Counting Blessings

I've always considered the extremely cold weather to be count your blessings weather - because no matter how bad it is here, it's always worse elsewhere. Not exactly true today. It's -31 right now in Regina (-40 with the wind chill), but only -24 in Yellowknife and only -27 in Cambridge Bay. Cambridge Bay has always been my "thank you, Lord that I don't live there" spot, because it's like Weyburn for wind (it's on the arctic coast and well above the tree line) and yet it is generally much colder before the wind than Yellowknife is. Well, it is colder today in Regina.

I can still count my blessings, however.

• I have a warm apartment (and I don't pay the heating bill anyway)
• I'm on holidays for two weeks
• My car starts even in the cold
• The laryngitis has receded enough that I can talk (croak may be a more accurate term and singing is still iffy)
• My kids arrive on Thursday!!!
• I don't have to go out for anything in the cold unless I want to; I have groceries and my Christmas shopping is done.

I have much to be thankful for.

School's out

No school for two weeks! I need the break and I know my students do too. My kids arrive Boxing Evening (if there is such a term). I'm really missing them and it will be good to see them again. I have all my Christmas shopping done, presents wrapped (well, present bags made and presents stuffed inside), everything ready to go. I'm not worrying about Christmas baking.

Unfortunately, I still have the remains of laryngitis. Although I can talk, it sounds like I'm doing an imitation of an adolescent boy with the voice change thing, and I can't sing. Really frustrating! It's been over 10 days now that I've been just working on being able to talk. Hopefully, not having to teach for two weeks will make a big difference.

Now for good news. One of the piano pieces I've been fighting with for a long time is finally coming along. I no longer feel like kicking myself when I make the same stupid error because I'm not making the same stupid error! Feels good. I have a recital in mid January. I'm not ready for it yet, but it at least seems like I could be ready for it.

Welcome winter!

It's -30 this morning. The first really cold day we've had. (Well, actually yesterday was pretty cold with temperatures of about -27 and strong winds blowing.) Thankfully today there's not much wind.

I went out this morning to plug my van in for the first time. First of all, I had to find an extension cord. (Who really needs to plug in their Christmas tree anyway?) Then I had to figure out how to unlatch the hood on the van. I also had to get the cord to plug into the outside plug (not an easy feat) and the van's cord to plug into the extension cord. If this is a recipe, the next step is to wait and hour and check to see if all the connections were made. I think I need to get one of those lighted plug things so that I can tell if it's working.

Or maybe not

I just discovered the wheat thins I've been eating are multigrain wheat thins. This means that they had oats as an ingredient. So that's likely why I was noticing that my tongue was going numb when I ate them. I thought it was something in the dip! It is therefore likely the reason I have largyngitis and I'm just lucky that I didn't have to use my epi pen. I can count my blessings I guess. (And read labels more carefully next time).

The sound of silence

I seem to have come down with my annual laryngitis. I generally get it every year around Christmas. Usually I can attribute it to eating the mandarin oranges that are so widely available this time of year, but I haven't eaten any for at least a week - so maybe it's just bad luck this time.

Red Letter Day!

My new piano arrived this morning. I had to run over from school to let them in. It's beautiful! I ran home at noon to admire it (and to pick up the marking I had to do) and discovered that the orchid I had inherited with the apartment is blooming. It has one beautiful fuscia blossom; one bud that will likely open tomorrow and three other buds that will need some time. The other orchid plant is sending out a shoot, so hopefully it will bloom later.

This evening we had the annual Christmas banquet at Western. I really enjoyed that. Good food, lots of fun (there was a limbo contest that I didn't participate in), some good visiting. Now that I'm back home, I need to do some marking and piano practice. In fact, I think the piano is calling my name!

Sorry about that neighbour

When I came home last evening, I shovelled the walks outside my apartment, but just before I went to bed I noticed that it had been snowing again and they were snowed in. I decided that I'd deal with it in the morning. However, I slept in this morning until nearly 7 am (yeah, I'm an early bird). I looked out the window to check on the walks and saw that some kind soul had shovelled the front walk but the back walk still needed to be done. So I put my jacket on, double checked to ensure I had my keys, and went out to shovel it. It only took about 2 minutes, it's a short walk. Then I went to let myself back in and found that I only had car keys in my pocket, no apartment keys.

OK, check all the other windows. Any lights showing? Nope. It's only about -4 out; I could wait. Nope. There's only one doorbell that works at the back - the Williams'. I rang it. Waited. Rang it again. Waited. Rang it again. Nothing.

Bright idea now. I had one of the Williams boys hide a key at the front for emergencies such as this. So I hopped the fence and went around to the front door. And discovered that he may have hid a key, but I couldn't reach the hiding place! (The joys of being vertically challenged.) Then I saw a light come on in the Williams' apartment and rang the bell again. Loopie came down and let me in. (Sorry to get you up but thank you for rescuing me.)