59 Responses

1. We also don’t have much art on our walls – the pictures are mainly still stored away after our last move.
   All my own paintings that I love dearly are nowhere to be found – it’s been my only wish for the past birthdays, but my folks don’t seem to have had the courage to dig deeper in our storage Everest. Yes, I’m frustrated.

   Plans for this week: plant the garden – at least the bit in front of the house. Not sure yet what to in the back garden.
   Couldn’t find the time this past weekend which was rather crappy anyway.
   Now Spring has arrived with a vengeance and I soooo hope that I’ll get a chance to be outside. Well, tomorrow I’ll be sitting in doctors’ waiting rooms waiting for kiddo to get her dental surgery done. Anxiety inducing.

   One nice detail: the cat distribution system has become adopted – sort of – by a cutie tricouloured cat (we guess it’s a she because she’s so delicate). No idea who her primary cat-food-deliverer is, but she clearly is keen on expanding her territory and has fought off her white-and-orange brother (we conclude because of size difference) who is also roaming the neighbourhood. First spotted those two plus siblings last year in February and Spring, enjoying our overgrown garden (jumping around the high-ish gras). I’m not used to cats, but when a cutie like her insists I am the person to cuddle her, how could I resist? Yesterday it was kiddo’s time to be main cuddler…

   1. Correction: the cds seems to have made us adoptees…

      1. Congratulations!!

2. Jenny, I have a giant blender that I never use, but I use the immersion blender a lot (it came small attachment to chop nuts and little things). I also have a hand mixer that I use a lot for baking. I don’t have a huge amount of space and am thinking of ditching the giant blender – but it is in the back of a cupboard taking up space and not in plain sight. Hanging the wall art makes a huge difference though and visually brings pleasure – as I found out after the whole flat was painted and I took an age to do it.

   I did everything I said I would last week (except the house cleaning) and more. Went to a movie and last night to “stargazing late and live” as part of the science festival at the Planetarium, it was great – though only virtually live. No one has ever talked to me and said “tonight here is what you will see if the cloud lifts”. The cloud didn’t lift, but still. Really great time, sadly not a regular thing ‘cos I have friends who would love it if it was.

   My plan this week is to do the flat cleaning, and not much else. I have a few bits and pieces that have been waiting until I had the time and energy to do here at home so going to try and do some of that.

3. Oooh… use the 3M strips to hang stuff on the walls. No banging required. Fast and easy!

4. Cleaning off counters is one of my intentions too!
   And do more gardening as the weather is actually nice this week. It’s been a long, wet, windy and not very warm spring, so far. Sunshine yesterday was very cheering.

   I also want to organise a holiday, I have been vacillating about what to do, but I just heard that my daughter won’t be in Amsterdam next year so I am going to visit her, hang out in the city and take advantage of free accommodation. I will hopefully combine that with a trip to London and, all going well (i.e. not crazy prices), will take the train between the two cities. I have always wanted to go through the channel tunnel, so this might be the opportunity to do so.

5. We’ve lived in this house for 2.5 years and still have some paintings we haven’t put up, plus extra wall space we don’t have paintings for. (Plus some boring pictures I don’t want to put up, but I wanted to keep the frames for possible future use). So this week I will at least get my daughter’s senior picture up on the kids wall in the dining room. And go from there.

   I didn’t make any goals last week. But the book fest went ok yesterday (not great, though my writer friends did really well. I was off my game, which isn’t much game to start with). So I need to figure out some online marketing still. Every year I say I want to make a profit and never do.

   I made some headway on the next book I’m writing and would like to add some scenes to that.

6. We, too, have some art on the floor that needs hanging, and some art we inherited that ended up in storage. We need to take some art down and move pieces around and probably put different pieces in storage. It’s a job for “tomorrow.” 😉

7. I agree that art on the walls transforms a place from a house to a home, at least for me. I have a lot up on my walls, and stacks of other options that didn’t make the cut this time. I need to start working on distributing the more valuable (at least personally, as they are works done by family) to the various progeny of my siblings, so that the pieces have time to become a part of their family. For example, my great grandfather did illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post, and I have several originals on the wall. If the nieces/nephews don’t feel drawn toward these, I suppose I should donate them to a museum. Time to make a will, I guess.

   I didn’t go back to check on what I told y’all I intended to do. Probably something like crochet and quilting. Yeah, I did a bit of both. But mostly I frittered away a lot of time on a new-to-me phone game, going back a year and doing all the daily puzzles. Yeah, very productive!!

   So, this week – I’d like to put the multi-color blocks I made into a quilt top. I’m contemplating a color wash effect going from lightest to darkest diagonally across the top. And I am getting close to finishing up the Geometric Journey Shawl – so putting more time into that will be a good thing. For my outdoor work, it’s time to start trimming the azalea bushes. That’s a fairly big job, but well worth it when they are glorious every spring.

8. Last week’s intentions were to pick up DD and enjoy her (check), finish the two overdue day job tasks (slight progress), file the papers (no progress), plant zinnias and water (done), put away art station (done).
   This week is a very short week because of a baseball game and a four day trip to NY so my intentions are to do one of the two day jobs and send a follow up email with more details to the aunt of DH’s friend’s daughter ( see Sunday for details on that drama!)

   I did have “buy wedding present” for May 9 wedding but that changed to “cancel hotel reservation” (already done) when the couple canceled the wedding. For the second time.

   Some of you may remember my reporting the first time this couple canceled the wedding a few years ago when the groom learned that in fact the bride had not attended law school the three years they had lived together and therefore would not be graduating that month.

   DH and I lead a very stable life, I promise! I don’t know why people we know lead such complicated lives.

   1. A bride who lied to her groom for years??
      Not a sound basis for any relationship.

      1. Well, that’s what we thought when we got the second wedding invite. Which is partly why we had not yet bought a present — we thought this might happen.

      2. He’s lucky she wasn’t organised enough to pull off a fake graduation and print herself a shiny diploma fresh off the internet. Then there’d be years of her not studying for the bar. Just don’t buy anything monogrammed and pick presents, you wouldn’t mind keeping. If she’s that good at lying, what did she do with the time she wasn’t studying?

         1. We think she was working in a daycare.
            We have no idea what she told her parents who presumably were not paying for law school but I gather she told him not to talk about law school with them.
            Mind you she did get in (to Georgetown). She just didn’t go.

         2. And she may have been planning a fake diploma for all we know. She said something on social media about graduation and a friend who actually went to Georgetown said something about not really being in law school. She didn’t come clean; she was caught.

            1. So smart, but didn’t want to actually do the law school grind, which is fine, but she shouldn’t have lied. Tell him to check his credit rating and hers. She has managed to keep up a deception successful bigamists and long con artists perpetuate for years. He should be careful, she seems to make drama, which isn’t healthy

            2. DH is giving it a week and then calling grooms dad, who he had known for 50 years. I expect we will get the details of the second breakup then. I can suggest DH make that recommendation.

            3. Wow!

   2. I think the people with the unstable lives like hanging out with you to remind themselves that stability still exists in some corners. Or to remind themselves why they chose the less stable path.

      1. I think that may be true for DH’s friend who has the disabled daughter. And some others. But the groom in the twice engaged couple is the child of DH’s oldest friend from middle school .
         And of course my mother contributes more than her share of melodrama…

   3. I too strive for a boring life and live vicariously through the stories of my sister’s drama while eating popcorn. My father’s saga of dramatic waning aside.

      1. I think I need more popcorn .

         Also—re the disabled daughter of friend I discussed Sunday— my refusal to delete any email no matter how seemingly unimportant (aside from spam and commercial stuff) has been brilliantly justified by finding emails from 2021 and earlier showing how clearly her mom is not able to be a good caregiver. I love how searchable email can be .

9. I’m not going to accomplish much this week because I’m leaving this afternoon to spend a few days with a friend in Connecticut and won’t be back until Thursday afternoon. Mostly my goal is to relax and have a good time with her. She lost her husband at the end of January, and has been dealing with All the Things since then, with my almost daily support calls. But today is her birthday and Thursday is their anniversary, the first without him, so she decided she needed actual company and distractions in person. (They got married 3 days after her 18th birthday, and this would have been their 44th anniversary.) I feel like crap because of the weather shifts, but I’m hoping I’ll rally…

   Before I leave town, I have to go get my B12 shot at the doctor’s office. Then stop in at the Maytag place because my fridge started acting up Saturday night (because I’m going to be out of town, of course!)–they probably won’t be able to look at it until I’m back, because the cat sitter goes out to work most days, but I’m going to explore new options in case repairing the 6 year old one turns out to be too costly to be worth it, just so I know. Then I go to the chiropractor. Then I come home and rest until my friend gets here around noon to pick me up.

   Last week’s goals were probably promoting the new book, which I did, and making some progress on the cozy, which miraculously I also did, although not as much as I wanted to. I made very minor progress with the mudroom project, but it is all going to have to wait until Friday this week. Or possibly the weekend, depending on how tired I am. Then MY birthday is the 28th, but I don’t particularly have plans to celebrate it, except dinner out with one friend on Saturday and lunch with another two on the 1st.

   I have a LOT of wall art, in part because of 23 years running an artists’ cooperative shop. Plus I took down half the wall between the living room and the dining room, so I lost space there. A few years ago I decided that it was ridiculous to have a bunch of art sitting in closets, so I picked my favorites, found spots for the few that weren’t up already, and got rid of the rest.

   1. What a great friend you are!

10. My plan for the week is to take it easy and let my eye recover from cataract procedure. By Thursday, I’ll be able to do my regular activities and start over again on Friday when I get the left eye done. I’m not great at being sedentary so two weeks is a bit of a challenge. DH set up my raised garden so I can plant on Thursday.

    Organizing my taxes is doable and still on my list to work on.

11. Getting wall art up was a big part of “moving in” for me.

    My intentions last week probably had to do with moving ye body more (didn’t) and writing (did).

    This week I have to work all five days, boo. So odds are against actually moving ye body more, until we get to the weekend, but I will make an intention to move ye body more *on the weekend.*

    And of course I intend to write.

12. I have no wall art. I have two corkboards (currently covered with receipts and tax stuff) and four whiteboards, intended to track garden planting. My walls, the interior walls because the exterior walls are all painted cinder block, are totally taken.

    My good intentions are to not let my gardens die. I have harvested all the peppers. I have tomatoes ripening again.

    1. Two days later, there was one additional ripe pepper and a handful of red tomatoes. So I made a three-egg omelet with those and three strips of thick bacon and two slices of Provolone cheese. The two slices were from the far side from the mold growing on the cheese. I’d already thrown out almost half a loaf of penicillin bread, so I ate the omelet with an English muffin.

       I need to clean out the fridge more frequently and buy cheeses less often. I’m cooking for Just Me.

13. I’ve committed to writing up program notes for my community chorus’ concert, which is, umm, on Saturday. Fortunately I remembered I was doing it, so I started thinking about it ( a necessary step) last week. But after a few hours yesterday, today is the day to get it done.
    My niece is visiting, and that gives me more freedom of movement. The main thing will be to get out more, walk with the dog friends in the morning at the big park, and to pet ALL THE DOGS.

14. I’m getting really tempted to pull all my crafting stash out and see about changing up the organization of it. Of course I should do it all this week as there is a giant craft sale in about 2 weeks and the donation drop off is Saturday. That gives me 5 days and I still work full time.

    Maybe I’ll just do the yarn (my main crafting focus is embroidery).

15. I woke up a half hour past normal to the chorus of the machines of the grounds crew, who made a huge racket but had departed for the next property after an hour or so. I felt decidedly below par, possibly for temporary reasons, since I’m doing better by now.

    I’m not making plans for the week, beyond an eye doctor appointment on Friday and making my daily reading quota on the current book club books. Oh, and I decided I could postpone picking up prescriptions today if I do so earlyish tomorrow in time to get that day’s doses in.

    Must-dos today are to bread and bake a “family pack” of chicken breasts, currently brining, to put away enough clean dishes to provide vacant air-drying space, and to rinse food containers, etc., washed earlier but not rinsed, since it was bedtime by the time I got that far. (They’re currently sitting on an improvised drainage board that I want out of the kitchen. They’re mostly items awkward to towel-dry. )

    I’d also like to write up some finished ebooks and return them to libraries, not to mention to write up one book from memory since it already had to go back.

    Plenty more to do if by some miracle I got all that done with time/energy left over.

16. I got through most of the backlog of files I had with not-entirely-random ideas in them, and realized that when I said I was making a lot of mess last week with adding stuff that didn’t make it on the outline, what I could have said was that I was developing subplots. Then I would have sounded more like I knew what I was doing. Oh well.

    I made a spreadsheet to track what I’m doing, and (only somewhat ironically) have labeled almost everything as “mess”. Along with “something missing” in one case. (There is probably more missing, it’s just … still a little too messy to see everything clearly.)

    I think I’m going to be doing more work on subplots this week. Probably the ones that didn’t click as nicely into place, the ones that need some further connections. I think I know where to go looking for at least a little of what is needed, so that’s something.

    This project is getting much longer than I really wanted or expected it to be. Oh well.

    1. Your spreadsheet to track what you’re doing makes me want to re-watch the ‘Getting Things Done With Delores’ episode of Dead Like Me.
       Delores has a web channel where people watch her get things done at home & it is a very funny episode.

17. I don’t remember last week’s intentions but they probably had to do with my current ms which I’ve had to set aside so I can work on line and copy edits for my last ms. Those edits are due Friday but I’m almost done with them. So this week’s intentions are to finish edits and submit to editor.

18. Note to self: When I come back in my next life and am again faced with what to do with objects to either get rid of or save for the children or my grandchildren, choose getting rid of. Over the years we conveniently used the attic in the rental to store unused items like dishes in case anyone wanted them. Hint they didn’t. I am having repairs done from the fire back in November and my son brought down everything I hadn’t seen in years. Dishes packed in 2005 newspaper, a rocking chair with a broken spindle, the old two-seater desk and attached chair from about one hundred years ago, even things that my MIL used when she lived there and so on. And it’s not just me my former DIL is hanging on to her parent’s furniture in her cellar. So, it looks like her children my grandchildren are not falling for her attempts of moving things along. It’s Goodwill after all.

    1. That two seater desk might be worth selling.

    2. Garage Sale?

19. I’m prepping for a trip to Kutztown, Pennsylvania – try not to be jealous! Again, the right outfit is critical.

    1. And it would be what ? Besides not pink ?

       1. Oh no, some pink is making its way in. I’ve settled on pink striped blouse with pineapples, stars and hearts with a black sweater and black pants.

20. I’ve been committed to going with the flow during this month of construction chaos, and mostly succeeding not to get too stressed. It’s still a roller coaster. Twice last week, I was convinced the exterior work would all be done, except perhaps for installation of a door that’s awaiting delivery, by the end of the week, but then nothing at all got done. And then I added a major bit of electrical work (and a little plumbing) to the chaos.

    So this week is intended to be more of going with the flow and not freaking out too badly over the uncertainties and delays. Good news is that after no construction happening last week (just the dumpster being delivered), the next big chunk of work is going to happen on Thurs/Fri. Then there’s just one chunk left, plus the door. And the new electrical work, and I’m definitely being tested with that, since there’s been no sight or sound from the electrician who was supposed to show up today to look at the project and it’s almost the end of the work day.

    I’m trying to channel the stress into doing spring cleaning and assorted little projects around the house/yard. During some insanely warm weather, I planted seeds for radishes, bok choi (a one-person-sized miniature version), tatsoi, and lettuce outside (and then of course, the forecast changed from “no more below-freezing lows” to “several nights in a row in the 20s”). But I’m going with that flow too, just watered and covered everything and am hoping for the best. Or else I’ll re-seed on Thursday.

21. My intentions from last week were to get the broken sprinkler system taken care of (done!) and reach out to my doctor regarding my still-sore sprained hand (done!). To be completely transparent, that second one was only done because I finally emailed my doctor while waiting in line at the grocery store, prior to heading here to the blog to check in, but I’m counting it a win regardless. As a bonus win, I got my tomato plant planted yesterday– just in time for the rain that started a little while ago.

    This week my intention is just one thing — to get started on the quilt which is next in line in my “awaiting projects” pile. When Joann’s Fabrics went out of business (is it already more than a year ago?), I stocked up on material I didn’t “need” in the least. I separated it into “potential quilts”, made one of them (Easter themed), and then wandered off, distracted by something else. But I need to clear out the garage — where my craft stuff is — thus time to turn one of the boxes of material into a quilt.

    I’m dog-sitting later this week, so we’ll see how much progress I am able to make (I’ll consider ANY progress to be a win).

22. I think my only must do from last week was to make it to the appt for my new primary care provider, since I had messed up the prior appt. Not good since it was my first visit! I did make it and it went well. Now, I just have to remember to go to my first visit to my new dentist ( the former dentist retired unexpectedly with little notice) tomorrow.

23. I was supposed to work on my self-evaluation last week. I made nearly no progress. I need to get it done by the end of the week. Anyone want to ghostwrite it for me?? Please?

    I finished quilting my customer’s quilt and I made progress on the paper-pieced border for my quilt. Hope to make more progress on the border this weekend.

    I also got March’s doctor info added to my health record. This week will be to get Feb. 2026 added. Also for health, I got a lot of walks in last week during the nice weather, and I did the 2nd week of Apple Fitness Comeback program. Today I started strong by doing week 3’s 10-minute strength session until I strained a muscle in my back. 😫 So, probably not as much movement this week.

    There are 2 things I change on my walls. I have a wall vase that I switch the flowers out of 2-3 times a year. I have 3 bunches of fake flowers that rotate. I also have a spot in the entry hallway where I’m rotating quilts.

24. I think my intention was to do yard cleanup. And I did. I actually worked all 7 days so I’m taking today and tomorrow off and will get back to it on Wednesday.

    This week one eye appointment (today, check), dinner with a friend tomorrow and a Democratic district meeting Wednesday. Then it’s just the usual cleaning.

    I hung my art about 2 years ago after it sitting around. It is so nice to look at occasionally instead of the computer screen. Do it, Jenny.

25. I was supposed to write a libretto for a children’s musical over Christmas. But then the whole shebang was cancelled because the company didn’t get their funding and subsequently fired their artistic director.

    Now the show is back on and the company is incredibly disorganised. The person in charge (board member? accountant? I’ve got no idea) told my agent that, because it’s a musical adaptation of one of my picture books, I shouldn’t need more than a couple of days to write it, and that it was really just a few repetitions of the text, and did I even need to get paid for it?

    This is to turn a 500-word picture book into a performance that will keep primary school kids entertained for 40 minutes.

    Sigh.

    Luckily my agent is both brilliant and stubborn, and got a reasonable contract out of them. So that’s what I’m doing this week. And next. Writing songs. Stringing them together. Keeping my fingers crossed that the whole thing won’t be a god-awful disaster.

    1. OMG people have no idea sometimes! Thank heavens for a good agent – that is not a conversation I would be able to have calmly.

       1. Yeah, me neither, Yuri. Luckily from this point on I’ll be working with the composer and director, so things should be a lot more professional.

          1. Mind you, this is also what you get as a writer working with a company that is focused on music. I wrote a children’s play for an orchestra once (titled ‘I’ve Got Wind’), and it wasn’t nearly as bad as this, but I did feel like a bit of an afterthought. Like, I was necessary, but they really wished I wasn’t, so that they could get on with the importance stuff, the music.

             1. *important*

26. Last week I didn’t commit to applying for social security but I talked about it. And Maine Betty advised me to watch some you tube videos on applying.
    So this week I’m committing to watch videos & sign up for social security.
    Thanks Maine Betty!

    1. You’re welcome! Hope it goes smoothly!

27. I found that I preferred the immersion blender over the standard blender. I tend to make more soups than smoothies.

28. My intention last week was to get everything packed into the second pod and drive to Arizona. We got the second pod mostly packed and realized that there was no room for all the things that were left. My eldest talked me into going to U-Haul to rent a “box“, which I did and I also paid for a truck to haul it to my house, and back to U-Haul once it was full.

    The youngest son drove me and the three pets and a truck bed full of boxes and bins to Phoenix. The engine light came on both days, and my mechanic son decided it was nothing serious. The second day, as we crossed the Arizona state line, it began to rain. However, it wasn’t heavy rain, and we were going fast enough that most of it did not hit any of the boxes and things in the bed of the truck. Everything got here safely.

    My dog now thinks that the young son is her new daddy. He was in charge of walking her some of the time and letting her out some of the time on the trip. So now she whines when he goes out the door. It’s hilarious!

    We will do a final walk-through on Thursday and Friday we hope to close, if the loan agent can talk to the HOA people about what they cover in insurance. They are very hard to reach. Then on the 30th, the two pack rat pods will be delivered. On May 2, my youngest can use his car that has a towing apparatus to pick up the U-Haul box. And moving in will be completed, finally!

    I have loads of money, now, for a while. But I still have new appliances, some furniture, and flooring to put in place of the carpet in one bedroom and hallway, to purchase. Also, the U-Haul “box” and the two pods were not cheap!

    1. So happy to hear you arrived safely with all bits and bobs still attached and the pets with you as well. Having a lot of money for a while sounds very practical! Congratulations on having checked off this part of the move. <3 Nothing but good times ahead!

    2. Thanks for letting us know. Always have a little attention on big moves until one hears disasters manifested. Though the engine light would have freaked me out, so good thing you had a professional with you.

29. So glad to hear it all went well—with only the normal move crises!
    ( Foster daughter’s likely future mother in law hired a very sketchy mover who didn’t show up yesterday or today. I think she is trying to get them to come tomorrow or Thursday and also looking for a new mover. I am telling myself they are three adults and will figure it out. )

30. I have a break from travel after this last weekend trip. My goal for May is to do all the house stuff that I’ve neglected for the past few years because I was insanely busy with work and had no motivation for mundane tasks. I’m fundamentally lazy when it comes to things I don’t like to do, but if I can just get started I will manage to get stuff done. And from long experience, it won’t be as bad as I expect and I will kick myself for not dealing with it sooner.

31. Isn’t everyone fundamentally lazy when it comes to things we don’t like to do? I am actually advocating for a census bureau improvement on getting people to respond to the census based on that belief.