Whaaa?

There I was at work, just a working away, when along about 1:00 PM Group Leader Shark walked by and said, "Becky, do you want to leave?"

"Yeah, I'll leave," I immediately replied.

"Whaaaa?"  She said.  "I wasn't expecting that!"

"Call it the Supervisor Maxwell effect," I responded, as I began gathering my stuff up to put it all away.  The brazer who works just across from me looked over and with an air of incredulity asked, "Are you going home???"  

Now, I can understand their disbelief, because I don't turn down overtime, and I don't leave early.  Usually.  But today, I just wasn't feeling it, so when GLS asked, it hit me and I eagerly said I would.  

"Anything to get away from Supervisor Maxwell!"  I told the other brazer, and out the door I ran so fast I sucked half the equipment in the plant out into the parking lot in my wake.  

OK, not really, but you get the idea.  

But I did leave so fast I didn't bother to go answer nature, and that was the first thing I did when I got home.  Then I went outside and watered my baby grass, and started sifting rocks out of some dirt.  Yes, it was hot out there, but I said I'd just work for a few minutes.  

Oh a whim, I pulled up the weather app and saw that it said it feels like 105°.  "It sure does!" I said to no one in particular, and went inside for a moment to cool off.  Once I'd stopped sweating and rehydrated, I went back out and managed to scrape the dirt away from the bottom of two sections of my fence, except for right around the posts.  

 It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, so maybe tomorrow I can get the rest of it done.  Then I'll have to wash the dirt off and let it dry really well so I can paint it -- maybe next weekend.   We'll have to see what the weather does.  We're supposed to be back in the upper 90s early next week.  

I am so ready for summer to be over.  

And We're Off!

We're off again this Saturday.  

While I'm glad of the day off, it is a bit concerning that we're having so many weekends off this year.  Supervisor Maxwell keeps saying the work is there, so why aren't we working?  There is usually a Fall slowdown, but not until late September or early October.  

Anyway, my plan for the weekend is to try to get all of that red clay dirt away from my fence in the garden spot so I can get that fence painted.  Once that is done, I'll finally be able to get that spot leveled and maybe start putting my raised beds into place.  But it's still August after all, and it's still very hot.  

This afternoon we had a heat index of 106°, so I didn't do much outside other than water my plants and fill the deer trough and bird bath.  Oh, and I scattered the rest of that jug of grass seed in a couple more spots, but I didn't take pictures of them.  They just look like dirt at the moment, but I'll tell ya, that thatching rake I bought is great for scuffing up the surface of the ground for sowing seeds.  

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that's quite possibly the best investment I've made as far as lawn and gardening tools.    

I think the other thing I'm going to do this weekend is to get all of my charity hats washed, tagged, and ready to send off to the Seaman's Church Institute.  In the meantime, I'm still knitting on the sock yarn hats.  

 Well, since I can't remember what else it was I wanted to talk about, I'll guess I'll end this for now.  I found Dinotopia on Prime, so I'm going to watch an episode before bed.  Cody loved that show when he was a kid.  

The Saga

The saga of the baby sweater is, yes, finally over!  

My sister went and picked up the package yesterday, but forgot to tell me until today.  I'm going to cut her a little slack, though, because she was a bit distracted...

by her first grandbaby, who made his appearance at 4:51 yesterday afternoon, weighing in at 7 lbs even and 19 inches long.   He looks so teeny in proud daddy's arms. 

 It'll be a minute before he grows into that sweater, I think.  My sister might be able to wear it in the mean time.  She's the short one...

In slightly less exciting news, here is an update on my little baby grass.    

The other patch isn't doing as well as this one.  I think I didn't scatter the seed thickly enough in that one.  I've still got half a jug of seed left, so I may put some more out there, but not today.  

I'd thought I might get out and work in the yard a bit this afternoon, but as the workday went on, I got more and more sore from yesterday's exertions.  Instead, I'm taking it easy this afternoon, knitting and catching up on more of my Shark Week shows.  

I haven't cast on anything new.  I'm working on some of my sock yarn hats that I've already got on the needles.  If they're going to be Christmas gifts, I'd better get them finished.  

And finally, this is where I tried to cut my arm off with the mini chainsaw.  

 'Tis but a scratch, but I think next time, I'll wear some of the protective arm sleeves they give us at work.  Oh, and I had leather gloves on, but the chain hit me right below the cuff.  

Still, it could have been so much worse.  

A Very Special Monday

Today is Monday.

But it’s not just any Monday. It’s a very special Monday. 

Why? 

Because it’s the first Monday of my last full work week of the year!  Yep, that's right.  Starting next Friday, August 22, I'll have three day weekends for the rest of 2025.  

I do this every year -- save up my vacation days and take them every Friday, but usually I don't start until after Labor Day.  This year, I had a couple of extra days, plus I was about to max out my ETO, so I'm starting a bit early.  I'm not complaining.  Not one bit. 

On a similar note, rumor is going around the plant that they've shut down production on second shift.  They supposedly had a big meeting last week, and Group Leader Shark keeps saying Supervisor Maxwell will update us on what was said, but so far he hasn't said a word. 

They did let us go home at 2:00 today, so I went back and worked on clearing the rest of that detritus from the tree that I'd had cut down.  Things were going just swimmingly until I decided to try to cut my arm off with the mini chainsaw. 

I didn't do a very good job of it, and once I'd come inside and cleaned it up a bit, I saw t'was but a scratch.  I slapped a bandaid on it, went back outside, and finished what I'd started.  Behold, no more brush pile in my back yard!

I still have a few more of the thicker bits of wood left to cut up, women's size 9 croc knockoff included for scale, 

but the chainsaw was getting a bit grabby, which usually means the battery is starting to run down.  So I took the better part of valor and left them for another day.  I also have these bigger pieces of the trunk to cut up -- again women's size 9 crock knockoff included for scale -- but I'm going to have to fire up the big chainsaw to get those done. 

The last thing I did was to toss the smaller branches into the brush pile in the woods and rake up the leaves into the compost pile I'd already started with the ground ivy I've been pulling up.  Women's size 9...well, you get the idea by now. 

At this rate, I'm going to need a bigger compost bin. 

In a bit of sad news, something has been disturbing the rocks in my bee pond.  I've noticed every afternoon when I go to refill it, the rocks are all bunched together.  I'm not sure what is going on, but today I made the decision to take my fancy rocks out and put rocks from the driveway back in.  

It's not as pretty, but I doubt the bees will mind. 

And finally, I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that Demi-god's swamp-@$$ is much better today.  He made sure to tell us, so I'm making sure to tell you. 

After that, I got nothing.  

The Saga Continues

Just when you thought it was over, it's not over.  What am I talking about?  The saga of the baby sweater, of course.  

For those of you who don't know, my oldest nephew and his wife are expecting their first baby any day now.  Back when my sister first told me, I immediately whipped out a five hour baby sweater -- which in reality took way longer than just five hours.  

The knitting itself went pretty quickly, but as I hate seaming, the sweater sat untouched for a few weeks until I could work up the oomph to do the seams.  I finally got them done, but then ran into another snag, because I'd lost the buttons I'd bought for the sweater.  

After searching the whole house over multiple times, I finally found them down between the cushions of my recliner -- where I had also already looked, but hadn't shoved my hand down deeply enough -- sewed them on, then got it all packaged up and ready to mail.  The next day after work, I went to the post office...and it was closed because apparently nobody had shown up to work that morning. It would be four days before I went back into town and finally got the package mailed. 

It was supposed to arrive at my sister's P.O. box in five days, but when that day came and went and my sister still hadn't acknowledged it, I checked the tracking number.  It was still in Colorado.  Why?  Your tax dollars at work. 

I checked again the next day, and the sweater had made it to Seattle, WA, but spent three days wandering around Washington state before finally making it to Alaska.  Whew!  It was finally over.  

Or so I'd thought. 

A few days went by, and my sister still hadn't acknowledged the gift, but I didn't think too much about it.  Someone would pick it up soon.  I checked again yesterday morning, and they still hadn't picked it up -- and by that time, it had been sitting in the post office for a week.  

I'd wanted it to be a surprise, but at that point, I thought it was best to say, "HEY!  GO GET YOUR PACKAGE!", and that's exactly what I did.  I texted my sister and told her it was there, and she replied that they'd been crazy busy and no one had gone to pick up the mail, but she'd make sure someone would get it Monday.  I just hope the post office doesn't decide to return it before they get there!  

Hopefully, she'll get it tomorrow, and then the saga will finally be over.  And I can relax again. 

In other news, I'd decided not to get the roto tiller out today, but it just wouldn't stop calling my name.  I tried to ignore it, reminding said tiller that this was the day of rest, but it was very persistent, so I gave in and started breaking up some of the high spots the landscammer left in my back yard. 

I know it's hard to tell from this photo, but this is one of those high spots.  I've also decided that the other landscaper has forgotten me, so I'm going to have to do this the hard way.  It's going to take forever, but I want to get it done before the grass spreads too far, since grass tends to wind around the axle of the tiller.  

So I broke up a small area, then started sifting the dirt, and putting some of it into the ruts the landscammer left with his skid steer.  You know, the ones he didn't fill in because I didn't tell him they were a problem.

But Becky, why don't you just scoot the dirt over into the ruts?  Why do you have to sift it first?

Well, I'll tell you.  I think this landscammer got that dirt from a garbage dump.  Not only is it full of rocks -- which I don't want in my yard anyway -- I've picked so much trash out of it, like water bottles, broken pieces of PVC, and even bits of broken glass.  Not only that, the dirt smells like something dead.  I'd been accusing the cat of leaving a dead animal in the yard, but I never found one, so I can only conclude it's the dirt.  I don't know why on earth he would think anyone would want that mess in her yard.  

Not to mention, I never told him to spread dirt in the back.  He was supposed to spread dirt in the front -- which he did not do.  In a way, I'm glad, because I sure wouldn't want this mess in my front yard.  I mean, I don't want it in the back, either, but at least I can hide the back from nosy neighbors. 

Once the weather starts cooling off a bit, I'll be able to make more progress, but right now it's still too hot to be outside very long.  Before I put the roto tiller back up, just for funsies I went over the garden spot once. 

 There is something almost theraputic about running a roto tiller.  Just not through red clay...

That red clay, when it's dry it's hard as a rock, but when it's wet, it's an absolute gummy mess.  I was going to go over it twice -- once North to South, then again East to West, but by the time I got done with the first time, I was bushed.  

So I came inside, took a shower and caught up on Marcy's and Leann's latest flosstubes. 

I might cast on another hat here in a bit, but my hands have been so sore this last week, I haven't even felt like knitting.  Or writing letters, but it's OK.  I'll get both done sooner or later. 

And finally, I keep forgetting to tell you, I finished reading the second book of The Pendragon Cycle, Merlin, by Stephen R. Lawhead, and started the third one, Arthur.  I'm also finally past the halfway point in Ship Of Brides, by Jojo Moyes.  It's an OK book, but not really my style.  Still, I'm determined to finish it. 

In fact, I think I'll get off of here and go read another chapter. 

Laters.  

So Jealous!

I am so jealous!  

My friend Marcy (at Amnicon Studios-- link in right sidebar) got a crow gift!  I've been trying all summer to get a crow gift, and...nothing.  I know there are crows around, because I can hear them cawing.  But I never see crows eating the corn I spread for them.  I think it's because the deer get to the corn first, and the crows don't get any.  

That doe I posted a couple of days ago watches.  She hides in the woods and watches me and as soon as the corn hits the ground, she's there gobbling it down, so I had to come up with another strategy.  

Today, I put some corn on top of the old tree stump that's just behind the fence. 

It's about 4 1/2' high, so maybe the crows will find it before the deer do.  

In other news, I decided it was time to start working again on clearing up this mess, so that's just what I did.  

 It was a nice day for it, too.  Breezy, which kept it from feeling too hot.  I'd said I was going to work until my mini chainsaw ran out of battery, but as it happened, I ran out of battery before it did.  

I've been up since 2:30 you know, and worked a ten hour shift in the factory to boot.  But I made good progress, even if you can't tell from the photo. 

Full disclosure, even though I'd said I was going to cut up all the small twiggy stuff for the compost pile, I ended up tossing a lot of it over the fence and adding it to the brush pile out in the woods.  Still, a couple more days and I'll have this knocked out -- except for the few pieces that are too big for my mini chainsaw, that is.  I'll have to break out the big chainsaw and see if I can get it running again.  It's been in storage for a while, so I'm not sure I'll be able to get it started. 

Ah, well.  It is what it is. 

Now, I'm back inside, have had a shower, and am watching football.  Alas, the Cowboys aren't on here, so I'm watching Packers vs. Jets.  

And finally, there I was at work, just a working away when Demi-god walked by and said, "Y'all, I got the swamp - @$$."  

I could have lived the rest of my life not knowing that.  And if you're from up North and don't know what swamp - @$$ is, you can live the rest of your life not knowing that. 

Trust me on this one. 

Look!!

Look what I have!!! Lookit!  Lookit!  D'ya see?  Do you see it???

Do you know what that is?  Do you?  It's baby grass!  I HAVE BABY GRASS!!  Whoo Hoo!!  

I'll have to be careful not to mow it, which is why I put those flags around it...but truth is, I probably won't mow the back yard much more this year anyway.  I'll keep the front knocked down, but unless it gets super high, I'll let the back grow wild.  I want to get the rest of that jug of grass seed planted sometime in the next few weeks as well, so the roots will have time to strengthen before the first frost -- which doesn't usually come until mid to late November. 

In other news, Wednesday when I got home from work, I was so drained and so tired and so exhausted that the thought of something as simple as tossing some chicken nuggets into the air fryer was just overwhelming.  So I ate some SmartPop popcorn and pudding for supper, then went to bed.  

Yesterday afternoon, when I went to the store, I bought eight of those Banquet microwave dinner and six pot pies.  I told the cashier, "I got tired of cooking, can you tell?"  I also bought myself a treat. 

I love this bread, but it's pretty high dollar, so I only get it every so often.  I've thought about baking my own, but the idea of having to keep up with a starter with everything else I've got going on is just a bit overwhelming.  

Speaking of, I got some turkey broth out of the deep freeze and thawed it out.  I'm going to try to dip Cody's break into that to see if it makes it easier to eat.  I don't want to break my kid's heart, but that bread was hard as a rock and very, very dry.  I mean, I told him it was dry, but I don't want to have to tell him I threw it out because I couldn't eat it.  

Oh, and while I was at the store, I couldn't find the hose repair thing I wanted, so I did the next best thing.  I bought a male hose end and a female hose end then wedded them together in holy matrimony. 

 It's working so far, and I'll get a few more years of use out of this hose. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go admire my baby grass some more.  

Laters. 

Meet The Teacher

I'd thought about going to the store after work today, because I'm almost out of milk.  Then I remembered it's Meet The Teacher day, so I decided not to. 

Just in case you don't know what Meet The Teacher day is, it's when you and your child go up to the school to get the kid's schedules and school supply lists.  At least, that's how it's supposed to be.  

How it really happens is that the student, parents, both sets of grandparents, various aunts, uncles, cousins, and your long lost 27th cousin from the old country Wilhelm all go up to the school and mill around in the halls.  And someone brings a dog.  

Seriously.

I remember when Cody was still in school, someone was up there with a dog at Meet The Teacher day.   True story.

Then, once the parents have the school supply lists, they, the student, both sets of grandparents, various aunts, uncles, cousins, and your long lost 27th cousin from the old country Wilhelm all go to Walmart to crowd into the two aisles that have school supplies and buy them.   And someone usually gets into a fight over the last five subject binder. 

Yeah, I'll go tomorrow.  

I came on home and went out back to water my grass seed, but when I turned on the water, my hose blew.  I wasn't too surprised, because it had had a weak spot there for a while.  I expected it to burst sooner or later.  And sooner or later came today. 

I tried to repair it with my handy dandy duct tape, but it didn't work too well. 

I guess I didn't get the tape wrapped tightly enough, because water was squirting out of both sides.  Ah well, it held long enough to get my grass and basil plants watered, and I'll look for a repair thing at Walmart tomorrow.  If they don't have one, there's always Amazon.  

And finally, after a bit of a hiatus, you get a meme debunkeration!  When all these NFL stars are supposedly saying the same thing, you've got fake sites on your hands. 

 

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  

It's so obvious, yet people still fall for it.  

Dread Pirate

I have a spider living in my house.  I've named her Dread Pirate Roberta, because every day I walk past her and say to myself, "I really ought to kill that spider," then I don't.  And I say, "Maybe tomorrow." 

Although when that egg sac hatches and I've got hundreds, nay thousands of baby spiders running all over my living room, I may regret that decision.  If I could kill the sac without killing Roberta, I would.  Hmmm, let me think on that a bit. 

In other news, there I was Saturday evening or Sunday morning -- I don't remember which -- shoveling dirt into my little pail, painstakingly picking out the rocks by hand when I said to myself, "There really ought to be an easier way to do this."  

Naturally, I did what any red blooded American would do.  I came inside, jumped onto Amazon, and found a better way to do this.  I wasn't expecting them to arrive until tomorrow, but imagine my surprise when I got home from work this afternoon to find that they'd gotten here early!  

And just what are they?  Sieves, of course. 

Heavy duty mesh sieves specifically made for sifting rocks from soil.  Even though it was pretty hot outside, I couldn't wait to try them out, so I did, and in less time than it takes to work up a heat stroke, I had a nice little pile of sifted, rock-free soil. 

I'll definitely be using this more, given how easy it is.  Even in the garden spot, I can sift the rocks out of the soil and leave the dirt where it is.  Much better than picking them out one by one with my fingers. 

That was with the smaller mesh sieve.  I'd gotten the set of two, thinking I could use the larger mesh to sift my compost, separating the stuff that's ready to use from the larger bits that need to break down more.   I'll do that as it cools off a bit, weatherwise, I mean.  For now, I got out the five gallon bucket of spider lily bulbs I'd dug up from my garden spot earlier this year, and put those bulbs into the sieve, then washed the dirt off of them.  

By the way, these are made to fit a five gallon bucket perfectly.  

I spread the bulbs on the old concrete slab to dry, and will probably end up burning them later on this fall, because I've got more than I need as it is.     

The whole time I was doing that, I had a very interested supervisor. 

Really, she was just impatient for me to leave so she could get at the corn I'd scattered behind the fence.  It didn't take long before I was done and she was able to nibble her little snack. 

And I came inside and took a shower.  

And finally, there is a bit of sadness in the weather community today, as Reed Timmer's little storm chasing buddy Gizmo has crossed the rainbow bridge.  

So long, Little Giz.  We're going to miss you. 

Sorcery

I walked into work not so bright, but very very early this morning, and right away I noticed something odd.  Very odd.  The air felt different.  It felt....cold.  

Sure enough, when I got to my work area, the little thermometer I keep on my stand said 71°.  

I quickly checked the calendar on my phone to make sure I hadn't walked through a time warp and ended up in January, but no.  It was still August.  What is this sorcery?

Seriously, I thought it was some sort of fluke, but no, the temperature never got above 83° for the entire day.  I'm telling you, work goes so much better when you're not absolutely miserable.  I just wish the upper management realized that as well.  

OK, moving right along, since Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, that is pretty much what I did yesterday.  I watched a few of my DVRed Shark Week shows while knitting on a hat, 

and behold, the finished object.  

I caked up the rest of the yarn and I think I have enough for another hat.  

I realized after the fact that I didn't include anything to give you a sense of scale, since I don't have any bananas around at the moment.  

The only other things I did yesterday was to scoop up some more of that dirt and fill in a little bit of this tire track -- you know the ones that are 4" deep in my front yard. 

And I planted a little more grass seed in a new spot. 

 I hope this stuff grows.  The package says to water it twice a day, but that isn't going to happen.  I already get up at 2:30 AM, I'm not getting up any earlier than that just to water some grass.  

And finally, Facebook is at its suckyness again.  This afternoon, I got a notification that two of my photos had been removed for -- get this -- child sexual exploitation.  

Yeah, I'm dumfounded, too.  They won't show me the photos they removed, and I can't even imagine anything I may have posted that is even remotely close to that, so I appealed.  They did not restore my photo, so I have no idea how I may have violated community standards.

This is why Facebook is a dying site.   The young people aren't getting on it, and the older folks aren't getting on as much because it just isn't fun any more the way it used to be.  

If it weren't for the storm chasers and meteorologists I follow, I'd probably leave the site altogether. 

But I'll still post links to my blog.  The ones Facebook doesn't remove as spam, at least. 

Lazy Saturday

Yep, it was a lazy Saturday here in the Fine Martial Household.  Well, lazy only in the sense I didn't have to go to work, and was able to work here at the house.  After enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee and some protein pancakes for breakfast.  

A very popular frozen waffle brand has recently come out with protein pancakes and waffles.  I tried them a few weeks ago, and they don't seem to negatively affect my blood sugar, so I'm getting them every now and again.  

Once my breakfast had settled a bit, I got out into the garden spot and shoveled up a wheelbarrow full of that red clay dirt the landscammer brought -- fussing all the while about did he really think I wanted my yard to look like this.  

Honestly, it wasn't really that hot today.  I mean, it's hot, but not blistering hot like it's been the last few days, so I wanted to get this done before summer comes back.  I haven't done anything with it yet.  The plan is to sort the rocks out and put them into the low spot in my driveway, then put the dirt into the 4" deep tire tracks the landscammer left in my front yard.  

I'm going to wait until it cools off a bit before I get back out there, though.  

While I was out there, I said to myself, "Self, you really ought to get the mowing done while it's still relatively cool."  But that's not exactly what I did. Oh, I started while it was still relatively cool, but with several cool-off breaks for both me and the lawn mower, it was pretty hot by the time I’d finished.  Not as hot as it has been, but still...

Oh, and check the oil in your lawnmower every once in a while.  It will thank you for it. 

It was hot work, but the yard looks so much better now.  Deciding to cool off once again before tackling the weedeating, off came the boots and socks. 

Oh, and before I forget, I scattered some grass seed in this spot right here, then surrounded it with flags to make sure I didn't mow it.  

The instructions say not to mow for several weeks to let the grass roots get established.  Thus the flags. If it works here, I'll put it into a few more spots. 

OK, I'm going to stop talking about how hot it is.  This is August after all. 

Wait, this is AUGUST???  When did that happen?  July seemed to go by in just a blink. 

I was watching my friend Marcy's latest garden vlog, and realized I hadn't filmed one all year.  I'd thought I'd do one this morning, but got busy doing other things.  Not that there has been much to vlog about this year, what with all the rain.  And once it dried out enought to actually do some prep work, it got too hot. 

Once it finally starts cooling off a bit, I can hopefully get the ground leveled and some of my raised beds put into place.  Oh, and I have to paint the fence first -- after I pull all of that dirt away.  

On a similar note, I guess the other landscaper has forgotten about me.  I know he said he was backed up, but it's been a month and I haven't seen hide nor hair of him.  I guess if he doesn't come soon, I'll have to get my rototiller out and break up that red clay myself, and try to push it into all those tire ruts the landscammer left. 

Because I didn't point each one out to him, so he thought I wanted them left in my yard.  

I guess that's about all I have for today, other than that I finally finished the Ryan Trahan series I was watching, and knocked a few more X-Files episodes out.  I mean, unless you really want to hear about me cleaning out the cabinet under my bathroom sink.  

No?  

I didn't think so. 

Wonder Of Wonders

Wonder of wonders, we have tomorrow off, y'all!  I couldn't believe it.  Heh, Group Leader Shark announced it in the morning meeting Thursday, and immediately one of the other brazers shouted, "No backsies!  You said it and no backsies!"  Which seemed a lot funnier at the time, now that I think about it. 

But there were no backsies and yes, we do have tomorrow off.  Even more, they let us go home at 2:00 today.  The first thing I did was to run home and grab the gas can...OK, the first thing I did was run home and run to the bathroom.  THEN I grabbed the gas can and went to The Ol' Corner Store first.  

Would you believe it, they still don't have modern gas pumps?  No card swipers, or chips, or anything.  So, I pulled out as fast as I pulled in and went to Mr. Monroe's, and wonder of wonders, the pump I went to actually worked!  That gas station has always been a bit of a hit or miss kind of thing.  

Anyway, I filled up the can with the intention of mowing later on today, but as it happens I will not in fact be mowing later on today.  And why?  Because wonder of wonders IT'S RAINING!!!  It's been raining for about an hour or so as I write this, which is probably more rain than we got in all of July.  So, I'll take it. 

Instead, I stayed inside and watched a few more Ryan Trahan videos, then I realized, hey, I can go back and watch the rest of season 9 of The X-Files -- which I'd skipped to watch the reboot seasons, when Mulder came back.  So, I did that, and knit a bit on the charity hat. 

I'm really liking the way these colors are knitting up.  I might have to get some more of this yarn when the Hobby Lobby in Batesville opens.  I'm not exactly sure when that will be.  I'd heard October, but I don't know for sure. 

But before it started raining, what I had intended to do was to get the front yard mowed, then spread some of this EZSeed in the bare spots I left in the back yard when I pulled up all that ground ivy. 

I may do that here in a little bit, after the rain stops, and I'll try to get the yard mowed tomorrow.  We're supposed to have a brief break in the heat, then it'll get hot again.  Still, any break is a relief after this last week.   This was Tuesday, and check out that heat index. 

I'd intended to blog that day, but never got around to it.  

This has been such a rough week at work, that blogging just didn't happen.  It seemed that every single order I got had something wrong with it, and the frustrating part is that those who could do something about it don't seem to care.   I had one order a few days ago that every single adapter tube was bent wrong.  Every single one.  

I showed the order to Group Leader Shark, but if the parts were done on second shift, there really isn't anything she can do about it. But it's been like that all week.  Yesterday, I had an order that two of the four adapter tubes were wrong, and today I got one that three out of the four were wrong.  When I showed that one to GLS, I seriously thought she was going to cry.  

She's as frustrated as we are, but as I said, all she can do is talk to the group leader on second shift.  If second shift GL isn't going to make her people do right, then all we can do is re-do all of those parts.  

Gee, if only we had an upper management who would give us the support we need to be successful at our jobs.  

On a similar note, change the phrase "answering an email" to "making a phone call" and this is me to a T. 

I've got so many phone calls I need to make, and so many phone calls I'm just not making. 

Maybe next week...Speaking of, I just realized that thanks to judicious scheduling of my vacation days, I only have two more Fridays to work this year!  Woo Hoo!  Maybe I can make some of those phone calls then.  

Now, wouldn't that be a wonder...

Of wonders.

Lesson Learned

First, a bit of sad news.  I got home from work, and discovered that a huge branch had broken off of Mr. Mater.  It was hanging by just a bit of skin -- so to speak -- so I went ahead and cut it completely off, even though it had a baby tomato on it.  Now Mr. Mater looks a bit sad,   

but I'll just consider this a lesson learned.  Next year, I'll make sure to get them proper tomato cages.  And next year, I'll have some of the raised beds in place, so I'll have them in the ground instead of a bucket.  They won't dry out so fast that way.  

In a bit of better news, I made an impulse purchase on Amazon, which arrived today.  And just what was that impulse purchase, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you. 

Rocks!!  

Polished rocks which I thought I could use to decorate my fairy garden.  But first, my bee pond got an upgrade.  

I didn't do much else outside, other than water the basil, fill the birdbath, and dump the manky water out of the deer trough and refill it.  We have a heat index of 109° this afternoon, and that's just too hot for me.  

Oh, I did trim off some of the bigger leaves of my basil plants, but I just tossed them over the back fence for any wild critters that might want to eat them -- or to compost down if none of them do.  That will give the new leaves better air and light to grow, and I might get one or two more batches of pesto out of them before they die off for the winter. 

By the way, this is what basil looks like when it flowers. 

 These are the ones in the front planter.  I've decided to let them go through their natural life cycle and either live or die as they will.  Oh, I'll still water them and all, but I'm not going to cut the flowers off or harvest any more leaves from them. 

That's about all I have for today.  I got to work this morning and told a coworker, "It's too early in the week for me to be this tired!" and she replied, "No it ain't!"  So, between that and being sore from working in the yard, and I hammered my thumb, and getting up at 2:30 in the blessed Ay Em, I'm all in.

I'm going to go take a hot shower and watch a few more episodes of either Ryan Trahan on YouTube or Shark week, then try to go to bed early.  

Laters.