Working Wednesday, March 16, 2022

~ Jenny

Last night I put up bathroom shelving and a towel rod. Today, I am going out for a booster shot and mulch. Still working on taxes. One damn thing after another. Nothing but good times.

Your turn to brag: what did you do this week. Or any week, really.

115 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, March 16, 2022”

  1. I re-grouted the shower floor. Our shower is 4’x6′, which is great when you’re showering, less great when you’re repairing grout. It’s done, though, and it’s very pleasant not to keep stepping on little crumbly bits while shampooing.

  2. Last weekend we had Quilt Show prep. Saturday was sorting and verifying the category for quilts, which didn’t take too long. Sunday was a marathon of judging. By the time I got home, I’d unintentionally overworked and dehydrated myself, which lead to some unpleasant side effects when I tried to sleep.

    The actual Show is this coming weekend. Today I deliver a bunch of quilts to the show location, and tomorrow we hang them, along with all of the descriptions from the creators that I prepped and printed last night. Once that is done, enjoying the show should be a breeze!

    Meanwhile I’ve been working on a shawl since Christmas. The theory was that working on the mystery would take up that limbo time between Christmas and New Year’s. I wasn’t that fast, since we’re in the middle of March! But it’s done now, and I really like the look of it. The main body of the shawl has some fir tree pattern with a long-change yarn that slowly goes from dark evergreen to light. The edge is a mosaic crochet pinecone pattern.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CbKY2cMue9m/

    Time to look for new projects to do!

      1. Someone else. It was a kit from Scheepjes Yarn with a pattern by Tatsiana Kupryianchyk

  3. Working on finishing the taxes prep for the accountant. One major tally before I take the paperwork to Bonnie. She is terrific. Cleaning up after a fun afternoon painting with granddaughters. Brushes were cleaned. Need to go through all the tubes Acrylic paints, many are still viable. Interesting to watch and listen to them. Not much is going to stop the youngest. We had fun!

    1. Only eight tubes of paint. Five really old tubes. Not too bad for over twenty years old.

  4. I convinced my brother not to disown me and my entire family really for not supporting him with my nephews (who live with me) who are angry with him because he left his wife and sons seven years ago when they were quite young in the middle of dinner and never came back. ANYWAY – convinced him not to disown us all and instead convinced him to write them a letter apologizing for how that all went down. I am now an HR consultant for my family.

    2. Wow! I am very impressed. This will make an enormous difference, eventually, in your nephews’ lives.

  5. My partner’s father (I usually say father in law, but technically not) passed away last night. He went quickly and was ready to go, so it was more a blessing than a curse, but it is still hard. So today is about making phone calls and arrangements.

        1. That’s one reminder how very very fragile life is. I’m very sorry, Lupe!!
          Warm hugs.

      1. I’m so sorry. I know you wanted to get married before he passed on. Was that possible ?

        1. Thank you. We didn’t get married. We were hoping he would be sent home or to palliative care, something quiet. So that will be in the future.

    12. Oh, Lupe, I’m so sorry. I still miss my father-in-law, such a good, good man. All my sympathies to you and your partner.

      1. Thank you. He was a sweet person with a good relationship with his wife and kids. My own father is a hot mess, so it seems hard that someone who had so much to live for went first.

  6. I’ve just finished actually editing the book I’m working on. Need to go through the file this afternoon, dismissing tracked changes the author doesn’t need to see (house styling, etc – otherwise there’ll be so many she’s liable to miss the important stuff) and writing a covering letter. Then I’m going to recover and do lots of gardening and walking (the forecast’s wonderful for the next ten days). I’ll have to deal with the author’s responses, hopefully some time next week, given the schedule. Then I’ve decided to demote myself, and stick to proof-reading from now on. Edits just always seem to take over my whole life. Can’t find the mental energy for them any more.

    I inspected my compost heap/turf stack and realized it needs another 6-12 months to rot down – although I managed to dig out a large tubful of compost to use now. So I mulched the climbers and shrubs in my garden with that plus a couple of bags of composted manure. But I’m relieved to postpone trying to make a scenic new compost bin until next winter.

    1. If you can find a source of horse bedding (straw or sawdust — whatever’s most available) and dump a few bags of that onto the top of the compost heap, it will speed up the decay processes most happily, and do well for the worms at the bottom of the heap as well. I was amazed at how fast my compost processed itself with that addition.

      1. Thanks, Jinx – might try that. Though not sure it’d speed up the turf heap, which is the main thing I’m waiting on.

  7. Condolences to you and your partner Lupe. I lost a family member recently who had been ill for some time, so I understand those mixed emotions. Take care of yourself.

  8. I finally opened up and cleaned out the horribly gunky trap under my kitchen sinks, and now when I drain the dishwater out of sink one, I purr with pleasure to see that it DOESN’T come gurgling up into sink two. Should have done it months ago.

    Simple things can be so satisfying.

  9. Yesterday before the rains came, I dug a trench under the edge of the fence I share with the neighbor and filled it with all the large rocks that were dug from my soil when the sewer installation was done. Some of them were a foot long. When the fence was installed by the neighbor, the crew had the bottom wood clear on her side but since my side is higher, the bottom 4 inches of fence was buried on my side. This seemed to guarantee and early demise of the wood. And I had about a yard and a half of this stone and this seemed an ideal way to get rid of the stone and provide drainage around the bottom of the fence. Plus the dirt I removed was nice stuff so now I have some extra soil to level more of my terraces. I only have about 1/2 yard of rocks to go and the sun in out so today may see the end of the project.

  10. Yesterday was my last day at the “day job” and very bittersweet. Then I got the news from my agent that Berkley won’t be continuing my (popular but apparently not popular enough) cozy mystery series. Not an auspicious start to my new “full time author” career, so I’m feeling a bit discouraged. The third book in the series doesn’t come out until May, and I suppose the numbers could miraculously go up enough to change their minds, but it doesn’t seem likely.

    So today I’m working at not sinking into a mire of despair, and trying to figure out what’s next. Also, someone should clean this house, because it’s a pit.

    3. Having read the first two of the series, looking forward to the third, I feel dear Berkley decided badly. Publishing, bah.

    4. I’m sorry. It’s hard going through a third-book release when you know it’s the final book in the series, and it wasn’t your choice. I went through that with the garlic farm series.

      If it helps, I’ve heard that cozies are a tough sell these days (at the publisher level). Just the usual cycle of not buying much in a genre (cozies were declared dead from 2000-2010), then suddenly buying a lot the next ten years, and throwing them at the wall to see what breaks out. At least that’s what I’m telling myself about the garlic farm series not being renewed. But I also think it’s true, especially if your series also got non-renewed, when it did better than mine.

      Still sucks to get caught up in it.

      FWIW, I’m dealing with it by trying a slightly different genre, although I’m not even sure exactly what the genre is. I can only describe it as my “write what you want to read but can’t find” book. Which may well be dead on arrival, but it’s better than writing yet another proposal for a cozy series that I can’t sell, after having two shot down last year, in addition to the garlic farm series extension.

    5. The self-publishing thing has potential. You are already so popular in fiction and non-fiction circles!

    6. Well, that is a bummer. I am sorry. Every time I get a rejection letter for a show, I try to tell myself that it is not necessarily a critique, but it does feel that way…

  11. I am now involved in THREE plays.
    (a) Urinetown, running in the theater now
    (b) Evita, rehearsing now
    (c) 10 minute play festival, starts rehearsing tonight.

    So, go me!

    I…am not loving Evita. I agreed to do it for other reasons such as this being my current “home” theater, they needed me, the other theater threw covid protocols out the window (my director and I were talking about this wigging us out last night), the crush, blah de blah. But literally, we just sang “rollin rollin rollin” over and over and over again on repeat for like an HOUR. This is not scintillating. Even the musical director is all, “stop me if you’ve heard this before…”

  12. To reduce the need to acquire more cabinet space to house my quilting supplies I’ve begun actually USING the material I’ve acquired over the years (turns out, I like selecting fabric and patterns more than actually making them). This week I made a quilt using fabrics from the “plaid” section. The quilt top is done, but I cut so many squares that I have enough to make second top, so I’ll be doing that this week. It hasn’t made a dent in the fabric stash, but at least it’s a start.

    Next up: figure what to make out of all the random St. Patrick’s day fabric.

    The fun never ends.

    2. I find that sorting materials makes me happy, so I try to hold on to that thought and not the image of myself buried under a room of random bits and bobs.

  13. The week went by with cooking leftovers and gardening and yesterday, my quarterly visit to my PCP. She is extremely pleased with me. As of yesterday, I no longer take Metformin, I’m down to 12.5 mg of metoprolol twice daily, half a pill of Furosemide, 10 mg of Atorvastatin, and some Clopidogrel. Brand names would be stuff like Plavix, Lasix, Lopressor, or Lipitor. My A1c is down to 5.3 – the Type II Diabetes is totally controlled by diet. 🙂

    The only leftovers left over are all bowls of chili. I’ve eaten the beef, pork, and chicken dishes, which is what they were there for, after all. I ate half the chili for lunch with some “diet bread.” Imagine a slice of white bread with One Net Carb. No matter. I’ll probably bake chicken or fire up the crock pot and make chicken soup today. But my next meal will (almost certainly) involve broiled New York Strip steak(s).

    That takes me to farming. When the lights on my hydroponics came on today, they showed that the tomato garden was once again reaching for the sun. More pruning required. But glancing less than an hour ago, I spotted a hint of yellow. A blossom! One of the tomato plants has begun to flower, finally. (NOT the one too tall for its own good.) My green onions (planted from the roots of a stalk bought to adorn my leftovers) are doing well. The lettuce crop… three of the four lettuces I harvested are sending up leaves again. The Romaine has started quite well. If I time everything right, my next salad will have tiny tomatoes and possibly peppers in it.

    I saw these drawers on Amazon sized to fit under the hydroponics units, so I bought two for under the QYO units. Then seized by impulse, I added an IDOO unit to my wet farm. Those arrive sometime today. There may be pictures tomorrow.

    I’m still looking for bacon seeds. 🙂

    1. I am so proud of your progress in the war against diabetes!!!!!!!!! You are my inspiration to get the rest of the way back on my diet. In your honor I will venture into the wilds of the suburbs tomorrow in search of on sale asparagus and artichokes. I’m sure that they won’t be as flavorful as the fruits of your garden, but we plant killers have to make do with what we can get.

      1. Thank you! Heather (my Primary Care Physician) and I discussed carbohydrates, and going into ketosis. The dotter, of course, is on the keto diet, where ketosis is to be desired. My control of carbs has a lot to do with the lowered hba1c. Despite that, I have managed to re-add potatoes, rice, and pasta back into my diet, in small portions. Good luck with yours.

        Veggies are always good, sometimes.

    2. Honestly, I have found that the taste I associate with bacon is really just smoked… Maybe you can find a smoky option to feed your craving?

        1. And pour the smokey seasonings on lettuce? I might try that, depending on just how much sodium comes with the smokey flavor.

          1. Smoked paprika is my go-to for most soups. It offers just a hint of smokiness that gives another flavor layer. The other day I topped plain brown rice with a pat of butter and a dash of paprika for color, also paper thin slices of green onion and it was excellent and looked beautiful.

  14. I’ve been steadily working on making my guest room guestable. It’s in the “always darkest before the dawn” stage right now, but by the time my friend gets here it will be livable. And some of the weight of messiness will be off my shoulders. If only I liked cleaning and straightening as much as I like having things clean and neat.

    1. I think I need to invite some guests over in order to motivate myself to clean and declutter. After all these months alone, my definition of livable has deteriorated a HUGE amount.

      1. This rings so true! My roommate injured her knee a couple of weeks back and can’t climb down the stairs. It’s amazing the chaos that’s evolved in just two weeks of it doesn’t matter how anything looks because it’s just me!!

  15. Yesterday we had a crew come out and tear up the front lawn because we found a leak in the waterline from the house to the street.

    The good news is they didn’t have to move the rose bush the line runs close to. The bad news is they found a pipe under the house that needs replacing … so we’ll get someone else out for that.

    Nothing but expensive good times ahead.

  17. We’ve settled on the details of the living/book/bed rooms redo, decision-making more tiring than is believable. Though the detail-settling is exhausting, the actual paint/wallpaper applications, rewiring, old furniture moved out, new furniture moved in lies in the future and is someone else’s work. I see a driveway sale–everything cheap!–in my future. Unshelving of books and knickknacks starts now. Almost forty years of acquisition, and most of it goes.

    If anyone has any counsel to give on selecting a new queen bed, speak (write) your wisdom now. Please. (trying not to sound desperate.)

    1. I’m a fan of putting mattresses on wood or on bed slats not box springs. Try that before you buy. Also try lots of mattresses and read about them. Our brand is comfortable to lie on but gets very warm which I would have known had I researched it…

        1. Also be aware that if you try a mattress in a store and bring it home to use it on a wood platform it may feel firmer than the one in the store did. I love my platform bed, but I had never bought a mattress before this latest one and the difference was a bit of a surprise to me.

    2. I dearly love my Chinese rosewood platform bed with drawers in the base. On top of it is a Sleep Number mattress which is nearly twenty years old and still satisfactory; if it ever fails, I’ll replace it with a traditional (meaning not made of foam) futon. We haven’t been mattress shopping for a very long time, obviously. 🙂

      1. Sounds like you’d love all of our Japanese and Chinese furniture and knickknacks acquired from estate sales in our U.S. Navy town. Rosewood is swoonworthy. We had this piano…

        1. It is indeed swoonworthy, but it is also now protected in several countries and , therefore much harder to afford. I still remember the bedroom set at my favorite store in Minneapolis. My friend and I used to argue over who was going to buy it even though neither of us could afford it.

    3. We just bought a new queen bed with at auction. After extensive research (I am not kidding about extensive, my husband is a retired engineer), my husband said the best bed is a mattress over spaced wooden slats. Apparently, a solid wood base or plywood sag over time and do not provide the right support. And he was very specific that the wooden slats had to be strait grain wood either ash, fir or (?)white oak. Or maybe I have the wood type wrong. Something strong but resilient. We bought a solid oak bed for $87, spent an additional $20 on stain and varnish, then spent about $300 for wood for slats and he took two weeks to make the wooden slats and spacer bars for a bed that will probably be slept on by guests for about 8 days a year and our house sitter for about two weeks. It is indeed very comfortable. But this did seem a little excessive to me.

      However, we now have a very nice solid oak queen bed for about $400 instead of $2,000.

      1. Well, here opinions differ. I’m for adjusting a bed everywhere it can be adjusted. I think he’d be happy with a mattress in a bag. I shout out into the night, “NOOOOO!” I think he’d be happy going on with our decades-old metal frame. Thank heavens rust was discovered. Heat, we have a wonderful dual-control mattress cover. Massage, I prefer hands-on. Thanks for allowing us to consider all options.

        1. The last time I went mattress shopping was at the direction of my mother’s physiotherapist, who presented me with the specs. I bought her a bed that adjusted head and foot, heated, and massaged. The most enthusiastic user was her great-great-niece, who was four and had a wonderful time playing astronaut with the bed and her lift chair!

  18. We had dentist/cleaning appointments this morning. Paul needed a filling replaced and so he went first at 8:30. I managed to do all my running around and get back by 9:30 for my 10 a.m. appointment. That running around included picking up Charlie and Pumpkin’s ashes and I almost managed that without crying. If the ladies at the vet clinic hadn’t been so nice, I think I could have done it. Curses kind people!

    I’ve been doing a bunch of admin chores for the company this afternoon and I feel good about having them done. Having post-dated payments for all my monthly taxes and wages means I have fewer things to worry about on a monthly basis and that’s always good.

    I’m also working on a spring cleaning plan. Plan, not the actual cleaning, seeing as how it isn’t spring yet (even if I do have a sliver of light coming in my office window as the snow slightly recedes).

  19. We drove down to see our daughter yesterday and I think she’s a success story for the pandemic. I say that because she’s in her mid-30s and has a chronic pain/fatigue condition called Ehlers Danlos syndrome. While she lives on her own 1 1/2 hours away, prior to the pandemic I’d drive down once a week and clean her apartment, pick up groceries, and that sort of thing.

    With the necessary isolation of the pandemic, she has figured out how to do a bunch of household chores — including cleaning the bathroom — which had seemed beyond her abilities. Also, she has found new interests (such as something called Cat Game), has made some new friends, and has strengthened ties with old friends.

    She was very happy and chatty yesterday. My husband and I enjoyed our day with her.

    1. I may have said this to you before, but for such a rare disorder as Ehlers-Danlos, I seem to have met a lot of the community’s members. Probably because I hang out (virtually these days) in rare-disorder patient advocacy circles, where Ehlers-Danlos is well represented. It really makes me wonder if the prevalence figures are wrong. I know that for my own rare disorder, scientists are starting to question the long-quoted prevalence figures, and when I went digging around to figure out where they came from, no one could give me a journal citation that actually led to any research to support the existing number. I don’t recall the details of the genetic aspects of Ehlers-Danlos, but if you (and your daughter) aren’t already following gene therapy advances, I strongly encourage you to look into it. New treatments are coming along at an amazingly fast pace, and researchers need to hear from patients both before and during clinical trials. If you’re on twitter, check out @deannaportero (someone I know through patient advocacy) who moved from running a rare bone-disorder patient advocacy group to working on gene therapy and gene editing programs at NIH. Her feed has a lot of links to info about gene therapy/editing. Great starting point for a topic that can feel overwhelming.

      1. I got our taxes done before DH shipped off for a month of travel. I worked with DS on his taxes—he’s learning how to do them. I spent an hour with the bank that has my dads trust going over why the forms they gave us were wrong. Don’t know yet if they will get it right. Still to do—work with DD on her US taxes—she is on her own for the British department ones. And possibly with foster daughter on hers.

        I’m also working my way through about 30 unread New Yorkers. Not exactly work but helps with the decluttering.

      2. Thanks, Gin. I wish I’d known supportive people like you during the decade it took to diagnose my daughter’s condition. She now sees a doctor who worked in the NIH for many years isolating the Ehlers Danlos gene tie-ins, as well as being a top specialist in the syndrome. The doctor’s name is Claire Francomano and she’s currently out of the University of Indiana (the Health departments are located in Indianapolis).

        In response to your observaton, yes, you are right: hypermobility (and that sort of evidence of EDS) might be present in as high as 10% of the population. It’s on a spectrum, like so many other conditions.

        A challenge for EDS patients and possible EDS patients is that one must exhibit at least a certain number of a long list of symptoms in order to be diagnosed with EDS (as far as the US government is concerned).

        1. Ooh, Indiana — that’s where FGF23 (the hormone that’s the root cause of my disorder) was discovered! And there’s a new, younger doctor there who specializes in my disorder. Apparently a really great place for rare disorders! Glad your daughter has someone who really knows their stuff. And she’ll be in a position to hear about any gene therapy research. If she has a chance to participate in a natural history study, I strongly encourage it. I’ve been hearing researchers say that having that data is going to be key to getting gene therapy approved (and then, in my experience with an expensive treatment, key to getting insurance companies to pay for it).

  20. My job offered me overnights which I jumped on very quickly. I am a night owl. Also a lot of dead time to read and write due to less phone calls. And 4 days on, 3 days off.
    Changing to nights means redoing the house so I can sleep somewhere different. Too noisy during the day (my new sleep time) where I was sleeping.
    This involved getting a new / used dresser. Think I found it.
    We are in the process of installing a new dishwasher. Of course, there is a hitch that now involves a plumber coming.
    Now that I have time to write I want to talk myself out of starting something new and figure out which of my many, many unfinished w.i.p. novels to focus on.
    Wish me luck.

  21. I’m still drowning in the day job. I’d helped out with work in another department on top of my usual work load. Now that a dear colleague returning from parental leave has pitched in and relieved quite a bit of workload in that area, the workload of what I usually has grown and grown and it feels like eating spoonfuls of the old, yucky elephant Jenny posted a picture about recently. I will get there in the end, with too many hours overtime and no work-life-balance to speak of.

    No head-space at all for anything else.
    So I’m panicking.
    DD’s birthday is on March 18th. And I have no idea whatsoever for her birthday gift.
    I’m a mess.
    As is dh who’s also buried under too much work, thanks to new Covid-protocols and too many colleagues on sick leave due to same pestilence.

    1. Make her a voucher by printing out a pretty picture and writing on it that it’s for an activity of her choice up to $X. Quick, easy and personalized.

      1. We did this around the beginning of the pandemic. She still hasn’t followed up on the activities – all 4 of us are notoriously bad in cashing in vouchers… So though this might be a good option for most, it’s not satisfying for her, sigh.

  22. My half-bath sink will not need to be replaced. Woohoo!
    The mineral content of my water is extremely high. Fighting staining etc. is an ongoing (and losing) battle here. I decided that I was going to replace the sink because it was discolored and looked awful and commercial cleaners were useless.
    I was upstairs cleaning out a cabinet and there was this pumice stick wrapped in plastic that was meant for cleaning toilets. hmmmm. Upshot is that while it took a long time, the stick worked. No shopping, no dealing with installers and I am delighted.

    1. Can you put up a link for something like that pumice stick? I have terrible discoloration from my well water (despite having spent literal thousands on a special water treatment system).

      1. Well water is what I deal with as well. I don’t know where this particular stick came from but when it worked so well, I typed in pumice stick on Amazon and purchased a couple more. They new ones are smaller than the one I was working with; I think “shrinkflation” applies to everything.

      3. Update. JenniferN… may have a better idea. My sticks arrived today and they are NOT what I was using. I’m returning them.
        They’re very lightweight and look like they might crumble. There are 4 in the package, each is wrapped with cardstock. Being curious, I weighed them. The 4 in their packaging weigh not quite twice what the 1 I’m using weighs and I probably used up a third of that one on the sink.

    2. Apparently, you can get brushes that attach to power drills to clean bathtubs. Maybe something like that will be easier, though check they don’t leave scuff marks.

  23. I took a vacation day Monday, and actually used it for more gardening (seven hours total over three days); the front yard genuinely looks like something, finally! And the back yard, well, it’s still a mess but at least I’ve had some ideas that should be actionable.

    Aside from that, I’ve done bits of writer business, but no actual writing. Apparently my brain has spring fever.

  24. Just keeping up with the housework and tossing cisks, toys, or balls for Pixie.

    So happy it’s warm and the snow is all gone.

  25. Oh, my major accomplishment of the week was reaching a deal with my mom where she will wear a medical alert watch from the moment she wakes up until she showers and then the rest of the day after the shower and will text her kids by 11 am so if she falls in the night and doesn’t text us we will know something is wrong. She got deeply embarrassed when a neighbor showed up at her door while she was showering because somehow she triggered the medical alert and then didn’t answer the phone when they called because she didn’t realize that the “medical alert” caller was legit and didn’t want to get scammed again.
    Why she is embarrassed (she also finds it embarrassing when tbey call even if she talks to them) I don’t know. Why that’s more important than being helped promptly if she falls I don’t know. Why she blames the “false alert” (which may actually have been her accidentally pushing a button ) on the necklace part of the system and insists on returning it but assumes the watch part is fine and will keep it I don’t know.
    But when this happened my three sibs went ballistic and started text-fighting with her and she dug in her heels and finding a solution that keeps her fairly safe and satisfies my sibs counts as a big win for the week.

    1. My mother doesn’t want to wear a medical alert, so I’ve got an agreement with her that she texts me morning and evening, so I know she hasn’t fallen. It’s really good – it means we keep in touch well.

    2. I know my mother found it easy to set off her neck alarm by mistake – leaning against something as she was reaching over, for example. And, of course, she absolutely didn’t want to be a fragile old woman, most especially if she might end up bothering people unnecessarily.

      We set her grandchildren on to her; although we still had to remind her that she’d promised them to wear it – and not to climb on anything in order to reach (she’d still do this, though we’d tried to clear all the high shelves).

      1. Grandchildren definitely help. She agreed to order it in time for them to set it up on their visit. But the degree to which using an alarm embarrasses her —even in front of my sister and niece —I find bizarre

        1. But she’ll see herself as the same woman she’s always been, surely. I can see how it could feel shameful to become fragile and dependant.

    3. Tell her it can get a lot more embarrassing, the lovely 80 year old lady I used to work with needed a stick to get around. She however was very practical and always took her mobile with her even in the bathroom. She got trapped naked in her bath (she has equipment that helps her access her bath), she lives alone. Because she was prepared, she called her neighbour who has her spare key and nipped round and helped her dry and dress, before getting other people to help her out of the bath. The alternative would be her trapped for hours in the cold and then if she was lucky, horror of horrors a fireman would be forced to climb in through her bathroom window to get into her house and see her naked.

  26. I have been working on a puzzle a friend gave me for Christmas. I’m not a puzzle person so it’s slow process. Decided to embrace it rather than stress. Made Szechuan eggplant for the first time – delicious. Collected all my supplies for a birthday box projects today. This is one of my favourite volunteer experiences- providing a ‘birthday-in-a box” for a child in northern Canada.

    1. I think that program is wonderful. There are a lot of Secret Santa programs at Christmas, but I’ve always thought birthdays are more personal. And if we’re having supply chain issues here in a large, centrally located city, it must be really bad in an isolated area.
      I’ll have to see if there is something like that I can do in my neck of the woods.

  27. Ooh, I painted my coffee table, gave it a wash coat. It looks gorgeously beachy.
    And I’m working on taxes too – belugh!

  28. It’s spring, and I realized once again I have 2 large dogs. I have very mixed feelings when the snow melts in my backyard.

  29. The cats made it to the vet yesterday. The pharmacy had all my medications for the month synchronized so it was only one trip — some months it seems as if I need to make a separate visit for every pill. Tomorrow had better be cat grocery shopping day, as they’ve decided they don’t think much of the current offerings (and here I thought that multiple cats never go on hunger strikes).

    My volunteer co-worker is in Radymno Gmina, Poland — on the Ukraine border, of course. He reports that his “running” job evaporated, as the Polish arrangements for trains and busses are so efficient that it hasn’t been necessary, so he’s cooking in a soup kitchen. He’s volunteering through outlook.com, which I hadn’t known of before.

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