Week 41 - A Toxic End

It was another busy week. In addition to my usual after work activities - knitting on Monday and swimming on Wednesday and Friday - I had plans on the other 2 work nights too so it was a good thing I had the weekend at home to recuperate.

Tuesday night was a David Brooks lecture at the Lied Center. Now he's more conservative than I am but is a reasonable pundit and I knew somehow that my friend Lorri, who is also liberal leaning, would be interested in going and she was. We met at Dempsey's where we shared a burger and fries. The lecture, which was titled "It's Better Than It Looks: Election 2016," was interesting but barely touched on the election. Maybe that wasn't all bad and it was worth going to so add that to my list of free things on campus that I should take advantage of more often.

On Thursday night, Anne and I had plans to go to the grand opening of a relocated store called Craft House. It was relatively near her house so left from there and had fun. Miraculously enough, I didn't buy any yarn, opting instead for some fun fabric that I'll add to the stacks of fun fabric in my craft room that I'll never use. Whatever. I'll use my standard rationale - I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. I do buy too much yarn/fabric. I can live with that. We then went back to Anne's for dinner and some knitting. It was fun but a late night for me. Good thing the week was almost over.

With Layton on vacation, I had the lunch hour to run errands and then I ran a couple more between the pool and home after work so I was ready to be home. The weekend was uneventful and lovely. I slept until after 8:00 on Saturday (shocking!) then ran errands in town. I had planned to stay home but when Andrea suggested an Omaha run, I jumped on it and that killed the rest of Saturday. Sunday was spent on chores, which always gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Too bad I tuned into the uber toxic debate to end my weekend. This election gets worse with every passing day or should I say Trump gets worse. I cannot wait for this election to be over. I'll leave on that note. Who's with me?

Week 40 - Delivered the Fit

I started the day Monday with my first drive to work in my new car. I ended the day stress eating through the hateful presidential debate. Lord, I can’t wait for this election to be over! I don’t know if it was the bad election vibe or what but it was a stressful week. 

I had training 4 of the 5 days of the week and training leaves me drained. Then I had the cleaning lady coming on Wednesday and no matter how much I prepare ahead of time, I still find myself stressed on Wednesday morning. Since I had training at 8:30 Wednesday and it was the first time I was teaching that class, I was up extra late on Tuesday doing dishes and neatizing the house so all I had to do the next morning was put the dishes away. I should also mention that I’m an 8:15 kind of person so just getting to work by 8:00 takes some doing. 

All was going fine and I was on track to be on time when I heard a plaintive meow from outside. The kitten was on the garage roof! And would she come down? Nope. I tried my small ladder but couldn’t reach her and she wouldn’t jump onto the house roof so I had to pull the big ladder out of the garage and yank her off. She clawed me to pieces but I was so late at this point that I slapped TP over my wound and flew to work. It was not particularly safe as I read through training materials in the car and called in with questions. But it all went well and my morning was over in a flash. 

The rest of the day was much better starting with lunch. I hadn’t had time to make lunch so got a yummy wrap from my fave vegetarian restaurant, Maggie’s, and ate it in the Sunken Gardens, which I’d never been to. It was a lovely interlude after a stressful morning and the afternoon was uneventful then there was swimming. After getting home to a clean house (always lovely) and having dinner, I ran some yarn over to Andrea’s. She was headed to Yarn School in Kansas and they can take yarn to sell so I’d pulled and priced $300 worth of yarn I’d most likely never use. I had high hopes that she’d sell some. 

The rest of the week was a breeze and ended with a lovely weekend. I was super productive on Saturday, starting with the big clothes swap to get my cold weather clothes into my closet. And since I was touching all my clothes, I took the opportunity to cull them, ending up with a brimming bag for Goodwill. I still need to do more of that though, getting rid of things that fit but I never seem to wear. Everyone’s got some of those. When I was done with the clothes, I started on the frig and when I had a big bag of past their prime veggies for Loris’ chickens, I headed out to drop those and also feed Andrea’s animals while I was out. But just before I left, my neighbor who is buying the Fit informed me that they’d cleared their driveway so I could park it there and his wife would be coming home at 6:00. This meant I had to clear out the Fit and prep it for delivery. This all took longer than I thought so despite having stop to buy a big car sponge so I could wash it myself, by the time I was done with the vacuuming, it was almost 6:00 so I quickly ran it through the carwash instead, delivering it right at 6:00. Done! 

Sunday was the roast beef dinner at the Colon church. Yes, Nebraska has a town named Colon and it’s pronounced just like your intestines. Sheesh! But their church has the best roast beef dinner so Lorri and I go every year. I picked her up after she got home from church and we got take out from there, eating back at her house with her husband Bob. I didn’t stay too long because with a clean kitchen and the old produce all gone from the fridge, I had big plans to cook and that’s what I did for the rest of the day. I love nothing more than starting the week with a frig full of food for the coming week so I can come home from Lincoln to yummy dinner that only takes a few minutes to reheat. Since I don’t get home until 7:00 many nights, that’s key to eating well. Great way to start a new week, right? : )

Week 39 - My New Car

I started the week by calling in, which is something I rarely do but I’m trying to work on that. I’d slept really badly, getting only ~4 hours, and woke up feeling crappy. I ate breakfast and was nauseous so did what normal people do and called in. I tried to go back to bed but only managed to doze rather than get good sleep so gave up at 11:15 and got out of bed. I didn’t manage to get anything done all day but then I’d called in sick so there was a good reason for that. Late in the day I showered and was about to head to Monday Night Knitting when the phone rang. Nora was calling to tell me that Josh had quit. OMG! Now he’s been much nicer to me since he moved offices so I wasn’t impacted much by him anymore but I still was floored. Who quits right before hitting the 2 days/month vacation accrual? Whatever. I hope his new job is a better fit. Now I just have to take on everything he does and prepare to train someone new, assuming we can find someone. I live in hope.

After a good night’s sleep, I was back in the swing of things Tuesday. I went out over lunch and dropped all the donations I’d loaded into my backseat on the weekend plus hit the bread store. At the end of the day, Honda emailed to say my car had arrived and I could pick it up anytime from Thursday through Sunday. It took a bit of finagling and after failing to figure out an after work pick up, I made arrangements with Andrea to go Sunday morning. Now to wait it out. Luckily the rest of the week went quickly with the usual water aerobics, thrifting with Dodie and a 600 calorie day on Wednesday. All good.

With no plans on Saturday, I went back to the spare room clear out. Actually all the yarn I needed to sort through was in the front room so I spent most of my time in there. If you have to spend time slogging through crap, it’s a bonus if that crap is yarn. I actually had fun going through it all and getting it all organized. By the end of the day, it was in apple pie order. I went to bed feeling good about that and knowing the next day I’d be getting my new car.

 

Andrea picked me up after early mass and we headed to Omaha for breakfast at Le Peep. There was some drama when Drae’s recently deceased brother’s wife called but otherwise it was a yummy and pleasant meal. From there we went to Trader Joe’s to shop while waiting for Honda to open at 11:00. Andrea dropped me off and I got my new car, which took close to an hour despite the fact that I was paying cash and didn’t need financing. But it was wonderful to drive away with my new car. The fact that it was automatic was no problem and I felt no compulsion to clutch. Clearly it was time to be done with manual transmissions. I drove directly to St. Wenceslaus for their fall festival roast beef dinner, which I took to go. It’s enough to eat twice with still some leftovers so is a deal at $9.50. And the best part was that I sold my Fit on the way home! I passed my neighbor walking home from church so gave her a lift. She asked what I was doing with the Fit and said we should talk to her husband, which we did immediately. Sold! They need to wait until mid-October to pay me but that was fine because I wouldn’t be registering the new car until the end of the month so wouldn’t need the money until then. And since I had been planning to ask the same neighbors if I could park the Fit off the alley behind their house (my yard it planted right up the alley but they have 8 feet of scrub behind their fence), it all worked out great. Plus the In Transit tag expires on the 25^th  and I just happen to have a dentist appointment that morning so can hit the courthouse after that and not use vacation time to register my car. It’s wonderful when things just fall into place.

With all that taken care of, I did my chores and called it a week. By the end of the day, all the yarn was put away – some in the spare room and some in the basement. The floor of the spare room was completely clear and the cleaning lady would be able to clean in there for the first time in ages. I felt good on so many front. What a nice week. Right?