achieved yesterday afternoon

I'm still getting stuff done. As I remarked on Twitter, I managed to Even yesterday even though I kind of felt like I just couldn't.

First off: went out to my tax appointment. (The irony of this, or perhaps it's not irony: being reminded that I have investments, technically for my eventual retirement, but that could be cashed in partially if everything really DOES go to Tartarus and it's a question of me keeping body and soul together). Got it mostly sorts; some of the I-9s aren't in yet. Based on a quick estimate, it looks like I will get a refund this year, so there's that.

Yes, it's another expense, but it's worth it for (a) the wear and tear it saves on me and (b) someone who knows what they're doing is doing it. I'm smart in some ways but I don't understand the more arcane instructions on some tax things (and I confess: when I was doing them myself I was AFRAID to do a Schedule A, even though I have enough charitable donations and things like my property taxes, because I thought, "That's how a person gets audited")

Then I graded the exams I gave yesterday. One person was out sick, a couple others never showed and didn't e-mail me (????? why do people think this is okay?) if I don't hear from those people over the weekend, it WILL be their drop exam. I suppose I can check the online roster in case any of my missing people dropped. (One thing I wish was added to the campus enrollment management software: something that e-mailed the professor/instructor of the class when a student drops, so we don't wonder)

Did Mount Laundrymore. I normally do that Wednesday or Thursday evenings, but I was out at meetings both evenings this week, so it had grown just a little more.

I also made a salmon loaf for dinner. (But the egg I hard-boiled I guess didn't get cooked long enough - I just had to throw it out because the yolk was all runny. I sometimes have bad luck boiling eggs: either I turn them to rubber or they come out sort of soft boiled. Soft boiled is okay if you're just going to eat the egg with toast, but IN something like salmon loaf it doesn't work). I had also made another batch of coconut custards. (One of the little shelf-pack containers of coconut milk, a scant half-cup sugar, three eggs, coconut extract, vanilla extract, bake about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes at 350 in a bain-marie....)

I also changed the sheets on the bed and practiced piano.

And I dug out a couple of long-stalled projects and set them out with a mind to finishing them. I actually found them in a cloth bag I grabbed to use to carry all my tax papers over to the tax place. One is a cowl - just simple, all stockinette knit in-the-round - made of a Rowan kidsilk haze yarn (I bought one of the multicolored ones; I think the color is called "sugar" but I don't have the ballband any more). This will be for me when I get it done. If I finish it soon, it will be the wrong season to wear it, but I can always tuck it away.


The other thing is a hat - another one of those simple "sockhead" hats made from sockyarn. I was using a Colinette yarn and it started out very pretty, and then - dun dun dun - there was a JOIN in the ball and it was almost like it was yarn from a different dyelot! Much, much less variegation, more of the plain solid purple. It will probably still LOOK okay - the brim will be more variegated than the crown and it will look kind of intentional, but it disappoints me greatly, which is why I put it aside without finishing it. But I think I'll finish it now (it's just simple stockinette and I need simple stockinette knitting for when I'm too tired for anything else) and put it aside in case next winter there's a call from a charity for knitted hats. Or I could add it to the thing on one of the Rav boards I belong to, called "Take a penny, leave a penny" where people post unloved small (or ill-fitting to them) projects and others request them. (Yes, there's a lot of trust involved there, but I mostly trust the people on that board).

Am also contemplating knitting a pair of fingerless mitts as a gift to our departing person. I can turn these out in a couple of days, but I'm going to wait a tiny bit - I still hold out some vague weak hope that something will change and they'll be able to rehire the people; the uni president DID say that that would be a priority if funding got better. I also have to try to suss out what color would be best. I THINK she likes purple and I probably have some yarn in the stash that would make pretty mitts....