Drunken Owls and Other Delights

It's still chilly here in the Bay Area, probably the longest its been this cold (mid-40s overnight and reaching only the mid-50s during the daytime, often with a sea breeze making it feel colder) in a long time. Our winters do get chilly, but never for this long, and not without several days of nonstop rain. Not that I'm complaining, just that this kind of weather tends to turn me into a sloth these days! 

On the plus side, I've been getting a lot done both at work and at home lately, which is a nice change from the Q4 EVERYTHINGATONCE stress I usually get. On my Friday-Saturday shifts I managed to get to and finish a lot of the "I'll get to it later" report paperwork I usually never have time for, and now the bookkeeping office finally looks a lot less messy. And over the last few days, I've been catching up on not just house errands, daily words, blogging and book revision, but even a bit of frivolous music library nonsense, all without feeling stressed out about it! I'm certainly going to make use of this time while I have it!

We're close to finishing the Christmas shopping for the most part, we just need to gather the last packages coming in, wrap up a few things, and mail them on their way. The post office is a bit more of a walk than normal from our new place, but thankfully there's a cheap parking lot the next block over that never gets completely full during the day. All told, it's been a rather laid back season this year, and that's fine by me. Even though our numbers are up in a good way at the store, it's not as chaotic as it normally is. Although I'm sure the next few weeks are going to see an uptick enough to change that...

Hope everyone's having a good week!

Having two young cats in the apartment has been a bit of a learning curve for both kitties and owners, but we're all doing okay. Jules and Cali have come to a tentative sisterly agreement that they'll keep each other company, share the food dish, and take turns being the Occasional Annoying Sibling. Nothing is broken, scratched, fallen over or destroyed (yet) so that's a good sign. The fosters did a great job teaching them!

It's also Q4 time again, so the Day Job has seen an uptick of customer flow. From what I hear from the managers, we're doing amazingly well for a small store (we're half the size of most others) and our neighborhood loves us. Sure, we get the occasional Grumpy Gus that finds fault in the smallest things but they're very much in the minority. And our shoplifting issue has lessened considerably since we started hiring security! And as I mentioned at the writing blog, our bosses frown on forced overtime thanks to our union, so it's not as if I'm getting my ass handed to me on a ten-hour shift like I used to at Yankee. Props to the head manager as well for doing a great job with the scheduling as well! We'll still have the occasional short-staffed day, but those are increasingly few and far between as we hire more workers.

I'm trying to get caught up with my writing duties today and doing a pretty good job of it, so I can't complain!