Good morning and welcome to the first week of August. Let's try for a weekday check-in and then a Wonderful Weekend one.
Today is a holiday here in Ontario and the summer busy-ness continues in the Village. We are still in drought and my AC just turned on which means it's hot outside already. Some of the smaller trees are starting to wilt. My front flower bed still looks pretty good although it's had only minimal watering. (Some wells are running dry and I don't want to use the sprinklers as it seems insensitive when folks are having to borrow water.)
I have to deal with a major employee problem today. One of our summer staff gave two weeks notice on Saturday! A. is 20, 2nd year Uni, a rather spoiled only child, his parents are currently in Turkey (!!!) and considers himself above the maintenance tasks - not a team player. He has been quite lazy, a tad rude and a general pain in the butt since he started but did give good tours. It's too late to hire and train anyone else as we close Labour Day and two other summer staff are back to Uni before then. There's no way the one remaining student can handle the whole show. My gut feel is to just pay him off and let him go since his attitude is so terrible and he'll drag down the team and volunteers. I see a lot of volunteer time needed at the Mill for the rest of the month.
Time to crank up the day. It's going to be an interesting one! I thought I'd be rid of personnel problems when I retired in 1998!
Wow Ruth sorry to hear you have a problem intern. Sadly though I am not surprised. It is probably best to let him go. You don't need him not showing up and scrambling at the last minute to cover his tours. Just when you thought you could be less involved too.
We have your rain, but for the first time in weeks my windows are open! I may actually thoroughly clean the house today. Spent yesterday bed shopping with Joe. We got a good laugh trying out at $14,000 bed!!!! I guess people buy them. We thought we were eating at a BBQ place yesterday, but the menu was pub food. Not very healthy. Was proud I did not finish my meal and said no to dessert. I did have terrible stomach pains on my drive home. I think my tummy was rebelling lol.
Just the usual today before starting my work week. I hope it dries up later as I want to go for a ride. Pamela and I have a century ride on Sunday. Thankfully Long Island is pretty flat!
Thank you Ruth for starting the weekly thread. I like it!
Getting ready to go into work, we have a new co-worker starting today so everyone is going into office to make her feel welcome and we are having a luncheon as well. There will be plenty of op now to just stay away from the off plan
Ruth we have your rain as well but it is humid as well. I would say you are better off letting go, in my experience the bad attitude will not go away and he will do whatever he wants, we always just let them go then.
Jekel which it wasn't so humid here, it would be nice to turn ac off and open the windows. Wow 14K for a bed lol.
Happy Monday to all! It's my mother's 95th birthday so I have a rhubarb upside down cake in the oven. My sister is hosting dinner at mom's house. I believe the menu is chicken cacciatore and Greek salad. Dinner is at five which is good because this is my long day and I don't usually hold out till evening, especially when I haven't eaten all day. LOL
Get the final pick up the cherries after work yesterday. The birds were pretty heavy on them and with the hot weather we've had some more starting to spoil on the tree. Now I have lots of putting to do I've already done a little bit today. Work was crazy busy yesterday so I'm looking for more of the same today.
Ruth, thanks for getting us started. I ditto on the other comments. If someone wasn't motivated when they were really working the motivation would most usually certainly go down after giving notice.
Jennifer, cool you have a century ride coming up. I think my sister is doing one at the end of this month.
Pearlrose, Nice of everyone to go into work to greet the new employee. I got a chuckle thinking about somebody showing up when everyone else was working from home. LOL.
I better get dressed and get back to the cherries. Thinking too, what I could do with $14,000. Maybe hire someone else to do the roofs.
Good morning, chicks!
Ruth, the rain seems to keep missing us; yesterday to the south, this morning to the north. Maybe we will get a little today. We have been watering the vegetable garden using watering cans; that way you know the water is actually hitting the roots of the plants and there's little waste. Ditto on cutting loose the intern.
Jennifer, what I couldn't do with $14k!! Enjoy your day.
Pearlrose, it's always nice to know there's OP food at a work event.
Debbie, have fun picking cherries!
I picked 2 quarts of blueberries and 3 ginormous zucchini yesterday so did a marathon bake last night: Kalyn's blueberry muffins and blueberry-zucchini bread, plus a zucchini chocolate cake. Kalyn's recipes are already low-sugar and I played with the cake recipe, using Greek yogurt, whole wheat and stevia. A girl can try to make them healthier, can't she?? I will slice and freeze the cake and bread to have around for when DS1 comes home.
Today I will continue to work in the basement family room. DH has been painting and I have been trying to do a bit of purging.
"If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly" and it's done. He will finish out the day and has received his final pay in cash. Whew! I hate firing people.
We did not get any rain yesterday so I must start off the day by watering the garden. I want to keep my veggies coming!
Other than that, probably some garden puttering and paperwork.
Pearlrose, I know you do yoga. Do you have a tape, book or show to recommend? I've never done yoga before but think it would be good to start as I get older. I've looked for videos online but haven't found one I like yet.
Tuesday and finally a "ChooseDay" with nothing on the schedule so far. It's pretty hot and humid for this time of day and the AC kicked on. I am feeling quite relieved to have dealt with the staff problem yesterday although it means the staff schedule will need major revision for the month and we'll need to call on volunteers for Saturday milling days.
While it's still not unbearably humid out there, I am going to do a bit of gardening and deck cleaning. My washing machine is still dead but I'm hoping Willy Wonderful gets the part today and can fix it. Otherwise I'll be off to the dreaded coinwash. In the meantime, I'll clean out all the stuff in the sink cabinet between the washer and dryer since that'll have to come out so he has room to work. (My washer and dryer are in a large closet in my kitchen.)
Margo Hyper-Pyper and her DD Elaine are coming for an overnight this weekend - not sure whether it's Friday or Saturday. I guess it's time to put away the Christmas stuff in spare Room One and then box up some summer clothes in Room Two and actually drive them to the Thrift Shop. (When you live by yourself, you can quickly tidy a room by just shutting the door. )
I know it's late in the season but I am going to start some beans in the two window boxes that grew lettuce. I really miss my raised bed behind the barn and am going to work on Paul and his merry men to get it put back together. In the meantime, I can buy veggies at the Farm, although I much prefer my own.
Beth I have a Biggest Loser Weightloss Yoga DVD which is pretty challenging. The poses aren't too crazy which is good. My friend Lorraine takes a hot yoga class. I must admit her arms are fantastic!!! She is amazed by how toned she is, she has always been a healthy weight. I would love arms that don't keep waving after I've stopped lol.
Ruth I thought of you last night. I had the pups on their leashes in the yard when out of nowhere a bat swooped by my head!!! Scared the daylight out of me. I seriously almost wet my pants!!!!
I have one spaghetti squash on the vine. Keep your fingers crossed as my attempt at veggies this year was a disaster lol. I did hit up my favorite farm stand for $11 I scored 10 cucumbers, 8 yellow peppers, 8 purple peppers, a pound of mixed mini peppers, 2 bunches of celery, radishes and carrots. I would have paid $11 just for peppers at my local grocery store.
I did a thorough cleaning yesterday. Maybe it's me, but I don't want to clean in the summer. If it wasn't for the dog hair my house stays neat. I even waxed my dining room chairs. The look great, but slippery lol.
Nothing on the agenda before work. I am going to hear a terrorist expert from Israel lecture tonight while working. So lucky me gets to wear "people" clothes today! Granted it will be business attire, but I can walk from Penn to the lecture location. Looking forward to getting my steps in.
It is another rainy day here, I am doing wfh as I need to get a bunch of reports out and don't need distractions of coworkers Nothing on agenda tonight other than a run to store to get DD2 some stuff to decorate her locker with.
Beth I do yoga on the wii on my tv and use youtube from the wii. I always choose one of "Yoga with Adrienne" videos she has all kinds of levels and different areas and I like her style. She has some good day 1 challenges and a little goes a long way that are good for beginners.
Back is cranky this morning I just need to get moving. It rained some last night but we are going to try to move forward on this roof today. It requires some items from Home Depot so I am headed down soon. There is a store 15 minutes away but I'm headed down to the bigger store in Denver. I hope they have what we need.
Being very careful with food choices since I did my short phase 1. Weight is staying down. That's what we like!
August 1st to 5th
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