January 28th 2020 Random Ramblings

The photo above is of a rather sleepy Artemis the tortoise, which I'm posting here just because I can.

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Still no snow!

We were promised some, and are promised more early this week, but so far no luck.

I think you guys in the states got our share on top of your own. Anyone who wants to give it back is welcome to do so.

We've had temperatures cold enough to have some - even on our sunny days temperatures have rarely been above 10 degrees C (that would be around 50 F) and mostly haven't even gotten that high - and some rough stormy weather (mostly a lot of rough winds, but a fair amount of rain too). But there's no sign of my snow. The closest we've had is the thick layer of frost we've woken to several mornings. Oh, and we've had some freezing fog too, which I dare say wasn't nice to be out in, and I'm glad I didn't have to be.

At least there's still time for me to get some snow. Winter's not over yet, after all.

But I want some snow!

Can someone send me some? Please?

I'm willing to exchange some snow for the rain we're getting. There's lots of it.

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We had a late Christmas gift exchange with our friends, Lorna and Andy, a little over a week ago. Well, technically just Lorna, because Andy was busy, but we all agreed we'd waited long enough already (we usually do it around Christmas, but they had one of those horrible lingering flu bug things, hence not exchanging gifts until well in to January). Besides, Andy wasn't concerned about not being there, and with how difficult it is to park near us, it was kind of easier if Andy was going off somewhere with their car anyhow.

You know what? They're Buddhists, and don't exactly celebrate Christmas as such, and most of you know now that we consider ourselves to be celebrating the Winter Solstice really, so I'm not sure if we should call it a "Christmas" gift exchange. But we did, which just proves how little it matters what you call something. Whatever you'd call it, we had gifts to exchange, so we did.

We've been doing this for a few years. They usually get us something practical, and we usually get them a little something to treat themselves with. This year they got us some fluffy towels, and we got them a bottle of wine, which thankfully turned out to be a good one. Bearing in mind, since neither of us drink, we kind of just hoped for the best, based on what appeared to be popular with other customers, and what we think is a reasonable price range for wine... I only thought afterwards that I should have asked Jeanie (I'd ask your opinion now, Jeanie, except I didn't pay proper attention to what it was, so now can't remember, and obviously no longer have the bottle to check). It's only now occuring to me that I should have made a note of what it was for future reference. Oops! Well, too late now.

Anyway, Lilie and Logan loved having Lorna visit. Lilie did get a bit over excited about it, and need to be pulled aside to calm down for a few moments, but other than that they behaved while she was here. Logan just quietly alternated between sitting beside Lorna getting petted, and cuddling in my lap. Lilie tried desperately to do the same after she came back in from her few moments to calm herself, but just isn't very good at being calm. Honestly, with how they behave, you'd think Logan was the older dog, since he's the calmer of the two, while Lilie still hasn't grown out of her puppy enthusiasm, despite being three in a couple of months time (Lilie will be three on March 26th, Logan will be one on April 14th). Lilie may be better at numbers and doggy puzzles, but Logan is certainly better at being calm and sitting quietly. We always say Lilie knows the meaning of the word calm, but doesn't see how - or why - it applies to her. *wink*

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Last week I had my dentist appointment, which thankfully went smoothly. Mostly.

Because they just needed to replace the enamel on that one tooth, they said they could try to numb it if I wanted, but I shouldn't feel it anyhow. Given how much hastle getting an area numbed for me is as a rule, I agreed to let her try it without numbing first, on the condition I could stop her and make her numb the area if there was any pain. She agreed. I've dealt with worse, and at least she was willing to step in with a numbing injection if needed. Plus, if it worked how she predicted, I'd get out of there quicker.

Honestly though, I wasn't too keen on the idea, and all I could think was, "OMG! This is going to hurt!" I only agreed to try it because numbing me is so much hastle, I wanted to go home as quick as possible, and she seemed pretty set on the idea. But I seriously expected to immediately be raising my hand to tell her it hurt (the agreed upon signal for, "Ouch! Stop! That hurts!") and need to have her try and numb me first.

Much to my relief, she was right, and there was no pain.

I mean, it wasn't exactly a comfortable feeling, but it didn't hurt, so I let her get on with it so I could get it over with. Plus, because I hadn't had to have the area numbed, I didn't walk out of there looking like a hamster with only one full food pouch, which was nice, especially since it's the hamster/chipmunk look caused by the numbing that makes dentists insist you wait for hours before eating and drinking, which meant I could eat and drink as soon as I wanted to (something I was glad of, since it was dinner time; I didn't get home until about 5:30pm).

On top of that, since she checked my other teeth while I was there - none of which need any attention, thankfully - they moved the appointment I had for early May to late July (it was on May 1st, but is now scheduled for July 21st at 12:30pm). So, YAY!

The only bad thing was that I have an area on my tongue that got cut when I had that badly broken tooth for so long last year, that's healed in such a way as to leave a bit of a lump, which irritates me a bit. It's not really a concern, but it's annoying, so I'm being refered to go to the hospital to have that removed. I imagine that's not going to be fun, but do agree it would be best for it to get sorted, since it does irritate me a bit, like I said. So I'm waiting for an appointment to get that sorted.

Because, you know, I just can't go too long without visiting a hospital for one reason or another. *sigh*

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This next part is going to be a bit of a whine and rant. Consider yourself warned.

So... We were meant to be having our yearly boiler check last Friday.

I say, "Meant to be," because the person didn't show up.

The landlords told us the gas man was supposed to come between 9:30am and 11:00am.

But he didn't.

We eventually learned he'd forgotten about us, by which point it was after 3:00pm, and we'd been waiting almost all day, with no way to contact him and find out where he was, since arrangements for him coming had been made through the landlords.

In the meantime, the landlords were meant to be coming between 12:00pm and 12:30pm to pick up this month's rent, and finally arrived around 2:00pm. Although, at least they told us they were running late (even if they didn't do so until about 1:00pm) and did actually show up, even if their continued unwillingness to accept that we aren't free when it suits them, and do have other things to do, is rather irritating.

I really don't know why that's so hard for people to grasp.

I really wish people would realize that being home most of the time doesn't mean we don't have things to do. Not to mention, it's just plain good manners to let someone know you're running late the moment you know it's the case - unless there's a valid reason why you physically can't do so - and show up at all if you say you're going to, unless you have a very good reason not to show up, in which case, tell people you can't make it.

I mean, obviously there are situations where being late with no contact, or not showing up and failing to let people know you won't be, is understandable. Life threatening emergencies, for example. I get that.

If it's not something like that though, have the decency to tell people as soon as possible, even if you don't consider the things they do to be important, or time sensative. Like I said, it's just good manners.

We might not have to get to work for a certain time every day, but we do have things we both want and need to do. Things we'd rearranged to keep Friday free for the gas man and the landlords. Why is it so difficult for people to accept that?

Plus, seriously, how can a supposedly professional just forget to go do a job?

An emergency job or situation coming up, meaning he had to make that a priority, and didn't have time to come to us. Fine. I'd have liked to be told that was the case, so we could have avoided wasting our day waiting around, but I can accept that. But just forgetting? Um... No!

I'm not impressed, and he should consider himself lucky the landlords pay his bill rather than us, because I'd be looking for someone else to do the job if it was up to me, since he's clearly not reliable.

Of course, not only did we waste our day because of the gas man and the landlords, but it then meant the guy needed to come another time, and he and the landlords thought Saturday evening was a good time for that to happen, since apparently people think we have nothing better to do with our time.

OK, so we didn't have plans to go anywhere, or do anything - other than have a relaxing evening - and almost never do at that time of the evening, weekend or not. But who calls at 7:00pm on a Saturday night, asking if they can come check your boiler now? When it's not an emergency issue, I mean.

We were having dinner when he called, since it was a late dinner evening for us - besides, it was 7:00pm, when a lot of people have dinner - so we told him he'd have to give us half an hour or so, which he was fine with. Tough if he wasn't really, because that was the condition: he gave us time to finish dinner first, or he didn't come at all.

Seriously though, who does that?

Yes. He did actually arrive this time. Lucky for him, since I was irritated enough at having him come on a Saturday evening. If we'd spent our evening waiting around for him, and he hadn't shown up, I'd have been more than just irritated.

We do more than sit around twiddling our thumbs, and hoping for visitors, you know!

Also, like I said, why is it so hard for people to grasp that we might have other things we want or need to be doing?

OK. Rant over.

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It was the Chinese New Year this past weekend, marking the start of the new lunar calender, and the beginning of the year of the rat. I was born in a year of the rat, and like rats, so I think it's cool we're in another rat year.

Anyway, I'm not Chinese, but I do like to pay attention to the moon phases, so I celebrated by having my first ever attempt at making home made vegetable spring rolls. I made them on Saturday, and ate them with some hoi sin sauce.

The simple - and entirely vegan friendly, of course - filling consisted of grated carrot, shredded cabbage, and some seasoned tofu that was blended until smoothe (I used a Chinese five spice seasoning mixture). That mixture was put in tortillas, because the rice wrapper things wouldn't play nice, and I gave up on them. Then I put my little spring rolls on a tray in the oven, and cooked them until their wrappers started to get crispy.

They were very good, if I do say so myself.

Also, though I've never successfully done it with the rice wrappers - as I said, this was my first time ever trying to make spring rolls - I personally don't think using a tortilla instead of the "proper" rice wrapper things made much difference to the taste. They still tasted spring roll-ish to me.

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I needed to give Logan a bit of a bath the other day, because his face was all sticky. I think it's where his fur is so long from him missing his grooming session at the start of the month, but he keeps ending up with a messy face. Regardless, the plan was to just wash his face, and that's it.

I told Logan he could have a bath, got the water ready for him, and he happily jumped in there for me. So far, no problem.

Though Logan hated bath time at first, these days that's not unusual for him, though I find it amusing and strange that my dog is so eager to get in the bath. I mean, he'll actually jump in there and ask you to put the tap on sometimes. He likes to drink from the tap in the bath, and splash about in the water a bit. It's something he learned to like after I started putting the dogs in the tub and playing with them in there to cool them off when we had the really hot weather over the Summer, and these days hardly a day goes by without Logan jumping in the bath and asking for the tap to be turned on for him. I mostly only do it because it amuses me that he loves it so, especially given his reluctance to accept water at first.

I mention it today, because I hardly had him in there before Lilie decided she wanted to have a bath too.

We tried telling her it was just for Logan. She wasn't having it, and kept whining and jumping up at the side of the bath.

Lilie has always loved water. She wishes bath time didn't often involve shampoo. But the water part, she loves.

So, after a while, I gave in, and told her to go ahead and get in the bath if she wanted to that badly.

She did.

I ended up giving her face a bit of a wash too, and having both dogs splashing about happily in the tub.

Almost everyone else has dogs who run and hide at the meer hint of bath time. Not me. Mine actually want to be in there!

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Lilie has decided naps are over-rated.

According to her, Mummy sitting down at the computer means it's time for her to be picked up to look out of the window.

As I'm sure you can imagine, this makes getting things done tricky.

I'm working on figuring out how to get her to stop launching herself in to my arms every time I sit on my chair, or bouncing beside me while yapping every time I'm quick enough in turning my chair towards my desk that she can't do so. Not having much luck so far. Probably my own fault for all the times I give in and pick her up.

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What I'm calling my "big goal" for 2020 is better self care. I'm trying to think more positively/stop the negative thought cycles, reconnect with the spiritual side of myself (and stop stressing over what others will think of my doing so) and enjoy as many hygge moments as I can - especially with my pets.

It's something I want to do. But, more than that, it's also something I need to do, especially after how much I neglected personal care in favour of getting everything done in between hospital trips over the past couple of years. This quote I spotted the other day sums it up quite nicely:

I have chosen to be HAPPY because it is good for my health.
~Voltaire

Shame it's easier said than done sometimes. In fact, most of the time. *sigh*

I've actually done a lot better at the self care thing in January than I had been doing before. I've been meditating more regularly (even if for only short sessions, and not as often as I once did) and had plenty of hygge moments, both by myself, and with others (especially Mollie, Lilie, Logan, and Artemis).

Now, let's see if I can actually keep it up for more than a few weeks, and not slide back in to those bad habits of neglecting self care in favour of trying to do it all, please everyone, etc. You know? Like I usually do.

Yeah... So, apparently I'm still really struggling with the whole thinking positively thing - in case you didn't notice from my rant earlier in this post, and the contents of the previous paragraph - despite all the time I spend gathering all those positive quotes to share with you all. I'll get better at it though. Baby steps.

Breathe, and believe.

Think happy thoughts.

I can do this!

Seeing more positivity always helps, so let's help each other, shall we? OK... Help me out here, people. Tell me one positive thing from the past week. Or, if there have been several, and you can't choose, feel free to share them all.