Thursday 27 November 2008

I'm like a worker bee. I want to be the Queen!

Busy, busy, busy, busy! This has been my life for the past couple of weeks and the last 7 days in particular. My only down time isn't even my own. It is while I am in class every morning. I get a chance to read through the prep but I have to be alert and ready at any given moment to jump up and interpret so I can't ever really just settle in while I'm here.

When I am not at work, I am driving to my next job or to the hospital to visit my grandma. Then I have to go to the bank, the grocery store, the dentist, the chiropractor. I have had some fun times in the past week too, Hairspray last Friday and dancing on Saturday and a matinee on Sunday. The problem there is that I stretched myself too thin. I didn't give myself any me time and so by Tuesday, I felt completely burnt out.

I hate turning down fun plans. I like to go out and be social but I have realized how badly I need to have alone time to recharge and refuel. I turned down plans for last night to just stay in and be alone. But I was at work until 6:30 and then had to drive home and stop to get groceries. When all was all said and done, it was 7:30 before I walked in the door. Not really what I mean by me time.

Just a day. I want just a day. A day to be a Queen Bee! A day with nothing planned. A day with nowhere to be. A day with nothing to do. A day where I don't have to drive anywhere. A day where I can sleep in, stay in my pjs for too long, have soup and crackers for lunch, watch a movie from the couch, cuddle with Cooper, go for a walk, have a delicious latte or tea, and feel completely recharged!

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Grandma update

I am learning that getting better when you are almost 91 doesn't mean the same thing as it does for younger people. Grandma is in and out and I am not sure what it going to happen. I spent just over 3 hours with her at the hospital yesterday and mostly we just sat together.

She is on the transfer list to be moved out of the acute cardiac care unit since her heart is no longer a problem. She will be moving to another medical unit and hopefully she will get the right kind of care.

Monday 24 November 2008

Grandma is getting better

Well, good news! My grandma is getting better. It was a tough weekend and on Saturday it was downright scary. But Sunday she turned a corner and things are looking up. They aren't just looking up they are up.

Thank you for your kind emails and messages. It was nice having people reach out to us in tough times.

Thursday 20 November 2008

Grandma

I found out a couple of hours ago that my grandma is in the hospital. She had a heart attack and is undergoing an angioplasty this evening. I am near the hospital for work and so will hopefully get to see her either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Please send out good and healing thoughts to my grandma!

Chilly hands and wireless woes!

I am sitting in a tiny little room at College and my right hand is so cold that it has a pink tinge to it. My left hand is only a little warmer and this is due to the fact that I don't need it to operate a mouse so I can keep it tucked under my leg or in my armpit for warmth.

I am here interpreting an exam for a student. I had big plans for these 4 hours. I recently bought myself a laptop and was going to spend some time getting familiar with it. Turns out that I need a password to login to the wireless network here and so until I have one of those, I am out of luck for using my laptop while on campus. Good thing I still have access to the school computers.

As for why this room is soooo cold, I have no idea. Maybe they figure students focus better in the cold. Heat does make you sleepy after all. But my poor little right hand. Oy!

After this exam, I am heading to another college to interpret another exam. Two and a half more hours of sitting. Hopefully I can log on to the wireless network at that school. If not, I've got a book with me...2 in fact. I will have to get these password kinks ironed out though. Otherwise what is the point in having the laptop?

This is a short, strange post I know but I am oddly scattered and felt like writing.

Saturday 15 November 2008

Getting things done!

It is an overcast and rainy Saturday morning and I am in the mood to get things done! I am going to have a very productive morning/afternoon. I have loads of recycling to take out, a kitchen table to get rid of, banking, cleaning, shopping, a beef to pick with Best Buy (that one will get it's own post later), and stuff to take to the salvation army.

I emailed ST to join me in my errands and this is how she replied...

i'll put some cookies by the door to bring along...
and bring my specs in case we see a movie
and bring a hanky in case we meet our husbands
"oh did i drop that? why thank you kind sir..."

Thursday 13 November 2008

Job stress

My job these days is a challenging one. The student that I am working with pushes all of my boundaries and all of my buttons. For the first time in the history of my career as an interpreter, I feel stress about coming to work.

I was lying in bed last night trying to channel good thoughts and good feelings about this job and I realized that my only responsibility is to show up and be present. I need to be firm, upfront and clear with my boundaries. After that I just need to stay grounded.

This is a good life lesson for me and I will be a stronger person because of it. The hardest things are always the ones you learn the most from. If this were easy, I wouldn't grow at all. And they don't call them growing pains for nothing!

Wednesday 12 November 2008

I am a blogger.

I never thought that I would be a blogger. There is some part of my brain that still denies that that is what I am. I guess I always thought of bloggers as being the ones who have a huge following - Perez Hilton, Trent from Pink is the New Blog, Wil Wheaton, Arianna Huffington, etc. But the reality is that the majority of bloggers are the people like me. The ones who have very small followings if any at all. In Dec 2007, Technorati, a blog search engine, was tracking more than 112 million blogs.

I actually have no idea how many people check in and read this. A few of my family members, a handful of friends, the occasional stranger. I only know about the strangers because I have had a few of them leave me comments letting me know that they have stumbled across my blog and enjoyed a particular post.

In a way, it is easier to write not knowing who my audience is. In this way I still cater to me instead of trying to entertain you. Of course, I cater to me in a way that I hope is entertaining to you.

I write because I love to write. I write because it is therapeutic. I write publicly because it keeps me writing. I feel a sense of responsibility to post. I also, still really enjoy it. I like having a way to express myself. I share only what I am comfortable sharing and I write about anything that my heart desires. It is an outlet for my creativity and an outlet for my emotions.

As I wrote in my first post ever, I have kept some sort of journal or diary since I was 10 years old. My grandpa keeps a little notebook that he writes in every day - just a sentence or two to sum up the day. His mother kept one too. My grandpa still has his mother's journals. There is an entry from around the time my grandpa was born that says something about how deep the snow was and "G was born two days ago." It is two sentences; one about the snow and one about having a son. And that's it! It is pretty amazing. So as you can see, I come by this journal keeping quite honestly. It's in the genes.

And in 2008, the leap from journalling to blogging is a short one. So yes, I am a blogger. A blogger and proud of it!

Monday 10 November 2008

Beliefs

I believe in miracles
I believe in love
I believe in happiness
I believe in choice
I believe in God
I believe in compassion
I believe in forgiveness
I believe in kindness
I believe in hope

I believe that we are all doing the best that we can with what we've got. I believe in following your dreams. I believe in freedom. I believe in faith. I believe that we have the power to change the world.

I believe in you

Sunday 9 November 2008

Happy Birthday Megan!

I love you tons!

Stealth Cat

This cat rocks my world!

Wednesday 5 November 2008

20 years

Today is the 20 year anniversary of my car accident. I never really intend on keeping track of it every year but whenever November 5th rolls around, I am aware of it.

Two years ago I joked that if my car accident had been a baby that I would be sending it off to college. Last year my car accident was legal to drink in Canada. This year is a pretty boring one. Next year it's going to Vegas!

I am grateful that I can joke about it. I am lucky to be alive and I guess that is probably why every year on November 5th I remember. It is my own personal remembrance day.

love to you all
kt

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Ick

I have a real problem with noises. I am very sensitive to noise. Not all noises, mind you, just the ones that I find gross. Like right now, there is a guy over my left shoulder who is eating chips with his mouth open, burping, sighing and talking to himself. I have not a single problem with him as a person but the noises he is making are making me feel a bit queasy. The sigh is really a half groan and there are some slurping noises going along with the finger licking after he finishes a handful of chips.

This could go back to the days of living at home and listening to my dad eat soggy cereal. He used to pour the milk in the bowl of cereal and then go upstairs and shave - leaving the cereal to soak up every last drop of milk. He'd then come down and slurp his way through that bowl of cereal barely needing to chew because it was such mush.

It's the same when I am in a room with someone who has a cold. All that sniffling and phlegmy coughing. Or listening to someone hoark. Ugh!

This is so not what I intended to write when I signed on but all I could hear was this guy and so needed to acknowledge it.

Election Day

It seems wrong to log on and write a post today without mentioning the election in the States. It's a big deal and I am very interested in seeing the outcome. This is when we find out how 'the people' really feel. If only it were up to Canadians to vote in the next President of the United States. We would do it so well.

Sunday 2 November 2008

This is what the world looks like in my neck of the woods.

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Who was I kidding?

I can't commit to a top ten movie list, so scrap that last post. Grease and Dirty Dancing should really be on there too. The list is too dependant on how I feel on any given day and so it changes on a regular basis.

Since I have that whole listing obsession, it was a gloriously fun project for me to do and now I actually have a list written down of my top 100 films. It's just been in my head for all this time so it's nice to have it on paper. I'm going to call it a loose list because it will change a hundred times over.

Today I'd be happy to have the top ten all be musicals. Hey I could do a top ten by genre! That would give me loads more lists to make!!!