A few months ago my company notified us that as of April we would be starting a new work schedule. Basically we work 8 1/2 hours Monday through Thursday, 8 hours on Friday, and then get every fourth Friday off. It’s not technically a free day because we do end up working the hours over the course of the four week cycle, but considering the minimal impact to the regular working day, and the fact that this means we all now have an extra 13 three-day weekends a year to look forward to, this is pretty cool.

Today was my first flex day off, and I decided to try to make the most of it. So this morning, I got up at my usual time, met my mom at Curves, then came back home in time to meet with the gardener and talk about things like replacing the mostly dead pine tree with the grapefruit tree we bought weeks ago (which is, amazingly, still alive because I have been actually remembering to water it), propping up a few of the other trees because the wind we get in our area is brutal to baby trees that have no external support, and getting a quote on the reading nook area in the back yard. We realized that last year we really didn’t do much in to move the back yard forward at all, with the exception of adding another flat of blue star thyme creepers to the rock path around the raised flower bed. And I know Richard especially wants to get a little sitting area out there (plus I want to get the plants in so they can start growing and filling out that bare corner), so we figured we might as well at least get an idea of how much it will cost.

Yesterday before I left work I convinced several of my coworkers to help me load up my car with a dozen or so boxes of old reports from the archiving project I’ve been working on for the past year or so – they’ve been cluttering up the wall by the door and I wanted to get rid of them. The reason they’ve been there so long, however, is because we didn’t want to just throw them all away – it would feel wrong to dump all that perfectly recyclable paper into the land fill. So after meeting with the gardener I hopped into the car and headed off to the recycling center. I ran into my dad just pulling out of the parking lot, so he turned right around and helped me drag heavy boxes out of the car and dump piles and piles of office paper into the bins. Then we sat in the parking lot outside in our respective Prius’s (Prii?) and discussed plans to meet later for lunch.

Back home I tackled laundry, the mound of dishes in the sink, and the various piles of random books and mail and yarn that have been accumulating all over the downstairs, and then it was off to meet my dad for lunch. We were going to go to the little place downtown that sells meat pies and haggis (no I really am not kidding) but they were closed so instead we decided to go to one of our town’s tiny little greasy spoon diners. It’s a fun place just for the experience. They keep a toaster on the table so you can toast your own bread and regulars just go behind the counter and get their own drink refills. The waitress will invariably call at least one person at the table ‘hon’, and the menu lists pretty much every food that a true greasy spoon diner is required to have.

I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and oh, it was so good. It’s been so long since I’ve had one of those! My dad and I had fun just sitting and chatting and nibbling sandwiches and fries.

The rest of the day was spent on a myriad of other little errands, including baking two dozen chocolate cupcakes for the kids to decorate on Sunday morning at church. It was actually kind of fun making cupcakes – I haven’t done that in a very long time either. And in the midst of all the errands and running around and getting useful things done, I did sneak in a short nap and also some knitting because after all, it *was* a day off, and surely that deserves at least some snoozing with sleepy cuddly cats and some time with yarn and needles. And I didn’t end up getting everything done I wanted to, but I got most of my list crossed off, and that’s what counts.

This morning I organized my socks. I’m not sure exactly what compelled me to do this, since I was a little rushed for time and I really should have been getting dressed to go meet my mom at Curves, but instead, in the middle of putting away all my laundry I’d washed this past weekend, my brain decided that my sock drawer needed to be organized right then. So I did.

My little spate of organizing actually ended up clearing out a small pile of socks that were getting a little too threadbare, which means there is actually extra space in my sock drawer for a change. Some people might say that it is preferable to have space in one’s sock drawer so one doesn’t have to feel as if one is excavating every time one searches for a missing pair. Those people, however, have not recently discovered the joy of knitting socks. Space in the sock drawer is space to be filled by socks! And what kind of knitter would I be if I did not take that as a challenge?

Speaking of socks, I decided Richard needed a pair, so I whipped them up for him last week. He has larger feet than I do, so his socks took twice as long. I then promptly cast on for a third pair of socks for myself, which I finished rather late Sunday night, specifically so I could wear them today. This did mean, however, that I had to go rummaging through my wardrobe to find a top with purple in it so at least it would match my pretty new socks.

What? Doesn’t everyone plan their outfit around their socks?

On work day mornings, Richard and I have a tendency to eat breakfast together while reading. It’s a nice way to catch up on random reading – either recently received magazines, or something off our well stocked shelves. Short stories and fluffy magazine articles (or books of knitting patterns and techniques from the library) are perfect for breakfast reading because I usually don’t have a whole lot of time, and one of the downfalls of being able to read extremely fast is that I tend to prefer to be able to read through a book from start to finish in one sitting.

This particular book is a rather large collection of a lot of classic fantasy and ghost stories. And while I’m usually willing to give most text the benefit of the doubt and continue to slog on even if it fails to capture my interest, there are a few exceptions. This morning I determined that anything written by Henry James is one of those exceptions.

I tried. I really did try to engage myself in this particular short story (The Jolly Corner). But after three pages of random babble about some nondescript man who might have been building a house or something that might or might not have had a ghost, I just couldn’t care. The style is painful to read – conversations are buried in long rambly paragraphs of unrelated blathering – and even when I forced myself to stop my usual mode of skimming whole lines of text at once to try to read it word for word, I still could not work up any reason to care.

I am sure there are those people out there who adore Henry James’ work, just as I am sure that there are people out there who can read anything written by Hemingway without wanting to gouge out their own eyeballs with whatever sharp object might be handy. Unfortunately I have neither the patience, or the desire, to wade through James’ ponderous text (or Hemingway’s annoyingly repetitive and awkward prose), and after about ten pages of torturous reading I finally gave up and flipped hastily on to the next story the book had to offer.

In the continuing saga of random beeping and mechanical failures at the office, the infrequent beeping continued yesterday, along with the occasional blip in network and phone access. It wasn’t so much a problem most of the time, except when the phone system decided to hang up on one of the more senior partners while she was on hold. Wince.

We finally decided to test the theory that one of the older battery backups had actually gone bad, and transferred everything that was plugged into that box to one of the other backups.

This morning the theory was confirmed. The backup in question apparently decided to give up on the infrequent beeping and started actually screaming. When I got in to work two of my coworkers were staring at it in consternation, since even though they’d unplugged it, it was still yelling its little head off. We tried putting it out on the front porch where it could scream all it wanted yet not annoy us, and then finally figured out how to turn the thing off completely. In the meantime, all network access and phone service seems to be functioning normally. I think at this point we’re all reduced to simply crossing our fingers and hoping that this is finally a fix.

The email has been sitting in my box for two weeks, and prior to that it was another week or two of knowing they were expecting *something* before I sent the query off to the board to try to narrow down what, exactly, they were looking for. Write a bio about yourself, they said. But what does that mean? How long? What sort of information? One or two sentences? A full paragraph? Tell me what you want so I will then know exactly what I can spend the next few weeks dithering about until I finally can’t stand it anymore and just do it.

The problem, you see, is that while I can write about anything else, and do it fairly well, I have a very hard time writing about myself. I suppose that statement comes out a little odd, considering I’m writing these words to post into a journal that’s now in its sixth year of entries about me, but this sort of writing is different. I can be myself here. I can be funny (or at least try). I can be casual. I can be introspective. But most importantly, in this journal I do not have to try to be professional or formal or important. I can just be ordinary me.

Writing a bio for yourself, no matter how short, is an entirely different matter. Because what they really want is for you to write about yourself in a different way. Make the words look formal. Make *you* look formal. And a bio for a church curriculum isn’t exactly the place for self-deprecating humor, no matter how much I might think such a composition would be improved with a little interjection of lightheartedness.

Today, though I finally sat down, held my breath, and hastily wrote it out. I wandered around the house trying to think of the best place to take a picture of myself (did I mention they also wanted a picture?) without having it come out like a police mug shot. In the end I sat in one of the chairs in the library and Richard snapped a shot of me in front of one of our huge shelves full of books. It wasn’t until I was cropping and removing the red eye (because what would a picture of me be without the red eye – sigh) that I realized we’d posed me right in front of Richard’s collection of religious texts. How appropriate.

It’s been an interesting week at work. One of the main people has been out all week on vacation, and another was gone 3 of the 5 days. Tuesday morning we discovered that the voicemail system had gone kaflooey and they didn’t make it out to fix it until the following afternoon. The service guy pointed out that we apparently had some issues with our battery back-ups, which we were already aware of due to the incessant beeping and the fact that during the last week or two our server has now rebooted itself (not always successfully) several times without reason. And he noted that unless we did something to fix the issue, we’d likely lose our voicemail system again.

The new battery backup arrived this afternoon. It’s a heavy, compact little piece of equipment. And as we were lugging things around in the tiny closet that is our de facto server room, we discovered what might be the main problem for all the issues we’ve been having lately with the server and the voicemail. We already had two battery back-ups, but for reasons unknown to any of us (since we were not the ones who initially set the whole system up), the first backup had a multiple outlet extension plugged into it, and someone had plugged the second battery backup into this extension. This meant that the second was plugged into the first and why the first hadn’t just up and melted by now none of us can guess.

Somehow we got everything moved around, although in the middle of it my coworker and I inadvertently shut down the entire phone system – while a third coworker happened to be on the line with a client (oops). And it’s possible we also rebooted the voicemail system, also by mistake. But at least none of the systems are plugged into each other any more, and that annoying beeping has finally stopped, and maybe our server will no longer feel the need to reboot on a whim.

All things considered I’m not sure any of us are holding our breath.

It’s been a musical build-up to this Easter – the service on Thursday night, where the choir sang, and then the service on Friday night with the only musical accompaniment our little recorder group. We’ve all been practicing these songs for a few weeks now, and I think we sounded better than we’ve ever sounded – which is high praise for a group where most of us still dive for the fingering chart any time we see a sharp or flat in the music. It doesn’t help that some of us play other woodwind instruments where the fingering is almost, but not quite, the same as for the recorder. The clarinetist and I both find ourselves playing recorder fingerings on our woodwinds, and vice versa.

Easter began with two services at church – and since the choir had to sit up front on the alter behind the wall of lilies (aka the flowers of doom – and if you’ve ever had to sit close to lilies and smell them for more than about 30 seconds you know what I mean. Shudder), this meant we couldn’t exactly sneak out after singing at the second service. Ah well. But it did give us more time for Richard to lean over and pass me sacriligeous notes about the meaning of Easter (which had nothing whatsoever with the real meaning, and earned me a dirty look from the alto section, since they made me giggle). And it also gave us an opportunity to clear out all our miscellaneous candy in the house and bring it to the church to feed to small children and others, all so it would no longer be sitting there to tempt us.

After church, Richard and I eyed the clocks, and there was just enough time to meet my older sister and her family, and my parents, for a quick lunch at a local fast food place. There is a new Wendy’s in town, and while I usually try to avoid fast food in general these days, due to our goal of eating healthy, the allure of a chocolate frosty is sometimes too hard to resist.

Then it was home to change and grab the muffins I made Saturday night, before climbing back into the car and driving down to spend the rest of the day with Richard’s family for the traditional Easter dinner. I brought my latest pair of socks I’m knitting, because I figured there’d be lots of sitting and chatting time (I was right) and managed to get most of the first one done. Granted, I’ll likely rip it all out again because I think I want to make it on smaller needles and with fewer stitches in the round, but I’m getting to the point in my knitting where I really don’t mind the occasional need to frog a project, even if it’s the whole thing.

We talked and laughed and caught up on what’s going on in our lives. We marveled over how the ‘new’ puppy has grown. We ate roast lamb and pork and corn fritters and salad and potatoes and my muffins, which have just a hint of nutmeg that makes them sweet, and then for dessert there was a fruit sorbet and chocolate peanut butter pie. There were also chocolate eggs and silly stuffed animals and back at home Richard had his Cadbury eggs and I had my caramel eggs, and we drove home in the dark and the pouring rain and it was a very long but lovely day.

A week or so ago, while I was at the grocery store, I noticed something new in the holiday-of-the-moment displays near the front door. Nestled amid great piles of pastel colored Easter baskets, oversized stuffed animals, and shelf after shelf of candy were boxes of do-it-yourself marshmallow treats. Paas, apparently, has been branching out beyond just providing yet another way to turn boring hard-boiled eggs into works of art.

Naturally, we had to buy a kit to try it out. So in honor of Easter, I present to you a pictorial demonstration of how to make your very own marshmallow Easter treats that go very, very wrong.

We start with the box, which is brightly colored and covered in pictures that assure the unsuspecting marshmallow treat ‘chef’ how easy this will be. Ha ha ha.

Here’s what’s inside the box. We are pretty sure that the mold made a butterfly, a turtle, an egg, a rabbit head, and possibly an entire rabbit. We never quite figured out what the sixth shape was supposed to be, but in the end none of them looked much like the box, so I guess it isn’t all that important.

Here is Richard stirring up the goo. You poured in the first packet with a teeny bit of water and stirred it until it became a sticky mess that refused to let go of the fork, and then you were supposed to stir in the second package for only about 30 seconds, at which point the whole thing was supposed to be soft and fluffy.

I ask you – do these look soft and fluffy to you? They didn’t taste soft and fluffy either. Luckily the package came with two sets of marshmallow ingredients, so once the first batch was scraped out of the mold and dumped into the garbage disposal, where I am sure it is merrily congealing into a hardened mess, we tried again.

Here is the second batch. For some strange reason there was one batch of white and one batch of yellow. Yum. Don’t these look ever so appetizing?

Once the marshmallow treats set for five minutes in the fridge we got to sprinkle them with colored sugar. Considering just how yummy they looked, all lumpy in the mold, it was kind of hard to make them look any less unnatural once they were set. We did start out making them each individual colors, but then it sort of turned into a free-for-all. Mm. Nuclear colored festive squishy lumps.

The last step of the instructions on the box said, quite clearly, that these were to be eaten immediately. I dutifully ate one, but it had an odd eggy taste – a flavor one does not normally associate with marshmallows. So Richard got to eat all the rest. I may or may not have been making ‘help me!’ noises while he was eating the thing that we suspect was a turtle.

Now that we finally have access to the attic and have seen just how much room there is up there, I have been toying with the idea of expanding the plywood flooring to provide even more storage space. I should point out that we have more than enough storage space in the house without the attic, but there is something about the prospect of having even *more* which is far too compelling to ignore.

The problem, however,is that with the exception of where they put the 8×8 square of flooring when the house was built, the attic is covered in loose piled insulation. And as the little yardstick things stuffed into the piles of insulation here and there suggest, the quality of the insulation (its rating) is dependent on the height. Putting flooring over that would squash it down, reducing its insulating capacity. We could, I suppose, go through and replace all the loose insulation in the main area of the attic (where I’d like to see flooring) with the more solid, condensed form, to avoid losing any insulating capacity, but that’s a much bigger and more complicated task than I’m sure we want to tackle. There is also the possibility of building the flooring up, so that it ‘hovers’ over the piled insulation through the judicious placement of some 2×4’s and bracing, but that is going to take some careful calculations and thought.

In the meantime, however, there is at least a little space available up there. So today, after breakfast, Richard and I dragged all the holiday stuff out of the closet in the library and transferred it from the various huge bins and cardboard boxes into five clear stackable bins bought specifically for this purpose. Then Richard stood on the ladder and I handed him all the holiday decoration bins and the boxes of lights we put up around the house, and a few other things, and he shoved them all up into the attic because now we finally can.

Next I tackled my ever growing yarn stash. It took an additional trip to Costco to pick up another set of the 10 clear plastic bins I bought for that purpose, but when I was done, I’d managed to stuff all my yarn into smaller and more manageable containers, and stacked them all into the newly emptied closet. Not very exciting, maybe, but it’s nice to feel slightly more organized, and better yet, to be able to actually *find* things in my stash, instead of having to rummage through a huge green tub and never quite knowing what I might find.

While we were out picking up the second set of plastic storage boxes for my yarn we took a slight detour for a little shopping, because we were both desperately in need of new shoes. I find it highly amusing I at when we left the store, Richard had more pairs of new shoes than I.

We got up this morning a little earlier than usual because we needed to clear out the closet in the computer room. Richard laid out a big sheet of plastic in the bedroom and we carted all three litter boxes out of the closet and into that room. And then, after he vacuumed the excess litter off the floor, he went off to make coffee and I spent the next ten minutes or so cleaning the floor. It’s really quite disconcerting to see what your floor looks like underneath the litter boxes. Ick.

Once we were done setting everything up, we locked all the cats in the bedroom – a task made ridiculously simple by the application of three plates full of extremely smelly wet food. It may be impossible to herd cats, but anyone who lives with multiple cats knows it is far better to simply lead them to where you want them to go. And bribery is well within the rules when cats are involved.

There was a really good reason for doing all of this, however, besides just some random need to scrub fossilized litter off the closet floor. When we had the house built the general contractor put in about 8 square feet of basic plywood flooring up there for us to use as storage space, but since the existing attic access consisted of a tiny square in the ceiling of the closet in the computer room, getting things up to the attic was pretty much impossible. Setting up a ladder in a tiny closet is bad enough; trying to climb a ladder wedged into a tiny closet while carrying anything larger than a flashlight was pretty much impossible.

We’ve been looking for someone who could put in a new attic access for us for quite some time, but general contractors who are willing to do this sort of thing (and have time to do it) have proven rather difficult to find. A few weeks ago, somehow the topic came up as I was talking to a friend, and I bemoaned the fact that no one seemed to know anybody we could call. Luckily, it turned out she’d worked with a guy several times in the past and had been very happy with him, so she gave me his name, and I promptly tracked down his phone number and called. We set up the time, he faxed over an estimate and a contract for us to sign, and today was the day. While I was off at work today (Richard worked from home so he could let them in), the general contractor came in with his assistant and put in a new dropdown ladder attic access. And because the litter boxes live in the closet where the existing access was, plus there would be loud noises and banging, we figured it was best to move the cats – and their litter boxes – behind closed doors.

The first thing I did when I got home was go immediately upstairs and check it out. Instead of having to wrestle with a ladder and a closet, the new access is in the computer room. Instead of having to drag the ladder up from the garage, this one comes with a ladder that drops down right from the ceiling with the (determined) tug of a cord. And it’s sturdy enough, and there is enough space around it, that climbing up there with boxes of stuff for storage is no longer such an impossible task!

Of course once we climbed into the attic – the first time we’ve actually been able to do that since we moved into this house – I was amazed at the sheer amount of space available up there. I think we could easily put in four or fives times as much plywood flooring for storage space up there and still have room left over. Due to the design of the house our attic is big enough to walk around in – in fact, if we were willing to deal with licenses and codes and inspections and a lot of work with drywall and insulation and air conditioning, we could add another entire room up there. It’s huge! This picture doesn’t even come close to doing it justice.

Climbing back down the ladder was a challenge, since I’m not a fan of heights, so we’re thinking we may want to try to put in some kind of railing or something on the edge, just to have something to hang on to. And since the access into the attic has moved, we’ll need to figure out a way to reach the light switch, since it’s now just out of reach. But these are all really very minor issues. After being in this house nearly four years, we can now finally *use* our attic the way we’d always intended.