Busy days
A strange couple of weeks. Unusual things seem destined to take up my rare days off these days. I've been working a lot this summer filling in for vacations and stuff- almost full time. I don't mind much, as the money is always nice, but things around the house keep getting put off.
I had a couple of days off a week ago, and hoped to do a lot of running around and then catching up on office stuff at home. But first the dishwasher broke down (which the kids seemed to think was the end of the world, from the complaints about washing the dishes by hand!) I called Sears for repair, and the window they gave me on the day for the repairman to show up was "8-8".which kind of makes it hard to plan the day. In the end, he showed up late morning, but then had to get the right part, so it did take up most the the middle if the day. Then on the Friday that week our internet went out during a storm, and we were unable to fix it for 5 days- which confirmed the end of the world in the kids minds. In their defense, they are both taking summer courses with significant on line portions, so their schoolwork suffered, and a lot of things that we now take for granted were difficult to do- confirming bus schedules, finding contact info for businesses, banking, checking mail- all things that we didn't need computers for 15 years ago are now difficult to do without them. But with no internet in the house, we got the SCA closet cleaned out and a bookshelf sorted and dusted- jobs that have needed doing for a year or more!
And another thing came up for the estate,which took several hours of work, fedexed documents and phone calls. 5 countries and a lot of hassle to settle something that is worth less than $1000 (split 7 ways!) But these complicated things are gradually getting checked off. It's been 8 years now, since my brother's death.
This week I had a few days off too. but on Sunday night mr t's elderly aunt, who lives in BC came into town and informed us that she was dropping off her 14 year old nephew with us for 3 days the next day. We had never met the kid, who isn't related to us (she's an aunt by marriage, recently widowed on the death of mr t's uncle), but it's hard to say no to Aunt B, who has been through a lot, and we figured that the kid would need a break- 2 weeks with Aunt B would be my definition of hell (2 hours is about as much as I can take- think of the most boring person you know, add strict religion and a compulsion to organize everything and everybody). At any rate, he turned out to be a nice kid- We ignored her instructions as to how we were to spend out time with him, and let him play video games and took him out to a couple of museums. Fortunately the son was around to keep him company. So it wasn't too bad, but it took up my days off this week. The aunt then invited herself over for dinner with her daughter (in her defense, we probably would have invited them anyways). Her daughter, mr t's cousin is a nice woman- and at least it meant that we had more to talk about than a minute by minute tale of Aunt B's travels (I'm not exaggerating here!) I don't know why, after almost 50 years in her family, she talks about her daughter as her "adopted daughter" though. Surely she's just her daughter at this point? So my week was mostly gone, and nothing much accomplished (except family peace) Sometimes you just have to laugh and go with the flow. I refuse to get worked up over such things any more. And she is fun to complain about. Mt t constantly points out that he's related to her only through marriage.
Next week, I'm back at work again. Pennsic packing has to be fitted in,although we're still not sure which of us are going- the kids' exam schedule for their summer courses isn't out yet.
I had a couple of days off a week ago, and hoped to do a lot of running around and then catching up on office stuff at home. But first the dishwasher broke down (which the kids seemed to think was the end of the world, from the complaints about washing the dishes by hand!) I called Sears for repair, and the window they gave me on the day for the repairman to show up was "8-8".which kind of makes it hard to plan the day. In the end, he showed up late morning, but then had to get the right part, so it did take up most the the middle if the day. Then on the Friday that week our internet went out during a storm, and we were unable to fix it for 5 days- which confirmed the end of the world in the kids minds. In their defense, they are both taking summer courses with significant on line portions, so their schoolwork suffered, and a lot of things that we now take for granted were difficult to do- confirming bus schedules, finding contact info for businesses, banking, checking mail- all things that we didn't need computers for 15 years ago are now difficult to do without them. But with no internet in the house, we got the SCA closet cleaned out and a bookshelf sorted and dusted- jobs that have needed doing for a year or more!
And another thing came up for the estate,which took several hours of work, fedexed documents and phone calls. 5 countries and a lot of hassle to settle something that is worth less than $1000 (split 7 ways!) But these complicated things are gradually getting checked off. It's been 8 years now, since my brother's death.
This week I had a few days off too. but on Sunday night mr t's elderly aunt, who lives in BC came into town and informed us that she was dropping off her 14 year old nephew with us for 3 days the next day. We had never met the kid, who isn't related to us (she's an aunt by marriage, recently widowed on the death of mr t's uncle), but it's hard to say no to Aunt B, who has been through a lot, and we figured that the kid would need a break- 2 weeks with Aunt B would be my definition of hell (2 hours is about as much as I can take- think of the most boring person you know, add strict religion and a compulsion to organize everything and everybody). At any rate, he turned out to be a nice kid- We ignored her instructions as to how we were to spend out time with him, and let him play video games and took him out to a couple of museums. Fortunately the son was around to keep him company. So it wasn't too bad, but it took up my days off this week. The aunt then invited herself over for dinner with her daughter (in her defense, we probably would have invited them anyways). Her daughter, mr t's cousin is a nice woman- and at least it meant that we had more to talk about than a minute by minute tale of Aunt B's travels (I'm not exaggerating here!) I don't know why, after almost 50 years in her family, she talks about her daughter as her "adopted daughter" though. Surely she's just her daughter at this point? So my week was mostly gone, and nothing much accomplished (except family peace) Sometimes you just have to laugh and go with the flow. I refuse to get worked up over such things any more. And she is fun to complain about. Mt t constantly points out that he's related to her only through marriage.
Next week, I'm back at work again. Pennsic packing has to be fitted in,although we're still not sure which of us are going- the kids' exam schedule for their summer courses isn't out yet.