09/30/2020

Today was the day of messed up work-related internet. I came into the office to no internet and had to have the IT guy walk me through rebooting the modem. It finally worked and I got through the morning with no further issues. Then I came home to finish the day here, and about a half hour before finishing up for the day, my remote connection died on me. My coworker wasn't able to log into it either, so it's not just me. Hopefully we'll get it restored soon because I don't want to stay at the office all day if I don't need to.

My new bedding arrived today! It's crazy, but fun. I'll take pictures down the line when I set it up for next spring.

I managed to get the dishes caught up today. I hate doing the dishes, but I sucked it up and did it anyway. I also picked up the bags in the front hall area that we've let sit around too long. So productive...

Leftovers tonight. Homemade pizza tomorrow. Finished The Good Place, and it's just as good as the first time around. Definitely warrants multiple viewings. Punky Brewster now. Hopefully a good night's sleep awaits me tonight because I am so tired!

09/29/2020

Today was a less busy day, but still a full day. My coworker came into the office and we needed to work on some weird exhibits while she was here. We also discussed what's working and what's not working. She's possibly going to come into the office a little more often on busy days, like Mondays, and wants me to send her more stuff she can do remotely, like stamping and relabeling exhibits so I can focus more on transcripts. She told me she had done transcripts for 4 solid years before really branching out into other parts of the business. I'd been at work a year when the pandemic hit and then I was off work for 2.5 months before coming back and have been straddling 2+ jobs when I came back, so it's really expecting too much of me to be able to handle all this with the amount of training I've had. I felt validated because I do make mistakes and it's hard for me to handle. But knowing I'm not really ready for what I'm doing, but have no choice at the moment, makes me feel better.

I left work after 2pm and ran a transcript to the building next door before heading home. I discovered a way out of the building that will mean less downhill walking while the elevator is out of commission. That'll be nice for me knees!

When I got home, it was pretty busy until the end of the shift. We've been busy the last couple weeks and people are finally getting the chance to turn in their work, so it's picking up for us on the back end. We'll see how long I'm at the office tomorrow.

After logging out, I got dinner doing. I made oregano chicken and rice, a new recipe that was pretty easy to make. I marinated the chicken this morning and got it all set up in the little oven before taking my shower. No walking today, my knees are sore and I don't want to push them. I had a little time in the cooking process that I sat in my new chair in my room and read for a bit. It was lovely!

I had to close my window as the smoke has rolled back into town tonight. We were assured by the news that it would be high up, no problem, but I could smell it very strongly. I'll probably have to switch to my N95 mask again tomorrow for the next few days. Sigh, it was so lovely not having the smoke here...

Smartly, my sister and I chose to watch The Good Place on Netflix and skipped the presidential debate tonight. We're gonna switch to Punky Brewster after this episode. Last night, I finished Avatar: The Last Air Bender, and it was fantastic! I might have to start The Legend of Korra next...

09/28/2020

It was a full day at work, and my coworker ran the transcript desk for the first part of the morning before I took over. We've had a couple weeks of really busy dep days so it makes sense that they're finally catching up with them. I helped myself by listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, which definitely helped. I ended up staying till 4pm before leaving for the day.

When I came home, I walked on the treadmill, but my knee was a bit sore so I walked really slowly. Hopefully it won't tweak my knee. I watched an episode of Batman while I walked. It's supposed to be pretty hot this week so I'll do the treadmill instead of walking outside.

I had a list of chores I wanted to get done today but didn't have time. If I leave work early tomorrow to finish at home I should have more time to work on chores. I have a new recipe I'm trying out for dinner tomorrow and need some time to work on it. Dinner tonight was delish leftovers.

My mom read my chapter and gave me some positive feedback for it, so that helped give me some confidence to keep working on editing more chapters. It takes a lot of work, but it'll be worth it.

The Good Place and Punky Brewster tonight.

09/27/2020

Today was just like I thought it would be: movies and chores. We watched HP:HBP, Legally Blonde, and now we're watching Monster's University. They also finally added the last season of The Good Place to Netflix so we watched the first two episodes of the last season while we ate dinner.

Dinner was a traditional pork chop dinner, but with red potatoes instead of russets. It was delish. I usually make it in the electric skillet, but tried it in the Dutch oven this time and it worked out really well. I also cooked the pork chops for less time, taking them out when I added the potatoes, and it was much less like shoe leather that time. I'll be doing it that way from now on. Looking forward to leftovers tomorrow night.

Chores today included prepping my food for work for the week, taking out compost/garbage/recycling, doing a load of laundry, washing masks by hand, sweeping, harvesting another batch of oregano, and getting the sink caught up.

I'm going to go through my recipes and try to find something to use the tomatoes I've harvested over the last couple weeks. I have a lot of chicken to use, and oregano. I'm thinking maybe some sort of cacciatore recipe or something like it. I have a log of polenta to use up too. I'll figure something out. I need a good recipe for Tuesday. 

Not sure what awaits this week. It's supposed to heat up again outside, and we start a new month so I'll have to pay rent and buy a bus pass since Metro is going back to charging fares for the first time since March. Not sure what the work load will end up being, but the plan so far is to turn on my Hamilton soundtrack tomorrow. Something to look forward to on a Monday!

09/26/2020

Today was movies at home, family time in the evening, and even a little book editing. We did HP:OOTP and Pitch Perfect before heading out to my parents' house to get together with them and my cousin and her family. I also worked on editing my book for a little bit too.

The day started with me reading in my new reading chair, with my new blanket, and it's all really nice! I read a couple chapters of the Frederick Douglass book I'm reading. Lunch was boring hotdogs and soup. It filled me up, but wasn't exciting. Dinner was MOD pizza, always tasty. I got a salad too and only ate half the pizza so I'll have the other half for lunch tomorrow.

Chores and more movies tomorrow.

09/25/2020

Today I spent half the day at the office and half at home. We got all the stuff from yesterday sorted out, and packaged stuff up to go out in the mail. Now all the transcripts we've been keeping with us since the pandemic started, are gone and out of our way! When I came home, I watched some Call the Midwife while logged on. I also worked out next week's menu. I like to plan a week ahead so I can make sure I have all the ingredients, and thaw things in time to use it.

After logging out for the day, we went to Grocery Outlet and bought a lot of fun and unnecessary stuff, and some necessary stuff, which is why you go to Grocery Outlet. After that, we picked up Panda Express and came back to watch The Office. We're now settled in to watch The Goonies.

We're going to gather with my family tomorrow. It should be interesting because it'll probably be the first indoor gathering, so we'll have to be extra careful. My sister and I are gonna get MOD pizza cuz it's close to their place and easy to transport.

I'm making progress on gathering my Christmas blog ingredients. I took home a giant bag of craisins and another bag of raisins to bake with. Very exciting! I made the decision to change one of the recipes and I'm still tracking down just the right recipe for it. I'm about two weeks out from starting it!

Hoping to catch up on some sleep this weekend...

09/24/2020

Today was ridiculous. There were two transcripts, with exhibits, that took seriously four hours from start to finish! They were different and more complicated than normal ones, and rarely come up. I'm barely trained to do them for my own job, and not at all for the production job. I'm actually going to come in tomorrow so my coworker can go over them with me and make sure I did them right. I'll be taking notes too! We were having problems with some of the exhibits not printing the entire image for some reason and none of us could figure it out until I found a little box in the advanced section to click on to "print as image" and boom, it worked perfectly! I'm glad I figured it out cuz it was not good.

Last night, I spent the evening looking up new bedding for my spring/summer bedding. I haven't gotten a new comforter for that time of the year since I moved out of my parent's house. I found something that looks exactly like Blanche's bedroom from The Golden Girls and came with a pineapple pillow! I got word that it shipped today, so I should get it soon. I won't set it up till next spring, but I'll have it ready.

My new reading chair arrived the other day and my parents dropped it off and set it up for me this afternoon. It looks great in my room and fits perfectly in the space I envisioned for it. This weekend I might spend some quality time reading in it!

It wasn't raining this evening, so I did my walk outside. I picked up a book from the little neighborhood library. Maybe I'll read that this weekend. After my shower I got the dishes caught up and made a quesadilla for dinner. It was pretty tasty.

Tomorrow, the plan is to go to Grocery Outlet and pick up dinner after work. If I'm lucky, I'll be home earlier than I was today. I ended up staying till 4pm and then just leaving for the day. Not sure what dinner will be, but hopefully it'll be delicious!

09/23/2020

Today was a really short day at the office. A couple transcripts, something to be picked up for delivery, and some video stuff, but that's about it. I left the office around 11am and was home and logging in before noon, which is definitely a record! It was gross and rainy out all day, so I was glad to be home working. During the slow times, I put out the autumn decorations and rearranged some stuff in the den to make it more user-friendly. I have embraced autumn, even though it feels like we were robbed of our end of summer. Wearing sweaters in the morning, drinking tea again, and I had hot soup with my lunch today!

It was really gross outside, so I walked on the treadmill after logging off, instead of going out for a walk. After my shower, I changed my bedding and put on my autumn/winter comforter. I washed my sheets and something happened between the washer and the dryer, but they're now full of snags and I'm going to have to buy new ones. I don't know if the dryer was too hot or what. They're polyester sheets and our dryer runs hot, so maybe the overheated. I'm not sure why that would create snags, though. I just googled it and will look around the inside of the dryer to see if there's anything in there that things could snag on.

Leftovers for dinner, quesadillas for dinner tomorrow. The rain and wind has stopped, at least for a while. More Office and Punky Brewster tonight. Will probably end the night with Highway to Heaven and an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

09/22/2020

Today was a hot mess at the office. Things were not working to the point that my coworker actually came in to try and help fix things. Fortunately, it helped. Unfortunately, we also lost the internet for a short time too before it came back on. We sorted it all out eventually, and I left around 3pm to finish working from home. I have a few things set up for tomorrow, but I'm usually able to start coming home sooner starting on Wednesdays.

When I got home, I monitored the transcript desk while getting dinner ready. Chicken curry over rice. I got it ready before going on my walk outside. It's so pretty out right now, but the leaves haven't really started to change yet so it still feels more like summertime out there, just less hot.

I'm super tired today. I changed my schedule a little and caught the bus before the one I usually catch. Fortunately, it was a lot less full and went much more smoothly. I didn't have to get up any earlier because I got my breakfast stuff ready the night before, like I used to do, instead of the morning of. I just need to go to bed earlier to get a little more sleep.

Leftovers tomorrow. The Office and Punky Brewster on tv tonight.

09/21/2020

Metro changed their quarterly schedules this weekend and today the bus was super messed up this morning. A new driver, 7 minutes late, and because he was so late, there were tons of people at each stop and the driver let all of them on until people were standing in the aisles and he let two people on without masks on, and he himself was wearing his mask under his nose. It was a nightmare and definitely not a good start to the day or week. Because of this, I was a bit crabby all day.

Work itself was not as bad as I anticipated cuz my coworker logged in and ran the transcripts desk for the morning before I took over later to finish up the last of the stuff in the in-box. I was busy till just before 3pm before coming home to finish working remotely. I was also super headachy all day. Still am. And my upper back is sore. I'm just so whiny today!

I took a walk outside after work for the first time in a long time, and it was really nice. The highlight was the people out walking their pig! I want to take advantage of this time. The weather is cooler now but it's still light out enough to walk. I'm going to try to keep walking after work outside until it gets too dark and then switch over to the treadmill when it's too dark by 5pm.

We did the rest of the roast chicken leftovers for dinner tonight and I diced up the rest of the chicken for tomorrow's chicken curry. I also got the dishes under control today. My hope is to keep it under control this week.

The Office and Punky Brewster tonight. I want to try to catch the bus before the one I normally take tomorrow to see if I have less issues. I'd rather get to work early than deal with that drama again. Hopefully I'll get a good night's sleep tonight.

09/20/2020

Today started with a trip to Safeway. I was unsuccessful with any items on my Christmas blog project list, so this afternoon I looked at the schedule very carefully and ordered the items I will need soonest before they might be available in stores, but will wait till later to see if I can find the rest in the stores in the next month or two. We picked up some lunch before heading home for an afternoon of movies and chores.

We started out with HP: GOF, and I also worked on the dishes, filling and running the dishwasher, and finally catching up with the by-hand dishes. After the movies, I took out the compost/garbage/recycling and swept all the hardwood floors. I also did two loads of laundry, folded it, and put it all away.

After HP we moved onto Disney movies. 101 Dalmations, both the original animated and the live action version. During that time, I worked on our roast chicken dinner, including homemade mashed potatoes, and homemade gravy. I put the last of the browned butter from the banana bread on the chicken as it roasted and it was fantastic! Dinner was delish and leftovers tomorrow will be too.

The banana bread turned out great from last night. It's always better the next day. I'm going to have a slice later for dessert/snack. Yum!

Watching The Sword in the Stone now, and mentally preparing for work tomorrow. I've been warned it's gonna be a crazy bad busy day, so we'll see what happens and how late I'll be there.

09/19/2020

What a cold, damp, and rainy day it was today! This morning, I got up and checked the air quality online and it was back to normal so I opened all the windows and started to cool off and properly air out the apartment. It has been gloriously cold all day! I even had tea today!

We started the day with a trip to Bartell's, a gas station to fill up the car, and McDonald's to pick up breakfast to take home with us. We settled in for a day of movies, mostly Disney, but now we're watching HP: POA in our Harry Potter rewatch.

I did something today that I haven't done in quite a while, from a combination of being too hot, and just having no motivation: I baked! We had three overripe bananas in the freezer and it is just time to start baking, so I found a recipe for browned butter banana bread and I just pulled it out of the oven and it smells divine! It turns out browned butter is super easy to make and I will be trying it out on popcorn sometime soon. 

Tomorrow we will do our Safeway shopping and depending on prices, we'll be picking up a chicken to roast here, or an already cooked chicken, but it's roast chicken dinner Sunday. We have potatoes to use up, so I'll be indulging and making homemade mashed potatoes to go with it. 

Based on how cold and damp it is now, I suspect I'll be able to switch over to my autumn bedding soon. The official first day of autumn is next week, so my plan is to put up decorations and switch bedding in a week, if it stays cold enough. I really like being able to use the oven again! It just feels so homey.

09/18/2020

Worked from home today. It had some busy moments but for the most part it was slow. I spent the day watching The Golden Girls, Home and Family on Hallmark, and Call the Midwife on Netflix. I cleaned my toilet, and also picked all the lavender buds off the three bunches my parents gave me from their garden. It's a good thing I went through it carefully cuz one bunch had a spider web blob in it, and another had half a dead bee in it. The stinger half! I have a sachet that has old lavender in it, so I tossed that and replaced it with the newer buds. I had one bunch leftover and nothing to put it in, so when we went to Fred Meyer tonight to do our shopping there, I picked out a decorative bowl and it's now on my cupboard with my teacups with the buds in it and it looks really nice there.

The bad part of the day was RBG's passing. It's such a conflict. I want to mourn, but I need to fight. We need to fight, the GOP will not take a moment to be decent. Our nation is in peril, women and people of color are in peril, and we cannot sit back and wait. We can mourn her when the battle is over and our nation is secured. This is just so terrible. I'm scared.

Fred Meyer shopping, then Heaven Sent fried chicken for dinner. The Office tonight. Not quite sure yet about weekend plans, but it finally started raining and the air quality numbers are getting better with each passing hour. I may be able to go out with just a regular mask and not my N95 mask. Probably more Disney movies this weekend. Two more HP movies, for sure.

09/17/2020

Today was a longer day at the office. I was there till about 2:45pm before I left to finish the day at home. My coworker installed a new exhibit marking program and I think it's going to make it way easier, and better-looking to electronically mark exhibits now. She walked me how it works and I'll get the hang of it but for now it's going to take a little time to figure it out.

Tomato update: The tomato that was the closest to ripening finished ripening and easily came off the vine when I tested it. There's another one that's a few days out from being ready and a couple more starting to turn yellow. The advice I took yesterday is definitely helping out. I'm really lucky I stumbled across that segment on tv yesterday!

More steamed potatoes, ham, and green beans for dinner tonight. The Office and Punky Brewster tonight. It's supposed to start raining tomorrow and finally start blowing some of this smoke away. Time will tell if that happens. It's a grocery shopping weekend for us so we're going to do Fred Meyer tomorrow after work and will pick up dinner on our way back home. We're thinking Heaven Sent Chicken. We were going to do it last week but there was a line and the smoke was too bad to wait outside for it. Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow night. Jury is still out on Saturday with the family. We'll see what happens.

09/16/2020

I think today was the record for the shortest turnaround time for leaving the office to finish the day at home. I left around 11am today! There were only a few things to be done this morning and then I headed home and finished the day working remotely. A new season of Home and Family started on the Hallmark channel and I had no idea how much that show has grown on me until they stopped airing it when they ran out of reruns to show. They have figured out how to do it with social distancing and it's delightful. After that I watched several episodes of Call the Midwife and finished out the third season. I tried to help with the front desk in the afternoon but there was a lot that I had to pass onto my coworker for various reasons because I don't have the authority to make certain calls, and apparently all those scenarios came through this afternoon.

The Home and Family show had a gardening segment, coincidentally, about tomatoes still on the vine that are still green this time of year, and how to get them to ripen. My tomato plant just happens to be in the situation, so I listened very carefully and after logging off of work for the day, I used scissors and cut off all the stems and leaves that don't have tomatoes attached to it. That is supposed to divert the rest of the plant's energy to the tomatoes so they'll ripen faster. I accidentally cut off one of the branches that had three tomatoes, so I had to use the fourth option the gardener mentioned, which is to stick them in a paper bag with an apple. The apple is a gas-releaser and the gas should activate the tomatoes. Hopefully between these two, I'll finally get my tomatoes to ripen. Two or three of them actually finally started this week. I'm guessing it was from all the crap in the air, because we definitely haven't gotten any sun this week. I figure all the smoke probably has some of the gasses in it that activate the tomatoes. Good that we're all breathing this stuff in, huh...! I will make sure to add tomato updates as time goes by.

Steamed potatoes, green beans, and ham for dinner. Leftovers for tomorrow. The Office and Parks and Recreation, and now Punky Brewster tonight.

09/15/2020

Today was a boring day at work. It was super slow and I was set to leave at 10am and finish the day at home when my boss told me it was "pinks day". Which means printing overdue bills and folding papers and stuffing envelopes. And I worked on shredding paper. It was a serious drudgery day, but it was stuff that needs to get done and stay caught up. Things got way out of hand when the pandemic started and over the last few months and now we're finally in a position to catch up and stay that way. I was able to leave around 2:30pm and finished the day at home. Ironically, when I got home, a bunch of jobs came in and I was super busy till the end of the shift. I now have stuff to do tomorrow morning at the office.

When I logged off I took a shower, and lounged on my bed and continued to read the Frederick Douglass autobiography I've been reading lately. It should be required reading in this nation. He was talking today about how slave owners would insist upon being called "good" and "kind" by the people they enslaved or they'd get upset and sell them off, and that's about the whitest thing I can think of.

We binge-watched The Office for a couple hours and did an episode of Parks and Recreation, and had leftover tacos for dinner. I did some more dishes and now we're watching Punky Brewster. Good times.

09/14/2020

It was a full day at the office today. I stayed till 4pm and got a lot of stuff done. I was able to get almost everything done, but have a couple things left for tomorrow. I don't know how much there will be to do tomorrow or if I'll come home early to finish the day at home.

When I got home, I did some dishes and made a taco dinner with Mexican rice. I have no tomatoes right now, but they were still good. I put salsa and salsa verde on them, and it added a lot of nice flavor.

Not a very exciting day, and it was dreary out with the smoke, which we hear now will be around till at least Thursday before strong enough rain comes through to start washing it away. I don't know if we'll be able to get together with the family this coming weekend either. My parents are asking if we want to move things indoors but so far my sister and I aren't quite comfortable with that yet. We just can't be too careful with this pandemic. One slip up, that's all it takes.

Leftovers tomorrow night.

09/13/2020

I woke up at 6am today, and was just awake for the day. I read in bed till 7am before getting up to get ready for the day. It ended up being was another big movie day, though my sister slept in super late, so it started off as a Call the Midwife marathon, which was lovely. We did venture out of the house today to pick up some masks my dad ordered for the family, and to pick up some lunch. Then it was home for movies, movies, movies!

I did manage to take the compost/garbage/recycling, filled and ran the dishwasher, and did two loads of laundry. It was a good balance of chores and super relaxing. In spite of the terrifying smoke that ruined all of my Saturday plans, it ended up being a really nice weekend. Lots of Disney movies, both animated and live-action, and the first two Harry Potter films, and a good chunk of Call the Midwife. I can't complain!

It's still supposed to be gross tomorrow so I'll definitely wear my heavy duty mask out to/from the bus to go to work. I have no idea how busy it'll be, so no clue if it'll be a full day or a partial day at the office. Time will tell!

09/12/2020

Well, the zoo announced it was closing last night, and we already cancelled the family gathering for tonight, so I have no plans when I woke up, except that I had promised to make a pancake breakfast. I woke up at 5am, choking and stuffed up and it took till about 6:30am before I could get back to sleep. I read in bed for a while, but was able to finally breathe again. I woke up around 9am and the first thing I saw was weird yellow coming through the slats of my bedroom shades. I looked out the window and it was really terrifying to see the smoke and sickly yellow and nothing else. It actually made me feel a little panicky, like on an instinctive level.

We stayed inside all day. Did not open the doors or windows, never left the apartment. My sister hooked up her AC to the window in the living room and we taped the open bits with packing tape to minimize what comes inside. I eventually brought out my humidifier because the AC was drying out the place. It was drying out our throats and making us cough. It's better now.

We had a movie marathon today. We watched the animated Alice in Wonderland and followed it up with the live action Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Then it was the animated Peter Pan followed by the live action Peter Pan. We tried to track down Hook but we don't own it and it's not on any of the streaming services we have, so that wasn't an option. Tonight we're finally starting a Harry Potter rewatch with the first movie.

I actually ate home food all three meals on a Saturday. What a record! Pancakes, sausages, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. I put raspberries in the pancake batter and it was delish. There's more batter so we'll finish it up tomorrow for breakfast. Lunch was a tv dinner. Dinner was the very fancy English muffin pizzas which turned out to be really good! I had frozen Tablespoons of tomato paste and then forgotten I'd done so, when I unearthed it in my efforts to work on the freezers this week. I thawed some and doctored it up and it worked just fine. I had the dried oregano from my garden and it was perfect!

One fun thing happened today. Ancestry.com finally put out their annual updates which I have been waiting since the beginning of August for. Better late than never! No new nationalities/ethnicities, but they were able to refine the numbers more. They're better able to distinguish Irish from Scottish, Norwegian from Swedish, and English/NW European from the other nations that make up those locations, so my percentages changed. My English went down and my Scottish and Irish went up. My Norwegian went down and my Swedish went up. My African nations stayed the same.

Tomorrow will be more movies and eating at home, though I may venture out to take the garbage/compost/recycling out. We'll see though. I don't know what tomorrow will be like, smoke-wise. It's dark now and it feels normal when I can't see the smoke anymore...

09/11/2020

Today is always a bit of a rough day, as we remember 9/11 every year. Some years are harder than others. This year we had the smoke distracting us, but next year, it'll be the 20th anniversary. It'll be a rough year...

I worked from home which is my normal routine for Friday. I watched Golden Girls, several episodes of the new Charmed, and finished out the second season of my Call the Midwife rewatch. There's so much I've forgotten about the earlier episodes, it's nice to watch it again. Work was steady but not overwhelming and I was very grateful not to have to leave the house.

I did leave the house after work when my sister was coming home so we could run out and get dinner and a few things from Walgreens. I needed white chocolate m&m's and eye drops. This smoke is making my eyes burn. Then we ran out to Briley's BBQ and picked up dinner.

Tomorrow's plans have been completely ruined by this smoke. The zoo, which we were already going to cancel on, officially closed for tomorrow, so now we really can't go, even if we'd wanted to. And our family backyard outing is definitely cancelled cuz who wants to sit outside in this smoke? Definitely not me and my mildly asthmatic lungs! I told my sister we could make a big blow-out breakfast and watch movies all day, instead. I'm really craving fried chicken, so I have to figure that out...

It was definitely warm in here, but I kept the fans on all day and we have them on now, and it's tolerable, unlike yesterday, which was sweltering. But I didn't turn on the fans in the afternoon, and that was a mistake. Definitely won't do that again. Fortunately, the position and speed of the fans in my bedroom are such that it does keep it tolerable even on the hottest nights, so hopefully I'll sleep ok today. I was in less of an exhausted stupor today, which is good. 

Started Girlfriends on Netflix tonight, which I haven't seen in forever and never saw from start to finish originally. Then an episode of The Office, and now finishing the evening by completing our Indiana Jones watch with the 4th movie, which is also on Netflix. Fun times!

09/10/2020

It is too hot today! I'm sitting in a heat-induced stupor, but I'm eating the last of my root beer pie, which is frozen, so it's cooling me down a little. We have the fans on and the windows open so as soon as I'm done eating, I will be putting a mask on as it's still smoky out. It's supposed to get even worse starting tomorrow. The zoo trip and family gathering on Saturday is now in question. Just have to take it one day at a time, I guess.

I went into the office for the first part of the day but was able to get home sooner than I have so far this week, and finished the day at home remotely. Like usual, I'll be working from home tomorrow. I may regret not being able to go into an air-conditioned office...!

Freezer food for dinner is wearing thing. I'm definitely getting tired of it and hopefully next week will cool down enough that I can plan proper meals. I can still use stuff from the freezer, but I'm just over this. It's gonna be ridiculously hot and smoky tomorrow so we're probably gonna buy dinner out. Just confirmed with my sister, buying out is definitely happening. Drive thru so we don't have to get out and be in the smoke more.

I hope I sleep well tonight. I am so beyond tired right now. But these are the times I'm going to remember when I'm stuck in a snowstorm and walking home from downtown on a work night. Sike, I can work remotely now so I'm so never going to the office on a work day again!

09/09/2020

Today was a ridiculous day at work. I did an exhibit that took up probably 45 minutes of my day. It was the worst exhibit I have ever worked on and it was just a nightmare from start to finish. And there was this back and forth on some video stuff that never got resolved and the website we use to upload stuff to to send out to places randomly updated, but only one one computer, the computer that the video stuff goes through. Of course. I ended up staying till 4pm and when I was trying to leave, the in-box exploded and I ended up staying 15 minutes late to get the worse of it taken care of. I finally left when I had to take the mail out. It was just an irritating day, overall. Not stressful, just irritating.

I came home and showered and sat at my desk finishing the murder mystery I've been reading since I went back to work in June. I usually take three weeks to read one, and now that I don't take breaks and only have certain times waiting for the bus to read, it took waaaaay longer than it used to take. Now I'll start a new one tomorrow.

Tonight's clean out the freezer dinner was a Trader Joe's mandarin chicken bowl and chicken potstickers. And then I had a slice of my root beer pie that I'm trying to use up. It's an exciting life...

Our tv is acting strange, so we're watching Netflix tonight. Can't complain about an evening of The Office. We're risking having the windows open tonight because it's just too hot and stuffy but I feel like there's still enough garbage in the air to be affecting me. Or it could be psychosomatic, because I just think it should be affecting me. I will probably close the window when I go to bed though. Hopefully I'll sleep well tonight!

09/08/2020

Today was a busy day at work, but not for as long as I anticipated. We were bonkers and I couldn't hardly keep things straight but my coworker and I both left around 2pm! I finished the day working remotely. I thought at first I might be able to try working from home tomorrow, but then I remembered that somebody is dropping stuff off at the office and will need somebody to be there, so I will be coming in after all. I might not be there too long, if it's not too busy. I might turn on my Hamilton cds though. I didn't have time today because I ended up running the transcript desk and not the back room, so I wasn't able to turn on any music.

My sister is working the late shift this week and since it's a hot week and we're trying to use up stuff from the freezer, this is a freezer dinner week. I am making her dinner for her so it's ready when she gets home. It worked out pretty well tonight, she was really excited with her meal. I have tomorrow night's planned out already too. It's a surprise so she just sits down and it shows up and that's dinner! I had leftover pizza that I didn't know I'd had in the freezer.

The smoke from Eastern Washington has blown over here and it's really bad right now. I wore my N95 mask to/from work and it seemed to help. I have to be so careful with smoke cuz of my asthma. We have the fans on in the house, but the windows closed. It's tolerable as long as you're in the fan's path, but it's pretty stuffy in here. But it's just so gross with the smoke to put the fans in the windows right now. Hopefully it'll dissipate soon cuz it's supposed to heat up again this week, so opening the windows would be really good.

It's gonna be a hot night and I already woke up early today and couldn't get back to sleep, so hopefully I'll sleep ok tonight and sleep till the alarm goes off!

9/7/2020

Well, Labor Day finally arrived. It has been a really lovely weekend. I did a little bit of everything. This morning I did "replace all" for each of my chapters and updated my character and his family that I have revamped. I didn't get into any actual rewriting, but that was a big step in the right direction. I got through another couple episodes of Call the Midwife. I'm excited cuz we're about a week out till they add another season so I'll have 9 seasons to watch!

We ran out and got Taco Time for lunch and did a Baby-Sitter's Club Netflix series rewatch today. I vacuumed and got all the laundry caught up. And even though the weather isn't really changing yet, it was in the right place of my shirt rotation to go ahead and switch out my fall/winter work shirts. I have a couple red ones to add next week when I do a red load, but I'll be able to put it all away then. Since it's a little difficult to move that section of the closet around, I'm just going to leave the shirt bin out for the week and then put it away.

Watched Bubble Boy, had leftovers for dinner, filled and ran the dishwasher. Now we're watching Cinderella to finish out the evening. We've reached the 1950's in our Disney movie rewatch. It's a good decade for Disney classics.

We shall see how work turns out tomorrow, but I am anticipating a long, grueling day. Clean out the fridge/freezer week coming up, due to the heat. Definitely not oven weather yet.

9/6/2020

Lots of movies today! The day started off with me reading and lounging in bed for a while, which was nice. Then I watched an episode of Call the Midwife on Netflix, which always makes me bawl. It's such a good show. When my sister joined me, we started in on movies and did a few chores. We rearranged the living room a bit and now there's more space to move around and we set up the lamp my sister took from work, so I moved the old one to my room. I set up the extension cord I bought and now all my stuff is plugged in near my bed, which is nice. My humidifier will be closer to me. I'm already noticing a difference with it so I definitely want to keep using it. We also took out the garbage, recycling, and compost.

Tomorrow I have to do laundry and I might vacuum if it's not too hot. I will also try to get the kitchen under control again. I made the pork roast that was supposed to become pulled pork, but it wouldn't pull, so we just ate like like normal pork roast, but with bbq seasoning. It was really delicious! We also tried the root beer float pie I made last night. It turned out pretty good, but I wouldn't have minded it tasting even more like root beer than it did. We decided that a Labor Day rewatch of the Netflix BSC series was a must for tomorrow, but there will probably be time for some movies too.

Ending today with a Teen Beach Movie and Teen Beach 2 rewatch. Sometimes you just gotta watch some musicals!

9/5/2020

Well, I am exhausted! Today we got up and stopped at Burger King for breakfast, and ate in the car. We had decided last night that since we both need new clothes, as ours are falling apart, and stores limit how many people can be inside at a time, and everybody has to wear a mask, and since we would wash the clothes before wearing them for real, and would shower when we got home, that it wasn't that much worse to shop for clothes and it was to go to a grocery store. We were going to do Southcenter so we could also hit up the Disney store, but my mom said there were protests planned that might mess up traffic, so we decided to head to Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood instead. We thought we'd get there around 10am, before it got really busy. We were shocked to find out, after we arrived, that they don't open till 11am. What kind of mall opens at 11am on a holiday weekend?! We didn't want to stick around, so we headed over to Old Navy and Nordstrom Rack a few blocks away and had great luck with our clothes. I took my thickest mask I use for the bus for this shopping trip in hopes of staying as safe as possible.

After clothes shopping, we headed out to Marysville where there is an outlet mall with a Disney store. I'd never been there, and it's all outdoors. Every store had limited people allowed in at a time and employees enforcing it, and everybody had to wear a mask and stand 6 feet apart in the line outside. Once we were in, it was harder to social distance, but everybody had their masks on, and we tried to be as fast as possible. I found that they also had a Bath and Body Works store there, so I had to there too.

It's obviously a risk to go anywhere and do anything during a pandemic, but I feel that we took every precaution and we were finished before the crowd picked up. We also decided to get the grocery shopping done today so we can just stay home the rest of the weekend. 

I was so drained and tired by the time we were done and my sister pointed out that I haven't really interacted with that many people or been in that large a group of people, since the pandemic began, so it makes sense that it would leave me drained.

We picked up Taco del Mar on the way back and have spent the rest of the day watching movies. I also worked on a blog post of links for antiracism work. And I made a pie! We'll see how it turns out, but I'll probably do a Labor Day food post to show what I made this weekend. I hope it'll be tasty, but it's setting till tomorrow, so we'll see then!

Finishing the night with an episode of Call the Midwife. Hopefully I'll get a good night's sleep!

5 Resources to Combat Racism From Your Friends and Family

For those of us who are committed to fighting against racism, we're going to come up against people who disagree with us. Sadly, some of those people will be our friends and family members. So, what to do when this happens? Falling into shock and white silence is the natural reaction, but dismantling white supremacy demands that we speak up and out against it. I have compiled some good articles I found about this topic, in hopes that we can all do better in combating racism and dismantling white supremacy.

Here is a great article with some very practical tips on combating racism, both in person, and online.

Talking to our parents about racism can be tough. Here are some thoughts on the topic.

This has some great advice on how to deal with common arguments in discussing racism.

Six steps towards talking to friends and family about racism.

Here are some more ideas, including non argument-related things you can do.

There's a lot online about this topic, but it was all variations of the above articles. I hope this is something we can all find helpful as we work up the nerve to actually have these tough conversations. Good luck, everybody!

9/4/2020

Today was a rather slow day working from home. I was able to fully make my potato salad and clean up the kitchen from it and watched Black Panther and an episode of Call the Midwife, as well as The Golden Girls this morning. It was nice, but I know Tuesday will more than make up for it! I'm just determined to enjoy this weekend because of it!!

After I logged off, we ordered take out from Red Robin, and stopped by Bed, Bath, and Beyond at Northgate. We needed several things and had a coupon for 20% off our entire bill. I got an extension cord and power strip for my bedroom so I can plug in my humidifier closer to my bed and have a place to plug in what will be a new lamp for my room when we do some rearranging in the living room with a new lamp we got. I also got a heated blanket for when it gets cold in here and I'm freezing. I'm always talking about wanting one and now that it was 20% off, I thought it was a good deal. We also got some stuff to work on organizing our freezers because I hate the current disorganization. This should help get things to a more usable state. I took some "before" pictures today and I'll take some "after" pictures to post here.

As we got our dinner, we made plans for tomorrow. It's a risk, but we will social distance and wear masks, and make sure we're not there for too long, but we're going to venture out to Southcenter mall tomorrow because we're both in desperate need of some new clothes as ours are starting to fall apart. We're going to see what JC Penney has as far as sales and variety, and then for our mental health, we're going to see if the Disney Store is open. And if Bath and Body Works happens to be open and along the way from one to the other store, we may stop there, but that's it. Then it's back out and I will shower as soon as we get home. We're going to go as soon as the mall opens in hopes that it won't be too busy yet, and will try to be as fast as possible.

I will be making pulled pork for tomorrow's dinner, and plan to eat it with my potato salad. Should be delish. Grocery shopping on Sunday, and then home for movies the rest of the time. It should be a nice weekend.

09/03/2020

Well, I'm home till Tuesday! I still have to work tomorrow, but at least I'm here and I can watch The Golden Girls. Today was slow but steady. I ended up staying till a bit after 2pm because we were waiting for somebody to come by and work on the phones, but they never showed up. I left and finished the day out at home. I'm still curious how tomorrow will go. It'll either be super busy or super slow. 

Leftover curry stew for dinner. So delish. Thinking we'll do Red Robin for dinner tomorrow night to kick off the holiday weekend. 

Super tired tonight. Hopefully I'll sleep well.

9/2/2020

Today was a boring day at the office. Super slow, but I did find enough to do to stay till around 12:30 before leaving to finish the day at home. It was super slow at home too. I don't know what's going on, except tomorrow I was told we're maxed out so about a week from now, on top of the three day weekend, it's gonna suuuuuuuckkkkkk! I'll try to ignore the lighter week while it lasts...! I did have time to do some more thinking about my King Arthur book, which is something I haven't been able to do in a long time. It's really nice having my imagination kick in again. I've missed it.

Tonight's dinner was lovely. One of my curry packets, with chicken, potatoes, and green beans. You add a can of coconut milk to it and it's just amazing! And it'll be even better tomorrow when the flavors meld even more. It sets us up perfectly to have Friday night free to get take out, which is the appropriate way to start Labor Day weekend.

The Office/Parks and Rec and then Punky Brewster tonight. I want to work on renaming my character's family's names tonight. It's a big step. Once I do that, I might actually be able to start editing soon!

9/1/2020

A brand new month has begun! Today was a good day at work. It was slow for the most part, but I got a lot done and my coworker and I went over a few things we needed to fine tune. Sometimes it's hard when she starts the day in the transcripts desk, and then I take over. Lots of conversations I'm coming halfway into. It just takes communication. A lot of it!

I was able to leave early enough to get home around 4pm, so I logged on from home for the last hour of the day. I'm going in tomorrow, but unless it blows up, I'm probably going to go home early. My foot is doing better and I really want to start walking again but I know I need to take it easy. Today I accidentally smashed my knee on the edge of the desk at work. It hurt so much for a while! All the way up to my hip! It's better now, a little stiff. Walking might actually be good for it, to help keep it from stiffening up. We'll see. I'm also really enjoying reading on the lanai after I log out of work. I usually do a chapter of my antiracism reading and then a chapter of Roots. It's a long book, so it'll take me a long time to get through it.

I got something fun in the mail today. The official ElfQuest twitter was promoting their masks on their Redbubble page and it wasn't that bad of a price, so I had to get one. I've been rereading the comics this summer and I'm an EQ fan now and forever, so I had to get the mask!

Tonight's dinner was a creative way to use up stuff from the fridge. I had some Polish sausages, the last of a jar of sauerkraut, some sour cream, and a portion of fresh pappardelle pasta to use up, so I cut and fried the sausages, threw in the drained sauerkraut, sour cream, and some of the pasta water and made a sauce for the cooked pasta. It wasn't half bad, really! We're doing one of our curry packets tomorrow with potatoes, chicken, and coconut milk. It should be pretty tasty and will have leftovers for Thursday too.

Punky Brewster reruns tonight.