Weekend, what weekend?

As much as I was looking forward to the weekend, the number of projects I had in mind and my great anticipation for seeing the Star Trek movie and let's just say all got preempted by...a QMP plan.

And what is that you ask? Well a Quality Management Program plan for a fish plant is a binder full of information which it took me about 15 hours to put together. This is because I know how to set up policy & procedure binders, have a working knowledge of food safety, can use Office 2007, do not charge a consultant fee and have S-U-C-K-E-R written in the middle of my forehead apparently. The shore captain has purchased an exisiting facility and is merging his operations, the plant he's purchased has processing licenses for fresh and salt fish and lobster but very stringent federal food inspection guidelines must be met before the license can be transferred. He had an initial inspection a few weeks ago and I had transcribed four pages for that event of illegible handwritten and poorly typed papers circa 1992 - apparently that was the audition - this stint was a doozy. After he disclosed on Friday that Fisheries are arriving early Monday morning to do a second inspection and check out his QMP plan and take it for submission (thus my need to recreate having a term paper due). Since he didn't want to postpone the visit, my weekend was cancelled. But enough whining - who needs a social life anyway?

On Saturday a local flea market (total 26 min. away from my office duties) resulted in good finds for the baby daughter who has moved from residence and will be sharing an apartment this fall - when $4 gets you soup and regular mugs, bowls, tumblers, dishtowels and more, that's a find. I picked up a very nice retro coffee/tea set for myself and an antique pitcher so I was most pleased with myself.

I had scored a knapsack and pair of yoga pants at Frenchy's on my way home from work on Friday and noticed the computer tech from work shopping in the toddler section. He said "some days I can't find anything, I know the kids need shorts but there's none here" so we decided it was the season. I stood there looking at him in amazement and thought 'would the father of my children even know they needed shorts, let alone shop for them at Frenchy's or anywhere else without my direction?' I promptly decided that was very unlikely.

I also decided if I bring anything home from Frenchy's, yard sales etc. that is for me or this house that the auction rules apply (something in, something has to go) when I went looking for a pair of shorts in my bureau. This resulted in a major revamp of the wardrobe and a large recycling bag in the car for deposit at Nu-2-U in the morning on the way to work. Once you get started with that purging, it's tough to stop.

Before I close I must brag a bit as I 'took back my lunch hour' on Friday and used it to watch the DVD the cable company had provided of the library talk. It's called Podium TV and was very polished. I will definitely be able to ace a spot with this on one of the cruise lines requiring a speaking video to apply.

And of course speaking of traveling the Swedish daughter...she has finished her nursing clinical in Umea which has been very enjoyable and a great learning experience and is headed off for two weeks of backpacking, staying in hostels, traveling by train, bus and ferry. Tonight and tomorrow in Helsinki, off to Oslo then Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris before heading home. The backpack is bigger than she is and her feet hurt from walking - sounds about right eh?

Speaking of walking, the dog walk was very late, almost dark which is prime June bug season this time of year. Memo to self - wear glasses if repeating this and don't take the flashlight - it tolls them. I got hit by one big one....right in the lips, so I screamed (of course) and brushed it off (or so I thought). When I got home and put my jacket on the kitchen counter I noticed a few minutes later one huge June bug a few inches from it. Very good thing I did not realize I had that nasty thing in my hood on the way home as I'm too old to dance like that! Well, off to hit the hay as it's getting past the pumpkin hour.