Brrrr! - October 14, 2024

 It's cold on the back porch tonight.  It's supposed to get down to the mid-40s tonight, and maybe a light frost tomorrow night.  I am not mentally ready for cold weather.  

My workspace will probably be cold in the morning.  

I got a lot done today.  The Part A files are almost sorted by year, except for a few strays that are probably hiding in the Part B boxes, which I tore into today.  Before I can do much with those boxes, I'm going to need some muscle.  Things need to be brought down from the tops of file cabinets, and other things need to go up.  Empty file cabinets need to be moved or uncovered and put to use.  Mounds of cardboard need to be toted away.  

It's nearing time for decisions that are over my pay grade.  

Sunday - October 13, 2024

Around lunchtime Friday, my daughter-in-law texted me to ask if I would make her a meatloaf. She'd had surgery a day or two earlier and wasn't up to cooking.  I did not mind making her a meatloaf - as a matter of fact, I should have done it without being asked -but I selfishly wondered if I would be able to do it in time to get my Friday night margarita freak on.  We'd missed two or three consecutive Friday margarita nights in a row, and I was especially looking forward to this one.

After work, I rushed to the grocery store for ingredients and then hurried home to start cooking.  By 4:15, I was pulling into her driveway to deliver the meal - meatloaf, creamed potatoes from scratch, green beans, rolls, and a store-bought cake for dessert - plenty of time left to come home, shower, dress, and be ready for dinner by 6.  Easy, peasy.  There was even time to prep the morning coffee and turn down the bed.

The Husband has been told not to let me have two margaritas at dinner, but he cannot be depended on to enforce it (as if he really could).  When the waiter asked if we wanted another margarita, I said, "YES!" and The Husband did not even remind me.  He'd had a tough week, and he wanted another one, too.  I don't know about him, but I could not have passed a field sobriety test when we left the restaurant.  Thankfully, we had a designated driver.  I went to bed as soon as we got home.  Woke up about 3 a.m. with a headache.  (Imagine that.)  Two Tylenols, big glass of water, back to bed.  

Yesterday morning wasn't nearly as nasty as I feared.

I wanted to just sit on the back porch and paint (or watch somebody else paint on YouTube) all day, but we had stuff to do.  Granddaughter #2 and family have gone with to an out-of-state band competition, and they needed us to go let the dogs out to pee.  We also needed to run by the hardware store for a switch for the dryer.  Since we were going to town, anyway, I decided to stop by the grocery store for a ham to bake.  I sent some to the post-surgical daughter-in-law and will take some to the post-band trip daughter-in-law later today.  There's enough left for our dinner tonight, plus some "nubs" for cooking with beans, which are soaking as I write.

I really, really want to paint today.  Friday I learned that the woman who teaches the painting class I was attending (back in the spring) lost a sister, a daughter, and a husband to separate illnesses, all in one month.  I want to paint a sympathy card for her.  It's probably going to take 14 tries before I get one that's reasonably nice.  And I'll probably screw that one up when I write the message inside.

Morning Edition - October 10, 2024

On a normal day, I would have been at work for almost an hour by this time, but there were complications.  The maintenance dude who usually unlocks my workroom had a meeting to attend at 7:00 this morning.  I could have gone in 30 minutes earlier to allow him time to let me in and get where he needs to be by7:00, but I did not want to go that early.  The meeting should be over by 10, at which time he will call/text me, and I'll drag my lazy butt to work.

In Phase II, Part 1, only a few boxes remain to be emptied and sorted.  I've peeked into them.  They mostly contain Part 2 files, but I'll have to go through them before I can finish Part 1, as there's some Part 1 stuff mixed in with the Part 2 stuff.  Imagine that.  :-/  

Of the original 20 boxes of unnumbered files, 5 boxes remain to be gone through.  Numbering the files myself is reducing the volume of "mystery files" by more than 50%; there should be about 6 boxes of files when I'm done.  Someone up the food chain will have to decide how to treat those files, but this will have to do it before I begin putting the files in numerical order, and I already know what's going to happen; they will drag their feet until I finally say, "Send them back to me."

I'm going to need more file cabinets.

Sunday afternoon - October 6, 2024

My nose has been full of stink for 3 days.

We just got home from a weekend at Pickwick Lake.  Business trip for The Husband.  In case you don't know, there's a paper mill in the neighborhood.  I don't know what its steam pipes are belching, but it stinks to high heaven.  Sulfur.  Rotten Eggs.  Whatever.  It smells the same way (with a hint of cleaner and such) inside the lodge.  When we got to our room, we opened the balcony door; the air outside smelled better.  Maybe it dissipates at certain times of the day.  I got a little nose-blind to it after we'd been there a while, but in the middle of the night Friday night, I woke up going, "GYAH!" and got up to open the balcony door to let some air in. IT WAS WORSE OUTSIDE.  I shut the door and smeared some perfume under my nose (didn't have any Vicks) and went back to bed. It did not work; I went nose blind to the perfume but not the funk.  

Saturday, while the meeting members were doing their business, I invited the footloose "plus ones" to go with me to an outdoor flea market up the road in a little town called "Crump."  It surprised me when three of them jumped at the chance.  We loaded up and went to Crump about 10:00.  The flea market is huge - both sides of the road.  We parked and made our way past the chickens and goats and such to the tables lined with STUFF.  One of the ladies is pushing 80, and she was wearing black pants and a pretty jacket.  I was trying to stick close to her to watch her.  When I found a rake handle that I wanted to buy and realized I was totally BROKE, I parked her on a bench under a tent by an ice-cream vendor, and I ran up the road to a quick stop to get some cash from the ATM.  When I got back, she was GONE. I found her inside the ice-cream shack, fanning under the air conditioner.  She'd almost fainted, and some thoughtful person had ushered her inside where it was cool.  I rounded up the other ladies and we got the fainter to the truck.  I wanted to drive her back to the lodge and then the other ladies and I were going to visit an indoor flea market.  The fainter revived and insisted that she was able to hang with us, and she did.  After we did the indoor market, we all went back to the lodge.  She was still doing fine at dinner that evening.  

This morning, the Husband and I high-tailed it out of there as early as we could.  

And came home to a grassy yard littered with limbs and sticks, courtesy of Helene, and a porch full of stinkbugs.  I went straight for the lawnmower as soon as I dumped my stuff in the house.  After showering off the yard dust and the sulfur smell, I came out to the porch and started vacuuming stinkbugs.  

And now my nose is full of stink again.

Phase II mini-victory - October 3,2024

Today I tackled boxes I'd been dreading.  Some of the boxes were in a creepy corner and underneath a big sheet of burnt metal.  (Don't ask me what it is or why it's there.)  Messing with the metal seemed risky for a lot of reasons, one of which is the large number of years it's been since I had a tetanus shot.  I dragged out as many boxes as I could without injuring myself.

One of the boxes was a gold mine.  It appeared to be the contents of a desk.  It was mostly personal stuff - 50-year-old newspaper clippings and such, but in it was also one of the old lost files I was asked to find.  It also contained photographs of a still-busting.  As in moonshine.  No clue where it happened, and not even a date on the photographs, but based on the clothing and vehicle styles, I'd guess it happened in the early 70's.  I could've dug around in that box for hours, but it wasn't the kind of stuff I needed, so I moved on.  

But I set that box aside for another day. ;)

Stinkbugs - October 2, 2024

I hope you haven't found this post by accident, looking for advice on how to deter/get rid of/kill stinkbugs.  If I knew, I'd tell you, but it would be a waste of time to continue reading.  

Modern science should invent a stinkbug that smells good.  I'm sure they'll get right on that, once they solve the mosquito thing. 

Anyway, we have tried all sorts of things, and yet here they are, crawling around (inside and outside) our back porch screens.  We keep a spray bottle of water/soap (with a hefty shot of bleach to give it some *sting*) on the back porch, and the first thing we do when we come out to the porch is start squirting. The squirter is set to "Stream."  It knocks some off, some fly away, away, but others are like, "Is that all you got?" If he's on the *inside* of the screen, the answer is, "No, as a matter of fact, it's not," and I fire up the old Dyson and suck him up.

(Don't try this in the house; the vacuum cleaner fan will blow stinkbug air.)

You would not believe how satisfying it is to hear (and feel) him go THWUMP down that vacuum cleaner hose.  

It doesn't kill them, though, it just pisses them off.  And they crawl around inside the cannister or bag, spewing stink. This Dyson has a clear canister; I can see them scurrying around inside it.  Hear them scratching, sometimes, or flying against the glass. I usually just leave them in there until the canister needs emptying, and then I dump them in a bucket of soapy water, where they drown.

Of course, then you have to deal with the bucket of stinkbug carcasses.

* * * * * *

I interrupt this post to report the results of an experiment that came to mind while I was writing about bleach in the stinkbug bottle.  I don't really like to put bleach in the spray.  Vinegar might be a good substitute.  I dumped what was in the bottle, washed it out, and made a 50/50 vinegar and water mix, with three or four squirts of dishwashing liquid.  Shook it up and came outside to try it out.  THEY HATE THIS VINEGAR/SOAP/WATER mix worse than they hated the bleach.   I stood there and watched them stagger and then fall to the ground, but I did not go outside to see if they laid there or staggered away.  

Community Garden Clean-up - September 30, 2024

Until this afternoon, I had not set foot in the community garden for about two months. First it was covid.  Then my knee went out.  Then The Husband had two surgeries.  And then it rained and rained and rained. I'd put the word out that I was under the weather, and that if anything in our plot was ready to pick and donate, anyone was welcome to do it.

I got to a good stopping place in the workroom about 2 this afternoon and decided to have a look at the garden.  I'd planted indeterminant tomatoes, and they've been revved up.  There were LOTS of spoiled tomatoes on the vines, 6.2 pounds (I weighed them) of green tomatoes, and a couple of squash.  After picking everything that could be picked, I pulled up the tomato vines, cut the basil WAY back (it's putting on new growth), pulled up the easy weeds, and hauled everything to the compost bin.  The ground is too wet to work or I would have chopped out all the weeds and scattered mustard seeds over the plot.   I hope to do that before the week is over.

Phase II is coming right along.  Still far from finished, but making real progress.