Wednesday

Welcome, new reader!

On Sunday after church, my daughter and I and the boys ran over to World Market.  We had seen some measuring cups advertised that looked like a mason jar when stacked.  I thought it would be fun to get us each one but they were out.  So we went by Burger King and got hamburgers and then we went home. 

Sunday night I started not feeling so well.  Since I'd come home and had a three-hour nap, I decided I must be coming down with whatever the boys had the previous week.  Stayed home Monday, just going out to pick my husband up from the airport.  I'm so glad he's home.

Yesterday I went back to work and then came home and made dinner.  While watching "The Voice" I untangled the mess of aprons I had washed previously.  All the ties jumbled up into one big ball.  I just love "The Voice," and Blake Shelton made all the right decisions.  :)

I was in bed early for me - 10:30 p.m.  This afternoon/evening I get to babysit my little guys.  Looking so forward to it. 

~Jane

Saturday

Yesterday I spent babysitting my little guys.  The oldest was still sick...going on about day 5.  He was not very chunky to begin with and five days of not eating has him down to skin and bones.  I did hear he was feeling better today and his appetite is improving.

Today I spent the whole day at home.  I tended the chickens and retrieved the mail.  Other than that I stayed inside all day.  It is rainy and cold and rather miserable out.  The rain has been beating on the windows.

I am still ironing.  I have been so behind.  I wondered why it seemed I had nothing to wear during session this year and now I know why.  All my clothes were in an ironing basket.  I spent quite a while ironing the printed voile curtains I made for Elsie's room long ago.  They are very pretty but it takes forever to iron all the ruffles.  Once I had a pair ironed, I decided the windows needed to be washed before I could hang the clean, fresh curtains on them.  I didn't realize how filthy the windows really were.  So after scrubbing woodwork and shining the glass panes, I have one pair of curtains hung.  The other pair had only had one curtain hanging up and it was grey with dust.  So after a soak, it went through the wash and I will iron both of them tomorrow and hang on the second window.

I alternated ironing with knitting and knit quite a few repeats of the lace edging on my shawl.  I am just loving how it is turning out.  I also found a new show to watch, "Drop Dead Diva," on Netflix and am really enjoying it.  There are 62 episodes, so it should last me quite a bit of ironing. 

~Jane

Thursday

I am so enjoying having hot water again.  I am really missing my husband.  It is rainy and blustery again around here and I'm really getting tired of the weather.  I want to be able to start working in the yard, but right now there is standing water everywhere. 

My little grandsons have been sick this week.  Some kind of virus that has affected tummies and digestive tracts.  My daughter thought they were finally over it all and I picked them up to run some errands.  The kind where I stay in the car with the boys and she runs in and picks up pictures or drops something off to be printed.  We do this every couple weeks and it is so much faster and everyone is much happier than being buckled in and out of car seats and drug through numerous stores.  Well, today we had made it through a couple errands and were on our way to Costco, when Malachi suddenly threw up in the back seat.  Thank goodness for leather seats.  I always have a roll of paper towels in the trunk and hand wipes.  We were able to kind of clean everything up and I turned around and took them home.  I came home and ate dinner and then went out and washed everything down.  Oh, well, the car needed cleaning anyway. 

I made my way through some of the second ironing basket tonight while watching "Mr. Selfridge."  I also knit a few rows.  I am just really loving the shawl.  Well, past time to go to bed.  Did I mention I'm really missing my husband?  :)

~Jane

Tuesday

I started out late today.  Having my husband out of town has thrown off my schedule and having no hot water hasn't helped.  I brought a towel and things to take a shower at work, but even that seemed too much trouble.  Until one of my co-workers invited me out to lunch with a former co-worker and I decided that if I was actually going out in public instead of just hiding in my cubicle, I needed a shower.  My co-workers said that told them how they rated!  :)

At home I've been trying to be busy and productive.  I finished mopping all my floors and cleaning part of the bathroom.  I've been washing the things from the boxes in the garage.  Tomorrow night I'll start ironing it all, getting it ready to list on my daughter's Etsy shop.  I told her she could have all the profits if we can just get them out of my house.  I'm not getting as much done as I had hoped I would while my husband is gone, but dealing with the whole water heater thing sapped a lot of my energy. 

Tomorrow morning the water heater installer will be here and I'm hoping I can get some eggs washed and ready to take into work.  The chickens will need to be fed and watered.  A painting project that is set up in an adjoining room might get worked on also.  Then, once I have a water heater again, I'll wait until I have hot water and take a shower and run the dishwasher before I head off to work. 

~Jane

Sunday Night

I had a busy day today with church and our annual business meeting.  My son-in-law came to my rescue this afternoon and uninstalled my defunct hot water heater and returned it to the store for the warranty replacement.  I have a call into the plumber to install it.  Of course, taking the old one out necessitated a good scrubbing of the corner it sits in.  I tried kneeling down on my padded garden kneeler to scrub the dirty baseboards.  It is the first time I've tried kneeling since my knee surgery.  I didn't put my full weight on it and my other bad knee protested, but I managed to get the area scrubbed clean. 

Since my husband is out of town, I had to feed the chickens and collect the eggs.  Poor dears, they were hungry.  Apparently I haven't been feeding them as much as my husband does.  Then my other chore was to empty all the garbage cans and the recycling and roll them out to the road.  I washed dishes by heating water on the stove to wash and rinse.  I will be so happy when I have hot water again.

The new season of Call the Midwife started tonight.  I just love that show.  I watched it and knit on my shawl.  Now I need to go and bake a lemon cake for a co-worker to take to work tomorrow.  I also had some soup bones cooking all last night and today and I need to strain the broth and put it in the refrigerator for a little while to solidify some of the fat.  Then tomorrow I will add vegetables and have a nice beef vegetable soup for dinner.

~Jane

No Blogging

I don't know why I haven't been blogging much.  It started when my old camera started acting up and adding pictures became difficult.  I have a new camera now and finally installed the software to get pictures off it.  So maybe I'll be better about posting.  I do think a blog without pictures is boring.

I read a lot of blogs.  I find I like the ones best that tell what that person is doing each day.  Are they feeling well?  Are they working on a project?  What's happening in their life?  I'm thinking of maybe moving that direction although I fear I have nothing interesting to mention on most days.  My life is mostly going to work each day.  I am fortunate that I have a job where there are crazy, busy 60-hour weeks for a time and then much calmer, quieter period of seven-hour days where after what work I have to do that day is done, I can bring in a book to read or a knitting project to work on while I wait for someone to need me.

This week has been a trying one.  My husband is in Arizona visiting his brother and, of course, the hot heater chose this week to die.  It has been stressful figuring out everything to do on my own since it involves warranties and uninstalling and finding someone to reinstall a new one, etc.  I still have a trip to the hardware store to make to verify they will replace it.  My husband usually deals with these things as they send me into a panic.  Taking it one step at a time has helped.  I just am pretending I am on Alaska the Last Frontier.  I remember the episode when Eve finally got running water.  If she can survive, so can I.

The weather is nasty and rainy and makes you not want to go anywhere.  I'd like to just spend the day in front of the TV, but I have lots of projects to do. 

~Jane - who again cannot seem to upload a picture to this blog.

Resolutions for 2014

After looking at 2013's resolutions and seeing how many of them I didn't accomplish, I'm a little hesitant to make them again.  :)  But they are all things I either would like to do, or need to do.  I am going to try easing into them in 2014 and not attempt them all at once.

Some thing I did do this year was that I was much better at finishing projects that I started.  I've been good about the following through.  I still have lots of projects that are unfinished hanging around from previous years and I'm going to work on finishing up those also.

I chose a random number of books to read, 104, or two a week.  That was a little ambitious.  I am rather surprised that I didn't hit my goal.  The reason is probably that when I had my knee surgery I couldn't focus on reading anything while I was on the pain meds.  Even TV was difficult.  So I lost about a month there.  104 is still probably a doable goal for me.  Since I got my Kindle, I always have a book going.  I love my Kindle!

When I had my knee surgery, I had to go to bed early as I needed help getting there.  It was amazing the effect it had on my blood sugar and my energy levels.  Of course, now I am back to my previous bad habits.  With the legislative session looming, I really need to get back into good habits of getting to bed earlier.  So my January goals to work on are getting to bed earlier and no computer after 10.

Jane