Starting fresh for the new year
Jan. 3rd, 2022 03:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spacealien_vampLots of updates since the last time I posted.
The biggest news is that I completely paid off my car. Yay! Now I can put extra funds into other things, like paying off my mortgage faster. (My brother keeps insisting that I'm better off financially if I put extra money in a high interest investment account. Maybe so. But there's something to be said for not having that mortgage as a point of constant pressure--in case we have, like, another government shutdown or something.)
The last of the quinces were transformed into fruit leather. Now I just have to plan for next season's planting. I'm replacing my diseased apricot tree with a bunch of raspberries, and I ordered a ton of strawberry plants. The kiwi berry is gone, and I'm thinking I'll put artichokes in its place. This month will be dedicated to pruning all the trees and grapes in preparation for spring.
Beginning this week, the canine handlers are on a new schedule. I will have weekends off, at least for a few months. We'll see if we get to keep it. One of our two new official supervisors has reportedly already said that she doesn't like our schedule, goodness knows why. One of the things she wants is to have us all train at the same time, which is...impractical. You can't have people on a super early morning shift train at the same time as people on a late night shift, you'll be cutting into somebody's union-required 8 hours off. We'll have to wait and find out how that goes.
We finished our leave draw for 2022, and I managed to reserve all the days I wanted. It helps that I didn't need any of the major holidays, though I did get Memorial Day weekend for a local board game convention. I'm hoping to trade or auction a big chunk of my old games there to make space in my house. I reserved all the days for my season pass to the musicals playing in San Francisco, plus I got a ticket to a Weird Al concert. If I won't be traveling much, at least I'll be doing things nearby.
I finished writing the rough draft of my second novel. Once it's done receiving edits and I have a cover picture for it, I'll be able to post it.
The biggest news is that I completely paid off my car. Yay! Now I can put extra funds into other things, like paying off my mortgage faster. (My brother keeps insisting that I'm better off financially if I put extra money in a high interest investment account. Maybe so. But there's something to be said for not having that mortgage as a point of constant pressure--in case we have, like, another government shutdown or something.)
The last of the quinces were transformed into fruit leather. Now I just have to plan for next season's planting. I'm replacing my diseased apricot tree with a bunch of raspberries, and I ordered a ton of strawberry plants. The kiwi berry is gone, and I'm thinking I'll put artichokes in its place. This month will be dedicated to pruning all the trees and grapes in preparation for spring.
Beginning this week, the canine handlers are on a new schedule. I will have weekends off, at least for a few months. We'll see if we get to keep it. One of our two new official supervisors has reportedly already said that she doesn't like our schedule, goodness knows why. One of the things she wants is to have us all train at the same time, which is...impractical. You can't have people on a super early morning shift train at the same time as people on a late night shift, you'll be cutting into somebody's union-required 8 hours off. We'll have to wait and find out how that goes.
We finished our leave draw for 2022, and I managed to reserve all the days I wanted. It helps that I didn't need any of the major holidays, though I did get Memorial Day weekend for a local board game convention. I'm hoping to trade or auction a big chunk of my old games there to make space in my house. I reserved all the days for my season pass to the musicals playing in San Francisco, plus I got a ticket to a Weird Al concert. If I won't be traveling much, at least I'll be doing things nearby.
I finished writing the rough draft of my second novel. Once it's done receiving edits and I have a cover picture for it, I'll be able to post it.
