Phone Trouble

While we were in Canada our phone and internet in Florida was on vacation mode. So it was only necessary to phone the company a few days before we were supposed to arrive and they were flip a switch to turn it back on.

When we got to Florida, Barb checked the phone. It didn't work. We were a little upset because the company had told us it would be setup by the time we arrived.

We walked down to the community center and use the phone there to call the company. They said there must have been a problem but it would be working by 7 pm.

When we got home, Barb looked at the floor under the phone.  She noticed that the phone wasn't plugged in. When she plugged it in, the phone worked fine.

What a Bad Idea

The night before we were leaving for Florida. I was on my computer. I got a message saying that some of my software didn't work because I needed to upgrade my operating system.

I decided to do the upgrade then. What a bad idea. Something went wrong with the upgrade. I panicked and stopped the upgrade part way through. There was a warning that if I stopped the upgrade at this point my computer might not operate properly. However, there was nothing I could do. I had already stopped the upgrade.

When I turned on my computer again, it wouldn't boot up. I tried a so-called Recovery program. That didn't seem to work unless I reformatted my drive. I was stuck. So I reformatted my drive and lost all my files and programs.

I was up until 1 am the night before we were driving to Florida. We were leaving at 3 am. Of course, I couldn't get to sleep because I was so upset. So I took a sleeping pill. Barb was furious at me. She thought I would be asleep all the way to Florida.

The next day I was pretty useless. Barb had to drive most of the day by herself.

I then spent the first two or three weeks re-installing my operating systems, recovering my files and installing my programs.

Dog's Tail

I was packing the truck of the car the day before we were leaving for Florida. I wanted to use every little piece of the trunk. So when I got the suitcases into the trunk, there was a little bit of space behind them. I climbed into the trunk with a flashlight and pushed our shoes behind the suitcases.

Barb laughed at me climbing into the trunk.  Only my bum and my legs were showing. It was like those funny stuffed animals that you can stick to the back of your car that appear to show a dog's legs and tail when the dog has run into the back of the car.

Barb's Volunteer Honours

The President of the Barrhaven Tennis Club decided to take Barb out for dinner to thank her for her many years of service to the tennis club.

It was supposed to be a surprise. It wasn't really a surprise. However, Barb was surprised to see not only the other executive there but also some of the court attendants even showed up. It was not just the adults.

Barb was given a nice framed certificate from someone she didn't know in recognition of her years of volunteering.

Tennis Documents

Barb spent a great deal of time putting together all of the material for the Barrhaven Tennis Club duties for the incoming executive. Her final act on the executive was to email the files to the incoming executive lady.

She sent the email with the attached documents. 

Later that night she got an email from her friend Harry. He said that she probably didn't mean to send him the tennis documents. In fact, he didn't even have any software to open the files.

It turns out that Harry shares his email address with his wife. His wife's first name is the same as the lady on the incoming executive. Barb didn't know either lady's last name. So she emailed it to the first name that came up.

Hey Baby

Barb made a bed quilt as a wedding gift for her friend Debbie's daughter. Barb was getting picked up by Debbie. They were going over to the daughter's house to give it to her. Barb was looking forward to it.

Barb was waiting with me in the living room. Barb saw a car come in the driveway. She said goodbye to me. She ran out the door. She yelled “Hey Baby!”

Then she realized it wasn't Debbie. It was Julia coming home from work. Julia thought it was so nice that her mother would come running out of the house to meet her when she came home from work.

Master Gardener

Barb doesn't spend much time on the flowers at the front of the house. She cleans up the garden in the Spring and in the Fall. Otherwise it grows pretty much by itself. Except she puts in artificial flowers to add some colour. Many people have complimented her on the artificial flowers. Sometimes Barb tells them the flowers are artificial and sometimes she doesn't.

Barb was cleaning up the garden to prepare for winter and our trip to Florida. She noticed a lovely sunflower had grown in the garden all by itself. She came in and told me how amazing it was.  She had never noticed it before.

Our next door neighbour is a master gardener. Barb was outside a few days later was telling our neighbour about the sunflower. The neighbour smiled slyly. Barb said “What?” Our neighbour said that it was artificial. She had planted it in our garden a few days ago. It was a joke because she knew that Barb had artificial flowers in the garden all summer.