Week 33 - To the Beach

Another beach week was here. I was flying on Thursday and had things to get done before then, of course.

I was still dealing with leftover yarn from the sale but moved it all the front room so it was all in one place and took empty totes (yay!) to the basement. I'll deal with the rest later. I had decided to enter things in the state fair and went big, prepping 12 items and getting them entered online, printed tags Tuesday night when I was the library for a board meeting and all attached and packed to drop in Omaha on the way to the airport on Thursday. There was packing too and getting the cats ready to be inside for 13 days, which meant there was no point in doing any cleaning.

Of course I had a jam packed Wednesday. I was having lunch with Dana, Lana and Cindy to start then had the slow leak in my tire fixed so I wouldn't come home to a flat tire in the airport parking lot. Then it was Zesto with Anne for the first peanut butter soft serve of the season (it's their fall flavor) and then I dropped donations at Stuff. I did the final laundry and finished packing and was pretty much ready to go.

I was worried about the Southwest flight, which would be my last since they no longer do free luggage so what's the point? Anyway, I had seen posts about their passenger of size policy and was worried they'd give me grief. I lost sleep over this. At least I had an assigned seat on the flights there (I used almost all my points for a free ticket but didn't have enough to get an assigned seat on the way home.) It wasn't an issue but my first flight was delayed enough that I wouldn't make my connection in DC so my only option to get there on Thursday was to rebook through Midway with a 3.5 hour layover. They were asking for volunteers to check their luggage for free because the flight was full and I jumped at the chance. Nice.

I was fine with hanging at Midway and found a nice table to sit at in a food court where I could see the flight board. I streamed and knitted then walked to the big food court for a Chicago hotdog for supper. Then the gate fiasco began. I was back and forth between the A and B terminals 3 times as they changed gates. I was a hot mess by the time I got on the plane but had a row to myself. Good thing I wasn't dragging my suitcase that whole time. I got in after 9:30 and stayed up chatting with Carolyn until midnight. I had made it to RI and was ready for fun.

Carolyn and I hung out chatting in her dining room on Friday morning. Matt was out and about so after he got back home, we went to a bakery near Carolyn's for croissants. I treated and $20 didn't cover 3 pain au chocolats! RI is super expensive compared to Nebraska. Anyway, from there we went to a burger place in East Greenwich (the town I grew up in) and got the best fries I've ever eaten. Carolyn agreed. The burger was tasty too but those fries were amazing. We went back home and hung out all for the rest of the day, having our pastries late afternoon, mine with tea, of course. Much to Matt's dismay, we weren't hungry so skipped dinner then streamed something and went to bed. It's been a long time since I've had face time with Carolyn so it was a great day.

Carolyn makes the best scrambled eggs and knows I love them so made them for breakfast on Saturday. We hung out until John picked me up at noon then we headed right to The Crow's Nest for my favorite fried clams. Delish! With full bellies, the next stop was Trader Joe's for some groceries then it was time to check in a the cottage. By the time we unloaded the car of luggage and groceries, unpacked it all and made beds, it was time for supper. Good thing John had some Thai leftovers because we hadn't bought anything at TJ's that would work for supper. Ha!

We remedied that Sunday morning with our first stop at the farmers market across the pond near Galilee. We got some fresh produce then hit Stop & Shop to fill in all the gaps in our groceries. The remote for the awning over the deck wasn't working so John drove back to town for a battery, which didn't solve it but he googled how to reset it and got it going again. The deck knitting with tea and hermits (a New England molasses cookie with raisins) began then we played scrabble on the deck (John smoked me, as usual) and had steak and date/celery salad for supper.

We were all settled in and it was time to start planning for the week ahead. The weather was going to be perfect and I was looking forward to seeing all my RI friends. Let the visiting begin!

Week 32 - A Recharge Week

This was not a super productive week for me. I was out and about a bit but also spent lots of time recharging after last week's yarn sale. And that's OK.

I woke up at 4:30 on Monday and there was no falling back asleep so I got up and made pancaekes. I was heading to Helen's to hang out, which is always fun, and stayed so long that I didn't have time to cook so ordered a pizza for supper. I then grabbed yarn and headed to knitting, taking the yarn that I'd decided to donate so my knitting friends could have first dibs, of course. They took a few, which made me happy.

Tuesday was a catch up day. I cleaned out the fridge (long overdue) and cleaned up the kitchen. That done, I always want to cook so made chicken and rice for supper. I had time in there to read and was enjoying Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng that Carolyn had recommended.

I had driving duty on Wednesday morning taking Anne to get a cortizone shot. It took longer than I thought but I was knitting in the waiting room so it didn't matter. Anne was loopy and almost fell off the curb but I got her settled at home and then met Dodie for lunch. I made a beeline home afterwards without doing any stops and spent the afternoon reading, finishing Our Missing Hearts. I highly recommend it.

Thursday was a social day. I talked to both Carolyn and Deanne then went to pick up a couple of book club books that needed returning (long story) and ended up talking to Jackie, a new member of the book club, for 1.5 hours. I went to the shelter to love on Louie since I was out then went home and finished all the work with the yarn, ending with even more to donate. It won't count until it's out of my house but at least it's sorted.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time on Friday dealing with an attempted hack of my Fidelity retirement account. I had gotten a text saying I'd requested a dual authentication code and I hadn't so I called Fidelity. But they wanted my account number, which I didn't have because everything is electronic and I couldn't sign in. I finally got authenticated and they confirmed that nothing was gone and reset my account and locked it. They wanted me to call Verizon and have them figure out who called and to block that account. Verizon had no way to figure that out but I still spent an hour on the phone with them. Then I called Huskertech because Fidelity wanted my phone "cleaned", which made no sense because I've never logged into Fidelity from my phone. They were super nice and helpful - gotta love the UNL phone gurus. I was on and off the phone all day and figured it was 4.5 hours total. I did go out to do the cats at the shelter and moved all the yarn totes to the basement but what a day! The good news is no one got to my money.

I ran Wahoo errands Saturday morning, picking up The Correspondent at the library to prepare for the rainy afternoon. We got .6" (every bit of rain is a gift this summer after it was so dry for so long) and I enjoyed reading the afternoon away. The zinnias in my garden are loving the rain too and they're attracting some nice butterflies. I'll take it.

My neighbor a few doors down was working on my next door neighbor's yard on Sunday and had a chainsaw for the weed trees. I asked if he'd be willing to cut a limb off my crapapple that was hitting my roof and blocking light from my front room. He did it in 5 minutes and then took the limbs away. I made some banana bread as a thank you and delivered it while it was still warm. Goodwill towards neighbors is important. I finished The Correspondent that evening. Another fabulous book that I read in 2 days.

So a busy enough week with the yarn all sorted and mostly put away so the sale work is done. I had some socializing and got lots of reading done, which I'm enjoying this summer. I think of reading in the afternoon as a winter thing and look forward to that this winter but it also works when it's blazing hot outside so I'm hiding inside in the AC. Fall cannot come soon enough for me this year.

Week 31 - Fair and Sale

The week started out with blazing heat and humidity but a storm came through on Wednesday with 1" of rain and a temperature drop. Not that I got to enjoy the cooler temps because it was all about the county fair and prepping for another yarn sale on Saturday.

I spent Monday morning prepping my entries for the county fair. I had lots of socks, of course, but also my temperature blanket and my huge crocheted granny's daughter afghan. I had room for one more entry on my sheet so decided to make a peach crumb pie since they only need 1/4 of the pie so I took the rest to knitting, where it was a big hit. Heidi was fresh from her trip to Alaska via Canada so brought the President's Choice mac & cheese boxes that I'd requested and had OMG's to share, which are my fave Canadian candy. Yum! Then Andrea offered to take my fair entries so I didn't have to leave early. It was a good day.

Tuesday was another scorcher but I was busy inside. I finished sorting the yarn I'd already pulled and moved it to the front room, all ready for the sale. But I wasn't done so pulled sock yarn from my Ikea to sell. Yes, selling indie dyed sock yarn since I have more than I can ever knit. There was more pulling, pricing and packing on Wednesday, which was a rainy day. 1 inch! It was done raining by the end of the day when it was time to check my ribbons. At long last, I won best in county! My temperature blanket won! I was pretty happy to have finally won after 2 years of getting runner up best in county. My thrown together peach pie also won best of division, which means best baked good in the county. That was a surprise.

Thursday was a full day. I had a scheduled phone call about the Emeriti/Retirees Association membership data then met Lorri at Chip's for the BOGO burger special, after which I hit the bakery and The Warehouse. I always go to the bakery so close to closing that there's very little left but I got a handpie and had it with tea before heading to Lincoln. Anne wasn't swimming but had given me some cone yarn she didn't want so I added some of mine and dropped it at Stuff before going to the pool. Of course I found more sock yarn there. Good thing I'd been culling my stash for the sale, right?

I loaded the car in the cooler weather on Friday, worried that all the totes wouldn't fit. Well, not only did they fit but I had more room. Of course I pulled more yarn and still could have fit more but I was done. I got pizza for supper and made blueberry/chicken salad to take for lunch at the sale. I went to bed confident that I was ready for the sale.

Andrea was going with me again so I picked her up at 7:00 and we headed to The Bagel Bin to get breakfast and were unloaded and set up with time to spare. Based on the many requests I had for acrylic when I did this sale in February, I had brought pretty much all the acrylic in my house, which is bigger and sells for cheaper, so I wasn't expecting to make as much money (I made $900 before). Well, I broke $700 in profit so was pretty darn pleased with that. I dropped a bagel at my friend Lorri's before getting home and collapsing. It was well worth the effort because as I always say, gone is good and the kind of gone where you make money is even better.

After chatting with my friend Dee Sunday morning, I ran to the fair to pick up my entries and then went to scoop poop at the shelter. Then it was time to unload the car and decide what to do with all the yarn that didn't sell. I had to figure out what sold and mark it as such in my Ravelry stash but I also went through everything that didn't sell and marked lots of it as gone and put it in the donate bag for Stuff. I figured that if it didn't sell at two sales (mostly single skeins of very nice yarn), it was time for it to go. I talked to my sister on the way to Lincoln and swam for the last time this summer.

So, what a great week! I finally got my best in county rosette and the sale was a big success. The fact that the ridiculous heat had broken was icing on the cake. Now to deal with the yarn that didn't sell or get donated and get ready for my next adventure - my annual Rhode Island beach week. Life is good!