38 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, March 31, 2021”

  1. I got some groceries. The dotter delegated trash-to-the-curb. She also took care of my recycling. Other than that, I watched dust grow.

  3. Cleaned the pool area in readiness for new patio furniture arriving today. That’s about it for work. It’s hot in L.A. but the pool water is still a bit too cold for me. Maybe by the weekend I’ll get my first swim of the season. Yay!

  4. I got stuff together for a neighborhood yard sale on Saturday. We got lookers, but very few buyers, so by 10 am, I was pretty much done. My DH packed up most of the unsold stuff to take to his church yard sale – so hooray, not in my garage any more.

    Once that was done, I needed something to do, and working on one of my current projects wasn’t going to be enough. My eye fell on a kit I had purchased a while back, and out it came. I cut it out on Saturday night, and sewed it up on Sunday. Now I can get back to my other projects.
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CNFhO27H2NI/

    And I mailed a couple of quilts. My 90-year old aunt was delighted with hers, while my friend with the dachsunds was totally stunned by hers. (She sent me a picture of her baby with it’s ears up next to the mer-weenie with it’s ears flying in the wind.)

  5. I got my second shot!
    I also have a callback tonight.
    And I just finished another knitted Easter egg out of the set I am doing.
    So that’s my “working on” this week.

  6. It’s spring cleaning this week, now that the outside is more or less under control. Carpet cleaning yesterday, and this morning putting all the things back. That feels like a thing to celebrate being done with.

  7. We have a lot of public holidays in March and April and they truly mess up my productivity.

    Due to pandemic we have alternate day full contact teaching, so have a class comes on one day and the other half the next day. It takes 2 working weeks to get through 1 regular 5-day week of work.

    To say I couldn’t wrap my executive dysfunction around planning is an understatement. I messed it up so badly last week that I had to tear the schedule page out.

    It took me nearly 2 hours to sort out my planning and records of what I did last week and when, and with whom. I’m calling it a win.

  8. It’s mostly been worky-work (Day Job) around here, though I did find a new/better home for a couple of nice boxes I’ve been hoarding against the day I go through my crafty crap again and sort out some stuff to mail to my sister and sister-in-law for the kids’ programs at their church. Now those boxes are neatly out of the way pending that large and messy project.

    Did a tiny bit of writer business, including line-edit of one of the books that’s out on submission (in full expectation of eventually self-publishing, but it’s been a couple months so I could bring a fresh eye to it, and even if by some miracle the publisher wants it ’twas time for a tweak).

    Back in the groove on the novella-in-progress. And cogitating on a new historical-novel project that could be fun. A very queer caper set in the 1890s (as currently envisioned) which means TONS of research to be done.

  9. I’m dictating my novel. This is great for words, bad for having to clean it up, but future me will have to deal.
    I’m also in a playwriting course.
    We’re splurging on chocolate eggs with ice cream inside for Easter. My daughter has never had these before.
    Last week I did two days of vaccinating and two ER shifts back to back, and then I slept!

  10. This week I’m working with my narrator on the audiobook for the recent Easter book release in my mystery series.

    I knew going in there was no way the audio version release date would be predictable enough to sync up with the ebook release a couple of weeks ago, so it’s a pretty relaxed process with no big pressure. Which is just about my speed these days so all good:)

    Aside from that, I’m working at ignoring my ever-growing to-do list and finally figured out the trick: Stop putting things on the list;) So far, working like a charm.

  11. No much. Reading. Procrastinating. Sewing pencil cases with granddaughters. More procrastinating. More reading. I did clean up the family room. And finally did the recycling after 3 weeks. Long over due. Back to wasting time. I think the narrative is zapping my strength.

  12. I’ve been plodding through the edit I’m doing, which is annoying me because it turned out to be about experimental psychology, and I hate anything that turns people into statistics. So since we’re enjoying a two-day heatwave, I took today off and ended up helping a friend start to clear her new allotment, which had been abandoned for a year.

    I’ve finished weeding my plot, apart from the paths I need to finish making. I’m nurturing my seedlings. Had a disaster on Monday when my flimsy ‘greenhouse’ (a plastic-covered plant stand) blew over in the wind, and I had to spend nearly two hours trying to rescue the plants and seedlings I had in it, especially the two little trays of special polyanthus seed I bought from France just before Brexit halted supplies. They hadn’t finished germinating, and many of those that had, hadn’t even grown roots. I filtered all the compost through my fingers and then shook the jug it went into – it was like panning for gold. I saved about twenty, but whether they’ll survive I don’t know.

    Back to work tomorrow, and then I’m taking three days for Easter – gardening – before the sleet and frosts arrive on Monday.

    1. Oh, and I swapped my two sofas in the living room, because the older, cheaper, more comfortable one was getting so worn I feared I’d have to replace it in the next few years unless I relegated it to occasional use by visitors. I’ve also washed and ironed all its covers (ivory cotton).

  13. Busy day. Because I dislike making phone calls I tend to do them in bunches. If it’s for appointments … Dentist and optometrist in one afternoon is fine. Even with a roofer first thing especially since he just wanted a tour of water damage inside the house. Mind you that seems a fairly useless action since I send pictures to the agent everytime I complain and the result is always that the gutters need clearing. Every year. It could almost be predicted and action taken before the water comes in. (so very sarcastic) Two extra tall stories, definitely landlord territory. Every year we do this and they are still sending someone to look at the ceilings. Sorry, ranting.

    The hard bit of the day was the emergency electrician. He spent four hours, talking nearly the whole time so I could not settle into anything else I need done. Since he was searching for the source of the fault that wiped out power to heat, refrigeration, internet, washing machine and half the outlets we moved much furniture, most of which I now want to clean behind. Couldn’t between the talking and appointments.

    He did fix it! Yay! And with time to spare to get to his kid’s first birthday party. Also yay!

    Guess what? Circuit failure due to water damage in the wall.

    Moving in June.
    I had meant to spend some of those 4 hours clearing out books against having to pack.

  14. Well, I got groceries also, and badgered my son into taking the garbage out. Oh, and cleared out so my house cleaners could scrub out my condo. I do love a clean place that I didn’t have to clean out.

    I also saw my retinal specialist, and received another shot. That wipes out two days, I’ve learned; one waiting for the eye drops to wear off, the second to stop wincing every time my right eye moves. However, all that is MUCH preferable to macular degeneration increasing!

    Oh, and I purchased an Amazon Fire. My trusty Nook is dying, and all the current iterations have poor reviews, so I’ve gone to The Dark Side. Even though I worked as a scientist and engineer, I hate learning new technology. After having it burble at me for several days, I finally figured out how to turn the Announcement function off. Gah.

  15. Not an action packed week. Walked someone’s nice dog, did some research on an area of tech writing I need to know more about. The stork walk of looking up terms, then looking up more terms, to understand concepts, then finding new things you don’t know about. It’s a lot of open tabs. I do better if I print things out and mark them up, that’s how I learned to learn, and the physical motions aid in memory retention.
    Painted a little bit, so that’s a win.

  16. I am having a “Poor baby” moment – or year as it maybe. The company we called to look at our low-E window replacements (it took a week of calls and call-backs to schedule and get the estimator out) say we have the kind of windows they can’t do but gave us a referral to someone who they say should be able to work with our windows. We now start over again.

    And worse. Our neighbors who put their very expensive house on the market got an offer instantly but the deal fell through because there is a problem with the 95-year old sewer line which is shared with our house. The city now requires that kind of shared sewer be divided to separate lines when the property is sold. The sewer line is on their property so they are the host and we are the guest. So we may have to spend 10 to 20 thousand dollars for a new sewer line because they are selling their house. Plus a major section of my yard will have to be dug up and plants removed to do the work. Admittedly, some day we would have to do this anyway if we want to ever sell our house. I am vindictively thinking that that even if the city gets going on this (they are currently months behind on their work load and they have to do the new connection), my neighbors are looking at 6 months to a year before this is going to happen and trying to sell a million plus house with a work order hanging over it may not be an easy sell.

    A more positive note was friends came to visit during my husband’s birthday. I made a great dinner of grilled asparagus and rack of lamb with herb mustard crust, cesar salad and a triple chocolate cake (purchased) and some nice wines. Then next day we all did a day trip in the Willamette Valley in gorgeous weather with a stop for lunch out. We played games (Bogle and Wingspan) both evenings and sipped scotch. Probably the best birthday celebration we have had in years.

  17. I went for my annual mammogram today. Actually it was postponed from last year and I put it off as long as I could. Today I got the tech from hell, Cruella DeVil was in the house. I couldn’t do anything right, put your feet here, stand straight, press your ear against the screen, place your hand here, with your other hand hold your breast back (never had to do that and I told her so, she came back with everyone does it and remember we’re working together on this if you can’t do it you will have to come back) Oh, and I’ve had a mammogram just about every year for the last 36 years since I turned 40, maybe my faculties are slipping, Nah! I know people all over the world have been stressed but she was just rude. So to sooth my bruised ego I do what I always do after a visit and went for a little retail therapy and calmed myself down. I feel so much better now.

  18. Hi Jenny, I was thinking about you today (have no idea why) and when we used to play cards at my Grandma’s. Simpler times. It looks that you are doing well which gives me joy. I also am holding my own. Your old high school friend – Martha Holden (used to be Mueller)

  19. With any luck she had one of the newer — last fifteen years or so — digital type mammo machines? I can remember the days of serious squishing.

  20. This morning I emailed Joe Biden and offered to take Major (the rescue German Shepherd) off his hands. I explained that there are too many people around the White House and DC for Major. He should live out here in the woods where he can herd deer.

    I have yet to hear back.

    1. I was wondering (but in a FaceBook group) if that wasn’t Major’s problem — too many strangers and probably too many strangers who aren’t dog-savvy.

  21. Have grappled all week with the uncomfortable aftereffects (boo!) of getting my first Covid vaccination (yay!). But figure that the latter makes even the former worth it.

    Kept going back to bed with advil and a throbbing arm. Not much sleep. The day job did NOT get 100% out of me, but I stuck in there and did enough for my team to get by.

    Working through my sixth or seventh re-read of Bujold’s Sharing Knife series. When I finish the labor of getting through a library book, I go back to these books which for some reason never bore me at all. The community builds through four novels and a novella, the setting of each volume is different, with intervals of a previous or future setting, and the people and places just seem real. Even helped with the Covid arm thing.

  22. I am currently procrastinating the weekly editing job I dislike the most. It’s just a few hours of torture but it features a writer that I not so affectionately think of as “shit for brains.” I’ve never met him, in our emails he seems perfectly pleasant but ….. sigh, whine, 1-800-noclue, etc.
    Thank you, venting felt good and I’m off to the files.

  23. I did, as usual, Elder Sh0pping to stock us up on kibble, Fancy Feast, and litter in 28-pound boxes. The manufacturers invariably tell you cheerfully that they are practically GIVING you ### extra pounds for hardly any more money — I just hope that I can continue to lift the carton with all that practically-free extra litter.

    Got home to discover that we are having three extra guests for Easter dinner of whom one is vegetarian and one nearly so. Good news — I’m only doing the dessert. Related — I will have to shop for suitable ingredients for it. And I’m reluctant to go back to Target tomorrow because they seem to have decided to rearrange the grocery section by removing the crackers and cookies aisle in favor of expanding the liquor shelves.

    Related good news — the kittens have been Bathed in advance of the weekend, and not by me! Though I have bathed nearly all my kittens and cats as needed, and as long as the water is decidedly Warm — much warmer than tepid, you want them to sink into tub purring, “Ahhhh,” if possible — they don’t do more than say, “Huh! who needs this?” rather than, “Help! Let me OUT Right Now!”

    1. And after leaving the above message, I have found the death record of a 4th great-uncle, which — though not as detailed as modern ones — gave me his date of death and his age, 53 years, 2 months, blank in the days column, which calculates to a birth date of 5 June 1813. Also lists his father as “Mary Guilliams,” which 1) confirms he’s the correct person of that name, 2) confirms that there may be no way to determine who his biological father may have been, and 3) confirms that the “Polly Guilliams” in the court records was baptized “Mary.” Really, that last is very much a given, but confirmation is always helpful.

      It also gave me an opportunity to confirm that the next county over, where several other people lived and died, has a similar record, but to see anything except non-printed pages, one needs to be at a Family History Center, not at home. It was also interesting to see how a southern vital records volume was laid out. Enslaved people were also recorded, with names and ages, and cause of death and if known the name of the mother. I hadn’t seen a source like this used in any of the episodes of FINDING YOUR ROOTS, and I can’t imagine why not.

  24. Did poll book training for the primary election. And then had a Board of Election meeting. I’m secretary so the meeting doesn’t end for me until I transcribe my meeting notes.

    That’s pretty much it.

    I’ve been doing a bit of yard clean up, just raking out a couple of flower beds near the house and cutting down some of the ‘winter interest’. Have to take a break because we’re getting snow tonight. With any luck, it’ll fall and be gone when I’m asleep. But it’ll be too wet to work outside.

    Maybe I’ll give the notes and yard a rest and take tomorrow off.

  25. I paid my deposit and exchanged contracts on my apartment! So I suppose the next few weeks will be about packing and moving, but probably more lawyers first. I’m so excited that it’s finally happening I can barely form coherent sentences.

      1. Thanks Jane! I was thinking about your epic house hunt the whole way through the process.

  26. Well, I started the day getting my first-ever e-ARC files sent to me by my publisher, and am ending it my discovering that not only do we write in a similar genre (especially your Bet Me and Anyone But You), but we both have our master’s degrees from Wright State–where I also work. If at all possible, I was hoping you might be interested in checking out my debut novel? I know you’re probably super busy, but thought I’d ask. 🙂 All the best to you and I am so thrilled to see a Raider be so successful in the romance world!

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