Worst afternoon in a long time...

It seems all I post about lately is gloom and doom...

Friday afternoon started off well enough - I got through most of the mid-year performance evaluations that have to get done.

Then. The phone call from the disgruntled citizen. I'd sent an e-mail to our "life management" listserv at work that our county recycling was going to start taking more types of plastics starting July 1 (yay!! less trash, more recycling!!!) It got forwarded off-list and someone decided that the weasel language in my e-mail signature somehow violated his first amendment rights. This is what it says:

"This message is intended for the use of the individual entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the person responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you receive this communication in error, please telephone xxx-xxx-xxxx immediately. Thank you."

Hmpf. I grew up with this personality type, who reads something, gets *entirely* the wrong idea, then feels a need to pontificate about it. He didn't want to talk to me about it, he wanted to lecture and threaten me. I hung up when he called me stupid, then answered the phone pleasantly when he called back. (It's ingrained. I'm a public servant. I answer the phone.) He lectured for a couple more minutes, then hung up on me. I'll let my boss know about it on Monday.

THEN it started pouring just as I picked the Small Man up from daycare. It didn't help that Small Man was hot and whiny. Get in the car, head for the tween's BFF's house to pick her up.

Waiting at the light to turn right, and BAM! We're rear-ended. Overall, could've been worse; I don't think the guy was going that fast when he hit me, just too fast for the conditions (i.e., pouring rain). Insurance and ID exchanged, his insurance adjuster is coming by this afternoon to look at the car. (Silver lining - I dragged all of the crap out of the car since it'll have to go in the shop next week.)

Picked up tween, came home, dosed Small Man with ibuprofen, ate dinner (yay DH for cooking), and crashed.

Does ordering stuff for the Featherweight count?

I ordered a new foot controller/power cord, motor belt, and Singer grease/oil.

No, of course it doesn't count.

I'm off the computer to cut squares for the tween's quilt.

Busy weekend

Nothing crafty, unfortunately.

Saturday morning was taken up by cleaning out the pantry. I think the oldest thing I found was pickles from 1998. Everything left in there should be edible now.

Today we took all three cats to the rabies clinic held by the county. 1.5 hours in a blazing hot parking lot, but worth it: "free" shots for the price of a county license; $12 x 3 cats = $36. I couldn't take *one* to the vet for that, and I don't really want to argue about the shots I don't want them to have.

The funny thing is that the woman calling out colors, etc. thought that Cotton wasn't a calico: "not enough white."

What a goof. Her rear end shades into *almost* tortoiseshell, but she's definitely a calico.

Why I haven't been blogging

We lost power almost two weeks ago, and we HAVE had it back for a week, so it's really only half an excuse:

We had to have electricians come out to replace the electric meter.


Of course, before that, they had to cut up the tree that fell across the road and pulled down the neighborhood lines.


A couple of big branches came off the box elder in the yard.


And a couple of pine trees got snapped off about 20 feet above the ground.

I haven't done *any* quilting. I was going to make the tween a pair of pajama pants, but I don't have enough material for her height. She's gotta stop growing sometime, right?

Strawberry season

It's late, so only one picture of strawberry-picking today:


We picked nearly 16 pounds of berries; it's the best I remember in 11 years of going to this place. OK, one more picture:


I got the new sleeve tubed and am sewing it together. I have the fabric tags and need to sew the little paint chips to them and attach to the quilt.