Happy New Year!
It's been several weeks. Holy crap. I just looked, I haven't posted since Thanksgiving weekend! Oh my. Why? Mostly because I have still have a very limited amount of energy. From Mid-November through to (looking at calendar) pretty much right now, we've been very, very busy. Just like everyone else. First there was Christmas shopping for stuff we had to ship. Then there was shopping for the local folks. Prepping, and hosting the holidays, etc. etc. Pretty much I come home from work and can do 1 or two things before I bottom out, energy-wise. And that 1 thing might be cooking dinner, or grocery shopping. So December, pretty much at no-time was I feeling like I had energy to write.
Looks like last time was right before my review at work. It was quite simply the best review I've ever had! I got my 4, and I found out my boss loves me. I got my "4" (rating on a scale of 1-4, where 1 is 'you're fired' and every dept. has a max quota of 4's allowed for them), and your boss has to go to your director to get all 4's approved. In our review process management polls a selection of your customers and co-workers. (Most of my coworkers bcc'd me copies of what they wrote, and the boss gave me excerpts from my customer reviews.) Apparently, I got raves all the way around. It all made me feel really good, and appreciated. Such a difference from my last 3 reviews (with Lying bitch, and Little P). So that was really nice.
After I went back full time to work, I had zero Personal Paid Leave (PPL) time left. I was able to earn just enough to take Christmas Day and New Years days off (at this moment I have 15 minutes of PPL). So no extra time off for me. So I worker on my b-day, but had a nice day anyway. On the Saturday M & I went out to dinner at Maggiano's. Had a very nice time. Christmas Day the whole family went out to see Star Wars. I was not at all prepared for the Big Bad Thing that happened. I enjoyed the movie, it was beautifully shot. And I'm still thinking about how I feel about several things.
I'm also thinking a lot about my Colorado friends. It's getting close to the end of the journey for SueBobR's hubby. She's had a tremendously hard road for the last 2 years and my heart just bleeds for them both. I got two beautiful cards and 2 heart-wrenching letters from Sue. and I haven't been the friend that I should be. I'm sending lots of love to Denver, but I'm not sure it helps much. I know Sue reads this so Big Hug to you Sue. Let me know if you want me to research a new printer for you.
The holidays were good. Baby-bro & SIL were here for most of December. BabyBro has been helping the Mater out with her finances, figuring out the Medicare Part D she should have enrolled in several years ago, that is still saving her several hundred dollars a month on her prescriptions and premiums.
I finished my PT Christmas week. I never did get on the regular bike. Going back to work has put a kink in my exercises, and sitting in the office chair, me and my leg swells up every day (even when it's elevated), so I'm not progressing quite as rapidly now with my flexibility on knee #2. At final session, I'm still about 103 degrees of bend on my own. I need to work on getting back into my exercise groove. My walking is up, unfortunately, with the shopping and all I usually over did it, and then it takes 3-4 days to recover. Two steps forward, 1 step back.
There is a new job title being promised to me. I'm supposed to become a Business Intelligence Developer (BI Developer) sooner rather than later. It's 90% stuff I'm already doing. It should have been a nice salary boost, except at Blue Kids, the Bi developer salary range almost exactly overlaps that of Data Analyst. =( On the bright side, BI Developer is an industry-wide recognized title, unlike my current PAI-Analyst II job title.
In short, as we start the new year, I am really looking forward to 2016.
Looks like last time was right before my review at work. It was quite simply the best review I've ever had! I got my 4, and I found out my boss loves me. I got my "4" (rating on a scale of 1-4, where 1 is 'you're fired' and every dept. has a max quota of 4's allowed for them), and your boss has to go to your director to get all 4's approved. In our review process management polls a selection of your customers and co-workers. (Most of my coworkers bcc'd me copies of what they wrote, and the boss gave me excerpts from my customer reviews.) Apparently, I got raves all the way around. It all made me feel really good, and appreciated. Such a difference from my last 3 reviews (with Lying bitch, and Little P). So that was really nice.
After I went back full time to work, I had zero Personal Paid Leave (PPL) time left. I was able to earn just enough to take Christmas Day and New Years days off (at this moment I have 15 minutes of PPL). So no extra time off for me. So I worker on my b-day, but had a nice day anyway. On the Saturday M & I went out to dinner at Maggiano's. Had a very nice time. Christmas Day the whole family went out to see Star Wars. I was not at all prepared for the Big Bad Thing that happened. I enjoyed the movie, it was beautifully shot. And I'm still thinking about how I feel about several things.
I'm also thinking a lot about my Colorado friends. It's getting close to the end of the journey for SueBobR's hubby. She's had a tremendously hard road for the last 2 years and my heart just bleeds for them both. I got two beautiful cards and 2 heart-wrenching letters from Sue. and I haven't been the friend that I should be. I'm sending lots of love to Denver, but I'm not sure it helps much. I know Sue reads this so Big Hug to you Sue. Let me know if you want me to research a new printer for you.
The holidays were good. Baby-bro & SIL were here for most of December. BabyBro has been helping the Mater out with her finances, figuring out the Medicare Part D she should have enrolled in several years ago, that is still saving her several hundred dollars a month on her prescriptions and premiums.
I finished my PT Christmas week. I never did get on the regular bike. Going back to work has put a kink in my exercises, and sitting in the office chair, me and my leg swells up every day (even when it's elevated), so I'm not progressing quite as rapidly now with my flexibility on knee #2. At final session, I'm still about 103 degrees of bend on my own. I need to work on getting back into my exercise groove. My walking is up, unfortunately, with the shopping and all I usually over did it, and then it takes 3-4 days to recover. Two steps forward, 1 step back.
There is a new job title being promised to me. I'm supposed to become a Business Intelligence Developer (BI Developer) sooner rather than later. It's 90% stuff I'm already doing. It should have been a nice salary boost, except at Blue Kids, the Bi developer salary range almost exactly overlaps that of Data Analyst. =( On the bright side, BI Developer is an industry-wide recognized title, unlike my current PAI-Analyst II job title.
In short, as we start the new year, I am really looking forward to 2016.