119 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, July 12, 2023”

  1. In the airport on my way to Raleigh, North Carolina for a sales meeting.

    Dialogue from yesterday:
    Me: “I need to figure out the right outfit for the in-person meeting with the client.”
    My husband: “You can borrow my hot dog costume if you want.”

      1. Excuse me? I do not have a hot dog costume. The man I live with has a hot dog costume. He also has a unicorn costume.

        1. Ah. I stand corrected. I have a sexy pirate costume and a roman centurion helmet that I bought this summer. An extensive costume closet is a goal, mostly because I buy a lot of things that I can’t wear to work….

          1. I have Great Outfits instead of costumes. And I rarely get a chance to wear them anymore; can’t even imagine where I’d wear costumes.

      1. Thank you, Nancy! Yes, I read the weather for the next two days – I’m looking forward to it. Never too hot nor too humid for me. Not that I’ll be outside much. 😢

  2. I did the moving thing for New Years. I think we mostly finished by April. It was a distance of just over five miles. I wish you the very, very best of luck and skill with your move.

  3. Well, it’s Wednesday, not Tuesday, so I am going to work on that for a bit.

    The day job is being challenging. One of my coworkers took an extended leave for her health which she used to find another job and left without notice. I am vexed. So I am working on jogging my brain out of being unhappy. I don’t want a repeat of last week. My poor hubby bore the brunt of a lot of growling and pterodactyl screaming. Bless him.

    Retail therapy is a factor. TJ Maxx has a little bit of Halloween stuff out so I went to look at that. I didn’t buy anything but I did walk out with pretty tinted lip balm and lots of tea.

    And I am considering expensive shoes which are on sale. I don’t need them, they are not practical, but…

    1. Well, but, cheap shoes are NEVER practical.

      I should be working on weeding. I am not.

    2. I have a friend, that when I say I don’t need a particular pair of shoes, responds with: “What’s this word ‘need’ you use?”

      Pic of shoes please.

        1. In totally voting for the purple spider web shoes although I suspect you’ll go merlot.

          1. Oh, no. I am not a red person at all. That was just the first one when I copied the link. Purple is my first choice, but I do have a pair of purple heels already, so the green are in my thoughts as well.

          2. I stand correct. And hey you can’t have too many pairs of purple heels. I have an entire row of them. So many sartorial choices that require different purple heels.

          3. I want to see a picture of your closet some day.

            I just sold off a pair of my Irregular choice heels in silver. Shipped them off this morning and I am having regrets…

          4. My husband refers to my shoe closet as where our retirement plan went to live. This from a guy who when he’s playing World of Warcraft looks like he’s landing the space shuttle.

          5. Yes, green spiderwebs, style it with a black velvet skirt, with a green satin underskirt or the Little Women flapper t-straps are cute, the teal/copper or Burgundy/gold are very super hero colours

          2. I had a friend who wore size 4! I think the last time I wore size 4 was when I was years old

        3. A set of dancer’s taps would look swell on those shoes. I can just see you tapping away.

        4. They are lovely! I’m a fluevog person myself. I can’t let myself visit their site or else I have a puddle of drool on the keyboard. 😂

          1. Fluevog is on my wishlist. I need to pace myself. I am waiting for a pair to pop up on one of the resale sites that I haunt. Still kicking myself over the pair I missed at a church rummage sale this spring…

          1. I want those. But I’m already bleeding money from the move, so no.
            Those are GREAT.

        6. Yes, the spider web! In any color. (In all the colors.) The other designs are nice but that one makes my heart soar!

          1. Time for a mom comment here. Those shoes will HURT YOUR FEET, CHILD!!

            Okay. Out of my system.

          2. Jinx, Life is pain and anyone who tells you different is selling something….

            And I was a dancer. Nothing hurts worse than point shoes. It’s worth it 😉

        7. I have never wanted or bought $150 shoes in my life, but I want those. It doesn’t matter that I have no occasion to wear them, I just need them. Please buy them for all of us and post photos!

          2. Oh my God. You people are the devil. The sale is on until the 16th. Assuming they don’t run out of my size, I can dither for a few more days…

          3. And after I had to drop over $100 on a pair of work boots to cover in flesh and or blood toned resin and silicone, I became more open-minded about price point. I sell on Poshmark and that money is my gratuitous shoe budget.

  4. I’ve been spending my free time watching the Tour de France. Because I’m too cheap to pay for streaming, I’m on a delayed schedule – recording the broadcast that comes out about 18 hours after the stage concludes. It works for me. (and it works for DH who likes to look at the agricultural beauty of France.)

    As a result, I’ve been able to finish a crochet blanket. I found 5 skeins of yarn that I had obviously purchased for a baby blanket. Looking at the yardage on the label, I didn’t think I’d get my usual blanket out of it. Apparently it’s also a size up in yarn thickness – so this is a little larger than my traditional baby blanket. But it’s all good. I know of a little tyke who might get this.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CumImK8OZCG/

    I also finished cutting out the pieces (over 3,000) for the mystery quilt my friend designed. The second picture is of the fabrics that I’ve used.

    The last picture is of Wendy, “helping” me cut out those pieces.

    3. Sooo pretty! That goes for all three photos. That quilt will be gorgeous. Your cat is a darling.

    5. Now I want to get out a stack of fabrics and just put it where I can drool over it. I know I won’t get any work done with it; I have too many other things to do. I just want to look at my stash.

  5. One of the things I’m working on is my diet. I was back up to 275, even if only for a day. I started today at 269.2 and I still have the same goals of under 200, with the more realistic expectation that it won’t be any time soon without catastrophic illness. Given that, I will mention breakfast. It was an eff-substitute omelet with onion flakes, one strip of bacon, baby Swiss cheese, and tea, Earl Grey decaf, hot. The sweetener was that SweatLeaf Sweet drops, in particular a mix of some peppermint, lemon, orange, and clear, the last little bit of each mixed together. Under 200 calories, total. I have more sweetener on order by Friday, yay Amazon.

    It’s 08:30 EDT and I’m expecting another chapter of my serial Any Second Now. I will interrupt reading Elizabeth Moon Heris Serrano to read the serial.

    Lunch will be a salad to include an enormous cucumber from the dotter’s garden. Besides slices in a salad, how does one eat a cucumber? Back when I could just sprinkle salt on everything, I’d have cut some spears and added carrots and snowed all over them. No salt? What do I do? Should I just make more salad?

    1. there are some really good recipes for chinese cucumber salads out there. It usually involves slicing the cuke, salting it and leaving it to drain for a bit, then mixing a dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, scallion, sugar, rice wine vinegar, and red pepper flakes, rinsing the cukes off, patting them dry, and then leaving them to soak and pickle in the dressing. I could eat that constantly it’s so good

      1. My home-made dressing is one part chili oil to two or three parts red wine vinegar (plus some garlic and onion powders.) Will that do?

    3. My mother would slice up cucumbers and put them in water and vinegar and refrigerate them. Occasionally, she would add diced onion. This was such a refreshing treat on hot days and didn’t need to be salted.

      2. That’s my mom’s favourite snack in the summer. I’m fairly certain that if she didn’t have to cook for my dad she would just eat cucumbers in vinegar water all summer long.

        1. I drug out the big knife and wooden cutting board. The cuke is now equal parts slices/chips and wedges soaking in red wine vinegar in the fridge. I moved the salad to supper so the cuke could marinate, if that’s the right word, and ate a chicken Caeser spinach wrap for lunch. Ukrops, not homemade.

          The salad’s going to have green chard, romaine lettuce, some arugula, yellow onion, green onion, red sweet pepper, jalapeño pepper, grated parmesan cheese, carrot chips, bacon pieces, and crispy fried garlic, topped with my salad dressing and vinegary cucumber chips.

    4. I eat cucumber tomato salads dressed with (I love saying a salad is dressed—no naked salads on my table!) olive oil, white wine vinegar or Sherry vinegar, and dill. Sometimes I add cumin.

      If you have two large cucumbers you can make cold yogurt and cucumber soup; peel them, scoop out the seeds, dice them. In a big bowl put three cups of plain yogurt and a half cup water and mix. Add the cucumbers, two crushed garlic cloves, a tablespoon of olive oil, one or two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and 3-4 teaspoons each of chopped dill and mint. You can sprinkle chopped walnuts on top.

      There are many versions of this on line to give you ideas of how to adapt the flavors.

      You can also make gazpacho: the two main versions to choose between are completely puréed or with some of the vegetables added in dice after the puree.

      And of course if you leave a stick of butter out to soften you can make cucumber sandwiches with thin bread and watercress.

      Cucumber is really great for cold summer meals. DH is heading out of town Sunday for a week; maybe I will go on a liquid summer diet.

    5. I do the asian cucumber salad thing with soy sauce, sesame oil and rice vinegar and I don’t salt them.

      Or I do a homemade version of spicy kani salad with cucumbers, carrots, imitation crab and spicy mayo. We put panko on top for crunch. That one is almost a meal on its own.

    6. Tatziki is good. My recipe book says ‘Crush a clove of garlic into a bowl, add 5oz natural yoghurt & beat until smooth. Add salt to taste. Chop one small or half a large cucumber into cubes and add along with a teaspoon of dried mint. Serve cool.

    7. Gary, I generously sprinkle a cucumber with salt and weight it down under a plate. After an hour or so, I rinse it thoroughly under running water then chill it a bit in the refrigerator. Then I drain off the water. It seems to concentrate the flavor and get rid of any bitterness and does not seem to have residual salt. I then toss it with yogurt, grated garlic, a few herbs. It is really good with grilled foods like fish, lamb, hamburger. I like your idea of some chili in the mix but it might dominate the flavor. I also put this on my salad as a dressing.

      1. I forgot to add that first I peel and sometimes seed then thinly slice the cucumber.

        1. So many ways to prepare cucumbers! I put off the salad until lunch tomorrow and ate a ribeye instead. Now I’m eating cucumber spears soaked in red wine vinegar. They need salt.

  6. Heh-heh-heh. An “eff” substitute. I hope everyone realizes that was supposed to be an “egg” substitute. Not egg-beaters, but a store brand equivalent. Maybe “effing” substitute would have worked?

  7. I vegged for a couple of days, to recover from full-time proof-reading, and have been doing loads of weeding in both gardens – the recent rain has made the soil ideal for this. I’ve pulled out loads of marigolds that were rather smothering my blueberries and potatoes, but there are still plenty of them – they’re the default vegetation on the allotment. I also made a batch of apricot jam, since they were cheap, and spent hours sorting out my Kindle, which had become really hinky (making me restart it a couple of times when trying to buy a book, e.g.). It looks as if I’m going to have to swap it for a new one fairly soon.

    I then switched to sorting out my camera, which needed a firmware update; I’m still relearning the possibilities and checking all my settings – there are dozens of submenus. And this afternoon I’m getting to grips with the researching lost rights of way project I volunteered for: I was just getting into it in mid May when I had to stop and do the first big proof-reading job. It’s pretty complex, and I need to understand all the ins and outs before I can start trying to find other local volunteers.

        1. Ramblers (walking charity) explanation of the English common law principle ‘once a highway, always a highway’. ‘Once’ means ‘since time immemorial’, which in English law started with the coronation of Richard II, on 6/7/1189. Though this doesn’t, apparently, mean that you can’t use evidence from an earlier period, such as a highway’s existence as a Roman road. I’m planning to focus on C18 and later, though. I especially love tithe maps on vellum: it’s amazing how well they’ve lasted – bright colours! – compared with paper. Though now I don’t live near the Shropshire Archives, I suppose I’ll be doing most of my research online.

    2. Jane, I read that if you are just buying a kindle to use just for reading, as opposed to the ones that seem to be also used like an iPad, buy a children’s version. They don’t have ads and are cheaper.

      1. Thanks, Jessie – I’ll look at that. But I fancy the current Paperwhite, which has more resolution than my 10-year-old one, and is also waterproof (I like to read in the bath). I can trade in my old one, which will reduce the price.

  8. My big accomplishment consisted of googling my senators’ and representative’s government emails and sending them an email to please join in on any bill to make Standard Time permanent in the U.S., and giving the reasons why that is a great idea. I hope it goes somewhere. I was making some plans for a fall trip to Arizona and saw on the calendar the notice for the end to Daylight Saving Time. (I really wanted to put an s on the end of saving. I think I actually did in my emails.)

    I emptied the litter out of all three litter boxes and hosed them out, wiped them out, and put them in the sun to let the rays sanitize them. Then I put them back on their newly-cleaned tables and filled them back up.

    One week till I see the Optometrist for an evaluation of my sight. They do that five weeks after the second cataract is replaced with a lens. I still can’t read a book without getting a headache. But there is some improvement in reading small print. It’s less fuzzy.

    1. I support your bill. Actually, my congressman has asked me if I have a preference – to keep switching (hell no!), standard time, DST, or something else. Given that Michigan is on the very western edge of the eastern time zone and should really be in the central time zone, standard time would be best but I’m fine as long as we stop switching. Even if we became like Arizona and flip flopped time zones instead of the clock.

      1. I had read that there are some serious concerns about mental health if we stop using daylight savings time. It’s annoying as all hell, I agree, but apparently it is supposed to help with seasonal depression?

  9. I finished the mosaics on the dragon-egg. Then I joined them. Is that the term? You know, when you put grout in between the mosaic-pieces, except I used silk clay this time. I haven’t made a photo yet because I’ll need to do something about the white boring inside of the egg first. Not that you can see it when the egg-halves are put together, BUT for the off-chance someone wants to buy it or just see the inside, I want it to be completely finished. So now I have to figure out what to do there that’ll look good and still make it possible to close the damn thing. Argh.

    Anyway, Monday we went tree-climbing!
    https://twitter.com/shassmusic/status/1678492652126236694
    (I have two movies as well, but I haven’t posted them anywhere so can’t share.)
    It was FUN. First time in the tree, I was so scared my knees were shaking, but I couldn’t tell anyone because Sven had already waken me up the night before because HE was scared of climbing, so I was doing the brave thing and pretending I was not. Then about 10 meters up in the tree I just had to go down and take a break. Whew! Sven got an anxiety-attack just from holding my safety-line, but once we’d both calmed down a bit, I managed to convince him to try climbing the ladder leaning against the trunk of the tree and see how that felt, and if that felt like too much, he could just go down again. He didn’t just climb the ladder, he got into the tree as well! I was turbo-proud, still am. That’s how we kick anxiety-butt, yes we do! We both climbed a second time as well, but then he felt his muscles weren’t up for it anymore and I pulled a muscle or something because my left leg gave up and hurt so much I couldn’t stand on it for a while, so we decided to call it a day. The people in the climbing-woods were amazing, and we’ve already decided we’ll do it again the next freefor-all-to-climb-day in August. Or as my contact-guy from the climbing-people put it: “I have a feeling we’ll see you guys here a lot.” Looking forward!

    Yesterday I took the kitties to the vet to get their claws trimmed. Happy they offer this serice since we can’t do it ourselves. Trip got compliments for “unusual calmness for a calico”, and I agreed. Vet then renamed Matcha “Dramaqueen”, because she screamed as though we were peeling her skin off with a blunt butterknife. Except for that and a pee-accident in one of the pet-carrier-backpacks (not sure which cat, but think Matcha), everything went very well. This morning, Triple was playign in one of the backpacks and Matcha came to investigate the possible presence of treats in it too, so clearly all’s well and nobody’s scared. My training has paid off!

    Right now I’m mostly trying to plan and muster energy to pack for the Canada-trip. Bleh. Canada is great, packing is a pain.

    2. The tree-climbing looks totally fun.
      Glad the cats are allowing themselves to be trained.

    3. I’m so impressed by your energy and determination to do things even while coping with depression .

      1. Thank you! I’m throwing all I’ve got into this battle. I’m dead set on winning this time, with or without therapy or medical help. It’s scary as all hell, but I’m gonna emerge victorious in one way or another. ✊🤘❤️

      1. It’s a very good list! I did know all of it already, but it’s a really good one to keep and share with people. Thanks for dropping it here!

      2. Thank you for this link, long long story for a different time but this is something I really needed to help round out some disability awareness and inclusivity with my local arts community. I am not blind/sight impaired but am. spinal Cord Injury and tend towards knowing my own experience but have trying to broaden my disability scope in our everyday world. This is great~

  10. I’m working on transferring to a new mac for work. Time Machine was helpful but didn’t fully do the job so I’ve been going through all the settings one by one to compare. 😫 I have learned things though and have chosen to change some of the settings. I spent 2.5 hours at Apple so I could pester a “genius” when necessary.

    I’ve also been doing some longarm quilting for a customer and a bit of baking. https://www.instagram.com/p/CumgovqOhIt/?igshid=Y2IzZGU1MTFhOQ==

  11. I have a non food use for vinegar that I started to try this week. I read it on SEP’s blog post. Instead of using fabric softener in the laundry put one half cup of vinegar in the softener dispenser. Used it on towels as they have become scratchy lately. It will take a few tries. And the washing machine smells like a salad when done.

    1. We’ve been using vinegar instead of fabric softener for years now. I think you’ll like it.

      1. It’s also really good for preventing that moldy smell towels get when the fabric softener builds up on them. We use vinegar in the wash and dryer balls in the dryer.

    2. Vinegar is great, my laundry never smells like salad 🙂 It’s also great (diluted of course) as a rinse to make your hair shine after washing.

      What helps when having towels in the dryer (I only use the dryer for towels as our water makes them into concrete): using dryer balls made of felted wool (thanks New Zealand!) on which I put a few drops of essential oils like Lavender or Orange. Dryer and dried laundry smells very nice indeed.

      1. Thank you for that tip of essential oils. I have dryer balls and it would be nice to add a slight scent to the laundry.

  12. Over the weekend it was yardkeeping, house rearrangements, and writing. I am letting the novel-in-progress simmer / percolate a lot this time – have no deadline to submit, and it’s the kind of story in which I’m discovering the conflicts as I go. As usual they are mostly external conflicts, but it’s an age-gap, rich-not rich, big city-small town career evolution + grief story so there’s a lot going on. Don’t want to rush it, nice to have the option to let it take the time it needs.

    In other workish news, this morning I conceded that all the long-sleeved T-shirts need to come off their hangers and go into the drawer, reverse procedure for all the tank tops. Also chose a dress to pack for the closing-night party at the Steamy Lit Con. (My BFF and I are going.) Along the way, pulled out 4 things to give to Goodwill. Now I must see if I can persuade DH to fill up the clothing bag from his overstuffed closet.

  13. You guys are all having fun. I am trying to figure out what the differences are between PMID codes and PMCID codes in the PubMed database and why some of our group’s publications are neither one nor the other. This is NOT how I wanted to spend days of my life.

    I should look for a tree I could climb….

  14. Still trying to memorize lines, which is going better…closer to done, anyway. We have Picture Day today. I finished sewing flowers onto the Halloween costume, realized more flowers have to be done, am now working on more flowers. I am trying to resurrect some projects I put on hold a year ago so I have a “purse project” and am trying to remember how to do that one.

  15. I delivered a baby quilt I’ve been working on since last fall (and previously shared pix), and went to Yale for a followup appointment 5 years after the conclusion of the original clinical trial for a new treatment for my rare disorder (which was approved), and chased down meds for Lyme disease (sigh; second time getting it, but caught it relatively quickly). That last thing is why I haven’t gotten much else done. I’m taking it easy until the antibiotics (which I just started) kick in, probably Friday/Saturday.

    1. I hope they do the trick and quick! Glad you identified it quickly and are on a road to recovery!

  16. You’re leaving Ohio?! Wait, is that allowed? You mean we’re allowed to move out of this state??? LOL!

    Seriously though, I hope you have a safe trip.

    I am working on unpacking from my move… a year ago. Ug. Where are my built-in bookcases???!!!!

    1. I moved from Ohio over ten years ago.
      Now I’m moving from New Jersey. THE LAST MOVE.

  17. Started the day by finding out jury duty, the show I did, is nominated for outstanding TV, comedy series! The competition is formidable, but being nominated is a great honor. They also nominated us for Casting, Writing, and best supporting for James Marsden.
    Now I’m waiting at the knee doctors to see when I can get a replacement. Did yoga earlier and babysat the kids. And I’m writing congratulatory emails to everybody. Hi ho. Wonderful day.

  18. I got my paperback of Lavender’s Blue!!! I have not had time to read it yet but soon, very very soon!

    Writing ‘work’ – I pulled myself out of a funk and checked back in with my accountability partner. I used Jenny’s doppleganger lesson to make my current wip work better. I wrote a delicious poem entitled -Alfonso: Ode To A Cross Dressing Baby-Daddy- which is actually about a Thanksgiving cactus. There will be a collage to accompany the poem.

    Diet / therapy work – I wrote a timeline of when / how I got off track and discussed it with my therapist. Will journal more to figure out who is the villain telling me to binge watch Gore’s Anatomy and eat whatever whenever instead of being present in my life.

    I always think of things until it’s time to comment, then I draw a blank.

  19. Board of Elections meeting tonight and car inspection tomorrow. Also baked some dog biscuits for my sister’s labs. And there’s a bunch of cleaning that I am putting off until tomorrow.

  20. I found the last three vendors I need for my daughter’s August party and I think assigned everyone to tables . I can’t figure out why I have one more person assigned to a table than I have RSVPs. I am hoping a good nights sleep will solve that.
    I made squash blossom quesadillas.
    And I walked for a half hour for the first time since my surgery.

    2. Great to hear you’re able to walk for that long! Nature is waiting for you to come visit. 🙂

  21. I went to the doctor to see if rising blood sugar levels are responsible for the vision fluctuations I have been having and got the results back the same day. My blood sugar is back in the normal range for the first time in more than a year. I think it must be the cardio machine I use before physical therapy twice a week, because try as I might I have not been able to stop eating either ice cream or chocolate. My AIC is still too high, but since that is a composite of long term results, it will take longer to improve. And the new reading is lower than the last one.

  22. In June I was out of office for four weeks (one for holiday, three for sick leave). I’m still trying to work my way through the mountain of work that’s been waiting for me (think 4 weeks worth of stuff). Going to work in the morning, leaving the office after 8 pm. That’s my life at the moment.

    And we’re short one third of work force (our head of department non the less) for another couple of months.

    I’m really lucky that my family is very patient and that dh took over all the cooking and kid nr. 1 (the son) is helping with laundry.

    1. I thought Germany was meant to be more sensible about working hours! Your employers need to give you some temporary help.

      1. Usually, our working hours are okay, especially in union regulated areas.

        However, I work for a small private university and we don’t have money enough to hire extra staff to cover for vacation and sick leaves. Yes, we could use temporary help as could the other departments. We used to have interns from a nearby secondary school but lately that proved to be more burden than help.
        The work itself isn’t too bad, it’s the knowledge that we whenever we take time off/are on holiday/sick, work just piles up until we come back. Disheartening.
        It used to be better because our head of department is a brilliant gal and very efficient and I love her sharp intellect and tongue (rarely directed towards her team).
        Well, I’m happy for her as she’s on maternity leave. I dearly hope she comes back eventually.

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