Working Wednesday October 28, 2020

~ Jenny

I’m buried under work at the moment which is what I deserve for putting several things off for weeks (months?) that have now all come home to roost. I did manage to get the remote camera up to take pictures of the stray cat that lives in my garage that I’m trying to lure into the house before the temps drop below freezing on Friday. Because what I really needed was another job with a deadline. Argh.

What did you do this week?

Picture of stray cat in garage:

88 thoughts on “Working Wednesday October 28, 2020”

  1. I worked the polls yesterday and I’ll be back on Friday, Sunday, and of course the big day! Other than that, just plugging away at the usual things.

  2. It takes about 4 days for me to start to physically unwind from work. We closed on Friday. I’m starting to feel functional again. Alas, we go back on Monday for the fourth term.

    My work for the next few days is make new masks, dehoard the documents, and try to engage in more supportive behaviours. If I can get a few things right from tomorrow, then I’ll be able to work on keeping it going from next week.

    I need to create a firm work-life balance.

    1. She’ll let me scratch her ears. It’s going to go below freezing her on Friday, so she may like me a lot better then.

        1. I opened the house door to the garage and put the food just inside, and she came inside and snacked, so we have a start on that. And I have tuna. (Come to the dark side, we have . . . )

      2. At least now you know she’s not feral but a true stray. A feral wouldn’t let you touch her, even for the stinkiest of fishy food.

        1. That’s what I thought. She’s still very cautious, but she loves having her ears scratched.

          2. You could try that blinking slowly at her thing that seems to be taking the internet by storm. My cat actually did it to me today. Of course, it was after I disturbed her nap on the bathmat on the heated bathroom floor so perhaps it was a threat…

  4. I spent most of Saturday clearing the wilderness behind the house (and beyond the fence). It involved walking around the block, pruning a bunch, coming back around for a rest, and repeating a couple of times. The last time, my DH joined me and did the heavy work of getting the barrels full of yard waste around the block to our house for pick up. I really feel much better for having gotten that job done, even if my forearms are similar to Popeye’s after all the work with the lopper!

    On the crafty front, I tried a different newborn hat pattern. It is definitely easier, since it isn’t worked in the round with double pointed needles. So, I’ve made three of those. I also tried the crochet hat pattern that was on the yarn label. It’s okay, but not as stretchy as the knitted ones, so I’ll probably not make any more of those. I’ve got a couple of more musical engagements at church next month which include a considerable break, and instead of twiddling my thumbs, I’ll probably knock out a couple more of these hats. Basically, I’ll keep making them until the yarn runs out.

    On the afghan, I’m nearing the end of the main body – I started my last color last evening. After that, it will be wrestling with the border. I’ll post a pic when it is done.

    I think I mentioned last week that I had gotten some flannel for making newborn receiving blankets. I got about 2 yards each of four different fabrics, and found I had enough to make 6 of these blankets. I still have topstiching to go on three of them, but I had to post a picture because the sloth fabric is so darn cute!!

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CG4_lU4h-Jp/

    You can’t help but smile looking at them, and imagining a baby wrapped up in it.

    1. So cute. I washed all my stash of flannel to make baby blankets and two quilts for the new baby nephew and another new baby arriving next year. Now onto sewing.

      There is a wonderful quilt fabric shop on Granville Island in Vancouver, lots of money has been dropped there.

  5. Well, since 2020 has been a stressful and not good very bad year thus far (with a few small highlights), I got an early morning FaceTime from my father that my mother passed away in the night watching her beloved HGTV. She always floated around in the wee hours and he woke up, came out to the family room and said he knew when he saw her she was gone.

    So, here I am on the wrong side of the Atlantic, so I can’t even go home to help. My brother is there, as is my niece and her husband,. But the way it’s looking, I can’t get over until sometime next year. Because of a pandemic that the delusional moron in the White House has declared “over”. My lord, how did we get here? What did we do to deserve this???

    Germany is going to institute a “lockdown light” on Monday because the numbers are skyrocketing (relative for here). With 1/4 of the population of the US, we have just a day or so ago crossed into five figures for deaths — meaning we have about 1/23 the number of deaths. Which is what happens when you have a scientist instead of a narcissist in charge. (Just a week ago she said, if Germany wasn’t careful, the new cases would be up to 19,000/day by Christmas and was pooh-poohed. Today it was over 14,000 —- so her “ridiculous” prognosis may come true earlier than even she expected. Sigh)

    Still. People get tired and lazy, the weather turned cold and kaboom.

    I am so tired of 2020.

    3. Oh my. So sorry about your mum. Big virtual hugs. Extra tough to be so far away. While online tributes and virtual ceremonies help, totally understand your feelings about the distance. Wishing you and your family peace.

    8. Oh, that’s so awful. I am so sorry that you can’t get home to the comfort of your family. I hope you can hold all your good memories close for comfort.

    12. I’m so sorry. It sounds like you couldn’t have done anything had you been there, but it is so frustrating that you can’t even try.

      I’m sending months of virtual hugs.

    16. I’m so sorry to hear of your loss and the frustration you must feel being unable to be with your family. Would it help you to put together a journal of memories of your mother and perhaps some pictures, too?

    17. Oh Betty I am so sorry. I cannot imagine how awful that is for you, and I send you all my best wishes for comfort wherever you can find it.

  6. I’ve spent the entire month of October getting caught up on projects and housework and yard work. Well, not really caught up, but things are better. My work table is clear, and that makes me feel less stressed. I can walk by it without tensing up about all the things I want to do but don’t have time/energy for. I even found a dozen masks (except they didn’t have ties) mixed in with scraps from the spring mask-making, and finished them for the inevitable need as cases keep rising and PPE is undoubtedly getting used up.

    I also pieced a lap quilt (about 50″ square) from scraps left from last fall. It’s based on an antique I saw at IG and you can see my version at IG (although I lost the link to the inspiration, which was in a classic green, while mine’s in red): https://www.instagram.com/p/CG2lM72gQ_z/

  7. It’s Medicare Open Enrollment time, so I openly enrolled in Medicare, such of the alphabet as applies. I was already enrolled in A. It was the next step toward retirement. Another step is for the battery in my AED/Pacemaker to approach End-of-Life and have to be replaced. I’d like to have that happen before I quit the day job.

    Other than that I read books.

    1. Gary. When my husband retired, the SSA wanted to charge him $10/month for forever because he worked past 66 and while he had Medicare, he did not have the prescription supplement which is required. It took a few months of fighting with them before they agreed that the prescription supplement he had through his job was equivalent so he did not also have to have their version prior to retirement. Check with your Human Resources to see if your coverage is equivalent. Just thought I would give you a heads up in case you have a similar situation.

    2. Your HR department should have someone who can advise you. Mine told me not to apply for Part D because my company retirement coverage was better and cheaper, even before the ACA.

  8. Nancy H, you made me laugh as I tried to grapple with the concept “until the yarn runs out” It’s beyond me.

    I found a new place to take miscellaneous crocheted shawls, since the place I used to send them changed their program, and many places only want things made with a specific pattern. She just confirmed that they like my preferred size (good for using up left over yarns) and are fine with the slightly “creative” color schemes (see ‘left over yarn’) I sent her.

    Boss and I both back full time again after two weeks of mostly off, so definitely noticing the working thing.

  9. I should have said “until the two current skeins of purple yarn” run out. Because, yes, my house overflows with yarn. . . and fabric . . . . and . . ..

  10. I had a very relaxing weekend away, though did go for a 3 hour walk on Saturday. And mowed the lawn and did a little bit in the garden. Lots more needed! We’ve got a friend coming to stay in a fortnight and I’d like to reduce the chaos before she gets here.

    And I kept drawing Rosie the dog. She’s taking shape, though still needs polish – and a body. https://www.instagram.com/p/CG5d5fjlXhi/?igshid=10pau8tqnlyr9

    1. Who needs a body when she has eyes like those? You’ve done a great job of capturing her personality.

  11. I had two days off from work and only three days to go until one week of holidays. Quite some work to do until then. School holidays start on November 2nd here in Bavaria – same day as the lockdown does.
    With the light lockdown looming here in Germany, I hope to manage two visits at our local cinema in time to get them a bit of business until the dire times for them start anew.
    Schools will stay open overall, so I do hope this also means that our community college (VHS) can continue to offer courses – they only re-opened at the beginning of October and would offer a fine course programme for kids to refresh what they missed out on during spring lockdown. Argh.
    But as German Chocolate Betty said correctly, it’s good to have a competent head of state who reacts (and make the federal heads react accordingly) when the numbers are not yet completely out of control.
    Nevertheless – melancholic times ahead. A lot of family time only and outdoors if possible.

  12. German Chocolate Betty, You have my condolences for the grief of your mother’s death. The burden is unlike any other a woman suffers. Be as good to yourself as you can, and don’t waste time in “I wish I had …” slings and arrows of regret. I discovered a new companionship with my mother after she died. As I aged, I grew into a mellowed understanding of her life, and I joined her in the eye rolls of “youth is wasted on the young” moments. May you find unexpected ease in life’s serendipity.

    1. My Mom and I had a different relationship towards the end of her life, but so many good memories. Curiously, I have wonderful dreams about her now, nothing special, just shopping, eating out, the rolling of the eyes. I miss her like crazy sometimes, but so glad she was my Mom.

      1. Like Alicia, I’ve been closer to my mother since she died — I like Alicia’s term “companionship.”

        That said, I remember how awful I felt at my mother’s death. Please care for yourself, German Chocolate Betty.

  13. That’s a super cute cat. I think Emily would be a great name for her. I hope she decides that yours is her forever home.

  14. I have finally uploaded a photo of my finished Woodland Animals baby quilt to Instagram so I can share here.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CG5txO1H1DL/

    This is the first time I’ve attempted to link, so I hope it works. If not, I have tagged it #workingwednesdaypix so hopefully that would work as an alternative…

    I feel kind of like an imposter posting this here since I don’t comment that often, but I did talk about it here when I was working on it a while back, so here we go. 🙂

    3. Oh, that’s darling. That kid is going to love it.
      (Of course, you’re not an imposter. It’s great to see that quilt.)

    4. Oh, I LOVE that! It is fun and young without being pastel and indistinct as most baby quilts are. I especially appreciate that because I have known some babies who had very strong personalities from the very beginning.

    5. That’s a really lovely quilt. After it is much loved by the baby, it would make a wonderful wall hanging for a bedroom.

      I really enjoy seeing posts from people from all over the world. It makes the world seem friendlier somehow, so thanks for posting, Frances.

      1. Aw, thank you for the love, everyone!

        Quilting has very much been my ‘go to’ for comforting in these non-comforting times. Even more so than reading, which I don’t seem to have the head-space for right now, even though I’ve been a keen reader since… well, since I could!

  15. I have been letting the day job stress me out. It feels like my only real connection to the world these days, which gives it a bit too much weight in my emotional life.

    Getting ready to be “out of office” for five days and absolutely dreading the inferno my in-box will be when I return, but I need to go see the dermatologist and I need to not log in for a few continuous days.

    Aside from worky work, have not accomplished much. Picking away at works-in-progress, and what does 2020 brain do? It says, because it is basically a kitten on crack, Start this new book!

    The husband dropped off our ballots Monday and I got a confirmation today that mine was received. Yay California/Los Angeles County BallotTrax and generally yay our state government for doing the opposite of suppressing the vote.

    1. Question from a non understander do not Alaskan and Hawaiian residents vote I see no mention of them in the USA news?

      1. They vote. Alaska has been in the news, but it’s pretty much a red/Republican state, so there’s not a lot of speculation about how it’s going to go. Hawaii is a blue/Democratic state, so again, not much speculation about how it’s going to go, we already know. The states you read a lot about are the states that might flip from Trump to Biden and so deliver him the Electoral College (the dumbest idea the Founding Fathers had and the reason we’ve had minority rule under Trump and Bush) and down ballot, also deliver the Senate majority to the Dems; there are a lot more vulnerable Republican senators up for re-election than there are Democrats. Basically, there’s just a lot more news about some of the red/Republican states because that’s where the big changes might come. Our elections are difficult to parse because we have so many more red states so it seems as though we must be mostly Republican. But the majority of our population is concentrated in coastal states, so even though there are fewer blue states, the majority of Americans are not Republicans. For example, twelve percent of our population lives in California. One third of one percent of the population lives in Montana. Both states get two senators each.

        The best site for understanding the state of the election is 538.
        https://fivethirtyeight.com

        The best site for understanding American politics doesn’t exist because nobody understands American politics. In the last election Clinton beat Trump by three million votes, but Trump’s President. I still believe he’s part of an extinction burst, and that after him the entire country is going to shift in the direction of open-mindedness and diversity. I think we’re already moving that way, thanks mostly to the younger generations coming up (and getting elected soon, I hope).

        1. Thank you, I could never understand why Clinton who had more votes didn’t win. Oh Well lots of luck, this time.

          1. We don’t have a true democracy. We have a representational democracy which gives more “weight” to votes from rural areas – the founding fathers were mostly from rural areas and they felt rural agricultural needs (mostly slave owning cotton and tobacco farmers) should not be controlled by those shop owners and manufacturers since they weren’t really intellectuals and gentlemen. They did not of course say that in so many words.

            The interesting thing about this election is that since I live in a non-contested blue state, no one is targeting us with ads. If it weren’t for the ceaseless begging phone calls, I would barely know there is an election going on.

          2. I have somehow gotten on conservative lists so I’m getting texts begging me to help keep Texas red. I live in New Jersey. Go Blue, Texas!

        2. The Alaska Senate race actually might be close this year—it’s an incumbent Republican against an independent so none of the icky Democrat issues.

          And the Alaska and Montana House races will be really important in the unlikely but possible scenario where Biden and Trump are tied in the electoral college and the House of Representatives picks the President.
          That’s because if that happens each state delegation gets one vote—so California’s 53 representatives and 40 million people will only have as much say as Alaska’s one representative and less than a million people.

          My husband just joined a fundraiser designed to support the House races that would make 26 states have majority Democratic delegations .

          We are not a democracy.

          But you can spend an enormous amount of time playing out weird scenarios.

          Also, I’m pretty sure that people have read the Constitution more in the last four years than the hundred before it.

          1. 538 has a bunch of interactives where you can play around to see what might affect some races. I really love that site.

  17. I’m plodding through the awful collation. Hope to finish tomorrow and email the outstanding queries to the author. Then I can get back to my Green Ideas proofs.

    I’m not managing to do any writing or photography, and not much garden design. It’s frustrating. Might do more this weekend: no visitors, and the forecast’s bad.

  18. My work this week is convincing a tiny kitten that he can take time out from play to pee in his litter box and not the nearest non-splashing surface. He is not horrible but clearly going to the box is not as essential as having a good time. I had forgotten that really young kittens take awhile when they don’t have a mom showing them correct behavior.

    Still charm is his long suit and we adore ever move he makes. Lindy actually purrs as Dmitri lays on his head and chews his ears.

  19. A friend has been trying to convince me and my sister to enter the local paper’s annual Christmas Cookie contest. Every year I think about entering and convince myself that the recipe I want to enter is not original and thus doesn’t qualify. Then I called my sister and asked her whether she thought the recipe would qualify. Since she won a prize the year she entered, I figured that she understood the rules. She decided that my version is enough of a departure from the original recipe to qualify, but in reading the entry instructions, I realized that I had not left myself enough time before the entry deadline. Such is the danger of procrastination! If I had not spent such a long time doubting myself, I would have plenty of time to borrow what I need to enter.

  20. I voted early, on the first day of early voting in NY. I went there directly after getting out of work (noon) and the line was crazy! It was out the door, down the parking lot almost to the next group of buildings in the adjacent lot. I lost count but I think there were around 250 people in line ahead of me. To make it worse, there was a light rain and a very strong, chilly wind blowing! 3 hours later, I exited the building, my ballot accepted.

    As to what I have accomplished this week; I am proud to say that (procrastinator that I am) I finished the flood buyout paperwork ahead of time (due no later that 11/13 or I don’t get included in the buyout) and only have to drop it off tomorrow morning on my way to work.

    And to add to the polishing of my halo, I did my annual self evaluation at work within a couple of hours of being given the link to start it. I absolutely hate doing those and am glad that this is the last one I will have to do as I plan to retire next year.

  21. Drained my rain barrel today and rerouted the downspout. We’re getting a cold snap this weekend so the huseplants have to come back inside on Friday.

    And the election board is always interesting. Had our final meeting before the election this evening. Now it’ll be spending alot of time at the Bureau of Elections until all the ballots are counted. I’ve cleared my calendar for the next couple of weeks although I hope it won’t take that long. It is interesting and I love doing the work but I wish it were less intense and anxiety ridden.

  22. We’ve been wondering how things were gonna go when kids started getting sick this fall (KY pediatrician here). Apparent answer: pretty nutty, so far. I can’t tell you how many COVID tests we’ve done; fortunately, so far very few have been positive. But statewide the numbers are jumping up pretty dramatically, so I’m just holding my breath and crossing my fingers.

    On the “thank God” side of the story, the weird bump that popped up on my arm and tripled in size in 3 weeks isn’t skin cancer. I didn’t realize how worried I was until I got the message tonight that it was benign. I’m so grateful!

    And tomorrow I’m off and get to vote. I’m really tired of feeling powerless, and this will feel really good!

  24. So yesterday morning it was +7, windy, miserable, and cold but it was finally above freezing and the snow was mostly melted so I went outside to pick up dog poop and do a couple other yard chores. Then I went back inside for a toque and my parka. 40 minutes later I was done. It’s a good thing I did that in the morning because by 4 p.m. we had an inch of fluffy snow.

    Paul got another commission to make some bowls so he’s pretty happy about that.

  25. Along with my regular worky work stuff, I finally moved all the plants into the kitchen and hung the grow light for the winter. The bees are almost all put to bed, I just want to put up a couple of windbreaks and maybe duct tape some insulation to the outside of the hives.

    We cleaned out the garage and now we can park two cars. That has to be done before the snow flies or the plow guy can’t plow us out. Which reminds me. I need to put up some pallets so he can see where the hydranga and the raised bed are so he doesn’t run them over..

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