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The new and improved art studio because I was not loving the first version. I like to curl up in a comfy chair to sketch and draw, and the chair was already paint spattered. Win/win.

Share Your World – 2016 Week 37

Have you ever owned a rock, pet rock, or gem that is not jewelry?

There are likely rocks on our property, below ground, because I’ve never hit one with the lawn mower.  Our neighbour has some little rocks beside his fence that spill on to our side.  Are those mine now?  I let the grass grow around them and am leaving it for W to take care of with the whipper snipper apparatus from hell when he gets home. I hate that thing.  And how far below the surface does ones property actually extend?  I should ask the property tax people.  They probably have boring days which could do with some livening up.

What is your greatest strength or weakness?

The ability to zone out in a crisis.  I don’t know if that’s a strength or a weakness.  I think it could be either one.  Usually I will go into panic mode later when it’s all over.

What makes you feel grounded?

Well that’s a hard one because I’m pretty grounded most of the time.  I feel very ungrounded away from home and familiar things.  What does grounded even mean?  I’m relatively sensible and understand what’s important in life.  I’m not a teenager or an airplane.  If this was an exam question I would have just failed it spectacularly.

Would you rather never be able to eat warm food or never be able to eat cold food?

Since I am amazingly lazy in the kitchen, cold food suits me just fine.  Eating stuff right out of the fridge saves a lot of time and energy.  I’d miss hot soup though.

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

W is on his way home today.  He did some galavanting en route, stopping off to visit friends.  “Galavanting” is a word my mother often used to express mild disdain for a person who wasn’t exactly grounded and went off in all directions doing dumb things.  Well, I kind of made that up, I’m not sure exactly what she meant when she talked about someone off galavanting around but it didn’t sound like she found it admirable.  W’s galavanting on the other hand is fine with me.

Anyway, wow, that was a ridiculous way to introduce the fact that I watched the tv show “Galavant” on Netflix.  It’s a musical.  Galavant is a knight.  The main reason I clicked on it was because of the word Galavant. I’m grateful I did because it was quite well done and funny.  You would not believe how crazy this little blurb is driving my spell check. It does not like the Galavant word one little bit.

I’m looking forward to the arrival of my sister and her family!  I have no idea what to feed them because they have various dietary issues!  Maybe they would all like to just eat out of my fridge!!

No, I will get my act together shortly. I have a week. W can help me.  But first he better ooh and ahh about this redecorated house before he starts complaining about where the hell I put all his stuff.

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One of those Facebook shares for which the source eludes me.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 15

Name one thing not many people know about you.

I am an open book once you get me talking.  I will spill everything and tell you many things, some of which couldn’t possibly interest you and I don’t even care.  It happened at my CT scan last week when the nurse asked me one innocent little question and I proceeded to blather away for ten minutes as her eyes glazed over.  Then I just decided to shut up.  It was probably nerves.  But here’s the thing you would never guess.  I hate talking to strangers.    So I have no idea what makes me feel like I have to do it.

Maybe I was conditioned from working so long as an optician in a retail setting where it was a job requirement to interact with patients and customers.  I always had to push myself to initiate a conversation.  And then I’d learn all kinds of weird things once we got started. People confide in this face.

I also hate being asked when I’m shopping if I need any help.  Yes of course I need help, but not necessarily the kind I’m being offered unless the employee is a psychiatric therapist working part-time in a shoe store and can give me some life skill tips.

See what I mean?  I just say shit and wonder why later.

If a distant uncle dies and you were always his favorite and he leaves you $50,000 (any currency) in his will, what would you do?

First I would wonder why I was always his favourite.  Because for sure I never called him or remembered his birthday.  I would gratefully accept the cash and put it in the bank.  From there it would slowly dwindle away and disappear.  Then I would wonder where the hell it all went.

Where do you hide junk when people come over?

In cupboards and drawers and closets or just stacked neatly in plain sight.  If I get too creative about squirreling it away it may never surface again.  This house is not that big so it’s incredible how many things go missing in a day.  But random things also show up.  Like the iSkin film for my iPad to keep the screen from getting all wrecked.  It turned up yesterday from under a pile of papers, but it might as well have stayed missing because I made such a mess putting it on that I peeled it off again and threw it out.  Gawd, my life is just one traumatic episode after another.

Complete this sentence: I want to learn more about …

…..historic castles in Britain.  I did not know I wanted to learn more about them until a couple of days ago when I started watching “Secrets of Great British Castles” on Netflix.  The Tower of London was once a sort of zoo housing exotic animals royalty received as gifts.  Why did nobody ever tell me this before?  I’m surprised it’s never come up in the check out line up at the grocery store.

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

W has come home from the east to wait for the river ice to break up at the island and then he will head back for spring fishing and whatever he messes about doing for the rest of the summer.  While he is home I have put him to work on the lawn.  Because what are husbands good for if not rigorous yard work.

I have sanded and painted the stair railings, working outside in the sunshine, inhaling sawdust and paint fumes.  It will be interesting to see if I can put them back where they came from right side up and all.  There is still some prep work left to do on the walls and trim in the back entrance and then the second coat of white goes on the ceiling and the trim.  The rest will be a beautiful shade called coconut milk which will compliment the wood panels part way up two walls.  It’s the greatest stuff for a hallway because it absorbs boot and shoe and handprint marks.  If it was all paint I probably wouldn’t let anyone come in via the back door ever again.  Sort of like how I don’t want anyone to touch the taps or turn on the water after the sink is all sparkly clean.

Every day I add something to the garage sale pile.  W firmly believes the garage sale is imaginary and will never happen.  Oh he of little faith, who may be right, but the stuff is going somewhere, someday.

Next week I’m looking forward to carrying on carrying on.  And maybe naming those galaxies in my coffee.

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SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 14

If you could hire someone to help you, would it be with cleaning, cooking, or yard work?

With cleaning and yard work I wonder if there is anyone who needs help more than I do.  And that’s why I have help already with both of those things. Although this summer I’m going to attempt the lawn maintenance on my own because it’s so expensive and I could use the exercise and I have lots of time for it.  So far I’ve done nothing.  But I have contemplated raking.  Well, that’s a start isn’t it?  I’ve also sighed and rolled my eyes at the flower beds.

W often helps with the cooking (and I don’t even have to pay him for it) but he likes to cook things like potatoes and perogies and bacon.  I would like to hire a soup and salad chef.  Can you imagine how damned healthy I would be if it didn’t involve having to chop things up on my own?  Yes, I am exactly that lazy and often buy salad kits in a bag because putting one together from scratch just feels too labour intensive to be tolerated.  I admire people who can chop things small enough so that a spoonful of soup contains six different vegetables, instead of one hunk of green pepper big enough to choke you.

If this excellent chopper I’ve hired could also do interesting things with chicken and fish and the occasional steak, I would probably never enter the kitchen again.  And no doubt boast about it to my friends.  And have them over for dinner parties.

What makes you laugh the most?

My first thought was to say my daughter because she can make the most ordinary story hilariously funny, but its actually both my kids, especially when they’re together.  One is loud and a little crazy, and the other is deadpan dry humour personified, reminding me of my dad who always said droll things with a completely straight face.  I love that they find the funny in things, and that they’re drawn to people who make them laugh too. Life would be hell if you couldn’t laugh at it.

What was your favorite food when you were a child?

Strangely enough it was little triangular salmon sandwiches.  White bread, canned pink salmon mixed with salt and pepper and white vinegar, real butter on the bread, sweet mixed pickles on the side.  These were a treat for special occasions and picnics and usually meant for company. If we’d had them every day I can’t imagine they would have had the same appeal.  I still love canned salmon, with the bones mashed up in it, and  don’t care at all for fresh salmon.

Second place goes to a concoction my grandmother used to make for us, little potatoes and fresh yellow beans all soft and mushy in a white creamy buttery sauce.  Maybe she made it when we were starving and that’s why I remember it being delicious.  Or maybe it was simply delicious.  I’ve never tried making it myself, afraid to crush the memory.

List at least five favorite flowers or plants.

Sunflowers, daisies, black eyed susans, tiger lilies and anything that has red leaves.  I love the smell of tomato plants and the look of big ripe red tomatoes on the vine.  I might try planting some yellow beans in my back flower bed this year.  They’re supposed to be pretty hard to kill.  Most other plants are no challenge for me, they wither and die if I look at them sideways.  Or don’t look at them at all.  Perhaps that’s part of the problem.

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

I’m grateful for a quiet week of listening to myself breathe and wondering why I’m wheezy.  Allergy meds don’t seem to have any effect.  Maybe I need something stronger.  Like vodka.  Or weed.

I’m grateful that I’ve finally made it to the end of the last season of Weeds on Netflix.  What a binge watch, and what a bizarre show and what a dumb ending.  I like Mary Louise Parker or I would never have lasted to the final episode.

Next week I have another visit to the university hospital and then I see my family doctor and then I think I will beg them all to leave me alone. Unless of course they find something dire, and then I will rethink that plan.

And THEN I might do some art work.  Sadly, when something begins to feel like work, I stop doing it.  I am looking forward to rekindling the joy.  It’s in here somewhere.

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Haha! Just messing with you.  I know it’s Thursday. Happy early April Fools Day. Unless the world ends before tomorrow, then the joke is on me.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 13

Are you left or right-handed?

I am right-handed but I like to practice doing things with my left hand just in case the right one ever wears out or goes missing.  This is a sign of a great worrier, thinking up obscure and unlikely events and preparing for them.  Or worrying because I’m not prepared for them at all.

If you had only one TV, would you prefer the TV in the living room or another room?

We do have only one TV.  It is in the basement.  I like it there, away from the rest of the house where I can’t hear it.  Most commercials  (and all advertising) drive me nuts.  I am near-sighted and don’t like wearing my glasses, and I don’t hear well.  So I watch TV shows up close on my iPad, with subtitles.  If there was no television in the house I don’t think I’d miss it much.

Have you ever participated in a distance walking, swimming, running, or biking event? Tell your story.

Yes I have!  It was twenty years ago and I walked 15 kilometres for the Children’s Miracle Network, or some such similar worthy cause.  The details are fuzzy after all this time, but I definitely recall the 15 km part vividly.  The choices were to do 5, 7, or 15.  When we got to the 7 km point my coworker (who was the one who decided to do the damned walk in the first place) wanted to stop, but I said what the hell, we’ve come this far, let’s do the whole thing.  Our second mistake was sitting on the ground and taking our shoes off to eat a snack when we made it to the end.  We couldn’t get our shoes back on and we couldn’t get up.  We found it hysterically funny that we might have to crawl to the parking lot and drive home in sock feet.  Physical exhaustion does weird things to your sense of humour.

It didn’t come to that, but there’s a reason I’ve never attempted such a long trek since.  It took days for my muscles to recover.  And there’s a reason why sane people do a lot of training beforehand.  I get it now.

Complete this sentence: Love is… .

Love is hard work and rarely perfect, but worth it anyway.  I don’t think I’ve ever used a bible quote here before, but I quite like this one.

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

I have chosen four colours for my house and not one of them is yellow!  Well, okay, one of them sort of is but it’s called coconut milk so it doesn’t count.  The back entrance is small and poorly lit and needs serious lightening up.  Coconut milk should work.  I’m grateful that we’ve made a start with white ceiling and trim paint too.  Maybe we’ll need sunglasses back there after this.  Instead of a flashlight.

My medical procedures continue (blah) but I’m grateful this last CT scan on Tuesday was at our new local hospital.  What a great place!  Even though it took three people five tries to find a vein for the contrast dye, I’m impressed with the facility.  It’s a ten minute drive from home and beats the hassle of going into the city.  Had my three-month blood work done today and had to explain my bruises but got poked only once this time.  Little things like this make me curiously happy.

As for next week, who knows?  I have lots to keep me busy, but ever fewer excuses to ignore the art room.  Back to that soon I hope.  Meanwhile, this old house continues to endure its facelift.

Yay for April!

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On the first day of spring I started to share my world with the normal world but I got seriously sidetracked, much like the girl on the right.  You know, doing extremely important shit.  But look at me now, having put things off but not given up on them entirely and at last, on Spring Day Four, here we go.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 12

Wanting something to quench your thirst, what would you drink?

Like someone I knew a long time ago, you might THINK there is some magic potion other than water which quenches your thirst, but you would be deluded.  My friends choice at the time was Pepsi.  I suggested it satisfied her desire for sugar and caffeine and had very little to do with thirst, but she would not be persuaded.  This happens sometimes, me being incredibly smart and the other person refusing to have a clue. The reason I have held on to this particular memory might simply be because it’s a rare thing of course.  Me being totally right about something.

Anyway, my final answer is water with no weird things added to it.  I mean seriously, does anyone crave coffee in the desert?

What made you feel good this past week?

Being ALONE.  I would not crave aloneness in the desert either,  but I often crave it here in my house.  On Sunday morning W left for Ontario where he will visit his parents for a couple of weeks.  I don’t think he was gone an hour before I had created a colossal mess taking wallpaper off the back door entrance-way and down the basement steps.  I removed trim and nails and a bit of stucco ceiling by mistake and there was nobody looking over my shoulder being helpful or critical or freaked out by the chaos.  It made me happy to stop abruptly at any random point when the mood hit me and wander off to do something else.  Or nothing else.  I have actually been doing a lot of that these past few days with minimum guilt.

This type of little euphoric pause in being a responsible functioning adult with normal sleeping and eating patterns doesn’t last long and then I will be happy to have someone around to talk to again.  Meanwhile, alone is very okay.

When you’re alone at home, do you wear shoes, socks, slippers, or go barefoot?

Barefoot was always my choice until my feet started to wear out.  Now I wear neon pink flip-flops until my feet get cold and I am forced to change into gigantic fuzzy socks.  When I go outside, even just to empty the garbage, I try to put on some shoes that are half-assed normal. Or go with my nightgown.  Because, you know, neighbors.

Would you rather live where it is always hot or always cold?

When it’s very hot I am even more lethargic than normal and would probably wilt and die without air conditioning.  When it’s very cold at least there’s the option of gigantic fuzzy clothing to get warmed up.

Either way the “always” part would be hard to like. Variety is nice, like snowfall on the second day of spring or rain in the middle of winter.  I don’t know how else to start a conversation with a stranger unless there’s weird weather on which to comment.

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

My daughter has offered to paint our house, ceilings and all, and I have finally made a decision on where to start.  Soon our house will be paper free!  Taking the wallpaper off in the entryway has made me remember why I put it up there in the first place.  It covered a multitude of wall flaws in a hurry.  Time to repair them properly.

I know that once one area is all cleaned up with a fresh coat of paint it’s impossible to stop until the next room is done, and the next one and the next one…..  I am grateful to have help, with my most important duty being colour selection.  Truthfully, I’m willing to hand that one over to her as well since so far all I’ve been able to pick out is sixteen different shades of yellow.

The best part of all is taking ten decorative things off the walls and then putting only two back up.  I don’t know if I can do it, but I’m going to try.

The funniest thing that happened this week (I am always grateful for funny things) is the furnace maintenance guy doing his yearly check up on our heating system and wondering why we had set the furnace to half heat.  I said I didn’t know what that meant so he explained about dual versus single and completely lost me in furnace-speak.   He thinks someone must have been randomly pushing buttons on the thermostat and he had to reset everything including the clock.  Okay, that part I understand.  And I was able to blame it totally on W because he’s not here to defend himself.  Bonus.  I am never touching the thermostat again.  It will be forever 19 degrees celsius day and night in all seasons until we die.  One less decision to make.

Okay!  Back to the wallpaper!  Although what’s the point now, might as well wait until tomorrow.  Or the weekend.  It’s not going anywhere.

Sharing My World 54

Weekend Artwork by Littlest Granddaughter

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 11

How many siblings do you have? What’s your birth order?

My brother was born first, followed by me three years later, followed by my sister another three years later, and six years after that, baby sister, spoiled by her siblings.  So I am a middle child, one of three girls, nobody special.  Or incredibly special, I can’t decide.

In a car would you rather drive or be a passenger?

I don’t mind being a passenger, feeling free to let my mind wander or to fall asleep or to give directions or to wonder out loud why we are taking this particularly stupid route.  Well, that’s only when W is behind the wheel.  I don’t mind driving by myself, but I do not like having passengers when I’m driving.  Probably because I’m such a bad passenger/back seat driver myself and also because I like to talk to other drivers on the road without anyone hearing the dumb things I say.  Plus I take wrong turns all the time and nobody needs to know that.

When you lose electricity in a storm, do you light the candles or turn on the flashlight? How many of each do you own?

All W’s flashlights are downstairs in the dark, but I have candles and matches everywhere.  Some family member asked me once why W has so many flashlights and I didn’t know the answer to that one because, like I said, they’re all downstairs somewhere in the dark and I wouldn’t know where to look for them.  I have a little pen sized flashlight in my makeup bag for some obscure reason, and I used to have a light thing dangling from my keys but I don’t know what happened to it.  I never used it because there’s an interior light in the car and the porch light is always on at our back door and I can’t think of a single time I needed to use my keys in the dark.

I’m not sure why I have this uncanny ability to turn the answer to a simple question into a rambling essay.  I light candles.  We own many.

List at least five of your favorite types of animal (any animal to domestic to wild to marine life)

Lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, zebras.  In a previous life I lived in Africa.  Or a zoo.  Or the circus.

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

This weekend our eldest grandson attended a special wrestling development clinic at the U of A for wrestlers who got medals at the Alberta Winter Games.  We are incredibly proud of him for doing so well in a sport he’s only just started.

Youngest grandson got to go to an Oilers hockey game, and even though his team “got destroyed” as he explained it, he had a great time.

The girls and I went to see the Zootopia movie in 3D.  Because those special glasses are to die for.  You can pop out the lenses and wear them home.  And the movie was great fun!  They were especially giggly about the sloths.

I put a border on the above artwork by Madison and I’m going to put it up somewhere more important than the fridge.  I love that she made it so colourful and happy.

Not sure what I’m looking forward to in particular this week, but in general, spring.  And summer.  And all the snow disappearing.  Just normal every day stuff.  No crazy wishes or expectations.  I’m happy to keep waking up in the morning.

Sharing My World 53

From “Vintage Life” on Facebook

Hello Thursday my old friend,

I’ve come to post on you again….

Oookay…..Now that’s out of my head and in to yours I can get on with it.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 10

What would you ask for if a genie granted you three wishes?

Here’s  the thing with genies.  Their brains don’t function the same as ours do.  This makes wishing a dangerous thing.  Wishes backfire.

Ever hear the one about the guy who wished he were married to a much younger woman and POOF!  The genie made him a hundred years old?  That’s what I’m talking about.  Wishes should come with legal advice and three pages of terms and conditions, and still there’s no guarantee the genie will get it right.

So I would be cautious and sceptical and out of luck it there’s a time limit.  I often wish for hard things I’m going through in my life to be over with, and then hope I won’t get run over by a bus for it to come true.  I would like not to worry about stuff, but sometimes worry is a subtle warning, or a gentle push in the right direction.  And then there’s happiness.  Impossible to appreciate unless you’ve known sadness.  Good health and prosperity might be nice but I’d have to explore the loopholes, and hold back my last wish to be able to reverse the first two in case they were disappointing.

See why I never get anything done??

What experiences are most meaningful to you?

Learning experiences.  I suppose that encompasses every experience I’ve ever had, although some of them were more enlightening than others. With other people or on your own, there’s worlds to be discovered. Even our dream experiences teach us something.  Last night in my sleep I was driving a big cumbersome vehicle with a standard transmission, slowly rolling backwards into pitch black night, pumping the clutch instead of the brake.  Finally got my feet untangled and got stopped without hitting anything.  I felt relieved and quite confident that I could find first gear and climb back up.  But we will never know for sure because the stress of it all woke me up.  This week my life has felt like its rolling backwards into oblivion.  But it’s probably not.  My dream self knows this I guess.

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Well about three bazillion grown ups asked me that question and would not accept “I don’t know” for an answer.  So I made shit up.  The fact is, I STILL DON’T KNOW.

Complete this sentence: The best day of my life was….

…..staring back at me from the future.  The best is yet to come.  If you don’t believe that, why are you still here?

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

It is really, really hard for me to be grateful for all the medical attention I’m getting these days because I hate it.  The CT scan showed the bothersome inflammation in my neck has increased in size and that means a referral to yet another specialist and more needle biopsies.  They seem determined to find something and I live in constant fear that they will.  Maybe I’ll ask the genie to make me a hypochondriac so I can get a kick out of all this messing around.

This weekend the northern relatives will be here.  Some are going to watch the Oilers play the Coyotes, and the rest of us more sane ones will maybe go to a movie.

This is the weekend we spring ahead an hour, and that means Spring is getting closer.  That reminds me, I forgot to stock up on allergy meds today while I was out.  So I will simply be grateful for having a reason to go out again in the sunshine tomorrow.

Hope you’re having a fabulous week!

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My Curly Girl calendar for March. March apparently is pink.

Hello, I’m back!  (It makes me laugh when I read that somewhere else if I didn’t notice the person was gone.)  So if you think that’s funny I won’t be offended. I don’t know how an entire week has slipped by.  Never mind an entire month. I didn’t have to search for what number my last world sharing was to get the title right on this one because there have been no posts in between.  Procrastination has its perks.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 9

Have you done something you truly want to do today?

Yes I have.  I drove to the U of A Hospital for my CT scan which has been booked forever.  Sat in an uncomfortably hot waiting room for about an hour, part of that time beside an unhappy baby.  He didn’t scream the entire time, but sure gave it his best shot.  Had a nurse prod the insides of both my elbows (that’s what she called them – so much more descriptive than simply calling them arms) looking for a good place to hook up the I.V.  Got that all taped on, walked some more hallways and waited in a different chair.  Eventually got put on the CT machine, shot up with dye and x-rayed to death.  Did you know that when someone says don’t breathe and don’t swallow, those two things are exactly what you cannot possibly live another two seconds without doing?  And then it was done and I was unhooked and got a gigantic piece of gauze taped on and was pointed in the direction of the exit.  And WHAT I TRULY WANTED TO DO at that point was to go home.  So I did.

What can you help the world with?

It’s easy to believe you’re just one insignificant little person with no real impact on anything but that’s simply not true.  I try to conserve energy and reduce waste, recycle, donate to charities.  I vote.  Mostly I’m a nice person trying to be helpful, thoughtful and kind.  Except maybe for when I’m yelling at rude drivers – but lets just call that talking to Jesus.  Calling out his name anyway.  I don’t know if he’s listening so I’ll just forgive myself.

If life was ‘just a bowl of cherries’… which fruit other than a cherry would you be..?

Inky dark purple grapes.  The kind used to make Malbec wine.  I don’t know, that sounded more fun than being a boring old apple or a lumpy raspberry.

Quotes List: At least three of your favorite quotes?

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.  Albus Dumbledore.

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.  Roald Dahl.

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.  Lemony Snicket.

What’s that guys name?  Soup Bottom Aladdin? My Grandson.

(Osama bin Laden – OMG.) (My Son.)

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

We had a nice visit over the weekend with the northern grandchildren.  Two have birthdays coming up in March and April.  Soon they will all be in double digits.  I’m grateful for good weather and mostly bare roads. The bump signs have me confused though.  We drove on a particularly rough stretch where two sets of big yellow and black bump warning signs were placed on the only two relatively smooth sections.  Is that some kind of highway humor?  I don’t get it.

I would like to say I’m looking forward to doing our income taxes but I’m only excited about getting it over with.  I have one more scheduled doctor appointment at the end of this month to follow-up on the CT scan and then  fingers crossed, I can forget about things like this for a while.

Because there is important artistic doodling and messing about to be done, and writing about it after the fact, and Malbec drinking and game playing and movie watching.  All things which probably are making the world a better place, right?  Just be nice and agree with me.  There.  How hard was that?

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Does this look like February? I’m squinting and it looks like spring to me.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 8

What household chore do you absolutely hate doing?

Is this a trick question?  If I choose laundry will my washing machine suddenly break down?  I hate them all equally.  I used to wonder why I was so accident prone when it came to housework, but now I know it’s because most of it is so mind numbingly boring it’s impossible to pay attention to what you’re doing and incredibly easy to think about something else entirely and end up twisting your ankle or falling down the stairs.  Especially when doing something disgusting like scrubbing a toilet bowl.  Ok, for the absolutely hate part, that might be the one.

I do like a clean house, I just don’t love the household chores involved in getting one, especially when they can be worse health hazards than the ones you’re trying to avoid by cleaning up.  House cleaners should get danger pay for bumped heads, sprained wrists, cut fingers, mental anguish and broken toes.

What was the last URL that you bookmarked?

Honestly I have no idea.  Since W crashed his computer (he says it got hit by lightning and I don’t have the energy to argue with that) he has taken over mine and I use my iPad for everything.  I never really had a chance to get used to Windows 10 but W hates it.  I will convert him to Apple if I live long enough.  He still has a flip phone.  The two of them could be a museum exhibit. I did show him how to use bookmarks instead of putting a billion icons on his desk top but he wasn’t impressed.

Close your eyes. Listen to your body. What part of your body is seeking attention? What is it telling you?

My right shoulder is arguing with my neck about which of them can be the most annoying.  Both are screaming for a massage.  My feet are telling me to put some socks on.  My right index finger thinks it might be arthritic.  My brain says to ignore them all and go take a nap.  I’m going to stop listening to my body now, thanks, it’s such a complainer.

Would you rather have a two-bedroom apartment in a big city of your choosing or a mansion in the country side in the state or country where you currently live?

Can you imagine how many toilet bowls you would have to scrub if you lived in a mansion?  And how long the drive would be to buy new toilet brushes because you kept wearing them out?  No hesitation here, give me a little apartment in a big city.  Somewhere with easy access to all the amenities and where someone else is responsible for things like maintenance and flower beds.

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

Today the appliance repairman replaced the broken spring on our dishwasher door so I’m grateful to be able to use it again.  He says it will now last us another 20 years.  How scary is that?  It could live longer than I do. W says we didn’t really miss it, although I don’t remember him personally doing a lot of dishes in the sink this past week so I’m not sure how he came to that conclusion.

Last night we went out for ‘all-you-can-eat ribs’ because we are crazy and forgot for a minute that we’re not 300 pound football players with voracious appetites.  Live and learn.

I’m looking forward to experimenting with my new water-soluble wax crayons.  They’re like water colours and oil pastels (neither of which I like all that much on their own) combined.  Can two wrongs make a right?  So far the answer is yes, but I suppose I can’t pretend to be an expert yet.  Give me another twenty-four hours.  Or until all those ribs are finally digested, whichever comes first.

Sharing My World 48

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 5

If you had a shelf for your three most special possessions (not including photos, electronic devices and things stored on them, people or animals), what would you put on it?

In my bedroom there is a little white shelf which used to have a desk under it and so was useful for holding desk related stuff.  Now the desk is moved and the shelf has become a catch-all, but today I cleared it off and found three special possessions to put on it instead so I could share my (slightly reorganized) world with you and answer this question.  You may already be familiar with my alien giraffe.  Next to him is my Starbucks dog sporting various pieces of jewelry that I am saving even though their value is purely sentimental.  And then there’s my cow piggy bank which I love mostly because it’s not a pig.  A long time ago I filled it up with loonies and toonies saving for my trip to Scotland. It’s been mostly empty ever since.

Strange things to treasure I suppose, but they make me smile.  What’s the point of possessions if they don’t make you feel happy?  And if they all went missing tomorrow it would not be a devastating loss.  They are just things, and things come and go.  Except maybe for that giraffe who could possibly be one of a kind.

If you had a box labelled ‘happiness’, what would you put in it?

I would never try to put happiness in a box.  Happiness should be wild and free and as changeable as the weather, otherwise how would we learn to appreciate it? It might sometimes seem illusive but it is also boundless, and always better shared.

What do you want more of in your life?

Winning lottery tickets please.  Even just one would be fine.  A big one, not those silly free plays.  I was going to say “cowbell” but thought the ticket thing sounded slightly more sane.

Daily Life List: What do you do on an average day? Make a list of your usual activities you do each day.

This reminds me of the time Vanna White (the letter turner on Wheel of Fortune) wrote a book about her life in which she described how she does sit ups, what she eats, and how she likes to crochet.   The bio has been described as brilliant and brainless.  I didn’t read it because I didn’t care what she was up to in her private life.  I will completely understand if you also don’t care about mine and skip this part.  I will probably get bored with it before lunch myself.

1. Stumble in to the bathroom half asleep and take my thyroid medication.  It works best if it’s taken on an empty stomach first thing in the morning with lots of water.  I think all that is true but I may have made some of it up.
2. Stumble in to the kitchen and make coffee.
3. By now I have stopped stumbling about and feel sufficiently competent and alert enough to take and record a fasting blood sugar reading.  If old people did not have medical issues to deal with they would have absolutely nothing to talk about.
4. Sit down and drink my coffee while checking out on my iPad (in random order) Words With Friends, Facebook, Clash of Clans, crossword puzzles, blog notifications and e-mails.
5. Breakfast!  Sometimes W makes us bacon and eggs.  Sometimes he doesn’t and I have to fend for myself.
6. Shower, hair, varying degrees of makeup, take the rest of my meds, get dressed, dishes, laundry, walk, trampoline, lunch, write a blog post, reply to comments, read blogs I follow, make or add to a grocery list for W, decide on some random thing for dinner, clean something.  Oh, wait, you said every day.  Scratch that last one.
7. Start or finish something in the art room. Even if it’s just getting things organized and sorted.  Look on Pinterest for inspiration.
8. Wonder where the afternoon went.
9. Eat, do more dishes, check blood sugar in there again somewhere once or twice, drink some decaf, play some games, try not to think about snacks, watch some Netflix.
10. Go to bed and read whatever strange thing I currently have on my Kindle.  Teeth brushed, face washed, blah blah blah.  Whew.  That was exhausting. I hope you were able to keep up with me.

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

Our eldest grandson had a wrestling tournament here in the city this weekend, so while he and dad and younger brother and grandpa spent their Saturday at that, the girls and I finished up art projects and wasted time on electronic devices.  Well I never claimed to be a great role model. Anyway, it was lovely to have them all here for a couple of nights.

This weekend I had my MRI done (they schedule these things for weekend evenings) so I’m grateful to have that over with.  Not that it’s anything unpleasant except for the hospital gown and the shower cap thing they put on your head, and the headphones and the small enclosed space and the twilight zone noises.  And being asked before the procedure if you have a living will, so that you can dream up all kinds of potential MRI disasters while you’re in the machine.

I am looking forward to getting the results, although not to the appointment where that happens because I foolishly booked it for 9:00 a.m.  Have I really been away from work so long that nine o’clock in the morning seems like an ungodly hour to be out and about?  I mean you’ve seen how busy my average daily schedule can be.  I’ll probably have to work in a nap somewhere that day.  Hey, one more thing to look forward to.