[telracs]

i am working for a bunch of people i know who have this image of me as a night owl, so i'm going along with the overnight for now, especially since my commute is 2 minutes.

 

[loonlover]

Good morning.

Some sunshine this morning and rain moving in this evening. The rain is supposed to end in the wee hours of the morning.

We settled on sandwiches from Chicken Salad Chick yesterday. We've never been disappointed with our orders there. I messed up on supper last night and managed to turn the oven off so the casserole wasn't done when the timer went off. Sometimes I really wonder about myself. My intent was to turn off the induction burner, but somehow reached too high and turned the oven off and even though I realized I hadn't turned the burner off, it didn't register that I had actually turned something else off. We finished baking the casserole, but scrambled to fix something else for supper. We'll see if the casserole is worth eating at lunch today.

Just housework on the agenda for the rest of the day. II was asked if he would work this afternoon, but he declined. He really doesn't like to go in on short notice like that.

Hope your day is a good one. Stay safe.

 

[Andra]

Good morning.
We had a crazy day yesterday - all kinds of stuff went wrong.  We managed, but I had to think way too hard all day.
So far things seem to be calmer today.
Glad to see everything went off without a hitch with the inauguration.
Stay safe everybody.

 

[telracs]

afternoon.....

i’m having a good day.... .7 hours of sleep after a productive night at work...  i had a check to deposit, so i decided to go to the bank and the drug store.  for some reason, i checked my mailbox before heading to the bank  and there was another jury duty check... not expected.

then i passed a young girl playing and told her i liked her boots.  she was polite and said thank you but she wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers.  good girl.

then on my roundabout walk to the drug store, passed a young couple sitting on a stoop looking very much in love.  it made me happy and we wished each other a happy new year.

 

[mlewis78]

I haven't been out since Monday. Wednesday I didn't even go downstairs to check mail. No particular reason except that I know my walking isn't so great with my knee and I've had enough food here not to have to go out. Weather hasn't been bad at all.

39 and clear now. It will be between 27-45 F on Friday. Hope you are all well.

 

[loonlover]

Good morning.

41 going to 53 today with sunny skies. Rain to move in overnight tomorrow with showers for most of Sunday.

We ran errands yesterday. Had the easiest pickup at Kroger, yet.

II working tonight, and due to one of his co-workers being exposed to Covid, he picked up an additional shift next week. At least it is a week where we have no appointments; it just means he will be sleeping late every weekday. And we're hoping his co-worker avoids becoming ill. He is older than either of us and does have some underlying health conditions.

I have my follow-up appointment with the nurse practitioner for the blood pressure issue. I don't think it has come down enough; we'll see what she says. She also said she would do blood work this visit and I intend to have her look at the bite wounds. They are healing nicely. II walked with me yesterday. It looks like the deputy has reinforced the fencing in his back yard so I think I will feel comfortable traipsing the complete distance of the sidewalk on our street again. I haven't seen his dogs out recently.

Hope your day goes well and you find something to enjoy this weekend. Stay safe.

 

[telracs]

afternoon.

i'm glad i had a good day yesterday, because my evening was an exercise in frustrated patience. 

call me silly (or anything else), but i would like consistency in my work schedule.  i hate that i am reliant on people in new jersey scanning things so i can then do the data entry, and to a lesser extent, i dislike the fact that there are bunch of people all waiting to pounce on the work when it is scanned.  so last night, i logged in at 6PM, grabbed some work did it. 

when i got close to finishing, i e-mailed for more... no response.  when i finished, i e-mailed again.  no response.  third e-mail.  no response. so i texted my boss's boss.  he said to call, but for some reason my phone and their extension system weren't compatible, so it wouldn't connect.  i thought that maybe the evening supervisor was out, so i looked for a group e-mail for the people who i figured would be doing the scanning and shot off another one.  guess what, no response.  so i finally gave up.  i left the computer in sleep mode so that i check occasionally and after 2 hour there was a dribble of work.  POUNCE!  and then other people pounced, and by the time i finished, no more work.

but.... at 11:45, just as i was going to clock out for my lunch break (clocking out before midnight and back in after midnight avoids a potential issue with time rollover), i get an e-mail there will be more work in 15 minutes.  so i clock out and and start playing word cookies, but stay by the computer so i can compete with whoever else is there... 

 

[mlewis78]

I did get out tonight to shop for mostly junk food and some spinach at Target. Left a bit after 8 from home and got home at 9:35. I don't know why it took so long. Probably slow walking.

I experimented a bit with using the other hand on the cane. I'd been told by the assistant at the knee doctor's office to carry the cane by the hand on the same side as the bad knee. I've been doing that. Looked it up online last week and every site said to use the hand on the other side. I tried that tonight. Couldn't decide which works better. Part of the time I don't use it.

36 degrees F at 2am. Saturday it will be between 34-25 which is colder than it has been. I haven't felt cold outside at all this winter. The mask adds warmth and I usually wear my jacket or coat open.

Telracs, do you know of an Italian chocolate called Venchi? They opened a shop on Broadway above 58th to replace the Grom (gelato) place. I haven't been there yet. Looks expensive, but maybe I'll get a bar of it some time.

Hope you all stay well.

 

[telracs]

no, i've never heard of them, mlewis....

i was planning on going out today, but not only did it look like it was cold outside according to my phone, it SOUNDED cold because the wind was blowing so hard.

and then i made the mistake of checking my work e-mail and looked at the work queue and ended up doing 5 hours.

does anyone have an idea of how to turn off (or at least turn down) my work ethic?  i could have easily not look at the queue and gone on my happy way, but no, i had to look.  and then when i saw that there was stuff further down the line that needed to be scanned, i had to ask about that and give myself more work..

 

[mlewis78]

I heard the wind very late in the afternoon. It is 25 now (11pm). I didn't get out today, but it was more because of getting up late than the cold weather. I tend to waste a lot of time while having the first meal while online and/or the TV on. I wanted to be sure to get in some flute playing. I missed playing last night, because I got home from food shopping at 9:35pm and still needed to put things away. I watched a walking video ("Urbanist" on youtube) where he walked from the East Village to the West Village almost to the Hudson. He said he was very cold. Lots a jokes about his mittens because of the recent Bernie memes.

I did go downstairs to check mail about 10 tonight and the vestibule was very cold. There was no mail.

I've been retired three years now (since 1/1 but still have dreams about work. It's awful. It's more to do with when I did legal secretarial work from 1987-2003. I also did a little of that in 2011 for 8 months, but that was more like personal assistant.

Tomorrow (Sunday) will be sunny between 27-36.  Hope you are all well.

 

[crebel]

Good morning.

Telracs, after knowing you for over a decade now, I don't think it's possible for you to "turn down" your work ethic, especially after being unemployed for almost 2 years and wanting to be on dependable, stable footing again. You may be able to learn to go with the flow! Be good to yourself while you're adjusting to the ebb and flow of the new job.

Our weather has been pretty typical Iowa in January, COLD with some snow ... We got a dusting of snow yesterday, but the weather forecasters are telling us we will, not the usual possibly, be getting 8-12" tomorrow. YUCK. DH is making the obligatory milk and bread run this time.

My mother got her first vaccination yesterday (she's 85 in a seniors only living facility) - WOOHOO! After the U.S. events of last Wednesday, I feel more hopeful than I have in a long time. My arm and wrist continue to slowly improve, though I think "pretty achy" during severe weather is likely to be the norm from now on.

Stay safe, be well, and be kind to others as well as yourselves.

 

[telracs]

crebel and i are experimenting to see if we cause the world to explode by posting back to back here....

i put in a few hours of work during the day on Saturday, but when i went in to check for work around midnight, there wasn't much in the queue, although again, there definitely appeared to be a backlog to be scanned on the office end.

so i did 2 hours and then went to bed.

plan for the day is breakfast, one episode of GGG, quick grocery run.  i am hoping for a phone call from a friend in Arizona around 3 PM, but this guy has a habit of getting caught up in stuff and missing our call times.  i plan on stopping at the bank to try and see if my first paycheck went in and hitting the local bakery for apple turnovers.

 

[Andra]

Happy weekend.
It has been damp and dreary here the past two days. I have been cleaning and doing laundry.
I am also trying once again to get a better fitness routine in place. I was doing really well last year until everything went to heck and I stopped caring.
We got through another Commission meeting. I have 8 weeks before the next one.
Glad to hear you are mostly doing well.
Telracs, I can't help with the work ethic problem. The only advice I have is that you should not check on your queue if you would rather not work.
Stay safe.

 

[telracs]

i might not have explained it well.  i WANT to work.  the problem is that people in the office are not putting stuff in the queue for me to do. if they had done their part and scanned stuff, i would have been able to do them.  but if they aren't there, i can't do them. 

and i don't want to be the person constantly complaining to the boss that there's no work for me to do.

 

[Annalog]

Good evening from southern Arizona. It rained today.  It is supposed to rain and snow tomorrow.  Tuesday we are supposed to get 1 to 3 inches of snow!  I will believe it when I see it. At least I know where my warm coats and jackets are as I had DH take a photo of me so that I could post a cosplay photo of me as Bernie. Costumes and dress up -- how could I resist! I didn't have mittens so I wore a pair of oven mitts. DH said, "Of course his mittens are oversize! How else are you supposed to wear them over your gloves when it is COLD outside?" Clearly DH grew up where winters are cold!

Today was day 14 of a three week sewing room declutter sewing room challenge. I have been making progress but it is definitely going to take me more than three weeks! I have also been working on the Gravity and Nebula quilt blocks.

DH has been having problems with headaches on his right side as well as with the BPPV which are both related to his seasonal allergies. He wondered if maybe sleeping on his left side instead of his right might make a difference. He has slept on his right side for as long as we have been married. A few days ago we switched our bedroom to make that possible. It took over three hours. That may seem excessive but we have adjustable twin XL beds with different mattresses so we had to physically switch the beds. We also had to move my desk, his CPAP, and other stuff. Yesterday we moved the bookcases and my dresser. Fortunately, the move seems to be working! His headaches aren't as bad and he hasn't had another vertigo incident. 

I hope your day is wonderful. Stay safe and healthy. Be excellent to each other and also to yourself.

 

[mlewis78]

I just posted (maybe a minute later or the same time as Anna), and the post disappeared. Nothing important, just about going on a short errand for wine and a few things at D'Agostinos, a very overpriced store that I avoid. But they do have better boxes of tissues. Since the pandemic all the tissues in stores here have too few tissues. The store brand at D'Ags is better, but they are $4 per box and I bought two of them. They are right across the street from the wine store on 10th Avenue, so it was convenient. It didn't feel too cold out with my down coat on and two masks. There was no wind. Yesterday the wind was howling.

Hope everyone is well.

 

[telracs]

just a brief check in while i take care of some other stuff on the computer.

i belong to swagbucks and usually manage to get about 50 dollars in amazon GCs per month (no this is not a plug, but is anyone is interested in joining, let me know so i may be able to snag more points).....

over the weekend, i got an outback e-mail that they have a new special peppercorn short ribs. so i decided i want that.  now, outback is a HIKE from here, just under a 45 minute walk.  but i think my getting lots of points towards GCs makes it worthwhile. 
when i order form  mygiftcardsplus i get points for both my amazon Visa and for swagbucks.  and they were having an offer on mygiftcards, so on a 50 dollar outback GC, i got $2.75 towards my next amazon GC on swagbucks.

i wasn't sure how long it would take my outback GC to post, that's why i did it now when i woke up briefly.  later i'll go back on line and pre-order my short ribs and other stuff (50 dollars can get me enough food for the rest of the week), and then later i'll hike to Outback and back. 

 

[loonlover]

Good morning.

Temperatures rose overnight with the low of 50 occurring about midnight. It was 63 when I arose with dense fog. Heavy rain fell several times during the night with some thunderstorms mixed in. Our high today is to be in the 70s with sunny skies this afternoon.

Friday was my recheck of the blood pressure issue. It is still too high so the medicine dosage was increased. I saw the nurse practitioner for both recent visits. She has already called this morning to let me know all of the lab results were normal other than the vitamin D level being slightly low. She had already advised me to start taking a vitamin and vitamin D daily. Amazing, the dosage of vitamin D I bought Saturday was what she recommended this morning.

We started out Saturday thinking we had an appointment at the Humane Society to see about adopting a cat. Mid-morning they called to cancel as they decided the cat I was interested in wasn't ready for adoption after all. They asked if there were other cats I would be interested in; there was, we set a new appointment for yesterday afternoon, and we now have a new member of the household. (No telling how long it will take her to come out from under the spare bed, however.) Mystic weighs no more than 7 pounds, is black with white paws, chin, and some white on her chest. I'm going to try to lure her out after breakfast and see if I can hold her like I did while at the Humane Society. This is the first time I have brought a cat into the house and not had at least one other cat since 1982. We have plenty of time to allow her to adjust to new circumstances. II works Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week so it will be quiet around here most of the time. That should help.

Hope your day goes well. Stay healthy. Stay safe.

 

[Andra]

Good morning.  We have sunshine!  I am going to eat lunch on the back patio.
Congrats on the kitty LL.  I had to promise DH that I wouldn't go looking for another cat after we lost Jasmine in 2018.  It is still very weird to not have a cat (or two).  Maybe when we go back to working in an office that is not at the house, we can get Ginger some kitties to keep her company during the day.
Stay safe.

 

[mlewis78]

Telracs, enjoy your Outback food.

Loonlover, congrats on getting your cat. The last two I had came together and both were black and white tuxedo cats. I bonded with the smaller one first, because big Pumpkin went into hiding behind my platform bed for 24 hours. Pumpkin was the longer living cat and she was the older one. She was tough and seemed very well until the last few days (2016).

34 degrees F at midnight. We are expecting snow for Tuesday. This will only be our 2nd substantial snowfall, but I don't know how much it will be. I went out tonight to Target to replenish crackers and soda stash. Before that I played flute for a while.

Hope you all stay well.