Week 40 - Crazy Hot Weather!

It was another week of ridiculous hot weather with three days of 91 degrees in October! The other days were all in the 80's. Despite vowing not to turn the AC on, I gave up and put it on. Nuts! Beyond that, I did get more things out the door, potentially because I was able to work in the house without sweating like a stuck pig.

On Monday, I pulled clothes to take to the consignment shop in Seward on Wednesday and zoomed with Darla to validate that I'd chosen well. I had to check tags for copyright dates because she wouldn't take old ones so quite a few didn't make it into the 2 bags I'd be taking there but plenty did. When I went to my appointment, the owner went through my bags and showed me what she liked and when she rejected something, why she did. That will help me when I fill another box, which she provided, to drop more off next month. Gone is good! I did go to the Etc. Shop on the same block, which is one of my favorite thrift shops ever. They had 50% off the entire store and I found lots of yarn for Dottie and a wonderful bag of vintage fabric for me. I can just see the knitting bags I'll make with all these lovelies. From there I went to the other thrift shop in town and donated most of the rejects from the consignment store, which felt right.

Starting Thursday, it was in the 90's during the day but it was cooling down at night so mornings were an option for working outside. I went outside for something or other and found myself cleaning up the crap pile that had gathered all summer at the top of the driveway. There were boxes of brush for burning, empty flower pots, tools and various other detritus. To add to it, weeds were growing through the mess so it was BAD. By the time I was done, the brush boxes were stacked, the weeds pulled and the driveway swept. I even laid the next fire in my firepit. You gotta go with these things when they hit and I was glad I did. After a shower (because you know I was sweating bullets), it was back into the basement for the afternoon.

I gave up on the basement and turned the AC on on Friday, which allowed me to do things upstairs. I packed up a big box of yarn for Dottie and another package of yarn I'd sold and headed to the library to print labels then dropped Dottie's box at the hardware store for UPS pick up. The post office was closed so I put that in my mailbox. More stuff out of the house - yay! I then did some cooking and started a new pair of socks.

I was on the fence about going to the start of the Omaha Knit Night picnic in Omaha due to the heat. It was originally scheduled for 11:00-3:00 but when I checked online, I found that they'd moved the time to earlier, most likely because of the 2:30 kickoff of the Husker game. Had I known I would have gone and been back before it got too hot but missed that so went downstairs and started sorting fabric in my craft room. Oh well.

Sunday was the annual roast beef dinner at the church in Colon (a small town 6 miles north of Wahoo) that I always look forward to so I went there as soon as they opened and got take out. I was enjoying the first of 3 meals from it when Lorri stopped by after church. Then I did some laundry and a few chores, ending the day with breakfast for supper and an evening of PBS.

The weather was supposed to break overnight on Sunday and I was really looking forward to cooler temps and turning off the AC. I'm glad I turned it on so I could actually get stuff done inside but I'm excited to wear long pants and wool socks with Birkenstocks. Hopefully this will be the last hot weather until next year. I live in hope.

Week 39 - Donations and Travel

It was another week of freaky hot weather that had me hanging in the basement because I was not going to turn on the AC at the end of September. It started out in the 90's, had a single day in the 70's and the rest were 80's. Ick! There was some productivity, a dyeing score in Omaha and some stuff was gone but the best thing was Anne and I booked our next trip.

I got a postcard from the company we did out last trip with announcing a big sale on their early spring cruises - $1000 off. Combined with the $888 credit from the cruise that became a bus trip, I checked out the options and called Anne. We chose a trip from Antwerp up to Amsterdam in late March/early April. We got on the phone and booked it, including airfare from Lincoln. It was a total score pricewise and it's early enough that I won't be sweating and it won't interfere with gardening season. I did say that if it's not going to be a cruise for some reason, I won't go. I doubt that'll be an issue so early in the year but just in case, I'm on the record.

On the gone is good front, I packed up a couple of piles of stuff for Becky when I was holed up in the basement staying cool to go with the stuff that I'd already collected upstairs. I also went through all the various shipping envelopes that I'd saved for shipping (way more than I would use) and recycled tons of those. I also got rid of many plastic bags while I was at it and I did a long overdue return/rebate on a steamer that had been recalled. I also called and made an appointment to set up an account and drop clothes at the consignment shop in Seward and emailed Changing Spaces SRS about consigning some Pyrex in one of their auctions. Hopefully these last 2 will lead to more things leaving my house.

I got out of Wahoo twice - once to Omaha and once to Lincoln. The Omaha run was to pick up a score Andrea found for me on Facebook Marketplace. A woman was selling all her dyeing supplies, including bunches of natural yarn, for $75. Since I was in Omaha, I hit some thrifts, of course, and the Rotella bread factory store. I found a cat cave at Goodwill and found a fun 3 tier plant stand at a little antique store while I was killing time before picking up the dye stuff. I went to Lincoln on Saturday to drop the donations for Becky at the garage sale that was in progress (the pic is just some of what I donated). I then met Anne at the Stuff Creative Reuse store (bought a couple of balls of yarn) and then we got ice cream at Zesto, which would probably be out last for the year since they'd be closing for winter soon. I got some groceries and headed home.

I ended the week out in the yard Sunday morning cutting sunflowers, starting by the sidewalk then did the bed under my bedroom window and around to the east side, which is the messiest in my yard. I took a huge load to the burn pile then showered and did 3 loads of laundry and hung most of it outside. At least that made use of the still ridiculously hot weather.

So it was a good week. I did some cooking and a few chores, got rid of some stuff and booked my next trip. Knitting was cancelled due to weather but I had a Ripples zoom on Tuesday and book club on Thursday plus got out of town twice - all this while the weather was too hot for my liking. I even got some gift socks finished and cast on another gift pair. Other than the weather, I'll take more weeks like this.