Temu interest

 For the Temu parcel that I received that was supposed to have a spring and they sent me a make up box that seemed to be the same thing. Looking more carefully at the make up box, while it looks like the pieces are the same, the box is different. The first box said it could hold up to 16kg. The new box says it can hold up to 18kg.

From Temu I also purchased a (cheap) book called "The Bible in a Year- a 52 Week Journey Through God's Word". Now when I purchased it I thought it would be one where you read the whole Bible in a year, but it is actually 52 weeks of themes with scriptures. So not the whole Bible but a scripture to think about each day. Wasn't what I expected but it works. Interestingly, there is no indication of who wrote all the theme text.

All the grass is dead but Kim gave me 2 tomato plants to keep alive and so far that is going successfully.

For dinner tonight I made mashed potatoes and pepper ground beef on the request of James. He needed to go to Napanee tonight but the 401 is a mess so he is currently driving an alternate route.

3am

 Last night around 3 am I heard some metal clanking outside. So I checked at the window and the sound seemed to come from the neighbours backyard. But then their backyard light switched off, so it must have been the neighbours but I have no idea what they were doing and why at 3am!

Tomorrow the grocery stores nearby say they are open regular hours so I hope to get some shopping done.

Fledging

 The baby birds I think were spooked by a squirrel and fledged this morning. I can hear them in the trees and the parents were busy tending to them all day. This will be their first night out of the nest. Hope they do ok.

I took my first bike rise on the new Brock St. Very nice and smooth.

Most of the day was focused on hiring and course planning. Ready for a good sleep tonight!

Garage door

 I ordered a new garage door today. The old one has been broken for years and after the police tried to raise it to make sure noone was in the garage that time I found someone in the garage, it has never closed back. I didn't try very hard though. It just seemed like time to fix it. They had originally been coming to measure it next week but called today to say they were coming tomorrow. So I had to rearrange the contents of the garage so that they can measure it. I also have interviews tomorrow morning so the timing was not great.

I also don't know what roads are closed for my travels down to work so it will be an adventure. Now that Brock St is done, probably something else is closed.

The baby birds are looking very much like mini robins now. They are pretty jammed into the nest. I am not sure how the adult fits at night to cover them.

I thought some of the baby birds has fledged but they were just having a nap deeper in the nest

 I had a startle in the middle of the day when I thought some of the baby birds were gone from the nest but they weren't, just were just snuggled down lower. They are getting pretty big so they do fill the nest so I'm surprised I missed them.

Have been chasing off racoons in the night. The neighbour's dog was just out but they don't seem to pay him any mind.

There is an air quality warning due to forest fire smoke and I can feel it in my eyeballs. I keep my window open at night to listen for racoons but because my window is right by the air conditioning (and the rest of the house is still air conditioned) it wakes me up every time it turns on so it makes for a bad night. I'll stop the racoon watch when the babies really do fledge!

Tomorrow is another day of interviews!

I superglued my fingers together

 I was trying to fix James' flip flops and managed to superglue my fingers together. Hopefully his flip flops are also superglued. I have been rubbing lemon juice on them and that has improved things.

Today was an interview day. Tomorrow I will hopefully get some of my backed up tasks completed

The Brock St. repaving seems to have pretty much completed. They have moved the detour signs out of the way. The road is looking good!

Preening

 Today I got up at 5:30am to make the Brock St. crossing. I had a bad night so this was very commendable. I had a lot of meetings and a lot of email. I was successful in the crossing as the guys were still many streets away doing the shut down when I crossed. They did close it for the whole day but it is looking like it is almost done. It looks like the asphalt is all down and the lines are painted.

As I have interviews for the next few days I am working remotely and don't need to make the crossing anymore. They said they would be done by July 31 but I am thinking they will be done sooner.

The baby birds are learning to preen.

The racoons knocked over the green bin and I went out to confront them. There were quite a number and some went up a tree. Took me a while to scare them all away.

Heavy day

 It was a challenging day today. A lot of pain and challenges. 

I managed to get some cleaning done.

The baby birds seem to have opened their eyes now.

An attempt at a catch up day

 I slept in until 8am to catch up on my sleep.

Today I mainly cooked, cleaned up the kitchen and did laundry. I had hoped to work on the bathroom but ran out of time.

I wore a new Halara outfit- the shorts are very comfortable!

Another early morning

 Up again at 5:30am and hit the crossing even earlier. However, they didn't close the street today I guess due to the expected rain. So the early rise may not have been necessary. But I got into work early and so left early. We'll see if the early mornings shatter me!

I made it through reading all the applications. There will be 3 weeks of interviews!

The baby birds are very hungry, even requesting food when the parents are not there. Their eyes are not open yet.

Brock St. Crossing

 I was up at 5:30am and just made it across Brock St. before they closed it (they were one street over).

The baby birds are clearly 3. No eyes open but very hungry. Parents are bringing huge worms!

After work Kim and I took Pat out to a nearby park.

Progress

 The robins are still successfully feeding the babies. They tiny heads are now visible over the edge of the nest. I saw 3 teeny heads.

After 8pm I went to check out the brock st crossing. It looks like they have paved the length of Brock St/ But haven't finished the joins to the cross streets. Then painting the lines would be the last step I would guess. To make the crossing before they close it I will need to get up very early!

When I went out to get the laundry in, there were 2 bunnies on the lawn. I waited until they  hopped away to get the laundry. I had to wait about 10 minutes. When I finally could haul the laundry in a robin came and sat on the lawn near me. I thought (as I can't tell robins apart) that it was one of the robins from the nest on my porch playing the injured robin to lure me away from the nest. But actually it seemed to be an invading robin as one of my nest robins chased it away.

A backyard full of racoons

 Last night the backyard was full of racoons. I tried to scare them off from inside but they didn't care too much about me. 

The robins are still working away at feeding their babies. I heard them peep today, so cute!

I walked down to take a look at the Brock street work. The sign seems to have the arrow turned incorrectly

While I was hanging laundry, a bunny came around the bend and wasn't too bothered about me and was just grazing beside me. The grass is not all that healthy as there hasn't been much rain but the bunny didn't seem too concerned.

missed the crossing

 I got up early and tried to make the crossing over Brock St. before it closed at 7am BUT the 7am today was the time that they closed the last street. As I was biking down college I saw the workmen running down Brock St and it was closed. So I travelled a parallel street until I could cross over at division. It was not a bad run because it was before 7am. Biking home I had to go all the way over to Sir John A. As I left after 6pm, it was also ok traffic wise.

I did not see any ants today helping themselves to the non-borax poison. I didn't see any ants at all.

The birds are now bringing large cut up worms to the babies so they must be growing exponentially.

The battle continues

 I actually had a good sleep last night and woke up at 8am so I felt better during the day. I am trying to figure out what to do tomorrow as Brock St. closes at 7am so I may get up very early to beat that.

Today there were some ants and they seemed to been visiting my non-Borax poison. I thought maybe the non-Borax poison was put out a while ago and maybe had started to dry out so I put out a new container of the non-Borax poison. But they seemed to still like the old poison pot. As long as they are eating the poison, it is all good!

The robins are very dedicated to their babies. They are not pleased about my laundry activities but are willing to accept it and will still feed the babies even when I am in the backyard.

I was on AV at Rustle today - it wasn't a smooth ride as there were some technical difficulties!

Another poor night

 I woke up at 2am, maybe woken by people outside, then woken at 6am by squirrels!

The robin nest seems to have a lot of activity so something may be happening today. They did not care about my laundry activities.

Our stove is in a time out as it was making weird beeping noises.

So far the war on the ants seems to be successful I haven't seen an ant in a day or two.

I was looking at a bush like thing in the backyard to try to determine if it was a weed or not, so I downloaded Google lens and it told me that it was a Eunomous also known as spindle tree or burning bush which sounded interesting so I left it to continue growing.

James is at a soccer tournament today

Yowling at 5am

 There was a cat that woke me at 5am yowling. I went out to chase it off. The robins are still actively sitting on the nest. We'll see if tomorrow brings any new developments.

Brock St. is a major artery in the city and it is closed daily from 7am - 7pm until July 31 for resurfacing. As I am north of Brock St and Queen's is south of Brock St. it makes it more of a challenge to get to work! I either need to head in before 7am or I have to take a route around it. A new challenge.

Temu quickly resent the package that I had an issue with. I was impressed at how quickly it arrived. There was no packaging- I guess packaging just slows them down. They just popped the label on the box and off it went. It was pretty battered. It was also the identical box to what I had. Still no spring.

We have summer orientation tonight. I'll need to log on soon to get things set up.

change in the weather

 I woke up at 5am so I went into work early so I could have a break before our10pm orientation. The session went well and we have another one tomorrow!

I biked home while it was spitting rain but made it home before the downpour. The atmosphere is cooler now!

I have seen no ants in the new bait but I also have not seen any more ants so that is good.

Robins

 I was incorrect about the hatching of the robins on Saturday. Something happened in the next on Saturday but it was not a hatch as there have been no feedings. But they are still sitting on the nest. Maybe they lost an egg or something on Saturday. They still on not keen on my laundry activities. They'll leave the nest and if I take too long they will stand on the fence and give me unhappy looks.

Today I was working on enrolling transfer students and putting together some contracts for TAs for September. Lots more hiring still to do!

Today I made Carmelized park and mixed veggie chow mein. It was very good!

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain around 8am so I am hoping to go in early. We also have orientation at 10pm so I'll head home early from work to balance my day out.

Racoons

 Kim's chickens were attacked by racoons last night. She is trying to shore up the coops. She already had to scare them off tonight as they came back.

We had a good interactive session for summer orientation. Lots of questions asked and answered.

The air and my eyes were better today.

Open enrollment begins on Monday so I need to complete as much enrollment as possible this week. We have 2 more orientation sessions on Thursday and Friday.

Monday as the longest day

 Today I was up at 6am and into work early as we had summer orientation and I had a lot of meetings as well. After the meetings I still had 3 hours of email. At the end of the day I was pretty spent. I biked home and then really needed a lemonade. That revived me a bit.

My eyes are sore now, I guess from the wildfire smoke.

Spring loaded

 

I bought this "corner shelf" for the bathroom and this was part of the advertisement. It seems to say that there would be a spring, but when the box arrived it didn't mention a spring and there was indeed no spring included. And so I couldn't figure out how to get it to fit. So I tried to contact the Temu bot to explain it but it didn't really understand and just decided to send me another one. I'm not sure that would fix the spring issue if it is just the same box. I did watch some videos about it and think I may have figured out to put it together with no spring. Stay tuned for later this week.

Robins are on day 2 of the hatching. They still sit on the nest but also peek into the nest quite a bit.

Due to the threat of storms I only hung out the laundry at 2pm but thanks to the wind and sun it was dry by 4pm.

I had a board dinner to attend. The result of my tracker was that I walked 13km today.

Excitement

 There may be some hatching going on at the nest. Both parents have been at the nest at the same time looking inside, which is rare- normally there is only one at the nest at a time. When I went out to do laundry one of them stayed on the nest for part of the time, which has never happened before. Eventually it flew off when it heard a squirrel alerting as I guess it needed to check it out.  Now a robin is happily nest sitting again. The photo was from the active time:

When I was heading out to do some shopping I saw that the rear passenger tire was flat. I encouraged James to use the other car but he didn't want to- he pumped up the tire and left with the pump. Hope he comes back!

The battle continues

 I saw some ants this morning so I am going to Canadian Tire to try a new bait as the ant b gone didn't seem to work to kill the colony and they were smart enough to figure that one out! I didn't think they had taken enough but I was hopeful. It may also take some time. Just depends if they are eating what they did take back or if they are rejecting that as well.

The robin is still happily sitting on the nest. Less happy when I do laundry. When I take too long, one of them comes and sits on the fence and gives me angry looks until I finish up.

Transfer

 Next week is summer orientation. Today I was working on the cleanup of the course enrollment. Next week I need to look at the transfer students and get contracts sent out. 

This weekend I need to work on the Rustle finances and lots of cleaning.

I hoped that enough of the ant b gone went into the colony and took away the bait and sealed the hole. We'll see how that progresses. Today was ok.

outwitted by an any colony

I worked long hours getting all the students enrolled into classes.

 I found a hole in the bathroom that seemed to be an ant colony hole. So I put some ant b gone outside it. In the past when I have used it, they just take the ant b gone and then are gone after a day or so. But this time they seem to be putting dirt and debris on it. It seems that they know it is poison and are trying to cover it up!

Discomfort

 The robin has now been actively sitting on the nest for 2 days and is not very happy with me when I am in the backyard.

Yesterday I chopped down a lot of overgrowth in the backyard and put all the branches in the general area of the compost pile. The bunnies when they hadn't been eaten by predators would walk a little pathway that went under the fence beside the compost. If there were bunnies they could still travel the pathway by travelling underneath the branches. However, after it was pitch black out I heard branches cracking and a lot of noise coming from by the compost pile and then the sound of like a dog panting except I don't think a dog could get under the fence. Maybe a fox? Anyway, it was dark so I couldn't see.

A young lad who used to go to our Sunday School (I think he's about 16 now) was stabbed by 2 other teenagers and is in the ICU. Very sad that this happens. Praying for a full recovery.

diversion

 We went on an excursion to a little park on the lake in Amherstview.

In the app called flightradar24 you can look up where planes are going and their tracks over time. Sometimes there are emergencies and they get diverted (the little red banner at the bottom shows there was a diversion for this plane. Normally diversions are to the nearest airport that they are flying by. The schedule it says is from Newcastle to Glasgow. The diversion is to Cancun, so quite a bit off track. Maybe the pilot needed a holiday!

I haven't seen any robin babies around this year but also not at many robins. Our backyard has been pretty cardinal heavy this year. But in the last day the robins have taken a liking to the nest on the back porch so there may be later babies still coming. This puts a crimp in my laundry as I try not to disturb them and so I hang my laundry from the lawn instead of the back porch.

Canada Day

 Seems like very specific diets. I wonder what vegan optician's menus are!

Today was overcast. The weather on my phone told me it was raining when it wasn't. One weather forecast said the UV was high and one said it was low so difficult to know what to believe.

Some stores are closed today and some have different hours. Food Basics opened at 10 and I was there around noon and it wasn't too busy.

I have laundry out even if there isn't too much sun, there seems to be a good breeze.

Activities in the heat

 

We have been going through a heat warning (that is supposed to be over tomorrow) and it has made it difficult to know what to wear.

Yesterday I had planned to wear a lovely blue dress that my mother had hemmed for me but it had shapewear inside it and that made it too hot, so I wore my favorite Halara dress- it is an orange colour and I would have bought it in more colours but they never made any others.

After work Kim and I went to visit Pat on the ward. She wanted to go for a walk so we went for a very short one (just around one block) and then chatted for a bit. Kim is hoping to take her out gardening tomorrow.

Today I thought I would give my new "joggers" - really a cross between pants and leggings- a try as it seemed a very thin material. However, this was deceptively incorrect. I walked to food basics and they were too hot. They were fine for indoor with the air conditioning. For hot days I will need to stick with skorts or some leggings that I have with some pattered holes that act as vents.

I am finding it cooler tonight and have my window open.

Recovery from the storm

 Sunday morning there was a storm for many hours so I didn't have much sleep going into Church.

Ebe had fixed our software issues so everything went well technically. I did have a nap after Church though to try to catch up on some sleep.

Today I wore my new Halara skirt with shorts which worked well for biking. In the picture the skirt looks pretty short but it is actually almost to my knees as the people in the pictures must be giants.

I am also in the process of switching insurance for the house and there was a list of liabilities that I assume would bring increased charges. Luckily, we don't have any of the listed liabilities which included:

• a renter
• trampoline
• lawn tractor
• golf cart
• ATV
• renewable energy installation
• watercraft
• dog
• drug plants

An interesting collection!

Recovery from exam week

 Today I did 3 loads of laundry and they all hung outside as it was a good laundry drying day. Also 2 loads of dishes, vacuuming, ironing, etc.

I went to Loblaws. I saw Peter from Church. He lives in assisted living space so I'm not sure how much he gets out but he recognized me right away so that was nice.

I walked by the area that the motorcyclist died on June 7 and there was a nice memorial there. There hasn't been anything in the news about who he was.

Also today did some work on the Rustle finances and downloaded the software to run the service tomorrow as our Church computer has been acting up. Hoping to see Kim after Church tomorrow.

Exam week

 This week we had exams at 2pm and 7pm every day so it was a long week! They all went pretty well.

There is a baby bunny who occasionally visits the backyard. It doesn't seem to mind me too much while I hang laundry.

James has a soccer tournament tomorrow so we are getting up early!

Delightful with intervals of clouds and sunshine

 The weather forecast for tomorrow is listed as "delightful", so that sounds good.

This week I need to deal with timetable issues, online exams and hiring TAs for September.

Today I still need to deal with Rustle finances and laundry.

Yesterday, Kim and I went to visit Patricia in Extendicare. The staff was really nice and we had a good time catching up.

Windy

 The wind has been blowing- seeming to be quite strong as it did impede my biking at times.

I have been working on a project to change the drawing software which is taking up a lot of my time.

Amy said that the incoming students had matriculated in the system but I can't pull them out yet. It is pretty early for them to be matriculated so I was surprised, but then I guess nothing is really different.

I went to a Zoom session today that Queen's put on about the 10 year anniversary of the 94 recommendations from the truth and reconciliation commission.

Pentecost Sunday

 I didn't get much sleep last night but today was Pentecost Sunday so I was on the prayer team. We had a lot of people with some really hard situations that needed prayer.

Then in the afternoon I mowed the lawn and had to clean the mower as so much grass had stuck inside it and started decomposing.

Then did laundry, dishes, made some meals.

Now James is out for a walk and I will try to sleep!

Quiet

 Oriental Peony yesterday

Oriental Peony today

The flowers appear to be on the downward fade.

Yesterday James got up at 5:15am. I also got up to make his breakfast and lunch to bring to work. He returned at 10pm and ate 2 steaks.

There was an air quality warning. When I walked out of the building for lunch I could smell the burn. By the time I returned my eyes were sore but when I left work in the evening, it seemed much better.

Today the wake up time was 6am (but I woke up at 5:30am) so he got a bit more sleep. I went to food basics which was a bit of a warm walk! The neighbourhood was super quiet during the day- noone lawn mowing, no loud talking, no babies crying (there is one that cries pretty much all the time), no dogs barking. There were a couple of major accidents- a car drove into a pizza store (it didn't have drive through!) and there is a current accident a few blocks away. So not quiet everywhere, but in my immediate vicinity, it had been a pretty quiet day.

Warming

The Oriental Peony continues to increase in blooming.

The weather is warming though was overcast most of the day. Tomorrow I am working on wrapping up the timetabling. Hopefully it is not raining so I can bike!
 

Fresh breeze

 This morning there was a fresh breeze so I hung laundry out and it turned out to be a very nice day. I also hung laundry yesterday. 

The Oriental Peony was even more brilliant today

Yesterday, James wanted a particular extension cord for his rearranged room and we found it on Canadian Tire and I purchased it online for pickup. That was a fun experience as I needed to go into the "locker" pickup room. Then I had to put in the code and the locker popped open. A lady was there to help me maybe only because the store is so new. I think the idea is that it is a self serve station. A learning experience.

After that I went to Loblaws that they are renovating and they had all new self checkouts. Instead of 6 they now had about 12 but there was some error in all of them that you needed the attendant to come over to do something to the computer in order to allow you to pay, so that was also different. I'm guessing it was a glitch in the new technology.

Oriental Peony

 The Oriental Peony normally blooms in May but it bloomed yesterday instead- as soon as it seemed almost nice!

Yesterday:

Today! There are still some that have not flowered yet.

James got an idea to rearrange his room and so after I finished interviews I have been busy cleaning while he moves furniture around. Luckily I superglued the vacuum together (a piece had broken off) so it is up to the task of all the cleaning!

a rainy end to a rainy May

 I guess it is fitting that the last day of May is as rainy and grey as the rest of it. The oriental peony that last year bloomed a week or so ago does have buds and yesterday it looked like one was about ready to open. It may have changed its mind when it saw the weather today!

This week we got to celebrate my mother's birthday and interview season has begun, this means lots of evenings working!

Happy Birthday to my mother

 Hope that you have a wonderful sunny day to celebrate. However the forecast may call for snow. Haha. 

The temperatures don't look anywhere near snow so I'm guessing that the forecast is AI generated not human generated. But then even AI should know better. I guess if it does snow, I will be proven wrong.

Things were drying out a bit today so I attempted mowing the lawn. The front lawn I had mown a week or so ago so it wasn't terrible but was still slow going. I hadn't mowed the backyard yet this year so that did not go well. I used 2 battery charges and only got the front lawn and one strip of the back done.

Patches of sun

 Yesterday was all rain (and cold) all the time so I wore another long sleeve Halara dress. This was the dark blue (patriot blue) Breezeful dress. While I am not a big fan of the breezeful fabric as it is a bit crepe-y, it does dry quickly so an advantage on rainy days. The heating is off in my building as it is supposed to be warm outside.

Today I managed to get some walks in during patches of sun so picked up some groceries and went to the dollar store. If the dollar store there were some teenagers that were running around the store acting a bit like hooligans. I wondered if they had store security, but I did not hear them called.

When I was on the back porch cleaning James' soccer cleats, it sounded like there was a dog fight about a street away. It sounded very intense.

Green

 Due to the ongoing rain everything here is very green, which is good I guess. But I couldn't bike to work today and the downspout is clogged so I need to get on a ladder to unclog it but would like for it to be dry first.

Because it was cold and rainy I wore my longsleeve off white Halara dress. The material is very comfortable and even though it has longsleeves it was not too hot. It will be good for spring and fall, probably not for summer.

My phone reminded me that on this day a year ago the oriental peony bloomed. I'll have to check on it tomorrow, it was too rainy probably even for it today!

Victoria Day surprise

 

James just woke up and wondered why I was home. He had no idea it was a holiday.

It has been a busy few days.

On Friday I got to see Isabelle's mom for only about 15 minutes before the board left for the Camp Iawah retreat.

We did a lot of work and planning at the retreat. 

On Saturday I woke up around 5am but was evicted from my room around 6am as there was a wasp, so I moved all my stuff downstairs and was going to go for a walk before the storm. Before I left Esther came down and asked if I was going for a walk and we decided to go together. She got changed and right when we started out it started to rain. Undeterred we trooped through the woods. We saw this tree half-gnawed by a beaver. The picture is poor because it was both early in the morning and pouring rain. There is no beaver dam nearby so I wondered what the plan with this was. We were pratty soaked when we returned.

At the same time that Esther and I were trooping through the woods, James was driving to Napanee on the 401. The rain was so bad that it ripped up the car's paint job. I had never heard of this before!

Yesterday I was working on AV, it took me a while to get going and miraculously I managed to pull everything together before we started and it all worked for the whole service!

Looking for water

 Todd and his family are in Poland so Ben was speaking on Sunday. He was talking about Exodus 15 section where the Israelites are walking in the desert and come to an oasis but the water is bitter and they complain to Moses because they can't drink. Funnily, while Ben was speaking his voice disappeared. Luckily, Dianna had a Gatorade and Ben drank that and his voice sustained to the end. 

Grades

 

Today I went and hunted down the missing tests and got all the grades posted today! Yay! Quite a complex maneuver this year.

The weather was nice outside- not hang laundry outside nice enough as it was still a bit chilly - though there was a lot of wind- but nice enough for a tulip to come out. See how long it survives with the bunnies around!

A day of surprises (spoiler none of them are good)

 The theme of today was surprise!

I tried to place an Amazon order and surprise, I was no longer able to select my regular pick up location. It is a Canada Post office so maybe they were worried about the potential strike and have blocked those locations from being chosen.

I went to the garage to get my bike to ride to work and surprise a person was in the garage sleeping. I called the police but he had vanished before they arrived. He left some change and a mcdonalds receipt. We added an extra lock to the garage and hope that he does not return.

My TA finished up grading all the tests only to find that the person in charge of scanning them had missed a batch so I will need to go into work tomorrow to try to find the missing batch.

Evidence of street cleaning

 In the neighbourhood this morning there was evidence of street cleaning. I guess it is better but there were some large piles of dirt to work around. 

The neighbour also had photo evidence of a coyote in the area.

I biked into work, we had a field trip to Stirling with my summer students. Then in the afternoon we had a review of Fall term meeting to get things on track for the summer work. So good progress there. Still working on grades.

Spring

 Today, the robin started to make a nest on the back porch. The crow seemed to come pretty close which perturbed the robin. We'll see if the robin comes back.

Lots of rain showers so the dehumidifier is going in the basement.

James had his birthday today and was out most of the day watching either soccer or hockey. I made him brownies though. And we ordered pizza.

New window

 Today the window installers came and put the new kitchen window in. It has given the kitchen a whole new transformation. It is wonderful! The window installer also fixed the problem with the front door. So a super good experience.

Contacted Bell because the remote wasn't working. The confirmed it was defective, I don't know how. They said the cost was $30 because it was no longer under warranty. Does this mean that I own the remote now? I thought the bits just came with everything.

Worked late into the night reviewing calibration. We'll have more marks ready to go out tomorrow.

Taxing 3

 I finished up the taxes and got them mailed off before the deadline. Yay! My summer students started today and have already been a great help to me. More meetings tomorrow. Still waiting for some graders to finish up to complete all the grades. Managed to get home before the pouring rain!

Taxing 2

 Before work I picked up a new door handle and left it outside of James' door for him to install when he woke up. He called me in the afternoon to say it didn't fit. I thought that odd as it said that it fit standard doors and the door looked normal. When I got home James was out but I read the instructions and adjusted the handle so it fit and installed it. 

When I came home from work, I just worked on taxes and now have the rough draft done. Good copy tomorrow!

Whose door handle breaks in the middle of the night?

 Apparently James' does. I had to go down and rescue him as he was trapped in his room. Who has been googling door handles and 3am? That would be me!

Taxing

 This weekend I planned to do taxes on Saturday. I got through a good chunk but not done. Will work on it more tomorrow evening.

Saturday I cleaned the upstairs bathroom then went to Costco with Kim. Costco on a Saturday is mayhem. People everywhere!

Today I went to Food Basics, then Rustle, then Elevation and working on taxes.

Duos

 There was some new IOGO yogurt at Food Basics that was on sale because it was new and they were called "duos" which list 2 flavors. I was not terribly impressed before I tried it because I have had "mixed berry" yogurt and it is just a mix of berries and you can't tell the blueberries and raspberries apart. But in trying the IOGO duo it was peach and strawberry (The first one I tried) and it is really good with different flavors of peach and strawberry that are somehow separate.

I spent the day finalizing the individual student marks. Paul will need to review the failures when he is back from his conference. 

Tomorrow I hope to get the showcase marks out, just waiting for the last judge to email.

For dinner I made tex mex meatloaves, which were spicier than I expected but very good.

James is running tryouts and has lots of hockey drama stories.

Easter Monday

Easter Monday is always good for Easter chocolate! I was able to get a few deals with the limited supply left.

In the morning I wore my winter coat and it was still pretty chilly all day. I was dodging rain showers.

I forgot many things are closed on Easter Monday so I couldn't go to the Post Office.
 

Showcases completed

 Wed and Thurs were very long days but everything seemed to go pretty well and all the showcases are completed.

James told me about a new trend called "Italian Brainrot" which are AI images of animals that are mixed with inanimate objects like Bombadiro Crocadilo:

Tomorrow James is going golfing and running some hockey tryouts. At work I need to tackle my email and then work on finalizing the showcase grades.

Street cleaning

 The streets were cleaner today so the street cleaners must have been out overnight. In the morning I was working on showcase crises. So far have resolved them all but I guess there will be still new ones. I went home from 2-6pm as I need to set up the rooms this evening for the showcase tomorrow. In the afternoon I made soupe and ordered pizza so the fridge is full for the next few days of showcase and Good Friday. I also went by Food Basics to pick up enough to get us through. I always use the self checkout. I often have the same lady who is supervising the section. She has been talking to me about her grief journey and today she gave me a hug before I left. She is such a sweetie, just in a lot of pain right now.

First bike ride to work

 Today was the first day that I could ride my bike to work. The roads are still very sand covered so hopefully there will be some street cleaning soon.

We had an interesting meeting at work where my work was praised when they thought someone else did it (someone who had nothing to do with it) but when I revealed that I was the person who did the work it was brushed off.

It is nicer to have the longer days. The robins are hanging around. The backyard is currently filled with chickadees and juncos.

Wholesale

 Yesterday I biked to the Wholesale club. It is a lot like a warehouse but the prices are not wholesale. It is part of the Loblaws series and many of the prices were the same as Loblaws. It was a nice experience in terms of the shopping but the selection is less than Loblaws with the prices about equal so as Loblaws is so much closer I probably won't head out again regularly.

I needed to wear my winter coat yesterday but today I switched to the spring one. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Preparing for the presentation

 Tiny Kicks from Poems of Parenting

This week will be preparing for the final presentations. We had a good service at Rustle.  Monday I have a lot of email to get through!

The melt and the agitator

 

Before Rustle

After Rustle- note that the laundry line twisted at some point so the icicles on it are now pointing up instead of down

Currently all the ice on the laundry line has fallen but the trees are still ice covered.

In pulling the laundry out of the tub, I have found that one of the agitator fins has broken off so I have ordered a new one from Amazon.

Tomorrow is our last training session as next week is the last week of classes!

How it is going

 

Mid storm

 I could hear the rain/ice/sleet coming down during the night but there was not much accumulation in the morning. The bushes were bent and there is currently lots of crackling. The next wave should be arriving soon. This is what is looks like now but it doesn't do it justice: