Outside and Inside in the Good Ole Wintertime

Winter continues and is about half over. Even though it has been a mild one, relatively speaking, it has still been winter, and we're mostly indoors.

It was dull yesterday, but I still broke out of the house to try to take a few photos. While there aren't too many new ones around here, or so it seems with my lack of imagination, it felt good snapping the shutter a few times.

I hadn't planned on it, but I took this shot of the Boulton Brown Apartments, near our town hall.

Carleton Place, originally called Morphy's Falls began as a mill town. A grist mill was first erected on this site (in the photo) in the 1820s. The present building dates from 1869 and functioned as the Boulton Brown Mill until a fire in 1970 put an end to it. In the 1980s, it was refurbished into an apartment building.

I also took a photo of the venerable canoe club. You may remember that I had one of my photos appear in the town's calendar. Well, I had to do some photoshopping to remove signs in that photo, so I got behind them this time, It wasn't as snow covered as in the other picture, and the building is a little marred by the new stairs out front that stand out like a sore thumb. I would hope that they are going to be painted to match this year, but I am guessing not.

Inside my cocoon, my moderate feminist self managed to get into a Facebook debate with my uber feminist niece.

In the end we agreed that we agreed on much but also disagreed in parts. I think we kept it pretty civil, but I found it a little frustrating eventually. People become so entrenched in their arguments that they seem to fail to see the forest for the trees as it were: in my opinion majoring on the minor points and minoring on the major points.

Anyway, it activated my stultified mind for awhile, so I think that's good, and I think we're still on good terms.

In other news, we had set aside time to go to the cottage for a winter retreat at the end of next week, but we have decided that right now it is too much of an effort for too little reward. We like winter up there, particularly snowshoeing in the woods, but with mild weather(anything above freezing being mild) and rain coming, it doesn't appear that it will be winter at its finest, so we are putting it off.

We have an alternate week scheduled in March, so we'll see what is going on then. All of the getting ready, packing, shopping for and transporting food etc gets a little daunting. That's probably the wrong word, but the getting ready part plus the journey seems like a greater chore these days, and we prefer the weather to be prime if we're going to make the effort.

I got the results of my blood work that I mentioned in a previous post. It seems that I passed. It was also time for a tetanus booster. Did you know that there is one concoction for people under 60 (or was it 65?) and another for those over? She also asked about family history. How long did my parents live? What took them in the end?

My father lived to be 86 and died as a result of prostate cancer. My mother lived to be 87 and died from breast cancer. Then, I told her that they were fitter than I, not carrying extra weight. That prompted her to ask my weight, so I gave her my guess. She put me on the scale, and I was pleased to learn that I am less heavy than I had thought. I guess at least some of my flabby look comes from the decreasing tone that age brings, which is why I thought I weighed more than I do. In point of fact, I was quite far off. But oh me oh my: that flabbiness.

This morning, I awoke sometime past 4 and was up by 4:30. I usually stir around that time but usually manage to get back to sleep for an hour or three, but sometimes I am forced to arise. After checking my usual internet sites, I decided to write this post of my very ordinary and banal life and times. I know that I have prattled on at good length, so it's time to stop. TTYL.