As far as I am aware I have recieved all of the work I’m going to do this week, and weekend, and so now I can get down to brass tacks. Glad I’m nolonger in a holding pattern while I wait. I have my plan of action, and a very, very long couple of days ahead of me. I need to take frequent breaks, move around a lot, stretch my hands, flex my neck, but ultimately stay on task as I have very brisk deadlines, and lots to do.
I think it is Wednesday today, atleast I hope so as I went light on the kids lunches expecting them to be served a slice of pizza for their troubles. The school is doing the first of two days of Olympics today. Kids have their colours on, and are ready to party.
I’ll keep this brief as time is precious! Ciao Bella!
I’m amazed that was caught entirely on camera, and so clearly too. Good grief what a thing to happen. I have seen on CP24 that two people have been rescued from the water so far. Let us hope that more will be found safe, and that the reason for the collision with the bridge was a medical emergency on the transport freighter, and not anything malicious. News says they have dive teams out looking for seven individuals. Find them safely, or at least find them to add closure to such a horrible incident.
Groceries, laundry, banking, and more tax related stuff going on this morning as I await the deluge of incoming work requests. I’ll make and eat some breakfast and then see what’s what in the in-box.
This one is going to be hectic. I need to start and finish a new big report once I get my hands on the data set. I have multiple retail projects on the go using slightly different die lines and sizing for a promotion coming up, I have a brand guide to update for another client, and it’s a short week due to Good Friday and the Easter Monday. Who boy, it’s going to be a nail biter! Let us pray that the report is a bit shorter than its companion document. Though I do have one section completed all ready. Thankfully. Going to be a few very long days ahead.
I broke down and bought the next three books in the Dune series, books four through six. Now I don’t for one second believe that I will read through them all one after the other, as I have two other unrelated books on order, ready to drop once released later this year. I have changing feelings about sci-fi, fantasy, war stories, monsters, and crime/drama. I rarely stick to just one genre when reading over the course of the year. So reading two sequels back to back is rare. Reading five sequels in a row is unheard of! Crazy talk for crazy town residents.
Today is a busy one with early family Easter plans at the LTC, a children’s birthday party across town, lunch & dinner plans and all the driving inbetween. Doesn’t help that it’s really cold today and we’ll need to bring various changes of clothes for both kids. Snow suits, splash pants, winter boots and running shoes, sweaters, dresses and regular pants. Complexity! It’s a spice in life.
Otherwise not much going on here, so I best eat some breakfast and get on with our day. Ciao Bella!
Following on directly from my fourth book read this year. Another Dune sequel!
I was within sixty pages of finishing my book last night, so once the kids were in bed, and I had done a second go round on the shoveling (yes – even more snow!) I sat up in bed for an hour and finished Dune: Messiah. Good book. Liked it a lot. Far less dense than the two or three books in one which you get with the original Dune. Far less world building, and nearly no location jumping between planets. Also the long list of characters drops quite substantially in the sequel too. Far easier to read. I still don’t see Paul as a villain, or anti-villain though. I’m told I should. I see him as being withdrawn, and desperate to try to follow a narrow path to victory, and not lead the universe to ruin, though the Jihad does go on in his name once he loosed it upon said universe. He couldn’t control the ever expanding grasp of his religious jihad, so he’s a villain for having killed something like 60 billion souls, according to the book. That’s not great. He set it off, but on an individual level he wasn’t evil. Maybe our view of him is too myopic, and doesn’t consider the grander scale of what he unleashed. Hard to fathom being the guy responsible to 60 billion deaths, yet not being totally awful as a human being. Super charged and altered though he is. I guess he didn’t do enough to curtail it, and step aside, and that’s what makes him not a “good guy” in all of this. Ok, I see it. Can’t look at him directly as the charming cool guy, but rather judge him from what he set in motion. Hard to like a man with 60 billion deaths hanging around his neck, with no way to put the lid back on the jar.
Anyway, on to book five, which looks like a further exploration of his sister Alia’s decent into madness, and Stilgar’s growth towards… what? Corruption, tenacity to not lose his place of power and influence, though the Fremen ways are deeply instilled but slipping away from the old Naib of his seitch Tabr. Plus the children and their rise toward filling Paul Muah Dib’s throne. It’s a lengthy book, around 600 or so pages. Not sure what will happen.
I have steered away from books that long for quite some time now. I’m concerned the length feels off putting and I may make the book drag on longer than it needs to. Just because it takes so long to make any kind of considerable head way in a book that length. It’s a mental thing. Early wins makes it easier going when reading. If I keep coming back to read for hours but so much is still left to go, it feels defeating. I hate that. It’s like working on a 150 page report. You could have an excellent day and do 25-30 pages or more, but you see how far you still have yet to go, IF you can maintain that pace. If you can’t and you have a 10 page day, or a 12 page day, it drags on, and feels like a heavy weight pressing down on my shoulders. Yuck.
As a teen with no responsibilities I loved getting lost in 1000 pages or more of a book, but now that just feels like added weight, bloat, and an obligation to muddle through. Writing my own short fiction made me far more open to shorter works. Time and effort are rewarded. Lots of material can be covered that way too. But I digress.
The book looks good, and so far reads as easily as the sequel. Plus it’s a sunny Saturday morning, and I’ve been out to shovel for a third time in less than 24 hours, and I don’t have any plans until this evening, and again tomorrow mid morning. I’m thrilled.
Gotta love it when that happens. You knew it had to happen. I couldn’t imagine an April that didn’t have a bunch of slush and frozen pools of stagnant water every where. Although given the ground thaw we’ve experienced maybe we won’t have weeks of dirty water pooled every which way, and only for just a few days this time around. Worse things could happen.
Strange day I’m having here today. Can’t quite explain it, but it’s been a weird one. Anyway have a great weekend.
Not sure why but I’ve lost track of which day of the week it is. I could have sworn today was Wednesday, but yesterday’s after school activities tells me otherwise. So Thursday it is then. So weird how the days just slip by, or bunch up, and become muddled together like that. Have been a fair bit busier this week, with meetings and such, so I’m not that surprised that I got a little turned around. Just feels odd when it happens. Vacations can do that to you.
My wife has three months left of her year off, and then two additional months of summer break before she returns to work. I can’t believe the time has rushed by so quickly. A year seems like it would feel longer. The summer months are a wash because she is always off anyway regardless of this year’s sabbatical. I just can’t believe that my youngest will turn seven, and my wife’s year will come to a close. Lots has happened. Deaths and deterioration of family member(s), funerals ; no less than three, multiple family trips to the US and a whole slew of theme park visits, volunteering, and additional evenings of children’s programming. I think she has managed to read as much as she had hoped to. She got roped into doing her dying uncle’s taxes, which ate up a bunch of time, but a good year to have that than on a year when she was also working full time too. We spent a great deal of time at the cottage, which I know she loves, so I think we’ve made it mostly worth while. Had lots of time to reconnect while the kids are at school. Had lunch together a fair number of days. Had some small number of outings, just the two of us during the day. Lovely.
This coming September is going to be very quiet. I’ll feel very lonely once the new school year boots up once again. But that’s months away. Best to look at the here and now. First day of spring has come and gone. Now, of course we’ll have three or four days of snow and a deep freeze to stunt, or kill all of the lovely flowers and tree buds that got ahead of themselves due to the early warming streak.
I think I will tackle a massive clear out of the house in early September. We had hoped to do it this year, but it’s a big thankless job. So I’ll take it on myself like I did when my youngest finally started junior kindergarten years ago, and I had the time to myself to do so. The slow accretion of McDonald’s junk toys, and random craft piles is what gets me. Piles of drawings, the good and the rushed need to be sorted and recycled. Walls washed. Rooms declutter once more. As quickly as I can get things out of here, more stuff turns up. I think we can probably clear away the art station as both kids use the dining room table and not the station itself. It’s just a horizontal surface to hold additional junk. A la fig 1.
(Fig 1.) The over full art station with colouring books, pens, pencils, markers and crayons.
The kids still use all of the doll houses and doll related periphanalia so I’ll live with that for another several years. I’m good with that. No need for my mighty mites to grow up too fast. I like them as small kids. I just want cleaner toy storage, and a less messy house. Dream big my friends. Dream big I say!
Took me a while but I finally finished Star Dragon, and it was interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling. Raised a lot of questions for the characters, and then chose not to answer any of them, really. It was a bit off putting to read the epilogue and it not cover any of the characters whatsoever. A near miss, but otherwise I felt it was interesting.
I bought the second and third Dune sequel novels and I am halfway through my fourth book for this year, that being Dune: Messiah. It’s far less densely packed than the first, and seems to be focused on political intrigue and Paul showing the seeds for his own downfall. A tragic charismatic leader who seems to lose control over his original message/leadership choices and can not temper the early savagery with his later goals of peace throughout the universe. There’s more to it I’m sure, as I’m only 160 odd pages into it at this point. Good stuff though. I look forward to my fifth book which will be Children of Dune. Then I’ll move on to other writers and genres. I don’t think I need to read all five or six books in the series.
Anyway, it’s taxes day yet again. Want go get this over and done with soonish. Not my favourite task. Ciao Bella.
Even better than good, not exactly “GREAT” worthy, but still really good. No need for surgery at this time. More monitoring over the coming years. Fewer issues than suspected. One hardened, slightly thicker section of approximately 3.5cm. Located at the main sight of my disease. No need to alter meds. No new meds. No surgery is the key feature to this particular story!. Keep things in stasis and the last bit was a call to lose weight. Not too much, but to get to 180lbs in the next year or so would be beneficial. It could help with the heart burn /acid reflux too. So… yeah. Pretty decent news I’d say. A real load off my mind. Yay! **Happy flappy jazz hands**
You know what? I’ll take it. Score one win in my column for today. That made my day. Happy Tuesday to me.
What else is on the agenda for today? Taxes, taxes, taxes for one. That I need to keep moving forward on. Had the first round of reviews for the brand guidelines I’m building for a committee client, which will take some effort to get unanimous sign off on, I’m willing to bet. Also doing an editing sweep through my daughters book report. I need to ask her some direct questions as it’s on a book I have not read myself. I feel like a few of her answers need more context. If she can tie in a personal experience that would be a key element to capture. I think they call that a “text to self” connection. Her rough drafts are getting better though, which is great to see.
What else? Hmm. I’m drawing a blank, so I’m going to cut & run. Chat again tomorrow. Ciao Bella.
I have my fingers and toes crossed for good news, and if not good news then modestly ok news. But, regardless of what I find out, I will have lost sleep over it anyway. Not that I’m keen on being a worrier, but sometimes I just can’t seem to shake it from my mind. Getting busy, or going away has helped immensely with being able to set aside my anxiety surrounding what news I may/might get.
We were looking to pin point any/all bowel constrictions or possible obstructions. I was told that there were two suspected such items, but a potential for more. The MRI was to locate them, get a firm count, and then lead a discussion about how to deal with them in the future. Which I was told meant surgery. A minor bowel resection to remove the two 2-4cm sections. Laparoscopicly if at all possible I hope. Two button hole incisions are far better than one massive belly spanning gash. Atleast in my mind. I have a tough enough time healing as it is, do smaller cuts are better! Much, much better. I was told there would be no need to resort to a colostomy bag to help my guts heal, so I hope that still stands. But we’ll know after tomorrow’s appointment.
Otherwise it’s the first Monday back after March Break, and the dastardly time change. Plus it’s bitterly cold here, and thanks… I hate it. Going from 90°F to low 30’s °F is not my favourite thing. That’s how you get sick with these wild temperature swings. Tan seems to be holding up for now. It’ll fade real quick in this grey cold gloom. Bah. Humbug.
You must be logged in to post a comment.