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.
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.
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!
Oriental Peony yesterday
Oriental Peony today
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!
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.
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!
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!
Hope that you have a wonderful sunny day to celebrate. However the forecast may call for snow. Haha.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I needed to wear my winter coat yesterday but today I switched to the spring one. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
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!
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!
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:
We'll see how the weather tracks overnight.
We had a great time with the students doing testing with dry ice today. One week left!
There is apparently a spring storm approaching. The week has gone ok so far. Next week is the last week of term! Today I have to try to catch up on email and in the afternoon we are doing some project testing. I think I woke at 3am so it will be a long day!
Amazon is having a spring sale until mar 31, so I did pick up some deals.
The strike is not going well as apparently Queen's can't understand the response to their Mar 9 offer was the strike. They say that the union has not responded but it looks like they have pretty clearly responded. There seems to have been a lot of backlash to Queen's statement so hopefully that will cause them to start talking soon. It is causing a lot of frustration for everyone.
Today I have taken it easy sustained on tea and crackers. So far, everything seems ok.
Tomorrow, a chief window installer is coming by to measure the kitchen window as it has been having issues for years and needs to be replaced.
Last night I woke up at 1:25am with a bad stomach bug. I had no idea that so much was available to be expunged from my body. I was sick on an off until 4am. Now it is 10am, things seem to have stabilized. I cleaned the bathroom and am making some tea to see if that will be ok.
I was worried that they had locked my building down today and Malik needed to get in for 3D printing so I walked to work in the rain. It was only light rain, not too bad. Made sure Malik and my supervisor were all good and then I walked to Rustle in the rain. Because I was arriving later than planned due to my work trip, Esther did up all the slides for me so everything was mostly ready to go when I arrived.
Because of renovations, the AV set up is much lower and I can't actually see what is going on the stage so I run it all by sound instead of sight which is interesting.
I needed to finish up the timetabling and the training for the sessions tomorrow, then I watched the Elevation sermon. I missed a bit of it but it was talking about the scripture with Mary and Martha. I relate to the Martha and always thought that Jesus was just telling her to take a break, not be so busy. Which is a good thing. But the sermon talked about what Jesus's concern was not that she was too busy but that she was running her own agenda and her agenda was not God's agenda. I hadn't seen it like that before.
Tomorrow we have training (except Paul is sick and so he asked me to run them) and I have more interviews.
We had our contract ratification meeting yesterday and it is possible that we'll be on strike tomorrow. We will find out later today how the vote went. The general thought seemed to be that Queen's has created a toxic work environment with the cutbacks and then gave managers so created a lot of unhappiness.
Today I need to try to finish up the timetabling plus I have 8 hours of interviews for SWEP positions that if we're on strike I can't complete the hiring for. A good 12 hours of work today at least!
Despite the weather being negative. There seems to be green grass poking out in the backyard which is promising. The robins are also singing around. I worked 11 hours on both the course and timetabling. I somehow need to get the timetabling done tomorrow as Friday is interview day. Hopefully, I am very efficient because I spent most of today on one course.
It is nice that the ice banks are melting. Because of the time change it was lighter coming home as well. Our sleep schedules are all a bit wonky.
The receiver still is not working.
James' TV has not been working for a while. I tried using the Bell Virtual fix, which did not work so I had to wait on hold for a human. The hold took 1 hour. But the human wanted to restart the modem again and so I did but it had difficulty in the restart so it took a long time and the human disconnected because it took too long. Then support closes at midnight. So after a few hours, I am no further ahead except for knowing that restarting the modem doesn't really help anything.
Apparently, before I wrote the last post, there was an email that we had reached a tentative agreement but I didn't see it as it was in my junk mail. But there is no strike, work as usual tomorrow!
Our union is currently in negotiations and I thought waking up I would know if we were on strike or not but based on the issue tracker it looks like they are still negotiating with only about 4 issues outstanding.
I wonder when they started the negotiations? Are they sleeping? It doesn't seem healthy to need to negotiate for so many hours. Maybe they have shifts.
Yesterday Julie and I trekked to Toronto to see Elevation Nights which was an amazing experience. We then stayed at an AirBnb inWhitby and went to Whitby elevation in the morning
Then Julie and I had lunch at my parents and she headed back to Ottawa while I stayed to be picked up by James. We are running a test on Tuesday and apparently some people who knew about conflicts for a long amount of time have only let me know now. Sigh. Lots to manage tomorrow!
The walk to Rustle this morning was ok except for when the wind was whipping spiky snow in my face but the sidewalks were ok. Ebe was speaking and he made reference to me a few times, which was funny. Walking home the wind wasn't so bad but the plows had been by and the sidewalks had disappeared because they pushed all the snow from the road onto the sidewalk so I had to pick my route carefully- I picked quiet streets to I could walk on the street until I got to Princess St, where there was some sidewalk cleared. I did a little bit of shoveling but there were no plows on our street until about 11:30pm so now there is a giant mound of snow at the end of the driveway.
Apparently the coyote is back. It seems to by quite attached to the block it is in.
The police are not able to do anything as it (so far) is not interacting with humans.
As it is relatively mobile, I assume also quite difficult to catch.
Apparently there was a large injured coyote spotted a block away from my house. Animal control would not touch it but they called Sandy Pines. Interestingly we are working with their coyote group for our project course. Apparently Police were keeping an eye on it. Hopefully it is getting care somewhere.
James was in Uxbridge today so I managed to clean the bathroom, get heaps of laundry done and many piles of dishes.
Yesterday had a chef's plate - Coconut curry beef noodles. It was pretty easy and very good!
I am watching the storm approach as google maps looks orange as road conditions deteriorate.
Halara made some changes to their website and now instead of going to the main Halara site I am redirected to Halara Canada. Which is all fine, if they had kept my profile the same but everything wiped, I can't see my past orders anymore and all my points are gone. So they have a chat line that said "ask us anything"- I asked and they had no idea what to do. Eventually they escalated me. But this just resulted in an email this morning asking if everything worked now. Which it didn't. So you can ask but there may not be an answer. We'll see if they solve it.
Today I am judging an Engineering Outreach event and we have more presentations.
I woke up at 3am and when I was lying still everything was ok, but as soon as I got up and started moving around I was not so good. I found an old pot of cough medicine (only expired 6 months ago) and it was a game changer for the day. I am much better now than I was 24 hours ago!
I thought if I took it easy for 2 days, I would be ok for Monday. Now I am uncertain. We'll see how things look in the morning. Haven't heard anything about the strike, I hope that they come to a solution before tomorrow.
Someone told me about a pet equivalent to Chef's plate in the States. They get pet food through fancy boxes!
Yesterday was Shieleen's birthday so I picked up cupcakes to celebrate.
We had our first split e-group last night. There were a few technical glitches so I was able to help out.
I saw Diana and Sheila downtown today and they gave me big hugs. It is so nice to see them getting out. They are going to part of my in person group that is starting next Thursday at Sarah's house.
A much better day today after yesterday's ridiculousness.
James is currently in Lindsay due back sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
Sunday I have Abuse prevention training at Rustle and have some work to complete.
