Tag: office

MY ROCKS!

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 3 Comments on MY ROCKS!

To really capture the excitement I have over these fabulous rocks, let me transcribe the text messages my three besties and K’s biologist S.O. got from me today: Ehem:

~~~~~~~~~begin~~~~~~~~~

“OH MY GOD. I got my rocks and they are better than I imagined!”

**Insert five more pictures of close ups of the various color groupings — ask if you want to see those***

“There’s three types of Obsidian and they’re so distinct! The Gold Sheen Obsidian doesn’t look special until you hold it up to the light and, well, gold!”

“And what’s the Blue Sand Stone that looks like GLITTER”

“Hematite is heavy as fuck”

“The Opal is so gorgeous”

“OH MY GOD, you have to come over so I can show you my favorites”

“Look at the glitter in this one!”

“This is genius marketing. Like, I know these are the chips that come off [when they’re] making those carved stone skulls and angels and shit. They took their scrap and marketed it and I AM HERE FOR IT.”

“Look at this Citrine!” ***Insert picture of Citrine***

“Look at this, it’s pure black when not in the light”

“Oh and Louie got a window bed in my office”

“Opal was moms favorite”

~~~~~~~~~end~~~~~~~~~

So needless to say, I was so excited! I’ve wanted these for months. And they weren’t expensive — Click here for the amazon listing for $41.99 plus a $5off coupon you can click. Gift giving season was coming up and I thought they were a good price point for a gift. They were at the TOP of my wishlist. Birthday, Christmas — Husband got me the shelves I picked for them to go on for my birthday, but no one gifted me the rocks! I figured surely husband would get the Christmas. Nope. It might be the fucking lame ass marketing. The Amazon name is “Consine Witchcraft Supplies, A Set of 49 Different Gemstones Crystals in Glass Bottles, Crystal Chip Natural Reiki Healing Stones, Random Stuff Witch Crystals for Meditation Therapy and Witchy Decor”

I suppose they are getting those hippy hits and all the Wiccans with this advertising, but some of us just like rocks, OKAY? Geology is fucking amazing! I can’t afford to actually own all of these beautiful stones. It would be an awesome collection though. It would also be a bit disorderly with stones of different sizes, and how would I label them? But when I saw THIS? Oooooooo ho ho. All the rocks in beautiful uniform little glass jars? Fuck yes. Give it to me.

Fucking genius marketing. Taking SCRAPS and selling them off. They just tossed their scraps in a tumbler (some aren’t even tumbled, actually — but most are).

The little jars are only 2 inches tall. I scoured Amazon for the perfect shelves for them. Honeycomb shelves! Are they made for Essential Oils? Yes. Fucking hippies all up in my shit. Husband gifted me the shelves for my birthday and they look great in my office! I even bought a cheap package of empty vials to set on the shelves (click for link. $8.99 I need an affiliate thing) — but I also plan to fill them with other things. Maybe other stones? Sand from Florida; Sand from Maine. Two are already filled with broken bracelets — one is pearls of different colors.

NOW LOOK AT MY OFFICE!

Of course, I already need more shelves. Maybe for Valentines 😉 Though I can’t find the white on Amazon anymore, so I might have to get the brown (click) and paint them all a uniform white.

I arranged the rocks by color for the shelves. First black to white to browns:

Then the prettiest shelf is reds to pinks to oranges to yellow to greens:

Then flowing with the rest of the greens into the blues and purple:

Are the labels jank? Yes. Yes they are. I might fix them at some point. It would be a lot of effort. But I could get some cute tiny printable labels (maybe in silver or gold?) and print them. Then put them on STRAIGHT and at the same level all across. That would also cover the miscellaneous jars I add. It’s an option I am considering. I was going to shelve them with the labels facing the wall, however, I don’t know their names. I also want to show people my favorites. As you can see from the shelf pictures, the Gold Sheen Obsidian and Blue Sandstone are AMAZING in the sunlight, but look bland and black on the shelf. Same with the Garnet and Blood Stone (though it’s more the lighting in the picture for the Blood Stone).

So yes, I am THRILLED. I love them. Guess what else? I rearranged my office today. My desk was facing the window. Theoretically, so I could look out the window. But work let me borrow these huge-ass monitors and I see no window. Also, Feng Shui says you should face the door to be in a position of power.

So I rotated my desk. Now I’m facing the closet and door — really the closet. But, the closet is blocked by my monitors. Now I’m sitting right next to the window with a nearly full view of the pool. And to my left is my wall of happiness — including my rocks.

And believe it or not, I also knocked a big very visible work task off my list today. I fucking love my office. You know what I can do? ADD CAT SHELVES. Husband won’t let me anywhere — BUT NOW I HAVE MY OWN ROOM.

OH MY GOD!

PS: Link to Louie’s new bed. He fucking loves it. Came with two covers that velcro on. No screws or anything required. You do have to have a functional window that opens though. It hooks into the window slot and braces against the wall. Oh the price has gone up to $22.90 since I ordered it — still totally worth. Clicky.

PS #2: I’m trying to change directorates (kinda like getting a new job completely — just less paperwork). If it works out, maybe they’ll let me work more than 2 days from home a week!

PS #3: On researching Blue Sandstone:

“Blue Sandstone (also known as Blue Goldstone) is a man-made stone made up of natural minerals (quartz sand, copper, gypsum and feldspar) Although this stone is man-made, its infused with naturally occurring minerals found in nature”

“Are you referring to the dark blue stone with a shimmering/sparkly star-like effect? If so, it’s also referred to as “blue goldstone” and a couple of other names.

This material is primarily silica glass. Some people make the glass from sand, which is why one name used is sandstone. The elements used change the colour; I think blue goldstone uses cobalt instead of the copper used in the brown version.”

Tasting that Telework Life

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment on Tasting that Telework Life

I’ve been tasting the telework life, and yall, it is sweet. I’ve been given permission to work two days a week from home. So I chose Monday and Tuesday. Then last week, we were iced in and had to work from home all week long. It was fucking amazing.

I can sleep super late because I don’t have to get dressed or drive in. I can wake up and be on a meeting in 5 minutes. Does that piss Louie off because he has to wait for his breakfast? Yes, it does piss him off.

Also, I can be comfortable. I have a foot rest under my desk. I fucking love having my feet up. And no ones gonna creep up and catch me talking to myself or fucking around or just looking like shit. Plus, I love my office! It’s the board game room. I added some shelves to move the books off of the game shelves and sprinkle in my own things. And I love my shelves of nick-knacks!

Today, I did some more obsessive tweaking of where everything goes. I wanted to make room for my yarn stash for crochet. I have a ton of yarn for the never-ending Christmas blanket, plus the leftovers from other projects. I moved around the books too. I rearranged the crappy mis-matched books by height and it looks much better. And I moved some shelves around that were stuff before and made them books so the stuff is more spread out. Don’t worry. If I need more space, I will not hesitate to buy another cheap Target shelf.

Yes, the pillow is on the floor so Louie has more room in the chair. He was crowded, OK?

I love my office. I love stuff. Stuff stuff stuff. I’m a stuff person. I mean do you SEE The Professional Leon-Mario crossover down there waiting to assassinate someone? Lord Concord, Star Trek Figures, my Mini Masters Jayne? All my Witcher books, that was an adventure! Notes from mom, photo booth photos of Husband and I. And my precious Penny Arcade Goombas I traded for at PAX! I got that little orange elephant keychain with mom when I took her to the chinese lantern festival at the Botanical Gardens! D & C were there and we ate at the Highway Kabbobery food truck while we watched a live martial arts play in the grass. Baby Yoda is wearing my wedding tiara that I’m wearing in that photo there — the famous texas hair photo of my momma.

There’s other stuff in there too. There’s the giant stuffed blue shell K2 gave me on the game shelf. And my desk has a sweet Bob Ross bobble head circled with the glass worry beads mom brought me back from Greece. Also the Goomba Fate sent and a special edition Funko Pop set of Crowley and Aziraphile. Plus a fake succulent with a tiny goomba tucked in the center. Like a wheres-waldo but with goombas.

I even have a light up cat ball that K gave me for Christmas. I had to plugged into the monitor and yall, I’m so stupid. So I have two huge new government issued monitors. I plugged the cat ball in to one. It happens to be the one that just won’t be turned on by the dock. The right monitor springs to life every time, but you have to turn the left one off and back on again for it to recognize it has a signal. The power button happens to be by the cat ball. So I noticed the cat ball turns itself off after a while — nice feature. Also, it appeared to detect motion to turn itself on as it would come on when I put my hand near it … to … turn on … the monitor … that it was … powered by … Ooooohhhhhhhhhh… I’m dumb.

Anyway. I have a JOB INTERVIEW Friday! It’s still government so it would just be a simple transfer with barely any paperwork. I could get away from my clusterfuck team! I bet I could be more than 2 days a week at home too! I HOPE I GET IT. And that it doesn’t suck if I do get it.

Tour My Office!

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I have an office now! I’m very excited about it. Back when I worked from home at my last job, I bought a desk on Facebook Marketplace. I just shoved it up against the window in the guest room and turned the bed sideways to make it work. It worked but I did not like it. It was nice that Jack slept on the bed behind me though. But I hated the bed looking terrible being sideways and the desk shoved up against the curtains that I had hung and even installed pretty adorable globes in.

Most people at my current job work from home. You have to come in at least one day a week. If you want to keep your desk, you have to come in three days a week. I haven’t had a ton of work to do, so I haven’t wanted to work from home. But now that I have a steady stream of work, I filed the paperwork. I still want to keep my cube space at work, so I’ll be working Mondays and Tuesday from home. I did last week, but only half days as I had in-person meetings both mornings. So tomorrow is like my first day from home!

Check out my office:

This room was always the “game room.” When we moved in, we put those old three shelves in here and all of our games and books. When we got a king sized bed, we put our old bed in here and made mom’s room mom’s room and this room the guest room. Well, we don’t need two guest rooms, so I asked husband if I could make it my office. He said I could! So K&K came over and we moved beds!

I don’t have to have my desk scrunched against the window now. I added some short shelves and bam! I bought that stuff organizer you see on top of the shelf by the window. I gathered all the miscellaneous electronics and bits all over the house and gave them a home. All the wires, battery backups, chargers, ipods, earbuds, adapters, wireless speakers, camera zoomy things, old tablets, USB drives, chromecast, Sphero — organized. You wanna see something extremely satisfying? Check this out:

Isn’t it beautiful? I just want to stare at it. Look at that organization. It pleases me greatly. It’s smaller than a book. But holds all my cables. Why do I have 5 short USB type B cables? No idea. I’ve got USB extenders, Audio extenders, USB C wires, plug adapters, various other adapters. A whole junk drawer of wires in perfect alignment. Yes. Praise Jesus. Look, here’s the Amazon link. For $10 it is SEVERELY underselling its usefulness. They’re selling it for travel. No; sell if for junk drawers. Those are your people.

That shelf also has all my boxes of cards and some miscellaneous bins I got from cleaning out moms rooms. It’s an organization shelf. Giving homes to shit that didn’t have homes before. ORGANIZATION.

As I said, this has always been the “Game Room.” We call it that because it’s where we hoard our board game collection. With my addition of a few more shelves, I was able to get all the books and other junk off of these shelves (except for my craft bag of junk there on the left). So that gave me room to spread the games out and actually showcase some. Like the out-of-print Formula De that I ordered husband from a chick in England. I like how on the top left, I stood up Cat Lady and Leaving Earth (with a rocket ship). I told husband that’s me and him. Those puzzles on the bottom were mommas. The doors one hasn’t even been done. It was her last Christmas present.

So these shelves are where it kinda becomes MY office. First, let’s get the inflation comment out of the way. That shelf in the middle? Same shelf from the same store. Cost more than the others but shrunk in depth and height. Yep.

I had to move all the miscellaneous books over here and I thought it would look like shit. Especially because I also gathered up the sprinkling of books we had all over the house (Husband is a reader). I think I did really good though! And now I have a place for my favorite tchotchkes! I’ve always been a fan of making my work desk homey and comfortable. But now that I have MY OWN OFFICE, I could bring some home. Obviously, most of them stayed at work (Like my voodoo Dammit Doll). But I brought home my favorites that are more valuable that I’d be heart broken if someone stole them. Like the Good Omens Pops you can spy by my monitors in an earlier picture. Here we also have a Star Trek homage with a RARE tribble. That’s right, that red headed bastard was only available as a loot crate exclusive. And my Mini Masters Jayne Cobb figurine! He was a gift. Oh and my goomba on top of the Witcher books. Also this is the only place Grogu (Baby Yoda) has ever made sense. He’s a damn good quality toy. The sculpting is top notch. I just never had a place for him. He looks great here!

There’s a magnetic dry erase board on the wall with a few notes from momma. Oh and those are battery operated candles. There’s one lit in that blue Moroccan lantern. I have a plan for the wall too. I have my Amazon wish list stocked with some hexagon shelves and some gemstone jars.

I love me some pretty rocks. This is a cool way to have all the gemstones but affordably and orderly and labeled!

Don’t those look gorgeous? 49 different gemstone types in adorable little 2 inch apothecary jars with cork tops! Don’t you think they’d look so great lined up in some little white beehive hexagon shelves? I do hope someone will get them for me for my birthday or Christmas. I’m a little worried no one will gift me the GORGEOUS gemstones because they’re advertised and sold as witchcraft supplies. I’m not a witch, I just really like rocks, OK? Also if White Howlite really does tell negative energy to “fuck off” like the lady at the tattoo expo told me, how is that bad?

Work Conversation

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Possible future conversation:

“<Mrs C>, did you merge code with nothing in the comment but ‘yay’?”

“Probably.”

“That’s not a meaningful commit message.”

“It is to me.”

Speaking of work conversations, I miss them.  When I come into work, I walk into a small open lab with three other people.  I say “hey.”  I’m always met with silence.  Good morning to you too, fuckers. 

I miss work lunches and light-hearted afternoon conversations.  I miss liking the people I work with enough to invite them over to play board games.  My three true friends are all people I met at various jobs.  When you’re an adult, that’s usually where you meet new people. 

Half of my team has already moved from the shared work space to the cubicles.  It happens to be the most talkative people on the team, and my two favorite team members.  Meanwhile, I’m still in the lab with DeBitch.  So I think it will improve when the last of us finally get moved into the cubicles.  Which is always “soon.”  It’s been “soon” since October.  At least I won’t be face to face with DeBitch all day.  Then theoretically I start my NEW contract on October.  With a whole new workplace and a whole new team and a whole new job working on shit I actually know about.  COME ON, OCTOBER!