Just a few garden pics and a work story

 It was that kind of week.  Well, except Syd came for dinner one night and the neighbors dropped by for a chat on Saturday afternoon, and it was nice having company.  And, I spent most of Sunday deep cleaning my kitchen in case it happens again.  I've been a bit lax.

I got the sweater off the needles yesterday.  And, I promptly put it on and I almost cried.  There is so much knitting in the shoulders that it stood up behind my head like one of Queen Elizabeth's big lace collars and it draped diagonally across both sides of my front and all the hem was behind me.  And, I started to chant 'it's not blocked yet, it's not blocked yet...' and I quickly loaded it back on the needles to make the collar.  That's gone surprisingly fast, but I had to look up instructions for two different things that I'd never heard of before.  I'm not sure what's up with the shoulders.  I know they're very narrow, which is why the hem pulled back like that, and I'm hoping that laying it out and stretching it to the right size and blocking it will fix everything.  Or, I'll be laughing all the way to the funny farm.

Three different daylilies bloomed last week. The early yellows and oranges have given way to larger, more showy flowers.  This one is Charlene's patio.  It's one my Mom started...I'm sure there's a term for that, but I don't know it.  Anyway, they put it at the end of my Aunt Charlene's patio, hence the name.  

I don't know the name of this one.  But it has very narrow petals and an odd shape.  Spidery.

This one came from my Mom when I was home a few weeks ago.  It had a scape on it when she dug it up and it bloomed for Rob out front.  

I pollinated one green daylily with another, different one and am waiting to see if I'll get a seed.  Who knows.  That's the fun of trying.  

I also got a rose off one of the long stem bushes.  I don't do well with roses and this one should likely be dug up and tossed, but I've had it almost 20 years and I'm thinking I might cut it way back this winter and let it start over next spring.  

And, this is a mallow that Syd bought and left here.  I was sure it didn't get brought in before the big freeze and was lost, but it put up a shoot and I let it grow and yesterday, it had three of these huge pink flowers.  

And, this is a yellow echinacea.  I forgot it was even out there.  There's a red one, too, but we'll have to see if it blooms.  It didn't bloom last year, and got moved in the fall and we'll see if it blooms this year.  It's off to a slow start, but it's early in the summer yet.  

I work for two managers.  One is my manager that writes my performance evaluations and the other, I work for about 40%.  Both of them have moved to new jobs and I have two new ones.  One is new to the company and will come in knowing next to nothing about our systems.  This all started last Monday and there were no hiccups last week as we transitioned information and decision making from one to the other.  

We've had a project going for about 6 weeks that is just entering final approval from the state and a big decision came up that had to be made and communicated by end of day Friday.  There were multiple options, including pull the project.  But, there was one solution that was really complicated and required a lot of work.  As the week progressed, I could feel us leaning toward that solution.  Rather than let that sneak up on me Friday afternoon, I started preparing for it, writing the documentation I'd need, getting information from different sources.  I made a lot of progress, without committing so much time to it that my other work suffered.  Friday morning, I ask for an update and am told there's a meeting at 2pm to decide.  I'm so glad I got started early.  There are three corporate lawyers, the project manager and his very high level analyst, and three of us from marketing.  And, they argued and argued and rehashed the same set of facts over and over, and then someone committed to do a lot of manual work (not me!) and we were off on the complex solution and my new boss is saying over and over Lane is going to kill me, Lane is probably going to kill us.  And, then it's my turn to talk.  And, I say, 'no problem.  I've got this and this and will get this and need this from you and this from you.  Analyst, they asked this question last time, let's be prepared to answer again.'  And, that was all.  And, for a minute, they all sat there quiet, realizing their decision was about to be a reality.  And, that quiet moment was worth all the time I spent preparing for it.  They call that cool efficiency.  And, I'm starting to get a name for having it.  And, I like it!  

Everybody have a good week!  Be well.  Be kind.

Lane