A Time For Everything

 

Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving Day and weekend. We had a lovely day with family on Thursday and then spent the rest of the weekend eating deliciousness -- DH's word for the things that you can't eat all the time. I.E. Rotel Queso, pizza, brownies... I did make a lovely beef stew to balance things out though.

Anyway, today, I'm just gonna share some random things.

So I've had this oven mitt for over two decades--I still use it weekly and it has one job. And that's to hold the handle of my large stock pots while I'm cooking.

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Do y'all remember this mug? I got this early- to mid-2000s and I used it for ages and ages. These days, I'm using my tall Dallas Stars Tervis mug--which doesn't look like the picture because it's stained to heck and back with tea :0) -- but this was my go-to mug back in the day. I loved it so much, and I carted it around with me. I bought a second one in red on a subsequent trip to the USS Lexington and then broke it rather quickly. After that, I left the original at home. :0)

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Who's not familiar with Elf on a Shelf? Basically, you buy the little elf doll and move him around the house for the little ones of the house to find each day during the holiday season. DD was in charge of the "Elf Program" at her school for a couple of years. She passed it along this year because she's already at school early enough as it.

Anywho--one of our employees has a 3-D printer and created a glow-in-the-dark skeleton whose joints move. We ended up with him somehow and DH left him in the bathroom one day, and then the next day, someone (DD) started moving him around the bathroom. Then it became a game. Whoever found him moved him to a new spot. But the bathroom is only so big, so we moved the game to the kitchen and the living room.

He's been found and moved several times since his stint in the light fixture.

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Stars Win!

So DD and I got to watch a game from one of the suites. Someone donated two suite seats to the school fall carnival silent auction which DD won. We even got "gold parking" as part of the package.

It was a really fun experience / opportunity to enjoy the game from a suite. The food there was free, but we had to pay for our beverages, which was fine.

Here are a few pictures...

Our gold parking was under a restaurant next to the American Airlines Center and we got to take the elevator right up to the level our suite was on. Fancy!!

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Take care and catch you in a couple of weeks.

 

Ten years ago, on this day, the final episode of one of my favorite TV shows, JAG, aired.



I have a group of friend who met because of their love of the show. Of course, we've grown and changed and moved onto other shows, but our friendships have remained. JAG was my first foray into fandom. I love being a fan girl!

Tonight those of us who live in the DFW area are getting together to hang out, eat dinner, and watch the last episode all over again.

Several years ago, our whole Texas contingent, plus a couple of extras took a weekend trip to Port Aransas and visited the USS Lexington. Some scenes from JAG's pilot episode were filmed aboard her. We had a blast.


Have a great Wednesday.

*deep breath*

(edit--I've been trying to post this for two days....)

Being gone for two business days was not the wisest thing, but the walls are still standing and the employees are all still present and accounted for.

It took me Tuesday and Wednesday to get back up to speed (mostly) but only because we had a couple clients in panic mode and had to shuffle techs around to get clients taken care of. Then, of course, handling phone calls. When you get interrupted every ten minutes or so, it's frustrating and difficult to make much progress on anything. Lesson: don't do things that need a lot of time and concentration between 11am and 2pm.

This morning is calmer. Whew. Problem employee is working from a client's site and will go directly there. He's been turning in his word orders--will wonders never cease? Well, they were threatened with their paychecks being held if they didn't turn in every work order they were responsible for, so that lit a fire under a couple of them. ;)

Everything else is slowly falling into place. One last major hurdle and we should see some real progress.

But the gauntlet's been thrown. July 15th is the drop dead date. If they don't get their acts together and the ship turned around, people will be let go. Every employee has been notified. We'll downsize as much as possible and move into smaller/less expensive office space in an attempt to consistently run in the black. We'll hunker down and handle our contact clients and the few other long-standing or good paying clients we have. I guess I'll be learning how to clean up a PC. ;)

Well, enough of the boring stuff--

Girls weekend on Mustang Island, Port Aransas, Texas. BEAUTIFUL

Here are a few pictures, but I don't have the energy to write anything else right now.

One of the views from the beach house:



The Blue Ghost, Lady Lex, CV-16 USS Lexington:



Once I get my disposable camera developed, I'll have a few more of the inside of the house and our day at the beach.

Things have settled a bit. I had another big test on Monday when one employee was thirty minutes late for our weekly staff meeting. On hubby's advice, I canceled the meeting and rescheduled for the following day. Lateness to these meetings seems to be a chronic thing for two of our boys (I'm the only gal in the place.) Needless to say they were not happy, but late boy was here forty-five minutes early the following day!

At some point, I'm going to stop with meetings as I meet with each employee individually everyday. The main original purpose of the staff meetings was so hubby could get caught up on the status of each tech's projects and for any issues to be brought to his attention. Well, if I'm meeting with them individually, then there's no point in a group meeting per se. But right now, it's more about establishing my authority as their boss.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Everyone was out in the field earning money--no one in the office who needed to be kept busy all day. I had a breather and could get some other things worked on.

On a fun note, this weekend I'll be in Corpus Christi, Texas with a group of friends/acquaintances for the annual JAG meet. A group of ladies, who met over the Internet through our shared fan girling of the TV show JAG, get together each year to hang out, watch a lot of JAG, drink (some not all, and not me), and have fun. Normally, we meet at one gal's house here in the DFW area, but we'd been talking about making a trip to the USS Lexington since scenes from JAG's pilot episode were filmed aboard.

Now, I've been there twice. Loved it both times and am very much looking forward to going back to see what new places they've fixed, finished, and opened to public viewing. The first time, our family went with a group from our church and got to sleep aboard in the berthing section. That was quite an experience. And we lucked out since it was our group and a group girl scouts who got to prowl around the ship after it was closed to the public for the day. Normally they sleep about 500 a night during the on season. Between our two groups, there were maybe 60 people. NICE!!!



That's a picture I took from the very front of the ship looking toward the back of the ship. That's my daughter walking away from me. And the island there on the left.

Anywho, I'm excited to be going again and will bring back more pictures and a few new souvenirs. I can't come back without *something*. The best souvenir ever is a extra-large mug with a raised image of Lady Lex and a jet flying off it, which I use everyday for my hot tea.

We're leaving Friday am and returning Monday pm. I will have Internet access, thanks to our little handy dandy broadband in a thumb drive, but I don;t know that I'll be posting here from there. See you Tuesday!