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!

Week 24 - Replaced Pudding Cup

It's that time of year again when there aren't enough hours of darkness to get good sleep. Besides that, I tend to stay up because it's light so late and that makes it worse. Just another week before the days start getting shorter. Yay!

So I stayed up late Monday night because I had messed up the heel on a sock and just had to stay up to fix it. And because I was up late, the cats were too and Goodie didn't come in until 3:15, which meant I slept fitfully until then. Without me noticing, Rosie got out when I let Goodie in and then was meowing at my bedroom window at 5:15. I was exhausted on Tuesday and it didn't help that I had a library board meeting that night, which went late because it was the last day for one of the members so they brought out snacks after the meeting. All I wanted to do was go home because I had made a cake after work and still had to finish it before bedtime. Luckily, I slept like a rock that night, helped by having turned the AC on that afternoon so the windows were shut.

As usual, Wednesday was a campus day and I was feeding the north side feeders, which took close to 30 minutes instead of the 5 it takes when I feed the south. I took the cake to work for Lana's birthday, had some with my morning coffee then more that afternoon with Dodie when she needed something sweet. It was a blueberry lemon poke cake and was absolutely delish - summer in a pan. I skipped the cool whip topping but here's the recipe. I went right home after work, made dinner and settled in to start The Last of Us on HBO, aka Max.

Thursday was my 2nd campus day and a few of us went to East Campus for their summer BBQ grill out. After work, I met Anne and we went through dozen of totes of yarn (Facebook Marketplace again) and picked out wha we wanted then made a beeline across town to swim, only to find no one in the pool because there had been a crack of thunder so we had to wait 10 minutes before we could get in. I got home late but watched more of The Last of Us.

I was an indecisive mess on Friday, which seems to be a trend. I had planned to go to campus AGAIN for a retirement party that afternoon but was not feeling like it at all. I really needed to go but was back and forth trying to decide until I thought of making it more worth going. I messaged Anne and Rene about going to The Old Oak at The Ross at 4:40. They were in so I headed to Lincoln. I closed the party down and went to the office for the last hour of the day. The lights were off and doors were locked, which adds to the creep factor of being all alone in the office. I was only there an hour before it was movie time and it was a wonderful movie. We went to Zesto in search of peanut butter soft serve only to be told that's a fall flavor. Really? We enjoyed the flavors we got and then drove home. The work week was over and had included plenty of fun. Nice.

There was more fun in store on Saturday. It was Christmas in June with our spinning group, which meant a picnic in the park and a gift exchange. But before that, Andrea and I went to Abie for a rummage sale in the church basement. It was fill a bag for $3 and we each found a few things. We headed to Fremont and The Restore (also bought a few things) then went to the park. The wind saved us from punishing heat/humidity and it was a fun time with good company, food and presents. When we left, we hit the Estate Dispersal store. I was thrilled to find a single pudding cup to replace the one that had broken years ago. Now I can make my banana pudding in these fun vintage cups again. The one I got wasn't a duplicate color of the 3 I had in the cupboard too. Score! From there it was Goodwill, Aldi and home. I was beat but it had been a fun day and I finished The Last of Us that night.

Sunday was adulting day so I started my chores right after CBS Sunday Morning (love that show!) I made a dent in neatizing and cleaning before Lorri stopped by after church. When she left, I sat down to lunch and the new episodes of Bridgeton. I only got 2 watched because I spent a chunk of time pulling yarn from my will trade or sell stash that someone from Ravelry was buying. I made a quick omelet and headed to Lincoln for the 4th time in a week (!) to swim. Totally worth it. I stayed up late yet again to finish Bridgeton, which had a great ending. Can't blame the weather or lack of darkness for this week's sleep deficit. Who needs sleep? Maybe I can catch up next week? : )

Week 23 - Fatigue and Yarn

The week started with tornado sirens just after midnight on Monday morning, which woke me up with a burst of adrenaline and had me struggling to fall back asleep. The lack of sleep compounded from there (rotten cats not coming in at bedtime!) but at least the end of the week was all about yarn scores.

After the sirens Monday, Rosie didn't come in until 3:00 am the next night and while I say I'm not going to worry about the cats being out in the wee hours, I do worry and get up periodically to call them inside and have been known to be walking my yard in my nightie in the wee hours. Yes, I am that crazy cat lady. I was a zombie at work the first 2 work days but was watching Dana do my normal work so didn't need much brain power. I got the cats in at 9:00 Tuesday night and slept great so was a new woman on Wednesday. I even did some chores before heading to campus for the day.

Dana is doing great with picking up on my work duties so work is going well. Of course I'm taking full advantage of being in Lincoln for campus days so had lunch with Dodie on Wednesday then thrifted and food shopped after work. I hung out with Darla at lunch on Thursday, did a Dairy Store run with the few of us who were in on Thursday, including the new accountant so it was a welcome event, and then did my first water aerobics of the summer after work. And just like that, it was Friday.

And that's when the yarn fun started. I had found some cheap workhorse yarn on Facebook Marketplace that appeared to be in northeast Lincoln so I said I'd buy it and would pick it up before swimming on Sunday. When they sent their address, it was in south Lincoln so I called Anne. She was willing to pick it up while she was running errands and picked up some yarn but it wasn't the right yarn so they ended up delivering it to her later that day. By then I'd found some yarn in my neck of the woods so drove to Mead after work to pick up what I'd hoped would be acrylic for my sister but ended up being mostly cotton yarn, which I have no use for. I messaged with the seller and she had her mom go through more bins and I drove out Sunday afternoon to swap the cotton for acrylic. All settled.

But that's not all the yarn. In a Nebraska fiber group on Facebook, someone posted about indie dyed sock yarn for $6 a hank. I messaged back and forth with her (the original poster was the person doing the sale but she didn't say that in her post) to make sure there was some left and in the meantime had asked Anne if she'd go and check it out for me because I didn't want drive 60 miles if it as already gone. She said she'd go even when I found out there was plenty left. She did a video chat from there and showed me the yarn. I got 14 skeins for the price of 3! Still more yarn fun was coming.

On Saturday night, Anne emailed me a garage sale listing that showed bins and bins of acrylic that'd be perfect for my sister's charity crocheting. The sale was over on Saturday but I messaged the seller and asked if there was any yarn left. She said not a single skein had sold so I asked how much she had (60 brand new BIG skeins) and if she'd be willing to do a bundle price. I got all the yarn and 2 big totes for $100. Score! And you guessed it, Anne went and picked it up for me.

Beyond the huge amounts of yarn, there was other fun and productivity on the weekend. Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public Day so some of the Monday Night Knitters sat outside the florist on the main drag in Wahoo and knitted the morning away. It was perfect weather and with a yummy mocha, the time flew. I left at 1:30 to go home and eat some lunch and having been recharged by sitting all morning, I tackled the spare bedroom, which was a mess. I sorted yarn, including more for my sister, and cleared the floor. I came up with lots of donations for Becky's Stuff for Strays garage sale. On Sunday, I went through the shelf above my couch for more donations and went through 2 baskets of clothes that have been on the floor of my bedroom, looking for my swimsuits but also finding tops to wear this summer.

As if Anne hadn't done enough for me already, I asked her if I could give my donations to her because she was going to Becky's to drop hers on Monday. She agreed so I loaded up the car and headed to Lincoln. I went a bit crazy buying produce at the market near the pool, swapped donations for yarn and happily did water aerobics to end the week.

What a great week! Work went well, I got scads of yarn not just for my sister but some for me (thanks Anne!) and am back in the pool. I'm also feeling good about starting to slog through some of the crap in my house. I love knowing that my stuff is being sold to support kitties and my plan is to keep going through my stuff all summer and fall, maybe even finishing before garage sale season is over. Becky posted pictures on Facebook to advertise the sale and every single one was of stuff I'd donated. I hope she sold it all and made some money for the cats. 

Week 22 - A Better Week

Normally starting the week with a holiday is great but I was under the gun still, trying to get back to normal after the flood. It had to be a better week, right?

I gardened all day on Monday, starting with planting the rest of my containers. I was short on potting soil so was dumping pots from dead houseplants, every bag of anything soil related I had in the garage and adding lots of sifted compost too. I had just enough to finish all my pots. After a break for tea, I weeded, tilled (by hand with my garden claw), leveled and planted my last 2 veg beds and planted a few extra things - pumpkins by the garage and a gooseberry bush from my friend Lorri by the rhubarb. I had put a little fence around the old berry bed (it had to be weed wacked down so the tree people could drive their bucket truck over it when I had the trees taken out 2 years ago) and had been piling weeds there since spring. I had added bigger chunks of compost when I was sifting but needed more soil to plant squash on top of the pile, which had always been my plan. Despite being bone tired, I walked my wheel barrow 2 blocks to the big dirt pile where some houses are being built, filled it halfway and walked it home. After dumping that and planting the squash, I was DONE. I took a shower and collapsed for the evening. I was actually looking forward to working the next day so I could sit for 8 hours. Really.

It was a good work week. I was teaching my last 2 reporting classes EVER on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. The weather was gorgeous on my campus day (Wednesday) so I thrifted at lunch and then did a Walmart run on the way home to pick up the expensive dehumidifier. Why you ask? Because the one that came from Amazon was a dainty little thing that was small enough to fit in a paper grocery bag. That was going back. Of course the $177 ones were gone so I had to pay $199 for a smart phone compatible one. Crazy! Having cleaned up the kitchen Tuesday after work, I was ready to cook so made shrimp and grits for supper. Delish! That done, I headed downstairs to set up the dehumidifier.

Well, my basement only has 2 prong plugs and I needed a 3 prong adapter. I had had one in my hand sometime in the past week while dealing with the basement but could I find it? No. At 7:40, I headed to Dollar General, which didn't have it and neither did Family Dollar. At that point, the farm store, which would have had it had I gone there first, was closed. Andrea couldn't find one either so I ended up at Lorri's and after a bit of digging, her husband found one. By the time I got home and finished with the dehumidifier, it was bedtime. Goodie wouldn't come in though so I was up calling her every half hour until she came in at 12:40. Darn cat! We got .4" more rain the next day but no more water in my basement. Progress!

Friday was Steve's last day, having lasted just 2 years as the Assistant Vice Chancellor of HR. Since Steve was one of the original members of the Friday lunch group, Layton had suggested taking him out to lunch. I had considered working all day on campus but didn't get up early enough to make it there for 8:00 so decided to put in 2 hours of vacation to extend lunch (that brought me back to the maximum 280 hours so I'd keep accruing vacation time) and drive down just for that. I had the baby dehumidifier to return at UPS and since I'd be there, I'd packaged up a big box of yarn for Dottie. We had a nice lunch and then I drove through Starbuck's for a half price frapuccino, dropped stuff at UPS and headed back home. The rest of the day went quickly and I opted for cereal for supper after a big lunch. I was ready for the weekend.

It's not like I'd be relaxing though. Because all those baskets of linens still needed folding and putting back downstairs plus I had regular laundry to do. After the guys came to mow my yard, I hung out the load of sheets I'd done and started folding. I'd emptied 4 totes of clothes that don't fit me from the laundry room and loaded those up to be the bottom layer in my ebay room. I didn't finish folding and schlepping things downstairs until 6:30. Going through the clothes I'd taken out of the totes would be a Sunday project. After Facetiming with Connie Sunday morning, I went through all the clothes, keeping some but putting a basket together to consign and big bags to donate. 

Sometime during the week, I'd done the last loads of small linens that were dried in the dryer so the linens were all done and back downstairs. Yee ha! We'd gotten 1.7" of rain Friday overnight and .4" on Sunday so another week with big rain and none of it went in my basement. I'm calling the basement project done enough. I still have some totes to move back to their original spots and the new dehumidifier is going around the clock. While I poo poo'd the smart phone function, it is pretty cool that my phone tells me when the dehumidifier is full. And pretty much everything I planted on Monday had sprouted so I was feeling pretty good about life by the end of the day Sunday. Life is good!

P.S. Enjoy the picture of Rosie, who has figured out how to jump onto the clothesline pole. And I'm wondering why I'm not seeing birds in my yard this summer. Hmmmm......

Week 21 - Flood and Laundry

The week started out great but went downhill fast. At least our drought is officially over.

Monday afternoon and Tuesday all day were the All Staff Conference on East campus. I drove in Monday and met Darla for lunch at Noodles then spent the afternoon at the conference, where my friend Karen, who used to work at UNL , was doing the keynote. Monday night knitting was fun, as always. That was the good start.

It started raining at 9:00 Monday night and it was coming down faster than I'd ever seen. When I went to investigate after I heard one of my cats make a strange sound, I saw that my entire basement floor was covered with water. I had to slog through at least an inch (over my birkenstock footbed at that point) to get one of the litterboxes, which were floating, up the stairs for the cats. I went to my problem corner and saw muddy water jetting 3 feet across my ebay room from a new crack in the cinderblock foundation. I looked out my bedroom window to see water coming out of my neighbor's downspout do fast that it was still in the air for the width of her driveway and so was pouring into my basement. Normally it hits the crack in the middle of her driveway and heads to the street. Nothing I could do at that point so I went to bed.

I have a floor drain in my laundry room so by Tuesday morning there were only a few puddles of standing water but with more rain due that afternoon, I headed to campus for the rest of the conference, which had some good sessions and I got half a sock knitted. I'd deal with the basement when I got home. We had gotten 6 inches Monday and another .4" Tuesday afternoon. I did pull a downspout diverter out of my garage and my neighbor installed it immediately so the next rain would absolutely go down the driveway. Problem solved? I hope so.

I had taken Wednesday off to garden but spent the entire day in the basement. I have a jam packed basement, including an entire room full of vintage linens to sell on ebay. (I sold Corelle and linens on ebay in the early 2000's and plan to start up again when I retire.) Most of them were in laundry baskets, which has always been fine but when you have 3" of water in your basement, the bottom layer of baskets all got wet. Besides those, every single bin had to be moved because water was trapped under them and I spent time with a big car sponge and a dishpan soaking up mud where the water came in and the puddles everywhere else. I also had quilting fat quarters and fabric in my craft room that got wet so that's what was job #1. I started doing laundry between moving things and squeegeeing. At the end of the day, I forced myself outside to prep and plant my tomato bed so at least I could say I got some gardening done. I put a little steak on my George Foreman for supper and happily sat down to the 3 hour Survivor finale. Exhausted doesn't being to describe how tired I was.

I was working from home on Thursday so did laundry before work, during lunch and after work, getting all the quilt fabric done by the end of the day. SO tired. The good news was we got 1.4" of rain overnight, which meant we'd had 3 months worth of rain in 3 days(!), and the diverter worked so no more water in the basement. Friday was the day before the long weekend and when I talked to my boss about taking some vacation time to work in the basement, she told me to logoff immediately and call it comp time for 30 years (I'm only on my 27th - ha!) of hard work. She is the best! At 10:00, I started the 2nd and much bigger round of laundry.

When you have a big laundry basket full of water laden linens (talk about heavy lifting!), you can't just dump them in the washing machine. You have to peel every single one apart and put it in in a single layer. It took 2 loads to empty each basket. Luckily the weather was gorgeous so I could hang things on the line. I went non-stop all day - take a load out, put in another, hang the first load and then start again as soon as the washer was done. My cousin had invited me for lunch, which I declined, but I needed to go in search of a dehumidifier so went to Lincoln at the end of the day. We chatted and she made sandwiches for an early supper and then I headed to Walmart. I was shocked that the cheapest dehumidifier was $177 so got on Amazon in the aisle and ordered one for $77. I'd have to wait for delivery but for $100, I was willing.

The laundry continued all day Saturday and into Sunday. By noon on Sunday all the big stuff that I could hang out was done and I sat down. I was bone tired and only had 3 more loads to do, which were small things that would be dried in the dryer. I had ordered a pizza Saturday night so ate that for days but did do some cooking on Sunday - bread pudding, banana bread and cowboy beans. I also ripped out (frogged) some sock projects that weren't bringing me joy and as a reward for days of hard work, I dyed some yarn from one of the projects I'd frogged. It will knit up much nicer after my dye job.

So it took me all week to partially reclaim my basement (nothing is put back where it belongs yet) but with all my non-stop washing and hanging out to dry, I hadn't folded anything so had baskets stacked 3 high all over my backroom. (This picture was only halfway through the laundry so it got worse.) I didn't have the energy so that'd wait. But at least I'd gotten the vast majority of it done and I still had Monday to finish up my gardening. Not the Memorial Day weekend I'd planned but I survived. Hopefully any additional rain will stay where it belongs - OUTSIDE!

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.