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 Dec 31 2023 can be written 123123!

Woke up at 4am and got some work done. Had a good time at Rustle during the day. Pizza meatloaves for dinner. Lots of fireworks going off now but I am going to sleep!

2 days left in 2023

 

I went to Food Basics. It wasn't too busy for Sat morning. The Knights Inn still smelled like fire.

Cleaned the bathrooms and some of the basement.

Dinner was tex mex turkey pasta!

Compost

 I've never had to clean the road of Fall materials before- I thought the street cleaner took care of that in the past but this year I think everyone on our street did their own. I have noticed that other streets have not cleaned the leaves and things at the edge of the road but our street has a high responsibility quotient so I thought that since it is so mild that I would catch up to the rest of the street. I thought it wouldn't be a large amount but it filled the green bin!

I put it out anyway in hopes that it would be below the 66lb limit. But no, the green bin people didn't touch it. So I drug the green bin down to the compost heap and shoveled it all out. I normally don't like to put food stuffs on the heap for attracting critters but there was a bit combined in but I wanted everything out before it froze. So happy feast of pizza crusts for critters.

Finalizing

 

Today I worked on finalizing all the marks so that Brian can approve them.

Then Sarah and I went out to see Darlene. She lives in a very busy house and really needs some space to rest. 

Made open faced pork meatball sandwiches for dinner thanks to Chef's plate. It was good but the tomato they sent was underride so I picked one I had bought recently but it was a bit overripe. One extreme to the other!

Christmas

 Had a lovely Christmas with my parents.

Today was lovely outside. I picked up some things from Shoppers and James and I went to Canadian Tire to get a new power bar. He is happy with his new fridge but we had to reorganize the outlets.

There was a fire at the Knights Inn tonight a few blocks away. There seems to be a fire there once a year. There are still a few fire vehicles there but most have left so they much have managed it easily. 

James has to drive to Belleville tomorrow for a tournament, hopefully the fog lifts in time for a safe trip.

Christmas tradition

 Yesterday James told me that it was Christmas tradition to order pizza on Christmas eve. I did not recall this tradition and had made him a nice chicken dinner. He said he could eat both. He ate the chicken dinner and then later went out and got the pizza. But he didn't eat very much, claiming it wasn't very good. Will the tradition sustain until next year?

Merry Christmas!

survey

James was so pleased to be called to complete a survey as it made him feel like an adult. The survey was about fluoride in the water. I myself am not sure of his feelings on this and if I asked I am sure he would not answer. But if a stranger asked, apparently that made him feel important!

He only went to bed around 5am, which was when I was getting up.

I went to food basics in the morning but they did not have the kind of chicken that I needed for the slow cooker. So I opted for turkey. Mistake. He doesn't like turkey in the slow cooker. He only likes turkey the way that Oma makes it. I am not sure when this change happened as I used to be able to interchange turkey and chicken with no objections.

I also went to Loblaws and it was pretty busy. I went to the self checkout. They have 6 self-checkouts. There was one person taking a really long time at one of the self checkouts and it was really agitating the clerk. I was in the station beside her and she maybe scanned one thing while I scanned all my groceries. She was busy rearranging all her groceries in a pile as maybe she didn't have bags?

Food Basics opens at 7am tomorrow. We'll see if they have the right kind of chicken!

 

Bathroom redecoration a la James

 BEFORE

AFTER

Note the matching footmat to go with the shower curtain. Maybe nice for people who like the snow and maybe ice hockey but I would prefer something sunnier!

Reason to wake your mother in the middle of the night #574

 To find out when the next plane leaves Montreal for Morocco.

Apparently his best friend was at the airport in Montreal and his flight to Morocco was cancelled. So to be helpful, he asked me to look up when the next plane was, which I did while grumbling that if the friend was at the airport, they would be the best people to help him. James countered with - have you ever BEEN to an airport? Implying that they are not helpful. At any rate, James' friend now is booked on a flight out Monday night when he was supposed to fly out Saturday night. We'll see if he gets there before he needs to head home. An adventure anyway.

last test

 Today was James' last test so he is relatively free. He still has a class tomorrow. We stayed up late last night studying. James took some sleepeze as the test was at 8:30am and he had been staying up until 3am. So he went to bed around 1:30. At 2:30am he was calling for me so I ran downstairs and explained that it was 2:30am and he agreed to go back to sleep. Apparently he was still asleep as he couldn't remember this in the morning.

He took the test in the morning and spent the afternoon cleaning his room. He even vacuumed!

He had hockey at 6pm at the Leon's center and today was the first day without his boot so he was learning to walk and skate again. He even went for a walk tonight. He is working towards having normal feet again.

Change of name

 Due to a large donation our Faculty has had a name change to Smith Engineering. I haven't heard how this will change things but the rollout was very smooth. All our signs and website changed as soon as the announcement was made. So they can be very efficient when they want to be. In the summer they had made a new website and I needed a redirect on one of the pages that I had sent to the students and they wouldn't do it, but now the whole website seamlessly seems to have redirected to all new links for smithengineering. They are very good at keeping secrets.

This was a long week as we had student meetings in the evenings Mon and Wed. I had to get tests to the printer and peer review reports out yesterday. 

James drove to Sudbury yesterday and due to a long week already I went to bed at 9pm and so woke around 3:30am. Early to bed, early to rise, I guess!

Breakfast for dinner

 I ran out of yogurt so made turkey with rice and peppers leftovers for breakfast. See how the day goes on this.

This morning I was surprised as an article that I had been helping with was the headline in the Queen's gazette today, pretty pleased with what they did:

https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/generating-positive-change-through-community-engaged-learning 

Early morning

 It has been a busy month!

Yesterday I had a long work day and then James planned to go to coach for 6:30am so I knew it would be an early morning but James had difficulty sleeping and then was doing normal things like going to the bathroom but I woke up and have been up since 3:30. Made James soupe at 4:30. He's headed off to coach and it is 5:30am

Because I thought I would be up early (not this early) I had left the garbage and recycling to put out in the morning. Since I'm up earlier I could even do a load of laundry. The possibilities are endless!

We have a lot of classes this week so hopefully everyone stays healthy!

Boxelder bugs

 Apparently, the bugs from the previous photo are boxelder bugs and glomping together is something that they do. 

Today I woke up late and so had to launch right into my day and didn't get breakfast until lunchtime due to the busy activities of the morning.

Dinner was bunless turkey bruchetta burgers which I thought were quite good, though I didn't put onion or oil in my bruchetta.

Cousin Tammy rescued a dog from Romania. Not the dog she received. But they still seem to love him even if he was not what was expected. They named the wrong dog "Big Dave" and he clearly has been through so much and they are pouring lots of love into him. It is interesting to see how he changes even after only a few days.

the day that flying ants loose their wings

 Friday was the day that I say the flying ants loose their wings. One this one day in the year my laundry gets covered by these ants. Luckily the laundry was whites so they were pretty easy to pick off. I put the laundry in the dryer for a few minutes after to bake off any that I missed.

Saturday and Sunday switched to these beetles. They often were singly on the door but the new thing was these "balls" of them on dead leaves. Some were black and red, some were red and black, some were just red. Admirable variety if they weren't so creepy.

Close up of a "ball"

Seeing geese flying south. Fall has arrived.

Hand me down

 

I now can wear James' hand me downs and got a nice jacket out of it.

Today I took a vacation day today after the long days of the last 3 weeks. Went to Lake Ontario park. Lots of chipmunks and ducks!

starting a fire

 This week was excessively busy, just working and sleeping. I thought yesterday that I was about to come up for air but then everything went sideways today.

Walking in the morning I saw what looked like a plume of smoke. Not a large plume, but smoke nonetheless. Then I saw the smoke start to creep across the parking lot. Then I heard the sirens. I think it had pretty much burned itself out (whatever it was) pretty quick, but the firetruck arrived quickly. It was classified a "vegetation fire" and it the call took 13 minutes so not a big deal but certainly man instigated.

one good sleep

 I slept very well last night. Makes such a difference to the day. I felt much better.

Tomorrow is the maxsold pickup. Looking forward to space in the basement!

lack of sleep

 

I don't have dogs but everyone in the house is still alive. lol.

Clara came in yesterday and we went to a Japanese restaurant where I had an udon noodle bowl. As I couldn't use chopsticks I had a spoon but it was a flat spoon so the eating was a challenge but I overcame! It was good.

Today I went with Clara and Peter to move in. It was much smoother than any previous move in, well organized. 

Earlier in the week the smoke detector battery expired and woke me up in the middle of the night. Do these batteries only expire in the middle of the night.

The maxsold closed so I have to make up the lots tomorrow. I also have to finish the contracts for Tuesday.

As it goes

 

The stress of putting the maxsold together + the stress of work created an interesting phenomenon.

I have a double authentication device that I need for work. Yesterday I left the bag with it in it at home and had to leave all my SOLUS work until today. In 3 years of having the device I have never forgotten it before. THEN I got home today and found that I had brought the bag home but the device was not in it, it must still be at work. Wednesdays I work from home so I'll need to bike in early tomorrow to go and pick it up. 

In other news the maxsold is up here: Bid Gallery | Kingston (Ontario, Canada) SELLER MANAGED Charity/Fundraising Online Auction - College St. (maxsold.com)

Electrician

 The electrician is coming tomorrow morning to try to find the source of the missing ground. Hopefully, this is a successful venture.

Mike is also planning to stop by tomorrow morning.

I am off on the morning as we have a webinar in the evening.

Today Sarah and I went to see Darlene in the hospital after Church. She has a great view of the lake despite the circumstances.

Then I did some work in the basement organizing books. Also got in the laundry from the line and mowed the lawn. Cleaned the upstairs bathroom. Will aim to clean the downstairs bathroom tomorrow.

slow progress

 I have been working through the house in preparation for the maxsold. I completed the kitchen and linen closet this week and today finished the upstairs bedroom. I still have to go through books, the garage and dining room. Al is coming to help me take pictures this week.

The neighbours had a pretty large party tonight but has wrapped up now. 

A few storms blew through. The grass needs a mow as it is looking raggedy but it will be too wet for a while!

Surprise visitor

 Mike drove from N.B yesterday unplanned. Arrived at our place around dinnertime. Luckily I had put a whole turkey breast in the slow cooker and so there was more than enough dinner for everyone. I made rice and wedges to go along with it.

I had so much cardboard from cleaning out the basement that I had my 2 bins full + 4 cardboard boxes full. Apparently they don't take cardboard boxes with things in it, they only take the bins. As they did my side of the street first my neighbour suggested refilling the bins and putting them with their recycling so that I could get 4 bins worth out!

basement progress

 Today was a long day of interviews with another day tomorrow to go. James is happily set up in his new room. Today I cleaned where his bed used to be and started putting maxsold items in that cove.

The plumber came today to fix the basement sink. He made quick work of fixing it.

room progress

 Rustle went well today. I was hosting. Then came home and watched Elevation. Then spent a lot of time cleaning the downstairs bedroom. When James got home from golf and his camp meeting and had his dinner he started his work on putting the room together. It is coming along!

planning to sleep well tonight

 Woke up at 5am. Cleaned the bathroom. Hung laundry but it didn't last too long as it started to rain around 10am. Did lots of loads of laundry. The main task today James and I worked on cleaning out the downstairs bedroom. It is almost clean now. One more day of cleaning and he should be able to move in. Tomorrow am hosting at Rustle so it will be a busy day!

boots

 There has been a little rabbit hanging out in the backyard and it has white feet and white paw hands so I called him "Boots". Today Boots expired on our driveway. A sad day for me as I miss Boots.

A good laundry drying day.

Lots of emails and working on a report on the groups from last year for the second year people.

Tomorrow I have to set up the interviews for Monday and get contracts into Finance. No time for email tomorrow. Haha.

James and I are working on clearing out the bedroom in the basement as he has decided he wants to move there.

Made a Japanese stir fry. I was a bit worried when I started as I clearly hadn't read the ingredients before I ordered it as it had both sticky rice and snap peas which I try to avoid both. But it turned out well. I did a better job of getting the stringy bits out of the snap peas which made them turn out much better and they fried up quite nicely.

James went to the counsellor today and said it went well.

Million dollar smiles

 Building a playground for 2 little girls with our egroup.

We also packed meals for people in countries in need with kids against hunger: https://www.kahcanada.org/ 

Nice to see them all in person again!

Quick spirals

2 days of summer orientation so only 1 day to catch up on household tasks. 

This morning went to Food Basics, then to Rustle, then to Shoppers. Have done 3 loads of dishes. 1 load of laundry. Made James spicy steak and a large pot of soupe.

Drips

 James' sink is broken as whatever connected the drain of the sink to the pipe below has rusted away.

Today I had the day off as I'll be working Friday and Saturday for summer student orientation. I did my annual trip to the Cat mall. I walked there having to avoid storms. The walk back saw some interesting cloud formations. The pictures aren't mine but captured the cloud formations well. I used up some old gift cards and got some good deals!

Lake Ontario Park

 Woke up early so went to Lake Ontario Park before the crowds.

Baby ducklings:

White squirrel

Then I went to Food Basics and Shoppers. Then I needed a nap!

snail among the pom poms

 

Last weekend I was on the hunt for fudgsicles for James. Food Basics apparently doesn't have them, which was a surprise to me. Loblaws did have them and he was happy again.

On Monday I biked to Metro and there were feces smeared outside on the walls. They also didn't have what I was looking for so it was a bit of a wasted trip.

On Tuesday I loaded the students into their classes and Wednesday sent the notifications. This meant my email got behind. Hoping to catch up on that today. 

Enjoy the snail among the pom pom flowers!

moderate

 After some trials I have found when Environment Canada says that the air quality is moderate, it is still fine for me. So I walked to Shoppers and have been hanging laundry on the line. Despite the weather being "smoke"

Yesterday I biked to the police station as I needed to get a vulnerable sector check (we all need one every 3 year at Rustle for our insurance). Luckily, I passed :) James likely needs to get one soon as he will be coaching children.

I got my hair cut yesterday and the lady was quite absent minded. She asked me twice what I was doing for the weekend. Then when she was finishing up she asked me how many inches I wanted off (which I had told her at the beginning. It all worked out ok, I think.

 

weather forecast

 

Who knew smoke was weather?

Heavy

A video filmed of the Titan vessel only days before the fatal voyage. Very interesting perspective in retrospect.

The grass was getting out of control as I hadn't mowed in quite some time. I mowed in the heat and was pretty soaked by the end but it is done.

My hair is heavy as well. Aiming to get it cut on Friday.

rain delay

 There was some pouring rain this morning that led to a delay in my morning shopping and thus a delay to my whole day.

Back from Algonquin with some pictures:

Short night

 I didn't sleep very long last night. This past week was exam week so it was a long week!

Because I was up so early this morning and today is "Giveaway day" in Kingston I took out a rickety wooden shoe rack that the previous owners of this house had left. It was gone by 7am, so that was efficient. 

I went to Loblaws this morning as James wanted me to pick up something. Unfortunately for me the department I needed didn't open as early as the rest of the store.

A more exciting Sunday than I had planned

 James ended up in the ER arriving by ambulance. He got checked out and everything seems fine but it was a stressful time. The ER was so full of people. So many hurting.

I worked from home today to keep an eye on him. I had to bike in to get my computer before the day started.

This is exam week so it is a busy week!

Recovering from the yellow air

 

There was rain and all the puddles are rimmed with yellow precipitate from the smog. The air is much better now. I had held off from the laundry during the bad air stint so I had a lot to catch up on today.

I cleaned the bathroom and the front hall closet today. Considering the amount of time that the closet took me, it will take a while to make it through the whole house!

clearing

 The air cleared today. I still needed to wear a mask to walk to work but walking home was fine. The itchiness in my eyes has subsided.

I worked on writing detailed emails today. Will need to send them tomorrow. Exams are next week.

smoky

 Yesterday was very smoky out and my eyes were pretty sore when I got home. James refused to go outside due to the particulate count. Normally he would walk or play ball hockey when not working. Now we are locked indoors like the pandemic but we can't open the windows. Am thinking of wearing a mask to go outside shopping. 

weekend

 I did not make as much progress as I hoped on the weekend as I had a few poor sleeps. But I got a nap today so am up later than usual now. Hopefully, I can sleep until my alarm.

I mostly completed the T3010 and caught up on a lot of Rustle finance work as well as lots of dishes and laundry.

James has a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning so we'll both be up early!

oriental peony

 This year the oriental peony seems to only have one flower. In previous years there would be more!

This week was a lot of problem management. Next week need to complete the timetable feedback and some exam issues and review hiring. The week after is exam week.

Today met with Dan about Kingston International Student Support. I'm helping with the website.

squirrel and biker explosion

 This morning there were squirrels all over my lawn running around. Some went into the garage so I had to evict them. I am not sure if there was a squirrel convention that I was not invited to!

When walking home from Food basics there was also a biker parade. It lasted from when I walked from Sir John A to Bath along Princess so I was glad I hadn't wanted to cross the road at that time.

James worked from 7am to 11pm yesterday and was out the door at 8am today to work in Napanee. 

I bought him new pillows yesterday as his old ones were rather flat!

Not a good quality picture as I was walking

interviews

 This week has been a week of interviews. Trying to keep on top of all my other work while doing interviews as well.

James' team had a championship game today but lost.

Trying to work on getting him a new passport.

Also working on our charitable tax form. The bookeeper had been working on getting someone to audit but said he wasn't able to get someone at a good price so suggested that I also look so that is a new task added.

Manure and Lilacs

 I spent a week away at an Ellel retreat on Wolfe Lake. A beautiful place and beautiful people. There was no wifi, cell service or TV in the center. I did a course on emotional honesty which involved video teaching, activities and people supporting to pray with you. The food was amazing. Overall a wonderful experience even though I did some challenging work. Some days were cold but most days we could get out and have some fresh air as well. As it was out in the country when you walked you could alternately smell manure and lilacs and I thought that seemed like a good way to describe the week.