Coconut is a fruit, right?

You may not have been aware of this, but October was healthy workplace month. Whether or not that's a city-wide, province-wide, nation-wide, or just a thing my company did, I did my best to participate. I put into motion my Director's idea of having "Fruit on the Floor" - at certain places around our floor there were stations set up for you to bring in and share fruit with your coworkers. It was just a little thing, but every little bit helps, right?

What doesn't help is when your master confectionist (is that a word?) coworker decides it's a good idea to try out a new macaroon recipe and brings in her experiment to get an opinion.

Chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons...

Resistance was futile.  But surrender had never tasted so sweet.

Who IS this guy?

Usually, once the proposal has happened and she says "yes," the stories go that the guy starts to take it easy after that - he's got her, why keep up the effort?  I know that happened in the case of one friend of mine (though in that case, they never got to the wedding stage...whew).  But for me, it's been the opposite.

Malcolm proposed last year and my weeping mess of myself said yes.  Since then, instead of lazing back and taking it easy, Malcolm's gone ahead and kicked it up a notch.

Now, when he takes care of dinner, he not only puts it together (after cooking or whatnot), he cleans up after.  Instead of just tossing the laundry into to dryer, he does the ironing! Instead of just rooting through the clean laundry basket while it's still downstairs, he carries it up to the room and puts some away!  He's the one that drags me out for exercise. 

Who is this guy?!

Gotta say, I like it.  :)

Love/hate relationship

And the wedding planning begins.  Part of the planning (a big part) is the budgeting.  I already know this wedding is going to put us in the poor house, but what wedding doesn't?  In an attempt to save money now, I've recommited myself to bringing all of my food and drinks to work from home, refraining from having to buy them each day (not that I was always buying food/drinks, but every little bit helps).

The only thing now is that when I have food cravings that aren't for what I've brought with me, I get sad.  :(  But it's all for a good cause - my cause - OUR cause. 
...

Dear Sushi,

Don't you worry - I will devour you another day...when I've saved up enough money to do so.

love,

melody

Who needs porn?

Over emails while at work:

melody - Feeling anything specific for dins?
Malcolm - Leftovers and instant noodles.  I'll cook
melody - Holy crap that's hot.  :D
...

And of course in the middle of posting this, he returns with:

"Not as good as a warm fart on a cold day.

Returning to randominity

Things I (seem to have) lost in the move

• white peacoat
• green scarf from India
• books
• the house elves

...

Wedding budgeting is killer.  I only just crunched a few numbers yesterday and I already feel in the poor house.  Brought coffee, breakfast, and lunch today.  Intentions of cooking at home later.  Diet of leaves and instant noodles to ensue.
...

Malcolm did a load laundry and his ironing yesterday.  It was nice.

What's in a name?

It's all the in the way you read things. 
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At work, I'm a writer (surprise, surprise, huh?), but being a major corporate company, all of our publications need to be bi-lingual.  So, whenever I write things, I need to have them translated before I can have them published. 

This week, as much as I was slaving away with a million communications with a million modifications and a million edits and a crazy tight deadline, one single poor translator was assigned to handle my documents and requests. Usually you send your document to translation with 4 days for turnaround time.  I gave 2 days…on 6 documents. 

However, my translator was AMAZING and managed to get all of it translated and returned to me by the deadline, and even made accommodations and extra edits for all of my team’s changes.  So I decided to send a VIP notice.  A VIP notice is just a little certificate of recognition at work that the employee receives with your nice message included, and it’s also sent to their manager so that they know what good work’s being recognized.  My nice little message was as follows:

Dominique has translated an astounding number of documents over the past week - many of them rush submissions!  She has managed to come through on all of the time lines that she has promised, even accommodating all of the last minute additions and modifications that have come along on multiple projects.  Despite the complexity of each project, the technical terms, and the difficult subject matter, she's done a wonderful job and I want her to know that I really and truly appreciate all that she's done over the last few days.

Thank you, Dominique!

A little while later I got an email back from Dominique:

melody,

Thank you very much for your VIP certificate and your nice comments. I am touched!

Best regards.

Dominique

PS: I will phone my mom tonight to let her know about my VIP. I will also tell her that she should have spelled my first name with a "c", because many people think I'm a woman. (ah, ah, ah...) :-))

*hangs head in shame*

I felt like a class A idiot.  I told Dominique as such and he was nothing less than supremely gracious about it.  Probably gets it all the time from us Anglo-speakers. 
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