Life: Catching Up

It's been a long while since I last blogged about the things happening in my life. There have been ups and downs - mostly downs lately it seems. Thus, I haven't been particularly interested in being a downer, but I'll try to cover a few things at least in general here. If I find myself particularly talkative about any one subject I will expound on that in a separate blog.

Riding to work in the fall went relatively well with an average commute of 95 minutes each way. Some of the hills make it very challenging since I can't really ride the trike very well over the narrow dirt trail that is the less hilly option. The morning ride is particularly hard since I have a big hill to climb barely ten minutes into my ride. The trip home is downhill and then "flat" for a good while, so tackling the uphills is a lot easier.

I didn't ride over the winter. Two circumstances presented themselves that prevented it. The first was necessary repairs to the car that ate my tire budget. The second was the persistent snow and cold that was Calgary's winter this year. For all the years I've lived in Calgary I don't think I've ever experienced a winter quite like this one. So I'm relieved that I didn't spend money on tires and then didn't get any riding in. I did bring the trike inside and modify my cycle trainer for the 20" rear wheel, so I got some peddling in. Which bring me to the next thing that was a bummer over the winter.

My shoulder and back had been bothering me since 2009 when I partially dislocated a rib. It meant I had problems with some motions and lifting that were repetitive - mostly work and running. After a lot of massage and some physio that only brought temporary relief, I saw my family doctor in Edmonton the beginning of February and filed a progressive injury claim with the Workers Compensation Board. The claim was finally approve six weeks after seeing my GP, so now I am getting intensive physio treatment to help the rehab. Another 2 1/2 weeks of physio before I either get an extension on the treatment or released to do my own thing. I'm hoping things continue to go well on that front. I've been taking way too many muscle relaxants to be able to sleep at night, so I hope I can get off them and get back to running and cycling without worry about my back and shoulder.

The work situation has grown increasingly frustrating and disappointing since last fall. Needless to say this has been incredibly stressful and tiring. I've effectively committed myself to placing my health and well-being ahead of this situation with my reducing any "extra" work that doesn't apply directly to pickups, processing and disposal. A lot of this had to do with management, but there are immediate changes being made there. I'm certainly not holding my breath though.

I've been able to get in a steady scehedule of Flames of War games in since last fall. A friend and I have also been able to get back to work on a submission to Battlefront for a website PDF release. It will be nice to see that finished. I haven't got a lot more painting done, but it has progressed a bit. I also got a bunch of Paper Terrain sets for Christmas, so I have start work on those. Aerin found me some really good craft glue to put those together rather easier than my previos sets. Hopefully I can make more progress, but the return of spring means other demands will be made for my time.

I need to finish the baseboards this year. I will probably skip doing the stairs for one more year while I puzzle out how to finish them. A little landscaping will need to be done too, and I need to build a proper gate across the pad beside the garage to prevent pet escape and open the space a little. With the baseboards done I can also do a proper organization of the garage including making space for fireplace wood. The chimney sweep we had check the fireplace last summer was great about educating about all things fireplace, so this spring will see the arrival of a bunch of wood to cure over the summer for next fall and winter.

Ursa turned two years old last month! Has it been so long already? She continues to be the spoiled first child, so her trianing isn't what we'd like it some times. But we do love her to bits for all the joy she brings us. She did freak us out a bit last November, but you can check out Aerin's blog for those details. Here's the quick version: Xylitol (sugar substitute) and dogs do not mix. If she'd been a smaller dog she'd probably be dead. She's 120lbs/53.5kg now, and taller than both her parents. Did I mention we really love her? She's such a character.

I'm really looking forward to having a summer this year. Last year was pretty wet and coool. Much more camping and hiking are planned with some short backcountry trips to get Ursa introduced to the whole experience. We'll likely stick to the Kananaskis area mostly.

That's it for now. (I wish I could predict the same for snowfall, but it's not June yet.)

Life: Settling In

Two weeks go by very quickly these days. The last week of November is almost a non-existent blur in my memory now. Where did the year go to already?

With the arrival of the freezing cold weather (-40C with windchill) I am very happy that we got our move done when we did. I can't imagine trying to load and unload a truck in these conditions. The people we were going to rent from originally were hopeful they could move before Xmas, but the long term weather looks none to promising for that even though they have a company doing the move for them. When I stopped by to pickup some mail that had made it there before our switch in residence they had all kinds of boxes stacked up waiting to go. I'm glad Aerin and I managed to spare ourselves that fate right now.

Have you ever heard the phrase "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part"? That's the way things have headed the last week at work as everyone that is moving labs over the holidays wants old chemicals and waste containers dealt with before they move. Our team leader's last day was on Friday before his three and a half weeks of vacation, so we're now short handed with more than enough on our hands to keep us busy. We sent out our 9th waste shipment of the year (compared to just seven last year), and we make one more the end of the week to clear our things so they are not sitting around for a couple of weeks unattended. Certainly never a dull moment at work these days, and I'm certainly looking forward to the time off between Xmas and the New Year we get while campus shuts down.

So the last couple of weeks have been busy with work by day and settling things into the new house by night. Aerin has had some busy nights doing shiatsu treatments for clients. We spent the Monday night after our move at Ikea spending a good chunk of our security deposit on new furniture that we needed but didn't have space for in the old apartment. So we got a new bookcase and a kitchen island amongst others.

The living room and dining room here are as big as the old apartment kitchen and living room/dining room put together. Unfortunately the kitchen doesn't have as much counter space or drawers/cabinets as we had before. The kitchen island has helped a little, but isn't going to quite get us there maybe. We'll continue to look at how to deal with that at a later date once we see how things are going for use with the current setup.

I have a room all to my self for my game stuff. I'll be reorganizing a few things in there, but for the most part I can start setting aside some time work on things without worrying about our tripping over everything or having it out for a few days between the time I have available to work on it.

We have a spare bedroom still that is currently a collection space for everything that hasn't found a permanent home or just needs to be sorted out. So we can host a few more bodies than we could before. Our old place was pretty tight with just the two of us; it was downright crowded once you got to three or four people. And it'll hold all our (mostly my) outdoor gear.

And the bedroom is quite nice too. We got the blackout blind hung yesterday, so that helped me sleep a little better last night. The street light is pretty bright through the existing blinds, so it was nice to have it a little darker for sleeping. I just have to remember to close the spare bedroom door if we plan to sleep in since it's across the hall and lets in a lot of light.

As a bonus we can now have a proper house warming, or even just have a few friends over, since we now have actual space to host people without sitting in each others laps. The house warming will happen some time in the new year.

Time to get some things done here. Cheers!