Odds and Ends

5 Things That Make Me Ask Why

The other day I started thinking about the non-serious things that make me wonder why and thought maybe I should write about it in my blog.  I came up with a list of 5 6 things that I thought of right away.  You'll see why I changed it at the end. 

Why do some people sit in the left hand turn lane all the way through a red light and then when the advanced green comes on they stay sitting there?  Are they not paying attention or what?  Sometimes its so bad that the people behind them can not take advantage of the advance green.  It's like - Excuse me didn't you want to turn left?  (This is what got me thinking about why this past week).

Why does it seem like whenever it is recycle/garbage day that Mother Nature wants to make things difficult?  It's either super windy, raining, snowing or freezing rain  -  the wind is the worst.   Does she have a thing about garbage days?  It seems like every week (well maybe not all but you get my drift) I'm chasing empty containers down the road. and cars are having to dodge bins, pails & lids that have blown into the street.  And why can't people do something about their newspapers so they are not blowing all over the place on recycle day?  (Does that count as a second why - no they both have to do with garbage/recycle day so I'll count them as one).

Why is that when the magnolia trees are finally in bloom invariably the wind will come up and we're lucky to get one day of the blossoms on the trees before they're all blown on to the ground.  It's something the same with peonys.  As soon as the blossoms open it seems that we get a torrential downpour that bends them over and smashing them into the ground.   Cages around them help ever so slightly but then you get the broken stems instead. 

Why in a supposedly paperless society do we seem to have even more paper?  This thought came to me after catching up on the household filing.  We're either going to have to get another filing cabinet or not keep things as long as they (the experts) tell us how long we need to keep them.

Finally, Why do I have such trouble getting rid of pictures?  I know I don't need so many copies of basically the same shot but something in me doesn't want to let me throw the extras out.  I dread the thought of one of these clutter experts coming in and seeing all the pictures (mind you they are in photo boxes etc) we have.  They always seem to want you to throw everything out and lets not get into my keeping negatives (whole other story).  Ooops sort of got off the track there didn't I?

And now for the reason I changed the number - Why when I get my blog post just how I want it the internet crashes and I have to write it all over again?

What are some of the things you ask why about?   I'd love to hear them

It's Been a Quiet 2 Months

At least on here it has except for Storytelling Sundays. So I guess a little explanation is in order but there really isn't much to say why. There was a trip to Las Vegas in there to visit with John's brother and his wife for a week and a couple of business trips on John's part but mainly it's been the not knowing what has been causing things that's kept me off of here.

We did get a good report from the cardiologist that it was not heart issues but are still left to figure out just exactly what is causing the problems and then figure out what to do about it. Next step is looking into my asthma more. While I wait for my time on the machine at the hospital the Dr has increased my asthma meds to see if that will help. Ok enough of that!

In the meantime I've amused myself by playing computer games on facebook - do not get involved in doing that! I bit the bullet this morning though and that is finished - they get you sucked in and it then takes way too much time away from the rest of your life.

One interesting but not wanted thing that happened in all this is my card that I use for purchases on the computer got hit with fraudulent charges. Boy isn't that fun getting that all straightened out. Just finished sending off the affidavits to the fraud department and should have those charges reversed any day now. But what a pain what with notifying companies and getting a new card. So glad I keep a really small limit on it. That now makes all 3 of our cards that have been hit at one time or another and it's not like I don't shred things and keep the cards and #'s really secure. I thought I had notified everyone that I needed to but while I was typing this up I remembered a couple that I hadn't notified - like for instance Amazon for my kindle purchases.

One other thing I've been doing is working on photo books from Shutterfly. I did one of our Panama Canal cruise in 2004 and liked it so much when it came that I've been working on one for our 25th anniversary back in 2007. They will never take the place of scrapbooks but I'm thinking that they will be good for our "not so exceptional" cruises. The Baltic/St. Petersburg one will most definitely get a scrapbook as will the Alaska ones but the Caribbean ones - photo books will do.

Well hope that got me caught up a bit on here aside from sharing some pics from Las Vegas and John's most recent trip to Houston. Now off to catch up my Project Life album.

What a Month That Was

The highlight of it was my angiogram on fittingly Valentines Day. Happily the results were good and my arteries are normal but boy did I ever had a bad time recovering from it. It basically wiped me out for a good week and a half and finally this week I'm feeling back to normal - there's that word again. :)

I had the followup appointment with the cardiologist on Tuesday who seemed quite pleased with his work. :) He also explained why some tests were coming out as if I'd had a heart attack. Let's put it this way - women's anatomy sometimes creates shadows where there really aren't any. He mentioned on the consult before the angiogram that non-invasive tests sometimes just don't tell the story and the only sure way is the invasive test. Hope I never have to go through it again. :) I have now have the go-ahead to travel again. YEAH! But not in time for John's conference in Pasadena this month. I could go but he's staying the minimum amount of time and I'd be mostly by myself plus by this time it would cost a lot for the airfare. :) Maybe instead I can get some scrapbooking done while he's away. We are though planning a trip to Las Vegas soon after. We should be there for our sister-in-law's birthday among other things.

As for Project Life I've really fallen behind in taking pictures weekly. I definitely wasn't taking any pictures of the medical stuff. :) I have a few week's worth I need to get pictures of and post on here though.

I'm way behind on blog reading and replying and hope I can get to that today and tomorrow.

My Adventure from Last Monday

What a way to start the week!

The weekend was fairly normal, so far so good right? Well that was until Monday. :) I decided I was going to have one of those One-Buns as part of my lunch and they were all frozen - no problem just zap it for a few seconds and then I could separate it & toast it. Nothing unusual about that - I do it all the time. I stuck it in the microwave & programmed it for how long & power I'd need to lightly thaw it (I didn't want to cook it after all). Then ZAP, CRACKLE noises and smoke poured out of the microwave. You would have sworn I'd put metal in there but no. Plus boy did it stink - you know that electrical smell - Gag! I quickly ran to open the back door to get rid of the fumes and what little smoke there was. Ok where is this thing plugged in (it's above the stove & is also the vent & fan for the stove). Turns out it was plugged in inside the cupboard above it - got that taken care of after running downstairs for a ladder so I could reach it. By now I'm worrying that there could be damage inside the walls - I was ready to leave in a big hurry but thankfully nothing happened.

Immediately after I was on the phone to John wanting to know if there was anything else I should do (aside from me constantly feeling the walls around it). After a brief discussion it was decided no that the damage was probably just in the microwave - guess it had reached it's expiration date. The next discussion was what to do about replacing it. John decided that until we could really replace it (remove it from above the stove & put a new one up there he'd find a cheap one for us to use in the meantime. Talk about luck, on the way home he checked out one of the stores and they had some on sale. So now we've got this big thing taking up a lot of room on the counter but at least he has one for making his oatmeal in the morning - his most urgent need.

Now if you think I stopped during all this to take pictures - No I did not. :)  But here's the new one - now all we have to do is re-figure out the timing on things as this one is quite different from the 15 year old one.

I'm Back Home

Not feeling too great though. :) The Dr wasn't able to go in through my wrist so the other option was used. Thanks so much for the good wishes. The good news - all my arteries look normal. See the Cardiologist 2 weeks today for a followup. Hope to be back to "normal" tomorrow or Thursday but wanted to get on & let you know all went well and how much I appreciated your wishes.

A Wee Break

I've definitely been scarce on here the past few days and as of tomorrow will be taking a medical break from the computer for a few days if all goes according to plan. Tomorrow I go in for an angiogram and the plan is to do it through my right wrist. Ok - how come the right one when I'm right handed? Anyway I'll have to take a few days off of the computer we figure until healing is well on its way - I'll know more about that tomorrow after the procedure which by the way has me freaked out at the thought of it. Just hoping though they can do it through the wrist instead of the other option which would mean I couldn't climb stairs for a few days - living in a 2 story house makes this option definitely less appealing.

I have to be at the hospital for 6:15 for the 8:15 procedure and should be there anywhere from 6 to 8 hours. Oh joy. John's going to drop me off on his way in to work and they'll call him later to tell him when to pick me up. I'll see if I can get him to come on here and post an update for me both on here (my blog) and on facebook.

What It's Thursday Already?

I can't believe how quickly this week is going by, it seems it was just Monday.   I have got things done though (including Project Life for week 3) which should have been a good clue the week was moving on.   :)  Funny how it seems that since I retired (years ago) if it wasn't for John going to work and the newspaper I'd be lost as to what day it was.  :)

And now to share a picture from today.

I did a double-take this morning when I spotted my red shoes looking like the straps were standing straight up and look like they were standing at attention.  Maybe it's my nutty sense of humour but it did give me a chuckle.

It's Been One of Those Weeks

You know the kind - when everything gets away from you and before you know it it's gone right on by. In my case without even 1 blog entry since a week ago Friday. I'm behind on blog and e-mail reading too but at least I'm caught up on replying to comments made on here. I won't even talk about the courses I'm supposed to be taking this month but there is always this coming week. I at least have started one of them and now even have my own font.

So what do I have to show for the week - absolutely nothing. :) Well I did do a lot of cooking - the nice comforting food we love to have in winter. Made a few soups too. I did manage to pop out 3 times during the week for some much needed tea/chai and crossword time with my friend Jean (the most we've done that in months I think as usually it's just once or twice a week because of other things going on. I did manage to get my Project Life Week 2 done (I'll share that in a wee bit) but I don't know what I'm going to do about week 3 as there were hardly any pictures taken that are worth putting in there. :)

Now as for those who wished me well while coping with shingles, thanks so very much for your thoughts and I'm happy to say that the pain seems to have gone (knock on wood). Guess getting right on to those meds as quickly as I did was definitely a good thing.

We've had about 4 inches of snow since Thursday morning and I'm hoping to get out there today and get some pictures - course it would have been better to do it while it was still fresh and white but that just didn't happen for some reason.

Ok, Project Life. I finally finished week 2 on Thursday when we had the 3 inches of snow and just got around to getting decent pictures of it today. :)

As you can see, a lot of week 2 had to do with getting all the Christmas decorations down and put away till 2013 (we're supposed to be on a cruise Christmas of 2012, keeping fingers crossed about that).  A note of explanation - all those liquor boxes piled up at the front door - we make our own wine and had just bottled 4 batches.   My cross-stitch lady is one of my on going projects - I'm working away at finishing off the bead work on her.

What a Year It's Been So Far

It's been a very busy start to the year here, one which I think I'd like a chance to have a re-do on. For some reason I went nuts signing up for on-line courses although I must say some of them are for the entire year while I've got 3 that are basically just the month of January. The ones I've signed up for that are basically just January (and it's already the 13th) are "Get Great Photos with Any Camera" with Elisha Snow at Big Picture Classes, "Digital Art Journaling" with Jessica Sprague and "Just One Sketch" with Kirsty from the Curiouser and Curiouser blog. I started out with the best of intentions to be pretty close to up to date on these 3 but life has thrown a clinker in there.

Last Thursday night I came down with a pain and we thought it might be my gall bladder so off to Emerg I went on Friday morning - 5 1/2 hours later, after blood tests, numerous x-rays and an ultrasound there was no diagnosis other than it was not my gall bladder (or heart related for that matter). The Dr. in Emerg said it could possibly be muscle related or shingles but there was no other symptom other than the pain.

Saturday we spent un-decorating (is that really a word?) the tree. But before we did that we took some pictures. John had fun (not) trying to figure out how to use the tripod with his new camera (well it's not really new anymore but he hadn't used the tripod with it yet). Finally he got it figured out and we were able to get some pictures.

The next morning we were off to the Walk-In Clinic as a rash had appeared - which meant the pain was being caused by shingles.  Wonderful.  Two & a half hours later I had my confirmed diagnosis and a prescription for an anti-viral and another medication that I just wasn't sure about.   I decided that I'd try & see my own Dr in the morning and not take the the other med in the meantime.   Sure enough as soon as she saw it she told me not to take it and instead gave me one for Tylenol 3. 

The rest of the week has been taken up with working on my Project Life Week 1 (will share in another post shortly) and taking meds which tend to make me pretty drowsy - hence no course stuff getting done.   I'm hoping today I manage to get somethings actually done on them.

Good Mail Days This Week

The week has started off really well.   Yesterday I opened the door to find a parcel sitting up against the doors.   I had just got an email saying my order from Amazon.ca had been shipped.  Now talk about fast service.  :)    I'd seen a craft type book mentioned a lot in the blogs I read and thought that sounds like one I'd be interested in.   After checking it out on Amazon and finding it was a really good price I decided to get it and so "Good Mail Day a Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art" arrived on my doorstep along with a Cooking Light Heart Healthy cookbook that it turns out I am not so taken with.

Today I got another e-mail - my "Project Life" kit has shipped from Vancouver and should arrive on Friday.  Hopefully it will come on Thursday instead as Friday is booked for winterizing stuff for the Camry (winter tires on, etc) and that will probably take all morning.

As for other good things - it wasn't good mail but it was good news yesterday when I saw my GP.   She wanted to check on me after I'd been taking the new med for 2 weeks.  She was very happy with both my BP (back to normal) and my pulse and the fact that I wasn't having any adverse affects from it.