corona lockdown day 259

 This morning I went to Food Basics- with no problems, it was relatively quiet and easy.

Then I went to the Kingston Center Dollarama which wasn't very busy but busier than I expected. The problem here was all my own. I don't have a cold and haven't coughed at all but I have an odd sinus issue that crops up from time to time and in Dollarama, I needed to cough. Probably if I hadn't been in a mask it would have been fine as there would have been less irritants. Instead I was trying to hold back the cough which led to my eyes watering, which was not fun. I booted it to the checkout and made it out where I could take off the mask and cough it out (just one cough was enough) so it all worked out in the end somehow.

The most exciting part of the trip is that cleaning products that have been out of stock in March we in bountiful supply. The truck must have arrived in Kingston!

Then watched Elevation and Rustle online.

chilli

 Jay dropped off some carrots from the farm that he works at. Carrots just out of the dirt taste so good. They were "a bit nibbled" so they were not saleable. I made a nice chilli with them.

I went for a walk while the chilli was simmering to watch the sunset but my toes got too chilly before the best of the sunset and I had to return home.

Today a bus ran into a home trying to avoid a collision. 

Hayden is recovering from a car accident a few days ago.

At Loblaws today I did not see this display, maybe they were still working on it

Maybe it was busy as the end of the month means paydays.

corona lockdown day 258

 I woke up early to go to Loblaws. It was busier than I expected. They didn't have many of their advertised specials. I got mainly what I had planned though.

Then went to the dollar store and shoppers which were ok.

Advent calendars are dropping in price as Dec 1 rolls up.

Last night after a long time of no sinus leak, my nose started to run as soon as I lay down so I was a bit worried about wearing a mask for the shopping but it ended up ok. I did have to blow my nose between stores.

The rain started just as I was heading into Loblaws but by the time I exited, it was over. The weather is not bad at all, very nice. I will have to think of another reason to be outside today!

corona lockdown day 257

 I woke up too late to go to Loblaws but will plan for it tomorrow. Ran some pretty successful presentations. Answered a lot of questions. Made turkey enchiladas for dinner. I did bike downtown to go to the bank. There are a lot more people downtown than other places so I was glad to be on the bike to scoot down and back quickly.

A Week in Review

corona lockdown day 256

 Thursdays are always my day of meetings and this one was no exception. I am happy that the projects have launched and will do a special session with the students tomorrow to do a brief introduction to them.

I launched the peer review system and got some paperwork done in the evening.

Tomorrow I have to get our website ready for Saturday to begin next week. If all goes well I also have need of a trip to Loblaws and to Rustles bank.

corona lockdown day 254/255

 The last 2 days I have been busy launching projects until midnight both days. But they are out now, so that is good for a week.

We had a lot of deliveries today. Canada post in a white van, Frozen box by FedEx, Chef's plate in a rental van, package from intellicom from parents, package from intellicom with groceries (2 different intellicoms) I didn't get an email about the package that I had ordered from amazon- normally they let me know it is coming. Not sure what broke down in their system. Maybe the package overload.

I wore my winter boots today due to over an inch of snow.

corona lockdown day 253

 Today I got a walk in to Rustle which was nice to get out. Just needed to pick some things up. Worked into the evening. Still lots to do. Made lemon chicken for dinner. James has been doing minecraft and he has been recolouring the sheep.

corona lockdown day 252

 I got through posting most of the projects, just a few with technical difficulties so that feels good. I should take a look at my to-do list as I think I was supposed to accomplish a few other things over the weekend.

Evidently shopping malls in Toronto and Peel will close tomorrow for the lockdown so they were full today. Kind of missing the point there. That sounds like it will create a setback?

There has been snow most of the day and they are calling for freezing rain tonight. I am debating about going out for a walk as sometimes it is nice to walk in the snow.

I went to Shoppers this morning and it was out of most of its sales. I was considering the walk to another shoppers to see which sales they are also out of.

corona lockdown day 251

 Yesterday was a busy day as I'm trying to get the projects out. I went to Shoppers in the morning that was relatively busy but I went early enough that they still had sales. It was still nice outside. Today it is snowing.

I made pasta with meatballs that was good.

corona lockdown day 250

 Today they announced that we will be moving into "yellow" despite only having a few new cases over the past few days. The new cases on Friday-Monday have them concerned. I think that this only affects things like restaurants and other things that we don't go to as there were no changes to our lives in the green/yellow transitions that we have been in before.

Yesterday I reminded the students of the deadline for their assignment. The assignment was handed in into a special dropbox that would run a program to set up a peer review process. I warned them that they could not be late for this, it was very important. And how many emails did I get today with people wanting to hand it in late? Too many.

I went to Food Basics first thing in the morning. The weather is still being nice. It was not too busy. The lady at the front was reminding everyone to follow the arrows. I noticed at Loblaws yesterday people were not doing a good job with that. 

Today I had a lot of things on my to do list and I only got to the main task of getting their projects released in the evening. Most are easy to get through but when there are difficulties it really slows down the process.

Have plans for more shopping tomorrow and to work on the projects some more. I should also see Sarah as there are some documents that need to be signed for Rustle.

corona lockdown day 249

 While there was a jump in our cases from Fri-Mon, since then the increase has only been 1 per day which is better but we'll need to wait a few weeks to see the extent. We are currently still in the green.

I was up early today to go to Loblaws. It was oddly busy and the staff were oddly chatty with each other. The weather was much nicer. Today was my day of meetings as Thursdays always are. After all the meetings I made easy sheet pan chicken wraps. It was indeed easy!

Could you tell us about the fast food related cases in our region?

corona lockdown day 248

 It is colder and more gloomy so haven't been outside much. We have had a close a number of fast food restaurants due to the covid- 2 McD, 2 Tims and 1 dominos. Apparently it likes fast food and fast travels!

corona lockdown day 247

 Lots of meetings and training sessions today. Made lemon chicken for dinner after the long day. Then in the evening I worked on the schedule for deliverables for the Winter term. James' amazon order of shoes came just in time before he needed them. He went to his coop in the morning and had training in the evening. 

corona lockdown day 246

 I went to see the tree scene that my last post and everything was cleaned up but when I looked up I saw another part of the tree completely cracked off and leaning on another tree with no warning signs. I looked like imminent danger to me.

Today was mainly meetings all day so a long day. Solved some problems, still behind on others.

corona lockdown day 245

 Yesterday someone posted about migratory waterfowl able to be seen at Lake Ontario park. But today had been too rainy and windy to get down there. Not sure how the birds feel about it either.

I braved Shoppers in the morning and it was busier than normal. People were actually using the self checkout. Overall was very efficient and they still had toilet paper on sale so things are doing better even though our numbers are doing worse. 

We had 10 cases on Friday. Our MOH doesn't update on the weekend but the Ontario numbers show we are at least 7 up from Friday so things are still upward trending as we wait out the extent of the outbreaks.

It is very windy here and we try to hold on to our power- this is down the road:

I Eat Engineering Properties for Breakfast

stew beef chilli

 Made a very nice chilli with stewing beef for dinner. By the time I am through one meal clean up and dealing with laundry, it starts all over again. I try to get dishes and laundry done before I start anything else but most days it takes a while to get on top of that. After that I had to send some sample reports to the TAs and launch our Week 9. Then I tried to get through some financial paperwork. One amazon order arrived (from Mississauga). If the other 2 also some from Mississauga (as they often do) I am not sure why they can't ship them altogether. Not that I mind. Package arrival is generally the most exciting part of the day.

shoppers

 I wore my birthday leggings to shoppers. I biked and that went well. I had to pick up a prescription so while I was waiting I did my shopping. But then when I was done shopping, I could see that they had made the prescription but the pharmacist (only person there) was on the phone with someone, explaining the same thing over and over again. So I had to wait about 10 minutes for him to get off the phone, so my efficiency of getting out of the store was reduced.

They have now closed an A&W here. Covid is taking down the fast food outlets!

corona lockdown day 244

Funny amazon story- I placed an order on Friday (just after midnight) for some shoes for James that he needs for Tuesday. I also added some snacks to fill the pantry. When I placed the order it said it would arrive on Thursday. Amazon send me 3 messages during the day (because the order was evidently coming in 3 parts). The first email said the first part would arrive on Sunday. This didn't include the needed shoes but seemed to be typical of their delivery time. The next email said the second part would arrive on Tuesday. This includes the shoes so we can keep our fingers crossed that they arrive before James needs them. At this point I logged into amazon and saw that the 3rd part (that they had not yet sent an email about) would be arriving first. It said on Thursday which confused me because I hadn't placed the order yet on Thursday but it must have been holding the original due time before they sent the new due time even though they must have known at that time that it would be arriving first. Then I got an email saying that the 3rd part would be arriving today! It would be interesting to know if they all ship from Mississauga. 

corona lockdown day 243

 The birthday version. I took a vacation day and took it easy. Slept in and went for a walk. Zoomed with my parents. Overall a good day!

The cases in Kingston took a jump this week which will likely bring more anxiety out and about. 2 McDonalds are closed. They have been popular staples for people in the pandemic so it is possible that this may have larger impacts in the community, we will have to see.

My real estate agent said that most of the houses in kingston are being bought up from people from Toronto who are trying to get out of the city. She also said that building materials are short as many people are doing renovations instead of travelling.

Community update about rising cases - November 13, 2020

corona lockdown day 242

 Thursday is always my day of meetings. It went ok but was very long. I made chicken orzetto after it all was done.

James went to school but changed his internship from working with a school phys ed class to working with Ryan from hockey helping him with some admin work and the team. So that means his bubble is smaller right now, which is good. We'll have to see how things look in octomester 4.

corona lockdown day 241

 Tomorrow is a school day. Since March James hasn't needed to eat food from home and I wasn't quite prepared so had not bought anything so he'll have a bit of a challenge putting it together in the morning.

Today was another nice day and I did manage to get outside for a walk. My email is still pretty backlogged but tomorrow is all day of meetings again.

MOH advice

James is back to school tomorrow. Guess that is essential!

corona lockdown day 240

 Today was another beautiful day and I made a point to get outside as I was not able to yesterday. At lunch I biked to the bank to pick up some paperwork for Rustle. I wore a mask in and they greeted me by name but then in order to give me the paperwork, they asked me to pull my mask down to confirm that I was me. I found that a bit odd. I spent some time in the backyard as well.

James had a lot of training today. Octomester 3 starts for him on Thursday. Unfortunately, we have had an elementary school close thanks to covid and one case in a high school today. So we'll see how octomester 3 goes.

corona lockdown day 239

 Today was a very long day with lots of meetings but we got through a lot of things, just my work is building up while I am in meetings. So not much to report as I didn't leave the house even for a breathe of fresh air.

corona lockdown day 238

 I had a laugh at this:

I took on Loblaws at 8am and it went well. Rustle online at 11am. The in person 11am was full. Christine said she needed to wait outside (but they did end up having space). Maybe this will inspire people to arrive on time. At any rate, it worked for me to be online. Funnily they muted Todd when he sang happy birthday as they thought his voice was too bad. Hahaha.

In the afternoon I biked to Rustle to pick up the bills. They are changing our account to need 2 approvals to pay the bills so I am paying them quickly before the new account features are activated.

Made peameal bacon. The frozen box was ready to ship in the next few days but I still have frozen things in the freezer so I went in and found out how to delay the box so I was pretty pleased with figuring that out.

corona lockdown day 237

 Happy anniversary to my parents!

Today I went to the grocery store for the first time in a week. I went relatively early and it was not too busy. I also went to Shoppers and they still had some of their sales, so that was good. Pretty successful trips. Kim came over and we went for a neighborhood walk. One of the houses a few doors down went on sale today and despite the high price and the lack of a sale sign the house was hopping with viewings. 

corona lockdown day 236

 A day with many meetings. I still need to write down all the notes. Took a walk after the meetings in the Strathcona area. Made Italian sausage risotto for dinner. I am hoping to see Kim for a walk tomorrow.

I have a number of work things to do on the weekend as well as getting some groceries.

corona lockdown day 235

 Today was a day of meetings as Thursdays usually are. This one was more meetings than usual. I only had a short time to make pasta and heat the sauce at one point in the day Tomorrow is better but likely my tasks are backlogged from all my meetings today.

During one meeting out of the corner of my eye I saw a thousand legged millipede and had to scramble to kill it. Really don't like those things- it was big!

corona lockdown day 234

 Today was a long day of meetings and tomorrow will be another one as Thursdays normally are. I did get a walk in at lunch. The weather was very nice!

Made pizza meatloaves for dinner!

corona lockdown day 233

 Today I did manage to get out for a walk. I had a training session from 5-7, wrote lots of email in the evening. Tomorrow have lots of meetings in the morning.

On my walk I saw a truck delivering chef's plate but on their website Tuesday is not an option for me to select for delivery. But a lot of houses in my neighbourhood seemed to be getting deliveries and Tuesday used to be my delivery day so I'm trying to understand the system. But glad that other people are enjoying chefs plate.

corona lockdown day 232

 On the day of a project submission it is always a busy day. I had hundreds of emails to get through so it was a very long day- 12 hours or so, but I got through a lot of things so that is good. I didn't get outside at all. Simple dinner of chicken and rice. More work than anything today! 

corona lockdown day 231

 I was woken up early. I had been planning to walk to Metro as it was to be cold and rainy but as it was just windy, I biked and managed to keep control of the bike! I picked up some good meat and so can freeze a bunch. 

I watched Elevation church and Rustle online.

Did a bunch of registration work.

Dinner was a whole chicken and it was early as James had a 7pm skate. James had pasta a bit before the skate. James got a puck to the knee so was limping when he came back.