Our son called from Vancouver just as we arrived at our friends’ house for tea this afternoon, so we sat outside their house for a few minutes to talk to him. He sounded completely exhausted. We assumed he was at the airport, but he was still at his old suite.
Turns out that after he celebrated Seder with his wonderful Jewish friends the other night, they approached him with an offer to pay for a change of flight for him so he could spend a couple of days resting and enjoying time in the greenery of the parks and breathing in the fresh aroma of spring flowers in his favourite gardens. He was so busy doing business all week that he ran out of time to wander through the trees and across the lawns he so misses now that he lives in the concrete jungle of New York.
God bless you Cohen family for your adoption of your son into your lives and family. You kept him going through the worst time in his life. Your generosity on every level to him deserves every blessing from God.
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Tenebrae With a Bang!!
I am still giggling about how our Tenebrae service ended last night, teehee, snicker, giggle and other "unholy" gales of laughter.....
During a tenebrae service a series of psalms or other appropriate biblical passages are read or chanted. The burning candles that often constitute the only light for the service, are extinguised one by one at the end of each reading, until only 1 is left burning. A predesignated person, usually a deacon or other leader assistant in the service takes that candle right out of the room. The candle represents Christ as he goes to the cross and the period of darkness that follows the crucifixion. After the candle leaves, the priest and congregants say a prayer together, followed by the priest intoning the final psalm and short prayer.
At that point a loud noise is supposed to happen...representing the post crucifixion earthquake that occurred as Jesus died.
Since most of our churches don't have a way of simulating that sort of sound...at least in our older Anglican buildings there is no sound equipment or other way of computer generating the earth rumbling, often some other loud sound is substituted.
As we sat in the dark last night awaiting the re-entry of the candle, by which light we then depart the church in contemplative silence, the person who had removed the candle and taken it into a side room slammed the door of the room to create the loud noise.
That is when, for me, the hilarity began. My husband and I were sitting facing that room. We saw the fellow's hand grasp the door and, being familiar with the order of service, knew it was likely that door was going to be slammed shut to make the necessary noise. Directly across and facing us was a row of chairs filled by people who had their backs to that door and couldn't see what we could see. There were 5 people sitting in those seats. 4 of them are regular attenders of that congregation and have been going to Tenebrae for years. They all knew that slam, or something like it, was coming momentarily.
Unfortunately there was a newcomer seated in the fifth chair. She had no idea what the possible noise was going to be, in fact I am not even sure if she noticed at the end of the service bulletin that the noise was listed as occuring. hohoho!! When that door slammed shut, her rear end lifted a good 4 inches off her chair, the walking cane she was gripping flew straight up in front of her face and a sound barrier breaking, "WHOOOOPPPPPEEEEEE", came out of her mouth! hahahahahahaha
My first thought was, "Lady, I know how you feel!!!", because her jumping and hollering caused me to jump as well!! Without thinking, I grinned away at her as if the two of us were fellow conspirators in disrupting the solemnity of the meditative, contemplative service and fortunately she grinned sheepishly back at me. The rest of the people must have iron control over their facial muscles. Not one other person in that room gave any indication they had seen or heard her faux pas....NOT ONE OF THEM! WOW!! HOW did they manage THAT???
As we filed out afterward into the lobby and silently out into the street, she and I caught each other's eye and winked simulaneously. hahahahahaha
What a great ending to the service! I have to admit it certainly cheered me to see someone able to be so human in a very structured and quiet evening service. It is supposed to be quiet and structured and meditative because it is all about Christ going to be tortured on the cross. What struck me though as quite wonderful about that frightened woman's response to the door slamming is that Christ died to save all of us who, like that woman, are so very human and not always in iron control of our every reaction.
Her involuntary response to the slamming door gave me another slant on just who Jesus came to save....all of us in our involuntary human reactions that are not always appropriate to or in a particular situation!
During a tenebrae service a series of psalms or other appropriate biblical passages are read or chanted. The burning candles that often constitute the only light for the service, are extinguised one by one at the end of each reading, until only 1 is left burning. A predesignated person, usually a deacon or other leader assistant in the service takes that candle right out of the room. The candle represents Christ as he goes to the cross and the period of darkness that follows the crucifixion. After the candle leaves, the priest and congregants say a prayer together, followed by the priest intoning the final psalm and short prayer.
At that point a loud noise is supposed to happen...representing the post crucifixion earthquake that occurred as Jesus died.
Since most of our churches don't have a way of simulating that sort of sound...at least in our older Anglican buildings there is no sound equipment or other way of computer generating the earth rumbling, often some other loud sound is substituted.
As we sat in the dark last night awaiting the re-entry of the candle, by which light we then depart the church in contemplative silence, the person who had removed the candle and taken it into a side room slammed the door of the room to create the loud noise.
That is when, for me, the hilarity began. My husband and I were sitting facing that room. We saw the fellow's hand grasp the door and, being familiar with the order of service, knew it was likely that door was going to be slammed shut to make the necessary noise. Directly across and facing us was a row of chairs filled by people who had their backs to that door and couldn't see what we could see. There were 5 people sitting in those seats. 4 of them are regular attenders of that congregation and have been going to Tenebrae for years. They all knew that slam, or something like it, was coming momentarily.
Unfortunately there was a newcomer seated in the fifth chair. She had no idea what the possible noise was going to be, in fact I am not even sure if she noticed at the end of the service bulletin that the noise was listed as occuring. hohoho!! When that door slammed shut, her rear end lifted a good 4 inches off her chair, the walking cane she was gripping flew straight up in front of her face and a sound barrier breaking, "WHOOOOPPPPPEEEEEE", came out of her mouth! hahahahahahaha
My first thought was, "Lady, I know how you feel!!!", because her jumping and hollering caused me to jump as well!! Without thinking, I grinned away at her as if the two of us were fellow conspirators in disrupting the solemnity of the meditative, contemplative service and fortunately she grinned sheepishly back at me. The rest of the people must have iron control over their facial muscles. Not one other person in that room gave any indication they had seen or heard her faux pas....NOT ONE OF THEM! WOW!! HOW did they manage THAT???
As we filed out afterward into the lobby and silently out into the street, she and I caught each other's eye and winked simulaneously. hahahahahaha
What a great ending to the service! I have to admit it certainly cheered me to see someone able to be so human in a very structured and quiet evening service. It is supposed to be quiet and structured and meditative because it is all about Christ going to be tortured on the cross. What struck me though as quite wonderful about that frightened woman's response to the door slamming is that Christ died to save all of us who, like that woman, are so very human and not always in iron control of our every reaction.
Her involuntary response to the slamming door gave me another slant on just who Jesus came to save....all of us in our involuntary human reactions that are not always appropriate to or in a particular situation!
Friday, March 30, 2018
Favourite Good Friday Cartoon
I don't know how many of you remember the old B.C cartoons by Johnny Hart, but I so enjoyed reading them in our daily newspaper years ago.
There was always an excellent cartoon on Good Friday. Here is one I have never forgotten and it is a dialogue between two of the characters from the comic strip, B.C. and Curls. It goes like this:
B.C.: I hate the term "Good Friday".
Curls: Why?
B.C.: My Lord was hanged on a tree that day.
Curls: If YOU were going to be hanged on that day and he volunteered to take your place, how would you feel?
B.C.: Good.
Curls (as he walks away): Have a nice day.
Kapow..........
There was always an excellent cartoon on Good Friday. Here is one I have never forgotten and it is a dialogue between two of the characters from the comic strip, B.C. and Curls. It goes like this:
B.C.: I hate the term "Good Friday".
Curls: Why?
B.C.: My Lord was hanged on a tree that day.
Curls: If YOU were going to be hanged on that day and he volunteered to take your place, how would you feel?
B.C.: Good.
Curls (as he walks away): Have a nice day.
Kapow..........
Good Friday
Last weekend the Easter Seasonal Choir was singing about the death of Jesus and today is the day that Christians around the world will be meditating on his gift of love and life to us by suffering a cruel death on a cross of wood, taking on death in our place, clearing the path for the followers of Jesus to access a God whose righteousness does not allow unredeemed sinners into his presence. Jesus was sent to open the path to all believers and God never ceases trying to make himself known to all of us sinners because he loves everyone on the earth...enough to allow us free choice to accept him or not, to spend life and eternity with him or without him.
No, I don't understand it all, but I accept it because of the relationship I have with Christ and the answers to prayers I have prayed, as well as the transformational changes I have seen and experienced not only in my own life, but in the lives of others who do their best to follow Jesus.
Tonight we are going to try to attend a Tennebrae service here in town. It is my favourite service of the Christian year. It is the service where I feel the most in touch with whatever limited understanding I have of what Christ willingly sacrficed for the rest of us to have the chance to enter God's eternal kingdom.
Yes, I do understand how ridiculous, even irrational all this sounds to those who cannot bring themselves to believe in God and certainly not a god who would demand blood sacrifice for the remission of sins not even committed yet by those born on the earth after the death and resurrection of Jesus. But, I believe it. I believe every word of it. There is too much evidence, traditional, historical, and experiential for me to believe otherwise.
So today, I am musing on how my change of heart and mind came about, how even my most dismal failures in attempting to follow Christ have resulted in an amazing life that has far exceeded my wildest pre-believer dreams and hopes, both in what are apparently bad as well as good circumstances. Whoever wrote the lyrics for the hymn that begins with, "I've found a friend, o such a friend....", obviously knew the joy that comes in serving Jesus no matter what else is going on in life.
So, I am off to bake honey cookies for the young visitors we will be having this afternoon and while I am baking I will try to keep my thoughts centered on what this day, this weekend leading up to the Resurrection celebrations on Sunday, is all about.
No, I don't understand it all, but I accept it because of the relationship I have with Christ and the answers to prayers I have prayed, as well as the transformational changes I have seen and experienced not only in my own life, but in the lives of others who do their best to follow Jesus.
Tonight we are going to try to attend a Tennebrae service here in town. It is my favourite service of the Christian year. It is the service where I feel the most in touch with whatever limited understanding I have of what Christ willingly sacrficed for the rest of us to have the chance to enter God's eternal kingdom.
Yes, I do understand how ridiculous, even irrational all this sounds to those who cannot bring themselves to believe in God and certainly not a god who would demand blood sacrifice for the remission of sins not even committed yet by those born on the earth after the death and resurrection of Jesus. But, I believe it. I believe every word of it. There is too much evidence, traditional, historical, and experiential for me to believe otherwise.
So today, I am musing on how my change of heart and mind came about, how even my most dismal failures in attempting to follow Christ have resulted in an amazing life that has far exceeded my wildest pre-believer dreams and hopes, both in what are apparently bad as well as good circumstances. Whoever wrote the lyrics for the hymn that begins with, "I've found a friend, o such a friend....", obviously knew the joy that comes in serving Jesus no matter what else is going on in life.
So, I am off to bake honey cookies for the young visitors we will be having this afternoon and while I am baking I will try to keep my thoughts centered on what this day, this weekend leading up to the Resurrection celebrations on Sunday, is all about.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Winter and Other Wonders
Winter is once again upon us! WOW, is it ever getting cold outside! While the snowfall has been close to non-existent in the last 24 hours, the wee skiff we got overnight last night turned to ice rather quickly, almost as soon as a booted foot stepped upon it. My back steps are covered with icy boot prints that I just went and sprinkled ice melt crystals on. The pathway over to the car is absolutely treacherous, so there is ice melt all over the place, to give my feet some traction out there if nothing else. In the basement I located the cord for plugging in the car overnight and got it all set up. If I decide to go sing in the group choir at Westview Baptist Church for the combined service tomorrow morning, the car should start! Brrrrrr!!
Although he has a bit of work to do at home on Saturday for the office, my husband is off work for the next 5 days!! He has an email to complete on Saturday and needs to stop in at the office sometime before Monday to pick up a paper from his desk that the financial officer needs prior to the start of next week's annual audit. Other than that he is free of work and ministry duties...WOW, this is the first Easter in many a year that he has not had to be responsible for so much as one church service! That leaves us free to attend services wherever we like. We are praying about possibly attending a Tenebrae service tomorrow evening and the Sunday morning service at our former church. Both will be excellent!
We have had to say no to several invitations from friends this weekend because we were all ready booked up. It is SO disappointing to have to decline, BUT we are very excited about the friends we are going to see. Tomorrow afternoon young friends from Alberta are coming to visit for tea and are bringing their 3 medically challenged children, with who they have accomplished amazing things. The kids are in school, are well adjusted, have a lot of assistance in place....all because of the tenacity of their parents in getting them what they need to do well in life. Saturday is tea with church friends that we have a blast with every time and Sunday it is off to Moose Jaw for a mid afternoon feast with friends and their other guests. I think on Monday we can finally relax and do nothing at all before I start a round of medical appointments the next morning. It is all good!
I had the blessing of a visit and lunch with a very good friend today, over a meal of chicken alfrezi and warm, fresh naan at Tandoori Kabob. My friend's husband was having a surgical procedure, so she had lots of time to spend with me while waiting for him to come out of recovery and head for home. She is a very sensible and knowledgable person who helps me a lot when I have questions about all things spiritual and church related. She was incredibly helpful to me today and I so appreciate her!! We also laugh a lot and I sure do need that right now. What a wonderful day....my time with her, followed by some banking, filling the car with gasoline before the price jump and then braving the long weekend grocery shoppers so I could pick up the salad greens for Sunday's special dinner in Moose Jaw.
So, despite the onslaught of a second winter, it has been a great day and I look forward with great anticipation to spending an entire weekend with my husband! It is quite a rarity.
Although he has a bit of work to do at home on Saturday for the office, my husband is off work for the next 5 days!! He has an email to complete on Saturday and needs to stop in at the office sometime before Monday to pick up a paper from his desk that the financial officer needs prior to the start of next week's annual audit. Other than that he is free of work and ministry duties...WOW, this is the first Easter in many a year that he has not had to be responsible for so much as one church service! That leaves us free to attend services wherever we like. We are praying about possibly attending a Tenebrae service tomorrow evening and the Sunday morning service at our former church. Both will be excellent!
We have had to say no to several invitations from friends this weekend because we were all ready booked up. It is SO disappointing to have to decline, BUT we are very excited about the friends we are going to see. Tomorrow afternoon young friends from Alberta are coming to visit for tea and are bringing their 3 medically challenged children, with who they have accomplished amazing things. The kids are in school, are well adjusted, have a lot of assistance in place....all because of the tenacity of their parents in getting them what they need to do well in life. Saturday is tea with church friends that we have a blast with every time and Sunday it is off to Moose Jaw for a mid afternoon feast with friends and their other guests. I think on Monday we can finally relax and do nothing at all before I start a round of medical appointments the next morning. It is all good!
I had the blessing of a visit and lunch with a very good friend today, over a meal of chicken alfrezi and warm, fresh naan at Tandoori Kabob. My friend's husband was having a surgical procedure, so she had lots of time to spend with me while waiting for him to come out of recovery and head for home. She is a very sensible and knowledgable person who helps me a lot when I have questions about all things spiritual and church related. She was incredibly helpful to me today and I so appreciate her!! We also laugh a lot and I sure do need that right now. What a wonderful day....my time with her, followed by some banking, filling the car with gasoline before the price jump and then braving the long weekend grocery shoppers so I could pick up the salad greens for Sunday's special dinner in Moose Jaw.
So, despite the onslaught of a second winter, it has been a great day and I look forward with great anticipation to spending an entire weekend with my husband! It is quite a rarity.
No More New Stuff
Yesterday as I was cleaning the suite, I again enjoyed very much dusting and cleaning the various ornaments, pottery pieces, art works and photos that adorn this place. I try to leave all those things for the end of cleaning projects...my little treat to myself, the reward after the hard work.
Yesterday it hit me with great clarity that my time of buying pretty "things" is over. I waited for many difficult years to be able to afford such artistic niceties and I enjoy every one of them, as does my husband. However, as we contemplate the next few years we are realizing the next steps in life will involve a tremendous amount of downsizing without some sort of financial miracle that would allow us to maintain a large enough residence to keep the things we worked so hard to finally get; he by having a ministry/career and me by careful budgeting after I had to quit working. Everything we own has a story and we love reminding each other of the tales associated with each art piece and knick-knack.
While the idea of disposing of treasured articles is rather depressing, particularly as we haven't had most of them for more than about ten years, there is also a freedom in knowing we have all we could ever need. Barring some disastser that wipes out all our possessions and requires we replace them, we can't come up with a single item that is necessary to our existence, or any visual artistic boost, that we need to purchase at this point in life.
What a wonderful space to be in!!
Yesterday it hit me with great clarity that my time of buying pretty "things" is over. I waited for many difficult years to be able to afford such artistic niceties and I enjoy every one of them, as does my husband. However, as we contemplate the next few years we are realizing the next steps in life will involve a tremendous amount of downsizing without some sort of financial miracle that would allow us to maintain a large enough residence to keep the things we worked so hard to finally get; he by having a ministry/career and me by careful budgeting after I had to quit working. Everything we own has a story and we love reminding each other of the tales associated with each art piece and knick-knack.
While the idea of disposing of treasured articles is rather depressing, particularly as we haven't had most of them for more than about ten years, there is also a freedom in knowing we have all we could ever need. Barring some disastser that wipes out all our possessions and requires we replace them, we can't come up with a single item that is necessary to our existence, or any visual artistic boost, that we need to purchase at this point in life.
What a wonderful space to be in!!
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
So Much For The In Like A Lion, Out Like A Lamb March Weather Theory!
The weather is freaking me out just a little bit! This afternoon we reached a high temperature of +4C and despite a brisk, chilly wind, the snow piles were melting. Just after dinner we had a big downpour of rain and it is going down to -12C overnight with a daytime high of only -6C.
Drat! It means I am going to be housbound again for most of the Easter weekend. More snow showers are forecast for Good Friday and the temperature is not going above zero again for over a week. In fact the daytime highs won't be above -9C for the entire period and the car will have to be plugged in at nights once again.
I admit I am a bit discouraged. It takes a lot to discourage me, but this never ending winter season is doing it big time.
March came in with freezing weather and storms and is going out the same way.
Shoot! I have one more bank I need to get to before Friday and had planned to go tomorrow, but I think I will wait now until I go for lunch with a friend on Thursday.
Oh, wait a minute....actually, that will be fine because I can clean house tomorrow when I am stuck indoors.
There see, all ready I am less discouraged. It doesn't take much to get me over it.
Drat! It means I am going to be housbound again for most of the Easter weekend. More snow showers are forecast for Good Friday and the temperature is not going above zero again for over a week. In fact the daytime highs won't be above -9C for the entire period and the car will have to be plugged in at nights once again.
I admit I am a bit discouraged. It takes a lot to discourage me, but this never ending winter season is doing it big time.
March came in with freezing weather and storms and is going out the same way.
Shoot! I have one more bank I need to get to before Friday and had planned to go tomorrow, but I think I will wait now until I go for lunch with a friend on Thursday.
Oh, wait a minute....actually, that will be fine because I can clean house tomorrow when I am stuck indoors.
There see, all ready I am less discouraged. It doesn't take much to get me over it.
Just Trippin' 'Round the Town
I woke up today with no particular plans other than getting my lab work done, but the day has turned out very nicely.
While I was standing in line at 6:30am waiting for the lab to open, I had a good chat with the fellow standing behind me. He has suffered from high cholesterol and side effects from statins for several years. Finally he got fed up with having his dosage raised every 6 months to a year and experiencing the terrible muscle aches and pains the statins gave him. In desperation he went to one of our local health food stores and got a product that is supposed to lower cholesterol naturally and within 6 months it certainly worked wonderfully well for him. I will see what today's lab tests results are when I go to the doctor next week and if this statin isn't working well, I think I will investigate further the natural food product I learned about from this fellow. He is not what you would call "natural products" friendly and was driven by frustrating meds side effects to try this product, skepticism and all, but he is certainly in favour of this particular health product now.
I got the car back in plenty of time for my husband to drive it to school. He has enjoyed the course, mostly because it is so easy and none of it is new to him, but he is well aware of how much work is piling up at the office again due to his absence. Hopefully he will be able to accomplish a LOT on Thursday when he is finally there again. He will be late home for dinner this evening as he has a meeting to go to right after class.
So, what to do with the rest of my day. I caught a glimpse of my hairdo in the mirror at the lab and realized it has been 2 weeks too many since my last cut, so I called the stylist at 9:30am and was able to take advantage of an afternoon cancellation at 2pm. That decided the rest of my day. I hopped on the bus at 11:30am and headed down to Cornwall Centre where my stylist works. I had a salad and a bowl of lentil soup at Zam's, then I did a ton of banking that normally I would have left for a few more days if our weather forecast was not going to be so ugly starting about 24 hours from now and lasting for an entire week! (ICE AND MORE ICE!) I purchased a birthday card for our son and got that mailed off to New York. He called as well and we had a bit of a chat while I sat outside one of the downtown banks in the warm wind and sunshine. It was lovely. He is CRAZY busy in Vancouver this week, but not overly stressed about all the work there is to do and all the friends that must be seen. hahaha He is just like his mom that way: work on the project until it is completely finished and then cram every spare minute with friends and feasting. Yup, a man after his mother's own heart. haha
I wandered through Cornwall Centre for an hour and found a few little Easter gifties for people we are going to see this weekend. They are entertaining us in their homes and I have no Easter dinners to prepare, no big cleaning spree to exhaust myself with due to company coming. Instead of having more people into our home, as was our New Years Resolution for 2018, we are getting more into the Japanese way of taking guests out for dinner or coffee instead...I kinda like it actually!! haha So, since we are going out to other peoples' homes, I will take a few easter treats with me. FUN!
I am completely exhausted, but I was on my feet for a good 2 hours after lunch, racing for the bus just as it was about to pull out of its downtown bay when I wanted to come home got my heart rate up and got my lungs pumping. Thank you God that I didn't slip on the ice and end up in broken pieces on the sidewalk....what was I thinking???? I could have fallen so easily! It wouldn't have killed me to continue shopping for another half hour until the next bus came! Dumb, dumb, dumb!!!!
Anyway, speaking of exhausted I think I am going to lie down now and have a wee nap!!! Yawn.........
While I was standing in line at 6:30am waiting for the lab to open, I had a good chat with the fellow standing behind me. He has suffered from high cholesterol and side effects from statins for several years. Finally he got fed up with having his dosage raised every 6 months to a year and experiencing the terrible muscle aches and pains the statins gave him. In desperation he went to one of our local health food stores and got a product that is supposed to lower cholesterol naturally and within 6 months it certainly worked wonderfully well for him. I will see what today's lab tests results are when I go to the doctor next week and if this statin isn't working well, I think I will investigate further the natural food product I learned about from this fellow. He is not what you would call "natural products" friendly and was driven by frustrating meds side effects to try this product, skepticism and all, but he is certainly in favour of this particular health product now.
I got the car back in plenty of time for my husband to drive it to school. He has enjoyed the course, mostly because it is so easy and none of it is new to him, but he is well aware of how much work is piling up at the office again due to his absence. Hopefully he will be able to accomplish a LOT on Thursday when he is finally there again. He will be late home for dinner this evening as he has a meeting to go to right after class.
So, what to do with the rest of my day. I caught a glimpse of my hairdo in the mirror at the lab and realized it has been 2 weeks too many since my last cut, so I called the stylist at 9:30am and was able to take advantage of an afternoon cancellation at 2pm. That decided the rest of my day. I hopped on the bus at 11:30am and headed down to Cornwall Centre where my stylist works. I had a salad and a bowl of lentil soup at Zam's, then I did a ton of banking that normally I would have left for a few more days if our weather forecast was not going to be so ugly starting about 24 hours from now and lasting for an entire week! (ICE AND MORE ICE!) I purchased a birthday card for our son and got that mailed off to New York. He called as well and we had a bit of a chat while I sat outside one of the downtown banks in the warm wind and sunshine. It was lovely. He is CRAZY busy in Vancouver this week, but not overly stressed about all the work there is to do and all the friends that must be seen. hahaha He is just like his mom that way: work on the project until it is completely finished and then cram every spare minute with friends and feasting. Yup, a man after his mother's own heart. haha
I wandered through Cornwall Centre for an hour and found a few little Easter gifties for people we are going to see this weekend. They are entertaining us in their homes and I have no Easter dinners to prepare, no big cleaning spree to exhaust myself with due to company coming. Instead of having more people into our home, as was our New Years Resolution for 2018, we are getting more into the Japanese way of taking guests out for dinner or coffee instead...I kinda like it actually!! haha So, since we are going out to other peoples' homes, I will take a few easter treats with me. FUN!
I am completely exhausted, but I was on my feet for a good 2 hours after lunch, racing for the bus just as it was about to pull out of its downtown bay when I wanted to come home got my heart rate up and got my lungs pumping. Thank you God that I didn't slip on the ice and end up in broken pieces on the sidewalk....what was I thinking???? I could have fallen so easily! It wouldn't have killed me to continue shopping for another half hour until the next bus came! Dumb, dumb, dumb!!!!
Anyway, speaking of exhausted I think I am going to lie down now and have a wee nap!!! Yawn.........
Just Goosey!
Yup, the little poopers are back and enjoying the feeding spaces on the lawn that have been cleared by the snow removal equipment. Blecch! The one downside to prairie spring weather improvements is goose poop, BUT now I have my new rubber boots to get to and from the car. Poop all you want stupid birds, see if I care! Nyaaaah haaa haaaa!!
Monday, March 26, 2018
Happy 41st Wedding Anniversary To Me!!
My husband just arrived home from his course, bearing a huge bouquet from the florist. It is a lovely arrangement of carnations, daisies and a large bundle of pussy willows. It is absolutely lovely! What a treat.
Thank you husband....you always give me the most meaningful gifts. It isn't spring without pussy willows and when it turns bitterly cold again for the latter part of this week, I will look at those and think a better spring into existence. The bouquet is just wonderful. Bless you!
Thank you husband....you always give me the most meaningful gifts. It isn't spring without pussy willows and when it turns bitterly cold again for the latter part of this week, I will look at those and think a better spring into existence. The bouquet is just wonderful. Bless you!
-24C Overnight? This Week? Are you Freaking Kidding Me?
Um....it is now officially the spring season, right? Right.... So, why is the overnight low temperature for this coming Thursday/Friday forecast to be -24C, followed by four overnight lows of -18–19C?
Poop!
Now I have to find the extension cord for the car that is lost in the disaster of our overcrowded basement storage and see another rise in the power bills.
Poop!
Miserable news to wake up to after the fun of our Easter Seasonal Choir performance last night.
What a lot of fun we had. The extravaganza looked rather long on the printed programme, but only took an hour and a half to perform. The handbell choir was a special treat. The gifted high school musicians from Luther did themselves proud. The readings were beautiful and all pertained to Christ’s journey to the cross and resurrection. My exhausted husband even managed to stay awake and enjoy it! haha
So, he is back to school for the next two days to complete this latest management course, then away with the Bishop for a day at Gordon’s Reserve.
I have my 6 month lab tests tomorrow morning at 7am. I have to fast after 6pm, so, although today is our 41st wedding anniversary, we will save the celebrations for a few days.
Should be a good week, but I suspect we are both busy enough that it will feel like itis flying past.
Poop!
Now I have to find the extension cord for the car that is lost in the disaster of our overcrowded basement storage and see another rise in the power bills.
Poop!
Miserable news to wake up to after the fun of our Easter Seasonal Choir performance last night.
What a lot of fun we had. The extravaganza looked rather long on the printed programme, but only took an hour and a half to perform. The handbell choir was a special treat. The gifted high school musicians from Luther did themselves proud. The readings were beautiful and all pertained to Christ’s journey to the cross and resurrection. My exhausted husband even managed to stay awake and enjoy it! haha
So, he is back to school for the next two days to complete this latest management course, then away with the Bishop for a day at Gordon’s Reserve.
I have my 6 month lab tests tomorrow morning at 7am. I have to fast after 6pm, so, although today is our 41st wedding anniversary, we will save the celebrations for a few days.
Should be a good week, but I suspect we are both busy enough that it will feel like itis flying past.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Draggin’ Our Tail Feathers
It is not yet 6:30am, but we have all ready celebrated my husband’s birthday by having him open his cards and gifts while I sang his happy birthday song. Now he is attempting to go back to sleep after being awake since 4:30am. He forgot to take his valerian and melatonin before he went to bed. I forgot to remind him. What a pair we are.
Sigh....I guess we will not be going to Palm Sunday service anywhere after all. I would go myself if both my car and the streets were not encased in ice once again. It is too nerve wracking being out in traffic in such conditions.
We watched the new “Jumanji” movie last evening. It wasn’t particularly exciting, but at least it wasn’t a remake of the first one. This one is its own adventure. No one seems to know how to make truly riveting action comedies any more. The adult cast though did an exceptional job of portraying teenaged angst in our modern world. They appeared to be having so much fun portraying teens who find themselves in adult bodies (hardly a new concept, but these people had a hoot with it) that I couldn’t help but enjoy watching them. Jack Black was especially hilarious!
When the movie ended we chuckled our way off to bed with nary a thought of valerian or melatonin. Duh!
Well, as my husband observed, just as he was dozing off at last a couple of minutes ago, yay, we were at a long ordination service yesterday and will be at a long Easter celebration tonight, so those will have to do. I am only sorry he will miss getting his annual palm branch as it means a lot to him.
Have a blessed Palm Sunday everyone!
Sigh....I guess we will not be going to Palm Sunday service anywhere after all. I would go myself if both my car and the streets were not encased in ice once again. It is too nerve wracking being out in traffic in such conditions.
We watched the new “Jumanji” movie last evening. It wasn’t particularly exciting, but at least it wasn’t a remake of the first one. This one is its own adventure. No one seems to know how to make truly riveting action comedies any more. The adult cast though did an exceptional job of portraying teenaged angst in our modern world. They appeared to be having so much fun portraying teens who find themselves in adult bodies (hardly a new concept, but these people had a hoot with it) that I couldn’t help but enjoy watching them. Jack Black was especially hilarious!
When the movie ended we chuckled our way off to bed with nary a thought of valerian or melatonin. Duh!
Well, as my husband observed, just as he was dozing off at last a couple of minutes ago, yay, we were at a long ordination service yesterday and will be at a long Easter celebration tonight, so those will have to do. I am only sorry he will miss getting his annual palm branch as it means a lot to him.
Have a blessed Palm Sunday everyone!
Saturday, March 24, 2018
A More Fun Saturday Than Usual, Yay!
I suppose I should have stayed home this morning and done some housework, but my husband wanted me to accompany him on his drive across the city to our insurance agent to have his drivers' license renewed with a new photo. No wonder he wanted company. The city streets are in deplorable condition due to the ice and snow storm we had yesterday. We made it out to the insurance place and back just fine, but it was rather nice to have so little traffic on the streets.
After that my husband dropped me back at home while he went into the office for a couple of hours. I made some rather tasty pita pizzas for our lunch and then we headed over to the Cathedral for a lovely ordination service for new vocational deacons. I particularly appreciated that the 2 ordinands, both women, chose another woman deacon to do the sermon. She gave an excellent history of the whole deaconal movement, which began right around the time of the stoning of Stephen, so it is the oldest order in our denomination, even more ancient than the orders of priest and bishop. We have many strong women in our diocese who are excellent deacons and priests, secure in their calling from God and ministering well in their parishes. We sang some of my favourite hymns, "Sister Let Me Be Your Servant", "Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah", "Come Holy Spirit our Souls Inspire", and "Be Thou My Vision". We also sang some lyrics particularly pertaining to deacons, lyrics by Herbert O'Driscoll set to a Beethoven classical melody, that was very descriptive of the diaconal role. The prayers were beautiful and inspiring. I enjoy the deaconal ordination services. They are filled with hope for the future. I had a chance to have visits with a great number of aquaintances from around the diocese before and after the service. That made it even more fun for me. I also sat right at the back of the church, away from the main congregation so that I could belt out the hymns at the top of my lungs and not annoy anyone. That was a LOT of fun!! hahaha
We came close to having the service out on the highway somewhere between here and Moose Jaw as the highway was so ice covered, rutted and dangerous that our Canon and the two ordinands barely made it back here on time at the conclusion of their ordination retreat there. It took a good hour and a half to make what is normally about a 35-40 minute journey. Aiiii yiiii.... I checked the highway conditions as they were on their way and discovered that particular stretch of highway was in the worst condition of any in the province at that time. Just horrible!! All I could think of was that in Alberta that stretch of highway would have been completely closed as of the day before and would have remained that way for all of today. I cannot believe what sorts of highway conditions the people of Saskatchewan are prepared to attempt to drive on. Other friends at the service today had driven in from Moose Jaw at the height of the storm on Friday. They counted 57 cars in the ditch, along with 7 accidents in various stages of being cleared off the highway. When they got to the ring road here, a semi flipped over and blocked the entire north bound traffic flow, but they have a brand new 4-wheel drive vehicle that allowed them to drive into the median between the north and south bound lanes and get around the semi before the police and ambulance arrived. This is definitely the worst storm we have had in a long time. Various priests who are supposed to be travelling tomorrow to churches outside their towns of residence, in order to bring Palm Sunday communion to some of the smaller rural parishes who have no incumbents right now, will have to reassess the viability of travel when they wake up tomorrow morning: freezing rain is on its way at any minute. Sigh....will SPRING ever really be here????
After everything was completed at the church, I surprised my husband with a birthday dinner out. For the first time we ate at Orange Izakaya over in Cathedral District...Robinson Street. It is an unpretentious little place that serves delicious Korean/Japanese fusion foods. We have been wanting to go there for awhile, but have had a difficult time tearing ourselves away from the wonderful Indian restaurants. The decor is a bit stark, but the food was delicious and the service excellent. We started out with an order of edemame and one of yam fries for appetizers. The edemame was nice and hot, salted perfectly and the crispy yam fries had a dollop of kimchee added to the dipping sauce, so that was a warm complement for the yam. Then for entrees I had the chicken teriyaki sandwich and salad. Yum! It came on an open faced ciabata bun, nicely toasted with a huge side of mixed green salad. I was able to easily eat only half the bun and my husband ate the other half. No problem keeping the bun carbs to a minimum after eating yam fries. The Japanese dressing, one of my favourites that is heavy with miso and sesame flavours, was in a separate side dish, so I was able to restrict my intake of that, as well as not worry that my ciabata bun would get soggy from salad dressing running out from under the salad and soaking the sandwich. My husband ordered the Korean spiced beef burger, which came on a large, whole wheat sesame bun and also included a large salad. He certainly enjoyed it. He was delighted that he was able to go out for dinner before his birthday because he was so sure he would have to wait until after Easter to have time to eat out again. Since the tea time after the ordination service didn't last very long, due to the many out of town visitors having to make their way back home in the daylight, we had lots of time to go out for dinner and be back again before the freezing rain hits. YES!! (The weather effectively cancelled an evening meeting my husband had originally, so it was good for something! haha)
We will check the weather and road conditions when we get up in the morning. Depending on the freezing rain and how badly it has iced up the vehicle and streets, we will choose a church to attend for Palm Sunday. I suspect it will be St. Philip, as we have been away from it for so many Sundays of meetings and travel elsewhere. My husband misses those people very, very much!
Tonight my friend is singing in the Regina Symphony Orchestra chorus as they present a night of music from South Pacific. I am praying that she and her family can get home safely tonight after the performance. I sure would appreciate it if the forecast for freezing rain turned out to be completely incorrect!!
After that my husband dropped me back at home while he went into the office for a couple of hours. I made some rather tasty pita pizzas for our lunch and then we headed over to the Cathedral for a lovely ordination service for new vocational deacons. I particularly appreciated that the 2 ordinands, both women, chose another woman deacon to do the sermon. She gave an excellent history of the whole deaconal movement, which began right around the time of the stoning of Stephen, so it is the oldest order in our denomination, even more ancient than the orders of priest and bishop. We have many strong women in our diocese who are excellent deacons and priests, secure in their calling from God and ministering well in their parishes. We sang some of my favourite hymns, "Sister Let Me Be Your Servant", "Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah", "Come Holy Spirit our Souls Inspire", and "Be Thou My Vision". We also sang some lyrics particularly pertaining to deacons, lyrics by Herbert O'Driscoll set to a Beethoven classical melody, that was very descriptive of the diaconal role. The prayers were beautiful and inspiring. I enjoy the deaconal ordination services. They are filled with hope for the future. I had a chance to have visits with a great number of aquaintances from around the diocese before and after the service. That made it even more fun for me. I also sat right at the back of the church, away from the main congregation so that I could belt out the hymns at the top of my lungs and not annoy anyone. That was a LOT of fun!! hahaha
We came close to having the service out on the highway somewhere between here and Moose Jaw as the highway was so ice covered, rutted and dangerous that our Canon and the two ordinands barely made it back here on time at the conclusion of their ordination retreat there. It took a good hour and a half to make what is normally about a 35-40 minute journey. Aiiii yiiii.... I checked the highway conditions as they were on their way and discovered that particular stretch of highway was in the worst condition of any in the province at that time. Just horrible!! All I could think of was that in Alberta that stretch of highway would have been completely closed as of the day before and would have remained that way for all of today. I cannot believe what sorts of highway conditions the people of Saskatchewan are prepared to attempt to drive on. Other friends at the service today had driven in from Moose Jaw at the height of the storm on Friday. They counted 57 cars in the ditch, along with 7 accidents in various stages of being cleared off the highway. When they got to the ring road here, a semi flipped over and blocked the entire north bound traffic flow, but they have a brand new 4-wheel drive vehicle that allowed them to drive into the median between the north and south bound lanes and get around the semi before the police and ambulance arrived. This is definitely the worst storm we have had in a long time. Various priests who are supposed to be travelling tomorrow to churches outside their towns of residence, in order to bring Palm Sunday communion to some of the smaller rural parishes who have no incumbents right now, will have to reassess the viability of travel when they wake up tomorrow morning: freezing rain is on its way at any minute. Sigh....will SPRING ever really be here????
After everything was completed at the church, I surprised my husband with a birthday dinner out. For the first time we ate at Orange Izakaya over in Cathedral District...Robinson Street. It is an unpretentious little place that serves delicious Korean/Japanese fusion foods. We have been wanting to go there for awhile, but have had a difficult time tearing ourselves away from the wonderful Indian restaurants. The decor is a bit stark, but the food was delicious and the service excellent. We started out with an order of edemame and one of yam fries for appetizers. The edemame was nice and hot, salted perfectly and the crispy yam fries had a dollop of kimchee added to the dipping sauce, so that was a warm complement for the yam. Then for entrees I had the chicken teriyaki sandwich and salad. Yum! It came on an open faced ciabata bun, nicely toasted with a huge side of mixed green salad. I was able to easily eat only half the bun and my husband ate the other half. No problem keeping the bun carbs to a minimum after eating yam fries. The Japanese dressing, one of my favourites that is heavy with miso and sesame flavours, was in a separate side dish, so I was able to restrict my intake of that, as well as not worry that my ciabata bun would get soggy from salad dressing running out from under the salad and soaking the sandwich. My husband ordered the Korean spiced beef burger, which came on a large, whole wheat sesame bun and also included a large salad. He certainly enjoyed it. He was delighted that he was able to go out for dinner before his birthday because he was so sure he would have to wait until after Easter to have time to eat out again. Since the tea time after the ordination service didn't last very long, due to the many out of town visitors having to make their way back home in the daylight, we had lots of time to go out for dinner and be back again before the freezing rain hits. YES!! (The weather effectively cancelled an evening meeting my husband had originally, so it was good for something! haha)
We will check the weather and road conditions when we get up in the morning. Depending on the freezing rain and how badly it has iced up the vehicle and streets, we will choose a church to attend for Palm Sunday. I suspect it will be St. Philip, as we have been away from it for so many Sundays of meetings and travel elsewhere. My husband misses those people very, very much!
Tonight my friend is singing in the Regina Symphony Orchestra chorus as they present a night of music from South Pacific. I am praying that she and her family can get home safely tonight after the performance. I sure would appreciate it if the forecast for freezing rain turned out to be completely incorrect!!
Friday, March 23, 2018
The Shovelling Makes It Fun Outside On Stormy Days
Just in after my first shovelling out of our back deck, steps and pathway to the car, around the car and through the bit of pathway my husband dug out after the last storm for people passing our place to get to the bus stop out on the street. Gotta admit....it was a lot of fun! The snow is heavy and wet, so it took awhile and it will have to be done at least twice more before bedtime this evening, but that is okay. Great exercise for me.
The moisture on the windows has turned into ribbons of lacy ice. They are beautiful, but cleaning the same sort of ice ribbons from the bottom of my back door so I could open and shut it was not that pleasant. Chip, chip, chip...wipe, wipe, wipe, open door, broom snow and ice build up from around the door frame, close door. Yikes! I suspect a couple of hours from now it will be a case of "second verse, same as the first".
It has been a good day for exercise. Earlier on I washed a big load of shirts and pants for my husband. Now they are dried, ironed and put away...a good morning's work.
Just called mom's and dad's residence and booked ourselves a guest suite there for mid April. Although we can only be there a couple of days it should be enough time to purchase a proper file cabinet for them and take them on some errands, maybe a doctor's appointment, before we have to race home again. If we don't take that couple of days and go then it will be June holidays before we get another chance...the end of June at that. Looking forward to being able to help them out a bit for a change. As much as they enjoy the gift boxes I send to them every few weeks, it isn't the same as actually being there to help them out in more practical ways. Things seem to be coming together better for this possible trip than they did for the last attempt. YAY! Here's hoping anyway!
Thursday it appears I will be able to go out for lunch with a friend who will be in town for the day while her husband is having a medical procedure. She wants to go for Indian food and asked me to pick a place...wow, that is really a case of me deciding which places to "unpick"! I think we will try Tandoori Kabab again. I cannot remember if Thursday is a buffet day, but if it isn't, no matter. The menu is comprehensive. If going there doesn't pan out, then there is always the equally delicious Afghan buffet just another few blocks up the road from there. It is all good. Going out for lunch on Thursday will be like a reward for all the medical procedures I have in the days leading up to it. hahahaha
The moisture on the windows has turned into ribbons of lacy ice. They are beautiful, but cleaning the same sort of ice ribbons from the bottom of my back door so I could open and shut it was not that pleasant. Chip, chip, chip...wipe, wipe, wipe, open door, broom snow and ice build up from around the door frame, close door. Yikes! I suspect a couple of hours from now it will be a case of "second verse, same as the first".
It has been a good day for exercise. Earlier on I washed a big load of shirts and pants for my husband. Now they are dried, ironed and put away...a good morning's work.
Just called mom's and dad's residence and booked ourselves a guest suite there for mid April. Although we can only be there a couple of days it should be enough time to purchase a proper file cabinet for them and take them on some errands, maybe a doctor's appointment, before we have to race home again. If we don't take that couple of days and go then it will be June holidays before we get another chance...the end of June at that. Looking forward to being able to help them out a bit for a change. As much as they enjoy the gift boxes I send to them every few weeks, it isn't the same as actually being there to help them out in more practical ways. Things seem to be coming together better for this possible trip than they did for the last attempt. YAY! Here's hoping anyway!
Thursday it appears I will be able to go out for lunch with a friend who will be in town for the day while her husband is having a medical procedure. She wants to go for Indian food and asked me to pick a place...wow, that is really a case of me deciding which places to "unpick"! I think we will try Tandoori Kabab again. I cannot remember if Thursday is a buffet day, but if it isn't, no matter. The menu is comprehensive. If going there doesn't pan out, then there is always the equally delicious Afghan buffet just another few blocks up the road from there. It is all good. Going out for lunch on Thursday will be like a reward for all the medical procedures I have in the days leading up to it. hahahaha
Spring Storm...Meh.....
I am relieved that so far the highways my sister in law will be travelling on today in Alberta are pretty much clear of snow and ice. Most of the terrible road conditions are to the east of her route and much farther north than her final destination. However, we are still praying for her drive because of how quickly conditions can change. We scoped out the highway cameras and it all looks good at mid morning.
Here in Regina conditions are finally deteriorating. We were awake half the night from the horrendous winds that made our building sound like it was going to fall down around us, but got up this morning to nary a snowflake. Finally at around 9am the snow showers began. Now, 2 hours later, it is snowing a bit more heavily. The flakes are wet and heavy and large, making for icy slush build up starting on the area highways. The sections of highway around the province where travel is not recommended due to the thickness of the icy slush, the drifting and whiteout conditions, are slowly growing in number. This is truly a spring storm. The temperature is just below zero, but the pavement surfaces are warm due to the traffic volume, perfect for melting and refreezing over short periods of time. The winds are blowing the snow into the melting sections where it is sticking to the road and then turning to ice. The whiteout conditions make it incredibly dangerous to be trying to go outside town and city limits. Praying everyone who has to travel will be able to stay safe. The predicted snow accummulation has dropped from 20cm to 10cm and the storm is to move off into Manitoba by around dinner time this evening instead of sometime tomorrow. We have to drive to the licensing bureau tomorrow morning to renew my husband's drivers license and have a new photo taken for it. Wonder what the city street conditions will be like by then. I wish these darned storms would come on during the week when the city has full crews out to clear off the mess, instead of on the weekends when there are fewer crews on the job.
Last evening was our final Easter Seasonal Choir rehearsal. I am happy for the director that 3 or 4 people from one of his other choirs will be joining us for the dress rehearsal and concert on Sunday afternoon. They will add to our sound quite considerably and we need more strength in our voices. Too many of us are into the seniors and nearly seniors categories, so while the voices are good, they are not as powerful as they once were. We get to wear blue choir gowns and I am delighted about that. People can focus on what we are singing and not our personal attire. It will be a long evening, but a wonderful one I think. The addition of a violinist for two of our pieces is a great boost for us. She rehearsed with us last night and o my, she is a very gifted highschool student on her instrument. WOW! It will be a long night for me. We have to be at dress rehearsal by 4:30pm, bringing snacks for all to share in between the rehearsal and performance. I am going to have to bring my dinner or I won't last until it is over without passing out. Knowing how long most of our director's programmes tend to be, I am guessing my husband and I won't be on our way home until close to 10pm! Sure am looking forward to it though. What a lovely way to celebrate Palm Sunday and my husband's 66th birthday. Our 41st anniversary is the next day, but we will do our celebrating at a later date as I have to fast from 6pm that night until my lab work the next morning. The day after that I start a crowning process on another tooth, then it is Easter.....yeah, we will celebrate once Easter is over with. Maybe we will celebrate in Calgary if we can get there sometime after Easter to help my parents for a couple of days.
We now have 3 invitations to Easter Sunday dinner. It is incredibly difficult to have had to say no to 2 of them. Sigh.....we have very few close friends right here in town, so losing an opportunity to be with several of those we do have is very, very upsetting! O well, such is life and we are intensely grateful to be thought of at the Easter season by those we love. Our own plans for the new year to have more company into our home for dinner have been scuttled thus far by my husband's health issues, but hopefully once the Easter season is over we can implement our plan at last!
This morning my husband went into work later than usual as he was so tired from the winds keeping him awake last night. He can work into the evening instead. It is nice that there is still some flexibility for his work schedule despite it being essentially an "office job". We took advantage of the hour before he did go to work to have a serious discussion about our future and came to some decisons that I will share at a later date. We have peace and also a sense of excitement that have both been missing lately when discussing that issue. We will see what the Lord makes of our decisions and then we will share when it is appropriate. In the meantime continued prayers for us are very much valued and appreciated.
The snow is finally accummulating on the ground outside. The snowfall has reached that beautiful stage where the big flakes are swirling around in all directions and the ground is pristine white. By late this afternoon the traffic is going to be in a bit of a mess I am guessing, but by tomorrow the streets should be at least somewhat navigable if the snow stops when predicted by this morning's forecast.
Happy Prairie Spring!
Here in Regina conditions are finally deteriorating. We were awake half the night from the horrendous winds that made our building sound like it was going to fall down around us, but got up this morning to nary a snowflake. Finally at around 9am the snow showers began. Now, 2 hours later, it is snowing a bit more heavily. The flakes are wet and heavy and large, making for icy slush build up starting on the area highways. The sections of highway around the province where travel is not recommended due to the thickness of the icy slush, the drifting and whiteout conditions, are slowly growing in number. This is truly a spring storm. The temperature is just below zero, but the pavement surfaces are warm due to the traffic volume, perfect for melting and refreezing over short periods of time. The winds are blowing the snow into the melting sections where it is sticking to the road and then turning to ice. The whiteout conditions make it incredibly dangerous to be trying to go outside town and city limits. Praying everyone who has to travel will be able to stay safe. The predicted snow accummulation has dropped from 20cm to 10cm and the storm is to move off into Manitoba by around dinner time this evening instead of sometime tomorrow. We have to drive to the licensing bureau tomorrow morning to renew my husband's drivers license and have a new photo taken for it. Wonder what the city street conditions will be like by then. I wish these darned storms would come on during the week when the city has full crews out to clear off the mess, instead of on the weekends when there are fewer crews on the job.
Last evening was our final Easter Seasonal Choir rehearsal. I am happy for the director that 3 or 4 people from one of his other choirs will be joining us for the dress rehearsal and concert on Sunday afternoon. They will add to our sound quite considerably and we need more strength in our voices. Too many of us are into the seniors and nearly seniors categories, so while the voices are good, they are not as powerful as they once were. We get to wear blue choir gowns and I am delighted about that. People can focus on what we are singing and not our personal attire. It will be a long evening, but a wonderful one I think. The addition of a violinist for two of our pieces is a great boost for us. She rehearsed with us last night and o my, she is a very gifted highschool student on her instrument. WOW! It will be a long night for me. We have to be at dress rehearsal by 4:30pm, bringing snacks for all to share in between the rehearsal and performance. I am going to have to bring my dinner or I won't last until it is over without passing out. Knowing how long most of our director's programmes tend to be, I am guessing my husband and I won't be on our way home until close to 10pm! Sure am looking forward to it though. What a lovely way to celebrate Palm Sunday and my husband's 66th birthday. Our 41st anniversary is the next day, but we will do our celebrating at a later date as I have to fast from 6pm that night until my lab work the next morning. The day after that I start a crowning process on another tooth, then it is Easter.....yeah, we will celebrate once Easter is over with. Maybe we will celebrate in Calgary if we can get there sometime after Easter to help my parents for a couple of days.
We now have 3 invitations to Easter Sunday dinner. It is incredibly difficult to have had to say no to 2 of them. Sigh.....we have very few close friends right here in town, so losing an opportunity to be with several of those we do have is very, very upsetting! O well, such is life and we are intensely grateful to be thought of at the Easter season by those we love. Our own plans for the new year to have more company into our home for dinner have been scuttled thus far by my husband's health issues, but hopefully once the Easter season is over we can implement our plan at last!
This morning my husband went into work later than usual as he was so tired from the winds keeping him awake last night. He can work into the evening instead. It is nice that there is still some flexibility for his work schedule despite it being essentially an "office job". We took advantage of the hour before he did go to work to have a serious discussion about our future and came to some decisons that I will share at a later date. We have peace and also a sense of excitement that have both been missing lately when discussing that issue. We will see what the Lord makes of our decisions and then we will share when it is appropriate. In the meantime continued prayers for us are very much valued and appreciated.
The snow is finally accummulating on the ground outside. The snowfall has reached that beautiful stage where the big flakes are swirling around in all directions and the ground is pristine white. By late this afternoon the traffic is going to be in a bit of a mess I am guessing, but by tomorrow the streets should be at least somewhat navigable if the snow stops when predicted by this morning's forecast.
Happy Prairie Spring!
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
More Happy (and Blessed) Travellers
My son is safely in Vancouver and he flew there yesterday, prior to the arrival of another bad snow storm that hit New York City this morning, cancelling flights out of JFK. He is most relieved!
My husband’s flight home from Winnipeg tonight is scheduled for an early arrival. Twenty-four hours from now we have a severe winter storm forecast to hit and last until part way through the weekend.
My gratitude for the two of them ending up on flights that beat the oncoming storms knows no bounds and I am praying for all those air passengers who are not so fortunate.
I am praying especially for my sister-in-law who is visiting friends a few hours away from her home city and may be facing a wicked drive home through bad weather on Friday. Keep her safe Lord.
My husband’s flight home from Winnipeg tonight is scheduled for an early arrival. Twenty-four hours from now we have a severe winter storm forecast to hit and last until part way through the weekend.
My gratitude for the two of them ending up on flights that beat the oncoming storms knows no bounds and I am praying for all those air passengers who are not so fortunate.
I am praying especially for my sister-in-law who is visiting friends a few hours away from her home city and may be facing a wicked drive home through bad weather on Friday. Keep her safe Lord.
My Outstanding Purchase of the Week! Hohoho!!
It has finally happened: I am, for the first time in all my life, the proud owner of a pair of black rubber boots!! I am still in shock. hahahahaha It has been a big of an ego trip for me that I have lived now in so many small centres, farmyards and where have you without ever being forced to cave in and change my footwear to something so rural and practical.
Today was the day!
I have been thinking about it and decided that rather than risk my good footwear once again this spring and next fall during the ice melt, goose poop and torrential rain seasons, it would be appropriate to have a pair of short shafed rubber boots to go wading out to the car and back. Carrying my proper footwear in my hands and changing from boots to shoes and back again once inside the vehicle seems to make a lot of sense, PLUS it will prevent me from complaining so constantly and annoyingly. I complain so much about the deep snow melt puddles and goosey poo that I even irritate myself!!
I have to admit, rather sheepishly, that I sort of like my new boots. They are a nice shiny black like my patent leather winter boots and have a rollover top that displays a pretty bright pink and green leaf pattern. They are cute little booties!! They also have excellent treads on the bottom so I don't have to wait for ALL the snow and icy patches to be puddled up on the back lawn before I can wear them.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Of course right! teehee
Today was the day!
I have been thinking about it and decided that rather than risk my good footwear once again this spring and next fall during the ice melt, goose poop and torrential rain seasons, it would be appropriate to have a pair of short shafed rubber boots to go wading out to the car and back. Carrying my proper footwear in my hands and changing from boots to shoes and back again once inside the vehicle seems to make a lot of sense, PLUS it will prevent me from complaining so constantly and annoyingly. I complain so much about the deep snow melt puddles and goosey poo that I even irritate myself!!
I have to admit, rather sheepishly, that I sort of like my new boots. They are a nice shiny black like my patent leather winter boots and have a rollover top that displays a pretty bright pink and green leaf pattern. They are cute little booties!! They also have excellent treads on the bottom so I don't have to wait for ALL the snow and icy patches to be puddled up on the back lawn before I can wear them.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Of course right! teehee
Some More Positive Answers for Cee
Just received an update from Cee's wife: his results are in on a biopsy and there is NO cancer! Praising God for this great news. He does have an infection in the area that is being treated with incredibly expensive antibiotics not covered by his health plan, but at least he is able to get some help. He has also been able to be scheduled for a minor surgery that he has had to cancel at least once previously because he was too ill to manage it. That is happening in a few days. Shortly afterward an appointment has been scheduled with one of the two remaining specialists he has been waiting on, leaving only one more new doctor to hear from for an appointment. He is feeling a little better and with somewhat more stable weight since starting on the meds I mentioned a few posts ago, but he is still in need of a specific diagnosis.
Okay Lord, these people have waited quite long enough, right? It must soon be time to find the source of this huge and ongoing issue, right? We are all happy to pray while we wait, but it would be wonderful for Cee to find out what is going on and get more specific help in getting it looked after, right? Thank you Lord, and AMEN!
Okay Lord, these people have waited quite long enough, right? It must soon be time to find the source of this huge and ongoing issue, right? We are all happy to pray while we wait, but it would be wonderful for Cee to find out what is going on and get more specific help in getting it looked after, right? Thank you Lord, and AMEN!
Amazing Book of Prayers
An Island friend gave me a book recommendation the other day and it sounded so interesting that I immediately went online and ordered a copy.
The book is: The Valley of Vision, A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions (edited by Arthur Bennett, The Banner of Truth Trust; Versa Press, Inc., Peoria, 1975.)
It arrived in my mailbox a few minutes ago. I have only read the first prayer and I am all ready crying from its profundity. O how I miss the way the English language used to be able to convey theology and the Christian worship experience before all our Anglican prayer books and devotional materials were taken over by the bland, monotonous droning that our language is becoming. While I understand the need for changes in the prayer book to the more modern language BAS version and have come to enjoy it over the years, I still miss the old way of speaking that spoke more deeply to my heart and spirit.
I am going to give the book to my husband and myself nexy week as our joint anniversary gift. My plan is to use one prayer each day as a devotional experience either on my own or together with my husband.
Reading the first prayer, then thinking it over and actually praying it, stirred up a deep longing for more discussion with my brothers and sisters in Christ in regard to God's moving in our lives, discussions that I have had to keep on the back burner in much of my church life out here. I have met such a small handful of people in the past ten years who share the lifetime of similar God-experiences that I have had, who don't think I am some kind of well meaning spiritual nut case when I talk about God as if he and I really know each other at some level. Even if his daily working in life are understood it isn't the "done thing" to discuss it together. I miss that very much. It used to be a part of my every day life and I am delighted now to have a new tool in the form of this book of prayers to help me restore that aspect of the Christian daily walk with God.
Thank you my dear Island friend for the recommend. I got a good deal for a brand new copy and am delighted with it. Bless you for passing on this book title to me. Bless you "real good"!!
The book is: The Valley of Vision, A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions (edited by Arthur Bennett, The Banner of Truth Trust; Versa Press, Inc., Peoria, 1975.)
It arrived in my mailbox a few minutes ago. I have only read the first prayer and I am all ready crying from its profundity. O how I miss the way the English language used to be able to convey theology and the Christian worship experience before all our Anglican prayer books and devotional materials were taken over by the bland, monotonous droning that our language is becoming. While I understand the need for changes in the prayer book to the more modern language BAS version and have come to enjoy it over the years, I still miss the old way of speaking that spoke more deeply to my heart and spirit.
I am going to give the book to my husband and myself nexy week as our joint anniversary gift. My plan is to use one prayer each day as a devotional experience either on my own or together with my husband.
Reading the first prayer, then thinking it over and actually praying it, stirred up a deep longing for more discussion with my brothers and sisters in Christ in regard to God's moving in our lives, discussions that I have had to keep on the back burner in much of my church life out here. I have met such a small handful of people in the past ten years who share the lifetime of similar God-experiences that I have had, who don't think I am some kind of well meaning spiritual nut case when I talk about God as if he and I really know each other at some level. Even if his daily working in life are understood it isn't the "done thing" to discuss it together. I miss that very much. It used to be a part of my every day life and I am delighted now to have a new tool in the form of this book of prayers to help me restore that aspect of the Christian daily walk with God.
Thank you my dear Island friend for the recommend. I got a good deal for a brand new copy and am delighted with it. Bless you for passing on this book title to me. Bless you "real good"!!
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Three Hours Later and I'm Still Shaking!
Three hours ago I was within a few blocks of the restaurant where I was to meet my friend for a leisurely dinner. The rush hour traffic was rather slow so I was waiting in a line up of cars for what appeared to be a two light delay at the upcoming set of traffic lights. There was a large, empty school bus right in front of me.
As we were sitting waiting for the light to change so we could begin the next slow crawl forward, a pedestrian from the far side of the street decided to jay walk and he passed by right in front of my vehicle. He was carrying a large cardboard cup of take out coffee and as he passed the front of my stopped vehicle, he put his hand lightly onto the hood of my car and proceded to leap out into the lane to my right, virtually empty of cars as it is mainly a turning lane into a business compound.
Unfortunately for that man, it was not completely empty. The second vehicle waiting behind me had just moved into that lane and, although he was not able to travel very quickly, as the man leapt from in front of my car and into that lane, the slow moving car clipped the fellow at just the right speed and angle to helicopter him into the side of the still stopped school bus just as it was about to move forward. The bus hit its brakes as soon as the driver felt the impact, which was very good because after the man hit the side of the bus he slumped down onto the road with his head partly under the bus.
The driver of the car opened his door and got out, obviously in shock. Although he had his phone in his hand, he wasn't calling 911, so I pulled out my cell and made the call. After answering all the questions I could about our location and the condition of the man, they dispatched an ambulance. Over the next 10 minutes the city police, firemen and the ambulance with some very good paramedics arrived on scene. The ascertained that the man's leg was pretty much shattered and while they injected him with morphine so they could transfer him onto a stretcher, several of us who witnessed the accident filled out witness reports. The accident was definitely not the driver's fault. He couldn't have seen the man standing in front of my vehicle as he was pulling out to pass me. Why the fellow who got hit didn't see the car, I don't know, but it seemed that he didn't attempt to stop his forward momentum as he was turning his head to look into that lane. I am not sure he could have pulled up short even if the oncoming car had registered with him.
A half hour after the accident I was on my way to the restaurant to meet my friend, who was herself mercifully late in arriving for other reasons. It gave me time to calm myself and have a good hot drink of strong green tea before she got there.
We had a most excellent meal at Tandoori Kebab. I haven't eaten there is over a year and it was good to return for such hearty and delicious Indian food. I had the chicken jalfrezi and although it was not cooked with onions and pepper as advertised, but with mixed frozen veggies from a bag instead, the jalfrezi sauce was so good it made those sad little veggie pieces taste like they had been freshly prepared. The chicken was tender and plentiful. My friend ordered a lamb curry and thoroughly enjoyed it. We each tasted the other's dish and I think next time I go I will order that lamb entree. Delish!! The freshly baked naan were delicious, three huge pieces, and I had a coupon that allowed us to get them for free. We were also given a complimentary appetizer, the name of which I now forget, but it was fantastic! It consisted of small rolls of crisped chick pea flour and teensy cubes of potato and shreds of cilantro in a sweet and creamy sauce. It was probably too sweet for me today, since I took full advantage of the banana loaf I made this morning and ate my maximum allowed amount at lunch time...and "then some" I am guessing. Sigh....SO GOOD!!
I thought I had recovered over dinner and a nice long visit with my friend, but as I was taking off my boots back at home and bent over to undo the zippers, I felt extremely light headed for a few seconds. That is when I realized my hands were shaking. I sat down on the couch and allowed myself to relive the accident I had witnessed and then felt much better. I spent some time praying for both the victim and the driver who hit him, allowed myself to relive a bit of the memory of my own similar accident so many years ago....in my case I got hit in front of a bus, rather than behind it! haha Then my husband phoned from Winnipeg, I unloaded the story to him and we had a good talk. Things are going well in Winnipeg at his meetings and I am delighted for him about that.
I am grateful that the man that was hit was not more seriously hurt. While he shouldn't have been jay walking and being so careless in rush hour traffic, I can't help feeling just terrible that he ended up with a badly broken leg. I am grateful it wasn't worse. If that bus had pulled forward he could have had a very serious head injury. Thank you Lord that it wasn't an even worse accident. Thank you that the driver was so concerned about the injured man and didn't allow his own shock to cause him to berate the man for walking out in front of him. Please help the driver Lord to forgive himself and to get over the shock very soon.
I don't think I will sleep very well tonight, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. The older I get it seems the worse shocking sights bother me. Thank you Lord that I kept my head long enough to call 911 and actually answer the questions somewhat sensibly. I could have done better, but at least I wasn't totally useless. Thank you Lord for that.
Well, I think I will go and watch a bit of tv now that I have downloaded this story from my brain for the third time tonight. Time to let it go and think about something else. I'm not even going to proofread this to check for spelling errors as I need to think about other things. Please forgive whatever typos there are in this post. Thank you.
I also want to do some more praying for my son as he enters Vancouver...not sure if he is there yet or still enroute. I just hope his flight wasn't one of the many cancelled today from JFK as being deemed insufficiently full to bother flying.
As we were sitting waiting for the light to change so we could begin the next slow crawl forward, a pedestrian from the far side of the street decided to jay walk and he passed by right in front of my vehicle. He was carrying a large cardboard cup of take out coffee and as he passed the front of my stopped vehicle, he put his hand lightly onto the hood of my car and proceded to leap out into the lane to my right, virtually empty of cars as it is mainly a turning lane into a business compound.
Unfortunately for that man, it was not completely empty. The second vehicle waiting behind me had just moved into that lane and, although he was not able to travel very quickly, as the man leapt from in front of my car and into that lane, the slow moving car clipped the fellow at just the right speed and angle to helicopter him into the side of the still stopped school bus just as it was about to move forward. The bus hit its brakes as soon as the driver felt the impact, which was very good because after the man hit the side of the bus he slumped down onto the road with his head partly under the bus.
The driver of the car opened his door and got out, obviously in shock. Although he had his phone in his hand, he wasn't calling 911, so I pulled out my cell and made the call. After answering all the questions I could about our location and the condition of the man, they dispatched an ambulance. Over the next 10 minutes the city police, firemen and the ambulance with some very good paramedics arrived on scene. The ascertained that the man's leg was pretty much shattered and while they injected him with morphine so they could transfer him onto a stretcher, several of us who witnessed the accident filled out witness reports. The accident was definitely not the driver's fault. He couldn't have seen the man standing in front of my vehicle as he was pulling out to pass me. Why the fellow who got hit didn't see the car, I don't know, but it seemed that he didn't attempt to stop his forward momentum as he was turning his head to look into that lane. I am not sure he could have pulled up short even if the oncoming car had registered with him.
A half hour after the accident I was on my way to the restaurant to meet my friend, who was herself mercifully late in arriving for other reasons. It gave me time to calm myself and have a good hot drink of strong green tea before she got there.
We had a most excellent meal at Tandoori Kebab. I haven't eaten there is over a year and it was good to return for such hearty and delicious Indian food. I had the chicken jalfrezi and although it was not cooked with onions and pepper as advertised, but with mixed frozen veggies from a bag instead, the jalfrezi sauce was so good it made those sad little veggie pieces taste like they had been freshly prepared. The chicken was tender and plentiful. My friend ordered a lamb curry and thoroughly enjoyed it. We each tasted the other's dish and I think next time I go I will order that lamb entree. Delish!! The freshly baked naan were delicious, three huge pieces, and I had a coupon that allowed us to get them for free. We were also given a complimentary appetizer, the name of which I now forget, but it was fantastic! It consisted of small rolls of crisped chick pea flour and teensy cubes of potato and shreds of cilantro in a sweet and creamy sauce. It was probably too sweet for me today, since I took full advantage of the banana loaf I made this morning and ate my maximum allowed amount at lunch time...and "then some" I am guessing. Sigh....SO GOOD!!
I thought I had recovered over dinner and a nice long visit with my friend, but as I was taking off my boots back at home and bent over to undo the zippers, I felt extremely light headed for a few seconds. That is when I realized my hands were shaking. I sat down on the couch and allowed myself to relive the accident I had witnessed and then felt much better. I spent some time praying for both the victim and the driver who hit him, allowed myself to relive a bit of the memory of my own similar accident so many years ago....in my case I got hit in front of a bus, rather than behind it! haha Then my husband phoned from Winnipeg, I unloaded the story to him and we had a good talk. Things are going well in Winnipeg at his meetings and I am delighted for him about that.
I am grateful that the man that was hit was not more seriously hurt. While he shouldn't have been jay walking and being so careless in rush hour traffic, I can't help feeling just terrible that he ended up with a badly broken leg. I am grateful it wasn't worse. If that bus had pulled forward he could have had a very serious head injury. Thank you Lord that it wasn't an even worse accident. Thank you that the driver was so concerned about the injured man and didn't allow his own shock to cause him to berate the man for walking out in front of him. Please help the driver Lord to forgive himself and to get over the shock very soon.
I don't think I will sleep very well tonight, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. The older I get it seems the worse shocking sights bother me. Thank you Lord that I kept my head long enough to call 911 and actually answer the questions somewhat sensibly. I could have done better, but at least I wasn't totally useless. Thank you Lord for that.
Well, I think I will go and watch a bit of tv now that I have downloaded this story from my brain for the third time tonight. Time to let it go and think about something else. I'm not even going to proofread this to check for spelling errors as I need to think about other things. Please forgive whatever typos there are in this post. Thank you.
I also want to do some more praying for my son as he enters Vancouver...not sure if he is there yet or still enroute. I just hope his flight wasn't one of the many cancelled today from JFK as being deemed insufficiently full to bother flying.
Monday, March 19, 2018
The Happy Traveller
My husband just called from Winnipeg. I am killing myself laughing at him.
His ideas as to how to spend his travel time have certainly changed in recent years. It used to be that if he found himself with some free time between meetings at conferences like the one he is currently attending, he would try to find the nearest park, wilderness area or some other nature space where he could sit under a tree, or slouch on a bench to have alone time for reflection and rest. Nowadays, not so much. Over the past 7 or 8 years I have witnessed quite an evolution in his travel habits.
Today, while he was waiting at the airport for his shuttle to the hotel, he was delighted when two of the other delegates also arrived to wait with him, visiting, making plans to have dinner together tonight, lunch tomorrow and so on. After checking into the hotel, my husband walked over to the nearest mall to shop for new shoes. The nearest mall? Shoe shopping? With joy? My husband?
Next he took a very long walk from the mall to the Jewish Centre for a rather large and very late lunch at the fabulous kosher deli there. He loves kosher food. Every trip to Vancouver when our son lived there saw us touring the best kosher delis in the city. After his meal he toured the attached museum before braving the muddy, icy, snow covered walk back to the hotel. Apparently the walking conditions are even worse than here in Regina, but he enjoys those sorts of challenges, so no problem. Quite a change from the fellow who previously preferred to hole up in his room munching on fruit and energy bars, freaking out about his own conference presentations. YES!
Tonight the meetings begin. Hopefully they will go well. I am really happy he is getting a break from the local work stresses and getting a bigger picture perspective in his interactions with his colleagues.
His ideas as to how to spend his travel time have certainly changed in recent years. It used to be that if he found himself with some free time between meetings at conferences like the one he is currently attending, he would try to find the nearest park, wilderness area or some other nature space where he could sit under a tree, or slouch on a bench to have alone time for reflection and rest. Nowadays, not so much. Over the past 7 or 8 years I have witnessed quite an evolution in his travel habits.
Today, while he was waiting at the airport for his shuttle to the hotel, he was delighted when two of the other delegates also arrived to wait with him, visiting, making plans to have dinner together tonight, lunch tomorrow and so on. After checking into the hotel, my husband walked over to the nearest mall to shop for new shoes. The nearest mall? Shoe shopping? With joy? My husband?
Next he took a very long walk from the mall to the Jewish Centre for a rather large and very late lunch at the fabulous kosher deli there. He loves kosher food. Every trip to Vancouver when our son lived there saw us touring the best kosher delis in the city. After his meal he toured the attached museum before braving the muddy, icy, snow covered walk back to the hotel. Apparently the walking conditions are even worse than here in Regina, but he enjoys those sorts of challenges, so no problem. Quite a change from the fellow who previously preferred to hole up in his room munching on fruit and energy bars, freaking out about his own conference presentations. YES!
Tonight the meetings begin. Hopefully they will go well. I am really happy he is getting a break from the local work stresses and getting a bigger picture perspective in his interactions with his colleagues.
A "Flippy Flop" Day
Our son used to call spring days like this one "flippy flop" days. haha
We began the day under dark skies and huge, wet, smothery snowflakes coming down so thickly and so quickly that we had to put the windshield wipers on to get to the airport. As we brushed the snow off the car prior to leaving our parking lot, new big, fat flakes were immediately sticking once again, making the brushing kind of a useless exercise. It was certainly pretty, anyway.
On the way to the airport we nearly got dinged making a left turn when another driver crossing our path, didn't either slow down or stop for a pedestrian crossing HIS path...what is it with Regina drivers so blatantly and regularly flaunting their refusal to obey the traffic laws concerning pedestrians crossing at marked crosswalks?? Obviously the girl that was almost run down had been through the experience previously because she certainly knew how to hop backward to avoid a collision. "THESE ROMANS ARE CRAZY!!" as the characters in our old cartoon books about the Gauls vs the Romans used to say. The longer I live in this city the more frightened I am to set foot, or tires, on the streets!!
However, we arrived safely at the airport and my husband's flight departed right on time. I decided to do some early morning banking and grocery shopping and now I am home watching the clouds giving way to light blue skies and sunshine. As the temperatures are rising, so is my mood. Spring is a happy month, storms and ice and all. It heralds the onset of good walking weather, warm temperatures....AND lower gas and electric bills! hahaha
We began the day under dark skies and huge, wet, smothery snowflakes coming down so thickly and so quickly that we had to put the windshield wipers on to get to the airport. As we brushed the snow off the car prior to leaving our parking lot, new big, fat flakes were immediately sticking once again, making the brushing kind of a useless exercise. It was certainly pretty, anyway.
On the way to the airport we nearly got dinged making a left turn when another driver crossing our path, didn't either slow down or stop for a pedestrian crossing HIS path...what is it with Regina drivers so blatantly and regularly flaunting their refusal to obey the traffic laws concerning pedestrians crossing at marked crosswalks?? Obviously the girl that was almost run down had been through the experience previously because she certainly knew how to hop backward to avoid a collision. "THESE ROMANS ARE CRAZY!!" as the characters in our old cartoon books about the Gauls vs the Romans used to say. The longer I live in this city the more frightened I am to set foot, or tires, on the streets!!
However, we arrived safely at the airport and my husband's flight departed right on time. I decided to do some early morning banking and grocery shopping and now I am home watching the clouds giving way to light blue skies and sunshine. As the temperatures are rising, so is my mood. Spring is a happy month, storms and ice and all. It heralds the onset of good walking weather, warm temperatures....AND lower gas and electric bills! hahaha
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Sometimes The Extra Work IS Worth It!!
O my goodness....I am SO full after my dinner....AGAIN....!!!!
My husband decided this afternoon that he would not be content with eating hot turkey sandwiches for dinner. Originally all either of us wanted was to cook my wonderful little discount turkey, then strip the carcass for sandwiches tonight and a freezer full of cooked meat for future use. Seriously, that was our plan because cooking a turkey dinner requires lots of foresight and planning in advance.
Well, not today it didn't!
Just as I was putting the turkey into the oven at 2:30pm, my husband appeared in the kitchen with a pleading look on his face and a whining voice: "Please, please, o please, could we have potatoes and stuffing and gravy and peas tonight with that fresh turkey? Please, o please, o please??? Can we? Can we? Can we?? PULLLEEEASE????"
He was so excited I couldn't say "No!" When he offered to make the stuffing and the gravy, without my even suggesting it, he cinched the deal. We had a great time together getting the rest of the dinner prepared.
It was SOOOOOO tasty that I didn't even mind the nearly 90 minutes it took me after dinner to put away the food, strip down the carcass, bag the bones for soup making later on and wash what seemed to be a mountain of dishes. That tells you just how tasty it was! No complaining from me about the clean up afterward?? Yup, tasty indeed! My husband used that 90 minutes to finalize his preparation to fly to Winnipeg in the morning, so he wouldn't be up half the night or racing madly about tomorrow at 6am tossing items into his suitcase.
Sometimes a little extra work is well rewarded! Burp!!!
My husband decided this afternoon that he would not be content with eating hot turkey sandwiches for dinner. Originally all either of us wanted was to cook my wonderful little discount turkey, then strip the carcass for sandwiches tonight and a freezer full of cooked meat for future use. Seriously, that was our plan because cooking a turkey dinner requires lots of foresight and planning in advance.
Well, not today it didn't!
Just as I was putting the turkey into the oven at 2:30pm, my husband appeared in the kitchen with a pleading look on his face and a whining voice: "Please, please, o please, could we have potatoes and stuffing and gravy and peas tonight with that fresh turkey? Please, o please, o please??? Can we? Can we? Can we?? PULLLEEEASE????"
He was so excited I couldn't say "No!" When he offered to make the stuffing and the gravy, without my even suggesting it, he cinched the deal. We had a great time together getting the rest of the dinner prepared.
It was SOOOOOO tasty that I didn't even mind the nearly 90 minutes it took me after dinner to put away the food, strip down the carcass, bag the bones for soup making later on and wash what seemed to be a mountain of dishes. That tells you just how tasty it was! No complaining from me about the clean up afterward?? Yup, tasty indeed! My husband used that 90 minutes to finalize his preparation to fly to Winnipeg in the morning, so he wouldn't be up half the night or racing madly about tomorrow at 6am tossing items into his suitcase.
Sometimes a little extra work is well rewarded! Burp!!!
Just Another Pleasant Sunday
It has been a great day thus far and it is not even 3pm yet.
After a good night of sleep I hurried off to church this morning to sing in the trio and enjoy a return to the old BCP Morning Prayer service....again...second week in a row, two different churches. I thoroughly enjoyed the "just for this week" switch but am glad I won't have to do it again for awhile. I love the old language, but for some reason I found the whole service just as overly drawn out as the one last weekend out of town. The sermon was quite wonderful though and since I am at church mostly for the preaching, it was worth being there for that alone. We have a certified lay reader at that church who is an excellent preacher...always a treat!
As soon as I got home my husband, who spent his morning off sitting on the couch going, "meep, meep meep" and dozing, announced he hadn't eaten any breakfast, so we headed out for lunch. We wanted to have a bit of a date before he flies to Winnipeg tomorrow. On the way to Lancaster Taphouse we decided to make use first of a free haircut coupon at the Sports Clips near there. After a less than five minute wait, my husband disappeared into the salon and returned looking quite amazing! He had a wonderful haircut, a bit of a beard trim and the wonderful stylist even clipped his bushy eyebrows. What a change in his appearance. He looks super and I can't wait for the office staff to see him when he returns home for work on Thursday. teehee The old "toque top", "Gertrude and Heathcliff" hair is gone! He and I are both delighted and whatever the actual cost of having his hair taken care of there in future will be more than worth it. FINALLY! He is understanding that the old home clippers operated by the two of us are not sufficient to keep him looking professional for his job. Thank you Lord!!
Lunch at Lancaster Taphouse was, as always, delicious. My husband had a burger and a giant serving of yam fries while I enjoyed my usual small plate of steak, potatoes and a favourite vegetable mix. The two shrimp on top are my big cholesterol cheat for the week. YUMMY!
Now we are home again and the turkey I have been thawing in the refrigerator finally reached a point of being able to be roasted. It should be ready at about 7pm, so my husband is gearing up to make stuffing and gravy I will do the potatoes, peas and carrots. I won't have to cook one thing while he is away this week. YIPPEE!!
The sky has been steel grey all day, but this afternoon there is a bit more light in the sky, keeping the day from feeling unbearably gloomy. It is wonderfully warm too. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow, so it will be a good day to get my husband to the airport in the morning, then swing by the grocery store for some produce, before hunkering down inside at home for the rest of the day. I have a dinner "date" for Tuesday evening and then my husband will be back Wednesday evening. There isn't a lot of time I have to fill as he is away for such a short time. I had orginally thought I would head into Moose Jaw on Monday but the snow has effectively changed my mind!
Thursday evening is the last weeknight practise for our Easter Seasonal Choir, then I think we have a big dress rehearsal with the other participants on Sunday afternoon before that evening's performance. Wow, I am going to REALLY miss this little ragtag choir and the other people in it. I chatted today with a friend who is in the South Pacific performance and she is a bit disappointed in how that is going, so I am ever so glad now I wasn't able to participate in it after all. I just hope it doesn't put my friend off from auditioning for more events like that, other choirs, later this year. She has a music degree and a lovely singing voice that she doesn't get to use often enough.
Tonight my husband wants us to have a movie night here at home. Most of the Academy Award nominated movies are available on our tv movie network now. Once he decides which one he wants to watch we will eat our late night turkey dinner and enjoy the show.
So, my husband heads to Winnipeg tomorrow, our son leaves for Vancouver on Tuesday and my sister in law leaves for a road trip in southern Alberta on Wednesday. Lord, grant all of them safe travel and a really good time of visiting with their friends and colleagues, as well as accomplishing the various tasks they are setting out to perform. Amen!
After a good night of sleep I hurried off to church this morning to sing in the trio and enjoy a return to the old BCP Morning Prayer service....again...second week in a row, two different churches. I thoroughly enjoyed the "just for this week" switch but am glad I won't have to do it again for awhile. I love the old language, but for some reason I found the whole service just as overly drawn out as the one last weekend out of town. The sermon was quite wonderful though and since I am at church mostly for the preaching, it was worth being there for that alone. We have a certified lay reader at that church who is an excellent preacher...always a treat!
As soon as I got home my husband, who spent his morning off sitting on the couch going, "meep, meep meep" and dozing, announced he hadn't eaten any breakfast, so we headed out for lunch. We wanted to have a bit of a date before he flies to Winnipeg tomorrow. On the way to Lancaster Taphouse we decided to make use first of a free haircut coupon at the Sports Clips near there. After a less than five minute wait, my husband disappeared into the salon and returned looking quite amazing! He had a wonderful haircut, a bit of a beard trim and the wonderful stylist even clipped his bushy eyebrows. What a change in his appearance. He looks super and I can't wait for the office staff to see him when he returns home for work on Thursday. teehee The old "toque top", "Gertrude and Heathcliff" hair is gone! He and I are both delighted and whatever the actual cost of having his hair taken care of there in future will be more than worth it. FINALLY! He is understanding that the old home clippers operated by the two of us are not sufficient to keep him looking professional for his job. Thank you Lord!!
Lunch at Lancaster Taphouse was, as always, delicious. My husband had a burger and a giant serving of yam fries while I enjoyed my usual small plate of steak, potatoes and a favourite vegetable mix. The two shrimp on top are my big cholesterol cheat for the week. YUMMY!
Now we are home again and the turkey I have been thawing in the refrigerator finally reached a point of being able to be roasted. It should be ready at about 7pm, so my husband is gearing up to make stuffing and gravy I will do the potatoes, peas and carrots. I won't have to cook one thing while he is away this week. YIPPEE!!
The sky has been steel grey all day, but this afternoon there is a bit more light in the sky, keeping the day from feeling unbearably gloomy. It is wonderfully warm too. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow, so it will be a good day to get my husband to the airport in the morning, then swing by the grocery store for some produce, before hunkering down inside at home for the rest of the day. I have a dinner "date" for Tuesday evening and then my husband will be back Wednesday evening. There isn't a lot of time I have to fill as he is away for such a short time. I had orginally thought I would head into Moose Jaw on Monday but the snow has effectively changed my mind!
Thursday evening is the last weeknight practise for our Easter Seasonal Choir, then I think we have a big dress rehearsal with the other participants on Sunday afternoon before that evening's performance. Wow, I am going to REALLY miss this little ragtag choir and the other people in it. I chatted today with a friend who is in the South Pacific performance and she is a bit disappointed in how that is going, so I am ever so glad now I wasn't able to participate in it after all. I just hope it doesn't put my friend off from auditioning for more events like that, other choirs, later this year. She has a music degree and a lovely singing voice that she doesn't get to use often enough.
Tonight my husband wants us to have a movie night here at home. Most of the Academy Award nominated movies are available on our tv movie network now. Once he decides which one he wants to watch we will eat our late night turkey dinner and enjoy the show.
So, my husband heads to Winnipeg tomorrow, our son leaves for Vancouver on Tuesday and my sister in law leaves for a road trip in southern Alberta on Wednesday. Lord, grant all of them safe travel and a really good time of visiting with their friends and colleagues, as well as accomplishing the various tasks they are setting out to perform. Amen!
Saturday, March 17, 2018
But Polka Dots Are So Cheery!!!
I caught my husband last night looking somewhat askance at the new duvet cover on the bed: the new white one that is covered in black polka dots.
He claims the pattern is blinding to look at. I say it is cheery, because what is more cheery to look at than a mass of polka dots, right? Of course right!
The prairies is one of the most bland, brown, stark landscapes in this country, so my idea is that in order to keep from feeling depressed when I look outside, we should have something incredibly joyful and fun to look at here in the suite. What brings more joy visually than polka dots? I have a polka dot blazer in shades of blue, a black and white polka dot panel on one of my favourite dresses, blue polka dots on the shower curtain, a navy blouse with teensy while polka dots and now the duvet cover.
According to my husband, with the onslaught of all these polka dots, (he actually used the word "onslaught"!! Can you believe it?? Of all the nerve!), I should now be the cheeriest woman on planet Earth and he is going to hold me to that!
Hmph!!
He claims the pattern is blinding to look at. I say it is cheery, because what is more cheery to look at than a mass of polka dots, right? Of course right!
The prairies is one of the most bland, brown, stark landscapes in this country, so my idea is that in order to keep from feeling depressed when I look outside, we should have something incredibly joyful and fun to look at here in the suite. What brings more joy visually than polka dots? I have a polka dot blazer in shades of blue, a black and white polka dot panel on one of my favourite dresses, blue polka dots on the shower curtain, a navy blouse with teensy while polka dots and now the duvet cover.
According to my husband, with the onslaught of all these polka dots, (he actually used the word "onslaught"!! Can you believe it?? Of all the nerve!), I should now be the cheeriest woman on planet Earth and he is going to hold me to that!
Hmph!!
Stupid Snow
Remember previous posts where I was so excited about the onset of spring and the spring storms that inevitably happen throughout the month of March?
Well....scratch that!!
It only took me two or three days over the past week to get used to having snow puddles and melted off dry sections of pavement and sidewalks and now this morning it is snowing again. Waaaaahhhh, why did I think I like this time of year???
Supposedly this "light snow" (huh??) will be ending just after the noon hour, but unless the temperature warms the snowfall sufficiently to melt it and the winds pick up the resulting water to dry up the wetness, it is going to be a complete ice patch out there tomorrow morning...right about the time I have to get up early enough to get the car de-iced and crawl along the streets to church to sing in the trio.
Blah......
BUT, APRIL is coming! The weather has to be better in a couple of weeks when April arrives, right? Yeah...April. That is when I will enjoy better weather, fewer storms, the melting of the rest of the ice. Ahhhh, April......
Let's hear it for April and forget about all my rhapsodizing over the storms of March!
Well....scratch that!!
It only took me two or three days over the past week to get used to having snow puddles and melted off dry sections of pavement and sidewalks and now this morning it is snowing again. Waaaaahhhh, why did I think I like this time of year???
Supposedly this "light snow" (huh??) will be ending just after the noon hour, but unless the temperature warms the snowfall sufficiently to melt it and the winds pick up the resulting water to dry up the wetness, it is going to be a complete ice patch out there tomorrow morning...right about the time I have to get up early enough to get the car de-iced and crawl along the streets to church to sing in the trio.
Blah......
BUT, APRIL is coming! The weather has to be better in a couple of weeks when April arrives, right? Yeah...April. That is when I will enjoy better weather, fewer storms, the melting of the rest of the ice. Ahhhh, April......
Let's hear it for April and forget about all my rhapsodizing over the storms of March!
Friday, March 16, 2018
The Best Laid Plans....Can Be Happily Changed
Although my husband is recovering amazingly well from his latest CFS episode, he is, nevertheless, "running on empty", trying to stay sweet until his day off on Sunday. He had to cram 4 days worth of office work into the last 2 days to make up for missing office time to take yet another management course that was filled with the exact same information as every other management course he has taken for every other job that requires it. Sigh....but, as he says, at least it was a change of pace.
Today is the special annual Blessing of the Oils rites and rituals over at the Cathedral. All the diocesan clergy will be present and my husband was certainly looking forward to it when he left this morning. He enjoys the service and the fellowship over lunch and tea break. Tomorrow he will attend the Diocesan Council meeting and then at last have a day off after missing all of them for the past two weeks.
The only hassle for me is that he forgot to let me know he needed to take our car to work again today and tomorrow. It is funny, but I had a feeling yesterday afternoon I should force myself to go out a third time that day to do those errands, but was tired enough I didn't obey the impulse.
However, it has worked out just fine! I decided to take the bus up to Cornwall Centre and make use of the post office and banks downtown. It was good fun, there was lots of walking exercise I would have missed out on had I driven to my original location, plus I was able to purchase a salad at Zam Zam Wraps and enjoy a most happy lunch hour.
I just missed the bus home, so that forced me to do a lot of walking after my lunch. I window shopped, I found a new watch strap at The Bay to replace the tacky old one I have had on that watch for the past nearly 8 years and the fellow who put it on did a great job. Also at the Bay I was able to take advantage of a 70% off sale on a summer top that matches an odd coloured pair of pants I purchased last year and then hardly ever got to wear. $15 for a Halston pret-a-porter is a good deal! Tomorrow I am going to bring up the summer clothes bins and take a much harder look at the older items I couldn't bring myself to get rid of when I packed the bins in September last year. Now that I have a new pair of pants, 2 tops and a dress for the coming spring and summer, perhaps I can look at my old things more realistically and get rid of a couple of things more happily. I think I have been living in fear over the past 4 years of regaining all the weight I lost, but now that it is obvious I don't have to be so worried, I need to get rid of the last few things that didn't fit me properly the last 2 or 3 summers and still won't this summer!
Before I went downtown I washed a couple of loads of clothes for my husband so he can get packed up for his meetings in Winnipeg next week. It is time to go and iron some pants for him. I will do my own laundry tomorrow while I cook up the turkey that is nearly thawed, sitting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. It is going to be just grand having lots of pre-cooked meat to enjoy over the next few weeks. I detest cooking meat every day. I don't like the smell of cooking meat of any kind and it will be nice to be free of that odor for awhile. It will certainly simplify meal preparation as well! Yay big turkey!!
Today is the special annual Blessing of the Oils rites and rituals over at the Cathedral. All the diocesan clergy will be present and my husband was certainly looking forward to it when he left this morning. He enjoys the service and the fellowship over lunch and tea break. Tomorrow he will attend the Diocesan Council meeting and then at last have a day off after missing all of them for the past two weeks.
The only hassle for me is that he forgot to let me know he needed to take our car to work again today and tomorrow. It is funny, but I had a feeling yesterday afternoon I should force myself to go out a third time that day to do those errands, but was tired enough I didn't obey the impulse.
However, it has worked out just fine! I decided to take the bus up to Cornwall Centre and make use of the post office and banks downtown. It was good fun, there was lots of walking exercise I would have missed out on had I driven to my original location, plus I was able to purchase a salad at Zam Zam Wraps and enjoy a most happy lunch hour.
I just missed the bus home, so that forced me to do a lot of walking after my lunch. I window shopped, I found a new watch strap at The Bay to replace the tacky old one I have had on that watch for the past nearly 8 years and the fellow who put it on did a great job. Also at the Bay I was able to take advantage of a 70% off sale on a summer top that matches an odd coloured pair of pants I purchased last year and then hardly ever got to wear. $15 for a Halston pret-a-porter is a good deal! Tomorrow I am going to bring up the summer clothes bins and take a much harder look at the older items I couldn't bring myself to get rid of when I packed the bins in September last year. Now that I have a new pair of pants, 2 tops and a dress for the coming spring and summer, perhaps I can look at my old things more realistically and get rid of a couple of things more happily. I think I have been living in fear over the past 4 years of regaining all the weight I lost, but now that it is obvious I don't have to be so worried, I need to get rid of the last few things that didn't fit me properly the last 2 or 3 summers and still won't this summer!
Before I went downtown I washed a couple of loads of clothes for my husband so he can get packed up for his meetings in Winnipeg next week. It is time to go and iron some pants for him. I will do my own laundry tomorrow while I cook up the turkey that is nearly thawed, sitting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. It is going to be just grand having lots of pre-cooked meat to enjoy over the next few weeks. I detest cooking meat every day. I don't like the smell of cooking meat of any kind and it will be nice to be free of that odor for awhile. It will certainly simplify meal preparation as well! Yay big turkey!!
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Lovin’ The Strong Winds!
They are drying up the snow as it melts and reducing the severity of the inevitable basement flooding that is on the way at some point this spring. Yay strong winds!
A Good Thought From Matthew Henry For the Upcoming Easter Season
"Christ's wounds are thy healings,
His agonies thy repose,
His conflicts thy conquest,
His groans thy songs, His pains thine ease,
His shame thy glory, His death thy life,
His sufferings thy salvation."
--Matthew Henry
His agonies thy repose,
His conflicts thy conquest,
His groans thy songs, His pains thine ease,
His shame thy glory, His death thy life,
His sufferings thy salvation."
--Matthew Henry
Right Upon, Pastor Ron
Treat yourself to the March 13th blog post (Reflecting on Society) by Alliance Pastor Ron Baker at ronbaker.ca
In one short post he neatly and succinctly explains the reason for the existence of our guilt feelings.
Good stuff!
In one short post he neatly and succinctly explains the reason for the existence of our guilt feelings.
Good stuff!
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
At Least I TRIED To Make a More Creative Meal For a Change
As my energy began returning this afternoon I got the idea that it might be nice to make something a bit more creative for dinner tonight. My poor husband must get awfully tired of my plain cooking.
Since I enjoyed the eggplant dish at Mr. Greek so very much last night I decided it would be fun to have something similar tonight and pair it with some falafel, ground beef, pitas and hummus. I found wonderfully fresh pitas at the grocery store this morning, and also the small Chinese eggplants that cook so quickly and thoroughly when thinly sliced.
The eggplant dish turned out very well. It was easy enough to do. Added to the sliced eggplant were diced onions, and a bit of yellow pepper since my husband cannot eat zucchini. I sauteed the veggies in olive oil then covered them with lemon juice and Greek seasoning for awhile before adding a bit of tomato sauce, since my husband cannot eat fresh tomatoes these days. It really was yummy and we almost finished the entire dish at dinner. The meat balls turned out well too. Hummus that was made the other day was still fresh and more than enough for scooping up with the soft pitas.
Then there was the falafel....sigh....I forgot to add a heaping tablespoon of wheat flour to the mixture and as a result, the falafel balls hit the boiling oil in the pan and immediately flattened out. They simply were too wet and didn't adhere without the addition of the wheat flour gluten to soak up the excess water and bind the bean flour together. About the time I needed to turn them I got distracted by a phone call from a colleague of my husband's and so one side of some of the now oddly shaped falafal balls got a bit burnt! I was trying to flip them while taking messages for my husband and as a result, half of them came completely apart in the middle, so I had pry the two halves apart and flip them over separately. At the same time I also forgot to reduce the heat. SIGH!!! The end result was tasty enough after all, but I give myself 0% for presentation. If I had seen the plate of falafel "bits, pieces and blobs" on my plate at a restaurant it would have been returned to the kitchen tout suite!! hahaha My dear husband...my dear encouraging husband...scraped the burnt bottoms off the two most afflicted balls and ate the rest quite happily, congratulating me on my attempt. Actually the falafel tasted just fine and other than the bit of burn on those two balls, the texture outside and in was just right. Next time I will remember the wheat flour and I won't answer the dadblasted phone in the middle of making them!!
Lucky me, there is sufficient food leftover from tonight's meal, to cover for tomorrow's dinner as well. I will have to make a different veggie as there is so little of the eggplant mixture left, but that is simple enough to do.
I purchased a turkey this morning. I got a twelve dollar discount and decided I want to cook it up while my husband is at a day long meeting on Saturday. We can have a turkey dinner that night, leftovers on Sunday and then I will have lots of meat to work my way through while he is in Winnipeg the following week. I will boil up the carcass for broth so we can make soup at a later date as well. At least I know how to cook a turkey! It shouldn't end up on a plate looking like the "bits, pieces and blobs" that the falafel did tonight! hahaha
Suddenly and unexpectedly I am developing a late in life interest in cooking. What the heck????!!!??
Since I enjoyed the eggplant dish at Mr. Greek so very much last night I decided it would be fun to have something similar tonight and pair it with some falafel, ground beef, pitas and hummus. I found wonderfully fresh pitas at the grocery store this morning, and also the small Chinese eggplants that cook so quickly and thoroughly when thinly sliced.
The eggplant dish turned out very well. It was easy enough to do. Added to the sliced eggplant were diced onions, and a bit of yellow pepper since my husband cannot eat zucchini. I sauteed the veggies in olive oil then covered them with lemon juice and Greek seasoning for awhile before adding a bit of tomato sauce, since my husband cannot eat fresh tomatoes these days. It really was yummy and we almost finished the entire dish at dinner. The meat balls turned out well too. Hummus that was made the other day was still fresh and more than enough for scooping up with the soft pitas.
Then there was the falafel....sigh....I forgot to add a heaping tablespoon of wheat flour to the mixture and as a result, the falafel balls hit the boiling oil in the pan and immediately flattened out. They simply were too wet and didn't adhere without the addition of the wheat flour gluten to soak up the excess water and bind the bean flour together. About the time I needed to turn them I got distracted by a phone call from a colleague of my husband's and so one side of some of the now oddly shaped falafal balls got a bit burnt! I was trying to flip them while taking messages for my husband and as a result, half of them came completely apart in the middle, so I had pry the two halves apart and flip them over separately. At the same time I also forgot to reduce the heat. SIGH!!! The end result was tasty enough after all, but I give myself 0% for presentation. If I had seen the plate of falafel "bits, pieces and blobs" on my plate at a restaurant it would have been returned to the kitchen tout suite!! hahaha My dear husband...my dear encouraging husband...scraped the burnt bottoms off the two most afflicted balls and ate the rest quite happily, congratulating me on my attempt. Actually the falafel tasted just fine and other than the bit of burn on those two balls, the texture outside and in was just right. Next time I will remember the wheat flour and I won't answer the dadblasted phone in the middle of making them!!
Lucky me, there is sufficient food leftover from tonight's meal, to cover for tomorrow's dinner as well. I will have to make a different veggie as there is so little of the eggplant mixture left, but that is simple enough to do.
I purchased a turkey this morning. I got a twelve dollar discount and decided I want to cook it up while my husband is at a day long meeting on Saturday. We can have a turkey dinner that night, leftovers on Sunday and then I will have lots of meat to work my way through while he is in Winnipeg the following week. I will boil up the carcass for broth so we can make soup at a later date as well. At least I know how to cook a turkey! It shouldn't end up on a plate looking like the "bits, pieces and blobs" that the falafel did tonight! hahaha
Suddenly and unexpectedly I am developing a late in life interest in cooking. What the heck????!!!??
The Sun Shines On Our Son
It has been a very good day today. Finally, after 3 days of dragging myself around this suite, I completed the "weekly" cleaning. Next week I should have more energy and get it done in a day or two. I took myself to the nearest grocery store this morning instead of the one I prefer as I was still tired.The weekend wore me out.
Got a good "shot in the arm" though tonight. Our son called and he talked for an hour...not WE talked, HE talked. hahaha He was flying pretty high on happiness. His girlfriend (girl friend??) spent the past week with him in New York and this evening she caught her flight to Paris to begin her new and very unexpected job there. They had a wonderful time and while he is sad to lose her to a different continent, he is also thrilled for her to have an amazing opportunity in her field of photography.
He was also jazzed about a church service they attended on the weekend. It is a church plant, one of 4 in the NYC area, by the C-3 group from Australia. We are amazed that he enjoyed it so much after spending most of his adult life shunning any sort of organized Christian fellowship. However, he is sick to death of having his faith ridiculed and dismissed by the other people in his artistic circles and when the opportunity presented itself to try out this particular fellowship, he jumped at it. While he is not blind to the same issues there that put him off church for so many years, he is desperate enough to talk to people of more like mind spiritually that he will likely return there....at least that is our prayer! He went because his visiting girlfriend's friend is doing an internship at that church and the two girls wanted to get together. After the service, which left him feeling very much like he could fit into that particular church community, 4 of them went out for dinner and had a wonderful time together. One of the prayer requests that both he and ourselves had when he first talked about moving to NYC, was that he would be able to reconnect with the Christian community in a new way. Perhaps this is the beginning of an answer to that prayer. The church meets in a building within easy travelling distance from where he lives and he currently has weekends off work, so....here's hoping anyway. This is a prayer request his dad and I can really throw ourselves into as interceding for our son has been a big part of our prayer life for the past 20 years.
Work is going well for him. He has 2 part time jobs that will begin to mesh well at the beginning of April. He enjoys working for the artist he has been employed by for the past couple of months, but is also intrigued by the lighting position he will assume as well in April. He has to learn a new computer programme prior to that time so we pray he will find it relatively easy to learn, so that he can retain the position. It is a new field for him and he is excited to learn more about it.
We are jazzed the he is so excited about our plan to come to visit him in June. He has it on his calendar all ready and is eager to show us his favourite haunts in the city. Since we will probably be too terrified to go anywhere without him to shepherd us about the place, this is a good thing!!!
So, we laughed a lot with him tonight....just the way the 3 of us used to laugh together about anything and everything after what seems so many years ago now. To see him being restored to mental, physical and spiritual health is amazing and wonderful for us. Our son disappeared a long time ago into a mess of problems and is finally getting free. We praise God for it. He is returning to Vancouver at the end of this month for about 10 days so that he can pack up the rest of his belongings and make life more physically comfortable back at his new home. It will be good for him to see his friends there and to figure out just how much he has changed for the happier in the past year.
Thank you Lord for our son. Thank you that he finally has a desire to possibly seek a faith community and leave the hurts of the past behind. We pray he will find his way through life and that this trend back toward happiness will be long lived. Amen.
Got a good "shot in the arm" though tonight. Our son called and he talked for an hour...not WE talked, HE talked. hahaha He was flying pretty high on happiness. His girlfriend (girl friend??) spent the past week with him in New York and this evening she caught her flight to Paris to begin her new and very unexpected job there. They had a wonderful time and while he is sad to lose her to a different continent, he is also thrilled for her to have an amazing opportunity in her field of photography.
He was also jazzed about a church service they attended on the weekend. It is a church plant, one of 4 in the NYC area, by the C-3 group from Australia. We are amazed that he enjoyed it so much after spending most of his adult life shunning any sort of organized Christian fellowship. However, he is sick to death of having his faith ridiculed and dismissed by the other people in his artistic circles and when the opportunity presented itself to try out this particular fellowship, he jumped at it. While he is not blind to the same issues there that put him off church for so many years, he is desperate enough to talk to people of more like mind spiritually that he will likely return there....at least that is our prayer! He went because his visiting girlfriend's friend is doing an internship at that church and the two girls wanted to get together. After the service, which left him feeling very much like he could fit into that particular church community, 4 of them went out for dinner and had a wonderful time together. One of the prayer requests that both he and ourselves had when he first talked about moving to NYC, was that he would be able to reconnect with the Christian community in a new way. Perhaps this is the beginning of an answer to that prayer. The church meets in a building within easy travelling distance from where he lives and he currently has weekends off work, so....here's hoping anyway. This is a prayer request his dad and I can really throw ourselves into as interceding for our son has been a big part of our prayer life for the past 20 years.
Work is going well for him. He has 2 part time jobs that will begin to mesh well at the beginning of April. He enjoys working for the artist he has been employed by for the past couple of months, but is also intrigued by the lighting position he will assume as well in April. He has to learn a new computer programme prior to that time so we pray he will find it relatively easy to learn, so that he can retain the position. It is a new field for him and he is excited to learn more about it.
We are jazzed the he is so excited about our plan to come to visit him in June. He has it on his calendar all ready and is eager to show us his favourite haunts in the city. Since we will probably be too terrified to go anywhere without him to shepherd us about the place, this is a good thing!!!
So, we laughed a lot with him tonight....just the way the 3 of us used to laugh together about anything and everything after what seems so many years ago now. To see him being restored to mental, physical and spiritual health is amazing and wonderful for us. Our son disappeared a long time ago into a mess of problems and is finally getting free. We praise God for it. He is returning to Vancouver at the end of this month for about 10 days so that he can pack up the rest of his belongings and make life more physically comfortable back at his new home. It will be good for him to see his friends there and to figure out just how much he has changed for the happier in the past year.
Thank you Lord for our son. Thank you that he finally has a desire to possibly seek a faith community and leave the hurts of the past behind. We pray he will find his way through life and that this trend back toward happiness will be long lived. Amen.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Utterly Sated...OMG (O My Gut!!)
My husband, bless him, decided I was too tired tonight to make dinner. He also had a time limited coupon for a free order of loukades (deep fried lumps of dough covered in honey, cinnamon and sesame seeds) from Mr. Greek burning a hole in his wallet, so that is where we went to eat.
O. My. Aching. Happy. Tummy.
We had not eaten there before and I wasn’t terribly keen on the idea, to be honest. Mr. Greek is the competition for the other Greek fast food chain, Opa!. Fast food is the only (edible) Greek food that is available in Regina, unfortunately.
Well, the prices are no worse there than anywhere else, so I ordered a full plate chicken gyro with three sides: grilled mixed veggies, Greek-like salad, (the lettuce/tomato one that is only Greek by the addition of a couple of kalamata olives, English cucumber rounds and feta, but still tastes nice), and roast potatoes. My husband had chicken grilled on a spit and skewered, the same salad and potatoes, plus a plate of pita. The pita was not great...thin and tasteless and only a bit of herbed sour cream for dipping, but we both enjoyed the rest of our meals. The salad ingredients were fresh. Bonus! My chicken was fresh and chopped up right there for cooking, not brought in from elsewhere. The potatoes were huge, cooked beautifully and the veggie mix of eggplant, carrots, yellow and green zucchini was delicious. I knew I should only eat half the huge portion and bring the rest home, but it was so yummy I ate the whole thing. Two, two, two meals in one!
Now, I have to say that while I preferred this meal to any I have had from Opa!, it was because of all the butter and oil everything was cooked in. My plate was a sea of melted butter swimming in olive oil after the food was gone. The grilled veggies were actually grilled to near mush, but for my digestive system, that is how they have to be, so it was not a strike against them for me, personally.
Since I have cut out high cholesterol foods so diligently over the past 8 weeks and not enjoyed most of my meals as a result, eating something so tasty was like heaven! Sigh.....
Now it is bedtime and my tummy feels like it has an elephant in it....I am still SO full! I probably won’t sleep well. It is a bit stressful to realize I was able to put away that much food in one setting, no sense of restraint whatsoever! Eek! So, I am sorry body that I did this to you, but my tastebuds had a rebellion tonight. However stuffed and over amped I now feel, it is worth every greasy, delicious mouthful!
Might as well make the cholesterol meds work hard enough to justify risking permanent body damage by taking them, right?
Ooooooh, I am SO full of food........yummy.......bloat......
O. My. Aching. Happy. Tummy.
We had not eaten there before and I wasn’t terribly keen on the idea, to be honest. Mr. Greek is the competition for the other Greek fast food chain, Opa!. Fast food is the only (edible) Greek food that is available in Regina, unfortunately.
Well, the prices are no worse there than anywhere else, so I ordered a full plate chicken gyro with three sides: grilled mixed veggies, Greek-like salad, (the lettuce/tomato one that is only Greek by the addition of a couple of kalamata olives, English cucumber rounds and feta, but still tastes nice), and roast potatoes. My husband had chicken grilled on a spit and skewered, the same salad and potatoes, plus a plate of pita. The pita was not great...thin and tasteless and only a bit of herbed sour cream for dipping, but we both enjoyed the rest of our meals. The salad ingredients were fresh. Bonus! My chicken was fresh and chopped up right there for cooking, not brought in from elsewhere. The potatoes were huge, cooked beautifully and the veggie mix of eggplant, carrots, yellow and green zucchini was delicious. I knew I should only eat half the huge portion and bring the rest home, but it was so yummy I ate the whole thing. Two, two, two meals in one!
Now, I have to say that while I preferred this meal to any I have had from Opa!, it was because of all the butter and oil everything was cooked in. My plate was a sea of melted butter swimming in olive oil after the food was gone. The grilled veggies were actually grilled to near mush, but for my digestive system, that is how they have to be, so it was not a strike against them for me, personally.
Since I have cut out high cholesterol foods so diligently over the past 8 weeks and not enjoyed most of my meals as a result, eating something so tasty was like heaven! Sigh.....
Now it is bedtime and my tummy feels like it has an elephant in it....I am still SO full! I probably won’t sleep well. It is a bit stressful to realize I was able to put away that much food in one setting, no sense of restraint whatsoever! Eek! So, I am sorry body that I did this to you, but my tastebuds had a rebellion tonight. However stuffed and over amped I now feel, it is worth every greasy, delicious mouthful!
Might as well make the cholesterol meds work hard enough to justify risking permanent body damage by taking them, right?
Ooooooh, I am SO full of food........yummy.......bloat......
Monday, March 12, 2018
Happiness Is Getting Active Again!
Just gotta say that today, even with some long rests and my refusal to get dressed, still resulted in healing activity! In between sit down and relax times I still managed to get the bathroom, kitchen and front entry cleaned really well and I walked and walked around the suite while telephone visiting with a good friend from Moose Jaw and another from Ontario.
After sitting for the better part of 3 days in a vehicle, sitting for meals, sitting for visits, sitting in the motel rooms, sitting through church services, sitting, sitting and more sitting, it was WONDERFUL to get on my feet today and get a move on. I think perhaps this is why I am finding several hours of travel per day so difficult to deal with in recent years, after spending most of my life enjoying the journeys immensely. The time is simply too inactive! Today, if not exactly exciting, was pure pleasure! And all just because I could keep moving!
After sitting for the better part of 3 days in a vehicle, sitting for meals, sitting for visits, sitting in the motel rooms, sitting through church services, sitting, sitting and more sitting, it was WONDERFUL to get on my feet today and get a move on. I think perhaps this is why I am finding several hours of travel per day so difficult to deal with in recent years, after spending most of my life enjoying the journeys immensely. The time is simply too inactive! Today, if not exactly exciting, was pure pleasure! And all just because I could keep moving!
Again With the Unexpected Changes of Plan, haha!
So, it is 5:30am on Sunday. I’ve been awake for a couple of hours visiting with my husband who, until a couple of minutes ago was also unable to sleep.
Are we back at home as we are supposed to be, tucked snugly in our own comfy bed after our quick trip to Kindersley?
Nope!
We are in a crappy old motel in Swift Current listening to the neighbours in the next room packing up for an early departure. At least I am. My husband is finally sleeping again and I am grateful for that.
How on earth did we end up here instead of Regina? Well....after a lovely ceremony of induction of the new priest for Big Country Parish yesterday morning, followed by a marvellous pot luck lunch, my husband and the visiting priests had a clericus meeting while I visited a good friend. To that point it had been a good trip despite the unexpected blowing snow and icy slush on some of the highways on the way there.
About the time we left Kindersley at 3:30pm today the trip details became somewhat fuzzy. We were filling the car with gasoline before leaving Kindersley and noticed the Bishop as he drove past on his way to Rosetown, 85km away, for his next series of meetings. We were headed in the same direction for our trip home, so weren’t travelling far behind him. As he drove past us at the gas station, we waved at him but he didn’t see us. Why does that matter, you ask? So what, you ask? Well, if he had seen us, I would not now be sitting here in a crappy hotel, in the middle of the night, in the dark, blogging, in a town that is miles away from our usual travel route from Kindersley to Regina!
If he had seen us, he would likely have pulled off the road, driven into the gas station and returned the cell phone and glasses my husband had forgotten at the church in Kindersley.
But that is not what happened.
What happened is that we drove to Rosetown, miles behind our speeding bishop. As we were driving into town my husband told me he was going to stop at the Co-op convenience store there to pick up a charger cable for his cell phone that had gone dead at some point earlier in the day. He was upset that he had forgotten his charger at home. “I forgot.....” is a commonly heard expression in our household, so I wasn’t surprised about the charger being left at home. I was also not surprised that he had previously removed the secondary charger cable that plugs into the car cigarette lighter and forgotten to put it back in. (I was a tad more surprised that he also forgot to bring any books to read at the hotel, his sleeping meds etc., but even more surprised that I forgot to bring my own daily meds on the trip. I have never in my life forgotten to bring my meds on a trip, but thought, stupidly as it turned out, that it was only for one day, so no biggie.)
Fortunately the Co-op had the cable he thought would work for his phone, but he decided to go get his phone from the car and check the plug fit before paying for the cable. I stood inside the store holding the cable, waiting for him to bring the phone. He was gone a long time. About the time I was thinking I should just ditch the cable and run outside to see if my husband had suffered a heart attack and was lying dead in the parking lot, he came back into the store looking most upset. He could not locate his phone. He paid for the cable so we could leave the store and we returned to the car so I could help him look again through the various suitcases, bags, briefcases, pockets, coats and what have you. We didn’t find the phone, plus we discovered my husband’s reading glasses were also missing. Big “o no, not again!!” sigh.....
What to do! We hemmed and hawed as the afternoon hours ticked away toward the dinner hour, called back to the priest in Kindersley to confirm the phone and glasses were indeed somewhere still in the church there, but couldn't rouse him. We thought of trying to locate the bishop, at that moment likely unpacking his overnight gear at whose-ever house he was staying at for overnight, realized we didn't know where that house was and that also without my husband's phone we couldn't call to ask the Bishop if he had noticed my husband's missing items before he himself left Kindersley...so, it seemed our only option was to drive the nearly hour back to Kindersley and if the priest wasn't around to open up the church, we wouldn't have a difficult time finding someone else with church keys to help us out.
Back we went. Fortunately the priest was at home, although he hadn't received our phone message. Fortunately the Bishop had noticed my husband's phone and glasses before he left for Rosetown. Unfortunately the Bishop decided to take the phone and glasses with him, thinking he could wait to return them to my husband at work in the office on Wednesday, not realizing my husband needed both items long before then. Also unfortunately, the Bishop had forgotten he has MY cell phone number on his own phone, so he hadn't called to let us know we could pick up the items right in Rosetown when we first arrived there. Sigh....so, we were back in Kindersley and our "stuff" was now somewhere in Rosetown. Fortunately the Kindersley priest has the Bishop's cell number and my husband was able to call on the rectory phone. The Bishop had just arrived at the church there to set up for his presentation and enjoy the potluck dinner, so we weren't disturbing him mid-presentation. Back we drove another hour to Rosetown. By this time 3 hours had passed and it was getting onto early evening. We were able to collect the phone and glasses quickly, but found out while we were there that the highways along our usual route through Kenaston and Chamberlain were too iced up again to be safe for night time travel. Sigh....NOW what to do? We had so been looking forward to being home in our own beds and my husband being able to just relax all day Sunday on his one day off for this week. I was looking forward very much to trio practise for the following Sunday service at my church.
We learned that the highway south to Swift Current was bare and dry, so it was the best option for our start home. With the extra trips back and forth to Rosetown and Kindersley, it was going to turn our usually only 4 hour drive into one just over 7 hours, but it would be worth it to get home, plus we would have the luxury of a 4 lane highway between Swift Current and Regina. By this time it was nearly 6pm and my diabetic self could not wait any longer to eat dinner. We lost our final 45 minutes of daylight driving time at Hiway Host in Rosetown, eating the best Indian food in the province. If you are capable of just closing your eyes to the "decor" in the old building that houses the restaurant right along Highway 7, you will enjoy the wonderful food that Ali and his cooks prepare each day. YUMMY!!!!!!! The vindaloo was so hot and spicy. My husband's vegetable dish did contain bagged, frozen veggie mix, very unexpected and disappointing, but the herbs and sauces made up for it...incredibly good. Disppointment ended!!
After a rather hurried dinner we started the 2 hour drive south. Part way there my husband decided to check the highway conditions heading east from Swift Current..."just in case". Good thing he did that! The #1 highway heading east was as ice and slush covered as our original route!! Poop!! There was no way we were going to risk taking it in the dark and possibly ending up in the ditch along with so many other vehicles all ready residing there for the night. We knew we would have to get a room in Swift Current. By the time we arrived there my husband had spent just under and hour on his cell phone, happily recharged with the new Co-op car cable, attempting to locate a place that still had a room open. Even the rooms in the nicer hotels and motels were completely filled by visiting hockey players, their coaches and parents for a big weekend tournament! Finally he located a rather sad excuse of an old motor inn that had a few rooms still available. Quite a few rooms actually. Why would that be when every other place in town had no vacancy??? Hmmmm....hahahaha What a place! It shall remain nameless here because the people running it are so very nice, have just purchased the place and tried to clean it up and redecorate it using the finest items the local Dollar Store has to offer. I will say one good thing about those old motor inns: the rooms are huge! You certainly are not tripping over your own bed to get to the bathroom or microwave oven like you have to so often in many of the newer, but tinier travel accommodations. Other than the now common two inches of filth along all the baseboards from the refusal of hotel owners to purchase vaccums with cervice tools for their cleaning staff, the place was clean enough. AND it was definitely cheap enough! Plus, we got an additional 10% off because we are seniors. We didn't even attempt to speculate why there was a LARGE sized room deodorizor blasting away in our room, but it was a subtle enough aroma that it barely bothered my asthma, although it was a contributing factor to both of us not sleeping well.
Since the Bishop allowed us to use the diocesan credit card to pay for the extra night's accommodation, there was a less than subtle implication that my husband was now on the hook to do some kind of job related ministry there at the local church Sunday morning. After our "continental" breakfast at the hotel, (I don't know what the term "continental" is supposed to mean when applied to stale bread with rock hard butter in little plastic containers, blueberry jam so old it bounced on the table top when we finally managed to pry it out of the disposable tube, oily sweet peanut butter, bruised apples and the remaining 3 drops of orange juice in a disposeable container. To me, "continental" implies fresh croissants and strawberries with whipping cream and strong hot coffee. Anyway.....), we got ourselves dressed to attend the local Anglican church. Got dressed....hmmmm....well, we tried to appear human at least. Neither of us had any clean clothes left. The night before I showered in a bathroom so teeny as to rival the smallest of any in Japan and of course there was only drying shampoo with no conditioner, so despite the fact that there was actually a very nice blow dryer onsite, I looked like a frizzed up mess by morning. I did my best to fix it with a harsh brushing, some back combing and a ton of hairspray, but o my..... Then I realized that the day before, I had tossed out the last bits left in my pack of travel deodorant, deeming them to be an insufficient amount to take on any other upcoming trips. I asked my husband if I could borrow his, only to be met with a sheepish grin. He had forgotten half his personal hygiene kit in his rush to leave on Friday. So there we were, trying to attend the local church improperly groomed, wearing 2 day old clothes and terrified of being stinky to boot!! Thank goodness that at least we both had brushes and toothpaste with us.! Not an auspicious visit to a congregation who, along with their shocked priests, would assume that a surprise visit from the Executive Archdeacon did not bode well. Generally when such a visit occurs it is because they are in some kind of trouble and are about to be raked over the coals about making some unpleasant but needed changes in behaviour. Sigh..... As we entered the church building to face the first of the unhappy stares our surprise presence always brings, I became aware of the fact that the undies I had carefully washed out in the sink the previous night and then tried to blow dry in the morning with the hair dryer, (how can thin cotton underwear still be THAT wet after hanging over a towel bar overnight in a prairie dry hotel room for 8 hours???), were not all that dry actually. Aaaargh! Well, nothing to be done about it at that point. I saw my husband surreptitiously claw his soiled clergy shirt out from under his damp armpits as we both pasted huge grins on our faces and ploughed into the crowd that was forming around the inside of the church door, puzzled expressions on every face, but particlularly on the faces of the incumbents. hohoho!! Here is the Executive Archdeacon! We must be in some kind of trouble!! SURPRISE!!!!
It did take some time to convince everyone that we were there because we had been stranded overnight and that there was no dire reason for our presence. Once that was finally established, the group opened up and became their welcoming, friendly selves again. I love visiting there because the congregation is amazingly friendly, so talkative, so interested in what is going on in the "outside world". What a gift to their leaders! After the coffee hour we were able to spend some quality time visiting with the incumbents and it was great to be able to be so honestly encouraging to them about their congregation and their ministry. Some good one on one conversations were had by both my husband and myself. A former Kindersley parishioner who lives in Swift Current now, was wonderful about introducing me to some of the people who had only met my husband previously and they were most welcoming. I don't know if the whole lost items scenario was God's way of lining us up to get to Swift Current to encourage those folk (and ourselves) or not, but that is the way it worked out and we are glad of it. If anyone there noticed we looked (and smelled) less than our professional best, well, they were far too polite to say anything. Bless them!! hahaha
We were at the church so long after the service that we didn't get to Original Joe's until after 1pm. As we were being led to our table there I pulled off my gloves and didn't notice until I sat down that along with my gloves, I had also pulled off my favourite teaspoon ring. Aiiii yiiiii....what next? Where did it go? After we ordered our lunch, I walked back and forth between our table and the front door looking for it. I assumed it could have bounced some distance when it hit the floor. So, there I was...a strange old woman peering under tables, asking people if they would mind moving their feet over long enough for me to seek my favourite ring. Thankfully most of the people were kind, or patronising, but at least no one overtly sneered or told me to leave them alone or to "get lost strange old woman!!" How embarrassing was this whole scenario...made all the more embarrassing when I finally gave up the search, accepted that my ring was finally gone (I am SO good at dropping rings since I lost weight) and ate my lunch while describing to every wait staff on duty as well as the manager what my ring looks like and how to contact me if anyone found it. As we were putting our coats on to leave the restaurant, I pulled on my gloves, hoping against hope that the ring was stuck in the glove, even though an earlier search confirmed that it certainly was not, and as I stood up to put on my coat, there was the ring sitting on the seat I had just vacated. How did it get there? It hadn't been there all the other times I stood up to go search for it on the floor. O good grief....BUT there it was. I put it back on, pushed my glove over it before anyone who I had previously disturbed could see I had it back, smiled gratefully on the way back out as table after table of other guests told me they were so sorry I had lost it, (well I wasn't going to admit to them that I HAD just found it, and that it was sitting under my very own butt, was I? No, of course not!!), and we hurried back outside to the car. We hurried very quickly!
By now it was 2pm, the ploughs had cleared off the last of the ice and slush from the main roads and we had a dry, safe, 2 1/2hour drive home. We arrived home at 4:30pm, unpacked and sat and stared at each other for awhile as we got over the road buzz and the stress of the weekend. hahahaha What a crazy time. My husband's hoped for day off was a total bust as far as being a relaxed, sleeping in kind of day. Fortunately for me, I was able to contact the other trio members who assured me there would be time for us to rehearse next Sunday before the service. They are wonderful ladies!!!
And now it is Monday:
We were both in bed very early last night and we both slept well. There is nothing like your own bed in your own little place of residence. This morning my husband woke up on time and went off quite happily to his management training course. It is nearly 10am and I am sitting here in my nightgown trying to rouse myself long enough to get dressed and do some housework...hmmm....maybe after lunch.
O dear....would you believe I just now hit a key that erased this entire post? Well, yes, of course you would and rightly so. Gaaaaaakkkkk! Thank you Jesus for "Control, Z" because the post came back as I pressed those keys on the keyboard. I think I will wrap this up now before any other disasters have a chance to happen. hahahahahahahahahahaha
O happy day............
Are we back at home as we are supposed to be, tucked snugly in our own comfy bed after our quick trip to Kindersley?
Nope!
We are in a crappy old motel in Swift Current listening to the neighbours in the next room packing up for an early departure. At least I am. My husband is finally sleeping again and I am grateful for that.
How on earth did we end up here instead of Regina? Well....after a lovely ceremony of induction of the new priest for Big Country Parish yesterday morning, followed by a marvellous pot luck lunch, my husband and the visiting priests had a clericus meeting while I visited a good friend. To that point it had been a good trip despite the unexpected blowing snow and icy slush on some of the highways on the way there.
About the time we left Kindersley at 3:30pm today the trip details became somewhat fuzzy. We were filling the car with gasoline before leaving Kindersley and noticed the Bishop as he drove past on his way to Rosetown, 85km away, for his next series of meetings. We were headed in the same direction for our trip home, so weren’t travelling far behind him. As he drove past us at the gas station, we waved at him but he didn’t see us. Why does that matter, you ask? So what, you ask? Well, if he had seen us, I would not now be sitting here in a crappy hotel, in the middle of the night, in the dark, blogging, in a town that is miles away from our usual travel route from Kindersley to Regina!
If he had seen us, he would likely have pulled off the road, driven into the gas station and returned the cell phone and glasses my husband had forgotten at the church in Kindersley.
But that is not what happened.
What happened is that we drove to Rosetown, miles behind our speeding bishop. As we were driving into town my husband told me he was going to stop at the Co-op convenience store there to pick up a charger cable for his cell phone that had gone dead at some point earlier in the day. He was upset that he had forgotten his charger at home. “I forgot.....” is a commonly heard expression in our household, so I wasn’t surprised about the charger being left at home. I was also not surprised that he had previously removed the secondary charger cable that plugs into the car cigarette lighter and forgotten to put it back in. (I was a tad more surprised that he also forgot to bring any books to read at the hotel, his sleeping meds etc., but even more surprised that I forgot to bring my own daily meds on the trip. I have never in my life forgotten to bring my meds on a trip, but thought, stupidly as it turned out, that it was only for one day, so no biggie.)
Fortunately the Co-op had the cable he thought would work for his phone, but he decided to go get his phone from the car and check the plug fit before paying for the cable. I stood inside the store holding the cable, waiting for him to bring the phone. He was gone a long time. About the time I was thinking I should just ditch the cable and run outside to see if my husband had suffered a heart attack and was lying dead in the parking lot, he came back into the store looking most upset. He could not locate his phone. He paid for the cable so we could leave the store and we returned to the car so I could help him look again through the various suitcases, bags, briefcases, pockets, coats and what have you. We didn’t find the phone, plus we discovered my husband’s reading glasses were also missing. Big “o no, not again!!” sigh.....
What to do! We hemmed and hawed as the afternoon hours ticked away toward the dinner hour, called back to the priest in Kindersley to confirm the phone and glasses were indeed somewhere still in the church there, but couldn't rouse him. We thought of trying to locate the bishop, at that moment likely unpacking his overnight gear at whose-ever house he was staying at for overnight, realized we didn't know where that house was and that also without my husband's phone we couldn't call to ask the Bishop if he had noticed my husband's missing items before he himself left Kindersley...so, it seemed our only option was to drive the nearly hour back to Kindersley and if the priest wasn't around to open up the church, we wouldn't have a difficult time finding someone else with church keys to help us out.
Back we went. Fortunately the priest was at home, although he hadn't received our phone message. Fortunately the Bishop had noticed my husband's phone and glasses before he left for Rosetown. Unfortunately the Bishop decided to take the phone and glasses with him, thinking he could wait to return them to my husband at work in the office on Wednesday, not realizing my husband needed both items long before then. Also unfortunately, the Bishop had forgotten he has MY cell phone number on his own phone, so he hadn't called to let us know we could pick up the items right in Rosetown when we first arrived there. Sigh....so, we were back in Kindersley and our "stuff" was now somewhere in Rosetown. Fortunately the Kindersley priest has the Bishop's cell number and my husband was able to call on the rectory phone. The Bishop had just arrived at the church there to set up for his presentation and enjoy the potluck dinner, so we weren't disturbing him mid-presentation. Back we drove another hour to Rosetown. By this time 3 hours had passed and it was getting onto early evening. We were able to collect the phone and glasses quickly, but found out while we were there that the highways along our usual route through Kenaston and Chamberlain were too iced up again to be safe for night time travel. Sigh....NOW what to do? We had so been looking forward to being home in our own beds and my husband being able to just relax all day Sunday on his one day off for this week. I was looking forward very much to trio practise for the following Sunday service at my church.
We learned that the highway south to Swift Current was bare and dry, so it was the best option for our start home. With the extra trips back and forth to Rosetown and Kindersley, it was going to turn our usually only 4 hour drive into one just over 7 hours, but it would be worth it to get home, plus we would have the luxury of a 4 lane highway between Swift Current and Regina. By this time it was nearly 6pm and my diabetic self could not wait any longer to eat dinner. We lost our final 45 minutes of daylight driving time at Hiway Host in Rosetown, eating the best Indian food in the province. If you are capable of just closing your eyes to the "decor" in the old building that houses the restaurant right along Highway 7, you will enjoy the wonderful food that Ali and his cooks prepare each day. YUMMY!!!!!!! The vindaloo was so hot and spicy. My husband's vegetable dish did contain bagged, frozen veggie mix, very unexpected and disappointing, but the herbs and sauces made up for it...incredibly good. Disppointment ended!!
After a rather hurried dinner we started the 2 hour drive south. Part way there my husband decided to check the highway conditions heading east from Swift Current..."just in case". Good thing he did that! The #1 highway heading east was as ice and slush covered as our original route!! Poop!! There was no way we were going to risk taking it in the dark and possibly ending up in the ditch along with so many other vehicles all ready residing there for the night. We knew we would have to get a room in Swift Current. By the time we arrived there my husband had spent just under and hour on his cell phone, happily recharged with the new Co-op car cable, attempting to locate a place that still had a room open. Even the rooms in the nicer hotels and motels were completely filled by visiting hockey players, their coaches and parents for a big weekend tournament! Finally he located a rather sad excuse of an old motor inn that had a few rooms still available. Quite a few rooms actually. Why would that be when every other place in town had no vacancy??? Hmmmm....hahahaha What a place! It shall remain nameless here because the people running it are so very nice, have just purchased the place and tried to clean it up and redecorate it using the finest items the local Dollar Store has to offer. I will say one good thing about those old motor inns: the rooms are huge! You certainly are not tripping over your own bed to get to the bathroom or microwave oven like you have to so often in many of the newer, but tinier travel accommodations. Other than the now common two inches of filth along all the baseboards from the refusal of hotel owners to purchase vaccums with cervice tools for their cleaning staff, the place was clean enough. AND it was definitely cheap enough! Plus, we got an additional 10% off because we are seniors. We didn't even attempt to speculate why there was a LARGE sized room deodorizor blasting away in our room, but it was a subtle enough aroma that it barely bothered my asthma, although it was a contributing factor to both of us not sleeping well.
Since the Bishop allowed us to use the diocesan credit card to pay for the extra night's accommodation, there was a less than subtle implication that my husband was now on the hook to do some kind of job related ministry there at the local church Sunday morning. After our "continental" breakfast at the hotel, (I don't know what the term "continental" is supposed to mean when applied to stale bread with rock hard butter in little plastic containers, blueberry jam so old it bounced on the table top when we finally managed to pry it out of the disposable tube, oily sweet peanut butter, bruised apples and the remaining 3 drops of orange juice in a disposeable container. To me, "continental" implies fresh croissants and strawberries with whipping cream and strong hot coffee. Anyway.....), we got ourselves dressed to attend the local Anglican church. Got dressed....hmmmm....well, we tried to appear human at least. Neither of us had any clean clothes left. The night before I showered in a bathroom so teeny as to rival the smallest of any in Japan and of course there was only drying shampoo with no conditioner, so despite the fact that there was actually a very nice blow dryer onsite, I looked like a frizzed up mess by morning. I did my best to fix it with a harsh brushing, some back combing and a ton of hairspray, but o my..... Then I realized that the day before, I had tossed out the last bits left in my pack of travel deodorant, deeming them to be an insufficient amount to take on any other upcoming trips. I asked my husband if I could borrow his, only to be met with a sheepish grin. He had forgotten half his personal hygiene kit in his rush to leave on Friday. So there we were, trying to attend the local church improperly groomed, wearing 2 day old clothes and terrified of being stinky to boot!! Thank goodness that at least we both had brushes and toothpaste with us.! Not an auspicious visit to a congregation who, along with their shocked priests, would assume that a surprise visit from the Executive Archdeacon did not bode well. Generally when such a visit occurs it is because they are in some kind of trouble and are about to be raked over the coals about making some unpleasant but needed changes in behaviour. Sigh..... As we entered the church building to face the first of the unhappy stares our surprise presence always brings, I became aware of the fact that the undies I had carefully washed out in the sink the previous night and then tried to blow dry in the morning with the hair dryer, (how can thin cotton underwear still be THAT wet after hanging over a towel bar overnight in a prairie dry hotel room for 8 hours???), were not all that dry actually. Aaaargh! Well, nothing to be done about it at that point. I saw my husband surreptitiously claw his soiled clergy shirt out from under his damp armpits as we both pasted huge grins on our faces and ploughed into the crowd that was forming around the inside of the church door, puzzled expressions on every face, but particlularly on the faces of the incumbents. hohoho!! Here is the Executive Archdeacon! We must be in some kind of trouble!! SURPRISE!!!!
It did take some time to convince everyone that we were there because we had been stranded overnight and that there was no dire reason for our presence. Once that was finally established, the group opened up and became their welcoming, friendly selves again. I love visiting there because the congregation is amazingly friendly, so talkative, so interested in what is going on in the "outside world". What a gift to their leaders! After the coffee hour we were able to spend some quality time visiting with the incumbents and it was great to be able to be so honestly encouraging to them about their congregation and their ministry. Some good one on one conversations were had by both my husband and myself. A former Kindersley parishioner who lives in Swift Current now, was wonderful about introducing me to some of the people who had only met my husband previously and they were most welcoming. I don't know if the whole lost items scenario was God's way of lining us up to get to Swift Current to encourage those folk (and ourselves) or not, but that is the way it worked out and we are glad of it. If anyone there noticed we looked (and smelled) less than our professional best, well, they were far too polite to say anything. Bless them!! hahaha
We were at the church so long after the service that we didn't get to Original Joe's until after 1pm. As we were being led to our table there I pulled off my gloves and didn't notice until I sat down that along with my gloves, I had also pulled off my favourite teaspoon ring. Aiiii yiiiii....what next? Where did it go? After we ordered our lunch, I walked back and forth between our table and the front door looking for it. I assumed it could have bounced some distance when it hit the floor. So, there I was...a strange old woman peering under tables, asking people if they would mind moving their feet over long enough for me to seek my favourite ring. Thankfully most of the people were kind, or patronising, but at least no one overtly sneered or told me to leave them alone or to "get lost strange old woman!!" How embarrassing was this whole scenario...made all the more embarrassing when I finally gave up the search, accepted that my ring was finally gone (I am SO good at dropping rings since I lost weight) and ate my lunch while describing to every wait staff on duty as well as the manager what my ring looks like and how to contact me if anyone found it. As we were putting our coats on to leave the restaurant, I pulled on my gloves, hoping against hope that the ring was stuck in the glove, even though an earlier search confirmed that it certainly was not, and as I stood up to put on my coat, there was the ring sitting on the seat I had just vacated. How did it get there? It hadn't been there all the other times I stood up to go search for it on the floor. O good grief....BUT there it was. I put it back on, pushed my glove over it before anyone who I had previously disturbed could see I had it back, smiled gratefully on the way back out as table after table of other guests told me they were so sorry I had lost it, (well I wasn't going to admit to them that I HAD just found it, and that it was sitting under my very own butt, was I? No, of course not!!), and we hurried back outside to the car. We hurried very quickly!
By now it was 2pm, the ploughs had cleared off the last of the ice and slush from the main roads and we had a dry, safe, 2 1/2hour drive home. We arrived home at 4:30pm, unpacked and sat and stared at each other for awhile as we got over the road buzz and the stress of the weekend. hahahaha What a crazy time. My husband's hoped for day off was a total bust as far as being a relaxed, sleeping in kind of day. Fortunately for me, I was able to contact the other trio members who assured me there would be time for us to rehearse next Sunday before the service. They are wonderful ladies!!!
And now it is Monday:
We were both in bed very early last night and we both slept well. There is nothing like your own bed in your own little place of residence. This morning my husband woke up on time and went off quite happily to his management training course. It is nearly 10am and I am sitting here in my nightgown trying to rouse myself long enough to get dressed and do some housework...hmmm....maybe after lunch.
O dear....would you believe I just now hit a key that erased this entire post? Well, yes, of course you would and rightly so. Gaaaaaakkkkk! Thank you Jesus for "Control, Z" because the post came back as I pressed those keys on the keyboard. I think I will wrap this up now before any other disasters have a chance to happen. hahahahahahahahahahaha
O happy day............
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