My First Post - Thursday Thirteen

I absolutely despise the regular Thursday Thirteen code - I've used it in LiveJournal, and it always sends my layouts into some skewered mess, so I refuse to use it. So not only is my first post in this blog a Thursday Thirteen, it's a codeless Thursday Thirteen...done while I'm *supposed* to be working. Oh, well, the keys are clacking, no one here will notice anyway.

Since I'm at work and not really at all creatively inspired...my Thirteen is going to be a mini-tour of my desk. Sort of.

1. To my immediate left is my phone - it's evil. It rings when I don't want it to, and after three months at this job, I *still* don't know what half the buttons are for. Underneath it is the desk manual for that particular model, complete with pretty purple sticky tape tabs (I *love* those!) from my training sessions. Do you think the tabs helped me remember anything? Of course not.

2. To the right of my phone, where my desk turns, (it's a three-sided deal, but I'm not doing the part that's behind me because all that's over there is a printer and some binders) is my address book, my typing stand, a picture of my aunts, my calendar, and the vase I kept from my birthday rose. I keep meaning to pick up some of those pretty colored glass stones to put in it.

3. Next, directly in front of me, is my massive monitor. It's still a daily adjustment to switch back and forth from a laptop monitor (at home) to this one.

4. Underneath the monitor are two sets of sticky tape tabs (purple and white, my high school colors), my badass black rubber duck Squeaky - complete with devil horns, shades, and shell necklace. What the heck are those shells called? The little white ones? Someone must know...

5. In front of the monitor are my post-it pads - two in generic yellow and one blue one with a flower in the top left corner and an 'M' in the bottom right - M for my birth name. Chelsea is only a pseudonym. Immediately in front of that is the folder full of the charts I'm currently supposed to be updating.

6. To the immediate right of the monitor, on the little half-wall thing that makes up the front of my station, I have taped up a couple of pictures of my cousins. I keep meaning to go through my photo albums and bring in some more to put up and personalize my desk a bit more.

7. To the right of that, on the corkboard-ish part of my wall, I tacked up an autographed photo of Jonathan Papelbon - Boston Red Sox closing pitcher, for those of you who don't know. It was a belated birthday gift from a few friends in 2004, after the Sox won the Series.

8. Next to that is my in/out try, which is currently occupied by half-used sheets of labels. I make a *lot* of labels, but hardly ever full pages, so I have a bunch of those.

9. To the immediate right of my monitor, I have my White-Out, staple remover, paper clip holder, tape, and stapler.

10. Right next to those are my mini-tray of scrap paper, my pen holder (stuffed with my favorite kind of pens, which I'm always nicking from the supply rooms), and a bottle of hand cream (lemon-scented, my favorite).

11. To the far right, underneath my desk and snugged right up against the inside wall of my station is my personal set of drawers. The top drawer has extra pens and pencils, an extra stapler, tons of binder clips, rubber bands, paper clips, spare sticky tape tabs, post-it notes, file tabs, highlighters, permanent marker, an extra ponytail holder and brush, and my iPod.

12. The middle drawer has an assortment of legal pads and notebooks, a few file folders, a box of the big binder clips, and some napkins.

13. And finally, the bottom drawer has my insurance books, life safety kit, extra redwells (big file folders, so named because, um, they're red?), more manila file folders, and my policies and procedures handbook.

Not exactly the most interesting Thursday Thirteen ever, but it's one of those days, you know? It's cold and raining outside, I'm cranky and hormonal (this is the week every month when I wish I was male), plus I'm tired from not sleeping well. I think it's time to slack a little more and take my lunch break.