Blog shift and my mom's deteriorating memory

I may shift the content focus on my blog down the road. 

I still don't have anything to write about that pertains to spanking. I don't have anyone to spank or administer one on me. Frankly, spanking hasn't been on my mind as much as it used to be.

Maybe it's the result of a not-so-great breakup and having the ex return wanting sex, but not a relationship. I thought that he was special and sweet. I was wrong.

My mom's memory is fading away. Today, she was watching some program on TV and managed to pause it.

I asked her why there wasn't any sound coming from the TV. She first said that the entire neighbourhood was experiencing a power outage. I let her know that there was a picture on the screen, so there was power. She then said that there was nothing on TV.

I found the remote and pressed the play button. Programming resumed.

It's weird how my mom will make excuses when asked a question, as if she's covering up something. I think it's more that she doesn't remember and she has to conjure up reasons that make sense to her. Her reasoning makes no sense to others.

My aunt's passing with a ton of thoughts

On the weekend, my dad got word that his youngest sister, my aunt, had passed away. He has handled her death well. I think our entire family has under the circumstances.

Her funeral was on Wednesday. He attended it. I stayed with my mom at my parents' place. I'm glad that we did this setup. My dad had left food in a microwavable container for my mom to heat up. She never did until I was hungry and went to make some lunch. I noticed that the food remained untouched.

My mom is getting old. Her memory isn't great. I have a feeling that it's affecting her judgment, including heating up food. I did it for her, so she was good.

Families can be dysfunctional. Mine is no different. It has been interesting mourning someone who has not been a huge presence in my life.

When my dad and mom got married, my grandmother (my dad's mom) did not welcome my mom with open arms. There was a coldness and perhaps a distain for my mom. We don't know why.

Because my mom was not liked by her mother-in-law, my dad's two sisters also adopted the same coldness or distain for my mom. I look at that behaviour to be juvenile and ridiculous.

My aunt who passed away was the nicer of the two aunts. Her family (husband and four children) lived a block away from us growing up in Toronto. I recall occasionally getting together with them. My mom said that her children didn't treat me well. Apparently, they liked hitting me over the head. I have no recollection of that action. I ended up being far taller and larger than my cousins, so that nonsense likely stopped quickly.

My mom had to go into the hospital for surgery when I was ten. My aunt came over to babysit while my dad was with her to visit. I came on weekends. My aunt was fine. I remember her asking why I didn't cover my feet with my comforter when I was in bed. I have never done that. I always sleep with my feet poking out of it.

Her questions, like that one, had a tinge of judgment and slight disapproval. It happened a few years later when I was at the drugstore counting my money to buy something. She approached me and made a judgmental comment about the purchase that I was going to make. I ignored it and completed this purchase.

When my grandmother passed away, I flew into Toronto from Winnipeg to pay my respects. Despite knowing that she did not treat my mom nicely and that she wasn't exactly warm to me (she never truly addressed me by my real Chinese name whenever we got together), I felt the need to say goodbye. I put all her uncalled-for grudges against my mom aside to say goodbye to her.

After the funeral and burial, we had lunch at a restaurant. My aunt came over and asked why I was so sad. It was an odd way to start a conversation by making such a remark. It felt like a judgmental statement. Why not start by saying hi? I shot back that we were here for a funeral. It's not like I should be tearing up the dance floor to celebrate her death.

I'm thinking that it's the way that my dad and his siblings grew up. They can't seem to handle communicating with people and it comes out wrong. I have seen my dad do that when conversing, but it's never as horrible as what comes out of his sisters' mouths.

It occurred to me that my dad received more education (a few years) than my aunts. I feel that the lack of education plays a part, too.

Twenty years ago, my aunt and her family moved from Toronto to some city in Malaysia. She passed away in Malaysia a month ago.

She wanted to be buried next to her mom in Toronto. It took a month for her body to be flown back here.

My dad made the remark that his sister and family "must be loaded" to fly her back to her final ressting place. True. However, I'm glad that my parents and I aren't impressed or motivated by wealth.

We aren't rich. We aren't poor. We're content with what we have.

At my grandmother's funeral, when an older cousin asked what I did for a living, he got excited when he learned that I was in IT and worked for IBM. He then started to pay more attention to me and talk to me. I didn't like that at all.

The other thing was that I could speak Cantonese. My cousins on my dad's side (they are my other aunt's children) seemed both surprised envious because they couldn't. When I explained that I took Cantonese all through high school, it silenced them.

It helps to not be judgmental. I didn't really care what they thought about me. Never did. I still don't. 

I like how I have turned out. How my parents have raised me to be a good person because they are.

So, I am at peace with my late aunt. I hope that she rests easy. I am glad that she is reunited with her mom after two decades being apart.

Making progress

On Friday, I was in a knowledge session meeting for work. Towards the end of it, I looked at the list of participants and noticed that my ex was there.

I didn't feel anything. I wasn't annoyed or hurt. I wasn't happy to see him online. I was indifferent. I have made progress.

In the past, he has told me that he always goes through the participant list in his meetings. I wouldn't be surprised that he did so in this one.

I told him to stop contacting me. He has respected my wish so far since we texted in early July. Perhaps he has made a bit of progress, too.

I do pity him. He ruined a good thing and only has himself to blame.

The United States has a President-elect and a Vice-President-elect now. I feel hopeful that this change will be a positive one.

This weekend and the upcoming long weekend

This weekend has been good. I feel relaxed and content.

This Saturday, I have made plans to see a friend. I haven't seen her since early March. I'm looking forward to seeing her again.

It's a long weekend coming up. Yay!

Content girl with sore butt

I have always liked when a good, hard spanking leaves me sore for at least a day. I am at that stage right now.

When I'm driving, I can feel the soreness, especially when I go over speed bumps. When I go to sleep, I wake up on my side because it hurts to sleep on my back, with my butt pressed against the mattress.

I do miss being spanked by someone. However, I'm pleased about last night's birthday self-spanking. I look forward to doing it again when I am horny and my current soreness subsides.

Happy with simplicity

My Mac mini is acting up again. I'm currently drafting this post on my phone.

I have been contemplating getting a replacement Mac mini for a while. Despite it being down once a month, I don't feel the need to splurge.

Today, Winners, a chain of fashion and food stores, is reopening. I don't feel the excitement. I don't have any need to be there.

I'm perfectly content getting groceries and dropping by the drugstore a couple of times a week. I only get what I need. It's good to keep things simple. It keeps me content and sane.

Working quietly and not liking instant messaging interruptions

I have a ton of content to put together for work. It's not difficult work. It's volume. I need to have my work done in over a week's time. I simply like to work quietly without any distractions.

I have a love-hate relationship with instant messaging. Getting messages from folks while I am doing a ton of work throws me off.

At work, we have two messaging apps. We use Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. I am only on the former because my boss does tabs on when people log on and off. It's sad, but it's a virtual punch card machine.

I work enough hours that I don't really care. I get messaged often, which I don't enjoy. I am the longest-serving employee within our group, so I have a ton of knowledge. Everybody thinks that their work is important. Meanwhile, they don't realize that they may be interrupting work that I am doing that is important to me.

I only log on to Microsoft Teams when I have meetings. I haven't figured out a way to block people I don't enjoy working with yet.

Anyway, there is one project manager who has rubbed me the wrong way for at least two years. I have told her countless times that I prefer e-mails than instant messages. The former gives me time to think. I also write back with details.

She can't absorb e-mails. She wants everything quickly and continues to communicate with me through instant messages. I hate all of that.

I let her know that I am super busy. I copied two of her colleagues who know just how swamped I am with work. They also happen to be my past and present project managers on my team. I let her know calmly that I have shared everything with her and don't have an answer on how she should communicate to folks asking about software delivery. I am simply the person who put the contents of a document together. Delivery of this document is out of my scope once it is published.

Meanwhile, she makes it such a big deal to call and instant message me. If my status says that I am offline and she can't reach me, it's because I'm offline. I don't know what is so unclear about that. If telling her three times that I prefer e-mails doesn't sink in, that's her problem.

Sleep, work, and time

I didn't sleep well last night. I woke up a few times during the night, so I felt tired by the time that I needed to get up.

I've received about 67% of content delivered to me at work. They are essentially three large chunks of information. I got the first one done yesterday. I suspect that the other two chunks will be larger, but it's hard to gauge.

My workplace is closed till June 1 know. I have a feeling that this deadline will be extended for a while.

There are some positives to staying at home. I don't spend as much. I also enjoy cooking meals and having more time to myself.

Here's hoping that I sleep better tonight.

Getting a cold and getting paid early

I feel like I'm getting a cold. It's sucks. My throat is sore and I'm drinking lemony water to soothe it.

I get paid every other Thursday. What I love about my bank is that it deposits my pay on Wednesday night, just after 10 pm. It gives me time to pay my bills at home, rather than waiting to get home on Thursday night to do it.

Little things make me content.

Packing and chicken wings

I have started packing for my upcoming road trip. I am excited, even though I am tired from working on a major software release.

I went to work on Tuesday. Normally, I work from home. I was there to have a team lunch. It involved chicken wings, for which I have a huge weakness. Yum!

The unfortunate part was that I had leftovers and I left them at the restaurant. It may have been a blessing in disguise, though. I ordered peppery wings, which irritate my throat. I'm not fully recovered from my cold.

It's okay. I got the wings for half-price. I am not all that bummed out about it. I can always go back in future.

Web site and blog design, along with reducing apps

I have briefly mentioned a side project that I am working on with a handful of people. The person behind this project, whom is my friend, said that he had set up the Web site. I have been writing and feeding him content.

Well, I asked him to show me the Web site. It is literally one long page of sample content. I told him a while back to take my content and paste it. He hasn't. Either he doesn't know how to or is expecting me to do it.

Now that I have access to looking at these files on the FTP site, I pointed out that having a one-page Web site where each section changes after a certain period is annoying. It's also not the best if you have a ton of content and have to scroll down the single page to see what you want.

Since we talked about having a blog and my contributing to it, which I obviously have experience in, I asked if we can use WordPress or something where we can have both Web page and blog content all in one. He wanted one site for our Web site and another one for the blog. What?

He knows that I have Web site design and maintenance experience. When we worked together at the same company over a decade ago, I handled the corporate Web site.

Apparently, his version of WordPress is just for blogging. I have asked him to provide me with the login information and I'll take it from there. I need to see what version he has installed.

I tend to end up leading certain tasks, mainly because I am competent and have a vision for how Web site design and usability go. I can also recognize when things aren't going as well as they should, such as the one-page Web site without any of my content. The site is his and it probably is difficult to have someone else take over what he is supposed to do.

He also has asked me to join WeChat, WhatsApp, and Slack. We do not need so many communication channels. I uninstalled WeChat. All our development chats are on Slack, so we don't need WhatsApp. He also has my phone number and we can text. Just pick one app and stick with it!

Anyway, that's my little update on the odd things happening with this project. Here's hoping that I can get both the blog and Web site working this week.

Productive weekend and WhatsApp for my laptop

Weekends blow by so quickly. Just like that, this weekend is over.

It was a productive weekend. I am doing some writing for a side business project. I got excited about it in the past, got distracted, and then lost some of that excitement. However, it all came back this weekend.

I am to provide content for a Web site. In past jobs that I held, I did both writing the content and putting the content up on the site. It was the case with all Web sites that I designed for me.

I don't control the Web site for this project, so I have to feed the content to a person. It's difficult to visualize how everything will fit. I asked him to post everything and then we can review the site.

The other reason why I lost interest is that most of my writing happens on a laptop. Our little group uses WhatsApp on our phones to chat. It was such a turnoff to provide the content through this app by copying this content from a document on Google Drive.

I managed to install the desktop version of WhatsApp and it made a world of difference. Yay!

Here's to another week.

Shopping and decluttering thoughts

I like that my guy and I have been in the same shopping frame of mind for a while. We don't crave shopping at stores like we used to. We are content with what we have. We go shopping for things that we need.

He likes that I tend to buy practical items. I do like pretty things, too. It's okay to splurge now and again. It's a deathtrap when you do it daily and end up amassing a ton of stuff that you truly don't need or use.

I was in the groove decluttering last month. It has stopped since I went on and returned from vacation. However, it came back the other day when I looked at purchases that I had made in 2013 and wondered why I needed all these items.

My decluttering kick is slowly coming back. I'm glad.

The network is down - a perfect storm

It all started on Friday. Our content management system to author content was down just before lunch. We got database errors. My department seems paralyzed when such incidents take place. I got one of my students to report the problem.

Unfortunately, our helpdesk support is halfway around the world and doesn't look at off-hour issues. Ugh!

On the weekend, I had to do some preparation work. My team needed to create two documentation projects and requires all folks to not be working. I planned on doing this work on Saturday. Sure enough, I tried doing some copying work and database errors took place.

There errors were intermittent, though. I logged in using my regular account and I got tons of errors. I tried copying smaller sections with another administrative account and that worked. Weird.

Yesterday, I had my regularly scheduled 8 am meeting. I drive to work on the call. This meeting was delayed by half an hour. I called in about fifteen minutes from work. I couldn't connect to the network.

I walked into a meeting room that I had booked for my little team. My students told me that every network connection was down. It now made sense why I couldn't connect to my conference call. 

I walked over to the lunch room to get some hot water for my tea. I found out that there was a Canada-wide outage. Nice.

I headed back to my students to relay the news. I found out later that it was a global problem.

E-mail was down. I loved it. I didn't have any distractions. I didn't have to respond immediately to my manager's questions due to his incompetence.

Slowly, the network came back up. My team was able to log in to most of our applications and continue with our content projects. Others on my team weren't that lucky.

It was a trying day. My team handled it with grace and humour. We are good with teamwork, fuelled by cookies.

Travel and training

My guy is flying off to another business trip on Saturday. The good news is that I get to have a bite to eat with him before he leaves.

He's gone for a week. It's unfortunate that I can't join him.

Work is still crazy. I'm training. I barely have time to do my regular work. Thankfully, I have one more workday before the weekend is back.

Y is for yawning

It has dawned on me that I am nearly done with this month's Blogging from A to Z challenge. Time flies.

I supposed that it's a bit early to do some sort of retrospective. I enjoyed this year's far more than last year's. I am guessing that it's because both my guy and I have have been pretty content as of late. It makes a huge difference on so many levels.

My guy is still on the road. He just finished a week working in Budapest. He had to catch a 06:00 flight to get to Dublin on Sunday.

We talked briefly on Skype on Sunday afternoon (his evening):

"How are you holding up?" I asked him.
"Everywhere I go, I sleep. I slept waiting for my flight, on my flight, in my hotel room,... pretty much anywhere," my guy said, yawning afterwards.
"So, you're sleeping around?" I joked.
"Yes, I sleep around as much as a prostitute does," he confirmed.
"So I should call you my slutty sleepyhead?" I asked him.
"Sure!" 

I rarely yawn. I only do when I am exhausted. Throughout the day, I don't. I am not sure why that is.

I have been pretty tired these days and spent this weekend sleeping more than I usually do. On Friday night, I slept for nine hours. On Saturday night, I slept for eight hours.

My guy and I enjoy sleep. My guy needs more hours than I do. He really is my sleepyhead.

My 500th post

I have finally reached my 500th post. It is bittersweet to a certain extent.

To reach this milestone, it has taken me nearly a decade. Life gets in the way.

I didn't blog as consistently as I would have liked to. A number of life-changing events happened to me:

• I was employee at four different companies, with one letting go 75% of our department, and another got acquired by my current employer.
• I was in an unhealthy marriage, and finally had the courage to separate from him by moving back to my home province, and both paying and filing for my divorce myself.
• I decided to get my Master's degree, which was both rewarding and stressful.
• I injured my back and had back surgery. I was then on short-term disability for two months.
• Something wonderful happened after I had injured my back. My guy and I talked more at work, and we have been together ever since. He is my best friend.
• I have had many spankings over the past decade, but the ones with my guy are the most satisfying. He had never spanked anyone in his life. Now, he enjoys it and spanks me so well. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Thanks to those who have dropped by over the years and for those who are regular readers of my blog. Your support means a lot to me.

I recently read Florida Dom's blog about Google imposing censorship rules on Blogger. The company is cracking down on blogs that have sexual content, but it seems more focused on sexual photos.

I agree with Florida Dom that the company wants to shut down blogs that have the adult content setting activated. I have never used this setting on my blog and I have not received any e-mail saying that my blog will be shut down.

Well, it looks like Google has changed its mind now, as Hermione has pointed out. Yay!