Tatting: I'm taking a break from the snood to work on the eTatters June challenge from the monthly challenge group. I'm trying to make a Maltese ring bookmark. I'm not certain that I'm doing it right. It looks a little odd. 

  Weather: It's 'cooler' today. By that, the weather folks don't think it will hit triple digits, just the mid-90's. Whoop ti freaking do. Still skirt weather as far as I'm concerned. At least we're not getting hit with tornadoes. 

  Poetry: I entered a haiku into a little contest, haikus were on a specific theme. I entered three & they chose one to compete against other entries. I got runner up. Not bad for a haiku about records management. And the people who got them said that they really enjoyed them and they will probably show up in the newsletter. (haikus are below) 

  Computer game: I'm playing Virtual Villagers 3. I lost 1 & 2 when my hard drive crashed but at least I'd finished them. I also have the other usual suspects; Diner Dash (almost done, again - new link with the demise of Flash - https://www.crazygames.com/game/diner-dash), Fashion Solitaire, all 3 Carrie the Caregiver games and a couple find the object games. I really like the ones that I can try first. I've only gotten burned twice in that after an hour the game sucked. One was Nanny Mania. The other 2 levels were basically repetitions of the 1st one. Bleah.

Retention schedule? What is it and where is ours? Oh; this is quite old.

These records are old. Check the retention schedule, Then shred what should be.

one entry:

Shred these records, now. Can't, schedule says they're not old. Two more years, then shred.

And the winner:

We have a schedule? Yes, we do; have you seen it? Do you follow it?

Dentist: yeah, my teeth hurt this morning. It was enough to rouse me a couple times and to wake me up early. On the bright side: I have enough time to renew my fingernail varnish (a couple places flaked & notched yesterday) and to pack my game bag for this weekend.

Virtual Villagers: at lunch yesterday I found the last beetle. That raises my villages max population to 105. Only one butterfly left to find.

Gaming: Saturday evening & Sunday, we continue with Red Hand of Doom. It's part 3.

Mutants & Masterminds: Chris is still working mandatory overtime (though he also had to pick up something he ordered 2 months ago) and Rosemary was sick so they didn't show. Instead Totem (me), Troll (Diana) & Momento Mori as Halogen (Nate) fought Myrmidon Mark III's and Myrmidon Mark IV's in the 'employ' of Lady Lunar. Totem didn't use her new 'channeling asp' paralyze bite/touch power. Since there wasn't enough time (& they were fighting robots) I figured that she doesn't really know. She did stunt a power for the first time. She used it to heal Troll who, for the first time ever, was taking serious damage. It was a pretty good game last night.

Work: 1 more interview today & then we make a decision.

clothes: black loafers, socks, slacks, belt (w/ gold tone buckle), & polo (Geoff). Jewelry is the emerald set (earrings & necklace), hematite ring, bloodstone ring & ladybug clip watch. Hair is braided & fastened with a green elastic.

Games & stuff: I had Virtual Villagers running while I was burning my CDs into my iTunes. I now have all the tech bought up, and a population of 57. There are still 3 rare items to find, 1 butterfly & 2 beetles. I haven't experimented with all the possible recipes yet and there are still at least 4 puzzles to solve, although one is 65% done (the covered floor).

Music: I only have one cd left to burn onto my harddrive & I listened to at least 3 last night, to rate them. I need to burn some of the songs that I've downloaded onto a cd in case something happens to my hard drive.

I wrapped Mom's belated Christmas present, using a wrapsack. Unfortunately, I don't have one big enough for her Mother's Day present. I think I'll use a map for that one.

clothes: same black loafers, black socks, black slacks, same black belt (& watch), green Harrington Steading polo, moss agate bead bracelet, bloodstone ring, green amber ring, hematite ring, emerald necklace & earrings.

Just added: Etsy favorites

Virtual Villagers: the Lost Children - It's a computer game. It's in real time so if I'm going to be away from my laptop for awhile I pause the game. I forgot to do that once & 2/3 of my villagers starved. I had to start over, I just didn't have enough people to keep going (read no fertile females). I've gotten to all of the stage 2 tech benchmarks & to stage 3 (last one) of Medicine. I think I'll skip right to stage 3 of Farming. That's the only way to reliably & consistently provide food for my villagers.

I've also unlocked puzzles 1-5, 12 & 16. That's not quite half of them. One of them will be unlocked when I hit stage 3 Farming tech. I've gotten the population up to 22 (no deaths so far but a couple of the villagers are bordering on elderly now). I've collected a sample of each of the 12 rocks, 11 of the butterflies, 11 of the seashells & 9 of the beetles. For puzzle 3 I had to look at a help site. I just could not seem to figure out what the problem was.

TV: we watched Bones, Criminal Minds & CSI: NY last night. Bones, episode: Spaceman in a Crater, had aliens (sort of) which CSI is supposed to have tonight (Leapin' Lizards). Criminal Minds (Open Season) had arrows (which CSI had last week- Ending Happy) and CSI: NY (Cold Reveal) had a crossover with Cold Case. One of the detectives came to NY from Philadelphia following up on a case.

books: I started Paid Companion on the way to work & I finished it as I got home. Partially, I was able to do that because it's a re-read & I skipped certain portions. I also sort of re-read Mad Jack. That has been by bedtime book the past couple nights. Now I'm re-reading Marriage By Design. That reminds me, I need to check to see if that author, Lynn Michaels, has written any other books with those characters.

Gaming: tonight it's Mutants & Masterminds again. Chris won't be there, he's working late again. Diana will be giving me a ride, so that's helpful.

Gift-giving: Found a cool site; Kaboodle.com. It's all about lists. I have composed a wishlist (for upcoming gift occasions), a list of tatting books & a list of gaming sites.

clothes: It's supposed to be cooler today, so I broke out the black poly blouse I was going to wear over the dress earlier this week. It's paired with black jeans, socks & loafers, so I'm very monochromatic. Even my jewelry is, mostly, black & silver; silver ladybug clip watch, hematite ring, onyx earrings, labradorite pendant & bloodstone ring (that's the exception & it's still dark).

Cookies! Rosemary's been holding the same Christmas party for years. This year, due to the con the 1st weekend of December she just wasn't ready to do that. So Chris & I went over to decorate cookies to send to her grandmother. Diana & Colt arrived early for gaming & helped decorate the last tray or so. We got to eat the extra sugar cookies...yum. I had found some cookies cutters & cookie sprinkles so I took them with us to give to Rosemary as an early present. The candy cane ones didn't want to leave the container.

Gaming was fun. Richard got caught in nasty traffic so we started half an hour late. We ended at about 6 pm. It took a while because of roleplaying & simply futzing. Hey, why do it if you don't have fun doing it, right?

Food supper was lasagna & appetizers from Olive Garden. It was delicious, but once again they had the date wrong & it wasn't ready. Since Rosemary doublechecked the date & day when she placed the order on Thursday, she was more than a little peeved. And the manager with the attitude of 'too bad, so sad,' didn't help. Luckily another manager made up for that. So next time Rosemary hosts such a party, she'll order from them again instead of telling everyone she knows about what a crappy job they did. That's good customer service. If you make a mistake, correct it if possible & if that's not possible, find a way to make the customer happy.

Clothes: yesterday it was jeans & t-shirt with a chambray shirt over it. Of course it was frigging cold (below freezing at 10am) so I also wore jacket, scarf, hat & gloves. Since I haven't done laundry since I came back from Confalon, I had one pair of clean jeans; the light blue pegged leg ones. I paired it with 2003 Attack on Gorna Geoff t-shirt. I'd washed my hair, so I braided it wet. Then I wore my Celtic knot jewelry.

Computer game: I've been playing a real-time game called Virtual Villagers & I reached a stumbling block. So I put it on pause, partially because I knew I wouldn't be spending much time on my laptop. Even though it was paused, apparently about 30 years passed during the past 2 weeks. *sigh* Several villagers died. Enough were born to maintain population & the youngest death was 75 years...but still. Until I figure out how make the builders make another hut, the population is stuck at 90 individuals, anyway. I only have 4 more puzzles to unlock until I can end the game. I know what two of them are...the boulder blocking the cave & the fruitless bush. I just can't seem to figure out how to solve them.