Musings on a Small Life

Because, work "sprints". Comments are off.

Yesterday my boss asked me to schedule a 1-hour Teams meeting with six "top" people in various departments. It's been a long time since I've had to do this, thank goodness, and it was a struggle to find a time to meet with all the their admin staff...just so we all can find a time for the actual meeting. (Nine days. Nine days to find a time to meet with all the admins.) 🙄  This is what work has come to! Anyway, if I haven't been around to your blog to leave a comment lately, I'm not ignoring you, I'm mired in work, thanks to a massive process failure on the part of another department. I'm grateful for my sweet Derry-Bear; I'm not sure I'd stay sane (haha, no comments on that !) without him! ♥

I had popped into a drugstore this afternoon for something and ended up being given the senior's discount. Granted, their "senior" label applies to 55+ (I'm 53). The guy behind the cash did ask me if I was 55 and I said no, close but not yet. He gave it to me anyway. LOL. I'm surprised he didn't suggest I visit the make-up counter for something to cover the dark , dark circles under my eyes.  :-P Anyway, we're still here and all fine (as far as I can tell), I'm just overwhelmed and insanely busy at work -- it's probably the most prolonged period of stress and busyness in my 16 years 7 months there. Probably the closest I've been to burning out too, other than when I was clinically depressed in the early years there. Hence the lack of posting and visiting.  So I'll just leave you with some pics I took in early July, down at Lake Ontario Park, but never got around to posting. I went down one Sunday morning to take pics of the high w...

"...try, try again." Twenty-five times . Because that's how many pairs of pants it took me trying on today, in five different stores, before I found one-- one --pair that would fit my short, increasingly round, middle-aged body. Value Village, Sears, The Bay, Northern Reflections...all wash-outs. Finally, in the Alia/TanJay/Nygard store in the mall I found a pair that fit me. It was depressing and demoralizing. And made me long to eat a piece of cake just for comfort. Which I didn't do, but only because I wasn't near a supply of good cake. I did, however, find a pretty blouse at Value Village, along with a tote bag and two pretty plates. Nicki checks out the blouse...will he approve?  It has a subtle shimmery look to it, because of the tiny silver dots. One of the two plates. Nothing special, I just thought they were pretty, and they were 2 for $1.99, so not exactly a huge expenditure. I'd been to Value Village last Sunday, ...

Another mid-week, a third of the way through June already. My days are a blur. My life is a blur! Someone at work, not in our office, commented to me yesterday about how busy I am and that things must be stressful. I laughed and asked, "Why, does it show?" She replied that yes, it does.  Yikes. Apparently I need to do a better job of plastering a smile on my (exhausted) face. Anyway, I had a nice walk down along one of our waterfront parks on Sunday. I had assumed, heading down, that all the midge flies would be gone, but ugh, no, they still were swarming. I kept my mouth closed, took some pics, and didn't linger. Took off my cardigan once I got out of the park and shook it out, shook everything out. ::Shudder::  Snapped with the little Elph, so pic quality not good.                     I had my MRI yesterday (lower back). That was fun. Several of my co-workers have had at least one, so I...

It's windy, cold and rainy here today, but I don't mind the cool down, as it felt like 32C (about 90F) with the humidity yesterday. And we've been desperate for rain--a couple of days ago I came home to find one of my hostas, a super-hardly plant, wilted from lack of water. Nicki hanging out in the hot garden yesterday. I had a really crappy work week (at least Wednesday through Friday) and so wished I had savings and could have chucked it all. What did make me laugh, though, was that the staff person (another dept) I was going back and forth with via email (a particular project I'm working on, lots of errors in her spreadsheet, unfortunately) wrote at one point, "i hate my life...." She cracked me up, a much needed laugh. She's higher up the food chain, in mid-management, and I could appreciate that she, too, was having a lousy week. I'm trying not to do anything rash, because that's just not feasible. I'm also trying to keep ...

I talked with Mom when I got home from work. Harry has his colour back and she said his face was almost normal. Yesterday she told me he had no facial distortion. So (sorry Mom) who knows what the truth is. My aunt might be more direct/honest with me (Mom has a tendency to downplay everything), but I've not had a chance to talk with her. Anyway, the bottom line is that he'll be in the hospital for 2 - 3 weeks and then they'll look at what he needs for rehab--and whether that's done in-home or in another facility. I told Mom that I'll be very disappointed if he goes home at all at this point. I love Harry dearly, he was there for me in many ways when my own dad was not, back in my early- to mid-twenties, but I think he's past the point where Mom can care for him in their home and I think he needs to be in a care facility--as much as I do not wish that on anyone, let alone anyone I care about. But it's not realistic for Mom to care for him any longer, un...