Hibernate or not to hibernate...

I have been feeling sluggish lately. It must be the winter blues. The weather has been overcast, dreary for a very long time. 

I feel like I would like to crawl into a cave and snuggle with a bear to hibernate. 

This weekend, I am planning to dye my hair, do my nails and just try to be active all through the weekend. If I stay in bed thinking that I need to rest a lot, I never get that rest and feel even worse on Monday.

I have also promised myself to be out and about no matter what the weather will be like, at least for a whole hour. A walk by the seaside seems most appealing.

So, I will hopefully keep my blood pumping and shake this feeling over the weekend.

There are a lot of things at home to sort out and re-arrange. I am hoping to be able to do at least some of those things. 

What do you do to shake of the winter blues?

Can we act like adults please?

I don't know how many times I want to say this to one of the sales people at our company. She is my age, 50 years old.

Our boss sends all the sales people their goals for the year and expects them to achieve their goals. They get serious amounts of bonuses. In addition to their sales goals, there are a couple of apps that they must use. If they do not, they are fined by a small amount deducted from their bonuses.

So, this year, she did really well and earned a bonus of say USD 30,000 (that is not the real number). However, since she did not use one of the apps required, USD 750 was deducted from the above number. A normal adult would say "it was my fault, now I have to make sure I pay attention to these things" right? No. She has sent whiny e-mails to our boss and he put his foot down. He forwarded those messages to me saying that he had no intention to budge.

I went up to him and asked if he had conveyed his message openly. He showed me the document he has sent her at the beginning of the last year and even forwarded me that message.

So, today I had a discussion with her and I scolded a 50 year old woman that she was acting in a childish manner and she keeps doing this even when she knows that our boss loathes this type of behavior.

Whenever there is an issue that she is not right, instead of owning the failure, she whines and sometimes even cries. I just cannot comprehend why she is like this.

She keeps blaming other people, claims she did not know such and such thing, did not understand it that way, etc. Truly a baby! How do you handle such people?

Arrrghhh!

January 15

If my father were alive, yesterday would have marked his 77th birthday. However, he passed when he was only 54. There isn't one single day, I haven't thought of him since his passing.

He was a quick witted person and was very fond of joking. He was a very loving father but he was excessively protective and he was a worrier. Growing up, I had found those traits difficult to deal with. I usually think, that is why he passed at such a young age. He was always terribly afraid that, he would not be able to cope with his mother's passing. My grandma outlived him by 7 years. He was afraid that his brother would kill himself because of alcoholism. He did and everybody dealt with it including my grandma who outlived my uncle by 3 years. 

He died on February 20th. So, the time between his birthday and his death day is especially tough on me. Oh, and Father's Day is the worst. 

I am turning 50 this year and as I approach the age he died, I tend to stop and reflect back on things more often. 

My heart is heavy these days...

And now... Flood!

What happens when 50 inches of snow falls and starts to melt?

I park my car in the garage at the second basement level. Today, as I got off the elevator, I was startled with the noise of water. I then realized that, the water found it's way on several locations into the garage and almost flooded the basement. The amount of water pouring down is so much that they will need to pump it out AGAIN!

I do not understand why they do not get this fixed properly. Tonight, I am definitely leaving the car outside. Until the basement dries, I am not leaving my car down there.

It is terrible for the building's foundation. Good thing that I am only a renter here. Otherwise, I would be on their case to get this thing fixed properly.

Snowed In!

This year all the snow that usually goes to North America must have come to Turkey instead. I have not seen anything like this since 1996 when I was back in the US. It started snowing on Friday at 4.p.m and still going strong. There may have been only a few hours that it had stopped. It is quiet a blizzard right now.

We could not go to work today and most likely we will keep home tomorrow too. Thankfully, everyone can work from home in what we do so, we are not behind on our customer obligations.

I went out briefly to get some groceries. It was such a chore! There is 40-50 inches of snow out there. Thankfully, I am back at home. They say it is going to get worse in a few hours. ,

May God protect the poor and homeless and all the animals out.

To plan or not to plan? That is the question...

I have a good job which pays very well and I am happy about it in general. I had made some long term financial plans and was very happy how things were going. However....

My boss lately told me that a big company is interested in buying us out. Since he intends to relocate abroad, he is happy that such an opportunity presented itself.

Well, my plans need to change now. First of all, I have some debt burden taken over from a family member and that has to be paid out on a monthly basis. Second, I had been planning to save a ton of money over the course of 3-5 years. Third, I used to pay a lump sum amount to my personal retirement fund to take the advantage of 25% Government Match but, I do not want to be cash-short so, I decided to postpone that large payment which will eventually delay the Government Match.

Bummer! Should I forgo planning altogether and float the waves? If plans are not gonna work why bother planning?

Obviously, I decided to revise my plans instead of panicking. When I heard the news, I charted out a terrible scenario where I would keep my current job for the first three months of this year and would not be able to find a new job and just exist on my retirement and rental income.

I ran the numbers and saw that, I can still meet my obligations even in that terrible scenario with very small savings to be left over. This made me feel a bit better about the situation because, this is the most unlikely scenario.

My boss thinks the deal will take at least 2 quarters and that the buyer will need me badly. Let's hope so, but, I will not count on that.

Now, I have switched to a super saver mode. Other than items of absolute necessity, and some simple entertainment, I will not be spending money.

Back to Reality...

There has been a terrorist attack to the one of the most prominent Night Clubs in Istanbul during the first hour of 2017. It was an ISIS terrorist using an automatic assault weapon. 40 people died, more than 60 wounded.

World is going to get even crazier. I accept this fact now. So sad...