Remember when I told you that we had cut it close with the flooring?
Actual, factual left over flooring. We had originally calculated the square footage for the kitchen/livingroom/computer cubby. But Tim looked at that and felt quite sure that we had enough to do the hall. We had flooring in the basement for the hall, but for aesthetics, he decided to continue the livingroom flooring. (He was right, btw) We calculated carefully and it seemed like we should have enough.
So we did it. Board by board by board, we got closer to the end of the job, and for every board we put down, we were nervously eyeballing the boards left in the livingroom. We did it.
Fun little project for like minded souls, this from Stacey Roberts, author of "No One Left But All of Us."
"Looks like all federal employees were ordered to list 5 things that they did last week."
The e-mails go to hr@opm.gov
"Sending a list of the 5 things we all did last week would be totally wrong."
Totally. Wrong. Which is why I have my list already started. I think the floors are a good thing, and I think that Elon will be amazed that the job was done with so little waste. I made two very good pots of soup this week, if I do say so myself. And I do need to say so, because I need five things for my list. Thanks to him, my cussing skills are finely honed, and getting better every &%#@# day. (That's a good one, isn't it?) I've been e-mailing government officials encouraging them to stand up to this. I am not sure how well spent that time is, since I got a reply from John Fetterman that basically is a list of government resources. Good to know that he's been behind a change that will result in a raise for thousands of Pennsylvanians. 2,100 to be exact. Out of how many millions of employees in Pennsylvania? (Perhaps the government is asking the wrong employees to account for their time? Just a thought).
Any suggestions on the fifth thing for my list?
But, anyways, I thought that would be a cheering little activity for us all.
If you want to do something else, e-mail your senator and your representatives, and push for town hall meetings. Their addresses are on line. Use them.
Don't forget the boycott on February 28th.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/economic-blackout-feb-24-hour-february-28-2025-peoples-union/
I don't expect miracles from this, but I do expect it to be a starting point.
If you are interested, you can sign up for daily e-mails from Heather Cox Richardson. She's a go to for me. She is able to fit what is happening into a historical framework that has been very helpful.
Yesterday, a crock pot full of potatoes, ham, onions, celery and garlic simmered quietly away as we worked on the new house. My sister and brother-in-law came over when they got their 'to-do' list done at their house. They admired the floor, and then we went across the road. I made a cheddar cheese sauce which got stirred into the hot potatoes/ham mix, with a bit of dill weed for seasoning. She had a fresh loaf of bread. Supper fit for kings.
We played scrabble.
We came home. Tim watched 'The Tourist' on Netflix. I read a book. 'The Naming of Eliza Quinn'. It was suggested by Northsider Dave. (Actually, Mrs. Northsider recommended it, so thanks J.) For the first time in a long time, I've been able to keep my mind on a book.
For an evening, life just seemed normal.
A VA doctor that I'm FB friends with just got one of those musk-mails. A VA doctor! For the work they do and what they get paid, they're practically doing charity all day every day. Why in the hell are we allowing this shithead that no one elected to be in a position to even ask these things?
ReplyDeleteYou should definitely report in about your floors and your soups.
But tactfully omit my cussing skills?
DeleteWhat about you, Mary. You met up with Steve. You did pottery. You admired your camellias. You have discovered that your husband is a bigger man than Elon. What will your fifth thing be?
He is just being ridiculous..you both , on the other hand are doing marvellously!!
ReplyDeleteNow what to do with the flooring you didn't use there?!
Coasters? Toothpicks? Don't know? Suggestions, my artistic friend?
DeleteI meant about what you had intended to put there...
DeleteAh! I see. Dunno. We stock pile for the rentals, so like as not, we will pit it aside. As this point, the rentals are all finished but somewhere along the line, someone will need it somewhere.
DeleteI am sure you could come up with a creative use for the leftover flooring. The opportunities are endless...
ReplyDeleteNow, my five achievements this week. Hmmm. Can I get back to you on that?
You made a clever dinner. Walked in the rain. Sent up gratitude that you don't live in a dictatorship? Suggested Mr Nosy be given a spot in some surveillance program to keep an eye on outraged Americans. Explain to Mr Musk that calling an enemy a retarded hasn't been acceptable in this century? Did not buy a Tesla this week?
DeleteCute idea to send the government your personal list of 5 things done. You could add on human resources skills by working around the tensions and temporary crankies with the floor co-worker, and then buying just enough food to make a delicious meal. Not sure I'd want to alert the Muskies to my email though. Amazingly tiny pile left of your flooring boards. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteVery good! I now have my fifth thing. Email goes out today!
DeleteI'm on it. I did all kinds of important things. Let's flood that box! Don't just tell other people to do it, let's all do it. Thanks for the idea.
ReplyDeleteI publicized Stacey's post, but of course I am doing it. It will be fun.
DeleteYou guys did an amazing job on that floor, obviously lots of experience, which is good.
ReplyDeleteFive things
I got three really hard IVs on Friday at work. It took me 45 minutes to get the IV in one patient, crappy veins.
I walked my dogs.
I raised my grandson, told him not to punch people, especially people bigger than him.
Went to pottery and learned to glaze.
Fed my family every single night, shopped, cooked, and cleaned up. I don't imagine elon has ever done that in his life.
I took care of a new patient on Friday who accidentally peed on her gown, and didn't know she was there to see if she had a PE in her lungs. She was almost crying she was so stressed and thanked me profusely. A very sweet lady.
In short, you took care of people. The opposite of what is happening now.
DeleteI would love to take a pottery class. We just don't have that sort of thing here.
I sent my first list of 5 things. They were kind of cranky ones so I am thinking of sending a nicer set to confuse them. My first set listed my boycotts and calling congressmen and more. I might do a cooking set since I have been cooking more than usual - real recipes.
ReplyDeleteYour flooring could not have worked out better! I bet you were both holding your breath. It looks just lovely.
So did my list. Number 3, to be exact. Number 4 was the swearing. Number 5 was taking a moment to be grateful for things. I celebrated the small moments: declining polls, EU push back, a Maine governor standing toe to toe with the baby blob and saying, "Bring it" to his face. There was Ukraine taking a stand, Turkey backing Ukraine, protests across the country...I celebrated them all.
DeleteYou have AMAZING estimation skills.
ReplyDeleteI’m positive I did less Ketamine than Mr Musk last week, that’s one thing.
I did not buy a tesla. Understand that we gave them the measurements of the area we wanted to do, they estimated the wood. Originally, we had planned to use a different flooring in the hallway, because the washer/dryer are tucked back there. That change/addition had us biting our nails until the last board was laid.
DeleteIf it was reality TV, we would be laughing at these buffoons and vote them off the island.
ReplyDeleteThat made me laugh, but you're right. I'm all about sticking them on an island and letting them eat each other.
DeleteYours and Tim's estimating skills are amazing. That is not a lot of wood left over. You would think, that by now, people in government would know not to solicit information via email. A snitch line for undocumented migrants was over run by people reporting Musk. This email will be over run, as well.
ReplyDeleteI hope that it is. Robert Reich had a good piece this morning.
DeleteThe boycott is interesting to think about. How much spending will be deferred and how much just not spent and saved, or spent down the track.
ReplyDeleteYou must be so pleased about the flooring, which has inspired a post for tomorrow.
I think that what this is, Andrew, is a warning shot. Yes. A one day boycott allows you to defer. But the boycott would demonstrate that 1) people can be organized in a grass roots way, 2) that this organization can disrupt retail. If you read about this, you can see that this one day is a beginning, not a 'one and done' deal. In a capitalist world, money does talk.
DeleteI too am in awe of your estimating skills. That's impressive! Let's see, I helped take out 2 of 5 Bougainvilleas, finished painting the soffits on the Tucson house, rode my mountain bike a lot, like Joan, I did less Ketamine than Musk, and I was much less of a dick than he is. Think I'm good!
ReplyDeleteThat ketamine comment was gold, wasn't it? I sent my list in last night. I wanted it to be there on Monday morning when the thugs showed up with their chain saws and high spirits.
DeleteI've been reading "five things" lists all over the internet. Hope the inbox crashes.
ReplyDeleteHave you? That's great! I hope it does as well. I've kind of given up on facebook. There's some 'funky shit going down in the city' so to speak. I got messages that one of my posts had been removed. Except the posts they showed were not anything that I had ever posted. The latest thing is that I tried to forward a post that showed a woman who claimed that the Department of Education cutbacks would NOT affect children with IEPs and kids with special needs, that there was a plan in place to move them over to HHS. My intent was to post the video along with the note that all prospective hires at that department had been rescinded, and that they were aggressively cutting staff there. I wanted to point out that it was absolutely ridiculous to believe that they would be able to handle the massive job of IEPs on top of their existing duties with reduced staffing. I posted the video, but could not add my comments to it. Even worse? I was unable to delete the post.
DeleteMost disappointing to me is that I see a lot of alarmist BS right now, on both sides of the spectrum. The truth is lost.
What a good idea, I'll work on my list. Based on blogs I read this group is always busy and doing things. We're all better than the felon and the muskrat, no worries there. Different thought... your soups always sound delicious, do you follow a recipe or wing it? And, great job on the floor.
ReplyDeleteSome recipes are 'wing it'. Mostly soups. I've made enough of them. But I do have a book that I write down recipes that I've done that I want to do again. Over on Boud's blog, Fen and Field, she is always trying some exotic (to my experience) recipe. I looked up a recipe for her Carrot Sweet Potato soup.
DeleteIt's a very stressful situation. there are many very tragic things being done.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to watch your country being dismantled, Red.
DeleteHave a look at Carol Cadwalladr’s broligarchy.substack.com. Helen
ReplyDeleteI would love to. My problem is that I cannot keep adding subscriptions. It's rather like streaming television...you have to pick and choose and in the end, you don't get everything you want. I like the term 'broligarchy', however. It is very interesting to compare the Russian oligarchy's decision to tie their power wealth to political power. Putin was their choice. It surely did not work well for them. Oligarchs falling out the window all the time over there. Regular epidemic.
DeleteI love the idea of sending in 5things I did this week! I'll send mine in too. BTW, your floor must look wonderful! I'm still amazed at all the work you do.
ReplyDeleteI sent my list in yesterday evening. I wanted it to be there bright and early Monday morning. An interesting thing about this whole thing is that the request was sent from an outside server. Many of the people who received this e-mail work in classified positions and responding to that e-mail with a list of their jobs done would be a security breech. Remember all the kerfuffle about Hillary's e-mails which were sent on an unsecured server?
DeleteThat is an idea, each week we have a blog on the five things we did in the week, that deserves merit of course. Will Musk send us a golden star? Except it is not funny.
ReplyDeleteWell...sometimes it seems to me that my greatest achievements are the things that I didn't say or do. Wonder what the fellow would make of that?
DeleteI admire what you are doing both with your home and politically. Now to get millions out marching, especially as winter begins to lose its grip.
ReplyDeleteFrom your lips to God's ear, friend. It is supposed to be in the 40s today. This whole week is supposed to be a goody. We will probably lose most of our snow, which is a very exciting thing to me. Quite ridiculously, I planted pepper seeds. It is waaaaaaay too early for such ridiculousness, but I just felt like I needed to have some small sign of another season.
DeleteWell done. I can't imagine any contractor ever getting that close with an estimate of material! We used our leftover flooring to build kitchen cabinet doors, and a back for the built-in bookshelf. That was long, long ago.
ReplyDeleteThe soup sounds pretty amazing, but the visit with your sister sounds pretty wonderful too. These days, we have to look for and cherish those bright spots.
With the election in Germany, Musk is certainly publicly affirming his Nazi tendencies, isn't he, by backing that far right party. That election is just one more big worry in this world that seems to be coming apart. Sometimes I am glad I am so old, because I don't think I want to be around for what the future is likely to be.