I passed inspection on the 20th, and I don't have to move house. I knew I would, but it was only last Tuesday that I heard from the manager.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
My middle nephew's second was born last Thursday (which is also my anniversary date for my job). One new grand-niece (I forgot to ask for vital statistics, but my mother tells me she's healthy and already interested in what's going on around her) and 18 years in (gawd help me). I had always intended to retire at 70, but 66 looks better and better.
There's a glitch in the surplusing system - the slot where you're supposed to enter the code for the payment isn't long enough for the codes that are issued to specific jobs - it's designed for the aliases that are assigned to specific accounts so you don't have to enter the entire account string. And nobody has found the alias I need to enter for me yet. Only one of the requests I've entered has been approved and we have to be out of our space by September 11th at the latest. And the ladies in the lab have been putting things in the general recycle bin in our current building that are on the list of stuff that can't be dumped there.
The library historical archivist has very happily taken a fair amount of stuff off our hands - most of it teaching materials Dr. Sahn used when he was much younger - and he's working on finding space for a couple pieces of imaging equipment that are of historical interest.
I spent all of last week sorting and tossing and packing - the one surplusing request that was approved was getting the six extraneous file cabinets out of my office. I am so happy I will never have to deal with the monster (8-drawer lateral, 9' high) again.
Saturday morning was making cookies with my granddaughter. The thunderstorm at 3:30 AM woke me up, but I went right back to sleep and woke up for the day an hour later than I usually do. The first thing I did upon getting dressed (I know my granddaughter pretty well by now) was set things out for mixing up the cookies. The butter was still too hard when she arrived, but she was happy enough to occupy herself with artwork and banging on my little xylophone until the butter was soft enough to get started.
Oatmeal chocolate chip walnut cookies - the true food of the gods. And this has been a month where I have truly felt the need of them.
My recipe is simple enough. I use the Nestle toll-house recipe, except instead of 3/4 cup each of brown and white sugars, I use 1/2 cup white and 1 cup dark brown. Two cups of old-fashioned oats and 1 cup chopped walnuts, and bake as directed (I use a flatware teaspoon to dish them onto the cookie sheet, since I like my cookies rather small and crisp). We baked two dozen and my granddaughter took most of them home with her. I dished out the rest of the dough and froze it so I can bake cookies as I feel the need over the next few weeks.
I'm beginning to believe I'll probably survive this current mess, too; but, as I said, the true food of the gods ....
A windstorm blew up while my granddaughter was here. It blew some limbs off a couple of trees - one of them just to the north of me. The limb in question landed on the roof of the apartment two doors north of mine. And last week, those trees were trimmed to hopefully avoid this sort of thing!
The windstorm continues, intermittently. It looks like it's going to rain fairly soon, but I can't say for absolutely sure.
I ache in every muscle of my body. It's been a very busy and stressful several weeks, and won't slow down for at least two. Even my heating pad isn't helping much - possibly because it isn't big enough to cover all of me. No, I don't have an electric blanket, and since I wouldn't use it on my bed, it would be a waste of money to buy one. And Seattle is a bit far to go for a hot tub.
I didn't decide about the dancing till it was past time I should have left if I wanted to show up for the beginners' half-hour. I ache in every muscle of my body.
I tried to take a nap Saturday afternoon. I'd say the call that interrupted it was another scam. This one was a woman with an accent thick enough to cut with a feather, claiming the government had chosen me for a grant. I said "no thank you" and hung up. I could have said that the manner in which I've made my living since my early 20s has made me intimately familiar with how grants work. Some of them can be amazingly easy to get, depending on the purpose, but you do have to actually apply.