Following our previous years' trend (2006, 2007 - hey we're getting better on the timing!), the Mischief End of Year Extravaganza was last night. I was originally going to drive up, but decided that heading up with Doyle would most likely a better decision, parking and stress wise. I was wise, as Mark's car was towed from his parking spot by a bitter neighbor.

Last year, I won the "Most Statistically Significant" award. I'm thrilled to say I won the "Soul" award this year, to go with the "Heart" and "Legs" award (that others won, not me). This team, I swear, makes my laugh, cry and just plain smile. It's an amazing group of people. I think I'll be sad to retire this year.

So, one of these things that Annie does is pace. If she wants to be let out in the morning, she'll pace up and down the hall with her little claws click click clicking and her feet pad pad padding until I scream and throw the pillow at her, quickly followed by the box of kleenex.

The pace pace pacing annoys the crap out of me. Mornings are bad, afternoons when I'm working are worse.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

So, today, at the client's office, the employee with the loud shoes came up to the web browser next to my desk. It's a test machine, with a bunch of different operating systems and browsers setup on one keyboard and one monitor. Testing is done at this browser all the time, but, as near as I can tell, it's usually done by either Doyle or me.

Kris leaned over to me the other day and let me know he was going bowling. My reaction could be summed up in one word.

Eh?

Turns out, Kris' work now has a "Fun Officer" who organizes fun events for the company to build morale. The latest morale building event was a bowling party for teams in the company. My reaction was something like "Well, if they'd just let you play poker for 10 minutes during the day, they wouldn't NEED a 'Fun Officer' scheduling bowling 'parties' for the company, because you'd ENJOY your work environment."

Yeah, well, sure, yes. At this moment, however, they were having a bowling party. He wasn't originally signed up, but his department was a player short of a full team, and wouldn't he come bowl with his coworkers?

"Sure," Kris had said, "if you let me name the team."

So, Kris went bowling the other day. While he was bowling, he looked at the team names. They were nice descriptive names like:

Team HR
Team S7
Systems

And Kris' team:

ROFL Cake Pwnage

So, for the record, space efficient is not maximally efficient when the area of efficiency is the kitchen.

Chris Holley painted my kitchen ceiling yesterday. Since I have a couple racks in the kitchen to replace the countertop and cabinet space the tiny kitchen is lacking, Chris had moved the racks out of the kitchen.

When he moved the racks back in, he rearranged my pots and pans. Now, admittedly, when he did so, he arranged the pots and pans and bakeware and bowls very nice and very neat. The bowls stacked with the large number all in nice groupings; the baking dishes all nested into carefully arranged stacks.

It would have worked out very well if, well, if I actually used the souffle bowl more than once a month, or if I made lasagna or used my rectagular baking dish more than, say my cooking pans, or if I used my ice cream maker more than I use my food processor.

Except that I don't. I make pies once or twice a month, compared to ice cream, which is once or twice a year. I haven't used my bundt cake in months, though I should make that blueberry cake for Kris. All the frequently used items are neatly tucked in under or behind all of the various bowls that aren't used very frequently.

And now I need to rearrange my cookware again. Sure, the frequently used items will float back to the front of the racks, but, gah, until then, how annoying. I almost want to say leave my bowls alone.

Chris Holley, Lyndsay's little brother is helping me out around the house for a couple weeks now. His first day was a little disastrous, when he spilled nearly all of the ceiling paint on the garage floor, then spent the next two hours cleaning up the mess. And inauspicious beginning, to say the list.

He's been doing okay since, completing a few tasks that have been on my list for just the longest time.

For example, the butterfly bush, the annoying thing that kept growing and growing and growing, is now gone.

Turning around, the bush that became a tree was removed, too.

Other work is getting done, which is great. Having the extra sunlight is even better.