Musings on a Small Life

Oh, yes, I'm "thankful" for winter. "Thankful" for our city's excellent sidewalk cleaning, you can see we're so pedestrian-friendly.     We had a messy snow/rain system move through yesterday, the results of which you can see above. I did go for an "EMT" (early morning trudge) yesterday, though, in spite of it, but did not go this morning. I did, however, pop down to the little nearby café for a tea latté and breakfast sandwich to go. If I'd realized how bad it was underfoot, I'd have stayed inside.   Oh, yes, how I just love winter! (Linda, if you're reading this, I'm being sarcastic in the extreme, because even though I try to make the best of it, I loathe winter with every fibre of my being. It feels like my soul/spirit shrivels up in winter, just waiting for warmth and new growth.)   Below: The partial view out my patio door yesterday afternoon. Gaahhhh! It's like January out there!      Now, as for the genuinely thank...

Gahhh, do we ever have snow! More than I've seen in a few years, I think! And it's still snowing and blowing out, has been since yesterday afternoon. I've shovelled my driveway three times now, once yesterday and twice today. I give up. It's all blown back in and I'll "tunnel" out tomorrow. Good thing Monday is the Family Day holiday, with almost everything closed anyway. As for the back space, I'm not even going to attempt to clear a path to the gate.  BTW, my dental saga continues. The clinic called late Friday afternoon; apparently the impressions that the dental assistant took cannot be used by the lab making the crown. (This is the same assistant who screwed up the first temporary crown.) So I have an 8 AM appointment on Tuesday to have the impressions redone. At a guess, that cement-like stuff will pull off the crown when they remove the tray from my mouth, unless they have a trick for that. I'll find out. I wasn't annoyed with the first ...

Our latest storm, last night and early this morning. Seriously? I have only rude words. This is the accumulation of snow since the latter part of January, below. We did have that Epic Blizzard at Christmas, but it had melted and we were down to grass. Now I can't even lift the shovel high enough anymore. I dug out the driveway, then just for fun, walked the 2+ km to the closet bus transfer station. It was a nice morning once the snow eased up, quiet except for the sound of snowblowers and shovels. Below is one of the snow "mountains" from the plow, at the end of one of the streets in our complex. It's massive. This was the only sidewalk that was cleared along the way (or anywhere else for that matter), so I think it must have been done by a kind and generous homeowner with a snowblower. The side streets weren't even plowed yet, and it will take days for a city sidewalk plow to come by. So. Much. Snow. The buses were running, though, so after a stop for a tea latté...

Sleet, pouring rain, snow...we had it all. Though we managed to escape the freezing rain that other areas had, a small mercy. Even so, on Saturday there were lots of accidents in the city and on the highway, including a transit bus that slid off into the ditch (with people aboard) out in the west end. As far as I know, everyone was fine. The view Saturday afternoon from one of my upstairs back windows is the first pic, below. For those who haven't seen my tiny back space, you might notice something odd attached to my fence. (Click to enlarge the pic.) I had an addition built in 2010 designed to prevent Nicki from escaping. Tricky Nicki was my "Houdini" and he had gotten out of the back space a few times prior, in spite of the home-made fence additions my dad and I had done years ago. You can see the frame of the addition, and that's greenhouse roofing attached to it at an angle. It has worked very well through the years at allowing the cats to go out into the gar...

What's a kitty do but sleep when you have over 40 mm of rain in one winter day, followed by freezing rain then snow?    That's how Derry spent our messy Saturday. And he spent our equally messy, then freezing Sunday like this:   We got off "easy," with the weather. I know parts of southern Ontario west of Toronto saw rain in the 70+ mm amounts, and parts further north and east saw far more freezing rain. I wasn't so lucky with the bedroom leak issue, as it continued to drip. So it's not a siding issue, as the repair people fixed that last week.  I long for my own bed...and for a properly repaired roof. (I had moved myself into the guest room on December 31st, because who can sleep with the sound of dripping in-between the walls? Plus water and live electrical boxes don't mix, so I had shut the power off to the room until the leak is resolved.) I will keep after the president of the property management company until things ar...

Oooh, boy, Old Man Winter has made his appearance far too soon. We had what probably was record-setting snow yesterday and overnight. The view from the bus stop this morning. It was about 20 cm of snow, I think. Crazy. There were some buses off the road and stuck last night, other vehicles as well. Our streets were a mess coming in to work this morning, with most roads, even major arteries, unplowed. The city dropped the ball on this one, in spite of the advanced weather warnings. I didn't realize how slippery it was/is underfoot, either. I felt twice in my complex while heading the bus stop, the first time right on my knees and the second, moments later, flat on my back. Whoosh! I hurt now. LOL. Note to self: Dig out my ice-grippers for my boots! The pics below are from last week's couple of centimeters of snow, not our storm yesterday. I'd gone out at lunch time before it started to melt. I'd hoped then it was "one and done," but no such luck...

We didn't get 40 cm of snow here, but we did get 28 cm (about 11 inches) on Tuesday, then a little bit on Wednesday. So approximately 30 cm all told, which is a foot of white stuff. That's more than enough for me! Cleaning up on Wednesday morning, below. The campus cleaning crew is on the ball. Earlier in the morning, at home, Nicki was so desperate to get outside and check his territory that he leapt off the step as I was sweeping it, and into the snow. You can see his paw prints to the fence, then to the corner and back. Fool cat. It's milder today, with a bit of light drizzle, so now it's a slushy mess that will freeze overnight, as temps go down again. What a winter! Still, February is half gone (yay!) and we're inching toward spring. It's a long weekend here, with Monday being Family Day, and I'm looking forward to that. I'm taking Tuesday off, to make an extra, extra long weekend; hurrah! Friends are coming up on Sunday a...

After taking a year or two off, the Ikea Assembly Queen has returned! My excitement for Friday evening: Putting together the little Ikea Tyssedal storage stool I'd ordered. It had been delivered on Tuesday, but had to wait till week's end for assembly. I ordered it partly because I'm always on the hunt for affordable double-duty furniture, and partly to see if I'd like the series. I've had my eye on a 4-drawer Tyssedal bureau for a while now. While I do like the storage bench very much, I now don't think I'd buy the bureau, as the series has a more traditional appearance than I care for. Still, if the price--and shipping costs--are ever right.... I had hesitated to order it because one reviewer had said it was difficult to assemble. I actually found it straightforward, didn't even make a mistake. Maybe having a couple of glasses of wine while I was putting it together helped? Nicki approved! It's currently up in my be...