Happy Friday! Today is National Tattoo Day (I have many tattoo ideas and exactly zero tattoos), National Lottery Day (I always wish to win but never play), and another summer Friday off!

I haven’t blogged regularly since July because I’ve been nose deep in work and true to me, I was letting it spill past the end of the workday/workweek. We have a big project that is rolling along until November, and I had to develop my department’s budget for the first time and then discuss my reasoning for it at a leadership meeting.

I try not to brag on myself often, but props to my beautiful brain for figuring out the best way to project membership revenue in a very volatile time for healthcare, associations, and healthcare associations. TNP is fine but there’s a lot of financial disruption everywhere.

I want to finish round two of developing the budget by the end of this upcoming workweek. This old dog continues to learn new tricks.

I’m not at the beach today because our air quality is very terrible from the Canadian fires. I know there are people having it worse, but this isn’t great either:

When I bought two air purifiers in 2023, I thought it would be for a one-off situation. Joke’s on all of us, I guess. *laughs in apocalypse*

This week’s Friday 5 features the return of the Scattergories theme! I’ll use a random letter generator and exclude the previous years’ letters, which were O, L, U, C, and E.

This year’s letter is:

Y

Now all of my answers have to begin with Y. This should be interesting!

1. Who was especially influential in shaping your values?
   Your Mom.
   
   Okay seriously. If I were religious, I’d go with Yahweh, which is RIGHT THERE. I looked up names beginning with Y and, no. Not Yoko Ono, not Chuck Yeager.
   
2. Who inspired (or inspires) you in your work?
   Nobody with a name beginning with Y but I’ve been trying to bring some elements from my yoga classes into work, especially if I’m stressed out. Standing, breathing, stretching – they are all very helpful.
   
3. What have you had a little too much of lately?
   Yellowish skies from wildfire smoke. It’s very dystopian.
   
4. What have you brought home recently?
   Yogurt. Combined with some granola and fruit, it’s my go to breakfast. I recently started adding a tablespoon of peanut butter to it and it really leveled up.
   
5. How’s your weekend shaping up?
   On one hand, I want to stay inside because Air Quality index is 194 and being outside hurts my throat. But … YOLO?

I’m going to pull together a catchup post for Monday, get back into the Wednesday photos, and make the blogging habit stick again.