Oh, thank god, January’s over. Another month closer to spring.
Between the cold and my cold, I haven’t done anything that makes me get out of bed except for letting the dogs and cat out and in, a job that requires me to stand in the doorway and say, “Are you out of your minds? It’s FREEZING out here. Come back inside, quick.” I have to get something done soon. Maybe tomorrow.
What did you work on this week?
Sometime during the week (I’ve lost track, exactly) I made it to my FNFL* for groceries. Mostly milk for the grandkinder. I may have observed that they go through roughly two gallons per day. Well, two of the four are teens.
All that discussion of food, and what I ended up making was the French Canadian Pork Dressing. Not that I had wanted to, but I accidently broke the seal on the ground pork, so it needed cooking. Then the ratio of potato to meat was off, so I cooked more ground pork. I’ll be adding ground beef, today. Too much mashed potato! The (instant mashed) potatoes are also the single largest source of sodium in the dish.
My basil and tomato plants have all sprouted and pushed their plastic domes up. I have another QYO hydro garden arriving tomorrow, so I moved the Click & Grow unit to the top of my pantry/bookcase, where it is a marvelous light source for that corner of the room.
The work I need to do, desperately, is dish washing. Laundry is under control. Dish washing is not, although I now have a supply of “Playtex Living Gloves.” And some Brillo pads. I will go out, today, and I think I’ll stop at Lowes Home and Garbage department for garden stuff. I’m not obsessed; you’re obsessed. No, I want to visit their sinks and see about a replacement for my bathroom sink, one I can do dishes in.
Maybe not. I still own some clean dishes. I could kick back another week, maybe. I’m retired, after all.
I have to share: yesterday I checked my bank balance. It was unexpectedly high. The payout check for unused annual leave had been deposited. The first monthly retirement check from VRS** had been deposited. And of course, the normal monthly retirement check from the Navy was there. 🙂
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* Friendly Neighborhood Food Lion
**Virginia Retirement System
I had been trying to figure out the FN. First Nation Food Lion just didn’t seem quite….
It goes back to my blog, a post in November titled, My Friendly Neighborhood Food Lion (aptly enough.) I’ve been using FNFL ever since. I figured I’d footnote it once a month, and rely on context the rest of the time. 😀
Meh clean dishes…who needs em
Why the goddess invented paper plates, the way I see it. Except… landfills. Ecology.
That first month of retirement is really something. When I retired, I went with my cousin to Target (a couple of blocks from the location for our RWA meeting) for kibbles and litter, and at checkout, the nice young lady asked if I’d like a Target card. First question, “how much is your monthly income?” I had no clue. I had my last paycheck and fourteen weeks of unused vacation paid off, so I was very solvent, but I didn’t have my first retirement check or a Social Security check, so I really didn’t know how much monthly income I could expect. Declined the card.
I could have logged into MyVRS and found out my new retirement pay, but I was in no rush. The VRS check and Navy check are both “first working day of the month.” I no longer have a middle-of-the-month paycheck, except that Social Security is deposited on the third Wednesday of the month. That’s great if the month starts on Wednesday, less great when it starts on Thursday.
No idea why they don’t just deliver the checks on the 15th of the month instead of this every third Wednesday of the month nonsense that some of us experience. Sigh.
I think it’s because there are no Wednesday holidays to work around, except maybe Christmas/New Years, and many places move “Holiday observed” to Monday or Friday.
In the last 10K on the second book of my Second Chances series. That thrills me, but I think the last 10K takes me longer to write than all the “K” before it!
First day of the new term! I have had 6 weeks to get my daughter’s uniform blazer dry cleaned and when did I do it? Yesterday. And stationery, activities stuff, etc etc I dream of a life admin PA, that would be awesome.
Before I was a parent I’d see kids with all these after school activities and I’d be all ‘those poor children, when do they get to play, I’d never do that to my kids’ and now look. How the mighty (aka young smug know it all) have fallen. I literally have a weekly planner thing on the inside of my pantry door.
That’s what I’ve done this week, along with juggling work because all the people without kids are like, it’s February, aren’t the holidays over now?
Our summer school holiday is only about 6 weeks (then we have four terms, with a two week break between each term). I can’t imagine if I was only half way through. My inbox (horror face).
I said yesterday I don’t cook anymore but as today is La Chandeleur, I will be making some crêpes tonight. I don’t count it at cooking though.
For a generous amount of batter: 300 ml of milk mixed with 150g of flour, leave to rest for 1 hour, then add 3 eggs to the batter and 50g of melted butter…
Lots of work work, but nothing creative. I pulled out my crochet project, but I’d left it a month ago at a point where a bunch of threads needed to be woven in before crocheting a new section. I did so, but then was too sleepy to actually get to the fun crocheting.
I did watch Only Murders in the Building over the course of the week, which was so funny. It felt good to laugh.
A while back I watched The Song of Lunch with Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, which was amazing.
I loved Only Murders in the Building! Great chemistry among the actors.
Yes! And such clever writing. I really enjoyed it.
I have been quilting, quilting, quilting – the actual put the layers together with thread part. I was two weeks younger than I am now when I realized I had bought a chair for my sewing room that had a hydraulic lift to it, so I didn’t have to have my hands over my head and kill my shoulders while I’m working at the machine. Yay me for finally figuring that out. I had four quilts to get finished for the show, and my tally is
1 quilted, with the binding stitched on – need to finish sewing on the binding and burying any pesky remaining quilting threads
1 miniature quilted, bound and ready (it’s really tiny, so not an overwhelming job)
1 still half quilted – if push comes to shove, this is the one I’ll drop
1 designed, pieced, sandwiched, and the quilting started on it. This was the one I had an epiphany on a while back. I have an 18 x 36 inch quilt, which I’ve split with a bright blue N. One half is a night scene, with a moon at the top of it. The other half is daytime, with a sun at the top of it. (Night-N-Day – that’s the name of this particular quilt. It makes me hum a tune). Anyway, I found the perfect moon and night fabric and I’ve quilted that half of the quilt. When I looked on Instagram last night, I realized that it was February, and the only creative thing I had done was that quilting. So here it is – you can admire all of my moon’s craters! (I actually had to go show it to my DH, because he was the only one in the house, but I love how it turned out)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZdSR2QLrn7/
Now to turn my attention to the other half of this quilt!
Other than quilt stuff, there’s work-work, and my volunteer job as Quilt Registration Chair for our upcoming quilt show that is keeping me busy!
I love some of the quilts you have showing on your Instagram! I’m not a member so I cannot see all your pictures, but there were some very beautiful ones I could see. The quilted moon looked exactly right, very moon-like with the crater-effect of the quilting.
Yesterday I put away the last of the Christmas decorations. Or so I thought. This morning I’m looking at the stragglers, the bows dancing on the lamp shades, on the knob of the curio cabinet and one topping a small wreath on another cabinet. Mocking me.
Most years I find stragglers, which then sit out on top of the Christmas boxes until the next year. (They are stacked on top of file cabinets in the basement.)
I too have found ornaments I forgot to put away, but they’re kind of cheerful aren’t they? I say leave them until next year. 🙂 Years ago, I discovered one hanging from a china cabinet knob and it looks so happy there that I never put it away.
We packed up Christmas on Sunday, and I caught the stragglers Monday morning. 🙂
On Saturday, I did another 2.5 hours in the front yard with visible-to-anyone results. Another two sessions like that and I may have the sidewalk-adjacent weed situation under control. Meanwhile I’ve encouraged some volunteer sunflowers, planted a few cloves of sprouted garlic, scattered some wildflower seeds on a bald patch in the backyard wilderness, and decided where to move my shepherd’s hook. The bird feeder now hangs too low over my ceanothus, thus the bird feeder must relocate.
In writing work, mostly the tedious business kind, but I did get another 3K written on the novella-in-progress and my February pre-order is up.
I’ve been shoveling snow, getting ready for and starting #DailyFeb2022, and checking out the items listed for RomancingTheVote (goes live on Valentine’s Day). You can see Jenny’s offering and the one that Deb and I collaborated on here: https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/74830/auctions/118039?t=search&v=Crusie
If you want to see my quilts, you can either put “quilt” or “Jones” in the search box — for some reason, searching on my full name generates a message that there are no matches.
I want to bid on the Jenny auction, even though I have no book to submit at the moment. Just for an excuse to talk to her. 🙂
Lol I had the same response Deb
That was my thought too. My book proposal would have sounded a lot like Welcome to Temptation…
Like you all don’t talk to me on here?
Oh, you wanted PRIVACY. Now I’m afraid.
Check up with the rheumatologist this morning showed that I’ve kept off the 30 pounds I lost last summer and that I just need to learn to walk correctly — then I can say that the foot surgeries (and knee replacement in 2020) are past history.
So I stopped at a bakery on the way home and am now feeling queasy from all the goodies I just downed. My word, they were delicious.
Enjoying my never-ending research and watching the fox, deer, squirrels, and birds outside. I admire you all for your creative activities!
Started #DailyFeb2022 (thank you, Lee!). This year’s focus: index card art for the word of the day, with prompts from cards in Sheri Gaynor’s 2009 book, Creative Awakenings.
Yesterday’s included picturing a guide or mentor for your path–and my brain came up with “squirrel.” Makes sense; squirrels
– run around doing lots of projects
– focus on getting food
– are playful
– are a little nuts
I bought laminating sleeves/, pouches and finally got my name cards and number cards laminated. Now just sticking around the trimmed edges to get the things to last long.
I decided to observe Lunar New Year. I am so glad that I did. I feel so much more grounded. Greetings for year of the Tiger.
The work I did, aside from giving kids lessons, was researching a buying a snow blower for the upcoming (now) storm. Michigan is getting 7 – 14 inches over the next 24-ish hours, and the last time I shoveled snow my right arm was crippled for two days :(.
Of course everyone else and their brother was also buying snow blowers so I had to figure out which ones were in-stock in the nearby stores and which of those would suit our needs, and our budget.
After a month of freezing fog I’ve never been so happy to kick any January to the curb. My big achievement: Christmas is finally packed up and put away! That was huge, let me tell you.
It’s me I’m back again. I was pouring water from a kettle into a cup when the cover came off. I knew it was loose but didn’t tamp it down, didn’t think it was that loose. By golly that hurt, got a nice little steam burn on my pinky and side of ring finger. The medicine cabinet has a fine array of ointments I picked the one that has bacitracin in it, the sting was gone over an hour later. So not that bad. Note to self: be sure to tighten up all cooking equipment before use.
“The burned hand teaches best.” I think that’s a quote… Bing says J.R.R.Tolkein
I need to self-tape an audition. It’s all pantomime, not my strong spot. Do some checkbook things, work on my book, and fit in a walk. I’m trying NOOM. it may be helping. Happy 2/2/22
My sister and I continue to watch Madame Secretary. The show finished filming in 2019 after six seasons. But almost everything that is happening in the world of the series is happening now. My favorite episode so far is season 5 episode 11 where the secretary actually manages to free the kids in cages at the Arizona border.
I love that episode. The Good Fight is also excellent.
I love The Good Fight. Amazing writer’s foresight.
We ended up falling like dominoes to Covid infection – I was first to test positive, then DS, then DH. TBH I’m impressed we managed to evade it until now. Happily we’re all having fairly mild symptoms so far – and I get to test tomorrow night to see if I’m allowed out of the house yet (and if I’m clear and DS is clear the next day then he might get to go to football on Saturday – he’s rather put out he missed it last weekend). So that’s (genuinely) exciting…
Otherwise not a lot else has been achieved around here. I’ve been working on keeping food and clean clothes and dishes available, and entertaining DS.
Post DS bedtime I have managed to do a bit more reading than usual, which I’m pleased about, and made progress on the decorative quilting I’m doing on (what will be) a large cushion cover. I’m going to have to YouTube to remind myself how to set in a cushion zip – I have done it before, but not many times, and currently my brain cannot wrap itself around the challenge.
My new regime is working so far: I’ve managed to do three hours editing each morning and then go for walks and do some gardening in the afternoons. Of course, now I’m fretting because I’m not getting on with my big sort-out. I need to grasp that I can’t do everything.
I’ve started #dailyFeb2022, but have already changed my plans. I was going to do colour studies, but decided I liked the few straight shots I did on my first shoot yesterday better. So now I’m just aiming for 15-30 minutes of photography a day, and I’m shooting with a film simulation to minimize/avoid any processing. I’ve had my Fuji X-T2 since 2018, but haven’t used its film simulations until now.
I bought a car last week: 2022 Kia Soul. I love the car but the buying process was stressful.
My uncles have taken pity on me and are going to repair two floors in my mobile home that need repair- saving me a bundle.
My aunt gave me a new white wicker desk for writing that I love.
I wrote some and attended memoir class. Half the class deserted us because they didn’t like the homework assignment writing prompt: I will never tell the truth about…
I am currently drowning in paperwork helping my daughter. She got disability and medicaid and figuring out which HMO lets her keep which doctors is tedious and not fun!
My former housemate (she moved out around October after being here for a year and a half) got disability right after she moved in, after a 3-year 3-appeal fight. I spent a lot of time on speaker phone with her while she talked to doctors and medicaid people and social workers. Chemo brain does not lend itself to dealing with that crap. The problem with being on disability is that it is too much work for people who are on disability. (Yes, that is the voice of experience.)
Ach! Good luck and lots of patience to you and your daughter. Thank goodness she got disability. My daughter was refused 2 times — on the basis that she was too young and to well educated — nothing about her health — before we found a lawyer who straightened the whole thing out. Finding out the best medical plan is — as you say — tedious.
Is there a numerologist in the house?
I was born on the 51st day of ’51. So, when did I turn 51?
02-20-2002 My next birthday is 02-20-2022. Today is 02-02-2022. What does all that mean?
I have no idea what it “means” in terms of fate ‘n’ stuff. However, I’d just like to say how much I love dates like today’s. I started going wild over dates when 1-11-2011 happened, and it’s been at least one fine enjoyable date every year since then.
Today I got an email from a coworker who I haven’t worked with since 2011, and she made a point of telling me she thought of me when she saw the date today. Gives me warm snuggly feelings not to be alone in my obsession.
Meanwhile, happy impending date ‘n’ birthday!
I love the funky dates, but on my computer, I am ISO 8601 compliant. I write the dates YYYY-MM-DD or YYYYMMDD. Either way, the year is four digits, so 2/2/22 becomes (or just is) 20220202 and that impending birthday is 20220220. I like that one. The ISO is fun, of a sort, if you’re amused by the simplest things. Like me.
Add in times and it’s a gigglefest.
It’s an incredibly auspicious date for Australian cricket fans. Our most beloved national commentator Ritchie Benaud had a very specific way of saying the number 2. So yesterday was chew of chew for twenty chew.
Today is Imbolc, which celebrates the first (theoretical) stirrings of spring under the earth. (Yes, that’s where they got Groundhog’s Day.) I usually put away any Yule decorations or lights that are still up, but this year I didn’t do anything inside except decorate my altar. But I did get carried away with outside lights, mostly draped over bushes and wound around trees across the yard. So since today was much warmer than it has been (it hit 40!) and we are expecting a major storm over the next couple of days, I went out and unwound everything and put it away instead.
I also finished my tax paperwork to give to my accountant, which is always a major achievement. Even if I usually end up having to give the government even more money than my estimated tax payments, I’m always happy to have it done.
I’m spending way too much time looking for my successor as manager of the shop I’ve been running for the last 22 years. Talking to and emailing with prospective replacements, reading resumes and passing them on to the board. I’m really glad we have some good candidates, and that I will likely be leaving my baby in good hands, but who knew it would be more work to leave a job than it would be to keep it?
Deb, Bests to you. I like the idea of being at the cusp between the winter solstice and the spring equinox — did someone post that here in that past couple days? It seems to be full of possibility. Preferably not a snowstorm, though.
I’m trying to keep warm! We’ve had extreme cold warnings out for the past couple of days but it’s looking like that’s about to break. It’s only in the -20sC right now but feels like the -30s with the wind.
I had to go for routine blood work this morning but the doctor didn’t tell me that he’d ordered a fasting glucose so I ate my breakfast thinking that it was just a random glucose. Grrr. At least the lab was able to do everything else and I go back on Friday for the one test. Right now, the Alberta Health Services labs are by appointment only and the only appointments between now and Friday are for the afternoon. I am not fasting until 2:30!
I’m trying to get my act together for #DailyFeb2022 and post exercises and stuff like that from my drawing class. Hardly exciting but I’m hoping to see some improvement if I draw and post every day.
Put out the recycling this morning. So cold. Low heavy grey clouds, looked like snow. Apparently snow is forecast. Vacuumed the upstairs this morning. Downstairs tomorrow. Packed four boxes of puzzles, books, new and very gently used, all the Duplo Lego, bathtub toys, new stuffed toys, and one pink ballet leotard with a soft tulle skirt (in case the great-niece would like ballet) for nephew’s children. Bought some new things for partner’s older children too. Really must have a family reunion.
Just got back from a massage with the best therapist ever. Have been taking magnesium supplements nightly for over a month and making a Kefir/kale/blueberry/ground flaxseed smoothie every morning for over two weeks. Yesterday I felt a switch was flipped, feel really, really good. Therapist said I am half of what I was when I first started seeing her all those years ago; over ten years. Hopefully blood work will show improvement. Really pleased with the progress. It has been a struggle. That’s my working Wednesday.
After 12 days of below freezing temperatures the cold snap broke. It’ll be back shortly.
I got my hair cut. Which was harder than you would think. The woman I’ve been going to for decades got COVID (probably not vaxed) and had a car accident which messed up her shoulder. She may need surgery and, I’m sure, physical therepy. So I had to find someone new. She did a decent job. I’ll call my regular in a couple of days to she how she’s doing but I have a feeling she’ll be retiring. That was my big project.
Other than that it’s just cleaning in anticipation of my sister’s arrival. Not sure when that will be. She probably doesn’t know because of the rain to wintery mix and ice to snow. She’s driving up from Chesapeake, VA. Does she do it on Thursday with an overnight stop (or 2) at our other sister’s outside of Lancaster? Or does she drive straight through? Well, I don’t have to make that decision. I just have to get the house in decent order.
It’s been a busy week and it’s only Wednesday. So far I’ve worked on two special projects–one for karate and one for writing. Plus book 4 in the Candlewood Falls world. Still have to do karate financials. Oh, and writing financials to prepare for tax season. ugh. Just coming up for air to say hi!
I started Monday with a quick visit to the car dealership, as on Sunday I had an unexpected message from its idiot light saying that the oil life was now 15% and it was time to have it serviced. Since it had been serviced the previous Tuesday and normally an oil change lasts eight months or so, I thought five days was perhaps indicative of a problem. Didn’t seem to be leaking. As it turned out, the dealership had forgotten to reset the indicator, or whatever, so once they did that, we were at 100% and I’m probably good until October or so.
Then picked up a young man and ferried him to the local storage unit facility, where I sat guard on a small storage unit while he transferred possessions from a larger one. I was pretty chilled through by late afternoon, but the job was done. Then I took him to the local dispensary to pick up whatever CBD product he’d had prescribed. Very educational! The place is in a remote corner of a Large Shopping Area and labeled “Lemonnade.”
Otherwise busy making end-of-January deadlines for various obligations, and scrambling to assemble material for the monthly newsletter, the monthly meeting, and so on.
I am now almost fully recovered from the whatever it was, so I have been back to actual work. What I really need to do is get started on knitting the greyhound sweater for my friend I promised to make last winter. We’re already getting fog mornings and my cherry tree is turning, so autumn this year will be short.
I started daily Feb without even realizing it. I’ve been working on my paint by numbers again and hope to actually finish them this feb. Ha! I also finished my boys’ Christmas presents and will present them this weekend. Feeling very spunky for this time of year.