Week 15 - Gardening and Yarn

Things are feeling more normal with every passing week and this week included a garden conference with so many people. Very pre-Covid feeling. But first the work week.

We were all going in on Tuesday instead of Wednesday so we could meet my boss' other staff across campus. We all drove over at 11:00 for a tour and a meet and greet. I had ordered my favorite Panera salad and hit some thrift shops on the way there, where I scored some yarn, mostly for my sister. I went grocery shopping on the way home and picked up a rotisserie chicken, which I chowed down on as soon as I got home. Delish.

Wednesday was Cindy's last day before her vacation and she was slamming to get everything done for the training that would happen while she was gone. I helped her with various things throughout the day but we when we had our delayed morning zoom at 2:00, Ben said it was all going to be put on hold. Payroll is the barrier to all progress. Oh well. Work for the rest of the week was boring without Cindy but it didn't drag but I had some fun on Friday.

My friend Lori had an appointment in town so brought Chinese food for lunch, which was a nice interlude in my day. The afternoon mail brought a huge box of sock yarn that I'd bought from Facebook Marketplace. I know, it's the last thing I need but I'd share. The afternoon flew because I was still slamming through grad allocations to get them posted before 5:00, which I did. Nice. Then I got to open my box of yarn and sort it all into what I was keeping and what I was sharing. I updated my Ravelry stash the same night and have lots of fun socks to look forward to.

Saturday was the West Pott Master Gardener Conference, which I hadn't been to in a few years, even before Covid. I carpooled with my friend Lorri and 2 other master gardeners and was looking forward to the sessions. I had cast on a new pair of stockinette socks to knit while I listened and got most of one sock knitted. It was a lovely day that felt SO normal. Here's the sock, which I finished on Sunday evening.

After being inside all day on Saturday, I spent Sunday outside. With cold weather in the forecast, I was leary of raking out my beds so started with pruning roses. I got them all cut and then drove the thorny branches to the city burn pile. It felt so good to be outside that I kept going, cleaning up the driveway beds and then got 2/3's of the way around the deck before stopping. It was wonderful to start outside and I could only hope the cleared beds would be OK with the coming cold weather. Spring has to come eventually, right?

Week 14 - Mid Century Fun

It was a fun week full of mid century loveliness plus some productivity and socializing. 

So I'd passed on the fun glass fronted case in Beatrice the past Saturday and was fine with that decision until Tuesday. I got an email from Changing Spaces: Senior Relocation Services with their weekly auction. I saw a picture that spoke to me and instantly knew I had to have it. It was a seragraph print by David Weidman. Never heard of him but googled and learned lots, which also worried me that it would be too expensive. I placed a bid immediately and upped it twice over the next 2 days. I had 2 different people bidding against me and Cindy and I zoomed to watch the last minutes. I won! I couldn't have been happier. And with the new print in mind, I'd called the antique shop in Beatrice and they were holding the bookcase for me. I had a plan for a mid century corner in my back room.

All this meant I was headed to Lincoln to pick up the painting then drive back to Beatrice to get the bookcase. But if I was heading to Lincoln on a weekend, I was going to do as much as I could so I started with breakfast with Darla. When I picked up the print, I was so happy that they took my picture. After stopping at Trader Joe's for the high fiber cereal I'd forgotten the week before, I hit the highway to Beatrice. I wanted to get home early so minimized my stops and was back home before 1:00. After a quick lunch, I hung my print and started moving furniture. Finding yarn for inside the cabinet was easy but I tried many, many groups of things on top looking for the perfect grouping. What do you think? I LOVE it.

Other than my mid century fun, I met with my retirement guy at Fidelity (zoom, of course) and got all set up for 2021 and 2022 Roth contributions and confirmed that I'm on track for my earlier retirement plans. Yay! Helen also came by for lunch on Friday, which is always fun. And I ended the week by clearing off my deck of all the winter detritus, which included taking down my deck Christmas tree. I'll miss waking up to the lights in the dark morning but it was time.

So it was a fabulous week full of new things, crossing a few things off my list and starting to work outside. I'm excited for spring. And I started rotating and was already down 5 pounds by the end of the week. All good!

Week 13 - Fun in Beatrice

After such a lovely spring week, a touch of winter was coming back but the snow was supposed to turn to rain, which we desperately needed and so I ran out Monday at lunch and planted yet more seeds. Just couldn't resist and the rain would water everything in nicely.

I woke up to an inch of snow Tuesday morning, which was only the 2nd snow we'd had all winter and it was gone by mid-afternoon but we did get the promised rain - an inch! It was bitter cold when I had to go to campus on Wednesday and as usual, it was still not easy getting ready and setting an alarm but I lived. I ate lunch at my desk and made a beeline home after work because it was just too cold to be out and about. It stayed cold and dreary so the rest of the week was just work and chores. I actually dusted! That's even more rare than snow was this winter. : )

Rene and I had plans on Saturday morning to explore Beatrice, which is the county seat of the county south of Lincoln. I had been there once before I moved to Nebraska (so more than 25 years ago) and I just wanted to see what there was to see. After grabbing treats at Sunrise Donuts, which was recommended by my friend Darla who loved going there when she was a kid, downtown was mostly thrift shops and used clothing stores. After that we went to the Homestead National Historical Park, which was quite interesting. They were doing a controlled burn so we couldn't walk the grounds but it was really too cold to anyway. 

On the way back to Beatrice, we stopped at an antique store and I fell in love with a mid-century modern glass fronted bookcase but didn't get it because my house if full. If any furniture comes in, something else has to go. The woman in the shop recommended a place for lunch but warned us that the service was slow. Indeed it was - we got there at 1:20 and didn't get our food until 2:30. After eating our burgers, we headed back to Lincoln. After a stop at Trader Joe's and dropping Rene, I took Sunrise Donuts long johns to Darla. She wasn't home but I got a happy phone call the next morning.

Anne and I had been working with an agent at Arena Travel planning our next, long overdue trip to the Faroe Islands. After being super responsive, we hadn't hear back from her. Anne had emailed Thursday night and we got no response Friday so I sent one Sunday afternoon. Despite it being after 9:00 in the UK, we got an immediate response. Our original agent was "out of the office" and this one got right on it and we booked the trip. We had intended to look at airfare later but I got right on it and we booked our flight and then to finish it all, I booked our hotels on either end of the trip. So we went from hanging in the wind to completely booked within a couple of hours. Yippee! It's been 2.5 years since I used my passport and I couldn't be more excited. Nice way to end the week, right?

Besides the weekend, it was a quiet week, which was fine. I was recovering from the budget stress and appreciated it. There was lots of knitting going on, of course. I finished 2 pairs of socks and cast on several more plus some yarn I'd ordered from Norway arrived on Friday. And in the spirit of relaxing, here's a picture of my cat, Tot, sleeping in the sun in the front room.

Week 12 - Budget and Gardening

My budget woes continued but gardening and friends got me through it. First budget.

I had hoped that I was done when I'd rerun the files last week but there were more zooms. I was able to answer their questions on Monday but on Tuesday I was clueless. For every question they asked, my response was to check the spreadsheet. After I said that 3 or 4 times, the head of budget said he'd try to come up with more questions I didn't know the answer to and laughed. And that was the end of my budget woes for the week. They never asked me another thing. Yay!

With that over, hopefully for good, I had other fun things to look forward to. After taking a little blueberry pie to knitting, I had a long overdue birthday dinner with Lori and Andrea for their birthdays schedule for Wednesday after work. Two years before, our annual dinner was cancelled when the world shut down and so I was looking forward to it. 

We were meeting in Ashland at 6:30, arriving from 3 separate directions. Because I'd have to time kill after work, I took a long lunch and thrifted all over town with the plan to work late to make the time up. But at 3:45, right after the team got back from a walk to the parking office, the internet went down. When we heard that the entire campus was down and they didn't know when it would be back up, we all got to leave. But with all my errands done, I had time to kill so hit Sam's with Cindy then Dollar Tree and the new huge liquor store before giving up on retail therapy and calling Lori to see if she could get to BW's earlier, which she did. We ordered beer and Brussels sprouts while we waited for Andrea and then had a yummy dinner when she arrived. It was the most normal I'd felt in ages.

A friend dropped off leek seedlings at lunch on Tuesday so I prepped the end of one veg bed and planted them after work. Having gotten my hands in the dirt, I couldn't seem to stop myself from keeping going. Over the course of the week, I planted the little potatoes I'd dug last fall from a volunteer potato plant and then started going through seeds planting most of one bed with old seeds just to see if I'd get any to germinate. Then I dug a little bed by my neighbor's chain link fence and planted a few peas I found in the bottom of my seed basket. Not sure what they are or if they're too old but I had nothing much to lose and it was fun starting to garden.

I had spinning in Fremont on Saturday but Andrea didn't go. I hit the Habitat Restore on the way there then Aldi afterwards. Then it was home for the rest of the weekend for the usual chores, knitting and general puttering. I watched the new season of The Bay on Britbox. Gotta love an good UK crime drama.

So all in all, it was a good week. Budget seemed to be done, gardening had started, I even started some flowers indoor and there was pie! Spring weather had arrived too. Life is good!

Week 11 - Hellish Budget Week

Yup, it was a week of budget hell.

Nora's last day was Tuesday (one day earlier than last week's plan) and it featured a 12 hour zoom. Yes, 12 hours! We started at 9:30 in the morning and Nora and I didn't finish until 9:15. There was a decent lunch break and we stopped for 20 minutes to eat dinner but it was long and stressful, with Budget not providing data until 4:40 that we needed to finish. At least when we signed off, the files were built and I thought that would be the end. Foolish me.

I was in the office on Wednesday and in person meetings replaced the zooms. Budget wanted more fields added so I spent Thursday morning trying to pull them in without redoing the files and then giving in and redoing them with fingers crossed. We had a final zoom that afternoon to go over the data and at 4:53, they said they were good to go. I logged off the zoom and IM'd my boss to say I was done. He thought I meant with my job and was quitting. Nope, I'd be back to work on Friday.

Having eaten nothing but the food I'd cooked on the weekend - grilled cheese with baked beans for lunch and chili mac every night for supper - I ordered a pizza, picked up a 6 pack of my favorite beer and drove through DQ for a sundae. I had a little celebration then went to bed and slept well for the first night in a week.

I started Friday slogging through all the emails I'd missed and making a to do list before our team zoom at 10:00. The only thing I'd managed to do all week was help users with questions and a couple of things for Mary so the list was large. Despite that, I said I'd be taking Friday afternoon off and wouldn't be taking vacation time. Little did I know that Lacey, who kept me sane during this project, had already emailed a thank you and said I should take time off. Nice. After a lunch of leftover pizza, I started reclaiming my life. The kitchen and back room were a mess so I started cleaning that up then decided I had to wash the kitchen floor, which I did by hand with a scrubby instead of a mop. When it was half done, I ran errands then finished when I got home. With all that done, I had high hopes to relax and enjoy my weekend.

After spending Saturday morning weaving in ends on socks, including these monster socks I'd worked on all week during zooms to help maintain sanity, I made a modest to do list for the rest of the weekend. And I spent the rest of the weekend plugging away at it between streaming, knitting and chatting with friends and family. By Sunday afternoon the sun was shining and it was warm enough to open the windows and putter outside. 

It was a lovely end to a stressful week and I cannot express how excited I am to just have a normal week ahead. And maybe being so exhausted will make it easier to adjust to daylight savings time. How's that for looking for the silver lining? Anyway, wish me luck that Budget doesn't come up with any requests this week.

Week 10 - Impending Budget Doom

I got some news early in the week that would rock my world at work. It didn't sink in immediately but by Thursday I was in tears. But before then there was some joy.

I was due to start working in the office on Wednesday but Darla had convinced me to meet her at the East Campus Union for their mardi gras lunch. I started working early with the intent to drive in for lunch and then work in the office for the afternoon but the weather was drop dead gorgeous and that changed my mind. It would be much nicer to work at home all afternoon with my windows open and dressed comfortably so that's what I did. After a super yummy lunch with Darla (always a treat to see her), I drove home and worked late to make up the drive time. After work, I made coffee cake to take to the office and prepped to be up and out on Wednesday at the time I'm usually getting out of bed. Have I mentioned before that I'd happily work from home for the rest of my years at UNL? Oh well. Once day a week, which is approve through August, won't kill me.

I had been told on Monday that Nora would be taking a leave of absence and I'd have to take over the new budget system that she wrote and has been working with for 2+ years. Did I mention that this is budget season? I wasn't in the know on the reason for the leave and regardless, I'd have to fill in. Nora would be scheduling zoom training sessions each day until her leave would start a week from Thursday. I got the series of invites on Wednesday morning and the first one was that afternoon. After eating lunch on a bench with Cindy and Lana (it was so warm we had to get out of the sun), I put on my headphones for the first session. It was 100% useless with lots of blather about budget philosophy and no practical directions on what I'd have to actually do. Reality began to set it.

After a night of stress dreams (the kind where people die), I called Nora Thursday morning and told her that I needed operational direction rather than what we had covered on Wednesday. We had a good talk and she said she'd work on a timeline before our next zoom but when I asked her if she'd be available while on leave for questions, she said no and my tears started and didn't stop for quite awhile. Lacey, the boss of all of us who worked up the ranks from an accountant and who I've worked with for years, called and set my mind a bit at ease. The afternoon zoom was more focused but there was still a ton to get through. 

After more stress dreams, I woke up tired and Friday was another bad day. We had Frevvo (our online forms software) problems all morning and our afternoon zoom stretched for more than 2 hours at the end of the day. I was toast!

I was a zombie all weekend. I even went back to bed after breakfast on Saturday and finished a book - something I haven't done in years. I'd been reading in the wee hours when I couldn't sleep so it was nice to read at a normal time. I streamed and knitted all afternoon and on Sunday, I did the bare minimum of chores and a bit of cooking, starting with chili, which I rarely make. My old friend Janice, who I hadn't talked to in years, called out of the blue that afternoon and we talked for hours. It meant my homemade baked beans didn't come out of the oven until after 9:00 but they would get me through the next super stressful week so I guess it was meant to be.

So it was a pretty crappy week but was only a taste of what the next week would bring. And the recharge weekend I had was a good thing because I'd need all the mental and physical energy I could muster. To end on a happier note, here are some socks I knitted for my oldest friend's birthday, which I did manage to mail out mid week.

Week 9 - Cold and Crowned

After a glorious weekend of unseasonably warm weather, that was due to change  so I ran my errands over lunch on Monday. The front came through when I was in the farm store so I was happy to get home to hole up during the cold snap. With the library closed for the holiday, there was no Monday Night Knitting and so I had nowhere I needed to go for days and I was happy with that.

But that same cold caused someone to reschedule their dental appointment and when they called me Tuesday morning with an appointment at 11:00 for my crown, I grabbed it. I had a class to teach that afternoon but just delayed it an hour and went out in the cold. The new dentist bought a crown making machine so I didn't have to go back. It was 2 hours well spent and my droopy mouth was almost back to normal by the time I had to teach. 

Other than the dentist, I didn't go anywhere for the rest of the week. I was horrified by the war in Ukraine so watched a bunch of TV and when I struggled to get warm in my own house, I turned on my mattress pad and went to bed early to read. I ended the week zooming with Connie for 2.5 hours after work on Friday, which was great.

Maybe it was having been holed up all week and that the weather was starting to warm up but nothing was making me happy on Saturday. I was antsy and even streaming/knitting wasn't hitting it so I called Andrea and asked if she'd be up for a ride to Seward. Luckily she was so off we went. The MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) thrift shop there is wonderful and that was our destination. We found all kinds of treasures then hit some other shops on the square and a gift shop Drae had scoped out online on our way out of town. I scored some stocking stuffers for next Christmas. Nice.

Since it was the end of the month, I forced myself to do the last few things to finish my bedroom on Sunday afternoon. It was only dusting the furniture and changing the light bulbs in the overhead light. I replaced compact fluorescents with 2 60 watt LEDs from Ikea. Yeah, you could do surgery in my bedroom but it's done. That was my goal for February and I succeeded. Blaring light be damned.

So it was a pretty typical wintery week except for my crown. You can call me Queen Merry. Here are some of my overwintered flowers, which are always a joy in dreary, cold weather. Spring is coming.