Month: March 2024

Happy Friday

Happy Friday, everyone. Hopefully Friday has meaning for most if not all of us. It has extra meaning for me this week. Starting this month my company has changed it’s hybrid work requirements. Where it used to be that we had to be in the office for 20% of each pay period (basically one day each week), as of March 1st we have to be in the office for 40% of each pay period (basically twice per week). Today is my first, second day of a week. None of us our happy with this, but it’s a whole ton better than being back 80%, which is what we had prior to the pandemic shut down. Oh well. I’ll deal with it. I am still coming in every Wednesday. My group has Wednesdays as a mandate and the second day each week is at everyone’s personal discretion. I am sort of planning on making Mondays my regular second day, just to get it over with, but that didn’t work this week due to the contractors working in the kitchen. Friday was the only day that worked for me. Fortunately there was zero traffic today. I made the 40 mile drive to the office in 45 minutes. If only it were like that every morning.

In other news, the kids are on the ground. Bellana’s flight landed in Georgia (the US state, not the European country) before I went to sleep last night. Harry’s first flight landed in London well after I nodded off for the night, and his connecting flight landed in Scotland before I woke up this morning. All is well on both of those fronts. Here’s hoping they both have a great time on their trips.

I am taking advantage of the fact that I am 40 miles from home right now to make my way to IKEA after work. IKEA is about 60 miles from home, but only 20 miles from work. I will head down there as soon as I am free and go to the returns department and bring back a great big pile of stuff that IKEA included in our kitchen redesign blue print that we didn’t end up needing. There is a lot of stuff to return. A lot of stuff. If I get it all done tonight then we don’t have to worry about it, and with the money we get back maybe I’ll be able to afford a hair cut this weekend because damn, do I need a hair cut!

Anyway, here’s today’s photo-a-day picture. I took it before I did my workout this morning at about 5:40am. It’s only 9:14am now but it’s already felt like a long day.

190/365

My Middle Name

Daily writing prompt
What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
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We already did a prompt writing about our name, didn’t we? I guess focusing on the middle name is different… different-ish, I guess.

There is no deeper meaning behind my middle name, just as there is no deeper meaning behind my first name. My uncle, my mother’s big brother, had the same name but that’s not exactly where my name came from. I’m a junior. I was named after my father. James is my middle name (you can see it in the URL of this page) as James is my father’s middle name.

I’m named after my dad. I am proud of that, even if it often made answering the phone annoying because once I hit puberty our voices were pretty much identical over the phone and people would think I was him when I answered and just start talking. Nope, you have the wrong Robert. Hold on a second while I get him…

Driving Around

I had to go to a Fed Ex office, the grocery store, Lowe’s, and Home Depot. Success on all fronts. Everything that needed to be returned has been returned, and everything that needed to be picked up has been picked up… and I treated myself to stop at the sugar free bakery.

Picture, please? Okay.

The Last Thing

Daily writing prompt
What is the last thing you learned?
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We all probably learn something new every day, right? That should be the goal, at least. I learned a couple of little things yesterday. Nothing important in the grand scheme of things, but new things none the less.

I learned that a US passport doesn’t include a street address. Who knew?

I learned a couple of small details about filling out travel requests at work.

I learned that our new work in the office policy (two days a week instead of just one) has lead to a lot of people choosing to come in on Wednesdays.

In the last week I learned for sure something I already suspected. Kitchen remodeling projects are stressful.

See? You really do learn new things every day!

Tomorrow

So the plan for tomorrow, a sort of random vacation day in the middle of the week.

We have a ton of stuff that we bought for the kitchen remodel that we didn’t end up needing. Some from Home Depot, some from Lowe’s, and some from Wal-Mart. I plan on spending a nice chunk of the morning returning as much of that crap as I can. I thought about going to IKEA to return some of the mountain of leftover stuff we need to bring back but the receipts are all confused. We have to work it all out before we bring stuff back.

When I get home it will be about time to head to the airport. Both kids should be here by the time we need to leave. One, Harry, is here already. The other, Bellana, will be cutting it close but there should be enough time. It’s going to work out so that I can drive them both into the city at the same time. Originally I thought I would be playing Robbie the Airport Shuttle Guy twice, but now it looks like we can consolidate the two down to one. Nice.

After that I will go home again and make dinner for the love of my life and then hang out, missing the kids, until bed time.

Busy day on tap, yes it is. It should be fun.

Day Off Tomorrow

I took a vacation day tomorrow. Nice!

Both kids are going on Spring Break trips, and they are both leaving tomorrow, and they are both flying out of Boston Logan Airport. I am going to drive them both. Just call me Robbie the airport shuttle.

My step son is coming here tonight. My step daughter won’t be here until tomorrow. We won’t have a lot of time to hang with them before they jet off to more exciting places, but I’ll take what we get. I do love it when my step kids are here. Even when it’s only for a few minutes.