182 Digital Puzzles

Jason got me a new tablet for Christmas which means that the one I have been using for years is now going to go to someone else and will be brought back to factory settings. This means that the record of all the digital jigsaw puzzles I have done over the past couple of years will be lost:

There were 182 that I have finished! Most of the images were travel landscapes, with a few art and animal ones thrown in too. I used the app Puzzle Crown, which if you started a puzzle saved it in the tablet and you could work on it offline, so I did that a lot. You could pick from three different 'cut' styles and a range of difficulties, I usually worked on the highest difficulty so that meant it could take long time to finish. In fact, when I was in the hospital being induced, waiting to give birth, I was also working on puzzles - these four in fact:

I wanted screen shots of my 'puzzle history' before I lost it all. Made sense to post on Always Standing, in hopes that would mean I would start posting more. (This tablet has a keyboard that can attach to it which makes it easier to post from.)

Snow Like My Childhood

Sunday night brought a blizzard to Toronto and with it 36cm of snow by Monday afternoon. Jason spent the day shovelling, heading out multiple times to work through it all. The photo on the right is taken through our back door, the snow piling up in the backyard and back porch.

Heading out for a walk today, the neighbourhood felt like what winters were when I was growing up in Paris. I don't know what it is about nostalgia, but the memories I have from childhood include mammoth snowbanks and huge piles after shovelling. Also I remember there being so much snow that it was shovelled with this strange big metal scoop thing that my dad would push and then tip (I saw someone down the street using a similar thing today, so they are still around.)

2019/2020 BACK DATED POSTS

I am in the process of predating posts. Hoping to finish doing posts about...

- Running the cafe and then closing it in 2019
- Hungary/Romania trip in August 2019
- NYC, Palm Springs, Las Vegas/Grand Canyon Fall of 2019

- Drive out west in Fall of 2020

- Vancouver and Edmonton trips in Fall of 2021
- Pregnancy and miscarriage in early 2020

- Pregnancy with Cigi and giving birth

- Cigi in general!

- Cigi's first year
- Life in the Covid-19 pandemic
- Restarting WoW again
I will remove this post once I have finished updating the last couple of years.

Xmas List 2021

* Used items are always welcome!!

Sweeton-Woods Family

- IKEA Gift Cards (For Pax closet in porch)

- Forks

- Plastic or silicone spatula, bowl scraping kind

- Window cling winter decorations

- Large wood cutting board

- Combination lock (Locker at pool)

- Vector cereal

Me

- Sims 4 expansion packs (PC)

- Travel bags for toiletries

- Pajamas (Women's XL)

- Boardgame: Cartographers

- Soap and Glory Flake Away Body Scrub

- Masks, wire at nose

- Cheap Sunglasses

- Waterproof waist pouch for phone, swimming

- Arm pouch for phone, jogging

- Small garden snips, pruner 

- Work gloves (Tight, bit stronger than garden gloves)

- Honey roasted peanuts

- Dried Mango

Jason

- Gift Cards: MEC, Amazon for Kindle books

- UV Swim Shirts (Men's Medium)

- Long stick-style umbrella

- Coffee Beans

- Sour Candy

- Coke, in glass bottles

- Craft Beer (Anything but wheat)

Cigi

- Beach towel

- UV Swim Shirts/Suits (18m)

- Bath toys

- Baby hair brush

- Baby toothbrushes

- Nut butters (No sugar added)

- Burt's Bees Baby Shampoo

- Thinkbaby Sunscreen

- Gerber Baby Cereal

- All/Any Books (Duplicates sent to Edmonton cousins)

--- Indistructibles

--- Classic Bernstein Bears (new ones are religious)

--- Bath books

--- Audrey and Don Woods

--- Munch

--- Dr. Suess

Two

- Small pet bed

- Stick with string toy

A Space Of One's Own

It has been hard to blog recently because it hasn't been easy to get onto my computer. (And blogging from the tablet is super annoying.) When we started to redo 'the office' to make a nursery it meant getting rid of the spot that I would use my laptop. Jason's work station was moved into the spare room/laundry room and there wasn't space for my chair and little table. For a while I used my laptop on the coffee table downstairs (as I am doing at the moment) or sometimes in bed. However, it was a strange phenomenon where it was either in the way or too out of the way. If it was in the way then it would get moved and tucked away somewhere and that made it harder to pull it out again later to use.

This has meant no blogging, but also my emails are piling up and I haven't done my banking. I have stopped playing WoW, which I have pretty consistently been involved with since Fall 2019. There is also jobs to apply for and more cafe stuff to finish up. Basically I need it to be easy, and comfortable, to work on my laptop. Didn't know this was an issue since I haven't really had or used a desk in a while, but I guess I did always have some type of set up that made it convenient. 

We do have plans to rearrange the living room soon, for baby proofing now that Cigi is becoming more mobile, and that will have some ripple effects for the dining room. I think I will try to set up in there. So fingers crossed you will start to see more posts soon!

Made For You

Drink of my body

Maintain our link

Just as before

Everything I do

Is transferred to you

Tripped Up By Time Change

My alarm didn't go off this morning, I have it set for 2:30am to get up an pump ahead of Cigi waking up around 3am (lately, and only if I am lucky.) Well, she woke me up by crying at 3:15am and I was very confused! But with 'spring ahead' my phone went from 2am to 3am in literally less than a second so there was no 2:30am today! Looking forward to the end of this weird time change thing - the vote to do so provincially went through but I think it is currently on hold until other provinces agree to stop doing it as well or something.

R Is For Bunny

My mom spent a little time when I was younger doing cross-stich (this is before she discovered traditional rug hooking) and one of the things she made me was this alphabet (see image on right.) She used to say the marks on it was blood from pricking her finger with the needle, but then recently mentioned it was just from the age if it, so I don't know what is true.

I was showing it to Maya today, while Jason was holding it up, and she said, "A is for apple, B is for stuffy" and I was so confused until I saw that it was a teddy 'B'ear image. She is very young and not strong with letters or reading yet. She also pointed and said, "R is for bunny." 

No Resolution

Last year's New Year's resolution was so good that I am just going to keep with that. I can't imagine what I would come up with after the past year we have had. 2020 was just such a crazy time - a global pandemic, unemployment, pregnancy, lockdowns. I just want to see it all fall behind us and have 2021 bring health and hope to everyone again. (I also want to go out and get a job as soon as this baby is born.)

My mom suggested that we open our front and back door to 'blow 2020 out of the house' which I thought was a cool idea and possible New Years Day tradition that we could start at Casa Verde.