(Re)Becca's Journal

Megan's pictures of Ida.

In other news, new glasses! (This after breaking the old ones one day the other week, conveniently while M. was in Charlotte... yuck. Luckily the lady at the optometrist's managed a temporary fix that held till these came in.) Now I have a "real" pair, and also a backup pair in case something like that happens again. I am apparently no longer in the prescription range any old eye shop can whip you up a new pair while you wait, so having a second pair of glasses seemed like a good idea.

Now the whole world looks a little funny around the edges (my prescription changed a bit too).

In other news, we have now officially entered the season of Lots of Eating. Dangerous, dangerous!

Thanks to the remain of tropical storm Ida, today was a little unusual.

It started raining yesterday morning, and rained all day. Last night the wind kept waking me up. This morning, all but one of the local school systems were closed. I drove into work to find that whomever sealed the windows in the new building did a crappy job; water was coming in around and above them at an alarming rate. Not through the ceiling, for what it's worth...

High tides today were around 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. There was quite a bit of flooding this morning (one or two of the bridges/tunnels have been closed all day) but the a.m. high tide hit about 2 hours before rush hour. Not so for the p.m. high tide, which comes right at the start of rush hour...and which was supposed to come with even worse flooding than the a.m. (Several more inches of rain plus higher tides - and it's a new moon, so that's making the tides even higher than normal. Etc.)

So work let us go at 2, which (I am told) is pretty darn unusual. M. and I came home and did what any sane, sensible people would do: we went back out to take pictures.

If any of them come out, I'll* upload them later.

There is a lot of water and wind. We look pretty much like a pair of drowned rats; I am off to hop into a hot shower...

*by "I" I mean "Megan"

Apologies in advance: not edited for grammar/spelling/clarity...
This past weekend was Crown Tourney, and it was in Marinus - practically next door. (Well, OK, turns out it was about an hour south-then-east-then-north of us. But still, pretty close.)

In the past year or more, M. and I haven't made it to a lot of events. There are a lot of specific little reasons, but the overall theme is that we've been busy, tired, and living (semi-voluntarily) under a rock. At work, the past 18 months or so have been hellish to M; I think she's happy to be in her new job and is enjoying it, but it has still been difficult and exhausting. (Last week she worked 40 hours by Wednesday. That was unusual but not unique.) We've also been working to get the house in better shape, which was long overdue. And we're both introverts (surprise, surprise!) so once we get in a pattern of not doing something social, of not seeing people, it's a really hard pattern to break.

So, now that I'm through with the overly wordy back story: we went to Crown. And it was a lot of fun. There was the tournament, of course; got to see lots of fighting (and, from where I was sitting, quite a bit of the marshals' calves during a couple fights... hi, Timoch's legs). Also, awards to a handful of folks I know, including Addie's Laurel. But most of all, I got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in awhile, and who I missed. The day was fun, and afterwards, M. and I went home, did a quick-change into jeans, and grabbed dinner with John and his daughters, and that was fun too. Even if the Boston Market people did get sick of us sitting and chattering.

I've missed playing. I have to remember that. It takes a lot of energy to kick myself into actually planning and getting out and going somewhere (at least recently), but it's worth it. Have to get back in the game.

(You know you're an introvert when you have to pep-talk yourself into going to events that you actually enjoy, just because your brain can't believe ahead of time that it'll be anything but exhausting....)

I have missed this.

Current Mood: optimistic

Yuck.
Stupid cold.

*achoo*

This past weekend was the annual trip up to NorVA for dads' birthdays. (That's dads, plural: Megan's dad and my dad. Their birthdays are in the same week. Nice of them to plan it so considerately, I think.) Despite some last-minute considerations, everything went pretty smoothly and it was a really nice weekend. Got to spend time with my folks and see a few other people I don't get to see very often. Plus, the weather was absolutely beautiful.

So far I seem to have managed to not get the flu from my boss, and it looks like most of the rest of the department has too. I do feel hit-by-a-brick tired, but that's due to more mundane stuff (car trip, sore back, not getting to bed at a reasonable hour, etc). And after a crazier-than-usual week at work last week, things are normalizing. M. may have to work this upcoming weekend, though; c'est la vie.

Has anyone out there ever grown lemongrass? I've heard that if you buy some at the store (fresh) and plant it or root it, you can grow your own. We just happened to be at El Grande Supermarcado this weekend (I'm told the grammar is bad but don't blame me - I didn't name the place) and bought several stalks of lemongrass. Let's see if this works. Maybe I'll make Megan breathe on them; she has a green thumb.

Random
I'm having a "duh" moment - my hairstylist was apparently laid off (!!!) and I have no idea how to find out if she's now working somewhere else. Why not? Because I don't know what her name is.

Well, that's half true. I know her first name (Patty), and where she used to work (Classic Image in Phoebus). I just never learned her last name, because she never used it. I called, made an appointment with Patty, and that was that. Never grabbed her business card because, hey, I knew how to get in touch with her. Now, of course, I wish I had; it might have a cell number, or even just a last name. Gaah. Hindsight, I guess.

It's especially frustrating since she's cut my hair ever since I "went short," but she also cut M.'s recently - and M. really liked the cut and wanted to go back whenever she needed it shaped up. So it's a two-for-one bummer. That'll teach me.

Current Mood: cranky

Before I forget...
I meant to post a recipe for raspberry ice cream that I put together last weekend. I was happy with the result, but if I don't write it down I'll never be able to make it again...

( Raspberry ice cream: )

...In other news, life continues much as usual. We're still kind of living under a rock, but the upside is that we're getting some things done around the house: the crap room is quasi-organized, ditto the dining room, ditto the living room, etc, etc. We gave up on our vacuum (just about a year old and incredibly wimpy) and bought a used Kirby vacuum off Craigslist. It's 10 years old, and a million times better than our 1-year-old previous vacuum.

Last weekend, we went fruit-picking (raspberries & blackberries, plus we bought some pre-picked peaches). It was a lot of fun, and it led to things like raspberry ice cream. Kim came over and we ate fruit crumble and ice cream and watched Madagascar II (thanks to the whims of Netflix), which was fun. This week we also went over to Jerry's, ate chicken curry and admired the new hot tub, which was also fun (albeit a very different kind of fun than the girls'-night-in with Kim). So I guess we aren't completely under a rock. Just mostly. :-P

My inner mature adult is relieved that T.S. Danny is shaping up to be absolutely no big deal; my inner troublemaking kid kind of wishes we'd gotten just a little bit of a tropical storm through here..... ah well. I guess it's not a good idea to tempt fate!

You know you're spending too much time on the computer...
...when you find yourself looking for ways to save your work before pausing - except you're doing something completely unrelated to the computer. (Today, for instance: stuffing envelopes and writing out notes in longhand.)

Not nearly the first time this has happened to me, but it seems to be happening more often. I'm never sure whether to laugh or roll my eyes at myself.

In "well, finally" department: the laundry room stench level is almost back to zero after last week's water heater adventure. Whew!

Adventures in Homeownership (Part N)
...waking up to find your water heater has exploded.

Well, "exploded" isn't really the right word here. But "broken" doesn't quite convey the I don't think it's supposed to have water coming out the back situation quite as thoroughly.

Whee.

Happily, Shelly's dad (Shelly is a co-worker) is a plumber and has done some work for us before. He does good work, too. We were lucky; he came out early this afternoon and replaced the water heater in quick order. While they (he & his son) were here, the son fixed our kitchen faucet as a sort of afterthought when it wasn't running well enough to quickly bleed out the air from the new heater.

And my clothes and hair are now dripping wet because it started raining heavily & abruptly. The clothes on the line will just have to re-dry.

Nice day out (otherwise), though.

ETA: For a little extra WTF, the wind broke the clothesline. Not in the normal way, either - I have a clothesline "tree," and the wind bent the metal pole over at about a 20 degree angle (as well as breaking one of the arms). The neighbor let me know, then helped me take it down (since I threw a tarp over their stuff when it started raining - they're moving out today, so they had boxes of clothes in the backyard). Not sure how I felt about some guy I barely know helping take my clothes down off a clothesline, but he clearly was trying to help so I didn't feel I could tell him to go away.

On the way out to Bighead's to borrow the wet-dry vac, I guess I'll stop at Orange Store and buy another clothesline. At least the hard part is digging the hole and pouring the concrete, which is already done. And rewashing all the laundry that was drying is tedious, but not difficult.

(I would have brought the laundry in, actually, when the wind kicked up...but the lightning was hitting pretty close and I decided to wait and just let it dry when the sun came back out. Clearly a bad idea, in this case.)

Current Mood: mixed

So - proof, finally, that I'm an adult.

Yep, that's right: jury duty.

I'm actually somewhat intrigued by the entire process, which (I am told) is proof positive that I've never done this before. Because of the specific type of jury/court, I'm assigned a group number and a day (Friday). For a set range of time (early August through early October), I call in each Thursday night and if the recording says my group number is up next I show up at court the next day.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that if I were a contractor, or a consultant, or anyone whose job required me to make and keep appointments, I'd be really irritated at this setup, though. You get basically 12 hours' notice that you may not be at work the next day (if you show up they can send you back home if you aren't selected). In my case, though, it doesn't much matter; I'm an office worker. If I miss a meeting, nobody will cry bitter tears and the world will not end.

In other passing news, I've been trying to bike or walk to work at least several days each week (again). I've realized that as I am crossing a particular bridge, I can look down and generally see jellyfish in the water. It's a nice point of interest.

M. and I had a relatively productive weekend (and week in general): got some more window treatments up around the house (privacy films, curtains, etc); ordered some nice blinds for the dining room; ordered sample Flor tiles to pick colors for a sort of runner for the crappy linoleum hallway; got the under-the-stairs closet organized, which is no small undertaking; finished touch-up painting in the powder room; got started on the door/doorjamb of the upstairs bathroom; and got new doorknobs installed on a few doors. Wow, it looks like much more when I write it all out.... Now we've just got to keep this momentum! (Hah.)

In the few interactions I had with her, I was struck by Duchess Arielle's grace and personal strength of character. In many ways, she was the mental image I associated with majesty. I did not know her personally, but I am saddened by her death. (And I'm not at all surprised to see how many others have said variations on the same.)

This post is brought to you by the letter I for Insomnia
(yuck)

Anyhow: last weekend M. and I drove up to Summer War, and had a good time. Not as many folks from TyD turned out as we thought, but Megan enjoyed it b/c it was melees, and I got to enjoy the lovely weather and say hi to some folks I don't see too often. We just day-tripped rather than camping, and on the way back we stopped for supper with Moe & Lyle. All in all, a nice day.

So that was last weekend; this upcoming weekend, Reid will be staying with us Saturday night. At least, that's what the plan looks like now, although it's subject to change since we haven't worked out the details yet. But Saturday night we're going to a bank-sponsored "family night" picnic before the Pilots game (I figured he's my brother, so he's family, right? And work agreed, they said go ahead and bring him). I'm not much of a baseball person, but a big chunk of M's department will be there. And I'm pretty friendly with all of them, since my office has been right smack-dab in the middle of them for the past 6(?) months or so.

...Although, with luck, that won't be the case for long. We're supposedly moving into our new offices soon, although "soon" is a flexible term as they work out details about cable & other niceties. But we've all seen the new offices at least. Mine's about the size of the one I'm in now; no window (didn't really expect one though) and the furniture's nice. Plus, I got to move it around to suit me. And my boss promised that I can order a keyboard tray, which seems like a tiny thing but should be so nice. Typing all day on a desk that isn't built for it just ain't that comfortable.

I mean, I'll miss the finance people (where I am now); they've really "adopted" me and they're nice folks. But it will also be a good thing to be with my actual department.

Plus, the fact that the new building's first floor is occupied by a public library doesn't hurt....

:-)

Overall: so far July has been a little odd, but not as tough as it could have been. (It's the start of the new quarter so that means work has been a little stressful for me, and exceedingly stressful for M.) She hasn't even had to go in on the weekend yet this month, which is a good thing. Plus, she hasn't killed anyone over the phone, although I think it's been a near thing a couple times.

Current Mood: tired

Ugh.
Got back from a (quite nice) weekend up in the DC area to find that our fridge has died.

Well, not completely died; but it's comatose. It runs and hums, but it isn't cooling. Both the fridge and the freezer are around 55 F. Not good at all.

It's pretty new so there's still a warranty on the actual refrigeration system. That's the good part. The bad part is they can't come out and fix it until Friday.

Blech.

J., who works with Megan, kindly lent us a dorm fridge she had so we can at least keep milk and leftovers in the house. And we do have the chest freezer, which most of the frozen food was in; so it's not a huge loss. But it's a royal pain in the rear.

What a nice surprise to come home to, huh?!

Yeesh!

Mad recap
So - I haven't posted in a coon's age. Let's see how much I can cover all at once!

( Puerto Rico )

( Since PR.... )

And in Charlottesville we saw a bullfrog and a blacksnake outside the guesthouse (and now you understand why I love it so) - that really made my weekend. :-)

Tomorrow evening I'm teaching an A&S class in choux pastry, which promises to be low-intensity but fun. I love choux pastry; it's relatively easy and when it works it can be really impressive. Other than that, I've been too busy to do much in the realm of A&S. Still working on sewing the Gothic gown, and also working on beginning to catalog the old coins my Aunt Lola gave me years ago. Pretty interesting, really.

Last weekend M. and I went to the garden store and bought our yearly stock of herbs and various garden plants: basil, dill, parsley, cilantro, sage, 2 kinds of tomatoes, black & gold raspberries, and grapes. It was really hot, so we got home at 10 p.m., went out into the backyard with flashlights, and did our planting (and hacking-back of the neighbor's honeysuckle). Midnight gardening was definitely a good idea; nicely cool and no sunburns included. Only issue was the mosquitoes, and DEET is our friend.

OK, there's my brain-ramble. Off to print handouts for tomorrow night's class now; just got back from visting with Mom & Dad, aunt, cousin, and cousin's baby from Michigan, and great-aunt and grandfather in Norfolk. (All but the last 2 were down to visit the last 2, who live in Norfolk.) It was great to get to see everyone; haven't seen the cousin since we were probably 10ish and now she has a baby and is...well...an adult. It's pretty weird, and I'm sure she's probably thinking the same about me! :-)

This is why yardwork is a bad idea.
I mowed the front & side yards last week, and finally attacked the back yard this evening. It had gotten long enough that it needed the weed-whacker instead of the lawnmower (since it's a rotary mower, anything much longer than normal clogs it up).

Unfortunately, the first thing I did when I started was to hit one of the little brown snakes we've got in the backyard. I hadn't seen him (hiding in the chickweed around the stairs I guess?) until it was too late; and, also unfortunately, it didn't kill him. But it hacked him up good, and there was no way I could legitimately tell myself to just let him go and hope he would heal. So I got M. to find me one of our big kitchen knives so I could finish him off quickly, at least.

Sigh.

I like snakes. I'm glad we've got the little brown ones in the yard, and I love it when I find one while I'm doing yardwork. I bring them in to show Megan (and she humors me very patiently) and watch them for a bit, then put them back where they came from. I really didn't like having to kill this one. I don't even like killing bugs, most of the time.

Blech. I knew yardwork was a bad idea today!

At least the lawn is shorter now.

Still Content-Free
Maybe someday soon I'll post something with actual content, like something about our trip to P.R. Or anything else. (I know, I keep saying....)

For now, though, I wanted to get written down a recipe for chocolate coconut-milk ice cream I made last night. ( So, the recipe. )

Gradually getting back in touch with reality...
...or at least, reality in a form that isn't just work, Megan, dishes, and laundry. I have been living more or less under a rock for the past several months, and I'm working my way out of that. So that's good.

Went up to D.C. this weekend to see my folks, which was nice. Cecilie is growing, as usual, and so is Molly (who also got her hair cut - something is in the air). Got to hang around with

seebeesea, whom I don't see nearly as often as I might like, and got to at least say hi to

mastshade, whom I likewise don't see nearly often enough. Also, of course, got to see

seebeesea's extraordinarily extroverted cat. :-) Had dinner with my parents, saw Reid & Frances, and generally had a nice weekend.

We beat the bulk of the snow out of D.C., drove through it from just above Fredericksburg to just above Richmond, drove through sleet from above Richmond to partway down 64, and rain the rest of the way. We got a little snow that night, and some ice (still not completely melted off the truck). We also got an hour off work on Monday, which I'm told is a rarity (for comparison, Ft. Eustis/Ft. Monroe opened 2 hours late). Megan, though, was at work at 7 since it was the first business day of the month - ice and all. Sheesh.

So I suppose that's our snow for the year. It was nice, although I sure wouldn't mind a little more of it!

Today's recipe installation: ( Clafoutis. )

Never tried making this before, but it turned out beautifully. Leftovers were nice, although not nearly as nice as fresh (doesn't rewarm so great). But you can't beat the prep time; it probably came together in less than 15 minutes and that includes finding the recipe in the first place!

Oh, and

rapta: thanks again for the recommendation on the biobay tour. Didn't think we would go with them originally b/c they are pricier, but we got a real good look at the ferry schedule and decided that paying a little more was preferable to getting up before dawn on the second day of vacation to wait an hour for a possibly-absent ferry... Yeesh. So it was very good to know!

Oh and
For the (N-2?) of you who haven't seen me since mid-week, or the (N-3?) of you who don't know, I cut my hair.

Like, short.

For the (N-15?) of you whom this means anything to: slightly shorter than it was at its shortest in high school.

Not green, though.

Current Mood: zonky

Help me, LJ-land! You're my only hope!
So, I’m hoping one of you lovely, smart, helpful people has a better grasp of Excel and/or VBA programming than I do. This is driving me absolutely up a tree. I am more frustrated by this than I have been about anything in Excel in a long time, just because I can’t figure out how to approach the problem, much less solve it.

( So here’s the problem, in gory detail: )

Does anyone have any suggestions? At all??

Oh, and apologies in advance, if anyone is a real VBA-buff. I am sure this is inelegant. It's jury-rigged together; the base is stuff Megan wrote (and she has had just a bit of VBA training) scattered through with lots of stuff I wrote (and I have had absolutely none). It works, which is all I want of it.

Except when it doesn't work. Like now.

Current Mood: aggravated

So, I haven’t been online in some time. Things are busy, as usual. IB12 was this weekend, and it was fun; ran a bake sale to benefit T-y-D’s general fund (which just dropped some money on trailer repairs & loaner gear towards the end of last year) and made close to $150. Got to see and chat with folks, and got some dancing in the evening, which was fun. Also got some hand-spun linen thread from Julie, which absolutely makes my head hurt – she says it’s “just the parts that got too thin while she was spinning yarn” and she thought I might like them. Didn’t have to ask me twice!

Otherwise, no real content at all, except for ( a recipe for a spinach tart I threw together last night. )
Have to see about catching up on some back posts, and a bunch of back email…. I’m shamefully behind.

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