Early rise

I'm up bright and early this morning, thanks to kitty. While he's doing so much better sleeping with us all night, this morning he was awake an hour earlier than I get up. He did move up and snuggle up to my chest, purring very loudly the whole time, for about a half hour. Then he got restless, which was making the dog, laying on the floor next to my side of the bed restless. So, I got up and now have an extra half hour before I start work. Of course now kitty is laying on my desk, sleeping

Below my extra monitor is a stack of various papers - mail I need to do something on soon, my folder with lottery tickets dh insists we buy, etc. The little box with the $100 Visa gift card from my boss was sitting on top of it. I was looking for the paper for when I prepaid my propane for the winter and there was a gift card mixed in. I thought the one my boss gave me was still in the box. What's this one? something old I didn't throw out? I looked on the back to see what website to check balance. The first try gave me an error message and try again. Second try showed it zero balance. ok...it must be an old card I never tossed....

Then I opened the box from boss and it was empty, so ok, this is the gift card she gave me (It does say $100 on it). But zero balance and showed no transactions? I swear I hadn't spent it on anything yet. Did I and forget? But then why wouldn't it show the transaction on the card info online? I entered the card info a 3rd time and then it worked. Showed the $100 balance available. Whew!

I finally just cancelled my Amazon Subscribe and Save. You need 5 items and half of them (dog stuff) hasn't been in stock to ship in like almost 6 months. I'm just going to switch back to Chewy. They have the dog food, the Cosequin for him, and the big 40lb box of cat litter I use. Everywhere else I can get this dog food always has it in stock, not sure what Amazon's problem has been with it. But, it's not very "set it and forget it" when I have to keep finding it elsewhere.

DH was trying to rest a bit yesterday and then decided to be a little productive, but about all's he did was waste time, LOL. He parks the quad/plow in the garage. Once he's done plowing and parks it, it drips a terrible mess all over the floor. He tried using a big old leftover piece of our carpeting, but it got too wet and soggy. Then he was researching some kind of rubber liner/tray type thing, but they are stupid expensive. He decided to take the big indoor/outdoor floor mat that is in the garage when you walk in the regular door and move it under the quad to collect the water and move the piece of carpet to the door. Then he decided to move the freezer where the boot bench is. Then wasn't sure what to do with the boot bench. Got everything moved around and then decided to move it all back, LOL. But, he is hoping the indoor outdoor rug will work better under the quad. Plus, when dirt in the snow is left on it he can either let it dry and vacuum it up or even spray wash it all off easily.

Then he spent the evening watching some racing online. It's a week long event, so yay - he'll be kept busy every evening this week, haha :) I discovered the "channel" he subscribes to watch it on has an app for tv and offered he could watch it on the big tv, but he declined. Likes to sit at his computer and watch on one screen and do his internet surfing on his other screen. 

A girl we've known since she was a kid, who is now 30, just had her first baby. OMG, she is the cutest little baby. I don't think I'm going to be a grandma. I don't think dd and SIL plan to have kids. When asked she is usually kind of vague, but says "I don't think so". They want to build a house in the near future and showed us the floor plan they were looking at. It's a ranch style home, with basically 2 master suites and the 3rd room is an office, so no bedrooms for kids. She always says their 3 pets is enough for them. 

SIL is interviewing for a new position within the company they work for. He's been in his current position for like 5 years now and for some reason his supervisor will not bump him up to the next "level", which means more pay. When he got the position he asked about that level (this is a HUGE company, so they have lots of "levels") and was told he was 6 months shy of the required " time of experience". Well dang, like he says - he's WAY past that amount of job experience now. Plus, half the time he fills in for the "lead", but doesn't get the job title or pay. So, he put in for a different job in a different dept and has an interview this week for it. It would also be a mostly work from home position, which is appealing now. DD is still working from home. Not sure she will ever have to go back to the office. Her job is all computer work and can obviously be done from home. 

And it's payroll processing day.....typical problems, as usual. Somehow there is Holiday pay in the system for 1/1, which is a Saturday and we don't work weekends, so that shouldn't be there. And I have asked a question for clarification from our payroll advisor like 3 times now and still she gives me answer and information on everything but my question. I'm not sure why - she's usually really good about answering my questions. Have I mentioned that when I have had to talk to her on the phone she sounds EXACTLY like Jennifer Lopez? LOL. I mean exactly (and apparently she's from the same area, haha).

We've let 2 employees go this past week due to poor performance. One just started last Sept and I'll be she has worked not more than a month out of the 4 she was employed. Not sure what took so long to get rid of her, but I'm sure it's tricky firing people. The other one is getting let go today with a weeks severance, so now I have to figure out how to add that. I've only done it once before and can't recall how it was done/which code to use.

I see my 401k did 10.11 % rate of return for last year. Better than it usually seems to get and much better now that I have it in the right "earnings group" for a bit more aggressive earnings that it unknowingly got put into when we switched 401k companies.

I'm doing a better job making sure my phone is charged at all times. I've also been trying to plug it in at my desk, where I have a charger plugged into a USB on my computer. But, I swear every time I plug it in I have to unplug it to use my phone for something, or I need to go downstairs for something (dh is always calling me to ask something or get help with something) so I take my phone with, in case I get a work call or message. 

The other thing I have been doing the past couple of evenings is getting my cup of coffee ready to brew for the next morning. I have a Keurig and I use my own coffee grounds in an adapter cup (much cheaper). I have a couple of adapters that I clean out and always have a clean one ready. The first thing I do when I get up is let the dog out the laundry room door. Then fill up his bowl and let him back in to eat. Then I stumble into the kitchen and fill the little k-cup with coffee and half the time spill it over the edge in my not awake yet fumbling. So, now I've been filling the k-cup with the ground and setting it in the keurig. Putting my coffee cup underneath with the 2 teaspoons of sugar in the bottom of the cup. Now I just turn it on to brew and dispense. Give it a stir and add my creamer. Saves time in the morning too, haha.