Friday Files 2.17.2023

This week has been like a grown up obstacle course personally and professionally. TGIF

New exterior front and back storm doors in Philly FINALLY installed on Wednesday. If you are in Northeast Philly I highly recommend Gallagher Brothers - they know what they're doing both in measurement/styling your new doors with you and in installation. I got these factory painted which is not what I've done at the shore - I painted all of those myself. These doors have needed replacing for years - the back door could have been broken down in a second and the storm door back there was literally held together with a zip tie - but they are so fucking expensive for quality doors. We did all of them at the shore over a two year period as well and I wish they told you when you were growing up how much shit like this would cost because I swear I thought this was a small/cheap home improvement project and it is absolutely fucking not. Back to a yellow door up front - gere are shitty befores & afters  - the manufacturer has to come replace the screen part of the storm door because it's off as you can sort of see here:

but no befores of the back because they arrived and started that immediately and I refuse to ask people to stop working so I can take a before photo. I wish I had them as the exterior door was peeling on the outside, like wood curling up, and the entire frame was fucked with busted locks etc, and the screen door was circa early 1970s, handle-less at this point, and held in place with a fucking zip tie as a latch LOLOL

People who know about our key fuckery will be pleased to find that we are using keypads now which will hopefully cut down on being locked out.

New couches were delivered at the shore yesterday  as well because yes let’s schedule two anxiety-producing items back to back. They had to be hoisted over the railing and the door removed but they are in! MFD took one for the team to go and be there for this since the door had to be taken off. Big Wally's Furniture and my old friend Billy D are awesome.

Floors in two weeks, and I need to address a pipe issue in March then the big things are done for the year at the shore. After that we're about caught up in both houses for things we had planned to do pre-Covid that got pushed off due to lack of availability of supplies or folks doing the work we needed being well jammed up schedule-wise with the exception of basement ceiling in Philly and starting the process to get quotes for windows here. 

Pets of the week. Billy Hicks spent a day in my home office this week, which he rarely visits during the day.

I was in my office Wednesday and I absolutely love being in Old City. 

I was very happy to see AEB for a quick coffee when I was In the city - we haven’t seen each other since pre-Covid! Excuse the wind tunnel, it was wild on Wednesday.

My uncle and I got to see my cousin and her boyfriend Monday as they were in from Chicago

I hit the meat markdown day at the grocery store and got over $52 of meat to freeze for just over $24. Peak adult shit there.

One of the best batches of mashed potatoes I’ve ever made. 

This is an entire fucking disgrace. Fuck Joe Biden (see how easy that is to say, Go Brandon people?) for intervening in favor of corporations to divert a strike and fuck all the politicians on both sides who supported that. Sacrificing people's lives and the environment so corporations can rack up money for the rich to get richer. What a fucking joke. Another de-railment outside of Detroit yesterday too.

I try to hang in with crew neck tees and I end up cutting them all at the neck. Let me be freeeee

That's that about that for this week. Have a great weekend, it's a long one for a lot of you! Not here, ever. 

snippets of the weekend 1.23.2023

Work work, finish shore contracts for the summer, pay bills, pack pack, wait for 95 traffic to subside, and head to the shore at 7 to unpack and laze around. I slept 10 hours on Friday night and it was glorious. Saturday we did a beach walk and the sky and water were so interesting I could have stayed there all day but the wind was inhospitable and we had things to do.

We had lunch at The Grilled Cheese & Crab Cake Co. in Somers Point (I got the pork belly with muenster), hit up Big Wally's furniture, then spent 1.5 excruciating hours in Egg Harbor Twp. getting the flooring quote right in person for the first floor in the main house because five days of back and forth on the phone did not work. Off-season shore chores! I dropped MFD off and went to the grocery store. Back at home I read, then we watched the Eagles and I made wings in my new (as of December) air fryer - it's 8 qt and lavender, can you die. It's Crux, 8 qt, and $59 at Best Buy. It replaced my shore Cosori that was my original air fryer and died on Thanksgiving Eve.

Sunday I took the best friend dogs on an hour beach walk and we checked out the coastal replenishment At-At in action, found some sea glass, and enjoyed being outside despite the gray. I showered, then went back and purchased the furniture we decided on and did a Target pickup order. 

I contacted a returning renter who wanted to come back in September. We weren't planning on renting in September, but costs for floor replacement are higher than anticipated so now we are. It's good to have options. 

We hung out upstairs while I made turkey veggie rice soup from the Thanksgiving turkey carcass that was in the freezer. We watched Emily the Criminal. I started and stopped two books and finally started a third I think I'll stick with. We caught up a bit on Yellowstone and were in bed by 11.

weekending reels on Instagram 

Happy Lunar New Year despite yet another devastating mass shooting clouding the celebrations. Between that and the non-50th anniversary of Roe yesterday, it was a good weekend to largely be off the internet. 

TWTW - already the last in March

Friday Working on a deadline but stole lunch to paint my nails (OPI Angles Flight to Starry Nights and Sally Midnight Drive, which is already looking shitty Monday morning). Leftovers and couch lounging at night. 

Saturday I slept waaaay in and didn't come downstairs until 10. We finished out the first season of Yellowjackets. I worked on a New England trip road trip itinerary and taxes. I was at the end of making a batch of power breakfast muffins and realized I was missing an ingredient so drug my unshowered, no bra, muscle relaxer taking self to the store to get freaking baking powder. I made an uncolorful but good dinner of marinated baked chicken from the freezer, rice, and sauteed cabbage. More taxes, relaxing, watched Four Good Days at night, Ben was reluctant to go to bed, and stayed up to finish Notes on an Execution.

Sunday The book I started the day reading is not the book I ended the day reading. I made a batch of spinach muffins to freeze, then roasted balsamic mushrooms and green beans and sauteed some smoked turkey sausage in duck sauce and hot mustard - I took half to the shore and left half in Philly with MFD. I was back at the shore by 3:30. Bruce and Ben were ecstatic to do some running. There were a few good shells but overall windy and very cold. The clouds were cool with rays coming through, which I love. Lots of arm icing at night, Oscars watching, and reading. 

Last dose of winter here over these next few days. I hope.

Three Reasons Why You Should Keep Studying as An Adult

Happy Wednesday! It's feeling spring-ish in Philly today even though the skies look like doom. 

This was contributed by Maggie Hammond, a retired nurse and freelance writer, exploring and writing in the U.S. in retirement. An advocate for public health and nursing qualifications, she feels passionate about raising awareness of the current strain on public health organisations. When you don't know about it, give someone else a chance to write about it, am I right? 

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A lot of people miss their college or high school days, but usually not for the long study sessions, critical teachers and tight assignment deadlines! However, staying in some form of education as an adult, for instance doing online courses, night school or evening classes in a topic that interests you, can have a lot of benefits once you have finished full time education and ventured out into working life.

Here are three reasons to keep on with your education as an adult:

Faster Career Progress and Better Options

If you enter a company after college with a good graduate level position, you may think all you need to do to move up the career ladder is work hard and stick with it long enough. However, you can gain a real competitive edge over others and move up the ladder faster if you are still learning and gaining qualifications on the side. Doing a master’s degree in your spare time with an online university like Rutgers can be a great way to achieve this.

You will also have better options if you decide to change careers later on. If you have more strings to your bow in terms of certifications and skills, moving to a new career path, for instance if you want to work different hours to fit around future children, or your original career becomes less in demand in the future, will be much easier. You could even use your education background as a way to become an educator yourself.

Goals and Achievements

People tend to be more motivated when they have goals they are working towards, and these don't always pop up naturally in normal working life. If you are studying something, you always have a way to monitor progress and set targets, whether they are ones that come with your study like attaining your masters with Rutgers University online, or with the results, for instance being able to converse in Spanish because of the learning app you've been using.

You Don't Lose Your Learning Skills

The human brain is very good at learning, and this is the case for adults as well as children. However, many people just get out of practice at studying and remembering new information, which is why some believe only kids' brains are wired for this. If you stay in the habit of studying and picking up new things, this will serve you well in everything you do, so you won't feel bewildered when you have to learn how to use the new system being rolled out at your office or research all of the things you can't eat when you are pregnant if you decide to have a baby!

Learning has also been shown to help keep the mind active and young, and may even make you less likely to suffer from dementia in old age! With all of these advantages there is really no good reason not to consider adult education an important part of your life.

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Have you studied as an adult or considered it?

See you here tomorrow for Thursday Thoughts like every Thursday since 2011.