Friday FJIG Diaries

 I have been reminded what FIG is meant to stand for, which is Finding Joy in Gratitude. I have come to like and admire Elisabeth enormously, so I am going to overlook her rather egregious erasure of a major word like JOY in the service of a more appealing acronym. I mean, I get it: Fresh Figs has more of a ring than, say, Let's All Fdance a Fjig, or A Cruise of the Norwegian Fjigs. So I will fall in line.

February 8 - A nice sunny walk with Lucy, and a picture that captures a blep in the wild

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Our annual Valentine's Day Dinner: Guys Cook. Matt's green soup, wedge salad on a skewer and steak frites bites, Dave's shrimp linguine, Mark's cod cake, crab cake and scallop cake with sauces, Tony's quarter duck festive special (that's a Swiss Chalet reference, for the Americans among you), and Michael's I forgot to ask which kind of cake but it was amazing. One of the highlights of the night was Michael insisting on consuming every bit of the monstrous wedge of lettuce he had ended up with. I sous-chefed Matt's drink, the Bee Sting, by making the hot honey simple syrup. I wasn't expecting to like it as I don't usually love spicy drinks, but it was actually delicious - more complex and with spicy depths than just fiery. It is always a bright spot in a bleakish month.

February 9 - Matt left for Rome and I had a lazy Sunday and went to bed early with a book and Lucy curled up beside me on a fuzzy blanket

-Michael sent this to the group What'sApp

February 10 - another rough-ish Sunday night's sleep, but I rallied by being grateful that I have a good job to worry about being late for (only five minutes, it was fine)

-these weird Canadian books I came across

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I was looking for a pencil on the library desk, and as usual they were all dull and terrible. I looked even harder than I usually do for a pencil sharpener, then realized I was in a school and there HAD to be a room close by with a pencil sharpener, so I went next door to the resource teacher's office and then remembered the joy and satisfaction of shoving a pencil in one of those big powerful sharpeners and drawing out a pencil tapered to a wicked point.

-There's a really sweet little boy in one of my classes who doesn't speak a lot of English. His name is Yiheng but he goes by Stony. He always takes out a Lego book, but he came to the desk and emphatically let me know he couldn't find one. I had just shelved several, so I walked over to the section with him, but he was right, there was only one there. I went further down to where I knew there were some truck books, while he held the one Lego book doubtfully. When he looked up and saw what I was holding he shouted "Oh MY" and ran over to pick a garbage truck book, and it was probably one of my top ten librarian moments.

-After work I got a few groceries, just a few doors down from the bank. In my New Year's anti-resolution post I said that I really wanted to get to the bank and set up online banking like I've been meaning to do for literally years so I could etransfer and deposit checks online like my husband and LITERAL (adult) CHILDREN do. I had figured out how to make an appointment, but not quite decided when to make the appointment for, and Matt had said that I could probably just walk in. I decided on the spur of the moment that I would just walk in and see if it could be done. Friends, there was no line and it took under ten minutes, and is there a German word for being simultaneously pleased and disgusted with yourself? We got 32 centimetres of snow Wednesday night and Thursday and I e-transferred Sam the Plow Guy ALL BY MYSELF.

February 11 - I made TWO phone calls: one to make a hair appointment for next week, instead of waiting until my hair is disastrous and calling at the last minute and having to wait another week. One to the hand clinic for a nerve conduction study to finally address the horrible carpal tunnel. I almost had to lie down for a bit after.

-I thought for a bit about what I needed to do for Wednesday - my long work day - to be okay. Sometimes when Matt's away I give myself permission to clean up less, but Monday night I realized that the mess on the dining room tables was giving me anxiety. So I spent a few minutes cleaning the kitchen and dining room so when I got home sore and tired it would be welcoming rather than oppressive. And I was extremely grateful to earlier me when I got home.

February 12 - The chair at my morning school desk is disastrous for my back. There's another chair in the library office, but the other librarian said it was even worse. I finally decided to try it myself, and it is actually much better for me. My lower back hurt much less then it usually does by the time I got to my afternoon school, which is fairly momentous.

February 13 - I had a cozy reading day while the snow fell. I heard Sam the Plow Guy arrive, and when he was done I went to the door to put on my coat and boots to shovel the front step and walkway (I waited because I thought standing in the clean driveway to shovel the walkway would be helpful) and THEY WERE ALREADY CLEAR. I texted Sam 'What the heck' and he said it was INCLUDED IN THE VERY REASONABLE PRICE. This is very welcome information since we are due to to get another 25 centimetres this weekend and my hands are numb just from typing this. Would it be weird to leave Sam the Plow Guy cookies in the mailbox? Probably, but I might do it anyway.

February 14 - 

And also this from Eve, which, come on, also joyful

Happy weekend, Fjriends. (I kill me)