Canada Day!
Jul. 1st, 2015 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rusty_armourHappy Canada Day to all Canucks and non-Canucks alike! :-) I thought I'd start off by sharing this fabulous vid a friend sent me on Facebook. It's so absurdly Canadian that it seems perfect for the occasion:
Sharing this vid is probably the closest I'll get to doing anything truly patriotic today. However, at least I left my apartment for a couple of hours and enjoyed the beautiful weather. As I said to my friend on Facebook, enjoying beautiful weather (when it's actually there to enjoy) is pretty Canadian. *g* As my period just started (and I was a bit migrainey this morning), I decided to skip my more ambitious plans for hanging out at Harbourfront and stuck close to home instead, which allowed me to save two TTC tokens, but still escape from this building. I ended up on a very nice park bench at the North Toronto Memorial Community Recreation Centre, which was surprisingly quiet. I just had to contend with some dog walkers and people going in and out of the centre, which was fine. I didn't get to see any groundhogs (as I would at Edwards Gardens), but I did feed a squirrel some of the pretzels from my stash of Bits & Bites. Sadly, I barely did any writing, but I was able to start reading A Slight Trick of the Mind in preparation for Mr Holmes.
After spending time at the North Toronto Memorial Community Recreation Centre, I ended up exploring some of the neighbourhood around Eglinton Avenue West. Despite the number of years I've lived in the area, I hadn't really explored much more than Eglinton Avenue West itself, so it was cool to check out some of the streets that branch out from there. Walking also allowed me to earn some steps for GCC (the Global Corporate Challenge). The point of GCC is to promote health and fitness throughout companies around the world. In each company, employees form teams of seven -- and those teams try to accumulate as many steps as possible, which lead them to various cyber locations throughout the world. Participants wear pedometers and try to walk as much as possible each day to accumulate steps for their team, though miles from bicycling and swimming also count. As I had participated in GCC way back in 2012, I volunteered to organize a team when my manager asked if anyone in my department would be interested in taking part. While my team is hardly in first place on the team leaderboard, we're not doing too badly. We're at location 22 and have managed to accumulate 704 miles since May 27th -- and that's with one team member recovering from a broken leg and another team member who has health issues. And I might be just a teeney bit obsessed with GCC... *g*
Moving right along (both literally and figuratively), I ended up on an even comfier bench outside of The Anglican Church of the Transfiguration. I've sat on it once before, but felt guilty for relaxing on church property when I'm not a Christian. Okay, truth be told, I felt a bit guilty this time, but it was such a delightful place to sit and read that I just couldn't resist. I was also excited to learn that the church has a murder of crows. I saw one crow yesterday morning when I was walking past the church (and earning those steps for my team), but I didn't realize that there was a whole group of them until I saw six or seven crows squawking and flying into the trees. I find that really exciting because I don't usually see a lot of crows in Toronto -- that and I don't get out much. *g*
Whoa! Check out the babble princess! Why couldn't this have translated into fiction earlier in the day?
Sharing this vid is probably the closest I'll get to doing anything truly patriotic today. However, at least I left my apartment for a couple of hours and enjoyed the beautiful weather. As I said to my friend on Facebook, enjoying beautiful weather (when it's actually there to enjoy) is pretty Canadian. *g* As my period just started (and I was a bit migrainey this morning), I decided to skip my more ambitious plans for hanging out at Harbourfront and stuck close to home instead, which allowed me to save two TTC tokens, but still escape from this building. I ended up on a very nice park bench at the North Toronto Memorial Community Recreation Centre, which was surprisingly quiet. I just had to contend with some dog walkers and people going in and out of the centre, which was fine. I didn't get to see any groundhogs (as I would at Edwards Gardens), but I did feed a squirrel some of the pretzels from my stash of Bits & Bites. Sadly, I barely did any writing, but I was able to start reading A Slight Trick of the Mind in preparation for Mr Holmes.
After spending time at the North Toronto Memorial Community Recreation Centre, I ended up exploring some of the neighbourhood around Eglinton Avenue West. Despite the number of years I've lived in the area, I hadn't really explored much more than Eglinton Avenue West itself, so it was cool to check out some of the streets that branch out from there. Walking also allowed me to earn some steps for GCC (the Global Corporate Challenge). The point of GCC is to promote health and fitness throughout companies around the world. In each company, employees form teams of seven -- and those teams try to accumulate as many steps as possible, which lead them to various cyber locations throughout the world. Participants wear pedometers and try to walk as much as possible each day to accumulate steps for their team, though miles from bicycling and swimming also count. As I had participated in GCC way back in 2012, I volunteered to organize a team when my manager asked if anyone in my department would be interested in taking part. While my team is hardly in first place on the team leaderboard, we're not doing too badly. We're at location 22 and have managed to accumulate 704 miles since May 27th -- and that's with one team member recovering from a broken leg and another team member who has health issues. And I might be just a teeney bit obsessed with GCC... *g*
Moving right along (both literally and figuratively), I ended up on an even comfier bench outside of The Anglican Church of the Transfiguration. I've sat on it once before, but felt guilty for relaxing on church property when I'm not a Christian. Okay, truth be told, I felt a bit guilty this time, but it was such a delightful place to sit and read that I just couldn't resist. I was also excited to learn that the church has a murder of crows. I saw one crow yesterday morning when I was walking past the church (and earning those steps for my team), but I didn't realize that there was a whole group of them until I saw six or seven crows squawking and flying into the trees. I find that really exciting because I don't usually see a lot of crows in Toronto -- that and I don't get out much. *g*
Whoa! Check out the babble princess! Why couldn't this have translated into fiction earlier in the day?
no subject
Date: 2015-07-02 01:44 pm (UTC)There are plenty of crows in this town, but I usually see one at a time. Also, to my chagrin, they're completely uninterested in me, unlike magpies and jackdaws, who always check to see if I have something for them.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that you can get back to writing soon. (I hope I can too. I really need to finish the book I'm working on and get to work on the others I want to finish this year).
no subject
Date: 2015-07-02 05:28 pm (UTC)No worries. Close enough. :-)
There are plenty of crows in this town, but I usually see one at a time. Also, to my chagrin, they're completely uninterested in me, unlike magpies and jackdaws, who always check to see if I have something for them.
I'm not sure how many crows there are in Toronto. It may simply be that I'm not usually in the right areas to see them. Usually, I see grackles rather than crows. Sadly, we don't have either magpies or jackdaws here, but I think it's great that they're always interested to see whether you have something for them. :-)
I'll keep my fingers crossed that you can get back to writing soon. (I hope I can too. I really need to finish the book I'm working on and get to work on the others I want to finish this year).
I have actually been doing okay with the writing lately (by my lax standards). It just wasn't happening yesterday. Probably because my hormones were out of whack. *g* Hope you get back to your own writing soon and can finish the book you're working on. :-)