scifiknitter

Today is my daughter's 21st birthday. She is officially an adult in every way there is to be an adult. She came home this past weekend for a family weekend on the boat, and she already has her gift from us - grown up clothes for her grown up work as a researcher this summer. I baked her our favorite carrot cake before she went back to Montreal. It's been a busy few weeks. I've been concentrating on The Budget at work. It's never easy, and there is always red ink in the initial budget. This year, less grant funding and flat funding from our core funders meant there had to be some significant cuts. There will be no raises for anyone in 2010, but everyone still has a job. Not all non-profit agencies are as fortunate. I think that the portents for 2011, however, look pretty grim unless we can win a couple of grants. We had our first annual family weekend on the boat. This was never possible in the past - our son's ex refused to go sailing. There was enough room on the b...

Once again, my refrigerator is filled with goodness: The list of vegetables included in this week's box is long, and we need to step up our eating pace. We got: Salad makings - lettuce, radiccio Greens - rainbow swiss chard. kale Onions big and green, a leek, and a head of garlic Shell peas, sugar snap peas, and wax beans Roots - carrots and beets Red cabbage and broccoli Tender baby summer squash Fennel and Herbs I've been focused on work and deadlines - July is budget season. I'm making progress, though I don't know what the bottom line is going to be yet. All of the routine work of the week is done, I got the financial statements out for next week's board meeting, and I completed a redo of a major grant, so today will be budget, budget, budget. Last night we took a break to go hear some live music - the Clair Lynch Band at the Norwood Village Green Concert Series. It was fabulous! Four musicians on stage with lots and lots of talent, and not a lot of ego. They al...

My diploma arrived today.

It's hard to believe that it's two weeks already since we spent a few days on Minuet, sailing from Clayton to Gananoque and back again. Life has proceeded at full tilt boogie speed ever since we reentered the flow of our daily responsibilities. I took pictures, though, and my memories haven't yet been completely submerged by the forward rush of our lives. Originally this was to be the year when we would take a full week to cruise on Lake Ontario. Then our daughter asked us to visit her during the Montreal Jazz Festival, which would be occurring at the same time as our week of sailing. We shortened the planned trip to five days, allowing enough time to also fit in a trip to Montreal. Then the meltdown of the NY State Senate affected one of my husband's projects, and he needed to be close to a phone and Internet for a few days. In the end we had five days on the boat, which meant three sailing days. We juggled plans again, and decided to go spend a night in Gananoque. We...

Farmer Bill and Annie have gone to the banana box model - a banana box of food each week. The take this week is luscious: In the box were the following veggies: - carrots - green onions, both large and small - one head of very fresh garlic - one leek - a good sized bag of shell peas. Shell peas - be still, my beating heart. - a bag of mixed young lettuces - a cabbage - a big bunch of beets with perfectly fresh greens - garlic scapes - parsley and basil - kale - 3 cucumbers. Robert just made yogurt, and I'm thinking raita. - collard greens It's a long list, but I think we will be able to eat it all by next Tuesday. The biggest challenge is the onions, because Robert is not an onion lover. He will eat them cooked, however, so I will be able to use them. Tonight we ate the collards. "Simply in Season" came to my aid again, with a recipe for greens with peanut sauce. I was able to use up an onion as well. I thought they were heavenly. Tomorrow we will eat the peas, becaus...

I'm home after a wonderful week of vacation that has much to write about. Robert and I cleaned the house, we sailed, and we went to Montreal. I've also almost finished a knitting project that just needs blocking to be done, made progress on another project, and started a third. I also have a new project in the wings. My son set up a Blogger page for Stringfolks and linked it to our URL. I am going to become the official webmaster for our band, and will be developing our webpage to something better than the pitiful thing it currently is. Today I went back to work. Ah, the joys of Real Life™. Only 60 email messages and 4 voicemail messages, however, in a week's time. I have disposed of them, and taken care of all of the bills and purchase orders that accumulated in my absence. I'm ready to move on to the budget work that is the heart of July in my life. I will be writing after I have shrunk pictures to a size that is uploadable, transferred pictures from iPhone to compute...