I'm a big fan of smart locks so that I have multiple ways of locking and unlocking doors, and I can also lock or unlock them remotely if I need to let someone in.

I think I will change one of my locks to a keypad eventually, but for now I have four new keys and two new key hiding thingies. The other two keys will go to neighbors.

I have one that links to your phone or can take a code but I haven’t gotten around to installing it yet. We have a key pad one at the cabin and it’s been a lifesaver.

Literally, come to think of it. We were able to give 911 the code this spring when my father had a crisis so the EMS team could go right in.

Having regular cat sitters as neighbors means there’s usually someone else with a key. Which has come in handy more than once. I’ll have to look into one of the above backups if/when I ever move.

Timelies all!

Tired, as usual. I woke up around 5 for no reason(as opposed to waking up because of cat or child) but fell right asleep again.

I found out my friend's mother passed away due to COVID-19 on Christmas Day, sadly only a couple days after they started vaccinating her facility. He hadn't been able to visit her with hugging privileges in the last 9 months.

On a more upbeat note, I ran into my aunt who recently recovered (more or less) from the virus while out at Wal-Mart yesterday. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the first day she was cleared to drive she immediately raced to the place with the largest concentration of customers in town. But it was good to see her up and around, and motormouthing despite shortness of breath.

Oh, I have to report back that I got the Soda Stream at Target, and R. was pleased and surprised, even though she'd asked for it.

Excellent! I use mine all the time, mostly for fizzy water with their fruit drops, but also for ginger ale or drink mixers like craft tonic syrups. Which reminds me that I should order more of the Elderflower tonic syrup, because that's been my favorite of the ones I've tried thus far.

Technically I'm working Mon-Wed this week, but since most people are on vacation and things are very quiet, what's actually happening is that I'm putting a few hours of work, and, barring any emergencies, the rest of the time I'm working my way through my cleaning and decluttering To-Do list. Apparently I'm more willing to tackle these things when I'm ostensibly supposed to be working.

Technically I'm working Mon-Wed this week, but since most people are on vacation and things are very quiet, what's actually happening is that I'm putting a few hours of work, and, barring any emergencies, the rest of the time I'm working my way through my cleaning and decluttering To-Do list. Apparently I'm more willing to tackle these things when I'm ostensibly supposed to be working.

I'm only working today and tomorrow, which means I'm half-assing it on checking these references. Every article about Covid (and there are so, so many, you guys. SO MANY. I cannot possibly overstate this) is working with such new data that half the references are non-peer-reviewed articles hosted on preprint servers. Normally, we wouldn't be cool with that, but everyone is learning about Covid in real time; there's no repository of published, peer-reviewed information at hand. So non-peer-reviewed articles are what we've got. (I mean, more and more peer-reviewed articles are being published every week [seriously, you guys, SO SO GODDAMN MANY], but even so, we're still at the point where there's not that much peer-reviewed stuff about Covid, relatively speaking.)

Yikes, Teppy, that's gotta be hard.

I logged in to work to look at a few emails today. Should've followed up with my one person who has been half-assing it, and who was supposed to be using this week to "catch up"--I suspect instead, she's quarter-assing it. It's frustrating because she's clearly smart enough to get it, but is just not organized or not caring or not working, or something...

I thought I'd have a quiet week this week, and so far I've been slammed with complicated rides (like, I wasn't supposed to have any today). At least both days have gone by really fast, and a three day weekend to look forward to. Still, I would have appreciated some time to catch up on my paperwork.