December 02, 2009

Thanksgiving Blues; Lowes misadventure

Kind of a sad and low Thanksgiving this year. We have a rule at work that was set in place to reduce people calling in and taking off around holidays and to reduce excessive absenteeism. Basically, you cannot call in within 3 days of a holiday (before or after); to do so means to lose the day you call in absent and all of the holiday pay. This rule, instead of discouraging absenteeism, seems more to promote people coming in sick which is why not only myself but half of the office were sick over Thanksgiving with a cold/flu virus. Nope, not H1N1 just the usual variety. Because I work Sunday through Thursday, my holiday started on Wednesday. I woke with a scratchy throat but otherwise seemed fine. Picked up my nephew, ran an errand, got lunch, and then my nephew and I got to work installing baseboard in the garage. I had hoped my nephew (Steven is 15) would be able to do the work in the garage alone, but it turned into a 2 person job and so I spend the day working with him. We got almost all of it done and he owes me a few more hours to finish it. His mom came to pick Steven up and she and I went to Lowes to pick up the large items I still needed (peg board and wood).

If you shop at Lowes, please do not disengage your brain because sometimes they do not give you correct information. This not a slam at Lowes - I love shopping there - but it seems the quality of employee knowledge has gone down recently and twice I have been given bad advice. I say this because I had visited Lowes earlier in the week to preshop for the items I needed. According to the Lowes creative magazine, I could purchase a 2' x 4' piece of pegboard; however, the employee at Lowes said they only carried 4'x8' pieces of pegboard. It was while we were cutting the final pieces of wood that I stumbled upon the 2'x4' pieces of pegboard. Could have saved myself a lot of money if I had known that before cutting a 4'x8' piece of pegboard and all the wood to install the resulting 2x4 and 4x6 pieces. Granted, now I will have a nice big piece of pegboard on which to install my tools (never again to have my brother organize them and make them impossible for me to find).

To end this long and rambling story, I was sick and did not make the annual family Thanksgiving gathering. I did get a delivery of leftovers (Thanks Mom) but no family drama on the side. I spent the rest of the holiday holding down the bed or my miniature sofa. Watched far too much TV and never once made it to the studio. So sad. Am feeling better but still very tired. Am hoping to have a much better weekend. Had lots of wonderful creative ideas I had hoped to indulge - alas, was not to be. Hope your Thanksgiving was much lighter and brighter!

One last note, have been a bit bah humbug about Christmas and thought eating a couple bags of my favorite Christmas cookies would help lift my spirits. Couldn't find them anywhere so did an internet search and the company filed bankruptcy in October 2008. No more Christmas cookies. Guess I will have to make do with some Chessman Christmas Cookies - yummy but in a different way. HG Belinda

1 comment:

Karla G said...

Grateful for shharing this