Week 42 - Cleaning and Crocheting

It was another wacky weather week that included our first freeze but ended in the 80's. In addition to being in clear out mode, I had some major cleaning to do because Connie would be arriving the next Monday. It was a busy week.

First thing on Monday I started clearing out the spare room, which is my dumping ground. Once the bed was clear, I washed all the linens and remade the bed. I went through tons of stuff, adding bunches to my donation bags. Then the cleaning began and on Friday, I went through my gift dresser, which was full of things I'd bought over the years that would make good gifts but had never been gifted. I loaded up a big bag of kitchen items for the library to make gift baskets with and loaded up an entire laundry basket with stuff for Becky's sale. After more deep cleaning and some decorating, I was almost ready for Connie's arrival.

I had a nice lunch with Lorri on Tuesday. We had planned to eat out but she had a pie in the over so I got grab and go from Mocha C's and took it to her house. The apple pie for dessert was delish. With our first freeze due that night, I went home to bring in plants. They were everywhere but there was no frost for the rest of the long-term forecast so they went right back out Wednesday morning. That afternoon, I loaded all the yarn into my car for delivery on Thursday. I had a meeting at the library about the expansion on Wednesday night.

As usual, I had loaded up my Lincoln day. First stop was the UPS depot, where I found a permanently closed sign that directed me to the UPS Store. I knew it would be more expensive but mailed the big box of yarn to Dottie anyway. When I recalculated the amount when I got home, it was almost twice as much as PirateShip would have been. Lesson learned. Time to buy a bigger postal scale for next time so I can ship from home. But I digress... Next stop was dropping off all that yarn. Turns out that the house had 3 steps up to the walkway and another 6 to get up to the porch. I was a sweaty mess by the time I was done but gone is good. I stopped at Anne's to catch up before my lunch date.

I was picking Cindy up on campus for lunch at 12:15 so left Anne's at noon. I texted from a red light by campus that I was 2 minutes out only to get a reply from Cindy that she wasn't on campus. She was at the hospital with a friend who was having emergency bypass surgery. Damn! It was too late to arrange something else and Anne's was in the wrong direction so I headed home, picking up Chinese on the way. Truth be told, I was pissed. I listened to Sarah Millican on the ride home to improve my mood. She's hilarious so check her out on YouTube. 

I spent the afternoon crocheting. Yes, you read that right. I had started an afghan earlier in the week after being inspired by a social media post. I was using the only acrylic left in my house after giving it all to my sister - pastels. I'm thoroughly enjoying it and barely knitted all week. Shocking! Aren't the squares pretty?

The rest of the week was mad cleaning between bouts of crocheting. I loaded the car Sunday night with the second round of donations and made a decadent chocolate cake to take to my cousin's on Monday for her birthday. It was another productive week of retirement. : )

Week 41 -Last Working Day!

I was going to title this post Fall Garden Chores because I spent a lot of time working outside this week but that pales in comparison to this week containing my last paid day of UNL employment.

It was up to me to figure out the day I would run out of pay between using my vacation and floating holidays. The problem is that while on vacation, I was continuing to accrue vacation, which needed to be prorated. I didn't know that SAP would show my October accruals on October 1st but then remove them if I didn't work for the whole month. When this was pointed out to me, I panicked and started doing math. The day I was doing it ended up being my last day of pay - Tuesday, October 8th. Wow! Talk about end of an era. I'd get my insured benefits for the whole month but my last paycheck would be about a 1/4 of normal. Let the budgeting begin!

I worked with the HR person in the business center to get my paperwork done, which entailed separating me and then rehiring me as an hourly on-call employee. The separation nuked most of my system security so I had to do paperwork to get it back. There were also benefits forms to do, which I did on Wednesday when I was on campus for lunch with Dodie. Of course I thrifted while I was in Lincoln. As always.

0

On the garden front, I finally finished breaking up the last of the brush pile, which filled the empty spot between the cherry tree and my compost bins. I ran out of boxes so started filling paper grocery bags and then ran out of them. There's a small pile of stick parts that I'll use at the base of my compost when I start autumn clean up and I have the makings of many nice fires when the cool weather arrives, which is taking its time this year. Anyway, with that done, I spread woodchips between the 1st raised bed and the garage. All that'll be left is between my raised beds and the neighbor's fence. There's a temporary compost pile there and some branches that need to go to the burn pile so spreading woodchips there will wait a bit. I also sifted some compost and mixed it with potting soil for future potting up, filled the bird feeders and did some hose mending. I'll call that a good lot of gardening crossed off the list. There's always more to do though.

On the knitting front, I finished my obligation knitting - my cousin's birthday socks and all the projects I made for Cindy's Justice in Action sale - on Thursday. That done, I cast on a pair of Halloween socks and spent most of Friday morning knitting. I then ran errands in town before picking Andrea up for a Friday Fremont run. I've always loved getting errands done on Friday so I have the weekend free and being retired hasn't changed that. It was the Estate Dispersal Store weekend and going on Friday meant we were able to hit Thriftology, which isn't open on Saturdays anymore, before the usual Restore, Goodwill and Aldi. I found some treasures, including a fold up sewing table for the machine that's been in my front room on a chair for years but never used, a double decker bus piece of original art, a Corelle (not Pyrex) pie plate, which I've never seen before, and a fun vintage tablecloth. Books were $.29 at Goodwill so I bought a few for my retirement goal of reading actual books during daylight.

With my errands done on Friday, I had a nice relaxing weekend of chatting with friends and puttering. With a frost in the forecast, I put together the cold frame I bought years ago at Aldi to cover my 2 eggplant plants, both of which have a small eggplant I hope will continue to grow, and took cuttings from 4 different colors of impatiens to root for next years baskets. So more gardening ('tis the season) to end the week. A banner week that marked the end of my UNL career. Happy retirement to me!

Week 40 - Exploration and Productivity

It was a perfect week with a great mix of productivity and socializing plus a mini road trip too. Yes, the weather was still crazy, starting the week in the 90's and then seesawing between fall weather and heat again. All week long. : (

Because of the wacky weather, I didn't spend much time outside. I cut some sunflowers, which were dry and crispy from drought so never formed seeds, and took a load to the burn pile. I did some intermittent stick breaking, making some good headway with getting rid of my brush pile behind the garage. Just a bit more to go.

Tuesday was the first of the month so I cast on new socks for our bending stripes challenge and spent the morning knitting. I also had to tally entries to fulfill my moderator duties in my online Socks from Stash group, which takes at least an hour, then I slogged through more yarn to donate to the upcoming Stuff for Strays garage sale. I tried to watch the debate that night but I was a nervous mess because Goodie wasn't coming in so I walked the alley and called and called. She came in eventually and was scared so I can only assume she was hiding from the big white cat who roams the neighborhood and bothers my cats. Will I ever stop worrying about my cats? I hope someday.

I went to Lincoln on Wednesday, which is becoming my usual day, for a lunch for Liwei - one of the accountants who is leaving. The whole work gang was there, which was nice. After hitting a couple of thrifts and scoring some sock yarn (YAY!), I spent the afternoon at Helen's then hit Aldi and was home in time for Survivor. It was a nice day.

Rene and I were going to Norfolk on Friday for one of our exploration day trips. Since she was picking me up, I spent some time on Thursday doing some cleaning between stints of breaking sticks. Will I ever be done? Rene drove on Friday, which meant I could knit for 200 miles worth of driving time. I got so much done on the socks I was making for Cindy's charity sale that I finished them that night.

So Norfolk, which is pronounced Nor Fork for my non-Nebraskan readers, was fun. We took the scenic route there and back, exploring every little town that we passed. Other than a remnant I bought at a quilt store in Norfolk, all my purchases were food related. We stopped at Buresh Meats on the way there so we both scored so meat deals and there were a couple of bakery stops. The reason for picking Norfolk was Nofo Pizza, which was delish. We got a gelato afterwards and shopped along the cute downtown main drag. We missed the bread bakery owned by the same people as the pizza place by 15 minutes. From there we tried to find the old Norfolk State Hospital but the razor wire dissuaded us. We headed home, exploring more small towns. I was home by 5:00. It was a nice day.

It was 93 degrees on Saturday so I hunkered down inside. It was a perfect fall day on Sunday so I spent a bunch of time outside. I'd found that the birdseed in the barrels on the deck had molded so cleaned all that out (ick!), fixed some hoses and actually watered the grass out of fear that it would die from drought. It was still crunchy but maybe it did some good. It was also Colon's roast beef dinner so I picked that up for lunch and had plenty more for some suppers next week.

So, nice week, right? If my retirement keeps looking like this week, I'll be a happy camper. All except the crazy weather that is.