Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
Wordless Wednesday
Lily Flowering White Tulip
White Tulips
Want to Join Wordless Wednesday’s? Sign up here:
What a week! Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel like you’ve been really busy, but when you stop and think about it you realize you didn’t finish everything that you wanted to do, or that you were procrastinating on a few things? Well, that’s the kind of week I’ve had.
I guess I should have known it wasn’t going to be a good week. Last Sunday night I couldn’t sleep at all. Mostly because I had a lot of abdominal pain. So I dragged myself around all day Monday.
Tuesday I was bitchy all day because I had to go to that sleep study appointment. I was right to be in a bad mood about it. The tech that was caring for me all night wasn’t very friendly. I tried to get her talking but I wasn’t very successful. I did find out that she’s a psychology major and attends classes all day, then works at the sleep study clinic three nights a week. I guess she was tired but it would have been nice if she’d been a little bit friendlier.
I got there at 8:30 p.m. just as I was told to, and I was led to my bedroom where I was told to fill out a number of papers. I finished the papers within 10 or 15 minutes and then I sat and waited for the tech to come back. I eventually started to read my book because she was taking so long. She finally came back at 9:30 and had expected me to be dressed for bed. “uhm, you didn’t tell me that”. So she left again for another 30 minutes. It doesn’t take me that long to change my clothes. Really!
When she came back she led me to a room where I was weighed, my height measured, and my throat circumference taken. The throat measurement worried me because I thought they were going to put something around my neck! It turns out that my neck was about the only thing that didn’t have something placed on it.
I ended up with wires stuck to my legs, chest, shoulder and all over my head. Most of them were on my head actually. They were stuck on with a thick wax like paste and white paper surgical tape. I had at least 6 wires attached to my face, right beside my eyes, mouth and on my cheeks. Then she strapped a belt around my body under my arms and across my breasts, and a second one around my waist. Oh fun, I can’t breath!
I walked back to my room thinking that it was a good thing all these wires were so thin. It was kind of like being covered with vermicelli noodles. There were 23 wires stuck in the “sandman” machine that was attached to me.
I was allowed to go to bed at midnight but I had to call the tech into the room at some point prior to that to attach the wires to the beside machine. I called her at 11:30 so that her coming into the room wouldn’t disturb my sleepiness, if I was sleepy, which I wasn’t. What I was, was in pain! I had taken a pain pill before I got there. Partly because I was having pain at that time, and in part because I know they make me a little bit sleepy. By 9:30 I had another, and I had yet another one at 11:30 plus a half Percocet. Yes, that should have taken care of the pain and made me comatose. Did it? No!
The tech came into the room at about 11:30 and attached the wires to the bedside machine, and then she put yet another thing around my head – it was something that rested just under my nose. I’m presuming it was to measure my breathing during sleep but she wouldn’t answer my questions so I have no idea if my guess is correct. I also had a pulse-oximiter placed on one of my fingers to measure my O2 content and heart beat. Then she left the room after telling me that she was going to talk to me on the intercom and run some tests.
I’m glad that I asked her to hook me up before my official bedtime because setting up the machinery took about 10 minutes. When she came on the intercom I had to move my eyes up and down several times, then side to side, then hold my breath, breath normally, and then hold my breath and move my stomach in and out. I did the stomach thing for about a minute before she told me I could stop. This was the most hateful test due to my abdominal pain.
Since I couldn’t get out of bed to turn out the light on my own she came back promptly at midnight to turn it out. I wasn’t pleased. I was almost wide awake and I wanted to continue reading as I usually get very sleepy when I read. She wouldn’t let me. Hey, I had a bedside lamp beside me, I could have read and turned out that light on my own- but no, I wasn’t allowed. So I ended up lying awake until sometime after 3:30 am. Getting boob wedgies from the tight band she’d placed around my chest. I heard every streetcar go by, all the partiers outside on the street, delivery trucks backing up. Everything.
With 3 tramadol and a half percocet coursing through me I should have been deeply asleep, but I was still in pain and just couldn’t get to sleep. I finally fell asleep only to wake up again by 5:30 am. I lay in bed until almost 6:30 and then I called the tech to come and unhook me so I could have my shower and get the heck out of there.
I practically ran out of the clinic when I was able to! I was free, I was free! I went home and unfortunately still couldn’t sleep. I did have an hours nap that evening though, so that helped.
I’ve spent the rest of the week feeling blah. My tummy is just in an uproar. It’s not happy, and when it’s not happy I can’t sleep and I can’t do much else either. I’m supposed to be at a party tonight. My husband went, and he’s playing guitar on the stage that they set up in the hall and I’m missing it. I’m disappointed. I really wanted to go and see my friends, and watch Chris perform.
As for the procrastinating bit. Last Friday Chris and I went to one of my favorite garden centers and picked up some more plants for the garden. Mostly annuals for summer color, but yes, I bought some more perennials (permanent plants) and I have no idea where I’m going to put them! In all, we bought 347 plants! I know that sounds like a lot but most of them were in those little containers that hold 4 plants each. They add up quickly. Why did I buy so many? lets see, I have three hanging planter boxes to fill, and 7 hanging baskets, 4 pots, 2 strawberry pots, and 4 rectangular plant boxes to stuff with blooms. The remainder will go along the edges of my flower beds. I’ve been meaning to get this done all week, but just haven’t had the energy to do it. Now it’s supposed to rain on and off all weekend. Well, if they don’t get planted at least they will be watered. Have to look on the bright side.
1…. I think I sprained my ankle today. It hurts when I walk on it or move it but it’s not swollen or bruised. Yet.
2…. I did it running after a RAT!
3…. Yep, it seems we have a few Rats in the neighborhood. Probably some human ones, but I’m talking about the cute brown ones.
4…. Yes I actually thought the rats were kind of cute compared to the pigeons that flock to our yard anyway, at least the rats are smart.
5…. I had thrown some left over French fries into the backyard for the birds or squirrels to eat. They like their junk food too. Apparently rats also love French fries.
6…. It was amusing to watch the rat in the middle of the yard, French fry in mouth, pat at one of the small birds (House Wren?) with it’s paws as if telling it to get away from it’s fries.
7…. When I’d had enough of seeing the rat sneaking back and forth from yard to hidey hole in the neighbors yard I ran at it to try to scare it and that’s when I twisted my ankle.
8…. Now, I suppose we’ll have to do something to get rid of the rats. One neighbor suggested rat traps, but my hubby and I are such animal lovers I can just see us looking at a dead animal in a trap and bursting out in tears at what we’d done. Any suggestions?
9…. Speaking of neighbors, my husband met one of ours on the street when she was bringing her child home from daycare and invited her into the backyard. I don’t know why but I dislike this woman. There are very few people in this world that I dislike, only three that I can think of at this moment, and for some unknown reason she’s one of them. The other two I have good reason to dislike.
10…. This neighbor brought her 20 month old daughter into the yard and let her loose. I was the one running after the kid, worrying that she’d fall on our landscaping stones and hurt her head. Mom was too busy rattling off why she’d been fired from her last job to care.
11…. Then the little girl started trying to pick the flowers. Fine I don’t mind a few damaged flowers or even some of my flowers being picked.
12…. But the little girl also started EATING the flowers! Luckily they were tulip petals, which I was pretty sure at the time were non-toxic, but did check on again on the computer when they finally left. It was kind of funny because the little girl was chewing on them like they were the greatest snack, however, I kept cautioning the mom to not let her eat the flowers as I wasn’t sure if they were safe or not.
13…. Now I’m hoping that I’m right and the tulip petals were fine and that the child is fine … otherwise I’m sure this woman wouldn’t hesitate to sue. Aarrrgh! Stupid people!
Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Please only list your link if you have a current Thursday Thirteen Posting, Thanks.
Purple hyacinth
Want to Join Wordless Wednesday’s? Sign up here:
Links to Other Wordless Wednesday Participants:
(please only list your name if you have a recent Wordless Wednesday post)
It’s that time of year again. Time to uncover the garden, taking off any winter protection that I put on in late fall and see what’s happening with my plants.
Before I go any further I must explain that the winter of 2004/2005 was very very cold here, with very little snow cover. I had protected most of my plants with either a mound of soil (around roses), or a layer of leaves and we did put some burlap up around the plants in the back yard. It looks ugly, but hey, it’s usually covered in at least a foot of snow and it’s the backyard- who sees it but us and some of our neighbors right? That year I lost two roses in the front flower bed, and had to move a struggling climbing rose to the backyard or else it would have died as well. Most winters aren’t that harsh here in Toronto, but that one was particularly bad for my tender plants.
This past fall I was determined not to lose any plants. I think we kind of over did it. My husband gathered more than 50 bags of leaves from our neighbors. Actually I have no idea how many bags of leaves we used- I stopped counting at 50.
It’s very windy where we live. Year round. Why, I don’t know exactly, but just believe me- it’s windy. So, ever since I started planting tender roses in my yard I’ve tried to protect them from the harsh winter wind. We do this by attaching burlap to the fence behind the flower beds, then I put a mound of earth around my roses that is about a foot high, foot wide. After that we put at least a foot of leaves on the plants, and then we create a burlap fence at the front of each flower bed. I don’t wrap many of my plants, I just fence them in and give them a layer of protection.
This winter our plants had about 3 feet of leaves covering them- I kid you not! Of course it figures that this winter was so mild that we barely had to wear winter clothing.
Last Friday I went outside and took a good look at our well protected garden. All the roses survived, perhaps even thrived. Green stems and branches right to the tips! I’ll be starting out with roses this year that are four or five feet tall rather than having to cut down their frost damaged dead branches to within a foot of the ground as I usually do. They all have leaf buds and I believe, after looking at one rose closely yesterday that I might actually have tiny rose leaves on some by the end of the week. Unbelievable!
My first crocus’ were up last Friday too!
Yesterday I decided that the garden needed to be uncovered. I wanted to see what was under all those leaves. We started by taking down the burlap in the front yard- yes I burlapped the front last fall due to my rose loses. Ugly! It had to go, people were staring at my house.
I came up with the bright idea that we could gather all of the leaves that we had used and mulch them with the lawn mower, turn them into compost and put them back on the garden in a few months. Yeah ha ha. Just the leaves from the front, carefully put into two large garbage containers, pretty much covered the free space in our backyard. I think we had 7 or 8 large garbage containers of leaves on the front flower bed.
My husband being the good guy that he is went along with my scheme. As he always does. He did his best to mulch up the leaves from the front flower beds. I was able to put about half of them into our compost container.
Then we started uncovering the backyard. Outer layer of burlap came down and we surveyed the huge amount of leaves that we’d have to dispose of in some way or another. It is an extreme amount! We managed to uncover about a third of the back flower beds before we finally gave up.
A friend from work came over around 4:30 in the afternoon and ended up being our first garden visitor of the year. My husband being the social butterfly that he is, decided at 6:30 p.m. while we were still working in the backyard to call another friend from work to see if she and her husband wanted to come over and watch us. Now who would want to come over and watch two people move leaves around in their yard? I probably wouldn’t, but my hubby is a real charmer and they did come over around 7:30 p.m.. We were still working in the yard, in the dark when they arrived.
We have a very small backyard. It measures 17 feet wide, by 32 feet long. Our front yard is even smaller- you could probably fit our front yard into our backyard 10 times. Most of the backyard is taken up by a border of 3 and 4 foot deep flowerbeds and a 20 square foot patio. There isn’t much lawn, but what lawn there was was covered in at least 2 feet of leaves when our friends arrived, and the flowerbeds still had a good coating of leaves on them as well. I greeted them with “Welcome to Fall!” because it certainly doesn’t look like spring in our yard anymore, it looks like autumn. I’ll try to take a picture of it today before we start trying to clear out all the leaves.
I have no idea what to do with all the leaves. We can mulch them and perhaps put some back on the garden, turning them into the soil so that they can compost right in the ground. We can also mulch some and put them in those two great big garbage containers we have and hope they decompose in there too, or slowly add them to our compost pile when it goes down a bit. I still think we are going to have to get rid of at least half the leaves, which means putting them in yard waste bags. Trouble is that the city doesn’t start taking away yard waste until April 11th. We’ll have a long row of bags lining our narrow driveway until then. Hmmm maybe if we mulch up all the leaves our neighbors will take back some of their leaves and use them on their gardens too?
The exciting news is that under all of these leaves I found tulip and daffodil leaves. Some of the growth was almost a foot high! My tulips and daffodils don’t usually come up until sometime in April and don’t bloom until near the end of April or early May and continue on until mid-June or so. Between the leaves already starting to come out on my roses and my head started spring flowers we are going to have a spectacularly beautiful spring.
Garden stats: Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Zone 6, USDA zone 5b, backyard- southern exposure, front yard – northern exposure. Small garden with over 2500 spring and early summer flowering bulbs, 60+ roses, 400+ perennials. 200+ annuals and vegetable are planted each year as well.