Miscellaneous Things on a Thursday

 Hello Everyone,

It's Thursday, so almost the weekend which makes me very happy.  My Thursday financial reports are done and they have been distributed via email, so I am mostly caught up.  I still have some documents that I need to add to the legal database.  It is really such a cluster.  Long story short:

• We have had a contract/legal database for a number of years that I use
• It was determined that we would switch over to our parent company's database
• When that couldn't happen as planned, our original database was going out of contract
• We had to stay with the original one, but it was "updated" and "improved" by the owner.  HA!  The new version is very cumbersome and not very user-friendly
• We were told that we would be switching to our parent's database in the new year (to me, that means January).  That has now been pushed back to mid-year.
• Since we were supposed to switch rather quickly, I decided not to fool with the new and improved version of our old one...and the documents I needed to add piled up.

My meeting yesterday at the office was to learn how to "easily" access things in the database.  That was a disappointing meeting.  The woman I met with really didn't help me that much.  I came home and spent the afternoon fooling around with it and FINALLY I made a bit of progress.  I added maybe 10 documents (I still have at least 20 more to add...but finding the correct location is the challenge).

But, because I was at the office, I stopped at Trader Joe's and bought some fresh flowers.

Gerbera Daisies are always so cheerful.  I love the color of these and they make me think of Frida Kahlo.  They are cheerful and happy and so bright on a grey February day.  My computer says "wintry mix," but I think it may be too warm for that.  However, the sun is missing.

Yesterday I also stopped at the library.  I had never read anything by Ross Gay and some of you have raved about his writing.  So, I requested This Book and it came in on Monday or Tuesday.  While picking up that book I looked for "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx for our next Read With Us book.  No luck on the shelves, so I will request it.  But, I found some other treasures:

• The Love Songs of W. E. B. du Bois
• Hamnet
• Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo

I read some of Gay's poems and like them.  And then I started Love Songs.  Wow!  I managed to read about 50 pages after dinner and before Fletch and I caught up on All Creatures.  This is a LONG book (800 pages), but it reads so easily.  There have already been a few disturbing things...but I'm sure I will love the book.

Hamnet is a book I never wanted to read (subject matter and sad) until I read The Marriage Portrait.  I was happy to find it.  And the Russo book is one that Kym recommended and now Kat is in the midst of and has highly recommended.

Some errands are on the agenda today.  And I really need to buckle down and do some cleaning (once again, no Karyn...I don't think she is working out...).  But all I really want to do is read, knit and stitch.  The hell with work and everything else!  Oh, and I really, really want and need to book a massage.  

Here's hoping that your Thursday is off to a great start!

PS - one more thing:  I know a number of you have read and loved The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher.  It is now a Series  on Acorn TV!!

Yikes!!

Yikes Everyone!!  It was 48 degrees (F) at my house this morning.  People!!  It is June 8th.  What's up??


(Of course, the fact that I am talking incessantly about weather makes me feel really, really old - LOL)


Meanwhile, nothing much going on today.  It is encouraging that it is almost the weekend.  Colin will be over for dinner tonight - Fletch is going to grill hot and sweet Italian sausage and we'll have onions, mushrooms and peppers to go with.  Probably some tomatoes as well.  And a nice baguette for Colin and me (Fletch doesn't eat white bread if he can help it...but there is a whole grain croissant or a ww roll for him).  Over the weekend I made some oatmeal butterscotch cookies (very, very yummy) and an apple-rhubarb tart kind of thing with puff pastry.  There are leftovers of each.  So, not much for me to do tonight in the way of prep which is very nice at the winding down part of the week.  I can just pour a glass of wine and enjoy!


Saturday Fletch and Colin are planning to drive down to Delaware.  My brother and his wife just moved there from Pittsburgh and they brought several items for Colin.  First up a hunting bow that my uncle had made (not strung, and I think Col plans to use it as wall art).  The second item is a desk that my grandfather made.  We have a dresser that he made - solid maple that I use to store my fabric.  No one else in the family wanted the desk and my brother and SIL don't have room for it in their new home.  I'm so glad that Colin wants it.


Once they pick it up, they'll need to take it to Colin's to unload.  I won't be able to go since the back seats of our car will need to be down in order to fit the desk in the car.  Ooooppppsssss!  That means a free Saturday for knitting, reading, stitching, whatever.  I'm looking forward to that.


Last night after dinner Fletch and I settled in to read a bit.  As I mentioned the other day, we are reading Winter's Tales - a collection of short stories by Isak Dinesen.  Flipping through the front of the book I noticed this last night:

I just found it interesting.  Don't believe I've ever seen this in a book previously.  The copy we have is hard-backed and is from my Aunt's home in Vermont.


Well, it may have been 48 degrees earlier, but the sun is out (amazing) and it is warming up.  Supposed to get to 75 by the afternoon.

Le Weekend

Hello All,


We ended up getting some snow on Saturday which hadn't really been forecast (until it was happening).  It was pretty.  Here's a picture that I took right after lunch yesterday:

That is our shed with a wreath on it.  The birds were feeding like crazy ALL day.  We have a feeder on our clothesline with sunflower seeds in it and then on our patio we have a peanut feeder and a suet feeder.  The birds all flit from one to the other and then back again.  The little bit of snow that landed on the patio was soon covered with bird tracks.  Tyg sat at the door a lot talking to his friends.


I decided it would be a great day to just stay put.  I made a loaf of bread in the morning (which we were able to sample at lunch with soup), did some laundry, knit, read, napped.  It was a beautiful day!


Today it was about 9 when I got up.  According to the radio the wind chill factor made it feel below zero.  I made a German pancake for breakfast with pears and pomegranate which was really good.

We did venture out to go grocery shopping and it was bitter cold.  Sunny, but so windy, not a day for a walk.  So, more cooking was in store.  Tonight we had curried shrimp chowder with some of the bread from yesterday.

Plenty left to freeze, so another meal later on.

Meanwhile, I was busy at work Friday until about 1 or 2 in the afternoon.  This is not good.  A visit to Amazon was in store for me and 5 (yes, 5) books were ordered.  Two cookbooks and three knitting books.  They arrived today - YAY

Knitlandia has been on my list of books to read for some time now.  The Scandinavian Motifs by Mary Jane Mucklestone sounded wonderful (it is) and In the Footsteps of Sheep also sounded wonderful.  I had never heard of it, but basically it is a memoir/travelogue about walking across Scotland, gathering wool from brush and fences and spinning it and then knitting socks.  What's not to like?  The books IS wonderful - gorgeous pictures, patterns for all the socks and maps showing where she walked.  I haven't really looked at it much because Fletch grabbed it and looked through the entire book this afternoon.  Even he said it was great!

The cookbooks I got are:

I had just finished reading My Kitchen Year and almost every single recipe in it (there are a lot) is something I want to make.  I had borrowed the book on my Kindle, but definitely wanted a "real" book to thumb through.  It's great reading as well.  The other one, Bowl, just looked fabulous.  I've already picked out several recipes to try.  Will let you know how they are.

And, if that wasn't enough, you all convinced me I needed some yarn from Wandering Cat, so an order was placed there as well.  Once the goods arrive, I will reveal my choices (everything looked so yummy, it was hard to pick...but I did).

Hoping everyone had a great weekend.  This coming week will be my first full week at work in a long time.  I've gotten awful used to having a day or two off.....this will be a struggle.....