17 Day Covid Plan

Trying to stay motivated and productive during this strange time of quarantine and self-isolation. I have made a check-list for the next 17 days (just because that was the number of lines in my notebook set up). Here is what I am hoping to accomplish:

Everyday - Do a small task related to
-- Becoming a PMP
-- Getting a job
-- Closing down the cafe
-- Keeping the house clean
-- Hosting weekly virtual trivia

Everyday - I am trying to
-- Go for a walk with Jason
-- Do a blog post, might be backdated
-- Brush the cat

Every morning, before noon, I want to
-- Be downstairs before 9am
-- Drink a glass of warm lemon water
-- Have breakfast
-- Wash my face and brush my teeth
-- Feed the cat, using new/clean bowls
-- Take my vitamins
-- Call someone for a quick chat
-- Do some fitness thing that raises my heart rate for 20mins

Every night, I want to
-- Stop looking at screens (phone, tablet, computer) after 11pm
-- Do a quick clean of the kitchen
-- Clean out the cat's litter box
-- Wash my face, floss and brush my teeth
-- Fill the humidifier
-- Relax (yoga, meditation, sex)
-- Be in bed before 11:30pm

Trying to go easy on myself and not be too upset if I don't achieve everything everyday. Some things are easier to do than others. The list is a bit like the one I tried back in November when I was starting to get depressed after shutting down the cafe and starting to look for a new job. Today is the first day and the checklist is mapped out until May 3rd, at which point I will see what is working, make some adjustments, and create a new one.

And Depression Hits

I spent all this week in bed, which isn't good. It took we a while to realize that it was out of sadness and not time change adjustment from the Palm Springs trip. Basically all I felt like doing was sleeping, it is my favourite escape and always has been when I am feeling depressed.

There is a lot to be sad about for sure but I found this escape into bed to be paired with the horrible negative thoughts that I often get when in a depressive crash, hopelessness, not wanting to be alive, not looking forward to anything, despair, etc. Hoping I caught it early I have decided to do the following every day and try to track it in my planner:
- Something for me
--- Mental health related: Eating well, exercise, baths, counselling, etc.
- Something for the cafe
--- Continuation of closing down Flipside: Paperwork, liquidation, financials, etc.
- Something for a job
--- Time to job hunt, which is always hard: Applications, follow ups, resume updates, etc
- Something for the house
--- It isn't fair for Jason to keep doing everything: Laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc.
- A blog post
--- It feels good to get Always Standing updated again, so adding this to the list!

Clean Up, Clean Up

Everybody Clean Up! (And re-design!)

That is the only part of the song that I can remember at the moment, I think that it has more lines and they involve putting away toys.

In my case it is really just deleting scam blog posts that have shown up on Always Standing during my 8-month hiatus. As I have mentioned before, it happens because there an email address that I can use to send a posting to the blog, that is included in my Yahoo Email contacts.

It hasn't even been a year since I last changed the design but I designed I wanted a redesign. In October I changed the look to this:

But I wasn't feeling the humming birds any more - so am going to have maple leaves for a while (like my tattoo!)

Such Major Changes

As I mentioned before, I am in the process of launching a business. Well, actually, we are open and have been for over a week, so I guess we are launched (doesn't feel like it - so behind where I want to be on this.) Here are just some of the things doing that has meant
- I haven't written on Always Standing in two and a half months
- Catching a cold and wearing socks to bed to try to get over it quicker
- Going for weeks without seeing my friends (this has been the worst part)
- Having over a hundred unread messages in my personal inbox
- Not cleaning or cooking or even BEING at home
It has been a surprising adventure, nothing at all like I thought it would be. I love it but I am exhausted. Hoping to get some updates and photos onto the blog soon. Though also looking to get a blog going for the shop too. But, with what time?

Beginner Drawing - Class 2 of 4

So I spent Halloween drawing objects, learning how to measure and more accurately reflect sizes and distance between shapes. I am very slow, didn't come even close to completing the shoe last week and this week I was really enjoying the challenging shapes in the second composition but hadn't even finished the vinegar bottle by the time class ended.

Cartouche Has Returned To Me

Item Lost: My Cartouche Deck
Time Lost: Some time in Rrunuv Bayit, maybe end of 2015
Last Place I Remember: With other decks of cards on the white bookcases
Place Found: In an old plastic storage shelf which a bunch of sunglasses

Since we moved into Casa Verde a few boxes and plastic multi-drawer storage containers have been kept in our office, waiting for me to unpack them. These are filled with old jewelry, pens, sentimental items and such. They have been driving Jason crazy so I finally decided to go through them all.

I was able to whittle what I wanted to keep down to about a shoe box worth of things that have important memories attached to them, a small bag of office supplies to take into work, and apparently over 100 tampons. We donated a lot of things, including two different point-and-shoot cameras that we came across.

I think the most important thing I found was my Cartouche cards! I mentioned missing them a few months ago. So glad they weren't lost forever, going to start using them again. Let's see what the future holds!

Spring Switch

Today I switched out my winter purse, which is a basic black one - for my Spring Purse. Kristen gave me the blue and white striped bag that I use in the warmer months a few years ago. I can't believe it still looks good, the black ones I use over the winter only last for one season.

Feels good to make the switch, clean things out, reorganize everything.

Late Night Poem

Cereal is great for dinner.
Towels are my favourite piece of laundry to fold.
Let's face it,
You did not marry me for my domesticity.

Basement Before & After - Kitchen NE Corner

Casa Verde Basement - Kitchen Facing North-East

House Inspection to Final Completion

I hadn't noticed until just now but we put the wood cabinet back up in the 'wrong' place. It is much better against the far wall instead of right up against the window frame. Besides that wood cabinet, it is also the same sink, cabinet, and counter - we moved it out of the way to renovate everything else and then moved it back into place afterwards.

8am At No Frills

The fridge part of our refrigerator isn't working and I can't seem to keep food. It actually goes bad faster in the fridge cause I think it is sitting at a warmer/worse temperature than the counter. Either way that is really messing with my plans. I went to the grocery store on the way into work today to stock up on food for lunch that I can keep in the fridge there for the week. The No Frills around the corner opens at 8am.

There were a lot of interesting characters shopping at that time, including fire-fighters! They must have split up their list between teams to do the shopping because there was only one fire truck in the parking lot but I ran across a few groups. There were a bunch loading cleaning supplies into the truck one I got there. Inside, I saw one pushing a cart filled with cases of Gatorade. Then two walked passed me discussing the merits of different types of lettuce.

Besides being around a bunch of fire-fighters in uniform, which is super cool, grocery shopping that early in the morning is pretty nice since the store is stocked and empty.

Please Remove Garbage And Dead Animals

So, not everything was in order when we did our final check at the house today. In fact there were a lot of issues that were not there a couple of months ago when we decided to buy the place. Some things must have got damaged during the moving process and some things didn't get cleaned up as well as we would have liked. There are still a couple of days for the sellers to hopefully deal with the following:

- Broken window at rear of the house (in the dining room)
- Broken glass in rear screen door (in the main kitchen) ​
- Broken glass in front screen door (in the porch) ​
- Missing window pane, front of house (in the porch)
- Fridge missing the back panel of the freeze (in the main kitchen)
Note: The panel appeared to be in another corner of the dining room, bent and unusable ​
- Fixture removed, hole in wall left with exposed electrical wires (in the main entrance way) ​
- Large hole in wall with exposed insulation (in the master bedroom)
- Cord strung from house to neighbouring house (west-side neighbour, cord runs across the front of the porch and along the east side of the house)
Note: We think this was used to share internet, cable, or telephone
- Rear downspout disconnected from eaves trough and removed from the rear of the house
Note: It looks like it is lying in the small passageway between the houses
- Replacement of expired smoke detectors Issue

There is also some remaining garbage, broken glass, and dead animals that we would like the seller to remove before we take possession, including:
- Dead rat (rear of house, on the patio)
- Dead bird (in the garage)
- Large wood cabinet (in the basement laundry room)
- Garbage (on the roof of the garage, in the garage, in the basement)
- Satellite dish (on the roof of house)
- Bricks and broken mirror (small passageway between the houses)
- Broken Glass (back patio, front porch, small passageway between the houses)
- Debris (behind the garage, southwest corner of the backyard) ​

And So I Cleaned It

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A post about my Dad each Sunday, named after a song that he loved.

My father did not like to buy things, well more accurately he didn't like spending money. In order to save money he always tried to keep things around the house going as long as possible so he wouldn't need to go out and get a new one. He wasn't particularly handy, but these were his techniques:

Digital - Ignore It 
If any of our digital equipment (video camera, computer stuff, VCR) stopped working, Dad would turn it off and on again. He would push various random buttons. And eventually he would just unplug it, tuck it away somewhere, and ignore it for a while. This was know as the 'fix it fairies' approach, the hope that when we next went to try it, the item would magically work all of a sudden. This actually happened on occasion so it encouraged the continued saving of broken digital things in case they starting working again later.

Mechanical - Clean It
Something mechanical that was broken (an old toaster, power tools, some boating things) required thorough cleaning (and maybe greasing) if broken. This was sometimes accompanied by some light dismantling. I never saw him really take apart anything, he wouldn't have deconstructed the entire lawn mower for example, but there would be some opening and removing things to give it a good clean. He didn't really use this to find and replace broken parts that often, partly because that would require buying something, and partly because I don't think he was very good at identifying parts that were the problem. Cleaning things does prolong their life and his focus on this type of upkeep saved us money for sure.

Physical - Tape It
If the broken or worn out item didn't have digital, electrical, or complicated moving parts, than my dad would use duct tape to reinforce, protect, and repair it. I grew up with sailboats, camping equipment, toys, and other items that featured some liberal use of duct tape. He taped up our Christmas Tree, coolers that cracked, the side of the fridge where the installation was coming out, even cardboard boxes that he wanted to keep. I have learned from his crafty duct tape skills and have employed them on occasion. Sometimes though, it just makes sense to buy a new item.

Following In His Footsteps
That is what has been happening with me over the past few months as our Tassimo machine has gradually started to break down. Jason and I use this coffee maker every single day (at least twice - a drink for each of us) and lately it has been struggling to read the bar codes, incompletely brewing drinks, and leaking a bit. I keep wanting to go out and buy a new one, but they are about $100 and I don't want to spend that to replace a small kitchen appliance right now.

I had asked Jason a bunch of times about the 'cleaning disk' that should have come with the machine and he always said it didn't have one or he had lost it. Finally I looked up how to clean the thing (with or without the disk). So today I took apart the machine, all the removable parts can be put in the dishwasher so I soaked them in lemon juice and washed them with soap in the sink. In the process of doing this I found the cleaning disk, exactly where it should have been, and ran a few 'descaling' cycles. Jason and I had to work hard to clean and clear the nozzle since it had 5 years of gunk trapped in it - the machine has literally never been cleaned, the internet says it should be washed weekly.

It works well again and I am so happy that I put the effort in. Dad would be proud, and I saved $100!

Lifestyle Challenges

I read a lot of Buzzfeed, something that I got from Nicola and Kristen. I even have the app on my phone, which I definitely got from Nicola. I decided around New Years that I would try a bunch of their "Lifestyle Challenges" this year and see if I can gradually improve some of my habits.

I am going to start slow, since I am feeling too lazy to tackle any of the getting fit ones or even the one about becoming a morning person. I signed up for the 5-Day Inbox Cleanse, which promises the following:

Only five days to a better email inbox? With our new Inbox Cleanse, you’re going to take control of your email. It’s not about getting rid of all of your email completely — it’s about optimizing your inbox to highlight important messages, improving your communication over email, and cutting down on unnecessary clutter. Each day, we’ll give you a simple tip that you can act on, improving your inbox in only 10-15 minutes a day. And the positive skills and habits you learn will help you maintain your inbox’s sanity for long after the challenge is completed. Because your inbox deserves good email, and so do you.

I am using it for my personal Yahoo Mail account, since I am pretty good at organizing and sorting my email at work. What sucks is that the daily tips and instructions (which include app suggestions) has been created to work best with Gmail, which I don't use. However my personal account currently has 977 emails sitting in its Inbox, so any help is better than nothing.

It is a daily email course, so I had to give my email address and they will send me a message each day, starting tomorrow. I will report back at the end of the week to let you know how it went.

A Sad Day

How do you honour your father, two years later? I don't know.
So I did my taxes and switched the sheets on my bed.

Cleaning The Furs

Two's Tongue

Photo by ME, 2015

Kitchen - Part 1

I took two days from my vacation time and worked on the kitchen in Rrunuv Bayit. Mom came to Toronto to assist me and we repainted all the cupboards with a fresh coat of white paint, did a serious clean of all the cabinet hardware, and covered the pink tiles with a fake stainless steel sticker. It was a very productive couple of days and I am extremely thankful for the help. Here is the Before and After of the East Wall of my 'new' kitchen:

Click image to enlarge

Snowfence Weekend

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A post about my Dad each Sunday, named after a song that he loved.

I missed out getting some awesome photos this weekend. Jason and I went down to The Cottage to dig snow fence out from under the sand. I had planned to take a bunch of pictures, with my cell phone, of old pictures of Dad to post here on Sundays. I also wanted to bring back my baby album to Toronto. However, it was a quick trip and I didn't get a chance to do either.

Digging out snow fence doesn't remind me of my dad, since it was something that he and mom did without me around - or something he occasionally asked Dave and Justain to help with when they visited. So working on it over the last couple of season changes isn't connected to him.

To a certain extent the garage still is connected to Dad - the garage at The Cottage really reminds me of him. (He helped my uncle build it, and it is filled with stuff that I would consider 'his' like piles of boxes and small pieces of furniture from the Sweeton side of the family.)

A Funeral Tomorrow

Yvonne Luella (Seip) Fountain 

FOUNTAIN, Yvonne Luella (Seip) - After a courageous battle with cancer, Yvonne passed away peacefully on Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at the Brantford General. In her 79th year.

Devoted mother to Terry Fountain (Kim), Cherie Rose (Jim), Cheryl Rhodes (Brent), Paul Subject (Sonja), Richard Subject and Heather Tackaberry (Paul). Cherished Grandma to Cody, Austin, Karley, Taylor, Justice, Josh, Tina, Jamie, Samantha and Jason. Great Grandmother to Taylor, Kellan, Emily, Jacob and Tanner. Survived by her sister Nancy, brother Dale and sister in law Lois. Survived by many nieces and nephews. Predeceased by her parents Roy and Madeline Seip and brother Eldon.

Yvonne was involved in Paris Seniors Group and longtime member of Paris Legion Ladies Auxiliary. Respecting Yvonne's wishes, cremation has taken place.

A memorial service to celebrate Yvonnes life will be held at WM KIPP FUNERAL HOME, 184 GRAND RIVER STREET NORTH, PARIS on Saturday February 28 at 11am with friends gathering from 10am - 11am. In leu of flowers donations to the Canadian Cancer Society and the Stedman Community Hospice appreciated.

- Obituary published in the Brantford Expositor

Mrs. Fountain, or Bon, was my 'nanny' or babysitter. Because of my parents strange work schedule it actually made more sense to have a private child care than to have me in a group style one that you usually had to pay by the week for. The term 'nanny' didn't come around until I was much older and I never felt comfortable with it when describing Bon; it made me seem spoiled and it made the relationship seem less personal.

Bon was a major part of my life growing up, she took care of me (and Mike) from when I was one and a half until well into my teens. Even after I got 'too old for a babysitter' she still cleaned for us and my parents had her 'house sit' if they were away, so that she could still watch us.

I love her so much and I am so sad that she is gone. She was so close with her family and it breaks my heart to think of the pain they must been in as they adjust to this.

Finally A Bed

Two Approves Of The New Bed

Photo by ME, with my phone

So, after all our bed drama, I think that things will finally calm down when it comes to Jason and my bedroom furniture. Last month, Kristen and Noah helped us move the boxes from West Elm to Rrunuv Bayit. We had tried to do it in my mom's SUV like with the other one, but it was way too big. The headboard and foot-board were in a box each and they are big - like king-size big. In fact, I used to call the bedroom The Room Of Bed because Jason's king bed takes up the whole thing in an almost overwhelming sense, and now with this new modern-sleigh style frame it is even larger. (See Image to Right - there is only about an inch or two clearance for the door.)

The boxes for the new bed sat in our dining room for a long while and then last week the old frame fully broke. It happened in the middle of the night, woke me up, and couldn't be fixed. We decided that we would sleep on the futon in the office and that would inspire us to get going on setting up the new bed. As our nights' sleep got worse and worse, we continued to have little time to get going on the task. First we needed to dismantle the old broken bed, find a place to keep the huge king mattress for a while, then pile up and put aside all the storage bins we keep under it. Secondly, we needed to clean. Thirdly, this past weekend, I applied Scotchgard to the pieces, since the whole thing is fabric. I did three thin coats, leaving it to dry for 12 hours between each. Lastly came putting it together, when Jason reviewed the direction he discovered that the slats all had to be screwed into the frame (instead of just rolled out and laid on top like last time.) So last night we decided to tackle the task and the two of us, using screwdrivers, got the whole thing put together and the 64 screws finished. Now we have a bed again!

(See Image to Left - Jason gingerly sits on our freshly assembled bed, "Please don't break, please don't break, please don't break.")

Domestic Bliss

Conversations with Jason

Any of these interactions could have easily happened; in reality though, only one actually did - I will let you guess which. However, I feel like they all represent our relationship pretty accurately.

Tidy Up Time
Jason: Can you look at your stuff on the kitchen table?
*I review the multiple piles of envelopes and open them.*
Me: *Yelling to Jason in the other room.* Mainly tax stuff, investment stuff, some cards from people, and letters about magazine subscriptions.
Jason: So... what did you do about them?
Me: The magazine stuff is in the recycling and the rest is tidied up.
*Later Jason passes the kitchen and sees my neat pile of opened mail on the table."
Jason: Stacking them all together on the table does not count as tidying up!
Me: What do you mean?
Jason: Well, is this their spot?
Me: It could be their spot.
Jason: It is not their spot.
*I transfer the pile of mail to my desk in the back room which is covered in various teetering piles of similar things - the only spot I have left.*

Cooking
*Getting home late in the evening after doing a spinning class together.*
Me: Okay, you shower and I will make dinner. Do you want white cheddar or normal Kraft dinner?
Jason: I had Kraft dinner for lunch, can you make something different?
Me: Well, did you have the orange one or the white cheddar for lunch?
Jason: The orange one.
Me: Okay, I'll do the white one.
Jason: That isn't different enough.
Me: Hey, shower-ers can't be choosers. I'm cooking here.
Jason: Well, perpetual dishwashers should have a say.

Veggies
Jason: I am pulling out pork chops to defrost for dinner tonight.
Me: Okay, we should figure out a side, what veggies do we have?
Jason: Ugh, I don't know why we need to have vegetables in our lives.
Me: So we can poop.
Jason: That's what coffee is for.