Musings on a Small Life

 ...it's the siding! LOL!   That, from last night around 10 PM.   It was banging against the side window (my home office window), woke me up (I go to bed very early).  I sent our property manager a text, followed by the pic, and it wasn't too long after that, within an hour all told, that he was out and up on his ladder in the high wind to tear it off. There's another piece higher up that's loose, but it did stay on through the night.   It was deja vu, because this happened not long after the unit was sided, years ago, at around the same time of night, only it was raining then (as well as very windy). And like last night, the property manager did come out to rip off the dangling pieces. I'm not sure why he keeps hiring the same incompetent company; I can only assume it's for political contributions or because it's the good old boys club (or both). Anyway, all I could do was laugh, because what else are you going to do? It's so absurd.   10:30 AM Update :...

I have my fingers crossed and am knocking on wood, but so far , the roof has held up to three days of very heavy rain. Yay! (Now I hope I haven't jinxed it.) We have another heavy rainfall expected for tomorrow (Wednesday the 31st), so we'll see how things go. Alas, we have 5 - 10 cm of SNOW in the forecast for Thursday, and that's not an April Fools joke. It won't last more than a couple of days, of course, but even so....Well, such is spring in most of Canada. Plus 16C one day, snow the next.   I spied the snowdrops and crocuses a week ago, on a lunchtime walk around the block. Happy dance! Flowers always make my soul sing.  :-)   This morning I heard my favourite birdsong, that of a white-throated sparrow . He's the first one I've heard this spring. The very first memory I have of that birdsong was when I was about 5 or 6 years old and staying at someone's house in Gaspé. I think I had chicken pox at the time, or maybe it was German measles. I don't k...

This is a mish-mash, catching up on recent "stuff.   First, happy birthday to my step-dad, Harry, wherever his energy/spirit is. He would be 90 today had he lived. A crotchety old geezer. (But he was that before he passed anyway! LOL.)     Second, happy spring! I was SO glad to have official, astronomical start to the new season. Goodbye, winter, don't hurry back! I've seen a few snowdrops up now, on a couple of recent (rare) walks, and of course the birds are back in abundance. There's no indication of when people in my age range can be vaccinated; the province now has opened it up to those who are 75+. Mom called me this morning (from Halifax), excited to have been able to book her first vaccine (Moderna) for next Monday afternoon, the 29th. Dad, on the west coast, is getting his first vaccine today, though he wasn't sure which one. I guess any of them is better than none!  I was dismayed and depressed on the weekend to see the clear-cutting of the path through...

I see that people use various photo editors to create their images for the Caturday Art blog hops, one of which is Lunapic .   So I thought I'd upload a pic (snapped a short time ago) and play around with the art effects. A bit of fun on this sunny Friday!     I used the floating effect, with its own colour scheme (you can keep your image's colours too) at 100% and love the cheerful-looking results.   I'll have to play around with this photo editor, and others, more often!   Take care, all, and stay safe and stay well. Comments are off.

Marching along....hahaha. Bad pun. :-D   I actually saw my very first sign of spring yesterday, on a brief lunchtime walk (other than flocks of geese heading north).     I still have not seen or heard a robin, though I'm sure they must be back in some neighbourhoods. (I also haven't been out in the early mornings, either.)   This cutie, below, looks bored, or perhaps just sleepy in the sun shining in through the window. Snapped yesterday at lunchtime. We're on the verge of Spring, so you know that, for me, it means the annual junk pick up, which I had early this morning. I was too lazy to tackle the oversized cardboard from the big home office purchases last year, which took up most of the volume. Junk pick up certainly is not inexpensive. I balked at the price range quoted to me, and in the end they took it all for a slightly lower price. I have the strong sense that this is the company directive: Quote high and if the customer refuses, come down in cost. I had that...

Happy start of meteorological spring! (At least it is for weather forecasters here in Canada.) Astronomical spring is a mere 19 days away now, on the 20th. Yay!   I don't have much to write about, so I'll just post a few pics from Friday when downtown on an errand, and a couple of pics of Derry from the weekend. The usual snapshots! BTW, I had to take two busy buses to get downtown Friday afternoon, and it was odd (to me) how anxious I felt on them, both going down and coming home. Even while walking downtown to my doctor's office and then to the waterfront. Depression and I are old friends, but real anxiety is a new companion for me, and I wonder if I'll be able to return to being around a lot of people, when the pandemic is over and life resumes more normalcy. I was doing the "square breathing" that is supposed to be good for calming, but didn't seem to work in the moment. Whew!   I hope everyone is doing well; do take care and stay safe!   Confederatio...