Sick - ups and downs

I woke up today feeling good. I had breakfast and my energy dipped.

I napped. Napping helped. More rest was needed. I then headed out for the first time in days.

Fresh air does wonders. I ended up at the drugstore. There is a huge shortage of cold and cough medication.

I have nighttime cold and cough medication. It's the daily medication that I needed. Luckily, I found some, but it was slim pickings.

It was great to feel much better when I left home until I had soup upon my return. I'm now congested, so I'm off to breath better with my nose spray.

Accidental photo

Hello, everyone! If you have Labour Day off today, enjoy it!

I haven't been writing much this long weekend. I have been catching up with friends and being more outgoing.

I am sharing an accidental photo that I took yesterday. I was attempting to hold my phone and pull up my shorts. I ended up with this photo, which I like. 

It makes me happy.

Meeting up with a friend

On Saturday, I met up with my friend for a late lunch. It was the first time that both dined in a restaurant since the pandemic.

It wasn't on a patio or in a tent. We were sitting in a restaurant. It was great and we felt safe.

It was a bit different, but I was thankful to have spent a couple of hours with my friend whom I haven't seen since last September.

Poor sleep, but a nap in the day helped!

Last night, I didn't sleep well. It was a combination of staying up late, waking up to a bit of foot pain, and hearing loud noises in the neighbourhood.

Luckily, I had completed the bulk of my work and only had to do some minor updates on Thursday. One of the benefits of working from home is napping when sleepy. It's exactly what I did.

Here's hoping that it'll be quieter and smoother tonight.

Hello, weekend!

I'm meeting up with two friends on Saturday. One is a former colleague. The other is my former intern. Both friends were on my team a couple of years ago.

I'm driving out to see them. It should take over an hour by car. I like a good day trip.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Waking up early for a work call

It has been a while since I got up at 6:45 am for work. I needed to be on a conference call at 7 am. I haven't had to take this call in nearly two months. This call lasts for four hours.

I oddly woke up just fine. It's amazing how solid my sleep has been for the past week. I haven't had any foot pain since I've reintroduced exercise into my life. I am still eating a banana a day. I need to get it down to half of a banana a day and see how that goes.

The best part about starting my workday early is ending it early. I was so happy to call it quits just after 3:40 pm.

The drawer exercise continues. I only do fifteen minutes of reorganization a day. I have realized that I have more white socks than I had anticipated. I don't wear them to work. I'll need to wear more of them when I work out.

My Mac mini works again! I'm moving and deleting photos libraries

After nearly two months of not being able to boot up my Mac mini, I tried last night and it worked. Yay!

First things first. I moved my photos library from my Mac mini to external storage. I am currently deleting a number of libraries from my Mac mini.

I take a lot of photos. My current library is 218 GB. No wonder my Mac mini fails to boot up, especially with all the library copies that I have. There simply isn't enough memory to do anything.

Here's to freeing up hard disk space.

Grammar matters, especially being tied up

I enjoyed this post on Facebook from Grammar Pants:

Wow, Debbie!

My car turns heads and starts conversations, even with the windows up

My car is a conversation starter. Even when I'm stopped at a traffic light, the flame blue colour turns heads.

I was driving home from work on Monday night. I was stopped at a light. A Jeep was next to me. The guy had three car lengths ahead of him.

I looked over. He was looking at my car. Our eyes met. I had my windows up, but we could clearly read each other's lips.

"Do you love my car?" I asked him.
"Yes, the colour is beautiful," he said.
"I love it, too," I said.

He had a huge smile on his face. I gave him a thumbs up. The light turned green and we drove straight ahead before he turned right at the next light.

It's interesting how humans interact. It's also fascinating how much guys admire a nice car.

Cold and Daylight Saving Time

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night cold. Ir's rare for me.

My guy typically needs more blankets. First, he likes rolling himself in them. Second, he gets cold faster than I do.

On the other hand, I tend to be warm to begin with. He calls me the furnace because I am that warm body-wise. It's rare for me to feel cold.

Luckily, I have some throws by my bed. I used one over my comforter and went back to sleep. I didn't stir. I woke up six hours later.

It's Daylight Saving Time soon. Note that Saving does not have a letter s at the end. The clocks go ahead by an hour. We'll see how that works with my biological clock!

Compatibility when waking up in the morning

When my guy and I were in the States, his phone would wake us both up. He had to go to work and he set his alarm for 7 am.

We are different. I hear an alarm and I get up automatically. He hears an alarm and hits the snooze button a few times.

The first time I heard his alarm on this trip, I woke up. I went into my usual wakey-wakey mode with him.

"Wakey wakey!" I said to him.
"I want to snooze," he said.
"How many times?" I asked him.
"Four times," he replied.
"That's a lot," I noted.

When his phone's alarm when off the fourth time, I put his phone on his head.

"You're mean. We aren't compatible," he whined.
"Do you want to break up?" I asked him.
"No. You're such a morning person and I'm not," he whined.

When it was finally 7:48 am, he woke up, got out of bed, and got on with his day. He's so boyish.

We suggested that he set his alarm to 7:30 am. He was much better after that.

Of course, on the weekend, he forgot to turn off his alarm.

"Alarm, sweetie," I said to him, which prompted him to turn it off.

I do miss seeing him snooze all day. He loves his sleep so much. I love sleep, too. I just am not a snoozer like he is.

Sleeping in and departing home

My guy loves to sleep. I affectionately call him my sleepyhead.

In Dallas, I left a day before he was scheduled to head back home. I let him sleep in till noon. I then gently woke him up by squeezing his arm. He took the pillow off his head.

"Hey," he said.
"Hey," I replied, kissing his head. "I have to go."
"What time is it?" he asked me.
"It's 12:15 pm," I replied.

I hugged him in bed. He caressed my head. It was a nice, loving moment.

Like the gentleman that he is, he helped open the hotel door for me as I got my luggage out to the hallway. Naturally, we kissed and hugged.

I love our quiet moments. They are memorable and are full of love, even when he just woke up and is in sleepyhead mode.

Back from travelling - happy, but sleepy

It has been a while! I am back from my work trip. Oddly, I wasn't exhausted when I returned. However, my first day back at work drained me.

I returned on Saturday afternoon. I spent a quiet day running a few errands before checking in at a hotel for a night. My guy was scheduled to fly in at 5:30 am.

Well, I slept well that night. I woke up to the sound of my guy calling me at 5:15 am. I didn't catch his call in time and called him back.

"Hey," I said, sleepily.
"Hey," he said. "Did I wake you up?"
"Yep, you did. I thought that you were getting in at 5:30 am and that I could sleep in till 6 am," I said.
"I know. My flight got in early. I didn't see an e-mail from you," he noted.
"I used to write them and you didn't bother reading them. You'd call me instead," I replied.

He needed my hotel room number. I let him know what it was. He was coming to see me once he got his luggage off the carousel at the airport. I love when he does.

Seeing my mushy guy and anticipating being punished

My guy is in mushy mode. It means that he misses me.

My plan was to drive over to his area on Friday morning to visit the liquidation centre that we both like. The problem these days is that I am in vacation mode, so waking up early may be difficult.

I woke up and he left me this text message:

Hey, why don't you check into a room on Thursday instead of driving early on Friday? I'll be happy to split it. Have a wonderful day, sweetie!

I decided to book a couple of nights. These staycations are fun. He has already told me that he'll be punishing me. Sweet!

New smartwatch with new syncing challenges

I recently went back into the world of smartwatches.

For over a year, I had a Pebble Time Round watch. It's a smartwatch that looks like a regular watch. I loved that it would keep track of my steps.

Sadly, Pebble went away. Fitbit bought the company. The app that used to count my steps died. So, I had to go back and use my Fitbit.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Fitbit Alta. However, I hate tapping the screen to figure out what time it is or how many steps I have taken. It's not the most sensitive screen. I would sooner have a button to cycle through the data.

It was one of those fluky moments. I was in my guy's neck of the woods. I decided to visit Fossil at one of the local malls. I have wallets, jewellery, and cell phone cases from that store. I never really looked at watches.

The young saleswoman showed me the hybrid smartwatches. They look like regular, classy watches, but they are indeed smartwatches that sync to your phone through an app. Instead of charging the watch, it runs on a battery. She gave me a thorough demo of both the watch on her wrist and the app that she had on her phone.

I loved the watch that the woman had on. I loved the concept. I even had one that I had in mind to purchase, but had to think about it.

I am such a geek. I sat in the mall and researched this watch. Was there a way to sync the steps over to my corporate health app? I need to have this feature, as you earn cash incentives for exercising with my company.

Sure enough, I figured out that I could get it to work. So, a couple of weeks ago, I bought my hybrid smartwatch in rose gold. It's nice. I love it. My guy smiled at me when I first told him about it. He loves when I get excited over technology.

The trick is that the Fossil Q app needs to sync with the Up by Jawbone app first. My company uses the Virgin Pulse app for our health program, which Up links to.

I couldn't get any of my steps to sync properly from Q to Up. I contacted Fossil support. It is slow, but they are friendly.

I am a decent troubleshooter. I decided to unlink and link Up from my Q app first. I then went into the Up app and removed the link to Virgin Pulse. Finally, I went into my Virgin Pulse app, disconnected and reconnected the link to my Up account.

The last step was verifying that my Up app had the Virgin Pulse app links again. It was.

Guess what? All of these actions got my steps to sync properly. Go, me! I still have yet to hear from the support guy.

The best part of this exercise is that I do not have to wear my watch and my Fitbit Alta on each wrist.

Being vulnerable... he's here!

When my guy and I started dating, it took him a while to open up to me. He wasn't great at expressing how he felt. He would tell me that he felt vulnerable and a bit uncomfortable.

These days, he embraces his vulnerability. We both trust each other. He comes to me when he needs to talk. The feeling is mutual.

After sex, we both are in a lethargic, relaxed state. We say the most fun things afterwards. The other day, my guy ended up singing. That's nothing unusual.

"I'm here! I'm here!" he sang to me.
"I know. You're next to me," I said, sweetly kissing him.
"I'm here! You're here!" he said, in a dopey voice.
"You're here. Me, too," I said.

He's sweet when he is in this state. I just want to hug him even more.

J stands for jumping out of bed to talk to my guy #AtoZchallenge

My guy and I had talked about meeting on Saturday for some quality time. I was expecting to talk to him. However, things changed a bit.

I tend to sleep in on weekends. I enjoy it more these days, especially when work drains me.

Last Saturday, I woke up briefly at 09:30. I looked at the clock and went back to sleep.

I wear a Fitbit Alta tracker on my wrist. I get notifications whenever my cell phone rings.

I woke up just after 10:00 to my Alta vibrating on my wrist. I looked at my cell phone. It was my guy. I felt like I had jumped out of bed.

"Hey," I said, in a sleepy tone.
"Hey," he replied. "Did I wake you up?"
"Yep," I said.
"Sorry," he apologized.
"It's okay. What's up?" I asked him, trying to snap out of being in snoozyland.
"I was wondering if we could meet for breakfast instead. Unfortunately, I have to pick up my cousin downtown after my course," he explained.
"Okay. Where did you want to meet?" I asked him.
"I can come pick you up," he insisted. "We can have breakfast in your area."
"Okay. Let me think of a place to go," I replied.
"Great. I will start my drive," he said.

My guy was in downtown Toronto. It would take him about forty minutes to drive up to see me. I told him that it was sweet of him to come pick me up. It would also give me time to wake up and look presentable.

Sure enough, he called me once he was outside my house. I came outside and walked over to his car. He looked good in his blue sweater, jeans, and black coat.

We agreed to go to my local Starbucks, which was a five-minute drive away. It feels like my second home, as he knows how much I like frequenting the place. I had to give him turn-by-turn instructions while trying to snap out of sleepy mode. We held hands all the way.

When he parked, I gave him his belated birthday present. Coincidentally, I couldn't find a decent gift bag to fit all his goodies. Instead, I used a Starbucks paper bag.

He thanked me for the gifts and we kissed.

"Woo hoo! Woo hoo!" said the noise coming out of my coat pocket.
"Someone is happy," my guy said, smiling.
"It's my owl LED light on my keychain," I said, pulling it out and demonstrating.
"Woo hoo!"

My guy let me know that he had visited our favourite liquidation place on Friday and it finally had almond beverage in stock.

"I'm glad that it took the place a year to restock," I replied.
"I got you some boxes," he said.
"You're so sweet," I replied. "Oh, no. That means that you are going to upsell and make me pay $30! Stress!"
"I was joking back then. It's free for you, sweetie," he insisted.
"Okay. Thanks!" I said, smiling at him.
"I will bring your gift into Starbucks."

We both got out of the car, he grabbed my hand, and we walked over to Starbucks for breakfast. It was a nice way to start the day.

Condoms after making up in New Jersey

A few years ago, my guy and I were in a suburb in New Jersey for work, but for different purposes. We were both supposed to be on the same flight going to Newark, but he never made it on the plane. It was a good thing, as he decided to end our relationship before this trip.

I was miserable for a number of reasons, the main one being that he had broken up with me. It was also my time of the month and I was coming down with a cold.

Things changed when we met at the office in New Jersey. He had issues at the border, which explained why he was late. I could tell by looking into his eyes that he wanted to know that I was okay, but didn't ask in front of my writing colleagues.

The following morning, he pinged me on Skype. We chatted briefly. He wanted to see me after work. We went out for dinner, which was painful at first. He then wanted me back, said that he was sorry, and we cuddled for the rest of the night. We were a couple again.

A couple of days later, my period was over. He was so elated. We went to a Walgreens and he bought a three-pack box of condoms. It was our first time having anal sex. It wasn't as enjoyable as our most recent experience last month. However, it was memorable!

We had two condoms remaining from that box. For years, I knew that I had kept them. I simply didn't know where they went.

Well, a week ago, I found them in a drawer. They are still good. The expiration date isn't for another year.

The condoms are good, as is our relationship.

My guy marking up the price of laundry soap

My guy called me yesterday afternoon to chat.

"I went to our favourite liquidation centre last Friday," he reported.
"Great! What did you get?" I asked.
"I got two buckets of our favourite laundry soap. It was going for $15 each," he noted.
"Cheap, indeed. It's practically half price," I indicated.
"Yes," he agreed. "If you want a bucket, I can sell you one for $25."
"But, you got it for $15. You're marking it up just for me?" I asked.
"Sure," he replied.
"You're so mean. My boyfriend is not only a cheap bastard, but a meanie. You can take that laundry soap and shove it up you-know-where," I replied.
"At least my colon will be clean," he joked.
"I will be far away when you explode," I noted.

Naturally, my guy was joking. I brought it up again later on in our conversation, so he knew that he had to make it up to me.

It's a good start to the year so far!

K is for knees

This post is a bit different. It is more an observation about my guy and a perspective that I enjoy from afar.

My guy does stretches in the morning. He has a lightweight travel mat that he brings with him.

When he finally feels like getting out of bed, he will place his mat on the floor and stretch. I like watching him.

The most appealing part to me occurs when he is on his knees and he bends forward, with his butt up in the air. It's a happy sight to see in the morning. I like thinking about going over and smacking it. I just don't want to ruin his stretching regimen.

It's aways a great start to the day when I see my guy. It's simply eye candy when I enjoy such quiet moments.