Happy Labour Day!

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. :-)

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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

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! :-)

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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.

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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!

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

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.

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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 . . .

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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.

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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

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!

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

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