kiya

But first, a word from our garden...

Summer squashes are always hit or miss with me. I plant at least one every year and then take what comes (or doesn't). Today I had two good sized squashes and picked one. (There's also a clump of volunteer squash in a bed I'm not actively using, but they're from seeds that were in the compost heap, so who knows what the genetics are!)

I'm getting a good handful of blueberries at least once a week and there will be a solid gooseberry crop in another month or so. The currents are taking the year off, but are healthy. Artichokes are done for the year. Tomatoes are setting but not yet ripe.

This week started off with spending a couple days at my dad's place to take him to a couple appointments and do some shopping. (My brother, who lives there, is currently waiting on cataract surgery and isn't driving.) He has other options for rides, but I want to get over there more often now that I have time, so it works out.

Wednesday the electrician came over and got all set up for replacing my electrical panel. The replacement happened in a single day on Thursday, and since I was off biking and having a routine medical check-up for the first half of the day, the lack of electricity wasn't as much of a bother. (There was a pre-appointment survey about my exercise habits, so it was a nice touch to show up sweaty in my biking clothes.)

Replacing the electrical panel meant temporarily moving the not-built-in-but-fastened-to-the-wall shelves on that wall where all my bins of fabric and crafting supplies live. So in addition to taking the opportunity to wipe down the shelves and bins, I'm also doing a sift-through of the contents. This is reminding me that when I moved in I did a fair amount of "let's just stuff this in a plastic tub and put it on a shelf."

I've been meaning to do a second round of "let's invite people over to take away things I'm not likely to use". The first round was SCA camping gear. The second round will be craft supplies. So I need to go through everything and identify what I want to keep, what I want to prioritize actually finishing, and what I'm happy to re-home. I can probably combine it with a little "come over and see if you want these books I'm getting rid of." My goal is to boil it down so that "tools and small supplies" will fit in the cabinet in the craft room, while "fabric and large supplies" go on the garage shelves. Part of that will be actually completing some projects that currently take up space.

Ticked off two more things on the retirement checklist this morning: getting copies of the two paystubs that I was still missing, and getting my official "retirement gift" from the attaboy catalog. As usual, the catalog offerings were mostly either "already have one" or "no use for this" but in the end I settled on a wet/dry shop vac. You know, in the event that I ever get back to doing carpentry projects or whatnot. After you pick your primary gift, they roll you over into the gift card section, where you pick gift cards until you run out of remaining balance. So I currently have $250 worth of gift cards for Black Angus Steakhouse that I will be looking for a special occasion to use.

Most of the IRA activity is complete -- I have confirmation and documents for one of the annuities and for the managed fund (the "pretend this doesn't exist for now" fund). I should get the confirmation and paperwork for the other annuity shortly. I've updated my budget projections spreadsheet and concluded that the annuities are probably over-deducting for taxes, but I think I'll let it ride for now. This year is going to be completely weird for income taxes and I'd rather get a refund than have to pay. Next year I can fine tune things, and the year after that I should be able to predict fairly precisely.

Oh, and still waiting on Social Security to come through. I think on Friday I'll do another round of sitting on the phone to check in. (I check the website almost every day, on the chance that an approval will show up there before I get it in the mail.)

In the mean time, I'm continuing with an overstuffed calendar. Mon/Tues in Stockton to run medical errands for my dad. This morning recording an interview for the podcast, then working with the electrician who will be re-doing my electrical panel. In a couple hours I'll do a guest appearance by zoom for a college class that read one of my books. Tomorrow the electrician starts and completes the panel work, mostly while I'm out of the house for a combined bike ride and routine medical check-up. (I figure since they sent me a pre-work questionnaire about my exercise, I'll properly impress them if I show up in my bike togs all sweaty.) Online Wiscon is this weekend, then Monday the HVAC folks come to do my annual maintenance. And then I have nothing extra scheduled for a week and a half before the Nebula conference (which I'm attending virtually). June is pretty empty at this point, but the way things have been going, who knows?