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?

Week 18 - A Bad Week

So, the title of this says it all. It was a BAD week. At work. I won't go into details but it was bad enough that I went home one night and checked the job list to see what was available on campus. It didn't get better as the week went on so I spent the weekend holed up at home, enjoying being home and all that goes with that. On that note, here are a few positives for the week.

On Monday I got an email from Lon, the Husker Cats weekend feeder, where he said he'd seen Jay. Now I'd been mourning Jay because I hadn't seen him in weeks so assumed he was dead. Well, apparently he was just avoiding me - the evil woman who kept him inside for weeks and shoved drugs down his throat. So when I fed on Tuesday, I started driving away and then saw Jay sneaking out from under a bush. He'd been waiting for me to leave! While I'm thrilled he's OK, what a little turd! Still, that counts as a positive.

Also on Tuesday, I had a lovely lunch with Darla at Cook's Cafe, which has the best breakfast sausage in town. I had planned to get breakfast for lunch but was tempted by a meatloaf sandwich and so got a side of sausage, which I took home and then had breakfast for supper. But back to Darla. She is always a bright spot in my life so was a balm for my soul. She listened to me bitch about work and even brought me a present and paid for my lunch. Good friends are so important.

Wednesday was the 1st of May so I started knitting new socks while watching my favorite show - Survivor. All good there. And with the lilacs in full bloom on campus, I went out early one morning and took fabulous pictures, one of which is my new desktop wallpaper. Cindy and I went to Steak & Shake for a shake Thursday afternoon and walked, talked and drank. So a bad week did have plenty of good in it. And my bad weeks are few and far between so I'm grateful for that.

I had my normal weekend at home. Having had Susan staying the previous weekend, it felt good to just be home getting stuff done and catching up on chores. The older I get, the more I appreciate unstructured time at home. Anyone feel the same?

Week 17 - Last Minute Guest

I'm happy to report that not only did the purging continue but my productivity was up a notch. A BIG notch.

On Monday I headed to the country southeast of Lincoln over lunch to pick up my fireplace tools. Then I dropped off all the electronics when I left work. The students who helped unload my car were so astonished by my ancient Mac that they took their picture with it. I'm sure it was older than they were. Gone is good! I ran home for a quick supper and then went to knitting. What a great start to the week.

I had a super busy day on Tuesday with a meeting from 9:00-noon, thrifting over lunch and then I trained at 2:00 so the day flew. With my newly empty car, it was time to get a new wheel barrow. I was looking for one that was already put together and was willing to pay extra for that so had called around. I went  to the new Bomgaar's in Wahoo on the way home and got a big one with a rubber bucket so it won't rust. As soon as I got it out of the trunk, I started emptying pots into it, which went a long way towards cleaning up the driveway. And then I loaded up the 3 bikes. I was going to be doing a lot of loading and unloading my trunk this week.

I dropped the 3 bikes at the Peoples City Mission over lunch on Wednesday and then headed back to Goodwill. I'd seen a big deco style wardrobe that I thought would be perfect for yarn storage in my front room. It was $80 but with my UNL ID on Wednesdays, I get 20% off. I bought it then measured it and was happy to see that it would fit in my car. Love my Honda! They loaded it up and I was back to work in an hour. Anne and I booked our plane tickets to England in September (for the Iceland knitting cruise) and got round trip Chicago to Heathrow for <$500. Such a deal! And we'd be using points for the Chicago leg. I went to swimming feeling great.

I trained again on Thursday and then headed straight home to unload my new wardrobe. I backed up to the front step and was able to get the legs onto the step but the wardrobe was too heavy for me to lift. I went next door, where my neighbors were clearly home, and knocked on the door to ask for Devin's help. The dog went nuts when I rang the bell but no one came to the door. Seriously? I got into the car and tried to lever it out using my legs but failed so went across the street to another neighbor with a teenaged boy. No answer. What? When I went back to my door, I could hear that the dog was now outside so clearly the first neighbors I'd tried were home. I peaked up their driveway and Devin was there. He came over and it took ~3 minutes to get it out of the car and into my front room. When I was done, the 2nd neighbor came over with his son to ask why I'd knocked. He had been in the shower and apparently his teenager was unable/unwilling to answer the door.

What is wrong with people? I'm their neighbor, not some salesman or Jehovah's Witness. This just seems like a symptom of some greater malaise that's affecting this country. Don't get me started! So disappointed though. I sat down for another Cheerios dinner - my 3rd of the week. That's what happens when I don't cook on the weekend. Oh well. I'll take the productivity over nutrition any day.

Here's another rant about neighbors - one of mine has a car alarm. In Wahoo, Nebraska, where I doubt a car has been stolen in decades. And said alarm goes off in the middle of the night ALL THE TIME! So I went to bed early on Thursday to get a good night's sleep because Friday was going to be a LONG day. Well, at 11:00 pm, the alarm goes off and wakes me up right after I'd fallen asleep. I was determined to figure out which idiot neighbor had the alarm so ran to the window to open the shade but it got tangled in one of my African violets, knocking it over. So not only was I awake but was sweeping up potting soil. I was so pissed that I had to take a shower to cool down and then had to read before I fell asleep again. Grrr.....

Friday was a LONG day. I was working in the morning but taking the afternoon off for Kate's celebration of life ceremony. She had died in February but our horrible winter weather forced them to postpone the service. After a nice lunch of ribs at Red Fox with Layton, I ran a couple of errands, picked up a Frapuccino and headed to Antelope Park. It was a lovely celebration with a huge turnout. Since Anne wasn't there, I was elected to share memories for the water aerobics crew, which was hard but I got through it. Feeling down, I headed directly to Spring Affair.

I have been volunteering at Spring Affair for 20 years and have always been a plant informant. Helping people decide on plants is my bliss and this event is a highlight of my year. But this year, all the plant informant spots were taken so I was writing tickets. Yup, me, a pen and a receipt pad - no plant knowledge required for this. I was bummed and had considered dropping out but didn't. The volunteer pre-sale was at 4:00 but I was not feeling it so grabbed 4 random semi-shade plants and checked out so Lorri and I could grab a quick dinner at HyVee. With a belly full of salad, we were back at 5:45 for orientation. 

I was paired with a woman who has been a ticket writer for years and she did most of the work. She sorted and counted people's plants while I wrote the tickets. There was tons of down time at the start of the sale so I pulled my knitting out of my pocket and got lots done on a new sock while waiting for customers. I didn't hate the night, which was good. I got home at 10:00. Tired!

My friend Susan had emailed late in the week that she was coming to town for Spring Affair and without missing a beat, I'd offered for her to stay at my house. She'd emailed that she would stay with another friend on Friday night but at my house Saturday AND Sunday! I hadn't been online since the morning but got home and still hadn't received any email from Susan. WTF! I emailed her exactly that and she immediately called. While I don't need to clean for Susan (and I'd cleaned the previous weekend), I had some neatizing to do and needed to know when she'd arrive. We made tentative plans to meet mid-afternoon at a nursery between Wahoo and Lincoln and I went to bed exhausted.

Unfortunately I was on autopilot when I went to bed and set my alarm. 5:50 was a rude awakening on a Saturday. Damn! And I'm not one who can fall asleep again so I got up for an early breakfast so I could start neatizing. My morning was non-stop, even when I tried to stop. I was on the phone with Carolyn when Eileen skyped me so I hung up and went to that but then the phone rang and not knowing if it was Susan, I hung up with Eileen and picked that call up. It was Lorri who had had a change in plans so wanted to go to the nursery earlier. I called Susan and her day was not going as planned so Lorri and I headed to From the Ground Up later morning and Susan would go on her way to my house later.

Lorri and I had fun buying plants and I grabbed a quick lunch when I got home then finished picking up the house. Susan arrived in time for tea and cookies and we chatted the day away. With few options for dinner in Wahoo, I pulled ravioli out of the freezer for dinner and we stayed home. I introduced her to The Detectorists on Acorn and before we knew it, it was bedtime. Susan had told me she was going to Lincoln at 3:00 to hang with friends there, which would give me a few hours to get chores done in the afternoon. But when I was wide awake in the wee hours, I couldn't wrap my head around why she would come back to Wahoo to sleep Sunday night, especially because I had to work Monday so would be gone before she got up. Oh well. I fell back to sleep eventually and slept past 8:00. I needed it.

Lorri was coming over for lunch after church since she'd missed seeing Susan on Saturday so we had toast for breakfast to leave room for lunch. We watched CBS Sunday Morning and at some point Susan clued me in that she would NOT be sleeping at my house that night but would stay in Lincoln. This was good news because it would give me plenty of time to get ready for the week. We chatted until it was time to cook. I made corn chowder, corn muffins and brownies for lunch, finishing just as Lorri walked in. We enjoy lunch and catching up and Susan left just after Lorri. 

While it had been fun to see her, I was glad to have some free time. Free except for the 3 loads of laundry and cooking for the week. I did manage to get some down time in between chores, enough that I wasn't completely drained by the end of the day. I'll be keeping next weekend free and clear for sure and hopefully the weather will cooperate. At least my lost weekend hadn't had gardening weather. : )

Week 16 - Starting a Purge?

I started out the week in full on non-productive mode. Even when we didn't have knitting on Monday, I wasted the free night and got nothing done. This continued for most the week, unfortunately. And then it went further downhill in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

I got up at 4:00 to pee, which is not a normal thing for me by the way, and in the 2 minutes that I was out of bed, one of my rotten cats peed on my bed. Not only on the bed but where I'd thrown the sheets back so It went through all the layers. By the time I stripped the bed, I was wide awake. I dragged myself to work and was in a funk all day. It started with the pee but my co-worker had an interview and facing the prospect of him leaving, added to my funk. My mood finally improved when I went home for a night of knitting and streaming. Good thing because no one wants to feel off on a Friday.

Friday flew by and our boss came in and said we could leave early so I was out the door before 4:00. I had a few errands to run and gave thought to going back to campus to swim but when I finished my errands early, I headed home. I started puttering in the yard and decided it was the perfect night for my first ever fire.

I had traded a yarn winder for a fire pit with a friend but the fire pit was more of a coleman camping grill so I'd never used it. I'd been saving wood, mostly what has fallen into my yard from my neighbor's dying tree, for a couple of years so was ready. I took pieces off of the grill to make it more fire pit-ish and lit a match. I was lovely! Since most of my wood is smaller, I had to make many trips to the brush pile for more. It was so successful that I went onto Craig's List in search of fireplace tools. I found some for $5 and made arrangements to pick them up Monday over lunch. Now to get some bigger logs for future fires, of which there'll be many. I might even make it a Friday night recurring event. Hmm....

I had a haircut scheduled for 10:45 Saturday morning but when my hairdresser called and asked me to come at 9:00, I threw on clothes and headed there. That got me up and dressed so I came home and got the kitchen cleaned up before Andrea picked me up early for spinning. We were hitting Buck's Shoes, where I used to shop all the time when I worked in HR and had to dress better for work. Sadly, they're going out of business so Drae wanted to look for sandals. She found a pair and then we went to spinning, Goodwill and Aldi before going to the sushi place for dinner. It was a good day.

Sunday was Easter and while I don't celebrate it, I usually try to get outside to commune with nature and celebrate spring. Well, it was going to be HOT in the afternoon and I was on a mission so I got busy first thing. UNL was having an electronics recycling event and I had lots of stuff to get rid of. I started in the basement storage room and finished in the garage. I had 3 TV's (I'd have to pay $1/diagonal inch but was fine with that just to get rid of them), an ancient mac, a modem (for Pete's sake!), 2 laptops, a scanner and 2 printers, 1 of which was from Brown. Sheesh! 

The car was loaded and I was a sweaty mess so I took a shower and closed up the house. Because it was already getting hot so I was staying inside. It peaked at 89 degrees. In April. OMG! I spent the rest of the day watching PBS and stashing the yarn I'd bought in Minneapolis. I was feeling good about my spurt of productivity to end a week when I'd mostly been a slug. And once the electronics were gone, I had plans to get rid of the bikes I'd unearthed while digging in the garage. I was hoping that this was the beginning of a big purge. I live in hope.

Week 15 - So Much Excitement!

I had some exciting things this week but in looking back at them, I can tell I'm getting old because very few people would find these things exciting. Oh well. Call me boring. Keep reading if you want. You've been warned.

First up was when my friend cancelled going to the movies on Tuesday. Being an old fart with a flip phone, I didn't see it when she texted first thing in the morning to cancel. So I took a short lunch to make up for leaving at 4:30 for the movie only to find out mid-afternoon that there would be no movie. The weather was gorgeous so I left early to rake. And let me tell you, I was excited to get outside. So much so that my co-worker said he'd never seen anyone so excited about raking. I went right home and raked for almost 2 hours, finishing all my perennial beds except for the one I'd piled sticks in all winter. I went inside that night feeling super satisfied and just the right amount of tired. BTW, I moved the sticks and raked that last bed on Saturday so it was all done. Nice.

Second excitement was my dentist appointment on Wednesday. As happens with age (so I'm told anyway), my two lower front teeth had shifted recently and there was a sharp spot on the corner of one. I don't know if the shift caused a chip or what but I'd spent the last month constantly poking that tooth and irritating the hell out of my tongue. I had tried to get a small mirror in my mouth to see if it was actually chipped but failed. Well, it was chipped and my dentist ground off the corner and life was good! I'm hoping that over time my tongue will stop gravitating to that spot now that it's smooth.

So while those two things may not rate as exciting to you, the last thing was absolutely exciting. I hope. Anne and I were driving to Minneapolis for the world's largest fiber garage sale at the University of Minnesota's Textile Center. We had gone last year but a blizzard forced us to leave right after the sale and drive home ahead of the storm. This year we were excited to enjoy the sale and spend the night in the hotel I'd booked. We met in Waverly because you still can't go east from Wahoo (only 1 bridge of 3 is open from the flood in March) so I drove south to meet Anne. Our ride there was uneventful and we hit Ikea and Lands end before some dram when we got to downtown and our GPS failed us. After a bit of stress getting lost, we did make it there. Next year we'll have to go low tech and print a map.

The sale was fun but I didn't find much sock yarn. That was probably because despite getting there at the same time, we were way further back in the line so most of sock yarn was gone by the time I got there. I did manage to find plenty of other yarn and had time to peruse the books and patterns. We left the sale with full Ikea bags (yes, the huge blue ones) and headed to our hotel. When we saw the Aldi right next store, we decided to grab food there and eat a hotel picnic while going through our purchases. We went to bed satisfied with our day. I might have bought a lot of yarn. : )

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we headed home. Our plan was to stop at the Spam Museum on the way. Anne had hesitantly suggested it the night before and I jumped at the chance, excited with the prospect. The museum was unique for sure and I had fun in the gift shop. The rest of the trip home was uneventful and I was home by dinner. Definitely a fun mini trip. Sunday was the usual chores to prepare for the coming week. I do enjoy a productive Sunday at home to end the week.

Week 14 - Food and Gardening

This week seemed dominated by food, which isn't all bad. It started with blondies that I made for knitting in my edge pan, which I'd bought last year at Family Thrift (R.I.P.) but had never used. They took longer to cook but the edges were fabulous. With only 3 of us at knitting, I brought the leftovers to work, where they were a big hit.

I was supposed to have lunch with Darla on Tuesday but she was home sick so I was on my own. I went thrifting, of course, and then went to a hotdog restaurant I'd been wanting to try - Fly Dogz. The menu was overwhelming so I scanned the details and ordered the first one that wasn't offensive along with some cole slaw. I went outside to wait because it was SO hot in there and didn't think anything of it when they said they had my soda inside. I hadn't ordered one so said as much and drove off. Only when I got to my desk did I see that the cole slaw was missing. I had an odd messaging exchange with the restaurant and got no satisfaction. While the hotdog was good (BBQ with crushed fritos and a bunch of other stuff), it was an expensive fast food experience - $7.50 for a single hotdog! The universe is clearly telling me something here. No more fast food! I had a taco salad for dinner. : )

I started Wednesday back at the office furniture store trying chairs again. I had done this before but they lost my order so I sat in 20+ chairs again and chose one. Since I was in the east end of Lincoln, I stopped at Le Quartier for croissants for the office. I got a pain au raisin. Delish!

Thursday was yet more food, starting with lunch with Dodie then early FAC at Tico's after work. It was a belated margarita celebration for finishing the Winter Workshop. Belated (the workshop was in February) but fun and yummy. It's fun to hang out with work friends outside of work.

I had seen on Facebook that UNL's Diary Store had fluffernutter ice cream and since spring weather had finally arrived, Nora went to get her daughter and then met Cindy and me for ice cream Friday afternoon. Of course they were out of fluffernutter but I found something else and we disbursed from there. I headed back to campus to swim. I do love ending my week with a workout and shower, ready for the weekend.

We finally had weather for gardening and I spent all day Saturday outside. I started by clearing out one of my compost bins so I could refill it as I raked. I filled my wheel barrow and then started sifting, ending up with 3 big containers of gorgeous black gold. That done, I started out front, clearing out the parking and raking the front yard. I perfectly layered the leaves with half finished compost from the other bin and things were looking good by the time I went inside in late afternoon. I felt great!

My intention was to get outside Sunday too but it was damp and dreary all morning and by the time the sun came out, I was fully involved inside. I had tons of laundry to do - mostly linens - so did 5 loads of laundry and hung them on the line. I also did some chores and cooking. A normal and lovely Sunday to end the week. I was hoping for more warmth to finish the raking, finishing the week hopeful. All good.

Week 13 - Fiber and Produce

Well the week didn't start on an up note. I slept like crap and then laid in bed for 40 minutes, unable to muster the energy to start my week. I had to get better from here, right?

I had training on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, which always makes the week fly. Otherwise it was a normal week with knitting and swimming. Until Thursday. 

Since chickens were on the agenda at City Council, we had rescheduled book club to 6:00 so we could go to the meeting at 7:00. That didn't stop me from stopping at The Warehouse, where I scored all kinds of veg, including a bunch for Andrea. It was a good discussion at book club and then, of course, no progress was made on the chickens. I was glad the next day was Friday after such a long day.

Layton was out of town so I was on my own for Friday lunch. I had been seeing ads for fish sandwiches (lent, you know) on TV and had never eaten there so decided to get take out for lunch. I stopped at Goodwill on the way there for their 99 cent sale. I did find a few shirts and several pairs of pants in my size (score!) but also found a braided hank of fiber (for spinning) on a scarf rack so picked that up. When I got to the register, the person beside me in line remarked on it and mentioned how many there were. I left my stuff and ran back for a quick scan, finding 9 more. Did I mention they were $1.99 each? Very exciting and I'd be sharing them at my spinning group.

I went to Culver's and was surprised to see that the meal was almost $10 but added cheese curds anyway, making my total for take out lunch $14.79. Sheesh! It also wasn't fast - they gave me a number to hang on my window and sent me to park to wait for my food. Since the sandwich was only OK, I won't be going there again anytime soon. But as I waited for my food, I decided to go back to Goodwill for a more thorough check. I scoured every end cap rack in the store and found 3 more, bringing my total to 13 braids of fiber. Here's a picture. I kept the purple and gray one (second from the left) but all the rest is for friends. I love sharing my thrift scores.

It was another cold, dreary weekend so I happily spent it inside cooking, knitting and doing chores. I had fun using all the produce I'd found at The Warehouse and filled my fridge with yumminess for the week. Nice but I was hoping for some nice weather next weekend so I could get outside and do some yard work. Wish me luck.