This has been a count-my-blessings week. And NOT because anything is going wrong.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
We have split up the publishing duties, but we welcome everyone in IAN to do daily diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
If you would like to fill in, either post in thread or send FloridaSNMom a Kosmail with the date. If you need someone to fill in, ditto. FSNMom is here on and off through the day usually from around 9:30 or 10 am eastern to around 11 pm eastern.
If you'd like to be part of the Itzl Alert Network, please leave a comment asking to join, or send us a message asking to join. We'd love to have you. The bigger our network, the less likely someone will be stranded all alone.
There have been a couple of minor irritations, but truly, it's been a good week.
The minor irritations are that the offspring have mostly been sick with colds and I may have caught one - I can hope not, and I certainly do.
On the other hand, things are picking up at work, which I enjoy (boredom is not a state I have ever had much familiarity with, and I got rather too well acquainted with the feeling in my office over the winter).
We have a fairly large number of kids who want to come to the lab for the summer, and once the boss okays them, I have to make sure everything gets done for them to be Research Volunteers. The paperwork is much less than it used to be, and I am actually able to keep track of who I've got it back from and who not these days.
We have an abstract submission deadline in mid-June. The format has changed - instead of Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions in 1950 characters with 250 in that limit counting toward the figure, it is Introduction, Hypothesis, Methods, Results Conclusions with the same character limits. Not actually terribly difficult, since the Background frequently splits out into the two new sections. I am presently uploading the recycles (we usually have a fairly large number that have neither been accepted or developed into a published paper in the last year - I think the lab I work for holds the record for abstracts submitted to both the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association - 49 to each, 15 of them new each particular time). By the time the deadline rolls around, I expect to have at least 20 total submissions, and probably more.
We have a couple of papers recently published, a couple more in press, and at least one nearly ready to submit. And one of the people in the lab is going to be applying for a H-1B visa - she's been here on a J-1 and everybody wants her to stay.
Something ordered for the lab went astray upon delivery, but the lost was found before the week was out - it is very rare for something to be lost like that, and the dock crew takes pride in fixing the problem very quickly indeed. The new printer for the lab was delivered as well - the system for ordering them changed several months ago and ordering this one was quite the adventure.
Aside from the colds, everything is well on the home front. The grandkids have been keeping their mother amused, and I nearly laughed myself sick over one story. My granddaughter was reluctantly cleaning her room and asked her mother if, when she had kids, she would be able to ground them (like her mother grounds her, apparently). My daughter told her that, if she had kids, yes, she would be able to ground them when she needed to. The eventual response to this was that she wasn't going to have kids, and when asked why she said that, she said that she remembered seeing her mommy and daddy doing "that fancy kissing". She's 8 - I'm sure you know what the tone of voice was. When I stopped laughing, I suggested that my daughter tell her that she will believe my granddaughter will have no kids if she tells her that when she's 30.
When I got to work on Wednesday, I noticed that the tennis shoes I had worn were in the process of literally falling apart, so I went after work and found a new pair of shoes. Payless Shoe Source had very little in my size that moved me in the women's section, and none of what I liked was at a price I could afford between paydays, but I know what size I take in men's as well, and found the perfect shoes there for $20. Have I mentioned that I really like flame colors?
I ended up getting a discount on the two repairs I had done on my car on Friday, and my new dishwasher finally showed up on Saturday.