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hrj I keep struggling with the feeling that I should be being more productive in my WFH time. I mean, other than being blazingly productive on my day job. And honestly, I'm not being *less* productive in any way. I'm chugging away through Female Masculinity for the blog (which is a fascinating book and has me developing a number of new mental models). I'm doing yard work every day. I'm cooking up a storm. What I'm not doing is writing fiction. It's the only thing I'm not doing that I feel like I ought to be doing, so of course I'm obsessing about it.
I made a pan of lasagna today. I'd meant to make it yesterday, but didn't get started early enough so when I "left the office" I was too hungry to wait the couple hours it would take to prepare. Today I had the better plan of using the prep for stretch breaks to get away from my desk for a few moments. (WFH means I'm not moving around as much in the course of work--no trips to the copier to print or scan, no popping into someone's office to chat.) When I did my first Quest For Groceries I included the necessary lasagna ingredients because I'd found the box of noodles while doing the cabinet re-org and figured that was a good an excuse as any. They were "no boil" noodles -- you make up the lasagna with runnier sauce than usual and let it sit to soak a bit before putting it in the oven to bake. I can't say it was wildly successful as great lasagna, but it was ok. I'm debating whether to simply have lasagna for my next three dinners or to freeze a couple of the servings. There's a paranoid part of my brain that whispers that if, by bad luck, I get sick, it would be good to have a bunch of zapable meals handy. (And I do already. I've got about eight containers of soup stock, and another half dozen boxes of soup. Plus other things.
Today's yard work was starting to take the hedge clippers to the parking strip. I love having rosemary and lavender there because they don't require watering and they stand up to people getting out of cars on top of them. But they stand up a little too well. The rosemary is almost three foot tall in places and I only wanted it to *survive* people stepping on it, I didn't want it to barricade them in their cars. I'm thinking I should replace it with the ground-hugging trailing variety. Some of the lavender is getting scraggly and woody, which presents similar problems, so I should probably start rotating it out for younger plants as well. The main problem with the parking strip (other than people's tendency to leave trash scattered through the plantings) is dealing with the volunteer weeds. When I first cleared it out and planted the rosemary and lavender, I put down a layer of landscaping cloth that suppressed the weeds. But that degrades over time, and you get sediment on top of it and the weeds go ahead and sprout in that anyway. I go at it with the weed whacker a few times a year, but it needs it more often in the spring if I have any hope of keeping it presentable.
You know how I used to complain that the most exciting thing I could usually think of to do on a Friday evening was go to bed early? Well, every night is like that now. Since I've gone back to my early alarm (and am getting my blog reading and writing done in the mornings), my target bedtime is back to 9pm. So here I am getting on to quarter of nine and thinking: well, might as well pack it in for the day.
I made a pan of lasagna today. I'd meant to make it yesterday, but didn't get started early enough so when I "left the office" I was too hungry to wait the couple hours it would take to prepare. Today I had the better plan of using the prep for stretch breaks to get away from my desk for a few moments. (WFH means I'm not moving around as much in the course of work--no trips to the copier to print or scan, no popping into someone's office to chat.) When I did my first Quest For Groceries I included the necessary lasagna ingredients because I'd found the box of noodles while doing the cabinet re-org and figured that was a good an excuse as any. They were "no boil" noodles -- you make up the lasagna with runnier sauce than usual and let it sit to soak a bit before putting it in the oven to bake. I can't say it was wildly successful as great lasagna, but it was ok. I'm debating whether to simply have lasagna for my next three dinners or to freeze a couple of the servings. There's a paranoid part of my brain that whispers that if, by bad luck, I get sick, it would be good to have a bunch of zapable meals handy. (And I do already. I've got about eight containers of soup stock, and another half dozen boxes of soup. Plus other things.
Today's yard work was starting to take the hedge clippers to the parking strip. I love having rosemary and lavender there because they don't require watering and they stand up to people getting out of cars on top of them. But they stand up a little too well. The rosemary is almost three foot tall in places and I only wanted it to *survive* people stepping on it, I didn't want it to barricade them in their cars. I'm thinking I should replace it with the ground-hugging trailing variety. Some of the lavender is getting scraggly and woody, which presents similar problems, so I should probably start rotating it out for younger plants as well. The main problem with the parking strip (other than people's tendency to leave trash scattered through the plantings) is dealing with the volunteer weeds. When I first cleared it out and planted the rosemary and lavender, I put down a layer of landscaping cloth that suppressed the weeds. But that degrades over time, and you get sediment on top of it and the weeds go ahead and sprout in that anyway. I go at it with the weed whacker a few times a year, but it needs it more often in the spring if I have any hope of keeping it presentable.
You know how I used to complain that the most exciting thing I could usually think of to do on a Friday evening was go to bed early? Well, every night is like that now. Since I've gone back to my early alarm (and am getting my blog reading and writing done in the mornings), my target bedtime is back to 9pm. So here I am getting on to quarter of nine and thinking: well, might as well pack it in for the day.
