Are you as confused as I? - The We-Wu for October 28 - November 1, 2024

Okay, let’s get this out of the way.

Does anyone else get these from their doctor? Like, there I am, just innocently checking in for my doctor’s appointment, and BAM! Someone’s asking me how I want other people to talk about me behind my back. Because honestly, when do we use pronouns? When the person we’re talking about isn’t there. Like, if I were to tell you that Sarah and I went on some great walks this week, I could then say that she and I had some great chats with people in the office. I wouldn’t say “Hey, she/her!” when she’s standing in the doorway of my office. Because that’s ridiculous. I guess if she was spying on me and heard me using she/her pronouns and for some reason got annoyed by that, I’d counter by asking why she was spying on me in the first place. But I’d do that by saying, “Hey Sarah. Why are you spying on me?” not “Hey, she/her. Why is her spying on me?” I guess I could go the Gollum route and just call everyone It. “It burns us, precious! Why does it cry?” I just find the whole thing dumb.

Anyway.

(Also, how do you have unknown pronouns? Can you not just look down and figure it out? Although I did just learn this week that you can identify as one of 24 genders in Scotland now. And guess what? Man or woman aren’t listed! You can find the complete list (for now) here, although why you’d want to, I have no idea. This whole thing is ludicrous.)

Okay. I’m really done with that now.

It was purple week! It started Sunday when I was dying a pair of pants.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a few weeks now. I had a pair of light green pants that somehow picked up some blotches in the wash. Probably because I am not a Holly Homemaker. But I tried a couple things to get them out and didn’t succeed. So then I thought I’d get some dye and see if that countered the blotches. I really like these pants. They are very comfortable. Obviously, I chose purple.

And it worked! I’m wearing them today. We’ll see how much dye transfers to my legs. Could be fun! Maybe I’ll tell people I have a weird disease.

Anyway, I pulled out another purple pair of pants on Monday and just kinda continued the theme. It worked out well since my costume on Thursday ended up being purple as well.

I’m not much of a Halloween person. My dad doesn’t like the whole history of it (fair), and we tended to go the church route of calling Halloween parties Harvest parties. (I guess it makes it better?) Anyway, I do like candy, and I like to dress up and have fun sometimes, so I pulled out the most work appropriate costume I had (ask me about my Tigger onesie sometime) and wore that. I was the perfect Lady.

That dress did come in handy because I ended up using the tie on it to wrap around my finger as a reminder to do something. It doesn’t happen a lot, but as we’re wandering the halls, Sarah and I often get stopped by others who need stuff from us. Or we visit particular people to get stuff because we like to be efficient with our forays upstairs. Anyway, someone asked me for Train & Multiply and Village Church Planting materials, so I wrapped the string around my finger in order to remember that I had something to do when I made it back to my office.

Do you have something like that to help you remember things? I read somewhere that the more doors you walk through or thresholds you cross, the more likely you are to forget something along the way. And there are a lot of doors between upstairs and downstairs. Anyway, I remembered that I was supposed to do something, but it took me a minute to remember what it was. But I prevailed! And I printed the materials and then briefed a couple of our development people on the programs today. I do like talking about T&M, so that also helps me remember things.

(By the way, Sarah is helping me come up with things to write about for the week. She’s sitting in my office writing down a list of notable things. Mostly, I think she just doesn’t want to go back to her office and work. I can’t say I blame her. She did finish her newsletter this week, so it’s not like she hasn’t been earning her keep. Anyway, most of the rest of this is a product of her efforts to remind me of things that happened.)

So let’s play Tribond. What do the Yankees, office phones, and my weight have in common?! They’re all LOSERS!

Okay, so the Yankees. Yes, I’m a Yankees fan. I’ve been a Yankees fan since 1999, and you’re not going to shame me for that. I may not have known what I was getting into, but I’m fully aware now. I’ve been to the Bronx stadium. I made it through the A-Rod years. And this latest season is just one in a long line of high hopes and crushing disappointment. We will readjust, spend a few more billion, and come back next year. Hopefully not swinging at absolutely everything like Aaron Judge.

Office phones! Since I started here, I’ve had a phone in my office. My extension has been 371. I could probably count the number of times someone has called me and actually meant to talk to me personally on two hands and two feet. But the latest news from IT has me a bit concerned about what comes next. They are replacing our phone system with a VOIP-based system. I guess this makes handsets more expensive? I don’t know. And I don’t really need one. But the alternative to a handset is either answering the phone through my computer or forwarding it to my cellphone. And call me weird, but I don’t generally like getting work calls at home. Plus, I don’t have room for another app on my phone. (Have you noticed that the more storage they give you on a device, the larger the app files become? Like inflation, except no one makes enough to keep up with inflation.)

Weight! You should know by now that I’ve been on a weight loss journey for the last … forever? There’s never been a time that I haven’t at least thought about losing weight. (I’m a hefty gal.) Anyway, one of my strategies in the last year has been injecting Mounjaro once a week. Say what you like, the stuff works. (Mostly because the stuff makes you so physically ill that you don’t even want to look at food.) It’s an expensive medicine, and I have been fortunate in finding savings cards to take a substantial amount off the price. Alas, those appear to have run their course for the year. I’m pursuing a couple other options, but I will probably not be able to use Mounjaro for the next couple of months. I’m a little concerned that I won’t be able to keep up the progress I’ve made. I have lost almost six stone since this started, and I really don’t want to go back to where I was. You can pray for me in that regard. I’d really appreciate it.

Our hallway doubled as a waiting room on Wednesday. It’s probably the most people we’ve hosted since the hallway was dedicated. We had the Aflac peeps in to offer supplementary insurance. For some reason, they chose our conference room to do all of this in. Which is fine. We just had to keep the lights on all day. And we didn’t get our fire drill. I know it may not seem like the two things are related, but they actually are. We have talked about doing another fire drill for a while in our safety meetings. October is fire safety month, so HR said we should do a drill in October. But then HR went on vacation and forgot about the drill. We reminded HR, who said, Hey, Wednesday after chapel is a great time! And then Aflac came Wednesday after chapel. And you can’t do a fire drill with other people in the building. And then it rained Thursday. So that’s how Aflac = no fire drill.

I might leave it there. There are more things on the list Sarah made, but some of those will be more applicable in the future. One thing I will mention is the possibility of doing voice recordings of these blogs. I have been told that my narration would really help convey the proper tone I’m going for.

Obviously, I can’t promise this for every week, and the audio might have to be a week behind. But what do you guys think? I’d say you could call me on my office phone with your feedback, but we all know where those are going to end up.

Have a great weekend, guys! Remember to care for the little things.