Oh, I'm Behind in Blogging, again

Yet another post to round up the goings-on at Anne's House.

In this issue:

• Recognizing the independent state of picnicdom


• Now you see it, now you don't


• Winner takes it all


• Westward Ho!

Recognizing the independent state of picnicdom

Usually, our office has its annual summer off-site "meeting" on the last Thursday of August. For the last several years I planned it so I planned it to be held at my pool club. Read about last year's disaster here.

In the last year our office merged and split with others so folks who were our direct co-workers are no longer. But we're still friendly with them so they were invited too.

This year I decided I didn't want to coordinate the dishes to bring and who has what dietary concerns so I just told people to bring their own meat for grilling and a dish to share, I didn't care what, and a shared common item, like forks or ice. Not that you'd actually share ice once it's brung, but you get the idea. We were all set for our picnic off-site meeting, but this year it rained on Thursday. I had reserved the gazebo at the pool. It has several picnic tables, which is fine for eating, or playing poker, but it's tight in there if there's nowhere else to go because of the rain. It would still work, but since it's raining, I didn't think a lot of swimming was going to happen.

I offered up my screen porch as an alternate location for this meeting, it's twice as big as the gazebo. I also have a grill and the convenience of home refrigeration. Our boss approved the change of venue for the meeting. I sent out the new location address and went home to get ready (clean). And bake brownies.

About a half hour before the meeting was to begin I get a call from the leader of the "others." She doesn't feel the new location is within the realm appropriate meeting locations and cannot justify her branch attending. Whatever. I was ticked, but also relieved. Now the attendees were only guys and I quit cleaning so hard.

Besides not having the full array of promised side dishes to share, it went pretty well. The kitchen got cleaned and there were brownies left over for the spouse and kids. Yes, there are still foot prints on the floor coming and going out to the grill.

Now you see it, now you don't

The sewing room and living room had been off-limits during the picnic meeting. Mostly because you couldn't see the carpet because of the vast collection of wall-to-wall erector set pieces, K'nex parts, legos, letters, and sewing paraphernalia. Saturday morning while the kids were sleeping in, Dan and I found the carpet again in the living room and I even vacuumed. Then I found the carpet in the sewing room.

With a clean floor I realized the $20 chair mat under the sewing machine was falling apart. When I bought it I had the choice of the cheap one or the higher end mat that was for deeper carpet. I went cheap. I went to the office store and bought another one, this one $60 and made to withstand a tank rolling on it. It was heavy, stiff, and awkward to get home, but it's now in place and I can tell a big difference between it and the old one.

Now that the floor was clean, Kevin had to dump his letters out in the living room. In the adjacent sewing room contrast between the clean floor and the congested work space was too great to ignore. So, I pushed it all on to the floor and lost sight of the carpet again. I spent a good part of Monday sorting and purging and finding the carpet again. I gave away about eight years of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine to my neighbor, L, who also quilts and now have fabric neatly stacked in that space. It's amazing to me how inspiring a clean work space is, I always want to sit down and sew when it's like that.

I got the backlog of Girl Scout vests cleared out so I was able to get my sewing machine ready to sew something besides badges. That is also inspiring.

Winner takes it all

I got a call from the radio station this morning. It seems I've won the 90210 prize pack. Last week they had a promotion promoting the new 90210 TV show which premiered last night. All I had to do was to text the word of the day to a special number. So, I got a call this morning telling me I'd won and please come to the station to pick it up. It contains a t-shirt and a $50 gift card, and I don't know what else. I watched the premier with Fern and Dan. She can have the shirt. The show is OK, I would have really liked to see more of the old characters, but that's just me. The new kids are cute and watchable. I'll give it three stars.

Westward Ho!

I think I get to go to Seattle at the end of the month for work. I'm excited.