Procrastinator's Countdown to Christmas

I know I've mentioned this previously, I'm a less than enthusiastic technology user.  I've recently learned how to access my e-mail on my smart phone...which is apparently much smarter than I am since I've had the phone for a couple of years.

In fact, I'm eligible for a new phone but as I told my son the other day, I've only just gotten familiar with this one, why would I want something new?

Is it only me, or is this world getting more complicated?

This post wasn't supposed to be about my limited tech knowledge.  Oops, I guess I got sidetracked.
Anyway, after all the bragging I did about being ready for Christmas a couple of posts ago....it seems I'm not nearly as ready as I thought.

I should be finishing up the snowflakes I made for my staff.  Instead I'm writing this post.  It won't take much time but I've been putting it off all weekend.

I did get a little Christmas baking done (and I mean just a little) last evening.  I made a small batch of shortbread cookies which I expect will be all gone in the next of couple of days. The butter is softening on the counter as I write, but I haven't decided what else I'll bake.  Time to dig out the cookbooks.

On the other hand all of the gifts are wrapped and under the tree....with the exception of the Santa gifts.  It has been a tradition for many years that Santa brings socks.  I picked them up while shopping on Friday so all it will take is a little wrapping paper.

The turkey is out in the sun room resting in the recliner.  This might seem like an ought place for it to hang out, but we've had frigid weather here for what seems like forever but was likely 7-10 days.  This morning the temp was a balmy -29C (-20F) not counting in the windchill.  It must be warming up slightly though as we're starting to get a few flakes of snow.  By Thursday we're forecast to have temperatures closer to freezing.  I guess I'll have to find room in the freezer soon for the bird.

At this point, I'm not sure who will be here for Christmas dinner.  I informed my daughter, that while her on-again, off-again boyfriend is welcome, his roommates are not.  As a result there is some potential neither of them will be here.  I did invite a long time friend C to join us.  She currently does not have custody of her youngest child, will spend the morning with him and his dad, and then join us in the afternoon.  She's been part of our lives since my son was just a baby and while we don't see each other as much as we once did, she's part of the family.

In other words, there are still a lot of things to be done or determined before Christmas gets here.  Perhaps I'd best end this post and get at it before the list of things to do gets any longer!

Are you ready for Christmas? Just seven more sleeps!

Have a great week everyone!

Monday Musings

When it comes to blogging, I feel I’m so far behind I’ll never catch up.  My blog reader would suggest I’m about three or four days behind on most of the blogs I read, and that’s after reducing the number of blogs I read on a regular basis.  As for writing, I find I can just about manage a post a week with a Friday funny to add some levity to this hodgepodge of a blog.

 

Where, oh where, does the time go?  Frankly, I’d have to blame Facebook for a good portion of the time I waste.  I’ve gotten hooked on a couple of games, attempting to collect items and increase my point totals.  I swear, however, that I will never take part in the Pokemon Go craze.  For those who may not be aware, this is an app now available in Canada where one wanders about looking for hidden Pokemon.  How these creatures get to where they are going I have no idea, but it is next big thing in gaming…players trying to accumulate more Pokemon than their friends.  Apparently you can also “fight” the various creatures. 

 

It all sounds incredibly silly to me.  My son walked over to 7-11 last Friday evening about midnight and on his way home he passed the nearby church parking lot.  In the lot were 5 teens waving their cellphones around trying to capture a Pokemon.  Okay, at least they weren’t partying and causing damage.  But there were also three vehicles parked along the street with the drivers attending to their cellphones as well.  He stopped and asked one of the drivers if she had been playing the game as she drove…she said no, but she got a notification when she got close so pulled over.    Wow, nearly 1 a.m. and the thing to is drive around (or walk as the teens were doing) to play some silly game! *

*****

In addition to playing games, I did get a fair amount of yard work done this weekend, and prepped several meals for this week.  My outdoor sheds are built of wood and were overdue for a coat of rain repellant.  We’ve had sooo much rain in the past few weeks I’ve put off applying it as I didn’t want to trap the wet in the wood.  Finally, we had a stretch of reasonably sunny weather so Sunday morning I was outdoors by 8 a.m. splashing this stuff on the sheds.  It’s supposed to rain tomorrow so I’ll get to see how well it works.

 

I also cleaned up the volunteer catnip that is growing in the back yard.  That stuff will seed itself wherever and I’m sure that my neighbours will appreciate me ridding the neighbourhood of some of it.  I filled a wheelbarrow full of it, yikes!  I did strip the leaves from several plants and filled a plastic container.  I’ll let it dry and hopefully the cats will enjoy the nip through the rest of the year. 

 

The lawn also got mowed, I added fertilizer to my containers, and I put my patio tomato plants in the garbage bin after I pulled the fruit from them.  We had hail a week or so ago, the fruit was damaged, and the plants were turning black…I suspect from the significant amount of rain we’ve had. 

 

*****

The normal weekend chores were accomplished, vacuuming, laundry, floor washing, and clearing out the fridge of leftovers.  I immediately restocked it with fresh fruit and veg and did some meal prep for this week.  I have a pot of cauliflower soup, a pot of chili, a pasta salad in the fridge all packaged in small containers for easy retrieval, and a half dozen hamburger patties in the freezer for later this week or next weekend. 

 

The pasta salad is new to me.  I started with some penne, added in slices of cucumber, cherry tomato, celery, red onion, and feta.  The dressing was super easy, just olive oil and red wine vinegar with a bit of dried basil, garlic powder, dry mustard, and salt and pepper.  The recipe called for two cloves of garlic, which I was out of so I added a little more garlic powder to the dressing.   I added a bit of grated parmesan as well.  I let the salad marinate for nearly 24 hours, having it for my lunch today, and I can declare it very yummy!

 

I continued my task of going through the boxes left over from my daughter’s teaching days.  I’ve got another four (out of approximately 20 boxes) to go through yet.  I’ve narrowed it down to three boxes of empty binders – which D says will be donated to her office for donation to local charities and schools, two boxes of books, and one box of CD/DVD teaching materials and educational toys/games.    I’ll also suggest she find somewhere for these items to be donated.

 

****

Perhaps my time wasn’t as wasted as I initially thought.  But I do know that if I gave up even one of those games I’d have the time to read and comment on blogs, post more regularly, and gasp!, perhaps even get some exercise every day.  Hmmm….I’ll have to think about that.

 

I hope you have a marvelous week everyone!

 

*I had written several paragraphs on how the lack of connection between people is, in my opinion, resulting in the lack of empathy, misunderstandings, and intolerance.  But I thought that was too heavy a topic, and to be honest, it was making me feel sad so I deleted them.  I’m imitating Scarlett O’Hara…I’ll think of that tomorrow.

Shhhh....don't tell on me

It’s Thursday around noon (now 2:30); I’m at work and I have nothing much to do.  Days like this drag on and make me wish that retirement was closer.  One of my colleagues has 12 more wake-ups to go….that is, 12 more working days.  I decided to do the math and I’ve got a few more days than that.   Right now the estimate is 436.  Sigh….that seems so far away.  I like my marbles remaining approach to counting forward to retirement better; that count sits at 28.

 

Summer tends to be a quieter time in the office.  This week I have three of my nine staff away on vacation, while one more is off on a day’s vacation today.  My boss is out of the office as well for three weeks.  Since she is away the volume of e-mail has declined to a trickle even though she has one of my peers managing that part of her workload.  I suspect it is that the individual isn’t certain what needs to be forwarded, so come late July I expect my inbox will be filled.

 

Since my staff’s performance period ends in August, I could and probably should start working on their performance reviews.  Especially for the two who have extended leave planned for this summer.  On the other hand, these won’t go to the review committee before the end of October so there seems to be little point in putting in the effort this early.

 

The other task I could do relates to a trip I’ll be making to our Edmonton office in August.  I truly must learn to keep my big mouth shut.  Recently I made some comments, in writing no less, regarding my concerns about the work being provided to our office by the division that was centralized in Edmonton a couple of years ago.  Well, as a result of those comments and due to my experience in the division when we had a local team, I was selected by my boss’s boss to be one of two individuals to go to Edmonton to assist the division in understanding the differences in the Saskatchewan workload.  But the dates haven’t been set yet because management hasn’t agreed to allow this to happen.  So….I may as well wait on that.

 

I have started creating my notes for a presentation I’ll be making in Ottawa in September.  I only need to fill a ½ hour, including any questions and answers and put together a power point presentation.  Again, no rush, so I’m sitting here writing up a blog post instead.

 

Do you get the sense I’m a bit of a procrastinator?  Yeah, probably…but if I do it all now I’ll have the same problem in the upcoming weeks. 

 

Confession time:  what do I do when I’m bored at work?  Well, I’m bit of legal geek so I have a tendency to read court cases, law society reviews, or labour relations board decisions.  I started doing this when I first started working in government, when we still got the decisions in bound books a couple of times a year.  When I had down time I’d pick up a book and leaf through it looking for interesting or unusual cases.  Now, of course, all of the decisions are available on line so I've even been known to pull them up on my laptop at home and peruse the databases.  It can be more entertaining than housework. :)

 

Some of the information I read is useful to the work I do while the majority of it is simply interesting*.  I have determined though, I’d never, ever, ever want to be a lawyer or a judge.  I have my own sense of right and wrong and there are times when I look at a decision and think what were they thinking?   But I understand they must work within the limits of the law and more importantly they usually work with more information that what we hear in the media accounts.

 

Just prior to starting this post I was reading about write-up of a case where the sons and daughters were arguing that they were entitled to a greater percentage of their father’s estate because they had been subjected to corporal punishment (smacked with a belt) as children than his second wife.  His will stipulated they would share equally in a life insurance policy that would be payable after the death of his second wife, but were not entitled to a share of the property that the wife acquired from her own father’s estate.  The property had been put in joint names after she acquired the property thus they thought they should be entitled to a share of that property.  They didn’t win….but the judge did order the wife to continue to pay the premiums on the policy to ensure it would pay out on her death. 

 

*One of the most interesting cases I’ve read in a while was in the media for some time this spring.  A young boy died due to meningitis and his parents were charged for failing to provide the appropriate care.  That isn’t how the charges were written, but my understanding of it.  This is a case where there was significantly more information available to the court that was not published.  If you’re interested in reading it, the link is available at http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2016/2016abqb353/2016abqb353.html

If you have the luxury of time on your hands at work, how do you fill the time?

How many sleeps?

Goodness, another long lapse between posts.  Things have ticking along here with nothing truly exciting to share.  Though I did take another marble out of my jar at the beginning of the month.  Just 39 more before I lose all my marbles!

I've been trying to get ready for Christmas, I've done some shopping, started my Christmas letter, and the tree is up.  But I'm certain I still have shopping to do ...it's time to sit down and make a list of what I've purchased and what stills needs to be picked up. Maybe tomorrow evening.

I must say, thank goodness for Amazon, not only do they have almost anything and everything one might need, but I can shop from the comfort of my easy chair, AND they deliver to my door.

Although I've started a letter, I've yet to pull out the box of Christmas cards.  Another task I could do from the comfort of my easy chair but I've chosen not to...at least thus far.  Maybe tomorrow.



There has been no Christmas baking accomplished either.  I took out the margarine and butter on Saturday afternoon, and put them back in the fridge on Sunday.  Maybe next weekend.


I've spent last weekend watching curling (you'll already know that if you've read the cats blog...they enjoy that I'm glued to the couch) and doing a bit of knitting.  This is "wine" cozy pattern I saw on-line.  Don't ask me why a wine bottle would need a cozy but I thought it might be a fun way to wrap a bottle of wine for a friend (which I still need to buy....this is bottle of sparkling Saskatoon juice that we'll have with our Christmas dinner).

The same site had a pattern for a little toque and scarf set, also meant for a wine bottle.  Well, I looked at it and had a different idea.

The top of my china cabinet usually holds photos and a couple of knick-knacks including the little cats.  I'd removed those items to put out a few Christmas decorations when I got the bright idea to dress up the cats

The toque fit the smaller one but I would have had to revised the size for the second so I just made the scarf for it.

That's pretty much the extent of my Christmas preparations and I'm realizing there are only 16 more sleeps to the big day.,,,yikes!

So you'll forgive me if I'm not around for the next week or ten days.  I've got to get out of this easy chair (where I collapse every evening) and get something done soon.

Have a great holiday season everyone!