Sophie's Story

One thing that I like about growing older is that I don't think I know everything. In fact I know I don't know everything and sometimes I think I don't know much of anything. This takes a great deal of pressure off me. I don't have to act like I know everything and no one expects me to know everything. One thing that I don't know is what I can't do. That's a good thing. It opens up a whole world of possibility for me. There is a whole world of things I can discover. For instance, last spring I decided to take up running. Why not? It's good exercise outside in the fresh air. I don't know that I can't run, I never tried it. So I did try it and I liked it. As soon as it warms up a bit more and it is light out early in the morning I'm going to break out the running shoes and go. I always thought I had a black thumb, so I never tried to garden. Then I realised that I have never tried to grow a garden. If I haven't done it how do I know ...

I finally got it. The shop called and the Fine T Gourmet Tea Machine had arrived. Last Wednesday we went to the shop and picked it up. I also picked up some tea. Not that I need more tea, but part of what I'm trying to do is decrease my coffee consumption. The shop had a tea blend that they market for just such a purpose so I bought some. The guy who sold it to me gave me two pieces of advice. The tea maker has seven programs, each heats the water to a certain temperature and has a different steeping time. The program you use depends on the type of tea that you want to brew. He suggested that I write on my tea containers the correct program so I won't have to keep looking it up. He also said that if I wanted to reuse the tea leaves I brewed I could take out the basket and put it in the fridge to be used later. Then I wouldn't have tea leaves getting moldy in my machine. I thanked him and took my prize home. It was a busy Wednesday so I did not have time to do much with...

Helen gave me two plants to take home when I visited her last week. One of them was two cuttings rooted in a glass of water and the other a plant in a small pot. She told me that both of them would need potting as soon as possible. Sunday afternoon I finally found some time to get the job done. I found my large bag of potting soil and a trowel. I filled my watering can with water and added a bit of fertilizer. I took the plants outside. As I crossed the kitchen I noticed the violet and another leafy vining plant near my kitchen sink. Both of them looked cramped in their pots. As long as I was potting I might was well repot them too. I collected them and put them outside. My empty pots were lined up on the inside of the garage. I found a red and white pot for the cutting, a cream coloured pot with flowers on it for the other plant and two blue pots for the violet and vine. The first plant would be the vine. I filled the new pot with soil and gently shook the vine out of its pot. ...

I have decided to buy the teapot. I placed third in the speech contest, survived my boss's one week vacation and handled a stressful two weeks more or less pretty well. I decided that I could reward myself with the automatic tea maker I wanted. I had read all the reviews that I could find. The were mostly positive, the only thing people didn't like is that all the temp settings are preprogrammed and cannot be changed. Since I don't drink white or green tea which requires the lower temps and more delicate handling I thought it would work out just fine. The nearest shop that sells the pot is in the Mall of America. We called them up. They didn't have any in stock at present, but would be getting some in a shipment next week. They suggested we call the Maple Grove store. Maple Grove had them and C got directions to the store. Maple Grove is a northern suburb and a pretty good distance away. C was not feeling well, but knew how badly I wanted that teapot. He agreed to...

My Toastmaster's group is a mix of all kinds of people. It has always been so since I joined nearly ten years ago. It's nice when you have a mix of people like this. If you have a question there usually is a member who might have an answer or are at least able to point you in the right direction. I am, as some of you might know, a fledgling gardener. I have been attempting to winter over some rosemary plants and when they developed a white powder over them I knew just who to ask. Helen. Helen likes to garden and is a member of the local garden club. She has also wintered over rosemary plants before. I was pretty sure that she wouldn't mind a question from me. So I asked. It turned out that it was a fungus, not deadly but would stunt the plant. She thought that once the weather warmed I could put the plants outside and the fungus would go away. Over the next few weeks I would ask her other questions, especially about a plant that was starting to dry up and die for no reason ...

I spent part of this morning going over my checkbook and paying my bills. It is not one of my favourite things to do. One thing that I do to motivate myself to do something I don't like is to reward myself with something I do like. This morning I decided to go on a field trip. Since I needed to buy cat food and go to the Post Office, I could also check out the nearby Aldi. Aldi, for those who don't know it, it a food market. It is very basic, carrying limited items. Most of what they carry are the store brands. Because they do not have a lot of frills and ads the prices are lower. I heard about this store from my cookbook, 'Cheap.Fast.Good!'. They mention it as a low cost place to buy groceries. Before I went there I went on-line to do some homework. I knew from reading the cookbook that they are a little different. The carts are all locked together. To unlock a cart you must put a quarter in the slot. When you return the cart, you lock it to the one in front and ...

The status on my Facebook page for part of last week was, "Things they don't tell you until it's too late: When the boss is away the staff has to work a lot harder." I started to think about the things that no one ever tells you. Things that you think are important when you are younger and then find out when you are older that no one really cares. When the boss is away the staff can relax. Not true. When my boss takes a vacation I wind up working longer hours. It's not that I don't have another pharmacist helping, I do. Still there are some things that the relief pharmacist can't do and it falls on me to see that it's done. Sometimes I have a relief that isn't able to certain things on the computer, which means I have to do them. I'm always glad when my boss is back. I can go back to doing my job. Last year when I was acting pharmacy manager for a few months I never worked so hard in my life. I was so glad when my boss came back that I would ...