I tried the shiritaki, tofu noodles

I made beef stir fry last night. I used green onions,  portabello mushrooms, zuchinni, brocolli, napa cabbage, and steak strips. I forgot the red peppers!! Dumb. Dumb. I stir fried that in a little EVOO and some toasted sesame oil. Then I made a sauce of soy sauce, mirin,  rice vinegar, and cornstarch.

I rinsed the shiritaki noodles really, really well. Then boiled them in boiling water for 2 minutes and drained them.

Threw those in the stir fry. All of the recommendations I have read about the tofu noodles, says to let them sit overnight in whatever you make them in. So I refrigerated the stir fry and had it for lunch today. It's not bad. Not bad at all.

I would NOT use these noodles as you would spagetti. I think they would taste yucky in a tomato sauce. But they are perfect for stir frying.

However, since I can't find them in my grocery stores, and I had to order it off amazon... I don't think I will bother using them again. I can substitute other asian noodles just as easily.

Who do they think I am???

Yes I am STRESSED! 

S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D

I keep getting projects piled on me at work that I don't feel qualified for..... but I have to do them! And they are HARD!!!!

I'm not a technical writer. I'm a creative writer. I put little smilies, and pictures, and clip art in things. I have to write, and revise our standard operating procedures and I want to put PICTURES in them! 

It is sooo hard for me to write things technically. I am not a technical person!!!  

And they want me to REMEMBER all kinds of things. And my mind does not remember half of it... and I tried to write stuff down but I could not REMEMBER half of what I needed to write down!!!

And something is going on here at work because people are snappy at each other, and getting angry over silly things. Making mountains out of mole hills.... flying off the handle easily.... (and I am talking about OTHER people... not me)

And now they want to give me a year of training to be an internal auditor.  YIKES. I always said "I hope they never want me to do auditing" because it's a tough thing to do.  I can't even understand the worksheets that go with it.

Guess what! I'm the one they picked because they think nobody else in the company could do it. Oh gee, Lucky me! 

My sister says to look on the positive side, that it is "job security".  

Yeah. Ok. I see that. BUT--- it is HARD and I am afraid I shall SCREW IT UP!!!

People here are losing their job if they screw up, or don't be productive. We hired a sales force. They didn't make sales, so three months later we fired the whole lot of em! 

We are having problems with our German distributor who is modifying our devices and that is a big legal no-no and we are getting in trouble for it and boy is that a big bruhaha that I am in the middle of!! HOLY cow. 

I am thankful for my job. I am. Truly. I need it. I (apparently) am good at it. (at least the rest of the employees think so). And I have insurance which I could not live without.

But the STRESS (which I mostly put on myself) is just driving me loo-loo.

I did get some technical writing books awhile ago... they did not help. Not much. My brain does not function that way. I think in pure creative mode. Not a logical brain cell in my head. I operate on pure emotion.

I volunteered to do the visiting teaching message handouts in my ward because I hated how plain they were and so I do full color ones with illustrations! They look amazing! I love that job! That's right up my ally!

But doing boring, blah, blah, step-by-step, technical explanation of how to do things and making sure I cover every single step, and yada yada yada.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And then, lucky me, I get to TEACH everybody HOW to do what I wrote.
Oh joy. Oh wonder. Oh shooooooooooooooot.

Links to the stories.....

Stick Note Story here

And bicycle story here

Totally Ridiculous!!!

 Some seniors played a "prank" by using over 11,000 post it notes to decorate their school. Harmless right? Fun for them right? They got suspended and the janitor got fired. What a crock of guppy slime!!  They got permission from a board member and got the KEY from said board member and her daughter was even involved.  But they got into trouble. It's HARMLESS people. Have a laugh, pull off the sticky notes and get over yourselves!!   I think it was a creative idea and I bet those kids had a blast doing it. I know I would. I did something similar at work. Glad I didn't get fired!



Second senior idea gone awry... In Michigan the seniors got together and had a bike ride to school.   Healthy activity. Fun idea. The MAYOR was there to hand out donuts! They had a POLICE ESCORT.
 But when they got to school the principal FREAKED out and suspended them and has threatened to not let them do the graduation walk. What The?????            I seriously don't understand the problem!!!    
Chill out people!!!   It wasn't spray paint or grafitti. It wasn't a Hells Angel motorcycle gang riding to school. (it wasn't even motorcycles... it was BICYCLES).      There is so much in the world to get upset over. Neither of these qualifies as one of them.   Take a chill pill people. My heavens. Just breathe.

 

Grandbaby shopping.....

Ok... Ok... I couldn't resist. I had to buy these for Adelyn. I hope her momma likes them. I hope they will fit Adelyn before the summer is over.... (they are 12 month size because that is the smallest they had).

I love buying girlie stuff.  

I suck.....

...at taking photos. 

We tried to capture the solar eclipse but my camera phone just wasn't up to the challenge. 

Still got some cool shots...of the sun. 

I had all my kids and grandkid there and did not take ONE single

photo of ANY OF THEM!!  

I suck......

...... at taking pictures. 

Time flies, days go by, people die, and all the opportunities I have to

snap a shot of this and that.... I let slip by. 

I keep wanting pics of me and George.... I have ONE that I like. 

I suck........

................. at taking pictures. 

I'm fairly decent at cooking though. So I guess I'll carry on with that.....     ;-)

Mother's Day Weekend

 Boy did I have a great weekend! Though it appears mostly what I did was eat!  Saturday night Brian, Michael, David, George and I went to Market Street Grill. I had the crab stuffed halibut. OOOOH YUM.  I ate so much there I thought I'd never move again.

Sunday morning George fixed huevos rancheros for us for breakfast. It was soooo amazing. YUM. He is a great cook.

 We went to see Avengers in the afternoon and it was great because hardly anybody was there. We figured being Sunday and Mother's day.... there would not be so many people and we were right. Probably twelve people in the whole theater.

I liked the movie.

For dinner he made some delicious hotdogs topped with onions, tomatoes and avocados.

We got a lot done this weekend too. He completely weeded the front flower bed. Painted the garage. It looks great now. It's so nice to have a man around the house that can do stuff like that. I hate yard work.

The landlord/bishop came over and we got permission to paint the inside any color we want. And we showed him that all the paint on the deck is coming off. They guy who did it, used interior paint. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Bishop was maaaaaad.  He also gave us permission to cut down the half dead tree. He actually said he would do it, but I know he never will, so we'll just do it. But probably not until George gets back from Kauai.

So, anyhow.... it was a wonderful weekend. I love my family. I'm glad I'm a mom. And a grandma.

Here He goes again.......

 In 12 days George is heading back to Kauai. Not sure for how long this time. He thinks it will be a "short trip" of a month or two.

I went to google to find images of Kauai and imagine my absolute SHOCK when pictures of ME and GEORGE showed up in the results!!!  I about had a coronary.

HOW did they get on here? I wondered.

Well.... I guess every single photo I have ever put on this blog

 has automatically gone into a picassa album or something like that. And it now will come up in google search results.

Huh. I had no idea. And it FREAKED ME OUT.

I went to the album and wow.... a LOT of pictures on there I didn't know were there.  Like photos of some of the guys I was dating that I met online. (years ago)

It was quite a collection. Most of them gave me a smile. Some gave me the willies.  What a trip down memory lane.

Ugh.... no sleep

Went to bed early last night because I knew I had to get up at 4:30am this morning to take George to TRAX. He had been traveling all day so he went out like a light. LOUD snoring right in my ear. I could not sleep because of that.... and the dog that barks ALL NIGHT LONG.

I fell asleep a little after midnight and then woke up at 1:30am. I never fell back asleep. Oh and at 2am a cat joined in howling with the dog. Cats sound like babies crying.... I hate that.

The alarm went off at 4:30 and I got up and made George breakfast while he grabbed a quick shower and we made it to TRAX about 5 minutes before the train came.

I was going to go back home and go to bed, but I figured it would only make me more tired. So I came to work at 5:45.

I really feel for people with insomnia. I don't know how they do it. I could not function if I laid awake night after night after night. It would just kill me. I know a lot of people who function on only a few hours of sleep, but I'm not one of them. Actually, right now I feel fine and fully awake. But I know it will catch up to me later and I have a busy day at work.

Oh well.... I'm thankful it only happens occasionally. I can live with it.