This morning I am aware of how much joy I enjoy, as light begins to filter into the sky that is visible through the silhouette of the tree, that I see when I gaze out of the living room window in the mornings. I feel wealthy, because I have the comfortable chair, in the warm dwelling, with a lovely window, and a tree I can see.
What a beautiful morning!
We are expecting snow by this afternoon, so I am determined to get out there for my walk early. After I wrote that last sentence, I headed out for my walk, it was sunny when I set out, and had clouded over by the time I returned home. Snow on the way.
My Mom knit me a second knee warmer for Christmas, so now when I go out for a walk both knees are dressed for the weather!
The refurbished iMac arrived on Tuesday. I tend to install everything anew, rather than transfer from the old iMac, and I’ve been busy setting up the new computer. And of course the joy of getting sidetracked has been mine to savour. I have collected quite a few images of art that I love to look at, and I display the images with their file names as a screensaver on the computer. This gives us a steady stream of art images, in high definition, to gaze at when we are sitting quietly contemplating life, the universe and everything.
The file names were haphazard, saved as is when the file was downloaded. The file names needed work. Luckily, I had been offered the software “Renamer” by the company as a gift, based on my long ago purchase of their discontinued recipe software. It came in very, very handy in renaming the files, there are over 600 of them. I name them thus: artist last name; artist first name; year created; title of work if any. This project took hours to complete. What a luxury to spend hours creating this decorative yet educational screen saver. Now the images rotate, and each one displays the the file name, which is the information about the image. My favourites are Klimt and Van Gogh.
The new iMac is light years faster than the 2007 iMac. I have moved my book working files onto a removable drive, and am now working on my genealogy book on the new computer. It is a modest screen size, by modern standards, 21.5″, and is a much better work space than the small screen of my MacBook Air. The book is going slowly, as I am now dealing with images, and captions, and references for the images. Each image has to be imported separately, resized and positioned on the page, manually captioned, and then manually referenced. There are hundreds of images, this is going to take some time.
We decided recently to discontinue Acorn TV for a little while, as we had watched all the programming they had that was interesting to us. A lot of their interesting stuff was not available in Canada. Instead we signed on for Amazon Prime Video, and we anticipate that they have such a limited offering that it won’t take long to watch everything they have that we find interesting. However, they also offer free shipping from Amazon.ca as part of the deal, so we can make the annual fee work for us. Our taste runs to programs that offer a good degree of character development, sophisticated story line, and no violence or manipulative power jockeying. Slim pickings these days, but there are still some programs that meet our criteria being created.
My blood pressure has been within normal readings for the last two readings. This is exciting! I have my fingers crossed that it isn’t just a fluke. Right now I am on the original dosage of the medication that had stopped working. Could it be that the low-sodium, low-sugar, pre-meal Apple Cider Vinegar, diet has at last kicked in to bring my high blood pressure down? Or is the lower level of stress, after a horrendous summer, allowing my blood pressure to lower? Well, I am not about to give up either the new diet, or the low stress levels, so I may never know!
Two of my heart tests will be conducted next week. No injections or pills, so I don’t have to worry about anaphylaxis. I have been trying to figure out the parking, it is going to be tricky, street parking with meters, I can’t arrive too early or I will get a ticket if the appointment takes too long. The woman at the parking office said that if I am delayed at a medical appointment and I get a ticket, to bring it in and they will take care of it for me. There are bureaucracies in this world that are mediated by good people!
Today I will be busy baking orange oatmeal muffins, and getting the old 2007 iMac ready to donate to someone. No takers in my circle, but I am hoping to find someone who wants a computer to do email and light surfing on the internet, it would be perfect for that.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
-6°C
Date: 9:00 AM EST Thursday 5 January 2017
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 100.9 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: -5.6°C
Dew point: -12.2°C
Humidity: 60%
Wind: W 36 gust 53 km/h
Wind Chill: -15
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”
Epictetus
55 AD – 135 AD
The new computer sounds wonderful. And I’m so happy to hear about your blood pressure! Fingers crossed you’ll continue to get good readings.
I love Amazon Prime because of the free shipping. They have a lot of movies, series, t.v. shows. The only series I’ve watched was Mozart in the Jungle and I liked it quite a bit. I believe they also have free eBooks included with Prime.
It sounds to me like you live in heaven 🙂
Sandy, the new computer is all I hoped it would be, at a lower cost than a new equivalent one. As I was working on my book, I became frustrated even on the new computer, by having to switch back and forth to look for details at ancestry and on my back up drive. My solution, fire up the old iMac, set it down beside the new one, and let the old machine handle the web browser for ancestry and the navigation window for searching my files, while the new computer handles the manipulation of the files and the editing of the book. It works very, very well. The old iMac is still in the saddle.
I didn’t know about books being available through amazon prime, something to explore, thanks for the tip! We watched Dr. Thorne, an amazon production written by Julian Fellowes, who did Downton Abbey, and we quite liked it. It is based on a novel by Anthony Trollope.
Attila and I are very happy with our life and where we live right now, and enjoying every minute of it! Of course, I write from my own rose coloured perspective, describing our context and my life as I see it. There is just so much to appreciate!
There’s no doubt that parking is the bane of many hospital visits. It was so nice of them to offer to help if your appt runs over!
For now, I’m working with a local clinic. My doctor took out my staples the other day but 2 of them didn’t take and the clinic is trying to get advice from the surgeon as to how to handle the unsealed area. Makes me nervous but they’re the ones trained to handle this. Otherwise, I’m glad to see I’m getting stronger. Four days ago I was wrung out by a clinic visit, today I recovered in less than an hour. Would love to see that sort of thing continue!
Enjoy your new iMac!
Teri, I’ve been going up and down the streets near the clinic, with Google Earth, and the more I do it, the more comfortable I feel. But you never know how things will go!
Too bad about the failed staples! Hopefully they will get you all fixed up sooner rather than later. Wishing you a speedy and painless recovery!
Here’s the link to the Prime books. They have fiction, nonfiction, magazines etc. It’s my understanding they rotate the offerings periodically. https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/fd/prime-pr
It sounds like the old iMac still has work to do 🙂
I used to be a member of Ancestry. It got a bit pricey so I reluctantly dropped it’ It is a wonderful resource. I got the Ancestry DNA kit on sale. I’m mostly of Italian, French and Polish ancestry and that showed up in the report. But I had smatterings of other countries including Ireland, which pleased me. I was raised in an Irish area of Chicago and always “felt” I was Irish 🙂
One thing blew me away. I connected to the family tree of a person listed as a probable cousin. She had traced her family to the same village and nearby town that my Grandmother and Grandfather came from! Now, I had never uploaded my family tree to Ancestry so the results were completely legitimate. It was a wonderful moment 🙂
Good luck with the tests.
That makes two little happinesses for me: both you and Everett got normal blood pressure readings this time. Woo hoo!!!!
That makes two little happinesses for me: both you and Everett got normal blood pressure readings this time. Woo hoo!!!!
– Kate
We LOVE Google Maps for ‘visiting’ a new place before we have to travel. It made all the difference with our knowing where to go as we travelled to the various places where I had CT scans and such done.
Thanks for the good wishes. My post-op visit with my surgeon was supposed to be next Friday. Who knows, maybe they’ll move it up.
Sandy, I checked amazon.ca for Prime Books and it looks like it is a USA only feature. This happens a lot, services from the US are limited in Canada. Netflix is the same, not much available in Canada compared to the US, that is why so many people were accessing it via masked IPs, to get the additional programming. We didn’t do that, and eventually watched all the programming available that was of any interest to us. Thanks for the link so I could check it out.
Ancestry is expensive, but since I spend time there almost every day, and my books are based on that type of research, it is an indulgence I purchase, usually waiting until there is some kind of sale on membership fees. Eventually I will give it up though, but not for a few years yet I hope, I have my Granny’s side of the family to research still. I have the Canada version, which is less expensive than the world version of membership.
I have been tempted by the DNA, and have yet to venture into it. That is interesting that you found a cousin through DNA! I hope to eventually find relatives in Scotland, England and Ireland, but so far I haven’t been able to connect back that far, pre 1820 records are more difficult to research and expensive to access, still, I live in hope.
Thanks, re the tests. 🙂
Kate, that is wonderful news about Everett’s blood pressure!!! Do you know what made the difference for him?
I have my fingers crossed that my blood pressure stays down! I will be following my special diet, and even Attila is beginning to feel results from the lower levels of sodium. He was never a big sugar fan, that was always me!
Teri, I love Google Earth, it is a much used program for me. I like to toot around and visit places I’ve never been, and probably will never visit, like Bhutan.
Hopefully you will be fully recovered in time to enjoy the spring unfettered with health issues!
Those orange oatmeal muffins sound divine. I love orange anything. I eat a big orange every day with my morning (late) meal, and I have orange essential oil that I put in my oil/air diffuser in the bedroom and it smells amazing.
Bex, I love citrus, orange, lime, lemon, grapefruit! I posted the orange muffin recipe for you here http://www.maggieturner.net/?page_id=7517&preview=true This recipe is low sodium and low sugar.
The diffuser sounds interesting, what kind of a gizmo is it?
Thanks Maggie. My blog addy is changed now (since Journalscape is no more) over to:
https://thoughtsfromcrowcottage.com
(Just FYI for your side bar).
The infuser is fabulous. I bought two – one for downstairs (in front reading room) and one for in my bedroom. I run the upstairs one all night and put different essential oils in it each night but my faves are orange, grapefruit, lavender and eucalyptus but I have a box of about 16 different scented oils. I will find a link for you.
The diffuser:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018CLNEOM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and the oils:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KK90ZH8/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Bex, thanks for the link for the infuser, it sounds like something I would like. We have lavender essential oil, and I quite like that.
Oh sorry about the Prime books. I don’t know why they don’t make it worldwide. Hopefully they will at one point.
Yes, it makes sense for your family history project, that you use Ancestry. Their resources are amazing.
Sandy, I think amazon would extend the program to Canada, but Canadian content regulations prevent it.
I use ancestry every day, which makes it worthwhile to subscribe, the biggest expense for my hobby. Their resources are amazing, so much easier than the microfiche I began with.
I am thrilled that you are having such a great start to the year! You will love the iMac—I had a Mac for years, but relinquished it for a PC when I retired. Hope you continue to enjoy your good fortune!
Oh I didn’t know Canada had content regulations.
One thing I loved about Ancestry are the copies of the source documents. I loved finding the shipping record for my grandfather. And later for his mother and youngest brother. From that record I learned the name of my g-g grandmother and grandfather. So many little details. It’s like a big puzzle that you get to fill in with pieces 🙂
Thanks Diane!
My first computer was a Commodore 64, I remember it well.
I have used Macs since 1986/87, well, back then they were Apple computers, no hard drives, operated from diskettes. Before that I use mainframes. Using a Mac is like breathing for me. I did use UNIX and Windows quite a bit, but always preferred the Mac.
My the coming year bring you peace and joy!
Sandy, Canada has content regulations, to promote the arts here. A lot of our talent goes south though, where the population is much higher and the opportunities are more abundant.
I know what you mean about being able to see the original documents at Ancestry Sandy, it is really wonderful. Often the little details allow us to discover things about our family history that would have otherwise been lost to us. I have oftent thought, over the last 22 years, that researching genealogy is like knitting a blanket with people (or crocheting as some might favour). The bigger the blanket the warmer the experience.