Storage

These buildings are placed outside our excellent museum which we visited today. I always come away from there amazed that a small town like ours can have such an impressive museum.

The first collections were put together in the 30’s and 40’s by a doctor who spent almost his entire career in our town. He was better as a collector of artifacts than he was in his profession – not uncommon in cases where the parents decide what their children should become.

During my next visit to the museum, I’ll  take some pictures of the collections – in particular the Sami silver collection.

Thankful Tuesday

Whenever I read a post written by Fawn or Michael, I’m reminded about how much I have to be thankful for. Today came another reason – my niece.

18 years old and a thoughtful, loving person. A thinker and someone who will question everything before she either accepts or rejects it. She came bearing gifts, among which were a CD with her choice of music.

It was all the kind of music I would have chosen to make a CD for someone I wanted to cheer up.

Now, don’t I have reason to be thankful?

Blurred images

I first noticed this strange form down by the local in-town marina about a week ago but didn’t have a chance to take a closer look at it until today. I knew it had to be a piece of burnt driftwood but I still had to stop and take a closer look. As I turned my eyes the other way…

… I saw this. I’ve never before realised how exposed this point is and what a beating the vegetation here takes every winter.

Speaking about beating. I spent the entire day in a meeting where we were given a walk-through the county’s budget for next year.

Not. Funny. At. All.

The county must manage to get the budget in balance during next year which means we’re all facing some massive cost-cutting measures. There will be lay-offs, not the least among teachers and support staff. There will also be other efforts to down-size – but we all know this will hit the hardest against our students. I’m sue I’ll have reason to return to this topic many times in the next few months…

What You Got There?

A few days ago, this post reminded me of something that happened when my son was about 2½ years old or so.

We had been attending a picnic arranged by the hotel where I was working and were on our way home. This was in August and one of those almost unbearably hot prairie days – I’m sure the temperature inside the city bus was approaching +30 Celcius. I felt slightly nauseated from the three H’s – hamburgers, hot dogs and heat – but my son was in high spirits. He was sitting in my lap facing me and talking a blue streak about everything and anything.

Suddenly he stops in the middle of a sentence and looks at my chest.

“What you got there, Mommy?”

Whereupon he pulls up my t-shirt, sticks his head underneath it and giggles.

I yanked him away from there, pulled the chord to get off the bus at the next stop and walked I don’t know how many blocks to get home.

It took me some time to realise that my reaction was totally silly but born out of the rather prudish times. This was in 1980 and I had already been chastised for letting my son run around naked on the beach.

How about now? Is it still comme il faut to let a toddler go skinny dipping in Canada? How about breastfeeding in public places? Are you urged to go to the bathroom to feed your child as I was in Winnipeg back in the late 70’s?

Shrouded

Not a particularily great shot – I just thought it was nice to show how the cloud sort of got stuck on the mountain for a few minutes.

Orchid

I was planning on having some pictures of waxwings getting tipsy on the berries from Mountain Ash, but no. They were all over the place yesterday, but I wanted to have better light for photographing and decided to wait until today…

This morning it was snowing and the waxwings were nowhere to be seen, so this is what I ened up with.

Drat!

Tjorro

Yesterday was one of those days when that big, black abyss opened up in front of me.

Ever since the break-up I’ve had one thought percolating in my brain almost daily – what to do about Tjorro, my beloved mutt. The intital idea was that a neighbour in the country would take him for the winter. I would be able to visit, take him for runs… and then maybe bring him home come spring. Depending, of course, on whether my living arrangements were changed by then. Well, the neighbour had a nasty accident right after a fairly complicated operation and as time went by, my ex became less and less willing to keep him. With no other solution in sight, I made the decision that I would have to put him down, and the day for that was yesterday.

I have so many wonderful memories of that crazy, insane, not-so-bright but toally lovable dog – I just wish I had hundreds of more pictures of him. I know in my heart he is better off this way, but that doesn’t stop my tears from falling on the keyboard this very minute.

Doing Things Instead Of…

I have a large stack of papers on my desk. Two of my classes had tests yesterday. I have to get them graded over the weekend.

So what have I done today?

Done my Blog Rolls!

Tomorrow! There’s always tomorrow!

Guess Who Came for Breakfast!

I knew this would happen…

I’ve seen him/her in the bushes a couple of times during the last week. This morning he/she must have decided that this looked like a decent and safe place to grab a nutritious breakfast.

I’ll have to buy more feed – but that’s OK since there’s a lot of entertainment value in having a squirrel visiting!

2 Months from Today…

… I’ll be on my way to Canada!

Yeeeha!

However, I suppose I have to try and curb myself until that day… It’s not as if work work just happens without my active involvement on more levels than one.

Driving to the coastal city this morning was every bit as horrid as I’d hoped it wouldn’t be. The fog had settled overnight and visibility was less than 100 meters partways. The City was grey and dull all day long – and the fog was thick almost all the way back home. That makes for some tough driving, especially since there is always the danger of happening on reindeer on the road OR moose that suddenly run up in front of you. Amazingly, in 10 years of commuting 100 km every workday, I’ve had only two minor accidents. I almost collided with a yearling moose and hit a reindeer – within less than a week. That might mean I’m due for another accident – you should see me cross my fingers while wishing it won’t happen!

Have a look just below the lower left part of this seed pod. I think I happened to take this shot just as a seed let go…