Week 4 - The Decrapification Continues

Another week starting off with a Monday off. Nice! I continued the decrapification, focusing on getting the stuff I’d culled put away or out of the house. I spent Monday making trip after trip down to the basement, taking down the books I was keeping and loading the rest in the car to deliver to the library before knitting. By the time the day was done, the entire family room was emptied of crap so the look in the after picture from last week was throughout the room. Yay!

Despite my knees hurting, I went to the pool on Tuesday night. It felt great to be moving but it didn’t do my knees any good. Good thing I went though because it was the only night I’d get there. It was snowing like a banshee by the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday so I left work at 4:30 so I wouldn’t be driving in the dark with the snow falling. I got home without a problem and then made a pot of turkey soup and enjoyed a night inside, watching the snow fall outside. We got about 2 inches and I had intended to just shovel my sidewalk and front walk but the snow was so light and fluffy that I did the whole driveway in 15 minutes on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday night, I got the message assigning me my swap partner for a Ravelry knitting swap I’d signed up for. It’s a secret swap where my swappee has chosen a color (baby pink) and I have to make her something and buy her yarn and stuff in the same color and ship it next month. I spent all night stalking her on Ravelry – checking out her projects, favorites and posts trying to figure out what I should make and come up with a theme for her package. It was fun but was a totally time suck, both that night and Thursday too. But I’m excited to do this. It’ll be like doing a Christmas stocking with a knitting theme and I’ll be getting an orange or purple box myself. How exciting!

I had had a frustrating couple of days at work as Alan, our wonderful computer dude, tried to figure out what was wrong with my brand new computer, which would be lightening fast as soon as he could get it operational. I couldn’t be at my desk for a couple of hours Wednesday morning while he worked on it so I made some phone calls, finally calling Windstream to get a wireless modem and up my Mbps speed from 1.5 to 12. Plus it’ll cost me less than I pay now. I should have called sooner. They do the work on my line on Monday so I’ll be flying by then. Can’t wait. Alan got my new computer going quickly so I was flying at work too. Such productivity!

Just in time because I got a new project at work that had a close deadline so I slammed through that all day Thursday and into Friday. I even worked late on Thursday to try and get through it (I didn’t succeed) but honestly was also using that as an excuse not to swim since my knees were still hurting.

The week ended with Dodie and I going to a play – The Dixie Swim Club at the Lincoln Community Playhouse. Since it was Friday night, when I normally food shop then go home for a night of vegging, I hesitated to commit but am glad I did. We had dinner at Panera, made a couple of quick stops at JoAnn’s and the mall then went to the play, which was really good.

I had planned to sleep late on Saturday but that didn’t’ work out. I had a vet appointment with the kitten at 10:15 and didn’t get much else done by the end of the day. I spent hours on the phone, going from one call to another – Carolyn, Lorri, my sister Dottie – and started a new knitting project - a quick washcloth for my swappee. There was more snow due overnight so I headed to the grocery store just as it started because I was out of dried beans and desperately wanted homemade baked beans with grilled cheese.

I made up for my low energy Saturday by being super productive on Sunday. I had soaked my beans overnight and had them boiling by 6:00 a.m. so they'd be ready for lunch. Yum! We had gotten a ton of snow but I had my snow blower guy do my driveway so I wouldn’t wear myself out and be useless for the rest of the day. It was $20 well spent. I reclaimed the spare bedroom and my desk, neither one a trivial project as they were both full of crap. After finishing those two areas, I’d say the decrapification of my upstairs is 90% complete. I estimate it’ll take just one more weekend to get it done. I live in hope. I finished the day by making a big pot of seafood chowder with flounder, shrimp and scallops using this recipe. It called for lots more types of fish than I used but mine was delicious none the less. If you have some fish in your freezer (I used 3 single serving IQF pouches), you should try it. Yum!