Am DONE.
Go me! Month-long project wrapped up! (Until the final files are sent to me for for integration, but no ETA on those.)
Taking rest of day off. There may be beer. But only because a glass of wine this early in the day feels odd.
The rest of you? Behave. I worked stupid amounts of overtime last week. I deserve this.
Cats woke me up at four AM by knocking over an empty glass in another room. I got up four times in the next half hour to handle various cat issues. I gave up trying to fall asleep again and have been working since five.
We had a wonderful weekend! Thank you to everyone who shared it with us in some way or another. Not only did we pick up groceries (very necessary) and really really really clean the house (everything except washing floors and windows, including laundry and mowing the lawn and gardening, although by Sunday the bathroom was dirty again, possibly because of the latter two tasks), but Saturday I went on a lovely UK-foodstuffs-import recon and purchasing jaunt with Pdaughter (no Penguin bars in stock at our newly-discovered Bramble House, alas, but I have a packet of real dolly mixtures and Jacob’s club bars and Fry’s chocolate tablets, joy!), and then we had a visit with Ceri and Scott (who have a stunning new car, rendering us victims of new-car envy, and they also spoiled the boy by bringing him a Cars puzzle; “Picture Lightning and Mater broken, Mama, help Liam fix” is therefore the newest order I am given when he wants to play). Sunday morning saw us doing yard work at the in-laws’ house, then we went out to the farm roadside stall on the south shore that HRH has been going to since he was ten in order to buy strawberries and cherries and peaches and peas and peppers and corn. There the boy was carried around by the farmer himself and given a half-pint of blueberries and raspberries and strawberries to eat as he did; the child proceeded to stuff five huge blueberries in his mouth at once, and ate the rest of the fruit while sitting on the cart piled with corn watching the activity around him. He said “Bye bye farmer and strawberries!” when we left. We ended the weekend with a lovely co-coven Lughnassadh BBQ with piles and piles of seasonal food and excellent company all around.
I finally got that month-late baby gift in the mail on Saturday, as well as another small parcel that had been sitting around for just as long.
Despite the fact that the days were full, everything was relaxed and we didn’t feel rushed or overwhelmed at all. The weekend went so well that everyone woke up in a vaguely bad mood today because it was back the work routine again. The boy was cranky because he knew he was going back to daycare (he loves his caregiver and playmates and always has fun, but he misses us and we miss him too), HRH was cranky, and I was already in not such a terrific mood thanks to waking up two hours early. But this week we return to a more normal rhythm as HRH drops back to part-time and I deliver the current project. And then next weekend we’re in ON visiting with my parents, so there’s plenty to look forward to in the next fortnight.
Also this week: a trip to my bank branch on the West Island to deposit this US cheque that’s been sitting here for two weeks, so there will be money again. As it’s in that neighbourhood I’ll be stopping by the Bramble House for those Penguin bars, and possibly some whiskey fudge as well. The fretless bass will also be taken into the local music shop for its set-up, maintenance, new strings, and case that day. It feels good to be catching up on things.
I just broke time and space to do an insane amount of work that could not possibly have otherwise fit into the workday.
I am awesome.
I could keep pushing, but it’s been a really, really draining week, what with the sick and the urgent project etcetera, so I am going to be good to myself. I’ll do a couple of hours while Liam sleeps tomorrow, and another couple on Sunday, and then things will be all ready for the final check and delivery on Monday, a day ahead of schedule. Of course, the deadline is kind of moot since the client still hasn’t provided me with the finalized files as they were supposed to do last week (“they are delayed! maybe within a week!”), but they’ll be reminded that I am not responsible for maintaining a contractual deadline if they haven’t provided me with the complete material. If they’re delayed, I’m delayed; it’s as simple as that.
I’m pleased that a workday that began in such a ghastly fashion turned around so completely.
1. Favorite pastry?
Erm. Nothing with custard or fruit. Petit-fours? Meringues? Marzipan animals? I’m blanking. I don’t eat things like that a lot; they’re expensive and unless you find a really top-notch pâtisserie they’re bland and flat and soggy. There’s a pastry place somewhere around here that makes incredible chocolate cream millefeuilles; I should ask the friend who used to surprise me with them where it is.
2. How do you like to waste time?
Clicking aimlessly through on-line journals and websites. eBay and online bookstores are particularly bad — not that I actually buy lots of things, but I research and compare and think and good grief did I just lose two hours? I don’t consider reading wasting time.
3. How would you describe your complexion?
Fair. Porcelain-like, or ivory I suppose as it has a slight warm undertone. Since I had the boy, the general condition of my skin’s improved a lot (thank gods), but ironically I’ve developed persistent eczema that verges on psoriasis in certain places. You can’t win.
4. What do you hang on to that you should really get rid of?
Vivid memories of people saying things to me that hurt years and years ago, and the belief that they must hate me (and remember the same incident as vividly as I do). Piles of emotional baggage. Socks with small holes in them. Jeans that are way too big for me but I keep just in case.
5. What is the last thing that made you hurt?
The boy stomping on the side of my foot with his running shoe, all thirty pounds of him coming down hard as he danced in excitement at the door to my office, calling, “Maggie, Maggie, come out, Maggie!”.
From Fridayfiver.
Maybe it was the purposeful look in my eye and the screwdriver in my hand as I approached the tower with the intent of removing the hard drive, but I gave it one last try, and voila — the desktop is functional again!
(Perhaps I will just never turn it off again. Why it worked this time and not the countless other times I tried in the past ninety minutes, I do not know.)
Yes, I have already backed up all my work files to my Gmail account. All my important personal writing stuff is already on the thumb drive I carry in my purse, and… no, I didn’t save the latest Pandora stuff to it last month. I will remedy that immediately.
Then… to work!
Guess whose desktop computer won’t start up this morning?
*headdesk*
It turns on. No start-up sequence. Not even a system check. Everything was fine when I shut it down last night. No viruses were found in the virus scan I did at dinner yesterday. It must be a hardware failure of some kind.
And did I save the files I need to be working on to my thumb drive? No, I did not. I’ve asked the client to send me the last copy of the first file I returned to them last week and the original copy of the third so that I can pick up where I left off and work on the laptop. Hopefully Blade will be able to do something about the computer tonight, otherwise the second (and complete) file is stuck there unless we take the drive out and plug it into another computer to take it off. The good news is that I work with a partioned drive so that if we have to reinstall Windows (again) I don’t lose any of my important stuff, just programs and time. If the drive is dead, well, I’ll just have to completely redo the second file. And it will serve me right for not making an external backup, but still — argh, I DO NOT need that right now.
Rosy, smack me upside the head for NOT LEARNING.
And I was so optimistic about the day, too.
Needless to say, my access to email is going to be limited today. If you know my work Gmail address, use that instead, or leave me a shout here to contact you; I’ll be checking comments regularly.
Day two of unidentified stomach bug. I had to cancel my appearance at a lunch with friends, which disappointed me a lot because I’m going stir crazy being at home right now. I was so desperate for interpersonal communication that I sat on the steps and chatted with the mailman this morning. Thanks for the good wishes both here and via phone and email, everyone. Toast again this morning, and soup for lunch. I’m not dead yet, so I’m cautiously optimistic. Mind you, I was cautiously optimistic last night too, and woke up just as sick as I’d been the day before. We shall see. I’m done my work for the evening, so I can go to bed two and a half hours earlier than I’ve done the past two days.
The urgent project I accepted Tuesday at noon is back in the hands of the client after twenty-eight hours of insane editing, so I’m working on the more relaxed first project again. The urgent client has been told that I’m not going to be available again for a week if they need me, and I wrote a three-page memo outlining all the changes and suggested revisions/solutions to the problems involved so whoever picked it up next would have as much information as possible at their disposal, which took me two hours to do. There’s nothing like an insane urgent deadline to really refocus perspective on a regular project again, particularly when the pace had kind of slowed down on it. Of course, I have to put in some work over the weekend to make up for the two days eaten by the urgent project, but I seem to be moving through it at a very good clip, which is encouraging.
I’m glad it will be over next week, though; I miss the boy, and I know he misses us too, as much as he adores his caregiver. Today’s new word was ‘supernatural’, heard in a Rough Traders song. There is no telling what word he will hear and instantly take a liking to, to use as he pleases.
To my vague astonishment we will be seeing various people over the weekend, if only for a short time each, which will temporarily assuage my need to reconnect with the outside world. There may be Penguin bars and Fry’s chocolate tablets involved. There will certainly be corn, if I can swing it.