Week 19 - Only Slightly Better

The week started with my neighbor's car alarm going off in the wee hours of Monday morning so I was tired from the get go. And with last week's work drama not resolved, I went into the week with low expectations. Good thing they were low.

There is an annual symposium that Nebraska ITS puts on every year and we always go. Well the boss was totally weird when we said we were all planning to go on Tuesday and acted surprised and wasn't supportive. She did come around eventually but it was another bout of weirdness to add to the previous week's lot. The symposium was interesting with a great keynote speaker. I went from there directly to Anne's, where she was hosting a potluck for our swim friend Allison, who just got her PhD and is moving to North Carolina. It was a lovely evening of hanging with friends and eating yummy food.

I had spent most of the day Tuesday knitting during sessions and woke up Wednesday with not only pain in my problematic thumb but running all the way up my arm. It didn't help that it was super cold with highs in the 40's and, of course, it was the annual campus steam outage so we had no heat at work. We were wearing our coats and gloves and were still cold in the office. Normally having no heat the week after graduation isn't a problem but there's nothing normal about the weather these days. I also had to turn the heat on at home, which didn't make me happy. Oh well.

As for work, at the end of the day Wednesday, I talked to my boss about how I was feeling. It didn't go well. Apparently I'm the one with the problems so there's nothing she can do to fix anything. I walked out feeling like crap and went home to a hard cider, snack supper, Survivor and knitting. At least that was all happy. And I now knew I had to just suck it up and power through the rough patch at work. Clearly nothing would change so there's no point in perseverating about it. This too shall pass.

I dropped my car off Thursday morning for new tires and when they were ready before lunch, Cindy drove me there and then we went to Olive Garden for soup and salad lunch. Eating hot soup with a good friend helped on all fronts. And driving on new tires always feels like your flying so there's that too.

I was ever so happy when Friday rolled around. After work I was meeting the ex-treasurer of Husker Cats, who had done the bare minimum for 2+ years and was finally handing over the books. We were meeting at a pizza place near her house and I wasn't looking forward to eating there but we didn't have to. We sat there for an hour, ordering nothing and no one bothered us. Mostly it's for people picking up to go orders so we were the only people sitting there. I got the records and happily headed home for a weekend with no obligations. 

I checked the weather and Sunday was supposed to be the better day so my plan was to garden on Sunday. But then I found myself outside and started pulling a few weeds. 5 hours later, all my perennial beds were weeded, including pulling out the noxious artemisia that started as a 3" pot and within 2 years had taken over my largest bed. I know I'll have some digging out of rhizomes to really get rid of it but this was a start. Since I didn't want any of that in my compost I headed to the city's burn pile to drop them off.

I've often thought of checking the brush piles there for wood and since I got my fire pit going a couple of weeks ago, I looked around when I got there. Not only did I find some wood (cuttings from someone's huge stump that will be perfect for my small fire pit) but there was a big hosta division plus 2 azalea bushes, that must have been someone's Easter flower that they hadn't taken care of. They only had a few leaves but the branches weren't dead so I had confidence they'd come back. They were in the ground as soon as I got home and I potted up the hostas for Nora. Such finds! Gotta love free stuff, right? I took a shower and sat down for a night of streaming and knitting. All good.

Sunday started out cloudy and rainy (nicely watering in my new azaleas) but it did clear up mid-afternoon so I was able to hang my laundry on the line. That always makes me happy. I made a nice dinner of meatloaf and mashed potatoes with brown gravy, leaving a serving for Monday night and putting 2 in the freezer. I was preparing for a rotation to start on Wednesday of the next week so that was perfect. As usual, a weekend at home did wonders for me and I felt prepared for whatever the upcoming week would bring. What more can I ask from a weekend?