I finished off one half of one of the big projects that must be finished at work before the end of the week this morning, but didn’t really feel like I could heave any metaphorical sense of relief because despite everything I’ve done so far, I have yet to check a single thing off the entire list. Maybe I should have broken the list down into sub-tasks, just so I could cross off the little bits and feel like I am making progress. Hmm.

Tonight after work instead of heading directly home, I headed off to Dixon to pick up my mom, and then the two of us continued on to Vacaville to a hardware store. This is because tonight was another of Meek’s Ladies Nights, and since they were going to talk about windows, we both wanted to attend.

It was a smaller crowd than in years past (I’ve talked about going to these things before but am feeling too lazy to go digging around for previous entry links), and instead of providing a buffet type meal of snacky sort of food, this time they had set up a bunch of tables (which amusingly turned out to be huge rectangles of plywood balanced on stacks of giant paint buckets, covered with tablecloths) and as the various speakers came out to talk, they served us dinner.

It’s always kind of fun to go to these and see the wide range of women who attend. There are the tiny little elderly ones who look as if merely the thought of wielding a power tool might knock them off their feet, who still will raise their hands and ask questions that make it quite clear that they are more than comfortable around the workshop. There are the obvious mother and daughter pairings – a few with younger daughters still in school, but most closer to the ages of my mom and me. And then, strangely, there were two women who had brought along their husbands. Despite the fact that this is meant specifically for women only, these two always bring the men. One of them always remains very quiet in the background, as if he, at least, understands that no one else came here to listen to him, but the other is the sort of obnoxious, full-of-himself old fart who constantly interrupts the speakers in a way that makes it obvious that he thinks he is ever so clever, and surely all the rest of us should think so too. He showed up last year, and it was obvious that a lot of the women there were annoyed, and it amused me that when he showed up this year, my mom and I weren’t the only ones who made pointed comments (loud) about this being just for women.

Regardless of the obnoxious old fart, it was still a fun night. I picked up some information on another possible decking material for when we finally get around to replacing our back porch (something we will hopefully be able to do *before* it crumbles apart completely all on its own), and also now know how to completely disassemble our windows, should I at some point have a burning desire to do so. Plus, like last year, I also won one of the raffle prizes, and picked out some kind of nifty gadget that should come in extremely useful when we eventually get around to tackling the crown molding downstairs.

Nanowrimo update: Hey look, over there! A bird! (what, you’re not distracted? Um. Darn).