Woah — Nelly!

Is it Friday already, wow this week was fast. One half of the family are off to a two nights Girl Guide camp out of town, so the dog & I will be trying to keep my youngest occupied for the duration of this trip. That means Minecraft, funny fail videos, karate chop bed time story time, rock climbing solo acts, and private lunches just the three of us. If I can convince her to watch a movie, or play a board game we’ll do that too. Perhaps some ninja turtles / dungeon crawling on the xbox if we get desperate. She does have three books to read before going back to see her tutor, so we’ll kill an hour doing at least two of the three.

We could go for a wander around a mall out of town, just the two of us, after we walk the dog that is. Maybe head out to Square One and get our 20,000 steps in for the day? Ha! Right. Go for a walk about, check stuff out, grab a meal, see a movie, make a real day of it? Nope. Too little still. Not interested. Maybe when both kids are in their teen years they’ll want to spend the day out with me then. Right now they can go about an hour to ninety minutes walking around before they get bored, have sore feet, or just want to go home. I appreciate their efforts nonetheless. I think that if they should become more clothing oriented they will appreciate my ability to wander a mall, checking stuff out, waiting for others to try things on, and grabbing food stuffs, and not rushing around. Especially when the weather outside is awful, a climate controlled stroll is fabulous, add in tasty snacks, and a new book under my arm and you’ve got yourself a deal.

Probably why I like to just walk the aisles at Canadian Tire, and Home Depot, or Lowes, and Rona when I want a bit of exercise, but not be outdoors in the snow, rain, fog, or high winds. I have very little knowledge of current trends, so going out to look at the broader picture of what is, and isn’t available anymore will help you to see that. We can get pretty silo’d when we shop online, and not go outside with other people. I realize the looming spectre of both Covid, and this Avian Flu are major detractors which has shifted people away from public spaces. I get that. But if you want to remain current, or in “the know” then you have to go out to see what’s on display, and not what has been specifically targeted to you by algorithms, and advertisers whom know you too well. That’s just an echo chamber.

We’ll see how things go once the February 1st deadline hits and the tariffs drop into place with the US. That could potentially curtail a whole lot of sales. Hopefully we have enough local producers of all types of products who’ll see a sales boost as we depress what we buy from out of the states. If the price of gasoline and water spikes heavily in the US then that might out some pressure on them to come back to the bargaining table and rethink their position on trade. But I’m no economist, nor negotiator, so what do I know? Nothing much.

Plus, wow it’s almost February. One whole month of 2025 knocked out all ready. That is wild. Still feels like Christmas break was last week, only it was nearly four weeks ago. We’ve had two deep freezes, a bunch of snow, some fog, high winds, and rain. January has been a month. As we head into the dead of winter, those grey sunless blahs really make themselves known. Blue monday approaches! With any luck we will get past the worst of the winter, and we will be head long into spring before you know it. Well spring, and tax time. The tax man cometh.

Second semester is about to start real soon, which means just five months left of the school year. Five months until my youngest turns eight! Good grief.