Cleaning house

What a lovely weekend I am having. According to plan, I've not stepped one foot out the door since we got home from Swiss Chalet on Friday night. Well, except to grab the newspaper out of the mailbox. So, I'm alternately cleaning my office, making it worse by far before it gets better. Sorting through stacks of paper that have been here for 10 years or more. Shredding some, garbaging the rest. It feels so good to purge things from your past.

Drinking too much coffee, though. My normal consumption is down to one or two cups a day. But this is feeling like a two-pot day, for some reason. The sky is grey, and I'm trudging around in my dreggiest get-up. Yup. A two-pot day for sure.

Used the treadmill yesterday for the first time in eons. Felt good. Might do a bit more today, to see if I can work my way up to 15 minutes -- hahahaha -- how bad is that!!

Back to the purging project. Wish me luck. One of these mountains of paper could fall on me and I'd be dead.

One at a time, maybe?

So that worked. Maybe this will work as well. Here is one of the world's best Godsons. He is near the top of a very elite bunch, given that we only have four Godchildren, and three of them are girls. But I know of other Godsons, not all of them my own, and so there are a few that share his elite station. They include a few nephews, and his own brother -- the charming, amazing Benjamin. Here's Daniel, and his mom Rebecca -- now safely home and having avoided our big snow! We had fun, and we're thankful we had a couple of days to share.

I did promise pictures

Don't know what went wrong. I tried to put pictures with that last 'snowy' post, but they disappeared into the ether. It appears that techno-savvy is passing me by. But I will try again...

I asked God to send us some snow…

and boy, did he ever! Sometime in the dark heart of the night, the clouds opened and the snow came forth. And fifth. And all the way unto eighth or ninth! It's been falling all day, too, so the driveway we shovelled this afternoon needed it again tonight. And it is lovely. The big red truck chews her way through the ruts on the streets, and my car -- the aforementioned Subaru -- would do the same. But I have felt sorry today for those folks driving ordinary front-wheel-drive cars.

So we had loverly guests for two days. My trusted friend and confidante (forever my friend -- she knows all my secrets!) Rebecca and her son, our pride and joy, our eldest Godson, spent two short days with us. Many good times, many good laughs -- and a couple of pictures you see here -- and they're gone back down the road. Sigh. Why is it that good times fly by, and lousy times linger?

I'd go home for lunch but…

It was a long day at work today. I wanted to go home for lunch, for a nice break, but can't until the snow melts. Why? No, it has nothing to do with driving a dogsled. No. The parking lot follies have begun again outside my office window. As soon as the snow falls, the yellow painted lines disappear under a coating of ice and snow. We all turn into fools out there. People forget where they should park, where the lines normally are, and they just take to abandoning their vehicles willy-nilly. It's great fun to watch, but it means I can never go home for lunch again. Because it cuts the parking spaces in half, and I'd have no place to abandon the Subaru when I got back to the office. Sigh. Long days ahead.

Not feeling so good

Here it is Monday and I should be at work. Well, I was at work actually, but not for long. Still feeling the effects of this nasty stomach bug. Of course, in my hypochondriac mind, I believe it's really stomach cancer and I'm not long for this mortal coil. Have turned my thoughts to -- hmmm -- burial or cremation? If burial, what shall I wear? Maybe it's time to write down my favourite hymns for the mourners to sing. Mourners? Yeah, Ken and I have already agreed to go down to Manpower for one another, and pay people a few bucks to show up at the church and cry copious amounts for us. At least, that way, we know for sure the church will be full.

My son-in-law's sad deformity

Hahahaha. So I'm not the world's best photographer. I just said I liked it. I didn't say I was any good at it. If you look at the posting below, you will see that my son-in-law has a lamp growing directly out of the side of his head. I learned this technique in a class called How Not To Take Pictures 101. No, sadly, he DOES have a lamp growing out of his head. It makes it a real problem putting on his fireman's helmet. But it makes Halloween a breeze. He just dresses up as a coffee table.

Trouble brews

Well this is just frustrating. Now the mysterious boss who governs this blog-stuff is telling me that my template is blank. Huh? Now let me assure you that lots of parts of my life are blank. But this template business sounds painful and I didn't even think I had a template. Anyway, now I don't know how to add a picture here anymore. Or if I can even post anymore. I'm working on it though. Who knew this would be so complicated.

See. Here it is. The snowy view from my window. How pretty is that? I would add pictures of my grandkids, but don't seem to have any good ones on the computer right now. Have saved several hundred images on CDs. I'll be taking more tomorrow at the 75th birthday party of my son-in-law's father, or my daughter's father-in-law. Say that three times fast after a drinking a bottlw of wine!

A snowy Saturday

Okay, this is my idea of the perfect day. I don't really have to go anywhere, and outside my living room window is a vista of gently falling snow. Perfect. Beautiful. Peaceful. And it's not that cold outside, so if I decide to go out to shovel the driveway, I'm not going to freeze. Everything looks gorgeous and clean and white. People in the tropics just don't know what they're missing.

A million other things I could do. Scrapbooking -- I have yet to do my first page but I have all the tools and the bits and pieces and about 15 million photos to choose from. Gotta get at it.

Housework -- God this place is a clutter.

Or I could read or watch TV or do laundry or something. Nah!

Coffee, a good book and the fireplace -- yup. I think that's what I'll do. Now reading The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Pretty good, so far. I don't always have a lot of luck with Pulitzer Prize winners. Apparently the Pulitzer award committee doesn't have the same taste as I do.

Why not start here?

The beginning seems like a good place to start with a blog. And since I was just this close to dying of boredom before I got off my butt, you could say this is like a new life. Why do this? Well, why not? It's something to do to keep myself awake when the TV threatens terminal lethargy, and it will help me avoid the plague that has the whole world moving -- exercise.

Don't know what kind of theme to pursue. Maybe a weight loss thing. Or a general life thing. Or a kind of wandering thing. Maybe that will iron itself out in time.

For now, let me just say that we are a happy household, usually consisting of two people, but rising to about 24 or so on holidays and some weekends. Both of us are happily employed -- but don't get any big ideas because we have a monster rottweiller who'll defend house and hearth to the end. And nosy neighbours who are as deadly as the dog. (We do love you!)

Our kids are an adventure. We have a machinist, a musician, a mother and a fourth one who's not sure what he wants to be when he grows up. He's 38 and has a wife and two kids, so we're pretty sure he'll make up his mind one day soon. Maybe it'll be another 'm' word. Hard to tell.

Grandkids -- we have five. All girls. So far. Fabulous kids, ranging in age from two to 13. They make me proud and happy that I never followed through on my threat to lock my kids in a cage in the basement.

So, now that I'm awake, I think I'll go watch Ghost Whisperer. Sounds good. I can hear somebody screaming. Stay tuned for some pictures.