Melting

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. :-)

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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!

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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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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: