I found one this morning, and I saw an interesting quote scribbled hastily on one of the pages. I may or may not have posted it, but I don't remember doing so. Heck, I don't even remember writing the quote, much less where I heard or read it. 

But it was a good one, nevertheless. 

Life is a bunch of decisions, and a decision is an open pathway to reality. And each decision has some fruit attached to it. 

That is chalked full of... a whole lot of stuff.

But ain't it the truth.

And you know why that caught my eye. You know how I feel about seeds and roots, trees and fruit.

A decision is like a tree, and the consequences of that decision are the fruit.

Enough said.

I've been pondering that quote all day as I cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the kitty litter, and drank my water...

Any and all decisions I make have consequences.

In other words, any and all decisions I make have fruit attached to it.

It could be bad fruit. Or good fruit.

Any which way it goes, we eat the fruit.

Enough said.

Ten Tuesday Thoughts

It's that time again. Thought time!

1.It is downright NASTY outside. It's dark, rainy, and just on the edge of being considered cold outside. Not a good combination.

2. There was a bad wreck on the main street leading out of my neighborhood. Hence, I was 10 minutes late for work.

3. This wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't have a group meeting at 9:00 am. So I arrived at 9:10 am. I didn't miss much of the meeting, and I actually took a full page of notes.

4. I won't lie, though. I'd rather be lay up in the bed all day long when it's all nasty outside. This here is some great sleeping and reading weather.

5. I baked a batch of cookies for a couple of people. There was one birthday and one congrats for a promotion. Here are the birthday cookies.

6. I get so much JOY out of drawing on a bag. What is that about.

7. So I made some cookies for someone last week for their birthday. This person went around showing everyone the bag, when I distinctly said not to, because folks will beg for your stuff, you know. But she went around showing everyone. She was SO happy about them. We figured that folks don't do that much for her. Something like that. And I don't consider us friends, so I guess that means much when someone gives you something.

8. Sharbucks is fully stocked today!

People love junk food. Junk food is cheap. Oh well.

I do buy a bag of apples for our hospitality table up front every once in a while. But people love some junk.

9. I didn't bring lunch today. It was all I could do get out and get to work early. And I may not go get anything since it is raining. I may just sit here and eat the apple and orange I have here in my cabinet.

10. I have had a long day in the lab. I love it when the time flies by like this! That means it's time to go home.

That's it for today. I have been back and forth between my desk and the lab fooling with this post.

Finally done!

Monday Night Fights

Oops...

Doing a post on a Monday evening. I wanted to do it this morning, but I got busy. Plus I don't have much to talk about. This was a quiet weekend. I needed to decompress for some odd reason. I catch up on my sleep over the weekend, but this weekend was ridiculous. I slept TOO much. Even Sister Callie Jo and Mitch were like... wow, what's her problem.

Speaking of problems... someone needs to help Sister Callie Jo. She's not doing well with my sister gone. She keeps going upstairs looking for her. She has also been throwing her dry food out of the bowl. (That is really bothersome).

My sister left a pair of her flip flops under the coffee table, and Sister Callie has been guarding them.

She seems to take solace in the shoes. I was going to put them upstairs in my sister's bedroom, as she left a box of things up there. But I decided to just leave them there under the table. 

But her lips are pursed, and she has that look on her face.  It's that look that asks...

"Where is MY person, LadyLee? And why did you take her from me?"

Not my fault, Sister Callie. You just get past it, girl.

But I need her to stop tossing her kibble out of the bowl. That's some craziness right there.

Blessing of the Day. Everyday is a blessing. I meditate and pray about this every morning during my drive to work in the morning traffic. It gives me solace. And several good things have happened today. Glory! One of those is that my coworker provided lunch for me. She cooks some of everything, and occasionally brings me a jar of something special.

Today she brought enchilada soup!

I happen to have a bag of Fritos...

GOOD EATIN!

So that was my blessing of the day, amongst many others.

That is it for me. I am looking forward to a great week. I am off one day this week to take Grandma to get her flu shot. She wants to go to lunch afterwards. My sister found an old gift card for Red Lobster, so I think we are going to check that out.

Song of the Day. It's raining cats and dogs down here in my beloved ATL.  I think we are getting the remnants of Hurricane Patricia.

So for days like this, I love to play my favorite rainy day song.  "Nothing Has Felt Like this" By Rachelle Ferrell and Will Downing. Sound quality isn't the best here, but who cares. This is some FANTASTIC singing. That is all.



REAL SANGERS. 

Really tho.

With that said, have a great week. On purpose!

Friday Freestyles... The Fall Festival Edition

It's Friday!!

And to top it off, it's PAYDAY!!!

GLORY!!

And as my usual routine, I sit for a moment and think about just blowing my whole paycheck and just ball ball ball til I fall fall fall.

And then reality kicks in...

And I go online and pay my bills. And then I make a budget in my head. I need to write it down on paper, though. Really, I need to.

Anyway, the weekend is nigh... and on days like this, especially on paydays, the blinds of my mind are partially closed. I may as well just go home because I haven't gotten anything done. My boss sent me something to look over, some type of checklist for our reports. I think I breezed through that in all of 10 minutes and made some suggestions.

Plus, I can't even think straight because I have the "itis".

And I want to take a nap.

Why?

Because we had our FALL FESTIVAL at work today.

The tobacco and nutrition groups do this yearly. And since I am new to the tobacco work group, lo and behold I get to participate.

A menu sign-up list went around. Discussions were fast and furious for a few days. And we had a wonderful feast!

I signed up to bring green beans and butter cookies!!

And you know I took pictures:

I purchased green beans at the local Whole Foods.  Here they are in the bags. 

It wasn't too expensive. I think they were $1.99 a pound. They are $1.49 a pound at farmer's market I frequent. But I found that the Whole Foods Beans are a more flavorful. I bought $10 worth.

And it took a full hour to snap them.

I snapped those while watching some of the Benghazi foolishness, I mean Benghazi hearings.

By 9:30 pm, I'd chopped up a large white onion, thrown in a smoked turkey wing, and threw everything in the crock pot.

I woke up at 3:30 am and the beans weren't done. So I turned it on HIGH for another 4 hours.

By 8:00 am, the green beans were done!

Glory!!!

And I also made some butter cookies. I experimented with cutting them into shapes...

They came out alright. There were stars, hearts and flower shaped cookies. I have to work on the rolling out of dough and cutting. I will be thinking about that for awhile...

On to our Fall Festival.

There was SO much food. So much.

Meatballs, cocktail sausages, honey baked ham...

Fried chicken, ranch chicken wings, buffalo wings, veggies and dip.

My green beans and a very good indian fish and rice dish.

Fried fish and lima beans.

Corn on the cob!

Hash browns, broccoli, macaroni salad, macaroni and cheese, etc...

Croissants and salad and light bread!

Fruit and pies!

Devil Eggs, cheeseballs and crackers!

Someone made red velvet cake. I am not a fan, but you KNOW how much people love red velvet cake. Glory!!

And there was some type of punch bowl cake. I don't know who made it, but everyone was diving into it. It was great!

I didn't get a pic of everthing. There was a GREAT dump truck cake made by one of my cubicle mates. WOW. I need the recipe for that. Or, she can make it for me! Yay!!

A good time was had by all. 

Dr. HazelEyes organized it all. There was even a jeopardy trivia game while we ate.

And after all that, I could and still cannot get much of anything done today.

I need a siesta... maybe two, maybe three.

Heck, I need a weekend!

And that's what I'm snatching... on purpose.

That's it for today. Soooo picture heavy!

Bet it made you hungry, didn't it!? 

YAY!

Have a good weekend. :)