Another random stuff post. 'Cause that's all I do.

I know, lately it seems I only pop in once every couple of weeks with a random smattering of what I'm doing, reading, cooking, watching, and listening to... but here we go again.

• So, as I mentioned in my last post, I caught a cold.  A week ago today I thought was my "worst day".  I was very low energy and felt cruddy.  On Thursday I deemed myself much better, my energy was back and aside from some snuffles, I felt great.  I curled that night, and then woke up the next morning with no voice.  Like, zip.  I don't know if it was the dampness of the curling rink or what, but my voice was totally gone.  Really, the worst of the cold symptoms had passed, but not having a voice all weekend made it sound much worse than it was.  Thankfully it came back on Monday so it was short-lived silence from me. ha!
• The last couple of Saturdays, we've gone to my sister and brother-in-law's to enjoy some outdoor winter fun.  They have a perfect set-up - a little rink, a nice sliding hill in their back yard, and a nice big yard in general to play in, all set against the beautiful back-drop of the Gatineau Hills.  On Saturday, some of us girls went snowshoeing.  After trekking around the yard a few times, we decided to head off into the bush.  I was following my (skinny) sister who was just prancing along on the upper crust of the snow, while I (not skinny) was sinking a good two feet with each step.  We weren't even out of their yard yet when I took a step and sunk in snow up to my chest.  No matter which way I turned or flopped, I could not seem to get myself loose and each movement seemed to only make me sink even further.  I'm sure it was quite a sight to see, me flopping around in the snow.  And it was one of those situations where nobody could help.  I just had to wriggle myself free and figure it out.  I finally did get myself hoisted out of my deep snow hole and crawled to the road a short distance away.  Needless to say... my snowshoeing was done for the day.
  
• Oh, that above story could have been much worse, but I'm happy to report that my knee issues I've been dealing with for a few weeks have subsided.  I got a Rub A535 cream for stiff joints and it seemed to work wonders.  And thank God, because if my knee was still bum, I'd have never been able to crawl out of that snow hole!!!
• Sunday was a miserable day of freezing rain, rain, sleet, snow... you name it, we got it.   Church was cancelled, and I had no voice anyways, so I hunkered down for another one of those "hibernation days".  Crocheting, puzzling, Game of Thrones, reading, napping...and then, in the evening, The Oscars.  I managed to stay awake to watch Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper perform (ooh-la-la!  They were amazing, and I NEED them to be a real couple!!!) - and then promptly fell asleep.  It seemed to be a lackluster year for the Oscars, without a host and with me having only seen A Star Is Born of the nominated films.  I must say though, I am anxious to see Bohemian Rhapsody now.  It doesn't sound like I missed much by falling asleep half-way through though.
  
• So during my "hibernation day" on Sunday, I finished reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris.  It took me less than a week to read this book, which is saying something.  I don't read fast.  What an amazing, gripping true story from the Holocaust.  It also gave me a new perspective into what life was like in concentration camps.  Lale's view of things as the tattooist was a way of looking at things that I had never read before.  Still horrifying and deeply disturbing, of course, but it was a look inside the camps that I found very intriguing.  I definitely recommend the book.
  
• So that's 3 book club books down, 3 more to go.  I'm now well into The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman, which was slow to start but I'm now really getting into it.  Interestingly, the story is set in my home province of Quebec, and tells the story of a teenage girl growing up in the late '40's in a home where her father is English and her mother is French.  Ironically, her father has always encouraged her to stay away from the French, and yet of course, she's in love with the boy next door who is French.  I'm really just getting into it as Maggie and Gabriel are falling in love, but it has definitely hooked me.  I can't wait to get home to read more.
  
• Game of Thrones.  Ohhhhhh Game of Thrones.  I think in my last post I said I was almost done because Crave only had 5 seasons.  Well, the 6th season was added somewhere along the way, so no, I'm not done.  But I'm getting close.  And of course, now that I'm almost done, I can say that I'm really starting to get into it.  It's still not my favourite show ever, but I've become quite attached to the characters and I'm anxious to see what happens.  (I just watched the episode where Jon Snow is brought back to live, an event I remember causing quite a stir back when it actually happened, so it was cool to finally see what the fuss was all about.)
  
• I'm fairly certain my next show will be Big Little Lies, although I think I may take a pause to watch Dirty John on Netflix.  I watched two episodes a week or so ago, but I just can't seem to juggle more than one show, so I turned my attention back to GoT.  As much as I am now enjoying the show, I really can't wait to get into something that I LOVE watching and can't get enough of.  It's been a long time since I've had a real good binge, y'know?
  
• On Monday night, Jimmy Fallon celebrated his 5th anniversary of hosting The Tonight Show.  It was a little surreal to realize this.  I started following Jimmy not long before he took over the reins of The Tonight Show, and I remember his first show as if it was yesterday.  It was during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, and I was so excited for him.  I've been watching the show faithfully ever since (PVR'd, the next day) and if he hadn't announced it was his 5th anniversary, I never would have guessed it's been that long.  I still think of him as "just starting out".  It's crazy and unsettling how fast time can fly by.
  
• On the crocheting front... I struggled to find another project after finishing the Call the Midwife blanket.  I have some yarn that I received in a "Mystery Santa Pack" back before Christmas that I wanted to try out and thought it was the perfect amount (3 balls of chunky yarn called Gemstone Stripes) to use for a shawl.  The first pattern I tried was boring so I ripped it out.  I made a few dish cloths in between to keep me going until I found another pattern to try.  This one is a C2C style cluster stitch, and it's turning out to be quite pretty.  I worked on it a lot on Monday afternoon while I watched the Trade Deadline show on TSN.  I call it my Faulty Mark Stone Prayer Shawl because I prayed while I crocheted away that the Sens would not trade my favourite player.  And it didn't work.  
  
• As for the Sens... I'm a fan.  I will always be a fan.  But man oh man, they are making it REALLY HARD right now.  The past two years, since that run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2017, have been dismal at best.  If Erik Karlsson wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back, this past week had to be.  And even at that... if they had lost Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel, but still managed to sign Mark Stone, I would have been okay.  But they didn't.  They lost all three of them. All three of their top scorers.  And they can preach to me all they want about a rebuild and how the future is so bright, but for me, nothing can replace Mark Stone.  He was my guy.  The closest thing I've had to a Wade Redden since... Wade Redden.  This one doesn't just hurt.  This one makes me so so mad.  I've tried to stay off the #MelnykOut bandwagon, because it seemed useless to me to rail on an owner when there's nothing we can do about who owns the team, but I've thrown my hat into the ring.  That guy is a total jerk, and he has to go.  And he can take that useless, condescending Pierre Dorion with him on his way out.  The Ottawa Senators haven't been around the league that long, but they have a history I was proud of, and these guys are throwing it all away.  It's no fun being a fan of the laughing stock of the league.  Something's gotta give, and in my eyes - and the eyes of majority of the fanbase - that something is Eugene Melnyk.
• I didn't even get a hint of a smile out of the video of Matt Duchene on the private jet with his wife and dog and new baby and Ryan Dzingel heading to Columbus.  The video of Mark Stone arriving in Vegas to the fanfare of a marching band, cheerleaders, and people dressed up as knights made me cringe.  They were a big shovel of salt in a gaping wound.  It is not a fun time to be a Sens fan.  No fun at all.
  

That's it for today, friends!  Have a good one!!