Skip to main content

Another Post About Time

First, thanks to everyone who responded to my post about vacation time. It reminded me how valuable it is to have flexibility, not just quantity, in work arrangements.

So, my watch stopped working this week. I went to put it on Tuesday morning, and realized the date display still thought it was Monday evening. The hands were not moving, either. I even pulled the knob out and pushed it back in, just in case that had been stuck again. I had just had the battery replaced not two months ago, so I was concerned something else was wrong. I took it in to the Fossil store in the mall, where they replaced the battery to see if that was the problem. No luck, it must be a mechanical problem. So, I get to dig up the warranty booklet (ha!) and send it in for repairs.

In the meantime, I'm reminded that I have no natural sense of time. I just can't tell how much time has passed without looking at a clock. I burnt two hours in the mall, when I thought only about 45 minutes had gone by. When I stepped away from my desk at work, (therefore away from my computer and its time display) I felt like I had gone "off the grid" - it was so disorienting to not know how long I was talking with someone or how long I had to get to a meeting. I finally bought a cheap watch at Sears, so it would stop driving me nuts. (To those of you asking, "why doesn't she just look at her phone?" it is because my phone is not attached to me.)

Only after I get home and have been wearing the new ($13.99) watch for a few hours, I remember that I have a nickel allergy. I have NO idea what the band is made out of. The watch back tells me that it is made from stainless steel, but no clues for the expandable metal band. Ugh. Well, if it starts irritating my skin, then I'll take that as a good excuse to just buy another watch. Of known metallurgical origins.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Quick Poll: Vacation Days

We only get 12 vacation days per year. It increases to 15 days after 10 years of service, then 20 days after 15 years of service. Is this good, normal, or poor? It doesn't seem like enough, especially to both take a see-new-places trip and do a family visit in the same year. We do get 12 holidays as days off with pay, mostly clumped at the end of the year for Christmas shutdown. Also, sick days aren't levied against us, so that is fair. Comp-time is an option, but that doesn't really count in my mind as time off (we can get paid for any overtime instead). So, a quick poll: is your vacation policy better or worse than mine is? Do you feel like you get enough time off? Do you even get to use your vacation time?

Cat Story and an Alternative to Donuts

We've had our cat, Nigel, for about six years now. Like all cats, he has an aversion to water or getting wet. When Nigel does something he isn't supposed to be doing, and we see it, he will get squirted from a water bottle. Now, however, I think he is trying to train himself to not fear the water! When the tile in the shower was replaced at the end of last year the shower door was also removed. Instead of the metal track on the rim of the tub, we now have a shower curtain that goes outside of the tub and a shower curtain liner that goes inside the tub. This forms a tent over the rim of the tub. At first, Nigel just played in the tent. Then he would hop into the bathtub (when it was dry) and wrestle with the liner. Or just stand in the bathtub. Now he'll hop into the bathtub when it is still wet from a shower. Or he'll perch on the rim of the tub and try to catch the water still dripping from the faucet. This may be one of those "you had to be there"...

Sinusoidal Scarf

This is an easy pattern for a knitted scarf.  I made it up to practice knit and purl stitches, to build up speed and work on keeping an even gauge as I go.  It is supposed to be wavy when finished, resembling the shape of a sinusoid curve.  This is done simply by alternating garter stitch sections, which lay flat, with stockinette stitch sections, which tend to curl towards the knit side.  I alternate the side the stockinette faces to form the max and min points.  So, this is a very nerdy project. (Any yarn and needle size can be used, gauge is not important, adjust stitch count for the width of scarf you want.) Yarn: St. Denis Nordique, 100% wool, 50g per 150 yards, 2 to 3 balls, blue eggshell Gauge: 19 stitches for 4 inches Needle: US 8 or 5.00mm Cast on 30 stitches. Rows 1-4: knit all stitches. Row 5: purl all stitches. Row 6: knit all stitches. Row 7: purl all stitches. Rows 8-13: knit all stitches. Repeat rows 5 through 13 until scarf i...