In an effort to be a little more security conscious, I recently made some small changes to my finances. I use my debit card a lot – but that doesn’t have the same kind of protections as a credit card. So, I signed up for one of those through my bank. I’ll get a little cash back on that and I also bumped up my savings account to get a little better return.
As soon as the card comes in, I’m also going to freeze my credit. Which is annoying since it was the credit companies that screwed things up and it costs money to put a freeze on – and to undo it later as well.
On the plus side, the guy that I worked with at my bank was very helpful – even if he was about 12 years old.
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Yesterday was Operation Evergreen with the UA students for Make a Difference Day. We had a room-full of students putting together kits of ornaments to send to troops overseas that can’t make it home for the holidays – and I was on hand churning out origami ornaments. One of my coworkers and her husband wanted to learn how to make some items and I taught them birds, stars, and Christmas trees.
One of the tables of students wanted to try some as well, so I grabbed some paper and headed over. I’ve taught a lot of people origami over the years, and it turns out that college students are among some of the easiest to teach. Their brains are in a full-on learning mode and they’ve got the language and dexterity to work quickly and accurately. (Ironically, I just typo-ed the last word of that sentence).
The first thing we did was a crane. They did really well with it and one of the last steps is to fold the beak – though I hadn’t said what that fold was about, only that we were near the end. One of the guys asked if we needed to do that on the other side – since symmetry is pretty obvious in origami.
“No – it would then have two beaks,” I told him and he looked puzzled for a moment, then he rotated the model just so and his eyes lit up.
“I see it!” he exclaimed and I could almost hear the click when the paper suddenly became something else. Something with a beak and wings.
After that, they were all excited to keep going and we made a star and worked together on Christmas trees.
They thanked me and I took a break to rest my hands.
That click, though. I do enjoy when that happens.
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We’ve been a little short staffed at work recently and one day last week it sort of came to a head. Due to illness, scheduling, and vacations, I ended up being solo on the webteam for the day. And for part of the day, we only had one operator.
It was weird and quiet, and a little dark, for the day. I ended up being pretty productive, but I was nervous too. If anything had gone wrong, well, I would have been hosed.
I got through the day without incident and things were back normal – or our version of normal – the next day. It was weird, though.
And quiet.
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It was trick-or-treat night yesterday in my neighborhood. I didn’t realize it was happening until I was on my way out the door to go get dinner and though I had some candy I wasn’t around to give any out.
It was a little stressful to get around the neighborhood – lots of cars and people crossing streets randomly. The narrow streets and parked cars didn’t help – it was a bit of a madhouse.
If I’d been giving out candy, or had gone to a costume party, or even carved those pumpkins on my front porch I might have had a different attitude. But I didn’t do any of those things and I was just annoyed by the whole thing.
Which worries me a bit. I used to be “all-in” for Halloween. And I used to be all-in on a lot of things that I don’t do anymore. I wonder what happened to make me trend even further towards “not doing” as the default.
Maybe I need to put up a Christmas tree this year…. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Or maybe I just need to plan another kick-ass costume for next year. Plenty of time to track down where I left my motivation before Halloween comes back around.