Yep - believe it or not - I'm back again!

“Wowzers!” anyone still visiting here will be thinking.  “Wait a minute, didn’t you just do a post yesterday?”

Yes, yes I did and I’m doing another one today.  Work has slowed down considerably and I’m one of the few ones with stuff to do and I’m bombarded with other Assistants wanting to know if I need help.  I don’t really – but they want to do something and if I have them help me with my work, it gives me time to do this – win/win

I was brief yesterday but I’ll get more wordy today – something I’m always on board with.  What’s going on my life?  Let’s see.  Just got through a very tough time.  I’ve never named where I work here and don’t plan on doing it today.  But I will say I work in health care.  I work as an assistant to what we call Care Coordinators, most of them nurses.  They help arrange for home care for clients getting out of the hospitals, going to nursing homes (though I’ve nothing to do with that special focus) and kinds of other interesting things.  I have two Care Coordinators myself that I do administrative work for but I work on a team within a team with 16 in total and I love them.  I know people complain about the health care system in Ontario – and a lot of it with good reason.  But daily I see these people are dedicated to helping others and often go that extra mile.

Now they went on strike a few weeks ago.  Again, I’m not going into the issues, but what they were asking for was completely reasonable and all of their assistants all across the province were behind them 100%, encouraging them and offering all the support we could. 

  
But we are in a different union so we still had to go into work.  And because they were out and upper management were spread very thin, we assistants had to step up and take on a lot of the responsibilities that we are normally expected or trained to do.  We aren’t nurses and we don’t have the expertise we needed to handle a lot of the calls.  Some of the ones I took were SO difficult because they needed to speak to their coordinator and their Coordinator wasn’t there.  They are back at work now thank goodness, but it really did upset my depression apple cart.  I felt the same way as I did back in September when it was so bad.  But thankfully the meds I’m taking are good and our very dear Care Coordinators are back and my work world isn’t so topsy turvy again.

 In other news, I’m headed to RWA again year.  And me and Wendy are going to be roomies again – yea!!  We weren’t for a couple of years – she was Librarian of the Year – and most deservedly so – and last year I skipped it as the money was allocated to a total redo of my bathroom.  I’m so excited for that.  It’s tradition now *grin*

I’m also a grandma – not sure if I’ve blogged about that.  Yes, my youngest son and his wife whom I love to bits and bits had a little boy last October.  And Jace is his name.  He’s cute as a bug – as I imagine all grannies say about their granbabies.  It’s amazing how much I’d forgotten over the years about taking care of a newborn.  The holding the head thing freaked me out.  I’m glad he can hold his own head now.  Right now he’s in Mexico with his mama and papa.  Two weeks after that he’s headed to Florida with his mom and his other grandparents and in May he’s headed to Italy.  It’s very strange when six month old baby has done way more traveling than his granny.

While I haven’t been blogging lately – a long lately – I have been doing reviews on GoodReads.  I signed up there for a Challenge and gave myself 60 books to read this year.  Astonishingly I’m up to 30 all ready.  That’s what happens when you need a new cable box because the sound has gone on the one you have now.  And the only station where the sound is normal is CNN.  And as anyone who has tried to do it, watching CNN can be depressing!!!!! And – why is everything “
Breaking News” there??

I’d watch a story at say 5:00 pm and then again at 11:00 and it’s the same story and it’s still breaking.  Breaks don’t take that long.  I know.  I had a break in my leg and it only takes seconds.

Now, one might ask “But why doesn’t she just take the box back and get a new one instead of watching Wolf Blitzer every day.”  And that would be a real good question, I don’t like Wolf Blitzer.  I do like Anderson Cooper though.  I think everyone likes Anderson Cooper – how can you not?   The answer as to why I haven’t got a new box is I don’t really have an answer for that – except it’s electronicky and I don’t like electronicky.  I don’t watch much TV except for Face Off every Tuesday.  And I’ve gotten pretty fast at reading the captions.   I will have to before April though when the next season of Outlander comes on.  We have to have good sound for that – it’s imperative. 

But, I’ve read a lot more books than usual.  And I’ve done reviews for all of them at Goodreads and it seems easy as anything to copy and paste them on the blog.  So that’s what I plan to do – that along with my ramblings about all kinds of stuff.

And my final rambling of today……  This was who I saw last night and he was WONDERFUL!!!

I saw him 30 years ago on his Reckless tour the first time around and now I saw him again last night.  He's looking much older.  Of course when I saw him the first time it was The Palace of Auborn Hills and he was at the front and we were at the very back so he was about 1/2 inch tall.  And while our tickets last night were very good, I have, I think, 5 pairs of glasses for me near sightedness - I think that's when you can't see things far away - which makes no sense - and I couldn't find a one of them.  So while he was much bigger last night, he was also quite fuzzy.





OK, OK, OK - since his Mama pastes his pics on Facebook all the time - is he not just cute as a button?  Was I right or was I right!

and what does it say about me that I make the picture of Bryan Adams bigger than the one of my grandson????  I think it's maybe because I'm still not 100% on board posting pics of him - granbaby that is - not Bryan.

Oh! My! Lucky! Stars!

So today we had a snow storm. I imagine a lot of people did. I mentioned a while ago that I was going to a Keith Urban Concert tonight. Well a lot of you probably didn't realize it was tonight. I wasn't sure whether we would still be going or not 'cause of the weather.

But T - a girl from work who I was going with called me earlier in the day and it was just a given that we would still be going. Her ticket was a birthday gift from her husband. Now I don't knw if I mentioned before or not, but I knew nothing of his music. To me he was just the good looking guy who married Nicole Kidman and sang Country.

Wowzers!!!!!!! Did I get the treat of my life at that concert!!! Holy Camolie is he good!!! Excellent!! Why I thought he was just country I don't know - he sang country, rock, a Christmas Carol - he sang it all!! He in incredible playing the guitar!!!

And I LOVED his music. They had this HUGE screen behind him so although it was hard to see him, we did get to see him up close.

T and I sat there and drooled let me tell you!!

The seats we had were excellent. At one point, he and the band came down towards the end of the runway, close to where we were sitting and they played a number of songs.

He can play hard rock, he can play love ballads on the piano.

How did I miss this musician??????

It was the best concert I've been too!!!

It was the last date on their tour so they played and played and played - a lot more than they normally do I think. And the crowd just ate it up. Despite there being a raging snow storm outside, there were A Lot of people there and he thanked the crowd again and again for showing.

And given a choice between him and Bon Jovi - I made the right choice in seeing Keith!! Now of course I'm going to have to get his CD's.

And in final - I leave you with this video.

I have no idea what the song is because I don't know his music - yet.

And the sound on my computer is broken so I can't hear it. But I couldn't not put up a video.

'til later

*****ETA*****
I forgot to mention this last night in the excitement of it all, but T came to pick me up. I'd been telling her about my library for a while now and I finally got a chance to show her. As she is a romance reader too, she was in raptures over it!!!
*g*She had to call her husband right away and tell him about it. That was the best reaction I've got so far. Of course now I have a lot more work to do on it now that I have the old upstairs bookcases downstairs!!

A time of stress

I always find this time of year very stressful. Every year I say next year will be different but it never is. In fact this year is even worse than normal. I still haven't started Christmas shopping!! I plan to on the way home from work, but we are down a person and we are trying to do our own jobs plus hers. While the day zooms by, by the time 4:30 comes along, I'm exhausted and cranky as all get out. I also suffer from bouts of depression and the fact that things have changed make me sad and more depressed than normal. I've never waited this late to start shopping before and that's making me stressed.
Another stress factor is they start on my kitchen January 4th. I'm excited as all get out about it, but for a life long pack rat like me, the thoughts of emptying the cupboards is rather frightening!! Terrifying to be honest. And when I say do the kitchen, I'm talking TOTAL overhaul. From ceiling to floor and everything in between! I'm even getting a new kitchen sink! (hah hah) There will be walls taken down, doors removed, appliances moved (and maybe even new appliances - haven't decided on that one yet) But I'll be completly kitchenless for a month. That's a bit of a scary thought.
I will of course show pictures, before, during and after.
On the happy front - I'm going out for dinner and then to a Keith Urban concert on Sunday evening. I'm looking forward to that. Even though I don't know his music at all.
And no, I don't have the bookshelves/entertainment unit up yet either. Brent and Ryan are coming over tomorrow to *cough* help finally put it together.

So - anyone else feeling stressed this season?

'til later

Loreena McKennitt - Last Night's Concert

Well the concert last night was incredibly, stupendously, wonderfully, amazingly brilliant!!!!!! If anyone ever gets a chance to see her - well, it would be a awe inspiring night.
There were instruments I'd never even heard of before! Her voice is so pure and so beautiful at times it's almost an instrument itself!! At times her voice is low and quiet and haunting and at other times it soars.
She played all the songs I love by her except one - All Soul's Night. She sang Mummer's Dance, Lady of Shallot, Bonny Pontmore (if anyone has ever seen the last Highlander movie - a dud really - but Bonny Pontmore was a standout), Marco Polo and YES - she sang The Highwayman.
I was mesmerized throughout the whole concert. Besides singing she also plays the piano, an accordion and a harp.
On the way home Lisa and I were talking and I mentioned it's hard to categorize her music. Lisa piped up - Celtic. Yes it is that type, but it's also so much more. She has done a real in-depth study of the Celtic culture and she has discovered Celtic settlements all over Europe and Eastern Europe and even as far as China and Mongolia.
Her music ranges from old Celtic songs from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to a real eastern flavour.
I purchased her latest DVD/CD release - Nights from the Alhambra and I'm listening to it right now. Haunting, Beautiful are only two words to describe it.
Her website has lot's of info and sound clips from most of her CD's.
'T'was a truly memorable concert!

'til later