Working Wednesday, February 17, 2021

~ Jenny

This week, I slashed the top of my right thumb open, bringing symmetry to my life since I’d slashed the top of my left thumb open back when I was an art major making engravings. Dueling scars. I know they’re supposed to go on cheeks, but I’m a hands-on woman. Except not this week because my thumb hurts.

What did you do this week?

67 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, February 17, 2021”

  2. I spent all weekend (it seemed) working on the wiener dog quilt. It is almost done – just a few more inches of binding to tack down, but I ran out of time before work this morning.

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

    I love how the small bits have turned out – the crown, the flame, the mermaid scales.

    I’ve been mostly keeping up with the daily haiku – once again missing a weekend day. Oh well.

    Today, it is work, then prep for the ice storm coming tonight. I think we need to make sure our gas logs are working.

    1. This week’s efforts. I think there was a theme.

      Feb 11
      Rain pelts and thunder
      roars, first of many gray days.
      At least there’s no ice!

      Feb 12
      Freezing rain falls, gray
      skies and wicked wind make me
      glad no dogs to walk.

      Feb 13 – missed

      Feb 14
      Dinner is waiting,
      cats are snoozing and husband
      has arrived. Let’s eat!

      Feb 15
      Another dreary
      day, mist and dampness dripping
      from trees and bushes.

      Shared pictures of quilts
      with my sisters in stitches,
      brightness on dull day.

      Feb 16
      Clouds lifting, brightness
      dawns, recovery after
      storm begins as well.

      Feb 17
      Sunshine through window
      warms the furry bodies of
      cats sleeping near me.

  3. My video call with a potential new client yesterday went well, I think, but turned out to be just an initial conversation. The person I spoke to needs to discuss their plans with her boss, who’s off this week. So I’m in limbo for now. Trying not to second-guess what I said.

    I’ve also been researching replacing my ten-year-old Mac, which I’ll need to do if they do offer me work – I asked for as much advance notice as possible, to give me time to do that. Got some more research to do, still. I’ve also been researching lean-to greenhouses for my shed conversion plan, so I could book handyman Tony for it. But it didn’t feel right at all; I couldn’t get excited about any of the options. Then I noticed/remembered that the shed isn’t square to the garden, and when I marked out the footprint of the greenhouse addition I could see it wouldn’t work at all.

    So I’ve changed my mind, and am about to buy a good-quality cedar coldframe instead – about which I am feeling excited. (And relieved not to be spending all that money, and having to do all that work.)

    In between all this research (I did quite a bit of prep for the video call, too), I’ve been doing as much editing as I can: I really want to send it to the author in the next couple of days. Something had to give, and it’s been DailyFeb: hope to do more once I’ve sent off the edit.

    1. Those tall cedar coldframes are gorgeous. After a lot of dithering I did end up buying a 6×8 greenhouse in a moment of madness at Chelsea, but it was a close run thing. There is a lot of palava involved in getting a greenhouse installed.

  4. Took my cat to the vet. Poor cat. He doesn’t like boxes even when they don’t have doors that trap you inside. The pained sounding wail/yowl didn’t start until we were half way there. Got a couple of sympathic looks from fellow walkers.

    He’s old (13) and he has 2 lumps along the side of his mouth, one patchy black against his white lip.

    I did other things but that has had most of my attention for days

    3. I hope the diagnosis is modest and treatment quick and painless. The only time any of my cats DIDN’T bellow all the way to the vet’s — “Help! help! Let me out of here!” — she was a new acquisition (my neighbors, both well over ninety, had died, so she came to live with me). She was undoubtedly terrified and hadn’t gotten to know my and my brother yet. She was totally cooperative at the vet’s and luckily in perfect health, and the last thing they did was take her off to the back room, where the scale is, to be weighed.

      From whence I heard, “Cleo! You naughty cat! Put your paw back in the tray! You don’t weigh twelve pounds; you weigh fifteen!”

      Been laughing about that ever since. On all subsequent trips except the very last, when she was too ill to care, she bellowed in the normal way.

  5. Did a tiny bit of writer business. Mood swings have been extra noticeable lately, as have hot flashes, which means saying no to some of the sugary treats the DH has brought home. Sugar makes everything worse. The older I get, the more my pleasures have to be administered in small, infrequent doses. I hates it, my preciousss.

    Organized my works-in-progress log, partly to reassure myself that I am getting things done even if not Finished. The probably-March novel (if designer can do me a cover) is to the point of being only about my two MCs instead of all the other side business. Needs 3-4 fill-in scenes and a conclusion.

    Did a free-book promotion over the weekend which actually accomplished something, namely garnered a couple of 5-star ratings. Now Amazon buyers can see that someone else in the world has read the thing and didn’t think it sucked. Yay!

  6. It was quiet… too quiet. I was living a TV trope.

    So naturally, the dotter whispered to me mid-week that she has a secret boyfriend. It was only last year that she admitted to me that she and xSIL were legally divorced. He still lives here, you see. He can’t afford to move out and pay child support/mortgage. This week, though, he checked himself in to the asylum/treatment center/whatever because he was off his meds (bipolar) for a few weeks.

    Sunday, dotter borrowed my car. Overnight. Booty call. I was greatly annoyed, because I wanted to get dinner from Burger Doodle (some generic fast food place) and there was no transportation all night. I’m trying to be happy for her, but she is inconveniencing me. Bah. Humbug.

    TV tropes, I tell you!

    1. Yesterday I said that I was boring. Then I remembered that the last time I said that, the next day my crush’s house burned down. DON’T JINX ME, UNIVERSE.

    2. Gary, they don’t make Hallmark movies of real life, family life. I think all I do is sit on the sidelines and observe. But I do listen to the grandchildren when they come over. Did the ex take his car with him?

      1. The ex is driving his mother’s pick-up truck, which the dotter is not permitted to use. Maybe it’s not TV Trope Life. Maybe it’s a country/western song?

      1. It’s like when she was a teenager. I need to interrogate her before each incident.

        Borrow the car? What time will you be home? On what day? Will there be any gas left? Will I need the vacuum again this time? Had I known, I could have offered to drop her off and pick her up from her “play date.”

        I’ve told her before, requests for money or permission require that I have both feet on the floor. Answers given when I am asleep/woozy/horizontal do not count.

  7. https://www.instagram.com/p/CLZf5dilwmH/

    Whoo-hoo!!! It’s done, the quilt is done! I wish I had taken a picture of the entire thing but I was in too much of a hurry to get it bundled up and into a box. I’ll ask my mom to send me one. Are my seams Patrick-and-Esme (Great British Sewing Bee judges) straight? Nope. I even used contrasting thread so it really shows. Are they done and holding on both sides of the quilt? Yup? How much seaming fell apart in the wash? Two spots about six inches apart and they are now solid and fixed.
    How many needles did I break learning how to use the walking foot? 3.

    Insert Snoopy Happy Dance here.

    I also made significant inroads into finishing the mudding and taping of the drywall in the laundry room, learned how to do inside and outside corners, and decided on a paint colour for the room. I think. I just have to get a sample pot and try it on the actual walls. Fortunately, the paint store where I have to pick it up is right near where we have to go on our trip to Edmonton on Monday.

    3. Wow! Great job! Glad you figured out how to use the walking foot, because, even with the time spent learning to use it, it was better than trying to do without it! I’ve been there, done that, before I heard of walking feet.

  8. I’m doing pretty well at daily Feb drawing. Missed a couple of days so far but only a couple. I’ve found some useful online tutorials to work through and I’m definitely learning stuff.

    I’m slowly getting on top of the paperwork backlog too. Hoped to be done by the end of Feb – actually, before then – but some of it’s turned complicated enough that I don’t think that’ll happen. I’ll just have to do dailyMarch.

  9. I got my second shingles vaccine. When I finally flipped on the tv while sipping gingerale and laying in bed all day next to a bucket, there was an ad for the vaccine with people dancing.

  10. I just finished my giant quarterly work project and it has been sent off for approval. Yay.

    I also finished making a heart shaped cat. No pics uploaded yet, but super cute.

    I need to start in on presents for certain people, I have been stalling on that.

  11. Very unproductive week. Battling an infection, on heavy-duty antibiotics, learned the infection is E Coli, where did I get exposed? But tired and draggy. Watched the snow fall over the weekend, very pretty, and now the sun is out and melting everything. I did get the dishes done yesterday, hope to finish laundry today. Rereading a lot. It’s noon, and I want a nap. Two more days of pills!

  12. I painted, got a call from a recruiter (yay!), made gumbo for Mardi Gras, collected some writing samples, gave a couple of zoom voice lessons (weird) but it was a low-key week.

    I get up and after a few minutes I get on the floor to stretch my lower back, then do a plank, then sometime I’m always intending to do, I meditate for a short time. I’m not too proud to use a series of guided mediations I found on Spotify, which kinds of takes the burden off me to pull up cosmic thoughts. I know, the goal is to think *no* thoughts, but the urge to go cosmic is there. Too many comic books at an early age, I guess.

  13. I’m working on my taxes. I always feel so happy when they’re done.

    Other than that it’s just the regular cleaning…

  14. Work work is busy with T4s and other lovely year-end deadlines (wow, February is short when it ends on a Sunday!), and I have plants to start and decluttering to do at home, but Friday my hands decided to throw themselves into the middle of a dog fight, so I feel your pain. And had a forced very relaxing weekend.

  15. I got offered a new job today. Out of the school system and with the state. Yay me.

    I’ve been doing Spanish lessons every day in Feb. And I’m surprised at how much I actually remember from college, but even more surprised at the vocab I don’t. Tienda is a store? Falda a skirt?

    A very red cardinal is watching me through the window as I type this. I wonder what he thinks of me sitting here? He’s such a pretty bird. Maybe he’s wondering if I’m admiring him, or if he’s mad because I keep looking away?

      1. It has really been pre-release month, because this is an entirely new genre and series for me. I’m torn between excitement (yay! new book!) and terror (what if everyone hates it?!).

        Um, Jenny, do you want me to send you specifics for release day?

  18. I was cutting out a quilt, and cut my finger with the rotary cutter. I’ve used one for over a decade and never cut myself. 2021 is shaping up to be another doozie.

  19. I finished shortening some curtain panels for a friend, which should have been quick and easy but they had some weird insulating lining that I couldn’t iron, so it was really time-consuming to measure the new hems.

    But they’re finally done, so I’ve been able to do some fun stuff with textiles. Finished piecing a lap-sized Christmas quilt top, but there hasn’t been good enough light to take a picture, so a link will have to wait. It felt good to be having fun with fabric again though.

  20. We had 8 inches of snow starting on Friday, temperatures in the low 20’ s F, followed by 2 days of freezing rain – roads closed, public transportation canceled and I needed to be able to take my cat Lindy into the specialist on Monday for his radio-iodine treatment and vet stay. Well, Monday morning the temperature came up to 40 but there was still all that snow and ice so the vet said to bring Lindy in on Tuesday and we would hope the iodine was potent enough to still be effective. So I spent Monday afternoon shoveling the driveway so that we could get out on Tuesday. This stuff is really persistent. The yard is still covered although the street is mostly clear.

    Dmitri kitten has never been without another cat around and is lost. He drags his toys over to me than sits and cries at me because no one is playing with him or playing chase. And I do play with him but he wants his Lindy. We pick Lindy back up on Friday.

    2. I hope all goes well for Lindy and that he is soon back giving you a break and Dmitri a good chase.

    4. Thank you for the good wishes. I may need to hole up in the front bed room when Lindy gets home just to have a break from Dmitri who feels he needs constant attention because something is wrong with his world. I am not hard hearted enough to ignore him when he sighs around the house. Lindy will still need a few days in isolation when he gets home.

  21. I’ve continued to research the families of g-g-g-grandmother and her husband. Discovered with great delight that not only did her father die intestate, so did her first husband and her second husband’s father.

    Small-minded as this sounds, it means that everyone ends up in court complete with statements about who the heirs are. The family also had the Federalist habit of giving younger children patriotic names — Thomas Jefferson Payne, Francis Marion Payne, Virginia Payne — after the older children had been named for grandparents and godparents. I hadn’t thought about the Swamp Fox in years.

    So I am trying to discipline myself to go slow and methodically work my way through each family, one by one, and NOT be distracted by a genealogical squirrel . . . . Virginia family history has lots of squirrels. Already I have found several Revolutionary War patriots I knew nothing about before.

    1. This project is fascinating! I did a little family-history thing back in the day but quickly abandoned it because that was before the internet and it was hard. LOL

  22. The most frustrating part of my family’s genealogy were the Swedes. Jan Larsson, son of Lars Anderson, son of Anders Persson, son of Per Persson, son of Per Janson, etc. etc. and by that time you can’t see straight, let alone figure out who’s who.

    Sometime in the 1800s, some powerful type put a foot down, and the family ended up being Anderson, which means they are NOT NECESSARILY related to any other Anderson anywhere.

    I guess it made sense in figuring out who inherited the farm plot or the fishing boat from the previous owner, but boy is it a family history downer.

  23. We finished going through our cds. DH worked in the music industry, so we have thousands and thousands. We’re keeping about 1200, and selling the balance, and the guy that is buying them (for his record store) came by and committed to buying all. Huge relief!

  24. The most productive thing I’ve done this week is refine my already world class procrastination skills. My niece just bought a Kitchen Aid mixer in a Presidents’ Day sale and I spent a lot of time emailing with her about it. Then I had to copy out a recipe for focaccia that I had promised to send her to try with her new toy, all of which was more fun than writing letters to people I haven’t written in months. I have a half finished Thank You note that has been sitting on my table for a week., but I emailed Emmy multiple times instead.

    Although I didn’t have to dig out from the 18 inches of snow we got, it certainly made a great excuse to do nothing. I did have a nice long Skype with my brother, but my internet went out in the middle of the call. It was rather odd because I ended the call by giving him advice about using meditation to combat sleeplessness. What made it ironic is that he is the one who advised me to take a meditation course after I flunked my driver’s test because I was too nervous

    I am getting some things done, just not the things that I had planned or when I had planned to do them.

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