The Last Day of October

Hi friends,

The last few days have been wet and cold and I've been feeling tired and under the weather. This means I didn't do a done a whole lot on Friday except try to organize my calendar and catch up on the housework.

Like everyone else  I've got a lot to do between now and Christmas. Besides the usual Christmas preparations which I started a few weeks ago, I've got many appointments, errands, medical tests, book reading and social engagements.

After my last book review post here I started reading Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. You can read a summary of the book here if interested.

When I am feeling tired and sickly I don't get out as much as I'd like.  However I did get out to the produce store, the post office & the library on the last Saturday of the month of October which was also Hallowe'en.  (If you missed my Hallowe'en post you can find it here if interested).  When I was out I decided to go to a Thai restaurant rather than make dinner tonight.  I had my chicken cashew nut but didn't get a photo of the dish.  I noticed that the dish has changed since I had it last. Instead of a generous helping of red peppers, there was only one piece of red pepper and some green peppers in place of the red. Green peppers cost a lot less than red ones around these parts.

While I was eating, a lot of customers came and left with take out orders.  Each time I've been to the restaurant it has been busy with take out orders.  But today it seemed much busier than usual. I guess that is a good thing and I hope it means the business is not in imminent trouble.  Not so long ago, a long-time Vietnamese restaurant in my neighbourhood closed. Before they did, I'd noticed that they were skimping on ingredients to their dishes and I wondered why.  A few months later, the restaurant was closed even though they had a lot of regular customers and had been around for many years.  I think the business taxes and rental costs here for businesses are just too high. In fact, I heard one popular restauranteur on radio saying he would close his restaurants at the end of this year. Not for lack of customers but because the business taxes were just too high to make the business profitable.

I started reading Crushing Debt by David Trahair, Chartered Accountant. I'm still in early stages of the book and I've enjoyed it so far.  But I'm not sure I will finish reading it.  I didn't realize when I picked up the book that it deals with the subject of what to do when you are faced with debt levels so high that you cannot meet your obligations (e.g. bankruptcy).  I am not needing this kind of help at this moment, thankfully.  If you are interested in the subject and need help, have a look here for a good review and summary of the book.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I thought the book was about.  When I was selecting books off the shelf at the library last week, I just picked up several financial books of the shelf that had intriguing titles. I didn't even read the book covers like I normally do.  I do like to read about finance, debt, budgeting, retirement, wills, estates, etc. Even if I do not need all the information or it isn't immediately relevant, it does add to my knowledge base and over time I retain more and more of what is useful to me.Debt is certainly a topic that is always being discussed in articles and on television interviews and we are always being warned about debt by the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Well our previous Governor, Mark Carney who is now the Governor of the Bank of England.

This article written in Spring of 2015, says that the  38 % of Canadian debt holders now earn over $100,000 annually.  This is roughly equal to the percentage of people in debt who earn less than $50,000 annually. The article goes on to say that the vast majority of Canadian debt is basically a result of trying have the basics of middle class life like education, cars and homes,  rather than trying to achieve the high life.  When you consider that the starter home in Vancouver these days is over a million dollars on average, & many Canadian cities have similar real estate costs, you can easily see what the article is driving at. In this context, it behooves all Canadians to really buckle down and manage their finances well.  It is a constant task.

As I write this post on Saturday night  I can still hear the firecrackers going off.  Every now and then I hear a loud burst.  Sometimes I hear the rain pelting down but it has stopped for now.  The weather forecast for Sunday is for significant rain and I am prepared to stay indoors and try and rest.  I picked up several movies from the library while I was out. I probably won't see them all but I will make a start.  The movies I've picked up include:  War Horse (Jeremy Irvine) , Paris When it Sizzles (Audrey Hepburn & William Holden), The Trip to Italy (Steve Coogan & Rob Brydon), The Hundred Food Journey (Helen Mirren) & Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Gary Oldman). Four of these are movies I missed when they were in theater so I'm very happy to get them now. The last one, Paris When it Sizzles is an old movie that I've yet to see.

While I was out, I also managed to get a few more Fall/Autumn photos. Earlier today (Saturday) it was raining heavily but the sun came out and some blue sky shared it's beauty with us.
 

To the east and south the sky was blue and bright.

To the north and west the sky was dark and cloudy.

The building with a steeple was a church & now contains condominiums.

AUTUMN

by Emily Dickinson (1896)

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

In the last photo of Fall colours, you can see that the leaves are almost gone from some of the trees.

Heavy rains this weekend will finish off a lot of the leaves and ensure the trees are bare next week.

This is the time of year that I really do not enjoy.

I try not to complain though.  If the sun comes out at least once a week I can manage to make it through the Winter just fine.

In another hour it will be time for us in the Northern Hemisphere to turn our clocks back one hour until the Spring returns.

For many it will be a nice time to get an extra hour of rest this weekend.

This is a mosaic of shop decorated for Hallowe'en yesterday.

I am still writing the post, lol.
Much later after fireworks stopped, I decided to watch one of the movies, The Hundred Foot Journey on  my desktop. But I very seldom watch DVD on my desktop and whenever I've tried, I've had nothing but issues.
So I decided to finally upgrade to Windows 10. After everything was downloaded and upgraded, I spent an hour to  discover a way to watch DVDs.  I learned you need to purchase a $15. program from Microsoft.  Spending that money defeats the purpose of getting free movies from the library. So I found a free program to download and finally got to start watching my movie.
I really should get to sleep and watch the  movie later.

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I'm liking up with Our World Tuesday

Thank you for visiting and have a great week!