It’s been a good day in Ellison Bay!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this in my blog before, but I am on unemployment, and I made the mistake of reporting that I was unavailable to work the week that Mark and I were traveling up here. Ever since then, they stopped sending my benefits while they investigated why I wasn’t available that week.

Last week I got a letter from the Wisconsin Unemployment Insurance dated May 26th and saying I needed to call within five days to explain to them why I hadn’t been available to work. Never mind that the letter got to me nearly three weeks late, but when I tried calling several times last week, I kept getting a recording saying that their client service representatives were all busy and their voicemail was full so I should try calling back later.

This morning, I got up and started trying to call at 7:00. I kept getting a recording asking me to leave a message at the beep and then it hung up on me. I was beginning to get a little frustrated. At 7:37, I finally got a recording saying that I was number 74 in the queue. Sometime around 8:30, I finally got a person and explained to her that Mark and I had been traveling that week and she told me that I shouldn’t have reported at all for that week, but she was able to send a request in to cancel that week’s report and said that once that goes through, I should be getting paid for all the weeks that haven’t been paid yet.

That’s an influx of money that I’m hoping will get me a new stove. I tried baking something in the oven tonight, and the mouse stench was overpowering. We think they made nests inside the stove in the insulation and the heat must have activated the smell. I won’t be using this oven again for anything. Mark can grill our food on his barbecue until I can get a new stove.

Trying to blow the bad air out of the kitchen

So I got my problem with unemployment resolved just in time for me to get a call from a representative from Like Sew, an organization that helps quilt stores with websites and marketing. I had heard their presentation at Quilt Market and was interested in seeing what they can do for me. The representative who called was named Tyler. He set me up with a Zoom meeting so that he could share his screen with me and do a demo of all the functions they can build into a web site for me. It’s very impressive and not as expensive as I was afraid it would be. I told Tyler that I am in the process of liquidating my IRA for startup money for my business and expect to see it sometime in the next couple of days. He’s going to call me back tomorrow afternoon, and if the money isn’t in yet, he’ll call Wednesday afternoon, and hopefully, by then, I can pay to have them help me build this website for my business.

It took me the better part of the morning to make these two phone calls, but while I was doing that, Mark was cutting plywood pieces to start building my shelving for the business.

Mark using his jigsaw to straighten an edge

I made us some lunch, and then it was time to take care of Dobby. We have set up a little doctor table for him in the dining room and we’re supposed to give him an infusion twice a week. It’s a two-person job. Mark keeps Dobby distracted by petting him and talking to him while I lift the skin between his shoulders and insert the needle. Then I place the infusion bag on a nail next to the window and squeeze it until Dobby gets 100ml of fluid. It worked better than I think either of us had expected today. I hope it goes so well every time!

The bottle in the bag contains sharps for his infusions, and the coffee can is where I put the used ones until we can take them back to the vet to dispose of them.

With everything taken care of inside, I went out to help Mark with the shelving project.

I sanded the edges of the plywood he had cut.
Then I painted it. Necessity is the mother of invention…Mark didn’t have a paintbrush, so I used a sponge. That turned out to be a good way to put the paint on lightly so that it would dry faster and I could give it another coat.
This is my scale drawing of our craft room and where I want the shelves and cutting table to go.
Mark put the legs on the table I was painting earlier. He’s got that silly grin on his face because he’s not happy about the way the table came together, but I told him to smile anyway.
Here, with no place to put anything, everything is piled around my sewing machine.
Once we put the table behind my sewing table, I was able to clear off some working space. The piles aren’t intended to stay on that table either, but when we get the shelves in, there will be more room to put everything neatly away.

This was our way of celebrating our anniversary this year. After dessert, Mark and I exchanged cards and kissed. That’s about all we had the energy left to do. However, I’m pleased with what we accomplished today. Progress is being made toward the start of my new business!

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