First, the update
Things have been busy. I actually prewrote this post while I had down-time at work last week, but I haven't gotten around to actually posting it yet. After a year and a half of averaging 2 days a week, I worked every day last week except for Monday. While I'm not complaining, after all work = money, I have to say I'm not used to it. In fact, my rural school district has been keeping me busy enough that my suburban school district's Sub Office Lady is starting to get frustrated with talking to my answering machine.
The flood remediation continues. As of yesterday we have a usable laundry room. It still has no drywall and no ceiling, and no light fixture, but the damage done by the workers taking the walls out (they broke the cold water tap to the washing machine OFF, and damaged the venting for the dryer) has now been repaired, at their expense. For a few weeks there, we were doing laundry at our parents' houses, so it's nice not to have to leave the house to do laundry anymore.
For a while we had a dehumidifier in the middle of our kitchen. We called it The Machine, because it was clearly an instrument of torture. Most of the time it just sounded like a really loud white noise generator, but sometimes it rumbled and roared in a way that reminded me of my parents' old dishwasher - the one that predated their 25-year-old house. A few days of this and my cat started trying to drink from the water glass on my bedside table, because she didn't want to go to her dish which was right next to The Machine. Needless to say, we moved her dishes until The Machine went away.
Three weekends ago was my second Pure Speculation Festival. It ended up being a much busier weekend than I might have hoped, with my sister's baby shower on Saturday morning, the costume contest and my Harry Potter talk Saturday afternoon, and musicsdaughter 's wedding choir rehearsal on Sunday. My costume this year was River Tam from Firefly. I entered intermediate, and although I didn't win, I did get a "miscellaneous prize" for Best Walk. Yay free book! I also won a different free book at the Friday night do, which featured a reading of a play based on Robert J. Sawyer's novel Rollback (which, by the way, I now HAVE to read!) starring Robert J. Sawyer and Tanya Huff.
Two weekends ago we helped The Ninja move. It was a fairly easy move, from the main floor of a rental house to a basement suite in the same house. My main contribution to moving parties tends to be bringing My Sweetie; he's big and strong and far more useful for moving furniture than I am. Once the CD rack and it's contents had been brought downstairs, I got to spend a couple hours unpacking and alphabetizing CDs. This suited me just fine. In fact, just before Halloween when I was teaching, several classes were on field trips, so I ended up having two preps in a row. They sent me to the library, and I got to spend about an hour and a half shelving books! And they PAID me for it!
The flood remediation continues. As of yesterday we have a usable laundry room. It still has no drywall and no ceiling, and no light fixture, but the damage done by the workers taking the walls out (they broke the cold water tap to the washing machine OFF, and damaged the venting for the dryer) has now been repaired, at their expense. For a few weeks there, we were doing laundry at our parents' houses, so it's nice not to have to leave the house to do laundry anymore.
For a while we had a dehumidifier in the middle of our kitchen. We called it The Machine, because it was clearly an instrument of torture. Most of the time it just sounded like a really loud white noise generator, but sometimes it rumbled and roared in a way that reminded me of my parents' old dishwasher - the one that predated their 25-year-old house. A few days of this and my cat started trying to drink from the water glass on my bedside table, because she didn't want to go to her dish which was right next to The Machine. Needless to say, we moved her dishes until The Machine went away.
Three weekends ago was my second Pure Speculation Festival. It ended up being a much busier weekend than I might have hoped, with my sister's baby shower on Saturday morning, the costume contest and my Harry Potter talk Saturday afternoon, and musicsdaughter 's wedding choir rehearsal on Sunday. My costume this year was River Tam from Firefly. I entered intermediate, and although I didn't win, I did get a "miscellaneous prize" for Best Walk. Yay free book! I also won a different free book at the Friday night do, which featured a reading of a play based on Robert J. Sawyer's novel Rollback (which, by the way, I now HAVE to read!) starring Robert J. Sawyer and Tanya Huff.
Two weekends ago we helped The Ninja move. It was a fairly easy move, from the main floor of a rental house to a basement suite in the same house. My main contribution to moving parties tends to be bringing My Sweetie; he's big and strong and far more useful for moving furniture than I am. Once the CD rack and it's contents had been brought downstairs, I got to spend a couple hours unpacking and alphabetizing CDs. This suited me just fine. In fact, just before Halloween when I was teaching, several classes were on field trips, so I ended up having two preps in a row. They sent me to the library, and I got to spend about an hour and a half shelving books! And they PAID me for it!