Week 20 - Got My Quilt!

Monday seems to be the day for storms this spring and we started the week with more storms. Fortunately they weren't severe so Monday Night Knitting happened this week. Yay!

I took the afternoon off on Tuesday to start planting my containers. The weather was perfect and I got most of the deck and garage containers planted, only having a couple more to go after I buy more impatiens. I got the peppers and eggplant planted in big pots on the driveway but then ran out of steam. This might not sound like I got much done but I sifted tons of compost to mix with the soil before I could even start. I had a sore throat and was a bit snotty by bedtime and chalked it up to all that compost sifting. Unfortunately the cats wouldn't come in so I went to bed with the slider open so they could get back inside. When I woke up at midnight, they were all in so I shut the door and was able to sleep well for the rest of the night. Darn cats!

Wednesday was another jam packed campus day. I had lunch with Steve and Layton. We tried to go to our old favorite Red Fox, which would be closing at the end of the month, but they'd changed the hours so we ended up at Leadbelly's in the Haymarket. It was delish and we ate outside but I had been hoping for one last Red Fox lunch. After work, Anne, Rene and I were meeting Amanda at BW's in Ashland for a "swim ladies" dinner. It was great to catch up with Amanda, who was just made a dean at her college. It was a fun time and I got home just before 9:00. I didn't let the cats out so I could get a full night's sleep because I was exhausted.

The cats woke me up at 5:30 so I got up and watched Survivor before heading to campus. I got an email from Chase before lunch that someone had tried to use my card number in Dubai. Fraud on my main credit card - yippee! I called them and they said they'd expedite my new card and it would be delivered the next day. I made a list of all the places I'd have to change my card with but come to find out, Chase did it for me. The only one they didn't change was AAA but that's only an annual fee so I'll deal with that later. And my card did arrive at the end of the day Friday. Great service all around.

After 2 days in a row on campus, it was lovely to work from home on Friday. I got my grab & go lunch and picked up a hose part at the hardware store and got that sorted during my lunch hour so I could water my containers. It was a warm day but I was determined not to turn on the AC so at the end of the day, I headed down to my basement craft room where it was blissfully cool. I had brought my laptop and phone but I started going through some boxes and bins and before I knew it, I'd organized an entire corner and one side of my sewing machine was clear for the first time in years. There was a box to donate too so all good.

Saturday was spinning in Fremont and I was super excited to pick up my quilt. Danielle did an amazing job and I absolutely love it. Isn't it gorgeous? We also made all our usual stops and I bought a big comfy chair at Restore, which I'd been looking at for awhile. It fit into my car (I'd cleared it out in case the chair was still there and still on sale) and off we went. I managed to get it inside my house myself but it's still sitting in the front room 2 weeks later. It will either go in my back room or will replace the recliner in the front room, which would then go down to my craft room. Decisions decisions!

It was another rainy day on Sunday so I happily spent the day inside. Between chatting on the phone, streaming and knitting, I cleared my desk, the bar and the coffee table. It was nice to see some blank surfaces. I didn't do any cooking so threw together chili mac for supper before sitting down to PBS for the evening.

I'd call that a good week, even with the fraud on my card. It was a good mix of socializing with friends, neatizing and starting my spring gardening. My gorgeous quilt was the icing on the cake. 

Week 19 - Rain and Yarn

It was another average week (works for me) but had some yarny fun at the end and my first pedicure in years plus some spring garden work. Weather was its usual crazy this month.

We had another tornado watch with big storms on Monday night so didn't have knitting. I went out to pick violets before the storms in case we got hail. We ended up with another inch of rain to add to the previous week's 4".

On the work front, I had a nice burger lunch with Erica, the new Accounting Director, on Tuesday and thrifted after work. Wednesday was a going away lunch for Janae, the accountant I worked with on the F&A project who is going to stay home with her daughter and help her parents with their farm accounting. It's nice that she can do that. After our lunch, a few of us had signed up for golf cart tours of campus. I was in the 2nd group so we didn't finish until after 5:00 but it was neat to hear all the history about campus. So not much "work" talk in this bit. Work did get done between all this stuff but that's no fun to talk about.

I had a fun knitting week. One of my favorite knitting podcasters dropped a new sock pattern on Wednesday and I immediately bought a copy for myself and gifted one each to Andrea and Lori. We all had the same Halloween mini set so had decided to knit the same socks with the same minis and not share our design until we were done to see how different they were. I loved the pattern immediately and the socks were flying off the needles. I only used 4 of the 6 minis and did wide 4 repeat stripes. Lori started hers right away too but used all 6 colors and made single repeat stripes. Here are my finished socks, which I love. I didn't finish them this week but since I'm so behind on blogging, I have a picture of them finished. The little bit of black yarn is all I had left so I won at yarn chicken. I can't wait to make another pair with scraps.

I had finally made a plan to get to Omaha to buy the yarn for Dottie so took a couple of hours of vacation time on Friday and left for a solo Omaha run. I went to Rotella's bakery and got 2 huge loaves of their bread (one whole wheat and one cranberry) for $2.15. That's worth the trip right there! It was near where I was picking up the yarn. I took all but a couple of skeins that she had, filling my back seat with yarn for Dottie. Then I went to what used to be my favorite thrift store but, alas, it's gotten a bit grubby. I did find some cut glass goblets for Cindy's niece's wedding, which was the 3rd lot of them I found and these were the cheapest yet at .50 each. I went to the Goodwill bins, which are too crazy for me but I found a couple of garden things. After a stop at Trader Joe's for a few things, I headed home. It was a fun afternoon and I had gotten so much yarn.

Saturday was a Fremont run because it was the Estate Dispersal Store weekend. We started at The Restore, where I found all kinds of fun stuff for cheap, but I bought nothing at the EDS. Their prices have gone up so it's easy to leave things on the shelf. We got pedicures between Goodwill and Aldi so Saturday was fun and semi-productive.

Sunday was my usual day of getting things done. The best part was taking down the baker's rack that has been in front of my slider all winter and putting all my overwintered plants outside. I love having them inside over the winter but am always happy to put them out again come spring. The cleanup takes awhile with removing the plant stands then sweeping and washing the floors but it was time well spent. Spring will get here eventually, with more rain I'm sure. : )

Week 18 - A Relaxing Week

It was a pretty average week, which worked for me. I got a few things checked off my list, had a productive work week and ended with some yarn. 

I had some computer issues on Tuesday morning that left me recreating a file that got lost in the many reboots but it was all fixed by the time my online reconciliation class started after lunch and I ended up working late on the professorship project. 

Wednesday was the normal campus day and the first of the month so I watched Dana do monthly reports since she watched me last month. I had a nice lunch with Dodie and then Becky met me that afternoon to pick up my carful of donations for her Stuff for Strays garage sale, which will get lots of donations from me as I go through my entire house this summer. It's wonderful that have a good cause to donate to that helps cats. Becky is a peach. After a stop at Aldi on the way home, I chalked Wednesday up as a super productive day. Gotta load up those campus days!

We got another .7" of rain overnight, which put us up to 4.1" in the past 7 days. I got my grab & go lunch and taught in the afternoon. I had a contentious work call with a department person when I had some questions on their professorship data. I actually had to message Dana to ask her to call me so I could end that call. Sheesh! I ended the day with a 1.5 hour meeting with the architects about some renovations at the library. That's what I get for having all the ideas at the last board meeting. : )

I was super conflicted on Friday about whether to take some time off for an Omaha run or not. When I was checking Facebook for a message from the Omaha person I was trying to set up a meeting with to buy yarn (she hadn't replies), I found some yarn that had just been posted in Lincoln - a huge bag for $15! I messaged to clinch the sale and said I'd have a friend pick it up. As it turned out, Anne was nearby running errands so she went right over and picked it up. I couldn't convince her to go through it to show me on a video chat but that could wait. I ended up working until 5:00, finishing up the professorship work and doing my last ever self-evaluation. I was ready for the weekend.

It was a pretty chilly weekend with highs only in the low 60's and wind that made it feel colder so I had a lovely weekend mostly inside. I did go out late Saturday afternoon to cut the weed trees by the alley but otherwise I chatted with friends, streamed while knitting, of course, and did some cooking - a batch of blackberry/apple jam, rhubarb compote and peanut butter rice krispi squares, which weren't as good as they looked.

So nothing exceptional although the yarn score made me happy. I could use a few more weeks like this. Rosie had a relaxing time too. : )

Week 17 - Tornados and Plants

What can you say about a week that includes a tornado warning that leaves you in the basement of work watching radar with tornados all around you? Yup, that takes the cake but there was some other fun to share.

The beginning of the week was uneventful, unless you count starting a new quilt and yet another pair of socks. But as usual, I packed things in on my Wednesday campus day. We had a food day, which always cut even further into any semblance of productivity when working on campus. It was fun and lots of people showed up so I got to chat with people I rarely see. Nice.

On the way to dinner with a few of the water aerobics ladies, I stopped at my favorite thrift and found a couple of skeins of sock yarn, which is a rare thing indeed. Then it was on to Granite City to meet Natasha (hadn't seen her in years), Carol (saw her in the city pools last summer) and Anne (see her all the time). We got there in time for happy hour drink prices and it was pasta night so we enjoyed that while chatting for hours. It was lots of fun.

I was home Thursday so got a haircut over lunch and then attempted to help my friend's husband with Messenger after work. He'd posted a bike for sale on Facebook Marketplace but had not idea how to use Messenger and after an hour, still no luck. He did manage to respond to one person while I was there but still wasn't understanding how to use it. We gave up and I headed home for Backyard Farmer on PBS.

I had planned Friday as my second day on campus. It's always a ghost town on Friday and was this week (only Sheila and me) but I had social engagements. I went to Helen's for lunch and it was perfectly pleasant when I got there. When we went outside an hour later to check out plants in her yard (she moved in last fall so hadn't seen the spring plants), the weather had turned. It was much hotter and muggy as all get out. I drove back to campus and was just getting out of my car when the tornado sirens went off. I grabbed my knitting and headed to the basement. There weren't many people down there but I found a seat near the sustainability office. Someone cast their phone to a TV in a conference room and we watched tornados hit both east and west of us but downtown didn't even get any rain. I had taken 2 hours off to meet friends at Spring Affair so left as soon as the storm passed.

I was supposed to meet Anne and my friends from Wahoo (Lorri and Bob, of the Messenger fail) but Anne had tried to beat the storm and ended up sheltering in the event center. She shopped as soon as the danger had passed (a tornado touched down just north of there (like <1/4 mile away) and took out a factory before heading north) and left before I got there. The storm was heading towards Wahoo so Lorri and Bob were still in their basement and the sale was about to close before they got the all clear. I called Lorri and bought the one plant she really wanted, picked up a few for myself (total impulse buys) and headed home. Quite the dramatic end to the work week!

In comparison, my weekend was totally uneventful. I chatted on the phone, puttered a bit in the garden, did some chores and ended the weekend with a Ripples Zoom on Sunday afternoon. Since I like to include a picture, here's my new cat Rosie - it's tough to photograph a jet back cat. Anyway, she was very interested in a 6 pack of petunias that I'd brought inside before the storms in case we got hail. Not only did she dig at it all night but I woke up on Sunday to find it on the floor next to my bed. Go figure.