Thanks. So far I've been able to keep the office together, all of my full time folks still have jobs. There was one 4 week furlough right at the beginning of all of this. If round 2 of the PPP comes through then I will feel better about the next few months.

Crossing everything that's possible for you.

OTOH I got to give my 12-yo nephew a list of writers/books to look for at the library, go me.

This is my favorite!

There are also sometimes emails (long, long chains of emails) that are better off being 1 half-hour meeting. It cuts both ways.

Honestly, most of my meetings are like this. I try really hard to keep them to a half hour.

Meara- did you refrigerate the dough for a couple hours before scooping and baking? It's one of those things that gets assumed but left out a lot of recipes.

I called and actually talked to my brother (I rarely do that) and then E, his birthday is the 12th I think..I can't remember if he is turning 12 or 13. I feel bad. He had no birthday suggestions except for one book and I saw it's the first in a series and there are some companion books so now I'm going to go a little overboard.

30 hours later and I have lights and wifi again! I won't lie, my favorite part was canceling all my meetings and spending most of the afternoon lounging in the inflatable pool. Least favorite part was all the fridge cleanout I still haven't done because I haven't opened the doors yet.

That's an auntie's job, askye!

Yay power!

Afternoon in the pool sounds awesome! But yay having power again.

Erin, I refrigerated overnight! I was then scooping balls to freeze and thought maybe the first batch was just too warm, but no. I tried twice more with a couple from the freezer and no-go. Not sure what went wrong. I'll probably keep the dough in the freezer—it's still tasty, it just doesn't bake well!

I'm surprised any of my cookies get past the dough stage. Mmmmm, cookie dough!

Update: got my Covid results from July 28th and negative! It was a pooled test and I never did get an email notification that the results were in, but i've been logging on to the CVS minuteclinic "mychart" site multiple times a day and results showed up this morning. Yay! Right now I am sitting in my mom's kitchen NOT wearing a mask AIFG. Also it's hot and humid and I am sweating profusely and it's 10:20am? Thermostat says 69...I suspect mom left her window open again, I better check on that.

IOmomN: she is now taking the full dosage of tramadol twice a day. And she's far less cranky...but even more distractable. We've been trying to start taking a shower for the last hour and a half but she's gone down an Amazon rabbit hole RE mini freezers. She has this great polar cooler cube for icing her knee, but it needs ice-replenishment several times a day. PT recommended a great workaround to constant ice production which is multiple 16oz water bottles. 4 of those fit in it just great. So we have 12 water bottles in rotation: 4 in the ice machine upstairs at her bedside, 4 in the main floor freezer, and 4 in the basement freezer (because sometimes the previous batch doesn't fully re-freeze before the current batch warms up too much to be useful in the machine). I've been doing a lot of stairs. Last week we embarked on a research project to order a mini freezer that could live in her bedroom and freeze the water bottles so that she can continue using the ice machine after I leave (Monday) since running up and down stairs multiple times a day is not really an option for her right now. And when you need the ice machine because the knee hurts too much to walk...isn't the best time to negotiate some stairs. I found two good options. She decided that even though they were 4+ star rated, the handful of negative reviews meant she didn't want to buy the thing...to freeze water bottles. Sigh. So she ordered two different portable "coolers" which, of course, do not freeze. They don't even keep frozen water frozen. So...they are useless. But she is still resistant to buying a mini freezer because either they weigh too much for her to move on her own, or they have enough negative reviews online that she won't pull the trigger. This woman...I swear she is such a typical "P". Starts projects but never wants to finish them. I just want her to order the fucking thing and be done with it. But nooooo.....she has to read me every negative review about someone losing their precious breast milk after 14 months of storage in a portable freezer that plugs into your car battery *headdesk* Also, two of the negative reviews are that it gets too cold and freezes things that the user didn't want frozen. That's a plus for us! But whatevs, my research work just isn't good enough for her to trust, and apparently that bugs the shit out of me because i just wrote an epic rant about it.

Right, thanks for putting up with me folks! I know better than to say these things aloud, even where she can't hear me. Writing is so much safer, but still gets it out. Phew. Alright, back to shower watch Thursday AM!