I'm Dear Abby

One of my colleague's mother had passed away late last week. I knew that this person was going on bereavement leave, but my manager quietly let me know on Monday that it was his mother.

The reason why my manager had disclosed this information was that he didn't know what to do. I became his go-to person for advice.

He isn't the strongest person writing heartfelt messages that express emotion. On the other hand, I'm perfectly fine emoting and expressing how I feel.

So, I helped him out. I indicated that we should send flowers to express our support. He showed me flower arrangements and I picked out one. Done.

I wrote a short note that he could cut and paste. I also recommended that he send the flowers to the funeral home for the visitation.

He thanked me directly and in an e-mail to our department. He also said that I was his Dear Abby.

I am good dishing out advice. I knew that as a young person (it sounds crazy, but I was and still am fairly wise for my age), but it was incredibly noticeable yesterday. It's always good to help someone out.

Profile and business write-ups

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to fill out a questionnaire for an upcoming profile feature that I'll be a part of on Instagram. It's related to the review recognition that I wrote about in my previous post.

The other part of this exercise is to feature five businesses that I love, and write a brief blurb about them, along with including a photo for each of them. I finally got it all done yesterday. It's nice that I can focus on such activities on my vacation.

I don't have anything adventurous to do on my vacation. I'm just taking it a day at a time. It's nice so far.

Enjoying a break

I have good and bad days, as do many folks. 

Although it has been over a year since my relationship ended, part of me misses the affection and playfulness of being with a partner. The other part of me knows that I'm not ready to be in a relationship at this stage. I'm okay with a break.

Having friends to talk to, keeping busy with my hobbies, and putting my thoughts down in this blog have been more than helpful. However, there are some days where I want to be by myself, lay in bed, and do nothing. I want to take a break from doing hobbies and blogging. I simply enjoy doing nothing.

And, it's okay. I work hard. Downtime is okay.

So, I have missed a blog post here and there. I know that there is no need to justify why. I'm good. I just need some downtime for myself now and again.

Sleep, work, and ignore Instagram

Short workweek. As predicted, it has been super busy for me.

Extra, unanticipated work came my way on Wednesday. I was so exhausted that I slept until I heard my alarm go off yesterday morning. I have rarely done that since I've been working from home.

I took a break from Instagram yesterday. It helped that I was busy. 

I've mentioned this detail in a past post. I get tired of men liking posts of me. I don't have too many, thankfully. It's sad that they can't type their alleged real name correctly in their handle. That's my first turnoff. Second, saying one word to me does make me want to write back. I like when someone writes something meaningful, creative, fun, thoughtful, funny, ... you get the drift. I get none of that. Third, I don't like when they demand (not ask) me to reply. It makes me completely ignore them.

Ever since I changed my profile photo on Instagram, I have had this surge of men saying hi. It's weird. Perhaps I should make my account private.

Donuts and the wait

Last night, I slept like a rock. It was great.

It's a long weekend. I have been craving donuts for a couple of months. I went a bit crazy on Saturday. I ordered six donuts from Tim Hortons and a dozen from Krispy Kreme.

I waited for nearly three hours to go through the Krispy Kreme drive-thru to place my order. Yes, these donuts are that good.

I don't consume donuts often. This pandemic has made me want some badly.

The wait truly didn't feel that long. Mind you, I am pretty patient to begin with. However, I ended up reading, listening to music, and writing. It certainly made the time pass by faster than I had anticipated.

I am pleased with my donut haul. I will be pacing myself!

Surprise text full of honest, sweet thoughts

The man in my life is sweet and mushy. He poured his heart out in a text last night to me. It was poignant.

He had said that he can't write a novel. He proved himself wrong. It was nice and I woke up wiht a smile on my face reading it.

It's nice to feel loved again. To feel like someone out there cares and is genuinely sweet.

Snowy Saturday to come

It's the weekend! In a few hours, my area will be hit with yet another winter storm.

Roughly 15 cm of snow is expected to fall throughout the day. I will be hibernating. I'll be doing a bit of writing, watching some TV, cooking, and chilling.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Interviewing skills and conversation

Last Thursday, my manager and I had an interview with a prospective intern. He is from my alma mater, which is a first.

He was polite and knowledgeable. My manager conducted the first half of the interview, as he had to leave to attend a meeting. I took over after that.

I like honing my interviewing skills. I don't like firing question after question, or going into a huge soliloquy. I'd rather have a conversation, which made it more comfortable for both of us.

When I asked if he had any questions towards the end of our time together, he truly opened up. I like when folks are comfortable with me, and vice-versa.

His writing and editing skills are superb. He'll do just fine.

He accepted the offer. I look forward to working with him soon.

Side gig

I have a side gig. Or, some would call it a side hussle. It's interesting. It just happened.

For a while, I have been writing reviews on a social app. Someone recently noticed and wants me to do the same thing. What's different is that I get paid for this work. Hey, that's different!

I do the same thing as I've been doing for a few years now. I visit business as the customer that I am. If I'm ordering and eating food, I write about all of that. If I'm getting my car serviced, I write about my experience. I get paid for doing it now.

I got my first payment for my first review yesterday. The extra money comes handy these days. Although my debt situation has improved a ton, I am three loan payments away from paying it off completely. That extra money will go towards even more aggressive payoff of my credit cards.

It's cool. We'll see how things go.

Happy 2019!

It's 2019! Happy New Year, everyone!

I'll be back writing regular blog posts soon. In the meantime, enjoy ringing in the new year with family and friends.

Parting colleague and social awkwardness

I'm not sure why I end up installing an operating system update before I blog, but I did just that last night. The update took longer than I had anticipated. I decided to skip blogging.

Friday was an interesting day. It was my colleague's last day with the company.

My team isn't the best in organizing a decent farewell for a fellow colleague. I tend to do it because I care. I got the greeting card. I collected money from everyone to get a parting gift and got it. I handed over our gift to her and made a quick speech.

My manager is horrible at saying something heartfelt. It comes out socially awkward. I asked him to sign the card. He asked me if I could write something for him. Um, no. It needs to come from the heart, unless he doesn't have one.

He did eventually write something. My colleague and I talked before she exited, stage left. She let me read what he had written. It was standard. Nothing special. It's the effort that counts, I suppose.

She clued in that I put everything together. She thanked me a ton of times and asked if she could hug me. So, we did. It was cool.

I'm thrilled that she has found a new career opportunity. It's just sad to see a decent, competent colleague go.

A-to-z challenge 2017

I have decided once again to participate in the A-to-Z challenge. I don't have a theme yet again. I would feel restricted if I did.

This year's challenge is a bit different. Rather than having a list of blogs that are shown on each post in April, I simply visit the challenge's site and leave a comment. That way, folks on that site can find my blog post and take the plunge to come visit here!

I hope that you'll read along in April. It's funny how, when I first started the challenge, I felt that I could not blog for practically the entire month of April. I did it and blog more often than I used to.

Technology baffles me, but at least my photo-syncing issues are fixed!

I have always been a troubleshooter. My latest issue with upgrading my Mac mini to the Sierra OS and then attempting to sync my photos to my phone has been fixed. I simply don't know which change that I performed actually fixed everything.

Technology is odd. I am immersed in it at work. It's an interest of mine, too. It's such a love-dislike relationship.

Anyway, I have done a few things to fix this issue:

1. Changed the properties of my Photos library so that read and write access is granted to all programs accessing it.
2. Powered off and on my external hard drive, which houses my iTunes library.
3. Tried to rebuild my library by pressing the Option + Command (Ctrl + Alt) keys. I didn't get the repair option, so I loaded my photos library as normal.
4. Started iTunes. I tried syncing both my iPod classic (yes, I still own one, as it fits my entire music collection, which is large) and iPhone. Both actions prompted an error message indicating that my photos library was unavailable.
5. Closed my Photos program.
6. Tried syncing my iPhone again. My photos synced!
7. Synced my iPod again. It synced successfully, too!

Again, I did a bizarre set of steps. It will be a miracle if all this syncing works tomorrow. I can then get on with writing about my last spanking.

There are days where I want to book some time away from technology, fly to some tropical location, lounge around, and write in a ruled notebook with a fountain pen. It sounds perfect right about now.

My guy misses me - scheduled date night on Sunday

My guy had thought that he would be dropping by the office last week, but that visit didn't transpire. So, he spent the entire week working from home.

Work continues to be crazy. I get along well with my team, which is a plus. However, there are challenges with two of the three writers that I work with.

The scary thing is that the next senior technical writer isn't exactly a trained writer. She is technical, which makes understanding how our software works easier. However, her first language isn't English, so I end up teaching her technical writing 101.

I like teach folks how to write better. The downside is that it puts a damper on actually producing quality work when you have a writer who you have spent a ton of time working on writing mechanics and they don't fully sink into her head.

I also have to have a side discussion with her about business writing. I don't think that saying you folks twice in the same sentence to an audience of software developers and project managers to be professional. Sure, you want them to respond to your e-mail, but it should not be that informal in tone.

The other new writer is not assertive. It's who she is. Writers tend to be shy and quiet by default. I am half of that, so I am a bit of an exception. I am quiet when I work and I am okay with that. However, I am far more social than these two writers combined.

Anyway, I just went off on a tangent that I wasn't expecting...

Oh, yes. I can tell when my guy truly misses me. He sends me more e-mails and tries to contact me more than he typically does.

On Friday, he had forwarded his travel itinerary. It had a notice about getting an e-visa as a visitor to Turkey. He will travel there next weekend. I will follow suit a week after that. I had meant to write back to him, thanking him for sending it to me. Things got busy at work that I forgot.

Later in the day, my guy sent me another e-mail, asking how my week was so far. He was chattier than usual, telling me about how his week was boring, but productive. He also wished me a good weekend and reminded me to set my clock back an hour for Daylight Saving Time.

I didn't respond to either e-mail. I had to head home and prepare to shell out goodies to Halloween visitors. It was a lot of fun, despite the evening being rainy and cooler than it should be in late October.

I logged on to my computer after midnight. I went to shower. I came back maybe twenty minutes later and my guy was on Skype, wondering whether I would be awake.

As most of you know, I tend to write blog posts after midnight. I am a strange creature. I am a night owl who has no trouble getting up early in the morning. Don't ask. That answer will take another blog post to sort out.

We chatted and caught up. I told him about getting my new passport in the mail the other week. We talked about the e-visa application (it takes five minutes to complete and cost $60.70 USD, which is frankly a ripoff, but must be done).

He also told me that he would be in Toronto on Sunday. He teaches a course on the side.

"I'm downtown," he told me.
"Wow, that's different," I replied.
"Noon till 6 pm."
"That's a long time," I said.
"Yes," he responded. "I miss you."

It is significant that he said that he missed me. Most of the time, I am the first one to mention that. I told him that he was sweet and that I missed him, too.

I had suggested that we could do dinner after he was done with his course, if he was game. He was.

I asked where he would be downtown. He had an idea of the address, but he didn't know if the street ended with East or West.

"I have to go back to the e-mail," he told me.
"Oh, no. That could be an issue for directionally challenged guy," I replied.
"But, no problem for cute Asian girl," he teased back.
"You're so sweet. What's wrong with you?!"
"I guess I just miss you."
"It's nice to hear that I'm missed. You haven't said that for a while."
"When I'm in a good mood, I always miss you."
"Well, I hope that your mood continues to be good."
"Me, too."
"It'll good to see you downtown."
"It's good to see you anywhere," he said sweetly.

He was definitely in a good mood. It's nice to have a date night, especially on a Sunday, when you typically dread the fact that your weekend is nearly over. Spending it with someone special makes going back to the work following day far more bearable.

Summer Spanks: Last Flings or Lessons Learned

A few weeks ago, I decided to participate in the upcoming Summer Spanks: Last Flings or Lessons Learned fun. Between September 5 and 7, I am to post a spanking-related story, poem, or whatever I am in the mood to share.

I then read the fine print after I had signed up and I need to offer an individual prize. Well, I am a huge Starbucks fan, so it is only fitting that I offer a $25 CAD gift card. It is the perfect gift, even if you aren't a coffee lover. I fit the mould in that I like coffee-flavoured drinks, but I can't do coffee with cream and sugar. Starbucks has a variety of non-coffee drinks and yummy food.

So, the tough part is trying to figure out what I plan on writing for this post. The fun part is actually being creative with the post.

I am a writer by trade. Today, I had my performance review at work. Well, my manager and I ran out of time because I had a meeting to attend. He had asked our team on Monday to spend an hour indicating how we achieved our various goals. It took me less than an hour to fill out my form and send it to him. He told me that I wrote a ton. I had to remind him that it's normal for me to write that volume in point form. He nodded in agreement.

Anyway, if you have any topics to suggest for this exciting challenge, please drop me a line!

May here and practically gone... bring on June and even more blogging!

It's nearly the end of May. What on Earth happened to this month?! Working overtime has definitely seen this month blow by. I have already accumulated four full days that I will be using in lieu of vacation days.

June is just around the corner. I am crazy enough to have signed up for the Spanking A to Z Blog Challenge. I have been preparing for it. I have blogged more this month than I have in any month so far this year.

Can I hit 26 posts in a month? I will certainly try my best. Blogging relieves a lot of my stress. It's funny, but I write for a living, which I enjoy. However, my job can be stressful. I like unwinding, and blogging about anything that comes to mind or my experiences, as you have been reading along here, makes me happy.

So, I hope that you will read along in June. I could use the support and encouragement!

I was going to blog about my chat with my guy the other day, but the excitement about this challenge made me want to write about it first. I will do that post soon, I promise. After all, I do have 26 shots at posting it. =)

Spanking A to Z challenge

I did the unthinkable.

I saw Renee Rose's post about participating in the spanking A to Z challenge and signed up for it. I didn't ponder about it for excruciating long periods. It sounded great to me, so I signed up immediately.

This challenge will prompt me to blog more frequently. It's also something different. So, I am completely up for this fun challenge!

I hope that you will read along in June as I go through the alphabet and choose a theme based on the letter of the day. I'd appreciate your continued support. Here's to blogging!

A list of fine participants follow. You can also sign up, too!