Not great, but better

At 8 am I was up to phone MTS, and got through on the first try. There was no problem with my making the payment arrangements this morning, and I can pay my bill at a third-party agent in Osborne Village instead of having to go aaaaallllll the way down to the MTS main office in the industrial park hinterland. Whew.

I crawled back into bed, but couldn't get back to sleep. This morning the Ritalin seems to be working just fine. I lay there for about an hour before finally getting up again at 9 am, at which point I called the Winnipeg Humane Society and found out that the total donations they'd received toward my mother's memorial plaque came to $200. With the money that I've also collected from various people, we can afford the brass plaque. I'll have to go down to meet with someone in the next week or two to finalize the details.

The depression is still here. I'm skating on thin ice mentally and emotionally, and I'm having a hard time keeping my balance. But at least I'm on the surface of the depression, not crashed through into the freezing waters below.

Today I have to start exercising again, and I have to keep it up. I have no idea why it's so damned hard to get back on that horse and stay on it, but it is. And with depression moving in like a storm front it's vitally important that I do everything I can to hold it at bay.

Keys

I've lost one of our sets of keys. Yes, the set that has the mail key attached. >.<

I took it with me to check for mail when I put the laundry on last night, and when George went looking for it half an hour ago to take with him as he did errands, it was nowhere to be found. I've turned the apartment upside down. No sign of it.

I could have left it in the mailbox; I wasn't feeling very well yesterday, and it might have slipped my mind. When I went downstairs just now to check with the caretaker (not home), I stopped at the mailboxes, and mine was open.

*headdesk, repeatedly*

A phone message has been left for the caretaker, who works days. Hopefully when she gets home she'll have some good news for me (that the keys have been turned in).

I am so fucking stupid. And a loser. And stupid again. If we have to get the locks replaced...

A sweet, sweet conclusion

I found my keys! Or rather, eastpath did... again! After she read my LJ entry she was passing by the mailboxes while doing laundry, and she thought to look in the paper recycling bin under my mailbox (which I'd already done) and in the "Return To Sender" box (which I did not). The keys were in the RTS box, where evidently someone had tossed them after finding them sticking out of my mailbox's key slot.

So many thanks to EP, whose burst of inspiration got me my keys back, and got rid of a LOT of stress that's been weighing on me ever since I realized they were missing.

George got back from his errands with mucho groceries, including Lay's potato chips (my favorite) and a little tin of cashews that turned out to be Cracked Black Pepper flavor. This caused him to curse, since he'd thought they were plain cashews... but actually they aren't that bad, or at least I don't think so. He also picked up six packs of that Scottish shortbread that is on sale at the Bay, AND another pair of sweatpants for me (in navy blue this time). When he took the sweatpants up to the cash register, the cashier informed him that I shouldn't have gotten them for $6 yesterday (oops), but she gave them to him at that price again anyway. :-)

Another thing that's been weighing on my mind lately are the styluses for our Wacom tablets; the nibs had worn down to almost nothing, and George didn't think that the old style nibs (which we had a couple of) would fit the new pens. When he got home I floated this possibility again, we dug the pack of old nibs out, and lo and behold -- they fit! Now I can work on the Wacom without the scritchy-scritchy-scritchy sound that the old worn nib had been driving me to distraction with, and we don't have to worry about how long it would take Wacom to send us replacement nibs and whether the pens could hold out that long. (No, there's no one in Winnipeg who sells just the nibs. Crazy, but true.) The nib replacement tool (the little round metal thing in the linked photograph) is pretty funky in and of itself. I don't know why, but the sheer simplicity of it pleases me.

So all in all, shit has been turned into gold. I'm also really pleased with my Project 365 photo for today. You can see it under the cut, along with the three runners-up that didn't make it.

( Today's Project 365 photo and the runners-up, under the cut )

EDITED TO ADD: Oh, and George mailed the New Years presents while he was out. Canada Post says they should reach the USA destinations in 3-5 days. *crosses fingers*

Huckabee? No freakin' way.

After reading these two articles, I wouldn't vote for Mike Huckabee if you PAID me to move to the States, get a citizenship, and go to the ballot box. In a limosine.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/huckabee/dog.asp

http://www.newsweek.com/id/78241

The skinny: Huckabee's kid hung a stray dog while acting as a counsellor at a camp. Shenanigans ensue as Huckabee Senior does his level best to make the problem Go Away.