Yay Asthma.

Soon winter vacation will be upon us. It won't be too soon. Toronto left a bitter taste in my mouth and I was sick for some time afterwards. I'm still clearing my lungs of mucus. It's weird because I hardly have a cough, but I'm still taking two swings of Buckleys "Coughs and Congestion" two to three times a day.

What I've found is it helps with the lung congestion a great deal, and instead of coughing unproductively forever, with the Buckleys I'm coughing productively very infrequently.  Of course not used to this so I skip taking a dose of Buckleys and then I end up with mild asthma attacks later on.

With this series of infections I've had coming back from Toronto I've almost emptied 3 x 100ml of Buckleys. I have 2 bottles that probably have 2-3 more doses left and one I finished already. Good thing I stocked up on Buckleys in Toronto before I got sick and then again at Walmart the first week I was back home.

Yes I *hate* Walmart for everything it stands for. Making poor people poorer. But I have to say, the meds that I can't find anywhere else I can often find in the Pharmacy at Walmart. Like Buckleys Coughs and Congestion when it was hardest to find, and Rougiers "Strawberry Extract", which keeps my tummy happy when it's unhappy.

I can't believe I fell asleep on my couch around 8ish last night up until midnight where I got up, migrated to bed and went right  back to sleep, even Toby crashed quickly.  I didn't wake up till 3:45 and then fell back asleep until the alarm around 6ish. I know I needed the sleep, I had one night this week-end I didn't sleep, though I took nap both Saturday late afternoon and Sunday late afternoon.  Finally catching up on the sleep I hadn't gotten since Toronto.

Cape Breton trip 2014

Again this June I am travelling to Cape Breton. Due to a vacation restriction at work, where my boss, and his boss do not want ME to take 2 consecutive weeks, during the period between June 15th and October 31st.   Which is REALLY SUCKY since my favourite activity is camping and this covers the ENTIRE camping season.  However by taking my vacation in early June, I will be allowed taking long week-ends for camping here and there. Hell I may even be able to squeeze in a festival!

Anyways so I arranged my trip to leave May 30th, and come back June 12 or 13th in that ball park.  The sucky part is that there will only be Fundy National Park, Cape Breton Highlands National Park and Mira River Provincial Park opened in the 2 weeks we will be there. So no camping at a new site every night. On the other side of the coin though, at least at Corney Brooke, we will have a spectacular view of the sea, hopefully there are NO gale force winds any of the nights we're there. But the view despite the wind was spectacular.

This year I will get to see the parts of Cape Breton I have not yet seen, like the area between Sydney and Port Hawksbury along the coast. I'm guessing it won't enthrall me as much as the Highlands.  I wonder how many moose we will see?  I hope I will deal better with Sydney. I've warned everyone and their mother, that Sydney makes me crabby.  Dunno what it is about Sydney.

Vacations are always too short!

Today is the last day of the winter vacations. It's snowing gently and has been for hours.

I have so many thing to do today, starting with picking up groceries, so I can make a quinoa tabouleh for lunch this week. Also want to make both fig squares and fruit squares as my mid evening snacks.

I also want to put all the furniture back to before Yule dinner, and put whatever stuff I can put away. That will probably take a lot of motivation to do. I do laundry but always bad at putting all the clothes away. Want to try starting 2014 on a good foot [ and it will last what? 2 weeks? ]

Also I realized when I drove to my friends in the townships last week, that my 20 hole Doc Martens needed to be desalted, waxed, minked and siliconed to make sure they stay nice for years to come.  I've started the process, I desalted them, and coloured them with black shoe polish. Then I added one thick layer of black wax. Now letting them sit for a bit, so I can buff them, then add mink oil and tomorrow morning I will silicone spray them so no more salt stains.

Was supposed to leave today early morning on Vacation trip....

  I didn't feel well enough yesterday to finish packing. Or to shop for pre-made indian food, which is vegetarian and keeps well regardless the temp. But yeah it turns me off eating Indian food for a few weeks after that. . One of the brands of Indian food I got was Tasty Bite.

Most of my packing is done. I've brought with me warm clothes, and lots of it, so no matter what happens I still have clothes to wear. I have clothes to layer all sorts of ways.

So the idea is to leave early tomorrow morning, somewhere between 8-9am for Oromocto.

My 2011 vacation bad luck continues!

Life's ironies this summer, every trip, vacation and visitor that was planned seemed to get cancelled. My friend in Baltimore had work screw up her first vacation plans on Canada day week-end, and a nasty fall that broke her wrist screw up her 2nd vacation plans on Labour day week-end. My friend in Lebanon originally underestimated the slowness of the Canada bureaucracy and then in the end did not get a VISA, something that has really pissed me off. 

After I asked my eldest daughter if she wanted to go Camping she had said yes, but I spent the next 2 weeks anticipating her cancelling our trip. Generally my kids are very dependable but anything can happen. Thankfully that trip did end up happening. 

This week of vacation I figured I'd spent some time camping and then spend some time in Ottawa visiting a friend. Turns out that said friend had to postpone my trip as he was having dental surgery today.  I can't seem to get a break everything I plan just falls apart. 

My therapist last year suggested that maybe I just remembered negative events, and really my luck was probably average. It gave me something to think about. But after lots of reflection and even comments from third parties, this is not the case. I do have more bad luck then average.  The purchaser that orders the equipment for me, says that if an order is going to get screwed up it's most likely MINE. 

If my team gets 20 pieces of hardware, the one I chose for myself is most likely the only defective one. The HQA guy I work  with has helped reduce those odds by testing all new hardware given to my team.  But I still often get the bad hardware.  Not just paranoia, the truth. It's like I can spot something broken or damaged. It's a talent but probably not generally the best one to have.

The downside of everything is that I have till Monday off and nothing planned  to do. Which sucks if I'd known I'd have planned a small camping trip. Apparently spending time in the woods really recharges my batteries. 

Disappointed

The BBSer friend who was to visit Canada Day/US Independence Day Week-end, had her plans thwarted.  Because they fired another employee, they are expecting her to fill in on the Saturday I believe she told me.  That sucks. 

I had just started to anticipate her visit. If I don't anticipate at all, then I seem uninterested and don't have enough enthusiasm when someone visits. If I anticipate too soon and plans get changed then I feel like crap because I was all psyched up for the friends visit and they aren't coming.  

On the one side I feel for her. I know she's working out of duty, not because she wants to work. She needs a vacation and sooner would have been better then later.  The positive side of the coin is that they offered her an extra day off Labour day week-end, so she's rescheduled for then.  Here's me keeping my fingers crossed that they don't pull another fast one on her Labour day week-end. She deserves a break and besides I'm looking forward to meeting her. Doesn't that count for something?

One Week Vacation

I decided to take next week off, and I hope that my neighbour isn't working in his yard the entire week. He's currently building a 6ft fence around this property. He's got the corner property so it's a big property.  So he's outside with the radio on loud banging and sawing.

I like working in my garden because it's zen. I find peace alone with the plants, so long as my allergies don't get too bad.  Lately though I've found it's too noisy outside. I'm not getting the peace. It's why I want to move away far far away.

Funnily enough I was told as a Sagittarius that when I move away in the middle of nowhere I'll miss the noise and the action of the big city. I'm not sure about that. I like the peace and quiet and being alone with plants and my pets.

This is just one of several vacation weeks I have planned this summer.

Erections in the Dark.

This is the Burj Dubai in the dark.

Random pictures of erections in the dark.

Gotta love the 'double night' mode on my camera. The building that looks like a giant sail is the Burj Al-Arab.

Pictures circling in Bur Dubai

Pictures I took yesterday while we were circling.

Going around in circles in Bur Dubai

Yesterday we decided to go to the gold souk. Tourist sites encourage you to go there for the cheap gold. Of course we now know it's a bit of a tourist trap, though admittedly the gold is pretty cheap, say compared to Montreal.

The funny part is that we were looking for the gold souk. We had actually studied the map and written alternate ways to find it, should we get lost before crossing the creek. Well you know what they say about the best laid out plans. We drove around looking for the two streets I had marked on my paper, but they were not significant enough streets to be able to find them from the main road we were on and thankfully we turned around just before we got to Sharjah. We asked for directions several times and to be honest I got to think people were just sending us off to a wild goose chase. We eventually found one of the two streets and I suggested we park. At least it was a commercial area, and not residential like most of where we had been circling around. We took the first parking spot we found and didn't have change for parking machine and could not find a place opened to get change. For some reason most of the shops in that area seemed closed between 2 and 5. Of course it was 3 o'clock.

I had studied the map enough to know where to expect the gold souk so we walked and found it, but by the backside. We couldn't even find a door, but we found it's underground parking and entered that way. Of course most of the shops were closed until 5, except for the 1 food place, which interestingly enough actually had veggie burgers on their menu. So we ate, and window shopped for a bit. I did end up getting the one thing I really wanted to get, a new gold chain for my astrological sign pendant, that I've been waering for 20 years.

Overall there was way too much bling. I don't like things that are big or attract attention. But I looked at the different jewelry. Sometimes I find things pretty even though I would NEVER EVER wear it. I did spot a very delicate ring, no more then 2 mm wide with little sapphires and diamonds. I don't care for diamonds especially knowing most are 'blood diamonds', but this ring spoke volumes to me.. so much so my sweetie insisted getting it for me. It was a battle I wasn't going to win. So I've got this really perty ring now on my finger :)

On our way out, we actually left by the front of the building. It made me realize we must have driven past it early in the day. That fact was confirmed by the picture I'd taken of the building when we first drove past it. Of course it didn't say "Gold Souk", it said "Gold Land". How were we supposed to know???

The moral of the story is that it is so incredibly easy to get lost in Dubai traffic and roads.. especially the closer you get to Sharjah. People complain about the poor road signs in Montreal. Obviously they have NEVER been to Dubai.

Oh and we ended up getting a parking ticket. But it was about $50 CAD. Much cheaper then the parking tickets in Montreal [$75 CAD]