Monthly Archives: December 2023

Before, with my chubby pumpkin face:

After:

Bob wanted me to do a duplicate pose. I said, “I can’t fit in it now.”

Bob tested positive for Covid on 12/24 so the plan for today is sit around the house, do puzzles, read books, and watch movies. Steak dinner to be rescheduled.

Previous posts on this topic: 2003 and 2013.

I lost my watch. I don’t know if it would properly be called a smart watch. Maybe a fitness watch? It’s not the fanciest kind and I’ve had it at least a couple of years. I bought it to try to be more mindful of how much I walk after getting an earful at the doctor’s office.

Last week I was getting ready to jump in the shower and I realized I had it on. I yanked it off, tossed it on the bed, and never found it again.

Obviously it had to be tangled up in the bedding.

The next day Bob washed the sheets and no watch. I went through everything in the laundry room and no watch.

Over the weekend I deconstructed the entire bed area and moved everything. While I was back there I vacuumed and mopped up 20 years of flannel bedding lint. I crawled around with a flashlight. I moved everything from under the bed.

No watch.

Where on earth could it be? I figured the only explanation was it became tangled up in some clothes and dropped somewhere that we didn’t think to look.

Then came the night where I was awake at 3am and engaging in some light fretting. I had the idea that maybe it was caught up in my workout clothes.

The next day I opened the drawer and dug around and: yay! I found my watch.

It wasn’t the end of the world and I had resigned myself to just buying a new one but it was still exhilarating to find it.

I’m not retiring yet and I can’t actually see it on the horizon, but I know it is coming up.

Every month I try to purge or archive things a few things at the office. We have been in this office in 2008 and I have worked with colleague since 1999.

According to my little “this is your life” cheatsheet – I did my paralegal training in 1991 and started my first legal job in 1992. I’m overwhelmed by how much time has gone but but I guess the real attitude should be proud of all the things I’ve worked on in the last 30+ years.

I found that I have saved all my calendars going back to 1995. 1995!

My calendars are older than our law clerk. My relationship with my colleague is as old as our law clerk. She found a photo of herself as a baby on Halloween 1999 being bounced around by our boss. We started working together the next day.

Sometimes we lament getting old but it’s also fun to have all these experiences to look back on.

But back to the calendars that I forgot were even there: there’s no need to keep them but it feels weird to throw them away.

There must be a word for this is some other culture: not wanting to throw away old things even though they don’t do anything. Or maybe there is a word in our language: hoarding?

But it’s not really hoarding because I get rid of tons of stuff. I had the honor of showing our law clerk what a zip drive disk is because I found one in an ancient file. Then I tossed it.

Bob bought this fruit spread. One of the flavors is Christmas!

My Tante Irmgard lived in a very small apartment in a high rise in Germany. Once, when we were visiting, her balcony was closed due to renovations. During our visit the balcony was opened again and Irmgard opened the door to the balcony and was so happy she said, “It’s like Christmas!”

I am having a really hard time getting into the spirit. Just feel like I never have time or energy.

Also, there was an issue with my credit card and I was issued a new one and you know what that means. All my millions of autopay things pop up with a nasti-gram telling me my payment didn’t go through. Always at an awkward time, too. Like you’re just trying to get one thing done and then you have to run the gauntlet of clicking and menus and hoop jumping.

After this week I have some time off. We’ll work on the attitude then.