Whatcha Doin' - 2022 Showing 1,201-1,250 of 1,312

[Shirley]

I love the idea of Thanksgiving, and wish that was a celebration here in Australia.

[Peggy]

I like the idea of thanksgiving too. Unfortunately that is not a thing here. Unlike that horrible Black Friday which has become very popular.

[Sandra, Moderator]

I hate black Friday, and rarely buy anything. Very rarely.

[Peggy]

Same!

Are Black Friday offers in the US limited to specifically this Friday or is it during the entire weekend or even week (as it is here)?

[Peggy]

We have a store in the Netherlands (it has shops in major cities) that has closed all physical shops and their webshop today. Their employees spend today doing charity work instead. I really like that.

[Kristie, Moderator]

It has turned into a weeklong thing here too, Peggy. Crazy. Plus, we have cyber Monday, which seems to run all weekend now, and even a small shop Saturday in an effort to encourage people to also shop local.

[Sandra, Moderator]

Offers used to be only during black Friday, but now last longer. Since Monday is Cyber Monday, the weekend in between has also other offers. Specially online offers might last the whole week.

I like what those employees did, Peggy.

[Sandra, Moderator]

Crossed posts. :)

[Saar The Book owl]

Peggy wrote: "We have a store in the Netherlands (it has shops in major cities) that has closed all physical shops and their webshop today. Their employees spend today doing charity work instead. I really like t..."

You're talking about Dille&Kamille? I've read that too. That's a great initiative. There were others doing that too, even where you can give your clothes of the brand to fix them for free, if they've got holes or something in it. Even shops who raised their prices on their online shop very high to discourage people from buying. Black Friday advertising starts here a week before actual Black Friday. I mean, a couple of years ago, we haven't heard of that at all.

[Peggy]

Yes, it was Dille&Kamille :) I heard about those shops doing sustainable stuff for free as well. Great initiatives!

[Saar The Book owl]

Yes, I find that too :)

[Christine]

HAPPY DECEMBER EVERYONE!

[Sandra, Moderator]

December???? Where did 2022 go????

[Christine]

Yeah I know Sandra and yeah I know Sandra

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Hello everyone!!
Not dead! That's a good start.

Emerged from Covid, reasonably unscathed accept for tiredness, word salad, and a cough which is triggered by extreme hay fever - of which we have broken the record for the most extreme pollen days on record weeks ago. So that's not great.

Worst time of year for work, generally and to be sick. End of calendar year, end of academic year, end of financial year. Entire team is battling covid now as I am a trend setter (but I wasn't the vector!!). Sick chickens. Constantly raining. But we went to the coast for 3 days and I swam in the ocean for the first time since Dec 2019 when we thought that moving our holiday due to the worst bushfires in years was the worst of our worries.... hahahahaha.

Looking forward to Christmas shutdown in 7 work days and I am very proud to announce I have read one book during covid but that was a struggle, and have nearly finished a second. Have thrown my around the world challenge and the yearly challenge out the window for 2022. Looking forward to diving in to gophering for 2023.

So in summary: Alive, slightly manic, busy but also had a holiday, balancing lots of bits and pieces. Miss you all.

[Janice, Moderator]

I'm so glad you posted this. I was worrying about you, Rusalka. You've had so much on your plate. Go gentle with yourself!

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Thanks Janice :) I did realise I had gone pretty silent and that people may be worrying! Sorry for that.

I have been reading all the threads, but composing replies was a bit beyond me for a bit. But I have been creepily lurking in the background. And luckily for us all, goodreads doesn't let us know that people are lurking. Even if it would be useful in this instance.

[Peggy]

Good to hear from you Rus!!

I never realized your academic year is the same as your calendar year. Actually makes sense now that I think about it, just never did.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

I could never understand why the northern hemisphere year was backwards too. One day it just clicked, summer holidays!

And you've clicked much quicker than some of my American and European partner unis who yell at me for not responding to emails on the 27 Dec when we are shutdown for Christmas and summer. I just have to laugh as I know if I email any Euro institution in July/Aug I am not going to hear anything until Sept at least!

Our financial year is wonky to the rest of Australia though. The has aligned it with the academic year as that's what fees are tied too. So really we have to do this twice a year, with the real one for the country on 30 June. I mean, why make it easy??

[Peggy]

Lol, I'm glad you've been in the same situation ;-)

[Margo]

Rusalka wrote: "Hello everyone!!
Not dead! That's a good start.

Emerged from Covid, reasonably unscathed accept for tiredness, word salad, and a cough which is triggered by extreme hay fever - of which we have ..."

Glad to hear you're alive and kicking rus. i couldn't do online while i was recovering either. i still do more than my share of lurking these days and sometimes forget that i'm not visible!

[Sandra, Moderator]

Glad to see you around, Ruslaka! Take it easy. Life will be back to normal in no time.

After 12 years living in the northern hemisphere it still feels weird to me celebrate the end of the year now, when nothing has really ended yet!

[Christine]

HAPPY HANUKKAH!

[Shirley]

Nice to see your name popping up again Rusalka.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Today is mostly a driving day for me. I don't know if I've mentioned it on here, but our puppy (well, she's 2 years old now & the biggest, but still the puppy of the 3 we have) needs surgery on her hind legs. We have to drive over an hour to meet with the surgeon today, then back home. Then, about 9 hours north towards our family for our holiday visit. I'm really glad we decided not to drive the whole way there today. We will still have probably another 5 hours of drive time tomorrow. I'll be glad when we are there with our trunk load of gifts and can spend Christmas with the family though. :)

[Jayme, Moderator]

@ Rusalka - Good to hear from you Rusalka. I totally get the COVID thing. We dealt with it here the end of September (it was our gift from France) and really didn't feel normal again until the end of October.

@Krisite - Have a safe trip. Glad you are traveling today and tomorrow and won't be driving during the storm. "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas."

[Sandra, Moderator]

I hope everything goes well with your puppy, Kristie, and you have safe trip.

[Ossai]

Pleases I’m new here and really confused..Can someone please explain to me how to you this app?

[Janice, Moderator]

Ossai wrote: "Pleases I’m new here and really confused..Can someone please explain to me how to you this app?"

I would recommend that you go through the help section.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Thanks, Sandra. :) We are hoping to stay ahead of the storms on our way north as much as possible. So far, so good.

Puppy needs a pretty significant surgery on both her knees. She has torn ACLs and at least one partial meniscus tear. She is on pain meds for now and will have the surgery the beginning of February as long as it doesn't get any worse.

[Jayme, Moderator]

Poor puppy :( They are so full of energy I don' t know you are keeping him/her from staying put.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Thank you. Right now, we are just making sure she is leashed whenever we take her out. She is naturally being more gentle and cautious with them, which is good. After the surgery we will need a strap under her hips to help her get up for a while. She is still able to walk, which is so surprising to me. I feel so bad for her, but the meds seem to be helping a lot.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Oh no! Mum's rotty x kelpie did both her meniscuses and ACLs. The benefit is once they have done them once, they cannot do it again. But such a pain for you and the puppy (and expense).

She was in a crate twice for 3 weeks at a time after the surgery. Which was pretty hard, so the strap sounds interesting.

Tilly, the dog, did it twice as she used to run along Mum's tiled porch and then slide with the momentum. Thought it was grand fun! I don't think Mum factored that expense in to the renos when she put those tiles down...

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Thanks everyone for the warm words. 3 hours ish left of work tomorrow, and then holidays.

I am still bewildered at what tires me and what doesn't. And it changes day to day. Very much hoping that with two weeks off for Chrissy, I can kick it in the butt

[Saar The Book owl]

@Kirsty: I hope the surgery goes well and that the pup recovers fast.
@Rusalka: glad you're feeling better. One day at the time and listening to your body ;)

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Ossai wrote: "Pleases I’m new here and really confused..Can someone please explain to me how to you this app?"

Welcome to goodreads. I agree with Janice, the best place to start is in the Help section. Hope you enjoy.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Thanks everyone. :) Rus, I had to laugh at the image of the puppy sliding along the tile floor. So cute. I'm not sure how we we will prevent Millie from playing with two other dogs and a cat in the house to tempt her, but we'll do our best.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

As long as your image is of a 30 kg Rottweiler. That is very important. She was not graceful, as her knees could attest, you need to imagine it in it's fully uncoordinated but gleeful beauty.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Aww.. poor baby. It's one of those images where you laugh at it until you know she got hurt, then you feel bad for her. Millie is about 32-33kg now, so I can relate to that.

[Roz]

It's turned cold here in Central Texas. Not as cold as the Northeast or other parts of the of the country experiencing blizzard and ice. But it did get down to 13 degrees the last couple of days. We had no hot water yesterday. The water in a hose leading from the hot water tank to the house froze so our plumbing service had to come out to flush it. Cold weather seems to be a reason to hunker down and cook so between hubby and me we made stew, cornbread, pea soup and apple strudel. Now I'm baking bread. The house smells delicious.
For everyone celebrating, have a Merry Christmas. Hope everyone gets whatever they've wished for.

[Sandra, Moderator]

Here in central PA is colder outside than in the freezer!

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Margo]

Yes, we've been hearing about your cyclone over here. I can't even imagine those kinds of temperatures. We had -7C here a week ago and it felt like the end of the world - our pipes froze up and we had to replace our electric shower! How do you guys cope? Stay near the fire and don't go out!!!

Happy Christmas all 🤗

[Kristie, Moderator]

We're visiting family and friends in New England and it has been a mess almost the entire time. It is really cold here and it was raining heavily and super windy. Two transponders near us were destroyed and the hotel we are staying in had no electricity! There was no heat, hot water, internet, etc. for almost 24 hours.

In the middle of the night, while the electricity was out, the fire alarms went off... twice! Around 2am we were walking around the dark hotel trying to figure out what was going on. Plus, it went off a third time the next morning.

When the electricity finally came back on and we got hot water a pipe burst and flooded the lobby, so then we had no water! Which of course means no shower, etc.

Plus a friend texted me after we were only here for one day to say that she tested positive for Covid and we had spent time together, so we had to cancel a bunch of plans and hole up in our hotel room (with no electricity) and wait it out, then get tested. Negative, thank goodness!

But now my mom is sick so we can't go visit her tomorrow (She was also exposed to Covid.) and she's really disappointed, as are we. And, since we are not going to her house for dinner, we need to figure out where we are going to get dinner on Christmas Day and everywhere is closed.

Ugh... I've never had so much go wrong on a visit before! We drive home (about 14 hours) on the 26th. I think I will just sleep all day Tuesday! I need a reset.

[Jenn]

Wow, that sounds like a rough trip Kristie 🤦‍♀️ May you all find some peace and joy, and a safe trip home ❤️

[Kristie, Moderator]

It has been very strange, Jenn. It's one of those things where something new happens and you just say, "are you kidding me?" It's so unbelievable. I've never had these sorts of issues with traveling before and they all just happened at once.

Thank you. :)

[Jayme, Moderator]

Oh no Kristie! Thinking happy thoughts for you and hoping everything works out. Stay warm and Merry Christmas.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Thanks, Jayme! Merry Christmas to you too!

[Janice, Moderator]

I hope things turn better for you Kristie, and your problems are behind you.

I was replying to you earlier, and in the middle of typing, I lost internet. I just came back, about 3 hours later.

[Lilisa]

Oh Kristie - that all sounds horrible. Hope things have going better and you find a spot for Christmas dinner. Safe travels on the 26th.

[Sandra, Moderator]

Sounds like a bad movie, Kristie. I hope things improve soon!