I'm kind of back. My computer was totally trashed. It probably had a virus. We worked on it for a day and a half and even I, who usually have the ability to fight frustration, was ready to throw it out the window. I asked DH to please remove the glass cause windows are expensive. He's suggested we use it for a boat anchor cause the boat doesn't have one *LOL*

So I now have an iMac. I doubt we can afford it but here it is none the less. The screen is stupid big.. 21". It was the smallest I could get in a desktop. The desktop was way cheaper than a laptop - by about $800. And it's all wireless and it's light so I could move it around the house if I really wanted to. Even though I'm having a bit of trouble using it because I'm so used to a PC I have to say I really like it. 

I also discovered that you can rent movies from iTunes for 99 cents. I don't see any I'd want to rent but I might one of these days and watching it on this screen is like watching a small TV. 

So this is where I'm at now. It's a lot cooler here now than it was. It's actually really nice. in the high 70'sF I'd say. But that's a little depressing too. I have so much work to do outside cause the weather was too cold and wet and then way too hot. So it's a mess out there and my poor house is suffering from neglect too. I hate feeling overwhelmed. Oh well, take one thing at a time and you'll get there right?

I also finished the July Catalicious Block. Having tea with Rilo.

Off to straighten up or something. Hope you're all having a good day.

Out of Commission

Won't be around for awhile. I downloaded a toolbar from Zynga on Facebook and it's totally trashed my computer. Things are corrupted all over the place and I'm going to have to go shopping for a new one.

I'm using DH's computer to type this but this thing is a real dinosaur and we never know if it's going to work or for how long.

I've lost a whole lot of stuff. I swore I was going to back up to a thumb drive - even have one sitting there in an unopened package - and I never did. So I've saved what I can. Lost all my favorites and email addresses. Guess I'll be starting from scratch so if no one misses me and doesn't write to me then  I'll have lost them. I do have my yahoo address that I use on here so I have the addresses that way but others who wrote to me on my personal account are out of luck.

  I didn't go to church and do that announcement cause on Saturday night I felt like I was going to throw up and I had nightmares all night so was exhausted by the morning. We did do sandwiches this morning with the 5 of us that I'd called and apparently the minister did ask for help for me.  I'm so glad today is over. We also had to go to a new lawyer this afternoon to update our Wills which is never fun, especially when I am so concerned about what will happen to Michael.

Nervous

Most people don't believe me but I am really very shy. I'm shy to the point of seeming stuck-up sometimes cause sometimes I'll see a neighbour or whatever and go out of my way to avoid them, not because I don't like them but because I'm too shy talking to people sometimes. What if they don't know who I am? What if I say the wrong thing? What if they don't like me? It's very difficult.

This month the woman who is in charge of making sandwiches to be sent into Vancouver's East side is on holidays. I got an email saying "Shirley's in charge." What?? Oh my. People have way too much confidence in me; I guess because I can be friendly, and I like to help, but I never let people get close enough to me to really know me. Most of the people I loved are gone now starting with my dad when I was 13. It hurts too much when they leave me and so as a defensive mechanism somewhere along the line I decided not to get too emotionally involved cause no matter who they are they are going to leave me at some point. The only problem I've had since was when my mom died. As for the others I cried when they went but my grief doesn't last too long.

Anyway, this hooks into my shyness that I've had forever, I was born that way. I got a call on Thursday from the woman who is going to take the sandwiches downtown... not something a lot of people from out here in the sticks are willing to do. She can't do it on the 19th, our regular scheduled day, but she can do it on Monday. So I decided to call everyone to see if they could come on the 12th instead of the 19th.

The phone calls were hard. When I was a secretary I had to make phone calls and I was okay with it but that was my job and it wasn't personal, it was business. I'm always glad when I get an answering machine cause then I can leave a message that way and they can call me back if they want - at their convenience, I won't be bothering them.

On the other hand, being summer a lot of the regulars are away. I did manage to find 5 other women to help but 8 or 9 would be better. Plus there may be people who are still expecting it to be the 19th that want to join in that I don't know about.

So tomorrow I have to go to church, something I don't do in the summer cause there's only one service at 10am. A lot of them are from a different service than I go to cause we have a joint one in the summer so I don't know them. But I called the minister and asked if he could announce the change and ask for help. Unfortunately he likes the church to be more like a family. He doesn't consider himself "in charge". He's just one of us. Therefore I have to go up to the front and tell everyone about the change and make my own appeal for helpers. I don't want to do it. I was a wreck when I had to do the offering. I was sure I'd trip or drop a plate or something. I never volunteer for that anymore. I like to be behind the scenes. I like making things for the bazaar here at home. I like helping make sandwiches but not be in charge. Argh. So I've been kind of frozen with fear the last couple of days.

It's funny how sometimes we don't see ourselves as others see us. I went to family week at a rehab center one time. At the end of the week they have a get together of all the people there and have speeches from the men leaving (this was a male rehab). When they asked if anyone from the family group would speak our leader said yes, Shirley. What?? I was petrified! I didn't know any of these people and I had to get up in front of them and give a little speech off the cuff? Yikes! Afterwards one of the women that had been in our group said "I didn't know you'd prepared a speech." I didn't prepare a speech. I didn't even remember what I said. But it must have been good cause the head of the center asked me if I'd come back once a month to hold an afternoon session with the family group. I said no. We lived about 2 1/2 hours from this place and I had a hard enough time getting there for this one week because of my panic and anxiety attacks.

So I know I can do it. Maybe I'm better if someone asks me to speak when I'm not expecting it. Then my conscious floats away and my unconscious comes up with the right words. But I sure don't *want* to do it.

I'm having another few Jane Austen days. DH is away for a few days at an airshow so I get to watch my favorite movies. Actually since it hasn't been long since I had my Jane Austen week I only had 2 movies to watch that I hadn't seen recently. I have Masterpiece Theatre's Emma and Mansfield Park. They were well done but I guess to fit into their time slot there was a lot missing that was in the books. Especially Mansfield Park was missing one of the key points. They were good though. If I hadn't read the books I wouldn't have missed the parts. DH may stay an extra day and since I'm out of Jane Austen I think I'll start early and watch Anne of Green Gables which I haven't seen for awhile. It's a 2 disc set so a long movie. I need to get some handwork going this afternoon.

It clouded over last night and was cooler for sleeping and it feels a lot cooler today. It's only a couple of degrees cooler but there is a slight breeze which makes a difference and it's not so hot in the sun.

The thing with Gratitudes is sometimes you have to fake it til you make it. So my gratitude for today is that I have challenges in my life that help me overcome my fears.

Over 50

I received an email from a friend yesterday that is priceless. It really does reflect what life is like for people who are 50+

Life has changed so much in the last 50 (okay almost 60) years. I guess since the end of the second world war. Before that there was change.. electricity, automobiles, airplanes, but not so much technologically as in say the last 30 - 40 years.

Some background. When I was 5 we got our first telephone ever. My parents couldn't afford it but one of my sisters had been left standing waiting for a group from the church and no one showed up. The leaders couldn't reach my parents to tell them the event had been cancelled cause we had no phone. So they stretched the budget and got us a phone - a party line which most of you younger ones have never heard of. It wasn't like 1-800-Lavalife, it wasn't really a party. We had to share our phone line with someone else that we didn't know. Of course that did make for interesting listening if we picked up the phone to make a call and they were talking. Of course it wasn't a portable phone or a cell phone. It was a phone with a receiver that weighed about 10 pounds and you prayed that none of your friends would have a 0 in their phone number!

We didn't own a television until I was 10. It was a used black and white thing with rabbit ears and poor reception. By rabbit ears I mean these:

Not these

My mother didn't have a vacuum. We had hardwood floors so she used a dust mop and she had a carpet sweeper for our accent rugs in the livingroom/diningroom. She finally got a second hand canister vacuum when my parents were finally able to afford a modest home in 1960

She eventually got a more modern Hoover but still used this in the basement until the 1980's when her basement flooded.

Our car was a 1929 Model A Ford which my dad had owned since about 1939. He kept it up on blocks in the winter and drove it in the summer to get to our cottage and back. It didn't have GPS, it didn't even have a trunk. We 3 girls had to balance ourselves on the luggage stacked on the back seat.

I don' have a photo of the original but ours was green where this one is tan and it had those skinny rubber tires.

I could go on but enough... I just wanted to show the contrast between what I grew up with and what the world is like today. So here is the email.

Over 50

I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating" You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered,..... No, but I do toot a lot."

My gratitude for today. I'm grateful that I have email friends who send me things like this to help me start the day with a giggle.

Who Turned Up The Heat??

Remember a week or so ago I commented that the furnace was running when I got up in the morning? Okay, maybe I didn't blog about it, but it was. End of June. We had the worst, coldest, wettest (sp) spring on record. Yesterday we had a beautiful day. Today we're pulling out the portable air conditioner and all the fans. It's 90F here today. We're right near the ocean so we have cooler temperatures than inland. My parents-in-law are living in 106F. Luckily they have a trailer down in Sumas, Washington so are able to get out of the condo and down to where it's a bit cooler among the trees... but not much cooler. Streets on Vancouver's East Side are being patrolled handing out bottles of water to the homeless.

People don't have central air conditioning here cause it's never really hot enough to need it. By the weekend they're expecting rain again. I hate to say I'm looking forward to it after complaining so much this Spring... but I've changed my mind about heat. I like warmth, I don't do well in heat. Luckily my sewing room is on the bottom level of the house and it stays cool down there even in this heat so I may have to go nose around down there and see what I can do. Don't feel like sewing but I could fondle my stash or something *LOL*

DH has been working hard fixing up the boat he bought. He can't just buy things and enjoy them, he has to tinker. A lot of tinkering was necessary on this one, which is why we got it so cheap, but he always overdoes so insisted it needed new seats. The new ones do look more comfortable I suppose. It is a 1976 original, which come to think of it our daughter is too although I think she fared better than the boat over the years.

Here are before and after photos. He's painted the floor too.

He also fixed the wiring and sanded and shined up all the aluminum parts.

And named it. Caelig is Scottish Gaelic for Young Lass

Now if we could just put it in the water it would be great. Especially on a day like today. It's supposed to go back to being hot next week so hopefully by then. If you're wondering about the flag in the background it's the Newfoundland Flag plus some mildew from hanging outside in the workshop for a few winters. The center stripe is supposed to be white.

Today I am grateful for fresh drinking water straight out of the tap. There aren't many places aside from North America where our tap water is safe for drinking.

Name That Bloom

I was going to call this post Name That Bug but my daughter was over last night and knew what it was. I have no idea how she knew, I sure didn't teach her and DH didn't teach her cause neither one of us knew what it was. He did, however, notice that there were 3 of them on that poor plant. The other two were smaller. Closest I could come on Google was a Colorado Potato Bug but we're in Canada so it either wasn't a Colorado bug or his radar got messed up. So here he is:

That's a New Guinea Impatiens he's sitting on so he was large - about 1.5" Apparently he's a 10 striped June bug. Don't know what they're doing here in July and don't know what they're doing here period. I thought June bugs were an eastern thing. However the Weed Man people called last week and said white grubs had been spotted in the area and did I want them to add that to our spray. I said okay and now I know what the white grubs are he's talking about. June bug larvae. The grown ups are probably up on the hanging basket cause they don't want to be on the lawn with the pesticide (actually it's an organic pesticide that Weed Man uses, their weed killer is organic too).

Now I need the help of blog friends who know about houseplants. See I bring things home, water them sometimes - usually forget about them and ignore them - and if they live I love them. I've had this one for quite awhile now. I need to dust it's leaves, poor thing. But yesterday DH noticed this bloom type thing on it. There's only one. The leaves seem to be purple underneath so that's a clue, and it's turned out to be kind of a vine idea. It also lives in our front hall which faces North and gets no direct sunlight, mostly gets dim light. Anyone know what this is?

I just fertilized it cause that's a kind of neat bloom. Actually it looks kinda gross if you look at it the wrong way.

Went out and power washed most of the deck this morning. We still have summer so what the heck. Things get so filthy here cause we're near a coal port, farmland, and things are so wet here in the winter that things turn green.

Now I'm off to the roadside market to get some fresh local corn for dinner.

Today I'm thankful that I'm still healthy at my age and can do things like powerwashing myself rather than having to hire someone to do it.

Summer!

It's here! It's here! Summer! And it's going to stay all the way until Thursday. And if we're lucky maybe after that too. Now I wish I was a gardener. You would not believe the smell when I walk out onto our deck. Our neighbour is like a master gardener and the smell from her garden drifts over on the breeze and it's heavenly. I love the smell of summer.

DH was getting frustrated trying to put the seats in the boat so he asked if I wanted to go sit outside at the deli have a coffee and a piece of carrot cake or something. Well sure I did. It was so nice. As I said in my last post I love people watching. We had to go to the one on the east side of the street though cause even though the sun is shining it's still cool in the shade.

I'm feeling much better today. I think it's because I've finally gotten over the early morning on Friday and I have more energy. The sun doesn't hurt either.

Haven't done much quilt wise. Yesterday I did trace out some of the pieces for the free quilt pattern from The Rabbit Factory that I got the fabric for last month.

DH has lost his sense of smell. Apparently it can happen. He's even been to a specialist and there's nothing that can be done. So today I have to say I'm grateful for my sense of smell because with the garden next door I can sit on our deck, close my eyes and get lost in the smell of summer.