Better to have a birthday than not!

Something is really crazy with the formatting, so I apologize!  It won't let me left justify!

Look at how cute those flowers are! Well done. I like the tiny people for the pencil cases also, and how satisfying to find the missing book.

 I can't believe October ends today! Where did the month go? 

I made a mistake in reading the pattern of the vest, so I had to rip back several inches. Alas. I have been working on socks instead, but I need to go back to the vest so that it will get done. 

 I have been slow to finish this post!

I like your fancy lady!

We are in the midst of preparing an NSF proposal, and I have another irritating professor to work with. He is the one I complained to you about - he is too important to be responsible. I think now he might just be too busy to be responsible, but he also tends to walk through the world creating fires that he has other people put out. He is exceptionally smart, and can be exceptionally irritating. To his credit, he does thank me and has expressed his desire to hire me away from Rice, or clone me because I am good at resolving issues. So now there's the Man-Baby, and this guy. Sigh. 

 I still need to come and visit soon. Maybe early in December? We submit the grant Nov 21, and then it's Thanksgiving, so I will be free after that. My college roommate, Tina, has invited me to come stay with her when she goes to their place in Winter Park in February, and I am thinking I will do that, so I will definitely stop in and say hello then! 

 What else... We cleared out The Boy's storage unit. That's $134/month that he won't be paying anymore. Very satisfying. I sold several things for cheap, and then we donated the bed frame, mattress, and a loveseat. Good to get rid of it all. The only thing left is a microwave, and I think I have someone picking that up tonight. Now it's time to start cleaning the house in prep for Thanksgiving, and for checking on the vegan recipes I have to plan for Middle's SO joining us. 

 Jeff is redoing the tile around our fireplace. He has discovered that it is not square, and it is causing much agitation. I am glad that he is in charge of that. 

 Oh! Smallest dropped her Physics class and has found a local tutor for Calculus. Things were not going well. I had suggested that she drop them both, but she had to get permission to take Calculus again (this is her third time?) so she really didn't want to drop it. I am really glad she's found a local tutor. 

 Both of the classes were online, and they weren't live lectures, and she couldn't attend the tutorial sessions because of time conflicts, so they were really hard to begin with. I can't imagine taking 95% of my classes online. Barf-rageous! Middle took some of their classes online during Covid and that was awful. Some of Smallest's HS classes were online, but she got to go back in person in the fall of 2020, so it wasn't so bad for her. 

 Anyhow, I'm glad she got the tutor and we will all be happy if she passes the class. She thinks that it is possible so I am hopeful. She is very determined. 

 I am still working on the socks and the vest. I'm on the foot of the second sock now, so the end is in sight. I did discover a big mistake in the first sock. It would require re-knitting the whole sock to correct, so I think I'll just leave it. It's a feature, not a bug, right? Here is a silly for you!