I know it’s odd, but I don’t eat burgers most of the rest of the year and here I am eating them nearly every single day right now. after a long day at work I headed to the Heid-out, but there was no parking for way too long of an amount for me to walk so I went to Fenwick & baker. I ended up having a delicious burger, a lovely visit with Codey at the bar and Robbie, the bartender and a few other others that I knew and it made it all worthwhile . I had a great catch up with Keon about his trip to Vegas and we established clearly that he needed to use Marnée’s magical tours for that trip and he didn’t do any of the truly fun things in the whole week that he was there. It made me once again, want to take people on tours or hook them up for their vacations.
I did a bunch of errands this morning before heading to the office, including picking up mom’s pills and taking them to her and having a nice little visit and going to winners to find a barrel to make a cardboard out of for my donation to Rotary. There were no small ones left, but I hit the big time with a beautiful lazy season, but I can’t wait to turn into something beautiful with the help of Chris Marie who runs the laser cutter.
Long day of data entry and reconciling. By 7:30 I was starving so I headed to Boston Pizza for Burger month. I was literally shaking by the time I got my Perogy Chicken Burger and Caesar salad. Skimmerhorn was on special so I got my whole delicious meal for 31.57 including tip. The food was good, the service was good and I got another chapter of my book read. They have cool new charger stations.
I am now enjoying Running Point, a good series on Netflix, with Kate Hudson.
A good sleep, a long cbd bath, a few chores, 3 losses to Mark in Outsmarted, finished The Bear, watched Nice Guys which I’m pretty sure I’ve already seen, and I am glad the wind has calmed down.
I had a good sleep and woke up with no intention of going anywhere. I made coffee and sat in my chair and started watching my shows did a few little chores and relaxed again and then I was scrolling Facebook when I saw a post by Kristen reminding me that I had wanted to go to the Opening at the gallery today it was already an hour well into it and so I got myself ready and headed there. I am so glad I did. I know what it feels like when people you know come out and support the things that you do and I also know what it feels like when they don’t so to be able to go to a show where I saw the artwork of two of my friends and to see them in person and to have wonderful conversations with artists and creators and watch demonstrations of felt art and wet felt forming and other things that I can’t even completely explain, but I took some cool pictures and it was soul filling.
I did buy a two dollar clearance incense holder with cute little package of incense and a gorgeous piece that Kristen made which I can’t get until the show is over at the end of April but it’s even called ‘Oooh so shiny’. it seriously called my name and one of my favourite things is to have art around me that I know the people who made it. We need to support the people that make beautiful things that bring us joy.
One of the demonstrators was Mary who does wet felting and I was so traced by her tea light holders that she made that I wanted to buy them, but she wasn’t selling them and I said, but if you were to make a couple that I could buy from you I would I would buy them and she just gave me two of them. Although I may be spoiling the surprise, my plan is to send one of them off to my friend Linda in England and then we can both have a beautiful piece of art and think of each other when they’re lit up. it is so lightweight and I can flatten it and mail easily. Mary even did a little video for me telling how to Restore it once it gets there.
After the show, I stopped at Encore to pick up a couple of my friends with benefits crawlers. It was crazy busy in there so there was not a chance I was sticking around instead. I decide to go to ABC country restaurant and try their burger for burger month. There was no one there and it was so peaceful. I read my book, enjoyed a Caesar, and the burger was excellent. My favourite one so far I think. Eventually, some people came in, but I sat there for an hour and a half or two just reading my book and enjoying being out.
Once home, I did all those chores that I normally do on Sunday, taking out the garbage changing the litter box, change my bed, doing the laundry, changing over the dishwasher, all those things. It was really quite a productive hour or so and then I’ve been watching my weird little guilty pleasure Highway Thru Hell ever since. it feels like tomorrow is a bonus day now, but I suspect I will get even more things done.
I had decided to take today off, but I was awake at 6:30 so after relaxing for a bit, I decided I might as well go into the office and deal with all the email that were coming in. I ended up being there for a good part of the day and actually got a lot of things done, which clears the list and relieves the tension I did take my recycling and even found out that I can recycle electronics at Staples so I dropped off an old printer and a couple of keyboards. They just had me sign the paper, knowing that I will not be able to get them back and that’s awesome After that, I went to Canadian Tire to buy batteries and a new corn broom, and with the gift card that I was given for Christmas and the points that I had (Canadian Tire money), I ended up only paying $6.71 for two big packages of batteries, a very good broom and a bottle of flavouring for my soda stream. Pretty good deal, all in all
Next stop was Encore for a burger month burger on the way home. I ended up having a nice visit with Rae-Annebefore she headed off with Roger for a walk and said she would be back for the music at nine.
I decided to stay. I ended up having a couple of nice visits and getting a good chunk of my book red before the music began, the opening band, Fyfe Williams included Encore’s brewmaster Brando, the banjo player.
Tailgator closed the night. They were good but maybe too low energy as people were there to dance
I did find it amusing that one of the guys reminded me of Gene Ween.
It was nice to hang out with Dee-Anne and Rae-Anne
I am not sleeping well the last two nights. I still choose to get up and get functioning and get on with my day and get the things done that I can and I feel satisfied with my job. What is still challenge me Is the volunteer work part of which I’m being paid for but the numbers are overwhelming and apparently there is some disrespect as to whether I should be considered a sponsor of the event that I am doing so much work for. I guess what they don’t understand is that I am about to make a 30 day contract and then 30 days maybe at the end
I stopped at fire hall to take in the Burger month Burger, which was fine but again marinara not my favourite so that is my fault not theirs. I did have a wonderful visit with a man named andree from Slovakia who comes here to work Thursday and Friday of every week for the radio station and I learned great deal about him and his family and their 10-year-old son and their immigration processed to Canada and it was really lovely. I do like being the person that can ask the question and stimulate conversation because I think it’s good for them and for me. the Nanaimo Bar is freaking delicious and potent
Fisher Peak performing artist society had its a AGM tonight. It was not without its complications and I felt at one point to go over the meeting, but I grew weary of the side talk and the things that we’re not necessary and I just wanted us to get on with it so that I could be done with it. I am no longer the treasurer however I was grateful to be part of appointing Randy Tapp as it token treasurer. He will let me know what the board has agreed and I will do the books and all the regular treasurer things and give him the reports. I fear for the society. I think many things were brought up tonight that highlighted egos involved and it will be hard for me, but I will need to add a certain level, walk away
When I left the meeting, I settled up to the bar to find Hugh Moore there and we had fun, just sampling whiskey combos and enjoying each other‘s company. That was the perfect and to what was a stressful evening. I also admit that my favourite part was visiting with the president‘s wife, Jean. I noticed during the meeting where she was picking up on things and iterating what was necessary and I appreciated her very much for being there. She has her husband’s back as the president, but she also acknowledges what I have gone through and I appreciated her very much.
I woke up fairly stuffed up again, but took my medications and got through the day a lot better than yesterday. One of the highlights of the day was Monica leaving a gift bag at my office door. I wish I did get a picture. I’ll try to remember tomorrow. She made a hilarious homemade card and on the front of big letters it said ‘snot to be gone’. In the bag were figurines of Ren and Stimpy, which made me laugh, especially because she knew I would know who they are and the amount of bodily fluids that are involved in that show would put a big smile on my face for sure.
I prepped angel food cake, sliced up strawberries, and brought whipped cream to share with everybody at the office. I printed a picture of Jackie with a little story and ask them to hug somebody special today in honour of her. Honestly, it left me a pretty dang good mood all things considered.
I had good texts with the two other people closest to her, her son Reid, and her friend Mike who is in Mexico. Mike a.k.a. Michelle, is the one who introduced us in the first place because I was doing Mike’s books and Jackie was their accountant. That is how I got to know her and how she recruited me to the accounting firm she worked for and how we became fast friends travelling off Island every day., two decades ago.
Amount of work done and then just decided it was time to stop and build my lucky bamboo. I put on CBC and listen to an interesting program while I built it. It was a good meditative thing to do before coming home.
The best message of the day was just as I was finished at work and Reid let me know how happy he was that he was able to pick up his mom in her urn from the funeral home today.
Yep, she’s still controlling and looking after us all from beyond. Happy Birthday JB. I miss you.
I fully admit that my kryptonite is snot and phlegm. I can’t stomach seeing it coming out of other people and I even more can’t handle it when it is my body creating it. I even wore a mask today so that I didn’t share the joy. It’s definitely different when you’re stuffed up and have to wear a mask to protect others as opposed to when we wore them to protect ourselves. It is hard to breathe.
I did get a good amount of work done and took care of some errands and picked up my first burger for burger month from Fire & Oak. It was a pizza burger. It was OK, but unfortunately, not good for take away as it was soggy around the edges and that did not help with my current condition, to have soggy food as well as a soggy head. I also am not a big pizza fan so probably others would enjoy it more than I, but it was for a good cause.
Once I was done at the office, I headed to Safeway to get some daytime nighttime cold capsules and some fruit. Ended up wandering and getting a few groceries, had tremendous savings from a combination of sales points and coupons that I saved over 38%. I forgot how satisfying that is. It’s been so long since I did groceries I was out putting my groceries in the car when I realized that I needed to buy myself flowers so I bought a nice bouquet in honour of my loss and I also bought a wee orchid as that was Jackie‘s favorite Flower and I hope to keep it alive although she knew I never could so we’ll see.
I also picked up strawberries and whipped cream and little angel food cakes and away Mickey of Jagermeister to celebrate tomorrow what would’ve been her 70th birthday. Jager is the only thing she ever drank on occasion besides her daily Canadian beer
It felt good to make a plan for tomorrow and I hope I am feeling better by then as well
Being that I only got clearance to start weight-bearing at all on February 19 I found my Fitbit step count for this week compared to that week quite amusing. I was over 10,000 steps higher than the week before lol
OK, so as long as I am talking about it, I’m still on the right side of this darkness just so you know. My Jackie isn’t here anymore to read all the signs and put me in the right directions and the closer I come to her birthday in two days when I was hoping to have seen her the more I am falling into the abyss. But the thing is it’svnot really about her. It’s about pain and the trauma of my fall and pushing through it and doing all the work and praying I didn’t make mistakes and still making little mistakes because I’m so tired and burned out because I’m good at what I do and people need me to help them and I have trouble saying not right now And when I do it, it’s in the wrong tone and I have to turn around and apologize and I feel like I’m in a strange cosmic monologue of yes, oh I’m sorry. No, oh I’m sorry. Oh, can I help you…… Next? and I have a fucking cold on top of it. Merde!
Oh, and did I mention I came out of work late and then that snowed Yep first time I’ve had to shovel for myself since December at least it wasn’t a lot
I am still fighting something, but feel a bit better today. I spent time moving my Lego and Star Wars things to the den, watched The Substance and Dune Two, made some me food and am now settled in to watch the Oscars. I also took time to break down the BB8 that I bought made. I want to build it myself and add lights.
I am struggling today. I woke up earlier than I wanted to because my ankle was, I guess, burning, is the easiest way to describe it. Is that kind of shin splint feeling again or I can’t really get it into a perfectly comfortable position. I decided it was a good day to just put her a tiny little chores and hang out in my lazy boy but it’s hard because half an hour ago. It was 21° out and now it’s 23 and it’s sunny and beautiful and I wanna be outside walking, but I think I should not.
Now that the pressure, well, the extreme pressure, of January and February is over. I am sinking. I know the things I need to do. I need to go to a chiropractor. I need to go to a massage therapist. I probably should go for counselling and process through a lot of this stuff but instead, I am just stuck here in my chair frozen in time watching the Oscar nominated movies. I want to go to the hockey game tonight, but I realized that would probably not be a good idea but I need to continue to rest my leg so I think I will just stay home and take a CBD bath bomb bath or something and go to bed at a decent time that’s the goal anyway. I am also on what feels like the verge of a cold… sigh.
I watched Emilia Pérez. Then I watched Conclave. Then I watched Nickel Boys. They are all three pretty heavy.
I figure I will make time for one more.
I realized that I can’t take a bath as my tattoo is too fresh. Sigh.
I ordered from Ella’s. My Jamaican chicken salad was delicious and there is no for tomorrow. I hope I sleep off this cold feeling.
I peeled off two nails in my stress mode yesterday so I was grateful to get a 10 am appointment with Minh. I went to the office first and got some work done. I had a good visit with Minh and he even donated gift cards to Rotary. What a great guy
Back at the office, I got all the things I needed to do done before heading to Bluesky restaurant at Western financial place for Rotary on the rocks before the hockey game. I had some great conversations. I was happy to see Leslie again there who I had met at the Christmas party and we are making plans to get together . I did find out sad news that while on a cruise, the Debrecini’s have had a terrible experience it seems that Joe has had a major stroke has a brain bleed, etc. and Jean is there by herself dealing with it. I seem to remember they are in Honolulu I could be wrong. I was just so overwhelmed thinking of how sad this is. I know them through the community theatre and they just have the most giving wonderful souls. Jean is a little bit salty and I always got along great with her.
It was pink the rink night at hockey and I wore my ice jersey that has become tradition for this event. I did buy a ticket and even went and sat in that seat for a little while, but it was at a strange angle and I didn’t like that I couldn’t see everything well so I wandered over to the Hyundai booth where Dalton and Kelsey were there by themselves and ended up having a great visit with them and a lovely time. It’s also kind of nice to watch the game from one of the lower boxes. Kelsey is due to have a baby girl on April 26.
I came home and am enjoying restarting my journey on the whiskey of the world tour. Today’s is not my favorite, but it was fine.
I am tired and glad it is the weekend as this is the single most I have ever billed in a month in my career, and I damn well earned it, pushing through the pain
I don’t even know how to explain that roller coaster of a day I’ve had. I’ve gone from being so low that I started looking up sending myself flowers because I feel like when someone loses someone they love so deeply they should get flowers but as the song goes, I can buy myself flowers. I did stop myself because I can stop at Safeway and pick up some beautiful ones and bring them home and put them in my own vase and enjoy them without paying the cost of having them delivered. That is the practical thing to do. my higher brain nose that is a little bit egocentrically, but my lower one says doesn’t anybody really realize how much I lost?
Of course it is also that time of year when even if I hadn’t suffered a traumatic injury and a traumatic loss, I would be overwhelmed with my workload so yeah there’s that and that’s why I have to keep talking about it here so I don’t let it drag me down.
That is part of the reason that I wore my blingy Anaheim duck shirt and my bling earrings and my bling belt and my wonderful oversized white boots as Vancouver was playing Anaheim tonight in the Honda centre in California and I need to distract myself and root for my boys who have paid little to no attention to this season. So far they are the only thing American that I cannot give up.
After work, I was supposed to show up for the Strata AGM at 7 o’clock, but at 6:10 I decided I should go to the Fenwick and Baker and text my friend Dave to see if he was in town. It turns out he was and I joined Mike and Heather and him at a table and had a great visit and confirmed three donations from their businesses to the Rotary gala and ended up watching the game and hanging out with Dave And visiting until 1015 or so. it’s awesome to have a buddy and I’ve met his wife and she’s amazing and is totally OK with us hanging out.
The only other thing I did besides work today will stop at Encore and get a picture with Jessie as they were the first people to donate for the gala and it made me happy to bring that donation in.
Oh, and I nearly forgot. I got out of the shower this morning and realized exactly what my next tattoo will be. I have always wanted one that memorized my trip to England because that would complete my bucket list items on my travel alarm, but I never clicked until this morning. I want to do Winnie the Pooh and Piglet from the back walking towards the Eiffel Tower, and that will sum up my trip to England with the day trip to Paris. in 2019
Today was pretty good. I managed to get many things off my list and I only have one file that I have to finish tomorrow which I know I can do. That knowledge allowed me to go to my rescheduled appointment from the beginning of January for my Galapagos tattoo. I showed up just before noon and saw Ferdy walking into the store next-door. I had been hoping to run into him and had sadly not made a point of doing so and I know that hurt his feelings as he didn’t know how I felt about all the things that went down while I was in Ecuador, I was able to look him in the eye and tell him that I was sorry that I wasn’t there that I would’ve had his back at things may have gone differently. I hope he truly believed me.
Jeff Fletcher of Inzane Artworks had a drawing ready for me, but it wasn’t quite exactly what I wanted so he said give me 40 minutes and I’ll redraw it and so I left with the knowledge he would text me when he was ready and within 15 minutes I got the text and headed back to find exactly what I was looking for. He had taken one of the photos that I took in the Galapagos and turned it into that creature on my arm. The only thing about it is that the mohawk type plumage that marine iguanas have on their heads, doesn’t show up in the angle of the photo that I took, but it’s the way that I wanted it on my arm. I wanted it to look like it was sunbathing on the rocks with its legs splayed out and the huge, long fingers, etc. well defined. he did such an amazing job and we had a very good visit and on top of it he also added 2013 to my Peru tattoo that I had done when I was there. He is a great human and I go as much for the visit as the ink. This one was #14, although not all by him
Once back at the office, I worked until quite late getting things done that I needed to before coming home and making a nice dinner and settling in to watch the screen actors Guild awards
I enjoyed my casual morning. I tried on the boots I had bought on sale at Winners. They are perfect. Sadly they are also winter lined so warm at the office. I do feel like Mr Peanut or The Penguin in them
Today was actually relaxing as I got focussed and got quite a few things off my plate
I made it to Key City just after six and welcomed all the guests to the winter ale night. It was so nice to have so many people excited that I was walking.
Opening act was Tyrel Hawke whom I love. A masters in nursing, sporting a hero cape by day and a killer singer/songwriter vibe by night, spilling his emotions into his songs. My favourite moment was when he explained that he grew up in a very religious family and they don’t do gay. He wrote a song about his sister’s support.
I also loved his opening song. He is one of the bravest humans I know 
Next was Over the Moon, a married couple Suzanne Levesque, and Craig Bignell.
Their story is beautiful and I think you should go to overthemoon.com and re be ad more about them and I also was thrilled to find out that they are lovely lovely lovely human beings, as well as ridiculously good musicians. Craig is a real storyteller and Suzanne just smiles and responds in a beautiful way to stories she’s probably heard 1 billion times. and seriously they covered Nazareth on their opening song!
And Ian Tyson who they knew personally
And if the Beatles grew up in Longview Alberta
I think my favourite picture of the entire evening though was this one because the weather has been melting enough that everywhere I walk as long as I am watching for twisty bits there is no ice and the snow is melting away, and I am grateful to Mother Nature. And I love my friend Monica, and that I got to sit with her tonight. 
I did not want to get up with my alarm this morning apparently the month has been enough. I’m sure it’s also more tiring because I walked outside and did the Rotary thing and home again in real boots for the first time in two months. Today I actually put on a pair of jeans for the first time since my accent they were the same jeans. I think I was wearing that day and sadly they are much tighter now. I did drive myself to work and was there at my desk by 9:30 and back home again at 8:30. It’s terrible to have to make up for last time in the last few days of the month because I will push myself to complete exhaustion. It was actually hard to bring a smile to my lips let alone to my eyes today. It’s weird when my entire physical emotional and mental state are so tired and overdone that I can’t even put on a mask in time. I feel bad for the people that I interact with and it’s best for me just to stay locked in and get the work done. It was nice to not be relying on anyone else for rides today though. 
I did decide this morning that this was my one life and who said I had to set an alarm. if I need to sleep, I need to sleep. so, starting tonight I will only set an alarm for 9 AM or some time that I wasn’t likely going to sleep past Because I do know my system and I will keep waking up to check what time it is.
I had to take this picture of my clients receipt that I was entering today because I had to actually change the supplier name from Queen’s printer to King’s printer. I had a little moment, remembering HerMajesty
I got myself together this morning put on the matching boot to the one I’ve been wearing for two months and headed out to get my car started. Having two boots the same on was so comfortable for my back, so comfortable for my foot, just so great. I was super cautious still as my driveway and more so my sidewalk are very very heaved this year, more than ever since I’ve lived here, I know that Cranbrook is built on a bog , but this is ridiculous. I googled how to get into my car had a little struggle with it, but finally did and laughed when I set off all the alarms and finally a message came on the dash telling me to hold my fob up to the start button before I pushed it and now it starts and tomorrow I plan to drive it to work in the morning
For the second time, my HelloFresh box had arrived frozen so when I went to make my bacon and corn chowder today which involved a potato being cut up, it was black and gross so I used one of the cartons of hashbrowns that I get from Costco and added it to the chowder And it was so thick and good and delicious that I would want to do that all the time 
I was picked up just before three to go help the Rotary ladies make decorations for the gala towards the end of April. It feels really early to me, but I was really happy to be there. MaryAnn is arranging it., Lallah, Cindy, Nadine, Nancy, Judy, Maureen and I all worked on getting the creative energy flowing and we made a huge mess as it seemed like everything we did involve dropping glitter everywhere. The theme for the gala is the big easy so we were working on classy New Orleans decor. I think we did a good job and it was interesting for me to listen. Try to read the room but also see the big picture of how things would look in the space and bring my artistic flare to it. I think this centrepieces that Cindy and I worked on turned out very nice.
I am super emotional tonight and I think that a lot of that might be just the anticipation of driving tomorrow. I hope it all goes well and that I can last the day with two boots on because I have actually taken the step to even put my crutches and air cast in the back of my closet where they belong. One small step for Marnée, one giant leap for Marnée-kind
Lallah picked me up and we went to The Brick, Bridge Interiors, and Hush Home Furnishings to try out electric recliners. I found one at each store that I liked. They were quite different and when it came down to it, I went with the best price point and longest warranty, a Lay-Z Boy. It is small and fits me well. I took Lallah for lunch at the Heidout before she came and helped move things around in anticipation of her husband and son bringing my chair for me. Such a great family, very giving hearts. Unfortunately there was a mixup and the wrong power cord was supplied. Kevin, from Hush dropped off and installed the correct one on his way home from work. Missy loves having ‘my’ chair as hers now.
Steph picked me up to go to poker night at Landon’s. It was nice to catch up and have a fun night. My ankle is a bit sore from being on it so much today but it does like being reclined.
A Lay-Z Boy and poker night… I am officially one of the guys
I had a lovely breakfast with cousin Donna at Denny’s this morning. It was nice to catch up. The family on that side is struggling with a member with rapid decline dementia. It is so hard on them especially as this is their first experience. I get it, now imagine that I was 18 when I nursed my step-grandad on their side to his death. He had silicosis and dementia and who knows what else. All I know was I loved him and I lived through that gentle man becoming violent and scary. I still can see him sitting on his bed shredding his long johns with a butcher knife. I can remember him holding my hands above my head and yelling at me that the mine was going to cave in. It is a terrible disease and I am glad I have more memories of wonderful times with him
I finished all but two T4 filings this week and am very grateful. I am tired and sore. I have done well walking but my lower back and knee ache from two months of disuse. I look forward to soaking in CBD baths this weekend and hope to shop for a new recliner.
I came home and ate and did a little Deadpool Diamond Art. Never thought you’d see those words together, did you?!
triumphgal 