Moving Day

The changes just keep a'coming at my workplace.  Starting next week we will have some major changes, going from two pharmacists to one & all that is involved with that.

It's going to be a little weird, but I think it's going to be ok.

With all of this crazy change taking place, I got to do a little crazy thinking. 

In my 'office' (which is really just a common room with the break table behind me & everyone coming & going all the time - which is how I like it) has a computer desk in it.  I have never really loved it because I don't have any drawers & its design just lended itself to messiness. 

The pharmacists used to share an office adjacent to mine.  In it they each had a large desk with four drawers.  When my boss announced all of the changes that were going to take place I realized that one of the desks in their office would no longer be needed.  Hmmm...I want me some desk drawers!

So I asked my boss about it.  Let me tell you just one thing about my boss: he's nice.  If he can make something happen for you, he will.  Today I got my desk drawers.

The Old Desk moved away from the wall & ready to be cast aside.
See all those piles of papers & clutter?

This is Ed.  He is our main fix it man.  He was right there with a plan &
ready to help when we started talking about swapping desks.

My New to Me Desk with Four Drawers.

I'm really grateful we were able to do this little switcheroo.  It forced me (& my boss) to go through some things that needed to be dealt with.  And I'm really liking my new setup so far. 

Now it's time to go get some candy bars or something that's worth hiding in the drawers!

I'm Needing A Nudge

Lately I've been feeling a little bit ho-hum-dee-hum.  Not unhappy.  Not depressed.  Actually I'm in a pretty good place of contentment with a lot of people/circumstances in my life.  God is good (all the time, of course) & I'm grateful that lately my prayers to recognize His goodness to me are being answered - blessing are all around, people!

So what's with the ho-hum-dee-hum?  I just feel unmotivated.  I've been staying up late.  I've been eating lots of good for me food but just as much bad for me food.  I've been working out a little bit, & I've been running not at all.  I've been starting projects & finishing nothing.  I just don't have a lot of get up & go & hit it!  I really need someone or something to light a fire under my lazy hiney & get me going.

Any volunteers?

What is your sure fire (ha!) go-to plan to get yourself motivated?  Do you set a list of goals?  Do you find someone to be accountable to?  Do you memorize verses on laziness & self-control?  Do you lecture yourself in the mirror every morning?  Or do you just give yourself a hug & be chill with the status quo?

Help, anyone?

My Wanter Is Out Of Whack

When I was a kid we had a dog.  She was a sweetie & her name was Queenie.  She was probably a miniature Collie-Husky mix.  At least that's what she looked like.  And she was a great dog.  Except for this phase she went through where she would get out of her collar (or even harness) & dig out under the fence of our back yard.  Once she was out she wouldn't go too far but she would do some yucky stuff like get dirty diapers out of the neighbor's trash cans.  *shudder*  Yeah, other than that she was a great dog!  And I think she lived a fairly happy life in our backyard under the maple tree in her little white house.

Several years after Queenie went to the pet cemetary at the farm, my brother went to the local pound.  He found a little puppy named Abbigail that was probably a Husky-Chow mix.  She was a pretty little thing despite a case of mange that tattered her cinnamon colored coat.  After a couple days spent twisting my dad's arm Abby came to live with us.  She was our first indoor dog & she was so smart.  She was house trained in one day.  Though she struggled with the mange & some other sickness at first she quickly got healthy & gave us all a run for our money.  She could chase her tail & play for hours.  We had so much fun with her.  Then she grew up & got a little moody.  She didn't like it when we rearranged furniture.  She would pout when I went off to school & then pout some more when I came home.  She didn't like any of my friends & she even got in a couple of nips over the years.  She was a beautiful dog but she was a little hard to handle when she got old & crochety. 

And now I haven't had a dog for years.  When I bought my house I got dog fever BAD.  And it hasn't really gone away.  At first I really wanted a dog because I was a little intimidated of living alone.  I only lived there alone for about nine months before we got married but those nights were sometimes long & scary.  I definitely would have gone to the pound & got myself a puppy if I hadn't been working 14 hour days several times a week.  And to complicate matters, my yard didn't & still doesn't have a fence.  And I still don't have a dog.

But my sister's family does.  She's a pound puppy.  And we all love her to pieces.  Her name is Coco & Brennan has taught her to chase deer so she is a garden guard dog!  Any time I get a real jones-n' for a puppy of my own I go down to Beth & Brennan's house & have a romp with Coco. 

Coco says hi to all of you PharmGirl readers!

Coco goes along for all of our adventures - hiking in the woods, bike rides,
walks & runs along the country roads where they live outside of town.

Coco even came to the farm with us to celebrate Memorial Day.

Maddie & Coco are great friends.  They get their cuddle on whenever possible.

Coco even gets rides in the red wagon.

And she even looks good in black & white!

I think I might have to go down to the country tonight & get my Coco fix! 

Are you wanting a pet these days?  Or do you already have one?  Or do you have one that you wished you didn't anymore? heehee...

Our Annual Yard Sale

I consider myself super blessed because I have some friends who are yard sale junkies.  Every year they get together & have a big yard sale Saturday.  This is the second year I've been able to get in on the action.  I have always loved putting on a good yard sale but it is utterly exhausting doing it yourself.  Plus our house has a very stinky location.  Autumn's house is The Spot, if you know what I mean.

Saturday morning we were supposed to be at Autumn's house by about 6:15 to get things set up.  When I got up at about 5:30 *yawn* there was some thunder storm action going on.  We had a quick phone conference & decided to try to be set up by 8 instead of 7.  I finished getting myself together & then headed out to pick up a tanker cup of coffee & the requisite donut breakfast for me & Mike.  I had a tractor tire.  They are the grand poobah of all donuts.  Mike had a couple of Bavarian filled donuts.  I did not try to talk him into giving me a bite of one of those.  *shudder*  Whoever thought pudding should go in a donut?

 

YUM.

Thankfully the Lord answered our prayers & cleared the rain up.  The sky was cloudy & ominous & more than once we felt a sprinkle or two but mostly this was the scene in Autumn's driveway all.morning.long.  Yee to the haw, people! 

See those Dodge Ram wheels in the front right corner? 
They are still available!  Let us hook you up!

 I have never been part of a yard sale that was quite so busy for so very long.  Usually the sales wind down around noon.  We still had a few folks dropping by at 3 p.m.  We had one big rain scare that had us hauling the totes out.  We scooped all the rain affective stuff back into the totes quick as can be.  Then the bad clouds blew over & we had it all back out.  It took about 10 minutes all told.  We are like a well-oiled yard sale-ing machine!

Will made a killing selling water.  I think he earned about $2 off of me alone!

Abby & Jess took a moment to model some puppy Halloween outfits. 

Autumn, Abby, April, & PharmGirl

Yeah, my yard sale-ing friends are sisters (can't ya tell?).  We had such a good time all together on Saturday & we made a decent haul.  I made more at this sale than I think I ever have before.  We were kinda thinking that maybe we needed to schedule a fall sale.  I gotta tell you, I'm in...I still have some stuff to unload & I have tons of masking tape left so I can make many a price tag!

Have you had a yard sale this summer?  Was it a doozey?

Change is good, right?

For whatever reason, resistance to change seems to be built into our human nature.  Or at least it's alive and well in my nature.  There are some changes that I have learned to appreciate, like the changing in the seasons.  As much as I detest winter I don't think I'd be perfectly happy living somewhere that didn't have all four seasons.  It would be fine with me if the warmer seasons took up a disproportionate part of the calendar, but I would still want the change.  And I enjoy the change of pace that I regularly have with my work.  I know that I will usually work the same shift with the same guys.  I know that the day will start out working in the lab with the drugs, the drugs will be delivered, the returns will be dealt with, & then we will prepare for the next day's work.  But with all of that planned activity there are all sorts of monkey wrenches that can get thrown in.  Sometimes our supply chain gets interrupted.  This time last year we had major shortages because of two of the world's largest reactors were shut down.  Then there was the volcano in Iceland that erupted & shut down all of Europe's airports.  Every day we had a puzzle to solve to see how many doses we could supply out of our store of radioactive material.  It wasn't fun exactly but it was definitely not boring!  Another monkey wrench that can get thrown into the day's schedule is an unscheduled dose for one of our customers.  That almost always puts me on the road to make the delivery.  So when I clock in I'm just not quite sure what the day holds.  And that kind of change I like.

But there's a different kind of change that's coming to our little pharmacy on July 1st.  The location in the Big City has lost some of their business to a competitor.  We have lost some business as well just by having customers run fewer tests.  The Decision Makers have decided that the best way to handle this situation is to shift some of our business to the Big City location & make our location more of a satellite.  Acutally the official terminology is 'hub & spoke'.  They are the hub, we are the spoke (I don't know why, but that hub & spoke stuff triggers a SheDaisy song in my mind, "You got the bucket baby, I got the chicken...").  Ahem...where was I?  Ok, the Big City location will be dispensing our first run of doses, one of our drivers will go pick them up, & then we will deliver them.  One of our pharmacists will no longer be needed so he will be relocating to the Big City.  The other pharmacist & I will come in, get things going & then dispense our second run from this location.  That whole process is familiar to me because it is what we do when we have a pharmacist on vacation.  But it will be strange doing it all the time.  There are still a lot of questions in my mind about how other tasks will break down - things that are inherent parts of my job like returns processing & billing.  At this point it is most likely that the Big City location will handle all of that so that our customers can receive just one invoice.  This is not my favorite part of my job but one that I take very seriously because there should be no errors in billing.  It might be a bit hard to let go of the control.  And it concerns me that a part of my workload is going to disappear.  At this point there has been no discussion of staff changes or cutbacks.  That is encouraging.  My boss also mentioned that he would like for me to be trained as our location's Radiation Safety Officer.  This is something I would love to do.  However, he is already trained for it so there is no guarantee that his boss will think it necessary. 

It's kind of interesting.  It's kind of an easy thing to worry about - is this the beginning of the end for our location?  What if I have to work full time in retail pharmacy?!  That has crossed my mind multiple times.  But I'm constantly reassured that the Lord provided this job for me.  If it goes away it will be because He allowed it & because He has a better place for me to be.  It's all good with change when the Lord is the One orchestrating it!

What We've Been Up To

Part of what has kept me offline recently is a big project Mike is working on. 

It was something he promised his dad as a gift for last Father's Day.

It just got finished last night.

That's what I call working at a fast pace *grin*

I'm still working through some pics to make sure that I have a complete start to finish kind of report for you. 

As always, Michael did a fabulous job. 

More to come!

Successes & Failures

Call me a little weird, but I'm always on the look out for something new to eat.  I get bored easily & I've always been taught that a healthy diet embraces wide variety.  And I don't think I'm too awful picky.  There are just a few things I don't like.  For example, I am not a fan of coconut, bananas, papaya, ham (or essentially all pork products), ground hamburger, peaches...

Ok, so maybe I'm a little picky.

But I have been trying to broaden my palate lately.  Poor Mike gets dragged along.  Most of the time he isn't kicking or screaming.  And most of the time I don't try to coerce him into trying something he doesn't want to.  Most of the time...

Anyway, a couple of successes I have had recently are discovering that I love, love, love pistachios!  I had never had them before when recently a friend shared some with me.  It was love at first bite *grin*  And I like the fact that you have to pop them out of their shells.  Then you have to work to eat a whole fistful at once.  No, I don't usually snack a fistful at a time, do you? *blush*

And they make a good driving snack!

 I love yogurt.  This is something I didn't discover until college because my mom doesn't like yogurt so it never occurred to her to introduce us to it.  Now I eat it almost every day.  It's good stuff.  Recently I tried Greek style yogurt.  It's a little different.  I think the honey helps me like it.  Without the honey, no deal.  But it's packed with protein & those good bacteria bugs so it will probably become a regular resident in our fridgie.

Now for my not so success-full stories.  This past Saturday I dragged my carcass popped out of bed bright & early to hit the farmers market.  I may or may not have shoved a baseball cap over my bedhead.  I may or may not have ducked & hid when I saw some people I know.  But I know that I absolutely did pick up some farm fresh eggs, local honey, a leek, & a baby bok choy. 

Am I weird, because I kind of liked that I had to wash the wet dirt off of my produce.  It made me feel like it had been picked just that morning.

Who knew leeks had such beautiful flowers?

And here are the brief tales (I promise) of my failures:

*I used the honey to make granola bars.  I got local honey with the hopes that it would help relieve some of Mike's allergy symptoms.  This honey tastes totally different than any honey I've ever had.  It's not totally unpleasant but it didn't jive well with the granola bars.  Huh. 

*The baby bok choy was a limp noodle mess by the time I was hoping to use it.  Grrr. 

*The leek was actually kind of fun to chop down & find a recipe for.  I was going to make Garlic & Leek Mashed Potatoes.  Things were going great - I had the potatoes on to cook.  I had the garlic & leek simmering in some chicken broth & I had some milk set aside with just a touch of vinegar to make a substitute for buttermilk.  At just the right time I added the 'buttermilk' & some butter to the leeks & garlic.  What ensued was nothing short of sickening.  The milk curdled & turned into this awful snotty mess & it started to smell bad & all I could do was keep stirring in horror!  Then I checked the date on our milk & it was expired.  Then I checked the smell of our milk & it was definitely spoiled.  Yep, I added vinegar to sour milk so it was double rotted!  Ugh.  It was gross.  Super gross.  Ugh.  La La La La La Laaaa!  It's time for a subject change.

Kudos to Mike for dumping that mess out for me so I could wash the saucepan.  Otherwise the whole deal would have gone into the trash!

I won't be checking out the farmer's market with my bedhead under a baseball cap this weekend because I'll be co-hosting a yard sale with my friends Autumn, Abby, & April (yep, they are sisters!).  If you are local, come by!  We've got lots of great junk valuables to sell!