Week 3 - My Happy Feet

It was another week of extreme, and freaky, weather. Very disconcerting. But it was yet another short work week. Gotta love those! And finally, it was back to the pool. That felt great. But the best thing of all was shoes. Shoes, slippers and happy feet.

 

This semester it’s back to marathon Mondays. Last year, after trying to go from work to the pool to knitting, which I managed for a few months, I stopped swimming on Mondays in favor of having time for dinner at home between work and the library. But this semester, my favorite instructor is teaching my favorite class (Water in Motion) on Mondays so I’m back to a 13 hour day. But this Monday I tried something different instead of eating in the car, which may work. I had run errands at lunch and went through Taco Bell’s drive thru afterwards for a grilled stuffed burrito. Well I don’t know if they got bigger since Nora was pregnant with Elise and we ate them at least twice a week but it looked so huge that I only ate half of it for lunch and ate the other half at my desk at 4:30. That way I was fine to go directly to knitting after the pool. The inevitable treats at knitting were all I needed for the rest of the night. This may be my plan for Mondays going forward.

I did stop home briefly before knitting to pick up the ruggelach I’d made and found my new Birks in the mailbox. Finally, after 1.5 years of daily emails from ebay, someone had posted my long-discontinued favorite pair of Birks that had been ruined when the Birkenstock store tried to resole them. I had bought them the previous week and was super excited to get them. So excited that I took them to knitting for show and tell. We were meeting in the Vets’ Club since the library was out of commission, which meant we could knit past 8:00. So make it a 14 hour day. Fun but a long day to start the week. Good thing I had new shoe energy going on. : )

With my birks finally replaced (and yes, I did wear them to work on Tuesday and showed everyone), it was time to use the $75 credit they’d placed on account for me at the birk store (small recompense for killing my shoes, but I digress) for some new slippers. I ran to the birk store in southern Lincoln over lunch on Wednesday and got a pair of hard soled Haflinger slippers. I’d had an all wool pair of these in the past but now I had real soles so could run to the garage or out the garden in my slippers. Nice.

In a flash, it was noon on Friday. I had taken the other half vacation day to even out my bank (I’m anal that way) from taking the half day on the 3^rd. My plan was to spend 4 afternoons in the basement slogging through the craft room. So I headed straight home and only stayed upstairs long enough to eat lunch. By the time I lost the light, which pours into the west window all afternoon, I made huge progress. The table was completely cleared off and the stuff on the floor was way better organized. I was pleased but my knees were feeling it.

Saturday was spinning but I’d already bailed on that so I could keep going on the craft room. To give my knees a break, I focused on the wall unit, sitting in front of each section and going through everything. I ended that day with stacks – books for the library, a bag for Goodwill and lots of trash. Several shelves were completely empty just waiting to be filled with the right stuff. That’d be next.

I mentioned the weather, right? Well, the temps were high normal all week but the wind was the story. Thursday featured 60 mile an hour wind gusts, which were strong enough to flip the cat house onto its back. Sheesh! On Sunday it was 67 degrees. Yup, 67 in January. I had to take advantage of that so instead of working inside, I did yard work. In a t-shirt. Perfectly comfortable. I cut the perennials in the parking (that’s Midwest speak for the strip between the sidewalk and the street) because they act as a snow fence and my sidewalk is always covered with drifts when it snows. I composted all that then puttered around the yard, ending by taking the Christmas tree out of the stand and throwing that behind the garage. By the time I was done my arms were shaking and it was time for some tea and relaxation, which lead to dinner and Downton Abbey and the Sherlock premier. I was super tired and went to bed exhausted but feeling good about my progress and knowing I had MLK Day to finish things up. That was the plan anyway. Time would tell.