February photo Day 4: Hope

There is a certain hope in seeing Spring flowers in the dead of February winter.

February photo Day 3: Starts with E

Super Bowl Sunday's task was to find something that started with E.  I didn't want to do another electrical-related pic, nor did I want to do a body part like ear or eye or eyebrow, so that made things a bit harder.  There aren't as many things starting with E as I thought. In the end, I took a pic of my eraser on my desk at work.

February photo Day 2: Pattern

Groundhog Day's task was to find a pattern. I wasn't out and about enough to find something neat, but I did snap a pic of the pattern on my kitchen tablecloth.

February photo Day 1: Fork

The last day of January was another self-portrait, which I have no interest in doing, or something that represents me, for which I had no inspiration. So I moved on to February.

Today's theme is fork, which I am supposed to shoot with style.  Had some setup help from my hubby.  :)

January photo Day 30: Down

Day 29's theme was "Grow," which is not an easy task to accomplish in Canada at the end of January.  Even the snowbanks weren't growing because we hadn't any new snow.  I was at a total loss of what to shoot, so I moved on.

Day 30 is "Down."  I stopped at the school playground near my house to snap this pic. If it hadn't been cold in addition to a metal slide, I would have slid down.

January photo Day 28: Through

How about "through the server cabinet?"

January photo Day 27: Sun

A pic of the sun at Saint's Rest Beach on a very cold day.

January photo Day 26: Together

My Snuffles bears are together on their shelf, keeping watch and being happy.

These are just the white group. The other colors are on the rest of the shelf.

January photo Day 25: Landscape

I snapped this pic near my house. Not much to work with this time of year.

This is a better photo I took last fall while in Tucson:

January photo Day 24: Stripes

At the office, we're cleaning out older files to make room for the new year. The floor is filled with Banker Boxes.

January photo Day 23: Electric

Yesterday's task was "electric."  I took one "staid" pic, as John calls it, of telephone poles on my way home.

Later, I took a picture of the electrical substation up the street.

My red dashboard lights ended up reflecting onto my picture

January photo Day 22: Corner

Today's task was to take a picture of a corner.  This piece of furniture in my home has many.

January photo Day 21: What I do

What I do for work is IT.  That usually involves dealing with computers in some fashion.  I took this pic a while ago, but it is representative.

One of our many walls o' recycling for electronic equipment that we've phased out

January photo Day 20: Something I saw

Today's prompt was pretty vague. Since I left the house only once today and didn't go far, I stuck with what I saw inside.  Romy pushed Sapphire out of the way to be on "his" pillow.

January photo Day 19: Delicious

Few things are more delicious (to me) than freshly popped popcorn.

January photo Day 18: Shadow

I wasn't able to get a good shadow on the day, so I tried to get something today instead.  John posed for his best Alfred Hitchcock impersonation.

January photo Day 17: Ready

Today's task was to take a picture of something that signified being ready.  I snapped this just before Zumba began and I was ready to start.

Always have to have your water and towel ready.

January photo Day 16: Two things

Wednesday was "two things" -- look for things in pairs.  I snapped this pic of a pair of fire escape staircases.

January photo Day 15: Ordinary moment

An ordinary moment in our house is seeing our cats relaxing on the couch.

January photo Day 14: Something yellow

For "something yellow" I chose the peppers I walked by in the supermarket tonight.

January photo Day 13: Circles

Circles was a toughy.  I wasn't feeling overly inspired on that one, didn't have time to go on the hunt, and rejected an idea that was on my desk because it had been done before.  So I snapped a pic of my shoes.

January photo Day 12: Surprise

Surprise was hard to capture. The biggest surprise of the day ended up being the Broncos' loss to the Ravens, but taking a picture of the TV wasn't what I had in mind.  Other surprises on Saturday was how tasty our food was.

I somehow misled my husband into thinking I had bought him a coffee cake as a surprise treat, when really I bought him something for Valentine's Day.  He was disappointed that he had no coffee cake for breakfast, so he found his mom's recipe for raspberry coffee cake.  We substituted strawberry jam since that's what we have a lot of in our house right now.  It turned out quite well, though next time we'll try to remember to turn the ends.

It looks a bit alien-like here, but it was tasty. Need to work the dough less next time.

The other tasty surprise was our baby back ribs, cooked in Sweet Baby Ray's sauce.  We hadn't used the sauce before, nor had we baked pork ribs, so it was a toss-up as to how this would go.  Turned out that John picked the right length of cooking time and the sauce was delicious.

We added some corn bread and away we go.

January photo Day 11: Water

Today's theme is water.  We drove to Calais this afternoon, so along the drive home I took these two photos.

January photo Day 10: 1 o'clock

Day 10's plan is to shoot what you were doing between 1 and 2 o'clock.  In the pm version of that time frame is when I usually take my lunch.  On Thursdays, I head uptown to pick up John's comic books.  A couple of doors down from the comic book store is the City Market, where I stopped to grab a sandwich.

January photo Day 9: Paper

For paper, I chose these molded packing form shapes that housed our networking equipment at work.

January photo Day 8: Starts with T

I had this idea earlier in the day, but didn't seize the opportunity to snap a pic of my co-worker's toast with a decent camera.  So here's evening toast.

Why RIM should send me a new Blackberry 10 phone

RIM's new Blackberry OS 10 announcement is coming at the end of this month.  This is a make-or-break time for the Canadian company.  Their market share is dangerously low, and even their core corporate customers are jumping ship for the iPhone or Android devices.  My co-worker has said that his next upgrade will be to an iPhone, and another co-worker has already jumped ship.

My last Blackberry upgrade was Dec 2011, which means I'm not eligible for an upgrade discount until Dec 2013.  That's eons worth of time in today's technology market.  I resisted upgrading when I did, but my old hardware was giving me so much trouble that I had to take the leap.  I'm currently using the 9900, which has been fairly decent for messaging, but the more I use it for surfing, clicking links out of Twitter, its total inability to display anything on Instagram, etc. the more frustrated I get.  I started regretting not jumping ship when I had the chance; maybe I wasn't forward thinking enough.

Now I'm excited at the news and hope the launch will cure my woes.  I don't really want to switch brands, but something has to change so that Blackberry doesn't become the next Betamax.  I'm not the only user who thinks this, I'm sure: and we're the people RIM should be targeting to help spread the word on their new OS.  Here's why RIM should send me a new smartphone:

• Loyalty.  I fight to the death for my QWERTY keyboard in a world full of touchscreens, which is the main reason I didn't jump ship when I had the chance.  I want to stay with Blackberry, want to keep the great keyboard of which no other device can quite get right.  RIM will have a tough time turning those who have already jumped ship, but for those who are still loyal, don't leave us languishing on the older platform -- we're the people you want to tell the world how great the new product is vs the old.
• Social media.  I'm relatively young and tech savvy, and a user of social media, so I will be vocal about how much I like the new hardware and software.  I will blog, Facebook, and tweet about it.  Word of mouth is one of the most powerful methods of marketing.  Not to mention its cost, free, would help RIM's budget right about now.
• Corporate influence. My employer trusts me to provide advice and guidance on what IT devices we use, and that also extends to smartphones.  If I recommended we all needed to switch to iPhones, my opinions would be taken seriously and I would have some say in the final purchasing decision.

So RIM, if you're listening, send me a new device. Don't leave me frustrated and wishing I was using an Android for the next 11 months.  Let me tout your new device for you.  If we're going to be slammed with marketing, it might as well come from me.  :D

January photo Day 7: Street

I made a quick stop uptown to take a shot of the street I used to live on when I had an apartment. This is farther down from my apartment, but still representative of the great architecture of the street.  After the Great Fire of 1877, architects from Boston came to help rebuild.  When movies are occasionally filmed here, our uptown heritage district often doubles for Boston.

January photo Day 6: Mine

John got me this recipe easel for Christmas and I think it will come in VERY handy.  I'm glad it's mine.

January photo Day 5: Movement

Movement was a tricky one. Cameras don't often want to catch something in the act of moving. I had help from John on this one to get the right lighting and subject and pretty much everything except pull the camera trigger.  ;)

Our wood stove fan at work

January photo Day 4: The View From Here

Day 3 was "take a picture of a heart" but I wasn't feeling inspired, so I decided to skip it.  Today's theme is "the view from here."  If I had more free time during the daylight, I would have snapped a better pic, but by the time I get out of work, it will be getting dark.  I stopped at the top of the hill near my office to snap this pic. Not the greatest, but at least it's a view of something other than a shopping area, which was the only other place I visited today outside of work.

January photo Day 2: Something New

I opened something new today: a brand new box of chocolates my mom gave me for xmas. Since John doesn't like nuts, I took a box of Turtles into my office to share with my co-workers.  I unwrapped the shrink wrap and found this:

A brand new package, and I'm already missing a chocolate.

Turtles are sold by weight, not quantity, and the chocolates did seem more full than usual.  It still seems like they might have a quality control issue to be missing a whole chocolate, though.  Oh well.

January photo Day 1: Today

Today I cleaned off my desk and started to undecorate.

I hate the post-Christmas look of bland January, but it can't look festive forever.

Yes, compared to this morning, this is clean. And John installed our new printer/scanner/copier.

Looking forward to trying out our new MFP.  It should help me with my photo project, when I have time to get back on track with it.

New year

January is here again. Can't say as I'm all that much of a fan. We'll be getting into heavy winter, and I'm just not that excited about the prospect.  I just want winter to hurry up and get over with so we can move back into the months that are easier to deal with.

I enjoyed the daily photo project, and I think I will keep it up for January.  My pictures aren't artistic, I just don't have the eye.  But it does force me to get out my camera, try and look for something to suit the prompt, and maybe I'll get a gem here or there.  It's also reminding me to blog more in general.  Not trying to win any prizes, just trying to do something different.  For those who are wondering, I skipped Dec 31st intentionally as I don't like self-portrait and I'd rather move on to January's list.

My unofficial resolutions for last year were to exercise more, and to not leave piles of dishes beside the sink for too long.  I think I was quite successful at both.  The dishes got done sooner (whether by me or John) and I started -- and stuck with -- Zumba.  I finally found exercise that is fun, so it's been easy to stick with the program, and the flexibility to attend other classes when life intervenes helps me stay on my goal of 2 classes/week.  I didn't want to break over Christmas, but instructors need rest too, which unfortunately means I've been lazy.  That will make it a bit difficult to get back into the swing, but hopefully I'll get back into gear next week when the normal schedule returns.

This year, I need to do a couple of additional things to help myself.  John and I don't have good eating habits, nor do we particularly enjoy food.  If/when they invent the food pill, we'll be the first in line.  In the meantime, John has instituted a weekday meal plan.  If we can write down a base meal/meat, then we can have items ready to cook.  Doing this, we hope, will also force us to eat more healthy foods, rely less on the laziness of eating out, or just not bothering to have a meal at all.  We have to start somewhere, so here it is.

The other thing I hope to improve upon this year is my level of stress/worrying.  I've always been a worrier, but lately it has gotten to unhealthy levels. It's been physically and emotionally draining, and mostly of my own doing.  Christmas this year has been particularly stressful, but not anyone's fault other than myself.  I need to make an effort to stop worrying so much about the future and "what if" scenarios, and try to focus more on the present and enjoy my surroundings.  I would like to have more energy, so between the food changes and mental outlook, I hope I can accomplish that. Otherwise I'm going to end up with an ulcer.

Unease

I hate the feeling of unease that comes the morning after having a bad dream. Last night I dreamt that my father died, and it has left me feeling very uneasy this morning. What bothered me the most during the dream was that he had told me a bunch of things "in case something happens" that I was supposed to remember, but that I couldn't and was so upset that I was afraid I'd never recall them.  Except for the dying part, the rest is pretty much accurate to "real life" in that he has told me a bunch of things, but because they are discussed in context of him leaving life some day, that part overwhelms my thoughts and I'm left not paying as close attention as I should.  As much as I hate to say it, I think I will have to make a point of sitting down with him again and actually writing things down instead of trying to rely on my memory, which is proven to not be very good.

I live with a lot of fear every day about my parents leaving. I can't even type that line without tearing up. Most days I just stuff it down and try to get on with my day, convincing myself that I can't predict the future and for the most part, I likely have many more years with them because they're both in decent health.  But I'm also too smart for my own good and know that tomorrow begins 2013, and none of us are immortal.  It was hard enough for me when my grandparents died.  I can't imagine a world without my parents, nor what my parents must go through not having their own parents around anymore.  My Dad doesn't have anyone left from his immediate family since my aunt passed in April. My mom refers to herself sometimes as an orphan, I know she misses her mother deeply and I can't imagine the pain that she must feel from that.

Today, after that dream, the fear seems crippling.  I'm crying at my desk again.  Maybe blogging wasn't such a good idea after all?  I'm better when I release emotion though; I'm not much good at keeping it in.  Just wish I didn't have to cry at work since I never know when someone will walk in.  Now I'm exhausted not only from the dream, but from the crying.

I have too much to do today to keep this up, so I will have to suck it up and move forward with my day.  Hopefully writing the words down will help me stop running through them repeatedly in my head.

Snow load

John and I spent this afternoon shoveling snow and damn near killing ourselves. Unfortunately, my Dad is enroute to FL and could not plow us out, so we were left to shovel. We were rescued by a neighbor with a snowblower, which is probably the only reason I didn't have to call an ambulance for John. This storm was just too much for us (John with arthritis, me with little strength) to handle with  shovels.  Some pics of our shoveling duties:

John clears a path with the snow scoop down our driveway to the street. It didn't drift as much here as other places.

A good foot of snow, though. Thankfully not wet and heavy, but still a struggle.

John's truck misses its old SoCal home

Snow had drifted around 3' high. It was halfway up my thighs as I walked around the truck.

Storms with this much snow are becoming more rare in SJ, but they do still happen.  With my Dad spending more time in FL, we're on our own to get our driveway cleared.  Today happened to be a non-working day, which meant we weren't having to juggle working with clearing, but that also meant it pretty much took over our day off, and now we're tired and useless (though I'm still powering through my laundry duties).  The way I see it, we have a few choices:

1. Buy a snowblower.  Pro: will clean driveway with less back-breaking effort.  Cons: Limited place to store it since our garage is small and our barn far enough away from the main driveway to make it awkward. Also still involves standing out in snow for hours to clear.
2. Learn how to plow and keep Dad's truck at our house when he's away.  Pro: Definitely easier to clear, we can sit in the comfort of the truck and push major amounts of snow out of the way with minimal physical effort.  Cons: We don't have as much experience as Dad and could break the truck, have an accident, wreck the lawn, etc.  Also limited parking arrangements -- would we store one of our vehicles at Dad's while we have his truck at our place?  Would we just park the plow truck in front of John's truck and play musical vehicles for a while?
3. Move to a different house with a 2 car garage so at least we didn't have to dig a vehicle out during each storm.
4. Move to a different house in a much warmer climate where snow is a novelty.

We have some thinking to do.  Already we've received tougher storms than last year, but at least we were plowed out for last week's storm.  We can't keep shoveling if we keep getting these amounts of snow, though. This storm was a lighter, fluffy snow.  I can only imagine how back-breaking it would have been had the snow been wet and heavy.

December photo a day: Day 30

Day 30 is "something that made you smile this year."  I looked back through my pics and found one from my trip up country on my birthday.  Only in Boiestown would you see a sign like this:

I wonder who won? I missed it by a day.

December photo a day: Day 29

Today's photo is "hot," so I chose our toasty fire in the wood stove.

December photo a day: Day 28

Day 28 was "cold."  Our back deck, covered in snow, looked pretty cold last night.

December photo a day: Day 27

Day 27 was "how you relax."  One way is curling up on the couch with my hubby as we watch TV.

December photo a day: Day 26

Day 26 is "mess," which I think would have been more appropriate for yesterday. I do still have some mess leftover from some later gift unwrapping though.

Romy sneaks into my shot

December photo a day: Day 25

Day 25 is Christmas Day, and the photo is "lunchtime" -- whatever we were doing at lunchtime.  We were waiting for my Dad to come over, and Sapphire finally started using her Christmas present for its intended purpose. Previously Romy had been attacking her present, trying to get at the catnip attached to it.

December photo a day: Day 24

Day 24 was "tradition."  A new tradition that John and I have started together is to watch the Jesus and Santa lounge act from South Park.

"Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand"  "That's not a Christmas song." "There are like, 300 Jesus Christmas songs and only 4 Santa songs."

December photo a day: Day 23

Since Christmas hit, I've been running behind. Day 23 was: "Joy is __________."  I saw this nativity scene at my aunt's house, so I thought of Mary's joy at being the mother of Jesus.

December photo a day: Day 22

Day 22 is "decoration," be it Christmas or otherwise. I decided to go traditional.

I bought this ornament at a store down the street when I lived uptown.