Sunday, By the Hour

Inspired by a recent post from NGS, I decided to do an hourly photo post about my day, and of course I wanted it to be a weekend, since 8 photos in a row of "Here I am working at my desk" don't really fit the theme, you know? So here's Sunday. (With, as it turned out, many pictures of Maggie instead. Oh, well, I stay true to myself.)

7AM, wishing I was still asleep, but Maggie is very happy to be settling down on my lap for a nap after her (second) breakfast. 

On work days, my alarm goes off at 6:30, and some days I'm awake-ish before that, other days not. I used to always be asleep when it went off, and hit the snooze button a few times, but I appear to have moved on to a new phase. Oh joy. I want to sleep late, damn it.

By 8, Maggie was letting me know she was ready to be fed again. Yes, she is spoiled.

"Well? Come on!"

At 9, I was at my desk, trying to chip away at the long list of small things I needed to get done after my trip. Noting the books I read and the days I had headaches, opening the mail, and on and on.

(I never promised they would all be interesting photos!)

At 10, after a shower, I was back at it, this time photographing the yarn I bought on my trip, in order to blog about it, and enter it in Ravelry.

Three yarn stores, and it looks like two people with very different color taste did the buying! But it's all for meeeee...and some of it was on sale.

By 11, having had a bit to eat, and tucked Maggie under a blanket (her idea, of course) for her next nap, I was straightening out the sweater-in-progress, officially half done as I'm halfway through the yarn. Next step, start the sleeves!

Well, technically, the next step was to wind the rest of the yarn. Which I did while listening to the recording of last week's Live from the Workroom, with Franklin Habit (you have to be one of his Patrons to see the livestreams, but it's a nice little group, lively chat, and I enjoy it).

At noon, while wondering how it could possibly only be noon and wishing I was a person who could nap, I updated the calendar for next week; Mom and I keep two weeks on the fridge, to coordinate who's doing what when. 

By 1, I've fed the cat again, and taken care of a few health things.

My doctor wants me to check my blood pressure at home now and then, so I have finally started tracking that (so far, it's fine), plus it was time for my depo shot. My GYN lets me do it myself at home, and frankly I don't like doing it at all--I don't mind needles if I don't have to look at them, but you can't give yourself a shot without looking--but it beats having to tweak my work schedule by half a day for a visit that takes under five minutes until you add the drive and the inevitable wait. So I've been doing it, and gagging. Why yes, I love being closer to my 55th birthday than the 54th and still not being done with this shit, thank you for asking!

Fun fact, once they sent in a prescription for the vial instead of the pre-filled syringe, and the (very nice) person at the pharmacy told me that they could sell me a needle and I could....and I nope-nope-noped out of that at once. Apparently the PFS is the very edge of my tolerance for this stuff. 

After that, I settled down on the couch, thinking that I might have another cat-lap opportunity. But she didn't take her chance, and a few minutes later, I looked up and saw this:

She wanted to be elsewhere, clearly. I helped her find the way underneath the blanket on the love seat. So that makes four different places she's napped, so far this day.

At 2, I was catching up on the supplements from the local paper that had piled up.

Done and recycled!

At 3, I was back at the desk, with the sidekick cat now keeping me company.

She watched me for a bit, then turned toward the window. A change is as good as a rest, I guess. She does like watching (and listening to) the birds outside.

At 4, I was back on the couch, reading. I've been re-reading the Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy Sayers, most of which I remember only parts of the who-done-it, and I love Peter. It's restful reading. I own a few of the print books (just kept my favorites when I moved), and have bought a few e-books and am borrowing the others from the library. 

Foreground: library book on tablet. Background: Maggie as a lump under yet another blanket (It's actually a cozy jacket-thing that is too warm for down here most of the time, so it lives on the couch where Maggie can crawl in when her whimsey takes her).

At 5, I went looking for Maggie, who had gotten down from there, and found her on Mom's lap.

Very pleased with herself. If you haven't been counting, this was her sixth nap spot of the day. The girl sleeps around. I performed what we refer to here as Cat Removal Service, so Mom could get up.

Shortly after 5, she returned to the start of her day, and got back on my lap.

She was still on my lap at 6, but by 7, she had moved to a blanket on the floor.

At 8, guess who was where again?

At just after 9, we were in bed. She frequently wants me to be in bed, on my side, so she can lean against my legs and have a bath before bed.

The other night, in fact, she was washing me as well as herself.

I usually go to bed closer to 9 than 10; I wake up too early, whether I want to or not, to stay up very late. I put on an audio book and play a few rounds of solitaire on my tablet before setting the timer on the audio book to fall asleep to. I listen to books I'm familiar with, so they won't grab my attention too much to fall asleep, and they seem to give my brain something to hang on to, instead of the array of random thoughts that otherwise crop up and push sleep off.

Anyone else listen to something (not like white noise) to fall asleep to? I suppose people who don't re-read books wouldn't want to, perhaps. I get into certain series and stick with them for a while: Martha Wells' Murderbot books, and her Raksura series, are frequent ones. Lately I've been listening to Katherine Addison's books, The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones, over and over. I can not WAIT for the next book in the series!

Movies and More Movies (Ratings, that is)

Goodness, has it really been two months since I put up some Boston Globe movie ratings? No wonder there are so many. Well, let's get to it, shall we?

Nothing worse than wasted profanity, right?

Oh, that dude!

Sounds more like violins than violence to me, but then I never was into Mario.

Yikes!

Good to know.

Oh, but here are the violins!

Can't help it!

Nice wordplay.

And here!

Phew, more profanity!

And more! It's everywhere.

Had to share the start of this review: one star, ouch!

Not just profanity.

I really do hope that peacock is CGI or something. No animals were harmed...?

Hmm, "on the whole"?

Have you gone to the movies lately? What did you see, and how was it? I haven't gone in a while, but I can report that a friend saw Air and loved it.

Grinding My Gears

When I say that the alarm going off this morning was a rude awakening, I mean it both literally and metaphorically. Getting up, going to work! Ugh. 

I haven't finished unpacking.

I have so much Stuff to do.

So, here: have some flower photos.

Home: Back to Reality (vacation is more fun)

I had a great trip, but I'm glad to be home, with my own bed and my cat. 

I'm especially glad that Past Me was smart enough to take this morning off work, since I got in late yesterday and having to set the alarm and dive right in to work this morning would have been even worse than doing it after lunch was (200 emails, ugh).

More to come, but for now, a few photos of my furry, demanding welcoming committee.

I ran downstairs to get something from the car this morning, wasn't gone five minutes, and she was waiting for me at the door. Raow! Raow! Where have you been?

Packed

This is to let you know that I may not be back here for a bit, I'll be away (yay, vacation!) and who knows if I'll post from there, or how rough the re-entry will be. I hope to return smoothly, with pictures and stories, so cross your fingers for me.

I just finished my packing, and didn't have to wrestle with the suitcase to close it. What am I forgetting?

And Not So Funny

The email says:

• Tell us about your recent AT&T experience
• How Did We Do?
• Please take a few minutes to share your recent experiences with us. 
• This survey should take no longer than 10 minutes.

Do you know what this "recent experience" was?

I downloaded my bill.

That's it. I didn't look at anything else on the site or in my account. Downloaded the bill for my records.

It didn't take half of 10 minutes, and they want me to complete a survey on it?

This is getting ridiculous.

~~~~~

The latest forecast for my trip north is, hmmm, how to describe it, up and down. Today's high, it said this morning, was supposed to be 83, lovely! And tomorrow's? 60. Um. I don't miss the mood swings of weather in New England.

I get in Thursday night, and it's ... not going to be Florida temps, for sure.

I'll be packing the layers, all right. I can't wait for the trip, other than the weather!

Funny Follow-Up

After my mini-rant last week about surveys and reviews for every breath I take, I was very amused to see these cartoons in Adult Children: this one first, then this one. (I'm hoping there will be more this week.) Worth clicking through to see!

Fun fact: I did not know the name of this comic strip, though I've been reading it for a while. See, it shows up in Feedly listed as "StBeals by Stephen Beals," so I think of it as StBeals. Which, no, makes no sense. Things don't always, in my head.

~~~~~

I've been working on getting organized ahead of my trip to New England, which I mentioned when I was fretting about the weather a few weeks ago (the forecast has warmed up a bit: but hey, cold by Florida standards doesn't mean really cold, I do know that)(remind me I said that when it's 50 degrees at night and I'm shivering)(on second thought, don't remind me).

I have to do the work in stages, partly because you can't pack some things until closer to departure, and partly because after a certain amount of bending and moving, my back is very persuasive in getting me to stop. It's such a wimp. Ow.

I have my carry-on organized now---by which I mean the bag to access on the plane, as I'm not checking a bag, so I'll have a small roller suitcase to "carry on" as well. Oh joy. I mean, thank god it has wheels, but if you think my back is unhappy now, just wait.

Where was I? Oh, yes: I've got most of the "things" sorted out, and now I need to see how much warm clothing I can cram into the roller. Right, clothing! To wear! I'll want some of that. I'm pretty sure.

Rocks and Doors

On Thursday, one of the places across the street from us had the landscapers there putting in, not mulch around the landscaping, as one might expect, but small rocks. 

Hours and hours of the sound of shoveling rocks. Out of the truck into the cart, then off the cart onto the ground, rocks, rocks, rocks. Shovels of rocks.

Rocks are not quiet.

On Friday, the same sound was coming from next door, and I had to close my office window. Between that and the bird outside the window with its endless who-who-who, who-who-who, who-who-who, who-who-who, who-who-who, I could feel my sanity leaking out my ears.

At least it's Friday. And I get to plan my packing this weekend (I don't leave until Thursday, but it's good to get the piles started). Travel anticipation is fun!

Also fun, well, sort of, is that the garage door is finally done! There were several more steps in the process since I wrote about it, but as of today, they say it's done, for realzies this time. And when I was downstairs putting my car back in it, our wonderful handy neighbor was going by and stopped to say that he thinks they did a good job, which is nice to hear, since it's not like I can tell. 

He also said that while he was looking at it earlier, he noticed that the handle on the people door was loose, so he tightened it. In addition to being very nice, he is super handy to have around!  He and his wife are good folks, and we're lucky to have them in the building. Hooray for good neighbors.

Seen While Out

A few random things I've seen recently, such as this matter-of-fact shirt:

I just thought this was such a pretty color.

The light had just changed, so I cut off the edge in my hurry to get the picture, but I do wonder what they mean by having a plate that says 1WINGNUT.

Though maybe not as much as I wonder about FLY BABE. But to each their own.

Check out the orange tree! 

I did not get a photo of a business van going by, but I did laugh to see that it was a company that installs generators and its slogan is "We turn you on"!