Where has the time gone?

Where has this month gone! I guess that really it is a good thing! I'm not a snow bunny so I actually hate the winter months. This means that we are closer to spring than we were. I have to say, that I am surprised at that last statement; I'm not usually a "glass half full" sort of person. Due to my working life experience I find that I am in fact very cynical. I often get very tired of acquaintances who views the world positively for I know that nothing really horrible has happened to them.

I'm still cleaning out my Dad's house and it is getting very stressful because we can't get anyone to buy his furniture. No one wants the solid oak dining room suite that my parents had thought was so fabulous. Unfortunately they made the purchase at a different time; today, people want furniture to fit in a smaller space. I hope that we don't have to just leave it for the new owners.

I had to laugh when I found a little Cabbage Patch dolly of my daughters, whose name escapes me. I wonder if she recalls it! However, I do remember when she got it for Christmas many years ago and it even came with its' own "adoption" papers. Regardless of the fact that her name is unknown, I just couldn't throw her out like so much garbage. It must be the "little girl" that still lives within me. Now I wonder if that "little girl" syndrome actually still resides in my daughter. Somehow I think not, as I see it, my daughter is as a woman who is matter of fact, very controlled; a woman who believes in minimalism. A woman who has grown up in a house with "stuff" and as an adult will not allow "attachment" issues or sentiment to permit her to hold on to useless things from her childhood. However, we will see!

I wonder if my daughter will want to keep her because I put a pair of sunglasses that I found on the doll. Will it make her smile or will she be all "business"; grab the sunglasses and put the doll aside. I will just have to wait and see.

Technology

I often purport that I don't really care about the need for the "stupid" blackberry that the union has given me. I must be honest with myself and say that I enjoy the technology! I like the fact that for my age, I am more "in tune" with technology than many people who are younger than me! Yup, I really do like that!

Okay, sot the downside is the fact that my blackberry is on the fritz and I feel like the perverial "fish out of water". I really do hate it. Now I got a "loaner" blackberry but it is the same as the one that I just had and the technology is ancient. No, not ancient really, only a few years old but as we all know everything in the technology realm moves at the speed of light. Again, being in the "NOW" of technology is important since my broken blackberry accepted calls even though I live out in the boondocks. This old one doesn't. I tried to have a conversation and I eventually had to call on my landline when the blackberry disengaged.

It is truly frustrating that something like this would happen just because I was trying to do a good thing and be a good blackberry owner and update the software as requested by a message that the company sends out automatically to users. I had a thought, one that was in the back of my mind; my intuition, but I did not listen and now I'm in this mess. I really need to listen to myself more often as I have had similar experiences in the past and I ought to have "known better".

Of course when I drew this I kept thinking of the science fiction television series of a bygone day, Star Trek: to boldly go where no one has gone before! I still wish that I could have gotten an iPhone since it would be more compatible with my computer. I will try one more update and then I will give up until I get the iPhone that I covet!

The Horror

Okay, so I'm being slightly melodramatic! However, I wonder what other people think these days about the night shift worker (like myself) driving home. I took a course at OPC on "facilitating adult learning" and I did my major project on the EFFECTS OF SHIFT WORK ON THE SHIFT WORKER! One of the important nuggets of information that I gleaned from the research is that when I am driving home following a night shift I would in fact be considered an "impaired driver". Sometimes I can sleep in late on the morning of my first night shift; if that happens, I am still fairly alert at 7 o'clock in the morning. Often this is not the case; I wake early and can't return to sleep! This morning was one of those mornings where I was so tired that I felt dizzy on my drive home. I could sense the frustration of the driver behind me as I slowly weaved my way along the concession that takes me "cross country". I believe that "he" was angry that I was holding him up; that I am not speeding down a side road that is not monitored by the police. The problem is I can only drive so fast while focusing on the road and concentrating on keep my eyes open. The frightening part here is that these anxious and angry people who are tail-gating me have no idea why I'm driving like "an old woman" (yeah yeah, I know; I hate the reference too but couldn't help it). I wonder if they would be horrified at my lack of physical capabilities if they actually knew my true condition. I hope to never have to find out and have a break in my concentration and have an accident. What is worse is when I am so tired I can't even get out of my car; in the spring and summer my hubby has found me out in my car sleeping whiles on his own way to work at 7 a.m.

Unfortunately I enjoy my job, I enjoy the excitement, the adrenaline rush when there is something going on. The morale of the story is to not to take a job that requires shift work.

I love listening to Podcasts

I can recall a tidbit on the radio where the host was discussing the negative aspects of the iPod and how it narrows one's opportunity to hear different or new music that we would not likely listen to. There is some truth to that, the iPod does in fact mean that we only listen to what is on the device. However, if you look at all of the podcasts that are available on iTunes it is amazing at the versatility available.

For me, it is all about "time management"! Gawd how I hate saying that! I hear that quite often from acquaintances who work in business and other capitalistic organizations; we are rushing here, rushing there, rushing to nowhere! Unfortunately in my current situation, the notion is true. I don't have time to read a book these days so I do enjoy listening to them on my iPod while I'm driving in to town. I just finished listening to Alligator by Lisa Moore. It is a book of interrelated short stories about a group of people who live in St Johns, Newfoundland.

I think that the conception of "time management" sprang from the old religious belief that hard working people are in fact closer to "gawd" than everyone else. All hard-working people will achieve greater rewards (up there ?) than those lazy, fun-loving types. Hmmmm! Not too sure where I will fit in here. At times I am lazy and fun-loving and at other times my head is spinning with too many things to do and not enough time to do it in.

Getting back to the narrow focus, that is just so much bunk really. I check the CBC track of the day to hear what is new on the Canadian music scene. Most of it is not to my taste but every once in a while I just have to get the "free" song of the week. So, really it is all about YOU and who you are. If you are the sort of person who is "stuck in park" then you would be like that whether you had an iPod or not. It would mean that you wouldn't switch your radio station from your favourite to sample other music genres.

Life's roller coaster ride

It never ceases to amaze me how life throws us a curve ball and we have to adjust! I know... I hate the baseball reference but there it is! I try not to be too RC even though I was born one. I make every effort to try and not be "resistant to change". It makes me laugh when you take a look out into the horizon and see that resistance may be futile! Yup, there is a sci-fi reference here too. I know that if I am the only one who is interested in how our language uses references from television and the inextricably linked between that medium as being part of our surrounding world. We affect the medium and in turn it affects our view of the world through language. It is the one regret that I have, I regret that I didn't go to university early in my life because it is entirely possible that this would have been the avenue that I would have taken. I loved "conversational analysis"!

Were was I going here? Hmmm!! Yes, the curve ball! I constantly surprise myself at how scatter brained my mind is following a nightshift. At this moment in time, I am taking the rest of today off for me! I am not going to think about all of the things that I "should be doing". I will reserve that for tomorrow.!

Life's constantly changing

Life constantly is changing! My life is inextricably intertwined with my dad's and I realise how much it is now that I am cleaning out my dad's house. It has finally been sold! It is strange to me to realise that where he is now in his life is where I someday soon, will also be. I will be a loved but also a burden to my own daughter. Even saying that he is a burden sounds so selfish but I am struggling to juggle my own life and my dad's too. I do wish that I could share this with another sibling but since that is impossible I am forcing my dear hubby to help out! Isn't love grand!

Somehow I will have to try and avoid some of the pitfalls of aging. The way I see it is that being an involved and social person is so very important, especially being able to maintain one's own independency both mentally and physically. So having said that, I WILL go for a walk today before I go into town to box up more of my dad's life. I am amazed at how little feeling he has for much of the memorabilia. Here I am oohing and aaaahing over some old picture of mom or a receipt for a painting that has adorned their walls for decades; he on the other hand, could care less. Strange how many of the gifts that I bought mom for christmas and birthdays are now coming back to me. I guess I will have to let my own daughter understand their importance so that she will not in turn view them as superfluous articles of little or no value! My daughter is very much a minimalist due to the fact that she too lives in a very small house. However, I have to determine what items have sentimental value to me and those that my mother also valued. Like the cross that has hung up over the doorway since I can remember. I know that it will sound so strange but it was from my grandmothers casket. She was being buried in Montreal and the grave-digger told my mom to take it because it would be gone before the final burial. I don't think my daughter has any interest in this type of religious iconography and neither do I really. I can't explain why I need to keep the cross that was meant for burial of a woman that I only recall meeting but once.

It is hard to compartmentalize my mom and dad's married life; a life that has been long and full! I am trying to decide what to keep, what to throw away and what to sell!

Here is a picture of one of the presents that I made for mom that is coming home to me! It was made too many years ago to count on a weekend (back in the day when I worked normal hours) with a bunch of girls from work. We gathered together in her basement to clean and paint our "dolls". The dress was made of lace and the hair was fashioned from dog hair; everything was soaked in "slip" and fired in a kiln. I made another doll and her dress was made from a soaked J-Cloth!!!

Christmas chilli-chocolate convections

The new year has come and gone and I sit here wondering what I have been doing and then I remember. Busy times are behind and ahead, at least until February 15th. I will be exceptionally busy until then and then just my "normal" busy. So I'm not going to let myself stress out too much about the fact that I have to jam so much into so little time. Today for instance, the hubby and I have to also go to a wake for the farmer's wife who live across the way. It isn't that I knew her or anything. My hubby has spoken to her on numerous occasions when he would pick up flowers from her at their farm. I think about how she died quickly, slumped over her computer (at least I hope that it was quickly). Sue had been involved in trying to breath life back into the little community centre located in the little village on the next concession. It agree, it is better to use it than lose the building to developers and development of some other kind. Right now, the skating rink is beautifully flat and inviting. I hope her death doesn't mean that the effort that they have put in to keeping the old community centre is safe from the wrecking ball.

Now these lovely Christmas confections are the most delicious ever and I had to take a picture of them before I gobbled them up! A friend from work makes them and is ever so nice because I get my own person little gift box. Yum, Yum, This year, they had the purr-fect mix between the chilli and the chocolate!