Beauty in the Night

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

I hope you had a wonderful week and have some nice plans for the weekend.  

Even though it's a long weekend here I haven't made any plans to get away. In fact, I'll be trying to make progress on decluttering.  I'm trying to get through this next big push because it will make a huge difference in how things look around here. I can finally put a few clutter bugs to rest.  I also have a few important things that are keeping me closer to home. I may share more about that later depending on other issues and posts I want to make.

Today I want to share some night shots I took on walk back from meeting a friend for a cool refreshment. I wasn't planning on meeting up with him as I had several errands to run. However he said he could stop off at a point near where I was going to be so we decided to get together. I wasn't pressed for time because stores were open late that night.

He's the fellow I mentioned in a post earlier this week who has been going through huge health and housing challenges.  The good news is that though he'd been told to move, the housing management backed off from their demand after he challenged them. He was prepared to take them to court over it an I guess they decided they wouldn't press the matter. At least not yet.  So that is very good news indeed.

On my way back from errands I decided to walk all the way home. I don't like where the new bus stops are located and it was still light outside. So off I went.  On my way home I have to pass by many heritage homes. The people who own them work very hard to keep them up to standard. I noticed that several of them had lights strung up and it made such a pretty sight.

My apologies to anyone who saw this post earlier. A different and incomplete version seems to have been published with an April 2024 date. I have no idea how that happened since I only took the photos a few days ago and the post should have been in draft. Anyway, it's a good thing Jeannie at Marmelade Gypsy saw it and commented otherwise I wouldn't have known what happened! Blogger and the things it gets up to, lol. 

I love technology but some days it makes more work for me. I thought it was supposed to simplify things!

The Past Week

Happy Sunday everyone,

I hope you are all doing well.

I've been busy this week; mostly with reading, running errands and grocery shopping, dealing with financial stuff, dealing with family needs, connecting with friends from far and administration concerning the community garden plot for summer 2023. 

Recently completed; all equally good.

In progress, a quirky but well written book.

Cooking always takes time as most of you know but I limit my cooking to one main meal a day and something lighter to start the day. Due to high food costs I'm trying to shop less and use what I have. In the past, I really did buy far too much and I need to use it up or give it away.

Saturday dinner was roast beef, broccoli and roasted potatoes and onions.

Sunday dinner was Chicken Cordon Bleu but covered in flour rather than bread crumbs. It was good but next time I'll try it with bread crumbs and use toothpicks since most of the cheese melted into the baking pan. Looking at the photos I see the dinners were too carb heavy so I need try and correct that but as I mentioned I'm trying to use up what I have and vegetables and fruits are always first to be used up.

I've got a lot of paperwork and tidying to do. So last night I decided to get started on some cleaning in my office area and get everything set up again but after I started reconnecting everything I discovered the modem wasn't working and that meant no television or internet services.

So today was an unexpected day of dealing with technology issues. I don't deal well with them at the best of times but since I had no communication services or television whatsoever I had no choice.  The only thing working was my landline.  I was fretting a bit because I have a very busy week ahead.  I was also anxious about how much time it was all going to take because the telecommunications company I deal with is notoriously slow to connect you with a live human being. They always want to direct you to online services and it is usually the online services that are giving me an issue. 

Thankfully once I connected to technical support I was able to get everything up and running again. I also asked to speak to someone about a new service plan. I had been trying off and on for a few months to do it myself but their system only let me see a deal that was not suitable for my needs. Again, I was able to get great customer service and get a deal for a much better price. My monthly bill will be $55 per month less ( for the exact same services ($660 savings for the year).  Plus they gave me a theme pack of news channels (3 channels) completely free for one year (savings of $95 Canadian).  Total savings is $756 Canadian in Year 1 and $ 660 in Year 2.  I only wanted one news channel for my DH but the channels come in packages so we now have 3 additional news channels.  I feel very blessed by the outcomes.

Altogether the time it took for getting things working and looking for monthly cost savings took about 2.5 hours of my time. Not too bad because I've sometimes waited that long just to talk to a live human being about an issue.  Overall I find it very frustrating dealing with the company when I need them so today was a nice surprise and a real blessing. The bonus is that I don't need to have a technician come to my home or wait for new equipment to be delivered because both of these scenarios would have resulted in loss of services for as long as it took to get help.

In related technology matters I'd been having problems in trying to access a Kenyan missionary's blog for some months. Try as we might we could not seem to find a way to give me access to read and comment on her blog.  Today we gave it one more try and thankfully it worked! That is another blessing because I love reading about her family's work and ministry in Kenya.  I've been reading about their work in Kenya for about 10 years.

My good day was topped off by my being able to connect my wireless printer and get it working.  I had been postponing the job due to internet and wi-fi issues which started a few weeks ago and culminated in lack of internet service last night.  Today was the right time and everything is now in working order. Whew!

I do have a few more outstanding technology issues.  My brother had installed extra drives in my old computer and instead of wiping them clean he will remove them and save them for me in a special case. I also backed everything up on a new external hard drive I bought late last year.  Fortunately I culled a lot of my old documents and photos before backing them up. A second issue is figuring out how to wipe the old printer clean. I didn't realize that I needed to do that otherwise I would have done so before disconnecting the old computer. Actually I hadn't even given the printer any thought as I was most concerned about the computer because the former one had been on it's 'last legs' for so long. Anyway it will all get done.  These things tend to take me time especially when I've got many projects on the go.   Everything moves at a snail's pace because my brain can only deal with one big thing at a time.  But there is a saying 'Strive for progress, not perfection' so I try to remember that.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm expecting delivery of an artificial tree for a spot in my living room. I hope it isn't too big. I did read the dimensions of the tree but it's a little hard to know how it looks and 'fits' until I put it in place. It will prevent me from wasting funds every year in buying a tropical plant that doesn't do well in my draughty home if it fits into the space I have for it. I have several appointments this week but I'm most looking forward to a visit from two cousins of mine, both of whom live out of town.

I hope you have some great plans for your week! Thank you for stopping by.

Trying to Get Ahead of Things

In my bid to be more organized before the new year advances too far, I did what I could in the last week of December to prepare for the month of January.

I had my hair done. I haven't been to the salon in 9 months! It felt good because my hair really needed a good trim after 9 months.

I had my nails cut down and new gel polish applied to get me through at least one week of the new year. 

In an effort to declutter and get rid of extraneous things, I spent some time knitting up many scraps of yarn that are too small for anything much. I made these cloths for washing dishes or for general cleaning.

I was finally able to get to the dentist for a consultation, x-rays and top and bottom cleaning (It's not me in the phone, lol.  The good news is I have no cavities. The bad news is I will need a crown redone and I have another appointment in a week or so to get it done.  It's been years since I last went to the dentist and I really needed the teeth to be cleaned to help my gums stay healthy.

I completed quarterly lab tests and will see the doctor tomorrow. I also did an ultrasound a few weeks ago and I expect the doctor will report on the results.

I packed away all the Christmas decorations and the Christmas tree. Everything is now in storage.

I purchased an inexpensive printer.  I'm waiting for it to be delivered before I pick it up and set it up since it wasn't in stock at the retail outlet. I only really use the scanner and on the odd occasion I need to print something I go to the post office near by.  This approach has been working out for me for many year.  

I also did some research on which smartphone to get and getting closer to actually ordering one.  I'll probably bite the bullet and purchase an iPhone primarily because it will be much easier to sync with anything I'm doing on the Mac.

I apologize to all my readers, particularly those of you who are accustomed to getting blog comments from me. I have actually been reading many of your blogs but have been having a lot of difficulty leaving comments.  I thought I resolved the issue but there seems to be several different issues going on and so far I've managed a partial solution and I'm now able to leave comments on a few blogs.  There are many other blogs where I cannot and I'm at a loss as to how to fix the problem. Please pray about this as it's very frustrating. If any of you use a Mac computer and also have issues leaving blogger comments, I'd like to hear from you and what if anything you did to resolve it.

Last but not least I had a few phone calls with friends and relatives. A cousin will hopefully visit her sister in early February and stop by for a night to see me. If the weather cooperates we hope to go to dinner and walk along the waterfront to celebrate her birthday.

After Christmas I felt quite tired and I also felt quite sick for about 2 days so I'm trying not to work too hard.  I just do enough each day to see some progress and make sure things don't pile up too much.  It seems I do best when I enter each new year slowly and gently.

I hope your year is going well.

💗💗💗