#Puppy Birthdays, #Mindfulness Rituals, Kettles, And Medical Mutterings

Last Tuesday was Lilie's 2nd birthday. How did she get to be two already? It seems like it couldn't have been that long since we brought that little eight week old puppy home. But now she's officially not a puppy any more. Of course, I'll probably still call her one, especially since turning two has done nothing to dampen her enthusiasm for getting as much fun out of life as possible. We're still chuckling at her excitement when Kelly tipped a box of balls out in front of her. She didn't know which to play with first, and still keeps bringing different balls randomly, with the sturdy rubber ones that we gave her one of early being favourites (she's got seven of those, in a variety of colours... Even a purple one).

Anyway, I found this list of mini rituals for your daily spiritual practice recently. They're officially aimed at those following one of the Pagan paths, but could potentially be options for anyone wanting to be more mindful in their daily life, so I thought I'd share them here, for the benifit of anyone who may be interested in checking them out.

In other news: I killed the kettle. It was an accident. I forgot there was water in the bowl in the sink, and went to fill the kettle, plunging it in to water, and soaking the parts you're not meant to get wet. We tried to dry it out, but every time we plug it in, it fizzles and knocks the power off for the whole apartment. So... Erm... I guess we need a new kettle again. In the meantime, we're having to heat water for my cups of tea in a pot instead.

For those who might be wondering: yes, the workmen have been around. We're still waiting for the work in our apartment to be done, but we've seen them doing jobs elsewhere in the building. I wish they'd come do the stuff in our place, but at least we know they genuinely are busy doing stuff in the other apartments in the building, since we can hear them, and have seen them when they've been doing the outside and hallway jobs.

Oh, and... No. The council did not come and pick up the bins with the used needles in. We put them down in the hallway last Wednesday night, like we were supposed to so they'd be there for the following day, and I made sure to be up to listen for the buzzer before there was any chance they'd be coming. Nothing. Either they didn't come at all, or they showed up, didn't see the bins out there, and left, despite the fact they were meant to buzz to get in to the building to get them, since I refuse to leave them out on the street, and made them make a note on the pick-up arrangements that they were to buzz to get in to the building. I won't be responsible for some random person getting hold of them, as I said when I mentioned this before. The normal rubbish pick-up happened, but nobody tried to get in to pick up the medical stuff, nor did they attempt to contact me either before or after they were meant to have been here to pick the little bins of needles up. I know the buzzer was working too, since I had no trouble letting the postman and parcel delivery guys in. Well, the speaker part is still a bit iffy from us to the outside, but the rest of it works, so I'd have known it was them, and been able to let them in the building, even if they hadn't heard me. Either way, we brought them back upstairs after they didn't show that day, which means the little bins are currently back to sitting on the kitchen counter again. *sigh*

Anyway, it's been almost eight weeks since I had my surgery, and I'm finally not in pain any more. Well, I get some mild pain when I do some things, but mostly I don't hurt any more. I've had a bit of a cold this past week or so though. Not a bad one. Just enough to have me sneezing and coughing a lot, and feeling a bit tired and run down. At least sneezing and coughing is no longer as painful as it was whenever I did it a few weeks ago, which is a good sign, since it means I must be healing well.

I was going to share photos of all the happy post I got during the past week, but we haven't had time to sort the photos, so I guess I won't be posting those today. I'll post about it all next week instead.