Changes

Okay, world, quit spinning a bit--I wanna catch my breath!

My work schedule has been topsy-turvy all through the holidays and beyond (the flip side of working from home often means scheduling changes to cover for other employees who take time off). Now, we are losing a person, and I have gone through a totally new experience--a shift bid.

I was lucky. My recent review had ranked me second in the department which virtually guaranteed I would receive my chosen shift, and I did. I am sacrificing a 4% shift differential to have weekends off and work from 7 AM to 3:30 PM, leaving evenings free for errands, socialization, work on my novel, crafting and all the other aspects of my very full life. (Maybe reading more to fulfill my challenges? LOL!)

It will take a week or so to acclimate myself to these hours (shift starting 2 hours earlier), but overall, I am happy. I've lived on a smaller salary before and am Blessed to be able to pay all my monthly obligations (consequences of screwing it up several times in the past and finally learning that 2+2 does NOT equal 5; therefore X amount of dollars cannot be stretched to pay Y amount of bills)..but this is not a soapbox (at the moment) for my rants on bailouts...

So, new posts will be coming soon---about my new exercise equipment and the resulting re-organization of my living room; the new healthy-eating program being sponsored at work; the de-cluttering of my TBR mountain; my adventures as a consultant for a friend setting up a craft studio...stay tuned--I'll either have you laughing your head off or snoring peacefully from boredom, but I promise it'll always be something happening. After all, the only thing constant about change is that it is always happening

Valentines at Go Make Something!

Lisa has done it again! This will be a quick post, so those of you reading it still have time to run over there and get these great linkware Valentine images! I need to be cleaning house, so all I did was quickly download them (before she takes them off the site! hurry on over!)...I want to play this evening, and who knows what I'll come up with (actually, playing may just mean wandering around Go Make Something http://gomakesomething.com/ for a few hours--lots of superb eye candy (check out the great tea bags)...and she's a genius with paint chips!

Yet Another Challenge

Do you think I set my sights too high? Well, with this one, maybe not so much...

I ended up reading 125 books in 2008, so I am again joining the 100 Book Reading Challenge for 2009 (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/100bookchallenge for details). These can be any genre and believe me, mine last year ran the gamut from self-help to crafting to sci-fi and fantasy. I enjoyed many cozy mysteries and added some time-travel and historical fiction to my "keeper" pile as well. Since my TBR mountain now numbers 655 volumes, I hope that 100+ will decrease that pile somewhat this year (I guess it would decrease even more if I would quit adding to it on an almost weekly basis LOL!)

This year has started well--eight books have been read so far (three were devoured--thank you Stephenie Meyer and your Twilight series!) I know I am not yet too old (and hope I never am) to read fiction targeted to young adults; after all, I read Tolkein's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings annually (and do not count those volumes in the 100-book challenge) and have started doing so with the Harry Potter series as well. I also do not count my annual re-read of the Outlander series; that pleasure is akin to vacationing at the same favorite location each year.