Interesting Times

As in "May you live in ...".

And has it ever been an "interesting" few weeks!

First there was the broken elbow.  Ever try to shower with one arm taped into a trash bag, or put a decent bra on one-handed?  'Nuff said.  Even tying my hair back in its usual ponytail was a real challenge.

My very dear friend S arrived from the midwestern USA on April 8th.  Almost the 9th, actually, since her plane landed at 11:35 p.m. and by the time she was through Customs and we got back in D's car it was after midnight.  So far so good; we got back here and sat around drinking coffee and chatting until after 2:30 a.m., then D went home and S and I crashed.

The morning of the 9th, my elderly FatBratCat started throwing up blood.  Raced off to the vet, who wanted to keep her overnight to do bloodwork, x-rays, etc.  Went back on the 10th, and was told that she had suffered catastrophic kidney failure, and that at her age the prognosis was pretty grim.  So I did the right thing ... the only possible thing ... Why is it that so often, the kindest and most loving thing to do is also the hardest?  She did have seventeen good spoiled-rotten years.  And we did know that, like GabbyTabby, it was only a matter of time.  But losing two much-loved kitties in less than a year really hurts.  I get up in the morning feeling like I've forgotten something ... it feels strange not having a cat in the house for the first time in over thirty years.

Honestly, it would have been much easier to deal with if S hadn't kept pushing.  "You're not even crying!  When I had to put my cat down I bawled for days!  But then, I really loved my cat."  Finally I had to tell her, "Look  -  I don't cry in front of anyone, not even Big Guy  -  never have, never will.  It has less than nothing to do with how much I loved FatBrat or how much I miss her.  The subject is not open for discussion."  Rude to a guest?  Possibly  -  although not nearly as rude as what I wanted to say.  Especially after S then asked if I was going to let the cat's death spoil her vacation!  Well, no, I wasn't, but it was ... difficult.


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Between the 10th and the 14th of April,  we took S up to Lynn Canyon to hike up and down the river and across the suspension bridge, we took her up to Squamish for lunch and then to Shannon Falls, and D took her up the Fraser Canyon and into the Rockies as far as Revelstoke.  I didn't go with them that day, as I had to see the orthopedic specialist about my elbow.

The doctor very obligingly inspected the new x-rays and removed the cast!  Smiles all around  -  no surgery needed, I just need to be a little careful with it for a few weeks.

The following day we drove down to Washington State  -  D and S dropped me off at J's new place in Everett, then headed into Seattle for a baseball game (D is a staunch Mariners fan).  I just hope they enjoyed the game as much as I enjoyed my evening with J!

From the 15th through to when we dropped S at the airport the morning of the 21st,  we didn't go so far afield, as D had to go back to work and Big Guy had my car every day.  We took public transit a couple of times  -  into Vancouver to have lunch with my girls, and to Metrotown to do some shopping  -  and walked around the shopping areas here a couple of afternoons.  But with no car and the weather turning cold and wet again, we spent a lot of time in the house gabbing, watching movies, and playing cards.  I taught S a variant of rummy the girls and I play a lot, and she picked it up quite quickly in spite of its intricacies.


*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *


In other areas since my last post  -  having a house guest really cramped my style in some areas, and it was very hard to bite my tongue:

Power must be super-cheap where S lives ... she never turned a light off, never powered down the laptop I'd set up in the guest room for her (even when we were leaving for the airport!), kept wanting the heat bumped up about eight degrees above where we keep it, took half-hour showers daily but never used a towel more than once, and ran the washer and dryer every night for whatever she'd worn that day.  Come on, a "full" load for one pair of leggings and a t-shirt?  Please!

Food waste  -  let's not even go there.  Never before in my life have I seen anyone eat half a slice of pizza, throw the other half away, then grab two more slices and do the same with them.  Or take the biggest pork chop and the biggest baked potato, then throw away a third of the chop and half the potato.

Frugality  -  went right out the window.  S wouldn't eat red meat but loves seafood (expensive), didn't bother getting enough Canadian cash to cover more than the souvenirs she'd promised her friends, wouldn't drink coffee but can't survive without a two-litre bottle of Coke a day,  took it for granted that D or I would pay for all her meals out, all her transit fares ...

She's still a very dear friend but it's so true that you never really know someone until you live with them! 


*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *


Garden planning proceeds well, though rather differently than I'd envisioned last winter.  Big Guy decided to try starting tomato plants from seeds rather than buying bedding plants, and they're coming along very nicely.  He planted 24 seeds, of which 20 have sprouted.  Once the weather cooperates, we'll bung the best eight or ten into the outdoor tomato planter, and I'll plant chives and parsley in between.  The rest of the herbs will be in pots hung on the chain-link side fence, and if I can I'll be putting cages made of old window screening around those to keep the squirrels and birds from eating the plants.

My fruit trees are all blossoming, so I'm hoping the rain will hold off until everything's pollinated.  Apples, plums, pears, cherries, black currants ... if all goes well I see a busy canning/freezing/drying season ahead.  Not to mention the rhubarb, which I'll be eating the first stalks of this week, and the mint and spearmint to be dried for tea.  And if I can talk Big Guy into it, I'd love to put in some raspberry canes.


*  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 


What comes next?  Re-scheduling all the Options workshops I missed (between whooping cough and the broken elbow), picking up the intensive job search again, and seeing if I can't get my home-based business up and running again.  Oh, and starting a new batch of crafts for next winter's craft fairs.  And finishing four (yes, four!) sweaters that had to be put on "hold" until my new workroom was ready and I could use both hands again.  And the mending keeps piling up ...

Wish me luck!

If It Weren't For Bad Luck ...

I'd have no luck at all, as the old saying goes.

After eight long, dreary weeks of coughing and exhaustion, I was finally able to start really working on my new room again ... for two days.  On the third morning, I tripped over the suddenly-underfoot cat and smashed my elbow into a door frame.  Ice didn't help, heat didn't help, OTC painkillers didn't help, and after a while I could feel/hear bits of bone grating and realized I'd actually broken something, so Tuesday morning last week I gave in and went to Emergency.  At 6:00 a.m., figuring I'd have plenty of time to get the elbow seen to and still make my 9:30 a.m. workshop at the career centre.

Not so much.

I told the triage nurse at 6:00 a.m. that I'd broken my elbow.  So without anything to eat or drink or dull the pain  -  "Oh, no, nothing by mouth, in case it might need surgery"  -  the doctor sent me for x-rays, after writing up an order for an IV with one of the pain meds I had just told him I'm severely allergic to. And for the next twelve hours he could not be found, and apparently it's against some unwritten rule for another doctor to change the first doctor's written meds orders.  So while I sat there in tears from the pain, the doctor vanished.  Six hours later, he called the nurses' desk to say they should send me for an ultrasound.  He did not, apparently, feel any need to change the pain meds order he'd written, even though if they had given me the stuff it could have killed me ... Four hours after that, they finally actually sent me to Ultrasound, where they stuck a lot of huge needles into the joint and found no fluid or infection.  Finally, they decided to do a CT scan and then I was taken back to Emergency  -  still unfed, perishing of thirst, and in unbelievable pain  -  where the doctor wandered through, was surprised to see me still there, and sent the orthopedic surgeon to look at the CT scan and tell me that Guess what?  I've broken my elbow!  At that point, I'm afraid I may have sounded a little caustic when I replied that I knew that, I'd said so when I came in twelve hours ago.

So here I am in a fibreglass cast  -  at least it's not twenty pounds of plaster!  -  and enormously frustrated by how little I can do and how long it takes to do it.  I see the orthopedic surgeon again on April 12th, at which time he will decide if the elbow is healing fine on its own or whether it will need surgery.

But ... this coming weekend will include two moves and a family birthday.  And the following weekend a good friend friend arrives from far away for a two-week visit.  And though I'm not expected to help with the moves, I do need to come up with a decent birthday gift for J and get the new guest room ready for S's arrival.

Big Guy got called back to work this week.  Much rejoicing, but also a large upswing in my frustration level, since he will no longer be helping me with anything in the house and expects me to cook every night since I'm not working.  Even something as simple as a one-pot casserole takes forever one-handed, and I can't even pick up the heavy cast-iron pots and frypans ... well, if he's not happy with whatever meals I can manage, he can just cook his own supper!  Honestly, I'm not looking for sympathy, but a little understanding of how difficult things are for me right now wouldn't hurt my feelings.

* * * * * *

On the up side  -  I'm happy to report a week (well, nine days, actually) with zero food wasted and, except for the prescription painkillers that Blue Cross paid most of, zero money spent by me.  How's that for frugal?

Getting Back On Track

Ever notice how the longer you're away from your regular routine, the harder it is to get back into it?  That's what's happening to me now ...

I spent almost four weeks coughing to the point where I could only sleep, at most, an hour at a time.  Now, even though the cough has eased off considerably, I'm finding it really difficult to get to sleep.  Consequently, once I do finally fall asleep  -  usually somewhere between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning  -  I have a tendency to either sleep until noon, or wake up early and then have a long nap in the afternoon.  I need to get back on track in keeping (more or less) "office hours" ... I also need to re-book all the workshops I missed, and get the job search up and running again.

The switch to Daylight Saving time this past weekend didn't help much, either; my body keeps insisting it's an hour earlier than it really is.  It always takes me at least four days to make the mental and physical adjustment; oddly, though, it doesn't take any time at all to adjust to putting the clocks back in the fall.  Of course, then I can just roll over and sleep for another hour  -  and as a person who's chronically short on sleep anyway, that doesn't hurt a bit!

I'm happy to report zero food wasted this past week!  There was one sad-looking forgotten apple in the back of the veggie drawer, but the guinea pigs leaped on it and it was gone in about three minutes, so not really wasted at all.

The work on my new room  -  shifting, weeding, organizing  -  is still going quite slowly.  Even though I'm not coughing much any more, I still get tired awfully fast.  I can work steadily for about half an hour, and then I have to stop and rest; if I don't, pretty soon I have to stop to cough for ten minutes.  Baby steps.  It will be finished before the end of the month.  Most of the furniture is in, the computer gets moved tomorrow, and the last bookcase goes in next week.  After that, it's down to organizing, and making the curtains.  And I already have two big bags of donations ready to go the next time we're headed that way.

It snowed this morning!  I was, naturally, utterly disgusted.  But by early afternoon it had stopped and pretty much all melted, so we were able to do the Costco run for the things that are (according to my price book) better value for the money at Costco than anywhere else in our area: milk, coffee, peanut butter, mayonnaise, and toilet paper.  Big Guy pouted a little when I said "No" to a $20 beef roast, until I reminded him that he had insisted we should eat out of the freezer instead of buying more meat until at least one of us is back to work.  Frugal win for me!

Big Guy spent yesterday pruning the huge old evergreens along the west side of the house.  Now we have a lot more daylight in the yard, and more light in the house.  He was worried that the sunshine might make the yard and the house too warm in the summer, so I reminded him that in the summer the sun follows a different path in the sky and we'd still have plenty of shade.

I was checking some of my old posts earlier today, and ran across something that may have appeared to be a big contradiction, so I'd like to clarify the house-heating situation at present.
When there is no tenant downstairs, we heat with the wood stove, since we only need to keep the main floor heated.  When there is a tenant, we use the furnace, since there is only electric baseboard heat in the bedroom of the suite.  And since we'd like to have the suite occupied all the time  -  after all, that's why it's there  -  we invested in the new furnace.  I'm happy to report that since its installation our gas bill has dropped by almost 35 %.  Combine that with the almost 45 % savings on the annual water and sewer bill since we had the (free) meter installed, and the huge drop in the gas bill we saw when we had the tankless on-demand water heater put in, and you can see why I'm not as unhappy about the cost of home ownership as I used to be!  Now, if we could only agree on what style of double-glazed window to put in the living room ...

I've given P the go-ahead to plant whatever she likes in the raised bed along the west side of the yard, and she has all kinds of alien-looking flowers and ornamental grasses planned.  Considering how little of what we've planted there in the past actually came into the house (as opposed to being eaten by the local wildlife), it's not really a loss for us.  My plan for this spring is to hang planters all along the chain-link fencing, with chicken-wire cages to keep the squirrels out of my herbs.  Fresh vegetables will be dirt cheap all summer at the farmers' markets, so I can buy and freeze enough to last a long time without going over budget.  Now, here's hoping the sun will shine the whole time our fruit trees are blooming!

Feeling Better, Sort Of ...

Wow.  I don't remember ever being sick for this long ... it's been three weeks so far, and I'm still coughing, though not nearly so incessantly or painfully as last week or the week before.  The doctor thinks I probably have/had pertussis (also known as whooping cough).  Oddly enough, though the cough was a killer and left me raspy-throated, achy-ribbed, and utterly exhausted, I had no other symptoms.  No fever, no rash, no green goop, no digestive upsets ... just the damn cough.  Said cough, I'm told, could take another week or two to finally disappear.  I'm finally starting to feel more like myself, though, and getting a lot of my energy back at last.  Which is nice after weeks of being too tired to pick up the remote and change the channel!

Of course, the job search had to be put on "pause" along with everything else; there's no mileage in applying for a job you can't go to the interview for, is there?  "Yes, I'd love to come in for an interview.  How about three weeks from now?"  That, I figured, wouldn't make a very good first impression.  So the plan right now is to spend the rest of this week getting the new workroom in order, and gear up the job search again next Monday morning ... including rescheduling all the Resource Centre workshops I missed.

Big Guy, bless his heart, tried to take care of me.  He made chicken soup, brought me Benelyn (with codeine for the aching ribs), intercepted phone calls ... then again, he also did his usual You-are-a-plague-rat-and-I-will-feed-you-with-a-slingshot routine.

And ... he painted my new workroom.  Just got up one morning, grabbed a roller, and did it.  Over my protests that I would do it as soon as I could stand up long enough,  He claimed he only did it because my new desk is taking up too much room in his workshop, but we all know better.  And I love him too.

So ... the painting is done, the windows are sparkly clean inside and out, the curtain rod is back up.  We're still working on the floor; it really needs professional refinishing, but for the moment all we can do is try to get all the paint splatters and scuff marks (from J's furniture) cleaned away.  I'm hoping to get the desk in there some time tomorrow; after that I can start shifting everything from the current room.  And yes, I'll be sorting and tossing/donating as I go ... nothing is going into that room until I'm absolutely sure it will be used.  I refuse to move things in that I'll just end up taking back out!

Our downstairs tenant gave us notice for the end of March.  Whereupon daughter P and son-in-law N promptly asked if they could move in on April 1st!  The suite is pretty small for two people and a dog (and two cats), but the price is right as P is still looking for work (she was laid off last fall), and N likes the closeness of the Skytrain for his daily commute.  So they have given their notice to their current landlord, and the weekend of March 31st - April 1st is going to be interesting, to say the least.  Oh, and did I mention that March 31st is daughter J's birthday?  "Interesting" may turn out to be far too mild a word for it ...

On the frugal front, things are going well.  Instead of buying paint for the workroom, I used primer and paint we had left from painting the living room a couple of years ago.  It's a lovely soft, warm oatmeal colour, with a white ceiling to reflect more light.  For drapes, I'll be using some fabric Mom gave me; a sheer lightweight silk patterned with pastel flowers.  Not my first choice, but it will work well with the room and is mild and inoffensive.  And if we can't get all the paint off the floor, I'll check out Freecycle and the local thrift stores for a couple of nice light-coloured throw rugs or sisal mats.

Convincing Big Guy to cook in smaller quantities is going to be harder than I thought.  Good thing we have that big chest freezer  -  which he now says we should be eating out of instead of grocery shopping!  I've been saying it for months  -  but now that it's his idea, it's a good idea!  ::sigh ::  But it looks like he might be back to work soon, which means I'll probably have to take over the cooking.  Now, I hate cooking.  Frankly, I'd rather scrub toilets than cook.  But if I do the cooking, I can control how much gets cooked, which in turn means I can cut the food waste way down.  We ended up tossing a quart of homemade chicken soup last week, because he made a huge pot of it and then stalled on batching it up for the freezer, and I was too exhausted most days to eat more than a tiny bit.

I was enormously amused by something I got in the mail a while back.  Last year I joined BC Hydro's "Power Smart" project; a couple of weeks ago I got a little package from them in the mail.  I opened it up to find ... half a dozen wooden clothespins accompanied by an estimate of how much I might save by hanging laundry up instead of using the dryer!  I giggled madly as I tossed them into the basket with the hundred or so I already have  -  I guess they had no way to know I've been hanging all my laundry for years!

Anyway, back to the floor cleaning.  I've been taking pictures at each stage of the room conversion; I'll post them when the room is finished.  Can't wait!

Making NO Progress

Because I've been so sick ...

It started last Saturday.  I cough.  And cough.  And cough.  And cough.  And cough.  And COUGH.

My skull feels too tight.  My throat is lined with broken glass.  My ribs are being chainsawed apart.  I'm too exhausted to eat, let alone do anything else.

I'll be back when I'm better.

Making Progress

Not as much as I'd like, but every little bit counts, right?

My original timeline for getting my new workroom done failed to account for how much my neck and shoulders would ache by bedtime, or how badly I would stiffen up overnight ...it also failed to account for how cold and damp the weather would be all this week.  Therefore, the timeline has been revised.  I work on the room every other day, and spend the in-between days catching up on paperwork, reading, mending, and knitting.  (I'll post before, during, and after pics once the room is finished ... I might even post pics of the knitting projects I've done between priming/painting days.)  And of course, the daily search for a job goes on.
 
The spackling that should have dried in eight hours took three days!  Followed with an afternoon of sanding and dusting/sweeping.  Two days later, the first coat of primer went on, and two days after that, the second coat ... let me tell you, no matter how good your primer says it is, one coat is not going to completely eradicate bright neon green!

Daughter P has come out on both priming days to help, bless her  -  she volunteered, I didn't ask.  In fact, I was determined from the start that this is my project  -  mainly because Big Guy started grousing about how much he hates painting as soon as I mentioned re-doing the room.  So far all I've asked him for is advice on what kind of spackle/filler to get, and if he offers to help I will thank him sweetly and decline.  Something like "Oh, honey, it's so sweet of you to offer, but I'd really like to see if I can manage this on my own."

So far, the whole room is patched, sanded (except the floor) and primed.  Tomorrow I'll finish off the ceiling; that's a smallish job, so I think I'll be able to do the walls and window on Sunday.  Allowing two days for the paint to be completely dry everywhere, I'll fill the closet on Monday (it didn't get painted, just cleaned thoroughly), measure and hem the curtains on Tuesday, sand the floor and baseboards Wednesday, and by Thursday night I'd like to have all the furniture moved in.  Friday will be for shelving books and organizing everything else, and then it's done!  I can't even describe how much I'm looking forward to having a workroom I can actually work in!

* * * * * *

The job search is going about as well as I expected ... I've had two interviews so far, neither of which went anywhere.  There are so few jobs posted that I qualify for, and so much competition for every opening.  So I'm now signed up for a series of free workshops on such topics as creating a winning resume, writing killer over letters, searching the "hidden" job market, interviewing, and so on.  I have nothing to lose and everything (i.e. employment) to gain.

The Hunt Continues

The job hunt, that is.

Yesterday I went over to the Employment Resource Centre, and got a referral to another local centre that does various workshops on resumes, cover letters, interviewing, and so on.  I signed up for six of the workshops  -  it can't hurt!  My work history  -  and job acquisition history  -  has been so full of serendipity over the last fifteen years that I really have very little experience with things like crafting a winning resume and acing an interview.  All my jobs to date have either been through temp agencies, or through being sought out by employers.  Flattering, but not presently useful!

Funnily enough, I actually had an interview today.  A forwarding company had found my current resume (such as it is) on monster.ca, and called me to come in on about five hours' notice  -  was I glad I'd touched up the grey roots last week!  The interview went well, though rather quickly, but I don't think I'll get the job.  They seem to want someone with a lot more forwarding and NVOCC experience than I have.  But you just never know ... as I told Big Guy when I got home, "It's always a fifty-fifty chance  -  either they hire me or they don't."

* * * * * *

Moving J went more smoothly than I'd expected, all things considered.  We had everything loaded, moved, and unloaded, and the truck back at the rental place, by about 6 p.m. Friday.  Her helpers were willing and able, nothing (that I know of) got broken, and I only hit my knees on the trailer hitch six times.  My hands and wrists are still kind of sore, but I suspect some of that may be from a weekend spent almost entirely either knitting or winding yarn.  Once I can get some clear table space (don't go there!) I now have three completed sweaters to sew together.

The room proceeds, albeit a bit more slowly than I'd originally planned.  The walls, ceiling, and woodwork have all been washed, but I won't be doing the primer until my right wrist is less stiff and achy.  So it looks like I'll be priming on Friday, and painting on Sunday and Monday.  Furniture etc will start shifting Tuesday or Wednesday, since I want to give the paint plenty of time to harden up first.

* * * * * *

We got up this morning to another dry, sunny, beautiful (but very cold) day.  I spent the time before I had to get ready for the interview wandering around the yard, making mental notes of everything I'd like to do to prepare for this year's garden, and thinking I'd get started on the winter debris cleanup tomorrow morning.  All the fruit trees need pruning, the lawn needs a good raking to get rid of what the evergreens have been dropping on it all winter, and there are monster weeds everywhere.  Naturally, the morning paper is predicting rain for the rest of the week ... It rains with monotonous regularity this time of year, especially on those rare occasions when I have the energy, the motivation, and the time to get out there and do something.  Sigh.  I may have to console myself with graph paper and seed packets.

Or maybe I'll start another sweater.