Take a moment

And send a prayer, a good vibe, or healing and helpful energy. I'm thinking of changing Thursdays into thinking of you Thursdays, with my heartfelt hopes for good health.

This is my list for today, so if you are reading, send a positive thought or prayer for these people - they could really use it.
Barry - His palliative care team has taken away the pain, and now he starts another round of chemo, and will  be in the hospital for 5 days over Father's Day.
Hanan - The rod placed in her spine for strength was fine with her return home this week. Now she has an infection of unknown origin and is back in the hospital.
Audrey - Cancer is back, this time in her neck.
Abby - Solo circumnavigating the globe, this 16 year old has lost contact with her support team and sent manual emergency beacons - twice. She is 40 hours away by boat.
Jet - My godmother, who had biopsies this week on lumps found in her breasts.

May good health always be your's,

J9

Kudos crustybastard!

This is AWESOME - seriously. Thanks to crustybastard for sending me here!

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/infographic-tallest-mountain-to-deepest-ocean-trench-0249/

Click - go! Now!

Tableau Tuesday - Color

This month's Blogger's Community Photo Challenge is color, so I played with a couple of shots from the Campout last week that I am entering this month. I've also included a before shot on the one so you can see the difference.

A wave:

I played with saturation and levels to get this weirdly bluish sky on a VERY grey day.

Next is the before and after of found items from the Beach:

Gaaaah - BOYS!

Today was a rough one for The Boys, The Oldest in particular. While The Youngest whined and threw a fit about no play date after school, and said it was the worst day EVER!, That is actually normal behavior for him, and I mostly just ignore it and he stops. I get that he needs to vent, and he can, until it infringes on my life in a way that is disruptive. In fact, we spent about an hour after school at the playground so they could just play with friends. During that time, The Oldest swore and behaved inappropriately with one of his friends (and not the one with whom this usally occurs). This got him a time out, 10 push ups and a pepperocini to eat.

They both totally pigged out when we got home, first on crackers and cheese and ham, then on cereal, then cheetos. Dinner was leftovers - cheeseburger half for The Youngest and pasta for The Oldest. Swim practice went great for The Youngest, and I wasn't paying particular attention, but did notice that I hadn't really seen The Oldest swim. When I did start really looking for him, I found him bouncing on one end of the lane and hanging on the lane lines. I walked over and pointed for him to swim the lane, to which he shook his head. I asked his coach if she'd directed him to stay on this end of the pool, to which she replied, "No. He said his stomach hurts." I told her that he is full of crap and just bought himself 50 pushups for when we got home. She said that she'll keep that in mind for the future. Practice ended, and I told The Oldest that he just wasted an hour playing around when he should have been swimming, and he now had 50 pushups before bed, PLUS, his class is going on a field trip to the pool tomorrow and I am going to have one of the moms make sure that he spends an hour swimming laps to make up the time he wasted tonight. He was pissed! Though he did remind me of the pepper and 10 other push ups he still owed me from the afternoon, so for his honesty, I knocked off 10 of the push ups.

It took 30 minutes for him to finish the slice of pepper, all the while giving a performance worthy of an Oscar nod from the Academy. Another 15 minutes for the push ups, and I was ready to pull my hair out - I did some deep breathing, and I will go to bed soon.

Music Monday - WARNING

This song is an Ear Worm. You have been warned - it was going through my head ALL weekend:

Happy Monday all!

And she heaves a heavy sigh at the thought of yet another week

Spent Thursday and Friday on a camp out with The Boys' class and it was very fun to not be anywhere near cell phone reception or a computer. Went on a couple of hikes and to the beach and generally had alot of fun! The Youngest had his final baseball game and end of season party on Saturday, and The Boys started swim practice over the week. Today will be a lazy day at home (for them). I will be doing laundry and cleaning (maybe), and working in the garden (also maybe). I processed over 500 images from the campout and posted them for the other families to see, and have nearly done all the laundry. I'm tired too.

The photos I took during the campout were mostly of people, but I did get a few images that are kind of cool.

A portion of the Redwood Forest:

And the salt marsh that more closely resembled a Scottish Moor:

A friend at The Beach:

The mascot of my Alma Mater:

And my adorable Boys in a meadow:

I need a rant

So this is the deal - I am stressed out beyond belief right now.

At work I found out that the person who is supposed to come help me and was offered the job, had the offer retracted because she is in CA. seriously. It has taken MONTHS to get through the bureaucracy. The ONLY other applicant who was equally qualified is also in CA. Now it's back to the drawing board with more MONTHS before I can get ANY HELP WHATSOEVER.

I'm fried. done. I was working insane 12-14 hour days just so this person wouldn't have a backlog to wade through, but now? Now I don't particularly give a flying fuck. My backlog will continue to grow because of the way the team is being run, so I guess the importance of what I do will have to be escalated to leadership so that they can do something about it. My current backlog puts me 7-8 weeks behind in immediate responses, so if anyone wants a process audit, they go to the bottom of the list, to be completed much later this Summer.

This doesn't even touch on how this makes all of the CA workforce feel in regard to opportunity, and whether they will be cut first. I think the writing is on the wall.

I'm taking the next 2 days off of work to take The Boys on their annual class camping trip - it will be nice to not be anywhere near a computer, but the trip has it's own stresses. I had to pack the car tonight because we leave at the beginning of the school day tomorrow. The nice part is that the kids run it all - they put together the menu, do all the shopping (with their teachers), plan who does what and when, set up all the tents, and clean it all up at the end. I set up a chair and watch. I did agree to lead a group in the hike tomorrow, but only if another parent came with me as a co-leader. It's fun to see all the new parents with their own stresses about the trip, and to know that they will come out the other side having enjoyed it immensely.

The Boys have started swim practice and their first meet is in 10 days... There is stress associated with swim team as well - political jockeying mostly.

No clue what I will be doing with The Boys over Summer break. I am hoping The Dude can take a class that coincides with swim practice so he can take them and I can work. Otherwise, I may be on calls while at the college and The Boys are in the pool. I hear the science building has the best WiFi, so I'll give it a shot.

I'm tired and have a LONG and BUSY day tomorrow, but I feel better after the brain dump, so maybe now I can sleep.

I don't want to forget that I have a GREAT frugal post coming, just haven't been able to sit and type it all out!