Howdy all. A little fairy dropped by my email and told me my favourite Swampus was singin’ his li’l ole heart out for me!
I apologise for my lengthy, continued absences, but work and real life just keep me too busy these days, expecially as I can’t access the Dope at work. I am Head of Legal now at the bank, and that means a lot more responsibility and trying to cram all that into the same workday to avoid any major impact on my family. HRH is now 4 years old and bears no resemblance to the cute little thing I originally gave birth to!
Speaking of birth - WOW LiLi - you really don’t do things by halves! Congrats!!!
Anyway, it’s Ramadan and work is still busy (even from home), I have stuff to do, so I better wander off and do something vaguely productive!
Thanks again (and maybe even in advance) for the birthday wishes!
ETA: FYI, it’s lovely weather here today - only 43C/109F! Best weather in ages!!!
[QUOTE=Dolores Reborn]
I wish I could learn the art of knife sharpening. I suck at it.
[/QUOTE]
Have you ever tried a Spyderco Sharpmaker? I’ve got one, and it’s fairly foolproof. Not completely, but it’s a lot easier than using a flat stone and having to worry about the angle, pressure, and what, or if, you wet the stone with.
Between that and a few strokes on a steel now and then, my knives scare people. The funny thing is I can go to their kitchen, and their dull knives scare me.
We’re starting to get things cranked up for Faire this fall. We’re now at the “We’ll not have a free weekend at all until Thanksgiving” stage between rehearsals and Faire itself. Our in-house costume shop has been busy and there’s little snips of thread that have escaped the room and are now pretty much in all rooms of the house. The house is a mess, but we’ll be looking fabulous!
I just hope they find something fabulously obvious (and fixable!) in my neck…off to have more MRIs this afternoon. When my doctor saw that neck x-ray that I posted here a couple weeks ago, his first response was more of an “eeugh” than any actual words. :eek:
My friends’ triplets are more than a year old and healthy, although I think one of them had to have a brace or something for a while. They live half a country away, and their parents have been a bit busy so I haven’t kept up too well, but I know they’re all generally doing well. And I think the parents are still mostly sane, although when we visited last summer and the triplets were 6 weeks old, the parents looked half crazed from lack of sleep. But twins are only 2/3s as bad, right? And I’m definitely thinking pink!
Happy birthday, Dotty!
And good to see you again.
Why oh why is my neighbors’ air conditioner on? It was 60 overnight and about 70 now. Open a frikin window! Ugh. They run their AC constantly and then complain about how much their electric bill is. :rolleyes: While living in the house that Mommy and Daddy bought them and driving their shiny new BMW and Acura. We live in a different world than they do.
I’m off today and tomorrow. Using up vacation before the end of September. And recovering from these months of over-busy insanity. But my new hire starts on the 22nd so it’ll get better soon!
re: the cataract thing. It isn’t the end of the world, and I know the surgery, when I need it, will be routine. It just made me feel old. I don’t think of myself as getting older and it’s shocking when it’s thrown in your face like that.
I have errands to run today and this afternoon, when the hubby gets home, we’ll go pick out new frames and order the glasses.
**taxi **- when we lived in FL, we had neighbors who’d have the air on even when it was beautifully cool outside - I just don’t get it. They weren’t allergic or sickly - we frequently saw them working outside in all weather - so that wasn’t the reason. Maybe their windows didn’t open? Who knows… I can’t wait till I can sleep with the windows open again. It’s been too muggy too late for comfy sleep without air.
I’ve finished painting the OSB walls in Woodrow Wilson Putty - the leftovers from the living room. I’ll do white on the block wall because the only other leftovers we have are from daughter’s apartment, and I don’t want bright yellow or blue or dark green or brown or purple. So it’ll be white. And once it’s dry, I can give that section a good sweeping and start moving stuff back there and installing shelves. I may have it done before classes start in 3 weeks. Yay!
I also took a few minutes to go out and yank up the paulowniasfrom hell - they’re sprouting like crazy. Note the statement about them being invasive. *ugh * I need to see if there’s any way to kill the root without poisoning the ground for my veggie garden. I did eventually kill off a smaller one by constantly breaking off the shoots it put out, but it took almost 3 years… YOIKS!!
My gosh, do NOT start playing any of the bingo games on facebook. I’m just saying …!! I will not spend actual money on games, though.
FCM, we have not yet been to the community center - that will be tomorrow. Yesterday, we checked out one of the public pools that is indoors. It was an older facility but very well maintained. It was further from where I live than I had thought, though. But it’s the closest indoor public pool. It is very inexpensive for seniors - 75 cents a day or $9/month! They had a very sturdy ladder into the pool too. I think I have found my fall/winter/spring home for water walking - and I can go during the lap swim times! A win-win for sure.
As to the classes - they offer both ceramics and pottery classes, at various community centers. I haven’t yet checked out the community college offerings. There were no costs listed in the information I have, but it costs $13/year for membership for seniors (!) and I know there are charges for the classes but guess they just didn’t list them. There is a community college in Albuquerque, so I’m going to check that out; they will probably offer discount prices to seniors, or at least I hope so! LOL
I had some shredded wheat for brekkies this morning - boy that stuff is good, even plain. Today I am going to try to make some carne adovada, which is a traditional New Mexican pork stew. Naturally, it has chile in it! Mine is going to be way toned down, let me tell ya!!!
Look! I summoned dotty! Maybe I should sing more and others might show up.
My get up and go is rapidly headed towards got up and went. I should mow this evenin’ but I’m gettin’ more and more inclined toward not mowin’. It’s just so hawt out! I went up to da burg for a while this mornin’ and just bein’ outside for thirty minutes got to me. ICK! Plus, I am makin’ tamales for dindin and that takes a little while to do. I got me a gnawin’ and a cravin’ for tamales, so tamales, Mexican rice and refried beans it is! Fart fest to follow. Maybe I’ll go by the liquor sto’ and get some Coronas. OLE!
Done painting… for now. I found an almost-full gallon of white exterior paint, so I used that on the block wall. The oscillating fan should help it dry quickly. With luck, when **FCD **gets home, he won’t be too dead to help me install the shelves. Daughter is coming over tomorrow, and I can get her to help me move the furniture and equipment into place.
The sink I ordered has been shipped, so I expect to see it early next week. In the meantime, I need to find a faucet - I want one that sits high, and I think I want the kind that has the pull-out hose. I think. It’ll be great to have a decent faucet - the one in there now is ancient and leaky.
I think I’m done with manual labor for today. Not sure what I’m going to do for supper, tho. PB&J perhaps?
FCM, slow down, you’re working harder in retirement than any new hire trying to make a name for themselves.
Speakin’ of house fixin’, the wife just called saying our old house we sold 17 months ago has a For Sale sign out front. I looked it up to see what’s what and the guy not only is using the same description we ran but he’s using all our previous sale pictures of the home as well! Same yard (which has declined significantly), same furniture, everything, a complete misrepresentation of it’s current state. What does he thing people are going to think whenever it shows?
I called our realtor and, pissed, she was contacting him. This oughta be interesting…
I’m running on maybe 4hrs sleep today and my usual 40 minute commute home took an hour and a half due to a wreck that closed down a tunnel. Fun fun fun. And 'irk is so irking any sane person would probably quit, but I gotta pay for dem pickles.
Crud. I’m so tired I forgot to have a pickle with my sammich supper. At least tomorrow is Friday.
Dindin was teh nummy if’n I do say so myself. I make good tamales.
lieu do keep us informed re the realtor. This should be interestin’.
My sis is now on facebook. Guess I’ll have to behave. Then again, my niece (her daughter) and bil (her husband) have been of fb for a while and I ain’t been behavin’, so why start now.
Well, they’re going to have to amputate my grandma’s foot tomorrow. I’m going down there next Saturday/Sunday to see her. I’m sure I’ll get an earful about it from her.
{{{Soapy}}}. I hope you find your kitty, or conversely, your kitty comes home and find you.
{{{Spaz}}}. Is your Grandma diabetic?
We’ve just returned from Costco where we ordered our new glasses. Our friend had given us a rather large gift card from Costco. I think on the one hand she’ll be disappointed that we did not head right over to the locked case with the designer frames. We simply chose some frames we really liked from the other display cases that aren’t locked. We chose frames that are completely different from what we’ve chosen in the past. We also both got progressive lenses that are also transition lenses. I can’t wait to get them. They should take a week. It’ll be so nice to actually be able to* see *again.
We had a nice sum of money left on our gift card, so being ever practical, we bought some food. With the gift card, the grocery bill was only $38.00 out of pocket. We also renewed our membership, so there was another $100.00 but, I’m not counting that.
We’ll have enough food to get us through next week and then some.
I suck at it.
