2-week summary

Now that my work load has significantly decreased I sometimes wonder what kept me busy all day or week.  So why not summarize events and occurances in the form of a list to help my "aging" brain.  I mean, really, who doesn't like lists?!!

Things I managed to get done:

• finished planting the vegetable garden.  Then, after the resident squirrel feasted on my freshly planted seeds, I re-planted portions of the garden.
• stapled fine nylon mesh over garden boxes to discourage resident squirrel.
• cleaned out and turned over the perrenial garden beds
• put solar lights on the back fence
• moved my mint patch to large container to ... um ... contain it!
• took care of our friends' puppy Veda for 5 days. 
• retrieved shoes from various locations daily for 5 days because Veda likes to take shoes and hide them
• worked on reunion stuff  (Not everyone sent a variety of pictures to  me.  You know who you are!)
• cell phone had major hiccups so cell provider said I would get a replacement phone.  The warranty department said they would be sending a previous version of my Blackberry Bold.  I had a 9700 and they wanted to send me a 9000.  Called cell provider again and politely told them I pay $5 a month for the extended warranty and that was for a 9700!  Cell provider called warranty department and said "upgrade her" to a 9780, free of charge.  Cranky Karen became Happy Karen
• got new cell phone and spent a morning getting it set-up and removing all personal info from previous phone.  Mailed previous phone back.
• picked up my Blackberry Playbook (compliments of a dividends cheque and $200 coupon from Staples on my business account.)  Spent an ENTIRE day getting it to sync with my Blackberry and computer.  Yes ... I made it more difficult than it actually was.
• went to Sears to pick up a few things and was asked by the checkout clerk if I qualified for the senior's discount.  What?!  Well, in her defense she didn't even look old enough to actually have a job ( so I probably looked ancient to her) and it was Seniors Tuesday and at Sears the Senior's Discount starts at age 55.  But still .... 
• Did some office work so I could still claim to be employed and keep the client happy. 
• Spent a whole day carting laundry in and out to the clothes line.  It was so warm and breezy, each load was ready to take down by the time the next was ready to go up.
• Discovered how much I like eBooks.  The Blackberry Playbook has Kobo (Canadian version of Kindle) on it complete with a selection of free books.  I can now say that I have actually read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  I have to decide if I will read Sun Tzu's The Art of War.  There are 2 other free books of the Noris Roberts type that I'll leave for emergency escapist reading someday.
• Spring-cleaned my kitchen
• Tried a new biscotti recipe (Anise Biscotti). LOVE it.
• The usual cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, etc that fills each of our days

Entertaining things I did:

• Watched lots of hockey while wearing an oversized jersey of Harry's to help the Canucks win
• Watched the Social Network  (I liked it; H said "nhh")
• Played Wii sports with Anthony who is a killer bowler (his scores were 150, 168 and 182 -- he's only 4!). 
• Reached a score of 396 in a Scrabble game  -- just can't seem to break the 400 mark. 
• Spent an afternoon at the Salon getting cut, coloured and facialed  (I just made facial into a verb -- oops)
• Gave myself a pedicure

Okay, so I guess I did do stuff and accomplish things.  Good to know.

Judgement Week

Interesting fact:  judges are given 2 weeks in the year to write judgements.  Harry just had his first Judgement Week.



Addendum:  May 16th -- Garden boxes are all planted!  GROW!

it's for the birds ...

I have Great-grandma Kole genes.  And those genes manifest themselves in me through2 "passions?" ... washing windows and birds in my yard.

I started my corner bird garden last year.  Nothing too exciting or artistic.  It looked like this:

With the help of my neighbour (who is an amazing landscaping artist) we transformed it into a little corner haven for our feathered friends.  First, we removed the plant to the left of the bird feeder.  It was delphinium which is poisenous for children.  We added a new bird bath bowl that I made, some more stumps, some rock, and a few new plants.

Last year mom and I planted a clematis against the trellis, but it did not survive the winter.  I will be planting some hops against the trellis in a few weeks to vine up and form a green 'wall'.  Hops are native to Alberta so they should grow nicely.  Here is the corner bird garden now:

Spring

Despite all these late snow days, I am going to declare spring is here.  I am basing this on the fact that we had a beautiful gentle spring rain yesterday morning followed by a late afternoon hail dump.  That's normal for spring in Calgary!


First hail of 2011 ...

 

A little larger than pea-size and it didn't last long.  Fargo was outside when it started. He DID NOT like the way it felt!  

This past weekend our Doggy Daycare held an adoptathon along with a "fashion" show.  Fargo's costume was a tribute to his master!!  (Or was it a mockery?!!)

Who knows what ideas lurk in the mind of a dog!  Ha ha ....