Plans involving other people require a certain amount of communication
So I took two nights off from work -- tonight and tomorrow night. And the plan has been to go down and visit Dad tonight and then come home tomorrow to use my second night off to clear stuff off the DVR and knit at home in my own house on a day off that I'm not spending dealing with a long "to do" list. But I kept postponing calling Dad to actually tell him about my time off -- mainly because I hate telephoning, but also because I've been slightly apprehensive about having to account for bailing on the Fourth of July lakeside family gathering when I was expected to appear. So I didn't get around to actually trying to call Dad till yesterday -- and of course I got his voice mail and no return call, and I was busy enough that I haven't tried calling him again. Yet.
Hang on, I really should go do that right now...
Voicemail. So it's going to be hilarious if I finish up everything I was trying to do and get myself more or less ready to head out the door but still haven't actually spoken with Dad to let him know that I'm available for a visit. I'm not going to go down there without talking to him and making sure he's there (not that I expect him to go anywhere), but when I get off the computer I might try calling my uncle's house just in case he's over there and left his own phone in his own house across the yard. (This time I left a message saying he should try calling me when he gets his phone again, instead of just saying I'd try again later.) I could go down tomorrow instead of tonight but there's just going to be more wiggle room in terms of getting a moderate amount of sleep before work Thursday night if I'm back home Wednesday night.
I could very happily spend two nights at home, saving myself the gas money and the hours in the car and sitting around with Dad sometimes fumbling for conversational material or just quietly watching TV while I knit. But I took this time off in part to go see Dad between July 4th and Labor Day -- though I maybe should have taken the time earlier in this month, since Labor Day is so comparatively close. (See, now the temptation is to tell him when I next talk to him that I was calling to set up a visit for Labor Day weekend. Or go down today or tomorrow but stay home for Labor Day.)
Working on this while visiting Grandma. Slowly creeping along. I expect to get a lot more rows onto this in the next couple of days, whether here at home or visiting Dad.
The only other thing I've done any knitting on in the past week. I need to make a point of pulling it out if I wind up doing much reading in the coming week.
So the good thing is that I spent all day Saturday sleeping (aside from being woken up by Mom in the late afternoon and doing a few things before going back to bed for a while) and then got a goodly amount of sleep Sunday night. So I started Monday off with a fair bit of energy and refused to let myself start reading. Got my entire Monday "to do" list handled -- down to the vacuuming just as Mom got home from work, and then filing my nails while we watched TV.
Started this morning bright and early -- but, whoops, started reading at breakfast and managed to lose some hours I could have spent getting my computerage done early. Finished my book and broke off after the prologue of the next in the series, though, and now I'm down to the point of posting my journal entry, getting something to eat, and then finishing my manicure.
Here's the silly part -- since I was down to calling Dad the day of my proposed visit, I was vaguely wanting to get as close as possible to being done with everything so that when I spoke to him I could offer to hit the road within the hour. But I haven't done my nails, and once I've done those there's going to be a certain span of time during which I don't want to risk mangling them. I could get away with getting into the car while they're curing, but packing up an overnight bag is the kind of thing I'd rather do beforehand -- but I'm kind of balking at packing a bag if I don't even know if I'm going tonight...
Indoor pic of this hand because the sunlight was washing out the turquoise and making the light green glow misleadingly. I chose the wrong light green, wanting to give my standby neon green a rest, and this one was lovely in the bottle. Unfortunately it was a bit dimmer on the fingers and I wasn't really pleased with the color combo. (Also, you can see on the thumb where the dark blue got a bit tugged out of line when something pressed up against it while it was still hardening.)
This was the hand that got the worst of the damage when I fell asleep while it was curing. I was able to make some repairs the next day after I got home from work, including something on the ring finger involving using a striping brush dipped in acetone to try to clear enough of the blue polish away from the tape line to reveal the green underneath. But the thumb was the worst gouged and had too many lines dragged awry -- there was nothing I could have done but remove the polish and redo the entire nail, and I was too disappointed with the manicure as a whole to go to that much trouble.
Today is a silver basecoat (with air bubbling, dammit) and I have the same turquoise as last week along with a lighter aqua just purchased a few days ago that was exactly the shade I walked into Sally's vaguely hoping to find. I wound up trimming my nails yesterday so some of them are too short to give me much room to work with -- most of my nails are going to be just one accent color or the other rather than both together. Still, I'm hopeful. And very much hoping to avoid damage while they're hardening afterwards.
So. I am annoyed. I don't know if I'm packing up to drive out to see Dad in a few hours, or if I'm staying home tonight. This is my own fault for not starting the process of getting hold of Dad at least a week ago, but I'm still annoyed with him for being so unpredictable about communications. (This has had a certain effect of discouraging me from making the effort to call him more often -- I never know if I'm getting voice mail, a very brief conversation, or a long call, and I never know whether he'll try to return a missed call within minutes, hours later, or never get around to it at all.)
What I think I can see my way clear to doing is packing my bag in advance and then going on with my manicure. (Theoretically I could throw my polishes and paraphernalia into my bag and finish up my mani at his house, and if I talk to him before I get started on my nails I might wind up doing just that. Or, come to think of it, I could just save the fancy part of the mani for after I'm home again and not going anywhere.) If he calls me partway through the process I'm comfortable with telling him it'll take me a bit of time to get out the door -- especially if I've already got a bag ready and just need to throw my things in the car once I think I can do so without unduly risking my nails... (And if I don't talk to him by 5 or 6pm tonight, I think the conversation will be about coming down tomorrow as soon as I'm up and running. If it's afternoon tomorrow, the conversation will be just catching up on the last month and a half and scheduling a Labor Day visit.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
Hang on, I really should go do that right now...
Voicemail. So it's going to be hilarious if I finish up everything I was trying to do and get myself more or less ready to head out the door but still haven't actually spoken with Dad to let him know that I'm available for a visit. I'm not going to go down there without talking to him and making sure he's there (not that I expect him to go anywhere), but when I get off the computer I might try calling my uncle's house just in case he's over there and left his own phone in his own house across the yard. (This time I left a message saying he should try calling me when he gets his phone again, instead of just saying I'd try again later.) I could go down tomorrow instead of tonight but there's just going to be more wiggle room in terms of getting a moderate amount of sleep before work Thursday night if I'm back home Wednesday night.
I could very happily spend two nights at home, saving myself the gas money and the hours in the car and sitting around with Dad sometimes fumbling for conversational material or just quietly watching TV while I knit. But I took this time off in part to go see Dad between July 4th and Labor Day -- though I maybe should have taken the time earlier in this month, since Labor Day is so comparatively close. (See, now the temptation is to tell him when I next talk to him that I was calling to set up a visit for Labor Day weekend. Or go down today or tomorrow but stay home for Labor Day.)
Working on this while visiting Grandma. Slowly creeping along. I expect to get a lot more rows onto this in the next couple of days, whether here at home or visiting Dad.
The only other thing I've done any knitting on in the past week. I need to make a point of pulling it out if I wind up doing much reading in the coming week.
So the good thing is that I spent all day Saturday sleeping (aside from being woken up by Mom in the late afternoon and doing a few things before going back to bed for a while) and then got a goodly amount of sleep Sunday night. So I started Monday off with a fair bit of energy and refused to let myself start reading. Got my entire Monday "to do" list handled -- down to the vacuuming just as Mom got home from work, and then filing my nails while we watched TV.
Started this morning bright and early -- but, whoops, started reading at breakfast and managed to lose some hours I could have spent getting my computerage done early. Finished my book and broke off after the prologue of the next in the series, though, and now I'm down to the point of posting my journal entry, getting something to eat, and then finishing my manicure.
Here's the silly part -- since I was down to calling Dad the day of my proposed visit, I was vaguely wanting to get as close as possible to being done with everything so that when I spoke to him I could offer to hit the road within the hour. But I haven't done my nails, and once I've done those there's going to be a certain span of time during which I don't want to risk mangling them. I could get away with getting into the car while they're curing, but packing up an overnight bag is the kind of thing I'd rather do beforehand -- but I'm kind of balking at packing a bag if I don't even know if I'm going tonight...
Indoor pic of this hand because the sunlight was washing out the turquoise and making the light green glow misleadingly. I chose the wrong light green, wanting to give my standby neon green a rest, and this one was lovely in the bottle. Unfortunately it was a bit dimmer on the fingers and I wasn't really pleased with the color combo. (Also, you can see on the thumb where the dark blue got a bit tugged out of line when something pressed up against it while it was still hardening.)
This was the hand that got the worst of the damage when I fell asleep while it was curing. I was able to make some repairs the next day after I got home from work, including something on the ring finger involving using a striping brush dipped in acetone to try to clear enough of the blue polish away from the tape line to reveal the green underneath. But the thumb was the worst gouged and had too many lines dragged awry -- there was nothing I could have done but remove the polish and redo the entire nail, and I was too disappointed with the manicure as a whole to go to that much trouble.
Today is a silver basecoat (with air bubbling, dammit) and I have the same turquoise as last week along with a lighter aqua just purchased a few days ago that was exactly the shade I walked into Sally's vaguely hoping to find. I wound up trimming my nails yesterday so some of them are too short to give me much room to work with -- most of my nails are going to be just one accent color or the other rather than both together. Still, I'm hopeful. And very much hoping to avoid damage while they're hardening afterwards.
So. I am annoyed. I don't know if I'm packing up to drive out to see Dad in a few hours, or if I'm staying home tonight. This is my own fault for not starting the process of getting hold of Dad at least a week ago, but I'm still annoyed with him for being so unpredictable about communications. (This has had a certain effect of discouraging me from making the effort to call him more often -- I never know if I'm getting voice mail, a very brief conversation, or a long call, and I never know whether he'll try to return a missed call within minutes, hours later, or never get around to it at all.)
What I think I can see my way clear to doing is packing my bag in advance and then going on with my manicure. (Theoretically I could throw my polishes and paraphernalia into my bag and finish up my mani at his house, and if I talk to him before I get started on my nails I might wind up doing just that. Or, come to think of it, I could just save the fancy part of the mani for after I'm home again and not going anywhere.) If he calls me partway through the process I'm comfortable with telling him it'll take me a bit of time to get out the door -- especially if I've already got a bag ready and just need to throw my things in the car once I think I can do so without unduly risking my nails... (And if I don't talk to him by 5 or 6pm tonight, I think the conversation will be about coming down tomorrow as soon as I'm up and running. If it's afternoon tomorrow, the conversation will be just catching up on the last month and a half and scheduling a Labor Day visit.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.