Well, I did at least get home by 9 pm

My boss let me go enjoy a bit of this glorious day (78 degrees and sunny, although a bit gusty with a south wind) by letting me leave after my work was finished, so I left at 3:30 pm, went home for a bit, picked A up from a job interview, and then took him to YKWIA's.  YKWIA showed us several clips from the TV show 'Mom', which I had not seen.  Then I took A to the store, took him home, went back to YKWIA's with some things from the store, made him tea, and then came on home.  Both of them have some sort of cold.  Hopefully I won't get anything from them; I've had my crud for the season as far as I'm concerned.

Tonight we have thunderstorms; tomorrow will top out about 30 degrees cooler than today.  But it was nice while it lasted, and it looks like there will be warm weather next week, too.  My friend's croci are actually and blooming already, and I saw a beautiful tree (not close up enough to see what it was, but it had lovely white blooms) in full glory.  Hopefully it won't get caught in a freeze.  But we're not out of the woods.  We've had a blizzard in mid-March about twenty-four years ago.  I'll believe winter is over once spring really gets going, although I must admit, we haven't had much cold or snow, and the last week has been wonderful.  I actually worn skirts two days this week, and with the exception of the two days I was packing boxes, I've worn sandals.

I finished the John Scalzi book The Dispatcher and enjoyed it quite a bit.  It was only a novella, but I'm counting that as a book for my reading goal.  Zachary Quinto did an excellent job with reading the voices.  Apparently it was produced by Audible, so as far as I know, it's just an audiobook.

Now I'm listening to OneRepublic's Native album.  I'm almost finished.  But it was nice to relax a little.  I'm going to take the guys to an appointment tomorrow, but I could sleep in, as that isn't until midday.  But at the same time, I think I may go on to bed and get up early and get a few things accomplished around here.  Plus, I still need to do game notes, of course.

Okay, I'm going to head on to bed.  The album just finished playing.  Good night!

Second night in a row that

I've gotten home about 11:30 pm. Going to see if I can have a quiet night at home tomorrow, as we have no appointments and no one's mentioned needing a ride. We'll see. Going to bed now, though. Good night.

So tired

I packed 48 boxes today, almost 5,000 journals, to be sent to India this week. This is what my library looks like now.

After work, I took a friend to an appointment, and listened to an audiobook (John Skalzi's The Dispatcher) while chilling out in the waiting room. Then we went to the store, got gas and groceries, stopped by Gumbo Ya Ya for takeout, stopped by yet another grocery store with a wine and spirits shop, and then spent three and a half hours watching videos. I got home just a little while ago, at 11:30 pm. I'm pooped. I've taken some ibuprofen (forgot to do that last night and slept very little) and a half a Trazadone. I really want to get some rest tonight.

Good night.

Where the bound journals were.

The unbound journals were on these two middle ranges.

Most of the library is bare now.

Everything's gone from the two middle ranges.

Just have the books to go; most to departments, others to donate.

I think I found this 'core' they always talk of

I fell asleep for a couple of hours, and I am a little stiff and sore, now. But it's mostly in my legs, buttocks, upper back, and shoulders, with just a little in my lower back, which means, I think, that I demonstrated good posture and ergonomics throughout the day. Yay!  Of course, tomorrow is another day... I could be in pain tomorrow, but I hope not...we have 48 more shelves to go.

Only Ed Sheeran

Can sing about prostitution, drug abuse, and death and sound utterly upbeat with his music... ('A Team', from his album +).

Well, about a third of my library is bare, now

Thanks to one of our doctors, I was put in contact with the founder of a local organisation [We Serve Foundation] that takes books and sends them to India. Dr. Viji came last week and then today he brought boxes and I boxed the unbound journals up and he put the boxes in his car and took them over to the International Book Project's warehouse (they're a partner organisation that is also based here in Lexington). It took four trips, about thirty boxes. I packed about 780 bound journals. Tomorrow we do the unbound ones. All told we're talking about 84 three-foot shelves, so about 252 linear feet of materials. We did 108 linear feet today, so I'm a little sore and will no doubt be stiff tomorrow. But at least they'll be used and appreciated, and not recycled or trashed. 

I'm glad that he's going to be able to take them and put them to good use. But I have to admit, I'm a bit sore from all that packing and the little bit of lifting I did. 

I won't include the picture of us shaking hands or standing next together, because I don't really have his permission to publish the picture here, and I think our PR person will take care of that on social media, but this shows about a third to a half of the journals taken away. The rest are bare now, over past that book truck on the right.

It's a little sad, of course. Soon I'll be in a (virtually) empty room. I'm still working on the books, trying to get them to the departments, and his organisation may get whatever's not taken. But as of tomorrow, I'll just have books in the library, no journals, except for a few the staff wanted.

So now I'm home. I had thought to go to the library, but I'm relaxed, in my nightshirt, have eaten, and I am listening to music. Maybe I'll just relax, and maybe take a long bath later, so that I don't stiffen up. I'll keep you posted.

Today

a friend called me about 6:30 am to help me wake up and I chose to go back to sleep for awhile. I still got to work on time (rather than early), though, but three days of insane earliness was probably enough.

Today was payday, thankfully. I got caught up on a lot, but there are still two bills out there I can’t do. But I have a full gas tank, so I can go visit my mom Saturday, and I was able to pay other bills that were overdue, including my electric. I paid the bank (which had been at a deficit since the cascade effect happened, prompting me to move back to the credit union, where fees are less and it’s non-profit). But funny thing, even though I paid in cash, PNC refused to let me close the account today because the cash would post tomorrow. Cash. Crazy. It’s a minor annoyance, I know, but I don’t see why I should have to wait when cash is legal tender and it’s not like they have to examine the $20s to verify they’re real or anything.

I was also thwarted by Time Warner Cable. Yesterday I called to see how much it would be to turn my cable back on and was quoted a figure just under $74. I specifically asked if this would still be the case today or Friday, since I got paid (I thought I was getting a cheque today, so thought I might have to wait till Friday for it to post, but it turns out the automatic deposit went in fine). She assured me that everything would be the same. So I go today and the clerk told me that the woman had been mistaken and must not have looked at the account carefully. Thirty minutes before I called, my account had been closed, raising the amount I needed to pay to $191 or so. Very different from $74. Sigh. I can’t do that. So for now I guess there's the 5GB/month hotspot through T-Mobile that comes with my unlimited phone data plan and the laundry room, which has free WiFi. The good thing is after that I dropped some things off at Goodwill that had been sitting in my trunk and went ahead and called Vonage, which is only about $10 a month, but doesn’t work without cable, and my account was set up to be debited tomorrow. They put the phone account on hold for two months until April to give me time to get service back without having to pay for my phone. Vonage has very great customer service (they once comped me an entire month when I was struggling), and I would highly recommend them. Apparently I have been a customer for 10 years and 5 months. :)

I went to Costco and got a few things for myself and some stuff for friends, who paid me back tonight. I took A to YKWIA’s and we got some stuff at the store for there, and I left him to visit. Now I’m home. I’ve eaten an Everything bagel (2 sleeves of 6 for $5.99) and Havarti cheese (32 slices for $7.49), and I drank some orange juice ($5.99 for a gallon). So my stomach is happy. I also got some tuna. So I have some basics and can go to Kroger tomorrow for some fruit, etc.

When I came out there was a lovely sunset, so many pinks and yellows and oranges—it looked like the sky was afire. I took a picture, which doesn’t do it justice, but you get the idea:

Now I think I’ll do some reading and listen to some music. Those are the only things left on my to-do list. I should do the game notes, as I’ll be visiting my mom on Saturday and we will be playing Sunday. But tomorrow is another day. Good night!

Sombre yet uplifting quote of the day...

From the song 'Life's for the Living' by Michael Rosenberg (aka Passenger):

Don't cry for the lost, smile for the living,
Get what you need and give what you're given.
Life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead.

So, randomly I did my taxes this morning before work. I had another productive day, boxed up books, had a meeting, did my afternoon data entry, and I listened to Passenger's All the Little Lights while I did that, and this struck me as a little profound, so I'm sharing here.

Live and love life while you have it. Hold on to those you have while you have them. Give back what you're given. Repeat.

I'm up at an insane time of the morning again

I didn't take the trazodone last night, but I slept well. I went to bed about 10 pm, got up at 11:30 to take the bread out of the machine (it is actually quite yummy, a cranberry almond granola bread, my first attempt at a 'raisin bake' bread). Then I went back to sleep and woke up on my own at 3:45 am, dozed till about 4:50, and then got up, weighed myself (eek!), splashed some water on my face, checked my blood sugar, took my injectible medicines, and cleaned out the top two drawers in my bedside table. I put the bread, now cooled, in a big bag. Now I'm eating a slice of that bread for breakfast. During the hour or so I stayed in bed, I planned out my day at work. There are no appointments today (but it's the late day for allergy shots, so I can go there after I get off from work). I'm debating as to whether to go in early today or just hang around here and work on the house. I'm going to go over to the complex gym in just a little while and at least bicycle for awhile. I've proven the elliptical is not for me, but I might walk, too. I am also going to take the recyclables out. I'm a little cold in my shorts. I have the heat off and it's 38 degrees outside. But it's not so cold I need to put it back on.

Okay, let me go figure out what I can do here. There's a lot, it's just a matter of where to start!

So

My mom is going into hospice, probably at the nursing home she's been in on and off between hospital visits. :( The doctor said that short of a liver transplant, which isn't going to happen due to her other health issues, she might have six months, tops, to live. I'm going to go visit this weekend. I've known this was coming, but it doesn't make it easier, and it must be far worse for her. But part of the whole point of hospice care is to prepare the patient and family for what's to come. So that's good. I know my stepfather (who is a very good husband) has done everything he could to try to avoid this. But it's a natural part of life. I've mostly accepted it, but at the same time, I have a lot of mixed emotions. We'll see how things go. I just hope they can keep her comfortable and allow her to make the most of life that remains.

Sigh. I guess because of the news last night about the prognosis, I had a hard time falling asleep. After an hour of tossing and turning, I finally broke out the sleeping pills my doctor prescribed, the trazodone. I took 1/2 a pill, since I didn't know how I'd react. I slept really well from 11 pm till about 4:30 am, and then I was just awake, not groggy, just awake. (I have the same reaction to the muscle relaxant tizanidine). No grogginess or anything, just suddenly up and going. I got up, took a relaxing bath with lavender oil, a candle, and some lavender incense, and then put my headphones on, turned on OneRepublic's Native album, and tackled the kitchen, doing not only the dishwasher dishes, but the plastic ones that had been languishing. I cleaned the whole kitchen, except for mopping, and took quite a bit of trash out. It looks great.

After that I went on into work and continued my productivity. I boxed up five boxes of books that are going to the new facility, separated three departements' worth of books and labelled them, helped someone order a book through our vendor, and talked our buyer through the website (and helped him with a personal request that was book-related). I forget that many people consider the ISBN a totally foreign concept. But it was nice to do a lot of library-related stuff today. I've already gotten some books to departments, and I'll try to get the rest out soon.

In the afternoon I did my charge entry and OR reconciliation. Then I left work a little late and went home for a bit before my appointment with my counselor. We had a good session. I showed him the before and after photos of the kitchen, and I had filled out a worksheet on trying not to acquire new things. I see him again in three weeks, and in the meantime I'm going to work on the books on the entertainment centre and the bookshelf behind the front door so that I can hopefully open up the entryway a bit.

Now I'm home, trying something I haven't done--cranberry bread. It uses the raisin bake setting, and you're supposed to add the fruit at the beep. But unlike the quick setting, where you get bread in 1 hour 55 minutes, this takes four hours. So the beep hasn't happened yet. I am listening to music softly, Passenger's All the Little Lights. I need to do some reading to round out my to-do list for the day.

In fact, I think I'll read the orchid book I have to see if I can learn something about them. I have one blooming and another has a stem that's halfway up. I do love them, and I'm so glad they're doing well. I finally watered the plants at the house. I also found the tulips budding the other day and put water in the vase for them to grow. :)

Okay, good night for now.