It's a little cool on the back porch this morning, but I've got a thick housecoat and a hot cup of coffee, so it's tolerable. How I miss my morning porch sessions! My new job has cut an hour off the time I can lollygag before work, and an hour off my evening hours at home. Thirty years ago, this was my normal schedule (except that sometimes my work days were even longer). I wonder how I did it with two little kids at home.
Speaking of the new job, it got moderately more interesting this week. I met with the school superintendent Tuesday morning about the work he wants me to do for the school system. He asked me to work on obtaining a grant to tornado-proof a hallway in each of the county schools. He promised to hook me up with the county emergency management honcho and the county maintenance honcho, and since the superintendent is a get-er-done kinda guy, the meeting happened Wednesday. The next day, I spent time on the phone with the state emergency management folks, and before the day was over, I was able to file the pre-application for the grant. Now that the ball is finally rolling, I'm feeling a tad more useful.
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Our plan for today was to go to Granddaughter #1's band competition, but the flu is raging through the schools, and so many of the band members are out sick that the band has had to cancel its plan to compete. While I enjoy being out in the fresh air all day, I am kind of glad to be home today. Earlier this week, Son #2 asked if I could make some t-shirts for him and his family to wear on a trip they'll be taking next week. I said I would, even though I wondered how I was going to find the time to do it. We talked about whether to do the shirts with heat-press vinyl or sublimation ink. After he sent me the artwork, we agreed that sublimation would be the best route. The next night, he and his wife went shopping for shirts made out of the right kind of material for sublimating.
When my son sent me the artwork, I decided to go ahead and print the transfer so that when he brought me the shirts, I could slap on the transfers and send the shirts back home with him. Easier said than done. I have done neither vinyl nor sublimation for months and have forgotten most everything I knew about either process. By the time he arrived with the shirts the next evening, I'd managed to get the artwork ready to print, but my printer would not cooperate. I guess the ink nozzles were stopped up, for my test prints came out blank. I sent him home without the shirts, half afraid that I'd never be able to print the transfers. But after running several nozzle-cleaning routines, the printer began to work. The plan for today (since we're not going to the competition) is to get the shirts done, assuming the printer nozzles haven't stopped up again.
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We had some sad news in the family this week. Aunt B, who lives across the road from us, died this week after a 20-year battle with cancer. Nanny (Aunt B's sister) is heartbroken, for they were close, having lived next door to one another for many years. Aunt B's husband is in his early 90s and frail, and his memory is impaired. We are all worried how he will manage his day-to-day living. He has two children and a granddaughter living nearby, and two more children who live away. Life is about to get more difficult for them all. :(
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The stinkbugs are marshalling their forces on my porch screens again. I fought them INSIDE the porch all spring, convinced that last year's stinkbug crop had LAID EGGS inside the porch. They seemed not to react to bug spray, so I resorted to vacuuming them. Last week, someone told me that a mixture of Dawn dish detergent and water would kill them. I mixed up a pretty potent potion and set the spray nozzle on "STREAM," and every time I see a stinkbug, inside or outside the screens, I let him have it full force. I'm not sure what is happening to the ones that fall onto the ground outside the screens, but I keep squirting the ones that land on the porch floor until they give up the ghost. I may be just drowning them.
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