1. Corporate business being what it is my whole department is being moved. I will still have a "window seat" but it will be a small single cubicle and not the nice double cubicle I currently have. I will be "in" my new "home" when I return to work next week. Hopefully a photo to follow.
2. Time Off. I knew that I had scheduled to have used all my time off just before the end of the year. Then they issued hard-copy pay stubs when the corporate website was being "revamped." Upshot: I have
much more time off than I realized. Sometime earlier this year I was given extra time that I was not notifed about. I was off yesterday and today on floating holidays accumulated and will be off on Monday and Tuesday as well for my last floating holiday and an additional paid leave day. I will get ALL of the time off I had previously scheduled and thought that I had forfeited by going to Qwerty's rescue in September AND still have an additional 3 days to either take or donate to a bank that the company maintains for those who have medical illness and no PTO. Nice surprise.
3. Time off. Home projects. That last two days have allowed me to catch up on a variety of projects that needed doing. Today we moved Mossflower's 43" wide-screen rear-projection TV and base unit out of her apartment and into the Upper Room. She gave Applebee's certificates to the two kind young men who "volunteered" to help.
4. Clarinets. While I was off I had the time to call the clarinet repair tech to see if we could get Allie's clarinet fixed and if so, what the cost might be. I called at 3:30 PM yesterday and he was in his shop for another hour. I left right away and made it there in 45 minutes (he stayed a few minutes late to accomodate me). He fixed her clarinet in <5 minutes and didn't charge for it! It PLAYS again! He took my old Buffet clarinet to work on: "This will be a big job..." and will cost several hundred dollars to get it in playing condition again. He was very interested to find that it has a much larger bore than most Buffet clarinets today - but it was made in 1942. That may explain why it has a really full, rich lower register. It won't be home any time soon. Stay tuned.
5. Other projects included assembling our
Black & Decker Workmate 225 portable workbench and clamping tool. This will be the platform for Jean's new
Craftsman 10" Miter Saw. We will mount the saw on a plywood base with a 2x4 screwed to the bottom and clamp the 2x4 in the jaws of the Workmate to hold it in position for use. (Theorectically, we can mount other power tools such as a power grinder, etc. in the same manner and change them off as needed.)
Today I also re-caulked the garden window - it leaked when we had heavy rains driven by gale force winds a week or two ago. It's approaching 10 years that we have had this window and the caulking had broken down and needed to be refreshed.
The children's rope swing in the tree on the front lawn got taken in today. I haven't taken in the front garden hose - we had 60 degree weather two days in a row and I am still hoping to wash my car - Jean had it all day today having left at 8:30 AM for her art class and returned from it at 4 PM. No car wash/wax today! Also in the 'get ready for winter' mode was to take our bicycles upstairs and store them in the attic for the winter. Done. Check.
Other things accomplished have included: credit card statement reconciled, bills paid, charges entered in the Money program (for 2 weeks).
Last Sunday I raked at the church (fall work bee) for 2 1/2 hours and after returning mowed/mulched leaves into our lawn and then Jean and I helped a church friend make over 20 quarts of apple sauce. It's been a busy week.
