Beaver:
Prodigious job, Michelle!

I have the advantage of being able to slowly choose what comes to Beaver. I can pretty well sort and organize as stuff arrives - over a week or so. Though some things have not yet found homes, some furniture has not yet arrived and the cold and snow has precluded taking some bin to the back shed. Next trip to Quebec, I will carefully choose another car load to bring and maybe ONE box of archives.

The Family Health Team is offering a free, 4 session workshop on "Craving Change: Changing your relationship with food" in February. I shall try the first session, at least. Today, I did manage to stop at a shop for cheese and leave without the wonderful brownies. I hurried!

Cool house may mean using more calories but I may be eating more; but generally avoiding cookies and no brownies in 3 weeks. But no weight loss either.

No hot water either. I finally told R last night and he told me what to look at; this morning I checked the reset button and took the fuses to the hardware, where they were declared well but "maybe an element is burned out." R phoned for a report and will replace one or both elements next trip. The water out of the hot water tap is not as cold as that from the cold water tap so I shall use it to wash clothes - time for a load.

Wore myself out today without bringing in any wood! Hardware store, two food stores, library, home for lunch, took car for a new alternator - as it did not start this am. (If it quit starting with the new battery, then it needs an alternator) Chris took me to the Thrift Warehouse to wait for car; it is closer than going home and it was only going to be an hour - And it was.

While there, LONG conversation with friend who just put mom in long term care - father is beside himself and wants her back; house is a disaster - filthy from dad and also untrained 10 year old dog - if you don't let the dog out when need... Not really "untrained"; it is trained to do it in the house! I am amazed the daughters have not stayed on top of it; there is such a thing as giving too much respect to leaving them to themselves! But all 3 have to agree... So we talked; maybe it helped.

I had a sort of epiphany on my way to mechanic; an emotional de-clutter! The guy who wrecked my life in 1998 by taking all the work and leaving me with inadequate income (long story) was clearly a sociopath. I was terribly hurt and angry; had to sell my dream home... Boom! Maybe he needed that job more than I did. I did Ok and some good things happened while I was away, because I was away. And, although I lost 15 years of being here, people have welcomed me back and I am happy to be here.

Only bought two things at Thrift and each is already in its useful new home. Got home, fed fire - more and more to get house back into 60s, put heating pad on my back - a cacophony of ache, and sitting here eating broccoli, went through the flyers, deleted emails, signed petitions, and thinking about a couple emails I need/want to write. Oh, and organized tools and stuff from the water project into shallow "tomato" boxes, that I remembered to pick up at grocery. I can stack them on the counter in the kiln room tomorrow.

I am really tired - this is when I want to eat cookies to get going again. Of course, that does not work but they taste good. Later I will eat some sunflower seeds, cashews and almonds. Was still light at 5:15!