The New YEAR 2022

Good Morning ALL! How are you this morning? We are doing well. Today is the last day of the work week for me and I took tomorrow as a vacation day. The plan is to get ready for the garage sale which is next weekend. Finish cleaning/tidying the garage and then start taking the items out of the house. I don’t think that I have too many things but some. This morning the sun is shining. The sky is somewhat clear. It is relatively calm. Great to see the sun shining.

The all day staff “meeting” was okay. They had STARBUCKS coffee at the hotel which was great. It was nice to see our team in person and some other coworkers. I was surprised to see so many new faces. Whenever I could I tried to see their name tags to see if I recognized their names. Anyway, it was okay and I am glad to be back to “normal.” I had a good visit with Michelle who is on my team, she drove us to and from the meeting.

Alvin did okay yesterday. Gillian advised that he would not eat anything (which is okay) and that he drank water and went outside. So two out of three is good. Especially the water and going pee. Happy about that. He is starting to get better about the process of eating his food. I just have to have patience and try not to let him become more anxious about life. We had a nice walk although short after I got home from the meeting. We even had a few minutes after we were done for the day to do a bit of shopping as we were on our way out of the mall. I had not been to Bath & Body Works in years, I think. So I happen to hit the semi-annual sale and picked up three foaming hand soaps and a couple of body creams. We wore our masks in the store making it a bit difficult to smell things. I thought that one of the creams I got seemed to be a nice scent and put some on my feet last night and had a bit on my hands. Well it did not agree with my body chemistry, kind of kept me awake. Note to self, always go away from people remove the mask and smell. Oh well, hopefully I can find someone who likes it. I do like the scent – it just does not like me.

Well time to head downstairs. Looking forward to that first cup of coffee.

I am sad to report that with all of this rain, I noticed that one of my lavender plant pots is totally saturated and there was a bit of water laying on top of the soil. I hope that the sun shines and there is a breeze to dry out the excess moisture. Guess I should have moved the pots. I do every other year but was lazy this time round.

Have a great Thursday.

Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus and possibilities.

Always, Carol & Alvin

PS: only 54 days until my 65th Birthday. Maybe I should not be keeping tracking, lol. The hotel also had great little cinnamon buns, I had one at coffee break but did not eat the breakfast as it was too early for me.

The New YEAR 2022

Good Morning ALL! Welcome to a bright and beautiful Sunday morning. We did have frost overnight but it will disappear as the sun’s warm rays shine down. How are you this morning? I hope that you are well. We are doing pretty fair, I must say. It was really late when the lights went out last night, I want to say close to 11:30 p.m. and the next time we were up it was close to 5:00 so I gave Alvin his glucosamine chew and his breakfast before he went outside and then it was back to the sofa until 7:30 am. Now I would have stayed on the sofa happily enjoying the warmth of our soft red blanket snuggled beside the boy but he had other ideas. But he jumped and wanted outside so I had no choice but to follow. Up and to the door we both went – he was going back and forth on the deck before I realized that Sonja was outside with Bogart. Appeared that Bogart was trying to make a run for it and was on the top of their gate but she was able to talk him down but in the meantime Alvin was pacing the deck wanting to be a part of the action. I think personally that he misses his feline friends. It has been forever since Humphrey has spent anytime with us. He used to spend lots of time here with Alvin before his brother came to be. Sonja had to go off their deck and into the backyard to retrieve the unsuccessful attempt to escape artist before heading into the house. Alvin did not give up. He paced the lower part of the deck debating on whether to jump down onto the snow and ice that remains on the opposite end of the steps down. Now he could have taken the steps down and it has melted there but frozen ground. Not sure which was better if either for him to go down but jump he did as I watched temporarily holding my breath. He walked over to the fence and sniffed as if he saw Humphrey and Bogart but they were in the house. Finally after a few minutes, I grabbed a jacket and put on some shoes and my glasses and went outside to retrieve the boy from his mini morning adventure. He certainly did not want to come in as he ran across the frozen ice, snow and mucky frozen grass we call a backyard with me in careful hot pursuit. Finally I thought that I had him to carry back up but he is faster than me. Up he jumped onto the deck. First time he has been down in the area of the backyard since early winter. Months and months. I managed to get him into the house and wiped his feet not that they were wet but to dislodge any little bits of “yuck” that may have clinged on his paws. Once into the house, I decided what was the point in laying back down on the sofa so I put away my jacket, folded the red blanket and propped up the pillow and went downstairs. I turned on the dryer to warm up the already dried towels that were left in the dryer last night and then put on the last load of laundry, some blankets. I waited a couple of minutes for the dryer to warm up the towels before putting them into a laundry basket, I grabbed the NORWEX cloths and my clothes that were on the drying racks and took them upstairs, upstairs to my room where I proceeded to hang the clothes, fold the underwear and fold the towels. I decided at that point that today I should remove all of the towels etc. from the linen closet and reorganize. The recently washed towels were placed on the spare room bed as I wanted to write this post before tackling the linen closet. In fact, I may leave that until later, time will tell. So here we are. I am going to walk over to our little neighbourhood mall in the early afternoon so I will have a shower likely after this post. Freshen up you know!

Yesterday was a great day. Starting off with coffee with my girl friends in the morning which actually ran into the early afternoon. Man, did we have some great conversation. The girls brought treats to add to the sweet little oranges that I offered. So we had peanut butter cookies and apple danishes as well as the oranges. I broke down and gave Mr. Alvin a wee bit of peanut butter as he was “really feeling left out” and made sure that he let us know. I think that is his first peanut butter since his surgery over one year ago. Once in awhile treats are good. He licked that up pretty fast, I must say. After the girls left I got the laundry ready to go before we headed out for a walk. It was really nice out and we enjoyed the walk and exercise. I am assuming that Alvin liked the exercise, he did enjoy the sniffing part for sure. Once back I put on some laundry and then decided to go outside and remove that remaining ice on the front sidewalk. It took me over 30 minutes but I picked and scraped with my ice pick tool (like a straight up garden hoe) and removed the ice. I also chipped away and cleared the drain and pushed all of the ice chunks down the storm drain. I could see and hear the water running down the drain from both sides. Finally my job was done and back into the house. My SKETCHERS and socks were soaked and my pants were wet from splashing myself so once inside the house, I removed my shoes and shoes and went upstairs to change my pants. Doning fresh pants and socks back downstairs. I decided that I needed a real coffee break so at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon I made a pot of coffee, yes I did, lol. Not likely the best choice that I have ever made but nevertheless it was done. I sat down and enjoyed a cup of coffee before heading out to the backyard to do some snow removal. The deck is almost bare so I was lucky to scrap some of the remaining snow from the grass area up onto the deck. Hopefully it does get to +12 or so today so that the grass that he clear from ice and snow in the back dries out. Alvin needs a place to “go.” Let me see what next. Laundry. Supper for Alvin. Odds and ends of things. I had supper later than usual but was happy to have leftovers of stir fry and then apple crisp for dessert. I worked on laundry into the evening. Leaving the towels to finish drying overnight.

Last night I watched a couple of recent episodes of “Star Trek” PICARD” last night. That show really is timely, I must say. They always seem to incorporate the “thoughts and actions” of the day. From the very first STAR TREK episode back in 1966 they seemed to get the true essence of human beings. They were ahead of the curve in so many ways. Last night one of the characters cited some words that made me stop the show, grab my phone and record her words. I even posted it on Facebook. The character was a much younger Guinan who Picard had come across in 2024 (you will have to watch the episode for all the details) in his attempt to correct the timeline. Guinan said to Picard “this place is a pressure cooker, you know they are actually killing the planet, the truth is whatever what you want it to be, facts aren’t even facts anymore, a few folks have enough resources to fix all of the problems for the rest but they won’t, because their greatest fear is having less, because this one tiny ball in the entire galaxy and all this species wants to do is fight, I have been here long enough. There were never more true words spoken. Remember Guinan is a El-Aurian from another planet, another galaxy far away.

Well, I suppose I should end this post before I end up writing a book. LOL. Time to hop into the shower and then have some coffee. I can smell coffee in my mind. Looks like it will be a beautiful day.

Have a wonderful Sunday. I know that we are going to enjoy every moment of this day.

Until tomorrow,

Living this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus and possibilities.

Always, Carol & Alvin

Thought for the day…..

Good Morning and Welcome to Saturday the 21st day of December, 2013.

The only sounds that I can hear at this very moment are those of my fingers hitting the keyboard.

It seems so eerie ….

The sky is a pale blue as the sun begins to rise.

I can see out of my office window smoke rising from neighbouring chimneys.

Alvin slept over at his sister’s house so it is just me and it is so QUIET.

Do you ever have moments like these where it is so quiet you can hear your own breathing?

If I close my eyes I feel that peaceful solitude that comes with meditation.

Feels so good.

Furnace just cut in ….. (that is a good thing).

So on this last Saturday before Christmas ….. before all the excitement becomes so loud that you cannot think much less hear yourself breathe ….. take a few moments.

When you are in those moments ….. just sit in a comfy position, anywhere.

Close your eyes ….

Smile ….

Just breathe …. deeply …… deeply …..

Only concentrate of breathing ….. not of your TO DO list or how busy the mall is going to be.

I guarantee that the rest of the loud, crazy day will be so much easier to handle ……

I hope that you have an amazing Saturday.

WOW, it is so close now…….

YAY ……..

Special Hello to: my friend Linda …… thank you for the most beautiful card and we shall talk soon, I promise.

Always, Carol and Alvin

 

Thought for the day….

Good Morning and Welcome to Tuesday the 30th day of July 2013.

Well it is a beautiful morning here in the City of Edmonton.

The sky is a beautiful powder blue and the SUN is SHINING.

It is breathtaking.

I wonder what everyone else is doing at this exact time in every household on the planet.

I guess it would be too much to even comprehend …. if possible.

The thoughts …. would they be mainly positive, promising and would everyone be feeling mainly happy.

I often wonder what others think…

It isn’t always what they say.

Wouldn’t you like to be a “bug” on the wall somedays?

I would …. people truly fascinate me.

Of course there are days when some people “bug” me but I would say 96-98% of the time I find them most interesting.

I could watch and listen to people all day.

I love sitting on a bench in the mall and watching people go by …..

Well time to go to work …

Have a great day.

I hope that you are enjoying my little story.

Where will it go?

I write it as I write this blog …. nothing is pre-planned.

Special Hello to: all those writers in the world ….. keep the words flowing.

Always, Carol and Alvin

 

FIRST LINE …..July 25, 2013

As we walk along the water’s edge the coolness leaves my skin with goose bumps and prickles, as if there is someone behind me.

July 26, 2013

Alvin pulls on his leash and brings me back, the fragrance of freshly cut grass fills my nostrils; my heart beat quickens, and I am unable to shake the feeling.

July 28, 2013

The sky is overcast with a hint of sunrise peeking through and the leaves of the trees rustle in the breeze, and I think how did I get here? 

July 29, 2013

What does that mean, and what is making me think these thoughts?

July 30, 2013

All of a sudden the leash tightens as Alvin pulls me forward.