Category Archives: Uncategorized

camera shy…

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

ia couple of days ago someone asked if I had taken a picture of the beautiful sky…

I said that I hadn’t but didn’t mention that my camera is in the shop… I have really been missing it… the shutter hadn’t been opening properly for a few weeks and I was having to touch it to get it to open all the way… a couple of days ago it just quit opening…

I talked to someone at the store where I had purchased it and they gave me the name of a repair shop in the city to take it to… they also suggested it might be cheaper to just buy a new camera… I said I didn’t want a new camera because I really like this one…

at the shop, the woman who helped me, said they all say that, lol… they send a quote by email and you can accept or reject it… if you accept it, they go about fixing your camera… not sure what happens when you reject the quote, maybe you get your camera back in bits and pieces… anyway, they are working at fixing it and the price wasn’t at all bad… but I am missing it…

today, as I was leaving home, I got a picture with my phone of the sunflower… I think it now has all the seeds filled in, but don’t know how long it takes to be ready, or maybe it is ready now that it is all filled in…

sunflower this morning...

sunflower this morning…

I ran out to pick up some lunch and going down the lane I spotted a butterfly landing under a car and got a shot of it, not a very good one though… I’m sure the people walking along thought I was a bit nuts…

butterfly downtown...

butterfly downtown…

I am gong to be very happy when I get that camera back…

currency…

24 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

had a few conversations about money recently…

brought back some memories of when George died and I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep the house or have a life…

George did a good job of ensuring there was sufficient money available for me… there was life insurance money and RSP money and pension money… all of which enabled me to continue my life without any great difficulty… truly I have been blessed…

like others, I am more likely to spend some of it now, as opposed to waiting till I retire, because who knows whether I will be healthy in five or ten years, or even alive…

in January I took all of the kids to Mexico, thanks to some of the life insurance money that I received… I was able to take the Alaskan cruise with some of those funds as well…

now I have slowed the spending pace down a bit, but am thinking about what trip I will take next…

I think about all I learned after he died and I had to deal with insurance companies, credit card companies and government agencies… sadly, if you make any mistakes in the process it can take a very long time to get things sorted out…

but money isn’t everything, as I have seen with a few friends who have lots of it… it doesn’t really bring happiness or health, although it does provide some peace of mind…

there is also the currency of friendship, and health and caring for others…

remember...

remember…

growing pains…

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

came home sick this afternoon… my tummy is not happy… had a sleep and a tiny bit of supper which didn’t help at all…

spent some time with my BS friends which is always lovely… we talked about life and love and family… we were all here, with one on Skype… we are getting used to this way of meeting which does remind us of the few years that one of us lived in Minneapolis and we met by speaker phone…

dripping on the left side...

dripping on the left side…

realized this morning that the pond is still leaking… sent off an email with a couple of pictures and hope that it will be fixed before it needs to be emptied for the winter… I have now paid for the whole thing, so am a bit worried whether they will actually do something or not…

view of the low water level...

view of the low water level…

thinking of how I have grown over the last 18 months…

 

yard work…

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

spent some time in the garden today…

weather was very nice… it was warm, but there was a lovely breeze which kept it cool…

cleaned out the planters around the deck and watered the remaining baskets…

then emptied and refilled the hot tub…

I think the Snow Birds flew out of the city, because there were three batches of jets that left in twos and threes, making a lot of racket… by the time I had my camera out the third batch were leaving and they weren’t visible… they were the red and white of the Snow Birds but I hadn’t heard that any events were on in the area…

while I was making my dinner, a great gaggle of geese flew over and again I didn’t have time to get the camera and take a picture…

i have been hearing the geese daily for the last while as they head out to the fields for their last feeds before heading south…

here’s a picture of the geese that I took last year about this time…

geese in the Park, September 2012...

geese in the Park, September 2012…

just realized that last year at this time I was on my last few days of sick leave, following my surgery, before getting back to work…

I spent the majority of the summer in the back yard recuperating… what a difference a year makes…

changing colours…

21 Saturday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

what a lovely day…

spent some time at the front window this morning watching all the critters outside…

purple finches and sparrows...

purple finches and sparrows…

there were flickers, robins, sparrows, chickadees, purple finches, nuthatches and this very cute bird that at first I thought was a goldfinch, but I don’t think it was… one of the neighbourhood squirrels was out as well…

cute bird on the feeder, not sure what it is...

cute bird on the feeder, not sure what it is…

took a walk around the creek and got a few shots of the leaves which are beginning to change en masse… on Thursday as I was driving to work I noticed a small tree at the end of the street and thought I should get a picture of it…

tree at the end of the street which was my first glimpse of the leaves changing colours...

tree at the end of the street which was my first glimpse of the leaves changing colours…

forgot on Friday, so decided to get a few pictures today… in the process realized more than one little tree was putting on its fall coat…

virginia creeper filled with berries and gone from green to red...

virginia creeper filled with berries and gone from green to red…

wasn’t out for too long as my battery was low and as I got home my camera lens cover stopped opening… will have to take it in on Monday… sure hope they can fix it as I do love that particular camera…

 

glory in the morning…

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

got a few pics on my way to the garage this morning… the morning glories are really enjoying this cooler weather and I am enjoying them… they really are one of my favourites…

there were a number of blooms when I left…

love the two-tone quality of this one...

love the two-tone quality of this one…

even four or five when I got home, which is unusual, as they are normally done by about noon… today was quite overcast and cool so that must have encouraged them to bloom longer…

couldn't decide if the lighter coloured one was opening or closing...

couldn’t decide if the lighter coloured one was opening or closing…

the weather people are forecasting frost tonight… I hope they are wrong… but it does encourage me to get out into the garden and do some cleaning up…

being sure to take a moment whenever I go by them to enjoy their beauty as soon they won’t be blooming :-)…

mirrors…

19 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

this morning it was overcast but I stepped outside to take a few pictures…

I was particularly wanting a couple of shots of the sunflower, which is about the same height as me… looking out the window daily I can see the seed area filling in…

closeup of sunflower in the front flower bed...

closeup of sunflower in the front flower bed…

also took a couple of pictures in the back yard… for a few days now I’ve been noticing that the mirrors, which were up for the Champagne Bubble Party, and which have been slowly falling off the various surfaces, have been moved around…

when they have fallen off, I have picked them up and put them along the top of the deck… they seemed to sit there for quite a while, but lately they have moved… I don’t think it is the wind because that would have blown them all into one area… there are some on the decks – all three levels, and some in the grass, but very few left on the ledge…

mirrors scattered about the garden...

mirrors scattered about the garden…

am starting to think that maybe my squirrel friends are playing with them, although I haven’t caught any in action…

what do you think…

technology…

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

been a wonderful few days around the office… recently we upgraded our computers and software and were fortunate to have a trainer in to spend some one-on-one time with each staff person…

one-on-one time with the trainer...

one-on-one time with the trainer…

many thought they wouldn’t need all of the time allotted to them, but in the end everyone used every moment they had…

it was great fun listening as she moved from office to office… I would hear aha moments and little sighs of pleasure as each person learned better, easier, quicker ways to get their work done…

what I have learned about technology is that it is quite wonderful when we are able to use it at peak performance… if we are having trouble making things work then it doesn’t feel so helpful…

spending the time with the trainer has increased everyone’s productivity… I learned a few very useful tips and tricks and am looking forward to more improvements as we learn from one another…

red and white…

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

yesterday my daughter was telling me she discovered that when air plants are getting ready to bloom they turn red… she had learned this when she purchased a number of air plants for her apartment…

this morning I looked at my three air plants and discovered that one of them has indeed turned quite red… I took a picture and made sure to spritz it as you are supposed to water them a bit more as they go through this process…

air plant turning red...

air plant turning red…

i am quite excited to see what happens…

I have just spent half an hour outside on the deck trying to get a good shot of the moon… had the tripod and both cameras going in an effort to get a picture… don’t understand why I can’t get what I see with my eyes into a picture…

moon a few days from full...

moon a few days from full…

but I did persevere and tried every option on both cameras… got a couple of fairly good shots, but have no idea what setting they were on… in the end the best pictures were from the Olympus although when I was taking them they didn’t look good at all, lol…

think the change of seasons and less light are getting me down a bit… I am feeling tired and a bit out of sorts, but am looking forward to more lovely evenings in the hot tub… this is a wonderful time of year where you are lovely and warm in the tub and the air is just a bit crisp… and the stars have been quite amazing lately…

great customer service…

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

in July we bought a new printer… took a while to set it up, and then a while to realize that it really didn’t work well with envelopes… we hummed and hawed for a while and finally I called BestBuy where we had purchased it and asked if they might take it back as we weren’t happy with it…

after a bit of a wait, the young woman I spoke with advised us to bring it in and they would see what they could do…

we took it in the next morning and spoke with a lovely woman – Jasmine – who advised that this particular model wouldn’t be taken back by the manufacturer, and usually they couldn’t do anything in that circumstance, but she would give us the trade in value if we found something else to purchase…

we went over to the printers and checked them out and eventually found one that we thought would do the trick… amazingly it was the same price as the first one as it was on a great discounted sale…

Jasmine made the exchange, and we were on our way…

new printer...

new printer still in the box…

was talking later with our usual office supplier from Supreme Basics and she advised that if we liked that printer we should go back to get the second one we were considering as it was an amazing price which she couldn’t match…

when I called, BestBuy didn’t have them in any of their stores here or on their website… went online at Future Shop and discovered this lovely service where you choose what you want and they set it aside so you can go and pick it up without having to go in and search for it… the young man who took my money happily brought the printer to the car and put it in for me…

great customer service is a rare find… kudos to all of these folk…