Malacology Monday

malacology ~ study of molluscs

As you might have guessed, it’s been a bad couple of weeks. The dreary-wearies I talked about in my last post morphed into full blown depression, thanks in no small part to the excessive grey, gloomy, dismal weather we’ve been having lately. You know it doesn’t bode well for your mental health when you check the Weather Network and the daily hours of sunshine are reading “one” across the board.

And then I got hit about the head by the bad luck fairy around the middle of last week. If I hadn’t had two full days of babysitting, I’d have just packed my bags and moved some place sunnier, I tell you what! Either that or crawled back into bed and stayed there until spring.

And while we’re at it, let’s throw a little “be careful what you wish for,” in there, shall we? As you may recall, when I was searching for a comfy reading chair for my office I had been lusting after one of those round chairs with lots of pillows (that I’ve since learned are called cuddle chairs). There just wasn’t enough space in my office for a chair like that so I ended up with a wing chair – which is perfect, I might add. But I never got over my desire for a cuddle chair.

For a long time now I’ve been . . . unhappy with my recliner. It’s old and broken and falling apart – the upholstery is letting loose and it doesn’t recline fully. So then I saw a cuddle chair in the Costco we frequent. Yes, it was a little on the big side, but not too big for the space my recliner is in.

I hemmed and hawed and wished about it until the hubby told me if I wanted it I should just go ahead and get it (probably only told me that to shut me up). After hemming and hawing about it for a while longer, I finally placed an order for a cuddle chair online through Costco.

It came on Thursday and with the luck I’d been having it wasn’t really a surprise that the box they pulled off the truck was HUMUNGOUS! Don’t panic, I thought. There’s a hassock and a bunch of cushions in that box too so it’s probably not as big as it looks. Yeah it was. The cushions and hassock fit nicely into the corners of the box and the chair pretty much touched the rest of it on all sides.

I had already cleared out my corner (and vacuumed and swept), and the chair was already put together, so all the hubby and I had to do was wrestle it into its corner (after moving one of the couches to get it in there). It fits – just. And just so you know, it is definitely bigger than the one I saw in the store.

Of course the next problem was where do I put my cup of coffee? Believe it or not, there was actually space on either side of the chair, just not enough for the old tables (although now that I’m sitting here looking at it, there might have been enough for the small wooden one). I tried using the window ledge, which is within reach, but after knocking over a forgotten cup that still had tea in it when I was trying to put a cup of coffee there, I decided that wasn’t such a good idea.

So Saturday I went on a road trip with a friend and we checked out the local thrift stores, then ventured further north to an antique store and a junk shop, but ultimately came home empty handed. Sunday I checked Walmart for a plant stand and had no luck. Then I went to the department store in the mall everyone always forgets about and found a small, white, triangle shaped stand – I think it’s supposed to go on the wall, but it works on the floor just as easily. And it has shelves! It’s a little smaller than I’d been hoping for, but that just means there’s less space for junk to accumulate.

For the other side, where I usually have my water bottle and/or mug for hot beverages, I stole one of the two ‘C’ tables the hubby had on either side of his chair in the basement. This is one of those TV/accent tables made of brass with the glass that sits on it. It’s small and there are no shelves, but it’s the right height and there’s room for a book and drinks on it. Plus there’s a heat vent right under it so the open frame is perfect.

So, while the weather is still dismal, dare I hope my luck is beginning to turn? *knock on wood*

Microphyllous Monday

microphyllous ~ having small leaves

Speaking of small leaves...the English ivy I have in the wide planter with the trellis on my kitchen window ledge is going great guns. But the strawberry begonia I have above it is just exploding with little shoots. I’m going to have to find someplace else to hang it because it’s growing into the ivy and if I’m not careful it might take over the whole window.

I have a couple of hooks in my new office that would work...once the office is finished. Right now I keep closing the door to keep the cats out which makes it kind of cool in there. The Wandering Jew I already have in there doesn’t seem to mind, but I have to wonder if that’s why the sweet potato vine is dying.

Last week was...challenging, to say the least. Especially Thursday.

Thursday I had a string of bad luck the likes of which I hope to never see again. It began with the debit machine at Tim Horton’s destroying the chip in my debit card, and ended with a cloud of smoke from the oven at supper time. You really don’t want to hear what went on in between.

And it didn’t stop there, either. Saturday the TiVo box went on the fritz (right in the middle of the three hour movie I was really getting into) and it looks like it’ll have to be replaced. On Thursday. Meanwhile, if we want to watch any network cable TV, we’ll have to go down to the basement to the TV with the regular cable box on it. *sigh*

Ironically, the TiVo part of the box is still working. So anything we’ve already recorded we’re able to watch, and we can still access On Demand and Netflix. But anything we saved to “watch later” will be gone. Things like the last season of Killjoys, the final concert of The Tragically Hip, all the hard to find old movies...

And I don’t know if the two things are related, but Sunday I was having problems with my phone. Any time I tried to text or check my email it kept telling me “Network unvailable”.

I think what happened was this. When I’m at home I use my home wifi for the phone to save on the data usage. In the course of trouble-shooting the TiVo box Saturday night I had to reboot the modem that the TV, phone, and internet run off of. I’m thinking when the phone lost its access to my home wifi it wasn’t able to find it again. At least I’ll know what settings to check if it happens again.

I hate technology!

Multiloquent Monday

multiloquent ~ talkative; garrulous

You may notice the lack of a big reveal for the bathroom. My still-not-finished-being-renovated bathroom is cursed. I’m no longer looking forward to a nice, long, soaky bath in my nice deep tub - I don’t care how pretty it looks if/when it’s done. The bathroom is cursed - I’ll probably get electrocuted by the spa jets or something.

First of all, the wash stand for the sink that the hubby did such an amazing job on is just a wee bit too big for the space it needs to go in. The stand is so pretty with its many coats of paint and shiny varathane finish making it as smooth as silk. The hubby had to cut into that perfect surface to take about an inch off of the perimeter.

Next was the blind. When I replaced the ugly venetian blind in the upstairs bathroom and the even uglier curtains in the upstairs hallway with bamboo blinds, I bought one for the downstairs bathroom as well. The window in the bathroom is narrow, but it sits about three feet above the tile and half a foot below. The frame is painted the colour I was going to use for sponging, which would make a nice contrast with the dark bamboo. Except ... the blind was wide enough that it would hide the frame, not fit inside it like the others, and it did not look good against the dark paint.

So despite not wanting to leave the house this weekend, off to Walmart I went for a smaller blind. Only they didn’t have one. Since I didn’t have a receipt, I was given a gift card, which I promptly forgot about when I bought some other stuff I needed (just so it wasn’t a wasted trip).

We live in a small town and ever since Target screwed us over closed down Zellers, Walmart’s pretty much the only game in town as far as department stores. So I sat in the parking lot for a minute, trying to figure out who else might have blinds, and finally noticed the Home Despot Depot a couple of fields over. So off I went.

They didn’t have any blinds the right size either, even if I was willing to pay almost twice Walmart’s prices. But what they did have was this film stuff you can put on your window so it looks like stained glass. It’s going to look awesome.

However, before that happens we still have to deal with problem number three. The toilet.

I had requested a grown-up toilet for the bathroom, meaning one that was a little higher than a regular one. The one we found is a little higher, a little narrower, and a little longer. It was going to be perfect.

Now. The standard distance from the wall to the hole the toilet sits on is twelve inches. However, the drywall and tile weren’t up when the plumber put the hole in our bathroom floor and as a result there’s not quite enough room between the toilet and the wall for the tank. And that means we have to get a plumber in this week to move the hole forward by about an inch. *sigh*

And in the continuing saga of misfortune, I removed the blankets from my reading nook and de-haired the cushion (no mean feat in itself) but when it came time to cover the cushion back up to protect it from future cat hair, I couldn’t find the blanket I’d bought specifically for that purpose. It was more of a throw than a proper blanket, made out of arctic fleece, but there’s no trace of it anywhere. So when I was out dealing with the blind thing I got a new one. The old one is sure to show up any time now.

And remember all those pillows I washed and dried last weekend? Turns out they’re too big to use in the sweater cat beds. Also, the sides of the cat beds take more stuffing than I counted on so I’ll have to buy more. You know, when I buy some smaller pillows (which are cheaper than pillow forms from a craft store). I have no idea what I’m going to do with all those extra pillows. Hmm. Maybe I’ll embroider decorative covers for them and give them away for Christmas presents next year. ;-)

So ... while Friday the 13th wasn’t particularly unlucky, the same can’t be said for the 14th and the 15th.

Misfortunate Monday

misfortunate ~ bad luck; an unfortunate condition or event

I don't know about where you live, but here in Ontario, Canada we've been enjoying some awesome fall weather these last couple of days. There's been heavy frost on the ground in the morning, but the sun is still strong enough to burn it away by mid-morning. There aren't a lot of leaves left on the trees, but the days are crisp and cool and make me want to walk in the park so I can shuffle through the leaves.

Does anyone else like to do that? To me that's one of the best parts about the fall - shuffling through the crisp, crunchy leaves that cover the sidewalks and ground. And yes, I will go out of my way to shuffle through the leaves on the grass if there are none on the side walk. There's something about it that brings out the kid in me. :-)

Another thing that says fall to me, as I've already mentioned in previous posts, is apples. I received one more bag of apples last week and yesterday I used them up in half a dozen pot-pie sized apple crisps and two more apple pies. No more apples please, my freezer is full!

I've been thinking a lot about luck lately. Or more precisely, bad luck and its root causes. Why are some people luckier than others? Are they born that way or is luck somehow drawn to them just as bad luck seems to be drawn to other people?

I'm pretty sure I've whined about posted about luck before, but lucky you, you get to hear about it again. ;-)

I don't know if it's just the year or the story of my life, but I seem to have a disproportionate amount of bad luck. A lot of the time it's just little things, but it adds up so it's like having a big bad luck. Last week my little things culminated in coming home from babysitting Friday afternoon and discovering we had no hot water. And of course it couldn't just be a heating element or something going in the hot water tank, there was a steady stream of water coming from the bottom of it and little hissing noises coming from the top.

Now some people might point out that it could have been worse, and yes, it could have been. The hot water tank is situated right beside our sump hole, so the water was mostly draining into it - not that it mattered really because our basement was still pretty wet from all the rain we got last week. And the hissing noise could have been gas from the heating element escaping instead of just water.

And now that I think about it, normally I would have washed the container my lunch was in at my daughter's, but I didn't have time to eat lunch there on Friday so I had it when I came home. I rinsed my container out right away instead of waiting to include it with the supper dishes, and that's when I discovered we had no hot water. And the company we rent the water heater from just happened to have a truck in our area - they'd been just about to start back to the city, but came here instead. And I was fortunate they had a brand new water heater in their truck, which they were quick to install.

So I guess, when all is said and done, my luck can't be all bad. Maybe all the little good luck happenstances add up just like the bad ones do. The little good lucks of timing counterbalanced the bad luck of the messed up water heater.

Checks and balances. Maybe I should keep a list of both the bad luck and the good to see if they balance out at the end of the day. I can start with today, where I remembered to start the car to thaw it out before I went to the gym early this morning, but forgot to take my shoes with me. I'm already starting with a balance. LOL

Maybe the people who don't believe in luck are the real lucky ones. ;-)

Metaphysics Monday

metaphysics ~ study of principles of nature and thought

Got snow? We sure do. Here's the view from my dining room of our deck:

And we're supposed to get another snow dump tomorrow. But I'm not too worried because they're predicting it ahead of time, and it seems when they do that we don't get nearly the snow they say we are. Like, yesterday we were supposed to get a couple of inches and we barely got enough to have to brush off the car.

Of course the snow could be worse, I could live in New Brunswick where my sister is. She and her hubby went on a three week cruise down south and came home to eight feet of snow on their car. Eight feet!

My big concern is what happens to all that snow come spring? Normally it snows and then gets a little milder and the snow compacts or goes away completely and then we get more snow and repeat the process. This year the snow's not going away between blizzards. It's just stacking up.

A friend brought up a scary thought about it the other day - what happens if the weather suddenly gets mild and then we get several days of rain? I can't even begin to imagine the flooding that would result.

So last week was kind of a bust as far as getting things done went. A friend kidnapped me and took me to a nearby city for lunch on Tuesday, and by Tuesday evening I was sick as a dog. Was it something I ate? An IBS attack? The flu bug that's going around? Who knows. All I know is it took me until Friday before I was feeling okay again.

But good news! I found the cord for my camera that allows me to download pictures to my lap top. So here's one of the pictures I wanted to share a couple of weeks ago:

Doesn't it look yummy? It's minestrone soup with barley instead of pasta and kale instead of spinach. Incredibly healthy, yet tasty too. Pair it up with some garlic bread and you've got yourself a meal:

Speaking of soup . . . yesterday I started a huge pot of turkey soup. I had two turkey carcasses, one of which was from the turkey we had at the family Christmas dinner and it was huge. I probably could have used it by itself, but I already had the other (much smaller one) ready to go. So I boiled the bones for a few hours, and then, because my soup pot is so big, I strained the broth through a colander into my roasting pan. However, the soup pot fits into my fridge easier, so then I poured it from the roasting pan back into the pot, scalding my left hand in the process.

Somehow a fitting end to a long week. Let's hope I have better luck with my week this week. :-D