It continues to be a little crazy around here, which explains SOME of the no sewing.
The kitty I mentioned last week with the teeth issue may not have to have them all pulled. Further info from the vet tells me that this may be a once or twice flare-up event, or it may continue beyond that. So we wait and see. Good news is that we know what we're dealing with and it should cost a whole lot less to figure out next time.
She is continuing to do fine and eating like a maniac - her usual.
So strike that off the list to worry about!
The week between then and now has been a little wacky. After about 6 months of struggling with the job working for my vet, I bailed out. I'm going back to the farm store to be a cashier again. The job, being mostly dogs, and new dogs every day/week (patients vs. boarders) was a lot for this cat lady. And there was a LOT of cleaning, which is fine and good and important, but the crawling around on my hands and knees to get it done - that's a bit of a younger persons game! I was also alone a lot, or at least doing jobs where chit-chat wasn't possible and while working as a cashier at a farm store isn't exactly a chatty job either, anyone who has ever been to a store knows that the cashiers DO talk to you and even those little interactions are enough for me. I don't need much, but I was feeling left out.
So I worked 6 days straight (just how the schedule fell) and then have had a few days off to decompress and mentally prepare for the change. It's been a nice break, but you know that didn't last long, right?
Last night I thought I heard the pre-heat stage of the furnace kick on, right before bed, but the blower never kicked in. The temp on the thermostat was right at the threshold, so I figured I heard something else in the basement kick on (there's the well pump, a condensate pump on the furnace, I think a humidifier thing, etc), so I went to bed, trying not to worry.
At 3am when I got up to use the bathroom it was 5 degrees colder in here than it should have been. And the furnace wasn't cycling. It would try, but it never got past that first stage. And it seems it gave up trying by then.
The hubby did what he could at 5am when he got up for work, but this isn't his specialty, so he texted our furnace guy at 6am, got a return call around 7am (poor guy, but he's family) and was here shortly after 8am.
Knock wood, but it's running properly again. Seems it was a dirty flame sensor. (This old house has taught me WAAAAY more about furnaces than I ever wanted to know.)
I'm so thankful to have a family member who is knowledgeable and makes himself more available than most repair places. And I'm thankful that we've hit a warmer stretch so the problem wasn't as dire as it could have been and we were only down 7 degrees from the set point when he got it back to right.
Though I haven't really sewn anything, I made use of a little mending loom I got for Christmas and fixed my favorite sock-slippers!
Just one sock had a very thin spot at the heel and I have no idea why, but these are so fun! The socks are fun, I mean. But the little loom wasn't too bad either. It went quickly and I have one other pair of socks that has a small hole in it (a real hole, not a worn spot), so I'm going to maybe tackle that, along with the new books I showed last week, and see about fixing those fun socks, too.
I also finished two books this week. With the chaos of everything, reading was a good escape, though both of these books had some edge to them that made them not the best escape, but it was better than sitting around worrying.
First up:
Set in the early 1940's in London, the story of a girl and her sister who are evacuated to the countryside to avoid being killed in the bombings happening during WW1, 15-year-old Emmy does not want to give up her new job at a bridal shop and her dream of becoming a wedding dress designer. Not understanding the gravity of the situation (though who could have - false alarms had been going off for a long while at this point), she runs away to meet with a man who, if he likes her sketches, could make her dreams come true. That was the day of the Blitz - or at least the start of it - and she was caught in it. She survives (one of the many ways her life is charmed), but her life is forever changed.
She is telling this story as an elderly woman and understands that there are many things throughout her life that were better than they could have been, which is the charmed part of the title. But there are also the secrets that I will not spoil.
I really enjoyed this book, but the war/bombing part is where it got a little less than desirable as an escape. The book wouldn't have been right without it, though, so it's all good.
Next up:
Written a few years before The DaVinci Code that rocketed this author to stardom, this book is every bit as much of a escaping and outsmarting the bad guys thriller. Though this will be a spoiler, it's revealed very early in the book, and I'll keep the others to myself - a meteorite is discovered in the glacial ice in the artic north of Canada. The main character is a woman who I'm still not entirely sure why she was sent (except her father, who she does not like and does not align with politically, is running for president on an anti-NASA platform, so if she validates he might back off?), and a few other civilian scientists are sent to validate the find because it contains...fossils of giant lice!
Soon after the fossil/meteorite is pulled from the ice, questions about its validity begin. Scientists die, the woman and the two remaining living scientists are pursued by assassins of unknown origin and it's thanks to their combined life experiences that they get away as often as they do.
It was a quick read and enjoyable, but the whole political twist while running for their lives was, again, not as relaxing as I might have wanted. But the random number book decider chose this, so I read it. I might have done a re-pull had I known, but it's all good. At least this chaos I can put down and know it's not real.
I should be working on the Bramble Blooms quilt, but I just haven't had the motivation. Reading books and snuggling kitties and finally feeling like cooking meals again has taken the bulk of my time. It's been a nice little break.
I'm kinda excited to go back to my old job, but I'll miss this snot...
She's the clinic cat. And spicy. She'll hiss at you and swat (she has claws!) just for walking by. Or she'll flop on the table and demand pets. You never know. But I gave her her space for long enough that we got along pretty well at the end. No I don't need another cat. And she has other people who love her there, too. (Some not so much, but I guess if you never take the time to work with a spicy animal, you get what you pay for...)
Also, I have Lily who is now actively trying to unplug my computer by climbing behind it. She will not be told no, but at least she won't bite me when I try.
Time to go get some groceries. I had to wait for the furnace guy and then wait for it to warm up to shut off to see if it would cycle and it's done all that, so I guess I can leave now? (I like to go early to avoid people, so wish me luck.)
Happy quilting!
Katie
No comments:
Post a Comment