Musings on a Small Life

I'm thrilled it's Friday, trust me. But why is this day dragging ? Usually the days seem to pass so quickly. Instead, I've been looking at the clock every oh, five minutes or so. Probably because I'm waiting for my boss to give me the edits for the web site and waiting for further info for another project that soon will be wrapped up. A third project is complete, a fourth is well in hand and doesn't need anything further from me until the new year. So I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs, itching to go home and have the cats drive me nuts ( feed us; play with us; make it stop raining; make it warm up; give us treats; feed us again; play some more with us; cuddle us; get off the computer, lady and pay attention to us; cough up more treats ....and on and on). Oh, in that vein, I had a happy cat moment yesterday. It had been two days since I'd seen the neighbour's cat at all (sweet Nico with the gorgeous green eyes) and I was worried about him. But he...

Last night, CBC National News did a story about an elderly couple who live in Lower Truro, Nova Scotia. Allan and Violet Large won $11.2M in July. Almost every person's fantasy, right? Except they have nothing to show for it. They live in the same 147 year old house, drive the same 1980-something big boat of a car, have an old television set, no microwave. They didn't even hire a housekeeper to help around the house, as 78-year old Violet recovers from ovarian cancer and her rounds of chemotherapy. They've purchased nothing whatsoever from their lottery winnings, and have, in fact, given all but a couple of hundred thousand dollars (for emergencies) away to family and charities in their community. 14 or 16 family members (from tonight's Global TV news report) and about 75 charities. Hand delivered the cheques (or at least a good many of them), in fact. They are perfectly content with what they have and know, especially with Violet's cancer, that money ca...

Just a note that the 2010 BlogBlast for Peace is coming up tomorrow, and it's not too late to participate. I'll be doing so on the Fuzzy Tales blog. From the PeaceGlobe posts : Welcome to the 7th launch of BlogBlast For Peace aka Dona Nobis Pacem in the blogosphere. It's inception began in 2006 with one single post and a cry for peace in our world. A small group of bloggers answered that challenge and it began to spread across the internet in ways that humble me still. It reaches across political lines and religious creeds, abides in corners of unrest and places of hope, gives voice to individual beliefs and promotes tolerance for diversity. It celebrates the genius in each one of us, found in sparkling conversations of passionate pleas for change in the earth. It is that hope for change that motivates us. It was the Internet's first ever online movement of its kind to invite bloggers to post the same message on the same day. From blog to blog it has moved and ...

So, I'd just like to know how Canada Post can deliver cards overseas to countries like Norway and Australia in a matter of a few days, yet routinely screw up in-Canada delivery. Because I got a notice of a parcel yesterday (I think it's a book I ordered a while ago, can't imagine what else it could be), indicating the package could be picked up after 1PM today . Therefore, I stopped by my postal outlet on the way home, and only realized as I was heading in that the card had a different post office address on it. Sure enough, the delivery person had taken it to a location farther away. And when the clerk called, it turned out that the package hadn't even shown up yet, though it was 3:30PM and pick up was after 1PM . Today . Did I mention that? (Sarcasm here.) She asked if it could be brought down to her location when it arrived. She took my phone numbers, work and home, and said she'd call me tomorrow. She , at least, was very helpful. By the way, our postal b...

Really. Nothing special, just the usual cakes and cookies and loafs. But something has happened to that ability in my peri-menopausal middle-years. Witness this so-called fruit upside down "cake." It's supposed to be a cake . Not a biscuit-like thing with fruit on the bottom. Cake . But I accidentally put in 1/2 TBSP of salt instead of 1/2 tsp and had to guess at how much to take out, and I think I put in too much baking powder. How such a simple recipe (my mom's basic one-egg cake) can go so wrong is beyond me. I'm stepping away from the stove now....Permanently! Fortunately, I didn't do anything absurdly "off" at work today, though the week is young.

We went from these scenes, snapped this morning heading out for a walk: To this, early in the afternoon. Short-lived but most unwelcome nonetheless. Fortunately, I had just finished storing away the plant pots and the small, rusty BBQ (into the garage) for the winter. And even hauled out one of my shovels to leave beside the back step. I think I'll have a garden post this week for the Fuzzy Tales blog, since Nicki had to go out in it, of course. And household tip #347? It's a good idea to clean out the exterior portion of your dryer vent more than once every 10.5 years. Just sayin'. And for the record, it never would have occurred to me to check it and clean it, except it was making a whistling noise (I had a load in the dryer) as I was hauling stuff from the back space around to the front and into the garage. So I took a look and saw that it was almost entirely blocked by lint. Yeah, good, Kim, for not cluing in oh, years ago, that it had to be cleaned regularl...

I'm guest posting today on Reenie's Scribbles , in honour of her 100th post. It's long, it's not light-hearted and happy, because gee, much of the time life actually does suck, so don't feel obliged to head over and read it. However, Reenie's own posts are well worth reading! As for today, well, here in my part of the world it's still Friday, it's our once-a-month payday, and I'm going to do my best to take a half day and get some errands done. Positive work news: I have a template from the Marketing & Communications web people for the big dashboard/metrics project. Yay! Needs some tweaking, but I think it will do nicely. And best of all, it's accessible to things like screen readers for the visually impaired, which JPGs (and of course PDFs) are not. So back to work I go, and I'll wish everyone a wonder-full day. Just a few snapshots--very quickly snapped--while walking home one day this week.

I came in to the office this morning and said, "Good morning, Cube!" Then I said, "I love my cube" and did a little twirl around. At 7AM, it's only me, no one else to see how silly I am. Ah, such a small thing, but oh so important to my mental outlook! The overhead cabinet, decorated with laminated pics from a 2008 cat-a-day calendar, plus the Dollarama floral display I had done for the downstairs cube, to give me more privacy. It looks fine up in the corner here. Note that it didn't take long for the clutter on my desk to get out of hand.  Still more laminated cat calendar pics Working hard...You can see which blog I was checking when I snapped the pics. Have I said I love my cube? That doesn't mean I'm not delighted to leave at the end of the day, or that it wouldn't be nice to be able to afford to work part time or at something I truly loved, but this space goes a long way to perking up my spirits. We're all feeling better up here now...

My T4 (thyroid) is still low, even after 6 weeks on the increased dose of Synthroid, so we're upping it again from the 137 mcg to 150 mcg. I've been on Synthroid for over 20 years, most of that time at 125 mcg per day. Then after my August annual blood work, it turned out that I'm hypo-thyroid again. So my dose was upped to the 137 mcg. I really thought that would either do the trick or that I would have to reduce the dose once more. But nope, the test results showed that I was above the high normal range, meaning I'm under-active. Hmm, could this be why, at least in part, I'm always so tired? And gee, so chubby? LOL! Anyway, we'll see what happens after a couple of months on the 150 mcg. No big deal, as far as I'm concerned, and it doesn't worry me in any way. Being hyper-t, like Annie, would be more of a problem. This? I just shrug my shoulders and say, "Whatever!" Today's sky pics are from November 2008 , all taken from my (dir...

It was a busy weekend and I wasn't on-line much. I spent five hours on Saturday shopping and doing errands. Spending money I don't have on a few articles of clothing I happened to see that were on sale at The Bay. (I hadn't been in to that store in two or three years, was surprised by how reasonable a lot of their prices were.) I had gone to the mall for an inexpensive purse, as I have a slew of backpacks, but no purse for the winter. Ended up with said purse as well as a pair of dressy jeans for work, a fleecy zip-up sweater and two tops for the office. Very reasonable, with prices almost but not quite as good as Value Village, with the sale. I also stocked up on cat food at PetSmart, did some other running around and finally made it home by 1PM. (Yes, I had left the house at 7:40AM; I prefer to go early and get everything done before too many people are out.) Sunday a friend came up, the same friend who recently reconnected with me after a five-year absence. She...

Two shots of rye (whiskey) with and after supper, plus one Valerian tablet at 7:30 PM, equals asleep before 8PM and awake at 3:50AM. Sweet! Happy Friday to all. I'm counting the hours till we're done for the day. One work project almost done, four more to go. Pics for the day are from October 2007 , so a significant "flashback." It's not like I've had much time or inclination or energy to go out this year!