Holy heat wave! For those of us that Mother Nature decided to open the fiery gates of hell on, how’d you fare? We had some restless sleeping nights for sure, since our bedroom gets the full blaze of the sun the entire afternoon until sunset – so naturally it heats up big time. I still love this house, in spite of it not having any form of air conditioning whatsoever.

Plus, pushing 100 degrees is not a ‘normal’ thing for us, so we can survive a few nights of heat during the summer months, especially when they’re followed by mid 70-degree days and a cooler nighttime low of the 50’s. I mean c’mon – we survived the blazing heat and humidity for 11 years in Pennsylvania with no central air, so this is a cake walk.

Granted, we did get window A/C units for the bedrooms there, because that added humidity made sleep non-existent for us. And no sleep means major Cranky McCranksters all around. I’m pretty darn sure at some point we’ll end up getting an A/C unit for our bedroom, since it’s truly the only room in the house that actually ‘suffers’ (read: I suffer) during those blazing heat waves.

Speaking of blazing… I’ve been blazing through the past week – my very first week as a Virtual Executive Assistant! I’m sure I mentioned I’d jumped through hoops to secure a virtual job, but what I didn’t realize at the time was I was applying to be part of the “Great Assistant” program where they ‘match’ you with an entrepreneur looking for an assistant – and they match you based on personality, all the various degrees of testing, and based on a Kolbe Test. Only 2% of all applicants get chosen – I am one of 2%.

They matched me with the most amazing entrepreneur – I mentioned last week it’s like we’re twins, so we get along famously! It’s been a very very long time since I’ve felt appreciated – I’ve felt more appreciated in the past week than I have in years. So yeah, I’m having a great time.

She’s truly a godsend, we keep joking that I’m her clone – I’ve even finished her thought when we’ve been texting back and forth while I’m getting familiar with the tasks she needs done and outlining expectations. She’s so far the best boss I’ve ever had, and I’m really loving the flexibility – and not being stressed about a job.

Sure, my diverse background when I spent 20+ years in Corporate America included everything from Executive Assistant to Management, but for this leg of my journey in life, I didn’t want to go back into the full-on workforce where I’d be required to go to an office every day, and I didn’t want a management type position because I didn’t want to deal with the stress that comes hand-in-hand with that. Been there, done that.

Not to mention that the school calendar is wonky – what employer would be willing to be flexible on office hours when school lets out for half days and full days and lots and lots of non-government holidays? And why would I go back to work but turn around and give half (or more) of my paycheck to someone else to take care of the kids?

Sure, Princess Nagger is old enough to ‘babysit’, but honestly with Little Dude’s ADHD, ODD and Sleep Disturbances (and recent rage and anger issues), there’s no way I’d want to make her responsible for full days every day for his care. Or anyone else, for that matter.

So instead, I wanted to find something that I could virtually do from home (see what I did there?), and something where I have full flexibility of my schedule, but once again have a steady income I could count on to be able to have some mad money for fun. Especially since I lost the passion for web design and let all my clients go when we moved here from PA, so my ‘mad money’ went away.

I’ve been searching and hunting down ‘legit’ opportunities for years, but with more vigor since January – which explains why I’ve been a bit scattered around here, and subject to hit-and-run visits rather than my usual undivided attention to you guys.

So as I get more into a scheduled routine, I’ll be able to get back to paying more attention to you guys – thank you so much for sticking with me when I’ve seemed invisible and not present. You guys are so very much appreciated!

Did you know… honey is the only food product that never spoils. There are pots of honey that are over five thousand years old and still completely edible.

I also want to point out we know it tastes the same even after thousands of years because archaeologists who discovered two thousand year old honey tasted it. Presumably right after they looked at each other and went “What the hell – here goes nothing.”

This is a cool idea:

What else are they going to do with the now-defunct pay phones? I’ve seen places where they’ve removed the pay phones, and added a charging station for cell phones. Crazy how things have changed in such a short time, no?

I’m just going to leave this right here:

It’s time once again for Leslie’s (aka Rory Bore) Tuesday Coffee Chat!

The question or prompt for this week is:

“Three things on your Summer To Do List.”

And a reminder: COFFEE CHAT WILL CLOSE FOR THE MONTHS OF JULY/AUGUST RETURNING IN SEPTEMBER.

Princess Nagger summed it up when she was an infant like so:

Ahem. Chat will be missed for the next two months for sure! But you can rest assured Random will continue on – and I’ll even have a better handle on my schedule to make sure you’re not feeling ignored. I promise.

OK, three things on my Summer To Do List – of course the thing that tops that list is camping! Especially when I’ll get to do this:

And see this:

Another item on our Summer ‘To Do’ list is to visit the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium:

Which I can actually cross of the list, as Princess Nagger and I spent a full day of mother-daughter bonding when she was done with her virtual school, and a couple of days before Little Dude finished his school year. I’m keeping it on the list, though, because we plan to return for more fun later this summer.

Also on the list is Northwest Trek:

There’s so much to see and do:

There are so many more fun things on that list, especially since there are so many cool places to see and do here in Washington State – but I’ve already gone over my mental word count, so I won’t go on and on and on and on. This time.

That’s a wrap for this week – you know the drill, link up and join in the fun, everyone is welcome, random or not. And that means even if you don’t have a specific Random Tuesday Thoughts Rebel post posted, you can still link up, I’m not picky. You don’t even have to add the badge, just link up so I can come harass you on your blog. I promise to play nice.

Signature

.

Link up your Random (or not) here:

Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets — Easy-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

Keeping the random alive (barely) – feel free to snag a badge and play along – one for my wino friends:

Stacy Uncorked

And one for my non-wino friends:

Stacy Uncorked

.

8 Comments

  1. Again i congratulate you on your super new job!

    Yes, get a window unit if you want it, you are making me hot just thinking about your room, and i live in the swamps.

    It looks like you have some very fun summer plans, i hope you get to enjoy camping as often as your heart desires.

  2. It’s funny: a few days ago I was feeling like I wanted to take some more weekend trips and see things but now I want to stay home and do nothing. Ugh.

  3. That is most impressive that they only hire 2 % and you were one- congratulations!!!
    I love that mini library ion the phone booth, too bad so many have been taken away, that would have been a great way to reuse them. Your summer plans look great.

  4. Your job sounds like a dream! Seriously sounds awesome! I’m glad your boss and you get along so well. Love the pictures of your camping sites. If we had something that nice, I might like camping. Enjoy!

  5. Wow, so much going on with this post! First of all, congrats on the new job! Also, I’ve seen those tiny libraries, but love the idea of reusing an old payphone to hold the books. Really cool! If you want to talk coffee and books and life, feel free to hit up my coffee site at https://www.thecofeerooster.com. Based on this post, I feel like we may have some stuff in common! 🙂

Comments are closed.