Ohhhh, looky, a springy MMP!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Be warned, meli, a lot of schools are outlawing Wikipedia as a primary source because it’s so rife with inaccuracies. You might want to doublecheck the info you found there. :dubious:

Happy Monday, or something like that, everybody. It was a totally unfair morning. Last night was the first night since my surgery that I slept like a baby all night, with no aching in my knee to wake me up repeatedly, no hot flashes, no night sweats (the surgery has temporarily brought back all my menopause symptoms that were pretty much gone, oh joy), just sleeping peacefully except for getting up to pee once – but I was able to go right back to sleep without taking so much as an extra Tylenol. So what happens? I have to get up a good hour earlier than usual because they moved me from the 11:30 a.m. to the 9:30 a.m. therapy group. :smack: Otherwise, I would probably still be in bed, cuddled with the cat and snoring off and on.

But I actually completely forgot to take my cane with me to therapy. They were so pleased, they rewarded me – with several new and even more painful exercises. Lucky me. :smack: I’m so far ahead of the therapy curve at this point that I guess I shouldn’t complain, though; I’m getting more fit every day. I think I may be able to actually go to our Ren Faire this year (just outside Crofton, MD) and be pain-free enough to enjoy it! I didn’t even try last year, I was so miserable by then.

Our poor daffodils are confused – they half-bloomed prior to our ice storm, but then got nearly frozen out, so they’re now trying to bloom but it’s a pathetic effort at best. The ones that hadn’t started to come up before the ice storm are doing great, though, and things are greening up more each day. I’m hoping to have honest warm weather arrive to stay within the next couple of weeks. Of course, right now in the Annapolis area all the real estate people are insanely busy because everyone with “water view” property has it listed – so that people can admire the “water view” before the trees come into leaf and block it so that the sellers don’t get that extra half a mil for that 6 square inches of water in the view! :smiley:

Sorry you’re having problems, Nava. Hugs, and I join the chorus of “take that job and shove it”!

Okay, back to work, since I’m actually sitting here at my desk almost comfortable. For a little while, at least!

62

I would expect nothing less from that corporation.

No cleaning here, at least not more than the usual weekend mop-and-dust.

Saturday was consumed with replacing the phone system at DH’s building. The original system was installed by blind capuchin monkeys on crack, and has been maintained over the years by what I can only assume to be stoned raccoons. (That, or it was just a raccoon that got into the wiring closet and walked on the equipment.) So many un-labeled wires! So many smal animal footprints!

There was much “Hey, who’s at Extension 21?” “We don’t have an Extension 21.” “Yes you do.” “???”

So, all the wires go back to as similar a line number as possible, on the assumption that the mystery lines are things like postage meters and fax machines that just need the next-available outbound line.

The good news is that the new system works, and is about 20 years newer than what it replaced.

The unplanned DIY project yesterday was replacing water valves as the shutoff valve for the backyard sprinklers snapped internally and could not be turned back on. So, I scoot to the hardware store and grab a replacement valve and a new hose bibb as that item has also been leaky - it had to come off to get at the shutoff valve, so why put back a bad part? Such an uncommon project for us - less than $15 for parts, and the trip to the hardware store took longer than the repair itself.

I’m so full of GRRRR! at both Sears and UPS. I ordered a router (the woodworking tool) from Sears as they were having a same-as-cash for 9 months and free shipping deal. The thing arrived on Friday in a box crushed and all beat to hell with the stuffing leaking out as the side seam where it’s glued together by the box factory had been split open. The tool’s carrying case was mashed, the parts and accessories were flailing around loose, and the power switch got jammed so the only way to tun it off is to unplug it. Not too safe, considering the thing spins very sharp cutters at 20,000 RPM.

Unlike Amazon, you can’t just tell Sears that something arrived broken and have them automatically launch a replacement. It has to be returned first - UPS will be picking up the sorry remains, and then, I have to initiate an entirely new order. I’ll just go back to buying from Amazon. Of the dozens of things I’ve bought from Amazon, I’ve yet to have anything arrive broken, and only two things were “bad” and they were both manufacturer’s goofs of putting wrong things in the packages.

Grrr…

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Page 2 already? Chatty bunch!

I have done no spring cleaning - and I need to. After the playoffs are over I am going to take all the cats into the bedroom, open the garage doors to the cat suite, and clean away! That is a couple of weeks off. I have to get mentally prepared.

My sleep schedule is wonky again. Insomnia is rearing its ugly head.

Spring had sprung here with a fury - I wish Georgia had spring. It seems we go from cold to hot-with-pollen to hotter. My poor normally silver Jeep is yellow and my eyes are burning.

We had the end-of-year party for the Booster Club last night, and I got a lovely trophy for my services as Corresponding Secretary. It was fun.

Nava, accept one of the job offers. Your boss sounds like a pain in the ass. A friend of mine just got fired for not following office procedures that her boss forbade her to follow! Go to a place where you can go to a doctor.

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

64

My sinuses ache! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! I’m glad for the warm weather and all but the pollen is killer right now. We need rain! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

65

What is the “spring cleaning” of which you speak?? :confused: I changed my furnace filter yesterday - does that count??

Actually, our big cleaning will be done once the master bedroom/bath renovation is done. We’ll move all the furniture from all the bedrooms out to the living room so all 3 bedrooms can be carpeted. Then we’ll, theoretically anyway, sort, toss, Goodwill, or store as necessary.

We’re expecting temps in the 80s tomorrow, so I’ll be opening the house before I leave in the morning. And I’ve got daffodils, some hyacinths, and most forsythia blooming, with quite a few tulip leaves poking up. However, for the most part, my yard looks like crap. And all it’s getting this year is mowed. I do have a few bushes that need to be extricated - if I get motivated enough, I might take them on. But I expect my yard will continue to look like crap till I retire. We shall see.

Bernie is on The List. She attempted to chew her way thru the cat door yet again. All I can figure is she sees something out in the yard and thinks that if she can get to the basement, she can get out. Even tho the basement door is always shut. Idiot dog.

And that’s pretty much it. Jeans in the washer, and thoughts of putting some underglaze on some pots. That’s the excitement that makes up my life.

66

Oooh, I hope that counts. We got a notice that the apt/property manager people are coming in on Wednesday to do that. So if that counts, then my spring cleaning will get done while I’m at work! Woohoo!

I figure I moved last year so I sorted and threw out stuff at that point. That should hold me for a while.

Does anyone have a good chocolate/pecan pie recipe? I’m in the mood for pecans but I don’t do dessert without chocolate so it needs both. :smiley:

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No, but when you find one, please post it! Yum!

68

Ask and ye shall receive. The basic, classic chocolate pecan pie. Seriously this is exactly how I make it. It’s really, really simple and gooooooooooooood! Oh, and if’n you are so inclined, throw in a couple ounces of bourbon if it’s for the adults.

69

Nava I empathize, and hope that you will be able to get your medical straightened out and get to a doctor who will be able to relieve your symptoms soon.

Good Lord! Now I need the brain bleach! I can guaran-damn-tee you that I will now not be able to eat a single bite of bear meat without thinking of you, swampy, your mission is complete! lol! :stuck_out_tongue:

Ah, it’s hard enough to think of Spring when we have fresh snow, but when the descriptions come from home…I wanna come home!!! (Just to visit Spring, and maybe Summer, though!) My Mom has been keeping me updated on the progress of Spring, and I keep looking at my two little lilacs and hope…maybe this year. Perhaps…just perhaps, those of you with Spring and pollen and such might post some photos for snowbound me? Puh-leeze!!!

Hey rebo! I was watching The Deadliest Catch this weekend too, and when skiffman came home last night I asked him if he was thinking about going Out West again. He said that he was. His two Bering Sea skippers have been begging him to come back. sigh I hate it when he’s out there, but it’s what he does

Ooooh, pretty kitty BoD! So many torties on here recently, I love them! Whoever it was who said that calicoes are insane was correct, our Calalloo is just schizo. Oh, and my arm is pink now, the skin is still a little dry, but I am going to wash banya tonight!

I forget, but if I didn’t comment on how wonderful your Win is, Drae please accept my comment now. I do like hounds, especially beagles and beagle crosses. The best bear dog I ever had was half beagle and half border collie. (I knew both parents, and they were purebreds.) Awesome little dog, he was beagle marked but in black and white with freckles. Watching him worrying a bear off my property was fabulous!

Might I ask, what do you want to make?

Nice hair color mika! I used to color my hair a similar shade. Now it’s too long to bother with, even though the silver is catching up with the brown. No Ren Faires here, although there is a small group who have started a chapter of the SCA. My hair is about 36 - 38 inches long, and I have no plans on cutting it. I did cut some bangs, and I wish I had someone to braid it! Here I am with my hair down, not that you can see much of it, and here I am with my hair up. (Og, there goes any mystique I may have had going for me! :eek: )

Skiffman is out starting the banya, I have gotten the hanging pants down and in the tub for a good shower soaking and feeding, after they are done I will do the smaller plants, and then the two huge monster plants. While I am doing the plants skiffman is going to wash the plant window inside and out. Since I have been purging all winter I don’t have much Spring cleaning to do, just keeping up with the dust and the fur the dogs and cats leave floating throughout the house. As far as the Poms are concerned it is Spring, and they are all shedding. I swear I saw a clump of Pom fur last night that, in the dim night lighting, I thought for a moment was a rodent. :eek: :rolleyes:

I had better get busy with the plants before the day is shot. Happy times!

70

We put our new bath fixtures into the bathroom to see how they’ll all look. We’re going to have to relocate the drains for the toilet and the sink, as well as the shower, since our old one was smaller. At least it should be relatively easy, since we can access all of them from the basement.

Anyway, check out the pics.

71

I’m rich! I made $199 today! Ok, half of it was the Microsoft settlement check, but still. I had lunch with a friend, went to the bank, and the post office, to mail this. I’m quite pleased with the way it came out. I think I’ll have to make one for myself. I have a ton of hot pink yarn that I don’t know what to do with, maybe I’ll use that.

72

Wikipedia is actually being outlawed? That’s quite impressive. I’ve been warned by several professors not to use Wikipedia (and upon discovering that the Susan B. Anthony information was once rather badly hijacked, I can clearly understand why), but never heard of it actually being outlawed. Thankfully, this was a rather small assignment (not a research paper or anything of that sort, I certainly wouldn’t use Wikipedia for that!), and I didn’t need explicit details, only basic information.

Well, it appears that I shouldn’t have been praising spring so gloriously this morning; it has already decided to turn against me. My Sociology professor decided that the classrooms were too hot and stuffy to hold class in, so he took the lecture outside this afternoon. He had us sit in a batch of grass unspotted by trees or any other form of shade…

In the course of just fifty minutes of sitting outside, I’ve managed to get a scathing red sunburn all across my left shoulder and upper arm. In Michigan… in late March. This is ridiculous.

(Any offers of virtual aloe, anyone?)

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Odd and smelly pretty much describes your average Ren Faire. :smiley:

and now for something neither odd nor smelly:

I have IMPORTANT NEWS people!

Hershey’s now makes Coconut Kisses!

74

Now see, meli you missed a perfect opportunity for drama this afternoon while sitting outside. You could have fainted from the heat. Started writhing in pain from the sunburn that is just sure to cause you to develop skin cancer. You could have loudly complained that the glare from the sun is making it soooooo hard to concentrate on the professor’s lecture. You could have started sneezin’ really loud and complaining about allergies.

Kids these days! They don’t know how to take advantage of anything. :smiley:

kai I am duly flattered to know that you’ll never be able to eat bear meat without thinkin’ of me. Much as Nava will never be able to use tp without thinkin’ of me.

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page 2 on a Monday. Much better.

Nava - I looked at your whole album - those some gorgeous buildings! And a very cute kid, too.

gt - nice OP. Did you see my answer in last weeks about the purpose of a lipstick case?
I haven’t spring cleaned in years. I am a pack rat and can’t seem to break that habit.

Jahdra - you’re like me when it comes to photography - I am going to have to get to Sonoma, to Cornerstone, with my camera real soon. BTW - some of those pics would make great jigsaw puzzles.

Nava - that sucks that you have that much stress. Here’s hoping your move back (whenever it happens) goes smoothly and that NavaMom learns to give you some space.

Kotick, you’re in Canadia, right? They didn’t bump DST up 4 weeks like here in da States?

BoBoug - your pretty kitty looks like a much fluffier version of mine. Is yours all or part Maine Coon? and have you poisoned any pigeons in the park?

One of us. One of us. One of us.

While I wait for page 2 to load so I can continue my notetaking - Spring hasn’t quite sprung here yet, it was only in the 50s today. But tomorrow is supposed to be in the 70s. Not that I’ll be able to enjoy any of it, because by the time I leave the sun is setting and the temps are cooling off. :rolleyes: <sigh>

Drae - by the end of August, beginning of September, I should be every so much more mobile - perhaps I will join you guys this year (especially if you pick a September weekend when the weather is less likely to be so freakin awful)

In dark, milk, or both? If dark, then lemme at 'em!

I don’t have much of a garden, tho I do plan to eventually have a floral border along one side of my driveway. But growing up, we had a bank of forsythia bushes between our huge driveway and our side yard. Forsythia was the first “hard word” I could spell.

on preview - meli - what swampy said.

Oh, and kai? Pass the brain bleach when you’re thru with it, thanks (swampy, you nasty boy, you.)

76

Hey–it’s Monday!

Gorgeous day out there–I spent the afternoon laying on the couch on the front porch (yes, our middle name is Clampett) and reading a book. It was wonderfully lazy. I now have to pack for our trip tomorrow–downstate to horseback ride and boulder/rock climb.

I had to buy the boys some shorts and T-shirts today.

I heard from my daughter in France last night. She is having a great time and loves her family. She told me she is already losing her English… :dubious:
Nava --get thee outta there. And take your car with you. No reason you couldn’t get a job in France or Denmark, right? I would try to avoid your mother, but health comes before avoiding people who irritate you (unless they are the cause of the health issue!).
Spring is here! Life is skittles and life is beer! Crocuses in bloom, chinodoxa in bloom, something else blue that I can never remember the name of in bloom! I am in shorts and comfortable. Yay!
Re the spring cleaning. Well. Yes, I am overdue for that. I wish I could even start it, but I don’t have time just yet.

Sh*t. I just realized I forgot to go to class today. Off to go to class now. (where is my head?)

77

Another vote for “changing the furnace filter qualifies as spring cleaning”.

Although I did a bunch of cleaning in the garage, I’ll take all the credit I can get.

Also: OY! I had ONE LAST interview today. I thought she looked excellent on paper, but probably wasn’t going to touch my # 1 (so far) choice.

But, OMG, she’s better. Same type of experience, but closer to what we do in MY place. One is a principal’s secretary, which is a big job, and all. This one has done that for several years, and now works in the AD’s office BIG high school, and as a result of how they do things in that district - does a lot with buses and transportation.

One of the references I spoke to said EXACTLY the thing I wanted to hear - namely that she’s assertive but yet everyone loves her, she’s completely unflappable and that she’s more a good ‘assistant administrator’ than secretary.

Which is what I need - someone to run the place when I’m off being all administrative and such.

Decisions decisions…

Oops, Wife’s home. Time to start making leftovers for din din…

78

I have to apologize. I am sooooooooo sorry. This made me laugh my fool head off. I shouldn’t laugh at your misfortune.

:tries desperately to keep straight face:
:fails miserably:

79

Nava, I’m so sorry to read about what you’re going through. You need to get the hell out of there, fast. That being said, I’m sure it’s easier said than done. I hope one of the offers is an acceptable one so you can leave.

FCM, I don’t thinky anyone here could accuse you of not “spring cleaning”. You seem to do it all year around, along with big remodel projects. I still wish I had your energy.

I managed to get some stuff accomplished at work today, but am waiting on an e-mail from one our small MTFs, because they are having some difficulty with data pulls and need some assistance. When they told me what they wanted in today’s VTC I explained that I’m probably not the SME or source they need for some of that stuff, but offered to help them anyway. I’ll do what it takes, even if it’s just facilitating getting them to the right folks.

Nothing too exciting going on…again.

Hope all of you who are feeling icky get better. It’s spring (or should be) and we all need to enjoy it.

80

Hmmm, I’m guessin’ that Nava will be thinking of you more often than I! :smiley:

rosieposie here’s the brain bleach, and how do I hookup as your friend on jigzone?

The first batch of plants have been soaked and I am waiting for them to drain a bit before I feed and rehang them. I bought four very small ivies last Autumn, two plain and two varigated, and planted them in one pot. They hang rather high, as I want them to have room to grow full and long*, so I only see the bottom of the vines. We have been cold but there has been a lot of very sunny weather, and when I was watering them I noticed the leaves are huge! By the end of summer it should be a very nice looking plant. The pothos is also doing nicely, and the spider plant, which was originally a house warming gift from one ofthe village teachers when I hit Larsen Bay and is now two who knows how many great grandbabies of the original starter gift was looking rather bleak last Autumn. It has also gone crazy, and I am expecting shoots any time now.

Ack, the teens are home, I ought to think of something to feed them.