The Marci Rating System

aka this is my workaday Wednesday post, in disguise as an Earth Day post, because of office bingo-related reasons*

But also, happy Earth Day, because the Earth is awesome! Heck yeah, planet we live on! Happy Birthday, Earth!

(Yes, I know that Earth Day is not technically a celebration of the Earth's birthday. But it COULD BE, and I'm putting that out there as a suggestion. MAKE EARTH DAY THE EARTH'S BIRTHDAY PARTY PLEASE, IT WOULD BE SO FUN AND JOYFUL!)

(*so there's a bingo card for 'Earth Month,' which is not a thing, but sure, that's a lot easier than trying to do all the bingo card activities in one day, and one of them is 'post about sustainability on social media,' and yeah, I'm planning on counting this post for that)

We have a truly astonishing number of Easter decorations, although I guess it's not that weird -- very hard for me to resist a cute animal wearing a hat, and Easter decorations are all about cute animals wearing hats. It's also the spring holiday, so it's like -- I guess now it's REALLY time to put away the winter decorations, and switch to spring? Feels like a lot of work, honestly. But I did exactly one (1) thing to switch the February decorations up for March, so even doing two (2) things would be 100% more!

Pi Day on wikipedia

In 1988, the earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies.

May we all enjoy walking around a circular space and consuming fruit pies today!

Welcoming the Year of the Fire Horse!

It's Cake For Breakfast Day!

“A cross dimensional tracker, really?”

The faceplate flipped back down. “Yeah, well, it’s on a timer, so brace yourself. There better be some cake left when we get back.”

“You’ve been eating my cake without me?”

“Man, it’s been your birthday all day. We had cake for breakfast. You should’ve been there. Next year, all right?”

“Next year.”

(from Monday All Day Long)

Remember the take care cats today!

A couple weeks ago, we stopped in at our in-town tiny grocery store for some snacks, and the employees were all 'hello! welcome! would you like to put in your order for a CHRISTMAS QUICHE?'

Of course, we had no idea what they were talking about, but the basics seemed to be as follows:

*there's an employee who makes quiches for the store at the holidays
*they are very popular
*they sold out last year and people were sad
*this year the store is taking orders
*they are excited about it

So OF COURSE we put in our order! And it's supposed to be available to pick up today? Maybe they will call or text us? They have my phone number, but it's not like we got any actual instructions about this process. And yet I'm very excited about it!

WHAT AN EXCITING NEW THING TO LEARN ABOUT THIS TOWN!

I lucked into taking this entire week off from work, so I've been trying to celebrate a little bit each day. A series of small celebrations feels like it takes the pressure off the Actual Christmas Day to be super special and perfect somehow (a goal which is neither reasonable to want nor possible to achieve, to borrow that phrase).

Yesterday I went to the grocery store for the Final Shopping Trip (hopefully!) before Christmas. I had bacon for lunch! I caught up on the craft advent calendar! I went for a walk I've been meaning to take all month! I used one of our holiday-themed paper plates! I stayed up late reading!

And now it's solstice! Time to light a candle! (okay, time to find a candle? I'm sure there are some around here somewhere)

Thank goodness we're now required to go to the office two days a week, to do Very Important Office Things like everything on today's schedule!

1. drink the free coffee at work instead of home coffee

2. breakfast (enjoy the fact that they're still bribing us with free breakfast on Tuesdays)

3. end of year team meeting with the team we've been temporarily loaned to (okay, it was more like 'take these people off my hands I can't deal with them right now,' but you know, think positive)

4. end of year holiday lunch with new team

5.Yankee Swap with new team (apologies to the old team which is not getting a party)

6. go for a walk with any office folks who want to go outside

7. hour-long meeting about a thing none of us want to talk about and which could have been an email

8. wrap up the day, because that's more than enough productivity for me!

*Shoutout to the business along my commute route with the Giant Christmas Inflatables. It's your brontosaurus eating a candy cane that's motivating me to get out the door this morning!

Honorable mentions to the following, also providing me workaday motivation:

*I'll be starting the hockey boys audiobook this morning, carplay willing. After an entire day of thinking about it, the anticipation is really building!

*It's holiday lunch day at work. So, free lunch! Hooray! In honor of the event, I'm wearing my cozy holiday sweatshirt. (It has Christmas trees on it.)