39 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, August 19, 2020”

  1. The new thing I’m lusting over is a cookie jar (my husband and children are enabling on this one b/c they know it means more cookies). I’m not sure what I even want yet, but I might get something in Fiesta ware to match the rest of my stuff. The “dancing lady” cookie jar is far too expensive, but they make lots of medium sized jars that would work. On the other hand that’s kind of plain and there are so many cute whimsical ones. . .

    I started a new running routine which is short bursts of walk, run, walk, run, which is a little bit more my style than long runs. I like running 5ks to 10ks (anything longer is just too much for me) and there is a little part of me that is sad we’re getting into prime race season and there will be only virtual races for foreseeable future. But it is getting into my favorite time of year to run (lower humidity! still daylight savings time!), so I’m trying to focus on that.

    The kitchen I cleaned thoroughly just last week is miraculously messy again. I think a lot of that is small kitchen + one shopping trip a week = always cluttered kitchen.

    Other than that, just lots of Italian, both for fun and for homework. There’s a part of my brain that is a language glutton and now that I’ve reached a certain proficiency with one language wants to learn another one (one of my semi secret life ambitions is to be a “hyper polyglot”) but I think there’s something to be said for diving deep into a language and really learning about it and the culture. Italy will always have a special part of my heart (I lived there for 5 years as Navy brat) so it’s not a hardship.

      1. Italy is my favourite country, plus I tend to all things Italian. Maybe there is a little bit of Italian in the blood line. Maybe it was the Italian boyfriends of my youth.

      2. Haha, my dad picked Navy for the $$$. But the travel was very nice. I was born in Bermuda and we also lived in Hawaii. (I’d like to learn the Hawaiian language one day for completely impractical reasons.)

        1. My dad picked Navy for the scholarship to USNA. We lived in Hawaii and Guam. I can say that I had 6 different schools my first seven years of schooling, but once we got settled, we didn’t move much – Dad just changed jobs in the area.

          1. I was born on Guam when my USN father was stationed there, after WWII. He and my mother (WWII WAVE) met during the war while serving together. We lived in NYC, DC, and Bremerhaven before my father resigned and we settled down in his home town of Oakland, California.

          2. I was born at the Army base outside of Monterey CA. My parents met on a blind date in Philly, while he was at the Academy. A match made in heaven I think.

  3. This week doing onboarding stuff before school starts with kids (we moved to virtual school and they want you to know how everything works before the first day), we had the electrician back to install the lights outside that were the last piece of our HVAC redo (rerouting things meant moving lights), I am trying to catch up deadheading the roses but it’s a heatwave so that’s going slowly and I removed the remaining support stakes from the new trees planted earlier this year because they’ve done their jobs. Also did a bunch of garden cleanup right before the heatwave hit.

  4. This week I mentally prepared myself for the radiation treatment. I went in Monday and Tuesday morning dutifully for my shot. Then Tuesday mid morning – about an hour before I would have gone back to proceed to the next step, I got a call. The tracers I needed for this process hadn’t been procured, so we couldn’t proceed. So, we start over again next week. Can I tell you that I hate shots? Always have. I guess it is no longer a phobia, since I don’t run in gibbering terror any more, but . . . Ah well. I’ll have to look at it as a dress rehearsal. And on the bright side, I’ve been through it, so I know what to expect, so I won’t have such a rough night of sleep this coming Sunday.

    I did a lot of sewing on Sunday. I put borders on that lattice work quilt – it needs to be quilted now. I also got borders done for a small frog quilt I’m making for my great niece. Just waiting for the center panel, and I’ll be good to go with that.

    I also made the last two blocks of my quilt group’s pandemic project. We had each picked out one or two patterns and everyone in the group made them from scraps / fabric in their stash. Now that I have 12 blocks done, it’s time to figure out how to put them together. I’ve previewed a couple of arrangements
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CEElL8IB-4m/

    Once I decide, I’ll figure out some sashing, and put it together. It will be nice to get this off of my desk/sewing/cutting/dining room table.

    2. You’re very philosophical about the “all dressed up and nowhere to go” medical situation. I hope all will go as planned next week.

    3. Those are beautiful blocks, Nancy. No matter what arrangement you choose, it will be lovely!

  5. I spent the last week working on getting well. Having heard nothing from the test, I can assume this is not COVID-19, but I really loved self-isolating. Whatever this is I really don’t want to pass it to anyone else! So far I have spent ten days at home except for going to get tested a week ago, when I only rolled my window down to get swabbed, and it has been bliss. Now I need to work on getting something in writing or other official format saying I’m negative so I can go back to work before my bank account implodes, but there’s no rush. I’m only beginning to get well.

  6. Having FINALLY retired August 5th, I am playing catch-up with the rest of life. Doing final sign-offs and arranging shipments to return company tech was a challenge with no power and internet (Thank you, Tropical Storm “I”), but thanks to a camping battery, solar panel and iPads with cell service we could tether through, both husband and I accomplished our work goals.

    Since then have taking care of some much delayed self-care: check-ins with oncologist, annual physical, eye appointment and my first acupuncture session since February.

    We are leaving Saturday to camp in Vermont. Vermont considers my county to be “green” so we don’t have to self-quarantine before showing up at the camp ground. I’m spending the week making lists and going through camping equipment. We more “glamp” than camp. We rent a lean-too and bring an entire utility trailer full of add-ons. Two years ago I added cots, because getting up off the floor does not happen easily after knee surgery. This year, my husband added a screen tent to go over the picnic table – to try to minimize August wasps – and a generator to help keep the camping battery and his model plane batteries charged up if there isn’t enough sun for the solar battery. It will also save a freezer full of food should we have another multi-day power outage at the house!

    Will miss my ex-sister-in-law and her husband, who are stuck in Delaware, a state that Vermont requires quarantining in-state for two weeks before going to a camp-ground. So it will just be husband’s brother and his son in our little enclave this year. (And maybe his adult daughters next weekend).

  7. I went to Ikea this week, so my life is filled with assemblage. As always, I forgot the golden rule of making space for the new things beforehand.

  9. We got the picture railing and mural up in my daughter’s room. The self-service wallpaper wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The last piece I rough cut before the final trim. Fortunately that area is behind the door. No trips to the ER. So win.

  10. Last week we put the new plywood floor down in the shed and sealed it and over this week I’ve been puttering away at getting it organized and putting things away. Yesterday we did more of that and then took a load of absolute crap (seriously, why were we keeping a mildew-encrusted life jacket that’s too small for both of us when we have good ones?) to the dump.

    I’ve decided to take a page out of Jane’s book and do a serious plan for my garden beds, they are just so haphazard and unorganized and it’s really beginning to grate on my gardening nerves. Also, there are blank spaces where things didn’t perform well and those are just a magnet for dandelions. I love dandelions, I think they are cheerful little flowers, but I don’t want a garden full of them.

    I also found some large tubs that will be transformed into planters for next year when we build our deck. A little spray paint and some castors and they will be perfect, all for much less than the $250.00+ that 4 planters that size would have cost.

    Now it’s back to the day job.

    1. I suspect everyone would rave about dandelions, if only they were rarer. Beautiful sunshiny flowers plus gourmet salad leaves (well, if you’re French).

      1. Or poor and health-minded. There were these two old ladies when I was growing up in the 50s, who wore their skirts down to the ankle, and smelled of asafoedita (my mother said) from two aisles away in the grocery, who spent days every spring cutting dandelion greens in the grass strip in the highway in front of their house.

  11. I worked today. https://www.instagram.com/p/CEFBHRnD49M/?igshid=18bv9um2u3bqy

    Whatsapp lessons to class. Went to butcher, baker, pharmacy. Home. Fry up fresh sausages. Eat. Hand wash the black T-shirts. Hose off the dusty car. Do the Chopra abundance work. Two yoga asana. Ironing of aforementioned T-Shirts and more. Cooked salmon, see link. Ate. I was right, those spices worked! Washed up.

    Finished all by 6pm because of scheduled power cuts called “load-shedding” from our power company. It’ll end at 8pm but meh, I’m for early snuggles in bed.

  12. From last Wednesday’s t’do list:

    [X] Tomorrow I’m going to break out the clippers, trim my beard and hair, what’s left of it.
    I used the #1 guide to trim the beard – it looks like I haven’t shaved for a few days. Switched to the #2 for the rest of my head – short enough to preclude comb-overs, or any other combing. It’s a peach of a haircut. It’s a great style for under 12 or over 65, or possibly for a military recruit.

    It does mandate wearing a ball cap to a) keep off the sun and b) keep away mosquitoes – but who am I kidding? I live in a southern state – ball caps are haut couture (and a part of my uniform.)

    This just leaves one item from last week’s work list:

    [ * ] Tomorrow, I’m going to remount a working fan on the wall over my bed in place of the one that died. I have three (3) replacements still in the box.

    My first attempt failed. I tried to re-use the bracket from the dead fan, but things didn’t line up right. I’ll have to have another go at it. In the meantime, I’ve been making do with a four inch fan on the night stand. Can’t sleep without a fan, never could.

    Of course, a week has gone by, so there’s another t’do list full of dirty Rubbermaid, CoolPad features, recycling, and so forth.

  13. I’m working on being able to vote in the primary for Congress. Just checked Track My Ballot to see why everyone else I know is sending/delivering their mail-in ballots and I don’t even have my ballot. Well, supposedly it was mailed to me (from approximately 2 miles away) on July 27, and now, 23 days later, I still don’t have it. Not sure how even the current post office administration could cause a ballot to sit for more than three weeks when it’s going from one side of town to the other. Looks like I’ll be voting in-person/early next week.

    1. Update: Ballot was in today’s mail. I’ll be dropping it off in person, because if it takes 23 days to go in the other direction, it’ll arrive ten days after the election.

  14. I intend to live vicariously through all your accomplishments!

    I have had the same To Do list for four days now. Just cannot seem to get motivated. I think part of it is that I am stress-worrying supporting my son through his online finals. Thank goodness, the final one was this morning; now I can get back to my own life. (Yep, he’s 31, but do we ever stop being parents? Don’t think so.) I plan to work on the laundry and dishes as soon as I get off my computer. At least, that’s the plan.

  15. I’m struggling through an admin marathon – due to not having done my accounts since last May, plus extra muddle/paperwork from the house move. I don’t think I’ve ever left it so long before, and I’ve now designated every fourth Monday as an admin day, in the hope I never will again. After four days at it, I’m ready to start writing up my accounts book – except tomorrow’s meant to be fine (we’re having a lot of wet weather this month), so I plan to harvest my potatoes. I had to cut the tops off due to blight two and a half weeks ago, so they need digging this week. Hopefully after the blight spores on the surface have died, so the spuds will be sound for storing, and before they’re all eaten by slugs.

  16. I balanced my checkbook. The thing that makes this month different from the last few months is that I remembered to write down how much it is off somewhere I should be able to find it next month. My bank just merged with another bank and in the resulting change over it has been hard to keep track of anything. But now that the transition is over I am hoping I will be less rattled and go back to filing everything properly. Reading the new list of fees and charges upset me so much that I just piled up anything that came after that.

  17. The fact that I did any work at all today at work is impressive because jeebus christ, I am not in the mood.

    On a related note: if you’ve heard of the fires in California? My crush has most likely lost his house in that. They really don’t expect it will have survived. He lived in a hugely dangerous fire area that as far as I’ve heard probably got annihilated. Everyone and animals got out and are at a relative’s house, at least. I feel so bad for him and I can’t do shit from here. Fucking pandemic.

    (Though I will point out that I offered to replace any gifts I made him and he apparently did rescue his favorite one from the fire…awwwww.)

    1. Hey, Jennifer, the Milwaukee Rep has been offering free online workshops about different aspects of theater. There are other videos to watch, too. Google Milwaukee Rep At Home.

  18. Made tuna salad, cleaned the kitchen, had and echocardiogram (no phone call so I’m good).

  21. The good part first. I bought an inflatable kayak and have been paddling in the lake. The day before yesterday the water was like glass and there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze so I decided to go all the way around. 3/4 of the way it started to rain and I had to battle a gale to get back to my car. What an adventure!! Now my son needs a ride so that’s all you get of my life!

  22. I am working on my intentionally-structured new WIP.

    Also working on putting my September title into publication-ready form.

    Also working on getting through the workday without screaming or crying because of the heat, but at least heat is my only problem. I am truly appreciative of that.

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