Carol's Cats

My Turn

2010-05-27T22:35:00.002-04:00

So, while Julius and Dante argue about who's going to post next, I decided to take matters into my own paws while they're occupied. Which makes me, Romi, smarter than those two put together. :-)

The training of our humans is coming along nicely. The Woman makes sure our food dishes are filled before she leaves for work in the morning, and even though the Man empties them before he goes, she puts down more food for us when she comes home from work again. And the Man only needs a gentle reminder for our bedtime snack. Now if we could just get the Woman to put a couple of those yummy plants on a lower shelf - within nibbling range.

Speaking of nibbling, the Treat Lady was over the other day. She really came to give the Woman a fruit basket as a get well present, but she didn't forget us boys! We each got a few treats out of her before she left.

Apparently our sister, Josie, was put on a diet too and she's down to 26 pounds now. Good thing she lives with the Treat Lady instead of us, there'd be no living with her. If you ask me, too much emphasis is put on appearances anyway. There's nothing wrong with carrying a couple of extra pounds, just makes more of me to love.

Moving On

2010-05-22T22:08:00.005-04:00

So, it's been a while since anyone's posted here and I thought it was high time I got the ball moving again.

It's me, Taz, in case you were wondering. That's me on the left getting an earful from my dearly departed Panda.

It's just us boys now and we've been experiencing a period of adjustment. Now that Panda's gone it was only natural that I finally took charge (since she's not around to stop me). It took some convincing, but the boys finally agreed.

It's my favourite time of the year, window sitting time! Yeah, I know I can sit in the window any time, but it's finally warm enough for the humans to keep the windows open and there's nothing better than sitting in a window and feeling the breeze ruffle your fur.

I keep trying to convince the humans I should be allowed to go outside on my own, but so far I'm not having much luck. They just start ranting on about how dangerous it is, and how there's foxes and racoons, and coyotes and fishers . . . I mean seriously, a fisher? I could so take one of them!

The Rainbow Bridge

2010-01-31T17:15:00.004-05:00

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....

Author unknown...

Almost a year ago, Panda (short for Pandora, because she was so curious)developed a kidney problem and we almost lost her. To everyone's surprise, especially the vet, she rallied and fought back against the darkness. She endured being force fed through a syringe when her weight would go down, twice weekly trips to the vet to have water injected under her skin, and being medicated twice a day.

She remained bright-eyed and feisty throughout the last year. Despite the vet's warning that we'd only be buying her a couple of years at best, death seemed a long way away.

Two weeks ago she started losing weight again. First, on the 18th, she went down to 5.8 pounds. The following week she was down to 5.2, which was lower than she'd been when she was first diagnosed with a problem. Thursday she was down to 4.9 pounds. As painful as it was, we came to the realization it was time to let her go.

Rest in peace, our precious girl.

Julius' Journal

2010-01-19T13:15:00.000-05:00

Did you know that cats sleep two thirds of the time while humans only sleep one third of the time? But really, what do you expect? Humans get to go out into the Big Scarey World and do who knows what, but we cats are stuck in the house 24/7. You try staying in one place for your whole life and see how long you can stay awake. I mean, let's face it, you can only chase a cat nip ball for so long before you get bored and have to take a nap. You can't even watch T.V. unless you have opposable thumbs.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade being a house cat for any amount of birds I see outside the window. It'd be great to catch a bird, mind you, but I wouldn't want to have to go outside to do it. There's dogs outside. And big metal monsters that take humans away. And sometimes it's wet out there! *shuddder*

Nope, you can keep your great outdoors. But maybe you could talk Firecat into inviting a couple of birds inside . . .

Panda's Ponderings

2010-01-18T22:56:00.002-05:00

Okay, how fair is this? Yeah, I lost an ounce last week, but I'm back up to 5 pounds 8 ounces and how do those rotten humans reward me? More medication! I've got another pill that I have to take twice a day that's just as big as the one I'm already taking, and a smaller one that I also have to take twice a day.

On the plus side, my humans noticed that even though I wasn't eating I was hungry, and they finally talked the vet into checking my mouth. Turns out my teeth need cleaning, but not until they get my oral infection cleared up. That's what the little pills are for.

At least Firecat is trying to be nice to me about all those pills she's making me take. She found me a great place to sleep. I've been sleeping on the bookcase upstairs where it's warm, and today she got rid of a bunch of pillows out of the basket chair that's right beside the heat. Not only is it soft, and warm, and cozy, but the boys can't bother me there either.

Now, if I could just get her to up the treats . . .

Panda's Post

2010-01-04T16:39:00.002-05:00

There's going to be no living with Firecat now - I've gained four ounces since my last post and she's taking all the credit. Of course she deserves some of the credit, she's the one feeding me with a syringe to make sure I'm getting enough to eat, but I'm the one who's keeping that yucky "good for me" food from the vet down.

Of course she also deserves the scratches on her arms. Yeah, I know she's trying to help me stay healthy, but that doesn't mean I have to like being wrapped in a towel and having gross food squirted down my throat. And seriously, is it really necessary for me to get those pills twice a day? Actually, it's kinda fun to see how many times I'm able to spit it out before she manages to make me swallow.

I've come up with a great way to get her back though. I wait 'till she sits down, preferably someplace without easy access to a book, then I curl up on her lap and give her the old sweetie pie eyes. Then she pats me until I go to sleep. She feels so guilty about being mean to me that she doesn't move me, even when she's dying to read that book that's just out of reach. And the best part is, she can't even use her lap top because I'm in the way.

Revenge is sweet!

Taz the Terrible

2010-01-01T12:31:00.003-05:00

You don't want to be messing with me. I've been around here the longest and I was named after the Tazmanian Devil. Something about climbing door frames when I was a kitten and holding my own against the dog, whose head was bigger than I was . . .

I'm the father of the Terrible Trio - not that that's any great accomplishment. It's not like I was allowed to discipline them as kittens, and their mother babied them something fierce. She wouldn't even let me protect them from the dog - when the dog would start barking at them I'd go after her, but then Panda would come after me! A guy just can't win around here.

So mostly I keep to myself these days. Or I try to, anyway. Julius just won't give up the idea that we can be best buddies. He wants to cuddle, for crying out loud. Romi and Dante are just plain annoying.

Not one of those kids is fluffy, like me. And the only one who inherited my extra toes was the girl, Josie, who lives with the Treat Lady. That's right, I have extra toes.The technical name for it is polydactylism, but I preferred to be called a Hemmingway Cat. Maybe someday I'll even write a novel of my own.

Reliable Romi

2009-12-31T11:09:00.002-05:00

My name is Romulus, but you can call me Romi. I'm the firstborn of the Terrible Trio, and mom's favourite. That's right, in your face, Julius and Dante, mom likes me best!

Of course now that mom's not feeling well she's not socializing a lot, so I'm kind of at loose ends. I've taken to sleeping in Firecat's chair in the living room during the day just to be on hand in case mom is feeling up to giving me a head bath. She's been sleeping in the house in the cat tree in the dining room and the chair is the most comfortable place close by.

Now I want to clear the air about something. The girl and her mate make fun of me because I'm a plus size kitty, but I want it stated for the record I AM NOT FAT! I'm just big boned. It's a good thing those two only visit on Sundays, otherwise I'd have to cough up a hair ball or two in their shoes.

Hump Day Hunk

2009-12-30T18:08:00.003-05:00

Hi, I'm Dante, your hump day hunk. That's right, I'm the best looking of the Terrible Trio. For sure I'm the only normal sized one - I mean, have you seen my brothers lately? Talk about porky!

Maybe if they got off their lazy butts once in awhile and got some exercise they wouldn't be so fat. Me, I like to play chase to stay in shape. Mom and I used to play chase a lot before she got so sick, but we don't play so much any more. That's okay, I don't need someone else to play to have a good time. Firecat spends a lot of money on toys for us, and if all else fails I can always chase ghosts.

Pssst! Wanna know a secret? You can't tell the other guys, but I'm Firecat's favorite. She calls me her wild child 'cause I don't like people picking me up or making a fuss over me. I mean, it's okay if she pats me, but only when I ask and she's good about only using one hand to pat with. Two hands makes me twitchy.

She calls me her muse. Hey, I can live with that. Last year we spent a lot of time together in the recliner while she wrote, especially during this weird NaNoWriMo thing she was doing. This year she's been writing a lot more in her office, but that's okay 'cause she has a box full of papers in the open closet behind her that I can curl up in. It's really comfy. In fact, I think I'll curl up in it right now for a quick nap before supper.

Julius' Journal

2009-12-29T17:31:00.002-05:00

First off, my mom would like to apologize for not posting yesterday, but she was busy hiding from Firecat. Aparently she lost another couple of ounces and the Scarey Doctor Man is insisting that Firecat start force feeding her again. I'd give my favourite claw for some of mom's food, but I guess it just doesn't taste the same when you have to eat it.

Anyway, like the title says, my name is Julius and I'm the cutest of the Terrible Trio. And I'd like to point out that I was the only one who was supposed to stay living with mom and dad and the humans. That's right, they picked me! Those other two just kept hanging around until they were allowed to stay.

See all that white on me? I've got more white fur than anyone else in the house, not even mom has as much white as me. The man comes close, but his is all on his head so I don't think that counts. It takes a lot of work keeping myself so pristine looking, so I spend a lot of time bathing myself. Some times mom or Romi helps me, but for the most part I do it all by myself.

When I'm not having a bath, I'm usually ~~sleeping~~ waiting for the man to come home. Firecat's okay, and she can give a good chin rub, but the man is an expert at the belly rub. Ah, there's nothing like a good belly rub to get me purring. And I have an extremely loud purr, everyone says so.

Wait a minute, I think I hear the sound of the man's car right now. Sorry, gotta go. See ya next week.

It's About Time!

2009-12-23T21:47:00.003-05:00

Hey. Panda here. If you were expecting to see one of Firecat's boring posts, then too bad. Go to her writing blog. You can find it HERE . Don't say I never did anything for you.

As queen of the household, I claim the right of spokes-cat. Firecat's been neglecting this blog so we've staged a coup. We've taken over just about every other aspect of her and the man's lives, it was only a matter of time before we took over here.

Anyway, there's five of us cats, and we're each taking a different day to post.

I go first 'cause, let's face it, I'm the most important. I mean, without me there wouldn't even be a Romi, Julius, or Dante.

I know there's a few of you out there who've be inquiring about my health. That's so sweet of you, really.

Firecat and the man are pretty concerned about my weight. Apparently, they think it's a bad thing that I'm down to 5 1/2 pounds. Well maybe if they'd feed me more treats instead of that stupid expensive food I'd gain some weight. And they need to start buying the same treats the Treat Lady brings me. Those are primo. Worthy of me, you might say.

My usual day is going to be Mondays; you know, a treat to start your week.

So, let me tell you a little about myself. My brothers and I were abandoned in a snow bank out in the country and were rescued by a nice family who already had several cats. So, they put a notice up that we needed homes, and Firecat came to see us. I can smell a ~~sucker~~ good person a mile away, so as soon a she picked me up I gave her the sweetie pie eyes and started to purr. Then I curled up in her arms and pretended to sleep.

She actually named me Pandora, because I was so curious, but mostly I get called Panda. The man calls me Pantaloons, too, but he's not all there at the best of times. I mean, you should see him around that suck-up Julius. Pathetic!

But I digress. This is about me. I've just passed my 7th birthday and I have a pretty good life here, despite the fact the humans won't let me play outside. Something to do with the wildlife lurking around our town and the high incidence of cats who've disappeared.

My favorite food (this week) is Tuna Feast, by Fancy Feast. I'll wait until Firecat's stocked up before I switch to something else. My favorite sleeping place is on the padded desk chair in the rec room - it's dark and cozy, and right under a heat vent. Sometimes, if she's not using her lap for her lap top, I like to curl up on Firecat's lap while she's in the recliner.

But that's really just to keep her happy so the treats keep coming.

Walloping Wednesday

2009-12-09T16:50:00.002-05:00

So someone *coughcrazynancecough* reminded me that I said I'd be back in December and that it's December now so I should be back to posting. So here I am.

I'm having to use the ~~crap top~~ desk top computer for this because my lap top got infected with a virus or shareware or some such pain in the bytes thing. Being as broke as I am, I entrusted it to the IT department at school for repairs. I was supposed to get it back today, but that was before we got the first blizzard of the season, which resulted in only a handful of us intrepid souls making it to school today.

It snowed last night and then started warming up this morning, so by the time I had to clean off my car it was really wet snow. Then at some point today it turned to rain and now it's a real mess out there. If it freezes tonight we'll be in big trouble tomorrow. And did I mention I had just enough time to make some oatmeal for breakfast before the power went off? Was not able to have my chai latte so I ended up having to spring for a coffee at school. *sigh* It just wasn't the same.

This was the week I'd intended to start the edits for my NaNo novel, only most of it is on the lap top - I got slack about backing up. I also had the urge to edit my first NaNo novel, Driving Into Forever, but again, it's on the lap top.

My poetry book marks are all on my precious, including the poetry forms I've been doing a series on. And the research I had for a few of the posts for my Random Thoughts blog is also on the lap top. And while there are some who would say that the desk top is better than no top at all, I'm not one of them. The screen, though much bigger, is hard on my eyes, the keyboard's a little stiffer, and oh, did I mention it's a little on the SLOW side?

So, cross your fingers I get my lap top (with files intact) back tomorrow. Or brace yourself for another cranky post on Friday.

I'll Be Back in December

2009-11-25T16:37:00.003-05:00

Wide Awake Wednesday

2009-11-18T14:58:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm wide awake since my nap, anyway. Can't say I was at my brightest of eye and bushiest of tail this morning though. :-)

I went to see the movie 2012 last night. If this movie doesn't win a bunch of awards for special effects, then there's something wrong with the system. The story itself was a little hokey at times, but the effects more than made up for it.

Woody Harlson had a small part as a crazy man who lived in Yellowstone National Park, and I must say that he makes an excellent loon. Totally believable. LOL

I won't go into any detail - you really need to see it for yourselves. Let's just say that if you have the urge to move before December 21, 2012, your safest bet is the African continent.

* * * * * * * * * *

Does anyone remember all the hoopla surrounding the turn of the century? As the year 2000 approached people started freaking out, claiming the world was going to end.

These claims were backed up by ancient prophecies, like those of Nostradamus, and new prophecies made by modern sooth-sayers. Then 2000 rolled around and nothing happened.

Suddenly it was "Oh, you took our meaning wrong." It wasn't really the end of the world, it was just that many computers and much computerized equipment were expected to have problems when the clock rolled over to 2000.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time recalling any real disastors that resulted from this. Electrical equipment was updated - disastor averted.

It's always easy to interpret predictions after the even has happened.

Just sayin'.

Mandatory Monday

2009-11-16T12:59:00.002-05:00

Here I am, another Monday with not much to say.

After a doom and gloom weekend, today is bright and sunny. Go figure.

I'm sitting here looking out my office window and I can tell you that even with the sun the view is not inspiring. I see my naked birch tree outside my window and beyond that a few other naked trees.

Have you ever noticed that different kinds of trees seem to be able to hang onto their leaves longer? I see that there are a few trees out there stubbornly clinging to their leaves - weeping willow, chestnut - while the birch and ash are totally naked and the maples nearly so.

* * * * * * * * * *

There's a fat man asleep in the mall.

On my way in to school this morning I couldn't help but notice they were setting up the enclosure for Santa (it's set up pretty much right in the middle of the most direct path down to the college). When we left, they'd finished the set up and Santa was snoozing away in his bed in the center of the enclosure.

This, my friends, means that the Santa Claus parade cannot be far away. Probably on Saturday. The mall will be swarming with tykes ready to scream and yell to wake Santa up so they can all have breakfast with Santa before the parade.

All I can say is, bah, humbug! Glad I don't work in the mall!

* * * * * * * * * *

You know, I always thought I was pretty good at spelling and grammar, but this course in Business Communication is showing me how wrong I am. I'm still pretty decent in spelling, I even pick up words that the spell checkers miss (ones that are spelled correctly, they're just the wrong word), but grammar - well that's a different story altogether.

Either the rules have changed or I've forgotten more than I realized. I did all right with the nouns, adverbs and adjectives, but apparently I have a problem when it comes to the tenses of verbs.

*sigh*

Can't wait for tomorrow when we do punctuation! :-(

Forgetful Friday

2009-11-13T07:19:00.000-05:00

I had something wonderfully pithy to say today, but I thought of it at school and forgot to write it down so now it’s gone forever. As my law teacher would say: “Sucks to be me!”

* * * * * * * * * *

Wow, I’m looking out my office window and the birch tree outside is naked! Where did all the leaves go? They were there just a couple of days ago. Next thing you know the white stuff will be coming down and before you know it it’ll be Christmas.

I am so not ready for Christmas this year!

Although apparently many of my neighbours are. I see outdoor Christmas decorations springing up all over the neighbourhood. In fact, the people on the corner had their Christmas decorations up November 1 and have them lit up every night. Are they crazy?

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda Report

She seems to be holding her own. She sleeps in the sun in the spare bedroom during the day, and under my lap top desk when I’m reclining in my chair in the evening. We’ve reached an understanding - she’ll let me up for the occasional potty break as long as I make sure there’s room for her under the lap top.

Her pickiness when it comes to food is beginning to drive me crazy. Just when we think we’ve found a food she’ll eat, she’ll change her mind. I think she’s doing it deliberately, just to drive us batty.

* * * * * * * * * *

NaNo’s going well. I’m behind in my wordage, but I’m not too worried about it. I have the whole weekend ahead of me and there’s still two more full weeks.

If you want to follow my progress, I’m keeping track HERE . I even posted an excerpt a couple of days ago. :-)

Lest We Forget

2009-11-11T15:05:00.001-05:00

I hope everyone took a moment of silence this morning to remember our veterans. Bless each of them, and their families

I'm Baaackkk

2009-11-09T19:09:00.002-05:00

Did you miss me? I sure missed my internet for the last few weeks.

I think what happened was this: three weeks ago we had a storm and I think my modem got damaged by a power surge. It didn't go out right away, just got steadily worse until finally I wasn't getting any service at all.

I phoned my ISP last week and the earliest they could send someone out was Friday. So I waited, albeit a little unpatiently. The guy they sent out was not worth the wait. I must have been his last appointment of the day because he was in and out of here in less than five minutes. He never actually tested anything, he just looked at my modem and said "It's your wiring. You have three choices: run the cable around the outside of the house; pay a professional to fish it through the walls (again!); or move your service to the other end of the house." Then he left.

Shortly after he left I had a mini-meltdown. It had been a very bad week and this was the last straw.

Saturday morning I took the modem and my lap top down to the basement where the cable fed into the house. I unplugged the cable from the service provided splitter and plugged it directly into the modem, then I plugged the modem into my lap top. Still no connection.

So I phoned my ISP again and they sent some out today. This guy actually knew what he was doing. He came in, plugged his lap top into my modem and said: "Looks like your modem is fried." and then proceeded to go out to his truck and get me a new modem, ethernet cord, and power supply.

And here I am.

Oh happy day!

Anway, I can't say that I'll be doing any better at posting 'cause we're one week into NaNo and I'm falling behind, but at least you know that if I don't post it's for a reason other than my lack of internet. :-)

Two Books Forward, Five Books Back

2009-10-30T07:42:00.001-04:00

The good news is, I managed to finish reading two books last week. The bad news is, I bought five new ones when the daughter and I were in Peterborough yesterday. *sigh* And it’s not like I’m going to be having a lot of time to read in the next few weeks, NaNo starts at midnight on Saturday.

NaNoWriMo, or NaNo as it is often fondly called, is the National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. For those of you who’ve been living in a cave and have never heard about NaNoWriMo, you can check it out HERE and if you’d like to follow my NaNo progress, you can do so HERE.

* * * * * * * * * *

If I make it through the cold and flu season without coming down with something, it will be a miracle. I’m bracketed in the classroom by women who are coughing and hacking - one of them to the point where the teacher suggested that maybe they’d rather be at home, but they insisted on staying. The other one insists on keeping the door to the classroom closed so they can keep all the germs trapped inside. I am not impressed!

What is wrong with these Typhoid Marys that they find it necessary to spread their germs wherever they go? You’d think with all the media hype about the H1N1 they’d have more sense.

And remember that tooth I broke a few weeks ago? It chooses now to bother me. I cannot afford a dentist. Go away little toothache. Go away.

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda has decided that it’s cave season. And where does she prefer her cave to be made? In my chair in the living room. If I want to sit in my chair, then she’ll sit on top of me and I’d better be prepared to stay for the long haul. And if I’m mean enough to insist on having my lap top on my lap, I have to make sure it’s balanced on my knees in such a way that she can curl up in the cave underneath it. Good thing she’s such a small cat!

* * * * * * * * * *

On a happier note, did anyone catch the pink sunrise this morning? It was like seeing the world through rose coloured glasses - very inspiring!

Misaligned Monday

2009-10-26T22:30:00.002-04:00

I have a very good reason for not updating last week. My internet and/or computer was having problems. I can get blogs up this week, and my gmail and sometimes my hotmail, but not if there's a lot of graphics in the email and I still can't get my ISP e-mail up.

If it's my internet service provider, the problem will eventually sort itself out. If it's a virus in my computer . . . then there's not much I can do about it. I can't afford to have it looked at right now so I'll just have to limp along.

* * * * * * * * * *

I was going to say last week wasn't too exciting, but that's not exactly true. I had poetry group on Tuesday, which is always enjoyable. And I got lots of writing done, although as usually the writing started to fall off towards the end of the week.

Got my assignments for school in on time and got very good marks on them both. I also had an exam on Friday and got 95% on it, which is very good considering I didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

Saturday my sister from New Brunswick stopped by with her husband for an overnight visit and we had a small birthday party for the daughter. Much fun and eating was had by all. :-)

Sunday a friend and I went to the big city of Belleville to the Michael's craft store. I love all the stuff in that store, but I don't love the prices. Then we went across the street to Chapters where I bought myself a new journal and, of course, had Starbucks.

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda is slowly gaining weight again. She's up to 6 pounds 3 ounces. The weight gain is much slower than before because the canned food doesn't pack on the weight the way that the dry food does. She's also turned into a bit of a lap cat. If I'm sitting in my recliner, she has to be on my lap. Otherwise I have to make her a cave with a blanket on either my chair or the husband's chair (the couch won't do).

When I have my lap top on my lap, she has to be content with just snuggling up to my legs. Sometimes, however, Dante beats her to the foot of my chair and she's forced to wash his head vigorously in a bid to get him to move. It doesn't always work (he's his mother's son when it comes to stubbornness) and they end up curled up together, half draped over my legs.

And that about brings you up to date. :-)

Managing Monday

2009-10-19T13:35:00.002-04:00

First off, I'd like to know, who stole my weekend?

It seems like Friday was just yesterday, and if that's the case, then where'd the rest of the weekend go? Okay, I know where last night went. Last night was spent trying to get my assignment done for school today. I did try and work on it earlier in the weekend, but I didn't get anywhere with it. And now I've just printed it off and realized I have no conclusion . . D'oh!

This is why this post has a time stamp for after school. I had to stop what I was doing and write a conclusion to my report. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda continues to try and drive us insane. She has turned into Ms. Picky Pants when it comes to food, yet she complains that she’s hungry. If it were any of the other cats I’d say “screw it, they’ll eat when they’re hungry”. But this is Panda, whom we’ve already spent copious amounts of money on. And she’s been losing weight. And I really don’t want to have to go back to force feeding her.

She turned her pert little pink nose up at so much food over the weekend that we thought she’d prove to have lost weight again, but she held her own. Still at 6.2 pounds. After school today I bought a couple of the fish flavours of the Fancy Feast (which is not on the vet’s list but she likes it and any food is better than no food). When I got home from school I opened a can of the tuna flavour and she dug right in.

She was the husband’s little shadow yesterday. It was cute, she followed him around the house and shared his easy chair while he was watching television. Maybe she was trying to encourage him to suck it up and give her the Fancy Feast. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

There was frost on my car again this morning. I had to dig out my scraper so I could get to school on time. I don't mind the cold, I just don't like having to clean off my car.

The one cool thing (no pun intended) about the frost covering everthing this morning was listening to the leaves fall. Our neighbourhood is very quiet, and you could hear the crackle of the leaves as they fell.

Guess this means that winter is on its way.

Fuzzy Friday

2009-10-16T14:36:00.002-04:00

For a week that started off with a holiday Monday, things sure ended up getting away from me!

My body is not liking the adjustment to morning classes again. I've been so tired lately it's not even funny. Yesterday, after school, I did more napping than writing, which means that this morning I was typing like a mad thing to get a report done for school today.

I think it might be time to give vitamin B12 another shot. Or maybe I'll try a complex B vitamin this time - my sister swears by them.

Or maybe I just need to tell myself I have until November 1st to suck it up, 'cause when NaNo starts, sleep will be a thing of the past! :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda gained another whole ounce, and other than that her health is as good as we can expect it to be. The vet did a blood test on her that showed her kidneys are only working at about 50% of what they should be and I need to make extra sure she gets her pills twice a day.

After the husband spent $70 on the only canned food from the vet's office she'd touch, she's decided she doesn't like it so much after all. She'll eat it when she absolutely has to, but she lets us know she's not enjoying it much.

What she is enjoying is sleeping in the box of sweaters the husband has in the spare bedroom waiting to be donated. And when I say in the box, I mean in the box. The box is tipped over on its side and she's pulled a few sweaters out so she can burrow inside. She's going to be upset when they go to charity next week.

* * * * * * * * * *

School's going okay . . . Managing a Small Business is more interesting than it sounds, or maybe it's the instructor who's more interesting. He really seems to know his stuff, and that makes a big difference.

Because of the mix-up with our text books he cancelled the quiz scheduled for today, and then gave it to us anyway just to prove to us how much we've learned (we did the quiz but the marks didn't count). To my chagrin, I got 100% on the quiz. Go figure.

I have another assignment due on Monday, and yes, that means I will be working on it tomorrow instead of Sunday night. The only thing I don't like about these assignments is that they're opinion pieces, and quite frankly my opinion is the guy who wants to start his own business making ladder rails needs a new job, not his own business.

Walloping Wednesday

2009-10-14T07:49:00.002-04:00

What is that stuff all over my car? It can't possibly be frost, not before the end of October! And it's frost that's heavy enough that I'm going to have to go out and warm up the car before school - unless I want to dig out my scraper and scrape it off. I'm sure when I got my car I ordered the frost-free model . . .

Next thing you know there'll be snow out there. Not that I mind driving in the snow, I just don't like having to scrape it off my car. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda the wonder cat, who has been eating canned food like it was invented just for her, only managed to gain an ounce over the long weekend.

Other than her lack of weight, you'd never know there's anything wrong with her. She's still as fiesty as ever, still queen of the castle. Right now she's sitting on the bookcase in my office taking the occassional stab at a leaf falling outside. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Finally had a chance to go through all those books the BFF gave me. Normally I'd go through them and read the blurbs on the back and divide them into "donate right away", "read and probably donate", and "read with an eye to keeping". The donate pile was always the biggest and the keeper pile was always the smallest.

However, this time, to my chagrin, the donate right away pile was much smaller than the read with an eye to keeping pile. By a lot. Either her taste in books is improving, or mine is broadening. :-)

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

2009-10-12T10:54:00.002-04:00

TWAS THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING,
BUT I JUST COULDN'T SLEEP.
I TRIED COUNTING BACKWARDS,
I TRIED COUNTING SHEEP.

THE LEFTOVERS BECKONED -
THE DARK MEAT AND WHITE,
BUT I FOUGHT THE TEMPTATION
WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT.

TOSSING AND TURNING WITH ANTICIPATION,
THE THOUGHT OF A SNACK BECAME INFATUATION.
SO, I RACED TO THE KITCHEN, FLUNG OPEN THE DOOR,
AND GAZED AT THE FRIDGE, FULL OF GOODIES GALORE.
GOBBLED UP TURKEY AND BUTTERED POTATOES,
PICKLES AND CARROTS, BEANS AND TOMATOES.

I FELT MYSELF SWELLING SO PLUMP AND SO ROUND,
'TIL ALL OF A SUDDEN, I ROSE OFF THE GROUND.
I CRASHED THROUGH THE CEILING, FLOATING INTO THE SKY,
WITH A MOUTHFUL OF PUDDING AND A HANDFUL OF PIE.
BUT, I MANAGED TO YELL AS I SOARED PAST THE TREES....
HAPPY EATING TO ALL - PASS THE CRANBERRIES, PLEASE.

MAY YOUR STUFFING BE TASTY,
MAY YOUR TURKEY BE PLUMP.
MAY YOUR POTATOES 'N GRAVY HAVE NARY A LUMP.
MAY YOUR YAMS BE DELICIOUS.
MAY YOUR PIES TAKE THE PRIZE,
MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER STAY OFF OF YOUR THIGHS!!

Frustrating Friday

2009-10-09T11:22:00.002-04:00

Let me start out by saying the only good thing about this week is that it's over. Well, almost over.

* * * * * * * * * *

I'm back to morning classes starting next week which as far as I'm concerned is a big sigh of relief. This has been a very unproductive week for me and I'm not liking it.

After all that fiddling around with my PowerPoint presentation, adding effects here and there, including an animation, adjusting the time on each individual slide so that the music ended the same time as the presentation . . . the freaking music didn't play on the school computer. Grr! The presentation was okay without the sound, but it would have been awesome with it.

Next week we start Managing a Small Business and guess what we start in time for NaNoWriMo? Business Law, which we're told by previous students is the most time-consuming course of all.

Don't care, I'm giving NaNo a shot anyway.

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda is going to drive us insane. Even after the vast amounts of canned food she's eaten this week, she still managed to lose 2 more ounces. She's down to six pounds now, which is not good.

So today I get to pick up some special kitty litter for her because they need a urine sample, and she'll be getting blood taken on Tuesday. Meantime we're going to try and get her to eat the vet approved canned food because it has more calories.

* * * * * * * * * *

That's pretty much it. All in all a pretty blah week. Just like the weather.

WTF Wednesday

2009-10-07T10:57:00.002-04:00

I slept in today. Until 10:30! I still can't believe it.

*sigh*

It's my own fault really. I woke up at 8:30 and figured I'd "get up in a minute" only the minute turned into a couple of hours. And now I've had way too much sleep, which makes me feel worse than not enough. Serves me right for not getting up right away.

In my defense I might point out that I was up until 2 a.m. last night working on PowerPoint (when I should have been writing). In fact, that's pretty much all I did yesterday, work on PowerPoint. I worked on it before school, during school, and after school. The good news is that I'm caught up on all the classwork and chapter work. The bad news is, I didn't get anything else done.

There was so much information crammed into such a short time that the teacher didn't even bother going through the text book chapter by chapter - she just let us work at our own speed and took up the answers to the questions at the end of each chapter. About halfway through she didn't even bother doing that much and just gave us the answers.

Think I'm kidding about the amount of work? In a two week span we had to read a 550 page text book. At the end of each chapter there are between 6 and 8 presentations that need to be either modified or created. We had two quizzes and three assignments. We also have our presentation assignments (that we're seeing today)that need to be between 10 and 15 slides long and use a variety of stuff we've supposedly learned.

Oh, and the exam is tomorrow.

And to think I'd been looking forward to PowerPoint!

* * * * * * * * * *

Don't tell the vet but I'm cheating. He wanted me to go back to force-feeding Panda to get her to gain weight but I just couldn't bring myself to do that to her. I wondered, when she was refusing her treats, if she might be having a problem with her teeth. Although she'd turn her nose up at the vet approved treats she'd eat the Temptation treats, which are softer. She also ate some of the chicken we had the other night.

So, yesterday morning I cooked her up a piece of chicken and she gobbled it all down (no, I didn't give her the whole piece, but she had a respectable amount for a cat her size). So on my break at school I slipped up to the grocery store and bought a selection of chicken flavored Fancy Feast to see if she'd eat them.

Oh, yeah. She likes them all right. She ate a whole can yesterday and has already gone through half a can today. The vet's not going to be happy because it's not "approved" cat food bought from him, but if it helps her to gain weight I'm not going to worry too much. We'll see what happens when she gets weighed on Friday.

Meh, It's Monday

2009-10-05T11:04:00.000-04:00

You know why I didn’t do any posting last week? It was because I had nothing to say.

It was a pretty craptacular week. I’m back on afternoons at school and I’m not liking it much. Make that at all. I feel like I’m forever hurrying to catch up on things and I’m not getting anything accomplished.

To make matters worse, I was really looking forward to PowerPoint but the text book we’re forced to use has sucked all the fun out of it. I’ve already done two of the three assignments and I’ve learned lots of cool stuff, but we don’t really get to use much of it.

* * * * * * * * * *

The weather has been pretty craptacular this past week too. Wind and rain and cold and gloomy. I guess it could be worse, my neighbor was telling me they have snow in Calgary where her daughter is.

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda seems more like her old self than ever. She’s been leaving Taz alone and he’s feeling more secure (as in he no longer feels the need to slink around the house, freezing in place if he sees her). I’ve been vigilant about giving her at least one of her pills every night, but lately she’s been refusing the treats she gets afterwards. We noticed she doesn’t seem to be eating much either, although she’s still drinking well.

Unfortunately, she’s been losing weight steadily and today at the vet’s she was back down to 6.2 pounds. This means I get to start force feeding her the canned food again. Oh joy, oh bliss.

* * * * * * * * * *

There was one bright spot in the last week - I had to drive the kids up to the GO in Oshawa on Saturday, and on the way home I stopped for a visit with the BFF. Visits are always good.

She gave me not one, not two, but three bags of books to take home with me. The first one I pulled out was one I was already reading. D’oh! However, it’s an excellent book so I don’t mind having two copies. :-)

What’s The WORD!

2009-09-28T10:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday (when all my troubles seemed so far away . . . ) Sorry, couldn’t resist. :-)

Yesterday was the annual Word on the Street, a free literary festival held in Queen's Park, so BFF and I made our yearly pilgrimage to Toronto. Along the way we stopped to pick up the daughter’s wedding pictures, had Starbucks for breakfast, and made a quick pass through Indio/Chapters.

The weather forecast called for rain, but although it was very overcast and threatening, the rain itself held off, which made it just cool enough to be comfortable. For a change we got there pretty early, which is always the best idea when it’s a free event. This year we played it smart and had back packs for our loot, although one of the first things we took advantage of were the free bags from the Green Living booth.

It was actually a little disappointing this year. There wasn’t much free stuff, there was no Harlequin booth, there were a couple of writer’s organizations missing, the bargains weren’t as bargainy . . . we couldn’t decide if it was the threatening weather or the faltering economy that was the cause. We still managed to bring home a decent haul, although by the time we made it back to the subway I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. Or maybe it was just the fifty pounds of books I was carrying. :-)

I must give Toronto kudos for their excellent subway system. This allows us to park at one of their fabulous malls (Yorkdale, in case anyone’s interested) and take the subway just about anywhere we want to go. One of the biggest benefits of parking here is . . . well, it’s a mall.

We dropped our loot off in the car and made a beeline for the Starbucks in the huge Indigo/Chapters just inside the door, where we were accosted by a half dozen very buff young men who were doing a Peek Freans/Harlequin promotion. We were hot, sweaty, and tired. They were standing between us and our Starbucks. We took the free cookies but turned down the offer to have our pictures taken with the two very hot cowboys.

After browsing a bit we drove away from the big city and back to our respective homes where we stashed our loot and then had naps. And if perchance we dreamed of buff young men, well, we’re only human. :-)

Fatigued Friday

2009-09-25T08:13:00.001-04:00

I am so tired it’s not even funny.

I was up late Wednesday night and I can’t even remember why. I do remember that it was so hot in the bedroom that I ended up getting up at 1:30 a.m. and turning on the fan. Then last night I was up late posting my offering for the AW blog chain. I didn’t realize it was my turn until late in the afternoon and then I spent the evening struggling with the story.

This month’s blog chain is actually pretty cool. The previous poster chooses three words for the next person in line to build their story around. There’s been some awesome work so far. You can check out my story HERE and I have links to the others.

I think the reason I struggled with this piece was because I had an idea of writing about a woman who’d lost her husband to suicide and her feelings towards the issue were mixed up with the way she felt about the juniper bush in the garden that he’d promised to get rid of for her. That’s not what came out at all. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Grossness alert!

Remember when I cleaned out the kitchen cupboard because I discovered moth larva? Well cleaning out that infestation didn’t really seem to have much effect on the number of moths we have in the house, and we couldn’t figure out where they were coming from.

Then one night this week I was walking down the hall to my office and I happened to notice a moth on the wall. Naturally I killed it and afterwards looked around for more. This is where the gross part comes in.

Up on the ceiling must have been a dozen moth larva. To say I was grossed out would be an understatement. I bravely waited until the husband came home and then made him kill them. Problem solved, right?

Yeah, you’d think so.

The next night I turned on the light in the hall and looked up and there were even more of the little suckers. So after the husband killed this bunch we started getting serious about where they were all coming from.

I was positive they were coming from the linen closet and sure enough, I found the source on the top shelf. A few months ago I’d bought a bag of regular cat chow to have for emergencies (like when we run out of the good stuff and the vet’s office is closed so we can’t get any more) and the husband, in his infinite wisdom, stashed it on the top shelf of the linen closet. The moths figured it made the perfect nursery.

Ewww!

* * * * * * * * * *

And now I’m off to write my Excel exam. Good thing it’s open book!

Whine Free Wednesday

2009-09-23T10:10:00.000-04:00

That’s right, it’s safe to read again. I’m over my whining fit.:-)

And what’s more, I’m writing this during class, which speaks volumes about how much work I have to do. I finished the chapter work for all five chapters and I’m taking a break before I go on to unexplored chapters of the textbook.

* * * * * * * * * *

Last night was my monthly poetry meeting. It was the largest group around the table yet, I think there were thirteen of us. We even had a new member join us. I’m not sure who invited her, but I gather she’s an established poet. She certainly know how to make a statement, her hair was the same colour blue as her pants. :-)

My poems were well received – I read my Pantoum from last week’s Passion for Poetry (over on my writing blog) and surprisingly enough, most people were familiar with this form. I don’t know why everyone else is so familiar with all these funky forms while I missed out. Must be a comment on the local high school English programs. Or maybe they all have more formal training.

In any case, I made it just under the wire with my “poemwork”. This month’s challenge was to take the first line and the last line of a poem by one of your favourite Canadian poets and then fill in the space with your own work. I was literally printing it out as I was putting on my shoes to leave.

* * * * * * * * * *

I’m a woman on a mission. I’m in search of a brand of Chai Tea that I can use for my morning tea. Yes, I know there’s lots of recipes on the internet to make your own, but I’m lazy. I want it pre-packaged.

But I’ve learned an important lesson when it comes to Chai, it doesn’t pay to be cheap. I checked out the selection in our upscale grocery store, then settled on the Tetley Chai because it was cheapest.

All I can say is, you get what you pay for. While not the worst Chai I’ve ever had, it’s a little on the weak side. Next time I’ll try using two bags, which, of course, negates the whole “cheap” concept. Half the price of other brands but you’re using twice as much.

Next time I’ll try the Tazo brand, which is what they use in the coffee shop we have our poetry readings at.

And the search goes on!

Got Cheese?

2009-09-21T18:23:00.001-04:00

I could really use some to go with the whine in this post. :-)

You know, even with my freaky cats and going back to school sometimes my life seems pretty boring. Especially when I spend a whole weekend doing . . . nothing. Okay, Sunday I managed to get a post done on my other blog and baked some apple dumplings for the daughter, but that was about the sum of my productivity for the weekend.

The cats seem to be settling down again and school is excruciatingly boring - I finished both the second assignment and chapter five today, and now I have nothing left to do for the rest of the week except study for the exam on Friday - which is an open book exam so all I have to really know is where to find things in the text book.

I’ve got piles of writing to do and piles of reading and no ambition to do any of it. Whatever this mood is, I hope it doesn’t last.

Even the weather is dull and boring right now. It was hinting at a storm earlier, but the wind has died down a lot and we never got the rain we were promised. It’s even a little warmer than it’s been lately so I can’t even complain about how cold it’s getting outside.

Let’s hope my life, and my mood, picks up as the week goes on. :-)

Almost . . .

2009-09-18T16:38:00.003-04:00

Yup, I almost missed posting here today. I was so proud of myself for getting the next chapter of my serial posted on time that I forgot I needed to post something here as well. :-)

The instructor was a little annoyed with us yesterday - we all finished chapter three before she'd even started going over it with us so she ended up skipping it and going straight to chapter four.

I've been trying to slow down with the chapter work because we have all of next week for Excel and only one chapter and one assignment left to do. I fear it's going to be a long week.

* * * * * * * * * *

My head's been aching almost every day this week. I don't know if it's a change in the temperature, a change in the weather, or a change in my routine (having morning classes) but I'm getting tired of it.

The woman that sits in front of me in class has been suffering from the headaches too and we found Wednesday in class unbearable. The classroom was warm and stuffy, but one of the women at the back keeps closing the door because she's cold. Suck it up princess and stop wearing shorts and tank tops to school!

* * * * * * * * * *

KITTENS! The Humane Society was having a kitten adopt-a-thon in the mall today. They set up right infront of the stairs I have to take to go to and from school. So many kittens! Cute little warm balls of fuzzy fun! They were so sweet, I wanted to take them all home with me. Just for a visit of course. ;-)

Speaking of kittens, Taz had quite an adventure Wednesday night. Somehow the front door came unlatched and we didn't discover it until the husband came home at 11 and ran into (not literally) Dante in the driveway. Dante scooted back into the house, which is when the husband realized the door was open. I did a quick nose count and the only one that was missing was Taz.

We figured he had as much as a three hour head start on us. Our neighborhood is dark, and it was windy, so there we were at 11 p.m. wandering the area with a flash light and calling his name. It was after midnight and we were just about ready to give up when he came slinking up to the house. I think he's finally realized that the Great Outdoors isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Hump Day Happenings

2009-09-16T12:41:00.002-04:00

I was actually very surprised to see the sun shining today. I woke up at around 4 a.m. with a bad headache, which usually means the weather's turned. It was still with me when I got up and so far it shows no signs of leaving. It was bad enough at school this morning that on my break I went upstairs to the coffee shop and had a coffee. The caffeine made it a little better, but unfortunately it's wearing off now.

Have you ever noticed that when you have a headache that things that normally you don't notice bug the crap out of you? Like the noise from the fountain in the dining room. Once you get used to it it's pretty easy to ignore, but right now I'd like to just pick the damn thing up and pitch it into the back yard.

And I think my next door neighbor left the gate to her back yard unlatched. I can hear something banging in the wind and I don't know what else it could be. I'm tempted to go check and close it if it is, but with my luck my neighbor would catch me. She's old and even more crotchety than I am and she'd probably beat me to death with her cane.

Aren't I in a mood today? :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

The cats appeared to have an uneasy truce. I don't know if Panda has just gotten over her misplaced anger at Taz or Taz got tired of living on top of the bookcase. But he's abandoned my office for my chair in the living room, and this morning he even had breakfast out in the kitchen with everyone else (the first time in a week).
Cross your fingers that the worst is over.

Panda pretty much ignores him if he's in one place, it's only when he wants to move from point A to point B that she starts having a problem. If it's just her that's on the alert he doesn't seem to care, but when the boys all stick their noses into things he starts getting a little paranoid. Who can blame him? Two of the boys out-weigh him by several pounds.

* * * * * * * * * *

As I feared, Excel is even worse than Word was. We have fewer chapters to work on and more time to work in. Yesterday I not only finished all the chapter work, I also finished the assignment that wasn't due until Friday. Today we had a quiz and then most of us worked on Chapter 3 - which we'll be learning tomorrow. At this rate I'll be ready for the exam by Monday. Even though we're only doing 5 chapters I think there's 9 in the book, so I'll probably just keep going until I run out of class time.

I also found out today that if we want to continue with the advanced Word course on our own we just have to let the other instructor know and she'll give us the assignments and arrange for us to take the exam. I just might go ahead and do that - it'll give me something constructive to do in my Excel class. :-)

An Embarrassment of Riches

2009-09-14T07:29:00.000-04:00

Well, the cats seem to have settled down somewhat. Romi spent a couple of days hiding in the basement (coming out to eat of course) and Julius and Dante are back to their normal selves. Panda acts normal until she spots Taz, and although she hasn’t attacked him in the last few days she does like to keep an eye on him still.

Poor Taz . . . Friday and Saturday he was very skittish, and if Panda was nearby he was afraid to move. She wouldn’t let him down off the bookcase Friday so I finally put some food and water up there for him (he was very grateful). Saturday he must have needed to use the kitty litter because he went down to the basement, and then she wouldn’t let him come up the stairs so he spent pretty much the whole day down there. He did slink upstairs late in the evening and after having a cautious bite to eat settled down on the couch between the humans.

I guess I should be grateful the fur’s stopped flying, but I’d still like to know what’s going on with these guys!

* * * * * * * * * *

Saturday I cleaned out the supply cabinet my laser printer sits on in my office. This may not seem like such a big deal to most people, but given the amount of office supplies I tend to accumulate and the fact they just get more or less jammed into the cabinet, it was a very big deal.

Part way through I started an inventory of the supplies and I am rather appalled at my stock pile. I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to office supplies. And that’s just the stuff in the cabinet. I also have a plastic bin with file folders, paper, and whatnot, and a desk drawer full of “stuff”. Did I mention the piles of partially used notebooks and note pads around the house? Clearly I should be banned from all office supply stores and the office/school supply aisles of all department and dollar stores.

* * * * * * * * * *

Saturday was also a procrastination catch up day writing/blogging wise. I caught up on my book review blog, got chapter five of my serial posted, and checked out the blogs I’ve been neglecting this week. Sunday I also got off my lazy butt and actually posted something to my Random Writing blog.

* * * * * * * * * *

Back to morning classes at school this week. Yippee skippy! We’re taking Excel, which I have taken twice before but since I never use it for anything I’ve forgotten everything I ever knew about it. Unfortunately we have the same kind of textbook and the same instructor as we did for Word. I found the wording of the text to be somewhat confusing, but the instructor seemed even more confused. She was lost without her instructor’s manual and if you interrupted her with a question she not only had to look up the answer, she’d lose her place in what she was doing.

Thursday she was reading from the text and we were following along and we were supposed to be formatting a title. She couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working until I suggested we needed to highlight the text first. She ignored me completely, but then her next instructions were to highlight the text and then format it. :-)

Welcome to the War Zone

2009-09-11T10:26:00.002-04:00

Panda appears to have declared war on Taz.

She attacks without warning, and without any apparent provocation. She is swift and deadly, like a Ninja kitty. One minute there's peace and serenity, the next minute the fur is flying.

And because Taz is devoted to Panda, he does little to defend himself.

Dante is the double agent - sometimes he sides with Taz, sometimes with Panda. Julius is Switzerland - when the fur flies he makes himself scarce and stays right out of it. Romi does a great impression of the cowardly lion. As I type this, he's hiding in a corner of the basement where he hopes no one will find him.

We have no clue what brought this on. The only thing the vet could suggest is that maybe something in the family dynamic changed that's making Panda need to assert herself as alpha.

The last couple of nights we've had to keep Panda locked up in a room by herself, and she was there yesterday while I was at school. We've put the calming drops we bought when the daughter's cats were living here in her water, and today I've sprayed the house with a pheromone spray that's supposed to keep everyone calm.

We'll see how it goes.

Right now, Taz is sleeping on top of the six foot high bookcase, which is his favorite place, and Panda is on the chair across the room watching him. The boys are wisely staying out of the way.

Panda was like this yesterday, content to just watch Taz, until Taz jumped down off the high book case onto the lower one. I guess he forgot to ask permission, because Panda flew into a rage and had to be locked away (once I was able to catch her and wrap her in a towel so she didn't rip me apart as well).

The big question today will be, should I lock her away while I'm at school or not? I hate to do it for no reason, but I'd also hate to come home from school and find little Taz parts scattered throughout the house.

I feel like I need a dose of those calming drops myself - I have an exam in Microsoft Word this afternoon. :-)

Already Wednesday

2009-09-09T10:29:00.002-04:00

The bad thing about a long weekend is that it makes me not want to go back to school but the good thing about it is that it makes the week shorter. :-)

Last night I did something I haven't done in a long time - I went to the movies. The daughter and I went to see Julie and Julia. It probably wasn't my first choice of movies to see, but I really enjoyed it. I love the way they intertwined the two stories and what made it really interesting was that it was based on true events.

* * * * * * * * * *

This morning, while I was in the bathroom, the cats had a mini melt down. I could hear a commotion outside the door, but by the time I was done everyone had disappeared. They were all acting skittish, slinking around the house, tails puffed out . . .

I think I've pieced together what happened though, but first I need to give you a little history about them.

We had a dog when the kittens were born. Panda loved the dog, and the dog was fine with the kittens when they were really tiny. Unfortunately, the dog was a border collie and when the kittens were big enough to start wandering around, she instinctively wanted to keep them together (in a herd). So she'd bark at the kittens, the father cat (Taz) would freak out on the dog to protect his offspring and Panda would freak out on Taz to protect the dog. We'd actually have to shut Panda up in a room by herself to calm her down.

I think what happened this morning is while they were all waiting for me to get out of the bathroom so I could feed them, Romi, the biggest kitten (okay, I call them kittens but they're six years old now)was bugging Taz, who retaliated and Panda freaked out on Taz which freaked everyone out. (Taz has no patience for his offspring and they like to occassionally bug him just to be little shit disturbers.)

Anyway, everyone is calmed down now, except for Panda who's patrolling the house like a cop on a beat.

Happy Labour Day!

2009-09-07T13:20:00.002-04:00

Yes, I know I missed Friday's post. I was busy finishing a baby quilt that really did not want to get finished. Mental note, new T.V. craft is embroidering baby quilt blocks until I have a stock pile again. There's three more babies impending over the next 6 months and I don't want to be caught short when it comes to baby quilts. :-)

In fairness to myself, the baby quilt I just finished was a departure for me. Normally I do a nine-block quilt, five squares of which have embroidered cartoon characters on them. This quilt, a I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, was custom done for the daughter to give to a friend of hers. It has classsic Winnie-the-Pooh pictures, which were a little more complicated to embroider as well as their dimensions were a little odd. So there were six individual blocks to embroider, and then a double one that ran down the center with a space to put the baby's name and birth date after the blessed event. So yeah, there was a lot more work to it, especially when one sews the lining to the wrong side of the quilt, but it turned out much better than I expected, especially when the sun was coming up before I was finished. :-)

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Saturday I grabbed a few hours sleep and then started getting stuff ready for the birthday party we were hosting at our place for the son-in-law. As per my luck, I was just on my way out the door to pick up the cake when a friend called and kept me on the phone for half an hour, so I was just getting out of the shower when people started showing up.

It was a perfect night for a party though. Not too hot, not too cold, no wind so I was able to scatter tea lights around the deck when it started getting dark. We still had the fireworks that didn't get used for the rehearsal dinner earlier in the summer, so we set them off when it became fully dark.

After everyone left the husband and I half-heartedly cleaned up and then napped while watching the Star Trek movie marathon on the Space channel. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Sunday we just couldn't seem to get motivated. It was just one of those real lazy days that you can either beat yourself up about or just go with the flow. I finally got some ambition late in the night (early in the morning?) and got the chapter written and posted for my serial. I had actually decided to just skip it, but then the words started coming. Isn't that always the way?

This would have been a good weekend for embroidery. The Space channel has been running the Star Trek movies in consecutive order and today they're running the viewer's choice of top ten original episodes.

Yes, I'm a total Trekkie. And proud of it! :-)

Road Trip

2009-09-02T11:42:00.003-04:00

Well, the daughter and I just got back from Peterborough. Another successful pilgrimage made to ~~Starbucks~~ Chapters. I spent more than I intended (as usual) but that's because I couldn't resist this cool book called To the Ends of the Earth that's full of ancient maps, plus they pointed out that my discount card needed to be renewed.

And yes, I got my Pumpkin Spice Latte, with a Pumpkin Spice Scone to go with it. Mmmm, pumpkinny goodness!

On the drive up (and back) we listened to my driving CD that the husband spent five years in the making. He had to choose just the right songs for it:

Lookin' Out For Number One
Drivin' Sister
Vehicle
Born to Be Wild
Let It Roll
I Can't Drive 55 (my personal favorite)
Highway Star
Fun, Fun, Fun
Built For Speed
Under My Wheels
Runnin' Down A Dream
Deadman's Curve
Pink Cadillac
Mercury Blues
Red Barcetta
Radar Love
Paradise (By the Dashboard Light)
Go Faster

What a guy! :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Panda lost her collar again, only this time we haven't been able to find it. She looks so naked without it that I finally bought her a new one. This one is neon pink, her favourite colour.

* * * * * * * * * *

I've just discovered another really big problem about having afternoon classes. It's so nice out today and I've been out enough, that I really, really, don't want to go to school now. I want to stay home and enjoy the end of summer today.

Unfortunately, we have a quiz, and homework to take up, and an assignment to hand in, and a new chapter to start. Guess I'd better get that homework done and do a bit of studying.

Why yes, I do have to leave in half an hour. Your point? :-)

Oops!

2009-08-31T10:31:00.002-04:00

I was so busy concentrating on getting the next installment of my serial posted Friday, that I forgot all about posting something here!

My Access exam Friday was long - three hours long! It wasn't that any of it was hard, there was just a lot to it. And even after three hours I was one of the first ones finished. I went at a slow and steady pace and paid attention to the little details. Snarky bitch (remember her?) sitting on the other side of me was typing away as fast as she could and I could see her shooting little glances over at mine screen to make sure she was ahead of me (and getting more cheerful the further ahead she got). I just shrugged mentally and kept my steady pace, which paid off around the fourth page where we had to format the cells of the table we'd created. This was not something we'd learned in the book and I suspect it was put in there to have us use the help menu, which is what I did. I could hear snarky muttering and cursing under her breath, oozing frustration. She must have spent a good half hour trying to "remember" how to do this. Yes, I did finish well before her and yes, I do feel smug about it. :-)

Starting this week I have afternoon classes this week so I confess I slept in a little this morning and then stayed in my jammies while checking my e-mail and contemplating breakfast.

Next thing I know the husband is asking if I can take Panda to her appointment at the vet's. This is what happens when you drink orange juice that's been opened in the fridge for at least two weeks. It's a good thing I was able to take her because they were backed up at the vet's office and we had to wait about 45 minutes. Panda was a very cranky girl for her treatment. She's also lost her collar again only this time it wasn't at the vet's office. Maybe if she's a good girl taking her pills this week I'll buy her a new one.

When we got home, the husband said he was feeling better so he was dressing for work. Having had food poisoning from tainted juice before I tried to tell him he probably wasn't as well as he thought, but what do I know? The silly ass went to work anyway. And he took his lunch with him too. Glad I won't be there to see the explosion.

I went to Fabricland in Peterborough with a friend on Saturday and on the way out we stopped at Starbucks for a break. I tried one of their pumpkin scones - OMG are they ever good. So good, in fact, that I googled the recipe when I got home and printed out copies for myself, my friend, and the daughter.

I've been working on a baby quilt for a friend of my daughter's with pictures from the original Winnie the Pooh on it, and I mentioned that Chapters (where Starbucks is) had the original Winnie the Pooh bears. So the daughter and I are going up one morning this week so she can get one to go with the quilt. And the best part? It'll be after September first, when Starbucks starts serviing their Pumpkin Spice Lattes!

Catch-up Day

2009-08-26T14:23:00.002-04:00

I've been catching up on all kinds of things today.

First I caught up on my second assignment at school, going over it several times to make sure every nitpicky little detail was perfect. Then I did my independent project for Access (I created a database to keep track of where my poetry was going). Originally I was going to use both my fiction writing and my poetry in the database, but to be honest, I haven't submitted any fiction in ten years! What have I been doing?

Anyway, I got my database with its table of no less than 10 records done, and I included the five queries, a form, and a report with it. My form looks really spiffy if I do say so myself. I'd like to have played around with it some more, but there wasn't much else I could do with it without adding more records (I stopped at 13).

I'm ashamed to admit that many, many trees gave up their lives for this database. The instructor wanted specific things printed and every time I'd change something I'd have two or three things to print out again.

Any volunteers to do my shredding for me? I have a big box of paper that needs to be shredded before the recycling people will take it.

* * * * * * * * * *

When I got home from school I got caught up on some more mundane things: cleaned the kitty litter, called VISA to activate my latest card, called Mastercard to find out why the insurance that was supposed to be making my payments wasn't . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

I'm trying very hard to not have a nap today. Panda likes to curl up on the easy chair with me after lunch and have an afternoon nap, only her capacity for napping is much larger than mine. I think she thinks I'm just a strange looking cat.

Speaking of Panda, I had to stop at the vet's office on my way home from school yesterday to pick up some more kitty treats. I was dangerously low on treats and Panda is much easier to give a pill to if she sees the treat bag she gets her reward from.

* * * * * * * * * *

Something else I caught up with today . . . I went through the clothes in my closet to try and weed some out. I must admit I didn't get rid of as many as I'd have liked. And I haven't gone through the clothes in my dresser yet.

*sigh*

Guess I'd better go do that now.

Monday Again

2009-08-24T13:23:00.001-04:00

You know what the problem with Friday is? A couple of days later it’s Monday again.

Looks like Bill ran out of steam before he got to my relatives in New Brunswick. He was only a category 1 when he hit the Nova Scotia coast, and by the time he reached New Brunswick he’d been downgraded to a tropical storm. There was a lot of damage done but it could have been a lot worse.

Panda lost a couple of ounces last week but she’s back up to six and a half pounds. She’s a real force of nature. She may be costing us a pile of money, but she makes sure we get our entertainment’s worth out of her. :-)

The husband of a close friend passed away suddenly but not unexpectedly late last week and the funeral is later today. I really hate funerals. At least this one is being held in a church instead of the funeral parlour.

I spent the morning playing around in the coding for Access - what a pain! I kept getting a runtime error so I’d click on it and check where it said I went wrong, retype it, close it, and the same error would keep cropping up. The girl beside me was getting a runtime error too, but hers was at the top of the codes and mine was at the bottom. I eventually did get mine corrected though, it had nothing to do with the code itself, but a minor little error in what the code was attached to.

Then I got my assignment back from last week? A couple of weeks ago? I only got 35/40 on it which was a little disappointing. This instructor is very nit picky and I’ll need to bear that in mind for future assignments.

I’m looking out my nice clean office window and the weather can’t seem to make up its mind whether to be overcast or sunny. At least it’s a little cooler, but that’s not supposed to last.

Mental note: people with cats should always have a lint brush handy, especially if they need to wear something dark for a funeral.

Now where did I put the scotch tape . . . .

Did I mention how much I hate funerals?

Friday, Finally!

2009-08-21T07:30:00.002-04:00

Parts of this week seem to zip by, but other parts just dragged. I mostly just dragged too. What a life!

Went to the poetry reading that my poetry group sponsors once a month at a local coffee shop - it was very interesting. There was quite a crowd and I learned an important lesson: if you're there by yourself, don't give up your seat for anything, no matter how badly you need to use the restroom. I thought leaving my teapot, cup, and glasses behind would be enough to stake my claim, but apparently I was wrong.

The first poet up was from our group and he did an interesting mix of jazz and poetry. Next was a guest poet from Toronto and it was wrapped up by another group member. I must remember to start bringing more cash to these things because the guest poets usually have a book to sell and I would have liked the one from last night's guest.

As I sipped my chai tea, I couldn't help but notice the gentleman beside me who, in the course of the next two hours, waded through a piece of cake, a pot of tea, two glasses of red wine and two vanilla milkshakes. I think what caught my attention more than the sheer volume was the variety.

And, of course, wouldn't you know that the storm that'd been threatening all day descended on us while we were in the coffee shop. It was pouring rain when we got out and me on the other side of the parking lot. Oh, well. Since I'm not made of sugar I didn't melt, though I wasn't that keen on the spectacular display of lightning out over the lake.

At least we fared better than a lot of people a little north of us. I was reading in the paper this morning about the funnel clouds and twisters that ripped through the area not far from us. A lot of damage was done in a very short time - power lines down, trees felled, roofs ripped off . . . and then to add insult to injury, the sun came out once the wind died down again.

Now it's off to school where I get to spend the morning trying to figure out why the one report I'm doing in Access with it's sub-report works, and the next one doesn't. I got so frustrated yesterday that I skipped to the following one, which also works.

Let the fun and games ensue!

Happy Humpday

2009-08-19T07:59:00.001-04:00

Wednesday already? Wow this week's going by fast!

Well, it happened. I’ve been expecting it since the weekend, but it was still startling when it occurred. The problem with nice, clean windows is that not only do I tend to forget there’s glass in them, so do the birds outside. Although to be honest, I think the bird that smacked into the window deserved it because he was probably trying to buzz the cats, three of which were sitting on the bookcase in front of the window at the time.

You don’t think birds are like that? You’ve obviously never had an outdoor cat. My last outdoor cat never went after birds, but they birds would sure go after him! If he was nearby, I could always tell where by the fuss the birds were making.

You know what I haven’t done in awhile? Posted a quiz. So to brighten your day (and to take up space because this is such a short post, it’s early, and I can’t think of anything else to say) here’s a quiz.

ANIMOLOGY: What Animal Are You? Your Result: Teal Cat You're the Teal Kitty Cat! You're as swift and sly as a ninja and very hard to please. You can be very soft yet very cruel at the same time. Your soul mate is the beige racoon and you're in conflict with the red jaquar.
Tan Giraffe
Blue Fox
Silver and Red Wolf
Ocre and Gray Dolphin
Red Jaguar
Gold Falcon
Yellow Trout
ANIMOLOGY: What Animal Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Melting

2009-08-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

Yes, like the Wicked Witch of the West I’m melting. The weather network claims it’s only 26 C out (that’s around 80 F for you Yanks) but the humidex makes it feel like 36 C (around 98 F). Got home from school and turned the air conditioning on high (both upstairs and downstairs) and turned the fan in my office (where the air conditioning doesn’t reach) up a notch.

You want to know how hot it is? It’s so hot I’ve even been going swimming in the pool to cool off before bed the last couple of nights. There’s nothing like floating around in the pool at night, gazing up at the stars, letting the water lower your body temperature enough to sleep . . . The water’s been around 80F the last week, which sounds warm but doesn’t feel so warm when you first get in. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Wow, I’m looking across my desk at the window and you’d never know there’s glass in it. Yesterday the husband decided to paint the trim on the window frames on the outside of the house, so while he had the windows apart to do the inside sections, I cleaned the glass. I’ve been bugging him to help me take the picture window apart in my office for years. It’s got a double pane of glass and although I can do inside my office and outside the house, I couldn’t do between the two. It was definitely a two person job to get the glass out, but totally worth it!

* * * * * * * * * *

I confess. I was a bad girl today. I broke down and had a cup of coffee on my break at school. What can I say? I was tired and I was working on Macros, Switchboards and Pivot Tables in Access. And I’m further ahead than anyone else in class so there’s no one to ask when I run into problems. I finished the chapter under my own steam and then when I went to start the exercise couldn’t find a report I’d done two chapters ago, so I’ll have to go back and re-do it.

*sigh* Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be quick. :-)

Entertainment

2009-08-14T07:46:00.000-04:00

I have found a new source of entertainment: Cat Bubbling.

The trend in weddings over the last few years has been to supply guests with tiny little bottles of non-toxic soap to blow bubbles with instead of throwing confetti. Having been to several of these weddings, I have about half a dozen of this little bottles sitting on a shelf in my office.

Last night I was cleaning up the crap that had started to accumulate on and around my desk, and as usual I had all the cats spread out, keeping me company. In the midst of my cleaning up I came across an old journal which dated back to when we had a dog as well as all these cats, and I remembered how much fun she used to have chasing bubbles. It was about then I got the idea of seeing what the cats’ reaction would be to bubbles.

So I sat behind my desk, in front of the fan, and started blowing bubbles for the cats. At first it was a sheer WTF look on their faces (it was priceless!). Then Panda and Taz jumped down from their bookcases for a better look.

Panda gets the same look in her eye that she does when she spots something interesting outside; Taz just sits there and meows at them; and the boys aren’t really sure whether they should chase them or run away from them. When the husband came home later that night I demonstrated for him out in the dining room and Panda had a ball trying to bite the bubbles (Taz was still in the office and the boys just kinda back off from the bubble madness).

Yes, I know. Small things amuse small minds. :-)

Whiney Wednesday

2009-08-12T15:45:00.002-04:00

I'm tired.

My head hurts.

It's too hot out.

Did I mention my head hurts?

But on the plus side, I still like working with Access. We have to present a project by the end of the four weeks of instruction, and I think I'm going to do mine on a database to keep track of my writing and where I send it. I'd do one based on my books with cross-references to who I've loaned them out to, but it would be just too freaking big.

Of course this will mean I need to get off my butt and get some writing done so I have something to put in the database. To be honest, other than blog posts and poetry, I haven't done much writing in the last while (I hesitate to use the term weeks, but it wouldn't be too far out there).

I was mentioning on my writing blog that I have a hard time counting the time I spend crafting poetry as actual writing time. I don't know why that is. A poem can take just as much time and effort as a story . . .

Panda is a whole six pounds and eight ounces. The vet is very happy with her. She stays on her pills and her special food, and she'll keep getting her water treatments twice a week, and she should keep doing okay. And she keeps herself happy at home dragging my underware all over the house.

Okay, whining over. Back to your regularly scheduled blog surfing. :-)

Muggy Monday

2009-08-10T13:39:00.001-04:00

Yes, we're into those hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer.

Have I mentioned how much I’m enjoying Access? It’s like the mother ship is calling me home. If I could find a job where all I did was Access all day I’d be a happy camper indeed.

What does not make me a happy camper is that snarky biatch beside me who keeps stealing my thunder. There’s a handful of us, including her, who are way ahead in the textbook. Miss Snark works on her resume or cover letters or whatever while I diligently plough ahead with Access and then after I get a section done she hurries to catch up. I’ve solved any problems or confusion and she gets me to help her through any rough patches. THEN she’ll turn around and “help” some of the others who are close to where we are because she’s “figured it all out”.

Yes, I know it’s petty but it still makes me angry. Grr! And I can’t not help her if she asks because then I’m not a “team player”. And I’d offer to help the others myself but they don’t know me as well as they do Miss Snark and she’s established herself as the “expert”.

This morning I was dragging my butt a bit so I had a choice between breakfast or a shower and I think I chose wisely choosing the shower. :-) However, that meant by mid-morning I was starving so I took a short break and went upstairs to get a green tea and a muffin. I don’t know what kind of green tea that little coffee shop uses, but it was excellent!

Anyway, on my back downstairs the school secretary stopped me and asked if I had a mug. We’re not supposed to use take-out cups in the class room so I shame-facedly told her I didn’t have my mug with me today but I had the instructor’s permission to use the take-out cup, and the secretary hands me a brand new travel mug with the name of the school on it. It’s a really nice mug too!

It’s a nice metallic blue, and it has a screw on top rather than a snap on top. Also, the part you drink from has a flip top that snaps open. And the best part is, it has a hard plastic liner instead of a soft plastic one (like the Timmy’s cups). This makes it a better choice for tea, which is a good thing because I’ve had to give up my black nectar from hell (coffee).

To be honest, I’ve always been a bigger tea fan than coffee anyway, I just loved that caffeine jolt in the morning (even when it didn’t love me back). The beauty of tea, however, is that there’s so many different kinds and blends. I can’t drink flavoured coffees, they give me terrible heartburn. But tea, that’s a different story. Right now I’m enjoying a large mug of Grapefruit Oolong. Thank you, Jamie! :-)

See, I Didn’t Forget!

2009-08-08T17:13:00.002-04:00

Do you know what I hate? It’s finding the perfect bra and then when you go back to get another one they’re not available any more. In the spring I found the perfect bra in Wal-Mart and fortunately I bought two at the time because when I went out to get another one today, there were none. Nana. Zip. At least not in my size. In fact, there was precious little in my size. I am a plus size woman, which means my boobs are plus sized too. Is it too much to ask for a pretty bra with lots of support in a large size at a reasonable price? Why do I feel like I’m being penalized for being blessed by the hooter fairy?

Okay, rant over. :-)

I think they made a mistake at the vet’s office on Friday when they gave Panda her water treatment. Instead of filling her up with water, they must have used rocket fuel or something because she’s been flying around the house like a maniac this weekend.

Now, just for your reading pleasure, I have another of my long-winded stories.

After grocery shopping, I came down the hall to ~~fart around~~ ~~play around~~ do some serious work on the computer when it was pointed out to me that I failed to update my blog yesterday. Truth is, I didn’t update either blog, but that’s beside the point.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I have two blogs attached to the Firecat name. One is my book comments (I wouldn’t really call them a review) blog which I started to update last week. So I thought I’d start with it and get it out of the way.

I’d typed about a paragraph when I decided that it was too quiet in my office. Rather than look for music on-line or slap a CD into the lap top, I decided to use the little stereo I have sitting on my bookcase. Only first I had to hook it up.

You’re going to have to picture this because I’m too lazy to draw it in paint and I don’t have a camera to take a picture. The stereo sits in the middle shelf of the center of three six foot high bookcases against the far wall. One speaker is on the left hand side of the shelf, the stereo is on the right hand side, and the other speaker is on the right hand side of the middle shelf of the bookcase to the right.

First step was pulling the books off the shelf so I could hook the speakers up to the stereo. Then I decided to change the books that were on the shelf - there were actually a few books and a couple of ugly binders, and a gap. Forty-five minutes later I’d changed books around on shelves in three different bookcases before I was happy with my arrangement. It’s still not perfect, but it’ll do for now.

Next was finding a CD to play. I wanted something a little soothing, a little summery, and if I was going to be writing it needed to be instrumental too. I checked the handful of CDs I had in here and the closest one I had that fit the bill was David Lanz, but I just wasn’t in the mood for piano. So I went into the dining room where we have a bookcase that was originally built for paperback books, but the person who built it *coughhusbandcough* forgot to take into account the thickness of the shelves and so it never really worked the way it was intended. But it’s great for CDs.

Anyway, when I first set it up in the dining room I had all the husband's CDs on the top shelf, and mine on the next one down. Only one problem. When the husband puts CDs back, he tends to put them back where ever there’s a space. Grr!

So I started going through them and putting them on the right shelves, and since I really don’t have room to have all my CDs in my office, I reorganized my shelf in the order of most listened to or most important to me. Yeah, that took about 45 minutes as well.

Finally I had a dozen CDs to take back to my office with me and now I’m listening to Holst, The Planets, as I’m typing this.

Now, aren’t you glad I updated? :-)

Happy Hump Day

2009-08-05T14:09:00.002-04:00

It doesn't feel like Wednesday . . . but then that's what usually happens on weeks that have a holiday Monday, they get thrown off kilter.

For those of you who've been asking, Panda is up to 6 pounds 4 ounces now. She's gained a whole 4 ounces in the last couple of weeks. She's even managed to finish off a bag of her special cat chow. She still needs to go to the vet twice a week, but she's got the routine down pat - she jumps on the scale herself to be weighed and then waits patiently for her I.V.

Yesterday we were sprung early from school due to the heat. The air conditioning wasn't working in our classroom. Not the whole school, just our classroom. It was like a sauna in there. Even the ones who usually complain about how cold it is were stripping down. *shudder* It was not a pretty sight.

We started Access yesterday . . . without our textbooks. At the last minute the supplier back-ordered our textbooks, so the school had to scramble to find a new one. According to the teacher, the text books we ended up with (today) are a lot better because the instructions are more hands on. All I can say is, it's hard on my eyes.

I wear bifocals (yes, I'm that old!). Theoretically, I'm supposed to look through the upper part for distance or lighted screens (computer, T.V., etc.) and the bottom part for reading. There's also an anti-glare coating and they're supposed to darken when it gets too bright. Well, I use them for driving and for reading the on-screen guide to changes channels on the T.V., but that's about it. The lighting in the classroom makes it to bright to read the text book without glasses, but it bugs my eyes to try and read the text book with them. I'd sit further back from the desk, but the aisles are narrow enough as it is.

Despite the initial problems, I really like Access. Data-bases are my thing. I can already think of many ways to use this program at home - starting with cataloguing my books.

It's about time, eh?

Don’t Mess With My Holiday!

2009-08-03T19:08:00.001-04:00

When did the Civic Holiday become Simcoe Day?

I was doing some errands this morning and the guy on the car radio said something about this being Simcoe Day. . . say what? When did this happen? Did I not get the memo? Was there some big announcement about it that I missed?

Why is it necessary to re-name holidays, and whose decision is it to do so?

I still remember the first time I went to an assembly at my daughter’s school (she was in kindergarten), and how I wasn’t the only parent whose voice trailed off during the national anthem when we realized they’d changed the lyrics. Shouldn’t we have received some kind of notification about this?

Okay, enough of the ranting. As ~~threatened~~ promised, here’s Dudley Do Right, of the Royal Canadian Mounties:

If It's Wednesday, I Must Be Posting

2009-07-29T18:40:00.003-04:00

See, I did remember my promise when I cut back on posting a while back that I'd update on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And since this is Wednesday, here I am.

But I'm not staying long. I spent most of the day fighting off an IB attack and now I'm off to study for my Human Resources Exam. I learned with Marketing that just because I like something doesn't mean I'll do well in it exam-wise.

So I'm leaving you with the cartoons I posted over on my writing blog today.

Anyone remember Rocky & Bullwinkle? Better fess up or Friday it’s Dudley Do Right!

Leaping Beauty

Jack and the Beanstalk

Migraine Monday

2009-07-27T20:56:00.002-04:00

Yes, it’s been one of those days, which was preceded by one of those weekends. Is it just me or has the up and down weather been creating an abnormal number of migraines this summer?

Anyway, I’m feeling much better now so I thought it was time I got around to posting, if only to shut up the people who’ve been whining to me about it. :-)

Apparently my groove kinda petered out on me. I’ve barely managed to keep up my writing blog and even then I didn’t do a Friday post over there.

It’s not like you’ve missed much.

I got 87 % as my final mark in Economics. What saved my bacon was getting 29/30 on the assignment on the unemployment in Canada. I only got 39/50 on the exam.

I’ve also completed Marketing, but we haven’t got our final marks back for that yet. I really slaved over the assignment for that course and learned all kinds of things about McDonald’s that I really don’t care about. :-)

This week we’re finishing up Human Resources, which I really like. What I don’t like is that instead of getting one big assignment, we’ve been getting a bunch of shorter assignment. Three last week and three this week. We’ve also got a quiz on Wednesday and the exam on Friday because this is a short week for us.

The weather has been a major source of irritation. Mostly hot and humid and overcast. Or warm and rainy. Or windy and stormy.

Haven’t been getting as much writing done as I’d like, barring HR assignments. I’d like to change that but I’m not holding my breath.

Panda is back to her crazy self, much thinner and she’s still on medication and has to go to the vet twice a week, but personality wise she’s her old self.

And now, to prove that I'm not the only one with a crazy cat, I give you my grand-furbaby, Oliver.

Working On It

2009-07-15T07:52:00.000-04:00

Still haven’t quite managed to get back into the groove. It’s more like I’m running along beside it.

This week I’m adjusting to getting up early again - it’s amazing how quickly I slid back into my old habits of staying up late and sleeping in while I was on holidays - plus school is piling on the work. I’ve got a project due at the end of the week, a quiz tomorrow and an exam on Friday.

I’m rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I type this.

Last night I was all settled in the living room with my trusty lap top to watch Torchwood, only the Space Channel was frozen! Apparently it had been frozen (along with the History Channel, the Comedy Channel, and another one I can’t remember the name of) since the day before. Angry! They’d better have it fixed before next week when the new episodes start! Okay, they need to get it fixed before then, but . . . . Grr!

For those of you who are interested, Panda is doing very well. Except for her daily medication, special food, and twice weekly visits to the vet, she’s pretty much back to normal. Last night while I was trying to get to sleep she instigated a game of chase with a couple of the boys. Right now she’s sitting in the window telling the birds outside exactly what she’d do to them if she was on the other side of the screen. :-)

Monday the husband took her to the vet and she scolded him all the way there. They had to tip the cat carrier to get her out, but then she immediately jumped down off the table and onto the scale. She stood there long enough for them to record her weight and then headed for the door. It was like she’s got the routine down pat and just wants to get it over with.

In honour of Panda I’ll leave you with the following, which was sent to me by my son-in-law.

George Carlin on Cats

Getting Back In the Groove

2009-07-09T11:34:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was supposed to be devoted to writing up a storm. Notice the word supposed, if you will.

A funny thing happened on the way to getting some writing done. A crow decided to commit suicide on the transformer at the end of our driving. Flash, boom, one dead crow and a dozen or so houses without power. The hydro guys were here pretty quickly, but as my neighbor was pointing out the crow to them, it started to rain. She went back inside and the hydro guys . . . vanished.

So I was dependent on the somewhat wonky battery of my laptop and every twenty minutes or so I had to go check on the sump pump to make sure I didn’t have to start bailing, otherwise, flooded basement. And to add insult to injury, it was downright cold out! What happened to my vision of resting in the lounge chair (that my husband bought me for our anniversary) under a tree in the back yard, sipping wine spritzers while reading a book?

Gone to the birds. That’s where.

Eventually we did get the power back on, so of course the first thing I did was . . . mosey on over to AW to check out the forums since it’s been awhile since I’ve darkened their doorway. I’ve been trying to broaden my scope over there, not just check out the same old boards I usually do, so I clicked on the movies/television board and lo and behold I found the Torchwood thread. Torchwood, for those of you who live under a rock, is a spin-off from the greatest sci fi series ever, Dr. Who. And I don’t want to hear about it if you don’t know about Dr. Who either. Go Google it!

Anyway, I have been anticipating the start of Season Three of Torchwood, and as far as I know it begins again on July 20 for 5 consecutive nights. Someone on the thread mentioned that the first couple of episodes were up on YouTube, so naturally I surfed on over and started watching. I watched the entire first episode and then had to take a break for supper. When I got back, my internet was down. It wasn’t the modem, it wasn’t the router, it was just one of those things.

Maybe it was my muse trying to tell me to stop wasting time and get writing. :-)

So naturally I played Spider Solitaire until the internet was working again, and then I finished watching Torchwood. Wow, is it good! Poor Captain Jack, what he goes through, and just in the first two episodes! Can't wait 'till tonight when the third episode is up!

I’m Baack!

2009-07-08T11:33:00.002-04:00

In case I hadn’t mentioned it before, the daughter got married on the weekend. So, from the time of my last post to now I was just a wee bit busy with wedding stuff. :- )

Just a sample, here’s a run-down of what last week was like:

Monday started off with a migraine and ended with me buying a new carpet for the dining room. In between we got a call from the florist to inform us that she couldn’t get in any of the flowers we ordered for the wedding.

Tuesday was pretty much spent dusting and cleaning.

Wednesday I figured I’d better get to work on my mother-of-the-bride outfit for the wedding. I’ve been sewing for years and I’m pretty quick about it. Not only did I get the skirt finished (it was a two piece dress), I had enough time for more cleaning and to make a big dinner for my in-laws and the mother of the groom. It was at some time during this that I took a slice out of one of my knuckles. I refused to go to the hospital (no time!) And eventually the bleeding stopped.

Thursday I got started on the top part of my dress, only to discover (when I got it to the point where I could try it on) that it was too small. I got new supplies (the nearest fabric centre is about a 45 minute drive away) but didn’t have time to start working on it until after the bridal shower, which didn’t end until after 11 p.m. However, I worked at warp speed afterwards and got the dress done before I went to bed.

Friday I had a pile of odds and ends to get done, not the least of which was making salads for the barbeque we were having after the wedding rehearsal.

Saturday was the actual wedding. It went off beautifully, no one would ever guess the chaos that lead up to the actual ceremony. Added to all the work we did was a bridesmaid that pulled out with little notice and a best man who got deployed to Afghanistan.

Kudos to the girls of the wedding party who went above and beyond the call of friendship in their helpfulness.

You’d think Sunday would have been a day of rest, but no, we decided to have a pot luck lunch. Out of town guests mingled with in-town guests, many of whom apparently did not understand the concept of “pot luck”. And by this I mean certain family members who shall remain nameless, but who started helping themselves before I could even set everything out.

And now, because you’ve been so patient with my ranting, here’s a picture of the happy couple:

Cutting the cake:

The day after:

For the musical tribute, go HERE

AWOL Monday

2009-06-24T07:50:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know I missed posting on Monday. I was just too exhausted to care. I was up until 1:30 a.m. Sunday night finishing my Economics paper and after I fed Panda it was more like 2 a.m. So Monday morning I was just a wee bit tired.

The weekend was every bit as busy as I feared . . . in fact, it was even busier. Saturday was divided between shopping in Peterborough and supper at the cottage, and Sunday was pretty much a blur of writing my Economics paper. I’m pretty sure I passed my exam, but I can use all the help I can get when it comes to extra marks and the paper was worth 30 per cent of my mark.

You know, I think of all kinds of things to say in my blog when I’m away from my lap top, but right now I’m drawing a blank. I had the same problem with my writing blog yesterday.

I think we’ve reached an impasse with Panda. Last time the vet saw her he stressed the importance of her eating her cat chow and drinking lots of water. She’s not a big cat, she weighs all of six pounds, and he had me force-feeding her a can of food every day, most of which she was starting to throw up. So I . . . stopped. Force-feeding her that is. I left some of her cat chow up and a dish of water on my dresser upstairs (it’s a tall dresser and she likes sitting on it) and she’s been chowing down, especially at night. She’s also been drinking the water.

She goes back to the vet today so we’ll see what he has to say about it. I’m still giving her the pills every day, but she isn’t getting the powder in the canned food. But she’s a lot happier this way and for me, that’s the main thing.

What a Week!

2009-06-19T07:08:00.002-04:00

It's really been one of those weeks. I seem to get a lot of those, don't I? I'm just grateful that this one is almost over.

This morning seems to be pretty typical of the mornings I've had lately - rush, rush, rush! In fact, this post is going to be a little rushed because I've also got to track down Panda (who's hiding on me) to give the ungrateful wretch her food and medicine, and go over my economics notes for my exam this morning.

My weekend's not looking much better either.

Sometime this afternoon I have to take Panda to the vet for her water treatment, we have to grocery shop tonight because we won't have time tomorrow; Saturday I have to go to Peterborough for the lining for my mother-of-the-bride outfit and hopefully get it sewn up, later we're expected out at the family cottage for a family barbeque; Sunday I have to finish the sewing I didn't get done on Saturday, get going on the remaining centerpiece cloths for the daughter's wedding, and I know there's something else, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.

Remind me why I thought going back to school was a good idea? Next week we start Marketing. Let's hope it goes better than Economics. For your sake as well as mine! :-)

To wrap up the week, I have a quiz for you. Why not check to see if your outcome is as accurate as mine.

What be your nerd type?

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Drama Nerd
Anime Nerd
Social Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Politics

2009-06-17T07:32:00.000-04:00

I have a confession to make. When it comes to politics, I’m pretty apathetic. I’m the one who will go to the polls and choose not to vote because I really couldn’t care less. One politician is pretty much the same as another, right?

Well, my economics class is starting to have a bad influence on me. The instructor keeps bringing in these videos for us to watch, of shows she’s taped off the television in which current economic events are discussed. That, combined with what I’m learning in class, is making me more interested in the world around me.

For instance, there’s talk about a summer election here in Canada and if that happens I just might have to take a good look at the candidates and their platforms and make an informed decision. What is the world coming to?

* * * * * * * * * *
Panda is still home, although she has to go to the vet three times a week to get hydrated and I still have to force feed her. However, we have come to an understanding. If I wrap her firmly in a towel, she will stay still for her feedings, although she is still free to growl at me. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *
If you get a chance, nip on over to my writing blog and check out Tuesday’s post. I’m having trouble deciding which project to work on next so I put a poll up. The description of the titles are listed in the Tuesday post.

I can’t believe I’m actually getting some writing (besides economic notes) done. I had my poetry group last night and had two new poems to read, both written pretty much yesterday afternoon. Each month someone picks a poetry prompt from a “bouquet” and it’s our ‘poemwork’ for the next meeting.

We meet once a month in a private meeting upstairs in a local pub where we drink and read each other our poems. Then a couple of days later we meet in a local coffee shop where we have an evening of public readings. It’s a lot of fun and it keeps the creative juices flowing.

Announcement

2009-06-15T07:41:00.002-04:00

Until further notice, I’m only going to update this blog Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. My brain is starting to feel the strain of all the stuff I have going on right now.

* * * * * * * * * *
So, Panda is home. At least she’s home as of this post. The husband has to take her to the vet this morning to get hydrated and re-assessed by the vet.

If you’re squeamish, skip this paragraph ‘cause I’m going to describe how they hydrate her. They slip a needle under her skin and hook her up to an I.V. Panda gets to move around on the examining table while she’s pumped full of water and she’s amazingly well-behaved for it. I know because I got to witness it first hand Saturday morning. She has a bald patch on her throat as well as one of her legs from all the blood tests.

She came home with a whole bag of goodies. First, there was a bag of special cat chow that she won’t eat, then there’s cans of special cat food that she won’t eat. Next there’s capsules that she has to take twice a day and there’s a powder that gets mixed into the canned food. I get the pleasant job of mixing the powder into the canned food and then force-feeding it to her. She’s supposed to get an entire can a day.

But, for all that she’s a lot perkier and I think she’s happy to be home. She’s decided the chair in my office is “her” chair, and she has taken her rightful place as queen of the castle. And it’s probably just my imagination, but she seems to understand that I’m not force-feeding her to be mean, that I’m trying to help. I think she’s hungry, she just doesn’t like the food that she’s allowed to have.

Check the dictionary under finicky, you'll see her picture.

* * * * * * * * * *
Economics is the bane of my existence. It really didn’t help that I started the class a chapter behind everyone else. But after making some notes for review (ten whole pages!) of the first three chapters, I think I’m starting to understand what it’s all about. God help me!

I don't think it's the material, just the pace at which we're expected to learn. A chapter a day, plus a quiz this morning, the exam on Friday, and a project due next Monday.

I'm starting to think that the Intro to Tech segment was to lull us into a false sense of security about how hard this course really is!

Off to Timmies for a coffee before school. Hopefully the bleeding (from wrestling with Panda to take her pill and food this morning) will stop before I have to write my quiz.

Of Cats and . . . Cat Toys

2009-06-12T08:06:00.000-04:00

First of all, I talked with the vet yesterday and Panda’s coming home today on a weekend pass. They’re still having to force-feed her but they’re hoping that she’ll eat on her own at home. She’ll have to go back on Monday to have another blood test, but as long as we can get her to eat she should be able to stay home.

Meanwhile, her boys are driving me crazy. Normally they’re pretty much spread all over the house but the last couple of days they seem to be congregating in my office. I don’t know if they’re just feeling a little needier or if they’re just taking advantage of the fact I have the windows open finally, but all four of them have been hanging out in here.

Yesterday I’m in here, quietly working away, and Taz, the oldest, starts digging under the long bookcase. After a few minutes I break down and fetch my long ruler so I can fish out whatever it was he lost under there. I thought it was the cat nip ball they had in here, but it turned out to be a spring, which is his favorite toy.

A few minutes later, he’s at it again. So back I go with the ruler and this time I fish out another spring, only this one is a different colour. I also found a small purple mouse and a mink mouse.

The mink mouse is made of real mink and is filled with cat nip. They’re hard to find so last time I found them I bought two of them and they promptly ripped apart one (they still play with the remains) and lost the other. It’s been so long that I’d forgotten about it.

This all took place before school. After school I came in here and they were at it again. I managed to dig out a spring and a ball, but they were sure there was something else in there that I was missing.

There was only one solution. I got a pair of tongs and a flashlight from the kitchen and laid flat on the floor so I could see under the bookcase (it’s only about two inches up off the floor). Sure enough, the mink mouse was under there too, so I used the tongs to rescue it.

I gave the boys a lecture about taking better care of their toys and they appeared to be listening.

But this morning I come into my office to check my e-mail and type this post before school and they’re all milling around the bookcase again. So I grab my trusty ruler and start fishing again. I found two springs, a mouse (not the cat nip one) and a ball.

I have got to find something to block access to under that bookcase!

I think it’s interesting that while they’ll all play with pretty much anything, they each have a favorite toy as well, and just like their personalities, they’re all different.

I’ve spoken before about Panda’s attachment to pink and red, she also really loves string. Especially red string. I have a piece of red cord I bought at the dollar store - best dollar I ever spent as far as she’s concerned.

Taz is all about the springs. In fact, his nick name is Lord of the Springs. These aren’t easy to find any more, especially the large ones. They’re basically a coloured, plastic spring with a pom pom glued on each end. Simple, yet ingenious. He can bat it around or carry it around in his mouth whilst yowling for someone to throw it for him.

Romi is all about the cat nip. If there’s cat nip involved in a toy, he’s all over it. Dante, on the other hand, loves balls, cat nip or otherwise. He really loves the pom poms on the end of the springs, especially the larger ones.

Julius is a little weird when it comes to toys. He has a foam fetish. You know those foam forms you get in pedicure kits that go between your toes? That’s how it started. He would steal them and have them chewed up before I could figure out where he’d hidden them. Now he’s graduated to a foam stamp I’d bought with the idea of painting a border on the kitchen cupboards. The stamp was a little large for what I wanted, but Julius thinks it’s perfect for him.

Ah, cats. A constant source of amusement.

Wednesday? Really?

2009-06-10T13:38:00.000-04:00

I feel like I’m running a day late and a dollar short this week. Perhaps by the end of the week I’ll have caught up, but don’t count on it.

Monday was the first day of my change to morning classes at school, and also my first day of Economics. Or it would have been if I’d been here Monday morning.

So Tuesday I was already behind in school and operating on a sleep deficit. It’s hard to retain anything when your brain just wants to sleep. And I’m finding Economics takes a lot of concentration. The loud whooshing sound in the classroom was pretty much everything going right over my head.

We do get class time to work on stuff, but there’s three women who sit behind me who tend to talk amongst themselves (loudly) and I find it really hard to concentrate. What ever happened to my ability to tune everything else out when I was reading? I remember the days when you literally had to hit me with something to get my attention when I was reading. It didn’t seem like it was that long ago . . .

* * * * * * * * * *
For those of you who’ve been asking, Panda is still at the vet’s, but she’s doing better. Her toxicity levels are lower, but they’re still having to force feed her. Until she’s willing to eat on her own, they’re keeping her there. She is getting feistier though, Monday she apparently tried to bite the assistance who was trying to feed her.

* * * * * * * * * *
Okay, now your reward for putting up with this whiney post.

I was totally looking for something else on YouTube, but I found this. If you’re a Dr. Who fan, you’ll like this. You may even like it if you’re not a Dr. Who fan, who knows? Enjoy!

Missed It By That Much

2009-06-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

I had a plan. My plan was to write my Monday posts on Sunday, and then schedule them to appear on Monday morning. Only I got so busy with other things, I forgot. And what other things occupied me? *sigh* Believe it or not, it was housework. Yes, you heard me. Me, the anti-cleaner, got bogged down in cleaning up the house.

We were only going to be gone for 24 hours, but I really hate to leave the house in a mess. Call me crazy, but that’s just the way I am.

The husband, daughter and I made a pilgrimage to London (Ontario) so the daughter could convocate from Western University. The reason we went up Sunday night, is that convocation took place at 10 a.m. and she had to be there no later than 8:30 a.m. It’s about a 4 hour drive from here to there, hence the overnight stay.

The hotel we stayed at was a little on the cheesy side (I will not bore you with the whys and wherefores of how we ended up there, you may thank me later), the mattresses were lumpy and there was a shortage of pillows. The Continental breakfast was really sad, although they had a nice room in which to sit for it.

Western University is about the size of our town. Maybe bigger. It’s really beautiful though. Of course we didn't get to see much of it because it pretty much rained the whole time we were there. We got to sit in a real auditorium (unlike Queens where we got to sit on folding chairs in a hockey arena)and I even managed to get a couple of decent pictures of the kid.

This was a great day, especially for us, as parents. Our daughter has reached a higher level of education than anyone in either side of the family has ever achieved. Hopefully she'll provide an inspiration to future generations. Next up, a PhD. Right after she finishes paying off her massive OSAP debt. :-)

But I'm still left with one question. Now that she has her MILS, does this mean we have to call her Master?

Checks and Balances

2009-06-05T09:16:00.003-04:00

I don't know about anyone else, but for me this has been a long week.

The family has suffered an incredible run of bad luck this week, and I'm not just talking about Panda getting sick (she's doing better, by the way, we're keeping our fingers crossed that she can come home today). If it's true that "that which does not kill you makes you stronger" then we should come out of this with the powers of superman!

Life is a series of checks and balances, good versus bad. Perhaps sometimes it's not easy to see the good in life, but trust me, it's there. Maybe it's just the little things, and stacked up against the bad they seem insignificant, but I think that's because it's easier to dwell on the bad instead of looking for the good.

When I lost my job, all I could focus on was the loss of income. But I doubt I could have stayed in that job much longer because of the stress. By being laid off it opened up opportunities that wouldn't have been available if I'd quit.

When my unemployment ran out and my income dropped by $200 a month, it co-incided with buying out the lease on my car, which dropped my car payments by $150 a month.

Most of the time it's not that easy to see the good in the bad that life throws at us, but if there's one thing I learned in therapy, it's that you can't dwell on the bad stuff. It only leads to a downward spiral that gets harder to recover from each time it happens.

The good in life happens randomly, when you least expect it, which makes it all the better for having happened. The bad, however, seems to wait until an opportune moment and then slams you hard. The more you dwell on it, the more it happens. It seems to be drawn by your expectation.

So take my advice, my friends. When the bad stuff happens, accept it, then let it go. How can the bad be balanced by the good if you're so filled up with the negative that there's no room for the positive?

Checks and balances, my friends. Checks and balances.

New Update

2009-06-03T20:17:00.002-04:00

We spoke to the vet today and he's pleased, but surprised, at Panda's progress. If she keeps improving she should be able to come home tomorrow. I don't know that she's out of the woods yet, but at least there's hope.

The vet said yesterdy that what's happening to Panda is very much like what happened to all those cats and dogs who ate the tainted food a while back. Only that couldn't be what it was in this case because the cats all eat the same food and the others are fine.

The only thing that worries me now is, if we don't know what caused it in the first place, how can we prevent it from happening again?

Update

2009-06-03T09:01:00.002-04:00

Things aren't looking good for poor Panda.

When the vet initially saw her, he said her temperature was fine and her heart rate was good. She seemed a little dehydrated but otherwise okay.

Just after I posted yesterday the vet's office called and asked that we bring her back in. Turns out that her kidneys have shut down. They've kept her overnight to try and get her to re-hydrate to get the kidneys working again. If they're unsuccessful then they'll have to put her down.

I'll update when I know more. Right now all I can think about is our poor girl, who's already not feeling well, in a strange place with strange people doing terrible things to her. Yes, they're only trying to help, but from her perspective it must seem like they're only tormenting her.

Point of Power

2009-06-02T09:32:00.002-04:00

Yesterday in school we started off with a quiz (that I forgot to study for but I think I did okay on) and then moved on to Power Point. We’re going to have two whole weeks of Power Point later on in the course, but she wanted to familiarize us with it now.

Power Point is fun! I did a four slide show and then a six slide show. It’s just as well that I don’t have it at home, otherwise I’d have spent the whole night creating slide shows.

After school I had to rush home and take Panda to the vet. She’s been losing weight for a few months now, but we didn’t think anything of it because we’ve switched the cats to a diet control cat food. Only now she’s really losing weight, and she’s been pretty lethargic. We’re having trouble getting her to eat too, she won’t even touch her treats.

$180 later the vet couldn’t find anything wrong, but he took some blood to do some testing. I just got a call a little while ago that they want to see her back today. This does not bode well.

Not much else to say, other than if we don’t get some sunshine soon there’s going to be serious consequences. I don’t know how much more of this grey weather I can handle. And what’s with the cold front? This is June, for crying out loud. I want to open my windows without freezing to death!

I don’t know where my instructor lives, but she was saying they had frost Sunday night. Frost! For the first day in June!

As a related side note, I watched The Day After Tomorrow on the weekend (even though I have a copy on DVD) and I caught something interesting I hadn’t caught before. They were talking about global warming . . . I, like most people, assumed that global warming is causing the earth to warm up. However, that’s not the way it works. Global warming is causing the polar caps to melt, true, but this in turn is causing our over all temperature to go down, not up.

And on that happy note, I’m going to go make myself something hot to drink to try and warm up a bit.

Another Weekend, Come and Gone

2009-06-01T09:57:00.001-04:00

Hmm.

As I was typing the title for this post my finger slipped and I had ‘coma’ instead of ‘come’. I wonder what Freud would have to say about that? I kinda feel like I’m in a coma today, another grey, miserable day.

Oh joy.

This weekend I probably spent more time looking for things than doing things.

As I have mentioned before, the daughter is getting married. In a month. Ack! Where did the time go?

Saturday I sat down with my list of things to be done before the wedding and started to prioritize.

First up, the veil. I had the pattern, I had the material, I just needed to wait for the cats to take their naps so they weren’t tempted to “help” me cut it out. Okay, that was easy enough, you had to piece the pattern together, but it ends up pretty much in one big piece. That was the easy part. Then I had to pin the satin ribbon around the edge.

I sat in the living room and watched American Graffiti while I pinned. Fifteen feet of ribbon and I was short about one foot. So I had to re-pin the whole damn thing to redistribute the ribbon evenly. Argh! Sewing the ribbon in place was another adventure, as was ironing the ribbon. The iron had to be hot enough to work on the ribbon, but not so hot that it melted the tulle. But it's done and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Next up were the centerpiece cloths. These are black squares of cloth that will be going on the middle of the white table cloths for the reception. One corner will have a red poppy embroidered, the opposite corner will have a white silhouette of a cowboy and bride (the other two corners will have tea lights sitting on them and there’ll be flowers in a vase in the center).

Earlier in the week (last week maybe?) I transferred the pictures to the cloth. Now it was time to start embroidering them. But first I needed to find my embroidery needles. This meant going into the dreaded craft closet.

A few months ago (a couple of years ago?) in a fit of organizational madness, I cleaned out my craft closet to organize things so I could find stuff easier. That was the theory, anyway.

I found the bag my embroidery stuff used to be in.
I found a robe I’d bought one of my sisters two years ago (I knew I’d bought it, I just couldn’t find it).
I thought I found my stitchery stuff in a box on one of the shelves, but it turned out to have quilting stuff and embroidery transfers.
At last I found it in one of two small, clear plastic bins I bought when I organized the closet so I could see my beading stuff and my embroidery stuff easier. These bins are at eye level.

Sigh.

My embroidery stuff has been re-organized and is now back in its straw bag, where it belongs. The plastic bin is now holding the overflow of beading stuff that was scattered hither and yon.

So how was your weekend?

Colour Me

2009-05-28T13:14:00.002-04:00

Colour me bad.

I ignored the number one rule of grocery shopping. Never shop when you’re hungry.

Of course it wasn’t entirely my fault. There was a guest speaker today so the class was moved to the morning so we could hear them too, so I was done school at lunch time, hence both the being hungry and the tardiness of this post.

I had to stop at the grocery store for bread on the way home from school and because I was hungry I also ended up with a bag of Doritos, a couple of boxes of cookies, and a braided apple pastry thing that tastes real yummy. And I should know, I’ve already eaten it. ;-)

Hmmm, cookies. Simple Pleasures Chocolate Thins. Thin, crispy cookie, big chocolately taste. I think I’m going to keep these in the office. Talk about an incentive to work at my desk!

Today I need the infusion of chocolate because after the speaker was done I had to get my picture taken for my student card. I was not expecting this so I was dressed in a white t-shirt (good quality, but still white) and because I don’t like hair dryers I had pulled my wet hair into a clip before going to school.

I took my half dry hair out of the clip and put on the beige jacket I had with me. Not much of an improvement, but I figured it was probably better than nothing. I was wrong. My hair looked greasy, not wet, and the beige (which I don’t normally wear) leeched what little colour I had out of my face.

I’m so glad no one ever has to see this picture.

This means you, Ciara!

School Daze

2009-05-27T09:58:00.000-04:00

I think my instructor is getting annoyed with me. She hands out assignments and I have mine finished before she’s finished droning on about how to do them. It’s not my fault I’m computer literate, why am I being punished for it?

And can someone tell me what is the point of timed typing tests when we aren’t even allowed to use the whole alphabet yet? I’m not bragging here, but while the girls in front of me were all excited to reach 35 words per minute with four or five mistakes, I’ve been typing 70 words a minute with no mistakes.

*sigh*

I was whining about the keyboarding exercises to the husband last night and he got quite the chuckle out of it, remembering his high school typing class (which obviously didn’t do him much good because he’s a two finger typist at work). But then he rhymed off some letters of the alphabet like I should know them.

Turns out he was trying to remember the letters for the home row. He asked me if he was right and I shrugged. How should I know? I didn’t learn to type in high school, I learned at business college where we did touch-typing.

We sat behind typewriters (yes, I’m so old that I learned to type on a typewriter!) that had no letters on the keys. The room was dark and we looked up at a projection on the wall for our lessons. So, no, I don’t know what the letters of the home row are. But put my fingers on the home row and I can type the alphabet without looking. In fact, I type faster when I keep focused on the copy instead of what I’m doing.

Meanwhile, back in school. I finished keyboarding lesson six yesterday while everyone else seems to be struggling with lesson three still.

The good news is, I have internet access at school.

The bad news is, I’m too intimidated to make use of it.

I’m sure this will change. :-)

I Iz Smrt!

2009-05-26T08:09:00.002-04:00

So . . . What did I do in school yesterday? I started computer fundamentals.

*stop laughing Chippy and Ciara*

I learned how to open windows and create a folder on the computer. Then I started to learn keyboarding - you know, how to type.

fff jjj fff jjj
and sometimes, just for variety:
fjf fjf jfj jfj

The goal for the speed test is 10 words per minute.

*you can stop laughing too, Crazynance!*

Here’s the Learning Outcomes from the syllabus:

Upon successful completion of this course the student will be able to:
1. Start the computer and Windows.
2. Start and close the different Office programs.
3. Work with a window and used the Help tool.
4. Log off and shut down the computer.
5. Create, save and print a file.
6. Create shortcuts and folders on the desktop and work in their own folder.
7. Set folder options and organize desktop.
8. Copy, move and manage files and folders in different locations on the computer.
9. Work in Windows Explore.
10. Compress files, work with pictures and share files and folders.
11. Manage the recycle bin and recover files from the bin.
12. Change the desktop, manage the taskbar and customize the Start Menu
13. Search for lost files and folders.

And in case you missed it, check out number 9. That’s exactly the way it's written on the sheet.

I kid you not.

Today as well as more keyboarding fun I also get to learn how to log off the computer and basic controls.

Oh joy.

Letter

2009-05-25T08:50:00.002-04:00

Dear Cats,

I can understand the need to clean out your litter boxes and though it’s not my favorite job in the world I still do it because I love you. However, there’s a couple of issues we need to address.

Julius, don’t think I don’t know that it was you who emptied a mound of kitty litter onto the floor. I had just changed the kitty litter in the box so obviously it wasn’t a protest of some kind, you didn’t make use of the hole you dug in the box and you didn’t even use the kitty litter mountain on the floor. You just wanted to make a mess!

And Dante, I love you dearly but did you really have to use the hole Julius made to create a mind-numbing stench and then not even bother to cover it up?

The litter pan in the spare bedroom is larger, deeper, and just as clean (if not cleaner). Why do you guys have to fill up the litter pan outside my office door first? Look at all the time I spent cleaning up my office, I’d like to be able to use it without having my nose hairs singed.

I’m not asking for much, just a little consideration is all.

Your loving human.

* * * * * * * * * *

Dear Human,

We don’t care.

Give us more treats.

You don’t like our smell? We suggest using a clothespin on your nose.

And while you’re out buying clothespins, pick up some more treats.

Regards,

The Cats

Finally Friday!

2009-05-22T08:51:00.001-04:00

I’m trying to get myself into the habit of shutting down the lap top by 11 p.m. so I have some time to read before bed. The shutting down of the lap top isn’t a problem, but stopping reading at a decent hour is. *sigh*

Yes, this means I'm still sleeping in later than I should.

Wednesday I had lunch with a friend, which is always nice. We don’t get together as often as we’d like, but when we do we make it count. :-)

Last night I went to the public poetry reading the group has every month. This month they invited local high school students to read. Some of these kids are quite talented, it was a very enjoyable evening.

I’ve been so busy this week (and today will be no exception) that I feel like the cartoon character that’s running so fast they run right off a cliff and their legs keep moving. So, for your amusement I have this cartoon the daughter passed on to me:

Have a good weekend everyone!

Mostly School

2009-05-20T11:01:00.001-04:00

My first day of school (yesterday) wasn’t nearly as interesting as getting there. I had to deal with a mix-up over my unemployment because my school was delayed by two weeks, which put me way behind in other things I needed to get done before leaving. Fortunately, school didn’t start until 1:30, otherwise I would have been twenty minutes late for my first orientation class.

You should see the size of my first textbook. And this one’s only for the first week! Now I’m really glad I have the new bookcase. Apparently we’ll be getting a text book this size every couple of weeks.

Orientation was a little ho hum, it’s mostly learning how to train ourselves to learn more effectively.

When I got home I had a message on my answering machine from a friend of the husband’s who invited me to a meeting of the local poetry group. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I went. It wasn’t too scarey, although I chickened out of reading something of my own. Tomorrow night there’s an open poetry reading and I’ll probably go to that as well.

I got home from the poetry group meeting just in time for the season finale of Dancing With the Stars. What a disappointment! After the first couple of episodes I figured it would come down to Gille and L’il Kim, but she was eliminated the first week of the finals. And in the end Gille got beat out by the teen-aged gymnast. Just goes to show you that this is based more on popularity than talent.

Today, stomach cramps woke me up about two hours early and caused all kinds of bad things, but I think they’re pretty much under control now. My morning is more relaxing and I’m looking forward to school this afternoon. And I don’t have anything planned for this evening, which is nice for a change.

Argh!

2009-05-19T09:52:00.000-04:00

I did switch the two bookcases after all. It looks much nicer and the difference in colour is pretty insignificant, but what a pain in the butt! I had to empty both bookcases before I could move them so I had books stacked up everywhere. The shorter bookcase is my “to be read” bookcase and three of the rows were doubled up with books.

If you want to see a layout of the room, check over in my writing blog.

I need two more shelves for the new bookcase, but there’s no rush because of my awesome organizing skills. Every time I thought I was done with books I’d find more that I’d forgotten about. I filled a box with books I decided I could part with, but these were mostly used books I’d gotten at sales.

I have a double row of paperbacks I bought new, a double row of paperbacks I bought at book sales, and two rows of over sized paper backs and hardback books. These are just my “to be read” books. I can’t even begin to tell you how many books are on my keeper shelves. Not counting the daughter’s room, there are fourteen bookcases in the house.

I would really like to get my books all catalogued. If we ever had a fire . . . *shudder* It doesn’t bear thinking about. And it’s not that I want them catalogued to keep track of how much money it would take to replace them, it’s because there’s no way I could ever remember all the titles.

There’s a lot of them that couldn’t be replaced - some are really old, some are autographed . . . One of the book cases upstairs is a massive wooden structure that holds most of my books from when I was a member of the Science Fiction book club.

Yeah, I definitely have a book addiction.

After organizing the bookcases in my office I decided to clean off my desk too, which meant putting away all the crap piled up everywhere. That pretty much took me the rest of the evening.

But the good news is, it’s all done now.

The Queen's Birthday

2009-05-18T09:55:00.003-04:00

Happy Victoria Day!

How was your weekend?

I feel like I spent more time in Wal Mart this weekend than anything else. Friday night we went to see about getting a new patio set. The girl we finally tracked down to help us claimed there were three sets left in the store. After an hour she was still unable to find even one of them. Finally she took our phone number and said they’d call when they found them.

Saturday morning Wal Mart phoned that they’d found two of the sets, so we trekked on over. An hour and a half (and five sales people) later they managed to find one of the sets and we ended up having to make two trips to get it all home.

Then Sunday I took the daughter and her fiancé to Oshawa to have their pictures taken (it was part of their wedding package). We had to be there early, especially for a Sunday morning. So early, in fact, that after dropping them off I drove around for awhile looking for something that was open. I ended up at Wal Mart where I cooled my heels for an hour or so.

I felt like I had a pretty productive day on Saturday, despite having to hang around Wal Mart. I bought my new bookcase Friday night, and Saturday morning, with the help of the cats, put it together. It needs a couple more shelves, and I’m still not sure I like where it is, so I’m sitting here “thinking” about it as I type.

I have two tall bookcases and a shorter one lining the west wall of my office. Underneath the wide, north facing window is a long bookcase (it pretty much goes from one side of the room to the other). Then on the east wall I have my new bookcase, which is the same size as the two tall ones opposite it.

Although size-wise it would look better to have the three tall ones together, there’s just a shade difference in colour. Apparently, they don’t sell the darker woodgrain any more. It’s not a big difference in colour, but it is a noticeable difference.

*sigh* Decisions, decisions.

I must say the long bookcase under the window is looking good though. I took everything off it, de-haired the books and cleaned off the shelves, then alphabetized the books as I put them back. I just wonder how long it’s going to stay looking that good.

Today I'd like to finish getting my office cleaned up and maybe even get some writing done. But first, I need to take something for the headache I woke up with.

I refuse to let the pain in my head ruin my day!

Friday, Again?

2009-05-15T09:34:00.002-04:00

Boy this week went fast. And I have precious little to show for my time.

I've been getting up earlier, but the last couple of days I've made up for it by having a nap in the afternoon. Wednesday I napped trying to get rid of a migraine, and Thursday I napped because the sinus medication I was taking made me so sleepy I couldn't focus on the computer screen.

Writing-wise I spent a lot of time struggling with a poem I want to submit to a horror anthology. It's a themed anthology and I thought it would be fun. I was wrong. It felt like for every three words I wrote down I deleted five. I've never had to struggle with a poem the way I did this one. Not even the sestina from the PAD challenge gave me this kind of grief.

I also focused on my short stories and picked one to edit over the course of the week. You can see the finished product over on my writing blog .

By hook or by crook I'm getting a new bookcase this weekend. It really drives me crazy seeing all those books stacked up and bagged up and boxed up. I want them out where I can see them.

Wow. Talk about distracting. I just saw a cement truck go by. What on earth would a cement truck be doing in this neighborhood? This is an older, quiet neighborhood with well established homes - there's no room for new construction. Maybe he got lost. Maybe it's a sign that the next story I should work on is my horror story about a basement (the scarey part had to do with the cement).

Maybe I'll start working on it right now.

Have a good weekend. :-)

One of Those Days

2009-05-14T08:45:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was another one of those days. I woke up with a bit of a headache and things went downhill from there.

I don’t feel that I accomplished much, other than updating my blogs, which I did first thing in the morning. After that I read other people’s updates and then decided that since I couldn’t concentrate anyway, I might as well run some errands.

First stop was the dollar store, where I hoped to find one of those little date books so I could keep track of things I’ve committed to (like driving the daughter somewhere, meeting a friend, etc.). I didn’t find a date book, but I did find five dollars worth of other . . . stuff.

Next I went to Wal Mart to buy a new bookcase, only Wal Mart didn’t have the one I wanted. They had the right size, but in the wrong colour. So then I went to Zellers who had my book case in the right colour, but wanted thirty-four dollars more for it. *sigh* Zero for two.

By this time my headache was starting to develop into a migraine, so I went home and had some lunch and then, because I couldn’t concentrate on my writing, I tried having a nap. It didn’t help. I did some work on my blogs, removing a couple of widgets that were too distracting and updating my Blog list. I was out of sinus medication, which sometimes helps, so I went out again to get some.

The sinus medicine started kicking in after supper, and reduced the headache to something I could live with. Unfortunately, it was just in time to watch the season finale of America’s Next Top Model and the two hour season finale of LOST.

LOST was excellent, as always. We got to meet the mysterious Jacob and we learned just how long he’s been on the island (although not why). There were connections made with several of the other characters, but none of the loose ends were tied up. The ending was sufficient to keep me guessing until the next season.

Needless to say, I didn’t get a whole lot of writing done last night.

Movies and Nature

2009-05-13T09:48:00.002-04:00

First of all I have to say I love the Cineplex. Multiple movies with different start times - what a great idea! I'd already arranged to so see an early showing Wolverine with a friend, and then as my Mother's Day present, the daughter took me to see the new Star Trek movie. Excellent movies, both of them.

Wolverine answered many questions about Logan, including where he came from and how he got his name. I know rabid X-men comic fans had a few problems with the story-line but they need to get over it. It's still a great movie.

Of course I can sympathize a little more with the X-men comic fans after seeing Star Trek. I'm a big time Trekkie, and although I loved the movie there were a couple of inconsistancies that bugged me. The casting of Kirk and Spock was perfect. And they took us right to the action, instead of dwelling on Kirk's years in the Starfleet Academy.

I'd definitely see both of them again!

* * * * * * * * * *

I was sitting in my office yesterday, merrily typing away (okay, so I was chatting with my bff online) and all of a sudden BANG! Right into the window.

It startled Taz who was sleeping on the bookcase below the window, but it totally freaked out two of the other cats who were across the hall in the spare bedroom. They went tearing down the hall like furry little bats out of hell and then immediately started washing themselves to pretend they hadn’t been scared witless.

And what was it that scared them so badly?

This little guy:

He’s a Gray Catbird. How appropriate is that?

Spring Has Sprung

2009-05-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I played catch-up with all things computery. I made sure I had all the essentials on my lap top, set up my MSN again, and checked my e-mails where I discovered a notification that I’d won second place in a poetry contest I entered a few weeks ago.

Okay, and now I’m distracted by these two little nuthatches outside my window that are busy checking out the birch tree on our front lawn. They’re so little, and cute. Of course Panda thinks they just look yummy. She’s crouched on top of the book case making clicking noises, her tail whipping back and forth . . . One of these days I’m going to come home and find a Panda shaped hole in the glass.

I have green things coming up in my garden. Yes, I know that’s what’s supposed to happen this time of year, but these green things are coming up in the wrong place! Along the front of the house we have a two tiered garden that used to have tiger lilies and lily-of-the-valley in the top, and bedding plants in the bottom. Anyone who’s ever grown either plant knows how insidious they can be, so a couple of years ago the husband transplanted the tiger lilies to the back fence, and most of the lily-of-the-valley. We kept a narrow band of l-o-t-v along the back of the bottom tier.

The following year we were still able to put the bedding plants in the bottom tier, and in the upper one we laid down that black gardening cloth, put in five, evenly spaced shrubs, and covered the cloth with bark chips. That whole summer it looked really nice.

It looked nice last year, even though the narrow line of lily-of-the-valley thickened. This year? There’s a mystery green plant coming up in the bottom tier - it’s too well organized to be a weed, so I’m waiting until it gets bigger before I pass judgement on it - and the lilies are popping up wherever they damn well please.

They’re all over the lower tier. They’re poking up through the gardening cloth and bark chips. They’re even coming up in the lawn. I don’t want to get rid of them entirely, but I also don’t want to have a garden full of lily-of-the-valley. I’m pretty sure they’ve choked out my Stars of Bethlehem - haven’t seen a sign of them so far.

*grumble* Stupidly agressive plants!

Good Gnus Monday

2009-05-11T10:13:00.001-04:00

I have my lap top back! What, did you think I’d actually sold something I’d written? That wouldn’t just be good news, that’d be awesome news!

I’m just happy I have my baby back, and it’s working again. And I think I discovered the source of the virus and you know what? I totally deserved a virus.

Last Monday, on my writing blog, I made some silly reference to setting goals and since I fell short of those goals I decided to move back into my office on Tuesday. Only one problem, my office was bursting with books, papers, cat hair, etc.

So on Tuesday I went into my office, took one look at all the junk piled up, and went: “Ewww!”

Tempting as it was to just shut the door and forget about it, I showed great restraint and didn’t. But neither did I want to spend all day cleaning it up. So I compromised. I found temporary homes for the books I brought home from the book sale, moved some papers off the desk, and set up the new router so I could get that box out of the way.

Which, when you think about it, wasn’t really a priority job because if I’m working in my office then I can always plug directly into the router or the modem if the connection is crappy. However, it’s done and it wasn’t hard at all. In fact, it was embarrassingly simple. Are you proud of me, Chippy? I even remembered to write down my password and security code and network name. I have the piece of paper right . . . uh . . . well . . . . somewhere. :-)

Then I did my normal routine of e-mail and blog reading, and then . . . nothing. I sat and stared out the window, my mind blank. So then I thought maybe some music would help, only my CD player is still in the spare bedroom and I was too lazy to unhook it and hook it back up.

So then I decided to just listen to the radio on my computer. Wow, there’s a lot of radio stations out there. The husband is pretty narrow minded when it comes to music. For him it’s classic rock all the way, with maybe a little metal or blues thrown in just to keep it interesting.

Despite her father’s influence, the daughter listens to a much broader range of music, everything from Japanese anime soundtracks to Frank Sinatra, although she’s not a fan of classical, country, or celtic. Myself, I’ll give just about any music a try. You should see my CD collection - soundtracks, Celtic, Gregorian Chants, Whale Songs, Classical, Pop and Rock . . . the list goes on.

These radio stations were so cool! All kinds of music from all over the world! I was like a kid in a candy shop. Bet you can’t bookmark just one! I finally settled on listening to a Native Music station and then surfed on over to AW for inspiration.

Not much going on over there, so I checked my e-mail again and found a junk mail message had made it past the filter and into my inbox in hotmail. It looked like some kind of newsletter. Instead of just clicking on “delete and block” like I’d normally do, I clicked on the handy little link that said “to unsubscribe from this newsletter, click here”. And then my lap top started freezing up.

*sigh* Like I said, it’s my own fault.

Frustrating Friday

2009-05-08T10:36:00.002-04:00

First of all, I would like to say that I deserve a medal of some kind. The daughter and I were in Peterborough yesterday and we stopped at Chapters (of course) and I DIDN'T BUY ANYTHING! Are you shocked? Yeah, me too!

In fact, the entire trip to Peterborough, including a visit to Fabricland, I didn't buy anything. The daughter even bought me a Chai Tea Frappa-something from Starbucks that tasted like a little piece of heaven.

* * * * * * * * * *

Late Tuesday my lap top had a melt-down. Or to be more accurate, it contracted a whole slue of nasty viruses and I had the melt down.

I never realized how attached I'd become to my lap top. It didn't really hit me until Wednesday night when the husband came home and said: "Oh, look, she's reading."

I thought he was being sarcastic, but he was serious. After thinking about it I saw that he was right, usually I'm on the lap top at night. Looking back, I realize I got into this habit during NaNoWriMo - I'd end up writing in front of the television at night to make my daily word count, usually some where in the wee small hours.

After NaNo I kept the habit of having my lap top in front of me while I was watching T.V., but I'd be surfing or playing games, not writing. In fact, my production has seriously slackened off since NaNo.

As my cognative therapist would have said, "Look for the good in bad situations." The bad situation, of course, being that my lap top has caught the swine flu and will probably be returned to me emptied of all it once held.

ON the bad side:
** lost several awesome blog posts that I had written and saved in WordPerfect
** lost a couple of days' worth of writing
** lost my precious book marks
** have to use the funky desktop with its head-ache inducing monitor, sticky keyboard, and craptacular mouse

ON the good side:
** backed up the majority of my important files only a couple of days prior to the melt-down.
** I have gone through game withdrawl and come out on the other side a stronger person.
** I'm forced to use my home office and I find I like it
** I've rediscovered the pen and paper and find I like that too.
** I'm rediscovering my short stories - most of which were never on the computer in the first place.
** I finally cleared off the mess of paperwork I've had laying around my office

Though it would be nice to get my lap top back today, I can probably wait until Monday if I have to. I'll be away this weekend anyway and it's not like I'd be taking it with me.

We'll see how I am if I have to wait past Monday for my precious to be returned. I may have to go Gollum on the computer doctor. :-)

Books? I Haz ‘Em!

2009-05-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

Did I mention that the Saint Peter’s Book Sale is a two day event? Yes, I went both days.

Day one I went with the daughter. Between us we spent $45 and had to have help carrying out books to the car. I think the best buy was the set of military history books - twenty volumes for $15.00.

We’re old pros at the sale. We get there early and know exactly where we’re going. First is the individually priced books - there’s always a few treasure to be had there. Next we work our way around the outer edge of the room where the hardbacks are divided into sections. Then last, we go up and down the rows looking at the novels. We were loaded up and headed out again in about half an hour.

Day two I went by myself. The nice thing about day two is that the books are spread out a little more so it’s easier to see what’s what. I spent under twenty dollars and still managed to fill two shopping bags. One of the books I bought for my sister: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Computers. This will be perfect for her, and save her a bundle in long distance charges (she’s always phoning me up in the middle of the day with computer questions. Usually it’s telling her something needs to be updated).

I still have a shopping bag of books in my front hall. Why, you ask? Because I’m sorta, kinda, out of room in my office. Seriously. I need another bookcase - ASAP! My “to be read” bookcase is already over flowing and there’s no room left in the case under the window. I think I need a 12 step program to beat my book buying addiction.

Saturday afternoon the daughter and her fiancé went to Home Despot . . . oops! I meant Home Depot to help choose plants for the garden around the pond. The fiancé has much gardening knowledge and I wanted his opinion on some of the plants I wanted.

The husband has been complaining the last couple of years about the way the hostas have kind of taken over the garden, so I moved most of them out and planted a bunch of different, rock garden type plants. Don’t ask me what they’re all called. I saved the little information sticks that came in the pots. The only one I recognized was the hen and chickens.

Other than that, it was a pretty quiet weekend. The husband had a bowling tournament in Oakville on Sunday, and I had an attack of lazy-itis. This is where I have lots of stuff I could be doing, I just don’t feel like doing it.

The daughter requested meatloaf for Sunday dinner, which I never really think of as special enough for Sunday, but it’s not something she’ll ever be making herself. She has a phobia about touching raw meat. I swear, I did not traumatize her with raw meat when she was little! :-)

I also threw off my sleeping schedule again. I’ve been getting to bed a little earlier and then getting up earlier, but I stayed in bed too long Sunday morning and ended up falling back asleep. I think this is what caused my lazy-itis - too much sleep.

Oh, well. I’ve got two more weeks to keep practicing the getting up early thing. Trust me, it’s not as easy as it sounds!

Good News and Bad News

2009-05-01T08:20:00.000-04:00

First, the good news:

I have officially finished the PAD Challenge. Yea me! Some days it was more of a struggle than others, but I prevailed, through thick and thin, haiku and sestina. I revitalized myself as a poet and stretched myself as a writer. All in all, a very good month. Pop on over to my writing blog for the final sampling of PAD poems and enter my contest to win a free book.

Now, the bad news:

My school called me yesterday with the news that my start date has been pushed back to May 18th. It’s disappointing, but there’s not much I can do about it. And I guess if I look on the bright side, it gives me another two weeks to adjust to getting up early in the morning.

Getting up earlier would be easier if the Space Channel wasn’t running the Star Trek movies Sunday through Thursday nights in honour of the new Star Trek movie being released. Yes, I do have all of them (except for Generations) on DVD, but I still can’t resist watching them with the commercials. Yes, I’m a mega Trekkie.

As you can see by the lack of posting, it’s been a pretty quiet week. The weather has alternated grey and dismal with sort of sunny, so my mood has more or less reflected this. I honestly don’t know where the time went this week, I’ve been making a valiant effort to stay away from those soul-sucking games and I don’t watch television during the day.

I’ve been doing a lot of online reading. I’ve been trying to read the poems other people posted for the challenge but it’s a losing battle, there’s so many of them! Also, Samhain Publishing has offered another handful of free stories. Click on the name to check them out.

I’m off now to the Saint Peter’s Book Sale. The one event I look forward to every spring. Books, glorious books. Would it be too much to ask for them to have shopping carts this year?

Stupidity At Its Best

2009-04-30T08:02:00.000-04:00

Anybody else out there watch America’s Next Top Model?

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insert sound of crickets chirping

Well if you're not, you missed the funniest episode ever. They had a swimsuit shoot and they dressed the models in skimpy little swimsuits and then they blurred out their butts! Seriously!

I mean really, what was the point? Was it a test to see if these models would actually wear these postage stamp suits? And the sad part is, I've been watching this since the beginning of the season and I really don't care who wins. Normally by this time I not only have a favorite, I have a back-up favorite too. This time? Nada.

Dancing With The Stars, however, is a different story. I've actually liked most of the couples and hated to see any of them eliminated. I think it'll all boil down to Lil Kim and Gilles Marini though.

And last night's LOST? Totally awesome! This show is a Gordian knot of twists and turns, and yet every single thing has a purpose. I was wondering how the group was going to get back to the present, then I thought I knew, now I'm wondering again.

Yes, I agree. I watch way too much TV.

Just don't get me started on some of the stupid commercials that are shown ad nauseum.

Short Post Wednesday

2009-04-29T09:15:00.001-04:00

When I was working and was idyling around, I’d hum The Girl From Ipanema. Why yes, it did drive my coworkers crazy. How did you guess?

Anyway, do to lack of anything interesting to post about, I give you a musical interlude.

RANT ALERT!

2009-04-27T08:34:00.000-04:00

Bite Me Shockwave!

I was wandering around the internet, checking out some new games with which to entertain myself, and I came across a game called Mosaic, which can be found on the Shockwave site. If you’d like to give it a shot yourself, go HERE , just don’t get attached to it.

It tells you that you can download it for free, and since the extended version has a lot more levels and is way more challenging and it’s FREE, why not? I don’t normally download games onto my hard drive, but I know Shockwave is a site I can trust, so I decided to take the chance.

So I patiently downloaded and installed the game, and of course I couldn’t resist playing it just once. It was even better than the on-line version and I was up to level 15 when all of a sudden it told me my trial was up! WTF??? The free downloadable version is only good for one hour of playing time. Angry doesn’t even to begin to describe how I feel about this.

Stupid lying game site!

* * * * * * * * * *

The rest of my weekend wasn’t much better. The sun we were promised? Oh, it showed up late in the day yesterday, just in time to pierce through the dining room window and right into the daughter’s eyes while we had supper.

It was mostly grey and miserable on the weekend and I was tired and headachey. My sinuses starting filling up again which of course means they dripped down the back of my throat causing me to cough a lung up. I swear it’s the weather that’s doing it - grey, damp, weather equals filled sinuses.

Stupid weather!

* * * * * * * * * *

I have a huge, old dresser in the bedroom and it’s my habit after getting dressed in the morning to leave my p.j.s neatly folded up on top of it so they’re ready for bedtime. Saturday night I went to put them on and I couldn’t find the top. The plum coloured top.

*sigh* You guessed it, my little underpants gnome jumped up on the dresser and stole it. Then, during the night, she dug a pink sweater and a pink, satin night shirt out of my closet and left them in the middle of the floor. And this morning I found two unmatched socks in the living room.

Stupid cat!

Book Meme

2009-04-25T07:39:00.000-04:00

I couldn’t decide which of my blogs I should post this on, so it’s going on both. I was tagged by Benjamin Solah and you can check out his blog HERE . I, in turn, tag anyone who cares to have some fun!

Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Perhaps a better question would be print books or e-books. I prefer a book I can hold in my hands. Size doesn’t matter. ;-)
Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Barnes & Who? This is Canada baby. It’s Chapters/Indigo all the way.
Bookmarks or dog-ear?
Bookmarks. You dog-ear one of my books and I’ll beat you to death with it!
Amazon or brick-and-mortar?
I loves me a good bookstore. I’ve only ever bought books once online, and that was because these particular books were only available through the publisher that way.
Alphabetize by author, by title or randomize?
Um, how about piled up by size because I need another bookcase (again!). Some day I would like to have my books alphabetized. You know, when I can afford to have someone do it for me.
Keep, throw away or sell?
What kind of question is this? Of course I keep my books! This is why we have lived in the same house for 30 years - no one can face having to pack up my library.
Keep dust jacket or remove it?
Keep it.
Read with dust jacket or remove it?With the dust jacket - in a pinch the flap can unfold and be used as a bookmark.
Short story or novel?
Yes. :-) It depends on my mood. I like anthologies ‘cause the stories don’t require a large investment of time, but I like novels because sometimes I like a story that lasts a long time.
Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
I’ve only read a couple of Harry Potter books and none of Lemony Snicket, so to be honest I don’t really have an opinion either way.
Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
You’re supposed to stop?
“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?
How about “Once upon a time it was a dark and stormy night”?
Buy or borrow?
Oh, please! Have you not seen my posts on my everyday blog about my pilgrimages to Chapters? Trust me, I don’t go there for the Starbucks!
Buying choice: book reviews, recommendations or browse?
I’m mostly a browser.
Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
Tidy ending. Unless I know ahead of time that this book is Book “x” of a series, then I think cliffhanger endings are a cheat.
Morning, afternoon or nighttime reading?
All three.
Stand alone or series?
Both. I prefer books that are part of a series but can stand alone as well.
Favorite series?
Um . . .uh . . . there’s a lot of them. The Swords & Sorceress anthologies, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley; the Valdemar series, by Mercedes Lackey; the Newford books, by Charles de Lint; Lynsay Sands’ Argeneau Vampires; J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood books . . . I’d keep going but this is a pretty long post as it is.
Favorite children’s book?
One Kitten Is Not Too Many; It Came From Outer Space; Whose Mouse Are You? (I forget who they’re by, all different authors though). Anything by Robert Munsch.
Favorite YA book?
Honestly, I’m not a big reader of YA, but the last one I read was If I Have A Wicked Stepmother, Then Where’s My Prince.
Favorite book of which no one else has heard of?
Probably the Woodwife, by Terri Windling.
Favorite books read last year?
Okay, I’m a voracious reader. I carry a book with me wherever I go. I have books in every room of the house, even the bathrooms. Last year was four months ago, do you know how many books I’ve read since then?
Favorite books of all time?Pretty much anything by Charles de Lint; the Woodwife, by Terri Windling; the Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkein; The Stand, by Stephen King - I’d better stop here before I get carried away.
What are you reading right now?
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke; The Mammoth Book of Women’s Erotic Fantasies edited by Sonia Florens; The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys.
What are you reading next?
The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint; Secret Life of A Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks; Mona Lisa Craving by Sunny.
Favorite book to recommend to an 11-year-old?
Probably the Enchanted Forest series by Patricia Wrede.
Favorite book to re-read?
The Woodwife, by Terri Windling.
Do you ever smell books?
Only if one of the cats has been bad. ;-)
Do you ever read primary source documents, like letters or diaries?No, not really.

Fabulous Friday

2009-04-24T08:05:00.001-04:00

ATTENTION! ATTENTION PLEASE! !

I have a special announcement to make.

Drum roll please!

I am pleased to announce that starting May 4, the government of Canada is paying for me to go back to school. ‘Cause let’s face it, while I’ve enjoyed my time off, the bills are kind of piling up and my skills are too outdated to find a job in my field. Yesterday I drove to the city to sign all the papers and a cheque is winging its way to the college of my choice so they’ll hold my spot.

The good news is, I’ll finally have something else to post about here besides my cats. The bad news is, holy crap I’m going back to school! At my age!

* * * * * * * * * *

As I said, I had to drive into the city to seal the deal and I had to drive by Chapters twice. Actually, I only drove by it once. The second time I pulled in because I promised BFF I check for a book I’d told her about. One hour and two Chapters helpers later, they still couldn’t find the single copy they had left. However, I was able to find the newest Charles de Lint book and a new one by Kerrelyn Sparks.

* * * * * * * * * *

You know, after looking at that picture of how nice my office once looked (you can just click on the picture to see a larger version), I’ve decided that Saturday morning my first job is going to be to give it a good shovelling out.

That nice, wide bookcase the cats are sitting on needs to be shaved of its cat hair and the books put in some semblance of order. My fantasy and science fiction collection (all hard backs in another huge bookcase in our upstairs hallway) are alphabetized (well, mostly) so I think that’s what I’m going to do with the romance novels on the bookcase in my office. I was trying to keep them separated by category, but that’s just not working out.

And then my next big project will be to catalogue them. I’ve half-heartedly attempted this a couple of times, but this time I mean business. I’m seriously thinking of looking into a barcode scanner - I have a lot of books.

Shoot Me Now, Avoid the Rush

2009-04-23T07:44:00.000-04:00

New rule. I am not allowed to have more than one cup of coffee between meals.

It occurred to me that I didn’t have a nifty little profile picture on my writing blog, so I decided to remedy that. Only the picture I wanted to use was on my handy, dandy, little thumb drive and I just about gave myself a heart attack when I couldn’t find my thumb drive. It’s usually on the little table beside my recliner, but it appeared to have vanished.

I checked under the table, I checked around the table, I checked in and around my recliner, I checked the knitting bag beside the recliner, I cleaned off and checked the table on the other side of the recliner. Starting to hyperventilate now.

I checked the desk in my office. I checked the drawers of the desk and under the desk. I check the bag I bought to keep my lap top stuff in. Starting to freak out a little. Eyed the vacuum cleaner. Thumb drives are small, could I have unwittingly sucked it up the last time I vacuumed?

Deep breath. Where was I the last time I used it? Hmmm. I spent a few days set up on the dining table . . . could it be amongst the notebooks and placemats? Eureka! I found it!

Then it took me another half an hour to remember where I go to upload the picture into my profile. *slaps head* D’oh! I totally blame the caffeine.

And just because I can, I’m posting a picture of my freaky cat herd. The book cases they’re sitting on are in my office, and that’s pretty much the view I get from my desk. Only picture twice as many books now. Also, Panda (on the far right) is much thinner, and the two on the left side of the long bookcase are much bigger. Taz (the fluffy one) and Dante (the one next to Panda) are pretty much the same.

edited to add: I just read a short piece in First magazine that states that caffeine raises your risk of experiencing illusions. Maybe I just imagined I couldn’t find my thumb drive.

edited again to add: Remember how I posted about how the cover on the pool had come off during the winter? Well the weekend we did all the yard work, the husband and I managed to get the cover back on. I just glanced out the back window and we have a pair of mallard ducks swimming around in the water on top of the cover. And there’s a squirrel that’s getting ticked off at them because every time he tries to sneak up to the edge of the tarp to get a drink they come over to shoo him away.

And no, I haven’t been drinking any more coffee! :-)

Wonderful Wednesday

2009-04-22T08:19:00.000-04:00

Okay, maybe it’s not so wonderful, but at least it means the week’s half over.

I think I’ve pointed this out before, but I live in a small town, and I’m unemployed, which is why sometimes I really have to stretch for something to post about. ;-)

Yesterday I took the daughter for her dress fitting and then ran a bunch of errands, returning home around lunch time. Being the couch potato I am, I had my lunch in front of the television, where I caught the tail end of one of the cheesiest movies I’ve ever seen: The Robot Vs. the Mummy.

Oh. my. We had the Mummy, who looked more like a cave man. We had the Mummy’s reincarnated mate who tended to go sleep walking at the drop of a hat. And we had a mad scientist (complete with evil cackle and black cape) who built a “human robot”, which was basically a man in a tin suit. The climax of the movie was the fight between the Mummy and the Robot. The Robot looked to be winning, until the mad scientist dropped the remote control and the Mummy ripped the arms off the Robot and beat him to death with them. Then the reincarnated mate gave the Mummy a jeweled breastplate and the Mummy toddled off to parts unknown.

They just don’t make movies like that any more.

And in the continuing saga of my freaky cats . . . Panda has expanded her thievery. Last night she picked up my glasses (damn lightweight frames) and ran off with them. I am still looking for them.

If you’re in need of a chuckle, check out my Writing Blog where there’s a cute post about 13 reasons why Werecats are better than Weredogs, and the Weredogs rebuttal.

Tuesday Tidbits

2009-04-21T08:13:00.000-04:00

I broke down and bought a new router on the weekend. I even took it out of its box yesterday. And that’s as far as I’ve got with it so far. Yes, I know, Chippy. I’m pathetic. I promise I’ll get to it later . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

I fell behind in my poetry challenge, and only managed to write one of the poems on Sunday before I got distracted by a very interesting program about the prophecies of Nostradamus. Rather than going on for pages about it, I’ll give you this LINK Which more or less sums up the whole program.

Yesterday was a grey, miserable day, but I eschewed my beloved games and got caught up on the poetry. When I needed a break from writing I pulled out a book and read for a few minutes instead. All in all, I felt like it was a very productive day.

* * * * * * * * * *

The male cats of the house are all a little, shall we say, portly, so we recently switched them to a low calorie cat food. Everything was fine at first, but lately Panda has decided since she really doesn’t need to lose weight, she should get extra kitty treats to make up the lost calories. She’s laid siege to the kitchen and anyone who dares to enter had better be prepared to feed her.

Now, two of the boys have kidney problems, so we have to buy special cat food from the vet for them and because it’s impossible to separate them at feeding time, everyone gets the same food. I do keep a small bag of regular cat food on hand for emergencies (like when it’s Sunday and I’m out of cat food and the vet’s office is closed), so I started giving Panda a handful of this every time she bugged me for a treat.

It fooled her for a while, but then she caught on and now she’s back to holding out for treats.

I think I may need a warning sign for the kitchen.

Another Good Idea Shot to . . .

2009-04-19T12:32:00.001-04:00

I’ll let you fill in the blank.

Yesterday I had a great idea for a bonus post. The Underpants Gnomes.

The Underpants Gnomes were featured on an episode of South Park where they plagued one of the kids by constantly stealing his underpants. If you haven’t seen the episode, you’ll just have to trust me on how funny it was.

Now, what gave me the idea for the post was the token female cat in our house, Panda. Her actual name is Pandora, because of her intense curiosity, but the husband likes to call her Pantaloons.

Panda is my own, personal, underpants gnome. She likes to steal my underpants. Specifically, pink ones. She’ll also steal my pink t-shirts, and in a pinch purple ones will do. Last night I heard her howling away upstairs, which usually means she’s dragging off an article of clothing, and the next thing I know she’s flying down the stairs with a pair of my underpants!

*sigh* I have got to get a laundry hamper with a lid on it. Although her preferred object of theft is my underwear, she’s also been known to drag off red or pink towels and blankets. She once dragged a red throw from the basement all the way up the stairs. And she’s not a big cat!

Anyway, I thought I’d look up the Underpants Gnomes on YouTube, but for once YouTube let me down. All I could find is the song, not a clip from the actual episode. However, whilst doing a Google search for a better clip, I came across the Comedy Network website. If you’re in Canada, you can watch the entire episode HERE

And if you’re not in Canada you can at least listen to the song below.

There’s That Road Again

2009-04-17T09:50:00.002-04:00

You know what road I’m talking about. The one that’s paved with good intentions.

After getting up early yesterday to take the daughter to Peterborough and suffering no ill effects, I thought now would be the perfect time to start getting to bed a little earlier so I could start getting up earlier (or should I say getting up at a normal time?) and maybe even start going for a walk in the morning.

However, despite the fact that I’ve been taking the pharmacist recommended medication on a more or less regular basis, just before I shut down the lap top to go to bed my sinuses started to fill up and I started coughing. And coughing, and coughing, and coughing. I took another cold pill and started sucking back the Halls. And still I coughed.

I coughed for almost two hours before I broke down and took an Actifed (along with another cough candy). Eventually the coughing eased up enough that I could go to bed.

Needless to say, I did not get up early, nor did I go for a walk this morning. Instead I’m tired and dragged out and don’t have the energy for much of anything. Maybe I’ll go have a nap and try this day all over again.

So while I'm napping, check out THIS LINK It's a YouTube video of a segment from Britain's Got Talent where Susan Boyle sings I Dreamed A Dream. Even if you've already seen it, it's worth seeing again.

Wednesdays

2009-04-16T14:04:00.001-04:00

Yes, I know this is Thursday, but I already did a post for Wednesday and now this is the next day. Does that make any sense at all?

*shrugs* Oh, well. This is my blog. It doesn’t need to make sense.

Now, where was I? Oh, right. Wednesdays.

I like Wednesdays. This week it crept up on me pretty quickly, which made it even better. The week is half over. Only a couple more days to the weekend. And as a bonus, in the evening I get to watch America’s Next Top Model and LOST.

ANTM isn’t as good as previous incarnations. The girls are a little on the nasty side - very mean spirited. And none of them really stand out. Usually by this time I have a couple of favorites picked out but this time I really couldn’t care less who wins.

LOST, however, has certainly made up for it. Just when I think I’m getting a handle on things, it comes up with a new twist. It’s fascinating the way the characters who went back in time have been integrated into the past, and the way things play out that we know will have an impact on the future.

Just thought I’d get that out of the way.

Had to get up early, and we’re talking EARLY, this morning to take the daughter to Peterborough for a doctor’s appointment. The earliness of the hour had nothing to do with the fact that I took her to the wrong clinic first, it had more to do with the fact that there’s two clinics with the same name.

Fortunately, the right clinic wasn’t too far away, but it did cost us six dollars before they’d let us out of the parking lot again. Neither of us were very impressed with that. Nor was I impressed with the stupid change machine that paid me twenty loonies for my twenty dollar bill.

By the time we were done we were in serious need of caffeine, so we stopped at Starbucks on the way out of town. And you know what that means. That’s right, my friends, a trip to Starbucks means a trip to Chapters. I restrained myself and only spent $60.00, and that included a book for the daughter.

Muwahahahaha! The daughter is slipping over to the dark side. She actually bought a romance book! One of these days I’ll sneak her a paranormal romance and she’ll be hooked before she knows it.

Hey, fair’s fair! She did, after all, hook me on NCIS!

Hump Day Rant

2009-04-15T08:14:00.000-04:00

This cough of mine is getting ridiculous. I just can’t seem to shake it and my doctor doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it. Nor does the doctor seem to care that the cough is brought on by my sinuses dripping down the back of my throat.

Last week I bought some Actifed and they work great, but they make me so tired I can hardly think, let alone do anything else. If I take them, all I want to do is sleep. If I don’t take them, all I do is cough. It’s a vicious cycle.

Yesterday I went to the pharmacy and had them recommend something else for me. So far, all I can say is that this stuff doesn’t make me sleepy. Let’s hope it’ll start drying up my sinuses in time for bed.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sunday night the in-laws took the entire family (the 18 of us that live in town) out for an Easter dinner. This included my three year old nephew who’s the poster child for birth control. My ears are still ringing from his screaming fit every time someone spoke to him in a tone he didn’t like or tried to get him to sit down.

It’s easy to blame genetics (his two older sisters were a handful as well) but the truth of the matter is that genetics only plays one part. The rest is upbringing. The parents of this child have never presented a united front. I tried to point this out to the sister in law when she used to come to me for advice over the other two, but she’d never listen. You can’t have one parent say no while the other just lets a child get away with anything they want. It won’t work.

Oh well. As my sister would say, “It’s not my pile.” I only have to deal with the child for family get-togethers. In the interest of family harmony, however, I may offer to pay for a baby-sitter for them the day of the daughter’s wedding. ;-)

* * * * * * * * * *

Last night the daughter and I went to a make-over party, where the idea is to sell the participants lots of expensive beauty products. I haven’t worn make-up in a long, long, time - not since I stopped working in an office.

However, now that I’m contemplating getting back into the business world, I’ve been thinking I should start looking a little more professional. And that means going back to wearing make-up. Until the party, I’d forgotten how much make-up can enhance your appearance - or, with a few extra strokes of the brush, make you look like a graduate from clown college. Eye shadow is definitely not going to be included in my daily routine!

First Long Weekend of the Season

2009-04-13T11:45:00.000-04:00

April has Easter, May has the 24th of May weekend, July has either Canada Day or Independence Day (depending on which side of the border you’re on), but what is the holiday weekend in June? Hmmm.

So how was your long weekend? Mine was busy. Friday, when most normal people are contemplating the fact that it’s Good Friday, the husband and I were out raking the back yard. The thing you’ve got to understand about the back yard is that it’s about three or four times the size of the front yard. At one point we decided we’d hit on a new form of suicide: death by raking.

We did all but the very back on Friday. Just a narrow strip left, but it also had the most leaves since they tend to collect in the pond garden, along the back fence, and the long, narrow, rose garden is buried in leaves for the winter. So Saturday we did the very back of the yard.

Something you must understand about the rose garden, you cannot just rake the leaves out of it. The idea of putting down the black gardening cloth and covering it with bark chips was a good one, until it came time to uncover the roses in the spring. In order to preserve the bark chips one must remove the heaps of leaves by hand. Trust me, it’s not as much fun as it sounds.

Now we have a retaining wall of 18 brown bags of leaves guarding the front of the house, waiting for the town to come by for the leaf pick up.

I also, over the long weekend, cleaned the house, did the grocery shopping, made a huge pot of chili, and did a pile of mending I’ve been putting off. The husband also napped. :-)

edited to add: Let's face it. Since I really have no reason to get up early in the morning, I haven't been. So these nice, early posts of mine are actually written the night before and scheduled using the Post Options feature on the blog. However, one must remember that when one is using this feature before midnight, one must also change the time from PM to AM. Which I forgot to do. Which is why this post didn't show up at 8:30 AM like it was supposed to. *sigh*

Finally Friday

2009-04-10T07:31:00.000-04:00

I have to make a statement here. Some people should not be allowed within 100 feet of the dollar store. I am one of them. I bought not one, not two, but FIVE six inch high stone gargoyles. Granted each one is different, but still, did I really need all five? I refuse to put them outside in the pond garden (their intended destination) until the danger of snow is gone, so I have one sitting on my plant shelf, two on a bookcase in the living room, and two on top of the television.

I also bought some fancy printer paper, that promptly went into the drawer with the 20 or 30 other packages of fancy printer paper I have, and a couple of pretty ceramic pots for my miniature orchids (orchids prefer clay/ceramic pots to plastic).

And I’d like to add that only a crazy person goes shopping the day before Good Friday. Okay, make that two crazy persons, the daughter and I. The Dollarama was bad enough, but Wal Mart was down right scarey! Forget grocery shopping. I may be crazy but I’m not totally insane.

That was pretty much the highlight of my day yesterday. That and getting my poem done for the PAD challenge. Although I’m not producing as many words, I feel that I’m working just as hard during the PAD challenge as I did for the NaNoWriMo. It’s a different head set, that’s all.

Okay, because it’s a long weekend I’ve brought you not one, but two quizzes for your entertainment. Enjoy. I’m off to watch the Star Wars marathon. ;-)

Your Supervillain Name is Malice Hunter

Muhahahaha!

What's Your Supervillain Name?

You Are a Black Panther

You see through people. You understand others' motives and plans.

You have a knack for predicting the future. You just know what people are going to do.

People are attracted to you. You are naturally able to influence other people's thoughts.

You have the charisma to be a beloved guru or dictator. It's all about how you handle it.

What Big Cat Are You?

Done!

2009-04-08T02:24:00.000-04:00

I am so done with Winter it’s not even funny. And it certainly wasn’t funny when, after hanging up my winter coat in the closet and putting my spring one on the hook in the hallway, I had to clean off my car. Nor was it funny to watch the snow falling all day, to the point where I’ll have to clean off the car again if I want to go anywhere again.

I’ve checked with the weather channel and it’s supposed to clear up on Thursday and stay nice for Easter weekend. I guess that’s something, anyway.

* * * * * * * * * *

My application to go back to school with all it’s accompanying forms, letters, and extra “stuff” has been signed and sealed, soon to be delivered. It’s out of my hands and sometime this week it will be out of my counselor’s hands. Then it will be up to the government whether or not I go back to school for upgrading so I can get a real job, or if I’ll be stuck at minimum wage for the rest of my life. I’ve heard they’re usually pretty quick on the decision making, so I’ll probably hear by the end of next week.

* * * * * * * * * *

Check out the time stamp on this post. Yup, I’m up pretty late typing this, but there’s a reason for it. Monday night I went to bed early because I had the appointment with my counselor the following morning. Only the minute my head hit the pillow I started coughing. And coughing and coughing and . . . coughing.

So tonight I’ve taken an Actifed and now I’m sucking on a Halls, and between the two I’m hoping that when I lay my head down in a little while I’ll actually be able to sleep.

I’ll let you know if it works.

Picture This

2009-04-06T07:41:00.002-04:00

A camera, a camera, my kingdom for a camera!

I have three pictures I’d like to post, the problem being I still don’t have a camera to take them with. If the husband remembers to bring the digital camera home from the office tonight, I will take said pictures and edit this post to include them. So check back tomorrow, just in case.

The first picture is the ugly blanket. I had a friend over for lunch last week who didn’t think the blanket was so very ugly at all. Although she did describe it as “vomited up candy”. I included a close-up so you could better see the ugliness.

The second picture is the new orchid, which I’d like to have a picture of before it loses it’s blossoms so you can see how well it blends into the wall.

The third picture is the light fixture in the dining room. This was the husband’s project yesterday. BFF had gave me this light fixture . . . um . . . before Christmas and we’re only now getting it up. It would be better if I had a before and after picture - the old light was pretty uninspired - but we can’t have everything.

Sorry the pictures are so small, but that's the way they uploaded from the camera. Apparently my HP printer doesn't like the Sony camera, so they wouldn't play nice. I couldn't transfer more than one picture at a time, as in I had to take a picture, then upload it, then take another. I can sure tell you what kind of camera I won't be buying when I can afford a new one!

My big accomplishment yesterday was writing five poems to catch up on the Poem A Day Challenge. You can read all about it on my Writing Blog .

Insert Witty Title Here

2009-04-03T08:27:00.000-04:00

Wow. I have nothing to say.

Want to hear about my aches and pains from raking the yard yesterday? No? How about how I finally got the pot I burnt tomato soup in clean? How about the number of boxes of tissue I’ve gone through this week?

*sigh*

You’re a tough crowd.

I have big plans for today. I’m going to give trying to fix the header over on my writing blog one more try and then I’m going to concentrate on my writing. I had an idea of how I could change my female main character that’s going to not only make her more interesting, but makes her decisions make more sense.

Exciting stuff. Don’t forget to check out my offering for Creative Friday on my writing blog (the link is on the right under Works In Progress).

Okay, if a picture’s worth a thousand words, then how much is a video worth? Check it out, this is my kind of cat!