Week 29 - Reading and Trees

Two things dominated this week - my neighbor taking down 2 70+ year old trees and me reading The Women. The first caused noise and then work, which I only accomplished after I finished reading the entire book in just over 2 days while working full time.

First the trees. I was working from home on Tuesday and the heat had broken so I had the windows open. Around 9:00, I began to hear chainsaws and looked out to see that my neighbor was cutting down the silver maple in her front yard, which was planted in 1951 when this neighborhood was built. I went out to chat with the tree guys and they told me she was taking out the back tree too. I was sad to see such majestic (and perfectly healthy) trees being cut down, not to mention the shade they provided my yard every evening, even though they're 2 yards away. By the end of Tuesday, the front tree was down except for the gigantic main trunk and I had hopes that they'd finish the back tree while I was on campus on Wednesday.

Nope. They could drop the front tree in the street but the back tree was between their house and garage so each branch had to be tied off and carefully lowered after it was cut so they were still at it on Thursday when I was back working from home. So noisy and it was still making me sad. All day long!

I had asked the tree guys what they'd do with the woodchips and upon hearing they'd be dumping them at the city burn pile, I asked if they'd leave some by the alley in my backyard, which they seemed more than happy to do. Well, at some point Thursday afternoon without making enough noise to get my attention, they dropped an ENORMOUS pile of woodchips. I'm talking enough for the entire neighborhood when all I needed was some to go around my veg beds. By the end of Friday, I'd spread mulch all around my raised beds and it looked great but other than one other bed, I was done and still had a mountain of mulch. I spread the word among my friends and posted on 2 local Facebook groups and some is gone but there's still plenty more there. It goes way back behind what this pic shows - 10 feet at least.

Now for the reading. Someone had recommended the book The Women and I'd reserved the e-book but would have to wait months or maybe more than a year so I also reserved the actual book at my small town library. I had forgotten I'd done that but when I went to knitting on Monday night, they presented me with it. I prefer to read an e-book on my iPad but picked up the actual book while having my tea break Tuesday afternoon and was immediately sucked in. When work was over at 5:00, I read until I had to go to a library board meeting and started reading again as soon as I got home. I read until midnight and when the cats woke me up at 5:30 on Wednesday, I read for an hour before I had to get ready to head to campus. I read all Wednesday night and finished the book on Thursday, reading during lunch and after I got home from swimming. Such an amazing book! I haven't read a book that quickly, while working full time even, in years. If you haven't read it, you should. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's about nurses in Vietnam during the war. Fiction.

So that was my week and the weekend was a Fremont run for spinning on Saturday, including all our usual stops, and chores, knitting and visits on the phone and in person (Lorri stopped in after church) on Sunday before ending the week in the pool, which makes me super happy. Another summer week in the books. Just a couple more before I retire and head to Rhode Island for my annual beach week. Not that I'm actually counting the days. Really, I'm not.

Week 28 - Kansas City Fun

The start of the week did not go well. I was chatting on zoom with Cindy when someone knocked at her door. She was gone for awhile and came back in tears. Her dog, who had been having breathing issues and had been back and forth to the vet for 2 weeks, had died. Her neighbors went out to their yard and Milo was running over to greet them and keeled over dead. I felt Cindy's pain having gone through this too often myself in the past year. There was a contentious meeting shortly after that but it got better from there. 

It was a beautiful day so Nan had invited us to knit at her house instead of at the library. Since she'd supply pizza and beer, I put blondies in the oven at lunch and left for Fremont right after work, picking up Andrea on the way. It was just the 3 of us knitting but it was totally enjoyable with good food and company.

As lovely as Monday evening was, the highlight of the week was Kansas City on Wednesday with Anne and Rene. We'd planned this a month ago, inspired by a post Anne saw on Facebook for Scrap KC. It's a teacher supply and craft store full of donated stuff. That was our reason for going but there's always Ikea and a lovely yarn shop - Yarn Social. 

I drove down to Rene's for 8:00 and we left from there. Rene used to live in KC so she was driving. We stopped in St. Joseph for a potty break and Starbucks plus a couple of thrifts looking for goblets for my friend Cindy's niece's wedding (didn't find any). There was a donut shop next to one of the thrifts so we got a donut for the road. We got to Ikea shortly after noon but the donuts meant we weren't hungry for lunch yet. We shopped Ikea (found all kinds of fun stuff, as always) then went to Scrap KC. Anne was disappointed that they didn't have much cone yarn but I found some cheap good quality yarn, including 2 that looked like sock yarn and did in fact pass the bleach test when I got home. (Bleach dissolves wool but not nylon so is a great test for sock yarn, which must include nylon for me to use it for socks.) We then went to Yarn Social and bought gorgeous but expensive yarn. It was now after 3:00 and we were starving. 

The women at the yarn shop recommended a local sandwich place but when we got there, it was closed already so we got on our phones and found Gus' Fried Chicken. We had the place to ourselves and enjoyed chicken fingers with all kinds of southern fixings - hush puppies, baked beans, greens, etc. We hit 2 more thrifts that were on the way to the highway but found nothing again. It was 4 hours home with just a stop for ice cream and another for gas. We were back in Lincoln by 8:00 and I was home before 9:00. I unpacked the car and put everything away before taking a shower and collapsing into bed.

It was back to campus on Thursday and I spent all morning working with Dana on allocations before heading to East Campus for more BBQ - Tennessee this time, which featured delicious deep fried pickles as a side. After an uneventful afternoon, I had an hour to kill between work and swimming and totally scored more good quality yarn at Goodwill. This time it was a $7 bag filled with Noro (Japanese wool) and Malabrigo, which is always gorgeous. Then another nice thing happened. All 3 of us had bought little rolling carts at Ikea and it was the only thing still left in my car after I unloaded Wednesday night. Well Anne had put hers together and offered to swap it out for mine since she knew how to put them together already. We swapped in the parking lot at the pool. How nice was that!

The work day went quickly enough on Friday and I ran Wahoo errands at lunch - got my grab and go and hit the thrift shop and The Warehouse since I was out. I came back to find lemons on my bench (they might have been there Thursday night but if so, I missed them) that a friend picked for me from her brother's tree in California. There will be lemon meringue pie in Donna's future but maybe when it cools down a bit.

Because we had heat emergency days Saturday, Sunday and Monday with temps in the high 90's with heat indexes of 110, (yikes!) other than watering my plants and harvesting some of my first produce, I didn't leave the house. I made Swiss chard and Italian sausage pasta Friday night, sausage and peppers (my banana peppers in pots on the driveway are doing very well) and cut up 4 lots of rhubarb for the freezer - 3 with strawberries for strawberry/rhubarb pie and one just rhubarb for my fave dessert. Other than the strawberries, all the produce was from my garden. I also sorted the lemons and made simple syrup for lemonade with the ones that needed using. I shared syrup and lemons with Lorri when she stopped by after church.

So another week ended with a holed up in the AC weekend. I had given thought to reorganizing my craft room, which got all discombobulated after the flood, but never made it down there. Oh well. Retirement is only 3.5 weeks away. So many things can wait. :)

Week 27 - Not a Fan

Call me a cranky old lady but I do not like all the fireworks on the 4th. I'm all for a professional display but the ones my neighbors light off for a solid week before the 4th and a few days after are bad. It's just noise and litter with nothing to show for it but spent money and lost sleep. At least we got lots of rain early in the week (5" between daytime Monday and overnight to Tuesday) so fire wasn't a concern.

One good thing about this week was getting a pass on working on campus on Wednesday plus getting to stop working at 3:30. Of course I had already made plans to see Thelma with Anne and Rene at 5:00 on campus but that was OK. I drove in for the movie, which was good but totally streamable. We went to Ivana Cone for ice cream afterwards. I'll call that a good start to the long weekend because being still at max vacation, I took Friday off. I think 90% of campus did. They should have just closed. Yeah, right.

I had planned to go to a craft fair in Seward on Thursday morning with Darla but with rain forecast and it being a rain or shine event, we cancelled it and instead would do lunch on Friday. I spent Thursday holed up inside with the cats going in and out all day as my neighbors set off loud fireworks. I watched the new Beverly Hills Cop movie on Netflix and called it a night. The noise kept me reading late but I had hopes that the worst of it would be over.

The cats woke me up early on Friday, as usual, and I found myself following my normal weekday morning routine. This left me dressed and ready to go by 10:00 so I drove to Lincoln then and had time to do some thrifting before meeting Darla. At a Goodwill where I rarely find anything, I found a bunch of fiber packs (for spinning yarn) and a few skeins of good quality yarn. At another Goodwill, I found someone's entire collection of Starbucks coffee mugs, including one I'd wanted but not for $15. Goodwill's normal high price of $1.99 for a used mug was a steal for a Starbuck's mug so I bought 4 - a Christmas one and the orange one I'd wanted for me and 2 as gifts. Nice.

I met Darla at Noodles (she got the Nebraska mug) and we had a nice lunch. I had emailed my cousin about hanging out that afternoon but she needed an hour for something so I went to Anne's to play with Hazel. (Anne got the mitten mug.) I wasn't there long before my cousin got back so I headed over there and we chatted the afternoon away. I hit Aldi and headed home for a lovely weekend with no plans.

And so began another summer weekend holed up in the house avoiding the heat and more fireworks, because clearly my neighbors had more. The only thing worthy of a mention was a nice long chat with my friend Cornelia, who I only see when I'm in Rhode Island in the summer and rarely talk to. Otherwise it was knitting and streaming the weekend away. Enjoy the cute picture of Goodie, who spent more time in the house this week than usual. Damn fireworks!

Week 25 - Kittens and Knitting

It was a pretty normal week with all the usual stuff - Monday Night Knitting, BBQ on East Campus and water aerobics on Thursday, etc. But there were a couple of fun things worth mentioning.

After work on Wednesday, I went with Anne to play with kittens. There was a litter of tuxedo and black kittens being fostered for Becky's stray cat project and Anne was ready to get one. I happily played with the kittens and found one that would let me pet his belly but the news is that Anne took one of the tuxedo kittens and named her Hazel in honor of my dear departed Hazel. She's a total cutie and Anne has been having fun with her. There was zero temptation for me. I'm fine with my 4 beasts.

I'm back at max vacation so took Friday afternoon off and went to Omaha to knit at Lori's. She was dog sitting her niece's dog so we stayed in. Her house was HOT though. We were inside sitting still and I was actively sweating. When I got up to go to the bathroom, I saw that it was 84 degrees and Lori got up to adjust her thermostat to kick on the AC. Sheesh! The AC in the car felt great and after a stop at Aldi, I was stocked up and ready for a weekend inside.

I was a total veg on Saturday, doing minimal chores and catching up on YouTube knitting podcasts. Sunday I got busy. First thing was to pack up all the yarn for Dottie, who I'd be meeting in Iowa City next week. This was most of it - there's a layer behind what shows in this pic and more in the garage that never made it inside. Since I pulled some off the spare room bed, I kept going in there and organized all the remaining yarn. As usual, I ended the week driving to Lincoln for water aerobics, getting home just in time for a quick shower before watching PBS.

So it was a good week with a mix of socializing and productivity. Plus kittens! Love it.

Week 26 - Dottie in Iowa

It was another yarny week with lots of yarn gone from my house. The best part of that was seeing my sister, Dottie.

I had gotten so many good deals on yarn lately that the pile of acrylic for my sister was enormous - way too much to think about shipping. That's when I came up with the idea to meet in the middle, which we'd done years ago, meeting in Davenport. This time we were meeting in Iowa City, which is just over 4 hours of driving for each of us. We weren't staying over so were going there and back in one day. Works for me.

It was blazing hot on Monday and Tuesday so I loaded all the yarn into my car first thing Tuesday when it was a bit cooler out. With the floor finally clear in my front room, I spent Tuesday evening cleaning, which all started when I vacuumed the newly cleared front room and then kept going. I swept and vacuumed all the floors and even vacuumed down the stairs to the basement. I then cleaned up the kitchen, washed the pots and pans then to finish up, cleaned the bathroom before my evening shower. Not only was my house emptier but now it was cleaner too. I went to bed feeling great about things.

We both left ~8:00 Wednesday morning and met in a HyVee parking lot just after noon. I left my yarn filled car and we headed out for lunch and thrifting in her car. We had yummy lunch at The Dandy Lion, which Siri failed on, sending us to The Dandelion Cafe instead. From there we hit an MCC (Menonite Central Committee) thrift shop called The Crowded Closet. The MCC thrift shops are a cut above if you're looking for a nice one. Anyway... they had a yarn wall that Dottie had seen online. I got a few skeins of nice yarn but not much else. We went to a local yarn shop, only to find a note on the door that it was closed for the day. We hit 2 more thrifts - Salvation Army (nothing - it was skanky and expensive) and hit pay dirt at the Goodwill across the street. They had cone yarn galore, which is Anne's favorite so I did a video chat with her and she picked out lots of yarn. I did manage to get a single skein of sock yarn for myself and Dottie bought me a fun new mug. All that was left was to go back to HyVee and head home.

We transferred the yarn (filled Dottie's trunk and back seat), gassed up and said our goodbyes. I got a frapuccino for the road (I'd picked a HyVee with a Starbuck's, of course) and headed out. We'd eaten a late, large lunch so I wasn't very hungry (I'd set out snacks but had left them and my coffee on my kitchen counter) but did stop at a McDonald's drive thru off I-80. I ordered a filet o' fish value meal and and apple pie and it was almost $12! I gasped when she told me the price and she apologized for it being so expensive when I paid. Yikes! I was home after after 8:00 so it was a long day but fun.

Thursday was a campus day so it was an early morning. Luckily it was another BBQ day so I didn't have lunch to pack but I did pack my swimming stuff. It started raining right after we got back from lunch and rained on and off all afternoon. Anne and I decided to bail on swimming so I stopped at HyVee, where I picked up a fried chicken dinner special, and headed home. I was tired, understandably.

Friday was an uneventful day working from home but in the spirit of gone is good, I mailed a big box of yarn out. Someone who has bought yarn from me before had bought 24 lots of my will trade or sell yarn on Ravelry, which I'd pulled a couple of weeks ago, but she had to delay paying until her payday. I happily dropped the box at the post office at lunch rather than scheduling a pick up for Saturday. I went into the weekend with so much less yarn in my house. Yay!

I had another weekend inside, doing lots of knitting and not many chores because I'd done so many on Tuesday. Holing up in the AC is pretty typical for my summers but this weekend it was after a fun week with some long overdue sister time. Life is good!