Weekly Round Up: Long Weekend Report

 

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Plus job musings and a long weekend report.

What a difference a week makes.  Last week I was all "I am maybe definitely kinda gonna quit my job" and now I'm just sitting back and chilling while the other players plan their next move.

Job Musings

Since it's a holiday weekend, let's get the work stuff out of the way.  On Thursday I had a call with my boss's-boss's-boss where he told me that the company is great and that part of the reason that they did layoffs is so that there's a budget for everyone to have raises next year.  But there are certain Key Employees who they will lavish cash on to keep and apparently I am one of those Key People.  Whatever.

I told him that I was balancing what happens if I stay vs would I feel stupid if I left.  What happens if I stay and x, y, and z things continue that make my job unchallenging?  But then if I leave and later on I hear that they did a, b, and c things and I wasn't a part of it how would I feel?

That was the lip service that I gave to the honcho, and between you and me what I'm actually doing is sitting back to see if more money turns up and then make the call on whether its enough to make it worthwhile it to stay another year or two.  The benefit of staying is soaking up mo' money which will later on let me stay out of the workforce longer and/or permanently.  The negative of staying is that overall I don't enjoy the job which puts a cloud on how much I enjoy the rest of my life.  And in theory I should be able to walk away now and have the money work out.  We shall see.

Weekend Musings

We went on a family bike ride which led to being in the right place at the right time to get the bird shot.  If google is giving me the right story, our friend is a juvenile green heron.

Also FWIW I want to document that the first Halloween decorations in our neighborhood went up on August 31.

Food

The first thing that I want to talk about falls under the category of "I changed my mind".  Awhile back I made CLVs Eggless Breakfast Burritos but was underwhelmed by the finished product.  The filling was kind of wet and kind of crumbly, so it didn't play well in burrito form.  I froze the leftovers to tide me over until I got around to making my standard breakfast burrito.

Well, oddly enough I haven't gotten around to making my standard breakfast burrito and I found myself enjoying the leftovers.  This Saturday when breakfast time rolled around and we had no eggs and a block of tofu, I found myself making another batch.

This time around I was much more liberal with not following the recipe and leaving out ingredients that I didn't have.  No spinach and no tomato so I skipped and didn't miss the spinach and subbed a few spoonfuls to salsa for the tomato. 

Disadvantage - yes the filling is crumbly so it's very prone to spilling out of the tortilla

Advantage - there's just something about the flavor combination that hits right.

For treats, a few weeks ago we had dinner with friends and got a brownie sundae to share.  That inspired a homemade version: these brownies, this fudge sauce, ice cream, and whipped cream.  It's kind of hard to see all of that in my "single sized and not table sized" version, but that's what's going on.  After the first test run, I made a double batch of the brownies and have them and the fudge sauce on ice in the freezer to bring back anytime we want our new favorite dessert.

 

Workouts

I'm in the final week of the CGX Beginner Program (that's the fancy new Caroline Girvan app).  One that's done I'll be tackling a bunch of shorter workouts on the app, and then I think I'll just do full body strength three times a week.  I'll start with the new Beastmode full body workouts, then go to the new Iron program full body workouts, and then switch back to the Youtube workouts if I run out of things to do.

Speaking of fitness and wildlife photography, I was amused to see a renegade sports bra cup liner on the path in my neighborhood park this week.

 

Watching

If you're looking for an unusual but true story...a random Zoom conversation while waiting for a meeting to start led to a distant work colleague telling me about a crazy thing that happened in her hometown that was made into the movie Bernie.  Once upon a time an unlikely friendship between a very nice undertaker and a very mean wealthy lady came to pass which ended in her murder.  In order to prosecute and get a fair trial, the case had to be moved out of town - because everyone hated the victim and loved the defendant so much.

A little Jack Black goes a long way for me but I liked him in this role and Shirley MacClaine was spot on as the mean old lady.  The jaw dropping part of this one is watching the move and then getting on Google and finding out what happened after the movie was made.

Reading

I finished The Maltese Falcon and oooh it was so good.  The burning question that I was left with from my movie spree was whether the book had the 1931 movie ending or the 1941 movie ending.  The answer is: neither!  The next task is to rate the three endings: last place goes to 1931, second place goes to the book, and first place goes to 1941 ("the stuff that dreams are made of").

I went ISO the next read and was trying to decide between another Hammett or Raymond Chandler when I saw a Youtube video about the movie Carol which reminded me that I've been very happy with every Patricia Highsmith novel that I've ever read.  I've never seen Carol so why not start with the book?  The book is called The Price of Salt and all that I can tell you so far is that it's about a young woman trying to make it in the theater business and making ends meet by working in a department store in the meantime.  It's super moody and I am here for it.