Tuesday Travels

[LadyMaverick]

School ended with a reward for DS8 effort after the tears. We all went to see Rogue One. Yes, I used bribery! I don't use it very often but some days call for more incentive and today was one of those days.

DS8 continues in his effort to overcome his anxiety. He states his fears and we discuss the possibility of them being true. He won't run out of the air in the pickup while DH gets gas. He won't be locked in the movie theater. We won't leave him at Sam's. It goes on and on and on. Each time it is proven to not be true gives him confidence. Bit by bit. We have named his untrue anxiety thoughts as "Stinking Thinking".

We dropped off the rest of the Christmas candy to a local charity that helps teens. I am glad to get it out of our house! The chocolate nut clusters were a big temptation to me.

[Harriet]

My skippable day -
At bank they were able to print out a sort of a statement for me - odd, reverse-order, perforated sides obscuring dates, and very faint - even though they were only hours into their new year. I'd already been working on the report and had part of it plugged in.

Dd and I were then stopped in WMart by a church couple with lots of questions - of course. They tell me another member has questions she had asked them, and they didn't know. Anyone would, when we've been told we're expected to vote on a budget without having received info about the year ending. I asked them to please write them down in a couple sentences and give them to me Sunday so that I'll be sure not to forget. They were appreciative, saying they didn't want to seem ignorant.

Was going to get HRH to look with me at a spreadsheet line that I needed to express a total, but was giving me trouble.

As we sat down to the computer, I saw a disturbing email from the elder I chased down to talk Sunday. It shows me that he had no idea what I was talking about then and that he hasn't thought about it since, and now it occurs to him to email and suggest random things he thinks it might be. I've been ranting since. HRH and dd can't live with me. The end of the email says he expects me to be present with all pertinent info Sunday. Duh. I was always going to be, as usual, but I'm sure I'll be the only one. I'd be insulted at the inference that I might not, except the general cluelessness tells me this word choice was clueless, too.

Phoned the elder and he's now phoned me back and did say that, "in retrospect, it would have been better if we had coordinated our schedule with you". Also told him I'm still waiting on the letterhead to do the individual statements and he seemed shocked - I don't know why he would be. I didn't have it last year, either, and was asking for it then - never did get it and he was aware then that I had to use plain black font. How is it that he thinks these things will happen. This is why our former treasurer yelled so much with a red face. Poor, dear thing. I have such compassion for him now!

[Harriet]

Less skippable! More fun!

I got two cute tops today. They are somewhat light colored, but attractive fabric and dd was insistent that I would be glad I grabbed them when I had the chance. Her opinion does sway me sometimes. She is not easily impressed, and brutally honest.

Ds had asked HRH to have me call him when I got in, but didn't say what it was about. HRH and I both thought that was odd - he usually tells HRH anything. Turns out, his municipal gov folks are wanting to have a trivia/fun event for all the employees and family. One of the ideas is for all employees of the city to submit one childhood and one baby photo and see who can win at guessing the identities of the most co-workers. He had one photo in mind, since the childhood photo is supposed to come under the category of "most awkward". But he leaned to my opinion on the baby photo, and I chose a posed one, seated in his overalls. He says it is fine if he is recognized; in fact he thinks it would be more fun since everyone will enjoy teasing the Deputy Chief. That's good, since firemen don't have much more hair as adults than they did as babies, and the baby photo looks just like him.

helia, you can imagine my worry about ds needing specific childhood photos right away. I did find them both within about 15 minutes but, frankly, I know I was lucky. I would give you a run for your money, I'm sure, on the sheer size of a job to really get family photos organized.

[lucylee]

Oh (((Harriet))) -- just shaking my head.

We are home. Pleasant but uneventful trip, not counting the ballgame, of course. Thanks for kind words re: our defense, LadyM. Sigh.
I'm enjoying the tree for one more night... putting stuff away tomorrow. That's the plan, anyway.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Cathy, I heard that not going to ds's today may have been a mistake since tomorrow's weather will be worse. Hard to believe. But it has been 4 days since we've received 6" of snow so we are about due. This has been such a bad winter for snow compared to recent years.

Furniture moving is done. Not without casualties. My maternal grandfather's music cabinet was being moved to beside my desk and suffered multiple scratches on the way. Dh is sick about it. The ones on the side I don't mind as much since it is tucked in a corner, but the ones on the front needed to be coloured in with a marker and then me polish the front in an attempt to minimize them.

I've moved a floor lamp to beside my desk to get more light here. I might invest in a 3-way bulb for it. And/or a touch switch for it. It is nice to have decent light here. The room is big and I don't have enough light in it.

There is a lot of work to do tomorrow if I'm here. In the meantime I've emailed ds with a list of things I'll be taking tomorrow.

[Harmony]

Hello. What a day.

(blessed) be sure to take care of yourself while you take care of everyone else. So easy to say, hard to do.

Bittersweet, great to see you here again!

I should have traveled a great distance by now, my wheels were spinning so fast today. See, that's the thing about spinning wheels, sometimes they don't go anywhere. They just spin.

I started in on paperwork this morning, working on my last spreadsheet, well one of the last. I found several problems which had to be fixed on multiple sheets and I was knee deep in all that when DH came back and wanted help with his truck again. He had gotten another switch because yesterday's did not work. We worked all afternoon, about 4 hours, took everything apart again and got it all fixed and all put together, all the molded parts of the dashboard (not an easy job). Probably at least as hard as Lilac's tile job.

DH's a/c in his go-to truck now works. I am crossing my fingers nothing under the hood or in the dash catches on fire. I hate electrical work.

Did manage to get the kitchen cleaned up. Big progress.

News from customer tonight had us doing paperwork till just now. I need to get everything together from big file box also. I will do that before I go to bed. Sigh... it never ends.

I will probably take the Christmas tree down as soon as I get a chance. I noticed a little amber color through the angel topper's white lace skirt and apparently the lights are burning the plastic cone which makes her bottom shape. I am afraid to put the tree on if I am out of the room now. Reading Kathryn's bin problem has me happy my stuff is in smaller bins and boxes, and all fit on 2 upper shelves in my master bedroom closet. My tree fits in a narrow cardboard box that doesn't weigh very much and is easy to toss up on top.

I've never been sorry that I got rid of that big tall heavy white tree we had. It was too heavy to get up on top of the cabinet where we kept it, also it turned brown from the heat. I don't miss it. I will be able to put this year's outside lights in a medium sized bin easily too. I keep all my wreaths down low on a shelf in narrow boxes.