Musings on a Small Life

Coming home (yesterday) after work and finding that everything for donation had been taken, even the sign I had taped to the garage! Yippee! This means more space in the garage to get rid of yet more stuff. (I've already got a few things piled up in a spare room.) Having enough change on hand to get a non-fat (i.e. skim milk) chai latté from the Starbucks in a nearby building. (It's either Starbucks or Tim Horton's, and Timmy's doesn't do chai lattés.) Having slightly cooler than expected temps today, with a good breeze. I wish I had left a few windows open at home (nasty in the house), but the forecast had been for another ugly day, humidity and heat-wise. It's still pea soup-y out there, just not as desperate as yesterday. (Only 90 F, not 100+ F!) One of the neighbour squirrels a couple of days ago. Being off this coming Monday to head out of town for the day to visit a friend. I'm looking forward to it! Finally having my new work co...

  Whatever they don't take the junk guys can get rid of! Comments are off. Peace .

Yesterday morning I got off the bus early, took a different route in to the office. It was well worth the change-up, as I saw this fellow looking for breakfast:   He was unconcerned that I was standing there below him, snapping pics. In fact, I snapped 39 but saved only 4; the rest were too blurry. I can count on one hand all the times I've managed to get a snapshot of a pileated woodpecker, so he made my morning.  :-) Sometimes the detours in life lead to the most wonderful surprises! As this is post #1601, I wanted to add a thank you to those who both read and/or comment on this blog and have done so for years. I've never been able to fathom why, given it really is musings on a small life , but I certainly appreciate it--and you! Have a lovely day, and peace to all.

I have my new sofa, right colour, right size. Of course I have it covered in throws, because of the cats. Nicki won't bother it, but Derry will scratch at it, has done so already. I do have some double-sided sticky tape in a couple of spots, but I'd have to cover the entire thing in double-sided tape to keep Derry away from it altogether. It's the right "sand" colour, even though the light in the snapshot makes it look grey.   The two delivery guys had shown up around 1 PM, one for brawn (one of the guys who was here before) and thank you goddess, one for brains. Mr. Muscle, who probably is about my age, give or take and quite affable, asked me where the boys were. I thought he meant my cats (outside), but no, he meant Dad and my uncle. LOL. He remembered them; my uncle in particular made quite the impression, apparently. (It was my uncle told the guys how to get the loveseat in, when they were here in June.) Mr. Brains didn't need any directi...

Never underestimate the power of a nap to allow you to regroup:   She who will not be defeated!

I have tried for over 2 hours to get past step 2 of assembling the Liatorp sofa table, and have had to admit defeat, to continue would be insanity, especially in this heat. Never in my life have I had to give up on an Ikea product, and I've put together a lot of Ikea furniture, but there really is a first time for everything. Never mind the specific problems I've been having (damaging the very top of it in the process), I would just recommend that if you're ever tempted to buy this product, think twice. Three or four times, in fact. Or at least have an extra pair of hands, a drill, and a variety of other screws on hand too. It also would help if someone is experienced/savvy enough to jury-rig it if necessary. Here it sits until the next time my handy friends visit: And if three of us can't get it together, it will be a waste of my money and I'll be even unhappier.  I'll amend my recommendation to think carefully about buying this item: Think...

Heard this morning over the two-way radio while I was on the bus, as I was heading up to campus from downtown. (I was sitting at the front chatting with the driver.) First time in my 20 years here I've heard that! Apparently drivers can no longer call 911 directly, they have to go through dispatch to explain it all first. Yeah, great policy if the situation is so dire that seconds count. Anyway, I heard the driver of the bus (not the one I was on) say it was a 20-something man, unconscious, with lacerations. No, the bus didn't hit him! No idea what happened, but I don't think it was as serious as first feared. You'd think a passenger would just call 911; heaven knows everyone is glued to their cell phones. I probably won't ever know what happened (accident, drunk and in a fight, whatever), but I hope the person is or will be okay. That reminds me: WTF was going on last evening in our complex?! Nearby residents were having a dispute, the entire compl...

Only a few things to catch up on: Work is work, and at least I have air conditioning here until the afternoon, when it's shut down to save power. I almost brought my little table fan in today, think I will do so for tomorrow and Friday.  I'm not sleeping well without ac at home even with the floor fan in my bedroom, but that's par for the course for the hot, humid summers. If it gets really bad in the house, I do have the air mattress I can set up on the main level, where it's slightly less stuffy than upstairs. One day I'll have central air, somewhere!  :-) Chipmunks from last Sunday at the cemetery. They ate my two bags of peanuts, after having just been fed by an elderly couple to boot. Greedy little things! Cute, but greedy!          My Ikea sofa table (see previous post) should be delivered today. It's on the FedEx truck coming from Belleville even as I type. I'll leave the package at the office until the weekend, as it's ...

Saturday almost supper time already? One day left? Yesterday was our Canada Day holiday, lots of events taking place in celebration of our country's 149th birthday. I opted to forgo crowds and kids, as I have opted for many years now. Instead, I made my obligatory Canada Day early morning Walmart run. Ha! The 5+ km slog, uphill (but not barefoot in the middle of a blizzard) was worth it, though:     I got pretty close to the adult, as she wasn't moving off as a rabbit normally would. And when she did, it was only to hop a bit down the embankment on my right (north side). As I was slowly passing by I saw the second rabbit and snapped the (third) pic, and it was only when I got home and downloaded them that I saw it was a young one, and presumably the reason the adult/mom wasn't going very far.  I hope they stayed safe; they were adjacent to a major thoroughfare, and while they had a huge overgrown green space to their north, if they got scared and das...

From Monday after work, so hot the boys didn't want to stay out in the garden.       Peace . [Comments are off, as "wordless" means "comment-less" here!)

Friends Robin and Chuck came up this weekend, he to work on my baseboard trim. (I know I've said it many times already, but I'm so lucky and so thankful to have met them, and I'd feel that way even without all their help.) What a delight to have baseboards, and not just any slapped on, poorly done baseboards, but nice trim! It was worth all the mess and cleaning.  :-)     All that's left is the kitchen (which means two or three small pieces) and the basement landing (two small pieces). But I do need to pick up a few more lengths of trim to finish. I thought what I got with Dad would be more than enough, but not quite. Anyway, we took an early Sunday morning walk, when all was quiet, and made some new four-legged friends. This is George, whom I'd met within the past few weeks while on the way home from work. Quite elderly, a bit senile, very friendly. He didn't hesitate to run to Robin for attention. He also still had enough energy to run to ...

A very happy 9th birthday to my smoochy bear, who is 9 today. Well, his real birth date isn't known, obviously, but June 24 is the date the shelter put on his papers and is close enough.  :-) I hope the Fates are kind and grant us many more healthy, happy years together.  ❤ Hugs and kisses to my little bear from me and head butts from Nicki.

Aside from Leon's, let me fill everyone in on what's been going on. Pull up a chair! So I've already posted about the downed hydro poles, which still is under investigation. In spite of the numerous rumours, our utilities company has no idea how it happened and has had to hire an external firm to look into the cause. Also already noted in a previous post: My power was off for only a short time last Friday, though the townhouse complex below us lost power for about 12 hours. Not so lucky with my cable/phone/internet, all bundled via my cable company. I was out of commission on all three fronts for about 24 hours. Then, when we came back online, I couldn't get my old wireless router to operate, the upshot being that when Dad and my uncle were here, I got a new router, the last sale one on the shelf at Best Buy. I had further problems with my phone being offline (more cable company problems), and once that was fixed, I had no internet again (a syncing problem, ...