Sharing My World 71

Share Your World – May 15, 2017

How many languages do you speak?

Regrettably, only one.  Although if I truly did regret it, nothing is stopping me from learning to speak another one.  For this to happen I imagine it’s best to have someone fluent in the new language with whom to converse.  Because this person would be able to helpfully correct my pronunciation and grammar after laughing at it.  Thankfully I don’t know anyone like that.

What are you reading, watching, listening to, eating?

I am reading an e-book called “Weightless” by Kandi Steiner.  It’s about eighteen year old Natalie who gets dumped by her boyfriend, decides to hit the gym, and then falls for her personal trainer.  Everybody has issues.  Her friends, her mother, her step dad, her ex and his nasty new girlfriend, her hot trainer and his nasty clients….and she is sorry high school is done and debating what to do next.  And I just want to say “Run, Natalie, run!”  The book was a Kindle daily deal.  Totally worth the money.

I am watching “New Blood”, a BBC detective type series on Netflix.  Season one, episode four, case two, part one.  Not sure why I remember all that and even more confused as to why I feel the need to share it.  Episodes one two and three were case one, parts one two and three.  Maybe I’m just proud of my attention to unimportant details.  I like the main characters and how they end up working together and solving the shit out of stuff.

I am listening to the rain pour down and feeling all smug that I put off starting my walk because of all those menacing dark clouds and thus didn’t get caught in the downpour.

I ate a toasted scrambled egg sandwich on dark European rye bread with ketchup on the side for brunch.  Wow, I am a total detail freak today.

What was the last photo you took with your phone?

There it is at the top of this post.  A piece of cracked sidewalk and some scrubby spring grass.  I was putting my phone back in to my pocket and somehow managed to capture this brilliant moment in time on my walk through one of the alley walk-ways between houses in my neighbourhood yesterday. I hope no one tries to steal this incredible image without my permission.

What is your favorite time of day?

Early morning.  Because coffee.

Optional 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 a lovely quiet weekend on my own doing pretty much nothing out of the ordinary….even though Sunday was Mothers Day and Saturday was my birthday.  My daughter, son, daughter-in-law and oldest granddaughter sent me texts.  THEY ALL KNOW ME SO WELL!  I don’t like a lot of fuss and I love that they get that.  W sent a text on Sunday night saying sorry he missed my birthday and Happy Mother’s Day and here’s what’s going on with ME….

Is it weird that I’m ok with all of this?  Probably.  Oh well, whatever, weird is good too, right?  I love them all and I am loved and nothing else really matters after that.

Okay, the sun is out!  Time to drag myself away from the IPad and onto the cracked streets and walkways and bike paths of my soaking wet world!  Then I can get back to crime season episode part whatever the hell is going on case solving.  Don’t ever say my priorities are screwed up.  They are, but you don’t need to say it.

 

 

Sharing My World 7

What is your favorite time of day?

Early morning, when the world is quiet, the coffee is hot and fresh and aromatically delicious, and I am curled up on the couch with my I-Pad reading my favourite blogs.  Scrolling through Facebook in case there’s something there to shock and amaze me or tell me something which will, without a doubt, immediately change my life.  Many pages make these kinds of promises but don’t deliver.  Well none have yet, anyway, but hey, you never know.

Early morning is for looking out the windows at my little corner of the world going about its morning business, full of busy people with their purposes and plans.  It’s about having the whole day ahead of me to fill with activities and actions and projects and deeds.  Or with absolutely nothing at all.

What’s your favorite charitable cause and why?

Cancer research.  Treatment and cures are admirable pursuits, but prevention deserves the most focus.  Because who of us has not lost someone,  somewhere,  to the big C?

How do you like to spend a rainy day?

If it’s simply warm and drizzly, not blustery and cold with the power to turn ones umbrella inside out, there’s something purely delightful about a long walk in the rain.  Even if it ruins your hair.  We live in a place where the air is so bone dry it can glue your contact lenses to your eyeballs.  When it rains, the clean fresh air and humidity and the deep, cleansing breaths you take to clear your lungs and your head are amazing – you can’t order that on Amazon.  I love all rainy days, including the ones not fit to be out in, because inside and out they wash the crap and the cobwebs away.

When writing by hand do you prefer to use a pencil or pen?

Pencils are for drawing.  Pens are for writing brilliant things like lists.  If it’s worth writing, it’s worth putting down in indelible ink.  Purple gel is always a good choice.  However, when I wrote things on patient files I used erasable pens (with boring black ink) so that I could appear to be a decisive professional who did not have to scratch out stupid statements containing spelling mistakes.  Has anyone thought of inventing a purple gel auto-correct spell-checking pen?  I’d buy one of those.

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 the strong anti inflammatory medication I am taking which has reduced the puffiness in my face to such an extent that the dark circles under my eyes are remarkably more noticeable.  Well, at least I know it’s doing something.  I am looking forward to seeing my up-north grandchildren after Halloween.  I am looking forward to Halloween being over so those little candy bars will stop calling my name.

Share Your World Week 43

Just Jazzy 311

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 98

Happiness is watching the little birds throw seeds off the feeder for the bigger birds on the ground while the squirrel scolds all of them for having the nerve to be there in the first place.

Just Jazzy 295

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 82

Happiness is hauling out the sweaters you had packed away and grabbing a warm throw against the brisk morning air, because it’s still August and we are NOT closing any windows yet.

Just Jazzy 294

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 81

Happiness is giving yourself the gift of a perfectly peaceful morning. Silence, coffee and a sketch book. Bliss.

Just Jazzy 223

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 10

Happiness is a walk around the block in the gentle morning rain. But if it suddenly turns into a blustery downpour, all bets are off on the happiness part of this one.

 

No Looking Back

 

He leans over the balcony railing with her note in one hand and his half smoked cigarette in the other.  Can’t stay, sorry love, pressing matters, no point waking you up to say goodbye… So many lies.  He wants to believe them and doesn’t know why.

The paper crumples in his fist, drops to the patio stone.  He watches it skitter and dance in the morning breeze.  Imagines her leaving, how she walked, the set of her shoulders, the swing of her hair.  Gone, like that.  With no looking back.

He slowly exhales.  His head hurts.  So does his heart.

**********

Light and Shade Challenge – 100 words inspired by the above picture and this quote:  She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake – Margot Asquith

Easter Sunday Morning

Happy Easter, Happy Sunday,  Happy Spring.  It’s raining here.  Don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see the rain.

What I Did on the First Day of Spring

I swore a lot.

You know, just for the record, way back in the day when I was young Spring didn’t officially begin until the twenty-first day of March.  When things change I always like to find someone to blame for it, and in this case it’s astronomers and calendar manufacturers and people with a warped sense of humor.

Spring is currently being reduced by approximately one minute per year and winter by about one-half minute per year. Summer is gaining the minute lost from spring, and autumn is gaining the half-minute lost from winter. Winter is the therefore the shortest astronomical season, and getting shorter all the time.

If you don’t believe that, good for you.  It doesn’t sound even remotely realistic to me either, especially when I’m looking out the kitchen window at eight o’clock in the morning on the 20th of March at a raging blizzard.

So back to the swearing part of my day.  W has already replaced my winter tires with summer tires because it’s what he does every March just before a major snow squall.  There’s no reasoning with him on this so I don’t even bother anymore.  I just get in my car and drive all over the road cursing non stop for however long it takes me to get where I’m going.  It’s good that I get this out of my system before I start work.  And that no one has to listen to it but me.  It’s therapeutic.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So I did make it through the crappy weather to my destination where I worked all day.  Then I did some grocery shopping and drove home on mostly bare roads because the snow melts more quickly when a lot of maniacs are driving their cars on it.  And I made a big pot of chili.  Because it’s the first day of Spring and we need to eat something hot to thaw us out.

I also took this lovely spring picture in our back yard.  I think the icicles on the lawn chair are a nice touch.  I’m not sure why the little tables are on top of the chairs but I’m sure W would have some crazy long and detailed explanation for it if I were foolish enough to ask him about it.  So I won’t.

I’m not convinced that today was a real spring day.  Maybe it’s still supposed to be the twenty-first after all and tomorrow we’ll get a better surprise.

Early Morning Yesterday

It was an early morning yesterday, I was up before the dawn

(Supertramp, Goodbye Stranger)

I wasn’t really up before the dawn and it wasn’t actually yesterday, I think it was the day before, but let’s pretend for the sake of my awesome quote that no one cares about the details.

Every morning when I get out of bed I pull the curtains aside and look out into the backyard to see what the day looks like.  And I guess to see if anything interesting is going on back there.  Nothing ever is, but you never know.  On this particular day the morning sky was absolutely gorgeous, so I grabbed my phone and took a picture through the bedroom window of….. the garage.  Then I woke up a bit more and decided to put a little more effort and some zoom into it and came up with these.

  

A normal person might have put some clothes and shoes on and actually ventured outside to take clear pictures, but if I were one of those and had done that I think I might have missed it all.  In the second last shot which was over to the right, the colors were less intense and soon it all started to lighten like that. By the time I had coffee made the sky was back to its regular faded winter ice blue.

I’m so happy I didn’t miss this!  It was amazing.  If you’ve never heard of or seen the color called ‘sky blue pink’ before, there you go.  This is what it looks like.