And on it goes

The first hot and muggy weekend of the year.  We've had warm days, yes, but these are the sorts of weather days that foreshadow (for me) the worst part of the year.

Yes, that's right.  I said it.  Summer is my least favorite time of year - I do not enjoy hot temps.  Any time the mercury rises over 70...that's it, I'm out.  Dry heat, muggy heat, it doesn't matter.  Heat is meant to cook food, not people.

Yesterday was quite enough, and today is going to push me over the red line.  Right over the edge.  Past my limit.  Oh my, and there are three solid months ahead now of 'summer' heat to come. 

I'm melting...melting.

Send bags of ice, please.

What a difference a week makes

I spent last weekend at work. 

Yup, you read that right - "at work"! 

I know, I know.  Who does that, right?  You spend five days in a row getting out of bed, (usually) disappointed at the prospect for the next nine-plus hours - unless you have *a job that brings you joy and satisfaction, and friendships that keep you encouraged throughout your hours and years together.  

Side note: I have actually had *that in two jobs over my lifetime (but if you know me, you would know that this is not a good average, as I have had too many jobs over my lifetime...and pauses in between for life's intrusions and national economic setbacks), so I know it can happen.

At any rate, I am not at work this weekend, even though the enticement of a real hourly wage (read as overtime pay - woohoo!) would've been enough to have me return for another round of labeling. 

No, last week I signed up to help relabel product on Saturday because the advent of 8 hours of OT pay was going to be a welcome boon towards outstanding obligations.  And then [insert ominous musical notes here] we were sent home hours early, but asked if we wanted to work Sunday for five to six hours (AT DOUBLE TIME)!  No idiot turns that down, right?

This idiot didn't.

Sunday, we were once again sent home hours early, so our expectations were not met.  Yes, we had several hours of extra pay - very nice - but when management asks folks to be at the building at 6AM (or even 7AM), for a forecast period of time, and then changes the day and monetary expectations drastically...well, that's not cool.  The whole thing about actually being there early (when you are only just normally getting up to begin with) is one thing - and yes, it was my choice to go in Saturday, but the understanding was the time/pay was for 8 hours.

You think twice about ignoring an extra-early wake-up call for a mere four hours.  Trust me.

Today, Karl and I have dental obligations, and I have an additional medical 'date' (which I rescheduled to help last weekend), and didn't feel like trying to reschedule any of it again, so I avoided rising to an early alarm.  Nope, I just let the two ding-a-lings perform their usual shenanigans at 5AM....BUT, I didn't have to dress and drive - and that's the difference a week makes.

OK, Mother Nature...keep it up

No, seriously - don't stop.  I like drizzle now and then, and no hot temps.

Summer can stay permanently in the wings as far as I am concerned.

To the rest of you warm weather weirdos...tough nuts!

Make a bigger dent

I totally get Karl's conundrum with homework for two classes - which set of classwork to start on first?  He couldn't just choose one and get busy, for fear of not doing what was 'right' by working on the other class homework instead.

At the time, I couldn't get how this was such a problem.  Not wanting to think he was using an oddly elaborate dodge, I tried to help him see that by just getting started he could finish one thing and then start the other... eventually both assignments would be accomplished.  The more he dug his heels in over one subject, the more we butted heads and became frustrated.

The more frustration, the more we argued.

The more we argued and debated, the less homework got done.

It was a vicious, unhealthy, unhappy situation. 

It was a difficult time but we did finally move past that.  Karl graduated last May, receiving two - TWO Associate degrees.

Currently, I have multiple large tasks to tackle at home, and no matter what I do I cannot make myself choose one thing over another.  I start one chore, only to distract myself somewhere in the process and lose momentum.  Or, I'll make lists to outline the day or the order, but can't make myself actually dig in and start because the items further down the chore list suddenly seem more important than they had when the list was made.  Aaaargh!!

So, I get it, Karl.  I see your trouble, but there has to be a way to overcome and move forward easily.  I'll let you know how this all comes out.  Until then, here's hoping everything in your life falls in to place easily.

Random stuff

Things I need to do:
 - the dishes
 - thank you notes from the holidays
 - today's cat box doody duty
 - laundry

Things I want to do:
 - stitching on "Peacock"
 - laundry
 - assembling more of VG
 - find the control pedal for my Bernina
 - finding and buying a replacement hubcap for the Duke
 - appliqueing more of the floral mandala
 - beginning my "Blackbird" piece

Things I am dreading:
 - meeting on Tuesday
 - laundry (because the drain pipe may be frozen - and back-up, again)
 - those dam*ed dishes

Things I am curious about:
 - how Click is doing (our rescue bat)

Calling my mom comes in to play, too, but I didn't know which list to add that to.

Don't ask

How does that work?

I was bundled to the max.  I had a scarf in place OVER the hoodie, and over the secured-under-the-chin-and-totally-zipped-up jacket.  Cold air was not getting in, so how - how - did a chip of frozen windshield snow find a chink in the impermeable layers?

I felt that minuscule frozen menace the moment it began to pinball down the front of me; and I mean past the defenses of the knotted and tucked scarf, to inside the coat and hoodie.  It never even hit my chin or grazed a cheek.  Amazingly, it sailed unimpeded over the neckline of my t-shirt to somehow bank inextricably to the area of my unsuspecting decolletage.  From there it began a free fall of epic proportions, even though it should have (by all rights and scientific data) melted upon entering the realm of my mid-life-lady-hot-flash-mixed-with-the-steam-bath I created by layering.

But it didn't.

I was scraping the window of the Duke like a woman possessed, thinking to myself how odd it was that I actually felt pretty comfortable out there in the sub-zero stuff, with an approximate windchill of negative twenties+ (or is that 'negative twenties minus'?).  The wind was blowing, and luckily I found I was on the right side of it, and the churning ice storm I created was whipping away from me. 

Then, just at that moment, the breeze stopped....and it happened.  That pimple of ice sailed undetected across the car and impossibly enough into my coat, where it tumbled under the t-shirt, from my chest, to my abdomen, to - I would swear - straight towards my bellybutton.  Before that happened, I raised my arm against the intrusion and squished the crumb of moisture.  My! but that was cold.

And as shocked as the sudden cold against my skin was, [shh, don't repeat this to anyone] it was bracing-ly refreshing.

Bbbr-r-r-r-r....no more of this extreme cold stuff, if you please.

Salute to my mom

Shot a good number of photos at breakfast following the shower; and here are three important people being silly at the table.

Really...I can't take them anywhere.

Happy Mother's Day - I love you.

Happy World Elephant Day!

Just for you I found a nice elephant info guide - you're going to love it.  'Elephacts', you might call it.


Or....not.

ENJOY!
https://www.facebook.com/therainforestsite/videos/vb.6020882687/10153056403562688/?type=2&theater

I have to laugh

Look at it outside.  Really....look at it!

Sunny, gorgeous blue sky, and yeah, breezy. Gusty, really, but hey - it beats the crap out of yesterday.  Steel grey sky, windy as the ef-word, and that whole rain/snow mix ("snain").

And unbelievably enough, those little trick-or-treaters were out in droves.  DROVES.  More bunches of kids passed by the house last night in the first hour - garbage bags and all over their sad lil' costumes - than have been down this street over the past two...maybe three years combined!

Couldn't even tell you who looked more miserable - the parents standing at the ends of the driveways, escorting the mini demonites, or the actual candy beggars.  Doesn't matter.  I'll just bet the lack of houses giving out candy along our stretch last night sharply curtails what we see bopping down the street next year.

HA!

Did you do it?

Have you done it, yet? Have you moved all your clocks back one hour?

If you haven't, it's no big deal - just leave 'em be. In another six months or so it'll be the correct time again and all will be right in your world. I say show up everywhere an hour early and impress people!

;v)

Trying to figure out how it is the cats know when I intend to do laundry.

Today is one of those cold, damp days of fall when I won't be able to put stuff on the clothesline out back. Instead, I will need to load up the old drier that came with the house and crank 'er up. Sadly, this old drier has just about seen its last days, and has sounded more and more like a cement mixer churning fifty-pounds of large, jagged rocks with every successive repair.

"We can make it heat to dry AND add a little more noise to the process for ya, lady. How's that sound?"

Yikes. And the tremendously sad thing is as loud as it sounds for me (from everywhere in the house), I hate turning it on when the girls cuddle up somewhere in the lower level for a day-long catnap, 'cuz I know how disruptive it would be for them.

Sheesh.

**The things dreams are made of

I seem to be stuck in my own little version of the wayback machine. Lots of reminiscing (sort of) going on.

A few weeks ago I tasked myself with the necessary chore of cleaning out my email inboxes (due, in part, to some accounts having accumulated well over one-thousand emails). During the ensuing weeks I managed to wittle down and cull out several hundred email pieces from each of two major email accounts. Phwew!

As luck would have it I found an email exchange in which I was describing my joy at having narrowed down my choices in paint color for the long wall that spans my living room and part of the kitchen. It seems my desire (even in 2010) was to use a dark (purple) color over the long expanse. I also jibbered on about my insane desire and determination to finish the entire chore by the beginning of October....2010! This all included finishing the plastering, the sanding, the taping, etc,. then actually buying the paint and painting.

I was amazed to find it has only taken me 2.10 years to actually jump in and get it all done! I'm improving.

[you need to know i am rolling on the floor, convulsing with laughter]

The way I look at it now: **I only need to get the other paint colors to finish the living room walls and move into the kitchen (eventually). Oh, crap! And the darned ceiling. [groan]

Two items of note

First -
I found my rock!
My peace stone...I found it! And wouldn't you know it would be in the last place I looked. ;) I added that last bit for mom.

*Happiness*

Number two -
When my cats have the hiccups I hate that I am curious enough (and unemployed enough) to watch closely - and for whatever time is necessary - to ascertain whether I: missed the previous funny bodily implosion upheavals; got in on the beginning, and I will be viewing the entire show, or; witnessed a burp and not the advent of kitty hiccups.

Hey, I didn't say they would be two brilliant "...items of note," only that there was something I had taken note of.

Heh!

Received a phone call from an unknown number the other day. Well, maybe it's more correct to say an "unfamiliar" number. At any rate, it just happened to be the first day of filming on that project I mentioned a few days back (ah, but that could simply be coincidence), and since I didn't know the number I let the phone ring itself right into voicemail.

Of course, whomever it was left no message. Of course, that shouldn't be an 'of course"...it should be a 'WTF?!' Why would you phone someone and NOT leave a message? If it was important enough to call, then there must be something you wanted to say.

"Well, it could've been a wrong number, and they figured that out when they heard your outgoing message," you bellow in my direction. Hey, if that's the case then, at least leave a little message akin to "sorry for the misdial" so I don't go on wondering all day.

I either get a lot of misdials, or I know a lot of stupid people.




I'm just sayin'.



I may come back in here in a little bit and post the number for grins and giggles. We'll see.

Homework...

...b l e c h!





I wish I had screen doors.





*squirrel*

So-o-o-o-o-o-o-o...

...Friday the thirteenth, eh?

Pffft!

If wishes were fishes

Or something like that.

However, I wonder:
If wishes were fishes, does that mean my garage would be full of fish? I mean, if every time someone wished for something - anything - would they still only get a fish?

You Nancy Sinatra devotees will get the musical reference

"...and then I went and spoiled it all
by sayin' somethin' stupid like...

...the weather's been nice."

[kicks over a chair on the way out of the room]

Why is it.......

Why is it that Key lime candles smell like Froot Loops cereal?

Nuts!

"Nuts!", I say,  to frying an egg on the pavement.  That's an oldie - and no longer a goodie.

I'm going to bake a few potatoes...they're much healthier for you - and I can make 'tater salad when they're 'baked'!

Yes, I'm trying to say it's still hot ! ! !