It was 83 degrees when I left the office at 5 pm.

In the southwest part of the state, it was 92 DEGREES--in FEBRUARY!!! Good grief, it's 8 pm and I'm sitting here with the windows open and the fans running. Should I turn the air conditioning on before I go to work tomorrow? It's supposed to be at least 80 tomorrow, too.

Today was the worst day I have ever had at a job in my entire career. I won't go into any details, but at least my part in this is mostly over. I'm just batting clean up right now.

My life suddenly looks pretty good right now.

Does this week have a bad vibe to you?

Man, was today TOUGH--I hardly knew whether I was coming or going today. And tomorrow's going to be worse--MUCH worse.

I love my new job, but let me just say that the project I'm working on now is not my cup of tea. However, the shit hits the fan tomorrow, and this is why I'm glad that I'm just a little assistant nobody and not one of the big dogs--I couldn't handle the heat.

No knitting to show--didn't touch it all weekend. I went to the office for five hours on Saturday and never got up to speed on Sunday. I'm still putting off washing the dishes in my sink, it's that bad. I did get laundry done and considering that it had been two weeks since I'd done any, that was a good thing.

It's supposed to be 83 on Wednesday and then drop back into the 60s for the rest of the week. At least there's no more ice and snow, but geez, could we please have a little bit of spring before summer comes along? At least my pansies made it through the arctic cold snap. They look pretty good right now.

My old boss called me tonight, and we talked for an hour. It was fun to gossip about politics and who's doing what. We're going to meet for lunch some day soon to catch up some more.

And now--off to bed!!!

I obviously need to get out more . . . .

The little Pepperidge Farms Goldfish crackers--did you know they made them in colors? Purple, red, orange, and green--they're so cute! They also have pretzel ones and ones that are cinammon flavored--yummy!

Good article on post-Katrina NO

Bill Quigley: Six Months Katrina

It's a disgrace that people are still living in shelters or in damaged homes six months after the hurricane.

I've updated the blog today--

got rid of the Bravenet map and have inserted a brand-spankin' new Frappr map--so Frappr me, baby!!

I also edited some links and moved some graphics.

Best of all, I added my "Official Olympics Observer" button--believe me, I have commitment issues all around . . . .

Winter's baaaaaaaaack!!!

Less than ten minutes after I got home at 6 pm tonight, the sleet started. Man, I timed it just right! It has been sleeting off and on since then. Just a few minutes ago there was a crawl on the TV that said that there were 20 injury accidents in the city and that all the EMSA ambulances were taking calls. They're asking people to not drive tonight, so of course I now hear my neighbor outside scraping the car to go somewhere. Not me and Maggie--we're indoors for the weekend. I plan to make some baked potato soup and basically play and relax.

I am watching this year's Olympics for the first time tonight--this snowboard cross stuff is so cool!!! I used to love the Olympics, but it's gotten so much about commercialism and money that I'm not too interested anymore. But if I get started watching, I really get into it.

Rule #1--don't blog when you're really tired!

I forgot to post the "after" photo from yesterday--DOH!!!


Here's a better shot of the desk:


I really like it--much more space to spread out. I just need a few things for the desk and I'm all set.

Figured out the problem with the desktop--the LAN card had pulled out of its slot a little bit. Pushed it back in, and voila, everything's fine.

However, everything won't be fine if I don't get busy, so bye!!!

So how did I do?

You remember what I started with:


I got to work about 11:30 this morning. By 2:15 I had this:


Not bad--I thought it would take longer, but my time here was pretty good, so I stopped and took a 45-minute break to rev up for the really big stuff.

I have to say I'm really impressed with O'Sullivan furniture. This table was packed really well--every piece was individually wrapped and labeled, so the pieces were easy to identify and nothing was scratched. I had just enough room to work, and it really was pretty easy going.

Maggie was my supervisor:


Actually, she wasn't very happy that I had blocked her crate, so I had to clear a path so she could hide one of her bones. Got to keep the supervisor happy, you know?

By 5:30 the table was finished. I would have been done sooner, but I used the wrong screws on the keyboard drawer and had to take two of the legs off that piece to change them out.

At this point, I was starving, and so was Maggie, so we took a break for dinner.

Next was the printer install. I bought this all-in-one printer a couple of weeks ago on sale, and I waited until I had my table put together before installing it because I didn't want to mess with it twice. It's a Brother printer, and besides being a printer, scanner, fax, and copier, it has a phone and answering maching capability, memory card readers, and best of all--wifi! After looking at the installation manual, I knew it wouldn't be a piece of cake, but it looked fairly simple.

Right . . . .

Luckily the manual was very specific about what to do, but it took a while for me to get it to recognize the wifi network. I finally had to go in and change some settings in my router before it would work. But once I did that, it works GREAT!!! I love being able to print from my laptop (did I mention I also bought a new laptop? I got a really good deal), but I still need to be able to print from my desktop. Unfortunately, I don't have a USB cord to install it, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

So it's now 10 pm. I love my "new" room, but I'm exhausted, and my supervisor left me to my own devices hours ago:


I didn't get the file cabinet that goes underneath the table put together--maybe tomorrow. Right now I'm going to take out the trash, sit for a while, and then go to bed. I've got a lot more to do tomorrow.

Completed socks, a new family member, and a room to rearrange

I finally finished the Opal socks--they remind me of Easter eggs:



I've started a toe-up pair in the Mountain Colors Ruby Red I bought at Christmas, but that's a whole other story . . . I hope to frog them and start over this weekend (let's just say that the phrase "better left well enough alone" could apply here and leave it at that).

There's a new family member at Casa de Katya:


This is Gale. Yes, it's a male Betta with a female name. It's my own personal "hommage" to the most under-appreciated member of the West Wing cast--Gail, CJ's goldfish. No, it's not a goldfish, it's a Betta--my house, my rules, remember?

Basically the story is--I went for goldfish, felt bad for the Bettas being kept in these dinky little cups, so I felt I needed to rescue one. And he's very happy, so there.

However, this is my big project this weekend:


Cleaning out the dining room, moving the dining table out, putting together a computer desk and file cabinet, putting the computer back, and installing a new printer.

This is the first chapter in the "make the apartment look like a 40-something lives here instead of a college student" saga. I'm so excited--I bought a corner desk with lots of room. It will be great--once it's put together.

I'm trying to be optimistic in saying that it will only take a day. We'll see.

If I make it through in one piece, I'll post an "after" shot. If I don't, Happy Valentine's Day!!