Week-In-Review (9/24/21 - 10/01/2021)

Hi everyone!

Another week-in-review coming your way!

I have decided that Sunday is probably the best time for me to blog and review the past week. Aside from filming for YT, Sundays are relatively "chill" and since I enjoy the writing process, why not spend some time at the end of a busy week doing just that as a form of relaxation as well as an opportunity to reflect on the week. 

Overall, this was an insanely busy week at work, it usually is the case particularly for the last 4 days of the months as audits are due and the team is trying its best to reach all the time we need with our folks. The schedule is heavy, stress is high, morale is low, temper is short and skin is thin for all of us. Then "poof" it's the first of the month again and we are all good and ready for the new month!

Despite our challenges, our team continues to thrive. There is not one day I am not grateful for my team and I can easily say that we have by far the lowest turnover amongst all the other teams, a testament that the dynamic is just right.  That being said, the job remains stressful regardless of your season of life and longevity, to put it bluntly, weekends are welcome! So here goes...

Friday September 24, 2021

I worked from home and attempted to make tomato sauce using my garden bounty. In theory it sounded like a great idea: start the pot before work, monitor throughout the day and can it in the evening. Well, turns out I forgot the "monitor" part as I was very busy auditing and making phone calls...I burned the sauce! 

1. Garden tomatoes, green beans, onions, fresh herbs...I was all gun-ho on making tomato sauce! 8 hours in the making and the bottom burnt, leaving my sauce a pasty mess with a burnt rubber after taste! Live and Learn! Tomato sauce requires babysitting!

2. Working from home has its advantages, you get to spend time with your loved ones. Scott continues to work on a freelance project, the kind he likes best whereby they are giving him full carte blanche on creativity (write, design, animate). He already has created the characters and is working on revising his storyboard.

3. Aside from all his animations and awards, I think the boys will truly enjoy their father's storyboards years from now. I can't even tell you how many we have and I find them to be fascinating!

4. It's Football season again and it means only one thing from this non-sports girl! It's band season too! I show up at every single game, whether home or away and sit right next to the band. I enjoy the music and bonus points for marching nights! This was William's first football game band participation. I literally recorded every single piece they played! I have no interest in football, I will cheer for our team but to be honest I am only following the crowd here, having no clue what is going on! Soccer is a whole other ball game, pun intended, and one I will actually follow with fervency. American football? Meh! I just don't get it, I am only here for the band and the occasional dirty water hot dog!

 Saturday September 25, 2021

Today is the day! Competition #1, this one was in Roxbury, NJ. You can watch the video HERE.

I have not a clue what will become of me once William graduates. Edward remains ambivalent about joining Seton's band, I can only assume William will be done with it just as much! Maybe I could start a grieving band-mom group or something, we could have re-watch parties for all the band videos we have accrued over our years as band parents and eat tacos while sobbing. 

1. On our way to band competition! Grateful for a healthy family blessed with talents and creativity. I am particularly thrilled my boys were gifted with a musical ear since I live my musical aspirations vicariously and through them. I can play The Charleston on the Recorder and that's about it for my musical aptitude and it is not like I have not tried. I took piano lessons for years, I tried to play the guitar, I took the flute in high school, I had a keyboard when in college, it was one of those that promised to teach you music with keys that would light up! I failed miserably at all my musical efforts, thousands invested, not to mention the hours, I can't learn music and it is one of my biggest regrets. If you can play and instrument and sight read, I envy you. If you can sing even better. I suck at both. 

2. William's first band competition (left). His Shako is too big, we have to figure out a way to keep it straight on top of his head! But, they finished in 2nd place and took best visuals!

3. Just some toe beans. 

Sunday September 26, 2021

I can't really share all of it since it would be a major spoiler, but a company sent me a new fitness toy for review. I am waiting for them to approve the video (hence the lack of post this past Friday, it was supposed to be that review). Turns out their marketing guy went on vacation so the video sits as unlisted for now. Well, anyway, the day was spent assembling and sweating it, literally and I have joined another Conqueror Challenge, this one is the Amalfi Coast (35 miles). 

If you are not familiar with the Conqueror Challenges, they are fitness challenges you join (for a fee) and are ranked by distance. You can walk, run, swim, cycle and tally your mileage in their app. The cool feature is that you get connected via google GPS so whenever you stop, you can enter the screen view and visit the surrounding area. So far I have completed their Inca Trail, Hadrian's Wall, English Channel and Mount Fuji Challenges. The cool thing, aside from motivation, is the medal you receive after completing each challenge. This is my referral link if you are interested (I think my link gives you 10% off your first challenge). Long story short, I logged in 6 miles that day and took me until Wednesday to recover! 

Monday September 27, 2021

Same all, same all. On Mondays I work in the office, I am pretty much at my desk all day and complete my sessions through telehealth. I don't know if you can tell, but I am wiped out from yesterday's cardio!

Posted the Band Competition video and crashed. 

Tuesday September 28, 2021

No garbage picking today, it rained. To be honest, I think that we are going to slow down for the season and pick up again in April. The days are getting shorter and Tuesday is William's band rehearsal where  you will find Scott and I as the only parents showing up and freezing on the metal benches. We are nuts, or dedicated, whichever comes first. 

Wednesday September 29, 2021

I now dread the day they will no longer allow remote work. Here I was resisting the idea during the entire pandemic and now that I actually started working from home, I realize I could have worked so much more efficiently this entire time...Not the sharpest tool in the shed!

 

1. Work at home breakfast. Not sure if you can tell, but we really need to go grocery shopping!

2. Scott is still working on his project. He is creating animation paths, basically telling the computer where the image needs to go from frame to frame. 

3. Sorrel from the garden and it's story time. Sorrel soup is my absolute favorite. When I was a kid, a patch of wild sorrel started to grow in the middle of the lawn in Normandy. My grandmother immediately identified it as such and for years, we were all very careful to mow around it. Her Sorrel soup was the best. It's not difficult to make and Sorrel has many benefits, for instance it was found that extracts from the leaves of sorrel contain oligomeric and polymeric proanthocyanidins and flavonoids, basically it is an anti-viral but you have to be careful not to eat too much as it also contains Oxalic acid which may cause Kidney Stones and flare up your Arthritis.  Bottom line is that a bowl of Sorrel soup is not going to kill you. Imagine a spinach and chards soup with a lemony acidic taste. It's best to add one potato and a dollop of sour cream if you find it too acidic. 

Thursday September 30, 2021

We had a breakthrough case and I was tasked with making 19 contact traces once I got home. That was basically an entire evening of phone calls and subsequent documentation. 

 

Friday October 1, 2021

Working from home again. One zoom meeting after the other, more audits and looking forward to Football game band tonight. 

1 and 2 . The team meets every morning for Morning Meeting. We basically go over every person served we met the day before, complete Clinical Reviews and Treatment Plans. Our meetings have been via zoom since the beginning of the pandemic. I am not sure how most of you have managed, but some of us have not spent more than one hour physically together in the past 18 months. It's a very weird not to mention uncomfortable situation. I wonder what this is doing to social and interpersonal skills. Anyway, I am the leader and minute recorder for all our meetings. 

3. Friday Football  band music at last! Scott and I enjoyed Italian Sausage sandwiches. You can tell I am very motivated towards weight loss.

It has been a long week. I wish I had more to share but as I mentioned in my previous blog, some weeks will be kind of not very exciting. Isn't it normal though? We all go through life with our day to day routines and mundane activities, nothing extraordinary ever happens. I did not win the $645 million NJ PowerBall, my entire body aches, I lost and subsequently regained the same 1 lb throughout the week, and pretty much crashed every single night only to repeat more of the same the following day.

I swear, if I ever win that Powerball, You'll never hear from me again! I will get an emergency liposuction and we will disappear and go live happily ever after, nestled between a mountain and a creek, enjoying a Bud Light while listening to some jazz. Maybe I will finally have the time, money and motivation to learn to play my own. Who knows!

See you next week!

Cheers,

Sophia 💜

(PS: I am told the mobile version of this blog requires for the pictures to be on the left rather than centered otherwise you need to scroll L to R - Let me know whether this is an improvement).