Something About Some Things

Yay for The Daily Post!  And yay for the word “vague” and Savage Chickens being vague.  I don’t know why all of that is inspiring for me today.  I suppose I could dream up some vague reasons, but why, right?  It’s  got me writing.  Good enough.

I had it pointed out to me that my last post was in December.  Well it’s kinda been January ever since, but finally (Finally!) I think the snow is giving up and going away.

So here’s a few things I’ve been up to in this hundred and some days-long month from Hades.

1.  Crocheting.  It all started with my sudden desire for an old lady shawl.  So I made one.  It looks like half of a giant doily and is not particularly warm.  My attempt at making a “shrug” was somewhat more successful but it was big and bulky and annoying to wear so eventually I took the seams apart and did a border and turned it into a blanket.  I have it on my lap as we speak.  And then the slippers began.  I don’t know if I’m up to fifty pair, but it must be close.  I guess you could call it an experiment gone out of control, but I do love messing about with patterns and sizes and different yarns, and my vague goal at this point is for my immediate family to have slippers for life.  They’ve all been very nice about it so far.  Even W has been wearing shoe box size monstrosities and professing to love how warm they are.  Now I’m working on the last sleeve of a rather interesting sweater and that’s maybe all you need to know about that.
2. Shopping the yarn sales at Michaels.  Sometimes two and three days a week using coupons and vouchers and going to the checkout getting the same unlucky lady almost every time, who would probably like to ask me WTF I’m doing with all these random colours bought in fits and starts but is too polite to ask.  Or more likely she’s seen it all before and does not even care.
3. Instant Potting!  Thanks to my son who brought his Instant Pot when they all came for a visit at Spring Break.  My mother was not a fan of pressure cooking and instilled in me a healthy fear of blowing up the kitchen with one of those things.  But a week of watching K use his (and eating all the delicious stuff you can make in it) was enough for me to find the courage to buy one.  I’ve been using it almost every day since.  Yay for more experimenting!  But, you know, on the cautious side.  I sit in another room while it’s working because if it blows I don’t want to go with it.  Childhood fears are really hard to shake.  But the soups are to die for.  Well, not literally.

The sun is shining, the temperature is almost balmy, and it’s getting harder by the day to justify my reluctance to get the hell out of my house and go for a walk.  Ice on the sidewalks has been a powerful deterrent.  Probably wouldn’t be able to find any now.  But I also have a ton of reading to do, many free e-books and three new actual real books from Chapters that I’m saving and savouring and slavering over.  Well that sounds vaguely disgusting.  I don’t even care if they were bad choices and are stupid stories, they are REAL BOOKS.  Yay for real books.

So, am I back to blogging?  Who knows.  Hope so.  Seems possible.  Time will tell. I love being vague.  Kind of the story of my life.  Or not. I don’t know.

Sharing My World 69

 Early morning sunshine and shadow which prompted W to ask me what the hell I’m taking a picture of now.  

Share Your World May 1, 2017

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

No.  I would rather not live in either one of those places.  I would complain about the heat and people would tell me to move somewhere not so hot.  Then I would complain about the cold and people would suggest I shut up about it or move to a warmer climate.  People are weird that way.  Not sure why they can’t figure out I just like to complain.

I would prefer to live in a temperate zone with the occasional heavy rain, cold wind, hot day, chilly evening, dense morning fog.  But mostly blue skies and sunshine with those other things thrown in to offset the boredom and make me less complacent and more apt to appreciate the fair weather.  However,  no earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.  Or tornadoes.  Or mud.  A lot of mud would be a real deal breaker.

Do you prefer long hair or short hair for yourself?

Long straight hippie hair was great when I had the face to go with it.  Medium length was great when I had the time and ambition to style it every day and turn up for work looking presentable and sort of half-assed put together.  Now hair that’s too long just drags my face down.  It’s already droopy enough on its own without help, so short and sweet is my preference these days.  I just don’t see the point in going through a lot of fussing about with it anymore.  Tell that to my high school self who spent five years of her life going to bed with rollers the size of frozen orange juice cans in her hair and then trying not to smile too much the next day because it would cause wrinkles. She probably wouldn’t laugh, but I sure am.

What is your favorite month of the year?

May is nice.  It has Mother’s Day and my birthday in it.  I’m also quite fond of July and August.  As long as there’s no volcanic eruptions or earthquakes or monsoons and the bugs leave me alone.

What is the easiest way for you to learn something new? By reading, by seeing and doing, in a classroom?

Definitely by seeing and doing.  I watched a towel folding video three times before attempting to make a bear shaped creation on my own.  I had no idea I was so dense and my towels were so incredibly stupid.  But I got it done.  That sucker is never going to be unfolded again while I live and breathe.

Optional 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 it appears to be spring-like again after all the weather shenanigans we have dealt with this April.  W did spring cleanup of the lawn for a couple of days and then we watched the snow fall for many days and many nights after that.  We became reluctant to draw the curtains in the morning never knowing whether we would be facing a lawn mower or a snow blower day.  Typical April for us really, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it or not gripe about it.

I am looking forward to finding out if my Tiger Lily bulbs will survive a brutal uprooting and transplant from the back yard to the front flower bed where nothing grows except a big wild-looking thorny thing.  It might be some kind of berry bush, I can’t remember, but it’s very hardy and persistent and refuses to die so I quite like it.    The Tiger Lily bed was annoying to manoeuvre the lawn mower around so I got rid of it.  Yep.  Does not take much to piss me off.

And that is also the reason why I have had to wean myself gently away from the daily news.  Life is just too short to spend so many hours in a day wondering why about so many things.  SO MANY BIZARRE THINGS.  Where do you even start.  And how do you stop once you get started.

The good news is, there has been a marriage in our family!  I don’t know if I’m supposed to make that announcement because it’s not my story to tell, so I’ll just leave you all hanging about the details.  Except to say I’m very happy about it, so there you go. Don’t ask me any questions.  You know what happened to that flower bed.

I found it on Facebook.  Source of all good and worthwhile stuff.

Sharing My World 51

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.

Art du Jour 52

The verdict is still out on this one but its growing on me.  I think with the right frame I might like it better.  I have love/hate relationships with my art.  What a luxury it is to have the time to let them hang around unfinished while I determine their fate.

We have had a busy week doing spring things, and enjoying a visit with good friends on their way home to northern Ontario after wintering in B.C.  We were able to sit outside in the sunshine, go out for dinner, stay up too late, sleep in, shop and barbecue.  We are just a bunch of old retired people living it up.

It’s Thursday, and garbage day, and the end of another week already!  Time just keeps slipping away whether you’re paying attention or not.  And that’s probably the most brilliant thing I’ll say today.  I like to keep my expectations low.

Have a great Thursday!

 

Art du Jour 46

I’ve been missing my charcoal.  This doesn’t look much like my magazine picture model, but I’m sure she must look like somebody.  I started off on this project with the intention of drawing 365 faces.  Obviously I’ve gone off on a lot of tangents.  Now I’m just doing a count of art days and anything goes.

It was a lovely quiet Sunday here,  once W got back inside from a couple of hours of blowing snow all over the neighbourhood this morning.

I wish I was kidding. Third day of snowfall in a row.  But higher temperatures in the forecast so it will soon be gone.  I try to never complain about rain,  because at least it’s not snow.

Does this look like a young Jane Fonda to you?  It wasn’t supposed to.  What the hell.  I’ll just pretend I meant to do that.

Art du Jour 45

Woke up this morning to snow (again) so I created my own little patch of spring.

And since its World Poetry Day, here’s one from the archives….

Spring has sprung

The grass is riz 

I wonder where the flowers is

Yeah.  That one is going right back from whence it came.

Our lawn people have called us about spring clean up, so somebody is optimistic.  Hope you’re having a fun Saturday, whatever season you’re stuck in.

Art du Jour 41

Just in case you thought I might be slacking off in the creativity business, here’s number three in my nameless series of egg head girls.   A lot of drying time is involved in the many layers.  There’s more depth to this one and a cooler palette than the first two.

I hoped it would have more of an under water feel, but despite the seaweed hair it looks a little wintry instead.

W is having a rum (that’s like saying he’s breathing) so I am going to wash the paint off my hands and join him.  Let’s just call it celebrating the end of a beautiful spring-ish kind of day.

 

Lord Love a Duck

Yes, this is a picture of a big ass chocolate bar.  It was the most exciting thing that happened to me yesterday.  I had adjusted and dispensed glasses to a little old lady (she was way older than me, by at least 10 years) and as she got up to leave she asked me if I liked chocolate.  I said yes.  Dark chocolate?  Yes.  She whipped this monstrous thing out of her bag and told me to enjoy it with the rest of the girls who helped her pick out her glasses and to have a nice day.  Just being called a ‘girl’ would have been enough to make the day nice.

But look at that thing.  It is for sure my kind of gratuity.  Normally we get nothing (which is what we expect even though we’re awesome) and sometimes we get coffee or a handful of change to put in our coffee fund.  This is the equivalent amount of chocolate found in about a dozen normal size bars.  I ate four squares of it and felt sick.

As interesting as all this is, hang on, because I’ve got something even better.

In my backyard this morning in the rain I spied a creature.  That’s about as specific as I could be without my glasses.  It looked like a bird, maybe a young Canada Goose.

I really need to clean this window before I take any more pictures through it.  This is the last of our dirty snow pile still refusing to give up.  And with glasses on and the zoom on my phone, look at this!

It’s a mallard duck with his very-hard-to-see mate just behind him.  Both of them mucking about in the rain, like this is the wetlands or something.  I was going to wake W up so he could get all excited about my remarkable avian identification skills involving a bird that wasn’t a blue jay or a cardinal, but then I remembered he used to be a migratory birds expert and seeing a duck might not be the highlight of his morning.  I imagined him being grumpy and unimpressed, or worse, spewing out a hundred duck related facts off the top of his head.  I let him sleep.

The ducks may have been attracted to all the spilled birdseed under our tree, or the gigantic puddle in our neighbor’s backyard caused from all the run off of the melting snow.  He’s been pumping it periodically to keep it from turning into a big mud hole, and now all the rain makes it look like he hasn’t done a thing.  I watched the ducks putter around for a bit, and then they waddled under the fence to the other side to play in the water.  It was such a simple thing, and yet so odd and unexpected that it felt amazing.  What an excellent way to start the day.

Just when you think it’s all about chocolate, life gives you ducks.

This Is My Backyard on Good Friday

This is a direct W quote – “Lord Thunderin’ Jesus”.  As for me, I have uttered a couple of phrases beginning with the word “Holy…”   It is a religious holiday after all.

Not even going to wonder how long this snow will continue to fall.  The good news is – we can see the Easter Bunny’s tracks!  Really!  They look suspiciously like the footprints of a jack-rabbit!  Sneaky bunny.

Happy Winterspring.  Hope you all have a thunderin’ awesome day.

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.