Frog and Goat

I think I may have been threatened at work today. Seriously, someone told me to stay out of the way because she didn’t want me helping another person that we work with to get a job accomplished. She told me that by failing you learn. That may be true for some things, but we’re talking about getting a project done at work, not learning a life lesson. Unless learning a life lesson is how to get along with others, especially people you don’t particularly like, to get a common goal accomplished.

We’re a learning organization so I take teaching seriously. It isn’t just a matter of writing training classes so we can spread the word from on high. I actually, crazy as it sounds, think you should walk the talk. If we’re going to be a learning organization then that means the teaching and the learning are internal too. How could I be in this field and torture myself with grad school in adult learning if I didn’t actually believe this to be true and want to help someone learn how to do whatever it is that needs learning? It doesn’t mean I’m going to spoon-feed them or do their job. It means I’m going to guide them through the process and help them learn by doing. Not a tough concept really.

So, what do I do when threatened? I take the high road and then plot like mad to make sure a big cup of comeuppance is served. The project will rock the casbah and the mentored will know what she needs to do in the future to carry a course on her own. The bully in all of this will just have to take a sip of this.

I have two class sessions left and then it is sweet, lazy sailing until the middle of January when all hell breaks loose with regards to school.

I had every intention of spending my long holiday weekend working on the last projects due for class and I think I spent a total of an hour working on homework. One of the things I did instead of working on my paper was to tackle the stack of papers that had started to take over the world. I had stacked all my paperwork from Spring semester on the floor and just kept piling the crap on. Somehow organizing that disaster area and recovering the floor space took up quite a bit of time. I’m not usually quite so slovenly but eh, it happens. Since the majority of the crap on the floor was actual school work, I suppose I could say I spent a little more than 2 hours on school work this weekend.

One of the things I must finish before the sweet end of the semester is a poster. I don’t think I’ve made a poster since I made tons of them in college to attract people to dorm events. There’s a lot more riding on this poster than whether people show up to a kegger. I think I’ll leave the crudely drawn letters and stupid drawings off this poster.

I also have to write the second section of a program plan. I have to figure out budgets and marketing ideas (mmm, maybe a big poster with witty slogans) and I just don’t want to. I consider the first section of the plan to be super fine and this last part is just something I’ll type up and struggle with this week. The brilliant part is that now that the holidays are upon us I have more free time at work and will be filling up that new thumb drive with documents and sneak in work on my paper whilst at my desk (insert evil slacker laugh here).

And, finally, I have to turn in a reflective essay about how I feel about my education. The professor reads, makes comments and I squirrel it away to refer to it later when my time finally comes to graduate. I did spend the better part of my morning churning that paper out. It was much harder to write this one since I didn’t have a bunch of angst and general pissedoffness going on like I did last semester.

Well, it’s that time of year again. Yes, that’s right, the better-half soaked and then cooked a country ham (low and slow, mind you) earlier this week.

Doesn’t this shot of the ham sort of look like a great big cake?

The better-half slices. The first slices went right into our mouths and the subsequent slices went right into scrambled eggs.

OK, it’s not enough that it is chilly outside, but it also has to be rainy and windy. Brilliant.

The university that employs me gave everyone a half-day. I walked over to campus early this morning and the place was dead. I wonder how many classes were actually held this morning. The coffee shop in between where I work and the campus had more employees than customers. While there, I had the fumbling experience of having to check jeans pockets and rain jacket pockets for my two bucks. How embarrassing would that have been? Take money out of wallet, put in pocket, walk over to coffee house, order coffee, wonder what happened to cash, walk out empty handed and with killer death rays from employees. Luckily I found the money, obtained coffee goodness, and tromped over to the other building for a meeting.

On the way back to my office, I saw a person getting a speeding ticket. Felt a little bit of schadenfreude since I get sick of people speeding down Main Street–hey, city street,pedestrians everywhere, get a clue.

Yesterday, after working in the yard, I really wanted something warm and hearty for dinner. I decided to let the ingredients be my guide (we watch Chef at Home on Discovery and can’t stop saying that we’ve let the ingredients be our guide).

We had a large pork loin in the refrigerator that we bought a few days ago and I wanted to cut it into smaller pieces and freeze for later use. Yesterday afternoon I sliced it into two 2lb pieces and then froze the other piece. I went on a pantry hunt to see what was available.

Here’s what I came up with. Sorry, didn’t measure a thing so this is all really a guess but the results were pretty darn amazing.

2lb pork loin, brown in 2 tbs of canola oil. Let it get nice and brown.

Remove pork to a plate and turn off heat because you haven’t cut up anything yet.

Chop a clove of garlic and throw it into the pan. Chop half of an onion and throw it into the pan.

Use up the dried red and green bell peppers from Penzey by reconstituting them in container filled with a mini bottle of white wine. The pan should be on by now at medium/medium high heat. After about 5 minutes throw the peppers into the pan. I would guess 1-2 small bell peppers finely chopped.

Remove the skin from a carrot and then slice and turn into matchsticks (thin matchsticks) throw them into the pot. Make sure the wine starts boiling off but not all the way–by about half. Add thickly sliced three medium to small yukon gold potatoes pretty close to the time the peppers go in. Add a cup of dried cherries and stir.

Add a healthy dose of chipotle powder. 1 tbs is a nice burn. Stir and then put the pork and its juices back into the pan. Add a cup of Southern Comfort into the mix and then a can of red enchilada sauce. Stir, flip pork and let it go into a good hot simmer for at least 30 minutes. Then let simmer on low for another hour or however long you can stand to wait.

The sauce got nice and thick and the interplay between sweet and spicy was pretty darn close to perfect. I served with a cauliflower recipe found here. I didn’t have exactly everything called for in the recipe but it turned out to be excellent and I’d make it again.

So, my brother-in-law who lives nearby totally rocks. On Saturday, he helped the better-half rip out our old front door and replace it with a new one and did the same for the door off our family room and onto the porch. These doors aren’t small 36-inchers either. The front door has side lights and the back door is a large glass French door.

Yesterday I planted eight or more shrubs/trees that have been sitting in large pots for no less than six months (and some for years). I have to say my arms are a little worn out today from all the digging and busting through old roots. I know the pain I’m feeling now is a small price to pay for what I hope will be Amazing Landscaping™ as the shrubs and trees grow into the space.

On tap for today? One very boring meeting that crosses the lunch hour and there will be no lunch provided. Who sets up meetings like that? After that meeting, I have another one to attend later in the afternoon. I have more meetings this week than I’ve had all month. I guess people see a short week on the calendar and just think up ways to pack in meetings.

Here’s what’s on my desk:

And, no I won’t be on a short-list for Photoshop prizes.

I used to work in HR for a mid-sized regional bank that was swallowed up by a large regional bank that was swallowed up by a really big freaking financial services organization. The mid-sized bank is actually the one who unleashed those kings of junk mail marketing, “what’s in your wallet”, folks on the world (sorry).

While the mid-sized bank was being swallowed up we referred to it as the Borg coming to town. I stayed for a little while in the Collective and then moved on.

Perhaps you have to have worked for a large regional bank and gone through upsizing, rightsizing or whatever it’s called these days to dig this clip, but it cracked me up and made me think if our Road Shows had been this cool, I may have been a good little Borg for longer.

The better-half built a bookcase for me. I stained it over the weekend and we put it in the room this afternoon. When he builds a bookcase, he builds it to last. We nearly died hauling it out of the garage, around the house and up the stairs. When we finally got it in the house, I asked him if he thought the floor upstairs was reinforced enough so we wouldn’t wake up with the bookcase downstairs. I’m a sweet and loving wife, yes I am.

I put a textbook on the shelf so you’d have an idea of scale. It is a big, bad bookcase and I’m thrilled to have storage.