This post is part of my 2022 Word Project. You can read what that’s about here.
Friday, November 10, 2023
7:47pm
I got tired of listening to myself complain today. I think I actually stepped outside my body for a second and looked at me standing there complaining about [whatever thing wasn’t working] and I just shook my head and thought wow, that crazy woman really needs to shut up.
And then I got mad at the person shaking her head at me and thought, you know, I really don’t get enough credit for all the problems I solve on a daily basis. I’m pretty fantastic at it, actually. So I decided to toot my own horn a bit and share some of the problems, dilemmas and conundrums that I have successfully navigated and ultimately solved.
For instance, today I had to deal with continued angst over the whole “website pictures are duplicating themselves 30 times” thing. Because it turns out that in addition to making 30 copies of a photo, it ALSO makes some half dozen other copies, but those are invisible. Don’t ask me to explain it. Just trust me when I tell you that I have no use for any of the 30 copies because what I really need are the invisible photos that I can’t access.
Because technology.
Did I let this ruin my day? Nay. I slammed the computer shut and baked an apple pie. Problem solved.
I’m fairly certain that earns me a gold star.
This week was generally fraught with angst induced by a rather obnoxious headache and a persistent feeling that everything I do is running to stand still. Monday I woke up feeling ugh-ish and started work by attempting to post an update on one of my clients’ social networks. The app that I use to make the posts hung there and hung there and hung there. I refreshed the page. I quit the browser. I restarted my computer. I logged out and back in again. I wrote another post. Oh snap! Looks like something went wrong!
Sidebar: if there is anything I hate more than getting an error message when I’m trying to do a simple task it’s getting a stupid-clever error message that some marketing department thought would make me feel better about the fact that my two minute task was now up to twenty.
Did I let this ruin my day? Nay! I slammed the computer shut and threw myself back in bed until noon. Problem solved.
I’m fairly certain I will get the Nobel prize for that one.
I feel like my problem solving skills are under appreciated.
I solved a cooking misadventure this week, too. I made a big pot of chicken chili with a fresh batch of butternut squash rolls and was quite looking forward to enjoying a warm bowl of comfort food for dinner.
The last phase of chicken chili involves dumping half a box of fresh spinach into it and letting it wilt nicely. I retrieved my box of spinach from the refrigerator. I pulled off the plastic top and a giant bug flew out and right into my pot of chili.
Did I let this ruin my dinner? Nay, I say. I made a reasonable attempt to flick it out and scanned the surrounding area to see where it landed. It was nowhere to be found. Might it have met its demise in my pot? Perhaps. But I chose to assume it had been properly flicked, slammed the lid on the pot of chili and poured myself a glass of bourbon. Problem solved.
Did I eat a bug? Nobody will ever know. But the quantity of alcohol consumed made it impossible to care.
Honestly, why aren’t there any awards for this?
There are many such examples of me solving problems that get no recognition whatsoever. Like the fact that the single website I needed so that I could continue with any task whatsoever was down for the day. I solved that by eating the entire bag of pumpkin pie spice malted milk balls.
I mean, not everyone would have thought to do that. I’m a creative thinker like that.
Anyway, since the world is not going to ring any bells or throw any confetti for me, I am doing it for myself. Here’s to me and to solving the world’s problems one malted milk ball at a time.
Photo: I didn’t have any particularly relevant photos for this blog nor did I want to spend the next 20 minutes finding one, so I picked a random photo of a pancake machine spitting out a pancake at a Holiday Inn. Problem solved.