Friday, September 16, 2016

Week 37 - Short Work Week

Monday was Connie’s last day in Nebraska and she had an appointment in Ashland at 3:00 to get a tattoo. Now there’s a fabulous BBQ restaurant in Ashland, which is a miracle for such a small town, but Rachele is a vegetarian who doesn’t eat vegetables and Parker’s doesn’t have mac and cheese. Since it’s literally the only thing I’ve ever seen Rachele eat (the 6 boxes Connie took out of a grocery bag on Rachele’s kitchen table when she needed the bag didn’t surprise me at all!), we couldn’t eat there so Connie suggested Cheesecake Factory in Omaha, which worked for me. I met them there and we had a lovely lunch. Connie and I shared 2 apps so we’d have room for lemoncello torte (no sharing there) and Rachele had deep fried mac & cheese balls and a tomato flatbread that she took most of the tomatoes off of. Whatever. It was a nice lunch and Connie and I lingered over coffee while Rachele ran to the mall to buy sunglasses. From there we went to an antique mall to kill the time until her appointment, which I did not go to so we said our goodbyes in the parking lot. It had been a fun long weekend.

Since it was Labor Day, the library was closed so Heidi hosted knitting at her house, complete with warm chocolate chip cookies. Yum! My intention was to start reading as soon as I got home because I had an overdrive book checked out – Sunlight Pilgrims – that was expiring on Tuesday but I wasn’t sure what time. But I made the mistake of turning on the TV and got sucked into the final episode of Downton Abbey so didn’t get to bed early. That left me reading until late to finish it, which I did, so I lost some sleep. What the hell, I just had to work on Tuesday. I’d survive.

The short work week was pretty brutal though. We had consultants in for some software training, which started at 3:30 on Wednesday. That wasn’t so bad and I had a nice drive to Seward after work to pick up Andrea’s fair entries (I do the pickup every year and then hit their farmers market.) All day Thursday and Friday was another matter. We worked through lunch both days (so neither of my friend lunches – Dodie on Thursday and Layton on Friday – happened) and only took potty breaks. I was toasty fried by the end of the day Friday and all that for something I’ll only be backup on. Whatever. They keep paying me, I’ll keep showing up. I hit the pool on Friday, thrilled to have the work week over and a free weekend ahead of me.

What’s not to love about a free weekend? Nothing! I started with a long chat with Carolyn and then got dressed to run errands - the library, supermarket, Dollar General and then BK for a treat lunch. Once I was home with groceries put away and double cheeseburger consumed, it was time to get busy. My desk was piled so high with paper and crap that Andrea had remarked on it when she stopped by so that was step one. I went through everything on the desk and by the time I was done, the top was mostly clear and my recycling bin was half full. I even took the time to test all the AA batteries that were too low for my old camera but still test good so would work in non-electronic items like clocks and flashlights. I have a ton so if anyone needs AA’s, let me know. That felt good to have done and then I used my newly purchased red sauce to put together the rest of the eggplant I’d fried last weekend, which I then enjoyed for dinner. I finished by cleaning up the entire kitchen so I’d be ready to cook up a storm on Sunday.


After the laundry was done and hanging on the line, I started Sunday with a big clear out of the fridge and prepping fruit, after which I drove a big bag of scraps out to Lori’s chickens. Then I started cooking – blackberry peach pie for knitting, 3 bags of peaches for the freezer (for summer pies in the dead of winter – yum!), a quiche (since I was making pie crust and had half and half) and cupcakes for lunch with Kate on Monday. And then I was an adult and cleaned up the kitchen again, recognizing that with the busy Monday and Tuesday nights that I had coming, I wouldn’t have time to prep for the cleaning lady then. I also picked up the entire house so between the clean desk and house, plus the fridge full of food, I was good to go for the next week. That counts as a great weekend in my world. Oh how priorities change, am I right? All good though. : )

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