Seismic Twitch

Today was my first day back at work. I have only this week to work and next week off. That had been planned since early January, maybe late December, I can’t remember. It works out well, though.

On Monday, I’ll be putting the obit into the paper for Tuesday. Then I clean house. I’ll be rearranging my room to maximize the amount of space. I don’t have to have both sides open for two people, so I can move the bed over to a couple of pieces of furniture that don’t need to get access to. That’ll give me more room for the dresser and chiffonier. I’ll also be going through Thomas’s stuff, trying to sort what to keep and what to give away. I’ve already decided on a few things.

I was able to change the name on the power bill over the phone today. I’ll have to go in to change the name on our internet access. I also have to call a bank and book an appointment to take Thomas off that account. I already have one for one bank. I shall be making that call tomorrow.

Today was a bit of a clusterfuck in terms of my being able to think. I was having trouble doing some of the basic things, like making sure the front desk was locked up. I’d go back up and find a drawer open, or the med cupboard unlocked. Hopefully, this will be a short term thing. I fed the chinchillas and made sure their corner litter box had bedding in it. I also locked the cage up more thoroughly. One of the residents got one out despite the note to leave them alone unless there’s a staff present.

All in all it was both a long day, a productive day, and a short day. It was stressful, that’s certain, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I did find myself fighting panic a few times, but was able to calm that and get through it.

Our upstairs neighbour made us cookies. Apparently she’d met Thomas at a poetry slam and they’d done some chatting at the front door a few times. Yeah, I was clueless and Thomas didn’t mention it. At least Boy knew who the names on the card were.

I’ve decided to write a poem, an ode to my new yoga pants. I totally love them. I think that my entire life should be lived in those things. Alas, they don’t have pockets and I need pockets for work, for keys, for the cordless phone, more bits and bobs that I might use in the day. Yoga pants are missing those necessary pockets.

I’ve made supper two nights in a row. Last night I made a beef stir fry, using a steak I didn’t eat on Saturday. Tonight was a chicken stir fry. Both were gosh darned good. Speaking of good, I discovered that ripe avocados can be frozen and used at a later date. This means that I won’t waste any more of those delicious fruits because they go beyond nice ripeness into spoiling. I have one of those Foodsaver vacuum sealer things. I’m thinking that perhaps I should buy them en masse when I have money and freeze them when they’re ripe and save them for when I have less money. Make sense? That’s what Boy and I did with meat. We have chicken, pork and beef. All we need to do now is get some fish…cod to be precise. Tomorrow is probably going to be pork chops and sweet potatoes. I’m unsure of what veg we’ll be having, possibly carrots.

I’m trying to decide if I want to get a hair cut before the memorial, or wait until after. I know I’m getting a cut. I can’t tolerate the heat generated by my own body under the sheltering shroud of my hair when it’s longer. So I’ll get it cut so that, come summer, I’ll be able to get a breeze to my scalp. I do like my curls though. I’ll miss them.

I finished the Eeyore cross stitch for the most part. I have to put in the black stitch lines. Then it’s do the letters and get a frame for the piece and give it away to the intended recipient. After that I’ll be starting on my boss’s wedding present. I’m sure both he and his wife will like it…I hope. I know he will, it involves Star Wars.

That’s it for today.

Tomorrow and Friday I’ll be working 7 am to 3 pm. That means I have to be up and out of the house an hour earlier than normal. What have I done to myself? Not a morning person doesn’t even begin to describe me.

I’ll be making the groomsmen’s presents for my boss. Apparently a little cross stitch I did for him that referenced a Star Wars quote, something about hokey light sabers and preferring a blaster, is the envy of his friends. For his wedding present I’m making a cross stitch of his and his fiance’s first names, the date of their wedding and a small princess and Darth Vader. So I had to text him and say that I won’t do any Darth Vader patterns but couldn’t say why. Yeah, he now knows what part of his present is.

I’ve been watching British cop and emergency shows on You Tube. If you like that sort of stuff, look for ukpolice4. You’ll be able to watch the same shows as me. They’re fill episodes, so none of that 10 minutes at at a go. I’m enjoying it.

While watching these shows, I did come to realize that certain accents create a lot of work for me. For instance, strong Welsh accents require a lot of concentration for me to consistently understand what they’re saying. There were times when I though the cops broke out in Gaelic just to screw with the audience. I’m sure they didn’t, that it was just the accent, but you never know.

Working at a half-way house has enabled me to watch drug sniffing dogs at work. There’s a “passive search” do that was being used to seek out people who were carrying drugs. I think it was ecstasy, pot, cocaine and heroin that the dog was trained to search for. The dog and handler would go into pubs. When the dog smelled drugs on or about a person it would indicate by sitting beside the suspect person. They caught an enormous number of people. There were places where you could tell they didn’t edit out bits and there were multiple indications in a row. Amazing.

English cops are a fascinating bunch. Did you know that there are only certain police officers who are qualified to do high speed chases? It’s true. Of course, we all know about bobbies not carrying guns. So not seeing the side arm as standard issue is definitely interesting. It’s a whole different world of law enforcement over there.

Thanks to the plague I contracted, I have chapped lips. I’m not used to chapped lips. Even in the dead of winter my skin is usually in good control, dryness-wise. Sure I use hand lotion, but my lips are nearly never a problem. Now I have to use lip balm to combat the effects of nasty old tissues needed to blow my nose. Happily I’m nearly done with the frequent need to blow my nose. The balm is helping a lot.

That’s it. I’ve lasted as long as I can. I’m taking my phone (so I can watch another video, and heading off to bed.

It’s that evil day star’s fault. I swear. Ok, it’s my own fault for laying down for an hour and a half and not getting up for 6. But still. Life would be so much easier if it began at about 2 or 3 pm.

Today was relatively quiet at work. Days tend to be that way. Many of the residents are away at work, at appointments, or at school. There were a few little adventures, but just barely enough to be called an adventure. I think the most difficult thing was the final building check. I was tired, congested and winded a lot more than usual. It was a relief to get home.

I’m still working on origami at work, instead of doing the cross stitch. I’m getting pretty good at following the visual instructions. Of course, some books are better at giving instructions than others. I’ve made angel fish, seals, cranes, swans, ordinary fish, whale, owl, and a pretty coaster. The one that is a sticking point is a dog I’ve been trying to figure out. I get the head area reasonably easily, but the hind end is being a bitch (no pun intended).

I still had to sleep at an incline last night. It’s a bit more difficult to get to sleep and stay asleep in that position, but I managed. I’m looking forward to trying again tonight. I’m trying to stay awake until about 10. This should help me keep sleeping until at least 6 am. Maybe.

I’m watching a murder and mayhem show on You Tube, The Real Silence of the Lambs and I realized that I don’t like seeing boots and dresses in combination. I think they look bad together. I always knew I felt that way, but more on an unconscious level, as opposed to saying, “that looks stupid.” It’s during the Ted Bundy section, if you’re interested in looking.

Three whole days in a row! You can be amazed at any time.

It’s really hard to think of things to say. I don’t do much in the day. My life if very stable and not a whole lot changes from day to day. There are things I can’t talk about because of confidentiality at work (worse than beeing Dooced, I could be prosecuted) and that’s where most of my life is.

I haven’t heard anything about the job with probation, so it’s not likely I’m going to be getting any kind of progress on that front.

It’s “Rrrroll Up the Rim to Win” contest at Tim Horton’s. I’ve had two purchased coffees and have won nothing other than the chance to play again. Top prizes are 5 Rav4s, some credit cards with $5000 on them, gas barbecues, and other things right down to doughnuts and/or coffee.

I got a response from the corporation that claims to help Canadians get disability refunds from Canada Revenue. I asked for information, just the basics, like how much they charge, to they get a percentage, etc. I got an email back saying they needed my personal information and further contact information. I shot back an email telling them that they were getting no more information than my email address until I got answers. Yeah, they’re still not getting any. They take a nonrefundable deposit of $25. Then, if the CRA decides to give you any money, they bill you for a further 30% of the refund. Nice. I’m going to see about getting the money for Thomas and I, since our issues are considered disabilities that would qualify, especially Thomas.

Hmmmm…I notice I have have a reminder to update WordPress. I haven’t done that in an age, I can’t remember when I last did that. The last time I updated it, they put out a new version within a few days. While it’s nice to have new, more secure versions of something, I have to do a manual update since the automatic one never seems to work for me (and I’ve tried several times).

Under 10 minutes to the video being done. When it’s done I’m going to go to bed. Boy just came up to me, kissed my forehead and said, “You are evil.” My work is done in this world. My supremacy of evil kind (in the recognition the Boy just gave me) is complete.

I haven’t posted in a very long time. Sorry. Chalk it up to me being lazy, really, really, really, lazy.

Let’s see, what have I been up to the past few months?

I spent time trying to get rid of various chinchilla babies that were born the Lucky (who got lucky) and Lola, the long suffering mom. Her first two litters weren’t litters, they were single babies. The next was two babies. After that she had 4. I think the four took the life out of her because she died this past Tuesday. I have no idea why, she wasn’t that old. But now I’m left with two female juveniles, one male and Lucky (who’s no longer as lucky as he once was). I’m going to get rid of the two females and keep the males. This way I won’t have interbreeding and I won’t have to worry about new babies.

My health, up to this past week, has been quite good. I haven’t been following the Paleo diet as I should and I’m struggling with wanting bread (a lot). I’ve also been eating sugars in the form of fancy shcmancy French vanilla coffee. I discovered recently that 7-Eleven does a sugar free French vanilla that’s quite tasty so I think I”ll be raiding their stores when I can afford to buy it. Over the last weekend I was feeling somewhat odd, itchy, throat, glands a little swollen…on Wednesday I was slammed with a throat so sore it was hard to swallow. I went home early that day and missed the next because of it. Today my nose started running. With luck this means that the cold is nearly run its course and I’ll be well again.

Work is going swimmingly. In July I’ll be taking over the counselor position. The current counselor is pregnant and she’ll be going on maternity leave (in Canada it’s a year long of paid maternity leave through the Employment Insurance program – so long as you’ve worked long enough). Well, technically, it’s less than a year with what’s called “parental leave” that the second spouse can take so long as the mother goes back to work. I think it’s 8 weeks of parental leave and 44 of maternity leave…Meh, it doesn’t matter. Either way I’m in the position for a year. She plans on returning so it’s a temporary thing.

I realized, this past while, that working with younger people has it’s draw back, especially if they’re your supervisors. I’m 52, 30 years older than either of them. This means barring them moving to other work, or being killed/crippled, I’m not going to advance in my present work place. This also means that I’ve been looking for, and applying to positions that I might qualify for at other places. Nothing has panned out, but I need something that pays more and offers me at least the hope of advancement. The worst of it is that I really do enjoy my job a whole lot. Though, yes, I’d rather win the lottery (who wouldn’t?) I don’t have issue going to work or being there and doing my job. Sometimes being middle aged sucks.

I’ve done some photography. Not a lot. Just some photos of a friend’s baby (Keller – who turned 4 weeks a day or two before the photos were taken). Here’s a couple that I processed (click on the image to see it at full size):

Keller snoozing on Thomas's chest.

and:

Keller's feet, Thomas's thumb.

For a time I got into making jewelry again. I haven’t for a few weeks because I’ve been doing cross stitch instead. I have a few presents to make, including one for my boss’s wedding. I’m still not feeling hugely inspired, despite making bracelets and some earrings. I discovered that some findings (that’s what the bits and bobs are called) aren’t nickel free. Specifically they’re small horseshoe shaped wire guides that help keep wire from kinking and breaking. I used them to attach the stone bracelet bands to a watch face (they went around the strap posts). Sadly, I react to the metal in those so I have to find some other solution to that issue.

I’ve been doing crafts with a co-worker/friend lately. She’s mad into scrapbooking and seems to like having the time set aside specifically to help her actually get stuff done. She’s been on two holidays that she’s working on, one to the Eastern USA/Canada and the other to a Caribbean cruise she went to in January. She’s quite the social butterfly so she finds that if she doesn’t set aside specific time to work on her scrapbooks, she doesn’t get anything done. It looks like a fun hobby and, heaven knows, I’m tempted, but it’s one that involves “collecting” stuff. I’m not so much into that part. I mean, when I die, what would people do with my scrapbooks. They would have little meaning to anyone other than myself, or possibly Thomas or Boy. It’s not like anything I do is historic importance. So, despite loving the smell of the paper, and seeing the gluing, sticking, pens, cutting, and other adult kindergarten activities, I’ll stick to what I’m doing right now.

We’re hoping to move from our present location. I don’t know where in town we’ll go, but we want to get out of this place. What’ll probably happen is that we’ll go into an apartment. Somehow, having an impersonal corporate landlord is much preferable to this one. Sad, to say.

I have a “smart phone”, android platform, fun to play with, has little batter life, phone. We decided to drop the land line and each of us has our own smart phone. I can text and call anywhere in Canada at no extra cost with my plan. International calls and texts are extra. If you want my phone number send me an email. If I know who you are, I’ll send it to you.

Well, It’s coming up on 0300 and I have to be up to shower and then head over for craft time.

I’ll try to update more often. Promise.

We’ve had a spate of very interesting weather up here lately. We’ve had some wonderful, nature-smashing storms with thunder, lightning, hail, driving rain, wild wind and tornadoes. Yesterday we lost power for 8 hours because of branches blown down from trees. And it wasn’t just our house/neighbourhood. It was all over the city. Anywhere there were large, mature trees, there were blown down branches and downed power lines. There were also damaged cars and buildings. Tornadoes were sighted north and west of the city so we were on a tornado watch for most of yesterday.

I’m doing cross stitch. I’ve made a present for a co-worker who is pregnant and due in October. I have to find three little frames for the a,b,c I stitched up for her nursery. I’m now working on the horoscope signs of Bran, Boy and myself to frame up and put up in our living room.

Work is going well. I’ve been allowed access to the CSC information site. This means that I can access information about the men and women referred to the Reporting Centre. We have to have that information because if an offender is going to spend time in the Centre we have to know what we might have to watch out for. This also gives me access to a secure email system so I can easily communicate with parole officers. On Tuesday I’ll be inputting the month end reports for our residents.

I’ve become very attached to You Tube. I’ve been watching all kinds of true crime shows. Many of the shows I’d never seen before. One channel that is featured prominently in this genre is Investigation Discovery. I don’t know where that channel originates. I’d like to think that if I got cable again that I could get it from the USA. What makes me doubt that is that is that the announcers always have an English accent. That’s not the norm on American networks. Right now, as I type, I’m watching “World’s Wildest Police Videos” hosted by former Sheriff John Binnel (sp).

I got a haircut a couple of weeks ago. It had grown out to the point of nearly being able to be tied back. In order to keep it out of my face I had to wear a headband. I liked it, but it was hard to keep off the nape of my neck. This meant that the coming summer was going to be a whole lot warmer then I like. So I got it all cut off…well, not all, but it’s darned short.

Bran’s truck cost us a whole shit pile of money. We thought he was having transmission issues (which would have been okay because that’s covered on a 3 year warranty from our purchase last year). The repair guys said that it was probably the tires and alignment. The said tires were dangerously worn. So we replaced them. If you buy a vehicle, I recommend a car or small SUV that takes regular tires. They’re a whole lot less expensive. I’m not sure, but I think the issues we thought were the transmission have been resolved…at least for now.

That’s about it for now. I have to start looking for clothes for work.

Let’s see:
• Bran and I continue to work on getting my hobby work space built. I have photos on my Clicks blog (button on the right) if you want to see our meagre progress thus far.
• I finally got rid of the drain last Friday (the one before the one just past). I was greatly relieved to have that gone. I leaked for the night (laid down a towel to keep the bed dry, but it was healed over by morning. I have a lot of scarification on my belly now. I can’t say I’m happy about that, but I’m relieved to be a more complete person again.
• I began walking with Bran on Wednesday last week. He goes to a cardiac rehabilitation program that is subsidized by the provincial government. He, Boy and I walk around a track. On Friday last week I was feeling ill so didn’t go. I doubled my walking on Monday because I learned a valuable lesson. Clothing that is tight around an internal seam will limit what one can do. Loose clothing has no such limits. Tomorrow I’ll be wearing newly laced shoes (to try and solve a numb foot issue) and try to walk the entire 40 minutes.
• My tax refund is being held up wherever they are holding it. It was pulled for assessment or something for some reason. I’m to call by Dec. 22 if I haven’t received anything before then.
• Bran’s cast came off last Friday. He was having issues with his thumb becoming numb and having chafing problems. So he went in, it was x-rayed and the techs removed it. He’s inordinately pleased about simple things, like washing his hands.
• I spent time today looking at the possibility of immigrating to another country. Bran and I considered Costa Rica but they don’t recognize same-sex marriages even when the marriage is legal in the home country. That was my search criteria. I looked at Sweden, Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Spain and Portugal. Thus far Spain and Portugal are ahead because they are more temperate.
• After looking at other countries to move to I checked out the government job sites here and found one that I could apply for in the province. I finished up the application a few minutes ago. Hopefully I’ll hear something from them. I saw a pile of boner errors on my previous application and corrected them. Then I read through several times to make sure I didn’t screw up again. I hope I caught them all since simple errors aren’t a good thing.
• Bran thinks that the renovations the landlord did last year included adding some (if not all) of the downstairs suite’s wiring to our meter. This is because somehow our power usage doubled. While it’s possible we used that much power with the air conditioner and the computers, it’s not fully likely. Personally I wouldn’t put it past the landlord to be trying to save himself money with a fast one. On principle I don’t trust landlords.
• My weight is fairly steady since getting out of hospital. That’s unsurprising considering my activity level dropped considerably after the surgery. Hopefully the walking will help and then I’ll be going back to work at the beginning of January.
• Since beginning the work on my hobby corner I’ve been craving doing something. What I’ve been doing is tracing patterns onto tracing paper to transfer onto cloth for embroidery and beading. I also want to get back to making jewelry again. I really would like to make it a paying venture. I’ll have to figure out a way of doing that sometime that doesn’t involve Etsy. There are too many re-sellers there. When a place says they can make 10,000 dresses for your chain to sell, you can bet that they’re not an individual crafts person. What makes it worse is that when members make it known in the forums the thread gets shut down. You can see that if you go to Regretsy where they post that stuff. It’s hard enough for an individual craftsperson to get sales without re-sellers getting the edge.
• I want to win the lottery.
• I’m way behind on others’ blogs. I need to go read them.

This is what’s been happening since I last posted:
• I lived with the drain in until today (so, 4 weeks). The site had ceased to drain off much fluid and the drain was beginning to cause more irritation so it was removed this afternoon. I can now sleep on my right side but I have a towel on the bed because the drain site will leak fluid until it heals over.
• I was freed to drive again today as well. Bran has been very sweet about driving me around to various places. He’s now free to not.
• Bran fell the week before my surgery. It wasn’t until I was home and his wrist continued to bother him that he went into his own doctor and discovered that his wrist was, in fact, broken. He was sent to one of the hospital clinics for a brace. The techs there put him in a cast. The cast should be coming off in a couple of weeks.
• November 11, 2011 was my 10 year anniversary of blogging. That’s right, ten years ago on that day I opened my Diary-X account. About a month or so later I opened it up to other readers and then began reading the blogs of other people. VUBoOQ‘s blog was the first blog of another person I read. He was Enviroboi back then.
• We got snow. A lot of it is gone because of a recent thaw. I had a slip and fall earlier in the week on an icy patch (since been deiced with a vengeance). Luckily I didn’t hurt by belly at all, just a sore ankle and left wrist.
• I had my nails done (gel) and though was generally pleased, I was specifically unhappy so I won’t be going back to the place I’d gotten them done. It’s been weird having long nails and I had to get used to them. I still hit the wrong keys a lot.
• Boy has become unhappy at work. There was a change of supervisors and the current one is an asshole. Actually, he’s the one that Bran called an asshole and got a few days off because of it.
• Bran began working on creating my hobby/work space. I posted a couple of starting photographs on my Tumblr if you want to see what the beginning looks like. I’ll post regular updates as we progress on making a workable space. It’s where all my hobby stuff is, theoretically at least, supposed to be stored.
• I got a light box so I can trace photos and make embroidery/beading patterns. Using it has been fun. It gives me the illusion of being artistic without actually having any talent.
• I haven’t lost any weight since coming out of hospital. That’s to be expected though. My activity level is significantly lower than it was before I went in. I shall be joining Bran 3X/week at the Saskatoon Field House for his exercise in the Cardiac Program offered there. I can join him for $25 a month and we’ll be walking or cycling. I figure I can support him and have motivation to get my ass moving for an extended time.
• I continue to go into work to do the administrative work for the program I work. It gets me out of the house and forces me to be somewhat social. It also enables me to see my boss live up to his commitment of wearing a fake mustache for Movember. He can’t grow his own mustache to save his butt, so he said that for every $200 raised he’s wear a fake for a week. Needless to say I was the first one to donate. Yes, I’m evil and he knows it.
• Bran, Boy and I continue to take care of our chinchillas. I’m hoping they did tonight. I went to bed to have a nap with Bran and then asked if I could stay in bed when the alarm went off to go pick up Boy and do the cage. Bran said it was ok so that’s what I did. When I got up 1/2 hour ago Boy had already gone to bed and Bran was also in bed.

Thank you to all for your well wishes during my recovery. Having support really does help.

He knits and he throws pots.

I found this really cool bowl on Tumblr. The home site is on “Etsy. It’s a bowl that holds your yarn ball while you knit. Check it out. I’m pretty sure he could build something like that for himself and his knitting buddies.

Lion and tiger (salamander) and bears! Oh, my! We were at the zoo today. Bran and I got a membership to the zoo society so we can go anytime until November 1 next year for free! Yay! Boy has to pay but he’s only $9 and probably won’t go out with us much once winter hits. I have plans to go and take photos as much as I can. You can see today’s photos in the Zoo set (watch the slide show). There’s one photo in the “friends and family” set of bran. You can find him in the photostream. Hint: he has antlers.

It was a fun trip to the zoo. Fun until my IBS started acting up again. My guts are beginning to tug on my belly skin and causing things to get sore. That sucks. Tomorrow when we go I’m going to make sure I take ibuprofen before we leave the house so that I can make it through a nice long walk. I did manage about 2 hours today though.

I think it was WC Fields who said that one shouldn’t work with animals or children. Today that was true in some cases. I couldn’t get a good photo of the grizzly bears because they were busy, literally. They walked about, they wrestled, they turned away. Lots of moving, lots of butts. Nothing that I could edit up and create anything decent from. Sucks. The same is true for the lion, though he sat still…with his butt to me all the time. I have one side shot of his face when he turned toward where I was after I made a noise to attract his attention. However I don’t have the art of motion photography down (fluke only, I’m afraid) and the photo was a blur. I got a reasonably good photo of his butt. Clap hands, squeal with glee. I’m proud of a few shots I got, like the one of the lynx that I posted on my Seismic Clicks site at Tumblr. I like the llamas. I wish I’d been able to get an elk stag (Bran had to do).

As we were leaving Bran and Boy were attracted to the cougar enclosure. Some staff gave them melons to play/eat. I don’t know if Bran got any photos of that, but I wish I’d seen it. Boy did call out, “Mom!” but every mom’s head swiveled to him but mine. I didn’t hear him. We’re all going out tomorrow afternoon again. Yay!

I did dishes yesterday. Well, Boy and I did. I got him to dry the plastics and then to wash the final load of cookie sheets and the large electric frying pan. I did the rest. It was nice to cook breakfast today (bacon, eggs, sweet potato and tomato) and not have a gabillion dishes in the way or have to move things around just to be able to set up the fry pan. Tonight I overcooked a pork roast. I put butter on the bottom of the roaster, dumped a bunch of sliced mushroom in, seasoned up the roast, dumped it on the mushrooms, then added the rest of the mushrooms, covered it and bunged the whole thing into the oven. Then I steamed up some brussels sprouts and Bran made a large salad. I found that I didn’t want much of what I prepared. I ate a few sprouts but they didn’t appeal, neither did the overcooked roast (drag). The mushrooms were good, as was the salad, but I didn’t want to chance ending up ill from eating too much. If I get hungry I can always have some nuts later.

I got a tablet yesterday. It’s an Acer Tablet that uses Android. It’s a learning curve using it. I’ve got a lot of apps added onto it including some that the iPad/iPod uses like Angry Birds. I also have Firefox. I have no idea how to bookmark or really navigate on it. It seems like everything I do is fluke. I’m sure I’ll figure out all out eventually. I got it so that I could have a computer thing at work without having to take the computer. Plus I really wanted one. Now I have one. It has a leather case that also doubles as a stand. I have a really cool stylus and a front cover that I have to get put on. In order to do that I have to take the battery out and leave it sit for 10-12 hours for some reason. Then I can apply the skin to the front and it’ll be protected. If I’m going to invest that much in something I want to make sure I’m not going to wreck it any time soon.

When we got home from the zoo Boy was amused by the cat. His WoW character has a bird avatar (or whatever it is) and it was flapping on screen. She was trying to get at it, pawing and trying to bite it. It was amusing.

That’s about it.

This morning’s breakfast was awesome! I was really hungry and trying to think what I could make that would be tasty and filling. Having cereal taken off my list of things I can eat makes having a quick breakfast difficult. So I decided to make something on the fly, so to speak. I peeled and cubed a small sweet potato. I put it in a bowl with a little water and some butter, covered it up with a microwave lid thing and zapped it for 5 minutes. While that was being nuked I sauteed some mushrooms while I brewed up a cup of coffee. After the sweet potato was done cooking I smashed it up with a fork and plopped it out on a plate. I layered the mushrooms on the sweet potato and covered the whole thing up while I lightly scrambled some eggs in brown butter. Lightly scrambling is easy. I prefer to not break the yolks until the eggs are partly cooked, then I break the yolk and mix them around a little. When the eggs are just set enough to flip them over (first I quarter the circle of egg) and then after about 10 seconds I put them on the mushrooms and sweet potato. On top of all that I dumped a nice generous amount of Pace Chunky Salsa, in this case, medium heat. It was extremely delicious. Next time I make it I’ll change one thing. The mushrooms will be on the side rather than under the eggs. They made making sure that I get sweet potato with each bit of egg hard because the mushrooms were more firm and made the soft potato squish out from underneath.

I don’t have a lot planned today other than to fold the laundry that was done earlier in the week, ironing a few tops for my trip to Calgary this week and beginning to get organized to go. I’ll also do some dishes, I think. Maybe. Maybe after a nap. I wasn’t really ready to be awake when I woke, I was hungry.

I went through my email for Wicked Witch Jewelry and I downloaded some free patterns and bought a couple of others. It made me itch to get back to making stuff again. I have to tidy a place that I can work exclusively on the stuff. I have a little movie player, I have ear phones/buds. I’ll have Bran help me get the desk in the dining room cleared off and get the stuff out from under (if we can) so that I can actually sit at the desk. I just talked to Bran and he’s agreed. But it’s not going to be this week. I just don’t have the time nor the energy this week and then I’m away for three days. I think I’ll close my Etsy shop. I never got sales there anyway. I’ll have to figure out something else. Maybe I’ll just make jewelry like mad all year long and just sell at the Sundog Handcraft Faire next December. The nice thing about the Sundog is that people don’t expect to pay extremely low prices for stuff. When I did the link up for the entry I also checked around it. You have to be a member of the Sundog Arts Society, but that costs only $10 a year. Then I’d have to apply to be an exhibitor and they do a jury selection of people who can exhibit. Hey, it can’t hurt to try, right? I have two months coming up where I’ll be doing not a whole lot but recovering.

It’s now late afternoon, 5:20 roughly. I am now making supper. I’m making a yummy squash soup. So far I’ve sauteed 2 sliced onions, one carrot sliced on the bias, and about 1 Tbsp garlic in bacon fat (you can use vegetable oil) and added Mrs. Dash as a seasoning. Then I added the two medium to large squash and two litres of chicken stock. I also added a nice Tbsp of curry paste. I might add more, I haven’t decided. I’ll let that all cook together for a while and then see if the wand blender works (remember it stopped when I was trying to make mayonnaise the second time). Then I’ll add a can of chopped tomatoes (I like pieces of tomato in the soup rather than whizzing up the seeds because they’re bitterish) and some shrimp. I’ll cook the shrimp and then add coconut milk. I wouldn’t mind having spinach, but we don’t have any. The nice thing with spinach is that it will cook with the heat of the soup in each bowl rather than adding it to the soup and having it turn all nasty.

Laundry is all folded and put away. Yay! Bran has been puttering in the living room so it’s getting tidier.

There. Hopefully the publish button will work and I won’t get that error.