and I didn't break a shovel this time

I had a pretty full and busy and productive day today! Ended up not leaving the house, well I did go to Quilcene but not further errands.

I got up earlier than usual and got through my internet rounds at a good hour, so I got to being productive. I washed and put away the dishes. I went to Henerey's in Quilcene and bought three bags of potting soil. I did flower seedling starts in the seedling tray and repotted one of the jades and the pretty flower. I don't want to throw that little flower to the garden beds just yet. It can look nice in a bigger pot for now. In the garden I dug out the back bed. Anything that looked like a nice plant was relocated to the perpendicular back bed, and the rest was tossed aside. There were oodles of not nice looking mushrooms in the bed too. I dug it, turned the soil, added turn, turned it some more. I removed the carrots from the bean bed and put soil in there and added the peas. Put carrots in the open bed spaces. Put the catnip in the spargle bed and the anemone, candytuft, tim curry plant, and the two dahlias in the refreshed flower garden bed. I sprinkled the poppy seeds in the open areas. That'll be Trillian's Pretty Bed provided everything grows and looks nice. I finished up right as it started to rain a bit. And in a few weeks I can move in the seedlings!

From there I took on the upstairs. I filled boxes with books and the two shelves are all cleared out. I sorted through the clutter and got a fire going and burned the burnables. There's still a lot of sorting to be done but it looks SO MUCH better. I just need to figure out the sorting system, and I already have a few designated areas (like the sketchbook pile and I repurposed the inbox esque tray as a place to put my unsorted art that turns up in the piles. I'm making real steps to reshape my space and it feels great. I think now that I'm aware I have a higher stamina for things, I am more wont to get things done. Like I know I can garden for a few hours and not be totally wiped out.

Also my Swatch is available for $25 less on Amazon than on the main Swatch website like...??? why is it so low? I think if I can't get mine fixed, I'll just save up and buy a second one because I wore the watch today for old times sake and was reminded of just how great a watch it is in terms of simple readability, fit, weight. All that. I just can't trust other watches to fit comfortably nor do I like any other watch face as much as this one. And the Amazon price is barely more than those Timex's I was looking at, so like...why get something you maybe like when you know you'll like something else? So yeah. Once PUD is paid and rent is paid and phone bill is paid...I'll see where I'm at.

Also I need to save for Linework. But I know the watch style isn't suddenly going to be discontinued/was discontinued. So no rush.

ALSO I start a lot of paragraphs in the same way, huh?

AAALLLSOOOO I seem to be writing more in this blog than I did for a long while. I guess there is more to report on as I'm getting my life together and doing different stuff everyday.

bee happy

Work was a full day. Turned two rooms, fluffed another two. Did the powder room aka the employee bathroom, and the floors, and checked in a guest, and took cookies out of the oven, and did the office (which always takes longer than I think it will) and... yeah! And some laundry too. We got a new hire! Haven't worked with her yet but I will soon. I dressed for warm weather but it turned cold and gray. Oh well.

I swung by the watch repair to double check in person that it absolutely wasn't the battery and asked again about sending it in to Swatch for repairs. The people in the shop were very nice and yeah I need to send it in for repairs as it is something internal, if I want to do that. Timex has some nice watches in an affordable ranger. I really want to wear a watch again because now I need to be a bit more timely and a watch on the wrist is better than always craning for wherever the clock is in the room. Need to find out what will cost more: repair or a new watch.

I went to Henerey's and bought one big bag of the potting soil that was priced under $4, the rest of the big bags were costly. I bought a few smaller bags for seedling starts and repotted, and a seedling starter tray, and some dahlia tubers, and some other seeds. I may not have all the pretty flowers blooming this year, but hopefully they'll get growing. Then I returned to Whitney's and bought that Golden Spirit Smoketree I admired so much. The leaves are so tender looking. I can't wait to see it change colors.

At home I dumped the dirt into some of the raised beds. Wasn't a thick coverage, but it's a start. Don't know if I'll plant something in it tomorrow or wait and see if I can get a few more bags of dirt and a lower price. I put my smoketree with the rest of the to be planted plants.

Dinner was a big ol' potful of pasta with alfredo and the last of the shrimp. I didn't eat it all but I ate a lot. I washed my jeans, I drew a comic, I watched tv, I wrote a letter confirmed Caroline and Gary are a couple.

AND PETRA SENT ME A CROCHETED BEE!!! It's so cute! It's got a little stinger and everything. I have the best friends.

despite not being in the comics, mom was here too

Spent my weekend working on the garden! Woohoo! Though yesterday was pretty mellow. Ma & Pa visited and stayed the night. Dad went oyster shucking and I stood out in the water eating chips. Nice level of warmth and cooling. We grilled hot dogs and it was pretty nice. After a dinner of salad and chicken and cauliflower and hollandaise sauce, we played Careers! A game from 1965 where you come up with a formula for success and try to achieve it. And I won!! Though it was tricky to get the fame points in my formula. The game had some old timey sexism but it was pretty well balanced.

Morning was PEOTWHAMC and coffee Trillian style, which is to say undrinkable if you're mom but good if you're dad. Then we got to gardening! We pulled the weeds out of the bean trellis bed and out of two more beds, really over turned the soil! I planted some potatoes that had gone to seed and now one whole bed is the potato bed. Afterwards we went to Whitney Gardens and walked around admiring the rhododendrons and ... other plants. Rhodys are one of the few I can really identify. Then we picked up a catnip and an anemone and a cottonpuff ball and a marigold and... one other. Bee friendly plants! I need to get some dirt to top dress the planting beds, and I want to go back to Whitney and buy a Golden Spirit Smoke Tree. It needs a special custom raised box because there's oodles of not good dirt on the property, but that's good because then I can put it wherever I want and I want it out front so I can get a nice seasonal plant among the evergreens. It'll look so pretty!

After the plant field trip we ate sandwiches and hugged goodbye. Dad has been working on the stairs. Good hard working dad!

I took a little rest, then dyed my hair and watched telly and drew a comic. Now it's to sleep with me because I work tomorrow. And the 23rd is free but I plan to garden and maybe go see Karen and stuff. Oh that reminds me, I need to update my calendar with my new work days.

the day night manager

My internet finally stopped being ridiculously slow after about 48 hours of being bad. Played vidya games on the laptop. WHee!

Work was good. I'm now on my weekend! Two busy days but not as jam packed. I did the breakfast shift today and got things done with time to spare. Cleaned the same room for 4/5 of the days.

Listened to podcasts. Napped. I was just about to work on cleaning when my internet came back, but now I'm getting a second post nap wind so maybe I'll do that after I've had my fill of the internet.

work hard, play hard. but like not the 100% most fun kind of play hard

 ARHHHG wow the past 48 hours have been manic.

Went to work on Saturday and swung by USPS in the morning to pick up whatever had arrived that the yellow slip in my box indicated...

 And it was my new monitor! I safely tucked it into my trunk with whatever padding I could find. I didn't want it breaking on the drive, but it seemed pretty well styrofoamed in it's box. It arrived much earlier than I was expecting it to! I hadn't the time to clear the desk or any of that. But hey, it's here!

Work was a long shift and also very frazzling. Errands took the bosses out of the Inn and traffic kept them away, so I was left to check people in!!! I also had to pick up the croissants from Pan D'Amore for the next mornings breakfast. And get two rooms ready for check in. And manage laundry. And I managed it. The guests arrived in the order of which the rooms were ready for them, I ran down the intro and got them to their rooms. I think I showed giddy confidence, but also mentioned they were like...my second (and third and fourth) people I had ever checked in. But I got some good laughs with my quips. Yeah. And when my bosses returned and I was all @_@ they were very appreciative. I'm a MVP employee and if you let me work, I will work.

I dragged my weary body down to Pho Thao and ordered Bahn Mi and spring roles and Vietnamese iced milk coffee. I devoured the Bahn Mi. It was SO GOOD!! Such a tasty sandwich. I ate all my food. Member of the clean plate club, I am!

Then I made my way over for Dungeons and Dragons, which was a bit less fun this time. Very hectic and not a lot of planning and two people died in the first 20 minutes because they investigated this lake turtle. Oops. I'm not learning as much as I'd like and I keep fumbling because I do things wrong and there's not enough opportunity for me to really play through my character. I wish it was a smaller group. I gave Diana a ride home, they weren't that far out so it's all good.

Got home at midnight which wasn't the best decision because I had a breakfast shift! I think I could have skipped this game of D&D but I'm really bad at commitment, in both it takes me a while to commit to anything and that when I do commit I MUST DO IT. Missing out causes me a lot of anxiety. I need to allow myself to miss things.

Anyway, the breakfast shift was less of a hustle than I expected. An even flow of dishes and everything scrubbed up well. I turned three rooms after than and Erin did the beds and I listened to a lot of the You Must Remember This podcast, which is awesome. Old Hollywood stories. But by the end I was very tired.

Once home I took a 2 hour nap, which when you come home from a breakfast shift makes the nap happen 3-5 pm.

Awake, I cleared everything off the desk from my scanner to the left. I wiped down the desk with this grapefruit cleaner I bought that's nice and I cleaned up the cobwebs behind the desk and evicted a few spiders (I'm afraid to remove the left speaker because I saw a doozie of a spider come out of the side of the desk and eat a fly). I also emptied one of the drawers that was full of Grandma's old stationary. I didn't trash it! It is in a tub! My bed is pretty thick with the moved clutter, but it's a first step. I keep writing down what I want to do but I do think I'll get to where I want to be soon. Just having the cleaner bathrooms and the visual of the clearer desk makes my mind more at rest. If I can get the rest out and sorted, then it'll be even better!

So I got the new monitor up! It's an Asus LCD monitor with built in speakers and it's 23" and since I put the power strip behind the desk on the window sill, my wire management is much better! Before all the wires were coming down the front and to the left. And with the old speakers gone (not thrown out) there's even more space. It's really nice, and my screen has so much room for stuff to happen. I'm very happy with this purchase, now just remind me to mail off that rebate so I get some moolah back. Yippee!

And now I think I'm going to game a little on the gaming laptop. I don't have a way to dual monitor it with my new monitor, BUT it's got a big screen and overtime I'll deck that computer out with the same programs and eventually duplicate files so that it will be a backup if the HP goes fully kapoot.