half as long

The snow is falling, obliterating the bits of ground that had been exposed by the few above freezing days. Carm is outside tackling what's been dropped in the first half of the storm, trying to get ahead of the game. Breaking it into two efforts will be easier on the snowblower… and the man operating it! He gets his exercise doing productive things while I'm relying on the treadmill to get my blood flowing. When we built the new back deck, we stopped shoveling it which is a nice break for me but I could probably use the extra exercise!

Hallmark was my distraction on the treadmill today. I'm feeling much stronger every day and managed the whole 90 minute walk at 5% incline! Lots of sweat and my legs are like rubber! Thankfully, there's nothing like a predictable love story to distract me… now the question is 'what do I distract myself with for the rest of the day'. I really have to stay off of social media as the news is getting out of hand and scarier by the hour. I just can't take it today…

Yesterday we travelled into the city for dentist appointments. I needed to have a crown re-glued on and we both had cleanings scheduled. My stress level for sitting in the dentist chair has reduced to almost nothing since changing to Dr. Racicot. I don't know if you remember, but I had a lot of trauma with the dentist in the village - she was a butcher who left me crying in the chair the last time I saw her… Dr. Racicot however is gentle and professional. He explains everything that he's doing and has the touch to take the discomfort away. I'd recommend him to anyone who stresses about dentist visits!

We were lucky with the weather too! It was above freezing with a little bit of rain thrown in which meant the roads were bare although wet. We took the opportunity to hit up Costco on our way home so don't have to go out for anything for a few days - luckily as the roads are snow covered today.

Cato and Bailey have settled in well but are clearly missing Ruth and John. There's been lots of worry about Ruth as her recovery is not going well… she had to have an extra emergency surgery yesterday and has been massively struggling since. We don't know much about what is going on, but what little news we have gotten isn't positive. 

Last night while I was in bed with Ruth on my mind, I heard Bailey give a long and weird cry which to be honest, scared the sh?& out of me. I was beside myself with worry about Ruth and he seemed to be as well. I started thinking about energy and connections, envisioning a strand of energy connecting us to our loved ones… it seems that sometimes we know things without having been told, not in words perhaps, but a feeling and I wondered if his connection to Ruth was unstable causing him to cry out his loss.

So I sit here watching the snow come down, listening to the drone of the snowblower hoping that today will be a better day…

I read something the other day and I wish I had saved it - it was about knowing when the last time something happens, like the last time Trudie & Leo were here, or we had supper with them at their house - I didn't know that those things would never happen again and wish that I had given those times my full attention and appreciation. If ever there was a lesson on remembering to live in the moment to experience those 'last times', even when you can't know that it would be the last time…  

It's been 15 years (fifteen YEARS) since we retired but I still need to get my database fix on a regular basis. Yesterday I lamented that my android database product isn't as functional as the old data dictionary/repository that was my domain… I put a certain amount of effort in making sure documentation was consistent and up to date which sometimes meant exporting, data massaging, then importing back in place… my MobiDB software isn't great at this although I can sort of fudge it for some things. I was putting together a 'roll-up' table of several years of exercise & mood data and realized that for a few years I entered a '0' in the field when I didn't do anything, but really, for reporting and analysis reasons (omg - is this another sort of mental illness?), it would be better to be a null value. There was no way to do a bulk update, so I edited several hundred entries BY HAND. Yes, this is my insanity! But now I have nice clean data :-) Mostly…

When I enter my exercise field, I use codes like: 60 t, 5 b, 20 r - which means 60 minutes on the treadmill, 5 minutes on the bike, and 20 minutes with resistance exercises… clear as day right (ha ha)... in one of the years I'd also used an 'f'. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS! And there are no clues from any of the other fields in the recordDooh! Any guesses?

I just realized that I've been retired half as long as I worked!!! What sort of madness is that and how the heck could so much time have gone by?

Awesome!

"pretty snowfall"

"movies on the treadmill"

"no snowstorm when we had to drive into the city"

"hot tea on a snowy afternoon"

"nulls instead of zeros"