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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary
Week of 11
April 2005
Latest Update: Sunday, 17 April 2005 7:15 p.m.
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Monday, 11 April
2005
I
want to thank all the encouraging e-mails from readers about my job. I
guess I am lucky to be getting cut from a company for the first time in
my life at the age of 50. We went through two RIF's while I worked at
the county and I survived them both. The wounds are very slowly
beginning to heal. At this point I plan to take my time, explore all my
options, and then decide what I will do next. I'll keep you posted.
Tonight I went to the gym but worked out on my own. It was still
80's degrees at 5pm. Very warm even for this time of year. I think we
are supposed to get rain and cooler weather over the next few days.
Bob starts working on the taxes tomorrow or Wednesday. Now, I really do
need well wishes from my readers! You have all heard of the "bear with
the sore head". That's Bob at tax time!
Still reading the Peter Diamond.
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Tuesday, 12 April 2005
No update.
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Wednesday, 13
April 2005
Not enough hours in the day. After dinner
last night Bob helped me get my resume started with basic layout, etc.
I still have a lot of work to do on but we bagged it around 7:30 for
the night.
I finished up the Peter Lovesey, The
Last Detective. Although his Peter Diamond series is police
procedural, which sometimes I like and sometimes I don't, I found this
one to be very low key. In this first book Diamond investigates the
murder of a college professor's wife. Included in the suspects are the
husband, the mother of a boy whose life he saved from drowning, and a
real estate agent. I will not, of course, tell you who did it.
Winter has returned. We had to turn the heat back on last night when
the temperatures dropped back down into the mid-40's. Today was cold
and wet with highs in the low 50's and lows tonight again down in the
40's. It has rained pretty much non-stop since last night. I picked Bob
up from work this afternoon before heading over to the library. The
Friends had to set up for this weekend's book sale. Bob went along to
pick up tax forms and say hello to Mary who was also helping set up. He
ended up helping as well.
We left around 6pm to grab a bite to eat.
Guess that's about it for news. I have mail and other stuff to catch up
on!
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Thursday, 14
April 2005
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Week]
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[Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday]
[Saturday]
[Sunday] [Next Week]
I started the newest Joan Hess, Claire Malloy
mystery last night, The Goodbye
Body. Bob and I both love her Claire Malloy series but not her
Maggody. In addition to being funny I love her three main characters
Claire Malloy, her daughter Caron, and her best friend Inez. If you
enjoy light, funny, and well written mysterys you have to read this
series.
This morning I drove out to pick up dad's mower then drove on over to
the house to drop it off. With the weather today being sunny and 60's I
knew he would want to get started on the lawn. He has to mow the front
and back in two separate sessions.
After work I had Friends of the library meeting, fixed a quick dinner,
and mowed the lawn.
Whew! Busy day again.
Malcolm needs to play time so I best finish this up and give him some
much needed attention.
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Friday, 15
April 2005
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Good news. I start a new job with the Firm on
Monday in the records center. After much thought I decided I would
give this job a try rather than wait to see if something else within
the Firm becomes available by June. The position I am filling has been
open several weeks and needed to be filled ASAP.
This job has several advantages over my other one. For one, I will not
be chained to a desk all day. Periodically during the day I will have
to go to the other floors in the building and to one floor across the
street to pick up file boxes. These boxes contain legal matters,
papers, etc. We take these paper documents and create tracking
information into a software program to allow them to be retrieved at a
latter date. Much like cataloging books. The work is very precise
needing attention to detail plus being able to lift the file boxes.
They are weigh about 30 pounds or less on average. We have rolling
carts to transport the boxes from place to place. We also have to
retrieve the documents when called upon often at a moments notice. We
also have an off site storage place we have to call for documents to be
sent over. Periodically, I may have to go work at one of our other
offices for the day or over several days probably not very often.
My hours will change from 8-4 with half an hour for lunch to 8:30 - 5
with an hour for lunch. I will also get a mobile phone to carry so that
when I am out picking up files and a call comes in I can make another
stop on the way back. I am still in the basement but we have short
walled cubes where we can see out into the room.
It sounds like fun and a challenge. I have one co-worker who has been
doing this for about 16 years plus our supervisor. When he came he
overhauled the records management system to make it more efficient.
The weather today was really nice and sunny but windy with temperatures
for the next few nights going back down into the 30's. The weekend
forecast is looking really nice with coolish temperatures but lots of
sunshine.
Paul and Mary are coming over to join us in going out for dinner at the
Dessertery. They have standard restaurant food such as sandwiches and I
think you can order breakfast all day. They started out as a just a
dessert place and expanded into a full line restaurant.
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Saturday, 16 April 2005
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Week]
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Well, I didn't get finished but I did get
started.
We slept in this morning until 7:30. After the usual paper and
breakfast routine I did a quick run through the house with the vacuum
cleaner.
Bob and I started cleaning up his work room in order to be able to move
the old sleeper sofa and Lenore's reclining chair up stairs. Bob will
still need the room to stack computer components. The plan is to leave
the two tall dressers and one short one in the room since I use them
for various functions. We piled the throw away stuff in the
living room until the weekend of May 14 when we can put it on the curb
for bulky item pickup. The normal trash collection will not pick up
large items such as appliances, boxes, etc. Once a year each
neighborhood is assign a week to put all large/junk items on the curb.
Ours is the week of May 16th.
After clearing the middle of the room of the table and the floor of
boxs we pulled up the old area run that had been down when Lenore was
in there. The floor underneath the rug had a large area that is
hopefully only damaged in discoloration.
Back when we had the hardwood floor installed in the kitchen, den, and
foyer we also had the hall refinished. We did not do the floors in our
bedroom or the work room. We decided we may as well have them come and
resand/finish the high traffic areas that have been worn down to the
wood and have the work room floor repaired and finished. That put a
stop to that project until they come out to give us an estimate and do
the floor. That also meant I did not get the furniture moved out of the
basement so I could get that cleaned up.
While I was doing all this I washed a load of winter coats, another one
of my special stuff, and a third one of the winter blanket we removed
from the bed for the summer. I am also letting the dorm size
refrigerator's freezer defrost which I need to go down and check on at
some point.
After lunch I took the dogs down to visit with Mimi's which turned into
a short visit with Stephanie and her kids while they were out. After I
brought the dogs back I tackled a couple of outside chores. I reseeded
a couple of the bare spots plus the area where we dug the tree out last
week.
After pulling weeds in the far back area I started a mulching project.
I have an area near the deck and around the maple that I cannot get
grass to grow. I am going to landscape timber in the area than mulch
it. Perhaps at some point I will add some small bushes that grow well
in shade. I will have to do that project in stages. Around 2:30 I was
pretty tired so I called it a day. I started out using bagged mulch to
get an idea of how much I will need. I may be cheaper and easier if I
just order some to be delivered.
Paul has just arrived to have Bob help him order some components to
build his dad a PC. I am catching up on mail, etc.
After the morning getting off to a very cool/windy start it has warmed
up to shirt sleeve weather by this afternoon. However, it is go back
down into the 30's again tonight.
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Sunday, 17 April
2005
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Week]
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Another beautiful day with blue skies and
eventually warm temperatures. Dad and I showed up for our usual 7:30am
tee time to find they had some light frost on that side of town. I did
not see any on our lawn when I went out to get the paper. It was chilly
enough for me to start out with a sweat shirt but again, I was in short
sleeves by the time we made it to the sixth hole.
Frances and Al came for lunch. After lunch dad watered the lawn ahead
of me while I put out his weed and feed. By the time I finished up it
was well after 2pm.
After my shower I took the dogs down to visit with Emma and Oscar. Mimi
and Steve had friends over from who brought their 10 month old BC mix.
All four dogs had a great time playing while we stood around talked.
Last night Bob and I started watching the first of four episodes of Island at War,
which we taped back in February. We watched two last night and
one tonight during dinner. We have one left to watch but will wait
until tomorrow night. By the time we finished up dinner/watching the
third episode and walked the dogs it was well past 7:00. We will not
have time to watch the last episode tonight before 9pm when we need to
tape Mystery. We used to be able to tape shows in the back while
watching in the front but the back TV starts acting up periodically
with the picture rolling. Another thing to go on Bob's to do list!
This is an excellent show if you are inclined to buy/rent series.
Although Bob has spotted a few historical errors due to his magnificent
memory/knowledge of the 1940's and WWII, I have found it to be very
well written and acted. The movie is based on the German occupation of
St. Gregory in the Channel Islands at the beginning of the war.
Guess that about wraps up the day. Hope you had a great weekend.
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Copyright
© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by Barbara
Fritchman
Thompson. All Rights Reserved.