Victoria Laurie – go check her out!

Did you enjoy your time with Laura Lynne Jackson?

Wendy, I am so glad Drew is okay and I hope he’s recovering as well as can be expected. I also hope writing it down helped you process things. I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been.

@DW Sorry to hear that Drew isn’t healing as expected. I was hoping he was after all the trauma that happened to y’all. I hope the surgeon has answers for you today!

I will report back about the Alaska cruise but from everyone who has ever taken one that I’ve talked has said how amazing and beautiful it was! Can’t wait!

An Antarctica cruise also sounds amazing! I can’t wait to hear how that goes 🙂 And I didn’t know there was a cruise that went to the German Christmas markets…I’m going to have to look that one up. That also sounds amazing.

I think after this trip and one more we are planning for Halloween this year (going to Universal) that’s going to be for trips for awhile except for weekend trips, I think. Since our dog is now 12 and diabetic I only really trust our daughter to watch her and since she’s a nurse at a hospital (meaning 12 hour shifts) so she has to take time off to watch her. And I feel guilty having her use PTO for our vacation days.

Wendy, I hope you got some answers about Drew and will hold you guys in my thoughts. I’ve never heard of Laura Lynn Jackson, but I really like that idea. I know that since my mom passed, I have definitely felt her presence. I’m not necessarily sure what else is “out there” and I don’t ascribe to any particular religious focus or anything, but I do believe it there is something.

Also, I am so jealous about the Alaska cruise! I’ve been wanting to go on one for a long time, but the timing hasn’t worked out yet. We are thinking about going on a cruise down the Danube in November, which will be interesting if we can clear the time to go.

I can relate to feeling like I have one foot out the door. I had a very promising interview the week of our holiday party in December. The hiring manager and I all-caps VIBED. I went to our holiday party and in my head I was saying goodbye to my coworkers and thinking how bittersweet it was. The following week, I had my final interview for the job and it was where I learned about the micromanaging and tough environment. And just like that, snapped back to my reality and pulled that foot back in. As long as you’re still getting your work done well and on time, I think it’s fine to periodically check out a little mentally. My two cents.

Quick off-topic rant. I recently applied for some freelance work. I used to freelance often and it was a pretty chill extra stream of income, but I haven’t done it since being at this job. I was invited to join the freelance team, which happens to be based out of my city and in my industry, so my org is tenuously connected to the president of the company I applied with. I went to my boss to double check about a conflict of interest before responding to the invite. Today my boss and I had a quick video call where he had to tell me no and he wanted me to understand why it is a no, which has nothing to do with a conflict of interest but essentially boils down to dated company policies and an employee classification system we no longer use but are still in our policies. Employees of a certain “rank” cannot do outside work of this nature, and had I been classified under the old system, I’d likely have fallen into the higher “rank” of employees. They said they’re going to update the policies and under new policies, it’d be fine, but until they make the updates, it’s a no. I’m doubting policy updates will happen quickly… we haven’t used these employee designations in the near seven years I’ve been here and policies have not been updated to follow suit yet. And, IDK, it’s fine in that I knew it potentially would be a no-go. What I did not expect was feeling sad/bad to be told by men who make multiple times my salary that I cannot work in my free time to earn even a little bit more for myself.