Week 7 - Mini Swap Hell

So why is it that when you try to do something nice, it ends up biting you in the butt? The week started on a sour note and it just kept giving.

Before I start complaining about yarn, I should say that it pales in comparison to starting the week hearing that a good friend and her husband had covid. He'd gone for a test a week earlier, which came up negative. But when Cindy started having symptoms a week later, they both went for testing and both came back positive. It's worrisome but I'm hoping she'll have a mild case.

Now for the yarn bitching. I volunteered to coordinate a swap of sock yarn minis, which I'd done before and had a horrible time with it. But since I'd learned so much that time, I figured it would be easy this time. Yeah, right. I'd been receiving packages of minis for the previous month and someone sent moth ball smelling yarn! What century is this anyway? But I'd bagged that up separately and gotten volunteers to take the stinky yarn so Andrea and I were ready to sort minis on Monday night. It was a stressful fiasco due to those bags of stinky yarn messing up the count but I thought we were good to go when we left the library, where we'd sorted on the counters of the old computer room. Then I got home to find an envelope of yarn from someone who'd never confirmed that she sent them, even though she was late. I'd messaged her 3 times and got no response. I was pissed! But I pulled from all the other envelopes to get her some minis, posted a rant in the swap group then started printing shipping labels and scheduled a pick up before heading to bed.

I printed more labels the next morning then more at lunch. I finished the last one (to Australia!) on Wednesday and called it done. Then the packages started arriving and the complaints started. In all the frantic sorting on Monday night, clearly some minis had gotten mixed up and 3 people complained that they'd gotten their own back. Really? I was NOT happy.

So in bitter cold weather with blowing snow, I went to the post office at lunch on Friday and mailed off 3 envelopes of extra minis from my stash to the 3 complainers, spending $12 of my own money. The complainers all said it wasn't necessary but then why did they complain? What did they expect to accomplish? On top of going out when I'd had no intention of leaving my house until the weather warmed up, my car barely started and it was so cold that I left the car running while I went into the post office. Damn! Did I mention that the high temp on Friday was zero? Yes, that was the high and the wind chill was brutal. Not the day to be going out at all, never mind to placate whiners.

That trip out of the way, I was ready to hunker down. The finale episode of The Stand had dropped on CBS All Access so I was ready to binge! The Stand is my favorite book of all time so I was perfectly happy to sit and knit, toasty warm while it was freezing outside. The high on Saturday was 5 and on Sunday was -5. The high temp. I had the oven going for hours, making homemade baked beans, cheesy baked cauliflower, anadama bread (it's got cornmeal and molasses - yum), apple brown betty... I cooked all weekend. So after a hellish week of yarn stress and ingrates, I at least got to enjoy my hunkered down weekend. And it's a good thing I did all that cooking because there was even colder weather on the horizon. I am SO over this winter!

Week 6 - My Birthday Week

I woke up Monday a 60 year old - when did that happen? I was knocking off early to meet Lori at the library for a mini, Covid safe birthday celebration but had some fun before then too. The team spiced up our zoom with party backgrounds and tried to sing (not good on zoom) then another zoom meeting was interrupted by my doorbell - not something I hear much these days. It was gorgeous flowers from Deanne. All this and my party hadn't even begun yet.

Lori and Andrea went all out for my birthday. There was carrot cake, yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting and ice cream pre-portioned into baggies for safety's sake. I had invited my friend Lorri to stop by then all the library staff came in for singing and treats. There were flowers and gifts too. Yarn, of course, a plant, a book and 15 bags of quilting fabric scraps to name a few. It was so fun. After knitting the afternoon away, we packed things up and headed out at 5:00. Andrea and I were back at 6:00 for Monday Night Knitting, where we enjoyed yet more cake with Nan and Janet. It was a lovely birthday, despite the pandemic.

I went to Lincoln on Wednesday after work for water aerobics and grocery shopping. I wanted to do all my errands and stock up the fridge because we had a cold snap coming, complete with more snow, so I wanted to be ready to hole and at home for the long haul. After the pool then Aldi, I went to the gas station to gas up my car - another rare thing these days - and when I saw the popcorn machine inside, I decided then and there to have that for my late supper. After a stop for a six pack of my favorite beer, I was stocked up and ready. I hadn't had popcorn for a year and it tasted great. It also took out a corner of my molar, which I didn't even realize until I was done with the popcorn. At least it wasn't painful.

I called my dentist at 7:30 Thursday morning and he'd already had a weather cancellation so could take me first thing. I went from jammies to the dentist chair in 20 minutes. I was thrilled that he was able to fill the tooth instead of prepping for another crown. He was super generous with the Novocain because I didn't get feeling back in half my face until 1:30, which made eating leftover homemade pizza for lunch very interesting. But I had my tooth so was a happy camper.

I was totally lacking motivation on Friday and so decided to see if my doctor had an appointment that afternoon. She did so I headed in to have the lump on my neck lanced. Fun times! But since I'll be meeting my out of pocket with my knee surgery later this year, why not? I left with a Band-Aid on my neck and a prescription for antibiotics, which felt like overkill but she's the doctor. The sun was out but the temp was already plummeting as I ran to the pharmacy and snow was due Friday night. This winter just won't stop!

Helen had planned to come to my house on the weekend to cook me breakfast for my birthday but with the single digit temps and snow both days on the weekend, a gave her the option to postpone and she took it. That meant I had the whole weekend at home with no obligations, which you know is all I want these days. I gave lip service to starting to slog through my spare room when I chatted with Deanne Saturday morning but it never happened. I spent a chunk of Saturday afternoon knitting while listening to an audio book, which was a new thing for me. I then went out and did round one of shoveling. It was 3 inches of light fluffy snow but with single digit temps, I got out the long underwear and got busy. 35 minutes later, I went in for a warm cup of tea and that day was shot. I made a lovely dinner of steak and boursin mashed potatoes. Yum.

Sunday wasn't much different. I started the day trying a Rhode Island breakfast I'd seen on Facebook - eggs with pepperoni and cheese. Not bad. After eating leftover steak on a salad for lunch, I went out to shovel another 3 inches of snow. It was even colder out (the high temp was 6) so I took a warm shower when I got inside and gave up on any thought of productivity. I did a single load of laundry, cobbled together some dinner and sat down to an evening of PBS. Because I couldn't care less about football - not even the Super Bowl. PBS and knitting in my jammies was a lovely end to my birthday week, even with the bitter cold. It's going to stick around for a week or more so expect more of the annals of my home life coming up. : )

Week 5 - Two Snow Days!

I have worked at UNL for 23 years and we've only had 2 snow days in a row twice and the 2nd time was this week. Nothing wrong with that!

I knew Monday was a snow day before I went to bed Sunday night so was able to enjoy lolling in bed Monday morning. I then spent the rest of the day watching it snow and then kept a zoom tea break with friends from work and Dawn, the accountant who moved to Virginia. After we hung up, I tried to go out and shovel, knowing it was only half done snowing but I thought I could get it half done and do more the next day. Nope. After 45 minutes, I couldn't feel my hands and feet and had only made it a third of the way down the driveway so I went inside and emailed my friend's son who mows. He could come the next day.

I didn't know we were off Tuesday until I got up that morning but that was fine by me. It was still snowing but stopped late morning. The kid and his dad showed up and had my driveway cleared by early afternoon, at which point I could really relax. I thoroughly enjoyed the second snow day - knitting, streaming and making yummy dinner of country style ribs in the crockpot, cuke salad and potato salad. It was a summery meal to enjoy with the foot of snow outside. Yum!

I had done a bit of work over the 2 snow days - things that couldn't wait. Working in my jammies while watching the snow fall was fine by me. And I got to bank a few hours to use on my birthday so it was a fair trade. The rest of the work week flew by. We had a virtual retirement party for one of the accountants at the endo f the day Wednesday, a program for MLK Thursday morning and I taught that afternoon. Book club was that night so that was a full day. I had time on Friday to get some work done but left for Lincoln at 4:00 for my second Covid test (negative) at 4:45. Darla was meeting me afterwards for some thrifting fun.

My birthday started early with a box of my favorite Chubby Chipmunk truffles from Connie arriving on Wednesday and some festive tiny cupcakes from Carolyn on Thursday. I had considered skipping Lincoln on Friday but when I mentioned it to Darla, she told me she had bought me a birthday cake so I had to go. We ate cake standing in the Goodwill parking lot. My birthday was still 3 days away and I was already feeling spoiled.

The weekend was lovely with a good mix of relaxation, chatting with friends via phone or zoom and getting enough done so I didn't feel guilty. You would think that I'd be getting sick of being inside my house but nope. It doesn't get old as long as I have knitting and something to stream. So it was a good 3 day work week book ended with cozy days at home. Don't get me wrong, spring will be a treat but I'll enjoy winter too. How about you?