Weekends Thread September 2024

What's happening?

My weekend will include the annual Strathearn Art Walk, which is held up the street from our house on Saturday and Sunday. The neighbourhood will be hopping with people, and I'll browse the hundred or so booths of art and artists. Plus there will be music, food trucks and other fun stuff. Always a good time.

Otherwise, not much happening here, other than reading books, pottering in my garden, and the other usual stuff.

I have a busy weekend. I just got back from the street festival put on by our local arts council. I was helping cook fancy hotdogs and nachos. I also got to listen to various bands playing all evening. Lots of fun! Before that was the Friday knitting group at the library. Tomorrow I'm back at the street festival, but I'm manning a table for the cross-country ski club. The museum and the events society are also putting on a show-n-shine as part of the festival. Sunday I plan to go to Deadpool and Wolverine, which finally made it to our theatre. We might also be doing some work on the ski trails Sunday, but not for sure.

Not doing much today - it's a bit chilly and windy to sit outside and do nothing, so I'll do that inside. Hubby is home until Monday when he leaves for the week again so we'll just chill today. Tomorrow an art festival for me, too.

We went on four adventures today with the grandson.

First to Farmer's Market, where he got a free bunch of grapes from a vendor for being adorable and well mannered.

Then to the post office where we looked through the post office box and said hello to a mailman.

Next was the doughnut store; he chose the one with green icing, grandma chose the glazed buttermilk bar and grandpa chose THREE goodies.

The last adventure was a fundraiser car wash where they sprayed his window with water and then scrubbed it.

Home to grandma's house where he helped to shuck the corn. Told his parents not to blame me if he mispronounced that.

shuck the forn lol.

>2 NorthernStar: what's a show n shine? My first thought was shoeshine, but not much call for that these days. I decided it's a talent thing instead.

>5 MrAndrew:
Can't speak for NorthernStar, but here a show-n-shine is kind of like a car show, but without the competition (there might be a crowd favorite or something, but no formal competition). It's where a bunch of car enthusiasts show off their custom cars.

hmmm, the mystery deepens. So we are shining cars?

>4 MrsLee: All of the adventures sound lovely!

On Friday evening I took a long walk with a dear friend. I don't see her often, as she lives far away. We had a lovely time! And yesterday I took another long walk, together with my son and my mom. We saw a lot of trains, so the little one was happy (trains being the best thing ever).

Not much is happening today. We'll be taking it easy to home, mostly ;)

trains are the best thing ever.

>9 MrAndrew: I am not disputing that, ever :)

>9 MrAndrew: Undoubtedly! (speaking as a railway historian and member of the local Railway Society)

>11 hfglen: A totally unbiased view of the world.

>4 MrsLee: What a fun day for all!

I spent the weekend at my mom’s. We made two tote bags. Both out of towels bought at the dollar store and scrap fabric she had. They both turned out super cute! I’ll post pics on FB.

I also spent much time working on slides for the week so I’d have something to teach the children. :)

And today I got to practice on my new electric scooter!! I’ve never ridden a scooter before, but I thought it would be fun to have to get to work. I don’t like to ride my bike because I get sweaty, but a scooter should be great! I’m going to practice around the neighborhood and The Husband wants me to get a yellow vest so I’m more visible.

We are currently surrounded by wildfires. None super close to us, thank goodness. But the smoke. Ick. There’s ash all over my car.

>13 catzteach: Good luck with the scooter! It sounds fun.
I am sorry to hear about the wildfires. Stay safe.

>5 MrAndrew:, >6 sqdancer: - it is indeed an amateur car show. Mostly older or classic vehicles, some modified or restored. There are some trophies or plaques for different categories, but it is more about showing off.

No work on the ski trails Sunday - I was too tired by daylight. We had a bad fire early Sunday morning (12:30am) just around the corner from my house. Two houses burnt, and the one where it started had several explosions that could be heard from miles away. As a volunteer firefighter, I was helping put the fires out. I woke to the pager alarm, quickly followed by explosions. Looking out my front window, there were flames above the trees. No one was hurt, as the one family was away, working out of town, and the other family was able to get out. The one house was almost completely burnt, the other may have some contents salvageable. Last night the police were around the neighbourhood looking for security camera feed from the time of the fire. Very sad for those who lost their homes.

>15 NorthernStar:
That is terrible. People’s lives turned upside dow.

>15 NorthernStar: You are amazing and I am in awe of your service! Likely you are still recuperating from that kind of a wake-up. Take care of yourself this week. (You've already taken major care of others.)

>15 NorthernStar: That sounds terrifying! Thanks for helping put the fires out.

We had some rain so the fires around us have calmed a bit. We still had terrible air quality this morning.

I’ve been practicing on my e-scooter. It’s going to be fun! I’m hoping to practice more on Sunday. The Husband wanted me to get a safety vest to wear when I ride it so I’ll be seen. I’m going to try going up and down the nearby overpass.

We are also going to a football game tomorrow. Happy to say my conference, the PAC 12, will be rebuilding. Last year 10 of the 12 teams left the conference. We are two schools away from being able to continue as a conference. Yay!

Thursday witnessed our realising our washing machine was not working properly. Long story (available on my thread) short, we ordered a new one and it was delivered and installed very efficiently (inside seven minutes) on Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon saw us taking our youngest for a meal in Kenny's Bar and Restaurant. He loves that place and this was a treat as we are abandoning him for three weeks come Tuesday.

Well, one of the nice things about living in a small country and having a politically active wife, is that you get to meet interesting people. It so happened that Micheál (pronounced mee-haul) Martin, the Tánaiste (deputy Prime Minister), Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister of Defence, and leader of my wife's political party, was in the village to do some canvassing and was having something to eat in Kenny's. He came over to say hello to my wife whom he knows through her work for the party. We had a lovely conversation about France and how it is a long time since he has had a holiday in France despite loving the country.

All in all an eventful weekend so far.

Just staying home with hubby since he was gone all week and will be gone for most of next as well. Did some lawn mowing and that's about as much work as we'll do.

How do these weekends keep cropping up? I finish one and before I've turned around another one is here. It was never like this when I was working.

Mundane (just the way I like it) plans here. Farmer's Market and Home Depot today. The latter is where I bought $100 worth of work for myself to do tomorrow. Some flowering plants for my wagons and porch, a bigger pot for my hydrangea (although I'm bound to kill it soon) and fertilizer for my orchids. This means that the plan for tomorrow is gardening. Happily, our weather is having a cooling spell, so our mornings are lovely.

Well, it's a good thing I didn't have plans for this weekend. I've spent all of Saturday with a pretty bad migraine (with additional related nastiness) and have done next to nothing except listen to comfort-read audiobooks and doze. Aside from the pain in my head, not the worst way to spend a day, but I'm hoping tomorrow lets me be more productive.

>22 tardis: Ouch. I hope you're feeling better today.

We're having a lazy weekend with nothing planned. There was a book that had to get back to the library yesterday, we decided it would be a good excuse for a small family outing. Today I'm planning to do some chores, some cooking, and some reading (obviously ;) ).

I have one week left before starting a new job! It's a remote work job for an environmental lab company in Minnesota. They are sending a desktop PC that is setup with access to their server, so I bought a new desk so I can have a separate 'workspace'. The desk took hours to put together, but is comfortable.

We ran away from home for a few days earlier this week and spent two nights in a cabin at a campground in Maine; it was nice to get away, and I'm glad we had the cabin - even though not heated, it was warmer at night in there than it would have been if we'd brought our tent. One night got as low as 42F. Brrr. We brought swimsuits but weren't quite brave enough for the water.

The final couple months of closing up the company I worked for was leaving me so exhausted that I kept putting off chores and projects, and now am scrambling to get caught back up. Some how my list doesn't seem to get smaller though; it seems that for every line item I cross out, I find something else that needs doing and add a new chore to the list. All of my retired friends tell me that is how it works for them too; my guess is that nature abhors a vacuum and your time gets filled right up.

>25 Darth-Heather:
Good luck with the new job. I hope you enjoy it. It sounds very positive.

Yes, your friends are correct. Strike one item off the list and hopefully there is only one to replace it. We just replaced a broken washing machine and this morning discovered the grill on our cooker is not working properly. One of the elements has gone. That can wait until we get back from France.

>25 Darth-Heather: I hope you will like your new job. Good luck!

>25 Darth-Heather: The goal being in retirement, that the tasks on the list are things you want to do to make your own life more enjoyable, not things you have to do for someone else whether they make sense or not. :)

Hope you get rested, and enjoy your new job.

>25 Darth-Heather: Change can be disruptive until the new routine falls into place. In the meantime, just take one day at a time and everything will come out all right. You have a list (which is half the battle). Much better a bit of momentum moving forward than not knowing what needs to be done or what might be on the verge of seriously conking out. It's too many unpleasant surprises that end up actually exhausting a person.

>26 pgmcc: It doesn't seem that those items on your list are very enjoyable though! As Mrs Lee says in >28 MrsLee:, the goal is to have tasks that you want to do, although I suppose we don't get to choose the tasks; they just happen.

I am finally feeling like I have decompressed enough to look forward to the new workload I will take on, so that's progress.

>29 jillmwo: as you say, change is disruptive, and as I am slow to adapt to changes in my personal routine, this is all quite exhausting. I am looking forward to develop a new routine to settle into (with accompanying lists! So I get to cross things off!)

>30 Darth-Heather: At the moment we are sitting in our car waiting to board the ferry to France. It is a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. The in-shade temperature is around 21C. Very pleasant.

So, tonight on the ferry we can dine in tge restaurant. Tomorrow we drive to Le Mans where we are booked into a hotel for two nights. On Friday we drive to our base-camp holiday village for a couple of weeks.

These are tasks we have organised ourselves. The broken grill is our son’s problem for the next three weeks.

>31 pgmcc: What time of year is the Le Mans 24-hour?

>32 hfglen:
Apparently Friday 6th June in 2025.

>25 Darth-Heather: Oh, best of luck! Because it's in Minnesota does that mean you get to start work in the morning one hour later? Plus, no physical commuting, that also saves time!

I had a house full of guests from Friday to Monday, with PERFECT beach weather. I am still in recovery mode. Not because the guests were rough, but because I must have eaten something (snails in garlic & butter I suspect) that my digestive system was unfamiliar with. I am finally feeling better, and I have mostly caught up on sleep. On the plus side I did get a chance to finish a book while I was recuperating. I am hoping to plant some stuff this weekend, but almost all of the things I thought I would be cutting back are still blooming. It's been sunny and much too dry here, and the rest of the Fall season looks to be warmer than normal.

I have a plant exchange this weekend - take my extra perennials, come home with other people's extra perennials. Actually, I'm hoping I DON'T come home with anything because then I'd have to find a place to put it, but I never know what will be there so something might jump into my car anyway :)

I have a race Saturday. This is an annual race, and there are options for half-marathon, 10k, or 5k run, or 5k walk. I signed up for the 10k this year, but with the truly amazing (terrible?) number of fire calls lately, I haven't been running more than once in the past 2 weeks. I had already decided to drop down to the 5k, and am now really glad I did, as we had a long fire call yesterday, and another really long fire call today - an apartment fire that could have been really bad if we'd been a few minutes later. As it was, it was confined mainly to two balconies, and hadn't got into the main building yet. (All the residents are fine, and emergency services has them in a hotel for the night.) Also, I'll bring my dog on a 5k run, but I think 10k is a bit much for him. He hasn't had as long walks as usual lately. We were also planning to do more pre-season work on the ski trails this Sunday, but may cancel if there are any more fire calls - half the volunteers are firefighters. I'm going out with a group of friends for an equinox dinner and drink Sunday evening.

Jeez that sounds hairy! So glad you and the team are there for people, but it's a bummer that it wipes you out so much. Good luck w/the ski trails. Maybe this winter we'll get some snow!

Another week with the husband gone so we'll just hang out together and enjoy the time we have before he leaves again on Monday. I think the weather will be warm enough for some of that hang time to be outside on the deck or dock.

>37 NorthernStar: so glad there are people like you willing to volunteer. Thank you!

We have a home football game tomorrow. We’ll be heading out in the morning, stay the night over there, and come back on Sunday.

We are getting new floors in about a week so The Husband wants to spend Sunday tearing out the carpet. We then need to paint the subfloor and some of the wall space with Kilz to cover the cat pee smells. That’ll make us all set to get the floors put in on the 1st. Can’t wait for my house to smell like a house again. And for cat messes to be easily cleaned up rather than absorbed into the carpet.

>37 NorthernStar: Thank you for all the work that you do!

>37 NorthernStar: Many thanks for your effort, and may you get a respite from all of the fires soon.

>37 NorthernStar:
I want to add my voice to all the appreciation for the volunteer work you do. It is very impressive and helpful to others.

>37 NorthernStar: Thought of you early this morning, about 4:30, as I was awakened by loud explosions and a fire in the wild area occupied by urban campers right below our house. I called 911 and they said help was already on the way. Our city pays our firefighters, but I still appreciate their willingness to do the job. Fire was put out before it spread and all is safe, though I couldn't fall back asleep.

We drove 5 hours northwest of home yesterday for the first Swan City Half Marathon in Grande Prairie. It was a beautiful drive. Not quite clear why my husband decided this would be a good idea, but I agreed to come, and to run the 10K. It will be 5C at race start, and it's been raining. The forecast is unclear if that will continue. Good thing we arranged late checkout from the hotel - we can have hot showers afterwards before we drive home.

>44 tardis: I hope the run goes well. I actually enjoy coldish rainy runs. :) But I’m weird like that.

We’ve been working on our downstairs getting it ready for new floors. I have furniture tarped on the patio, snuggled into the garage, and all over the upstairs. We ripped up the carpet Friday night, took three trips to the dump yesterday to get rid of it, then painted the walls. We are getting laminate and I’m so excited!! The chaos and muscle aches will be so worth it!

The kitties are a bit freaked, though.

On Friday evening we went for dinner with friends who are leaving the base holiday village and going home on Sunday morning. We had a lovely time.

On Saturday we went to IKEA for breakfast. Well, it was a beautiful sunny day; what else would you do. There were a few purchases of non-book and non-boot items.

After that we gardened for most of the day apart for an afternoon drink with our departing friends.

Today we went to the market, bought bedding plants, a wallet for me, an oyster knife, a dozen oysters, paella and some eighteen month old Compté. The did not have the twenty-four month. :-(

For lunch we had the paella. The oysters are for this evening's meal.

>44 tardis: Good luck with the run!

>46 pgmcc: I wouldn't mind some Compté, oysters, and paella :) (Well, maybe not all at once :D )
Have a nice evening.

My sister-in-law came to visit us this weekend. We had a great time :)))

On Friday we went out for dinner and then saw a comedy show with
Foil Arms and Hog. We haven't been to something like that in I don't know how long ;) Fun!
Yesterday we were mostly hanging out together, making good food and watching Pride and Prejudice (the series). We were very loud about finishing the characters' sentences. Well, we might have watched it a few times already...

>48 Alexandra_book_life:
Thank you.

The paella, oysters and Compté were very nice, but not at the same time. :-)

Am now sitting on the deck with hubby having a cocktail and a snack. Was working on this Amethyst ring earlier -



I may end up keeping it, but I'm not sure yet.

>45 catzteach: I don't mind a cold run, but I hate a wet run. In the event, though, it turned out to be much better than expected. It didn't rain (yay!) and once I'd gone a couple of kilometers, the temperature was just fine. My time was not especially good, but I finished and it was a beautiful course through a riverside park with the leaves changing colour. I even saw a couple of deer just off the trail. Just lovely.

I'm super tired now, though. Not so much from the race, but I didn't sleep well Saturday night before the race. I dozed a bit in the car on the way home but tonight is going to be as early to bed as the cats will allow.

Our audiobook for the journey was A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. I've heard it before and I adore Kingfisher, but it was all new to my husband and I am pleased to report that he enjoyed it. Road trip audiobooks are how I hooked him on Terry Pratchett. Next up will be Murderbot!

>51 Bookmarque: This is beautiful! I love amethysts :)

That is a ring fit for Cthulhu.

>51 Bookmarque: Lovely. I really didn't understand what I was looking at when I saw this on Facebook. Those little white paper strips come out, and all those silver teeth get bent in to hold the stone in place? I love the addition of the leaves!

Those are just bits of dental floss that I use so I can check and refine the bezel height compared to the stone and be able to get the stone out again. When I set the stone, there will be no need for the floss. Yes, the serrated part of the bezel will go down over the amethyst to hold it in place. All my bezel settings are done this way so far - no glue. The leaves are so cute...thought about putting them on at the last minute so it all worked out.

>51 Bookmarque: Oh, I love it! I was wondering if you do rings. I think I've only seen bracelets and earrings in your store.

>52 tardis: sounds like a beautiful run! And time doesn't really matter, you finished and enjoyed the run, that's what counts. :)

Floors have been postponed a day. :(

Witten went to the eye doc today. He's dealing with an autoimmune thing and some cataracts. Got a good report. :)

Yeah, I'm starting to do them now. It's a learning curve and rings can be trickier than other things. Am making a different Amethyst ring now. The one up there is in the tumbler and I'll set it later.