DEEP FREEZE

It's been a fairly mild winter for us so far really. Some snow but not overly amounts of it. A few cold days but mostly not bad at all and downright "balmy" compared to some winter weather we've witnessed.

Holy smokes, we just went from +28F yesterday to -30 with wind chill this morning!!!

The wind is from the north (thanks Santa) at 20 mph and up. The snow is blowing around so much our sidewalks have completely disappeared.




We have to go out grocery shopping today. Maybe we should leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Nah, they'll be buried under swirling snow in minutes.



Speaking of "freeze", something happened to me at work last week that scared the pants off me. And depressed me. I almost went to my boss and said "you might as well just fire me now because my mind is suddenly going into the toilet."

Something that I've been doing for 10 years (10 YEARS!) and is a simple case of pushing the right buttons to clear our debit machines when cashing out a drawer ~~ suddenly I couldn't remember which buttons to push in the correct order. It's one of those things like typing, if you look you can't type properly, if you don't look, your fingers know exactly where to go. See what I mean?

Well suddenly my fingers forgot the order in which to push the assorted buttons on this Moneris machine, and it was the SECOND time in a week. I couldn't hit the correct buttons in the correct sequence and it kept beeping at me. Everyone was starting to look in my direction and I was embarassed, scared and ashamed. One of the girls had to finish it for me. I took my cash drawer and paperwork into the cashroom, closed the door, put my head in my hands and started sweating and shaking from fear.

I truly and completely had fear in the pit of my stomach.

I finished my cashout and all balanced as usual. I knew I had to go back out there, and I took a deep breath and decided the truth and being candid about it was my only option. The only one I had, really. So out I went. As I was visibly shaken up, the girls were watching me and wondering if I was okay.

So I told a couple of them, I was scared and something was wrong with me. I told them what happened. One of them, a lady my age, made me feel a bit better when she went to the machine and tried to show me the exact sequence so I could write it down. Well, when she slowed down and "looked" at what she was doing, SHE got confused too! Yep, just like typing! And another girl (sort of a supervisor) told me "Jude you have a really sharp mind, don't worry about it." So that also took the fear away a bit for me. One of the ladies found the manual for the machine and I wrote down the simple sequence so it would never happen to me again. We agreed that if we stop to "think" about it, it's hard to get right. The memory in my fingers betrayed me, and if it ever does again I'll have it in print! It turned out that what I was doing was hitting the first 2 buttons out of sequence.

I have noticed in the past year or two that maybe a couple times a month (and always in the afternoon) my mind will suddenly go "tired". Can't describe it any better than that, it gets "tired" and foggy. I'll forget things and make mistakes on the job, which is very disheartening and embarassing. Especially when it affects my team's performance, or affects a customer.

In talking about this a few weeks ago with that same co-worker who is my age, she told me that she'd been taking Ginko Biloba for quite awhile and it helps. (she's menopausal as well so she was having the same issues with "fog brain") I started taking it a few weeks ago, so I was REALLY upset when this happened with the button sequence, and I told her "and I've even been taking Ginko!!" to which she patted my hand and told me, "relax Jude, you need to take it for awhile THEN you'll notice a difference."

God I hope so.

I've always been sharp and organized on the job, although it's diminished on those "foggy" afternoons sometimes in the past while. This most recent incident blew my mind, in a very bad way.

When I was sitting with my head in my hands in the cashroom sweating, I actually thought I would have to find a job doing something I didn't have to think about, like stuffing envelopes.

I feel better about it now, I'm not as embarassed but still horrified. I really hope I see a difference in time with the Ginko. And I've always kept my mind sharp by doing things I really like: reading, crossword puzzles, online word games etc. Things that make you think. I think I have a fear of being senile or having dementia, and I didn't realize it until now. Wow.

I think most people over 40 (and maybe younger) have those incidents where you walk into a room and then forget what you went in there for. Those kinds of things we all laugh together about. What happened this time and what's been happening some days in between is different.

Part of aging and partly menopause yes. But I don't want it to get any worse.

Go Ginko, go!


And on that note, as I'm listening to the wind howl outside, I'm going to have my second cup of morning coffee, and wish you all a good week. Take good care of each other, and wish me luck!

PEACE!
Love Jude

WATCHING OVER YOU

It always amazes me just how much I sometimes feel that "I'm being looked after". There have been many times in my life that I have found myself in difficulties, some profoundly tough to get through and others not so immense but difficult nonetheless. And sometimes I wasn't even aware that darkness lurked around the corner just waiting to jump on me.

And so many of these instances I can look back and think, "wow I sure got some help from somewhere."

I'm sure all of you have had experiences like that. Call it Divine Intervention, Divine Guidance, God, Guardian Angels, Universal Energies; call it what you will it is there for all of us. Some of us may just not recognize it for what it is, others of us feel its presence in our lives often.


It can even be in the form of friends, loved ones or perfect strangers. I believe people (and situations) are placed in our lives at specific times for specific reasons. To help. To teach. To learn from us. For many reasons.

There was the time just after my late husband passed away. It was a weekend morning, early. Around 6 a.m. or so I believe. The house was silent, sister Pammie was asleep in her suite downstairs and I was upstairs in my own bedroom. I was awakened from a sound "dead to the world" sleep suddenly, and sat bolt upright in bed. I had NO idea what woke me up but I knew it was "someONE" not someTHING. And even in my sleepy stupor I knew that I was supposed to strain my ears and listen. So I sat there for about 10 seconds wondering. Then I heard it in the silence of the house. A crackling sound, a foreign to my ears sound. And yet I knew what it was. Electricity.

To make a long story short, I made my way downstairs when I saw nothing upstairs, and found the laundry room full of hazy smoke and sparks snapping from the plug behind the washer/dryer. It was just catching fire, and was covered in black soot. I pulled the plug and later had it fixed.

There were other things, the same sort of experience. Being "nudged" to my annoyance (which afterwards made me ashamed for being annoyed) to check something and when I did there was a major problem about to happen.

Lots of little things too. A push in the right direction; help in the way of inexplainable comfort washing over me when I never needed it so badly; finances suddenly improving when I couldn't sleep for worry...... we've all had these experiences. I just call it "being taken care of" and I have found in my almost 56 years that it happens most often and most easily when I just have "faith" during the hardest times.

It came to me in the form of an unsuspecting friend who gave me the above little Guardian Angel button recently just exactly when I needed the reminder.

Life is full of ups and downs, and one thing constant is the fact that we are "being looked after". Somehow we just keep on plugging away even during hardships.

I hope you all had a restful weekend, and I hope the coming week is full of "being looked after". Whether you need it or not. Take good care of each other!

PEACE!
Love Jude

TAGGED AGAIN!

And I promised I'd do this one, even though I think I did one like it in the last year or 2 here. So here goes and forgive me if you've already read some of this before about me...... it's 7 Weird Things About Myself. (I promise I won't tag anyone, but if you want to do one on your blog that'd be cool)

1.
Whenever an icky or scary thought comes into my head I have to silently say to myself "knock on wood!" or I think the bad thought might come true. (told you it was "weird")

2.
I'm DEATHLY afraid of wasps.

3.
I'm also DEATHLY afraid of driving. Did it for 3 years many moons ago and it only got worse as time went on. It's a stupid phobia. I'm a great passenger though. :-)

4.
I HAVE to own a rocking chair, and I always have. It's the only way I can really relax when I'm sitting, whether watching TV or listening to tunes; I have to be rocking.

5.
God it's hard to think of stuff. Um..... #5...... okay I like mayonnaise and peanut butter sandwiches (or toast).

6.
I have to have ketchup on my eggs.

7.
I like the taste of raw turnips but the taste of cooked turnip makes me gag.


Wow that wasn't as easy as I thought. I thought I was much weirder than I am I guess! Maybe that's a good sign? Although I'm SURE my sisters if they read this could come up with lots more!


Due to some difficulty and confusion getting information about my homemade products, I've now put a blurb on my sidebar for it. Thank you to all who have asked!


Have a great week everyone, and take good care of each other!

PEACE!
Love Jude

POST HOLIDAY ORDINARINESS

It's true, after Christmas all their is to look forward to in the near future is WINTER. Of course after that we have spring to set our sights on though!

I never take my tree down until after Ukranian Christmas (my roots; the ancestory, not the tree) on January 7th. This year I was a few days late as I only got it down yesterday. I was feeling a bit under the weather last weekend so I didn't even go there.

Now, as every year post Christmas, my living room looks so.... naked. Every time I walk by I am surprised to see out my living room window with no big tree blocking it. Ah yes, the pretty lights and sparklies will have to sit in limbo until next December. So be it.

The other part of the post Season ordinariness (if that's not a real word I just made it one) is that we're all back to the mundane ritual of work. At least in Alberta we don't have to wait until Easter to have a paid day off anymore as we have what's called "Family Day" the third Monday of every February. So, that means in exactly 5 weeks I'll have a paid long weekend.

Can you tell I'm sick and tired of working for a living? (aren't most of us!)

There is one thing I've been dearly looking forward to since Christmas, and that is the chance to finally watch the new(er) Pirates movie starring one of my favourites, Captain Jack Sparrow. I bought "At World's End" when it came out on December 5th. Hubby had to buy me a new TV as the one we had kept going black & white. Well we've now got the TV hooked up and hanging on the wall (flat screen) but we simply can't get the DVD player (or the VCR) hooked up properly. Techy challenged we are, although usually it's not a problem to get those things hooked up. New fangled TV's I suppose. Anyway, the movie so dearly awaited still sits in it's case, taunting me. One of these days we'll work on the problem again.

Another "techy" issue I've had to deal with this last week or so is all hubby's fault. heh heh

When he bought his computer a year ago he set it up on a wireless router to mine. I just assumed he'd taken care of securing it. Huh.

Last week a neighbour across the street we don't even know, stopped hubby on the street and told him he was able to get into our system and hadn't we best secure it? I was flabbergasted as I thought it was all done a year ago. I guess I should have known though, as hubby knows diddly squat about computers, even less than I do. To say the least, it's been stressful for this VERY non-techy chick trying to figure it all out. With the help of blogging friends (you know who you are and THANK YOU!!!!) I've gotten it pretty much done. Just one last issue I can't figure out how to fix.

Ah yes, wintertime ordinariness with some fun little stresses thrown in for good measure. LOL



******************************************************************


And further to my last post:



I need email addresses for a couple of you ladies who expressed interest. Danni and Lowa, you can reach me at judles@shaw.ca


I hope you all have a rocking good weekend! Take care of each other, and until next time......

PEACE!

Love Jude

WHO'DA THUNK IT??

Some of you may recall that every year for Christmas I make my sisters and a couple of friends some "special" gifts. All 100% natural, all made in my kitchen.



It's something I look forward to each year as I love making this stuff. Must be the Hippie Chick in me.

The first year I did this, I made baskets up with glycerine soaps, bath salts, lip balms, lemon and lavender spritzers, and a healing balm. I threw in some loofas and seashells and plastic wrapped the whole basket. What fun!



It's become a Christmas tradition although due to the expense of the healing balm (there are something like 13 essential oils in it!) I have left that one out.


Well. Who would have ever known this would happen? A few weeks before Christmas this year I was sitting in the lunch room at work with 2 lady co-workers and they were both talking about bath products and how they like the natural ones. Between bites I innocently said "I make some of those." Hah! They both went ballistic and said they'd pay-good-money-for-home-made-all-natural-products-and-would-I-please-make-them-some-they'd-pay-me? LOL

In the first few days after that through word of mouth I got myself a half dozen orders to fill and made myself just under $100. And it was FUN making them!!

With lots of ladies coming up to me at work to talk about the products and asking for some, I started feeling rather guilty as it IS my place of employment. I mentioned it to my boss (whom by the way is a friend of mine that I give these things to every Christmas as a gift and she loves them!) and she said not to worry, why don't I make up samples and bring them in. Put 'em in the lunchroom and sell them.

So I did.

I made up a whack of sample soaps, spritzers, lip balms and bath salts for people to sniff. And even the male species and kids love this stuff, especially the "not flowery" smells like the orange, apple and lemon soaps. I know one lady's son loves to use the bath salts.




I even printed off a product sheet and some order sheets. Stuck everything in a cool wicker tray I had kicking around the house along with a gold pen (for them to fill out the order forms) and took it in to work.


(for a newer and more detailed product list see blurb in my sidebar)


I'm thinking that because of Christmas it was busier, and probably won't be so much now. But hey doing up the odd new order here and there will keep me in pocket money perhaps.

Who'da thunk it??


Take good care of each other!

PEACE!

Love Jude

NEW YEAR BLESSINGS

In 2008 may you all find more love in your lives, find fewer tears and more joys.

I am looking forward to another year of blog friendships, thank you for being a part of my life!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

PEACE!
Love Jude