scan

James had his ultrasound and it showed the tear and that the only thing that would fix it was time. He's definitely off the ice for at least another week.

I read this article and I guess it starts to explain one reason why Christine (and others) are having such a hard time finding a place.
https://www.kingstonist.com/kingston-vacancy-rate-reaches-new-record-low/

Tomorrow is the last day of class and our project is due so I spent most of the day replying to email with questions.

invalid

James had a knee injury in his game on Friday night. He spend the weekend on crutches. The rest was good for his leg. School has so many stairs so his leg was hurting again on Monday. He is wanting to power through. He has an ultrasound today to see how much of the muscle is torn. He starts physio tomorrow.

At work I am trying to start up the Winter term course while finishing up the Fall term course, so I am at another peak (Though most of my job is at some peak or another!)

romaine

After the massive romaine recall, I went into metro yesterday and there was a very large area that was empty as they has pulled everything. I picked up some green leaf lettuce because the chef's plate had sent romaine and I could replace it that way. (The Chef's plate mailed before the recall)

In reading about the issue, the outbreak seems to have been going on since early october and they only pulled the romaine now? They seem to have figured out that it potentially comes from California, so I assume they could have left the other romaine. And I assume there probably is only one location of the contamination in California, I am wondering how they are trying to find that and how well they track the shipments of romaine. So many questions. I wish I could be an outbreak detective!

unlocked

We had been having some trouble with our filing cabinet key at Rustle and I had been back and forth to Ed the locksmith (http://www.brightman.ca/) trying to resolve it but it was not working. So he suggested coming by Rustle to make figure it out. So we met this morning and figure it out he did. And made us 3 copies of keys. When I asked him what we owed him, he said it was a gift. So wonderfully kind. If you have any locksmithing needs, I highly recommend him!

I wanted to order a package from the States but with the Canada Post issues I was worried about its arrival. Brandon suggested Kinek https://www.kinek.com/how/ which allows you to ship it to a location in the States near you and then pick up across the border. I don't have a passport though- it looks like a good idea if you do some travel to the States!

Also, an update on the story I posted yesterday. Apparently the problem with the inmate happened after they had unlocked him to go to the backroom. https://www.kingstonist.com/inmate-facing-attempted-murder-weapons-charges-after-code-silver-incident-at-kingston-general-hospital/

broken down

Last night James' bus broke down in Markham. Kim happened to be in Ajax so offered to get him, but the bus company sent another bus from Toronto. So it was a bit of a later evening than what was planned.

Today as I was walking home I saw a police car heading south on university. There are a lot of emergencies and so I didn't think much of it but it turns out there had been a shooting at the hospital. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/kingston-hospital-shooting-1.4912403. It likely could have been a lot worse. I guess they will have new procedures for escorting prisoners in the future!

parade

Some more birthday pictures. Flowers from Deborah

 Christine made me this card

 She's pretty funny

 Appliques from Sarah. Science but of course.

 Beautiful pop up card from Deborah

Five spice chicken fingers

 The one day of the year when people want to park on our street- parade day

My phone is warning me of congestion in my area

return

The week was busy with the return of assignments so I was working quite late. I downloaded the pictures from my camera after long last so this is about 2 months of photos. This sign shows why it is still important to teach spelling in schools:

 This was a sunset from my window at work

 This is me on a hyperloop car

 Beef Pad Gra Prow

Turkey sausage pasta

 The new high school being built

 Pork meatball hot pot

 Rice noodles

 Samosa bowl- this is the first 15 minute meal that I tried, normally they are 30 minute meals. For the 15 minute ones, they have everything cut up for you. It was good. The wonton wrappers are always my favorite.

 Chocolate blizzard cake for my birthday

 Linguine florentine, another 15 minute meal

Create night

Tonight I went to my first (and possibly last) create night. It was hard to believe anyone could mess up card creation from a pretty well laid out package but I seemed to be able to. I don't have much craft in my bones. Other people came up with some pretty amazing stuff though.

Deborah was a great leader and she also got me flowers and a cupcake card!

 Christine made me a beautiful card that made me laugh

 And Sarah gave me these science appliques. She gets my quirkiness.

remembrance

On Remembrance Day I thought of my trip to the Ware Museum this year and the Regeneration Hall

The sound in Regeneration Hall is the sound of the wind. The architect recorded the wind as they were building the museum. So the Hall has a somewhat eerie element as that wind blows over the monuments of memories.

We did a moment of silence at 11 in Rustle. Rustle was full. In many ways. There was a meal afterwards that many people stayed for (the line was very long but people seemed to be getting along). But I had to run some errands. Then came home and had some bagels. Then went out to CR. We were doing readings on sanity today.

Learning party

The last couple of days have been a learning party.
Yesterday there was a meet and greet where we learned a bit about the evening speakers. Then we all packed into cars and drove to the Salvation Army Citadel for the evening event.
There was music and speakers and it was well done.

Today was the learning party.
We started the day at 8am with breakfast. I had the eggs which were good and the potatoes which were ok.
9am was a liturgical prayer with some music.
9:30 was a set of 3 speakers (10 minutes each):
Elle talking about doing new things with church (thus the point of the learning party)
Jeremy talked about a new church in Brockville with a culture of eating together and celebrating together: https://www.wearereunion.com/
Kevin talked about Morningstar mission that feeds the Napanee community (focus on homeless)
Then we walked the Rustle neighbourhood with the intention of having the neighbourhood speak to us. There is a lot of industrial bleakness in the neighbourhood. There were some benches by the homeless shelter that look out onto a lovely view of an industrial parking lot. My group went down Duff. St. which has a dead end at a giant rock wall. I saw the beauty in the rock wall. One of my co-walkers only saw the negative, so it was interesting to see the contrast.
Then we had lunch (chicken stew) and lots of donuts. I don't know where all the donuts came from but there were a lot.
After lunch we had another set of 3 speakers:
Monica speaking on working with people with developmental disabilities
Steven about a ministry for students and how to be intentional about growth (huddles method)
Andrew about the Joyful project that sells clothing made by women who have been freed from trafficking. They also give away socks to homeless. https://www.thejoyfulproject.com/ 
Then we had some discussion
Then 3 more speakers:
Travis who has a group of people who take all the leftovers from Costco food(thousands of dollars of dollars of merchandise and distribute them all over Kingston to different services that feed people) He also runs the Embassy which is a clean music night.
Brandon talked about intentional design
and Carla talked about innovation and renovating spaces http://www.edge-ucc.ca/
So there was a lot of information but all designed for inspiration.

neighboured

The neighboured conference information is here: https://www.newleafnetwork.ca/events/neighboured2018/

I have heard a lot of good things about Danielle and always look forward to seeing Jared.

There is another conference going on this week in North Battleford but that was too far for me to travel to: https://www.battleforcanada.com/why-battleford

Today was a long day at work, a timetable committee meeting, some other planned meetings and a few crises. Par for the course.

Tomorrow morning have a quiz to launch that is not complete currently. It would be good if i had the weekend to work, but I don't , I have the weekend to conference!

When the winds blow

I had thought things were going well with the leaf collection so far but then yesterday there were strong winds and now there are piles of leaves everywhere!

Happy Anniversary to my parents! If you want a gift of leaves, I have lots.

Today I worked 10 hours straight but I had yesterday mostly off. Picked up Chinese on the way home with the excuse that it was a celebration for my parents.

Watched survivor.

Got a ridiculous email.

Have a conference this weekend.

Brownies

So yesterday I had the challenge of making "dutch" brownies and attending parent teacher night.
During the day I tried to pick up brownie packages. Went to Metro and the had the selection brand and some weird Lava version. Knowing James wants plain brownies and not trusting the no name brand, I moved on to Food Basics. They had the same no name brand (probably cheaper) and some other weird variety, so I passed there as well. My last attempt was on my way home I stopped by Giant Tiger and they had 1 box left of Duncan Hines Chewy brownies. It looked like it had gotten dropped or something- the box was all beaten up, but I hoped that the bag inside would be ok as that was my last hope.
The bag inside was fine, made the brownies.
Went to parent teacher night. I only had to see 3 teachers as I had talked to the math teacher the week before. He seemed to be doing ok the other 3 courses. It was good to put a face to who the teachers are (as you only get 5 minutes)
James brought the brownies to school today. I asked him what other kids brought to the breakfast potluck. He said someone else brought brownies as well. And another kid brought donuts. So clearly the kids all had a good breakfast. Haha.

sit down

Yesterday, other than a few meetings I didn't move from my desk, not even to go to the bathroom, I just sat down and was powering through work. I had forgotten my phone so didn't have my cards to go anywhere plus it was gloomy and rainy so there was no incentive otherwise.

Tonight is parent teacher night.

Tomorrow James' class is having an ethnic meal. It is his first class of the day. He wants me to bake Dutch brownies. The only brownies I can bake come from a package. He said that was fine. I asked if we could do 2 bite brownies but he said no, they had to be home baked. So tonight will be busy as I have to manage to go see teachers, make dinner and brownies!