70 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, October 26, 2022”

  1. Work is actually my sanctuary this week as I am on the last 5 day push to move out of my apartment and I am a professional procrastinator. It will get done by Mondy but it ain’t going to be pretty!

  2. This week has been hectic at work, and I’m definitely looking forward to a little R&R this weekend as my friends and I gather at a little cabin to quilt all weekend long. This is our challenge reckoning weekend. We all stated by Memorial Day what we would complete by Halloween – a project that had been neglected, rather than some bright shiny new thing. I found that I had five projects where the quilt tops had not been completed, and decided to do those. You all have seen my progress this summer as I’ve made them into tops, and sometimes quilted them (and worked on quilting the tops that had been languishing in the “to be quilted” pile as well.) I put the last borders on the last of the five tops on Sunday, so challenge met.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CkLFM9buYFo/

    It feels good to get these moving.

    This past weekend I also took a class on landscape quilting. The class project was a small quilt depicting the Smoky Mountains. I might be 1/3 of the way through constructing that (maybe there will be more progress this weekend). I also was part of a group to take the instructor to dinner Friday evening. We went to a Tex-Mex place called Uncle Julio’s, because of their specialty dessert, the Chocolate Pinata. I included a picture of that for you. Basically it is a hard, thick dark chocolate shell, filled with fresh fruit and churros. You break it open with a large dowel, allowing everything to fall to the tray, where you can select what you want. It was pretty tasty!

    1. Wow, your quilts are amazing as always! What do you do with them when you’re finished? Do you keep them? Give them away? Sell them? All of the above?

    3. It is hard to decide, but that may be my new favorite. All it needs is one of your “display cats” and it will be perfect.

    4. That piñata is literally the bomb. I looks like a bomb, and it must have tasted wonderful!

  4. Trying to get ready for winter, catch up on all the things, beta read a manuscript, start working on my next novel, and chase down workmen. Plus figure out where a missing package disappeared to in the postal service void, which is the most work of all, apparently.

    1. Good luck! I had a package disappear from its transit through Seattle, to PR, which is Puerto Rico, I assume. It eventually showed up, but I was in a real panic for awhile.

      1. A friend of mine had a small package that was being shipped from the US to Canada route through Germany. Her address was totally correct, all we can think is that someone accidentally threw it in a container bound for Europe.

    2. What is it with the post office these days? I needed a package from Amazon, and I usually order way ahead, but this one time it was last minute, but as long as it arrived when they said it would, it would be in time (so I wouldn’t have to go to WalMart, which I hate doing, to get the item in person), and except at the height of the pandemic, I’ve gotten all my Amazon packages on the predicted date, if not sooner, and many were indeed sooner, so I wasn’t worried about the timing. But most of those shipments went by way of Amazon drivers, not the USPS, and this one went by USPS.

      So I get a notice saying “It’s been delivered to your front porch” on Friday, so yay. And I search the front porch, side porch, other side porch, back porch, neighbor’s front/side/other/back (because they are where it should really have been delivered; long story). And no package. I give it an extra day, repeat the search, no package. Contact Amazon, and the chatbot tells me, “oh, the post office lied about delivering it, so give it another day,” which is kinda’ worrisome that that is even an option for the chatbot to consider, since it suggest it happens a lot. (Well, actually it said, “delivery info was entered prematurely,” which as Murderbot would say means the USPS is lying, just using different words and humans have too many words). I give it another day and then got busy, and then the next day after that it does finally arrive. No explanation, nothing. Not sure if it was delivered to the wrong house and then picked up on Saturday and sent back into the system for delivery later or if it was never delivered on Friday.

      Just seems to me that a tracking system that’s known to lie frequently is actually worse than having no tracking system! My guess is that there’s an incentive to lie about delivery for Amazon packages, because there are penalties for late delivery of their stuff. I REALLY don’t trust the statements from the USPS under DeJoy that some high percentage of mail is being delivered on time. Pretty sure they’ve made the definition of “on time” so much longer than it used to be, and then things like manipulating the tracking system are going on. Because the system never got updated to show that my Amazon package was delivered three business days late.

      Argh. Yes, I’m cranky today. And not getting any work done.

      1. I think that DeJoy definitely did a number on the postal service, for one thing. And my area is always short on carriers. A lot retired during covid.

        Also, rather than purposefully punking Amazon, I think that between those shortages and extra hurdles they are working with a system where they have to meet certain quotas for delivery. So they mark things off early and then don’t get to them.

        1. Lupe, you are so right. I have always been on a “training route”, but since DeJoy took over, it’s been nobody’s route, and some days we don’t get mail, at all. Other days, we are tacked onto someone’s day, at the end, and they deliver our mail after their regular route, after 7:30pm, usually. Several days ago, a guy in a red pickup, with black slacks and a bright blue shirt, delivered a package. I saw him hesitate, and he dropped it under my mail slot in the garage, instead of bringing it to my porch. I went out and asked why he did that, and he said, “Your door was open and I didn’t want to get attacked by a dog.” The glass storm door was in place, and if I had a dog, it would have been barking its head off as soon as he came up the driveway. He should not have been delivering mail if he was that scared of dogs. He obviously had not been trained, had no official vehicle, and no uniform. One carrier looks exhausted every night. This is nuts!

          1. To be fair, dogs can be unpredictable. As a delivery person, the worst encounter I had was with a pack of Jack Russels. They rounded the corner en masse before I had even gotten to the porch. If he was worried about dogs, it’s probably because something happened. My neighbor was a mailman for 30 years and he got bit all the time.

          2. This morning I saw a news story about an Amzon delivery driver apparently killed by dogs. I don’t remember what city. The owners were not home. The dogs were a mastiff and a GSD.

      2. I had this experience a few months back with Amazon. After it not showing up for a few days, I complained and they re-delivered it…and then I got two of the same dress showing up on the same day 😛

        But Amazon delivery is still better than usual mail, in my experience.

      3. Can I add to ‘package delivery’ complaint? I had a package delivered the night before last at 3:00 am – wtf?? Of course when I look at my email at 7:45 in the morning and rush outside to rescue said package and…of course it’s been swiped. So mad and am kicking up a fuss with the company to say if you’re going to be dopey enough to delivery a package at 3:00 in a high density neighbourhood then you can bloody well resend the package.

        1. ????? Who the frick delivers stuff at 3:00 am?? That’s absolutely nuts! You have a right to be angry.

    3. This package went out on the 13th, got to the distribution center on the 14, and all it says after that is “moving through network, in transit, arriving late.”

      Today is the 26th, and when I tried to report it missing or check on it (multiple times in multiple ways) I got this message: “This tracking number is not yet eligible for an inquiry. Your package in moving within the USPS network and is currently in transit to the next facility. If there is no change by 10/18/2022, you will be eligible to submit a service request.”

      Did I mention that today is the 26th?! Went to my local small post office, where they can sometimes help, but the woman there could only see a few technical notes, also from the 14th, so she gave me the number for the distribution center. Which apparently does not ever answer their phone.

      I call bullshit. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything very expensive, but it was a sale from my Etsy shop so I’m going to have to replace it and take the loss of both the original item and the shipping, unless something changes.

      1. I have a similar order for “Mini Belle Mix Sweet Peppers Seeds (20+ Seeds)”, said order placed September 4, 2022. The status seems to be permanently stuck on On the way, but running late. Track Package takes me to Expected by Sep 19 / Shipped. Customer service is unhelpful.

      2. While I’ve had packages “mysteriously lost” I’ve also had a package arrive right on time, along with the standard “here’s your package on your doorstep” photo (sent by Amazon), but my order status continued to say “in progress” and Amazon sent me a “sorry your package is late” email and told me I could request my money back or request a replacement. I tried unsuccessfully to find a way to tell them the package HAD arrived, but to no avail. To this day, the order still says “in progress”. Sigh.

      3. Have you tried Etsy’s new program yet? It’s one thing I approve of their doing in the last couple of years. It should allow you to get paid for the package and also reimburse the customer.

  5. Why are you throwing out half of your kitchen? Is it old food, or something else? I hope you have replacements, if needed!!! I just got a new thermal coffee pot, which I’m loving. The old one had a really crusted warming plate. This one has a warming plate, too, and the pot is stainless steel, so it can be heated, unlike a plastic thermal pot. Good luck. It sounds therapeutic, after your hard work.

    1. I have a lust for kitchenware that is ongoing. Nobody needs as much kitchen stuff as I have. Plus there was that kitchen fire I had. So now, much of my kitchen must go. But I’ll still have plenty of stuff.

      1. One of my DH’s pandemic coping mechanisms was to buy kitchen equipment frequently from restaurant supply stores and therefore larger than needed for two people. I assume it was a way of reassuring himself that at some point we would have people over for dinner again. But it’s a real problem.
        I’m trying to get rid of things he won’t notice when he is traveling (he tends to say “oh I might use that one day” for things we haven’t used in a decade) and to persuade him that really large objects can be stored in the basement until needed .

        1. Treasure your basement. When I moved into this apartment 7 years ago, I lost my storage locker. Now I put everything in my large coat closet and I can never find anything.

          1. Oh I do. But it has its disadvantages when you live with someone who doesn’t want to get rid of anything…

            Now that I’m working part time one of my goals is to declutter the house both for us and so our kids have less to do when they have move us out, live or dead.

      2. You obviously have a wide knowledge of cooking and baking, judging from your writing. At least you collect useful things! I have a whole set of pocket dragons, cabinets full of beads, and rocks everywhere. Sorry about the fire. That’s devastating.

          1. They are adorable little light green baby dragons doing cute things. The man who made them retired, so they may actually have some value because of that. I’m not on instagram, so I’m not sure how to send a photo, but I would if I knew how. There are several with large coffee cups, there’s one with a little duck and an umbrella looking up at the sky, one with a mad look on its face and its hands on its hips, one reading a book of runes, and my favorite; one leaving black footprints after walking in an ink spill. There’s also a very small one that fits in the palm of your hand. I’m sure they could be googled.

  6. Did not your redo of your kitchen workout after you caught your stove on fire? Or was it your refrigerator? At some point didn’t you carve out a piece of it for your office? Or was it that you tossed out your office (Which it seems like, was originally a pass through to your garage), and add that to your kitchen. I remember a picture you posted after a kitchen redo that looked as though you had enough space for a small kitchen in a very small New York apartment.

    I remodeled my kitchen 5 years ago. I kept the exact same footprint, removed 4 overhead cabinets and changed all storage (except for the china) to pull out shelves or drawers. The end result seems to be more apparent storage than I had before. I do not have one of these massive kitchens that are so popular. I do most of the cooking, and I do a lot of cooking, so I don’t want to run a marathon while I am trying to get stuff on the table.

    1. I’m still figuring out what to do after the kitchen fire. The original kitchen here was about 7′ x 7′, but there was a dining room that was 9′ x 9′ across the hall through an archway, so I made that part of the kitchen, too, the working part, and left the sink in the original kitchen which became a pantry. That’s still small, but the stove burning made me realize I don’t need it–I have more small appliances that anybody else on the planet–so I’m getting a full size refrigerator–bliss–as soon as I figure out the rest of the kitchen. Which may be today. My work list today is “Get the trash out to curb,” “Analyst Nita’s second act,” and “Assemble the new island/storage and clear out the kitchen so it fits.” It’s a plan.

      1. If you manage to accomplish all that in one day I will worship you even more than I do already. (Don’t be too excited…I worship a lot of goddesses, some of them a bit odd.)

  7. I had plans today but the thought of getting into and out of the car during rain five or six times is not going to do it for me. The library to return and pick up, the post office to mail a card, the bank, the town hall to pay taxes and early voting. Ok four. All of which can be done tomorrow.

  8. I am writing some. Enjoying my writing group. About to go to an in person social of same. Late to post my usual blogpost. Late to comment on Facebook with the witty recap that is my contribution to luring new members to my writing group.
    Ignoring most things on non writing fronts.
    More procrastination than work lol.

  9. Good luck with Nita!
    I’m researching my next novella and getting ready for World Fantasy Con. My publisher promises a soft launch for Siren Bridge, but it’s a nailbiter.
    But WFC is New Orleans, so whatever happens, the food will be good. 🙂

  10. Working on the latest novel, getting labs drawn, voting, getting the house watchbeast to the vet, and working on my website so I can have some content there for people to see when my new bio is on an upcoming short story publication. Oh, and a weekly phone call from a friend and trying to find out where two more friends are and if they’re okay. So a bit busy it seems.

  11. The last of the big have-to-do projects got done yesterday. You all know how I love my husband and don’t like to trash talk him in public but, man, he annoyed me with this one. I’ve been after him for months to do it but he put it off and put it off until yesterday when we were out fixing a fence in -2C degree weather with a nasty wind.

    He gets really caught up in this idea that if he’s busy on his days off, he’s not “resting” and that he has to “rest” when he’s not working. Yes, of course, a person needs rest days where you do nothing but you can’t spend every day sitting on your butt. He tends to over complicate most jobs in his head so something that might take 30 minutes in reality takes 5 hours in his head. He said that doing this job in the cold might make him procrastinate but he didn’t think so.

    We also got the doors on the guest bedroom closet and now we just have to clean up and do all the put-the-house-back-together finishing touches before our company comes in November.

    Today it’s day job, maybe drying some tomatoes if they are ready, and making soup for supper.

    Tomorrow we are supposed to have nice weather and I’m going to wrap my roses in burlap. Even with the freezes we have had they are still going strong but given the choice between wrapping then in +8 and sunny or -8 and windy, I’m wrapping early every time.

    Christmas lights go up in the trees (not lit, just up) and the last of the planters will have the annuals pulled and the birch logs set in awaiting their decorating for Christmas. Tomorrow is going to be busy.

  12. I decided to put everything away in my kitchen and discovered 2 6-packs of beer I’d squirreled away for my husband’s surprise birthday party back on October 2nd.

    The annual family dispute over “Who is going to host Thanksgiving” just ended for us when my husband announced that there’s too much competition and teeth gnashing. We’re going to stay home and enjoy a nice, small turkey, watch the parade and football, and remain in pajamas all day. Champagne at midday. This is a huge reflief: the jousting over who’s hosting the holidays was bad enough before Covid; since then it has been nasty and brutish. Now I’m anticipating enjoying myself.

    I’m going to vote this afternoon! Yay! Happy to hear that other Arghers can and do vote early.

  13. The last seven days, including today, have turned into stupid medical stuff week, so that’s about all I’ve worked on. I’m fine, this is just routine blood work (which got messed up and so had to be redone), and my cat’s old-man appointment (and adjustment of his insulin, which has gotten out of whack, and now my other cat, who can sense when his glucose is over a certain level, has declared him to be an alien who must be run out of town, so I’m constantly rescuing him, even though he weighs twice what the attacking cat does), and routine doctor appointments, and refilling a pile of scrips, and getting my covid booster (the bivalent one), and so on.

    What I SHOULD be working on (and will, starting tomorrow) is finishing the outlining of a new book, which is going to be my November not-quite-NaNoWriMo project, so I need it done by the end of Monday, and I did make a good bit of progress on it before stupid-medical-stuff week. I’m aiming to write about 30K next month, not the 50K of NaNo. I won’t be pushing myself crazy hard, just trying to do a wee bit more than what’s comfortable and re-establish daily writing habits that fell by the wayside in the year since my heart surgery.

  14. I’m stressed and tired and overwhelmed at work. Plus, I have to fly to Munich on Friday after a super busy week and teach there on the weekend. I don’t feel as if I have the reserves to manage. Argh!

  15. I had my covid booster, a check-up at the dentist, and got my repeat prescription; so health tasks sorted. Did the initial cull and cropping of my photos of my niece’s wedding; next I need to choose a couple of dozen to edit fully and send to her. I’ve also got my holiday shots to edit and send to my friends.

    Finally had a day in the garden today, and feel much better for it. Made a start on preparing for winter: planted bulbs (except tulips, which are best done next month) and potted up plants I’d bought for my plant tables (they function as large external window sills, and liven the views from the living room). It’s still mild, so I don’t want to move plants that are still flowering; but if it turns cold suddenly, I don’t want to have to panic. It was lovely and sunny today – an ideal gardening day.

  16. I’m still finishing a half dozen memos for the job I left and getting ready for a Census Bureau meeting Thursday and Friday —I prep the committee members that are interested about kid issues and also submit written comments.
    I also applied sealant to our kitchen and bathroom counters which has to be done once a year and means I can’t use them for three days while they dry so I try to do it when DH is traveling.
    I bought a new laptop to replace the work one I’m returning and need to load software and files on it. I booked the Covid booster 3 times and am finally getting it today.

    And this weekend I need to cut all the dead zinnias and plant bulbs I ordered last spring. I’m afraid to look to see how many….

  17. I mailed in my absentee ballot last week as I will be out of town for both early voting day and Election Day.

    This morningI had a meeting with a town representative to sign paperwork for the flood buyout after which I went for a walk, took a trip to B&N to get a chai latte, and am now getting ready to go out for a bit of a hike, now that the rain that was threatening a bit ago has moved on.

    I also double checked what I need for my upcoming trip to Spain, packed my backpack to see how heavy it is, and see if I forgot anything important. It’s kind of hard deciding what to take as this is a hiking trip and everything has to be carried in my backpack. The general rule of thumb is to have the packed backpack weigh no more than 10% of your body weight. I will be adding two full water bottles once I’m there, but I think I will just make it to the 10% guide. Fingers crossed!

    1. I don’t follow that rule. As someone who’s overweight, I’m already carrying more than my body prefers, so I think I’d need to aim for a much lighter pack. (Hopefully, this doesn’t apply to you!)

  18. Play: learned the tap dance routine this week, are reconfiguring dance numbers.

    Halloween costume: FINISHED! I don’t have a photo of it all on yet, but here’s the skirt:
    https://fullmoon.typepad.com/crafts/2022/10/the-encanto-skirt-is-finally-done.html

    After that, I went back to doing some of my temperature gauge cross stitch, sadly stranded in mid-September for awhile. And I need to go write some book reviews. I did write some long-owed letters to people yesterday, so that got done too.

  19. The hubby went to a job fair for one of the local hospitals. He was having a fair amount of anxiety about it and not being ready, but he went, so I am happy with that. I don’t know if he found anything even moderately well suited, but at least he went.

    Otherwise, I spent most of last week going to rummage sales and sewing on tutus for the upcoming Nutcracker production.

  20. I got the bulbs that came while I was gone on vacation planted in time for the rain. The ground was like rock, so I had to water each spot with the hose before, and during, digging. I hope they take hold and live. This drought has been awful. I got 2″ of rain, and the cracks in the yard mostly closed up. Sigh. I changed the bedding to the down comforter, and my clothes to the winter wardrobe. I tried out the new 10 pound Weighted Blanket, and the first night, it was fine. then last night I was restless, and finally ended up taking it off the bed in the middle of the night. Now, I’m not sure what to do with it. I did get a lot of the crossword, A Novel Death done. That was fun.

  21. I planted daffodils, finally got a true head of steam on the book of short essays I’m editing, did some stuff for my church and community chorus boards. Went to the gym!
    I’m ruminating on a November project, maybe watercolor somethings.

  22. No work. All play (except for the Stupid Medical Stuff on Monday.) I am another with more kitchen stuff than will ever be needed, given that my kitchen is what it is.

    My wok was USD6.88 at Walmart. I used the wrong spatula on it and started peeling up the non-stick coating. I can afford a replacement. It and the spatula that scratched it are history.

    It’s getting dark in here. All the grow lights are going off at roughly the same time. I was going to harvest red fire peppers from Harvey, but they’ll wait until tomorrow. That’s not work. That’s more play. 🙂

  23. Mainly replying to ‘boomerang-emails’ (those that one thought resolved with a clear declination, but come back with the same request over and over); testing the beta version of a software and enjoying how brilliant and amazing some people are (I wish I could be so clever for a single day. The world must have such a different depth/look…).

  24. Ah, medical stuff. I had another eye appointment and flubbed the annoying click-when-you-see-the light-dots.My doctor has decided that I don’t need to take it again. Yes! No more medical appointments until December.

    Put my mail-in ballot in a drop box last week. Voted for all the Democrats. A lot of mail0in ballots have already been returned.

    And I’m just puttering around the house.

  25. I’ll get my ballot ready to drop in the mail pretty soon.

    Did a fair bit of domestication work over the weekend, nothing since; a fair bit of writer bizness as well, none of that since either. There was a time when I could sign off from work and stay at the computer for an hour or five, but that time is not now.

    Got another journal scanned this morning, the last box of books of 2022 has been sent off to its recipient, and I’ve done the treadmill the past two days. Will not do today because I didn’t sleep well and frankly I’d rather go sprawl in the den and read Simu Liu’s memoir.

  26. At painting class, I’m working on a painting of the moon rising over a mountain range. Last week, I chucked some purple onto the canvas and sketched the mountain range roughly. This week I blocked it in roughly – and suddenly it looks like mountains. Still a long way to go, but I’m pleased so far.

    Here’s the pictures:
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CkMqwN5Sovd/

  27. I am just now, 10 days post-surgery, starting to feel like myself. Gum surgery sucks! Can’t chew on right side of my mouth, can’t brush the upper right quadrant, bleck! So nothing accomplished. I WILL vote tomorrow! And do laundry! My son has been great at providing TLC.

  28. Besides the day job, this week has included the apparently unending work of getting my deceased parent’s house on the market. It would really have been nice if the real estate agent had given me some information up-front about the various costs that would be incurred and the timeline for doing things, since he’s sold many houses before and I have not.

    Today was “filling out the disclosures” day, among other things. Ugh.

    Part of the recent work on the house was refreshing the outdoor painting–a bit of a challenge, since I had the puppy with me, who has to investigate EVERYTING.

    In unrelated news, the puppy has patches of blue paint on her face and tail 🙂

  29. My last weekend off I hosted my son,his fiancee and her mother. Her mom was a model and is a yoga instructor. I am so looking forward to wedding pictures.

  30. When I left my job I started to unsubscribe from all tbe emails I had been receiving at both work and home that I really don’t want to keep getting and moving subscriptions from work to home that I might need for consulting.

    This has turned out to be very satisfying. I got tons of email that I had no idea o was getting because on my computer they go in spam but they show up on my phone. And the clutter on my phone is way down. I now try to do 3-5 a day, it takes me 3 minutes, and I can check it off my mental to do list as an accomplishment that will also save me time in the future. I recommend it.

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