Staying home

Well, here we are, in the middle of a pandemic.  Not much fun.

From our kitties to you:  stay safe and warm, and ride it out.

It's A New Year!

Well, here we are in a new year!  Christmas kept me pretty busy, with baking and cleaning and shopping and wrapping and decorating.  I enjoy it, but it's nice to get back to normal, too.

The birds have been visiting our feeders.  It's especially nice to see the Cardinals!

Jezebel is still with us - getting scrawnier by the day, but enjoying herself nevertheless.

When she looks out the window, I wonder how much she sees anymore - she can detect movement, though.  When we had her at the cottage, she saw when the squirrel came to the feeder.  However, this is how she spent most of her cottage time:

Cabinet Shuffle

And here it is:

The finished project!

As you can see, there's lots of storage in it!  And it has a nice country-cupboard look to it that sets it apart from the other white cupboards in our kitchen.

I still haven't figured out what to put on top of it - it needs a plant or something decorative.

This was a fair bit of work:  because I used alkyd paint the coats needed to dry a day before I could apply another coat, and the painting ended up stretching over a couple of weeks as a result.  Painting inside cupboards is a real pain, too, literally:  my back was killing me every night.

Expense-wise, it wasn't bad.  I probably spent between $175 and $200 all in.  To buy a new cabinet like this would be about $400 or so (and assembly required), so I feel pretty good about it.

It's nice to change up the kitchen a bit.  The grey paint on the walls is new as well - it was green, but I was tired of the colour.  We had it redone in 2001, so it has needed a little work.  It could use more, but that's all it's getting for now.

No more projects until the new year!

Retirement Sucks!

Just kidding, it's freakin' awesome!  My worst day retired is still way better than a good day at the office.

So here's the thing about retirement, though:  you have to set your own schedule.  This is something I am struggling with; I want to be a good girl and do my housework on a regular basis (like I had to do when I was working), but when the days stretch out before you seemingly endlessly with few hard commitments, it's easy to say you'll do it tomorrow, as you become distracted by things like blogs.  Hmmm.  You see the problem.

Anyway, the fact that there is a warm kitty curled up on my legs is what I am blaming my current laziness on.  Bad kitty, Jezebel!  But don't move.

The freedom of retirement means I can take on projects I never would have gotten to do while working.  For instance, when we had some windows replaced this fall, and the work messed up the walls a bit, I decided to repaint the kitchen!  I will post pictures soon, but the kitchen is still in upheaval because I started a project in August that is only now almost finished:  purchasing and painting an old china cabinet.

In its original home.

I bought it from a nice young woman on Facebook (yeah, I know, I said I wouldn't go there anymore).  It looks pretty good in this photo (the only pre-paint one I have), but it had been exposed to some weather and was a bit rough.  What I needed was more storage space, and this is going to help out a lot.

Once I'm finished I'll post a completed pic.  Soon!

So What If Blogging Is Unpopular?

The thing about blogging these days seems to be that people aren't doing it.  It has fallen out of favour - one is supposed to use Facebook, or Twitter, or TikTok (?), but no one wants to read anyone's blog anymore, it seems.

I used to follow a lot of blogs, and every last one of them is sitting unused, or has been shut down.  Every one.

I feel kind of bad that I haven't been following them (too busy with other useless pursuits, to be honest), and that's probably why they have fallen away.  One that I used to like was "SalliesART"; a nice lady who was a devout catholic and who had a lovely little black cat named Suki.  She used to like to do artwork based on icons and other catholic images.  Now, her blog is gone and I guess she probably is, too.  She wasn't very well, and I'm guessing her health took a downturn when I was not paying attention - not checking up on the old blogs.  I hate the fact that her blog is just *gone* - all those fun stories about her cat, her pretty artwork, her loving references to her family - all gone.

My friend Wendy, who I really got to know mostly through her blog, passed away suddenly in 2010, and a few years later her blog was closed down.  I was sorry to see it go, as it was a link with my past as well as hers.  But all things fade and disappear, and we are as ephemeral as these pages.

So, I have decided, that I will buck the trend and keep my blog going - for as long as I can.  My retired state gives me a bit more freedom to post.

And I'm staying away from Facebook - people there are friggin' crazy.

And, here I am again...

Well, it's about time for my yearly missive.  It just occurred to me that I haven't had anything to say here in a long time, but there are several reasons for that.

First off, I'm trying to be a bit more careful about what I say online.  I've pretty much sworn off Facebook (the premiere site for arguing with friends and relatives), and I've occasionally embarrassed myself on Twitter (the premiere site for arguing with strangers), so I now tend to read other people's opinions, write a snarky answer, and delete without posting.

Honestly, there is just too much garbage on Facebook - where people read memes and think they've read a news article.  And although Twitter is a good place to get breaking news, it becomes an echo chamber once you mute or block all the rude/racist/ignorant Twits.

If you ever need proof of the bell-curve of human intelligence, go on social media.  Try a thread from a CBC news post or tweet - it's all there.

Secondly, you can see by what I've written above that it's really hard for me to keep my opinions to myself.  I start typing and they come rushing out of my fingertips.  So simply not writing anything seems the safer way to go.

And lastly, the big reason:  I've been in a semi-funk for the last couple of years.  It's a low-level depression, as far as I can tell.  A couple of things happened in close succession that changed my world significantly, and I haven't recovered; or maybe I have just changed.

Anyway, I have another big change on the horizon, and this one I am looking forward to:  I'm retiring!  In four months - according to days.to, which I link to on my iPad - I have 119 days of full-time employment left, and as much as I like my job and love my co-workers, I'll be glad to be done.

So, I may start posting here more often.  Or not.  We'll see....

Out and about, East

Victoria Park in Truro is lovely place to get a bit of exercise and see some birds and beautiful plants and trees and water...all the things that a park should have.  The stairs to the treetops are daunting, but after a rest halfway up I did enjoy the view.

Just a pretty flowering vine.

One of the pretty views.

 If you are in Truro, definitely stop at The Shillelagh - not a fancy spot, but VERY TASTY!

I love that the paper placemats are made by "The Placemat Guys"

Another wonderful place to dine out east, this time in Prince Edward Island, is The Blue Mussel Café in North Rustico.  Go on a nice day and sit outside and enjoy a great meal.

Lots of local brews.



We were so lucky to be there when they were involved in the "Best of Sea" competition.  The chowder was incredible, and made with mussels that came out of the ocean about 4 hours before we ate it.  You can't get much fresher than that!

I was struck by how very house-proud everyone in PEI seems to be.  Almost everywhere we went, properties were very well kept.

One must mention Cows Creamery. Very good ice cream, and very attractive logo.

I don't really do life lists, but if I did, one item would have been to see where L.M. Montgomery lived.  I was not a big "Anne" girl, though I of course read the books.  My girl was "Pat of Silver Bush".

A beautiful landscape.  I wonder how much like this it was when she was there.

We stopped at Cavendish Beach, so Iain and I could dip our toes in the Atlantic.  It was a bit chilly to do anything more than that!

Joggins

Joggins is a UNESCO site because of the large numbers of fossils found there.  I'm not very scientific, so to me it was mainly a big beach of rocks.

However, I really, really like rocks, so I was very happy to go there!

The views were gorgeous, despite the day being rather cloudy.

We didn't have a guide or any posted information, so my guess is that this orange stain was caused by iron deposits.

 Walking on the rocks wasn't very comfortable.  Not as bad as up in Georgian Bay, but rough.

We found a fossil very easily.  Isn't this cool?

 We had fun picking through the rocks and looking at the view.  Look at this picture below, isn't the rock gorgeous?

So is my sweetie!

East Coast Birding

Dodie, Irene, and I are all birders (to a varying degree), so the guys had to put up with a few hours of walking around Sackville N.B.'s waterfowl park.  It's a really nice place for a walk.

Deb with all her friends!

The boardwalk runs right around and through the park, so you're able to get close to the birds.  We saw a lot of birds, but I was most impressed with the Pied Grebe, which I had never seen before.

They are classified as a duck, I believe, but they are ... different looking.

It was much easier to get a good look at it with binoculars!

The view was pretty, despite the cloudy day.

The view is lovely throughout.

We also spotted a Gadwall, a number of Warblers, and a Redstart.  Also a rather shy Muskrat.  I think if I lived in Sackville, I would be here all the time.

This gives you an idea of the size of the place.  When you leave the boardwalk, there is a trail on land that goes all the way back to the park entrance.

Iain was pleased to see his favourite, the Red Winged Blackbird.

Red shoulders rule!

We saw a lot of birds that I didn't catch on camera.  I watched one Black Duck for about five minutes as it poked among the reeds like it was going to build a nest, and then changed its mind.  I tried to photograph it, but all you can see is a lot of reeds - the duck is just too well camouflaged!

Nova Scotia

So, something we did last year - we went out east!  My first time ever, and hopefully not my last.

We went with the usual crew, Dodie, Myles, Carl, and Irene.  Travelling with this bunch is always easy and fun.  The guys shared the driving, while we ladies did our best with the navigation (not always completely successfully, but what's a tour without a few unintentional side-trips?).

Kind of unnverving, but just a truck being towed ahead of us.

We made an overnight stop in Edmundston on our way, as doing the whole trip in one day was just too taxing. The Quality Inn has a decent room price and a nice little pub/restaurant, with at least one amazing waitress.  Because it was our anniversary, Iain and I got the non-shared room.

 One thing about our group:  we are all likely to get up early and get going, so we have time for intentional side-trips as well.  We stopped in Nackawic to see the World's Largest Axe!

I made Dodie pose for this picture of her trying to grab the world's largest axe!  It didn't come off just right, though.

No stop is complete without a snack - Robin's Donuts provided yummy nourishment.

We finally arrived at the cottage in Bass River, N.S.  The cottage belongs to a family from Renfrew, friends of Dodie, who were kind enough to rent it to us for a week.  It's a lovely spot on the northeast shore of Cobequid Bay, which is inland from the Minas Basin.

The tide is out, which means there is lots of mud!

Here is a nice shot of the cottage.  The deck is perfect for martinis and relaxing!

The cottage is a family retreat, and you can see that some serious rock collecting has gone on over the years.

We actually did have very nice indoor plumbing, so this is just for fun.

Missing Onyx

It's hard to lose our friends.  We didn't have Onyx all that long, in people years; he came to live with us in 2010, when our friend Wendy passed suddenly.  He has been a joy to have here.  The house is empty without him, even though three cats still prowl the place; his personality filled any room he was in.  This picture really captures him in a typical stance, watching for something to happen that he could be involved in.

He was in his twelfth year, but one couldn't think of him as a senior cat - he was simply too lively and playful.  I guess it's not a bad age, but we certainly didn't expect to lose him yet.  So long, dear friend.  Thanks for all the snuggles.