Thursday PWYC - Halfway Through January!

[Harriet]

Hi, about every other attempt, I'm getting an explanation that there is a problem with a server. how widespread a concern, who knows.

Phone service for dd27 seems to have been restored sometime in the morning hours, not sure when.

So glad to see it looks like we're managing to post here, though.

Ramblin', great report about your caring help there. I hope Cathy has all the same positive result. And blessed continues to benefit.

~~~ Appointment and travel blessings ~~~ wished to everyone with overloaded calendars! We have two next week, both distant, but this week has been a relief.

Joining Nancy, I lost playing Thread Chicken this morning and had to change machine thread, but that's a small problem when there is another close color among the spools. With yarn, you don't have that luxury. I am to the point of photographing these blocks and labeling them with row and number and setting them to the side.

[Harriet]

Hi, about every other attempt, I'm getting an explanation that there is a problem with a server. how widespread a concern, who knows.

Phone service for dd27 does seem to have been restored sometime this morning, not sure when - at least I could leave her a message.

So glad to see it looks like we're managing to post here, though.

Ramblin', great report about your caring help there. I hope Cathy has all the same positive result. And blessed continues to benefit.

~~~ Appointment and travel blessings ~~~ wished to everyone with overloaded calendars! We have two next week, both distant, but this week has been a relief.

Joining Nancy, I lost playing Thread Chicken this morning and had to change machine thread, but that's a small problem when there is another close color among the spools. With yarn, you don't have that luxury. I am to the point of photographing these blocks and labeling them with row and number and setting them to the side.

[CathyS]

For embroidery and cross stitch, it's called "Floss chicken". I've played it recently.
Let's see if I can actually post this.

[Twins' Mom]

Lol, Nancy and LadyM, I guessed right away what "yarn chicken" is from my needlework experience many many years ago!

Great workout as always. I had the young trainer - she always has me stretch a lot and today she took it easy on my knees and shoulders. My right knee has been achy going up and down stairs, and my shoulder has been popping like popcorn. And I forgot to take the minute book - but did get by temple and walked through our cemetery to check on things. It was cold, temp was only a little above 30. And I deposited HOA checks.

I've been at odds and ends w/o the board. Dh has gone bowling.

[Lady Maverick]

I can see the SHE village now, so hopefully will be able to post.

I’m eagerly looking forward to the four-day weekend and the chance to take a much-needed break and the ability to spend some time at home. I will still be leaving the house a couple times a day but it will be less than an hour a day.

I’m starting to think about how I want to spend the time I’ve devoted to homeschooling over the past 10 years. I’ve been so focused on raising kids that I’ve nearly forgotten who I am outside of that role. I asked myself this question - What do I enjoy doing? and starting jotting down whatever come to my mind. In no particular order....

• Praying scriptures
• Optimizing my health
• Gardening
• Cooking
• Music
• Painting
• Reading
• Quilting
• Spreadsheets
• Walking outside
• Memorizing
• family & friend interaction
• Journaling/SHE board
• Playing games

Some of these things are already a part of my life, but now that I am going to have more time available, I can start making plans to include more of them.

[MysteryWoman]

Got in! Yay!

Waiting for dinner. DH is putting the finishing touches on it, so it shouldn't be long. I almost have the dining table excavated, but we won't be eating on it today. Sometime in the near future. I spent a while troubleshooting our internet that didn't really need to be troubleshot. We have a message in our app that the modem has a bad connection, but we've noticed trouble neither on the internet nor on the phone. The guy at the other end said he was getting the same message when he tested our connection, but he couldn't find anything actually wrong, either. So we'll just keep going on as is until we actually come across a problem. And then I spent too much of the afternoon on games. I'm all caught up on the tasks I'm supposed to do before dinner, but I could have spent more time on my list. It's that sort of thing that lessens my progress compared to where I want to be.

Smiling at the yarn/thread/floss chicken!

What a good idea for the list, LadyM!

Soup's on!

[Nancy]

I saw a fb post and two phone co. had pretty extensive outages.
I had lunch.
Did a swish n swipe in the bathroom.
Too damp & cold to walk.

Trying to think what's for my dinner.
Talked with DD and dsis they are okay got some good reports.

[CathyS]

Dishwasher is going. There is 1 pot and 1 pan to be washed. Dh will be having a shower at some point tonight.

I cleaned 1 litter box, but I need more litter brought in before I can do the other boxes. With the accumulation of snow today, dh and I will have to re-do all the areas we got cleared today. I don't feel like going outside and shoveling snow in the dark.

[Harriet]

Dd27 was eventually able to call. Glad she's back to being in communication with the world!

Ds and the children came over and managed to get the new bird feeder hooked up and working. Ds warns I may not like it much if it makes my phone react every time there is motion in front of it. Hmmm... .. no, I might not. We'll see!

Did take a photo of the blocks to be sure I'll always lay them out the way I like in the future and can store them temporarily. One, when looked at in the photo, does appear to have a jarring fabric that draws attention and doesn't look very nice. (Taking a photo does often help with really seeing the layout, value, etc.) No amount of just moving the blocks around makes much difference or changes the impact of that fabric. Wondering whether I care so much that I would really go to the trouble to remake part of the block.

Twins', I agree, when I couldn't get back here, I stalled a bit. Glad you had a good workout.

[lucylee]

Yep, halfway through the month... some days things seem to be working, some days... not so much. These last two days, I've just slept a LOT -- I don't know if I'm just lazy or if life is just too much right now. And of course, the 12th-16th always marks the anniversary and I relive those first worst days... 21 months tomorrow since dh's funeral. I don't DWELL on this constantly throughout the day, but I'm still AWARE, if that makes any sense.
I guess I need to adjust my sails.

It is 22 degrees here, Twins, and sunny. For some reason that makes it worse -- it LOOKS so nice outside, and then you go out and WHEW -- the cold takes your breath away! 22 should be the low for tonight, but Saturday it is supposed to be 20 and Monday 15!!! I am so glad I am no longer teaching school!
And even at 22 degrees, the humidity is 81%. How does that work? The app says 0% cloud cover, and there's nothing on the radar.

Today -- dmom woke me up (it was almost 11:00 a.m.) to tell me she has now lost (?) her laptop. Some time ago, she lost (?) a very nice tablecloth. Over a year ago, she noticed that my grandfather's shotgun was not where it was supposed to be anymore.
So... It's very perplexing.
She has had the same housekeeper for at least 10 years, and she has a man who mows the yard and does handyman jobs sometimes -- but neither of these are in the house without her except on rare occasions -- especially rare occasions for the handyman. She has never had any reason to mistrust either of them. BUT... the handyman brought two younger guys with him to paint three rooms recently. One of them she knew, but the other was a stranger. She left these two guys in the house (with the handyman) while she went with me to get the memory bears. When she got back, she was pretty sure that someone had moved some items in her bathroom -- which was not being painted -- but she didn't notice anything missing.
Also -- the roofers were there not too long ago, and I can't remember if she closed the garage door and locked everything up when she and I left them there while she went to a doctor's appointment.
I can believe the tablecloth is misplaced somewhere in that house... and the gun? I'm still not sure my uncle didn't mistakenly take it when he took some of my paternal grandfather's guns home with him. (Dmom is pretty certain she made sure he did not take it, however.)
But the laptop? It would have been sitting on an ottoman or chair in the sunroom, where she spends 90% of her time.
Any thoughts on this? DDIL is all upset about it now and wants to go out there tomorrow and search with DS. I went out there today, and I could not find it -- I looked under the ottoman and chair, but I did not look under the couch, which ddil asked about. I can't imagine how it would have gotten UNDER the couch, but if it was somewhere we COULD imagine, we'd have it in hand, right?

I also spent part of my morning trying to make sure all was correct with a couple of spam emails I got -- one from DirectTV, wanting to auto-renew my MLB subscription for this spring. Nope... called them and told them I didn't want it. The other was supposed to be from the Geek Squad but the email address looked suspicious, nothing resembling Best Buy or the Geek Squad. I don't remember when I last even used the Geek Squad, but it has probably been 20 years or more! So I'm ignoring that. It says I have already been charged, so I'm just watching my credit card account and my bank app.

The rest of my day was pretty calm, but I did vacuum the kids' room -- at least I hit the middle.

The best part of my day was having stew from the Labor Day picnic. I am so glad I saved that stew in single serving portions.

The snow sounds beautiful, Cathy.

Sixteen appointments in 10 days IS a LOT, LadyM. I'm surprised about DS not being able to go alone. I remember going to my family doctor alone after I could drive. I know I went alone before I was 18.
I am sooo glad DD loves her bedroom!!!

I had to look up yarn chicken too!

Tomorrow, my plan is to do some zone work in the laundry room, and then dgd will be spending the night. I also need to get a baby gift wrapped (bagged) and write a note inside the Little Golden Book that takes the place of the card. The baby shower is Saturday.

Hope you all have a great start to the weekend!