Definition of MUSTER
transitive verb
1
b: to enroll formally —usually used with in or into mustered
into the army>
c: to call the roll of
2
3
The word muster conjures wonderful memories from my childhood in East Greenwich. Every year there would be a firemen’s muster and parade where local fire crews (is that the word?) would have a parade of their hand pumps and then have a contest to see what crew could shoot their water out the farthest. There was also a small carnival involved. It was always lots of fun. Recently I heard some as if something “passed the mustard,” when he really wanted to know if it “passed muster.” Of course (the is ME after all), I corrected him. He didn’t believe me so I had to blaze up the Merriam-Webster website and educate him. He probably would have know the term had he been from a military family but otherwise I think it might be a New England term.
Why the vocabulary lesson? Well, it was another doozie of a week at work. The never ending monthly reports overflowed into a second week and threatened to do me in. I worked on them all day Monday, worked through lunch on Tuesday and then slammed through my class so I could do the last of the work before leaving early for an eye doctor appointment. I thought I had them all done, only to have a list of emails with more changes waiting for me Wednesday morning. Not counting the work I did from home on Labor Day weekend, that was day eight for something that usually takes two. I has down in the dumps for sure. The only good thing about Wednesday was it was raining. Yay! Mary was leaving for a conference so was gone by noon and by day’s end, I really was done with the monthly reports. I can only hope I never have a repeat of that!
I spent Thursday cleaning up my desk , doing filing and recovering from the past two weeks. When I was done, everything was neat and organized and I could move on to my next project, which felt good. Luckily the rest of the work week went quickly. It was gorgeous Friday and campus seemed deserted but I was there until 5:00 and then headed home. I had knitted and managed to swim twice but otherwise it was a slammin’ week and I was happy the weekend was here.
And here comes the vocab reference…. Saturday was spinning in Fremont but I just could not muster the enthusiasm to go. Despite being dressed and out of the house early Saturday morning (had more yarn to mail), when I stopped in at Andrea’s shop, I just couldn’t commit to doing anything. Spinning didn’t seem worth the drive and even a sale at the quilt shop in Plattesmouth didn’t trip my trigger. I just wanted to go home. Not to be productive, just to be home. And that’s what I did. I managed to do the minimum of chores and a bit of cooking but most of my time was, you guessed it, sitting and knitting. I watched a cute British TV show, Gavin and Stacey, that my friend John has been recommending for years and a few episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which I'd only seen a couple of times before and love. I also managed to do some crafting on Sunday, making some cute coasters with scrap fabric. All in all, my weekend was totally relaxing and I guess I needed it. Let’s hope I can muster more energy to face the coming week. : )
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