Category: Blog

It’s been a long year.  Tomorrow’s the beginning of my vacation though, and that helps a lot.

I managed to get my broken tooth repaired this week – second one in what, the last two months?

I’ve discovered the joys of the ‘Edge’ plan with Rogers .. you can turn in your phone anytime — if you’re switching to another contract. Looking to just be done with it? You can’t even give the phone back until the last 30 days, even if you offer to pay everything you’ll owe upfront.  Two different phones, bought a month apart. That will take some time next year to sort out.

Mortgage season comes next year, we’re up for renewal, and rates are .. less than optimal really.  Going to have to crunch the numbers, and get the right combination (and from the right broker).  RBC is wooing us, and I have a mind to see if we can’t get a shorter term – less than 12 years) to maybe get this paid off by age 60.

Also a lot of home improvements coming – for example I’ve had an eye on our garage door since we moved in a decade ago, and this year I want to replace it.  Our bathroom counters were a fail, and it just shows I should’ve gone with my gut and cancelled them, even if there was a penalty.  Now we’ll need to do them again, this time in stone.

Windows as well, not all of them, but enough that it’ll probably pinch a bit. I’m not sure if we’ll manage them this year.. but we’ll see.

Everything’s in the new year though, for now there’s a solid week where there aren’t any big items looming. I intend to enjoy it.

Merry Christmas.

Reading glasses came in today. They’re definitely what I need for close-up work, and absolutely something I’d take off to look any further – exactly what I was hoping for. Already used them to read some very tiny writing.

Replacement router came in yesterday and went in, along with new switches. 98% of what I was hoping for, and with luck the last 2% will get sorted with a firmware patch later this month.

Charged up my car battery, it doesn’t handle sitting idle for long periods in cold weather. Now it’s topped up at least, and won’t give that low battery warning.

Waiting on final word from the accountant about taxes, then we can go and sign and pay – it’s always a good time of the year once that bit of business is behind us.

Old grey kitty came by today. A good thing too, it’s been brutally cold out, and she’s a feral.

I’ve been pondering the end.  Not the end of all things, but my own personal end.

I’m not considering ending things before their time (or perhaps before life simply can’t continue).  I have read a few existentialist writings recently, which have me imagining the last moment, and then the moment after.

People have documented their near death experiences, and ignoring for a moment the ones where misfiring synapses caused hallucinations, the rest seem to generally agree that there’s nothing.

Not ‘oh I’m alone in a dark place‘.  No.  Nothing.  A complete absence not only of things, but of thought, of awareness.  I can liken this to the last time I had to go in for surgery.

I was there breathing, they were counting down, then it was hours later.  I remember nothing.  I dreamt nothing.  I thought nothing.  I’d say that I wasn’t .. anything, for that period of time.  I can only imagine the end is like that.  Nothing to miss, because there’s nothing at all, not even me.

This has me wondering now about several things.  My mind reels considering billions of lights just like mine, but going out all the time; their lives as important to them as my own, their endings also vanishing into silence.

I wonder about my own end.  I wonder if I’ll have the strength to say ‘this is enough’ when the machine fails, and to step off into the dark.  I honestly don’t know if I’m more afraid of going, or being gone.

I wonder if I’m using this time well enough.  How do I quantify that? Who judges?  I already know I’m going to leave precious little behind, and I don’t know how I’d change that.  I don’t know if I want to, or if I even should want to.  I wonder if I should be more upset that we leave no children behind, or glad that we’re not adding to a generation which might not survive to full term.

I’ll admit the fear comes back from time to time.  It returns now and takes up residence in the animal part of my brain, demanding an answer – anything to stem the flow of days and prevent the end.  I am reminded again why people believe in impossible things against all proof.  A beautiful lie is often more palatable than a painful truth.

I’ll make peace with this.  Somehow.  I’ll continue to enjoy what I have, and try not to let the end spoil the middle.

September was hard.

We lived with the quiet for a little while, until catching a dark shadow out of the corner of our eye and finding it to be .. just a shadow became intolerable.

We reached out to the rescue society who brought us Shamus and Bongo so many years ago.  They had two kittens we chose and got (extremely rapidly), Atlas and Ophelia.

They had a rough start as well, with stomach issues that persisted for .. longer than we wanted.  We managed to work through them just in time for their spay/neuter appointments, so really, it was sometime in november before things stopped being completely insane.

Bundles of joy, that’s what they are.  Atlas is a gentle giant, and at 8 months old is bigger than Shamus was at full growth, and I suspect he has some more growing to do.  His sister Ophelia is much smaller, she was the runt.  She makes up for it with a very dominant personality.

Her favorite position is ‘tree branch’, where she’s draped across one of my arms as I pack her around.  I’ve somehow managed to become her favorite (I’m not complaining), just as Atlas has chosen Christina.

We also had a number of tasks pop up in rapid succession this winter.

Our washer started acting up, so we replaced both washer and dryer.  (The dryer ended up needing service as it was installed off center and was knocking, but that ended up working out)

We replaced our hot water tank.  The old one was showing some rust in places that made us uncomfortable.  The new one installed relatively easily.  It’s much bigger.  We haven’t run out of hot water since.  The installation job was ugly however, and we received no satisfaction from even the CEO of the company who did the work… we won’t be using them again.

We had the tree in our front yard trimmed.  Big heavy branches, and it was getting uncomfortably close to the power lines.  The tree trimmers did what they could, but it’s still a bit funky looking.  Not their fault.  Our timing was great as there have been several large windstorms since.

We finally got tired of our kitchen sink, with the rotting out countertop which made the faucet wiggle and impossible to tighten.  We had the countertop and sink replaced, the counter with quartz , and the double basin sink with a single (huge) basin.  That hit a little snag as well, some of the trim pieces didn’t ship out of Quebec in time for our install, so next week the work completes.  No complaints however, as the company doing this was amazingly responsive and the installers were the most professional I’ve seen.

We still have bathroom renovations pending.  A complete replacement downstairs, a new sink and shower in the main bath, and a new sink in the ensuite.  Crazy money, but I keep reminding myself we’ll only do this once more, so we may as well make it count.

After this we’ll only have a garage door to replace, a retaining wall to get rebuilt, and an ensuite bathtub to replace.  Those’ll be in the next 5 years or so.  Everything else is just maintenance – repairing a tap, getting the house professionally washed, etc.

I’m keeping ahead of some of the worst bits of winter.  I don’t think I’ll ever deal with it well, even with regular doses of vitamin d (which are helping).  How many years did I not realize this?  A lot of hard years that could’ve been easier.  They’re in the rear view now, can’t change them.