Uncomplicated Joy....

 ...This was a week of complications. I had to find Joy in the uncomplicated or in the unravelling of the complicated. Here's how it went....

1. I tried to set up an account with a money transferring service only to find that I couldn't connect my phone to my wifi at work - lost password. The service had asked me to take pictures of documents through their devices with my phone. However they would only send verification codes to my land line at work, (so I couldn't take pictures at home, where I had a connection.) I couldn't be in two places at once - complicated. Fortunately my son was able to restore my password at the office and I was able to complete the login and account set-up. Actually transferring money will be another learning curve. I'll keep you posted.

My Joy in all of this was to have my phone finally able to access my wifi at work. There will be more Joy when I actually send money via the service - banked Joy.

2. I made roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli with gravy on Sunday. Roasts are one of the few Joys of Winter.

3. I met a friend for coffee on Wednesday. Two and a half hours of elder - Joy!!

4. Wednesday was also gloriously warm for February.... 7ºC. Sunshine always makes me Joyful.

5. Got Wordle on the second try. Bought a lottery ticket, but didn't win. Still, there were those few hours of hope and I did win $2.00 from my last lottery buy, again prompted by a 2/6 wordle win!! Moments of fleeting Joy.

6. I wrote a post on "Slang." As I have said before, writing always brings me Joy. I also got to use the word "idiosyncratic." Random Joy.

7. I went to the bank to physically transfer money - well, in a manner of speaking. I was transferring about $1,000.00 CDN to Holland. The country, a.k.a. The Netherlands, was written all over the invoice I gave the teller. She a) wasn't sure whether Amsterdam was a street name or a city name and b) placed the city of Amsterdam in Germany. I did catch her before she transferred the money out of my personal account, when it was to be transferred from my business account even after I had logged in with my business account card. The Joy was that the errors - and there were many - were caught before the money was actually sent.

8. I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon going through garden catalogues and listing all the tomato cages, plant supports and pop-up tents that I plan to buy in March or April. Gardening always brings me Joy.

9. Mayor John Tory resigned!!! Hurray! After he voted to rebuild the Gardiner out to the beaches, I decided I really didn't like him anymore. This added to the fact that both he and Doug Ford are part of an organized crime group of developers that plan to destroy our city, our province and our good health with poisoned water, makes me very happy, even joyous to know that he is gone!!

10. Lots of orders came in at work this week. I also have a lead on some new products and I have negotiated better prices for some of the products I already have. Joy is in still having a job, a business and moving forward. The sky's the limit!!

11. Connections always bring me Joy. There was another interesting connection that was posted to my FB feed yesterday. This time it was about a clipper ship - The Cutty Sark. The post was a wonderful description of an old sailing vessel that brought tea from China to England in the late 1800s. The connection was not with the whiskey, but with a poem by Robert Burns, "Tam O'Shanter," which is the amusing story of a person, who comes upon a haunted house and sees the ghosts there having a lively party. The viewer, Tam, particularly enjoys watching an attractive wraith in a short skirt - a "cutty sark." The eponymous ship had a myriad of short sails - cutty sarks - to help it make its memorable voyages. Joy is in the connection of poetry, history and metaphors with a twist of wry (rye) humour.

Till first ae caper, syne anither, 

Tam tint his reason a' thegither, 

And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!" 

And in an instant all was dark: 

And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, 

When out the hellish legion sallied. 

I'll leave you to read the rest of the poem. It's a wonderful preservation of the Scottish dialect. I am ever grateful to Robert Burns for his decision to write in the vernacular.

Now to pick just one of the above to write on a slip of paper for my Joy Jar. I think that all the resolutions at work with the electronic, financial and commercial conundra is the ultimate fuel for the spirit lamp of Joy this week.

The pictures? The random and the idiosyncratic. 

Have a Joyous week