Monday: going into McDonalds

Today we decided to go to McDonalds for dinner, and when I pulled into the parking lot there was no one there. So we got the best parking spot. Why is it the best? Because Ben and I both got to be in the cold for the least amount of time. My picture below describes it much better.

Our car is sad. Not only are we leaving it, it is dirty, has bad belts, and a fuel smell. However, we made it slightly happier by going through the car wash on the way home! I really do love car washes.

Sunday: chap stick

This past week I finished a tube of cherry chapstick. I've kept the tube around so that I would remember to post about this accomplishment. I don't use chapstick a ton, so to a) not lose the tube and b) actually finish it was very surprising!

I had something else I was going to say, but now I don't remember. Maybe that I started using some of my new quilting supplies? They've been fun. I had to take a break from making progress on the quilt to fixing something on it, but I'm about back to making progress again. Yay!

Oh! I have a friend (the Ertman-Towbridge Family) who is pregnant and on bedrest. With a one year old. I was thinking it might be fun to post your most addictive webpage so that she can use it as a time sink. If you have one that would be fun with a one year old, that would be even better. I think mine will be... http://icanhascheezburger.com/ and http://dictionary.reference.com/fun/crossword/index.html

Saturday: cold hands, warm heart

Today I spent some of my Christmas money on a little space heater. In the past we've just kept the door to the computer room closed and that has helped with the temperature, but this year our hands were still getting cold. So we'll try something different.

I also went to a women's Bible Study at church. It was pretty good. I car-pooled with Jess which was fun.

Nathan thinks I should see deer-cow at our local deli.

"the taste of wild game but with the convenience of your local deli. Cow-deer. Now at your local supermarket"

Friday: deer-cow

We were driving home after dinner yesterday and saw some deer in the road. So obviously, we slowed down. Then the fattest deer we've ever seen came into the road...Ben and I both thought it looked more like a cow. I thought it because of the face, Ben because of the rump. We laughed about it for the rest of the way home.

Thursday: ups and downs

So, most of the day part of today was just ok. I tried fixing WIPs, which is always lovely. I've ignored them for quite a while, and they were piling up. I gave three back to operators to test, one I don't know how to fix yet, and five are remaining. They did, however, give me an excuse to wear jeans.

Then this evening Flurry sat on my lap (twice!) and I found out Doug got a job and Zack and Jenny joined our guild and we killed a WoW boss for the first time.

Wednesday: April

Today was the day we found out more about our intra-corporation merge and layoffs. (Our site is now part of a larger group instead of just being our little group. So far...no obvious day-to-day changes.) Sorry if this post ends up being a stream of thought instead of semi-good paragraphs.

They aren't doing the layoffs until APRIL. April!!! There were rumors for the end of January, but I was expecting February or early March. Pros: people have extra months to save money, and houses will go up for sale in the good selling season. Con: we have to wait three more months to find out what's going on. Three months isn't so bad, but considering that we've already been waiting two it is getting obnoxious. Couple this five month wait with the waits from the last layoff periods and it just means there has been a lot of waiting to find out what's going to happen. (This is somewhat of an understatement. It means there are a lot of "what ifs". It means there is a lot of not spending.)

Oh, there will be around 1100 layoffs across our new group. If they are spread out equally across sites (which they won't be), we would lose about 175 from our site. Those odds don't seem too bad, but one never knows what they are thinking and if our site will be hit badly. There could also be some unexpected people laid off as companies are merging and there will be overlap in what people work on.

Monday: first day back

Work was fine. Nothing really exciting happened, but nothing really bad happened either. It is a bit depressing to think about how long it will be before we get more vacation.

I did a whole bunch of laundry this weekend and now it is all sitting in the hallway by the washer. We have clean clothes and the ...desire?... to fold them has disappeared. They're much more fun as an obstacle course.