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They were appreciated.
It wasn't that great of a day, mainly because during the night I realized that this was my first birthday that wasn't going to include a call from my mom, as she passed away in early September. Well, if it did include such a call, it would be kind of worse! ;-)
So it was kind of gloomy. On top of that, a week or so ago I found out that I wasn't going to get a new full-time position at work. Two of the three on the committee decided to go with another person. So I've been rather bummed about that. There's a position open at the local Air Force base, I'm going to look into that. They now have two full-time people at the library, I am decidedly feeling like a third-wheel and definitely feeling excluded from any sort of discussions of library activities and planning.
The Air Force job would also be a $1-2 an hour raise, going from $12 to $14 an hour, and possibly a full-time position. I'm not entirely clear on that, I will check into that before applying, plus there's some additional info that I'd like to ascertain.
My university had a holiday luncheon on my birthday, the 16th. It had lots of presentations on various planning things, among which was the possibility of a 7% raise, which would take me to just under $13 an hour. I could make $15 flipping burgers at Wendy's and maybe get more hours.
It's pretty depressing living in a poor state: New Mexico's economy is like 48th in the USA. And they justify paying poor wages by saying that it's inexpensive to live here. But it's not. Gas isn't free, nor is housing. Car insurance is a bit cheaper as is registration, those are the only two things that I find to be markedly less expensive than anywhere else. Anything that you buy in retail stores is mostly the same price as in any major city. They fail to recognize that you pay people better, they spend more money in the local economy, this is why I don't do things like get my pharmacy meds mail-ordered. By spending that money locally, I help pay for local jobs.
Taking off my Ranty McRanty-Face Mask, there were a couple of good things. When I got home on my birthday, there was a big box on my chair nicely wrapped. And it was HEAVY! Not impossible to lift heavy, but still respectably heavy. I had no idea what was in it. We went to a local diner for dinner and I put off opening it until we got home.
It was a FOURTEEN CUP CUISINART FOOD PROCESSOR!
I've been wanting a really good FP for so long! We have a little six cup unit which is adequate, but with the bowl being so small, it's very limited. With this one, I can make gazpacho for an entire week in one swell foop! The way the work bowl mounts is very different, though similar, to our old one. I've worked with a large one before, so it's not a big deal.
The great thing is that I can give our old one to my oldest niece and her girlfriend! She went vegetarian and it's really helped some of her health problems, and they really liked my description of my gazpacho recipe! It makes about three servings, give or take a bit, and it's easy to spice up with peppers: I think they'll be very happy with it.
I'm also giving them my black bean brownie recipe that's made in a food processor, which I expect they'll be quite happy with!
The old one does have one problem: it tends to leak a bit when you're making very soupy dishes and you have to hold down the lid tight, but it's not a big deal.
Yesterday my wife picked me up at work and we had a two hour lunch at the new local winery! We've been waiting about five years for this place to open! They have sites throughout New Mexico, they're now called Les Combes. Their food is wonderful. While their dinner menu is amazing, they have a lunch bowl that's only available week days 11-3, thus I wanted to do lunch! And on your birthday, you get free dessert! And they have CREME BRULE!
We had a wonderful birthday lunch, even if it was a day off. I can handle that.
I shot a selfie back in mid-October at White Sands and processed it with a new photo editing program, Luminar AI and made a really cool B&W, but I can't post it! I made the mistake of updating my photo gallery software and not only is something messing up my ability to upload new pix, the usually very helpful support forums have been completely silent on my posted plea for help. So I'm stuck until someone offers a solution or a new version of the software comes out, or worst possible case, I give up and install a new forum package. I don't think the third option is very likely.
So there's the birthday update for ya! Thank you all again, here's to spinning around the universe on a rock! It beats the currently available alternatives!
It wasn't that great of a day, mainly because during the night I realized that this was my first birthday that wasn't going to include a call from my mom, as she passed away in early September. Well, if it did include such a call, it would be kind of worse! ;-)
So it was kind of gloomy. On top of that, a week or so ago I found out that I wasn't going to get a new full-time position at work. Two of the three on the committee decided to go with another person. So I've been rather bummed about that. There's a position open at the local Air Force base, I'm going to look into that. They now have two full-time people at the library, I am decidedly feeling like a third-wheel and definitely feeling excluded from any sort of discussions of library activities and planning.
The Air Force job would also be a $1-2 an hour raise, going from $12 to $14 an hour, and possibly a full-time position. I'm not entirely clear on that, I will check into that before applying, plus there's some additional info that I'd like to ascertain.
My university had a holiday luncheon on my birthday, the 16th. It had lots of presentations on various planning things, among which was the possibility of a 7% raise, which would take me to just under $13 an hour. I could make $15 flipping burgers at Wendy's and maybe get more hours.
It's pretty depressing living in a poor state: New Mexico's economy is like 48th in the USA. And they justify paying poor wages by saying that it's inexpensive to live here. But it's not. Gas isn't free, nor is housing. Car insurance is a bit cheaper as is registration, those are the only two things that I find to be markedly less expensive than anywhere else. Anything that you buy in retail stores is mostly the same price as in any major city. They fail to recognize that you pay people better, they spend more money in the local economy, this is why I don't do things like get my pharmacy meds mail-ordered. By spending that money locally, I help pay for local jobs.
Taking off my Ranty McRanty-Face Mask, there were a couple of good things. When I got home on my birthday, there was a big box on my chair nicely wrapped. And it was HEAVY! Not impossible to lift heavy, but still respectably heavy. I had no idea what was in it. We went to a local diner for dinner and I put off opening it until we got home.
It was a FOURTEEN CUP CUISINART FOOD PROCESSOR!
I've been wanting a really good FP for so long! We have a little six cup unit which is adequate, but with the bowl being so small, it's very limited. With this one, I can make gazpacho for an entire week in one swell foop! The way the work bowl mounts is very different, though similar, to our old one. I've worked with a large one before, so it's not a big deal.
The great thing is that I can give our old one to my oldest niece and her girlfriend! She went vegetarian and it's really helped some of her health problems, and they really liked my description of my gazpacho recipe! It makes about three servings, give or take a bit, and it's easy to spice up with peppers: I think they'll be very happy with it.
I'm also giving them my black bean brownie recipe that's made in a food processor, which I expect they'll be quite happy with!
The old one does have one problem: it tends to leak a bit when you're making very soupy dishes and you have to hold down the lid tight, but it's not a big deal.
Yesterday my wife picked me up at work and we had a two hour lunch at the new local winery! We've been waiting about five years for this place to open! They have sites throughout New Mexico, they're now called Les Combes. Their food is wonderful. While their dinner menu is amazing, they have a lunch bowl that's only available week days 11-3, thus I wanted to do lunch! And on your birthday, you get free dessert! And they have CREME BRULE!
We had a wonderful birthday lunch, even if it was a day off. I can handle that.
I shot a selfie back in mid-October at White Sands and processed it with a new photo editing program, Luminar AI and made a really cool B&W, but I can't post it! I made the mistake of updating my photo gallery software and not only is something messing up my ability to upload new pix, the usually very helpful support forums have been completely silent on my posted plea for help. So I'm stuck until someone offers a solution or a new version of the software comes out, or worst possible case, I give up and install a new forum package. I don't think the third option is very likely.
So there's the birthday update for ya! Thank you all again, here's to spinning around the universe on a rock! It beats the currently available alternatives!
