I received my first Canada Post delivery and it was a Bell Bill due Nov 21. Luckily I got the e-version and had already paid it. We'll see what tomorrow brings. They say they will be accepting new mail starting on Thursday but the backlog sounds pretty overwhelming.
I spent today doing interviews and trying to manage the gradebook for the course that includes many complicated calculations!
A few days ago there were ice sheets over everything. Then that melted and I now see snow flurries outside the window.
James is back in Toronto again. He called me one night to say his drivers license had expired. The hotel person told him when he showed ID. I thought these sorts of things expired on one's birthday. Apparently not for James. Luckily, these sorts of things can be renewed online. Though who knows when he will receive the new one with the Canada Post issues!
Since service ontario no longer mails reminders (even without the Canada Post issues) it is good to sign up for their email reminder service! Get ServiceOntario renewal reminders | ontario.ca
Julie and I took a road trip down to Elevation this weekend. Saturday we got to hang out at Kelly's new awesome place! It was nice to see the girls and hang out and have a nice dinner in person.
The weather was not too bad- a bit snowy but not much accumulation. Traffic was bad in Toronto but that was expected.
We stayed at Keith's - he is 94 and still a great host. He is thinking of selling the place and going to live with his son.
Then on Sunday we went to Elevation, both services. Jasmine found that they had taken a photo of me that was used in Kristin's Instagram!
Yesterday I walked to Loblaws looking at grey/black clouds approaching. When I left Loblaws those clouds were overhead and precipitating tiny snow balls. Like not flakes, little balls. They looked pretty cute so I counted them as my light in the darkness for yesterday.
I had hours of zoom meetings last night and then had to make tacos so I got to bed pretty late.
I bought some things over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday and am having an interesting time tracking them. I assume other carriers are more overburdened with the Canada Post strike.
The item that I bought for James from Best Buy when I purchased it said it would arrive Dec 3. It also said it was in Kingston. Then it said it had missed its connection and would arrive Dec 5. Then yesterday it said it was on the truck and would arrive Dec 3. Then it was back in the warehouse, which is apparently where it still is.
I had some interesting shopping experiences in the last week or so.
1. The Metro/Food Basics company came out with a new rewards program called Moi rewards. I downloaded it for when I went to Food Basics but then when I went to Metro they told me I had to download the Metro Moi rewards. So they are the same but different. Some unification may be helpful here.
2.Shopped at Best Buy Black Friday sale. Needed to wait in the online queue as I guess a lot of people were shopping. But they didn't tell me that I needed to complete the purchase within 10 minutes. I got looped into a circular error as I evidently took more than 10 minutes. I had to get back in the queue and try again.
3. I went to Mark's to get a very specific shoe boot Skechers Women's Easy Going Cozy Escape Zip Boot | Marks and there weren't any on display and I asked the staff member and he knew exactly where they were. Excellent experience with that staff.
I am trying to have a better attitude toward winter as I don't like cold or snow or really anything about winter.
Today I am thankful for the sunshine. When on a cold and dark walk I appreciate the sunshine that warms you. If you didn't have the cold and darkness, you wouldn't be so thankful for the sunshine.
Today I start with a training session at 8:30am and end with a test from 7:30-8:30pm. A full day!
I did not realize when I posted about the Cinderhill fire that I knew one of the families displaced. They are now staying at a hotel, looking for a new place.
The early darkness and chill is restricting my bike abilities.
I have not been to this community and feel very bad for the families- maybe it wasn't a good idea in retrospect to call it Cinderhill St. Building so many houses close together makes for a higher risk for fire spreading though new builds you would think have more fire protective materials.
Today in the middle of our big printing push, some of our printers started to fail. I think that we are back on track though.
One amazon package arrived and one is still lost somewhere in Mount Hope.
We are in the season where it is very difficult to predict which coat I will need to wear each day. I have been able to keep up some biking, which is impressive.
I put in an order on Amazon and they decided to break it up into 2 packages which they said was so I could receive them quicker but most likely was actually because they were coming from different warehouses. One was coming from Alberta and one from BC. They both arrived in the amazon facility in Mount Hope within hours of each other. However, the package that was supposed to arrive first never made it out and is now listed as "delayed in transit" for another week.
When I went on my biking trek on Saturday through the Oak St. garden I saw heaps of Vesper sparrows. I'm guessing they were migrating and stopping for some delicious grubs in the gardens. I can't recall seeing them before.
I have tried some of my British treats- the ones called French cakes or something like that (the main reason for my trip) were absolutely divine and worth the trip (along with the curry chicken pie). The club biscuits were slightly stale but maybe that is some of their charm. They were ok. The jaffa cakes were also ok. The orange smarties did not taste like the orange smarties of old. They were ok. The orange Aero was very good.
I got some important things to the printer today- it was due on Monday so just a wee bit late. Normally Wed is my remote day- I have a remote training session at 8:30am, got my submission to the printer and then went in for an in person day until 6:30pm.
Had a naan bread for dinner and went to my group but then James came home at 8pm and I made him dinner and then we worked on statistics for many hours.
A new British bakery opened a few days ago. As the location is close to the 401 and biking season is almost over I decided to check it out today, knowing it would be busy as it was a new opening.
The first section of the trip is a bike ride through the Oak St. gardens to the division St. bridge. I can't bike over the bridge so I walked that bit. Then biked to the Landmark studio that had a bike rack for parking. Then I walked to the British bakery.
The lineup was through the whole store so it allowed you to look at the aisles as you waited. The store is pretty small so the lineup was a square through the whole store. The lineup took an hour. During the lineup is where you can pick up grocery items. I chose some treats. I had especially wanted to get the Mr. Kipling's as I remember the British family serving them. I haven't tried them yet- I hope they taste as good. At the end you get to the bakery portion. I didn't know what most of the things were but I picked out a chicken curry pie for $7.50. I ate it as soon as I got home and this pie was worth the trip. It was incredible!
James is fighting an ear infection and probably a lung infection as well. He had the presence of mind to tell the doctor that he can't swallow pills and she prescribed him chewable antibiotics but they didn't have any at the pharmacy so he got stuff to sprinkle on feed. We have devised a process for this as he'll have a few bites of yogurt with the medicine. Seems to work.
He really needs to rest to get better but he spent the whole weekend at the rink.
As I was walking home I heard an electric crackle and saw a fire between some wires on a telephone pole. I thought that a drone had hit the power lines. Then the fire went out and something black plummeted from the power lines. I still thought it was a drone at the time, burned. But it hit the ground with a thud. It was a squirrel. Dangers on the ground from cars and dangers in the air from the power. And yet, there are still so many of them.
I went to meet with Deirdre at 8am at her hotel. I picked a route that had bike lanes so it was a longer route. We hung out at Tim Hortons for a bit. I then biked over to Rustle to do AV. Then biked home. Probably 17-18km. James went golfing as the weather was so nice. I made him steak, rice broccoli when he got back, then made a pot of soup so he can heat it up tomorrow as I have an extra long day.
It was very chilly this morning so I needed to wear my winter coat to Loblaws. Loblaws was pretty quiet but the self checkout computers were having some issues to that cashier was busy.
I did some laundry and dishes and then took a nice nap in the afternoon.
For dinner I picked up Barburrito. I was able to wear a fall coat as it had warmed up a bit during the day. Tonight, James wants my help as he is practicing for a group presentation tomorrow.
