Do You Buffet?

I have somehow been sucked into a weekly lunch "date" with friends at the local Chinese Restaurant all you can eat buffet.  We somehow went from diner food/pizza/ sandwiches to going to this buffet almost every week.  The cost per person with a drink for lunch is $5.80, a bit more if you have a beer or glass of wine. 

The buffet is incredible mundane, lots of drab chicken dishes, lots of typical "American" dishes-mac and cheese, pizza, onion rings, potatoes, a small sushi bar, one to two vegetable dishes (usually cabbage or green beans), fried rice in an interesting neon color, vegetable lo mein that has almost no veg in it, a large dessert bar with tons of canned and fresh fruit and jello.  If you are lucky, there is a beef dish or two, sometimes none, occasionally something like a meatloaf.  The soups are egg drop, wonton and hot and sour.  When we first started to go, the variety of foods offered was better, more Chinese, less American.  I guess more people were eating the macaroni and cheese rather than the dan dan noodles.  When we first started to go, the resteraunt was fairly empty, now even at 1:30 PM, it's half to 3/4 full of patrons ranging from high school kids to retirees.

Why do I keep going back? Well, for what ever reasons, my two friends like the place and for me, it's not about the food, it's about the company. Plus it's a "cheap date" so to speak. You can't get a extra value meal from Micky D's for that price.  We do live in an area that has limited ethnic food choices and both these gals are not adventurous eaters either. They think chicken with cashews is exotic.  I pretty much have the same food each week, soup, a salad, steamed dumplings, an egg roll, some veg and I'll rotate my choice of chicken dishes. I never see a tofu dish or anything spicy (my preferences).  You can see into the kitchen and it looks like the restaurant makes it's own dumplings, egg rolls, spring rolls and wontons. I wonder if there is a Chinese food supplier that supplies the items that are deep fried and or soup stocks and sells it to these places...

A New Home For Poochie?

I have been fostering a dog (for lack of a better term) that belonged to my now deceased elderly friend.  I have had issues with this dog, (who is very sweet), not getting along with my old dog (who is also very sweet, except to Poochie).  Both dogs, well, HATE each other.  It's more than Dog Whisperer issues, it's out and out hate and I've already had a few incidents between the two girls, despite me trying to exercise good canine control.

I've been juggling the two dogs for almost two years. I've been looking for a home for Poochie for the past 18 months when it became apparent my elderly friend was never going to be able to have a pet again due to her chronic health issues.  The local breed rescue that I had been trying to work with got some new staff.  Actually, they got back an older staffer who was very good at her job.  She found Poochie's file and called me over the weekend.  Poochie goes for an evaluation on Thursday, they have a potential home!

So keep your fingers crossed.  Poochie would do so much better and  be the Puppy Princess she was before she came to me.

Trying to Spend Money, But Can't!

I have this extensive To Do list of projects around my small house. This past week, I gave myself permission to work on two of them. One project was to install some flooring in my bathroom, the other was to put in a new closet system. 

I did my research on products,etc, trucked off to Home Depot and bought my materials.  The bathroom flooring was a breeze. I used a product called Allure vinyl flooring. It's a floating floor and the pattern I chose was a tile pattern.  It took me longer to remove the toilet and sink and re-install the toilet and sink than it did to lay the new flooring.  BIG pat on my back to me, I now have flooring instead of sub floor!

The next project was to put in a new closet system ($100).  The people I bought my house from used this funky piece of furniture, not quite an armoire, not quite a free standing closet in the closet to store clothes.  I've been using a basic plastic shelving unit to store all my folded clothes. I found a system at Home Depot that had both shelves and rods to put hangers on, it was not wire, I am trying to avoid wire, it's a manufactured wood product.  I put together enough IKEA furniture in my time to decorate a show room. I thought this should be fairly easy to do. Like a half an afternoon project. How wrong I was!

The closet system, well, even for a "manufactured" product.. sucked.  No other word. I used a rubber mallet as detailed in the instructions to tap in some hardware parts.  Said mallet cracked the veneer.  When I went to use a screw driver to tighten up some bolts, it caused the part being tightened up fall out of the shelf, a huge chunk of particle board just broke off.  Nothing about this unit seemed sturdy or strong. I decided this was a waste of my time and money.  I had no way of taking all the bits of hardware out of the shelves, so I loaded up the parts, bits and pieces, and took the whole thing back to Home Depot.  I got a full refund and I spent the better part of the afternoon going to and from the store and attempting to put the piece together. 

Ah well, right now all my clothes are packed in laundry baskets and garbage bags. I had to dismantle the plastic shelving before I could start on the new system.  I will have to go back to square one and figure out what I want to do. It may be a wire system after all.....

A Mini Rant for Monday

I was going to have today's post be about me needing to get a spine and a new job, but instead it's about a mini rant on my weekend job. In my last post, I stated that my schedule was going to change in a few weeks. I was fine with that, we had the new schedule to go into effect the weekend that starts on April 30th. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the "staff room" on Friday after turning out a few horses,only to find my co-worker there. Unexpectedly there at work according to my weekend boss.

I gave him a WTF look and he gave me the same look back. Later in the AM, we had a little chat. According to my weekend boss, my co-worker came back early. My response was "you had a conversation with me, did you not make it clear to her when you had your conversation with her that expected the new schedule to start in two weeks?" I honestly don't know if he just forgot and told her to come in this weekend or WHATEVER. He claims she just decided to "show up". It does wildly annoy me since I will be losing two days of pay that I was planning on having. I made sure I told him that the early change to my schedule did not make me very happy. I was polite about it, but made sure I got my point across. Yeah it's whiny, I know, but the MO of my co-worker has been to pretty much do what she wants in terms of her schedule-leave and come back when it suits her and walk all over my weekend boss and dammed the other staff who are covering her hours. GRRR

My co-worker stayed on Friday and was mildly annoying. She's been gone for almost 5 months and we have had some changes in the facility. Had I known she was going to be coming back, I would have followed up with my weekend boss to make sure he spent some time with her to go over the new changes. None of these changes are earth shattering, but they are changes that she needs to know about. I know she would need to be brought up to speed on them. She spent most of the day going, oh this is new about every fifteen minutes. We also have a feed chart on the wall, it's missing a few animals since horses come in and horses come out or feed needs change. For almost an hour she followed me around the facility harping on the feed chart. I told her I'd make sure a new and current one would be posted by Monday (when she was going to work again). I finally gave in to the annoying chatter, sat down and started re-writing the chart just to SHUT HER UP.

That and the fact it was a damp chilly weekend did not make Betty a happy camper. I am so glad it's Monday!

Weekend Work Updates

My weekend job is dependant on the return of my  injured co-worker.  I was hired to be a temporary replacement. She had major surgery on her foot and was to be non weight bearing for a minimum of 4 months, if not 5 months, she is coming to the end of that time period. 

I got a call from my weekend boss who stated that said co-worker wants to come back a couple days a week, which means I'm out some weekend work. I was expecting to go back to my summer schedule of two days every two weeks, which barely cut the mustard money wise, especially since I had some work obligations and family obligations that seemed to occur on my scheduled weekends.  Instead, I'm only losing 4 days a month, which is not so bad!  It means I can have a full day off at home and my weekend boss gave me first crack at what days I wanted.  I set up a schedule with him that is a win win for both of us (maybe not for my co-worker, but TFB right now). I still work Fridays and Saturdays, get Sundays off and he gets Monday facility coverage.  Since he tries to take off Mondays and one afternoon a week, this works out well for him.  With the departure of said co-worker, he was having to work on Mondays.  Given the fact said co-worker is probably returning to work earlier than she is supposed to and probably won't be that mobile, I don't think he is really willing to drop me back down as he did last year.  I found out after the fact there were some issues with her limited mobility,the animals and facility, not wanting to yell I TOLD YOU SO, I merely nodded and said, "oh sorry to hear that."

This new schedule will start in a couple weeks. I have more notice this year than I did last year (which was all of 4 days) and I'm keeping a majority of my days.  Having Sundays off works well for me. I like the concept of "sleeping in" on Sunday and it gives me a respectable amount of time off before I start my weekday job.  It also gives me much needed time to work on my list of home DIY projects that are long overdue. My yard has turned into a dust bowl and needs serious work, which I have put on the top of my list for this year.  No slacking!

Said co-worker and I have also swapped days when one of us has needed a weekend day off or had a project or two to do.  That makes it a win win for both of us and less of a worry for the boss man.

I'm happy with the fact I'll be keeping a majority of my hours.  It is allowing me to delay getting a spine and getting a full time position again-which is the subject for another post.

My Fault and My Ruined Monday.

So my Monday went from nice and wonderful to crappy and stressful in about 5 seconds. And it was my fault. I made an error with a client that I did not catch, but they did and needless to say, they are not happy, nor is my boss, nor am I. 

CRUD. I hate it when mistakes happen and I hate it even more when I should have caught this.  No freaking excuse on my part.  This particular client is a bit picky and yes, my boss is justifiably mad at me.  All I can do is admit my error and admit to the client it was my error and hope they don't rip me a new one.

Let's hope this is not the start to my week.....I do think Mercury goes retrograde later this week...