Annie’s back in town…
Am frustrated with my lack of organization for the moment! There is a much more recent photo of my daughters on this computer SOMEWHERE! This one is more than 2 years old.
At any rate, I visited with my beloved children while in Calgary and that alone made a trip worthwhile. I think my stepmom enjoyed my company, and I hers. Other than her cigarette smoking, my visits with M. were hardly annoying at all this time.
During the week I shopped for flooring for our house (here in the Robson Valley). I chose prefinished hardwood flooring that is “Honey Ash” and resembles oak. I’m excited about having that installed, and I think we’ll hire the same carpenter who did our kitchen cupboards. I’m so grateful that Gary doesn’t mind hiring people for some tasks; waiting to do things oneself can take… decades. Really, in the end, it is not so costly, because projects are done right and we can be doing our own (hopefully paying) work concurrently.
So, I was “on a roll”, so to speak. Ceramic floor tile, made in Italy, was also on sale as inexpensive as any linoleum or vinyl tile. So I bought flooring for the kitchen also, and since I rounded UP my estimates, it might be enough for the bathroom, although I might have liked a different colour for that. We’ll see. One of my good friends bought several different ceramic tiles (from a Bargain Finder in a nearby city) and made her own pattern. She could have done that even from a selection of the tiles that were on sale where I shopped, but she is an artist, and I didn’t have that confidence. I was satisfied with my “score” of the sale-priced tiles that I found, and they look nice with the hardwood.
That is the kind of shopping that I enjoy. I didn’t feel like trying on clothes in the malls, and I already feel overwhelmed by the nicknacks and clutter of life, no matter what the value (sentimental or otherwise) attached to each piece. So I didn’t shop for home decor items or gadgets except that I treated myself to a new “crock pot” which hopefully will work better than the two that I have.
I purchased a router so that our iMac computer and the Dell laptop can be online at the same time, and so that I can use the laptop elsewhere in the house. I have my dear brother-in-law in Winnipeg to thank for walking me through the steps; the “idiot proof” instructions were on a CD that wasn’t Mac compatible, even though the router IS. Due to a small step that we missed, the whole set-up didn’t work for HOURS and I ended up so agitated that my heart was pounding and I was sweating. We left it for awhile and came back to it; the system works to a POINT, but for some reason the Internet connection is broken from time to time. That is inconvenient and sometimes results in lost data, but perhaps we can troubleshoot this too, in time.
Oh! the phone has been ringing and ringing since I got home! I’m so glad that it was a relatively quiet week for Gary, even though he “minds the fort” without complaint, and can handle anything in the pet boarding business that I can. Some of the phonecalls I’ve received today are for dog and cat grooming, so I’m glad to do some catching up there, too.
I just phoned a friend for her birthday and I believe she was glad to hear from me. We were close while our children were growing up (and our kids were pals too), but there was a rift or a chasm that resulted from me leaving the community in 1992. I don’t really “hang out” with anyone but Gary, but I value friendship, and the chat today with my old friend was nice.
I’m going to publish this post and do some errands, and also try to start some “spring house cleaning”. I plan to be ruthless about clutter: I’ll get back to you on that! As Gary says, “It’s LIBERATING to get rid of things you never use!”.
I appreciate that you read my weblog.
~Ann
