Sharing My World 39

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My November Day Twenty Nine

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2015 WEEK #47

In your native language which letter or character describes you best? Why?

I closed my eyes and mentally recited the alphabet, calling on my spirit guides and muses for divine inspiration.  Or, you know, some such similar nonsense, because really, how else do you come up with an answer to this one?  My brain stopped on the letter “O”.  Some days my brain is very helpful, up to a point.

Just look at how versatile this letter is – it can be paired with any number of other words and things to convey the following:

  1. Dismay (with crap, damn and hell, accompanied by mournful sighs or deep groans)
  2. Surprise (with my gawd, really, and some high-pitched squealing)
  3. Confusion or disbelief (said with a question mark implied)
  4. Joy (with YES! ALRIGHT! HALLELUJAH! etc.)
  5. Understanding (as in O yeah, I get it! even when you don’t.)

Why does this describe me?  O….I don’t know.  Oh oh.  Oh phooey.  I am skipping that part.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Well it sure isn’t clothes.  Since I stopped working I have been wearing mostly yoga pants and flip flops and comfy tops with holes in them.  And everything has paint or glue or ink on it somewhere.

So my answer is art supplies, which will not be surprising to anyone who sees what I’m wearing.

Do you prefer exercising your mind or your body? How frequently do you do either?

My mind wants to do mental gymnastics at night when my body would prefer to sleep, so I have learned lots of ways to discourage it from thinking so much.  It is certainly good at dreaming up excuses during the day for my body to relax.  I like to think there is a good balance of both kinds of exercise in my life.  Liking to think such a thing does not, however, make it true.

List at least 5 things that make you laugh.

  1. Savage Chickens
  2. Little kids saying random swear words with no clue what they mean.
  3. John Cleese
  4. Baby goats
  5. Bridesmaids (the movie)

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful for our amazing weather this sunny warm November.  It’s almost unheard of to shovel snow here only once in this usually godforsaken winter month.  Our son bought a new snowblower this year, so that’s probably why.

This week coming up I should be hearing from medical offices wanting to set up appointments for me.  What a dumb thing to look forward to. But I certainly am grateful for our incredible health care coverage, without which I would probably be sick and penniless and maybe even dead.

And on that pleasant note, Happy Grey Cup Sunday!  Go Eskimos!  Oh no, I won’t be watching the game, just enjoying the peace and quiet while W is downstairs glued to the big screen.  Oh yeah.

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Art du Jour 82

imageMy November Day Twenty Eight

There was a vision in my head before I started out on my little artistic adventure involving a grinning cat, but the result is not what I expected.

It never is.

I’m happy with the concept and I like the colours, but this had to sit on my easel for several days before it grew on me enough to share.

I suppose you can’t be madly in love with everything you do.
“I meant,” said Ipslore bitterly, “what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?”
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.”
― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

 

A Spot of Busy

I was so excited to buy this coconut almond butter! It's yummy! Jury still out on the butternut squash until we see what I might do to the poor thing.

I was so excited to buy this coconut almond butter! It’s yummy! Jury still out on the butternut squash until we see what I might do to the poor thing.

My November Day Twenty Seven

Before this month gets away on me completely I will squish in a few more posts.  Well, this one, anyway, let’s not get overly optimistic just yet.  Believe what you may, but I’m here to tell you I have been BUSY!

Yes, I am shouting.  I so rarely get to say that word.

W is three weeks and three days post hip replacement surgery and although he still likes to be waited on, he really has become quite independent again.  He is able to sit for short periods in normal chairs, goes up and down the basement stairs with his crutches, gets himself in and out of the shower without help.  Yesterday I drove him in his truck to the bank and the gas station and at both places he was all self-serve.  I changed vehicles to do the grocery shopping and was SO ready to give him complete hell for using the snowblower while I was gone, but it turns out a friend came over to blow the big snow bank I shovelled along the edge of the driveway into the back yard.  Yes we have snow, and yep, I shovelled the whole damned driveway.  Hard on the shoulders but good for the glucose readings.  I could learn to use the snowblower but I’m sure I’d never do it right according to the snow blower king I’m living with, so for now we will just let ignorance be bliss.

Speaking of those pesky worrisome little blood sugar reading numbers, did you know stress can make them higher?  I finally went to have my pelvic ultrasound done on Wednesday so the lab could see what this “mass” above the uterus might be.  The first ultrasound had to be done with me having a full bladder.  You don’t know the true meaning of discomfort until someone presses hard on your full bladder.  Or the true meaning of weird until you’ve had an internal ultrasound.  I don’t even want to talk about that part.  I started to tell W about it and he looked a little ill.

These lab tests were done at 3:00 in the afternoon.  The doctor’s office called me at 9:00 the next morning to come in and discuss the results. I love my doctor, but she also scares the hell out of me, sending me for tests and finding things out and wanting to discuss it all with me immediately.  She and the radiologist believe what I have is a fibroid of some sort, but now I need to have MRI testing to see it properly.  I believe fibroid issues are about the least alarming thing one can have going on down there.

I used to wonder why old people talked so much about medical conditions and tests and operations and health concerns, but it is a mystery no more.

One of my favourite former coworkers dropped by for coffee this week!  It was lovely of her to take the time on her day off to come and see me. Somehow we let six months slip away from us without even saying hello.  Lots of catching up to do in one short morning.  If there’s one thing I miss about work, it’s the great friendships that are forged.

That same day I was visited by a nice lady named Ping from the faculty of nursing because I agreed to participate in a U of A study called “A Client-Driven Intervention to Support Self-Management Among Community-Living Older Adults with Type 2 Diabetes and Multiple Chronic Conditions”.  I don’t know yet if I will be in the control group which basically does nothing, or the intervention group which has to attend group wellness sessions.  Guess which group I would most like to end up in.

If nothing else, perhaps I will find out what my other multiple chronic conditions are, and get the promised $25.00 gift certificate for some as yet undisclosed grocery store.  Fun times.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been paid for doing something.  Or nothing.

The good habits I’ve been working on are not yet set in stone.  Notice the lack of daily November posts as an example.  It’s time to get back to the daily walks, since the weather is quite nice and the trampoline nonsense is proving to be a poor substitute.  My food journaling and blood sugar testing have also been hit and miss.

But we did manage to have our daughter and granddaughter over for a long promised fish dinner.  W brings back as much frozen fish (pickerel/walleye) from camp as he’s allowed.  It’s not as good as fresh, but still delicious.

Now that I’ve explained my busy-ness, it no longer sounds so busy in writing as it did in my head.  There was a lot of food prep and laundry in there.  And game playing and Netflix watching and sleeping.  And even a bit of house cleaning.  Okay, not a lot of that last one.

And now that yet another day in my life is half gone and there’s only about four hours of daylight left (I wish I was kidding, this time of year is so depressing when we hardly have time to notice the sun) I will now  attempt to make some sense of my cluttered disorganized multi tasking area formerly known as the art studio.  Or maybe I will walk first.  Or make W some lunch.  The possibilities, as usual, are not exactly endless even if I sometimes think otherwise.

To conclude this rambling mess of information, here are some comforting horoscope predictions.  I only ever record the good bits.

Material life will be without any concerns and even very comfortable, but risk of problems concerning inheritances and successions. (haha! Like we are royalty or something).

Don’t let your minor health problems worry you too much; take all the necessary precautions to put a halt to them, but don’t turn this issue into an obsession. You’ll be able to adapt yourself and make the most of the changes that will occur.

Be careful of overwork and its damaging consequences; certainly, you’ll want to do well, but your resistance will be declining, and you’d better slow down your pace temporarily; sleep more.

Your daily humdrum routine’s going to experience a small pleasant upheaval. 

May all your upheavals be small and pleasant ones.

Sharing My World 38

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Image from Wikipedia – Gummi Candy

My November Days…..which I have missed up to and including Seventeen….using the new and improved no beep-bop-boop posting system while half-assed listening to a detailed weather report by the infamous W.  Because weather.  It’s what we live for.

Share Your World 2015 Week 46

What type of popular candy do you not like to get?

I don’t like to get any candy, but I especially don’t like to get gummy or gummi anything – bears, worms, bottles, frogs, body parts, smurfs, and whatever other weird shapes they make that chewy jelly stuff into to entice candy consumers. I never liked jelly beans as a kid, except for that time we had red ones and I tried to dispose of my red vitamin pill in the jelly bean bag.  I was caught red-handed by my dad who thought it was funny.  Mother was less amused.

What do you feel is the most enjoyable way to spend $500?

Eating out ten times.  I love it when somebody else cooks and serves and cleans up the mess.

Where do you eat breakfast?

These days, in the living room.  W still needs his special chair so serving his meals where the chair and high computer table are is easier than constantly moving things around.  So I eat there too.  Getting breakfast-y fingerprints all over my iPad screen.

Would you rather ride one of the worlds longest zip lines or bungee jump one of the highest in the world? This will come with a 5-day all expense vacation.

I would rather shoot myself in the foot than try either one of those things.  Sometimes I think vacations are completely wasted on me when I am just as happy staying home where our old clothes line has no zip to speak of and probably won’t kill us.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Yesterday W had his 32 staples removed from the hip replacement surgery incision.  I didn’t hear much screaming.  In fact I didn’t hear any at all, leading me to believe they carry out these procedures in sound proof rooms.  He is now held together with butterfly closures and I am no longer required to change his dressing every day.  He is two weeks today post surgery and doing well.

What am I looking forward to in the week coming up?  I don’t know, maybe it’s bad luck to peer that far into the uncertain future.  As long as there are no bungee jumps or zip lines to contend with we should be fine.

Next up, chilli that’s been simmering for a couple of hours served in the living room.  It’s not five hundred bucks worth of dining out, but close enough.

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Different Rant

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Example of perfectly acceptable uses of the words ‘than’ and ‘from’.

My November Day Thirteen, and a Friday to boot.

And now for something completely different….

There is a ban

On ‘different than’

I learned that little rhyme in grade school and have never forgotten it.  When people use those two words together it sounds like lazy grammar and just grates on my nerves.  I want to correct them.  It’s ‘different from’.

Different FROM everybody!  Don’t be dumb, say different from.  That one I made up on my own.

I know both phrases are now acceptable, and maybe they were when I was taught that they weren’t, but it’s a good rule and I like it and it bugs me when it’s broken.  So stop saying it and writing it and thinking it in your head, okay?

Here is a convincing little blurb from my on-line dictionary.  Yes, I am still reading the dictionary.  I even downloaded the premier edition.  Is it geek week?

In formal writing, different from is generally preferred to different than. This preference has to do, in part, with the historical use of the word than. This term entered English as a conjunction often used with comparative adjectives, such as better, taller, shorter, warmer, lesser, and more, to introduce the second element in a comparison. Different is not a comparative adjective. Thus, when different than first started appearing in English, it sounded grating or less natural to discerning ears.

They are talking about my ears, attached to my anal brain.  This is almost as bad as mixing up YOUR and YOU’RE.  Almost.  Please tell me you’re not making this faux pas with your words.

I also read that in the UK it’s common to say ‘different to’.  Is that true?  It sounds backwards.  Although preferable to ‘than’.

The only instance in which different should be used with than is when you say something like

This house is different than I remember.

But you could also say

This house is different from what I remember.

Or you could simply pretend you don’t remember a damned thing about the house and shut up about it already.

I don’t usually rant on a Friday the 13th, or any other day really.  I have no idea from whence all this came.  Be thankful you aren’t having coffee with me and listening to this rather meaningless grammar lesson in real life.

Happy Friday everybody!

I think I will now get myself out of the house and into some fresh air, so tomorrow’s post will be pleasantly different FROM this one.

Sharing My World 37

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My November Days Eleven and Twelve

Share Your World 2015 Week 45

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “fun”?

Looking it up in the dictionary!  Even if you think you know exactly what a word means, looking it up can be FUN!

fun – noun – something that provides mirth or amusement: A picnic would be fun.
enjoyment or playfulness: She’s full of fun.
—verb (used without object), verb (used with object), funned, fun·ning.

Informal. joke; kid.
—adjective, fun·ner, fun·nest.

Informal. of or pertaining to fun, especially to social fun: a fun thing to do; really a fun person; the funnest game.
Informal. whimsical; flamboyant: The fashions this year are definitely on the fun side.
—Idioms

for / in fun, as a joke; not seriously; playfully: His insults were only in fun.like fun, Informal. certainly not; of doubtful truth: He told us that he finished the exam in an hour. Like fun he did!
make fun of, to make the object of ridicule; deride: The youngsters made fun of their teacher.

Now what could be funner than reading a dictionary?  Is that not one of the funnest  things you’ve done all day??  My spell check wants to change those words to “funnier” and “funniest”, but it doesn’t know everything, does it.  I’m just funning you, so I guess you have been funned.

Fun to me means whatever it takes to make you laugh or feel happy inside.  And afterwards you say to yourself, wow, that was really fun!

What is your favorite time of day?

From early morning to late at night, every single moment I’m alive and breathing.  Even the parts where I’m not having a whole lot of fun.

Given the choice of anyone in the world, with whom would you want to spend an evening?

Our new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mother, Margaret (former wife of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau).  What a life she has had!  But I expect we might just talk about our grandchildren.  And that would be perfectly fine.

Complete this sentence: Something that anyone can do that will guarantee my smile is…

….compliment me on something.  Isn’t that what makes anyone smile?  It doesn’t have to be much, you can simply say you like my shoes.  And I will say thank you and smile.  And suddenly we will both like each other a little bit more.  Funny how that works.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful for an uneventful post surgery week for W and his new super hip and the body’s incredible ability to heal.  I am looking forward to more of that.  And getting back to my art work which has been seriously neglected for too long.  But for now, this temporary lifestyle change has been educational and interesting and has made both of us grateful for a thousand things we normally take for granted.

Hope you all are having a FUN week!  Or a funny week.  Whichever is funner.  Life is too short for anything else.

Checking In and Out

My November Days Nine and Ten

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We have had a busy week. This recovery thing is not for wimps. But all the up and down and in and out and ice on and off and meds and exercises and EVERYTHING frankly, gets a little easier every day. When I sit down I don’t have the energy to pick up a pencil, so my adult relaxation colouring consists of tapping on my iPad. Using colours that are easy to reach.

And when even that requires too much effort, there’s Netflix. W has been watching old John Wayne movies on the laptop, so to drown out that noise I turn up “How To Get Away With Murder.”

Haha….don’t worry, it’s not giving me any crazy ideas. Except maybe about lawyers and criminals and how sometimes it’s hard to determine which is which.

Next Monday the staples come out! Those things are nasty looking heavy-duty hunks of metal. Neither of us will miss them when they’re gone.

Okay we are all nodding off here (yes, you were yawning too, don’t try to deny it) so that’s it for this lame excuse for a November post.

We are alive and fine. That’s all I really wanted to say.

How To Amuse Yourself While Waiting

My November Day Eight
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While waiting this morning at the lab for W to get his blood work done, I saw a poster like this one across the room. The small print was too far away to read, but what would I need to read it for? I am smart and can figure things like this out. Right?

P   Pull something.
A   Agonize over the possibility that you just pulled the wrong thing.
S   Stop pulling random things, you moron!
S   Start running.
Ha! Pretty close, hey?

If you are ever in a burning building with me you will be safe as long as you can run fast.  Beyond that I’m not making any promises.

It’s a rather gloomy overcast day with wet snow and rain and a biting wind.  Perfect for lighting a gingerbread candle and staying the hell indoors.

Hope you’re snug and warm and having a relaxing Sunday afternoon.