Friday Foolishness

This really is so funny, and so true. If anyone reading owns a cat, you surely have had mornings or middle of the nights like this.

Its the weekend.... I can't believe it. First off, the week flew by so fast and secondly it was the longest week of the year. Can that really be!!!! I did some new accounting training this week via telephone in the middle of my Grand Central Station office. What a nightmare, but its over, and I learned lots. I had a visit from one of the upper management to see how my records are kept etc, and that went well. I am "A" personality at work (not at home) so I wasn't too worried about that visit. She did bring me a chocolate ghost as a treat, for helping two of our other school secretaries who need constant contact to get them through little things. Its so hard for them to reach the Upper Management, so I offered to be their life line... Helps me learn too when I am walking them through things. Today, I spent 6 hours in EXCEL training which I already have extensive training in. But it was the lesser of several evils as far as PD training choices go for Secretaries. Today was Provincial Conference Day which means that every employee of the School System in this province is at some sort of Personal Development through out the province. Anyway, back to Excel.... I learned tons of little shortcuts today that I probably never paid attention to in any other course, because there were so many things I needed to learn. So today I learned Excel Validation, Worksheet formula combining and a few cool quick items. I can't wait to get to work on Monday to play around!!

Yesterday, at school was WEAR PINK FOR PEACE day. And I have the best picture of our whole school in action.... it was fun and heartwarming at the same time! The whole theme of Pink day came from our neighbouring high school "Central Kings". During the first week of school, one of the male students who was knew to the school (grade 9) happen to wear a pink tee shirt to school. During the day, some of the other kids made fun of him and even did some bullying. A few of the grade 12 students didn't like this, and wanted to show their support for the grade 9 boy who happened to like wearing pink. These older boys started a movement throughout the whole school and with in three days they had enough support that they proclaimed that Friday (Sept 7th) Pink Day and almost the entire school wore Pink tee shirts or at the very least pink armbands. How proud are we of Central Kings students to send a message to the world.... we say NO to bullying and YES to peace. Oct 25 was our Peace Day at Kingston School!!!

My Fall Garden

May 2007

Planting

August 2007

Harvesting

October 2007

Garden gone

A little sad to see it go...

but I was getting a bit sick of it too, if the truth be told.

Time for a prayer.... for a friend & his son.

Meet Isaac, who is 11 years old.

His dad is Rob and Rob worked at my school for the past 4 years. Just this school year, he made the decision to move to another school to be closer to his kids. Change is hard, but being closer to home and in the same school as his two oldest kids was a pretty good call. Rob is well loved by our staff and greatly missed.

Early last week, Isaac was diagnosed with Leukemia and is currently at the IWK, starting some pretty aggressive treatments. I am so glad you made that choice to move to KCA. Once Isaac is back to school, you are only a walk away!!! My thoughts are with you every day Rob, and Isaac!

Fabo Fall day

The Jelly is made. Thanks to Debbie's recipe which I called her at least 3 times over the past week to discuss, and then didn't have it on Saturday and thank heavens, I went with my memory (which I don't usually trust). On Thursday I turned the grapes from my neighbour into juice and then on Saturday turned all of the juice to Jelly. I made two patches but one set better than the other. Weird... I used everything exactly the same and it was 30 minutes between batches!!! Oh well. Grapes... Concord..basically growing wild and organic.... very tart!!

Mashed and boiling for 10 minutes

In the cheese cloth (couldn't find the jelly bags, Debbie, so the cheese cloth was fine)

The Jelly

(well, not all of it, I have already brought two jars to Howard... the owner of the vines)


The Leaves.... they are amazing to look at, I can't tell you how much I love all the colors.

BUT.... Terry has a whole different view of them.
Even the cats seem a bit disgusted with the constant leave litter in the yard.This is after the first raking, this morning (while I was at church). Dad took great pleasure in announcing to Terry, every time a new leaf fell on his freshly raked lawn. Dad and Terry have different theories on when to rake (you know, after the last leave has fallen, or several times during the falling season, to lighten the load).

Well, that's my Sunday Blog. I am trying to blog daily, to keep up with Stephanie. So tomorrow, I will have some garden pictures.... yes, the last ones of the season.... I will give you a hint, I whole lot of **nothing** goin' on in garden.

I LOVE SATURDAYS

I think I have said that before..... but it is really true. For me, Saturdays are a gift. I usually leave my Saturdays for things I need to do. Its a morning I can sleep in, although, I don't sleep in much, but it is so nice to NOT have to get up at 6am. I can wake up at 6:30, toss and turn, think about what I should and need to do, dose off, wake up and its 7:30.

I made a list of a ton of things to do today, and I bet I will get about half done! But that's ok too. I woke up this morning and decided to clean up stuff. I mean, deep (under and behind) cleaning. My ugly laundry room had a flood yesterday due to a dry sheet getting stuck where it doesn't belong (& a blind father doing his own laundry, bless his heart). Terry mopped up what he could at noon hour yesterday but this morning I migrated down the stairs with all the laundry (remember...deep cleaning), sheets, towels, shower curtains, dish cloths, bath mats, jackets hanging on door knobs (mostly mine) etc.

My laundry room is now piled with laundry, but all the brooms, mops, dustpans, empty laundry bottles, old mops heads, plastic containers etc are all where they are suppose to be. The "temporary" junk that ends up on the floor in front of the shelving, is now shelved. The kitty litters are emptied, cleaned out and replenished (remember the flood... ok, everything was soaked including the kitty litter pans) The floors are javexed and hand dried and the freezer is piled with all my sorted dirty laundry, all lined up for its particular turn. Now that was a good job done!

This afternoon, Grape Jelly (2 batches). My neighbour Howard has grapes growing through his trees in the back yard and brought me over a grocery bag full of concords. So, on Thursday night while chatting on the phone with Debbie, I boiled them down into juice, and today..... Grape Jelly!!!

Also, this afternoon, Cabbage Rolls. Well, the new healthier version of them. Actually, I think my Cabbage Rolls are very healthy to start with, but now we need to watch the sodium content besides the usual sugar & fat. Ugh. Well, canned tomato anything is amazingly high in sodium so we are now looking at the "no salt added" stuff. Should be kind of interesting and we will see how they turn out. Usually when I make cabbage rolls, its a good time to make a nice chicken & cabbage soup that i like to take to school for lunches, so that is on the list and I use the centers of the cabbage (cause the leaves are too small to make MAN size cabbage rolls out of).

I love this picture.....

I took it with Joan's swanky camera during our Thanksgiving Golf Walk and Talk, and I had to lean over a river bank over hang, and I tried to get the river. But the fancy camera had some sort of auto focus thing happenin' and this is what I ended up with. Pretty cool, I think. This was the same day, same camera. So simple

What an amazing fall day

Warm, sunny... the leaves are breathtaking!. Dad and I drove to Kentville yesterday for Dad's bi-annual eye appt with Dr. Scott. I think the day was THE most perfect day for a drive through the Annapolis Valley. I have never seen the leaves so vibrant and full. BUT alas, the rains are coming and the leaves will be down soon. I will cherish yesterday's drive in my mind.

Sonny is much better, and wobbles just slightly as he walks. He has graduated to being let outside again, but he doesn't wander far. I am glad of that, I wouldn't want the neighbours to talk....drunk cat walking down the road, and everyone knows where he lives.

Idiopathic Vestibular Disease

Or..... Sonny... Life # 7
On Saturday, all of a sudden, Sonny couldn't walk a straight line. He wobbled all over the place, and if he turned his head while walking, he would completely fall over, and then in a split second, he would right himself. Remember Sonny, the 18 year old, deaf cat, who likes to sleep in weird places. Under the car, in the fruit bowl on my buffet, in the bathroom sink...... Well, he got dramatically worse on Sunday, and every few minutes he would slam down onto the floor and flip back up, then walk a foot, and then falter backwards. My heart broke all weekend, and I slept terribly. He's 18, and has had a wonderful life. His vet appt was set for Monday and I contacted both kids to let them know, that finally, Sonny was going to surpass his lives!!!
Terry volunteered to take him to the vet..... I carried him all around the house this morning, and gave him a final hug and kiss and off I went to work.

I waited for the call, which I expected around 11:15. and it came. Terry said "I am bringing him home". I asked (kind of confused) "Alive?" Terry said yup!!! Apparently this ailment is very common in older cats and he will be fine in about 7 days!!! What a hoot. The doc said he is strong, and bright and will be just fine. When Jill dropped by for a visit, she knew exactly what I was talking about because her dog Chico had it, and was fine after 7 days.

I cannot tell you how happy I was to give him a hug when I got home from work. Even though I was ready to let him go, I am so glad he is sticking around for a bit longer!