Thanksgiving done and now .....

Wow, what a fantastic weekend!  First of all it was four days .... my favorite type of weekend.  And then there was the football.  The Huskies won the Apple Cup, the Seahawks beat the Steelers AND my fantasy team finally finally finally kicked some serious ass.  Although it's way too late for it to mean anything AND not only is Marshawn Lynch out for who knows how long, but Jimmy Graham had a season ending knee injury in yesterday's game.  Which is a tragedy.  Poor guy.

Not only did we have a nice Thanksgiving dinner but Saturday night we had a poker party and another good meal.  I lost at cards this time though.  Sometimes you just don't get the cards.  There's nothing you can do about that.

I knit and knit and knit on the blanket and now I'm doing the last magenta stripe and then one more grey one and I'm done!  I cannot wait!  This is going to be a seriously warm blankie.  Soft too.  There are so many other things I want to be working on but this first.

It was very cold all weekend and only 21 degrees this morning, but Ben really wanted to get the lights up, or at least started, so that's what we did yesterday.  It's not done but we got a good start, outlining the privacy screen in the front and the little fence, and three trees along the side of the house and two in the back.  Oh, and the porch rail.  All that's left is around the garage door.  We're not outlining the roof since all of the hooks were removed when the house was painted in the summer and neither one of us is keen on getting up on that high high ladder.

It's going to be a tough week.  A tough month.  I'm not looking forward to it.

Gigantic moon

The moon yesterday was just incredible!  It was HUGE!  My bus was late going home and so it was fully up by the time I got on the road to home.  I had to stop at the grocery store to get things for the vegetable dishes I'm bringing to Thanksgiving.  I'm doing roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon, which was a big hit last year, and the always yummy green bean casserole.  The grocery store was madness, but I am sure it's going to be even worse today so I really had to stop even though I was late.  I didn't get home until 5:30 and boy was Tinkerbell happy to see me!  Poor thing.  I tried to give her a decent walk but it was so bloody cold out there!  And dark, of course.

So it was a quiet evening and no, I didn't pick up the blanket.  Today though I will for sure.  I didn't bring it to noon knitting because I don't think we're going to have noon knitting.  Everyone is leaving early.  I don't have much going on today.  Hopefully I can be out of here by 1 or even earlier.

Work was a nightmare yesterday.  I am SO through.  If I wasn't going to retire in September I would honestly be looking for another job.  This is absolutely zero fun.  I don't like wasting valuable time doing something I dislike.  Nobody does.

Better and better

Okay, so not yet perfect.  I did have a bit of a coughing fit around midnight or 12:30, but otherwise not so bad.  I could have slept a bit more ..... always.

I left work around 10:30 or 11 yesterday.  I was tired and I had gotten everything done that I needed to do.  I missed an afternoon meeting but I needed a nap more.  I stopped at O'Reilly's on the way home and bought a new windshield wiper.  They installed it for me.  Glad I did too because it is raining this morning.  Thank goodness it warmed up a little bit or it would be snow!

I am still (STILL!) not feeling like knitting but I was looking over at that blanket last night, reproaching me I am sure, and I will pick it up tonight.  It just needs some good attention and I can have it finished in a week or two.  Then I can start doing some fun stuff - maybe some fingerless mitts and hats for Christmas.

I am on for making Brussels sprouts with bacon and the always popular green been casserole for our Thanksgiving dinner.  So today I've got to dig out that recipe (from the internet) and get my list of ingredients down.  I will stop at the store on the way home tonight so that I don't have to deal with that mess tomorrow. 

I have a little work that needs my attention.  Off I go.

It lives

Oh my goodness -- have I ever been sick!  It's been over two years since I've had a bout like this.  I got a cold, it went to my chest and then .... asthma out of control.  I spent all last week in bed.  ALL last week.  I'm at work today only because I simply must come in to do a few things.  I think I'll probably be out of here by noon, if I make it even that long.

Here's one of the terrible things about being sick -- I can't knit.  I just can't for some reason.  So my blanket has been sitting untouched for over a week.  I got sick on the 13th -- that is the first day I took off.  I knew I needed to see the doctor, after having gone through this 2 1/2 years ago, so I called for an appointment but my doctor didn't have anything until the following Friday, so I made an appointment for Monday evening with another doctor at the practice, but by Sunday, after two terrible nights when I couldn't sleep and coughed until I turned myself inside out, I went to the urgent care in the morning.  No infection, which is good, but the doctor gave me a course of steriods and said I would feel better in four or five days.  Well I do feel a bit better but not as good as I figured I would at this point.  Ah well, I'll do my meeting this morning and get all of my odds and ends done and call it good for the day.

On the way in today I lost a windshield wiper.  Not just the blade but the entire assembly!  Don't ask me how I did that -- it was stupidity, pure and simple.  So I'll have to take care of that as well because it may rain (or snow!) this afternoon.

Ah well -- now it's time for the first meeting of the day.

I wanted to sleep in ...

Yesterday was Veteran's Day and we got the day off.  If was of course looking forward to rolling over after Ben's departure and sleeping for another couple of hours.  However, I had remembered to turn my alarm off but I hadn't remembered to turn the volume off on my phone so, when the Do Not Disturb feature ends at 7 am email alerts, etc. start up again.  So I woke up just after 7 and that was it.  I lolled around in bed for another hour, but then gave it up and got up to start my day.

I had a little breakfast and gave Tink a nice walk and then dug in.  I got the laundry going, made a trip to Trader Joe's, and then the house cleaned, leaving me the rest of the day (until 4 o'clock) to work on the blanket.  I was nearly done with magenta strip three (out of four) but I had to wind another couple of balls of the yarn because I didn't have quite enough to finish it, then I have to have another ball for the last stripe and some for tassels.  After I got my hair done and the dinner going I settled in, finished up the magenta and started in with the fourth (of six) grey stripe.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Twenty-two more inches.

Yes it was a drag to get up this morning.  Mid-week holidays suck.  So many people are taking today and tomorrow off as well.  Except the students.  And it's quiet around here.  And I wish I could take a nap.  Well, it's my half day here because of my late meeting, so I'll get a nap this afternoon.

A mind of her own

My new iPhone still has some surprises for me.  One of the things I haven't been able to get the hang of is hitting my morning alarm for a "snooze".  I keep accidentally turning it off.  This morning I did that and then promptly fell back asleep.  I woke up nine minutes later than my typical time - usually I hit the snooze once and get up at 6:09 but this morning it was 6:18.  I jumped out of bed and got moving and was ready to take Tinkie out at our normal time.  She usually waits for me in the hall but this morning she was down in the living room by the French doors to the deck.  She wasn't interested in the normal walk up and down the cul-de-sac.  She just wanted to be out in the back, sniffing for critters.  Exactly the opposite of what she wanted when I got home yesterday.  Then she wanted to go charging up and down the streets, making me run.  But this morning it was fine to just go out, take care of a little business and back inside.  So I was on the road at my normal time.

I came that close to winning my match up this week.  Less than 1.5 points!  I outscored more than half the teams.  This is, truly, the worst fantasy football season I've had in all the years I've played.  The worst by far.  Oh well, maybe next year I'll have the opposite luck!

We get tomorrow off and I will get to sleep in, which I plan on doing.  And then I think I'll get all of the housework done I would normally do on the weekend, plus the laundry.  Then when I get home Sunday night I won't have to worry about any of that stuff.  We have a big football game Sunday night.  The Seahawks are playing Arizona on Sunday Night Football.  It's a huge game for both teams.   And since they're on at 5:30 that means we'll be able to take our time coming back from Anacortes, get the grocery shopping done and then just be able to settle in and enjoy (I hope) the game.  The last one with the Cowboys was just so nerve wracking, it was hard to enjoy.

Better and better

Tink is getting better!  I still don't let her jump because when she does, she limps around for a while afterwards.  And I haven't let her chase her ball.  She is just really hard to keep still though and I'm going to have to relent at some point.  Her medicine is finished tonight.  That of course will be the real test.  If she stays the same after she is done with the pills.  I want her to be fit for the weekend so she can go for walks on the beach.  She loves that.  All the more if she can fine something stinky to roll in. 

Well I did not have a very good Saturday morning, that's for sure.  It was all my fault - I should have gone with my instincts and followed Ben up to the dealership rather than go in the car and then be told when we dropped it off that the service would take three hours!  Three hours!!  There's nothing to do up there!  Usually it only takes an hour so we go have breakfast and dawdle a bit and then the car is done.  But that's not the 40k service.  So we had a slow breakfast and then we walked up the street a mile and a half to the Costco, just for something to do.  However, it was raining AND we had no umbrellas nor did I have a hat.  I had a shawl that I put over my head, but it didn't help much.  And my shoes are leather and the water just soaked right through the soles.  I was in a very bad mood.  But I got home and got the dinner going and we ended up having a fun time that night.

Sunday I slept in and after a quick trip to the mall, spent the rest of the day watching the Red Zone and working on the blanket.  I am now on the third (of four) magenta stripes.  When that is done I will have two more grey stripes with a stripe of magenta in the middle.  So that's 18 inches of grey and like maybe six more inches of magenta.  Or seven.  I want to be done with it!!

It's going to be a weird week.  We have Wednesday off for Veteran's Day and I've got nothing much going on here.  A meeting this afternoon, a student and a meeting tomorrow .... boring.  Oh I am SO ready to be done with this.

Lights in November

Our neighbors up the street have their Christmas lights up on the house already AND lit!!  They did it November 1.  I think that's a little crazy but .... whatever.  I like house decorations, but I think it's better to wait at least until December 1, don't you?

Yesterday was absolutely insane here.  We had a huge four hour lab in the afternoon and found out in the morning, as I was getting the stuff together for the lab, that one of our faculty members wasn't going to make it, since he's come down with the terrible cold going around.  So it was run, run, run trying to find rooms to accommodate half again as many people as normal, plus re-doing the signs, contacting the students -- oh, and cutting out 50 two-piece dural sinus models.  I was more than ready to hop it as soon as lab got underway. 

Tink's hip seems to be improving little by little, although she is having a hard time not playing.  She found one of her balls yesterday and kept trying to get me to throw it.  I feel so sorry for her!  It's not like I can explain to her that I'm  not being mean, but that it is for her own good.  Maybe by the end of the weekend she'll be able to play a little ball.

It's not going to be a very restful weekend since we've got to be up to the Lynnwood Volvo dealership at 8:30 tomorrow morning to get the car serviced.  Then people for dinner Saturday night.  Sunday is a bye week for the Seahawks so hopefully we can just veg around the house and get a nice rest in.  The following weekend we're going to Anacortes.  The good news is that I get Wednesday off for Veteran's Day.  So I will get a rest at least.

I made the plane reservations for our April/May trip.  I've got to do my math so I will have enough vacation days AND be able to take some time off for a little trip with my sister this winter.  I can check on that this morning.

Decided

Right -- it is decided.  We're going to go to Italy after France.  I don't think we'll spend the entire seven days at the gite in Burgundy.  Maybe five days there, a couple in Rome and a few in some town on the Cinque Terre, then back to Paris and home.  Only two weeks this time. 

Netflix has "Black Books" now and so last night I knit on the blanket and watched a few episodes.  I did watch the series before, but it was a few years ago.  I don't mind having a second look.

It has gotten quite cold at night -- well, even in the days.  No frost on the vehicle windows yet, but it won't be long.  And I know now why I can't see .... the head lights are pointed UP!  They don't shine on the road.  They're going to have to be refocused this weekend.

Yesterday again was quite busy but today is going to be quiet and I'm going to head out early so I can get my hair done before we go out this evening.  Wednesday is the medical student day at clinic or whatever and I'm all set for class Thursday.  No meetings except noon knitting.  It's a good catch up day unless one is already caught up!

Five months and three weeks!

Oh hurrah!  The gite is booked for April 23 through 30.  Now I can start planning the rest of our trip.  First we've got to decide if we're going to Italy before the gite or after.  Then I can start planning the trip. 

It was a busy weekend and yesterday was a crazy Monday.  I didn't have a second to breathe until noon.  Today will be busy as well, but not quite as bad as yesterday. 

The weekend was a bit weird because I had been feeling off all week and really wanted nothing to do but stay in bed.  We were supposed to go out for Halloween but really, I just wasn't up to it.  I watched football and it was good!  The Huskies beat Arizona and the Cougars coug-ed it against Stanford.  Both were good games all the way through.  On Sunday I made a pot of red beans and rice and we had Ben's family over to discuss the holidays and watch the Seahawks.  Oh that game was SO tough to watch.  We won, but wow ... a nail biter.

It is nice to have a little more light in the mornings for Tink's walk.  She is doing a little bit better.  It is difficult to keep her from frisking around.  She really really wants to chase the ball.  But not until the end of the week and only if she's not limping.

The blanket is coming right along.  I worked on it quite a bit on the weekend and now I need to make myself pick it up during the week as well.  I want it done!  I have so many other projects I want to work on and I don't dare start another project until this one is done because it is so huge.

Yesterday a woman was mean to me on the bus and it colored my whole day!  Why are people SO mean to strangers?  I just don't get it.