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Deep Blonde Thoughts

~ Emitting thoughts, tongue-in-cheek observations on life and lifestyles

Deep Blonde Thoughts

Tag Archives: writing

Evaluating the historical value of our junk

05 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by shewrite63 in community, Health, pets, therapy, writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

archives, books, boxes, downsizing, family history, moving, packing, photographs, storage, writing

There’s nothing like moving into a smaller home to challenge one’s ability to skim off the excessive possessions.

Of course, this is not to lessen experiences of people leaving their homes due to civil strife and natural disasters.

Moving during a pandemic provides enough limitations and extra costs – even within the same community.

I recently had to make difficult decisions: I had been holding on to nicnacs, family portraits, letters, Christmas cards from years gone by and artwork my children made many years ago. I had to get tough with my sentimental leanings and those “what if” situations where we would need extra dishes, linens, towels and sleeping bags. It’s not like we can accommodate house guests or invite people over for dinner any time soon.

Family history

I embrace and cherish my journals and albums tracing the family activities through good times and bad. To me, these are important memoirs, accounts, photos documenting the children’s growth, the reunion with my oldest child, meeting his wife and my beautiful grandchildren.

What about the doodles and whimsical sketches I made to keep my sanity during the quiet evenings of the many COVID-19 stay at home orders in 2020 and 2021? I like to think they will also have historical value some day. The people at the Ottawa Archives may think so too. I wouldn’t want to be the entry level Archivist who has to sort through and categorize thousands of boxes. We can be sure that by now, most Archives will accept digital copies of memorable documents and pandemic artefacts.

Downsizing questions

  • At what point do you justify paying monthly rent for a storage unit?
  • How much effort are you able to put into getting useful items to local charities?
  • How much are you willing to pay for a service that will take your junk away, and promise at best effort to redirect useful items to charity?
  • How many wine boxes does it take to pack your beloved books and other delicate items? How many bottles of wine would you buy in exchange for the Wine Shop staff putting boxes aside for you on a bi-weekly basis? How many of those bottles do you consume or gift to others who are helping you in the process?
  • When can I unpack my books and place them on the limited bookcases in our new home? Am I willing to make some difficult choices? Haven’t we been through this before?
  • How long until I decide to move again? Will I have unpacked all of the boxes or piled some into a cramped corner?
The Tabby Cat squeezed into a temporary hidey box after we moved in the first truckload.

Resources:

  • Tips to be mindful and avoid acquiring too many trappings – Becoming Minimalist blog, Twitter feed and YouTube channel – https://www.becomingminimalist.com/
  • Invest in your local LCBO or Wine Shop by making nominal purchases while picking up the empty boxes their staff put aside for you – https://www.thewineshops.com/
  • Pay someone to take away your excess – Just Junk – https://justjunk.com/
  • Pay someone to move the essentials to your new home – Universe Moving – https://universemoving.business.site/
  • Pay someone to clean the dusty, grimy windows at your old apartment – Mike’s Window Cleaning – https://mikeswindowcleaning.ca/

Distractions

You can spend another five minutes reading a humorous account of activities surrounding the recent move.

The Tabby Cat survived the move

Thanks for stopping by. Please excuse the mess. I am trying to unpack one or two boxes per day now that we are settled in. I should be done by Thanksgiving.

Stay well. Stay safe. Be kind.

T

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Spring vacation 2020

03 Sunday May 2020

Posted by shewrite63 in community, Health, philosophy, reading, therapy, writing

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Tags

pandemic, spring, vacation plans, writing

It’s not like I was planning on traveling far during this long-anticipated vacation.

I wasn’t planning on flying anywhere, not even taking a train. I am usually satisfied with doing things around town like lunching with friends, visiting art galleries, museums and local parks.

Oh… shit.

We can’t do any of that anymore except through video conferencing platforms, virtual gallery tours and… walking through parks without stopping to smell the flowers or sit on a bench. Geesh!

I am disappointed that the COVID-19 pandemic has cancelled a visit from one of my sisters. Mellowing out on Friday, I made my list of vacation week activities, many  which can be accomplished while isolated at home. I even separated activities into “Fun and Creative” and “Responsible and Healthy”.

written list of thing to do during pandemic vacation

Spring vacation 2020 list of planned activities

I make efforts to write in my wellness journal and my diary, recording how I am feeling, what I have been doing to cope, who I have been communicating with, and any deeper thoughts. Apparently, this activity is encouraged by historians and psychologists.

I already got in a bit of writing on the blog where the Tabby Cat rules, encouraging others with poetic tendencies to contribute too.

So…What are you doing for your spring vacation?

Thanks for stopping by. Stay home. Stay safe. Get outdoors while doing that physical distancing thing. Take care of yourself and each other.

T

 

Lessons learned after the storm

01 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by shewrite63 in community, education, Food and Cooking, Health, pets, writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cats, climate change, college, education, emergency, emergency preparedness, Ottawa Valley, prepared, tornado, writing

This should be titled “Lessons RE-learned after the storm”

But first… What storm? you ask.

I’m talking about the SIX tornadoes that touched down in the Ottawa Valley and neighbouring regions on September 21, 2018. One of them smacked the Hydro station serving thousands of customers in Nepean.

tornadoes cause mass outages

‘We’ve pretty much lost everything’: Homes destroyed as Ottawa-Gatineau

Ottawa Hydro station damaged Sep 21

John Paul Tasker · CBC News · Posted: Sep 22, 2018 11:21 AM ET

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-storm-hydro-war-scene-1.4834710

 

It was quite the event. My area of the city lost electricity for 50 hours.

How about you? Were you greatly affected?

We are grateful that it was only electricity that we lost and not our roof, our shelter, our home. Other parts of the region were not so lucky.

If you live in Ottawa and survived the ice storm of ’98, you should have been prepared at least with an emergency preparedness kit : candles. matches, battery powered / wind-up radio, dry goods, water – something to hold you over for the first day or two.

It sure held my household over.

The Canadian Red Cross even sells the kits or gives you a list of items you should include. See http://www.redcross.ca/how-we-help/emergencies-and-disasters-in-canada/be-ready-emergency-preparedness-and-recovery/get-an-emergency-kit

Finally, that alert ready alarm was right

Prior to the tornadoes hitting our region, we received those annoying alarms on our cell phones. I received them on both my personal cell and work phone.

Land line hold-out still has communication

I was able to communicate by telephone with family who had power at their end of the city, and with two of my adult children who called to check in on me from other provinces.

My cell phone service was working fine – as long as the battery held out.

I was able to follow status updates by listening to the battery powered radio and checking for updates on Twitter and local news websites on my cell.

Lessons learned

 

One valuable lesson I learned was not to procrastinate with laundry and homework.

The previous weekend was so hot and humid that I couldn’t muster the energy to do laundry. After assessing my closet contents, I figured I had sufficient work wardrobe items to last the next week. It did but my plan of doing laundry on the next weekend was foiled by the loss of power on September 21st.

Luckily, on the Sunday, a kind family member let me do a load at his home, to shower, recharge devices, plus enjoy a hot meal!

As for the homework for the online course I am taking this semester, I should have applied myself to the readings and not gone to see The Bookshop mid-week. I had good intentions to do homework on the weekend of September 22nd.

Well, I couldn’t. I had no power, no home internet to access the required reading. Again, thanks for family and friends, I was able to use their WiFi to access the reading for that week’s lesson. I also sent an email to the course facilitator, asking for an extension. She was understanding and extended the deadline for the entire class by a couple of days.

Cats on living room chairs

A quiet, powerless Caturday September 22nd

The cats were oblivious to the lack of electricity. I knew they’d be okay in the dark because of their night vision.

One annoyance during those two darkened nights was that the old boy would wander and meow from dark corners in the apartment. I had fun getting out of bed to shuffle around, to find that black b@stard and shush him.

On the Saturday night, early Sunday morning, the little b@stard knocked my little flashlight off of my dresser, causing me to crawl on the floor on my hands and knees, feeling around for the thing in the dark.

On the Sunday, I got back into my morning routine of going for a walk around the neighbourhood. The sunrise was colourful but eerie, illuminating the darkened streets.

Sunday Morning Sunrise Sept 23

Sunday Morning Sunrise Sept 23

Will we be ready for the next time?

Environmentalists and climatologists predict that due to climate change, we can expect more of these powerful storms travelling down our valley.

I will be ready as ready can be.

Will you?

T

 

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