My first 2019 listing

Today, I have been thinking of  some things that have come into my life this past year that should have been there long ago:

• the ability to cut my own hair while I'm wearing it fairly short---when I wear it long, I've always been able to cut it myself, but having added some IKEA shelving with mirrors for doors, it's made short haircuts really easy
• the knowledge that any book I read more than 2 years ago is now eligible for thrilling me as easily as it did the first time
• those fairly expensive battery-run things that rub the dry skin off your feet really work
• there are actually mittens that can keep your hands warm outdoors; my Secret Santa gave me wonderful leather with lambswool lining that make it feel like May outdoors
• brioche.  I know I need say nothing unless you're a dedicated brown-bread eater
• carrying a small notebook around so that when I go in a store I know why I'm there or when I leave the house to visit someone I remember to pick up the bottle of wine
• alpaca wool socks....OM very G
• Malbec.  Thank you Sarah Rushton, I would never have found this on my own,  having had a preference for white wine
• Netflix....I had watched Dave following programs for which I thought I had no time, but since Chris gave us a huge TV as a gift this past year, I now watch more than most of the Star Treks, some CNN and The Rookie. I have to admit to loving Data even more when his face is about 3 feet, chin to slicked hair.
• Sleeping overnight at Emily's which led to our buying a brand new wonderful mattress

 I just went back and read the list, and I have to add, as something new, insight.  

Something you needn't know about me

Yesterday we spent all of the afternoon and some of the evening taking down our Christmas tree and other decorations, and as happens every year, I feel both sorry about it and eager to get it done.  As you may have noticed if you've come into our place, we have lots of cushions, glass bottles, bowls, kaleidoscopes, things that hang in the windows, others that sit on trunks and shelves and many lovely-shaped baskets full of other things that are also lovely but not necessarily useful.

While the Christmas lights, trees, wreaths, Santas, angels and crèches are in place, our other stuff has been taken down and settled in a big box in the locker, which is the same big box in which we have to later put all our Christmas stuff.

You can imagine it isn't really easy.  Nor is it necessary, but it is one of the few things that has us working together for hours. Twice, in 20 or so days. The only other thing I can think of that is similar in our lives is moving from one home to another, which we haven't done in the last 10 years.

Another part of "not easy" is that we tend to forget things, so this year, before we even started, I used my phone to take photos of the shelves in the living room and in the hallway so that we'd get things back right even if we couldn't remember all the details. I was so pleased with myself!

Then here's the thing I haven't wanted to share:  when I got my phone out to look at the photos, I could hardly see the detail because pictures on phones are pretty small.  I didn't even, not for a moment, think about using my huge computer screen.  I just stomped and felt foolish and did my best to work it out.

Please try to forget all I've just confessed.

A slow day in December

My kids and grandkids have stopped telling me I need hearing aids, and I thought it was because I was doing all right hearing-wise.  I haven't been using my hearing aids for about a year, because I almost lost the one for my left ear, and rather than lose them, I decided to keep them safe in the box they came in.

Today, Dave and I went back to the place where we bought my aids and got them fixed up and ready for me to take on again.  Wow!  I had no idea of the loss until I heard things the way other people do.  After, we went to a restaurant for dinner, and I could hear the background music which recently I had thought was a rather silly thing for restaurants to spend money on as it could barely be heard....then at home, we could turn the TV sound down to 7 instead of 15. Kind of a joy! And it's just another instance of how kind Dave is.

Now that I've tackled sound, I'm about to tackle the sorting of my books.  We have a couple of sets of bookshelves, but they're full and almost all the books read, so it's time to get serious about what can be kept. Who am I trying to fool?  I am always passing books on and then missing them. Just this weekend, I found 4 books I'd begged Emily to take which I would love to read again. I brought one of them home and I know that I'm going to keep thinking about them until I give up and ask her if I can have them back. Then next year, I'll be trying to get her to take them again.

One of the things that would make it easier would be to determine not to put things other than books on the shelves, but I like the mix. Or I just don't like to leave myself with nothing to worry about. 

So, Where has she been?

Well, I have never had so much time between blogs, not because I'm not interested in seeing if there's something fun going on in my brain, but because I've had "being 76" take a toll.  Until the weather got cold, rainy and late autumnish, I was out for a good walk every day, loving that I live in a part of town that allows me to really enjoy the experience.  I live about 20 minutes from "downtown", the same distance from "la belle province"; and if I walk west of our place, there's a near-river bicycle path which is kindly shared with walkers.

Suddenly though, that just didn't appeal. I stayed home, crocheting Christmas presents, reading and watching Star Trek for 5 hours straight on TV. I've hit higher than my agreed-on-with-myself weight and my muscles and limbs keep reminding me that this slacking about it's not good for me, as if I didn't already know.

I'm hoping that confessing to this behaviour is going to give me whatever push I need, but even as I'm writing, I'm telling myself that I can't change right now because of all the stuff that needs doing at Christmas time. What a way to set yourself up to fail.

Whoa!!! With Dave's help, I just cut my hair...just an inch or so in the back but that's a change.  I'm on my way to my former self.

Scaaaaaaaary!!!

Well, we're coming up on Hallowe'en and if you want something scary, go looking to buy yourself a pair of jeans.  I did that yesterday.

When I was younger, buying jeans was something I did to enhance my wardrobe and flatter my figure....I bought flared, straight or skinny jeans that worked with my height and the fashion of the day.  There is nothing out there now that meets any one of those for me, so I bought some blah jeans that weren't too tight, too long or too sleazy, but it was tough to find them.

The ones I ended up with had a huge floppy cardboard letting the world know the size I would be  wearing, and that they were size X, Short and washed to look like I'd had a run in with a bleach-carrier.  There are other jeans out there, with sizes that allow you to match the length of your legs and the width of your waist and they're soft, with thread the same colour as the pants, but damn, they're expensive.  And by the way, "distressed", although it describes me, is also a key to the higher price.

Actually, I had forgotten that I have one really great pair of jeans. They actually fit me and are comfortable, but they got paint on them so I bought a rhinestone star patch for them and for some reason I've put them away for the season, and now I'm ashamed I've been so grumpy.

A Journey into the Depths of Nostalgia

Every once in a while I have a day, or part of one, where my legs are on strike.  I can walk but can't really control my direction.  I had one yesterday and chose to stay in bed...pillows behind my back, TV remote close by and an almost-finished book.  It looked like it was going to be a good day.  And in a strange way it was.

David brought up a couple of boxes from our locker, left them on the bed with a grin and a message that I could either attack those boxes, full of photos, or just leave them there.

I chose to open the boxes.

As I knew they would be, the photos, not looked at since we moved here 10 years ago, were immediate pulls on my heart-strings. I didn't let that stop me, even though I should have known better. 

Photos of family, of friends, of visits and trips, of many Valentine's Days and gifts under Christmas trees, of weddings and post-funeral meetings, of my kids with their kids and a surprising number of people and places I couldn't recall.

I cried.  I waited for Dave to go downstairs again before I actually really cried. But I also laughed and told myself off for wearing something I had loved at the time, and noticed that I'm thinner now than I was in my 40s and 50s.

Partway through the action, Dave came in to see how I was doing on the decision-making.  "Decision-making?" I said.  "What do you want to keep, and what should go?" Dave explained.

I'm still laughing.

Did I say I hate Google Photo?

Tonight I was thinking about writing a blog, and working it around a photo.  Over the last couple of weeks we have had out-of-town family visiting us and have taken photos galore, both of them and our local family.

So I just now spent a half-hour or so looking at photos, videos and work of mine which includes many lovely things covered over by one or more of my fingers, some video I'd taken which kept zooming between Robyn and Maddy doing gymnastic feats and strange blurry glances of my feet, my fingers again and the buttons on my jacket. Luckily, there were also a few photos taken by David of the 3 sisters while we were up in the beautiful countryside just north of us in Québec.

None of these will be in this blog, thanks to Google Photos which I hate with such vigour that my teeth are only two-thirds of what they were last summer.  I did manage to acquire two photos, one at the covered bridge in Gatineau and another at the Inn we stayed in that same day.

left to right: Mary, me, Dave

left to right: Mary, Kathy, me

And, the last thing I have to say about this is that I am going to have to get tutored somehow, if I can stop cursing first so that a tutor will deal with the real me.