Reading

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Day sort of one

It's really weird to have a three day weekend before check out day.

I bought dye to make a head scarf thing to wear with my polka dot bathing suit, which I've been working on.

And my super delicate chain bracelet fell off somewhere. I suspect when I was carrying groceries and thinking, it's a bad idea to put the bag on my wrist...

Entry tags:

1897 satin evening dress

Almost a Bodice

I nearly finished the bodice of my 1897 evening dress last weekend. I just have to make up and set the sleeves in it. I washed the lace for the sleeves during the week so I'd like to get those in this weekend.

I started the beading on the skirt and am about a third of the way through the first side. The beading can be a bit hard on the back because I spread it out on a table and end up rather hunched over it. If I thought I were going to take up beading intensively, I'd definitely have to come up with a better solution. For a couple weeks worth of time on one dress, it's not worth it. I'll just try to alternate days of beading with days of doing other sewing.

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Last day!

Today was the last day with kids. We finish checking out Tuesday, so it feels like there's this weird hold on summer, but I'm essentially on vacation.

I decided to make the polka dot bathing suit skirt a little shorter than the shorts, so after yesterday's marathon knitting while the kids were watching the movie and a few rows today, the shorts and skirt are half knitted together. Yay!

(no subject)

Well, I wished for a quiet day yesterday, and got the opposite. Everyone around me seemed to be on a rampage, from the assholes in traffic, to my screaming, feral child. She seems to have entered the terrible 2s early, which I'm oh so excited about, I tell you what.

Maybe the heat has everyone crazy. It's in the 90s already, and the humidity is hovering around 75-85%. It. Is. Gross.

In better news, the complex finally hired another maintenance man, and he came by the apartment to look at the AC. He hadn't even been told about our faucet issue, so we showed him the bathroom and he said he'd get on it right away. M called me during the day to let me know that the AC unit had been refilled with Freon, specifically so the guy could assess where the leak was coming from, but that the house was currently cooling down.

The house was wonderfully cool when I got home, but yeah, the AC slowly lost power over the evening, and finally was just blowing warm air. Womp womp. I was hoping we'd get a little bit more time with a cool house, especially with high-90s predicted for the next few days.

One thing that may completely screw us is that the leak may not be anywhere that the maintenance guy can access it, like somewhere in the walls, which means we'd be well and truly boned. If that's the case, then we'll be left to suffer the hot months without working AC. M and I discussed what we'd do, and the idea is to either have a portable AC that we move between whatever rooms we're using, or we install another window unit in the living room, turn off the other units during the day, and then turn on the bedroom ACs about an hour before bed to cool down the rooms so we can sleep comfortable and shut off the living room AC overnight.

Hopefully the leak can be fixed easily and we don't have to deal with all of that.

Ordered some new kids toys for the baby that will hopefully keep her entertained. She has stopped playing with most of her old ones, which may be why she's so wild during the days. M also finally conceded on breaking down the playpen and just setting up some kid furniture for her instead. Hopefully that will make the room feel less claustrophobic since the playpen is freaking huge.

Three day weekend. Much needed. Want to sleep.

Entry tags:

work

yawn

Tonight is awards night. It's not worth it to go home in between, so I'm at work and tired. It's nice to give awards but tired. Tomorrow is the last day of school for the kids. Then three day weekend and checkout day. Which is an extremely stupid schedule, but whatever.

(no subject)

Very glad that we picked up bagels in our last grocery order, because they are sure hitting the spot right now. Baby got introduced to bagels with cream cheese, which she is now very much all about and tries to steal from me.

I had planned a scrounge dinner of whatever was accessible and easy in the house, but M requested we get pizza, so that's what we did. That will hopefully keep us going for a couple of days, too.

Finally had the chance to pick up my anti-nausea medication. It worked immediately, which was a huge relief. I am looking forward to not feeling constantly sick.

M had to work late, and the poor baby was so tired. Since we have no second place for her to sleep anymore, we just had to wait until he had to log off (their submission thingy shuts off at 9pm, so he can't work past then.) She was so tired that she just passed out as soon as she was in her crib.

I went to bed as soon as she was down, but had a terrible night full of awful dreams. Dreamt that I was at my parent's house and started having a miscarriage, and I was covered in blood and begging them to take me to the hospital and they just kept yelling at me that it was my fault and refusing to help. I felt so horrible from it that it actually woke me up, and I had a hard time getting back to sleep afterward.

Alarm went off at 6:30, got up, ironed a dress for work, made the baby's breakfast, and headed out. I'm hoping today is just...quiet.

temps

Woke up this morning and took my temperature. It was almost normal (98.8). But I was still freezing. Why am I still shivering?

Oh yeah. I turned the heat off that one day when it was hot recently.

Had to turn the heat back on, because the house was down to 63 degrees and I'd like to not shiver all day while it's cold and rainy outside.

(We're already at today's high, 48 degrees. Wheee!)

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Ugh

I have an appointment on the 29th for another new prescription.

Post Madrid cold - Day Four

Still running a fever today. But since it stayed below 100 F (37.77C) all day, I worked an eight hour day. Don't want to get too behind on work stuff since I somehow managed to keep up on Slack and email while we were in Madrid.

I also:
* Fed myself three meals (two of them hot!)
* Brought in the mail (which I'd been forgetting to collect)
* Found my missing parking tags (so I can stop worrying about my new car getting towed)
* Tried to make plans for tea with Betsy this weekend, but the two places I've tried so far are booked. I'mma try a third place tomorrow.

Baby steps. I'm still gonna dose myself with Nyquil before bed tonight. (LOL, Mom asked me again what it was I had taken when I was sick when I was visiting and I told her Nyquil. The stuff has been around since 1966, you'd think she'd have seen plenty of commercials for it! "The nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine" )

Entry tags:

family

Mom Called

Mom called yesterday (Tuesday) and we yakked for about an hour. She had called a week ago when I was on my way to the airport and I missed the call. I could have been in the parking garage or a bathroom or anywhere else with concrete walls, I have no idea. I never heard the phone ring, I just saw that I’d missed her call. I messaged Dad and told him that I was going to be out of the country, so she wouldn't keep trying to call, and that I’d call when I got back from Madrid.

And I did. I called Saturday, but Mom was napping, so I talked to Dad for about 15 minutes. And found out he’d been in the hospital for a day or two. Apparently he’d been out running errands and his legs just felt weak and didn’t want to move. He was really leaning on the shopping cart to keep going. When he got home he thought that a hot bath might help him loosen up, but then he couldn’t get out of the tub, even with mom trying to help. She finally said she was going to have to call 911 and get some burly EMTs to help get him out. So they showed up, and Dad was buck naked and soaking wet, and they got him up out of the tub. He got some shorts on and they took him to the hospital to check him out. Dad sounded quite pleased with the broad spectrum of tests that they ran. When it came down to it, he’s been diagnosed with a hernia. They had him on IV antibiotics when he was in the hospital and sent him home with more antibiotics, and he’s going to have to schedule surgery to repair the hernia.

Of course, Dad did NOT remember to tell Mom that I’d called. 🙄 Because of course he didn’t.

And it’s just as well that I’d missed Mom’s call, because she was calling to hear about my trip and I hadn’t taken it yet. LOL. Mom was surprised that Dad had told me about his little hospital visit. Mom said that after she called 911, she sat on a stool out in the driveway and when the EMTs showed up she basically asked them NOT to allow Dad to talk them out of taking him to the hospital, because she wanted him checked out. I don’t know if it was hearing it from a medical professional and not mom, or if he was scared enough of how his body was failing him, but he went along with taking an ambulance ride to the hospital. And mom said she was glad she didn’t drive him in, because apparently the ER waiting room was packed.

I think he might have been there 24 hours? Just long enough to move out of the hallway in the ER and into a cubicle or room it sounds like. They checked him for Covid, then ran a whole battery of blood work, and he had an MRI and a CAT scan. I’m glad that they checked for a stroke, since he was having more trouble lifting his right leg and that was one of the things that I was worried about.

Mom wasn’t exactly sure what a hernia was, so I had to tell her. And now I’m curious as to what exact flavor of hernia Dad has. Since it was affecting his right leg, I’m going to guess it might be an inguinal hernia? I’ll have to ask him.

Mom and I spent some time talking about politics, because they’re in a Red state, so I don’t think she has anyone besides Dad to talk to about * waves hands *. She asked if I was stockpiling anything because of the tariffs? And I said really just toilet paper (because we get so much wood pulp from Canada) and light bulbs (because every freaking one of my IKEA lamps takes a different size and shape bulb). But other than that, I just have a little bit extra of a few things that won’t go bad (trash bags, aluminum foil).

The condo is still on the market. At least their realtor is better this time. She’s got exact data about who is looking at the listing, and where they’re from (Chicago, NY City). It’s a nice condo and in a good location, I hope it sells soon.

And I told mom about my trip to Madrid. But there wasn’t really much to tell because I spent the vast majority of my time in the hotel doing work stuff. When we had a couple of hours free, I spent it napping instead of exploring the city. I just wasn’t feeling touristy this time. I think the late dinners really threw me off, because they meant I had to stay up later every night than I wanted to.

And I told her that I’m traveling on business again to an offsite in Berlin in September. I’m excited for that, finally going to Germany for the first time since I left as a baby (I was born in West Germany).

(no subject)

Baby was absolutely feral all day yesterday, probably because she was up at the crack of dawn. M said that she had eaten half a house worth of food, was running around like crazy, getting into everything, and was just totally wild all day. At around 6:30 she started to get really fussy, and after a diaper change she curled up on my lap and fell right to sleep. It was quite early compared to her normal bedtime, but her only nap had been from 8-11, so she'd been awake for a really long time for her.

She woke up after an hour or so of snoozing, ran around some more, ate some cheese, and then passed out again, this time for the night.

I ate a bowl of leftover pasta and immediately felt sick. -_- I spent the rest of the evening trying not to throw up. Really need to remember to pick up my anti-nausea medication today.

Told M my woes about trying to figure out what to do about meals. He very helpfully said "You'll figure it out." -_- Okay then. Sandwiches for dinner tonight. It's supposed to be in the 90s for the rest of the week, why am I even bothering?

For some reason, we are still able to watch Spectrum TV, even though our service was supposed to have ended on Monday. I called them up to make sure we didn't have a TV plan, and they said that we only had an internet plan. ~shrug~ Guess I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Entry tags:

me,
work

Two and a half

Two and a half days of school, then a three day weekend, then checkout day.

I couldn't read or see the computer in my new glasses this morning, so I switched back and forth with my old ones. I was going to go to the optician after work, but in fifth period I could suddenly see, so decided to wait a bit as planned. Now I can sometimes see close up? I don't even know...

Entry tags:

quotes

Quote of the Day

And I also ask, why is it so important in our culture to disappear women from the story? Turns out, it’s how patriarchy creates itself. Erasing women makes men into the main characters in life and in history, and women into supporting cast, or caste.

Too often, the miracle of the man and his masterpiece is achieved by making a woman disappear, even as she’s standing there, probably serving them dinner.

And without the labor of women the successes of some of history’s most famous men makes no sense.

https://time.com/7284644/trumps-erasure-of-women/

*************************************************

The difference, I would say, between romantic fiction and porn is that romantic fiction—and I’ve written about it for The Atlantic in the past, defending it, because it’s always been condemned as trash, as fodder for maids to read, scullery maids—but the difference is that romantic fiction sees women as full-bodied human beings with consciousnesses and who are deserving of dignity and kindness and respect. And that doesn’t mean in scenes of a sexual nature that those things always adhered to. But porn, I would say, does not. And that’s the difference.

There was actually a really interesting argument from the sociologist Alice Evans that I found about a year ago, and she found that one of the best predictors of how a society—and a society in a different country or a different era—how it treats women and what kind of status women enjoy in that society is the importance that society places on romantic love. And so cultures that are more inclined to celebrate romance are more inclined to see women as human beings and to think of them as worthy of respect and dignity and kindness. So once you see that, it’s very hard to unsee.

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/05/the-death-of-feminism/682704/

Was it bell hooks who said, “Patriarchy has no gender”?

Entry tags:

cross-stitching

Small Pieces

I made a little laundry cross-stitch piece back in February. It's a pattern from the 90's that is supposed to say "Thank you, Lord, for my dryer," but I omitted the text because I probably care more about having a washer than a dryer. I just hemmed it and tacked it to the wall over the shelf in the laundry room

After finishing the giant "Street Scene" a couple of weeks ago, I did a small pattern from the 80's of the "Mayflower." I'll probably put it in a little frame later on. It's only about 3" x 5.5".

Post Madrid cold - Day Three

Still sick. I worked about a half day yesterday (because they gave us two weeks to complete our Compliance Training, but I was at an offsite for one week of that). I got through another module, then really needed to lay down because I had a bad case of the chills. I crawled into bed and burrowed into the blankets and didn’t wake up for four hours. And then I just didn’t want to get out of bed. I think I finally got up around 9:00pm, because I was worried about being dehydrated. I ate some cheese and crackers and drank a lot and then crawled back into bed. I took my temp before I went back to bed and it was 102.5 F (39.72C) so no wonder I had chills and felt so bad.

I was still running a fever this morning, but it’s down from yesterday. I called in sick to work, but I think I have one last module to complete my damned Compliance Training, so I’m going to try to do that before I veg out for the rest of the day.

Did a Covid test, and that came up negative. Not that that seems to mean anything, as the virus has probably mutated since the test was designed. But I had the test and wanted to know, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Might as well use it.

Entry tags:

fingers crossed

Typically, my new glasses came in Thursday and I got the call at the hotel.

I'm wearing them now, and reading definitely isn't perfect, but I can read. There's a place about halfway down my nose where reading is much better, but it's hard to find, and I've never had to adjust before.

Still, I'm cautiously optimistic and I'll give them a few days and take them back if they're still not right.

ETA: The sweet spot for reading is very hsrd to find. I'll give it a few days so I don't seem neurotic, but I'm not really optimistic anymore...

(no subject)

Work brought in an ice cream food truck on Friday as part of employee appreciation week. It was from a local place called Melt, and HOO that was some good ice cream. I will have to visit their actual shop sometime. They have take-home pints for $10, which is astronomical, but damn was it good.

Saturday was quiet and lonely. M went to a friend's house to watch the fights, and I was at home with the baby all day. I was feeling melancholy, but at least the baby was in fine spirits, even if she did ferociously fight her nap.

For some reason, Sunday was a rough day. Everything that could go wrong, did, and everyone was in a bad mood. I spent most of the day cleaning. The baby refused to eat anything I gave her and she became very hangry. Tibby peed in the kitchen and I didn't see it and stepped directly in it. -_-

The new internet equipment came in, and it wouldn't connect the router, so I had to spend some quality time with Support. Once that was dealt with, I turned the hot water back on and attacked the kitchen. It took me the better part of two hours, but the stupid thing is finally squared away, all the dishes are done, every counter is scrubbed, and all the stupid things with stupid faces are in their stupid cupboards.

We caught the 6:30 showing of "Sinners". Very good movie, do recommend. There are two post-credits scenes, stay for at least the first one.

It had started raining just as we got to the theatre, and apparently while we were watching the movie there was a tornado outbreak. ~shrugs~ Had a few to the west of us and to the south of us, but nothing directly in our area. We got some very heavy rain, which was still going when we left the movie.

Three-day weekend coming up, thank Zod. M is taking vacation that week and the following one, so maybe his mood will even out a bit, though I'm sure his sleep schedule will get considerably worse.

I realized over the weekend that I no longer enjoy our living space. Besides the maintenance problems, we just don't have enough space, and it's really starting to wear on me. When I got home from work on Friday, the baby was throwing a tantrum and M had put her in her pack and play to calm down, but when I went to check on her she'd managed to climb out of it. So, no more dedicated napping space, which means that we're going to have to rearrange the whole house - M's computer and work desk will come out to the living room, my sewing corner will get packed up and put into storage, and the office/baby room will just become a dedicated baby room.

We had discussed how we'd have to do this eventually, but M doesn't want to do it until the AC is fixed because even though his tower is water cooled, it still puts of a TON of heat, and the living room is the only room that we haven't shoved a window unit into. Right now it's tolerable if you sit directly in front of a fan and don't move too much, but once temps really start to fry us, then it will become practically unlivable.

The baby's playpen takes up a huge chunk of the living room. I want to get rid of it, since she barely uses it anyway, and I don't think she even wants it there because she pushes the damned thing all over the living room to get it out of her way. I want to just get her some baby furniture like a little table and chairs so she has a place to eat, and a little armchair or lounger, but M vetoed that idea because she has taken to throwing her food around when she gets bored with it, and he wants it contained in the playpen. -_-

We need more space, more rooms, a bigger kitchen, more storage, and we're about to add another human into the mix. I feel claustrophobic. I can't wait until we can finally get our house.

Entry tags:

vacations

And now, to home...

Ferry back, lunch eaten, about to get coffee for the drive, and home!

Wish me luck at work tomorrow 😂

Entry tags:

health,
travel

FML

Guess who woke up with a sore throat and who is now running a low fever?

FML

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1897 satin evening dress

Goal for the Weekend

The goal for the weekend is to finish beading the pieces for the bodice of the 1897 dress. I made good progress on it yesterday after doing nothing on it Friday. Finishing today seems reasonable.