Ten Things Tuesday

1) Birthday - Today is my birthday. That is all. There is nothing else to say except that I will be getting myself a cupcake or two from the local bakery and quite possibly even a tasty coffee drink in celebration.

2) Friend with cancer update - We went to see our friend with cancer two Saturdays ago for the first time since we learned of his diagnosis. We brought a housewarming present and our dog and stayed there for a couple of hours chatting with him and his father. Then we went again on Saturday. This time we brought a kringle and our dog. We stayed and chatted for a bit, then left Hannah and ran errands, came back and chatted. I'd like to keep going once or twice a week to check in with him and I'd like to be the person that they can rely on to run errands if they need it. He also loves Hannah and has been so happy to see her.  Basically, he seems to be doing really well, is in good spirits, and it felt really good to see him.

3) Staycation - I took this whole week off and the thought of not checking my email is amazing.

4) Visitor - One of the reasons I took the week off is because one of my best friends is coming to visit me! I literally have not made a single plan for us, but I imagine there will be lots of talking about doing things, but actually just sitting on the couch.

5) Agnes update - I went and got our older car an oil change. And that's done. (I also replaced a headlight and a license plate light.)

6) Manuals gone - Pre-pandemic, I used to teach test preparation for one of the larger test prep companies. They closed the office in Madison in 2019 and my hours kept declining precipitously, but I loved that job and was good at it, so I kept on keeping on until it went down to nothing. So for the last two years, I've had two entire bookshelves full of manuals and paperwork for that job. I went through them on Sunday and recycled all of them. If I ever work for that company again, I'll have to be retrained and they'll have to give me new, updated materials, so there was no use in me keeping it all. It felt amazing to clean it all out.

7) ROTE - One of the reasons that I wanted to clean out those bookshelves was that I used an old gift card from dogsitting several summers ago to buy the entire Realm of the Elderlings saga in paperback and needed somewhere to put all those books. I think a reread will be happening relatively soon.

8) Television - Dr. BB and I have been doing a Buffy/Angel rewatch and we're on the last season of Angel now and I honestly have no idea what we're going to watch next. This is the largest cause of marital tension in our house!  Do you have any suggestions for television shows available on either Netflix or Prime?  

9) References - I did the interview for a job I'd really like to get on the 3rd. One of my references told me that someone had reached out to him for a reference last week. That's a good sign, right?  Please tell me it's a good sign!

10) Bird picture - Dr. BB was in Iowa a couple of weeks ago visiting his dad, who has recently sold his house and is looking to move at the end of the summer. All of this to say, his dad is trying to get rid of things and we ended up with a picture of a burning ship and a picture of two cardinals in a winter pine. I banished the ship picture to the office and the cardinals sit in our dining room and looks amazing.